Listening to the bombs above them is a new form of torture. One that Daryl didn't think would be so effective. It's the feeling of utter powerlessness that gets under their skin. They are forced to listen but do nothing, because there is nothing to do not from down there.
Michonne is hanging on by a thread he can tell, almost see her ready to crawl out of her skin. She almost loses it too lunges at Dwight demanding he make it stop. Doesn't matter that he can't he still answers says they are almost done it was never about burning everything down.
In the darkness, listening to the bombs it's hard to think that this isn't about total destruction. There is an image in his mind of nothing but rubble and fire, more like hell than home.
After what seems like hours the world above them is silent, and they have a plan. It's not the best plan, but it's something. Everyone will go together to Hilltop taking a path through the woods, the road is too dangerous. In a group it will be better for everyone can be on the lookout while they move.
Rick and Michonne would stay to bury and mourn their son. Daryl had promised to make sure their daughter saw the inside of the walls of Hilltop. There had been a cot in the tunnels two of them, they rigged on to be stretcher for Pandora. As Daryl secured Judith to Tobins back, he watches Tara and Rosita talking next to her unconscious form.
Daryl steps up and grabs the straps Tara ready on the other side to lift. They pace they take through the trees is slow, path carefully picked for how clear it is. They try not to move her too much, but a few times Pandora groans and opens her eyes. It never lasts long within a second she is out again.
It isn't easy to make their way in the dark, but when the sun comes up, it brings new issues with it. Negan has his men all over the road, every once in a while they hear a bit of conversation. Daryl swears he hears Pandora's name a few times. They move silent, someone always scouting ahead. It was easier to hide one person than hide all of them. Daryl goes and does it once or twice, leaving Pandora with Rosita and Tara.
When the sun has full risen Daryl lets everyone stop, easing Pandora on to the ground. The young man is there again appearing from somewhere in the crowd of bodies. Daryl watches only for a moment than he is moving scouting ahead.
As he moves the trees break away and give way to a road, he stands under the bridge and listened. Above him he can hear intellable voices, too far and too low for him to really hear. After a few seconds the vehicle peels away moving back in the direction of the sanctuary. When he is sure the way is clear, he lets out one quick high-pitched whistle.
Through the tree he sees everyone moving towards him. Tara and Rosita holding Pandora between them. They lowered her to the ground and Daryl took up the spot Tara was just in.
"Best to stay off the road. Head into the woods right there." he keeps his voice low waiting to the side while everyone else passes him. They bring up the rear with Pandora between them, "Go, go, go."
Tara stays close to them only a few steps ahead of Daryl, she is always near in case they need her. From the woods a groan floats towards them, Tara is on it.
"I got it." her knife is out she isn't standing ready, as the walker gets closer Tara shifts her weight shoving it to the side.
It only takes a few seconds, but it feels like forever as Daryl watches the walker stumble its way towards Dwight.
"Tara!" Rosita hisses at her angered by the shift in action. She had tempered down recently since Sacha her rage had gone somewhere else. While Daryl had been all fire since he came back she was the calm one.
"What it got away, he can handle it."
Dwight does in fact handle it, there is still fight in him. He struggles for a moment as Daryl watches but from the corner of his eye he can see Rosita at the ready. Dwight gets it to the ground and stomps its head in with his boot.
"See." The tense feeling in the atmosphere is thick, but Tara just leaves weaving her way through the formed crowd.
"Just keep them moving." Daryl hisses, there isn't time for this. Pandora is bleeding to death in this stretcher. She had moved more often than she did through the night, it doesn't think she is going to stay unconscious for long.
"Did you hear them on the walkie about Carson and Gabriel?"
"Ya," Daryl answers picking his way through the exposed roots on the ground in front of him. "Probability headed to Hilltop same as us."
"Hopefully better than us." There is a walker stumbling towards them, Rosita gets it with one shot. "I heard Pandora's name too they are out there looking for her."
"They ain't gonna find her." Daryl almost growls the words out, it is not Rosita he is mad at and he needed to remember that.
Hours pass and they walk in silence, a few times Judith makes a sound, but it quickly hushed by someone close. Somehow she just knows now it not the time, always a tune to the energy around her that one. It's not until he hears Rosita calling him that he stops finally, and only Tara and Dwight are standing behind him.
"Where are they?"
"They needed to rest they haven't slept all night." Tara has her arms crossed over her chest on foot tapping the ground with nervous energy.
This is the part he didn't think about, he was driven by a single purpose tired was not something he felt right now. "Alright ten minutes, where's the doctor."
"Siddiq, I'll get him" Tara comes back in moments with the young man Siddiq.
"I'm going to check her wounds."
"Ya," Daryl gets on his knees beside Pandora moving her hair from her eyes. He did the moving shifting her to her back and lifting her shirt. He couldn't look away only watches Siddiq inspect the wound.
"I can't clean it here, but the bleeding has stopped."
Daryl can't keep his hands off Pandora from this level, he still thinks somehow she might vanish before his eyes. "Will she make it?" He has to ask even if he doesn't like the answer.
"She will make it, the sooner we get her inside the better."
Daryl shakes his head his lowers himself down to the ground beside her. Tara and Rosita are with him Dwight hangs a few feet in front of them.
"Someone needs to go back and cover our tracks." Daryl jerks his head in the direction they came from, but he makes no move to get up and do it himself.
"I'll go." Rosita turns and is gone bringing a stick with her.
"I have a question! Why is he still breathing?" Tara jerks to Dwight, arms crossed over her shoulders. Tara is more rage than anything else, it had done nothing but build since Sacha died. It had never stopped building for him since the line up, since Negan tore her away from him.
There isn't time for that rage now though, for who lives and who dies. Pandora is dying, and that is the only thing that matters. Dwight will stay breathing because Daryl might need him. It's true he knows Negan and his men, but he knows what happened in there. He might be the only one that can tell him what happened to Pandora, he is breathing because Darly might need him.
"The fight ain't over." Yes speak of war, speak of the dead and the soon to be dead something Tara will understand.
"It is for him! I'm done waiting."
"This ain't the time for that Tara and you fucking know it, she is dying." Daryl jabs his finger towards her and in that moment her eyes snap open.
"Miss you have been badly hurt."
Daryl shoves Siddiq away looming over Pandora's face. She has pulled herself up and the blood flowed steadily from her side. Her face was different rounder look full, now though her colour was off. The usual carmel covered in a gray ash tone.
"Pandora, relax." Daryl speaks clasping her hands. Pandora tries to pulled again, tears streaking her face.
"Where am I?" Her head rolls forward for a second but she recovers and looks at Daryl again.
"Safe Pandora Ah promise you're safe."
"Where is Negan?" This question is whispered as she finally pulls her hands free of Daryl's grip.
"Princess" Dwight leans over her shoulder looking at her. "He will find us."
That calms her her hand flutters to her side, they come away sticky with fresh blood.
"Oh," Pandora sighs her body gives in then sagging back down onto the stretcher. "Ya he will"
Then she is gone again slipping into darkness, and Daryl is left raging. She had called for Negan, the moment she woke up, she called for Negan.
Daryl shakes his head and reaches for his end of the stretcher, Tara takes up the other side.
"I told you, she isn't the same." Dwight walks past him holding his shoulder.
"Let's go!" Daryl hisses as she picks up the pace.
Pandora dreams about walking through fire, miles and miles of hot desert sand. In her dreams the sun beats down on her until she is nothing but dust and ash.
Bits of conversation float on the hot wind. Daryl telling everyone to go, shouting, crying and her own voice, her own crying. It doesn't make sense seeing Dwight in the woods, and Daryl he was free. Negan will be mad at her, he will think she did this on purpose to go back.
The panic of that thought jerks her awake eyes snapping open, she wakes up somewhere she doesn't recognize. No where in the Sanctuary looked like this, she wasn't there. All the walls are white, and there is a big window to her left. It open sounds of people float on the breeze. When she looks at the sheets in her hand for a second she hopes she will see all black, either his bed or hers. It isn't black though in fact the sheets are bright white.
Rolling over she sees Daryl in the chair to her right, by the door. Pandora jerks back as if he had hit her.
"Hi." Daryl's words hang in the air, Pandora can almost see them suspended between them.
He opens her mouth, but no sound comes out, only the sound of her own crying. Had she always been crying or was that something that just happened now.
"Where... where" Pandora tries to piece together a sentence but she can't get the rest of the words out. Instead she stops, carefully pulling herself into the sitting position knees protectively to her chest.
"Hilltop, Carl found yah we brought you here."
Hilltop which is a few hours of a drive from Alexandria their closest neighbours, and the Sanctuary is almost a day away from there. It would take Negan so long to find her, to come here and get her.
"Pandora, Ahm sorry."
"No." Pandora holds up her hand to silence him. This is not supposed to be happening right now, this is not where she belongs. "You have to take me back."
From the chair he doesn't speak only leans forward taking her hand in his own. He tightened his grip trying to pull her back to him. "Listen to me, Ah will not let him hurt you."
Daryl doesn't understand anymore, she knows where she is safe and it isn't here. They tried to kill her, more than once. She lets him take her hands though because the pressure is nice and it helps her think. Looking at their hands she remembers watching Negan's men beat him because she trashed her room.
"Please don't." She whispers taking her hands away from him wrapped her arms around her legs. Her side pitches painfully, and she remembers the gun shot. One hands presses the wound causing a wince of pain.
"Let me get the doctor, don't touch it." Daryl gives her one last look before he gets up and goes to the door. His tone is different more closed off than before, it hurts her chest just a little but she doesn't know why.
The moment he shuts the door the tears come back, big heavy trails down her cheeks. She isn't supposed to be here, she has to stay with Negan that is how she is safe that is how she stays safe. But here, here is so far away.
When the door opens again, there is a young man she has never seen before and Daryl. She is quick to wipe her face with the back of her hands, drying her tears.
"Pan this is the doctor." He steps towards her pulling the chair next to the bed.
"Well I'm not a full doctor-" The man is smiling his hands palm up in front of him. He looks young too young to be a doctor.
"Can you check it?" Daryl snaps leaning forward.
"I think it's fine." Pandora makes no move to uncurl her legs.
The young man is on her other side now watching her with a sad expression on his face. There is something in his face that reminds her of Denise, maybe all doctors looked like this she couldn't be sure.
"Ma'am let me help you."
Something about his face makes her pause and Pandora uncurls herself laying her let straight out on the bed. Daryl doesn't seem like he is leaving so Pandora pulls the shirt of, anyway. Well she tries to pull her shirt off, lifting her arm causes a painful tug on her side making her double over. The wound is more present than, a dull throbbing in her side that makes her want to gag.
Daryl is there in her teary vision, he gently helps pull the shirt over her head without speaking.
They stare at each other for a few long seconds, and Pandora is sure she is going to cry again. The look in his eyes breaks her heart. He is a man searching, not for a what but for a who. He is looking for the girl he left in the line up, that girl doesn't exist anymore.
When the young doctor pulls the bandage away from her side to clean it, she really is crying. "Oh fuck." She whispers struggling to stay up right. Somewhere to her left the Doctor is saying how sorry he is something about an infection.
Pandora can't really hear it because Daryl is looking at her again and her head is so damn loud. There are long moments of her breathing through the pain and them staring at each other.
Then it's over and a new clean bandage is fixed to her side.
"Rest and take these once a day." The young doctor places the pills on the nightstand than Daryl follows him out.
In the hall Siddiq looks at Daryl a tightness in his shoulders. "Do you know what Stockholm syndrome is?" A conversation like this really has no good place to start.
"Naw. She got that?" Daryl has his hands jammed into his pockets. He knew it was something else, he knew it. There was something more wrong than the bullet hole, something Negan had done.
Siddqi shifted where he stands clearly uncomfortable with the topic. "I'm not the right kind of doctor for this, but I think so." He pauses for a second, "it when someone who was captured develope of relationship with their captors."
Daryl can feel his blood boiling, " what kind of fucking relationship?!"
"She had developed a co dependent connection with him, she thinks she needs Negan to survive." He has his hands up as if he is worried Daryl might strike him.
"Fuck." The Daryl is gone heading to the kitchen to get her something to eat.
When Daryl comes back in the room he finds her sitting in the bed, her back against the headboard. He is holding two steaming bowls in his hands, handing one to her he sits down in the chair. They eat in silence when she is done he takes her bowl but makes no move to leave.
"Pan he cannot hurt you anymore. Not here, Ah swear it." Daryl is watching her his hands tightened into fist in his lap.
"He didn't hurt me." Pandora can't pull her eyes away, she is swimming in a pool of blue. "You tried to hurt me. That day you brought the dead I was outside, I was with Negan. When the shooting started I ran Negan found me he kept me safe, not you. " Now the words are coming and she cannot stop them from tumbling out. "Than you tried to blow us up. Negan always saved me"
Daryl tries to keep his horror as invisable as possible, but fuck it's hard. He hadn't been at the Sanctuary, he didn't know she had been there. She doesn't see what he was really trying to do, he had been trying to save her. He assumed it looked the same on the outside as it did from the inside, he had been thought they wanted to hurt her too.
"Pandora Ahm sorry."
"I'd like to go to sleep." Pandora whispered her hands tightened into fists, nails biting into the beds of her palms.
"Pandora." Daryl's voice is hard and it makes her snap her head up to him. "Ahm here now."
Pandora shakes her head tears forming in her eyes, they spill down onto her cheeks. "I can't do this. You have to send me back." Somewhere floors below her room there is a small dark room that feels like hell, and she cannot go back there. But also she misses him, misses drinking into the night spilling out each other's secrets. Negan keeps her safe.
"Ah won't Ah swear it." Daryl reaches for her and she lets him take her into his arms.
"You left me." She whispers her side hurts now a blinding fire in her side. Pandora cries harder now sagging against him, he talks to her as she cries. Telling her he would keep her safe, it isn't long before she is sleeping.