MaxTheWitness

☆ Ramblings:

Carl/Clementine & Carl Grimes/Louis

He holds his arms open, letting her waddle into them and throw her arms around his neck in a cuddle. She nuzzles into the side of his throat and he feels himself start to relax and regret trying to leave even if it is to rescue part of his family.

“I'm gonna get Phia and bring her home,” He explains gently.

The toddler cocks her head. “Oh… Where she go?”

He wants to laugh at how sweet she is, but he can't. His heart is breaking and she's tearing it apart with her chubby little baby fingers.

“We don't know,” He sniffs. “So I have to find her.”

The toddler nods, looking thoughtful.

“And daddy too?”

Carl winces, looking away from her hopeful eyes. “Yes. And daddy too.”

The teen picks up his backpack, taking a deep breath as he pulls her hands from his neck and puts it on his shoulders, heading towards the bedroom door.

Judith grabs his sleeve, face more serious than he thought was possible for a kid that still giggles at peek-a-boo if she's in the right mood.

“You'll be back?” She questions, fist locked with inhuman baby strength.

Carl's eye widens, because really, he doesn't know. He hopes he will be, but he doesn’t want to make a promise he can't keep.

“I'm strong,” He offers instead, pulling away. The girl follows him out to the hallway, watching him go. “Take care of Michonne, okay? She loves you.”

---

You wipe your mouth on the back of your hand, cringing at the taste of acid clinging to your tongue.

“Ew,” You complain under your breath, slowing the pace you’re walking at once you realize that Daryl isn’t going to follow you.

Whatever, it’s not like you wanted him to. You’d rather wander Hilltop alone a hundred times over than be chained to Daryl for the rest of your life… Or more accurately, the other way around.

You sniffle, wiping your eyes on your sleeve.

That’s all you’ve ever been to him since the day he met you, a burden.

He took you in to correct the mistake he made in capturing you in one of his nets, and the rest, well… you suppose maybe he learned to like you eventually, but all of it seemed to have meant a lot more to you than it did him. He saddled himself with teaching you how to survive out of a sense of duty to his fellow man and you couldn't even repay that kindness with honesty.

Now that he knows what a disgusting creature you’ve become, if you were anything else before, he knows you aren’t worthy of being a part of this group anymore.

Some part of you knows that’s not true, but you bury it deep.

There’s too much trying to claw its way out of you already, the long gone phantoms of hands on your body carving into your skin, sharp heat splitting you open as your back scrapes against the concrete of a cell, eyes unable to adjust to the darkness swarming you. Sometimes you wondered if there was something over your eyes, or if it was your own inability to adjust to the pitch black.

Your fists clench at your sides, shaking, your brow furrowed in frustration at how dizzy you’re starting to feel from even abstract thoughts about the room. –Not even the one where you were supposed to be getting tortured.

Why are you so weak all of a sudden?

It was one thing for other people to infantilize you and treat you like you were helpless despite all the ways you proved yourself, but now you’re doing it to yourself.

You’re afraid of your own mind when there could very well be a real threat inside you still.

“Bambi!”

You try not to turn your head at the sound of Carl’s voice breaking through the thick atmosphere you’ve blanketed around yourself, but your body moves on its own to watch his familiar figure jog down the path towards you with a smile on his face.

He looks so genuinely happy to see you –you, of all people– that it makes your chest ache.

You barely think about it before turning away and running off.

You hear his steps stop behind you for a split second before they resume at a faster pace, his boots crunching on the gravel.

“Bambi?” He calls again, catching up with you with ease. You used to be faster than this. Faster than him. He bends his upper body so that he’s ahead of you with his face in front of yours, smile quickly fading when he sees the serious look on your face. “What’s the matter?”

You try not to look at him, instead turning your back and darting away faster this time until your lungs feel like they’re about to burst with every stride.

Carl follows.

As Hilltop flies by in your peripheral, the pain in your chest gets bad enough that you’re letting out pathetic whimpers every few breaths, teeth clenched.

“Did I do somethin’ wrong?” He shouts from behind you with an anxious edge. The more you run from him, the more stricken he looks, the more you want to get as far away from him as possible before you taint him. “–If I did somethin’, please tell me!”

He doesn’t even sound like he’s out of breath, it’s not fair. It’s not fair.

Your legs get less coordinated, physically unable to keep the speed you’d been going at. You let out a frustrated scream, ignoring the weary looks you get from other people as you slow down and slip between a few buildings to avoid a majority of the residents wandering around.

Carl turns to the side and slips in after you.

“Was it what I said yesterday? I didn’t mean for it to…” He bites his tongue, eye searching the ground as he walks a few feet behind you trying to figure out what went wrong. “I’m sorry, Bambi. I just– I didn’t mean to–” He chokes back a soft sound and you stop in your tracks. “I’m sorry.”

You turn to face him, seeing the way he grips and twists his own skin trying to hold himself back, the pain giving him something other than the worry to focus on.

He might not be crying, but he looks genuinely destroyed by what you’d been doing, like this was the inevitable conclusion to what had been going on between the two of you and he knows it’s time to let go now.

You understand that.

It always feels like the good things in this world are moments away from oblivion.

You step forward and take his face into your hands to caress the apples of his cheeks, the tip of your left thumb teasing the edge of his scar where it's poking out from beneath the bandages. His upper lip twitches uncertainly and he leans into the touch, staring back as your gaze darts between his hidden socket and his untouched eye.

Carl puts his hand over yours where it rests on him.

“It wasn't me?” He sniffs dryly.

You shake your head, feeling your resolve to escape him waver.

“Then why are you running from me?”

Because when he finds out everything that happened when you were away –and he will find out– things between you will end, and you’ll both be devastated. You don’t want to lose him. You don’t want him to hate you or treat you any differently than he already is.

“I’m… gross…” You admit in a whine, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I don’t deserve someone like you in my life.”

His brow raises slightly but he tries to cover the reaction.

“You’re always so nice to me and I don’t know why… I know I don’t deserve it. I’m a terrible person, I lied to everyone and now I–” You cut yourself off with a frustrated eye roll, lowering your head to stare down at your boots as your tears fall onto them, washing away some of the grime.

“Oh, Bambi,” Carl lets go of your hand and pulls you into his arms, resting his head atop your messy curls.

You sniffle, pawing at your eyes to try and stop the tears from coming.

“You're not gross and you're not a terrible person,” He says after a moment, giving you a particularly tight squeeze to help soothe you. “What happened?”

You shake your head, hugging back and letting the tears drip onto his flannel with a suppressed wail.

For a split second Carl thinks he catches something familiar in the way your body trembles against him, hands clawing for purchase on the only thing you’ve deemed safe in what feels like thousands of miles of empty sea trying to pull you under. He lets you collapse against him, leaning against the side of one of the trailers for support as he holds you.

He doesn’t want to ask. He really doesn’t.

“Did somebody… make you upset?” He asks after a moment, swallowing hard.

You nod against his shoulder.

“Are you–” He blinks hard enough to see stars, grip on you tightening. “Did they hurt you?”

You shake your head, taking a deep breath to try and settle yourself.

At least there’s that, right? You aren’t being hurt anymore. You should be grateful, not disappointed that things are changing.

Carl lets out a shaking exhale, pushing your shoulders back so that he can look into your eyes as he wipes the tears away. –You’re not usually this sensitive, so he was more than a little shocked when you broke down the way you did.

“What can I do to make you feel better?” He asks, relieved to see that the question makes you smile, even if it is downwards from embarrassment.

Kisses?, you sign, adding an audible, “Hm?” to indicate that it's a question.

He leans in and presses his lips to your cheek a few times, hat slipping upward. You grab it and pull it back onto his head, the tips of your noses touching when he pulls back from your cheek to see what you’re doing.

You avert your eyes, not moving to stop the contact even though you know it’s a bad idea.

“You’re allowed to have good things y’know,” He says softly, almost sounding remorseful. “I don’t know why you think so much of me… I’m not all that special. You’re goin’ to wind up disappointed.”

“Never,” You say with complete certainty.

He hums, prying the fingers of one of your hands from his shirt to take it in his, slowly kissing his way up from your knuckles to the part of your arm covered in the flowering burns from the iron. He pauses at the bend of your elbow to push the half sleeves you’re wearing up to gain access to the worst of it, but you pull it back.

“I want to see your face,” You breathe. “It’s not fair that I can’t see you.”

Carl just stares at you.

“...Your voice sounds better,” He deflects weakly.

“Please?” You beg.

Slowly he reaches up and sticks his thumb underneath the bandage over his eye, taking a deep breath and holding it as he takes his hat off and pulls the gauze over his head to expose the empty socket. He sets his hat on the stack of crates behind him, taking longer than he needs to set it down with his hair in front of his face.

“There,” He cautions defensively, losing the usual confidence the bandage gives him. “It’s off now, so… there.”

You smile with eye contact, meaning every second of it.

“I don’t understand why you want to look at… it,” He gulps. “I don’t even like to.”

“‘Cause it’s your face, and I love you,” You confess without thinking too much about the gravity of the words you’re using. They seem right. Even without this new development in the way you treat each other, you would still describe the way you feel about him with the word love.

You’ve grown as a part of the same family of survivors, gotten closer than most people will ever be.

His eye goes wide at your choice of words, cheeks going pink.

“I want to kiss you,” He warns as he leans in, which you think is odd considering you’ve done it so many times now. You close your eyes and lean up, but he doesn’t make contact yet. “Is that okay?”

You open your eyes, tipping your head to the side as you press your lips to his.

Carl laughs into the kiss at how annoyed you’d looked, but he had to be sure you were okay with him doing something like this given how shaken you’d been.

He pulls back from the kiss and peppers the side of your face and jaw with sweet, markless pecks. “You’re so pretty, Bambi.”

You blush, looking away with embarrassment.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” He teases, moving to your neck and collar. “It’s not fair that I can’t see you,” He repeats, voice teasing.

You groan, glaring at him with suspicion when he pauses over your pulse point.

“I remember after they found you, when you started to heal up, my dad and the rest of us would talk about different ways to make you smile ‘cause it was so cute when you did,” Carl laughs, gently nosing your neck. “You kept people’s morale up. You still do.”

You bite your lip nervously, feeling like you're doing something very wrong despite not doing anything at all.

“Nobody hates you, Bambi. People don’t care that you lied, and if they do they can suck it,” He pauses after kissing the round of your shoulder, making eye contact. “You proved yourself to this group enough that it shouldn’t matter. They know who you are, and you don’t owe them anythin’ more than that.”

He sounds so angry on your behalf. –Like it genuinely doesn’t bother him that you weren’t honest.

Huh.

You smile awkwardly, blinking at the warm feeling spreading through your stomach like butterflies covered in sticky sweet syrup, wings fluttering.

“You act fragile now, but I remember windin’ up on my ass in the dirt ‘nough times when we sparred to know that's not true,” He banters, poking you in the side until you laugh. “There you are, with that pretty voice.”

“Carl,” You whine, bracing yourself on his shoulders.

He leans back in and presses his lips to yours, hands soothingly stroking your sides.

Even if it means that he’s teasing you, he seems to have gotten over the shame that initially comes with exposing his whole face.

Carl licks into your mouth, drinking up every soft sigh you make in response. Your grip on his shoulders moves until you’re clutching the material of his outer shirt, tugging him closer to you with the benefit of knowing that at any moment you can tug at it and he’ll break the kiss.

He moves his hands from your sides to around your waist, forcing you onto your tiptoes closer to him. –You can feel his heart beating fast in his chest beneath your hand as you slide them from their place near the sides of his collar to his chest.

The only thing that pulls you from the rhythm of the kiss is the abrupt start of some off-key music nearby, sparking the realization that you’re long out of breath.

It’s a nice song, soft, but kind of creepy as it echoes in the shadowed space you’re in between trailers.

Turning back towards one another, you both start laughing softly.

You grip the fabric of his shirt, leaning against his chest again and snuggling into the warmth, his head resting on yours as he sways the both of you to the music.

+

+

+

The man’s adams apple bobs as he gulps down the tinted liquid, the alcohol gurgling as it sloshes around in the bottle and floods his throat.

“Brother, take it easy,” Rick warns.

Daryl’s fingers slip because of the condensation on the bottle, but it doesn’t deter him. He flips Rick off, wincing as he shuts his eyes to gulp down the rest without taking a breath.

When his lips finally come off of the bottle, he gasps for air, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “How am I suppos’ t’ take it easy when that kid’s out there thinkin’ I’m tryna separate ‘er from ‘er bes’ friend?”

“You’re not,” Rick points out.

“But tha‘s what she thinks,” He slurs bitterly. “I bet they’re together right now. Sneakin’ around doin’ god knows what.”

“Well–” The other man wrenches what he hopes is a spare bolt out of the car, squinting uncertainly at it before tossing it onto the ground. “It's sorta like Romeo and Juliet, the more you try to keep ‘em apart, the more desperate they get. Doin’ what we were was only gonna make ‘em restless… They’d start takin’ risks.”

“But we can’t jus’ let them…” Daryl scowls at the idea, shaking his head to clear it of the horrifying scenarios he’s been picturing for you at every wrong turn. “You didn't see ‘em together, man. The way she looks at him. It's…” He winces.

The other man furrows his brow.

“Mm. I might not have seen it, but I know what you mean,” Rick sighs, shaking his head slowly. “When I tried talkin’ to Carl about some changes I decided needed to happen, he started puffin’ out his chest–”

“Little shit,” Daryl interrupts, snorting.

“–Puffin' out his chest, tellin’ me he wasn't gonna listen even if it meant bein’ punished. Said that tellin’ him to be gentle with her was condescendin’,” Rick scoffs. “He didn't care to hear my reasonin’, didn't listen when I tried to tell him there was more goin’ on than he knows about.”

Daryl growls lowly. “That’s exactly why ‘m worried… That boy don’t know what he’s doin’. He’s gonna hurt her.”

It wouldn’t even be on purpose.

“Tellin’ him no only made him want to be closer to her… I think they think we're against them,” The man finishes, brow furrowed in thought. “But I agree. Without any kind of interference from us, this will go badly.”

“What're we gonna do about it then?”

“I don't know yet…” The other man says softly. “Keepin’ them from bein’ alone for too long sounds like a good step to make sure she doesn't get ‘triggered’ or whatever you want to call it. –I don't want her freakin’ out, and I don't want Carl makin’ it worse by doin’ the wrong thing if she does. Poor kid.”

Daryl sniffs dryly, looking down at the bottles sitting on the stack of cinder blocks to the right of the car they’re supposed to be working on together, most empty, but a lucky few still full.

Rick barely took a sip of his still open beer next to him, but Daryl worked his way through three beers, a jar of moonshine, and some hard liquor he found that was too impure to be used for medical purposes.

He feels guilty for drinking this much when he’s supposed to be responsible, he never would have done this before he found that test in your bedding, but now he can’t seem to stop. The pit in his stomach is never ending and always hungry for all the things that could get him killed.

“I actually needed to talk to you about somethin’...” Rick says, setting the tools down and turning around to face the other man properly. He looks uneasy. “I know this ain’t the best time, but all things considered, I think you deserve a heads up.”

“Okay?” Daryl grunts.

“I, uh…” The other man stops with an exhale, clearing his throat. “It's no cause for concern, alright? It's bein’ handled…”

Daryl doesn't like the sound of that, doesn't like that whatever it is he's trying to say has him stalling.

“Spit it out.”

“Some… Saviors were spotted nearby, searchin’ for somethin’,” Rick admits, spitting the other group's name like it's poison.

Daryl feels his stomach plummet a hundred feet underground, the alcohol and the sun beating down on the back of his neck leaving him feeling dizzy on his feet. He tries to say something, he thinks, but he just winds up staring at the other man with wide eyes, his breathing sharp.

He can hear his heart beating in his ears.

“We don’t know what they were lookin’ for, ‘kay?” Rick continues, seeing that the other is stunned to silence. “Could ‘a been anythin’, doesn’t have to be Hilltop, or…” the two of you, he doesn’t say. “Anything important... could be nothin’ at all. –They were a few miles out, nowhere near here, and they weren’t in vehicles. They went back to wherever they came from,” He tries to reassure.

Daryl blinks a few times, trying to swallow the sudden wave of nausea that's hit him.

The smell of the cell he was in invades his nostrils, the ever-present scent of urine and blood in the air clinging to his skin.

He can't go back a third time.

“Rick, if they were out lookin’ for somethin’ and they didn’t fuckin’ find it, they’ll be back!” Daryl shouts angrily, starting to pace in small circles. “Fuck. Fuck! How long have you known about this?!”

“This mornin’, the scouts saw ‘em last night,” Rick says softly, reaching out to try and comfort him, completely expecting it when his hand gets shrugged off.

“The kids’ve been goin’ outside the gates, man!” Daryl shouts in a panic, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Not far. They’ve practically been in the front yard, always with other people around,” The other man says with confidence. “Nothin’ happened to them.”

“It COULD have!” Daryl shouts, stopping to glare. “You don't know how close they've come, how many times they've searched for us! For her!”

He can already picture the look in those big doe eyes of yours when you realize you've been caught again, that you'll never really escape them because Daryl can't protect you. He couldn't even protect himself.

“They might not even be lookin’ for you!” Rick shouts back exasperatedly.

“And what if she had seen them? Huh?! What if she hears about it today? –How is she suppos’ t…” Daryl stops mid rant, swiping at his eyes. “God…”

Rick's shoulders drop when he hears the man sniffle. “...Daryl?”

“...She's not gettin’ better, man,” Daryl mutters under his breath in response, voice weak. “She wet the fuckin’ bed yesterday… like a baby…”

Rick inhales sharply, rubbing at his upper lip with his thumb resting on his cheek to hide the reaction he has to that information.

“If she gets worse… if she….” Daryl shakes his head. “If she winds up feelin’ like…”

Beth.

“You won't let it get to that point, Daryl,” Rick says wearily, looking away at the mention of the Greene sister. “You take good care of Bambi. She's never shown any signs of wantin’ to hurt herself like that.”

“But what if she does wind up feelin’ that way, ‘n I'm not there…?” The man asks with a voice crack. “When she… I… I mocked her for it. –That was one of the last conversations she had, and I was mockin’ her for slittin’ her wrists at the start.”

Rick doesn’t know how to respond to that information. He feels the usual disgust and discomfort he would at the topic, but with years of experience both in the old world and the new, that information doesn't make him nearly uncomfortable as it should. He only feels the ache of the girl's absence, the warmth of her voice at the prison echoing through the halls.

She was a bright girl and the world snuffed her out like it was nothing.

“You loved her,” Rick laments softly. “Just like we all did.”

“I…” Daryl starts to deny it, push the memories of her down like he always does, but instead he swallows hard and nods once. “Yeah. I did.”

And it wasn't enough to keep her alive. It never is.

The two men stare at the ground for a while, the only sound aside from their breathing the rustling of trees blowing in the wind, the sky a dreary color.

+

+

+

“So… this is where we’ve been stayin’,” Carl says nervously, leaning his back up against the door to shut it behind you.

His room is small. Bare, unlike the one he’d had in Alexandria. Even the walls themselves look weak, thinly insulated by a layer of what looks like white painted particle board. Against the center of one of those walls, there’s a bed with a rust colored metal frame and mismatched sheets that hang loosely on it, a comforter curled up near the pillows like he’d been sitting there earlier. The only fixture aside from the bed is a wooden desk in the corner of the room with a few comics –nowhere near his full collection– sitting on it. He must have lost them in the attack.

Maybe that’s why most of his things are anxiously and haphazardly stuffed into a backpack at the foot of the bed.

“It’s nice,” You try to console.

There’s a gentle breeze coming in through the cracked window, sheer white curtains swaying gently in the wind.

The moment you look at it, he walks over to it and opens it wider for you.

“It’s hot, but, uhm…” He pauses, watching as you walk over and sit on the edge of his bed, legs dangling off the end of it until your foot touches something raised and you look down to see one of Judith’s toys half tucked underneath it. You smile at it and pull your legs up to sit criss-cross. “Uhm… With the window, it– Y’know what? Let me just grab that.”

He comes over and bends down in front of you, picking the rainbow caterpillar up and tossing it onto the desk.

When he turns back towards you, you grab his wrist with one hand and lace your fingers with his using the other.

“You seem nervous.”

“I am,” He says with a gulp. “This isn’t like before. This isn’t my room. Maggie doesn’t even know if this is where we’ll stay. –I think she thinks we’re just waitin’ for things to cool off so we can go rebuild in Alexandria and I…” He sits down on the bed next to you, posture slumping as he looks away. “The idea of goin’ back there makes me nervous.”

You frown, remembering how easily the Saviors got inside during the attack, all the smoke and walkers clouding your vision, the fire seemingly never ending.

“Me too.”

“I almost died. You and Daryl got taken. Judith is still havin’ nightmares…” Carl reaches up and pulls his hat off again, setting it on top of his backpack. “None of this feels real.”

He flops down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling with a searching gaze.

You turn towards him and lie on your side, shuffling closer until you’re tucked underneath his arm, staring up with him.

“I like it here,” Carl admits. “They have more people, more food, more everythin’... This is the kind of life I picture for Judith,” He pauses, sighing. “But I don’t think my dad wants to stay. I'm pretty sure he wants to go back and try to reclaim whatever’s left of Alexandria, divide and conquer so that we stand a better chance if one of the settlements gets attacked again.”

It's the smart thing to do, especially given that everyone from Alexandria would have to hide when the Saviors come here for collections. –AND they'll already be on the look out for all of you, hoping to capture one of the people Negan put a bounty on.

“I like it here too,” You curl closer to him, wrapping your arm around his torso with tears in your eyes.

You get to be kids here. You get to make flower crowns and eat cookies without working your hands bloody for it, without worrying that everything will fall apart in the moments you spend idle.

“Whatever happens… I hope we stick together,” Carl laughs somberly. “I’m sick of losin’ people and gettin’ split up. I don't– I don’t want to lose you. I was so scared when you–” His voice cracks.

You squeeze him tighter. You don’t ever want to let go.

He rolls over so that you’re facing one another lying on your sides.

Your fingers dig into his back, clutching the fabric of his outer shirt. He does the same to you, clinging with one of his hands braced on your nape, both of your faces buried in each other’s necks.

You hear two thuds as he kicks off his boots, legs curling and tangling with yours.

Carl never imagined getting to hold you like this, getting to hear your voice again, after you were gone. He knows that you’re a fighter. He knows that you’re strong. Knows that you’d break your own fingers scraping by to get freedom, live out a thousand life sentences, make the impossible happen…

He ghosts a hand over the burns on your arm.

…But he was too scared to think about the hope he had for longer than a second.

He didn’t expect to see that smile, or that face, ever again, didn’t think you’d come home even if you did survive. He pictured the day Daryl would return home after losing you to the woods, or never having seen you at all in the Savior’s compound, unable to track you down and all the more jaded for it with a pitt in his stomach.

You like to run. You’re good at it. And more than once you’ve outrun your would-be hunters. You wouldn’t leave a trail.

But you didn’t run. You came home.

Despite everything that happened and all the reasons you had to run, you came home.

The two of you jump when the door handle rattles like someone’s trying to get inside, Carl’s hand instantly on the holster strapped to his leg until a small knock follows the attempt.

“Carl?” Michonne calls from the other side, sounding hesitant.

The teen pulls back from you slowly, never fully letting go of you as he sits up and helps you do the same.

“Uh–” He clears his throat, trying to shake the raw emotion from his voice. “Yes?”

“Is Bambi in there, by any chance?” She asks slowly.

Carl furrows his brow skeptically, glancing at you in his periphery with a gulp.

“We’re just hangin’ out… talkin’ and stuff…” He says, somewhat sheepishly.

“...”

“...”

“...Carl, I know you two are close, but your dad said not to have the door closed anymore,” She reminds, clearly apprehensive to enforce the rule. “Just… crack it, alright?”

What?

You look at Carl for an explanation and find him frowning back at you with a frustrated, sorry look in his eye. He shakes his head and looks away, leaping from the bed and walking over to throw the door open so the woman can see what’s not going on inside the room.

Her eyes do a once over, refusing to linger on anything for longer than a second aside from the bed you’re sitting on.

You swallow uncomfortably, pulling your knees up to your chest.

“Michonne…” Carl pleads, but the woman doesn’t react.

Instead she thanks him softly for opening the door, turning her attention to you and nodding in awkward greeting.

You hesitantly give her an equally uncomfortable wave.

You’ve been in Carl’s room hundreds of times, slept in his bed, disappeared with him for hours on end outside the walls back when you lived in Alexandria and nobody ever questioned it, but suddenly they don’t trust you enough to be alone with him?

“This is so dumb. I’ve killed people, but I can’t have my door closed anymore when Bambi is here, just because she’s a girl?” Carl huffs, crossing his arms over his chest at her. “I already told him I’m not followin’ any of those stupid rules.”

“I kn–” Michonne’s brow twitches at the end of his second sentence.

Not meaningfully, not on purpose, but it is a tell. She stops because she doesn’t understand what he’s saying. Because she knows, and he doesn’t.

Her eyes flick to yours and by whatever haunted look you’ve had on your face since you caught the small movement, now she knows that you know she knows.

For a moment it feels as if you’re sharing one brain, both on the same sinking ship, eyes locked but unable to do anything to help the other.

But then she blinks and turns back to Carl with confusion, the understanding gone.

“I get why my dad is tryin’ to keep us apart, but you too?” He sighs, turning around and walking back over to the bed to sit back down next to you. “It isn't right to punish us when we didn't do anythin’ wrong.”

She parts her lips, head cocked.

You slowly shake your head. Don’t.

Please, not yet.

She closes it again, scanning the empty wall to reorganize her thoughts, then tries again.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Please, don’t do it. Don’t say anything, you plead silently, eyes getting wider every second she hesitates on what to say next.

Michonne finally catches your gaze again and manages to find her voice.

“It’s… supposed to rain later,” She says softly, eyes downcast at the floor with guilt. She wanted to tell him for the sake of loyalty, but she also doesn't want to be the one to break his heart like that. “Make sure you shut the window.”

She pulls the door up, leaving it as minimally cracked as possible.

Carl flops back onto the bed, rubbing his hands down his face with a frustrated laugh. –But your heart is still pounding too fast in your chest from the fear of him almost finding out through someone else to be relieved.

You choke in a gasp, finally starting to breathe again.

Your vision is bleary with tears, body shivering like you’ve been dunked in freezing cold water.

Carl looks over at you, seeing the stiff way you’re sitting, hands tightly gripping the flesh just above your knees. “Bambi…?”

“I should–” You’re cut off by a wheeze. “Go. –I should go.”

You don’t move a muscle.

Carl sits back up again, confusion written all over his face as he sets a hand on your back like he’s about to try and pull you into one of those compression hugs.

“Don’t,” You snap at him with wide eyes, finally regaining enough control of yourself to lean away from the touch.

This is why Daryl doesn’t want you near him. You’re going to mess him up.

He pulls his hand back, nodding slowly. “Okay.”

You sit hunched over on the corner of his bed like that for a while, curled up small and angry, every shift he makes having you glance at him with weary eyes.

He's not going to hurt you. Nobody here is, you know that, it's just difficult to hold onto that thought right now.

Pretty much all of your energy right now is being put into focusing on not reacting the way you would have when you first arrived. When Carl’s hand reached into your space you'd wanted to bite him, hard, and you hadn't even really thought about it. –You actually started to, but you'd ground your teeth instead, trying not to flee or hide like your body ached for.

Now enough time has passed for you to realize how embarrassing the whole thing was, flinching away from him and almost snapping at him like a dog, curled into this ridiculous defensive position as if you’re not in his room.

Carl’s not looking at you, thank goodness. –Hasn’t been for a while.

He probably thinks you’re crazy.

“Sorry,” You whisper.

“It's okay,” He whispers back, slowly turning towards you again. Once he's fully facing you, he looks between your eyes, searching. “Today seemed… hard, for you…”

You shrug, sniffling dryly.

It was hard.

“Is everythin’ okay?” He asks, voice practically begging for answers despite him trying to tamp it down.

You start to shrug but he holds up a hand to interrupt the movement.

“Be honest. Don't just say what you think other people want to hear,” He frowns. “You’ve been… off, and I…” He stops, shifting closer and looking up at you with his full attention, gaze soft and understanding. “We haven’t really talked about when you were gone.”

You push your hair back, dragging your fingers through it and pulling when you feel your eyes start to water again. You bury your face in your knees, shutting them as tightly as you can to stop yourself from crying.

You can't.

You won't do it to him.

Carl lowers his eye, turning away.

+

+

+

“If you had to leave you should have come and got me!” Daryl whisper shouts at the woman, throwing an arm out towards the door.

“Maggie needed help. She's pregnant, Daryl, what was I supposed to do?” Carol scoffs, offended by the suggestion that she was somehow in the wrong for leaving you alone when she was picking up his slack after panicked and ran out on you. “Nobody even knew where you were. I would have wound up leavin’ her anyway, tryin’ to look for you!”

Daryl hears you shift in your sleep up in the loft, letting out a small whine.

“Shh!” He hisses. “Talk quieter!”

“You know, I don't think you even really blame me for this. You feel guilty, so you're tryin’ to shift some of the blame onto someone else,” She says, poking him in the chest. “And if that ain't some petty, childish, bullshit I don't know what is. –You need to get over whatever the hell is goin’ on with you lately. Fast. There are more pressin’ issues.”

“This ain't petty! I'm tryin’ to protect her!”

“And abandon her at every turn, might I add,” The woman points out. “You were takin’ care of her just fine before, but now you're all fucked up over it.”

Daryl scowls, looking away. “It's different now! I don't know how to handle this, what to say to a kid that was–”

“So help me god, if you say that word again, Daryl,” The woman seethes. “We all know what happened, there's no need to keep sayin’ that word over and over just for shock value. –I know the severity of what happened to that girl, I know how twisted up she is inside right now, but she's not a victim. She's a survivor. Bambi has to move on with her life without lettin’ what happened cage her and stop her from doin’ what she has to, to survive. She has to learn to live with it.”

Daryl’s lower lip quivers and he turns it up into a snarl, aggressive posture deflating.

“I don't know what to do,” The man says like a broken record, swaying on his feet. “I know it ain't rational, but now everythin’ seems like a threat to her. I feel like I failed… like I wasn't lookin’ out for her enough.”

Carol cocks her head empathetically, making a noise of understanding.

“You might have run away when she was captured,” The man laments. “But I let us get separated that day.”

Carol's eyes glaze with nostalgia, remembering the feeling of Sophia's fingers slipping from hers, the last time she would ever touch her daughter.

“You can’t blame yourself for that.”

Daryl shakes his head, forcing his eyes shut. “Yes, I can. –I do.”

“It was an accident, Daryl. You'd given her your bow.”

“She was still learnin’ how to use it,” Daryl says regretfully, remembering the image of you crouched in the bushes with the weapon in your hands, struggling to keep it steady. “I don’t know why I…”

He can remember seeing you from across the steady stream of walkers, your face twisted with panic as you tried to cross after he ran off ahead of you. You were panting, hesitating. Clearly struggling with the additional weight. The gap he’d found closed, but he didn’t stop to wait for you. Why didn’t he stop?

“I should never have left her side. –Probably shouldn’t have even run into the fight in the first place,” The man scoffs bitterly, trying to imagine how that day would have played out had he stayed away from it. “A lot of good that did.”

“There was a bounty on your head, Daryl. You thought she'd be okay if you'd gotten caught,” Carol argues. “You thought she was safe.”

“Safe?” He laughs. “I ran off ahead of her like it didn't even matter. I didn't tell her where I was goin’, where to meet me when things brushed over–!”

“You put together an entire safehouse to make sure she had somewhere to wait for you!”

“That’s just basic survival crap!” The man denies, voice raising the more he thinks of you. “You’re not listenin’ to me, you don’t understand!”

“You’re the one that’s not takin’ the time to think things through right now, gettin’ all emotional and lettin’ it blind you!” Carol shouts back, pointing an accusing finger at him like a naughty dog. “You know her! You know how to take care of her! You’re just bein’ intentionally dense because you don’t want to feel like a failure for not noticing!”

The man gets chest to chest with her, breathing heavily through his nose. “I am a failure.”

Carol’s eyes widen at the venom in his voice and she takes a step back, shaking her head.

“You don’t have to be,” She says blankly, eyes fierce. “At least your child is still here to fail.”

Daryl’s snarky reply dies in his throat, air hissing out of his lungs as he mimics her and takes a step back to diffuse the situation.

They both go silent.

“I…” He starts to apologize, then stops, knowing that their situations are entirely different, willing them to be. He swallows hard, feeling like he’s eaten something jagged. “She’s not my child.”

Carol stares into his eyes tiredly, regretting having come here in the first place. She should have left the group and lived out the rest of her days alone like she had planned, where there was no one to lose and nothing to fight for but another day.

She opens her mouth.

“MAMA!”

The cry is so loud it genuinely startles the two of them, both snapping their heads in the direction of the loft. Carol is still trying to reconcile the loud voice with yours in the crying that follows the shout, but Daryl shoots off like a bullet. He drops the canteen in his hand and clambors up the ladder as quickly as possible. “Bambi?” He shouts up towards the loft, scrambling and nearly tripping when he makes it to the top of the ladder. “Bambi! Kid?”

He steps onto the platform and disappears from Carol’s sight quietly, so she follows him up, finding the man frozen about three yards from the haybed. His hands are up, reaching and pulling back hesitantly in the air, unsure of what to do because you’re sobbing more frantically than he's ever seen. –You’re grasping at your blankets like they’re the only thing keeping you tethered right now, rocking slowly.

Carol expects him to reassure you.

She’s seen him do it before, handling the regular mood swings and anxiety you’ve had in the past with ease. It only took a conversation, maybe a hug or a playfight, and he’d have you regulated again.

So why is he just standing there?

She stops at his side, looking between the two of you incredulously. “...Daryl? What are you doing?”

“I– I don't know, I…” The man sputters, shaking his head. His hands go palm up towards you in a placating offer. “I don't know what to…”

“She had a nightmare,” The woman concludes easily, motioning to you.

“I can see that,” Daryl huffs sarcastically, rolling his eyes at how simple she makes the situation sound. “Thanks for the help.”

Just as you start moving across the bed to get to one of his open hands, he drops them without looking at you or realizing that you reached out at all. Your posture falls. You curl away from him, shrinking with your hands locked over your head.

Carol tips her head to the side slowly, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Hold her.”

“What?” His eyes widen, “No, I– I can't do that,” He quickly refuses, taking a weary half step back.

“Why not?” She presses. “You used to do it all the time, and it kept her calm, didn’t it?”

Daryl looks contemplative, making a fruitless attempt at sorting through everything everyone has been saying about you. It seemed much simpler when it was just the two of you involved, but he already failed you once on top of not realizing what you were hiding. He proved he wasn’t good enough to take care of you.

If he were to forget everything that’s happened, –as wildly irresponsible as that sounds– Carol would be right.

“No,” He says softly, already opening up to the idea despite himself.

The refusal burns you deeply.

“Go away!” You shout through the tears, pulling the blankets over your head to hide.

“She just wants to be held,” The woman says like it's obvious, putting her hand on his shoulder and urging him forward.

The man stumbles a few steps at the push, continuing to walk by himself until he’s come around to the side of the bed you’re closer to.

“I ain't her dad,” He tries weakly, looking over his shoulder at her to give her a pleading look.

Carol smiles tersely.

“I know. Do it anyway.”

The crying only seems to get louder the longer he stands there not doing anything.

Daryl winces at the wails, his chest aching. “She’s not my biggest fan right now, I don’t think I oughta be–”

“Daryl, she’s a teenager. It’s going to seem like she hates you sometimes, but she doesn’t,” Carol deadpans, not having any more of his excuses. “She’s frustrated with the world and she’s got no place to direct it. –That girl loves you.”

The man takes a deep breath and steps forward, pushing the blanket back so it falls from your head and you can see one another. You look devastated, and so damn tired. He hesitantly opens his arms. “Ey, bud–” He tries, shocked when you immediately kick the blankets aside and dart into his arms, wrapping yourself around his neck and your legs around his torso to cling to him.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” You wail into his shoulder.

His eyes go wide when he finds himself immediately clinging back, arms snaking around you to cradle the back of your head with his hands.

“I gotcha,” He says breathlessly, wind knocked out of him by the whole thing.

“I don't–” You hiccup, using the heel of your hand to swipe at your tears. “I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want you to hate me. I'm sorry.”

The words seem to shake him out of whatever stupor he'd been in, gaze sharpening.

“We're not fightin’, Bumble-Bea,” Daryl says firmly, turning so that your cheeks are pressed together as he starts bouncing you gently. “‘S okay. I'm right here. I don't hate you.”

“You should. I mess everything up for you… You'd be so much happier if I weren't here,” You sob, coughing.

“No. I wouldn't,” He bristles, patting your back. “I love you, kid. So much. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”

You cling to him harder when he finally says the words you've been craving, burying your face in his neck and inhaling the scent of his sweat mixed with motor oil. “I love you too…”

He kisses your cheek repeatedly, ignoring the knowing look Carol gives him when he starts pacing with you in his arms.

Nothing softens a man faster than holding his own child.

“Please– Please don’t leave,” You plead. “I don’t know why I’m like this now, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be. –I can still help, I can be strong, I swear.”

Daryl feels his eyes starting to water.

“I know, buddy. You’re gonna be okay,” He sniffs. “None of this was meant to happen. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with you.”

You lift your head, fear in your eyes. “But…?”

There are enough ‘what if’s to spend the whole night talking about them.

Daryl pushes your head back down, anger bubbling in his chest. “We’ll handle it.”

He’ll take care of you.

+

+

+

When your eyes have finally shut and Daryl is sure you've fallen back asleep for the night, he lays you down in his bed, brushing your hair out of your face.

“Night, Bea,” He mutters, kissing your forehead.

Daryl stays to watch when you smile in your sleep, humming contentedly and pulling the blankets closer to your chest, curling up. He smiles, closing his eyes on the moment to memorize every second of it.

His smile fades and he turns, motioning for Carol to follow him into the darkness outside the barn.

The night is quiet, and for once, the constantly moving and lively commune of Hilltop is still. There are lights on in the distance, but they're few and far between. The only thing that truly catches Daryl’s eyes are the pitch black shadows playing tricks on him, dancing and reaching towards him but never pouncing.

“Let's do it,” He finally agrees, swallowing the bitter taste the words leave in his mouth.

He's put a lot of thought into it, and this is the only way he can be sure you're safe right now.

The woman arches a brow. “Let's do… what?”

“Go out there. Hunt ‘em,” He specifies, looking determined. “I'm assumin’ you already heard about those assholes gettin’ spotted nearby? Lurking.”

Carol nods grimly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“So we kill them like you wanted, keep ‘em away from here so she never has to see their sorry asses again,” He growls, clenched fists shaking at his sides. “The ones that got close tested their luck, they're fair game now. Rick can't talk me out of this. Not after tonight.”

She wants to feel relieved by his choice, but the woman knows it’s the sign of a much larger rot. The group is losing trust in itself. And really, it's not sustainable. One way or another, you'll wind up running into the Saviors again and you'll need to be prepared for it. Sheltering you is only going to make it that much worse when it happens.

“Tomorrow, before dawn. We'll get out there and ambush anyone we find while it's still dark. –They won’t notice a few soldiers missin’ as long as we don’t leave witnesses,” Carol explains, fingers idly tapping on her arm as she speaks.

“Good,” Daryl breathes, feeling satisfied. “...I’m gonna start takin’ day shifts in the garage since it’s closer to the gate. –Get a better view of what’s happenin’ while it’s still goin’ on.”

“That's a good idea. It could make things cleaner for us,” She hums. “Especially if you learn the scouts’ schedule so we don't cross paths with them.”

“Clean.” Daryl repeats tonelessly, savoring the syllables of the word to try and understand it.

“Yes, Daryl, clean,” Carol warns. “This is about efficiency, not revenge.”

“I know,” He seethes, looking bloodthirsty. “That doesn't make it any easier or mean that I don't still want to draw it out, make ‘em hurt for what they've done. –To all of us.”

He looks down at his hands, imagining them around someone's neck, squeezing and watching their eyes bulge until their neck snaps with a satisfying crunch.

He closes his fists, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.

“I'll see ya’ tomorrow.”

---

Fic Chapterlist

Some might take him for a fool, wandering through tangled vines on the outskirts without a weapon or a clue of how to get help when nobody knows where he is. –But most people don’t understand what it’s like to have to fade into the shadows hoping no one looks in your direction for too long.

Most people haven’t had to watch their mother get dragged across the kitchen floor by her hair or see their brother’s pupils blown wide, body shrunken and tense as the monster that lives in their home opens its snout and drips sweet poison into his ear.

Suddenly the dragon is flying through the air, shiny blue and green wings lifting with the wind.

It can see Sam from where it is, the boy’s arms raised above his head from launching it so that it gets tangled in the branches of the tree in front of him. The world spins for the toy, leaves falling as it finally lands on its side, Sam gripping the bark of the tree without bothering to pick the one that fell into his hair as he climbs.

The toy can do nothing but watch when Sam’s foot slips.

It doesn’t matter how badly Sam wants to believe his toys will protect him. They’re inanimate. They do not feel. They perceive. They judge.

The boy manages to catch himself and wraps an arm around a tree branch, reaching with the toe of his shoe to try and bear hug it for support.

His foot slips again and the bark slides off, falling to the ground with a soft rustle.

Sam, for whatever reason, decides he needs to climb higher.

He uses the knots in the tree as a path, surpassing the height of his dragon and continuing up the tall trunk until he’s gone up about five of himself and can see the roofs of the houses in Alexandria, sitting on a thick branch to watch the sun rise.

He kicks his legs out, looking down at the stuffed toy with his head cocked.

“Pete, the magic dragon,” His mother had called it.

He renamed it Lenny after watching his brother’s face get smashed into the TV set for the third time.

Sam leans back, letting his view shift and his hands slip from the bark holding his steady until he’s looking at the world from upside down, his locked legs resting above him the only thing keeping him from falling.

He sees you walking down the street with your hood pulled over your face, looking for something around the neighborhood.

If it’s Carl or Ron, you won’t find them. –They snuck out together hours ago with their run bags.

Sam stretches his hands out, reaching for an apple.

His leg slips forward, pants crying at the grind of wood.

Just a little further.

He reaches out again, scooting forward until his fingers touch the plump red fruit.

He pulls and it comes free.

You walk behind a house and crouch down, sobbing into your hands and hitting the back of your head against the wall.

Sam chews the flesh of the apple, turning his gaze towards the rest of the street.

Tara is running from Judith, the toddler bouncing as she tries her hardest to catch the woman before getting distracted by a green plastic cap on the ground and starts to play with it instead.

The woman puts her hands on her hips.

Sam drops the apple core, tossing it far off in the grass and watching it roll.

A rabbit hops out of the brush and sniffs at it, nose and whiskers twitching curiously.

This is his opportunity!

Sam tries to sit himself up as fast as he can, reaching for a thin branch above him.

It snaps.

---

You step closer, raising both arms defensively as you push the door open enough to give you a decent amount of light in the room. It's silent, save for your own footsteps as you venture deeper, eyes moving over anything that's not moving. Including a large tarp covering most of the floor and a shelf you know is in the corner from when you'd come in here working with Aaron.

“Carl?” You call quietly, swallowing hard.

The doors slam behind you and you whip around, quickly grabbing the nearest tool off the wall and gripping it as you wind up your arm.

Carl smiles and you drop the tool, glaring.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” You hiss as he pushes a slab of wood into the handles and walks past you towards the tarp. “I almost–” You stop when you pull the tarp back and see the makeshift bed he's made out of pillows and sheets, complete with dandelions thrown across it in lieu of rose petals, and a few candles in jars, unlit.

You look down at your feet and realize there's a trail of the brightly colored weeds.

“Ta-da…” He says awkwardly, hands raised placatingly because of the way you'd initially reacted. He reaches into a picnic basket sitting on the shelf and pulls out matches, sending quick glances to a thin glossy book that you assume is a comic. “Uh, I made dinner. –Well… sandwiches.”

The voice in your head is squealing and kicking its feet, insisting this must be a date. Why else would he go through all the trouble of prettying the place up and romancing you beforehand when, you believe his exact words for this situation were, ‘bend you over in the toolshed’.

Your cheeks are burning. “What is this?”

“Hm?” He looks up at you after lighting one of the candles and pushing the jar back so that it's not in such a precarious position. “Oh, it's… I was just thinkin’ about our deal and our friendship and I thought this might be better than just…” He looks away, flustered. “Goin’ at it.”

You step forward, looking at the book he keeps referencing when looking at the set up. “What's that, then?”

“Porn,” He answers without a moment’s hesitation, sighing. “On my last run I found it with Ron and I thought it could shed some light on certain things.”

“Shed some light,” You snort, waving your pointer around the room. “So you've been… what? Studying it? You said you'd grown up around girls.”

“I did,” He lights another candle, hesitating to answer the question. “I prefer to think of it as research. I'd never heard of half the stuff in there. It's… weird, but it's interestin’ to see what people used to do before.”

His gaze softens.

“There was a whole culture we never got to be a part of. –Trends, ‘nd rituals, ‘nd references, ‘nd fashion we'll never understand, and when the people who do die. That'll be it,” He puts the match between his fingers out with a flick of his wrist. “No one is keepin’ track of our history.”

“Oh,” Is all you can think to answer with, because you weren't really expecting him to say anything close to that. You were just going to tease him for stashing dirty magazines.

But he was thinking about the future of humanity. How when the time comes to run and hide, the people will burn books to stay warm instead of reading them to learn to light fires with wood.

You're losing huge chunks of history every day because the books aren't being properly cared for and the computers don't have power anymore. You're forgetting, but humanity will continue to make the same mistakes, have the same power struggles regardless.

“That’s… kind of beautiful,” You offer meekly. “I wasn't expecting that at all.”

Carl nods with a shrug, grunting.

He must sense that the atmosphere shifted because he clears his throat and tries to shift to a lighter topic.

“A few of them give good tips.”

You step closer again, rubbing your arms. “Like what?”

“Like ‘make sure the atmosphere is comfortable’ and your partner isn't at risk of tetanus,” He says sarcastically. You gulp when he calls you his partner, stomach fluttering. “The tips were just negotiation stuff… experimentin’ with things you think they'll like without pushin’... What things feel good and what pace works for movin’ things forward,” He frowns, looking contemplative as he talks through his nerves. “Definitely not anythin’ I’d want to try other than the stuff in this one.”

Moving things forward. Like dating.

“Oh, yeah? Well what exactly is that one?” You try to peek behind him at it, but he steps in front of it, dodging the question.

“You know, I was readin’ through these and I feel like they should add consent as one of their tips. I think it has potential to be sexy enough to get on the list, especially if it's phrased right,” He walks back over to the magazine and flips a page back, underlining some text with his finger. “If they did add it, then they wouldn't have to add negotiation or experimentation to the list because both partners would just openly discuss their tastes, right? –Not that it matters, everyone who made and distributed this magazine is probably dead right now, but still.”

God, he's so fucking nerdy.

You want to walk right over there and shove your tongue in his mouth, but you know how that goes and you don't want to ruin this moment. He set all this up for you, to woo you or whatever. It's sweet.

“You're lookin’ at me like that again,” He says bashfully, turning to glare at you over his shoulder.

You bite your lip at him, not bothering to hide what you're thinking right now. “You're awfully talkative today, Carl… I haven't heard you talk this much since you were rambling on about Enid.”

He sucks a sharp breath in through parted lips, jaw wide open as if whatever he was about to say had been wiped from memory.

You walk closer and throw your arms around his neck, giving him a pointed look before peeking at the page the magazine is open to.

Between all the gossip columns is an article titled How to Surprise Your Partner With a Romantic Atmosphere, with pictures of different romantic settings. Most are of beds, yes, but there are two pictures of what looks like dinner dates.

Stop getting your hopes up, he's going to crush you!

You cock a brow. “So this is the “porn” you were talking about?”

“Huh?” He’s still looking at you, confused until he realizes you pulled one over on him. “Oh…”

“Carl,” You say, grabbing his jaw to turn him back to face you, so you can lean your forehead against his. “Hi.”

He frowns, trying not to nervously smile. This seems important. “Hey.”

“I really want to kiss you…” You admit, leaning closer to his lips by the second, eyes going half lidded.

He lets you get close enough that all it would take is a small twitch to finally get your lips on his, his breathing coming fast through his nose until he parts his lips like he's going to say something and hooks his hands around your waist, leveraging the position to knock you off your feet and dangle over the pillows below. He keeps the gap between you as small as you made it, letting out a sigh that turns to laughter.

For a moment, the warm exhale on your face reminded you of Ron ghosting smoke into your mouth, but the other boy never would have done this for you. No, this is Carl.

You smile, which quickly turns to laughter as you kick out one of your legs and let the weight of your lower body rest on the other, throwing your arms up. “Wee!”

Carl cocks his head and lowers you down enough he can drop you.

“You’re an idiot.”

“But I’m youuuur idiot?” You ask without really thinking about it.

His eye widens a sliver but he quickly regains his composure, face neutral. He huffs. “Yeah… You’re my idiot.”

My. You're his. You giggle, turning your head away from him and sinking deeper into the pillows. You'll never be together, you know that, but it's kind of fun to imagine. It's easy to get caught up in the fantasy of life with him.

He pounces on you while you're distracted, gently caging you with his arms like he’d done this morning.

“Was, uh, earlier okay?” His eye darts away and then back again. “I just… felt like that was somethin’ you’d been wantin’ me to do, so I…” He shrugs.

There’s no way in hell you’re ever going to admit the kinds of things you think about him sometimes. It’s embarrassing. –Plus, he doesn’t need the ego boost of having you admit you like him being able to take control of you when he wants. You like the struggle.

That probably says something terrible about your state of mind, but it feels too good to care about when there are bigger fish to fry. So what if you’re a little nuts?

“I think… I like it,” He says, swallowing thickly. “I don’t like restraining myself. –It feels good when you stop fightin’ me on everythin’ all the time and we finally agree.”

You roll your eyes. “I don’t fight you on everything.”

He gives you a pointed look.

“You calm down a lot once you’ve given me your trust and don’t have to be in control anymore,” He grabs your face and repositions it so that you’re facing him, tucking your hair behind your ears and thumbing your cheeks. “I don’t know how I feel about that part. –I don’t like the idea of bein’ responsible for what happens to another person, but I like knowin’ that you’ll listen…” He shakes his head, thinking about this morning. “Is that bad? It sounds bad when I say it.”

Your gaze lingers on his face while he speaks, intently listening to what he has to say so you can articulate a proper response. It wouldn’t be fair of you to say nothing of value twice when he opened up about what he was thinking.

“I don’t think so,” You say softly, voice lighter despite it being more honest than it usually is. There isn’t a hint of humor or deflection in your tone. “You might like the idea of being in control, that’s common. Everything always seems to be a constant power struggle,” Your voice grows resentful, “But I’m the freak that wants you to tell me where I belong.”

Carl frowns at that, his brows furrowing as the look in his eye grows sentimental. “Then we match.”

Everyone can grow tired of power the same way they can grow tired of submission. The cycle leaves you constantly desperate for the other position.

“Carl?” You whimper, reaching out to grab the collar of his shirt. “I don’t want to think anymore.”

He’s dropping to sit on his knees and working your shorts off before you know it, lips and tongue working over the skin of your navel. You feel your shorts being pulled down to your knees, but you don’t think about it for long because the next thing you know he’s sucking at your skin with such force you’re sure he’s trying to tear the meat from your bones.

You clutch tightly at anything in the vicinity, eventually leading you to grip at the collar of his shirt. “Carl,” You cry needily.

He returns to you with one last pop as he releases the bruising skin from his jaw, leaning into your reaching hands. You pull him close and begin planting kisses on his neck and jaw –everywhere but his lips, anywhere that he’ll let you– with pure desperation.

He tosses your shorts aside along with your underwear, panting as he makes quick work of his own jeans and slipping his boxers off.

His cock is already painfully hard because of this morning, weeping for attention and eventually twitching with interest when he palms himself and strokes a few times.

He whines prettily, his eye fluttering shut. It must feel good.

As if reading your jealous little mind, he uses his other hand to knead your inner thighs as he repositions your legs the way he wants.

“You don’t have to think,” He pants affectionately. “You don’t have to think anymore, all you have to do is trust me.”

You nod eagerly, canting your hips up towards him. “I do.”

Your voice catches and you feel more tears like the ones from this morning start spilling down your face. –It feels messy in a completely different way than you’re used to and you’re not sure you like it. You’ve been waiting forever for this and it’s been torture. All you want is him. All you need right now is him. He’s the one making the decisions now, and for once all your anxieties melt away.

There is nothing to think about. You’re not sure there ever was.

He presses into you, throwing his head back and hissing through clenched teeth as your warmth envelops him. “You feel amazing.” The stretch is a lot harder to take than it was this morning, but your body is more than happy to accommodate it if he’ll just keep you full.

He stops, reaching down to pull at your clit.

You moan in appreciation and he twists the nub between his fingers, fingers deeply massaging the area with interest.

“And you’re so, so, pretty,” He says, using the same thumb he’d just used to touch you to gather saliva from your tongue and smear it down your chin.

It’s humiliating. It hurts your pride, but judging by the flush spreading to the rest of you from your cheeks, it undeniably gets results.

He pulls out and thrusts back into you for the first time when you aren’t expecting it, punching out a moan as a jolt of pleasure spreading through your body. Finally, finally, finally, finally, is all you can think as he thrusts again and your hips push up to meet his.

The rhythm he sets is hungry, but it’s nowhere near as desperate as it could be. As it needs to be.

Eventually it’s not enough anymore. You both need more. Your bodies are on fire and you want to feel the burn.

You help him switch positions so that you’re in his lap facing him, your fingers and his working your clit in tandem between frantic touches as you ride him with shaking legs. You’re going to be sore for days, but you don’t care. You want more.

His eye goes half-lidded, mouth opening and closing with incoherent sounds you understand are supposed to be words. A warning of sorts.

You moan into the skin of his neck as his thrusts start to get more sporadic, losing the pace he set as he gets closer to the edge. He grips your hips, his entire body jolting as he buries himself inside you and cums.

It feels hot, like the warm release he gave you is being milked by your cunt. The more the sensation spreads the more you feel yourself clenching around him, the wet slapping of flesh on flesh growing more prominent as it leaks.

“Good,” He moans as you keep going, tangling his fingers in your hair. The stimulation is starting to feel painful, but he never wants to stop. He could spend days like this. “Good, good, good, keep goin’, get what you need,” He says dumbly, his mind a blank slate.

You feel yourself clenching around him, muscles tensing and spasming as you finally finish, his thrusts not failing to meet yours until you’ve collapsed onto his shoulder with a small cry, shaking your head.

You wrap your arms around his neck, subtly cuddling into his sweaty skin as you try to catch your breath.

He pets your hair, looking down at the mess you’ve made together where you’re still connected. “Forgot the condom…” He pants, dazed.

“Fuck the condom,” You breathe out, legs wrapping tighter around him. “It’s too late anyway.”

He leans back with you, sighing as his back hits the pillows and you lay against his chest. You’re both well aware that you should disconnect and make some effort to clean up, but neither of you makes a move to do so. It just doesn’t feel that important right now.

“I feel like ‘m gonna fall asleep,” You sigh, hating how heavy your eyes feel. You don’t want to fall asleep right now. You want to keep cuddling with him and talking, drinking up every crumb of affection and personality he’s willing to give to someone as unimportant as you.

His eye is already shut, arm coming up to drape around your waist. “So do it.”

“I can’t,” You groan with frustration. “I promised Rosita I’d take the next shift because whoever was supposed to have it dipped out on her.”

He sighs, raking a hand through his hair to fruitlessly try and fix how messy it is.

A walkie-talkie sitting on the shelf crackles to life and Carl rolls his eye before the person on the other end can say anything.

“Carl,” Rick drawls. “Come home right now… I need to talk to you.”

The static clicks off and the two of you sit up, the moment ruined.

“He gave you a walkie?” You groan, glaring at the device.

Of course he did. Why not give his teenager even more responsibility? At this point, he might as well hand leadership over to Carl and see how things go. Negan likes him more anyway.

“Yeah. –But only for today, ‘said it was “important”,” He sighs, picking it up and pressing down on the button. “I’m comin’, be there in a sec.”

You pull at some of the sheets underneath you, wrapping yourself up in them. “I hate being responsible.”

“I think we discussed that already,” Carl says with one of the largest smiles you’ve gotten from him.

He pulls on his jeans and boxers, bending over as he works his belt to–

You jolt when he kisses you on the cheek, his mouth just barely catching on the corner of yours.

“I’ll see you later, okay? –Eat up.”

You’re stunned to silence, heart going a million miles an hour in your chest.

This game of he loves me, he loves me not it starting to get sickening. Half the time all you can think about is how heartbroken and alone you’ll be when all of this is over and he and Enid reunite.

This is their love story, not yours.

They’re the ones separated by a war and so in love that she isn’t threatened by him seeking warmth in the company of other people in the meantime because she knows when the time comes, his heart is home with her. You know it too. He’d do anything to protect her. Anything to build a future where she’s safe and happy, where she doesn’t have to be afraid of dictators or rotting husks coming after her. He’d give his life if he had to.

You sniff, wiping your tears on your sleeve and trying to hide it with a smile despite being alone.

Little Noa. Always second choice. Always all alone.

You laugh quietly to yourself.

“Noa-body wants me,” You snicker, standing up and pulling your clothes back on.

You blow out the candles one by one and stare at yourself in the reflection of a rusty saw on the wall, cocking your head. You look a mess, and not in the subtle sexy way Carl did. You look like a grieving widow with puffy red eyes and messed up hair like a crazed maniac.

You’re tempted to compare yourself to Enid again, think about how pretty she was when she cried. It was always subtle. Quiet. –But you don’t because this isn’t the time for that. You’re trying to be better and define yourself in other ways, but it’s hard when even a few months ago people would stand you side by side and tell you all the ways you could be more like her. Before that, it was your sister, which always made you angry because she was younger than you. You were supposed to be setting an example for her. Protecting her.

Maybe you shared the same blood as her, had similar features that never got a chance to develop on her face–

You flick the saw and it clatters to the floor.

–But you were never alike.

You step over it and push the doors open, breaking out into the sunlight.

---

What about when you were locked up? –What had pushed you so far that you committed the massacre you left behind when you both escaped? Did they all… Were they all a part of it? He hadn’t thought of that before… He’d just assumed it’d been once, but what if it wasn’t?

What if…

What if.

Daryl swallows back a string of curse words at the thoughts swarming him, eyes glossy.

He stops outside the barn, trying to quietly push the door open when he realizes that all the lights are still on.

He squints and pushes further, the brightness pouring out to assault his drunken senses.

“Bambi?” He calls, keeping his voice low in case you were just afraid to sleep in the dark. He knows he's having a tough time in the pitch black after being in that cell.

A few seconds pass before you peer over the railing at him from the loft wide awake, your blankets clutched in front of you oddly.

The longer he looks at you, the more of yourself you seem to try and hide with it.

He feels himself sober immediately, posture straightening as he shuts the door behind him. “Bea, what's the matter? –Where's Carol?”

You lower your head. “Away.”

She'd made dinner and some cookies at Maggie's house with your help, and then she'd brought you back here and left you to your own devices. You’re old enough to be left alone. It makes sense. You don’t blame her for what happened.

“Why are you still up?” He asks again, taking a step towards the ladder to make his way up to you, until you rapidly shake your head at him. You don’t want him to see. He stops, looking down at the blanket again. “Is somethin’ wrong? Are you hurt? Sick?”

You bite your lip and shake your head at him, stepping back slightly to obscure yourself from view.

“Show me,” Daryl pleas, voice soft and afraid. “Please just show me, I can't keep… I need to know that you're okay.”

You flush harder with shame, slowly lowering the blanket to show him the dark stain spread down your sweatpants.

It takes him a moment to realize what happened, especially since you've never, ever, in all the time that he's known you, had this particular problem.

“You wet the bed.” He says, more of a bewildered statement than an accusation. “What– Why did you wet the bed?”

You shrink, lower lip quivering with frustration as you avert your eyes.

“Alone,” You say on the verge of tears, nodding towards the deconstructed haybed, several sullied stacks pushed aside. “...Afraid.”

Right. This would have been your first night sleeping alone since you've been back. He didn't plan on this being the first time you got left alone, –he assumed Carol would watch you– but then again she did only say that she was taking you back and feeding you, not that she was babysitting. He got lucky that first night when Carl decided to stand guard over you.

The man sighs, running a hand from the base of the back of his neck to the crown of his head.

“Fuck. Just… come down here, leave the blankets…” He says, motioning for you to come to him. You hesitate, but he watches as you drop the blankets and guiltily approach him like a puppy waiting for a scolding, head and shoulders clamped up against your neck. He points to the door. “Get yourself cleaned up.”

You take a half step, then turn back to him with wet eyes, signing, Mad at me?

Daryl doesn't answer initially, instead closing the distance between you by giving you a long kiss on the forehead. “Mm-mm. I ain't mad at you.”

He should have been here.

“Go,” He urges. “And come back quick, alright? If you ain't back in… twenty minutes, I'm comin’ to look for you.”

You nod, sniffling sadly as you leave to clean yourself up.

In the meantime Daryl tosses the blankets into a pile with some dirty tarps that had already been in the barn when you were both directed to it, noting to himself that when the people on laundry duty come around he'll need to tell them to take them. Then he pushes the dirty haystacks aside like you'd been trying to do, and replaces them with fresh ones. Well, relatively fresh.

This entire situation is bizarre. He never imagined he'd one day have to deal with the things he has been before you both got captured.

The door opens and shuts, your guilty face peering up at him from the first floor while you wring your hands out.

“Yer’ just gonna have to sleep with me tonight,” Daryl decides after a moment, shaking his head. “I'm not lettin’ my– you sleep on bare hay like an animal. –That ain't right.”

At the mention of getting to sleep with him again, you instantly perk up and make a noise of appreciation, smiling weakly at him.

He clumsily comes down the ladder, still somewhat drunk despite coming to his senses when he realized you were having trouble, swearing all the way down when his feet slip on the rungs or he misses the first time he reaches with his hands. He flops down on his bed, patting his chest for you to come join him.

You jump onto the bed next to him, quickly crawling over and sinking into his shoulder, arm around his torso to pull him closer. He tosses his blanket over you and you press your face into his warm, clammy skin.

Then he feels you move, rubbing your eyes.

“You smell funny,” You whisper, laying your head back down and looking up at him like he hung those same stars he'd just been admiring on his way home.

“Maybe I did somethin’ funny,” He whispers back, fingers tangling themselves in your hair as he scratches your scalp to try and put you to sleep.

You shake your head, eyes drooping. “You looked sad.”

Daryl hates how intuitive you are. He likes being able to tell how you feel with a single look or with the tone of your voice, but when you do it back to him he worries that it's another sign he shouldn't have you. Kids aren't supposed to be responsible for how the adults in their life feel. He should be the one looking out for, and taking care of you.

“I was,” He admits slowly, staring up at the ceiling. “But now I'm okay, ‘cause I'm here with you.”

A smile spreads across your face, chubby cheeks getting fuller.

“I love you, D,” You say with one last sigh as your entire body goes slack.

He holds onto you a little tighter.

+

+

+

Daryl’s eyes open to a different ceiling. One made of scratched up, rusty metal and flat rounded screws, a piece of black duct tape in the corner next to the top of the window to prevent the rain from leaking in at night.

He sits up, frowning.

Daryl isn't sure how he got here, but he also isn't sure where else he would be. This is the last trailer he and Merle robbed and squatted in before… something happened. –He doesn't know what.

There's pictures of the older couple that actually owns the trailer, although their faces are obscured he remembers that they're a white couple, both with hair so grey and silver it’s almost gone white. The woman had these funky purple and orange designer glasses that looked like they could cut someone, and the man had pins on his lapel from different things he’d been involved with. Daryl remembers staring at that picture a lot with a heavy feeling in his stomach he now knows is guilt.

He tips the photograph face-down and walks around the trailer, looking for any reminders of what he's supposed to be doing.

He finds more sentimental items that mean nothing to him personally, like a clay pot their grandchild probably made and some memorabilia hung on the walls like trophies. –Anything worthwhile, he and Merle pawned during their first day here, including a silver plated urn.

A dog barks and he hears someone laugh outside, the sound sweet and innocent. He knows that laugh.

He shoves open the trailer door and squints as he's blinded by sunlight, eyes just barely adjusting in time to see a stray dog from the area munching on a hotdog that someone tossed down for him.

There's a picnic table to his left, two figures sitting at it with the sun and trees behind them, gentle breeze making the leaves rustle.

“You gotta work on that pokerface, baby,” Merle says raspily, tone teasing in nature. “They'll eat that cute little ass alive in a real game down at the casino.”

Again, that familiar laughter.

“What are ya’ even supposed to be, anyway? –Fag,” He taunts, laying down his winning hand.

The other person blows a raspberry at him and Merle shakes his head, muttering a few apologies.

“Alright, alright. You shuffle this time, baby doll.”

The kid hums and obliges, eagerly pulling the cards closer to themself and messily trying to shuffle the deck. –Daryl can see their face now, the sun abating to let him see their features between rays. They're bouncing excitedly in their seat, picking off small pieces of some kind of grilled meat to gnaw on. He knows they're important to him in some way, but he can't for the life of him recall how.

Daryl squints at those wide doe eyes and tries to remember.

“Well, look who it is,” Merle suddenly taunts, arms spanned out in a mocking gesture. “Sleepin’ beauty finally decided to join us.”

The kid snorts and taps the cards on the table to line them up evenly.

Daryl scoffs with annoyance, momentarily distracted from the other person. “You could'a woken me up.”

Merle blinks, blue eyes boring into his brother's.

“Mmm… Nah,” The man shrugs, smiling in a soft way that Merle hasn't seen since they were kids. “I was havin’ the time of my life over here, gettin’ to know this little shit and repeatedly kickin’ her ass. –She owes me big time, by the way. Any cigs she finds are mine.”

“Whatever.”

Daryl tries to turn and face her directly, but Merle man-handles him back to looking at him with a hand on the shoulder.

“Now, I like this kid, Daryl,” He says in a warning, pointing a finger at him threateningly. “I like her a whole lot. She's good company. Real sweet. –Trust me, I've been watchin’, and I've seen a whole lot ‘a sweeties less sweet than this one. Less cute too.”

The kid finishes shuffling and sets the deck on the table between them, letting Merle deal. Which is probably why he's been winning this whole time. He's never been good at poker.

He tries to shrug Merle off. “So?”

“So don't fuck it up,” Merle growls, slamming his free fist on the table. The kid looks up, startled, and he backtracks. “Sorry, baby doll. Tryin’a tell my idiot brother not to screw up the one good thing he's got.”

Daryl frowns, brow furrowed. “Me? –The hell you mean by that?”

“I mean, get off your sorry, lazy ass and take care of your kid, deadbeat,” Merle snaps again, picking up his hand of cards and lowering his voice to something disgustingly sweet. “Now where were we, sweetheart?”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about? I ain't got a–” Except he does.

Merle side-eyes him knowingly. “You take good care ‘a her, now.”

+

+

+

Daryl’s eyes shoot open and he grasps anything he can reach, his heart settling when he realizes you're still peacefully asleep in his arms, safe and sound. No blatant theft or Merle probably corrupting you in sight.

The ceiling is as it always was, unsanded wooden beams stretching up into the air. He turns onto his side and drags you closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

You're safe. He's safe. This is Hilltop. This isn't a cage. This isn't a closet. Or a trailer. This is Hilltop.

He lifts the corner of his shirt and drags his hand across a freshly healed wound spanning from his hip to his stomach, the raised skin pink and silvery.

This is Hilltop. He lived.

“Mmh,” You groan from beside him, face scrunched up from the confusion of being smothered against him. “Whyyyyy?”

“‘M sorry,” He mutters, sitting up slowly and taking you with him. “I didn't mean to wake you up.”

You stretch out your limbs and drag yourself out of his lap, standing up to sign at him at the same time as you speak. “Hungry, Daryl. Can we go?”

The action drags a smile out of him. He's missed your voice. As quiet as it was before, he liked how loud you'd get when it was only him around. Slowly, you're getting more of yourself back and stringing together longer and longer sentences. Healing.

“Yeah, we can go,” He agrees, cracking his knuckles and trailing after you when the news has you bouncing on one foot as you tug on your boots and yank the door open. “Bambi, don't run off.”

You ignore his warning and keep sprinting far ahead of him, stopping every now and again until he catches up only to flee the next second before he can get close enough to grab you. Eventually his frustration ebbs and makes way for reluctant enjoyment of the game you're playing.

The next time you stop he sprints, nearly grabbing you until you realize what's happening and take off again, squealing.

You're swift, faster than him usually, but today you're not fast enough. He catches you from behind and bear hugs you, securing your arms to your sides as he picks you up and makes vaguely monstrous noises, pressing his face to your neck. You squeal louder, giggling and kicking your legs to try and get free until he lowers you and ruffles your hair, grinning.

That's much better.

You cough between pants, taking your place at Daryl’s side as you try to catch your breath. You've barely run at all, not nearly as much as you have to in the wilderness or in a fight, but you're winded.

It must be because you're still recovering. The first days you were back, you were probably running on adrenaline and now that you've gotten some restless sleep, it's catching up to you.

Still, it was worth it to make Daryl smile.

You haven't seen him really happy since he found the test, and you honestly don't know when he will be again. Most of the time it feels like things can never go back to the way they were.

“I ain't got a clue where they're eatin’,” Daryl grunts when you make it to the empty firepit, turning around to see if there's anyone he recognizes in the hustle of people rushing to their morning duties. “Guess they didn't think to let us know.”

“Mm,” You grunt in agreement, following him when he starts in the direction of where Rick has been staying, close to Maggie.

He hip checks you a few times during the walk, albeit gentler than he would've before he knew you weren't a boy. –Today feels better than yesterday without the threat of the doctor's office visit hanging over you though, so you decide to chalk it up to him being worried about hurting you while your arm is all messed up and going through the healing process.

Daryl stops outside of the trailer Rick is staying in, a few away from Maggie's while the people of Hilltop work on building more permanent structures, and knocks a few times.

Before he can try again, you both turn at the sound of boots crunching on gravel.

“Bambi!” Carl beams, jogging up from wherever he'd been, his clothes drenched and the sleeves of his flannel rolled up to his elbows. When he gets closer you see that there's soot smeared across his flushed cheeks, the wetness on him from sweating. “You look like you're feelin’ a bit better, was Siddiq able to help?”

You nod, smiling and trying to step towards him when Daryl’s arm shoots out and stops you from leaving his side.

You look over at him with confusion, smile dimming.

He can't even say it's because of the appointment this time. There's definitely something going on here… You don't like that two of the most important people in your life aren't getting along.

Since you both haven't made any moves to get closer, Carl keeps walking until he's right in front of you and Daryl, eye flicking back and forth between you cautiously.

You reach out to tug at his shirt with the arm Daryl isn't holding back. “Wet?”

“Oh!” Carl flushes, looking down at where his armpits have soaked through his shirt. “I-I was at the blacksmith's booth. He was showin’ me how he makes his blades…” He lowers his head, smiling thoughtfully. “It was pretty cool.”

You make a sword motion with your hand, swinging out at him like you're in a duel. He swings back a few times, then staggers, hand to his forehead as he dramatically lets you stab him in the heart with your imaginary blade.

“I can't bear to fight you, Bambi,” He gasps, pressing a hand to the spot where you'd swung at him.

You give him a mischievous smile and twist the blade, pressing deeper.

“So cruel,” He whines, huffing and staring at you with those half-lidded baby blues. “I'd hate to be at the other end of you with a real sword.”

You're overcome with the sudden urge to jump him and sink your teeth into his shoulder, not enough to break skin but hard enough that it leaves a mark. You want to be close to him again, tame that weird fluttering feeling you get in your stomach when he's in your line of sight.

Something on your face must give you away though, because before you know it, Daryl moves his hand up your arm to get a better grasp and pushes you behind him so that you're nearly out of one another’s view.

“Mmm!” You whine in complaint, glaring at the back of his shoulder.

“We were lookin’ for Rick,” Daryl says to interrupt the playful conversation you had going, souring the mood with an obvious scowl on his face. “Any idea where he is?”

“He's…” Carl frowns slowly as he processes the way Daryl’s been acting towards him recently, posture gaining that calculating edge that's kept him alive this long. “In the junkyard. –Waiting for you, actually.”

You hate that you can hear the hurt and confusion in his voice at being treated like a delinquent by someone that's practically his uncle. He even stepped up when everyone thought Rick was losing it to help care for Judith.

“Fuck,” Daryl straightens, casting his gaze in the vague direction the maze of cars had been in as if he could see it through all the buildings and structures between here and there. “I forgot all about that… we were tryna’...” He shakes his head, flicking his hair out of his face. “Shit. –C'mon, Bea.”

He starts to drag you off with him and you hang your head with a disappointed frown, starting to walk with him again.

But Carl stands in his path, fists loosely balled up at his sides in his iconic sheriff pose.

“Wait,” He says resolutely. “Wouldn't it be better if I took Bambi to get somethin’ to eat while you worked?”

Daryl’s scowl gets deeper, feet turning to try and maneuver around the teen. “I appreciate the offer, but nauh.”

Carl steps back in front of him, the glint in his eye imploring.

“It could take hours, and she still hasn't gotten a chance to see half the cool stuff here. It's a way bigger community than Alexandria,” He points out. “She has to get to know her way ‘round here without you.”

You're confused what Carl’s trying to get at when his gaze flicks to yours, eye exaggeratedly closing for a shorter time than necessary to blink. He winked. He winked at you just now, but why?

Is he… trying to rescue you?

You whip your head towards Daryl, lips pulling into a wide smile you try your hardest to stifle as you wait for his verdict. The man's grip on you falters, then tightens, only to falter again as he stares into your eyes, fighting himself.

He lets go.

“Hah… Okay, fine,” He reluctantly agrees, roughly but fondly pinching your cheek before turning to Carl with a stern look. “Don't you go gettin’ into trouble, and don't do nothin’ stupid, okay? She's… sick. Be gentle.”

You shy away at the mention, but Carl only smiles again, nodding in agreement to all of the loose rules Daryl’s set.

He was never particularly good at that, but it's impossible for someone to predict all the sneaky things kids will do when they're left to their own devices. Especially teenagers.

Before Daryl can even go, Carl turns back to you excitedly. “Have you ever been to a fair?”

Sort of. Nothing particularly big like you're sure they had in Atlanta, even in a place as small as King County, but there are a few hazy celebrations in your memory of people sharing food and dancing together where you're from. “Festivals,” You nod.

Daryl watches the two of you from afar as he slowly tears himself away from you and starts making his way to the junkyard in earnest.

“Well, Hilltop is kind of like a small, permanent festival,” Carl eagerly explains, finally succeeding in taking your hand in his and intertwining your fingers now that Daryl isn't here to intervene. “The Kingdom is even better. It's got huge set pieces that make it look like it's straight from a children's book, a big market, fresh fruit and hot grilled meat. Their beef skewers are the best. –And I know you had to have heard about Shiva, Ezekiel's tiger.”

You nod eagerly. Carol had just been telling you more about her last night, how even at night the beautiful beast sleeps purring at Ezekiel's side, guarding him from the floor or the end of the bed with her body curled like a proper cat.

“I wish I could take you,” Carl says longingly, coming down from his ramble with a laugh. “But it's too far to walk and I think Daryl might just kill me if we hitched a ride and I ran off with you.”

Suddenly, that's all you can think of. Running away together, sleeping at each other's side every night, and carving out your own quiet place in this world. It's not practical. You'd never leave Daryl behind, but the way he says it sounds so romantic. Not like when you were alone on the road before they found you.

“Mm-mm,” You blush, giving his hand a squeeze. “I wouldn't let him.”

He squeezes back and leans over to kiss your cheek at the same time you try to kiss his, leading to a very awkward and poorly aimed but sweet peck on the lips that has you both blushing furiously.

You turn away from one another when the kiss is over, flustered even though you're linked at the hands.

It feels… different, in public.

Privately, it's just the two of you feeling what you feel and working around each other like a well oiled machine, but with the added knowledge that people are observing you and the loving touches you offer one another it suddenly feels risque.

It occurs to you that it might actually be a risk. Siddiq had asked you who you'd been with since you've been back and you refused to tell him to protect Carl, but now here you are kissing him in broad daylight where Siddiq could easily round the corner and catch you. You can't let that happen.

You dare to look back at him, tugging his hand forward to get him moving.

He smiles and starts running towards the market, leading you behind him by the hand. Your boots hit the pavement and uneven ground with loud thumps as the trailers and houses become tents and booths constructed from the scraps left over. Right now there's only about two rows of them, both of which you can see the end of from where you're standing, but there's also a few larger buildings from before the fall with their doors open.

“W–” You stop running, bending your upper body so that you can put your hands on your knees and cough.

Carl stops as soon as you slow down, turning to face you and rubbing your shoulder when he sees the trouble you seem to be having catching your breath. “Bambi?”

You shake your head to brush off his concern, reaching into your pocket and popping one of Siddiq's candies hoping it'll at least help your voice if nothing else.

“Where to?” You ask, signing, Slow, please.

He nods, looking serious as he scans the street. “The first thing I wanna do is get you some fresh food. –Somethin’ not too rough on your stomach.”

Nothing hearty. Nothing greasy. Nothing heavy.

At least that's what Lori always told him when he was little and home sick. –She'd make him homemade chicken soup and rub his back while he ate it, loosely humming songs he could never hope to put a name to.

“‘M not that sick…” You complain, pouting that he'd taken what Daryl said to heart.

He embarrassed you in front of Carl, and now the boy's going to keep treating you like you're breakable.

His gaze softens as he looks at you again, understanding.

“The first time I ate here I threw it all up afterwards,” He admits sadly, giving a half shrug like the situation was inevitable. “I wasn't even sick like you are. I just wasn't used to how rich the food was after starvin’ for so long…”

Your lips part, but you aren't sure what to say in response to that, so you lift your interlocked hands and nuzzle your cheek into the back of his.

He smiles softly, head cocking. “I trust you, Bambi, but I don't want to be the reason you get worse, that's all.”

At the new angle he's put his head at, he catches sight of a cart covered in roasted vegetables and skewered fruits made to look like animals, a dragon made of red and green apple slices with skin for the scales catching his eye.

“There!” He points. “That stuff is good quality and if you ask, they'll even drizzle different sauces on it.”

Sauces on… fruit?

The image that comes to mind immediately is someone drenching an assortment of fruits in ranch dressing, and it is not appealing. You stick your tongue out, walking with Carl to the cart.

The man handing the fruit out keeps positioning the skewers to make them look more appealing, while the woman next to him chops up a kiwi and some bananas to make a few bears with ear and stomach details. She ends up with more banana than she needs, so she ends up making one of the bears a polar bear.

“Miss my paper,” You whisper quietly to yourself, looking down at your free hand and remembering the way it felt to carefully fold each animal with your fingers.

The rest of your animals probably burned with Alexandria, you think sadly, mouth turning into a pout.

A kid runs up to the man and excitedly demands the dragon Carl had his eye on, pleading for extra sauce as the man drowns it in caramel. That makes more sense. Carl pretends not to be disappointed, but you see the look in his eye.

Another day, you sign, better dragon to slay.

To your surprise, he actually seems to understand a majority of your sentence.

“Another day,” He echoes, using the sign for animal. “Stronger animals for your kingdom.”

Suddenly you feel something slip into your free hand and see that the woman has given you the banana polar bear, along with a mango kangaroo, and a strawberry dinosaur.

“You are so cute,” She giggles, a big smile on her face as she baby-talks you. “I remember when you first came here with your dad and Rick, I thought to myself– that looks exactly like my baby brother,” She grimaces. “Well, not literally. That'd be weird. But the shy awkward silent thing is just like him! You're such a cute little guy!”

You open your mouth to respond before closing it and bashfully looking at the ground with a flat smile, sighing through your nose.

Your mind is torn between focusing on the fact she thought Daryl was your dad, and the fact she mistook you for a boy, both of which make you extremely uncomfortable right now for different reasons.

Daryl doesn't want to be your dad…

Does he?

He acts like your dad. He cares for you like a dad would. He teaches you like a dad. You love him like he's your dad and worry every time you're separated. You even have your own house (kind of) where you live together, and last night you got to sleep in his bed with him after a nightmare.

You blush, shaking the thought from your head as you bite the polar bear's head off, only to realize that Carl’s been intently staring at you.

Your brows unfurrow and you stop chewing, swallowing with a gulp.

“Hm?”

“Nothin’,” He says quickly, averting his gaze. “There's a lot more I want to show you.”

He tries to pull you away from the stand, but you stay firmly planted, pointing at the man who's actually handing out the fruit sticks.

Pay? Trade?

“Oh, no,” Carl laughs, the awkward tension from before gone as he points at all the other people running up to get sticks and walking away. “You don't have to give them anythin’ for what you get here. It works like that for most places, especially if their product is labor based like fruit. As long as you do your part in the community, everythin’ is free.”

Huh… Weird. You unplant your feet and let him lead you to the next cart, one where an older woman is selling blankets and home made pastries.

It looks like a square donut covered in something white, but the woman tells you that it's a beignet, something famous where she came from before.

She tells you a story about a famous man playing jazz right outside her window, confetti constantly all over the street and beaded necklaces getting thrown up into the flower pots on her balcony. –Says Hilltop is nowhere near as big and bright as her hometown.

You beg Carl to let you try one despite his worries about you getting sick and eventually he gives in, feeding you the pastry by hand. Apparently she's told him this story several times before and always makes him take a bag full of the sweet treat, which she does again. One for each of you.

That leads Carl to make another stop, into one of the storefronts where he pushes you forward and tells the man working that you need a bag. He shows you several, including a ridiculously bright orange one with pink accents and a flower decal, which would instantly get you killed in the woods despite how cute it is.

You settle on a camo backpack with black straps, the logo half ripped off and a few wonky stars drawn in places with a black marker. It's definitely used, but it's tougher than the other options he showed you.

Carl gives you another look, staring, but he recovers faster this time and loads the pastries into your backpack, leading you forward.

As soon as you're outside the shop, the sound of metal on metal can be heard down the road.

A few people abandon their stalls and walk down to crowd around the large tarped permanent structure with smoke billowing out from under it. It stands out from the rest of the places around Hilltop, with its blackened medieval structure and leather tarps, clearly built for durability instead of aesthetic. You'd think the building was for food if the smell of ash didn't rise so powerfully.

“Blacksmith?” You question, tentatively stepping closer with wide eyes.

“Yeah, uh–” He puts his hand in yours again, tugging. You hadn't even realized you'd let go of him. “I don't think we should go there today. –The blacksmith made some new swords and people have been sparrin’ off and on. It could be dangerous…”

That sounds amazing. You have to see it. You want to try it.

“One peek?” You plead, watching the crowd gasp in awe.

He can tell by the mischievous glint in your eye that you plan on pushing him for more the second he gives in and lets you go over there.

“Bambi, I don't think that's a good idea,” Carl repeats more firmly. “You’re coughin’ already, it's only goin’ to get worse if you inhale smoke.”

“But…” You trail off, feeling discouraged by the tension in Carl’s posture.

You used to spar all the time, get into good natured fights that left your knuckles and noses bleeding. It was fulfilling. He fought with the skill of someone trained by a cop, and you fought with the cunning of someone used to ripping their way out of restraints. At the end of the day you'd pushed each other past your limits and learned how to defend yourself better.

“I don't wanna see you get hurt,” Carl says, urging you away from the crowd and back towards the rows of market.

You frown, sighing as you unplant your feet to continue letting him lead you around. “Okay.”

He only has your best interests at heart, it's not his fault everyone's treating you this way.

“I promise we'll come ‘n see him together. –Another day when it's less busy and the coals aren't goin’,” He comforts.

“Mm,” You hum noncomittally.

The two of you wind up exploring a majority of the market Hilltop has to offer. You excitedly follow Carl to every booth he leads you past, trying to map it all out in your head despite the overload of colorful visual information and sound you're receiving.

You try to convince him to dance with you when you come across a man playing the violin in a group of drunken people taking a break, but he flushes and refuses, promising again that the two of you will dance when he’s sure you’re feeling well enough to.

Eventually the sky begins tinting orange and Carl leads you to a neighborhood, collapsing into sitting down against a cinderblock holding up a trailer, sighing contentedly.

“So… how was your first real tour of Hilltop?” He asks with a grin as you shove a vegetable skewer into your mouth, licking your fingers in a way that reminds him so much of Daryl he does a double take.

“Awesome,” You smile, licking your lips. “I need to do it like a hundred more times, I feel like I'm already forgetting where we started.”

“Good, because I want to take you there a hundred more times,” He laughs, then slowly the smile on his face turns into a contemplative frown.

“Carl?”

He takes your other hand in his so that he's holding both of them, squeezing and rubbing with a serious look on his face.

Is this it? Does he know? Did he figure it out, or worse are you showing somehow?

“I have a question,” He says softly, voice honest. “And don't take this the wrong way. I don't care what the answer is, I want you to know that. It's you I care about.”

You swallow hard, chest aching with sadness.

You'd barely gotten the chance to be with him the way you'd wanted to be and now it's all over. He'll never trust you again, hell, he might not even talk to you. He probably hates your guts and only pretended to want to hang out with you today to give you closure because he's kind like that.

“Are you a boy?” He asks abruptly, pulling you from your thoughts.

You raise your eyes to his, face scrunching up with confusion as you look between him and pointedly at your chest, which he's seen bare.

“No… I mean,” He pauses, making a soft scoff because he can't think of the right words. “Are you a boy?” He accentuates by pointing at your chest and shifting the aim to your face.

“Mm? Mm-mm,” You shake your head, puzzled by the question.

“Well… are you a girl?” He asks next.

You think about this one longer, frowning with frustration at the memories of looking at yourself in the mirror and wondering why you were so inadequate. Nothing like the women you wished to be like, chest flat, shoulders too broad yet too soft to be a man's. You wished you could be seen like a girl, wished to be worthy of delicate items you held like glass, worried your existence would tarnish them. The way Enid and Judith and all the other girls stared at you like an outsider despite knowing yourself that you were disguised.

You lower your head. “I just don't think it should matter…”

You'll never understand why people fixate on your gender so much.

“It makes me mad,” You say slowly, a frown on your face. “I do my best and it's never good enough because people expect worse now. They treat me different.”

And you're constantly afraid.

Your shield has been taken. –And as soon as it was, the worst thing that could have happened did.

Before Daryl found you, you'd been hiding yourself for a long time because you knew what happened to girls that got caught. You knew what sick and twisted things they'd do, especially to the ones that were alone like you were. Yet the time that you finally faced this reality, you'd been surrounded by a group you were a part of, chest bound and hair cut short.

It was all for nothing. You punished and pushed yourself to the brink just to be taken advantage of anyway because you were weak.

Carl nods slowly, taking the information in. “Okay… I think I get it.”

He doesn’t. Because he doesn't know. Because you've been lying to him.

“You say you don't care about the answer, but clearly it means something or you wouldn't have asked,” You whisper, feeling tears well up in your eyes.

He never used to pay you any attention. You wouldn't be here like this if he hadn't found out that you were a girl.

You try to pull your hands out of his and he bites his lower lip, squirming where he sits as he holds them tighter.

“Bambi,” He coos.

You turn your head away.

“Please?” He asks. “Just listen?”

You nod. You can do that. Listen to him and give him a chance to explain what he's thinking, even if you don't want to hear it.

“I… never… like, suspected that you weren't a guy or anythin’…” He gulps with a shaky voice, cheeks dusting a light pink. “But even before I knew, I… I liked you a lot–” He chokes out, grip tightening on you anxiously. “I liked spendin’ time with you, and laughin’ at stupid jokes, and havin’ you in my room...”

You smile softly. “‘Liked you too.”

He shakes his head, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip. “Bambi, I…”

He takes another deep breath.

“I thought you were cute… and amazin’. There was nothin’ you couldn't do if you set your mind to it. Every second of your voice I got to hear –every laugh or sigh I managed to get out of you– played on loop in my head every time I tried to go to sleep…” He pauses, looking very much like he wants to cry. “I-I tried to forget about it, but I couldn't. I didn't care if you were a guy, I liked you. –It's never mattered to me what you are, as long as it's you.”

By the end of his explanation he's lightly panting through his mouth, teary eye pleading for you to be okay with this, to not judge him.

Me too, you sign, leaning in and giving him another kiss on the lips.

He moans in relief and appreciation, grabbing the back of your neck to gently hold you in the position until you decide to pull away or deepen the kiss.

You pull away, staring into his eye and the bandage covering his empty socket.

You want to yank the gauze right off his face and press kisses all along the seam of his scar, stare into the depths of the beautiful crater keeping him alive.

“You're beautiful,” You tell him, because it's true and he doesn't hear it enough.

He lets out a disbelieving laugh that comes out more of a huff than anything else, looking away from you for a moment.

“So are you,” He sighs, rubbing his hand along your jaw and down to the base of your neck. “Every version. No matter what.”

You look down at your feet guiltily, thinking about how he's going to react when he finds out about what happened and still might be happening to you right now. –You're not stupid enough to think a boy his age will want to stick around in the apocalypse if you find out that you're… pregnant.

You remember hearing people laugh about teen boys from your town running out on their pregnant girlfriends, never to be seen again. You were just a little kid back then. You couldn't really grasp what they were talking about.

“You know you can tell me anythin’... Don't you?” Carl whispers, hand starting to massage your neck with a steady squeeze and release, mimicking the tight full body squeezes that soothe you.

You nod half-heartedly.

“Bambi…?” He coos again, leaning back in so close your noses are almost touching.

You lower your head, cheeks flushing as you stare up at him through your lashes.

He starts to grin, voice turning sing-songy. “Bambi, come on. Tell me what's wrong.”

You shake your head, lips turning up into a slight smile at the sight of his.

He starts to laugh when a duffle bag drops down into the dirt between you, jagged metal pieces clanging together loudly as it hits the ground and you jump away from noise.

“Hah,” Daryl pants, grin pulled tight on his lips as he glances between you. “I finished early ‘n decided I'd come hang out with ya’.”

“Oh, you don't have to–” Carl is cut short when the man plops down between you, putting his arms around both of your shoulders to keep you firmly separated. “Uh… Okay.”

Daryl stares Carl down, tongue tucked into his cheek.

“So what're we doin’, ah?” He asks, clearly wanting Carl to explain what the two of you are doing and why you were so close together. The more lost Carl looks, the harder Daryl’s glare seems to get.

“Talking…” You answer quietly.

Daryl turns his attention to you next, patting you on the back so hard with false enthusiasm you have to move your foot to keep your balance.

“About what?”

You cringe, looking away from his prying gaze uncomfortably.

A few moments pass in awkward silence, your hands fidgeting in your lap and Carl’s in his, before the pressure is just too much to withstand anymore.

Carl stands and your heart sinks.

“Bambi, I think I'm gonna go,” He grumbles, but then instead of standing up and backing off like he'd done yesterday, he leans over Daryl to wrap his arms around you in a hug, snuggling into your neck with a concealed peck before he pulls away. “I'll see you tomorrow,” He smiles, waving as he walks off.

You pull your lips into your mouth, trying and failing to hide the grin on your face as you wave back.

Daryl scowls, grumbling as he watches him go.

“Don't let that boy do anythin’ you don't want him to,” He warns. “Grabbin’ you like that is just askin’ to get punched.”

“I like him,” You say softly, staring after him with so much adoration it’s scary.

Daryl gulps.

“I’m bein’ serious. Don’t let him do anythin’ to you, Bea,” He repeats, voice wavering. “Friends are great, but… that doesn’t mean you owe ‘em anythin’. I-I know it can be confusin’ when you, you know, start feelin’ a certain kind of way as you get older, but–”

You cringe so hard it physically hurts, audibly sucking a breath in through clenched teeth.

“I’m just sayin’ I don’t want the two of you makin’ a mistake,” He finishes awkwardly by regurgitating Rick's words to him, turning his head away from you.

You think about letting the conversation end there, busying yourself with relacing your boots despite the knots they were in being perfectly fine, but you decide to test the waters. You want to know what he thinks as someone who –sort of– knows what happened to you.

“...What if I like him as more than a friend?” You ask slowly, heart pounding fiercely in your chest.

“You can’t,” He says quickly.

You raise your head to look at him with confusion, feeling something inside you start to crack. “I… can’t?”

You're looking to Daryl for advice in one of the most delicate situations of your life, and looking at those big, wet eyes he doesn't know what to say. –Saying the wrong thing here is not an option, but picking the right thing is like stepping into a minefield of ways to misinterpret it. It could change the rest of your life and the way you see yourself.

“You shouldn’t,” He amends, looking panicked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Carl’s a good kid but you’re–”

Not, your brain supplies when he fails you.

You feel your heart shatter into a million pieces as you watch him stumble over a few more words he can’t get out, unable to find a nice way to break it to you. –You’re damaged, that’s all. He doesn’t have to tell you.

You tried so hard to be good, but you just can't. You're always going to fail Daryl, and Carl, and everyone else you love.

Your entire body is shaking where you sit next to him, knees against your chest and fingers slowly flexing against your calves in a way that looks angry.

“Bea,” Daryl says, trying to reach for you.

You smack his hand away, snatching up your bag and running off as fast as you can.

---

Fic Chapterlist

1) If reader were to say anything to break him out of the fantasy he's built up in his head about her and their relationship, he would most definitely respond with aggression and possessiveness. When they go out, if she happens to look at any man other than him, even by accident, he'll get wildly jealous and probably accuse her of wanting to leave him because of his underlying insecurity about the way he used to cheat on Lucille and the way he walked away from their relationship. He might also start typing messages to Lucille because he feels guilty, but he won't send them. Not because of pride, but because he's too childish to change his ways.

2) Checking into the motel that day is pretty uneventful. Nobody says anything because reader is immediately wandering around the small lobby/main office and looking at different things, maybe checking what the vending machine offers and such, but when Negan finishes checking in and calls her over to follow him to their room it raises a few eyebrows. Some people may have mistaken him for her dad, but not for long. Maybe someone who recognizes one or both of them from around town even realizes what's happening when they catch sight of the singular key between them and the bag over his shoulder, if not, people definitely realize when she starts wearing his clothes around the place for the duration of their stay. Problem is (or it would be a good thing for them) nobody says anything directly. They avert their eyes and gossip in private.

3) This is definitely the hardest one to answer and will probably change the most between now and when I get around to writing the fic. I picture their relationship as being sweet and loving, but the power imbalance is going to be very apparent. He gets annoyed when she gets distracted. He grimaces when she misses the references he makes. When she plays a new song he doesn't know, he makes her turn it off and complains about how it sounds. He puts his foot down when he doesn’t want her to do something and she listens because she thinks he knows better. He's jealous, and afraid, and it makes him do stupid things but she forgives him because she's naive. When she talks about the future and her dreams or brings up wanting to go to school, he flips the fuck out because he's worried she'll realize he's everything Lucille warned her about. In the end, though, they love each other and they find a way even if it means taking a break. (If they do take a break) He doesn't give up on her, he gives her a place to stay and tries to support and protect her because he really does care about her.

4) The first time, he wouldn't get too kinky with her. He would overstimulate her and make her cry, but he wouldn't go as far as to tie her up or anything crazy. He wants her to enjoy it, because next time he's not going to be so nice. Over time he'd incorporate more dom/sub elements and probably take it too far at times with different kinks, but he always takes care of her during sub-drops. He'd love making her cry, but even more than that he'd like how shamelessly clingy she'd get afterward. He might even explore con-noncon, but it's likely reader probably wouldn't enjoy that as much as some of the other things he tries with her. You are definitely right, he wants full control over what she does especially during his more jealous moments and he'll do what he has to in order to get it. He might even take her places (like maybe a bar with a few familiar faces) and touch her to varying degrees in front of people to make them uncomfortable and show them that she's his. He won't share.

+) Negan would absolutely be in love with the idea of breeding her, make comments about it during sex and leave her full of him, but he would not handle her getting pregnant well. It's something he'd try to avoid at all costs because for him that means there's no out of the relationship. He would never willingly abandon his own child/children, so if it were to happen he'd probably pull away from her for a decent amount of time. He's immature, he doesn't want to spend time changing diapers when he could have a controller in his hands. One day, he'll see her with a kid that's not their's and probably realize she's good with them. That she deserves one, if she wants it. So he'll acquiesce and knock her up. If it's a girl, he'll dote on her like crazy and treat her like a princess. If it's a boy, he'll still dote on him but he'll try to teach him to be a better man than he ever was. No matter the gender, he'll hope to hell the kid takes after reader.

They're farther away than you initially thought they'd be, and apparently they haven't spotted you in the corner… Which makes sense, because technically you were trying to hide when you picked that spot to wait.

“Think she went in already?” Carol asks hesitantly, shifting on her feet to look down the hallway instead of facing the direction you're in. –When she turns back, you duck your head behind the door to avoid being seen. “...What are the chances?”

For what feels like the millionth time today, Daryl rubs a hand down his face, index and thumb pausing to rub tiredly at the corners of his eyes.

“She wouldn't have,” He sighs, breath shaking on the exhale. “Is there any other way out of this building?” He asks, and to your surprise he doesn't sound the least bit disappointed or angry at you, even thinking you tried to escape the appointment.

“Not that I know–”

You let out a cough to get their attention, knocking on the wall behind you.

Daryl's eyes flick up to the source of the noise, then soften when they meet yours.

“Bea, sorry,” He apologizes, looking relieved. “Thanks for waiting, kid.”

“Mm,” You hum, shrugging.

Daryl pauses when he notices some faint movement behind your back, one of your hands digging into the other arm to try and prevent your hands from shaking the way that they are.

You're getting better at hiding things from him. If he hadn't noticed, your poker face would probably have been too good for him to notice anything else was amiss.

He turns away from you, looking down the hallway towards Siddiq's office.

The walls are clean and smooth like they’ve just been painted, the grain of the wood flooring twisting to hypnotically lead his eyes to a single room. His vision begins to swim and go dark at the edges when he stares at the clinical, hospital-like hallway for too long, the natural daylight –the only light in this building– too dim to focus as sharply as he would be able to outside in the open.

It feels like the hall stretches on forever.

‘Makes him feel sick.

“You doin' okay?” He asks, already knowing that all you're going to respond with is a shrug and a noise to let him know that you heard the question before you do it.

You're so easy to read.

Daryl turns back to look at you, jaw clenched as he takes another deep breath.

“Well, I'm scared.”

A jolt of panic goes through you at the admission, your eyes growing wide. If he's afraid and he's not even the one being examined, how should you be feeling right now? How are you meant to hold it together when Daryl, the strongest person you know, can’t?

Your hands fall to your sides, still shaking as your lip begins quivering and your brows turn up in a panic.

Carol snaps her head towards Daryl, giving the man her best What the fuck? look, but he ignores her and steps forward, holding his arm out to you.

“–Will you hold my hand?” He finishes, his voice cracking with the weight of the emotions he's trying to keep at bay.

You look down at it, then back up at him, before eagerly clasping your hands together and squeezing his palm tightly. Your shoulders come up to shield your neck and you step close to him, taking your place at his side with a soft, dry sob.

“You’re alright,” He hushes, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand. “You’re safe. –I’ve got you, Bea.”

He takes a single step towards the infirmary, pausing to look down and make sure you’re doing alright before he takes another and so on. By the time you’ve made it to the open door at the end of the hall, the tremors have made their way up through your arms and to the rest of your body.

Siddiq looks up from his desk and you squeeze Daryl’s hand tighter, swallowing hard.

He squeezes back.

“Ah– Hello again, Bambi,” The man greets sweetly.

Carol walks in after you and leans up against the doorframe, preventing it from shutting all the way. –Which you don’t notice, but not hearing the deafening sound of the door shutting behind you like back in that cell at the Savior’s base significantly reduces the amount of stress you’re under.

You take a seat on the exam table, not letting go of Daryl’s hand, even as you struggle to climb onto it. Once you’ve gotten situated you turn around to look at Rick standing in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest, who briefly softens to offer you a tight, weary smile.

Jerk. He's why Daryl made you come here.

The sound of wheels gets your attention and you face forward, surprised to see Siddiq has wheeled over to you on his chair with a notepad in hand.

“All settled?” He asks, the subtle smile on his lips never wavering.

It weirds you out that he’s acting so differently than the other adults in the room, but it’s also kind of a relief that he's not putting so much pressure on you and what's going to happen here.

You shrug at him with one shoulder, scrunching up your nose with a sniff.

He nods to himself, like he expected as much. –Mostly because he did.

Siddiq tried to tell Rick he wasn't qualified for this kind of thing –especially since he's hardly a doctor as it is– but the man wouldn't take no for an answer and it was kind of difficult to refuse with Daryl actively trying to throttle him a few feet away, so he agreed.

And he read. A lot.

He pretty much turned Hilltop inside out looking for any books that might help him help you, from medical journals and psychological analyses to somewhat dramatized retellings of the impact of being victimized at your age. It was hard, but it helped give him some parameters to work with and he began practicing what he was going to say and how he would act in the room with you.

He decided to avoid standing up if he could so he wouldn’t seem physically imposing, to raise the pitch of his voice slightly, but not enough to come across as condescending or like he’s baby-talking you, and to avoid looking at you for too long. –Hence the notepad and pen, which could also double as a method of communication for you if need be.

“It’s nice to see you,” Siddiq says cheerfully, directed at you, but with a fleeting glance to the adults in the room. “Although I'm sure you'd rather not be seeing me right now.”

The room is completely silent.

“Ahem. So…” He clears his throat, making his voice softer, "Do you know why you're here?”

You nod slowly. The test.

“Good, good. That's good,” He says in response to the nods, his smile faltering for a fraction of a second as he scoots back a bit, looking down at the notepad. “Have you been feeling any… discomfort?”

You touch your stomach with your free hand. Hurts.

“Okay, some stomach pain. I heard you've been nauseous lately too,” He writes something down, then looks back up at you. “What about elsewhere? Have you been… itchy or does it hurt when you use the bathroom at all?”

Your upper lip curls involuntarily at the thought and you shake your head.

“Okay, that's good too,” He says, smile getting tighter like he's struggling to maintain it while he thinks about his next question, sending a nervous glance to the man standing at your side. “Uhm, Bambi, do you have any idea when your last menstrual cycle was?”

You blink at him, feeling Daryl’s hand twitch in yours.

“...Before,” You say scratchily, not willing to let go of Daryl’s hand for any complex signs.

Siddiq scrunches his nose at the sound of your voice, kicking back until his chair hits the desk behind him, then rifling through the drawers until he finds a small off-white pouch. “You like candy, don't you, Bambi?”

You narrow your eyes skeptically, starting to turn your head towards Daryl for direction when Siddiq opens the bag and holds one of what he was looking for up for you.

It looks like a cough drop, small and oval shaped except it's flat, and the bag is filled with a bunch of different colors.

“Hm?” You hum in a questioning tone.

“This is like candy, except it's going to help with your voice and your throat,” He explains, dropping it into your free hand from a distance to let you inspect it. “–And it's not medicated, so you don't have to worry about waiting between them. Take as many or as little as you like.”

Daryl stares down at it, ready to toss it if he hears anything he doesn’t like. “What's it made of?”

“Honey, a bit of tea, some fruit… an alternative to sugar, and some starch they had leftover from the bakery,” The man answers, his voice dipping until he looks back at you, realizing his slip up. “I promise it's good.”

You roll it over in your palm, frowning.

Then you tip your head back and pop it into your mouth, using your tongue to push it around as you try to decide if it's agreeable or not. It's hard, but it leaves this weird coating on your throat like lotion, and it's only vaguely sweet because of whatever flavor it's supposed to be.

You lick your lips anyway, loosely signing, Thank you.

A genuine smile spreads across Siddiq's face when you decide to trust him, relief joining the mix soon after when Daryl backs down seeing you accept the candy.

“You said the last time you bled was before you were taken… Do you know how long before you were taken?” He asks, holding eye contact for slightly longer than he had before.

“Hm…” You squint, trying to think back, but coming up empty. It was definitely... longer than it should have been. “Mm-mm.”

It was so infrequent before that when it came you were more focused on hiding it than the actual process of it… Not to mention you often found yourself in the woods, covered in walker blood without access to any hygiene products. It's not like they can go look at the burned up supply logs from Alexandria and check when you took (stole) some.

“Do you remember how long they would last? –Were they regular, to your understanding?”

You shake your head. “Short.”

“I see…” He mutters, brows raising as he sets the notepad and pen down, scooting closer. “May I touch your stomach?”

You make a noise of protest, yanking away despite the man not having lifted a finger to actually touch you when he slides closer. Daryl catches you with his free arm before you can fall backwards off of the table or run and wraps it around your chest.

“S'okay, you're okay,” He mutters into your hair while you growl, getting louder as he announces the second bit. “I ain't lettin’ nobody put their hands on you.”

He glares at the doctor, who slides back again while he patiently waits for you to calm down with his hands visible in his lap.

You aren't scared.

You aren't. You're angry and uncomfortable. –Nervous too, about whatever’s going on between the adults and why they’re so deadset on trying to hide the obvious conflict from you.

If things were normal, then Daryl would be acting normal instead of frantically whispering into your ear like you’re a ticking bomb, Carol would be gone by now, and Rick wouldn’t be here at all. Especially not watching like this, like he knows something you don’t and has the right to make choices for you like forcing you to come here.

He can push Daryl around, and by consequence, you. Which makes you want to do anything to prove him wrong. Show him he's not as in control as he thinks.

You could throw a fit, smash everything, or try to run away…

But you don't want to be bad, you want to be good, for Daryl.

You let out an angry chuff through clenched teeth while staring at the doctor, lifting your shoulder to put some room between Daryl’s face and yours, still unable to shake the feeling you woke up with this morning.

Siddiq's eyes are soft and understanding, even as he meets the malice in yours. He lifts his hands in surrender.

“It's alright, I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to. I mostly asked that as an example anyhow,” He says, voice softer again. “...Some of the questions I'm going to ask you today might make you feel uncomfortable or scared, and when I do, feel free to not answer. –I won't push.”

You hate this. You hate him. You hate that he's being so nice to you when you know you really don't deserve it at all.

He leans forward in the chair, lacing his fingers together and fidgeting slightly as he gives another unsure glance to the rest of the room. “Do you understand what consent is?”

You nod against Daryl’s body.

“So you know whatever happened there... in the bad place, was wrong, right? –And you know it wasn't your fault?” He asks, trying to get you to look at him and put your trust in him again.

You press yourself further into Daryl, briefly disengaging.

“Siddiq,” Rick warns from the corner of the room.

It's a single word, his name, but it sounds so harsh and angry.

The doctor sits up straight, looking at the other man with hesitation. “I was just trying to–”

“Move on.”

“But, she–”

“Move on,” He repeats with more emphasis.

Siddiq looks back over at you, concern blanketing his features, but he swallows and slowly seems to manage to push it down for the sake of getting through this appointment. You're not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

He seems progressively more uncomfortable in the situation they've forced him into by asking him to have a look at you, and you feel for him. You don't want to be here either.

You take a deep breath and try to settle down the familiar rattle in your skin.

“Before you were gone, had you ever had any encounters that might have led to pregnancy?” He asks delicately, showing no signs of judgement.

You shake your head.

Siddiq pauses before his next question, looking contemplative. “...What made you think you needed a test?”

Everything.

From the sensation of hands across your body to the pain of being taken at whim and thrown around like a ragdoll, the torture room, then the helplessness of hunger like you've never known, and then coming back to the only place you felt safe, only… you are different. Every fear you didn't have a name for came true before you could articulate it, and now it feels like you're permanently marked. –Hurts worse than any brand or burns on your skin ever could.

But that's impossible to explain, so instead, you shrug.

Again and again, that's all you ever seem to do.

“Okay…” Siddiq says slowly, eyes narrowing as he cocks his head at you, trying to put the incomplete pieces he has together. You're not making it easy on him.

He straightens out, leaning back in his chair again and crossing his arms over his chest, slouching.

“Let's talk about something else, then,” He says, skipping past his last question. “What about since you've been back?”

You wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “Mm?”

“Have you had any sexual encounters since you've been back?” He rephrases, not backing down.

“Hey,” Daryl hisses at him, letting go of you. “I've been with her this whole time. Ain't nobody been near this kid like that! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

At the same time, Rick’s arms drop and he starts shouting from the corner, stepping forward. “Siddiq! That's enough.”

The doctor shrugs them off, giving them stern looks. “Victims of–" He stops, eyes flicking to you, then back. "Victims are more likely to be assaulted again than people who've never been assaulted. Not to mention, if someone has been close enough to get a better look at the totality of her injuries they might be able to give us a better picture of what we're dealing with. –So sit down, and let me do my job… please.”

Rick looks thoroughly chastized, slowly moving back to the corner with his shoulders tensed.

But Daryl doesn't go back to holding you, instead starting to round the table to make his way over to Siddiq.

“Nauh! You're standin’ over here talkin’ about how this kid might be raped again on our watch!” He shouts angrily, fists balling up. “You're probably scarin’ the shit outta her!”

Your lips part at the word he uses and you lean away from him on the table, humiliation burning your cheeks.

“Daryl!” Carol shouts furiously, grabbing the back of his shirt to stop him.

“Get the fuck offa’ me!” Daryl shoves her away with his elbow, making sure the joint doesn't actually connect anywhere on her to do any damage. “I'm gonna kill him!”

“Get a hold of yourself!” The woman shouts back, pulling as hard as she can until Daryl finally gives in, slamming his fist into the wall and leaving the room with her.

…Leaving you alone with Rick and Siddiq, who noticeably gets further away from you, sighing.

“Jesus fuckin’ christ,” Rick shakily whispers to himself, pinching his brow between his fingers.

You hear Daryl yelling in the hallway for a while, but eventually the sound fades and you hear the doors to the building open and slam closed, sending another burst of panic through you.

He just… left.

You can hardly believe it. He left you alone when he knew you were absolutely petrified to be here.

Siddiq turns when he hears you make a noise while pulling your knees up to your chest, watching you subtly rocking yourself for a moment before he says anything else.

“Bambi…?” He calls softly, waiting until you look at him. “Do you want to stop? We can always pick up another day and–”

You rapidly shake your head.

You don't want there to be another day of this. You can't handle having to go through this again.

“Okay, that's alright,” He agrees, keeping his distance. “Are you willing to answer my last question?”

You close your eyes, slowly working up the courage to nod without having the added pressure of seeing the inevitable disappointment and disgust that will cross his features. They’re going to be angry. They’re going to think all kinds of horrible things about you because of what you did when you came back.

When you nod, it’s jerky, your reluctance showing through it.

“I’m sorry…” You whisper quietly, voice breaking apart.

While your eyes are closed, Rick perks up in the corner looking absolutely mortified. He feels nauseated. If Siddiq hadn't asked that, if they had cut the man off earlier, they never would have known. You could have been victimized over and over again, in their new home by one one of their own and they never would have guessed. –You certainly wouldn’t have said anything about it.

The doctor has to bite his tongue to prevent himself from saying anything like before or letting a string of incoherent cursing out.

“Was…” He chokes on the word, the air in his lungs vanishing. “Was it consensual?”

You nod again, faster this time.

He doesn't know what he would have done if you had said no.

Rick lets out a sigh of relief, tipping his head back and lightly hitting it against the wall, which elicits a cautionary half-turn from you.

“Do you feel like you want to do more things like that now? –Like it's the only way to feel good?” He continues, feeling his palms start to sweat nervously. He doesn't like this line of questioning. It makes him feel sicker than he already does, but it's necessary, he reminds himself. All of this is necessary. “How often are you…?”

You shake your head, whispering, “Once,” so broken it's barely audible.

“You–” Siddiq finally breaks, voice cutting out as he turns his head away. “Sorry, I– I need a minute.”

One minute becomes two, then three, before he's able to face you again with the positive attitude he started the appointment with.

He just has to remember, you're a child taking cues from the people around you. If he's nervous and panicky and breaks down right here or worse, snaps like Daryl did, it's going to set a precedent for you. You might be less inclined to speak up in the future.

He’s no psychiatrist –again, barely a doctor– but he thinks that might cause you some long-term psychological damage.

“You've only been intimate with someone once since you've been back?” He repeats for confirmation, giving you a small smile when you nod again. “Okay. –That's okay. Did the person use protection?”

You shake your head.

He cringes on the inside. That could be a problem. “Am I allowed to ask who–”

You shake your head harder, your back starting to tingle because you can't watch it with your eyes closed and Daryl isn't here to protect you anymore. He left. He left you and you want to cry, but that’s not going to make him come back.

“Why are they a secret?” He asks gently, smile beginning to fade again. “…Did they ask you to keep them a secret?”

You slow the shaking of your head, looking away from him as you answer, “I'm bad.”

There are a lot of things you can’t control anymore, but there’s one person left you can protect. They can force you to do whatever they want, but you’ll never give Carl up. He's innocent.

“No, you’re n–” Siddiq chokes again, this time harder, but he spins around in his chair so that he's facing away from you before you can see it.

Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, every terrible thing he read coming back to haunt him, but he absolutely refuses to let them fall with you in the room.

He pulls himself together and turns back around, voice trembling with anger as he tries to reassure you. “You're not bad, Bambi. –I am so, so sorry that people are making you feel this way. It's not fair, none of this is, but I promise you it's not true. You aren’t here right now because you’re in trouble, or because you hid things from them. You're here because everyone loves you and they’re scared.”

You don't respond, using the toe of your shoe to scuff the table.

Siddiq can't take this anymore. He needs a break from all this tension.

It might be harder to enjoy yourself without your guardian around, but Siddiq is going to try and keep you soothed for as long as you're in his care.

“What kind of music do you like to listen to, Bambi?” He asks, gliding over to the CD player in the corner.

+

+

+

“I’m not going to make her take the test,” Siddiq says hesitantly.

“What?” Rick gapes, keeping his voice low.

Daryl, who had been coaxed back inside by Carol after another lecture, feels a massive weight roll off his shoulders despite himself. It would be better to conclusively know whether you’re pregnant or not, but Daryl doesn’t like the mental image of you being forced to take a test like that. –Especially after the way he acted in the room with you.

He can still see the look of terror in your eyes, unable to communicate enough to stop him or make it through the shouting as he left.

Siddiq purses his lips, teething the bottom one as he tries to articulate his reasoning.

“Given her situation… I don't think it would be right to push her on this. It's the only thing she wants control over. Forcing her would be violating,” The man pauses, looking a little uncomfortable. “Quite frankly from what she's told me, and what I've observed, I don't think it matters whether she's pregnant or not. –It's not viable.”

The relief he felt just moments ago halts, frozen by the news. Even Carol goes uncharacteristically straight at his side, quickly grabbing his shoulder in the hopes of preventing another outburst. “What'dya mean?”

“Her hormones are out of balance so she never developed properly, she has poor nutrition, she's under a lot of stress, she lives in a community where she's constantly around smoke…” He lists out. “If the pregnancy actually took, it probably wouldn't last long. –Certainly not to term. Her body can't physically handle it.”

Siddiq looks at the door of the exam room, picturing you sitting on the table right now, waiting to be told you're free.

“I'd be more apologetic about that bit, had she seemed to want it at all,” He amends, purposefully avoiding the fearful looks he's getting.

Rick clenches his jaw. “Let’s be glad that’s not something we have to deal with.”

“She can't physically handle it, what does that mean?” Daryl repeats under his breath, his heart pounding dangerously in his chest. “You're sayin’ she don't need to take the test, but you're also sayin’ she can't handle bein’ pregnant? –What does that mean?”

Carol squeezes his shoulder so that her fingers dig into his skin, the pain an attempt to distract him.

“What if it does? –Last?” Rick asks anxiously.

The doctor's response doesn't inspire confidence.

“There's no way,” Siddiq says with a grimace, shaking his head. “If that child gives birth, she'd die. Not even. She probably wouldn't make it through the first few months with a baby taking as much nutrients as it does. –And no matter how far the baby makes it, there's absolutely no chance it would come into this world healthy. Then without a mother, well… you get the picture.”

Daryl swipes a hand down his face, starting to get that same overwhelmed panicky feeling he got in the exam room again. –The feeling he got when he realized he was completely incapable of helping you. “How do we even fix that? A hormone imbalance in the damn apocalypse…”

Carol loosens her grip, starting to reassuringly stroke his back instead of holding him in place.

“Is it hurtin’ her?” Rick asks.

Siddiq hums, brows furrowing as he thinks through what he knows. “Difficult to say…” He mumbles. “If I had to pick symptoms that Bambi might be experiencing that are exacerbated by it, I'd say the quick weight loss, anxiety, maybe some depression… if the vomiting isn't a sign of pregnancy, that too.”

“No, no, no,” Daryl says in a wheeze, turning away like he's going to walk again. “Carol, please take her… Please?”

“I'll take her back to the barn,” Carol says tersely, a deep frown settling on her face.

She looks at Siddiq for permission before slipping into the office and closing the door behind her, then shortly after comes back out with you in tow.

Siddiq gives you a sad smile, his eyes still bloodshot from holding back earlier. The second he left the room he vomited.

“Goodbye, Bambi,” He says softly, raising his left hand. “I hope you feel much better the next time we meet.”

You stare at him.

Ultimately, when he offered to play music he ended up playing two blues songs and an old rock CD that had Rick tapping his foot, and eventually, full on dad-dancing in the back of the examination room.

You couldn’t help the light laughter it pried out of you– it was ridiculous.

And where Siddiq could have given you any old medicine or forced you to drink bitter tea leaves, he went out of his way to turn what you needed into an enjoyable, familiar-looking candy.

You smile softly back at him and Siddiq's own falls to something stunned, the rest of the adults following suit when you slap your hand against his in a high-five.

“I get why Carl likes you,” You say softly, tonguing the candy in your cheek.

The man breaks out into the most genuine smile you've seen on his face all day as he stands up straighter, giving Rick and Daryl knowing looks in a silent communication you're not a part of.

“C'mon, let's go get you some food, kid,” Carol says, starting to walk off. She doesn't get very far before you rush to her side, shoulders brushing. “I feel like cookin' today, are you interested? –I might even make a batch of my cookies.”

You nod excitedly, rushing out a, “Yes, please!”

Daryl watches the two of you go and feels his gut twist painfully. –He wants to be the one at your side, comforting you in all the right ways and sure of what needs to be done next to keep you safe, but when he's back here looking at the two of you he could almost mistake you for mother and daughter.

It feels right.

Carol lost her daughter, and you lost your parents. It makes sense that you'd fill the empty places in one another’s lives.

Daryl certainly didn't lose a daughter or sister. He's got no right.

“I’m ‘onna go get a drink,” He grumbles bitterly, brushing off the concerned words of the other two men as he leaves the building and walks in the opposite direction of the barn.

“Daryl, stop!” Rick calls from the steps. “What are you doin’ man? You keep boltin’!”

Daryl doesn’t answer, instead extending his middle finger up behind him.

“Don’t run from this,” He hears from behind him just before he gets out of range. “You’ll regret not bein’ there, brother, trust me.”

Daryl ignores his warning and keeps walking, only to find that the group from earlier around the pit has disbanded, most if not all of the containers left behind sucked completely dry. It looks like the wreckage a college frat would leave in their front yard.

“Damn it,” He hisses, lifting a beer bottle and hucking it across the cold firepit when he finds that it too is empty.

It rolls off a flipped bucket and hits the ground without breaking with an annoyingly polite clink.

He suddenly hears footsteps behind him and slowly turns around, expecting to see someone he knows ready to lecture him. –Probably Carol, based on the withering look she gave him before she led you off, but he also wouldn’t discount the possibility of it being Michonne with the concern she showed earlier.

But where he'd been tensing up for getting another stern talking to or an unbearably one sided conversation, he's instead met with an entirely new face.

And a pretty one, at that.

“Lookin’ for a drink?” The woman asks with a falsely high voice, cocking her head.

She's got dark hair down to her lower back and is, well, Daryl’s not gonna lie, she's well-endowed pretty much everywhere except where her waist dips slightly right at her hip bones.

He wouldn’t care enough to notice if it weren't for how much effort she seems to be putting into putting them on display accentuating those features, something shimmery spread across her cheek bones and the peak of where her breasts meet her rather obviously purposefully cut up shirt, little bits of soft skin standing out from the color of the material.

Which begs the question– Why on earth is she over here talking to him?

“Me?” He asks, sounding completely disinterested as he turns around with a scoff.

“Yeah, you, hot stuff,” She purrs, getting closer. “I dig the whole–” she motions up and down the length of his body, “–wet dog, lone wolf thing you've got goin’ on.”

Daryl stares at her, incredulous. “Me?”

The woman sighs and rolls her eyes, sick of keeping up the character she was going to play if Daryl’s not going to play along. It makes it less fun.

Her voice drops to her regular southern accent. “Yeah, you. –It's hard to find people to fuck nowadays, if you hadn't noticed… So are you interested in doing this or not?”

Short answer, no.

Long answer, absolutely-the-fuck not.

Daryl opens his mouth to let her down, tell her that he should probably be getting back to the kid that's depending on him, his kid, but what comes out instead at the thought of going home is, “Only if you've got booze.”

The woman laughs in her natural register and starts leading him back to her place with a flick of her wrist. It's a small trailer nearly at the opposite end of Hilltop to where the infirmary is. The whole place is messy, clothes and wrappers strewn about everywhere, a few containers of body glitter and a cup of brushes sitting on a bench in front of a mirror like a makeshift vanity.

“What're you lookin’ at?” She asks in that extremely hyper falsetto she'd done earlier, a hand coming up to cover her chest as if offended he's searching her home with his eyes. –And like most things he's discovering about her, it's too much.

“Nothin’...” He shrugs, letting her get close enough to wrap her arms around his neck, warm skin on his.

Up close, the woman reeks of the dead, like she spent all day mucking through their guts and letting it dry in the Virginia sun.

Somehow, though, the proximity makes her less intolerable. From this distance he can see all the streaks in her iris, slow blinks and the careful way she's staring as she leans into his neck, gaze imploring, but her hand ready to reach for her knife if the situation gets out of control.

She doesn't look trained, probably wouldn't even get to sink the knife into him if he was out to hurt her.

He tries not to dwell on any of that, none of it matters, and before long she's got her mouth on his and he's got his around the mouth of a bottle.

He doesn’t know how they manage between all of the tongue and teeth to make it to her bedroom, hell, he only notices because she’s suddenly taking the bottle away from him and setting it on the nightstand, leading his hands to her breasts.

He obliges with a squeeze and she giggles, pushing up into him.

“I think I might like that, mister wolf,” She gasps, back into whatever character she’d been trying to play. “So big and bad. –Handsome, too.”

“Uh-huh,” He agrees mindlessly.

She strips off her shirt and jeans with minimal help, all the while trying to get him to do it for her. He doesn't take the hint, nor does he see all the weird red flags this interaction is raising. He tangles his fingers in the thin straps of her bra and forces the wire clasps open instead of unhooking them.

“Damn it,” She clicks her tongue, pushing her breasts up and laying back on the pillows for him, her skin smooth and tanned from the sun. “Well, it was old anyway… Your turn.”

Daryl ignores the request, reaching over to the bottle on the nightstand to take another swig before he pulls his shirt off and reaches down to unbuckle his pants.

He pauses. “You need anythin’?”

He doesn't want to be rude, but this all happened kind of fast and he's not exactly a lady killer. He's ended up scaring off more women than he's scored with his rough hands and animal pelts.

The woman stares up at him with half-lidded, glazed over eyes like she doesn't really comprehend what he's asking for a moment, until it dawns on her and she cringes, looking away with a frown. “You aren't suppos’ to ask me stuff like that. –Just take it.”

Daryl rolls his eyes with some form of grumbled agreement, reaching for the nightstand himself– but she catches his wrist before he can open it.

“What now?” He grunts, giving her a once over with his eyes. “You ain't gotta be embarrassed, I'm sure I've seen worse than whatever’s in there.”

She spreads her legs, putting the soaked core of her underwear on display for him, batting her eyelashes despite how lewd the whole move is.

“Please, mister wolf?” She whines. “I want it now.”

Daryl turns his head away, massaging his temples. –This ‘mister wolf’ thing is seriously turning him off. It makes him feel creepy.

“Yeah, okay.”

He reaches down and starts to slide her panties off, –but again– she catches his wrist and stops him because whatever he's doing isn't what she wanted him to.

“I thought you were supposed to be rugged and feral,” She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You certainly look like you haven't touched a woman like this in ages.”

“What d'you want from me, huh?” Daryl finally snaps, jerking his arms away from her. “Did you expect me to be some asshole, throwin’ you around ‘n shit?”

Her lips part into a smile and she finally seems to relax beneath him. “That. –Exactly that. Be rough. Push my underwear aside and don't worry about anythin’ except yourself.”

No.

“Fine,” He agrees, pushing his pants down to his knees and caging her beneath him with his arms. “I don't understand why you thought I was gonna be some kind of animal… ‘s offensive.”

“Shut up and–” The woman gasps when he pushes himself inside of her, throwing her head back against the pillows and letting out a desperate moan.

Daryl winces.

He tries to stop and let her readjust, but she starts canting her hips up to meet his, desperate to be filled now that she's had a taste.

“Come on, please, please, please,” She begs, voice high and whiny.

It makes the room temperature beer in his stomach curdle as he thrusts in and out of her a few more times, watching himself disappear into her body.

He keeps seeing things. Tiny flashes he knows his brain made up, but now that he's seen them he can't get them out of his head. Pain. Pain. Pain. It's horrific to imagine being the one doing the damage, but he can't help associating these pained whines with–

The woman lets out this high pitched squeal, a few tears streaming down her face and Daryl just can't take it anymore. He jerks out of her as fast as he can.

“I can't,” He says angrily, his breath shaking as he ducks his head above her. “I can't, I'm sorry.”

“What?” The woman asks, sitting up after him. “You didn't even finish, what the hell is your problem?”

Daryl doesn't answer, pulling up his pants and reaching down to pick his shirt up off the floor on his way out of her home, his skin still crawling.

---

Fic Chapterlist

Carol knows how much he wants to, how much more tantalizing that offer gets the more he hears it. Every time he looks at you he feels like he might break everything in sight, but all of this could be over. So easily, he could leave with her and kill those men to make an example out of them. Daryl’s been to The Sanctuary. Gotten the whole run down on how the Saviors work and what's expected of them. If Negan knew what they did at that outpost, he wouldn't stand by them and he wouldn't retaliate. –At least, not directly.

What they did goes against the Saviors’ rules, the man can't be seen supporting it, otherwise the workers might try usurping him.

Now on the other hand, if say, some rogue Saviors were to go after the remainders of rebel Rick's group and smite them for killing two bases of good men the workers are at least vaguely familiar with, that's a good look. A leader who doles out fair punishments and understands their people's need for justice in a time of grief? That's exactly what he needs right now to get more support. You'd all be playing directly into their hands.

She must understand doing such a thing would also mean betraying Rick and taking risks that shouldn't be taken right now. It would mean putting you, your stability, your home, in a precarious position…Yet she keeps throwing this in his face and has the gall to imply he doesn't want to do it for you when he says no.

“You know I want to,” He snaps, shoulders squaring.

He wants to throw something again, anything. –Make his muscles sore so that he has a valid reason not to take her up on the offer and hightail it out of Hilltop. If he’s weak and exhausted maybe he won’t feel so desperate to leave this place and get his hands bloody. Maybe.

That maybe is doing a lot of work.

Carol turns towards him where she's standing with her arms and legs loosely crossed, her back against one of the wooden support beams keeping the loft up.

“I don't know that I do,” She waves off, feigning ignorance but daring him with her eyes to do something about this.

“Stop it,” Daryl demands, turning away so that the temptation is out of sight. The woman's been dressed and armed to the teeth since she first got him calm yesterday, completely ready to walk out and leave Hilltop at a moment's notice.

“Don't do this to me. I fuckin’ need you right now,” He says desperately, a plea entering his voice. “I ain't got nobody on my side ‘cept you. Everyone else is lookin’ at me like I've lost my damn mind for bein’ this worked up. I need somebody lookin’ out for the kid besides me.”

Carol stays silent.

Her disappointment still reaches him regardless, burning deep inside his chest and pressing up against old wounds.

“I would do anythin’ to fix this,” He hisses, tears coming to his eyes. “When it's safe to, when Rick gives the go ahead, and we get our hands on those bastards, I'm gonna make ‘em feel every bit of terror and pain that–”

“Daryl,” She says in a warning, poker face falling to something more focused.

He turns his head in your direction just in time to see your limbs stretch out as you wake up, comfortable in the spot he'd been laying before. He clamps his mouth shut, wishing he had wire to keep himself from nearly saying anything stupid like that in front of you again.

“Ey, bambino,” He tries lightheartedly, but his voice sounds pained.

He sniffs and tries to subtly wipe at his wet eyes as if he was still waking up himself, when in reality he barely slept at all last night. He couldn't stop thinking about it.

When your limbs relax, you curl into Daryl’s side, looking between him and Carol trying to figure out what's happening without interrupting, but whatever conversation they were having seems to have ended the second you came into the picture.

“Wa's goin’ on? ” You say in a tired slur when they both go quiet, bodies still stiff with unresolved tension.

Daryl hesitates to answer, mouthing a few things but always stopping before he can make a real sentence with the pieces.

He's hunched over on the edge of the bed, his legs spread with his elbows on his thighs and his hands limp between them, looking sleep deprived. –It's not a new look for the man, but the sorrowful, helplessly defeated energy radiating off of him is. It's worrying.

Carol doesn't wait very long after he's failed to answer in his place, looking more than displeased. “He's takin’ you to see Siddiq. The doctor.”

You immediately snap your head up in Daryl’s direction, nervously pushing the blankets from your chest and sitting up. “What? ”

You knew he was going to make you go eventually because Rick was making him, but you didn't expect to be jumped with it first thing in the morning. Couldn't he have woken you up a little sooner so you could wrap your head around the idea first before being crammed into that sterile room? –God, you're feeling nauseous already. Is he going to want to look at you? Touch you? Make you take the test right in front of him?

You wouldn't be able to refuse, and that alone is enough to shake you to your core.

“No,” He lulls when you start scrambling to get up, setting a hand on your shoulder to push you back down. “We aren't,” He maintains, seeing the hurt and confusion all over your face as your eyes jump to his clothes and shoes. Damn Carol for saying something like that when she knows how freaked out you already are. “I promise we ain't goin’ right now. –First thing we're gonna do is go get some breakfast.”

You lick the back of your teeth, glancing at the woman watching you both until she turns away and silently descends the ladder.

She wouldn't have said something like that just to scare you. There had to be a reason.

“Come on,” Daryl coaxes, pushing a bundle of fresh clothes closer to you and standing up to go wait by the ladder.

When you unfurl them, they're different from the other clothes you've gotten from the people of Hilltop. Baggier. Big enough to try and hide it if you were to gain a decent amount of weight… less girly than the other clothes too. It makes you a little upset to stare down at the neutral colors, no redeeming frills or lace to annoy the crap out of you but have your cheeks flushing from the enjoyment you secretly get out of wearing it at times. You're starting to miss that neon yellow shirt you got that you were sure you'd never wear.

You don't put up a fuss.

You pull off your pajamas and tug the shirt on. It's ugly. A shade of grey that's just dark enough to look wet. When you try to imagine someone picking this for you out of all the clothes in Hilltop, all you can feel is the shamefulness of it all. The sight almost tips words of complaint from your mouth, but you decide against it. This is all because you lied. The least you can do for Daryl is keep being an easy child. Right now what that means is getting dressed without complaint. You quickly tug on the dull maroon sweatpants that are about three sizes too big, visibly sagging on your hips. By the time you've finished, your throat's closing up. Having it on makes you even sadder, despite how soft and comfortable the material is. It doesn't fit you right, and you hope to god it never will.

“You ready?” Daryl asks, turning back around to look at you when he hears you've stopped moving behind him.

He can see your eyes filling with tears where you're sitting on the edge of the bed, but you nod anyway, dabbing at them with your sleeves and going down the ladder ahead of him.

When you step outside of the barn, he puts an arm around your shoulders and pulls you flush against his side.

That contact would normally be comforting to you, but when he looks down at your face you seem indifferent to it. –Despondent, but only because you're trying so hard to be brave for him and not cry.

“S'okay,” Daryl says so softly it's not even audible.

He's not sure if he's trying to convince himself or you, but either way it's not working.

Safe… I love you, he signs somewhat hesitantly, pressing it to your chest.

Daryl wants you to know that he's still here. For the silent words push past all the thoughts he's sure are swarming your panicky little brain right now. He's almost certain that all the things you need to hear are all the words he can't bring himself to say.

Your frown gets deeper.

He just can't get over how sad you look. It's ripping him apart, even more so because he doesn't know how to help.

He should, shouldn't he? He knows you better than anyone, but every time it comes down to something he's pretty sure is fatherly, he fails. You need more than he can give you. There are things a kid your age needs to know that don't have anything to do with survival and he doesn't have the right words to teach you. Everyone else seems to know just what to do. Rick, Michonne, Carol, hell even Maggie and her baby's still in utero… He really tried to be there for you in that way –out of necessity, at first– but whatever prepared them for that kind of responsibility must have skipped him. It kind of makes sense in his head sometimes, when he thinks about what a shithead he used to be before the world fell apart.

But then he remembers that you're standing here, parentless and possibly pregnant, and all logic goes out the window.

He felt like he was finally making some progress before all of this, enough that he was willing to tap into his more emotional side and try to discuss all the scars he saw on your skin. There was finally something he could use all the pent up emotions from his upbringing for, threading all the messy thoughts and memories of running through the wilderness with Merle, cigarette burns, and belts on his bare back into coherent lessons for you… but it wasn't enough.

Survival training, –surviving– isn't enough on its own.

With every horrible thing happening, it’s all he knows how to do right now. Keep you alive. –Which sounds so pathetic in his head he almost wants to laugh. People keep houseplants alive, you’re a full blown human being endowed with free will. He can’t just give you food and water and hope you’ll thrive alone. You’ll have questions, and problems, and relationships, and friends. You’ll get sick. You’ll have hobbies. You’ll keep doing that thing where you bring things to him with puppy eyes, looking for more approval than he knows how to give.

You'll grow up.

His grip with the arm that's around you tightens, firm, but nowhere near painful.

Daryl hates that one. Every time he thinks about it he wants to smother you into staying exactly the same for the rest of time. His baby Bambi. His little Bea.

He knew that before you came back, sure, but things have changed for him since he found out you were a girl. Before, he would just do his best to imitate the masculine relationships he saw on TV and in movies. Brotherhood. Fishing trips. Hunting. Polishing guns, and roasting your kills together… It seemed easy at first and once you fell into a routine it actually made sense.

Still, it wasn’t –and would never be– enough to raise a child. You looked for something in him that he didn’t know how to give you, this scarily unyielding trust in your eyes when everything was left up to him.

Daryl still isn’t sure if you got whatever it was.

You seemed happy enough with him though. Giggly. –And that was enough for him before. That you loved him and you weren’t afraid so long as he was there with you. He liked being there for you. Liked knowing that even if he didn't look, you were right there under his arm.

…Then you were both separated and when you came back, everything was different. New all over again.

Well, not everything. He still loves you, you clearly love him, but the mounting pressure with each new reveal and everyone's conflicting accounts of what he's supposed to do with you (even when he knows it's completely the wrong thing) has him overthinking all the time you spent together. Instead of hunting trips, should he have been having pretend tea parties with you? Instead of arrows and ammo, should he have brought you dolls? Had he completely failed you? Was not noticing what you were hiding an admission that he was incapable of caring for you properly?

He knew from the very beginning that he wasn't father material, but he at the very least thought he could care for you.

Maybe he was wrong.

His grip on you loosens again with something akin to guilt.

You should have had someone to talk to about the things you felt like you couldn’t tell him. If he would have left you alone with Carol more often before, would things have been different? You could have told her. He's sure the woman would have taken you with her to The Kingdom and gotten you everything a girl your age needs.

Instead, you were stuck with him and all his inadequacy. Trapped.

The worst part is that there was some small, shameful part of himself that he didn’t know existed anymore until you came back. The part of him that remembered his mother wasting her life away at the bottom of a box of Malboros and the circus of drunk women Merle would bring back to their trailer at night. The part of him that would sit on the curb with Merle when he was in middle school and wolf whistle at any girl unfortunate enough to walk by them. The part of him that smacked women on the ass in his early twenties when he passed by them because it was just a joke. A compliment.

The part of him, he knows, that never would have accepted you or agreed to take care of you in the first place had he known the truth.

He doesn't think he can ever tell you that.

That's what scares him the most. Outright rejecting you. Losing all of this before it could even start because of his own mistakes. Because he would have judged you for something you didn't have a choice in before he even bothered getting to know you.

That part of him crumpled when he saw your bloody tear tracked face at the Saviors’ outpost, but it's still terrifying to think about.

Daryl realizes that sometimes he’s his own worst enemy.

And it's not like it mattered. Daryl never suspected you weren't who you said you were. Not once. Which means it never really mattered in the first place. His attachment was to you, not to the idea of having a little brother or whatever you are to him. His ward.

All his life he'd been making these subtle distinctions between who someone could be as a boy or a man, then life gave him you.

You like hunting.

You like origami.

You like stuffed animals and toys.

You decidedly don’t like the smell of nail polish. The first time Enid had gotten some back in Alexandria, you screwed your nose up and gagged.

–But you did like the pretty colors of the paint.

It never bothered him before to see you pick up a doll or fold paper as a boy, so why should it be any different to imagine you holding a gun now? –If this were before the fall maybe he'd have different feelings about it, but it’s a fact of survival now. He prides himself in being able to say you have great aim. He's always wanted you to be strong.

Daryl always accepted the women in the group without judgement, never playing gentleman or pulling punches on female assailants. For survivors there is no need for titles like woman and man, the only thing that matters is what you can do for the good of the group. He had never thought about that fact, it just… was.

It wasn't a mistake to do the things you did together. No matter what anyone else implies, nothing you did for the group under his care was a cruel punishment you were forced to endure. Your eyes would light up with pride every time you managed to strike dinner down with his bow.

It’s no different than Michonne shooting down and bleeding out elk, or Aaron making blankets to prepare for the colder months.

You’re you, and you like what you like. You do what you do, and Daryl’s always going to support you in that. His father might not have taught him well, he might not know how to “parent”, but he knows he doesn't want to beat lessons into you like his own father did and that's a start.

Keeping you safe and alive, telling you that he’s right there with you even if he doesn’t know what to do– That's how he can help you right now. That’s what he can do.

Daryl turns and plants another one of those decreasingly rare kisses on the top of your head, continuing to lead you to the firepit where the remaining people from Alexandria have loosely gathered.

Almost immediately you're both assaulted with the noise of chatter and excited shrill laughter, people rushing around one another and passing things back and forth. Kids that Daryl's never seen from Hilltop running up to people, and adults hauling supplies stopping through to talk about plans and have a drink. It's hectic, but at the center of all the chaos there's a box filled with rations.

Your teary eyes have dried since you left the barn, replaced with an overwhelmed look you try to hide by looking vacantly into the distance instead of at him. –And you succeed. He doesn’t notice. He’s too busy trying to stop all the thoughts he’s having from showing on his face.

“Thought there’d be less people since we came late…” He grumbles.

You don’t respond.

After a brief pause where he takes everything in, Daryl pushes forward, his hand still on your shoulder until you're a few feet from the box at the center of it all and he releases you to dig in.

The laughter all around you, the same uncontainable joy he’d been feeling when you both made it out of that base alive, all feels so distant. He can’t imagine what was going through your head when everyone kept moving on like nothing ever happened while you were still dealing with the consequences.

If it feels anything like what he feels now, he’s surprised you didn’t snap. He feels like ripping out his eyes, otherwise he might cry himself to death.

“Ey, look at this,” He tries instead, putting a small smile on his face for you as he rifles through the food. “They've got… granola? …Chips? …Chocolate? –Ah, you shouldn't eat chocolate right before we go to the doctor…” He growls quietly, pushing it aside and going deeper. “What ‘bout this can of peas?”

He steals a glance back at you, but you're barely paying any attention, scanning the group while chewing on your lower lip anxiously.

It feels like you're about to pass out. Your heart won't stop racing and you keep forgetting to breathe.

“A’right…” He sighs with defeat, handing you a few oat protein bars filled with preserve from the box. They claim to be made with real fruit, so they should be good for you.

When he turns back around to look for himself he can hear you thumbing the wrapper, groaning softly.

“Almost there, kid,” He hushes. “I know.”

Michonne appears behind him while he's digging through the box of rations, her hands in her pockets as she looks between you with a forced smile on her face. –She, like Carol wrongly assumed when she first met you, thinks that you can't tell the difference.

“How's the barn?” She asks after a moment, words filled with genuine concern for his well-being.

Her voice barely makes it through Daryl's internal turmoil. The man's on a mission and he can’t stop now. He's gotta get you fed and away from all this shit.

Case and point, some asshole just threw a potato for Gabriel over your heads like football instead of walking it over to him. He didn't catch it.

He growls to himself.

Daryl plans on turning around and giving Michonne a half-way decent answer about your living arrangements when he sees the expression on her face and realizes that she’s fishing, subtly hinting with her eyes that she's trying to give him an opportunity to vent about what’s happening with you.

He’s grateful, but there’s more pressing issues and he’s almost certain that if he tries to discuss what’s going on he’s going to flip the fuck out again.

“‘S fine,” He answers vaguely. “I'll talk to you later, alright?”

He returns his hand to your back, gently pushing you to a less chaotic spot, away from most of the people but still close enough to occasionally join the conversation.

There's no fire currently going, but there are a few people that have taken to sitting on the stones making up the pit. They’re the ones making the most noise, drinking even though it's barely mid-morning.

Daryl motions to the log in front of you, sitting down on it with an exaggerated groan in the hopes you'll at least crack a smile. You don't. There's more than enough room for you to join him, and anyone else who can keep things mellow.

You stay standing.

You're far more interested in what's going on between Rick and Carl than the food or sitting with people you barely spoke to before, and definitely haven't spoken to since, your return. You know they're not bad people, you do care about them and genuinely want to know how they’re doing, but it'd be overwhelming. You could barely speak to Daryl when you first came back and you adore him.

Plus, they're drunk, so… It’s better to keep your distance and gauge how they’re handling your secret being exposed anyway, you remind yourself.

“Look me in the eye and–!” Rick says something else that's just far enough out of earshot where they're standing that you can't hear it, and Carl responds with one of the most adverse reactions you've seen from him. He points a finger at Rick and starts yelling, his arms gesturing wildly in the space around him like whatever the man said was completely insane.

You really wish you could hear what they were saying, you've never seen him react that way. Especially not to Rick. You know how much he savors what little time the man spends with him when they're not actively engaged in a fight with another group, or on the road looking for a safe place to rest their heads.

It goes on like that for a little while before Rick's face hardens, his head cocking as he starts whisper-shouting back at him.

“Bambi,” Daryl says, nudging you in the side. You barely register it, not taking your eyes off of the argument as you make a slightly annoyed but questioning noise. He taps the protein bars in your hand. “Eat. –Even if it's just a little, okay?”

You tear open one of them without looking at what it is and bite into it, tearing a piece off.

Rick’s brow furrows and his posture abruptly falls, like he just can’t stand to be angry at his son anymore. He reaches for Carl’s shoulder, barely having touched it before Carl shrugs him off, shaking his head. He looks miserable.

“...What does that mean?”

Most people are pretending not to notice their argument, but Daryl finally does and starts watching with you, tugging you a little closer to himself with a frown.

“None of that–”

Carl stops shouting, seemingly trying to desperately reason with the man in front of him and for the first time since you noticed, you start to wonder if the argument has something to do with you. –If maybe he’d found out about all the terrible things you’d brought back with you and decided you needed to be punished for doing what you’d done with him knowing full well it could mess everything up. He could hate you right now. He could hate you and you wouldn't even know it until he decides to do something to hurt you.

The food in your mouth suddenly tastes bitter. When you swallow it feels like a handful of pebbles.

And then he points at you.

Your heart stops for a split second. It’s a loose gesture, more of a hand waved over the entire group than an index poked out at a single subject, but when he does it he turns slightly and his eyes lock onto yours, hand freezing above you.

It stops in a spot where from Carl’s perspective it sort of looks like his hand is shielding you from the sun. He almost wants to laugh. Maybe he would if his dad wasn't throwing a hissy fit behind him, and you weren't looking at him with such a serious expression.

Regardless, he's done with whatever conversation he’d been having.

He shoots one last unreadable look at his father, then turns around and starts walking through the firepit of people quickly averting their eyes, still pretending they weren’t watching. His fists are loosely balled up at his sides, and his chest is still rising and falling quickly like he hasn't completely caught his breath from the fight, eye narrowed into a glare.

He reaches you and Daryl, coming to a stop about three feet from where you're standing.

You brace yourself. Here it comes–

“Are you feelin’ any better?” He asks, all too innocently for someone who received the kind of news he would have, his eye softening.

You blink. He has no idea.

You know Carl’s not stupid. He’s going to figure things out eventually, but knowing that for now he's still safe from what's happening is a massive relief.

His eye drifts down to what you're wearing, his confusion only growing as he scans the sweatsuit. “Your outfit looks… comfortable? –I almost wish I'd worn my pajamas to breakfast. We could have matched.”

That earns a quiet but genuine laugh from you and he seems encouraged by it.

He steps closer.

“How’s your, uhm,” He swallows hard, glancing at Daryl quickly as if he's just remembered that the man is there. “–Your arm? Is it botherin’ you?”

What he really wants to ask is if Daryl has calmed down at all from yesterday, considering the death glare the man is currently giving him. He hopes things have at least been okay between the two of you, but from looking at Daryl he has a feeling asking right now might set him off.

You shrug, pulling up your sleeve and holding out the scarred flesh so he can touch it if he wants to, the memories of the last time you'd done this making your heart pick up speed.

Even though you’re ashamed to admit it, you honestly wish he’d wind up in your bed again despite not wanting to trick him. It felt like a weight off your chest to wake up and see his baby blue eye looking back at yours.

“It looks less irritated. That's good…” He mumbles, giving the healing skin a brief, gentle stroke with the tips of his fingers. His eye flicks up to yours while he’s doing it, as if he’s searching for something.

Then once again, he steps closer, lowering his voice so that you're the only one able to hear him. “I don’t mean to pry but you’re not signin’ or talkin’, you’re just… quiet. Is everythin’ okay?”

You shrug again, shying away from him.

Daryl used to think it was cute that you got so nervous around Carl, sweating and blushing and stumbling over your words, –or hiding behind him when Carl came into the room– because at the time he was under the impression that you wanted the “older” boy to think you were cool. It was adorable how hard you tried to be friends with him before it happened, your limited social skills much like his own, repeatedly delaying that very thing until Carl noticed and acquiesced.

But now that you've come back, a lot of those behaviors have mellowed out. You seem to trust Carl almost as much as you do on him, and the boy seems happy about your friendship. He's a good kid. Daryl should be happy your friendship is moving so smoothly…

And yet, he senses this tension between you. –Maybe it was always there, maybe he's making something out of nothing, but when he looks at the two of you without really taking a moment to think about it, he notices all these little things.

Like, for example, the way you're digging the foot your weight isn't resting on into the dirt like you're nervous. –The way you look at him, all smitten, with those big doe eyes, the light, almost nonexistent blush on your cheeks, or the way Carl just keeps getting closer. All the excuses the boy seems to make to brush you, touch you, talk to you…

Half of Daryl wants to believe that this is a good thing, like at the safe house when Carl stepped in to comfort you.

The other half is not so generous.

The boy is practically sniffin’ around you like a dog in heat and he doesn't. fucking. like. it.

AT. ALL.

Carl's not a bad boy, he knows that. –Damn near helped raise the kid himself. He has his own fair share of character flaws and enough trauma to fill more books than a complete set of encyclopedias, but he has a good head on his shoulders and a big heart. He’s moral. Not cruel, but honest. Daryl isn't worried that you'll hate what he's doing, or won't speak up for yourself when you've had enough of it. In fact, it's the opposite.

He's worried that you like it.

“Bea,” He says sternly, and you turn to face him owlishly, slipping your hands behind your back like he'd caught you doing something wrong.

But for the first time today, you don't look like you want to run away crying.

“Mm?” You hum questioningly, eagerly tipping your head towards Carl as if to ask, Can I go?

“No.” He replies sternly, the words sounding too fast and too harsh to his own ears. Daryl can only imagine what you're thinking right now, having him suddenly snap at you like that. “We… We have to go to the doctor, ‘member?”

He watches you deflate.

“Siddiq?” Carl cuts in, looking concerned. “Why?”

“We just do, kid. ‘M sorry,” He replies with a semi-false sympathetic tone, unable to shake his thoughts. You and Carl haven't done anything wrong. It's just… the situation.

“Oh…” Carl's shoulders kind of slump, brow furrowing like he's deep in thought.

You try to make eye contact with the boy again, still pouting, but he doesn’t look back at you until he gets a good grip on what he should say to being told that he can't spend time with you for no apparent reason. Siddiq won't even be in for at least another hour.

“Uhm, I'll see you after?” He says, trying to sound brighter as he turns to you, hand awkwardly reaching for yours then pulling away just as fast when he fails. “I'll be… y'know… around.”

You nod sadly, the joy draining from your face as he walks away.

Daryl watches you watch him go, his heart aching when he hears you start sniffling again. He just wants you safe. He didn’t mean to be so domineering about it.

He reaches out and sets a hand on your forearm, squeezing it to comfort you even though he's the one making you the most upset right now. Ever since this morning you've felt angry at him and you don't know why. You just woke up feeling bad.

You love him so much you'd do anything to make him happy, but you just can't seem to do it right. Everything you do is almost always the wrong thing lately, even when you're doing it to protect him, like hiding what happened.

“C’mere,” Daryl says quietly, pulling you back over and patting the spot next to him.

You sit down slowly, sniffling all the while.

You want to go back to bed.

You don't want to go to the doctor and have that stranger poke at you, you want to go home. You want to go with Carl.

Daryl turns to look at you and you curl a fist into one of your eyes, rubbing to hide the tears bubbling up again.

“Eat,” He says softly, tone apologetic.

You take another bite, then stuff the rest into your pocket, unwilling to force yourself to consume any more.

*

*

*

Nearly forty minutes later Rick gives the most subtle signal he can come up with for the two of you to follow him to Siddiq’s office from across the firepit, already starting that way himself.

You clench your teeth so hard they feel like they might shatter, an unpleasant rush of adrenaline starting to course through your veins.

Your chest is on fire. You clutch the center of your shirt with one hand, trying to steady your breathing. Every exhale is harder to come back from than the last, it feels like your chest is collapsing in on itself. Is it the binding? No. You haven't bound your chest since Carl ripped it off of you because you saw how bad it was getting.

You look up at Daryl in an effort to communicate with him, but he silently stands up next to you, a deep frown on his face as he waits for you to take your place underneath his arm.

He looks tired. Run down. This morning he kept rubbing his eyes before he looked at you like he had to mentally prepare himself before he could look you in the eye again…

If you tried to tell him about what you're feeling right now, would it even lead to anything meaningful? He'd probably think you were making excuses to try and avoid seeing the doctor.

You swallow hard, slipping into place next to him with a nervous glance he either doesn't see or doesn't acknowledge. –Though you’d be lying if you didn’t say the closer you got to having to sit in that office, the more you considered going on the run or hiding somewhere so they couldn't force you into this.

His arm is heavy on your shoulders, too loose and too low, with none of the genuine adoration and pride the action is usually filled with. It's not like you want him to parade you around right now, but having him walk next to you with his shoulders hunched shamefully is just as bad. It only serves to make you feel worse. He doesn't understand. –And that makes you angrier, which makes you want to scream and cry because you love him so much it hurts.

You're also scared because maybe, just maybe, he's found it in himself to put your history aside and be rightfully humiliated to associate with you.

No. Daryl wouldn’t abandon you like that… would he?

You try to stop to talk to him, “Da– Mmph,” only to be effectively silenced as he bumps you into his arm, squeezing you tighter.

He’s walking too fast. Smothering you. He probably wants to get this over with quickly, you understand that, but with every step building on your impending sense of doom you wish he’d give you some time to acclimate. Can’t he tell that rushing you is making this so much worse? Doesn’t he know that you need him right now?

Or, a little voice in the back of your head whispers, he doesn’t care anymore. You’ve already put him through so much as it is, maybe you owe it to him to just be quiet for now.

You bite your tongue until you taste blood, consciously avoiding the part that was previously severed so it doesn't have to be treated again. They’ve already put so much effort and resources into treating you as it is.

Up ahead, you can both see Rick peer over his shoulder before entering the building, but just as you’re about to catch up someone familiar steps into your line of sight. She has a deep frown on her face, jaw subtly flexing as she blocks your path to the infirmary.

She's furious.

“Go play for a minute,” Carol abruptly orders you, snapping her fingers and raising her arm to point at the nearest kids.

You send a glance their way, not recognizing any of them, before jerking your head back to look up at Daryl with confusion.

You've heard Carl talk about how cultishly friendly they all are with the exception of a select few new kids who are still dealing with personal problems, but you don't really feel the need to connect with them. It feels like they're on a different planet.

“–And don't go too far,” She tacks on as an afterthought, scrunching her face slightly.

Despite you not having moved to comply with the request, Daryl’s grip on you tightens again.

“The hell are you doin’?” He balks at her.

“We need to have a little chat,” She says, crossing her arms. “Alone.”

“Now?” Daryl asks, frustration clear as day.

Her eyes twitch, flicking to you and then back. “Yes, right now.”

They hold eye contact with one another for a beat. Steeled, unyielding gaze up against steel, unyielding gaze. It looks like a continuation of whatever weird struggle was happening between them earlier, except now they're openly doing it in front of you. It's weird. It makes you upset.

Daryl releases you, glowering at the woman. “Go inside.”

You snap your head up to look at him dead-on, concern blanketing the fear growing in you at the prospect of having to go in alone. “Nn?”

“Inside,” He all but growls, narrowing his eyes without turning to look at you.

You clench your fists at your sides, holding your breath as you hesitantly step forward, looking between the two of them before vanishing into the building.

It’s not like you really have a choice in the matter, you’d rather not force him to drag you inside and make a big fuss.

Daryl turns his attention back to Carol in front of him. “Now what–”

He doesn't get to finish his question, the woman quickly stepping forward and poking him in the chest. “What is wrong with you? –I seriously hoped you were going to make the right choice and come with me to fix this, but instead you're rushin’ straight into what Rick told you to do.”

“And what's so wrong with that, huh?” Daryl shouts defensively, his hands starting to shake with thinly veiled anger and insecurity. “Rick knows what he's doin’.”

And I don't, he refrains from adding.

“No he doesn't,” Carol scoffs, rolling her eyes. “If this situation's made anything clear, it's that Rick's too stubborn to hear anyone else out when it's a topic that makes him uncomfortable. He thinks he knows what’ll keep them safe, but when it's too late to stop bad things from happening he's out of his depth. –You saw what happened with Carl earlier.” And with Sophia, her mind whispers.

He did. Daryl has no idea what they were arguing about, but he did. Then the boy came directly over to you and Rick had this nervous look on his face, like he was itching to lock Carl up in the house for the rest of his life…But Daryl doesn't like hearing her say that it’s too late to save you from what happened, even if he knows it's true. He can't erase your time held captive no matter how hard he tries.

“I don't know what kinda’ grudge you're holding against Rick, but I won't let it stop me from gettin’ the kid help,” He says pettily, trying to ignore the truth in her words. “I want her to get better.”

Carol bulldozes him with a single look. Her eyes narrowed with clear offense at his weak attempt to make it sound like she doesn’t care about you, her lips curled into an even deeper, sadder frown.

One of the worst parts about trusting someone enough to tell them everything, –letting them see the deepest, darkest parts of yourself– is knowing that when you inevitably try to shut them out and twist the knife in their back, they’ll look you in the eyes the whole time and not be surprised in the slightest. That they can see through all the bullshit you say to protect yourself and the pretty little worlds you make up in your head to avoid having to confront reality.

“Better's not going to happen for a long while,” She laments. “Longer, if you do the wrong thing here.”

“Don't say that,” He spits, taking a step back. “She's– That's not true.”

He doesn't want to have to imagine a world where this is still affecting you this much until the day you die, doesn’t want to have to keep picturing you holding a baby you wish didn't exist, spending the rest of your life trying to raise the child of your–

“Stop saying things like that,” He begs. “She's goin’ to be fine. Siddiq’s goin’ to help her.”

“Have you even taken a second to think this through?” She asks, tipping her head to the side.

“‘Course I–” He starts, then falters.

Did he? He wonders, doubt creeping in again. He's so completely out of his depth when it comes to you.

“Yes.” He answers, trying to sound as sure of himself as he possibly can.

“And you thought that it was a good idea to have her in a room full of men, poking and prodding at her?”

Daryl makes a wounded noise, physically taking a step back.

“Don’t say it like that. We ain’t men, we’re family,” He snarls back, wetting his lower lip.

“Trauma doesn’t always follow logic,” Carol says softly. “I’m just telling you what’s objectively happening. Three men with a young, terrified girl, behind a locked door.”

When she puts it like that it sounds so obviously wrong. But that can't be. All they're doing is taking you to the doctor to make sure that you're going to be okay. None of them would ever hurt you like that, and you know it.

You do know it… don’t you?

You were so uncomfortable when you first came back that you wouldn't let Rick, Siddiq, or any man other than himself touch you even when they were just trying to take away your pain and make you more comfortable, you'd rather have stayed in metal handcuffs than let Rick get a hold of your wrist.

No wonder you've been so quiet all day, you must hate him for this.

But because he asked you to, you'd complied.

“She trusts you…” Carol goes on, averting her gaze. “She would never say no if you lead her somewhere dangerous, because she trusts you’ll look after her.”

And what if he was a bad person? What if you had ended up putting your trust in the wrong man and when you got into that room he– Daryl nearly vomits, mouth tingling painfully as bile rises in his throat. She’s right. You’d never say no. He seriously doubts that you’d fight back against him if he tried to hurt you, and that thought terrifies him to his very core. That you'd just let him–

“Daryl…” Carol says, softer when she sees the tears in his eyes.

“I can't do this to her,” He cries softly, watching as the finger poking his chest softens and starts to rub it soothingly. “I don't know what to do…”

“You're spiraling,” She hushes.

“You have to– You have to take her, Carol,” He begs, letting a few tears fall. “I can't do this no more. I ain't her father and I don't know what to do, she needs help. Please– You have to take her from me.”

“Hey,” The woman hisses, lowering her voice and peering over her shoulder to make sure no one heard that. “Do not let her hear you say that. Not right now.”

He clamps his mouth shut, sighing shakily.

“I’ll be right there with you,” She nods, waiting until he starts nodding along with her. “That's why I'm here. I'm going to be right there with you both… okay?”

“Mm-yeah,” Daryl nods, taking a deep breath to get a handle on his emotions.

He can't let you see him cry. Not today. Not when you're already at your lowest and terrified. He's gotta be strong for you. The same way you tried to be for him when you hid all this from everyone.

“Ready?” She asks after a moment.

The man takes another deep breath through his nose, feeling more unprepared than ever, then slowly lets it out through his nose.

“...Yeah.”

---

Fic Chapterlist

You whip around, heart dropping to your stomach at the sound of his voice.

He’s going to be pissed when he finds out that you told Enid what was going on between the two of you. –But also… fuck him for what he said the last time you were face to face. You really thought you were getting better talking to each other and then he just…

You glare at him, the hatred practically radiating off of you in waves.

“Hi, Carl…?” The man greets, looking between the two of you uncomfortably. “I think… I’m going to go. –Don’t kill each other, please.”

“Probably for the best,” The boy mutters under his breath, turning his full attention to you. “I assume this is gonna get messy.”

---

Grunting, he pushes, then smashes down some of the hay barrels in an effort to make the whole bed less pokey for both of you. Which he wonders why you didn't do the first night you had to sleep on it. It could have been much more comfortable.

“Dummy,” He snorts.

Daryl is almost finished, just straightening the blanket you have laid down over the hay as a sheet back into place, when his hand hits something strangely smooth hidden underneath it.

It's a completely different texture than any of the rest of the bed, and when he pushes down with his fingers he finds that the bulging object is completely separate from the barrels, seemingly intentionally put out of sight there. His concern mounts, Rick’s words creeping their way into his mind despite his efforts to hold them back and think of an innocent explanation.

He pulls back the blankets and finds the thin pink box you'd hidden, his heart dropping so fast he thinks he might pass out.

Part of him thinks he should back out, pretend he hadn’t seen it and tell Rick and the others about it so they can take care of you. –Take you away from him, just like they should have the moment they found you. Daryl’s not meant to be a father. He’s irritable, rough around the edges, and even though he has much love to give, sometimes love just isn't enough. He knew he wasn't meant to be a father. This is proof enough of that.

But he can hear your footsteps approaching the barn, alone, and his rising emotions get the better of him.

Daryl quickly snatches up the box, gripping the cardboard so hard he might break the contents right along with it if he's not careful, making his way down the ladder before you've even stepped foot inside.

You're softly smiling to yourself when he comes to a stop right before the doors, blocking your path.

“Why?” He seethes with so much hatred that it startles you and you look behind you to see if there’s someone else here, but no, right now it’s only the two of you. He holds the test up, shaking it in front of your face so much that you hardly recognize it at first. “Why? ” He repeats again, voice getting sharper.

You don't shrug this time, your body is frozen solid, skin on alight with shame.

“Why? Why do you…” His voice breaks, and worse than the anger, Daryl looks like he's about to cry. “Why? ”

You shrink back.

“Bambi.” He shouts warningly, refusing to let you run. You've never run from him.

Carol's footsteps catch up finally, and she's suddenly standing at your side trying to figure out what's going on. “Daryl?” Then her eyes go wide at the sight of the pregnancy test and she snaps her head to look at you, face mangled with disgust as if she’s sickened.

You take a step away from her.

“Answer me,” Daryl pleads loudly, reaching out to grab your arm only to be narrowly stopped by Carol. “Why? Why, Bambi? Why d'ya need this?” He continues shouting helplessly, doing his best to fight Carol off so he can get to you. The woman keeps holding him back.

“Daryl! –Daryl stop it!”

He throws the test at you and you flinch, jumping back like touching it directly even for a second burned your skin.

“Why?! ” He says again, voice going hoarse as he clings into Carol's arms for dear life, crying. “Why?! ”

You take another step back at the sight of the damage you've caused.

Then another, and another, until you've turned your back on them completely and walked away.

Your legs feel numb and your stomach hurts. It hurts so damn bad, but you know it's not real. You're making yourself sick, doing all of this, hurting the people you love, keeping all your secrets and vaulting everything up until someone finds it.

Rick sees you, the dazed look on your face, and tries to ask you what’s wrong but you don’t stop to talk to him. You ignore him until he stops asking and lets you keep walking.

How could you do this to him? Daryl loved you. He considered you his family, tried to take you under his wing like a son, and you repaid that love, that trust, by hiding things from him twice now. Big things that would alter his life for the better not to have to deal with.

You hit the wooden walls of Hilltop and press your face against it, letting the tears stream down your face as you rub your cheek against it.

Who are you kidding? You were just being a coward. What's new? You've never been able to live up to what Daryl’s expected, no matter how hard you try because this body–

Gripping your unbound chest as hard as you can, you turn around and slam the back of your head against the wall with a muffled scream.

–Fucking hates you. It does everything it can to get in the way of what you want at every turn, everything to make you hurt. You wish you could slip this skin. Life would be so much easier.

You slip down the wall and pull your knees up to your chest, burying your face into your arms.

Stop crying, you repeat to yourself, rocking back and forth. You don't get to cry.

If this were before you'd both been taken you wouldn't have cried. You were so… different. So strong. People respected you and took what little you said at face value because they trusted you enough to think you knew what you were doing.

You didn't deserve that trust.

You gag, hard, but swallow the bile in your throat to prevent yourself from throwing up. It must be the guilt.

You hate when Daryl yells, it's scary. But you hate it even more when he cries, and this time you made him cry. You. It's all your fault. Everyone must hate you now if they didn't already. Including him. You're such a disappointment.

Not only did you fail to live up to the name he gave you when he took you in and taught you like his own, now you've gone and made his life so much more complicated. You lied, liar. You went and got yourself…

Squeezing your arms tighter, then biting into the flesh of your forearm, you whine into your skin.

You're in real trouble now.

*

*

*

It's a few hours later when somebody finds you, your face buried in your knees, teetering on the edge of sleep.

They don't seem in a hurry. When they find you they don't call out to tell anyone else. They just sit down beside you, even when you curl tighter in on yourself, they simply rest a hand over the top of one of your shoes.

You want them to leave. In fact, you wait nearly half an hour for it, but they don't. They stay right where they are, their warm hand heating the toe of your boot.

It's comforting, and you don't like that. You don't deserve it.

You glare up at them defiantly, hoping that by some miracle the look will inflict some real damage and they’ll leave you alone… but the moment your eyes focus on your victim, you feel ashamed all over again, the guilt twisting deep in your gut like a knife.

Ducking your face down again, you cower from the patient look in Carl’s eye.

“I don't know what happened,” He says quietly, his gaze not faltering from you. “Carol said everyone should give you some space and wait for you to come back on your own, but I was worried…”

He shouldn't be worried about you. The second you came home and he saw what you were, what you'd been hiding from him, he should have been disgusted and felt betrayed. He should have pushed you away before things went too far.

“Can you at least sign something to tell me if you're okay?” He requests, voice growing softer. “Because you don't look okay.”

Without looking up from where you've hidden, you set your hand over his, tugging on his sleeve until he understands you want him to come closer.

He slides to your side and hesitantly puts his arms around your shoulders, watching as you unfold and curl into his side like you were meant to fit there.

“You cut your hair,” Carl observes, reaching down to rake his hands through it.

It wasn't like he hadn't already noticed from the moment he spotted you, but seeing it and getting to feel and rake his hands through it is a whole different experience he feels needs to be verbalized. It's soft. –Even at the much shorter ends where it used to be splitting apart, it's cleanly cut.

“Are you mad? –Do you still… want to be like this? ” You ask softly, running your hand across his chest.

The question throws him for a loop despite what a relief it is to hear your voice. His heart skips a beat, and not in a pleasant way.

“Bambi…” He pauses, knowing there's so much he wants to ask, especially when it comes to the way you present yourself. “Why would I ever be angry about somethin’ like that? Of course I want to be like this, I don't care about your hair as long as it makes you happy.”

Your heart squeezes.

“Don’t tell anyone you saw me crying, please,” You request, looking up at him.

You think the others hearing about this would make them think they were right to treat you like you're breakable, when they’re not. Everyone goes through emotions. Just because you’re younger, and a girl, doesn’t mean that your problems and reasons for being upset are any less real. You wish it wasn't a constant fight to prove yourself, when you already did before all of this.

“Is Daryl still…? ”

Carl grimaces, looking off into the distance.

“He was flipping out. He wouldn’t stop yellin’ at my dad and trying to lunge at Siddiq,” Carl pauses for a moment, his hold on you twitching like he’s not sure if his hand should be there or not, the emotions on his face turning cold as he recalls the moment. “Nothin’ he said made any sense. He was hysterical.”

You guide his gaze back toward you to get him to stop making the face he is, sitting up so you can rest yourself on the edge of his shoulder. “But you don't know what was going on? ”

“...No,” He says after a moment of hesitation, trying to make sense of the desperate yelling the older man was doing. “But you do, don't you? –Because it was somethin’ to do with you, and you don't want me to know,” He adds, sounding hurt.

You know it’s not possible to hide something like this from him forever. It’s just nice to pretend like everything’s gonna be okay for once.

At least in the dark, Carl doesn't have to think about all the horrible things waiting for him on the other side.

You give him a somber look. “I'm sorry, Carl.”

“Don't be,” He dismisses easily, pulling you into the crook of his neck and resting his head on top of yours. “Just… focus on getting better.”

You almost want to laugh at how simple he makes it sound, like with one snap of your fingers you can suddenly erase weeks worth of torture and psychological agony from your memory. You were already dysfunctional to begin with, now that everything's out in the open you can't see a world in which anything gets any better. It's only going to get worse because of what Daryl found, and what it means for the rest of your probably short life.

“I don’t know if I can,” You whisper bitterly, closing your eyes again.

He was never supposed to see that. –Never supposed to have a chance to think about what might have happened to you behind closed doors.

The mind wandering is a dangerous thing.

“I'm here,” Carl says when you shiver under him, putting a slight pressure into his hold like Daryl would after you first came into their lives.

You feel your heart starting to slow, trying to untense your muscles starting with your jaw and working your way down to your feet, then back up again. It's not enough. Every time you remember what's waiting for you when you return to the barn your stomach churns with anxiety.

“Harder, please,” You request, squeezing your eyelids as tightly closed as you can.

“Mhm,” Carl puts more pressure into it until it's almost bruising, the kind of grip you'd use to knead clay. “Better?”

You let out a sigh, allowing yourself to relax. “Yeah. ”

For all the stupid things Merle had said and done, he was right about this. Deep pressure is soothing, like a weighted blanket or a hug, and it forces your body to flood your brain with dopamine… Even if he initially intended for Daryl to use the technique when stealing their neighbor's livestock. If Daryl hadn't known it when he met you, things could have gone horrifically awry. You probably wouldn't have trusted him as much, not having the reassurance of being literally tucked underneath his arm unharmed to cite as a reason to, and you definitely wouldn't have wanted to stay. You were petrified.

Daryl wishes you'd gotten to meet Merle. You do too.

Things could have been different.

Despite everything he did, all the horrible things Merle learned from their father, and all the horrible names you're sure he would have called you if he would have been alive in Alexandria, underneath it all he was still the boy who used to tell Daryl jokes to keep him calm when their father prowled the house with a belt. The boy who told Daryl to run for the hills, for his life, who tried to teach Daryl what he thought was the only way to survive in the old world, and then again in the next. In a big way, he's part of the reason Daryl took you in.

He could have been so much more, could have changed just like Daryl did even though he was much farther gone. You feel his absence despite never having met him, an empty place setting in your and Daryl’s dynamic where he would slide in perfectly.

It's not a place that can be filled by anyone else, nor is it a painful void that Daryl tries to fill. It's just grief. A nick in his heart that he's shown you, because that's how much you mean to him.

He would never hurt you.

“I need to talk to Daryl,” You say after a moment, turning to press a tentative kiss into the pale skin of Carl’s neck.

He lets out an appreciative noise, smiling as he angles his head to give you more access to his skin, but you shake your head apologetically. You need to get going.

“Okay,” He says just above a whisper, nosing the square of your jaw and your cheek. “Come find me if you need me.”

“I will. ”

You stand up, offering your hand to help Carl up off of the ground despite how he snorts when you do it. The action feels so familiar, almost routine to you from the days you'd spent exploring the woods outside of Alexandria, boosting one another up and such, but to Carl it feels strange now. He isn't sure why, but you helping him up feels awkward. It looks… weird.

It's probably just because of the way his dad's been looking at the two of you recently. He just needs to shake it off.

He ducks down and plants one last kiss on your forehead. “Be safe.”

You nod, turning away and trying to steel yourself for what's ahead.

Every step you take is like being under a spotlight, the bulb melting your skin with the hot light of shame. It feels like everyone you pass knows what Daryl found, but clearly that can't be true. If it was, Carl would have known.

That doesn't seem to stop their eyes from sticking to you for what feels like far too long, though.

You cross your arms over your chest and walk faster.

*

*

*

Daryl is sitting on Maggie’s porch with his head in his hands when you find him. There are two short glasses sat on the railing with a golden brown residue in them, a cigarette butt in one. His eyes are searching the dirt for answers, but it seems he comes up empty because he swipes his hands down his face. He looks exhausted. Cried out.

You walk towards him, slowing to a stop a few feet away from where he's sitting to brace for his reaction to your presence, but he doesn’t react. He stays right where he is, eyes not moving up to look at yours, shoulders only slumping further like even having you nearby is a huge weight on his shoulders.

Like you're a burden.

Tears sting at your eyes and at the back of your throat but you stay strong for him. You come to sit beside him quietly, leaving enough room between you that if you wanted to touch you'd have to move closer to bridge the gap.

He finally reacts in the form of a sigh, angling his head towards you for a moment like he's going to say something– only to come up short and turn away from you again.

That's okay. He can take his time.

It took you a long time to wrap your mind around the idea too. You toyed with it while it drained you of any willpower to fight, your body showing increasing signs of sickness and exhaustion as if to say, very quietly, “I'm still here!” in the back of your mind every time you thought you had a chance of forgetting what happened. What could be happening to you as a consequence.

You pull your knees up to your chest again and rest the side of your face there, staring at him. Running your eyes over all of his features that you have memorized, only now they look withered with the weight of what he discovered. He's not drunk. It seems more like his friend, Maggie, gave him a drink to take the edge off and calm him down from the outburst Carl was talking about.

After a long while, he looks back at you, suddenly angered again by whatever went through his mind.

“You didn't take it,” He says sharply, like it's an accusation.

It doesn't land nearly as hard when he can't even bring himself to yell at you or name the object you've both been terrorized by, but it gets his point across and hits you right where it hurts regardless.

“Because I didn't want to know,” You answer immediately, digging your fingers into the flesh of your thighs so you don't break down. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. You can't right now, not until you've set things right. “And… I didn't want you to know.”

Daryl almost snaps at those words, mouth readying to yell at you and tell you that if you would have just said something to him everything could have been fixed sooner, that they might have wasted valuable medicine on you that you might not have even needed because they were symptoms of a different, worse condition, but he stops himself because you keep talking.

“I-I'm… I'm not ready… I want it all to go away,” You whimper quietly, shoulders raising to cover your neck. “I let you down. I couldn't protect myself when I actually needed to and now I ruined everything.”

The anger is punched out of him almost immediately. Another tear slips down his face, then down his arm until it rolls off onto his jeans.

It's not your fault that something like this happened. Even if you hadn't been lying about your gender before, if someone were going to do something like this to you it would still have happened no matter what you were dressed in. –But having his worst fears all but confirmed by you, that this really is a possibility because of the Saviors, absolutely destroys him.

“Will you?” He asks delicately. “Take it soon?”

You nod, lip quivering too much to be conducive to conversation.

He turns away from you again, rubbing his forehead with his bloody, freshly bruised knuckles.

He must've punched something.

“How?” He asks, softer, voice cracking at the edges. He just needs to hear it from you, hear how it happened and what you had to go through because he wasn't there to protect you. “How could this– How? ”

You turn away from the question.

“Do you even know how?” He asks in a sob, like the question is too much for him to even consider.

He shifts his legs on the stairs so he can close the distance between you, pulling you into his arms until he can knock his head into the side of yours, nuzzling into your hair with a deep inhale.

People do this with their children all the time. Daryl used to worry people would look at him sideways if he did something like that with you out in the open, reserving his real hugs and affection for when you were alone or hurt, but now he finds he doesn't really care what other people have to say. He needs to feel you in his arms and know that you're safe. He needs to smell you and hear you laughing from a distance while you play outside. He needs this.

Carol was right, it is everything.

Whether you're a mother or a father, a brother, or whatever Daryl is to you, losing a child like that means losing yourself right along with them. He might be able to imagine forcing himself to live in a world where you aren't anymore, but he doesn’t want to. He can't live in that world anymore, not now that he knows what it's like when it's your own.

He loved Beth, but Beth wasn't his. She had a family she needed to get back to. You don't. It's a different feeling. With her, he always knew that she had options, a father and a sister who loved her to pieces and would defend her with their lives if they needed to. He never had to worry if while he was out hunting she'd get so lonely she struck out on her own to find him, or lie awake wondering if she got her fill at dinner instead of quietly watching from a distance. Not because she'd been older, but because with you, he's all you've got. There is no passing you off to better people, no letting them take you away like he wishes they would have at first.

Daryl would never be able to move on without you, especially not knowing you were still alive somewhere, needing and missing him.

So for the next hour or so, that's all he does. He keeps you close to his chest, on and off sobbing as he rubs his hands up and down your back.

He's so fucking sorry. You have no idea how sorry he really is.

If he hadn't found you, if he hadn't trapped you, if he hadn't brought you back here, if he would have noticed sooner, none of this would have happened. You'd be safe. He failed, and Rick knew it even before they all knew it. You needed someone who could take care of you, and he wasn't there. He's no father.

But there's no going back on you now.

The sun is just beginning to set, the exhaustion of being out and active all day –since you returned, really– is starting to take its toll on you again. Your body needs rest, and you're sure his does too. He's been straining himself to work when you know he still has to be hurting from whatever torture they inflicted.

You put your hands on either side of Daryl’s face, wiping the last of his tears away.

“Can we go home now?” You say at full volume, voice strangled because of the effort it takes. “I promise to tell the truth from now on…”

Daryl lets out another cry as he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you into a tight embrace. Your voice just sounds so… small. Innocent. Fragile. Like the baby Bambi he found in the net that day.

He can't picture you having a baby. Your still so small frame being forced to carry the weight of another person, being sick and miserable all the time just like Lori and Maggie, when you've only just begun getting better. Then what? You give birth to the damn thing? Nobody was sure that Lori would survive with medicine, Maggie with a doctor, and they're fully grown women. What's going to happen to you?

What's going to happen to his baby, Bea?

The kid who still cries when stuffed animals are mistreated? Who crawls into bed with him half the time because the world is scary and thunderstorms are loud? Who barely knows how to hold a shotgun, let alone a full blown baby. You liked to play with Judith, but it was just that, play. He can't imagine you waking up to screaming and crying, having to feed it in the middle of the night. He can't imagine you dropping your lessons about hunting and target practice to learn how to change diapers.

“I'm gonna fix it,” He promises, rocking you in his arms. “I ain't gonna let nothin’ bad happen to you, okay? –I'm gonna make it all go away.”

You shake your head knowingly, chest aching at the desperation in his voice. “You can't.”