#tabby!

It had been getting more difficult to hide. Emotions always made it worse. For most of his life, he had tried to hide from them; push them down and bury them. And that was before he was bitten. He had been so young and careless, out in the woods after a particularly heavy beating from his father. Nature had always been his safe place. That night, it was anything but safe. 

He had thought it was a dog at first, a low growl the first indication he hadn’t been alone. He had stumbled through the bushes and landed directly in the middle of the dinner table. The creature was kneeling over the deer carcass, its clawed hands holding open a gaping hole so its canine-like maw could delve inside. 

It had heard him, probably smelled him now that he thought back on it. Running had proven useless, its long legs catching up to him with ease. He remembered thinking he would die right there that night. Even now, he could feel the pain flare to life around the scar its teeth had left on his shoulder. 

Then it had let him go. 

His daddy had been passed out drunk when he got home, allowing him to care for the wound without explanation. He would find out on the first full moon since the attack that the creature had been Merle and what exactly that bite meant for the rest of his life. 

So Daryl, a lycan, had kept his secret. It made slaughtering the undead while alone a piece of cake. Even when he was with his chosen family, he had strength he would never be able to explain if he didn’t hide it well. Had he not been so consumed by fear, he could have saved them. He could have saved so many of them. 

After Rick’s supposed death, he had skulked off into the woods to find his brother’s body, dead or alive. He had left everyone behind. He had left her behind. If there had been anyone he would have told, it would have been her. He wanted to tell her; wanted to show her how much he trusted her. How much he loved her. 

But he was afraid. The walkers had done nothing more than die and had become the enemy. What would that mean for him? A lycan. A werewolf. 

Rather than live with her rejection, he chose to live with her absence. It was better for both of them this way. 

Daryl had made her promise to never visit aside from after each full moon. He had been adamant and, so far, Tabby had held to the promise. She’d set the world on fire for that man, so even when her heart ached for his presence, she held fast to the agreement. 

Until now. 

Circumstances called for an earlier visit. She brought supplies with her but secretly hoped this would be when he’d return. It had been six years. Two day visits every 30 days or so just wasn’t cutting it. He’d always allow her to stay in his camp, sharing touches and sweet kisses and whispered words. Sharing his bed and his body. She yearned for those moments. 

Maybe today was the day. 

“Daryl, are you here?” Tabby peeked into the tent, surprised to find Dog stretched out on the bedroll but no archer. “Daryl?” With careful, quiet steps—just like he’d taught her—she crept across the forest floor. It wasn’t long before she heard the familiar snarls of a herd. Oh god, no! 

She didn’t call for him. It would only alert them to her presence when he could be perfectly fine and hiding to wait it out. But why would he leave Dog? There was a new, unfamiliar sound as she closed in, an animal of some sort. Probably, being mauled and eaten, the poor thing. When she could see a few of the uncoordinated, shuffling bodies, she pressed herself against the nearest tree, carefully leaning around to the other side. 

What she saw defied everything logical she had ever been taught up until the dead began to walk. 

A large, black creature was slaughtering walkers left and right; taking heads and limbs and tossing them carelessly. It was covered in fur and stood on two legs at about seven feet, with decipherable knees but canine hocks below them. The fingers and toes were tipped with large, razor-sharp claws that were slicing through flesh like butter. The torso was comparable to that of a human but larger, broader with pronounced skeletal and muscular features. But its head—Its head was large with canine features: elongated snout, pointed ears, and a mouth full of dangerously sharp, dripping teeth. 

Tabby was frozen to the spot with wide eyes, tears on her lashes, and only one coherent thought: Daryl. 

Had it killed him? 

The creature paused with a walker’s head in its grasp, raising its snout to sniff the air—and turned its black gaze right to where she was hiding. 

“Oh fuck.” She whispered, stumbling backwards before she turned around and began to run back to the camp. There was a roar unlike any she had ever heard from somewhere behind her but then the sound of more walkers being dispatched. “Dog!” Tabby screamed, relieved when the canine poked his head out of the tent. “Dog, come! We have to find Daryl!” She saw the archer’s pack on the ground, choking on a sob. Why would he go anywhere without supplies? “Come, Dog! We have to—”

When she turned, she was face to face with an open maw of pointed fangs, rivulets of thick saliva stretching and falling to the leaves. She lifted her foot to take a step back, watching its eyes lower and then rise before it growled. She couldn’t die. Not now. She hadn’t survived years of slow moving corpses to be taken out like this when she was so close to everything she could have ever wanted, apocalypse or not. 

“Dog.” She whispered, oddly concerned that the canine hadn’t made a single sound. She started to risk a glance but didn’t have to look far. Dog was sitting calmly at her side, looking up at the creature with his tongue hanging out the side of his open mouth. 

Movement in front of her brought Tabby’s eyes forward. A huge, clawed hand was reaching for her, slowly. She whimpered, raising her shoulders and screwing her eyes shut. The touch on her face was shockingly gentle. When it pulled away, she released the breath she had been holding and opened her eyes. It was backing away. 

It made a noise before things began to shift. Bones and colors and size, shrinking and morphing until—

“Daryl?!”

He was naked as the day he was born, a hand out against a tree to balance himself as if the change had sapped his energy. The look he was giving her was unreadable, so many emotions flitting across his face that she couldn’t pinpoint just one. 

“Ya weren’t s’posed to come here.” He whispered. 

“Yeah, I get that now.” She snapped. “What the fuck is going on?” He stepped toward and when she stepped back, his expression crumbled. 

“You’re afraid of me now.” He choked on a sob, his chin quivering. Daryl walked briskly past her and grabbed his pack, jerking out clothing and proceeded to begin dressing himself. “Ya can go if ya want.” The tremble in his voice made it clear that wasn’t what he truly wanted. Besides, she came to tell him something and now, more than ever, it seemed more imperative. 

“Daryl, I—” The redhead braved a step toward him, visibly trembling. Yes, she was afraid. Even so, something in her gut told her that he would never hurt her. She was afraid because she didn’t understand. She needed to know what this meant for her. How it changed things. “I need an explanation. I need to know—”

Tabby paused, standing straighter when he went still with his shirt halfway pulled over his shoulders. Daryl sniffed the air—once, then twice—and turned to her, his brow creased. “Ya smell diff’rent.”

“You can smell me? Like—a dog?”

“Lycan.” He corrected, pulling his shirt the rest of the way down. The archer began to step toward her, but she consciously made her feet stay planted. 

“Lycan?” Tabby queried, blinking.

“Werewolf.” Daryl stated calmly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He was nearly in front of her now, taking a moment to lean in and inhale through his nose once again. “Why do ya smell diff’rent?”

“New body wash?” She giggled nervously, a fine shaking to her person but still not moving away. 

He actually dared to look insulted. “Ain’t like that, Tabby-cat. S’ya scent. Your smell. Ain’t your clothes or soap or perfume. S’you.” The jig was up. She had to tell him and then he’d need to her what it meant; if it was dangerous. What she needed to do. 

“So,” The redhead dropped her gaze, toeing at the rocks. “What happens when—lycans?” He nodded. “When lycans and humans have sex and that results in the creation of a little being?” 

Daryl stood up straight, looming over her in a way that had never intimidated her before that moment. “You’re—pregnant?” Tabby nodded, her chin quivering. Daryl barked out a laugh and doubled over, hands on his knees.

She stared with wide blue eyes, incredulous. “You’re seriously laughing right now?”

The hunter shook his head and stood up with an expression of pure relief. “Thought ya’d got bit. Didn’t have the—dead stench but I didn’t know how else to take it. Ya weren’t s’posed to be able.” He sobered quickly, reaching cautiously for her shoulders. When she didn’t back away, he pulled her in against him. “Anyway, aint been through it ‘fore n’ haven’t ran into many others like me, but s’far s’I know, ain’t no diff’rent than a human. Just—” he trailed off, easing his hold on her so that she could move back a little. 

Tabby looked up at him, fear present in her trembling orbs. “Just what?”

Daryl bit his lip nervously. “Kid’ll have the curse. Ain’t no two ways ‘bout it. Don’t know how much or how lil’ it’ll show up. Could be born like a pup, could be human. Could change immediately, could take months, years. S’a lot I don’t know.” He let her go and turned away. “M’sorry. Didn’t think ya’d ever—”

Tabby stood in stunned silence, completely overwhelmed and more than a little frightened. One thing hadn’t changed, though. She didn’t think it ever would. She stepped up after a deep breath, wondering if he already knew she was closer because of super hearing or smell. Regardless, she wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled her head between his shoulder blades, pushing back the mental image of them snapping and shifting only a few minutes before. 

She still loved him. He was still somehow her Daryl, even if she had a lot to learn. 

“I’m scared. You can’t blame me for that.” She felt more than heard him sigh. “But I’m not scared of you.” Now a sharp intake of breath, blue eyes searching for her over his shoulder. Tabby leaned back, only enough for him to turn within her embrace, pressing herself right back into his chest. His arms encircled her immediately, warm and familiar. “I’m scared for our baby, what it means for them. What sort of life they’ll have to lead. What precautions we’ll have to take.”

Daryl nodded but didn’t interrupt. 

“I do know that I want this and I want it with you.” She smiled against his shirt, squeezing him tighter. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

“Together.” He repeated softly, a hand coming up to cradle the back of her head. 

Pulling back, she gave him an all too familiar smirk, a mischievous twinkle in her wet eyes. “So, if I scratched behind your ear, would your leg shake?”

“Stop.”