Chapter 15

I was just starting to finally doze off when a knock came at the door; today had been nothing short of a rollercoaster full everything – ups, downs, twists, turns, and even a few loops for good measure. Annoyed and tired, I fumbled around for a minute or two before I finally found one of my boots and tossed it at the door, grumbling for whoever it was to fuck off. Another knock, this one more a little more urgent followed by Diane's voice asking me to open the door because it was important.

"The hell do you want? I'm trying to fucking sleep." I made sure she knew I was pissed after struggling to get out of bed.

"I know, I'm sorry but Claire's just showed up from Hilltop and she's in a particular mood. I've already had the displeasure of waking Ezekiel and she told me I had to bring you too, kicking and screaming, if it came down to it."

It was refreshing to hear her talk like a normal person instead of putting on a act for everyone like she normally does during the day. The nagging sensation in my gut confirmed that Claire was indeed here and knowing now that she's in some sort of mood meant that I'd never hear the fucking end of it if she had to hunt me down. That woman would more than likely tear this place apart brick by brick if she had to. And if Diane had to go and wake up Ezekiel, well, the news wasn't gonna be all that great.

"Fine, I'll be out in a minute."

"She'll be in the auditorium, waiting."

I nodded then shut the door, letting my head pound against the wood for a couple of seconds feeling a mix of anger and frustration steadily rise to the surface. The only thing that came to mind was that she was here to bring me back to the Sanctuary, maybe it was because Negan had threatened her. How much does Negan know about us? Has she even said anything to him about what we were to each other back then? Has he threatened her in some way and that's why she's doing this?

There were so many thoughts, so many questions racing through my mind but I knew the only way I'd ever get any answers was to throw some clothes on and just meet her in the auditorium like Diane said. In the time it took me to walk from my room down to the auditorium I made up my mind that I wasn't going to let Claire take me back without a fight and I had better be on the losing end of that fight. My hand was on the door that led us to the room where we first saw Ezekiel, for a moment I felt a slight tremor as that pull grew even stronger. Claire was just on the other side of this door, waiting for me but I still was having trouble figuring out her intentions. The lock came loose as I pressed down on the handle, the noise alone should've alerted her to my presence but she sat near the front of the stage, unmoving, almost like she was lost in thought. Maybe this was a rare moment for her, having a tiny piece of quiet to herself.

"Negan wants you to bring me back, that why you're here? To take me back?"

She visibly startled as I broke the quiet, clearly I did interrupt her thoughts.

"Wait for Ezekiel, I'll explain everything when he gets here. Have a seat, take a load off."

I remained glued to the spot, my back to the door at the top of the ramp. I knew she could tell what I was feeling just by my breathing alone. She studied my habits so much over the years that it became second nature when all I had to do was give her a look for her to know what kind of day I had at her old man's shop. Most days were hard and I'd come home sweating my ass off, but every now and then I'd get home in a decent mood and those are the days that I find myself clinging to when I need to remind myself that even though my life was shit before all this happened, there was a little bit of good.

It was like my brain was running on auto-pilot, she could get me to do damn near anything with just a few words and it was apparent that she still had that effect on me, even after all these years apart. The closer I got to her the more nervous I became; in the last couple of years I found a new family that encouraged me to become more confident in myself, something Merle and our dad beat out of me as a kid every chance they had. They say that old habits die hard and my nerves were getting the best of me as I found myself chewing on my fingers and shifting my weight from one foot to the other. My guard was up, I had my suspicions but her face was so blank, so emotionless that it was hard recognize the woman before me; regardless I took a seat a few chairs away from her and waited.

"I ain't going back there. I ain't gonna bend, ain't gonna kneel, ain't gonna call myself Negan. Should've known you were on his side the moment I laid eyes on ya this morning."

"You're talking out of your ass again."

I scoffed and moved around in my seat, trying to get comfortable. The seats were hard despite the cushions attached to the back.

"You're a real fucking piece of work, ya know that? Playing both sides of the fucking field and for what? To prove that you're one of them?"

"So I can live the rest of my life in peace with a clear conscious. So you or anyone else never have to live like this again. I told Negan that I would bring you back by the month's end; never told him that I was bringing an army with me. We will all get to be free from Negan; you get to go back to being a standoffish, angry bastard like your old man was and I get to go back to being alone. We're not good for each other, Daryl. We can't say one word to each other without saying a bunch of fucked up shit, we can't look at each other without seeing hurt and anger reflected in the other's face. What we had never should have happened. We never should've let things get as far as they did."

"You say that like you regret everything we had."

"I regret all of it, I regret getting in the truck with you when my car broke down the day you had your interview, I regret letting you eat dinner in my home, I regret telling my dad that maybe you could be more than your family's reputation. I regret everything that has ever happened to us."

To hear her say she regretted everything we had hurt worse than physical pain I had endured, it hurt worse than all the beatings at the hands of my old man, it hurt worse than being shot. The look in her eyes was blank, her voice devoid of any emotion. She just stared at me with nothing but pure hatred. Our moment was interrupted as Ezekiel took the stage followed by Jerry, Diane, and Richard each with weapons should the occasion call for it.

"Who has disturbed the King's slumber?"

Claire shook her head, clearly not happy with Ezekiel being unable to talk like a normal person.

"Your Highness, I apologize deeply for disturbing you at this hour of the evening however it was imperative that I speak with you in regards to a very important matter concerning Daryl. As I'm sure you were made aware earlier today, he is wanted by Negan and the Saviors. They came to Hilltop this morning for their monthly tribute and took me with them. They threatened me before I agreed to their request to bring him back. I implore you to keep him here, keep him safe until I can bring him back to Hilltop. His people, the Alexandrians, are making plans to attack the Saviors but if Daryl is found out everything will fall apart before anything can be done."

"I ain't stayin' here, I'm going back to Hilltop in the morning. He wants to sit on his fucking throne and do nothing; we need to get ready for war."

"Daryl, you have to stay here; I wouldn't be here practically begging if I knew things could turn out differently. Negan knows you have an Achilles's heel and he knows that it's your people in Alexandria. Negan knows that you're loyal to Rick and the rest of 'em, he knows you consider 'em to be your family. He chose to take you back to the Sanctuary for a reason and you defying him the way that you are is like one big fucking game to him; he's enjoying what's happening to you. He gets a sick pleasure out of watching you turn in on yourself. He wants you back so he can keep breaking you down and once he's satisfied he's going to bash your fucking skull in because you're out here and not locked up in your little broom closet like Harry fucking Potter."

"Madame, if Daryl wishes to leave it is his choice; I cannot force him to stay. That is not the way we live here."

Her fists sinking into her hair was a tell-tale sign of her growing frustrations, not just with me but with Ezekiel, the Kingdom, and everything else in the world. She was fighting the urge to just let out a primal scream, instead I could see the wheels in her mind shifting.

"I lied and told Maggie and Sasha that I was bringing you back to Hilltop with me in the morning. There's a cabin in the woods halfway between here and there, the roads are patrolled by the Saviors, heavily. I was gonna have you hole up there and watch them; learn their habits, their patterns-"

"How'd you know I went through all that? Today's the first time we saw each other-" Her words were just beginning to catch up with me, my eyes going wide with fear as she recounted everything I had gone through at the Sanctuary.

"In five fucking years, I know. Did you forget that we've always known what was happening to each other? Did you forget that I always knew when you were close by?"

I sat there in my seat dumbfounded, my leg rapidly bouncing up and down as I made up my mind then and there. No, I had not forgotten because I could feel it too.

"We need to talk…alone…now."

I didn't even give her a chance to respond; I stretched for just a second then reached across the seats and all but yanked her out of hers'. The anger rolled off of me in waves and I knew she could feel it if the door banging open against the side of the building wasn't enough of an indication. No one said a word to either of us as I tore a path from the auditorium back up to my room, the only time I let go of her hand was to run up the stairs to the second floor and throw the door to my room open. After I dragged her inside, I slammed the door shut and threw her up against it. I didn't mean for her to get hurt but I just needed to feel her, now that I knew she was alive I needed her to know that I never forgot her.

When she used to talk to me about trying to put just a little passion into our relationship I assumed that she'd been watching too many chick flicks or had been reading those stupid soft-porn romance novels she'd get from the bookstore. Maybe this is what she wanted all those years ago, my hands tangling in her hair, our bodies pressed close together and a searing kiss that could burn.

Shock and confusion were painted all over her features as I finally pulled away, she tried to harden herself but somewhere deep inside I could see a tiny spark begin to flicker back to life. Maybe there was just a small bit of hope for what we had.

"Say something."

"I'm not the woman I used to be, that person is dead and gone."

"Bullshit. I know you as well as you know me, something from the old world is still there, you just have to dig deep and find her again. You wouldn't be here trying to get me to stay if your old self was completely dead. You wouldn't be trying to talk me into staying in a cabin to watch those fucking Saviors if your old self was completely dead. I don't like that you're on both sides of the field playing a dangerous fucking game like this one." I paused for a moment, trying to read her. "I'll stay in the cabin, I'll watch and keep my distance. Anything happens to you or anyone else back home I'm coming and I'm bringing hell with me. Only reason I'm agreeing to this is I know you've got a plan. That's part of the old you that I still see, your old self ain't dead, it's just buried."

Out of habit, I let my head fall to her shoulder and just like the old days she wrapped her arms around me, fighting though to keep her fingers from running through my hair. It felt so good to be held again that I almost forgot what we were talking about; the way she smelled flooded my senses with dead memories but she needed to know what's happened to me over the years.

"You said in the theater that you always knew what was happening to me, that you always knew when I was close," she pushed me off of her, crossing the room to sit on the bed. "We ended up on Maggie's farm after being forced out the quarry we were holed up in. It belonged to her dad, Hershel. We were trying to make our way through a traffic snarl when the hose on the RV went out, ended up with a herd of walkers coming down on us; had to hide under the cars to keep from being spotted."

"What's your point?"

"Another person in our group had a daughter that got chased down through the woods by two walkers. Rick's boy got shot, they took him to Hershel's farm; we set up camp there until the kid was back on his feet again. While we were waiting for that to happen I headed up the search for this woman's daughter. Was out one morning on horseback looking for her, calling for her when the horse got spooked and threw me. Remember when you told me when you were ten you fell down a cliff and ended up in a lake or something? Same thing happened when that horse threw me. I hit the water and I felt you there, knew you were close, knew that someone was hurting you. Wanna tell me what happened?"

Her chin dropped to her chest, her shoulders stiffened as she struggled with finding the right words. Finally, she lifted her head and began to recall everything, her voice breaking just slightly.

"I could feel that you were close, even before that day, I was just hoping that you would pass through and not even give me a second thought. After Atlanta fell we packed everything we could up and went to my grandparent's farm. They had let people onto the farm to stay as long as they agreed to pull their weight. I took the car and went out on a run to town to get something we needed at the pharmacy, when I came back my parents were barely hanging on and my grandparents were already gone. They took turns raping me, making my parents watch as they lay on the floor dying."

I could hear her screaming all over again demanding that the cowards show themselves but there was no one there, just me. Like something out of a movie where you're taken back to that one moment in time and you're seeing everything being played out all over again, but this time you're trying to pick out all of the details you didn't pay attention too before. I saw the blood and the bruises but didn't think they'd come from something as horrific as the hands of a gang of rapists. My fists began to curl into balls as I thought about what she had to endure and why I wasn't there to stop it from happening.

"Your grandma, what was her name?"

"Lou, it was short for Louise." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Did you ever find the little girl?"

"What was she wearing when she died?"

"It was a white dress, lace on the sleeves. It was one of her favorites to wear when it was hot out and the breeze was just right. I remember how she'd say she could just stand out there all day and just have that wind blowing her hair back off her neck; how she could just listen to the sounds of the world fade away."

"Hershel kept a barn full of walkers; he and Rick were coming back from the woods with two of 'em on catch poles leading 'em there. Another one of our group lost his shit, put about nine rounds through your grandma before capping one off in her head."

I didn't mean for it to come out as harsh as it did, just thought she should know that Rick and Hershel tried to make a pet out of her grandma but thanks to Shane it didn't happen. The last thing she needed to know was that Shane was part of our group and that he was the one to pull the trigger. She sure as hell didn't need to know that he'd gone so far off the deep end with the whole Randall thing that he was driven past the brink of madness, coveting what rightful belonged to Rick – Lori and Judith.

"What did you do with her body after?"

"Her daughter was in the barn with the rest of the walkers, was bit in the shoulder and turned. Rick did right by her momma, put her down. All those walkers in the barn except Hershel's family and the little girl we buried, we burned the rest."

"You burned my grandmother's body?! You knew I was close-by and you couldn't even come to the house to…"

I genuinely felt bad watching her breakdown and cry, I never realized how close she was to her grandma but how was I supposed to know that it was her? I had only met the woman a handful of times and the last time I saw her was at our wedding on the farm. It was the truth though, we buried Sophia and we burned the rest of the bodies, if anything even made a sound one of us was on it like a fly on shit to bash its fucking skull in to make sure it stayed dead.

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

"I was so fucking pissed that the girl's mom wouldn't even go to her own daughter's funeral service that I took off into the woods to try and clear my head. Stumbled across something on the ground while I was out there; they were tracks but not animal tracks and they weren't made by walkers. Remember that weekend I took ya out for a tracking lesson? I told ya to go off on your own, that I'd give you a 15 minute head start and I'd find you within an hour? You took your shoes off and went prancing through the woods barefoot. I saw your footprints pressed into the mud when I was out there trying to get my head straight. They were faint, probably a few days old already when I spotted 'em; followed 'em all the way back to your grandparent's farm. Managed to stay just out of sight but I saw ya sitting on the railing of the porch staring off into space. I damn near went back to Hershel's to pack my shit and go over to where you were."

"What stopped you?"

"You did. Didn't know how you'd react if I just showed up on your doorstep after not having seen each other for a few years."

"Well, considering that I had just been raped and watched my parents die then having to be the one to put a knife through their skulls so they wouldn't come back, you probably would've been a sight for sore eyes."

Silence descended as we both sat in reflection, I stood there at the door like an idiot wondering what my life would've been like had I just grown a pair and made myself known to her all those years ago. I was so afraid of how she'd react to seeing me that it never crossed my mind to think that I could've been a sight for sore eyes. The revelation making me realize that I had to stop thinking so much about the what if's and just start doing, damn the consequences.

"I watched from my bedroom window as Hershel's barn went up in flames, felt you leaving. What happened that night?"

"Another herd of walkers came through the woods, easily hundreds of 'em. Rick lit the barn up, went up like a dried out matchstick. We had to leave, lost a lot of people that night. I was heading down the road to come get you, didn't want you to stay there but that girl's mom was getting chased down so I had no choice but to get her. Didn't feel right leaving you where you were. Morning came and we ended up meeting back up on the highway, I still wanted to go back but Rick said we needed to stick together."

"I heard the gunshots popping off, they were faint but I could hear 'em. Walkers started coming out of the woods, there were dozens of 'em. I shut off all of the lights in the house, locked the doors, hid in the basement and armed myself to the teeth with anything I could. I watched from the windows as they stumbled by, keeping to the shadows so they wouldn't see me. They beat the door down and made their way inside. I had to fight my way out of there just to make it to the car, I lost the only other place I could call home. I ended up driving around until I ran out of gas; had to abandon the car and just started walking around aimlessly."

Gradually, my anger started to wane and I slowly unclenched my fists; she waited just a couple of minutes before tentatively reaching out for my hand. I let my fingertips brush against hers until our fingers laced together, allowing her to pull me towards the bed. Neither of said anything, there wasn't a need to, as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and just like the old days her head found its place again on my shoulder. The sigh that passed through her nose was one that she'd been holding in for years. She always said that I was the one thing in this world that could bring her any sort of calmness.

I felt her drifting off to sleep and I was close behind, sitting up in bed like this wasn't ideal so I was surprised when she let me make the move to get more comfortable. Tension still filled the room as we found ourselves on our familiar sides of the bed, her back to my chest and my arms wrapped around her. We heaved a collective sigh of relief as sleep took over. I had no idea what thoughts were going through her mind right now, I just knew that for tonight we were both where we wanted and needed to be. Even if it was only for one night.