20Author's Note: Hello all and thanks for reading! :) This is my first TWD fic, it will be in five parts and is of course Caryl but will eventually feature all of the group as they are reunited. If so inclined, please review.
Four Times Daryl Found Hope, and One Time He Found His Heart
Chapter 1: Maggie
The scars on his back seemed to throb and burn with every step he took. It was all in Daryl's head of course but it was there all the same. The past three days had brought up more memories than he ever thought he could remember in such a short time period. The leader, Joe, had reminded him so of his old man, that even setting eyes on the sicko had made his gut churn. He'd been with the group for little more than two days before the other men let their guards down and Daryl was able to slip away. The bandits had assumed that he was like them… maybe the way he talked, the way he held himself, or maybe just because Daryl had lied through his teeth, and had lied well. He had been forced to talk the talk, but thankfully not to walk the walk.
All of the men had liked to talk, boasting mostly about the things they had done. Rapes, murders… how they loved this new world because it allowed them to do all the things that they had always wanted to. Those men loved hurting people, seeing people scream and cry… just like dear old dad.
It had been about ten hours since he'd broken away from the group and struck out on his own. He had walked most of it through a stream he had found to hide his tracks easier but now he was on the train tracks for a while, making good time as he headed south. He had one goal, and that was to get back to where those fuckers had found him and continue on Beth's trail. Losing her hurt more than watching Sophia stumble out of that barn and almost more than the time he thought… she had been dead. But he couldn't think that name, not now, not when he was so close to breaking.
Finding Beth was unlikely, he knew that, but she'd been his responsibility and the very last connection he had to the others, to his family. So, he would try, she would have wanted him to.
Having to, unfortunately, get to know Joe and the others had made him realize something very important… Rick had sentenced her to death, or something worse, when he had banished her. He had had no hope before but being faced with their stories of coming across lone women and the things those sick fucks would do to them before eventually killing them – he was far passed just 'no hope.'
Daryl looked down at his left hand, surprised to find that it was shaking. He made a fist and then relaxed his hand. He couldn't think about it anymore, it was driving him nuts. He would think about finding Beth instead. He could at least think Beth's name without feeling like he was dying. She had been alive the last time he'd seen her and going south.
He took a deep breath of warm, midafternoon air and hoisted his bow higher on his back. His head was all over the place, jumping from one painful thing to the next and Daryl knew he wouldn't last long on his own. He was dehydrated, exhausted, and no matter how much he tried to push down the painful shit, it just rose back up.
It was time to get off the tracks and rough it through the woods, he was too exposed on the tracks. He made to turn and stopped himself. There was something up ahead… a sign and then next to it a large electric box with red writing, he could just see it from the angle he was at.
He jogged forward and stopped in front of the electrical box – "Glenn go to Terminus, Maggie." His mouth dropped open and he felt almost dizzy with the feelings coursing through him. He stumbled forward and examined the writing closer. It was in dark, congealed blood with a dead, disemboweled walker hidden in the tall grass on the side of the tracks.
A bark of laughter erupted from his dry throat and he stifled the rest that wanted to follow. Maggie Greene was fucking tough – not to mention badass. He touched the blood on the electrical box, it was mostly dry but where Maggie had been particularly exuberant and the blood was thicker, it was still gel like. He was only a few hours behind her, maybe five. Next he looked at the small sign next to the box. It was clearly not Maggie's doing, it was older and covered in plastic to keep it from getting wet.
"Those who arrive, survive?" he mumbled allowed. Mostly Daryl thought it sounded like horseshit. Something about it didn't sit right with him but if Maggie was going in that direction….
Once again there was light, a spark of hope in his otherwise dark world. Beth was still gone but she'd been right in the end. They all weren't dead.
He caught a squirrel, roasted it quickly over a spit and shoved the hot meat down his throat, followed by a few wild berries that grew along the tree line by the tracks. He found a cool, clear running stream and filled his water bottle and dropped in his second to last purification tablet. They'd been a lucky find a few months ago on a run… and he didn't exactly have time to boil his drinking water. He chugged it down and then splashed his face with the water from stream. He shook his head, feeling his mind clear as the water and food did its job. He filled his bottle again and dropped in the last tablet.
He had found a purpose, just when he needed one the most. First he would catch up to Maggie and then he would find Beth. Though explaining to Maggie exactly what happened in that cemetery was going to be painful.
Fed and refreshed, Daryl headed off down the railroad tracks at a jog, keeping an eye on the banks on either side of the tracks for foot prints.
Before long he came across his first set of prints. He stopped and examined it, squatting down. There was a set disappearing into the trees and then the same tracks coming back down. They were fresh, maybe just a couple of hours old. He placed his own foot next to the print and his eyes narrowed. Not Maggie's print but definitely not Glenn's either. He knew Rick's print better than his own and it wasn't his either. Too big to be Carl's. Larger sized print, but maybe not too big to be made by a woman's boot. Interesting. He followed the prints up to the tree line and looked around, easily following the tracks in the softer forest floor to behind a tree, where they stopped before backtracking. A man then. One who was too modest to take a piss along railroad tracks. So, Maggie was travelling with someone or she was possibly being followed, but Daryl found that unlikely.
He walked back to the train tracks and started off again at a fast pace, he definitely wasn't far behind.
Half-an-hour later he found another dead walker and a sign for Glenn, this time on the side of a train depot. Like before, Daryl stopped and looked for traps, easily finding three different sets. The same man's prints from before, Maggie's (mostly centered around the dead walker) and another, even smaller set. He stared at the new print for a minute. It was familiar but not overly so. Somebody who he'd worked with before then, somebody from the prison. They seemed to have spent some time at the depot and the surrounding buildings, scavenging probably, looking for food. Which meant he could easily catch up.
Taking a swig of water, he glanced up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. He maybe had another hour before things became too dark to continue… and he could no longer continue the same speed as before.
Continuing on the tracks, he began to let his mind wander as weariness set in. He thought about Beth some, but tried not to think about what she might be going through… if she was still alive. He thought about the prison, about how complacent they had become there, and the ones they lost. Beth had been insisting for days that they just couldn't be the only ones alive, that others had probably made it out too. And now that Maggie was just up ahead, possibly with two others of their group, he began to believe it some too.
He smelled and heard them around the bend in the tracks before he saw them. Groaning, shuffling walkers heading his way. He couldn't necessarily tell how many, but it sounded like too many to risk taking on when he only had two arrows left. Daryl veered off the tracks quickly, scrambling up the embankment and sprinting silently into the trees. Taking out his knife, he held in his hand as he moved deeper into the wood. He came across one walker and stabbed it quickly through the left eye socket, dark red ooze spraying when he hit his mark. He moved on fast, yanking his knife with a squelch out of the corpse. After another minute of veering around trees, he found one that was climbable. Sheathing his knife, he climbed the Georgian white oak as high as he dared, and settled himself in the natural, narrow 'E' made by three close growing branches. Daryl placed his crossbow across his legs and waited to see if any walkers from the tracks had followed him, but none came.
It grew dark quickly in the trees and he knew there was no point in continuing that night. He dug the last of his jerky out of his pocket and munched on a few bites in-between sips of water. Feeling fairly secure in his position he leaned his head back against the rough bark and let his eyes close. Sleep claimed him quickly.
Carol's face twisted in agony. One hand tight around her throat, the other tearing at clothes. Joe's face twisted in a sneer… the hand tightening, and then Joe's face morphing into a familiar shape – his father. He screamed and struggled, reaching out to help her but unable to move or to get to her. He was stuck.
Daryl awoke with a rough shout and breathed heavily as his stomach rolled. He was wet with sweat and shaking, his mind racing as he tried to separate dream from reality; knowing it was inevitable he leaned over the branch and emptied the meager contents of his stomach onto the ground below.
Still shaking, he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, and reached for his water bottle taking a few precious sips of the water before screwing the cap back on and putting it away.
"Stop being such a fuckin' pussy Dixon," he growled aloud, his voice seeming to be sucked into the darkness around him. He needed to get his head screwed on straight, otherwise he wouldn't be any help to anyone.
He breathed in deeply and leaned his head back, knowing he would never sleep now, not after that. It was still dark, Daryl thought that maybe it was early in the morning, around four. A few minutes later the first sounds of approaching geeks reached his ears, likely drawn by the sound of his earlier shout. The forest was pitch black and he couldn't see but he thought that maybe there were two or three of them, judging by the sounds.
Daryl waited silently in the tree until the world around him began to lighten as the sun rose. Able to finally see, he readied a bolt in his crossbow and looked down. There were two of them, clawing at the tree and wandering around its base, knowing apparently he was there but unable to reach their meal. He aimed and fired, shooting the one closest to him through the head; he nocked the other bolt and let that one fly too, watching as it flew through the air and reached its target.
After climbing down he jerked the bolts out of the walkers and wiped them clean on the dewy grass at his feet. He straightened and went about finding himself some breakfast. He ate a handful of wild walnuts and several nearby wild blackberries before tracing his earlier path to the train tracks. The walkers were gone but they had left behind their own shuffling tracks, effectively obliterating any human tracks that Maggie and her group could have made. The train tracks and the slopes on either side acted as a funnel, channeling the walkers down along the tracks. It was very likely that Maggie had also run into the same herd that had passed through the day before. Hopefully at the end of this journey there was someone alive on the other end.
He'd been walking for more than an hour before he once again came across signs of other humans. He had finally passed the place where the herd had come in, a small road that crossed the tracks, and soon after that he found another one of Maggie's signs. It was fresh, made probably less than an hour ago – the blood still dripped slowly down the metal of the box in small gruesome rivulets.
Knowing that he was so close had him quickening his pace, breaking out into a jog. He came across two dead walkers along the tracks, killed recently with clean knife wounds through the eye sockets. And then several yards down another walker flat on its back with an arrow sticking out of its head. His blood ran cold as he approached the walker, tugging the arrow out of its head. Neon yellow fletching with smears of dark red blood on the tips. Not one of the shorter crossbow bolts but an extra-long arrow, shot from an older fashioned bow. A bow owned by the fucker who had wanted his wings, Daryl was sure of it. The kill was more recent, the blood less gel-like than the ones likely killed by Maggie and her group.
Heart beating hard, he loaded a bolt, ears straining for sounds up ahead. If he was following Maggie's signs… then why wouldn't somebody else? It was a chilling thought. He had noticed that the tracks had started to bend, moving south-west rather than due south. The tracks had no cover, not against walkers and not against bad people.
The tracks were more raised where he was, deep drainage ditches dug on either side, and he jumped off of the tracks and down into the one on his left to provide some cover. Keeping low, he hurried forward, bow held at the ready. He badly needed more bolts, with only two all else he had was his knife and that was no good for stealth.
He had only traveled a few minutes when he heard a shout up ahead, followed by a dull thud. Daryl cursed under his breath and broke out into a run. There was a bend up ahead to the left and from the sounds, they were just on the other side.
"Stay away from us!" a female voice rang out through the thick trees. Her voice didn't shake and she sounded strong, commanding.
Maggie.
"Now, now ladies, ain't no use in pointing those things at us. We know you're all out of bullets."
Joe.
"Fuck you."
Sasha.
Daryl heard the men laugh.
"You got it all wrong darlin', it's going to be the other way around."
Like Hell asshole.
He almost fell over Bob Stookey, lying in the ditch. He was noticeably breathing but bleeding badly through a wound on the back of his head. So, they had come up from behind and took out Bob and went after the women. Taking out what they viewed as competition before moving onto their prey… just thinking it made Daryl's skin crawl. He searched through Bob's pockets quickly, taking the knife he found and then the gun. He checked the magazine – two bullets left. He reinserted the magazine and went around the bend, finally catching sight of what he, Maggie, and Sasha were up against.
The girls stood back to back. They'd dropped their guns and held knives at the ready, prepared to defend themselves. The men stood in a circle around them, bows up and arrows nocked.
"Don't be stupid now, there's five of us and two of you. Charge us and we drop you," Joe said silkily. "Tell ya what, come quietly and we'll go easy on you… the first time."
Liar.
Sasha's chin lifted, knife steady. "You're not touching us."
"Which one do we get to play with first Boss?" Len asked, licking his lips. "I like the one with the pretty, shiny ring." He reached out for Maggie's hand and she reacted instantly, slashing horizontally with her knife and then kicking out.
Len yelled, stumbling backwards, hand covering his bleeding face; she'd managed to get him across the face, from cheek to cheek, almost cutting off his nose.
"Well, well boys, we've got a couple 'a hell cats here. We know just what to with hell cats don't we?" Joe sneered. "Len stop that fuckin' caterwaulin'!" the leader shouted as Len whimpered and yelled, blood dripping through his fingers.
"That bitch got me in the face!"
Still in the ditch, Daryl kneeled, bow against his shoulder, the cold metal touching his cheek. He had a decision to make and he had to make it fast. He had two bolts and two bullets but five enemies. If he made the wrong decision he could get them all killed. He was good with the gun but it didn't feel comfortable in his hand like the bow did; the gun felt alien in his hand, not an extension of his arm. Joe had been right about one thing, he was a bow man.
In the span of just ten seconds, the decision was made for him. One of them approached Sasha on the far side, opposite of Daryl, his bow up as a block against her knife. Sasha moved slightly to the left, swaying away from the approaching man and just like that Daryl had a clear shot. He took it, pulling the trigger and letting the bolt fly. It spun through the air and sunk with a thump into Dan's head. Daryl didn't watch the bolt fly or hit its mark, he already had the bow loaded and fired before Joe could finish his exclamation of surprise.
Daryl sprang to his feet, gun already in hand and fired twice in quick succession. Once and then a second time, his arm jerking with each shot. They were both low shots, he didn't trust himself to aim for their heads but he got the two men in the chest, both fatal shots. Daryl continued to hold the gun aloft even though it was empty as he approached, his bow in his other hand.
Joe's sneer had fallen away to be replaced by a look of pure shock as he looked around, each of his group dead or dying – it had been Daryl's plan all along to leave him the last man standing. Maggie and Sasha's eyes were wide, turned toward him now and away from the dead men at their feet.
"Daryl!" Maggie exclaimed, moving to take a step toward him but he shook his head jerkily at her.
"Check 'em, make sure they don't turn."
Maggie and Sasha turned and did just that, stabbing the men quickly and efficiently through the heads. In the interim Joe rearranged his face into something expressionless and raised his hands into the air, one grey eyebrow cocked.
"We both know there's no more bullets in that gun, Dixon."
"Don't matter, I intend to beat you to death with it," Daryl growled, hand tightening around the gun.
Joe's face didn't change. "We both know you're not going to do that."
That's what you think.
Unbidden, a memory came to Daryl's mind, a boy tied up in a barn and his fist striking the boy's face again and again…. The smirk on Randall's face as he told the story about those two teenage girls and he felt the same righteous anger now but it was tenfold. This was personal – the scars on his back gave a throb again.
"Don't sit back here and tend to your bloody fists and pretend you don't care." Daryl stopped a few feet away from Joe, Carol's voice seeming to ring through his head like a bell. It felt in a way like she was right behind him, or beside him. He wanted to kill this fucker slowly, make sure he felt each blow before he slit his throat – he'd enjoy it in the end, killing Joe. His hand flexed around the gun, tightening again and then loosening.
But then how different would you really be?
The thought was so out of left field that he dropped the gun to the ground in surprise. He breathed hard through his nose for a moment before pulling his knife out its sheath at his hip.
"Kneel," he ordered.
When Joe didn't comply, Daryl kicked the man's legs out from under him and he fell to the ground on his knees, hands still up in the air.
There was relative silence as Daryl walked around behind the other man. Taking a handful of Joe's oily hair in his fist, he pulled back, exposing Joe's neck. In the distance he heard Sasha leave to tend to Bob and Maggie standing near, watching.
Joe's laugh turned into a gurgle as Daryl slid the knife across the man's neck, blood spilling onto the ground below. Then, he pulled the knife away to sink it into the back of his head, ensuring that Joe would not rise again.
With a snarl, Daryl pushed the body away from him and the corpse lay there sprawled across the tracks, limbs at odd angles.
He cleaned the knife and put it away, looking up and catching Maggie's eye. She was standing a few feet away, dirty hands over her mouth, and tears in her eyes. She pulled her hands away and wiped impatiently at her eyes, wetness smearing the blood that dotted her face.
"I don't think I've ever been so glad to see someone in my whole life," she spoke, stumbling towards him and wrapping her shaking arms around him.
Daryl tensed, stunned. Maggie had barely ever touched him before, let alone hug him. He patted her back twice before she let him go, shaking herself and wiping the rest of her tears away.
"Been followin' you, saw one of your signs yesterday," he said, stepping away so that he could look closer at her. "Any of that yours?" he asked, pointing to the blood on her face.
She rubbed at her grimy cheek and shook her head. "No, not mine."
Daryl nodded. "You see signs of anybody else yet?" he asked her.
Her head bowed for a moment, the weight of those that could be lost, heavy. "No. We found the bus but one of the sick ones must have turned…. The bus was full of walkers. We checked each one to make sure none of them were Glenn," she shrugged jerkily, wiping at her eyes again, this time angrily. "He must have gotten off or gone back. All I know is he wasn't in that bus."
"We'll find 'im," he said with the same certainty that he had felt when he'd been looking for Sophia; that felt an eternity ago.
Maggie mouthed a thank you and had to swallow hard before she could speak. "What about you?"
His throat tightened and his eyes dropped, staring down at the ground, watching as the toe of one ratty shoe kicked at a little rock. His heart was right in his throat again, heavy with regret. I lost your sister, she was right there and I just fuckin' lost her.
"Daryl?" Maggie asked.
He forced himself to meet her questioning gaze. "I got out with Beth." It came out as a pained croak and he cleared his dry throat.
She sucked in a deep breath. "Okay." Maggie straightened, preparing herself for the worst, her eyes glassy. "She dead?"
This was the hard part, because he didn't know. If he knew for sure, it would be easier. "I – don't know. Somebody took off with her."
Maggie's head jerked back in surprise and he quickly explained. Daryl started with coming to the cemetery and then the clean, stocked house. Looking back now he was disgusted with himself that he didn't realize the whole thing was a setup. He described the dog, the walkers, and then finally the car that sped off into the night, with Beth inside of it.
"I'm gonna find her though," he added. "That's where I was headin' when I found your sign."
Maggie nodded, her face twisted into a worried, perplexed expression. "But how? She could be anywhere."
His mind raced and he unconsciously turned his body towards the west, back to where that cemetery had been. "I'm goin' back to that cemetery. I missed something there my first time through." That much was clear now that he actually thought about it. Somebody took the time to keep that place clean and stocked, somebody had taken the time to pose those walkers, and to fix them up for burial. Whoever it was would likely go back.
Daryl felt pressure on his arm and looked down to find Maggie's hand just above his wrist. "We'll find her too."
He nodded, realizing that he felt something suspiciously like hope blooming in his chest. Yes, they could find Beth, but more than that, they would find her.