Archive of Our Own

It still felt like yesterday that you and Daryl would meet for the first time in the quarry back in Atlanta. You two hated each other back then. Well, Daryl hated everyone. You were just obnoxious in your positivity. Making jokes with everyone. Talking about the benefits of a zombie apocalypse happening. He could still remember you making a joke with Glenn about not having to keep paying off those student loans of yours. Apparently, you’re job required that you spend your first 12 weeks there in a ‘training period’ which is that they’d basically gave you crap on-the-job training with minimum wage. In your case, it was a measly $8 an hour and the guy who was in charge of you was a power-hungry and controlling creep who had his sights set on you.

“If a zombie apocalypse is what it takes for me to never have to continue that job or go through the horrors of job hunting again, then I’ll take it,” you said with a chuckle. 

You and Glenn had a good laugh about that. Glenn agreed with you as well. His job as a pizza delivery driver had more bad days than good at best. He’d tell her about the shit manager he’d get stuck with and how he’d get called in halfway through his days off and told that he was scheduled to work on those days. 

Daryl had just glared over at them as they laughed and joked. He’d said somethings that now he regretted. Glenn had winced and had an ashamed, guilty expression on his face. He trudged off to go see if Dale and Jim needed his help with anything. You’d just stood there and glared right back. You called him out on his shit without resorting to a single insult. Daryl had made some derogatory comments, sneered at you, then left to go hunting.

Now, after years of dealing with you, Daryl found that he loved that optimistic personality of yours. Even when they were fighting the Saviors, you had tried to be positive. Had tried desperately to not let your family, Daryl included, be taken down into the darkness that Negan was dragging them all into. Some people, himself included, hadn’t appreciated your efforts. Not as much as they should have anyway. Every time they had made a plan that sounded even remotely more ruthless than they should’ve made it, you’d question them without hesitation. Asking them if the plan really needed to be like this. Did they really need to go down this path? Jesus seemed to be the only one who appreciated your efforts in those sessions. Even Ezekiel, who is usually a very positive man, did not seem to appreciate your efforts. None seeing why you were so adamant for them to not become monsters like Negan.

Unfortunately, it would almost take losing you for them to realize what you were trying to do.

In one battle between them and the Saviors, it was a battle at a fuel depot and a herd of walkers had come through. You’d gotten separated from the rest of the group.  The herd was trying to get at the people from both sides, but then you showed up in the opposite direction holding a somehow functioning megaphone and a road flare.

Daryl wasn’t sure what you were planning, but when you started singing loudly through the megaphone. He remembered the words of the song clearly. You were singing Fare Thee Well with that stupid grin on your face whenever you made a lame joke, but the tears running down your face told a different story. Daryl had remembered his heart stopping when he realized that you were telling them all goodbye while trying to save their lives. The dead left them. Finding her singing much more interesting than trying to climb up where they were. Then, he watched as you lit the flare. Waving it in the air solidifying the dead’s attention to you.

Daryl remembered Rick and Aaron holding him back as he screamed for you. When you finished singing, you gave him soft smile that you’d been giving him since that first winter after losing the farm. That soft look that told Daryl what you felt towards him. He knew it because he’d give you the same soft looks as well. You could tell back then that if you made the first move, he’d reject you. So during one night at the prison while dealing with the Governor, you came into his cell and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

“I know how you feel about me and now you know how I do about you,” you said. He opened his mouth to speak, but you pressed a finger to his lips to silence him. “I also know that you aren’t ready.” She gave him that understanding smile. “So, I won’t push. I will not expect you to do anything after this. But when you’re ready, I’ll be here. You just tell me when.” Then, you turned around and walked off. You had watch with Maggie that night. Daryl would just sit there in his cell staring after her.  

Then, you started walking back towards the depot. The dead following you like you were the Messiah and they were your worshippers. A few moments later, the place went up in a fiery explosion. You always did say that if you were to die, then it would be a blaze of glory. That didn’t stop Daryl’s heart from shattering though. Didn’t stop him falling to his knees as the one woman he wanted to be with. The one woman he fell in love with and was too much of a coward to confess to. To make that damn move. He never should have let you walk out of his prison cell that night. He should have told you how much he cared about you. How much he loved you. How he fell for you that time during the winter when he watched you look after everyone when an illness swept through the group. You and Herschel were the only ones unaffected. The two of you spent two weeks looking after the group. Herschel would look after them during the day while you would go do solo runs to find medicine and food. Then, at night, you’d make the old man go sleep and you’d take the night watch. Daryl wasn’t sure how long the two of you had been arguing for one night when Herschel had been getting on you about taking energy and caffeine pills that you found right when illness had taken most of the group down.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Firefly,” Herschel said, calling you by his nickname for you. Everybody in the camp had gotten a personal nickname that you would call them, so Carl started a trend of giving you a nickname that only he could call you. The rest of the group followed after. Even giving others lame nicknames for fun. The old man motioned to the bottle of caffeine pills in your hand. “If you keep this up, you could end up addicted to them,” he warned.  

“It’s not forever, Father Christmas,” you told him. You started calling him that when Herschel started growing his hair and beard out. He found the name highly amusing and it’d be the only name he’d respond to when you’d speak with him. “Just until they’re better. This illness has everyone except us bedridden, Herschel. Thank goodness, it hasn’t killed them, but they’re the most vulnerable now. We’re the only ones between them and whatever problem that could kill them.” You looked around the group. You spotted Daryl’s exhausted gaze when he’d accidentally let a cough slip.

“Firefly, you’re doing two jobs by yourself at night,” Herschel pointed out, “that’s not good. You’ll wear yourself out.”

“I do try to catch an hour or two during the day, Herschel. Don’t worry,” you assured him. You smiled tiredly at him. “Just until they’re all better, Herschel. Then, I’ll stop taking them. I promise.” She pressed a sweet kiss to the old man’s cheek in appreciation for his concern. “You can even personally take them from me as soon as the last one in our group has recovered and chuck them to the wind.”

The old man gave her a tired, but amused smile. “I’ll hold you to it,” he said, finally let the matter go.

That next week was hell for everyone because the Saviors that escaped told Negan what happened and he had reached out to Rick through the walkie with intent to mock the man for ‘losing a hot piece of ass like her’. Carl had taken the walkie from him and said some not so nice things after that before Michonne took the walkie from the teenager. Daryl didn’t care what was being said and done around him. He just sat on the steps of Barrington house and ignored everyone. He’d felt numb. Like ‘the walking dead’ as Rick had told them about that one night before Aaron found them. He’d go on his early morning hunts as usual. He’d go on watch and do perimeter checks. But he refused to talk to anyone. He was also not sleeping or eating. He just shut down. A ghost of someone who didn’t know he was dead yet.

Until someone on watch that day shouted that you were back.

The walls were opened and you stood there. Exhausted and covered in soot and walker blood. You had a slight cough from the smoke inhalation, but had assured them that it was worse a couple days ago. You looked like you hadn’t slept. Just like when you hadn’t slept looking after the group when they were sick. Daryl could only stand back and stare at you in complete and total disbelief. He couldn’t believe that you were alive. He watched as Rick pulled you into a crushing hug, then passed you off to the others in their family. You would hold Maggie a little tighter with a watery smile as the brunette would cry into your shoulder. Maggie and Beth would joke with you about how similar the three of you looked with each other. So much so that you would jokingly call each other sisters. At least until the Greene sisters ended up considering you their sister. To Maggie as she cried in your shoulder, you were the last of her family. She’d lost her mother, stepbrother, Otis, Patricia, Herschel, Beth, and recently Glenn at the lineup. She didn’t think she’d be able to handle losing you as well. The very last of her family.

After you finished making your way through your family and friends, Daryl noticed that your gaze was wandering. As if you were looking for someone. He wondered who. His answer was given to him when your gaze landed on him. That beautiful smile getting even wider as you spotted him just standing at a distance away from them. You broke from them to go straight to him. Though, when you got within a couple feet from him, you smile disappeared. Taking it’s place was a look of confusion.

The reason for it was because Daryl was glaring angrily at you. While he was relieved that you were alive, the fact that he thought that he’d lost you. That he spent the week mourning you. He didn’t know why it took you so long to get back. He knows he should just be grateful that their family wouldn’t have to give you an empty grave that they could visit. But at that moment, he couldn’t bring himself too.

“What took you so damn long,” he snarled at you.  

You blinked at him in confusion. “What..”  

“A week,” he said, “ you were gone a damn week. A week since that fuel depot blew up with you in it.”  

“I managed to get out of there before it blew, but I had the fire and walkers to avoid, Daryl,” you’d explain, a glare of your own forming on your tired, dirty face, “just when I thought I was making progress, I ended up having to take a different route to not get either caught by walkers or die of smoke inhalation. By the time I was able to get clear, I was pushed farther out from any of the communities. I was so far out that I had little to no inkling as to where the goddamn hell I was. I barely managed to find my bearings as to where the fuck I was. Then, I came straight here as fast as I could.”  

He scoffed at her explanation. “Yeah, right,” he sneered at you.  

You shook your head, then ran a hand through your just as dirty hair. “I don’t know what’s got you all fucking pissy, Daryl, but I fucking know I don’t deserve that,” you told him.  

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he growled, “you should have let Rick and I come up with a better plan.”

“There was LITERALLY NO TIME, Daryl,” you emphasized, “if I hadn’t done what I’d done, you and everyone else, regardless of sides, would be walkers now. Is that what you would have preferred, Daryl? Because I’ll do that next time if that’s what you want.” The sarcasm in the last statement was as heavy as the heat of your glare at him.  

“You didn’t need to do that,” he snapped, “why sing that song if you weren’t going to die?!”  

You blinked at him in surprise. “That’s what’s got you all in a damn tizzy, Dixon,” you pointed out. The disbelief in your tone obvious. “I didn’t pick it on a whim. I thought I really was going to die and it was the first song that came to mind when I used the megaphone. I did not expect to survive that any of that, Daryl.”  

Daryl was just so angry and stressed though. Everything that had happened from when Dwight killed Denise to that incident at the fuel depot finally bursting through the walls he had put up. He was lashing out at you. He didn’t mean to. It just happened.  

And he couldn’t stop himself.  

“Well, maybe it would’ve been better if you hadn’t survived then,” he growled, “maybe then we can actually come up with plans to finish off Negan without being questioned over every damn little thing.” He watched your face go blank at that. “God, you are absolutely the most infuriatingly, annoying woman on the damn planet with that stupid positive attitude of yours and your stupid jokes. You keep trying to save everyone, but you can’t.” The shock on your face spurred him even more. “You’ve seen that multiple times with all the damn people we’ve lost. You’ve seen that with the Governor, with the Claimers, with Terminus, the Wolves, and now the Saviors. Don’t know what you’re hoping to happen with all the times you’ve been trying to do with you badgering me or Rick or Maggie about things we’ve done. Trying to get us to change our damn minds about just completely wiping the damn Saviors out. You’ve seen what they’ve done. You saw what they did to me. Yet you keep going on and on and on about looking for the damn good in people.” He moved closer so that they two of you were chest to chest. “Well, damn news flash, sunshine,” he snarled. He called you by his nickname for you, but not out of love. Out of hate. “There aren’t any good people around anymore except yourself. We buried the only other good guy.” He pointed towards Glenn’s grave. “You can go spout your fucking positivity on his grave. See if anyone answers.”  

With that, he stormed off. He purposefully slammed his shoulder into yours as he passed you. He stormed past the shocked and horrified faces of the people closest to him and left Hilltop. He had hunting to do. He couldn’t be in the same place with you anymore. He didn’t turn back. He wouldn’t see the pain on your face as you heart broke into a million pieces with every step he’d taken away from you.  

Daryl remembered doing his damndest to avoid you after that too. His anger making him blind to the pain that he caused to someone so precious to him. It wasn’t until the night that the injured had died from their infected wounds and turned to walkers, attacking the other people in Hilltop. After putting down the initial walkers and realizing what had happened, Daryl remembered his heart stopping again. He remembered that you had been shot by Dwight with an arrow that fight. He remembered looking to you and seeing the broken look on your face. Watched as you took a deep breath and then checked the ammo of your gun.

“I’ll leave Hilltop,” you said to Rick. Rick opened his mouth to say something to stop you, but you kept talking. “Rick, I was one of the injured too. I refuse to be a weapon for Negan. I refuse to be a threat to my family.” You gave him a soft smile. “It’s been a wild ride, Officer Friendly, but this is where I get off. At least let me be the one who decides how I go.”  

“What are you gonna do,” Rick asked.  

“Gonna take a car to Sanctuary. Sneak in and kill as many of those assholes as possible. Then, when I feel too sick to continue, I’ll off myself,” you put your gun back in it’s holster, “I can ask Siddiq for sleeping pills. That or I find where they store their cleaning supplies and chug some bleach.” You ignored how everyone gave you horrified looks. “Then, I’ll turn there and, hopefully, take a few of them out before they put me down.”

“What if they put your walker body on his wall instead,” Daryl dared to ask.

You gave him a steady look. He missed your smile. “I never want to work for Negan, dead or alive,” you told him, “put a bullet in me.” You motioned to his crossbow. “Or an arrow, whichever you prefer.” You looked at the leadership. “I’ll leave in an hour.”  

With that, you had walked away to the area you had taken over as your space. Daryl, Rick, and Siddiq following after her. Hoping to talk you out of it.

“Cricket, you don’t know that you’re infected,” Rick argued. His nickname for you was Jiminy Cricket because of how much you acted like the group’s conscience. Making sure that the decisions they made truly were the best ones and that there wasn’t a more peaceful solution. Or a solution that would result in everyone surviving instead of a few. “Everyone else that turned had been injured around the same time as you had. Have you been showing any signs yet?”

“No, but then again, infection happens at different times for everyone, Rick,” you argued back.  

You were counting out your personal stash of ammunition. When the Saviors first showed up and you realized the situation your family was in, you’d taken to leaving the community for all hours of the day, sometimes at night. While you would be out, you started searching for places with guns and ammunition. Whatever you found, you immediately hid. You kept a map to yourself as to where your supplies were hidden. You knew that once Rick got his head on straight and found his fighting spirit again, he’d want to go to war against Negan and his Saviors. While you disliked the idea of war, you understood that Negan was a different monster. He was up there with the Governor and Terminus. You knew you couldn’t talk Rick out of fighting Negan, but maybe you can try to ensure that he doesn’t wipe out an entire community just because the leadership consists of monsters and psychos.  

“It doesn’t matter,” Siddiq added, “the timeline between initial exposure to the virus from walkers to death is two days. At most, you should be showing signs of fatigue. You should be tired and sweating. You should have the shakes. Something, anything to indicate that you’re infected.” You stopped and looked at the man Carl gave his life for.

“Don’t give hope where there is none to give, Siddiq,” you tell him in a solemn voice, “you’re just going to make this hurt even more than it should.”  

Siddiq wouldn’t let this deter him. “Do you feel any of the initial symptoms of the infection,” he asked. His eyes told him that he wasn’t backing down.  

You stood there quietly as you took stock in how you felt. You felt tired, but you’ve felt this tired since the war started. You felt even more tired when Daryl yelled at you. Even more so when he deliberately stopped talking to you and avoided you like the damn plague. But….you had to admit, despite the time that had passed since the battle that evening, you did not feel any sign of being infected. No fever. No shakes. Your bones didn’t feel like glass. You looked at Siddiq.  

“No,” was your answer. It was the truth. You felt fine, other than being injured at least.

“Dwight is on our side,” Rick reminded, “maybe his weapon wasn’t coated in walker blood like the others.”  

“Maybe,” you conceded, “but that doesn’t mean that it might not have been.”

“Please, Cricket,” Rick pleaded, “don’t go. Let us observe you. If you start showing signs, I’ll personally take you to Sanctuary.”  

You sighed. “Okay,” you agreed.  

Then, you were put in one of the guest rooms in Barrington house and kept in there for isolation. Siddiq would check you hourly for any symptoms. If it even looked like you were starting to show, the doctor would tell Rick. Rick had even gotten a car ready for the two of them to take once Siddiq confirmed your infection.  

Daryl remembered Carol coming up to him that night too. “Go talk to her,” she pleaded, “she thinks you hate her now. If this is really it for her, then don’t let her last moment with you be that.”  

He knew what she was referring too as well. She’d given him her piece of mind for that. So had Maggie. She told him that she didn’t blame him for Glenn, but she was pissed at him for hurting you. Rick had even expressed his disappointment at Daryl for how the redneck treated you that day. He didn’t give a long lecture. Just told him that he understood that Daryl hadn’t meant it. That he was disappointed at how he treated her.

“Fix it,” was how he finished that talk.

But like a coward, he didn’t. Again. He kept telling himself that he’d do it after the war. He’d even told Rick that. Rick had told him that he should do it sooner. Otherwise the wounds the archer had given you would fester like an infection in an open wound and the damage would be irreversible. That or you could die. For real this time.

Just like now.  

But he wasn’t going to let you slip away again. Even if it meant that in a few hours he’d lose you again, he’d at least say what he should’ve said. Make things right between them if this is truly goodbye. He slowly ascended the stairs in Barrington house. His family were strewn out around the house and watched with bated breath as Daryl traveled up those stairs and went to your room. He knocked on the door, then entered when he heard you give permission for entry. He walked in and saw you sitting at the foot of your bed. You wouldn’t see who it is that walked in. You assumed that it was Siddiq who was coming in to check on you. It was almost time for him to do his hourly check again.  

“Still no symptoms, Siddiq,” you said in a plain voice. No jokes. No sarcasm. Not referring Siddiq by a nickname you’d given him. He knew that you had given the man the nickname ‘First Aid’ from a Transformer. You had told Daryl that the doctor’s temperament had reminded you of the character and you couldn’t help calling him that.  

It’s like you’d given up and it broke the redneck’s heart.

“That’s good at least,” Daryl said, “I’ll be sure to relay that to First Aid when he gets here.”

You whipped your head to look at him so fast that he thought you would break your neck. The surprise on your face clear as day. It sent a pang of hurt in his heart. You truly did not expect him to come see you. The surprise was gone not a second after, immediately becoming neutral to him. That hurt him too, but he accepted it.

He deserved it after all.  

“What do you want, Daryl,” you ask. Not Archer. Not Legolas or Hawkeye or Katniss or any of the other stupid nicknames that you’d given him over the years. Just Daryl. Hell, he’d take a Dixie if it meant that you’d flash him that mischievous grin at him again.  

“I wanted to see you,” he admitted.

“What for?” You gestured to your injury. “This is what you wanted, right?” The hurt was in your voice. You didn’t bother to hide it. “I’m finally going to die,” you said. You looked away from him, but he could still see your lip quivering. “So now you and Rick and Maggie and everyone else in this damn place can finally do whatever the fuck you want without me around to convince you of another way. Isn’t that what you all want,” your voice had become exasperated and anger. “Like excuse me, what the fuck was I thinking, right?” You stood up and paced the room. Then, glared at him. Unshed tears making your eyes look glassy. “God forbid I give two shits about all of you to try and not let you all become like the Negan. Like the Wolves and Terminus and the Claimers. God forbid I try to prevent you all from becoming like the Governor. Like Shane.” You had taken Shane’s death hard. You’d been trying so hard in those last couple weeks to reach the man, but he was so far gone that he couldn’t, wouldn’t listen to reason. It almost cost you your life when you caught him killing Randell. “I get that you all want Negan dead. I want him dead too. I just refuse to let myself get so fucking caught up in my grief and let myself fall prey to his tormenting to let myself become a monster like him. So sorry that I didn’t want him to do that to all of you as well. Do that to you, Daryl fucking Dixon.”  

You were screaming halfway through your rant. Your tears falling down your face as your chest heaved for air. You’re red in the face with frustrated anger. You always did cry whenever you got too frustrated or angry about something. You hated that about yourself too. He knew that because Shane had made fun of you for it on the farm and you got pissed at him about it. It wasn’t something you could control. It just happened. Just like now as you turn away and happen to look at the mirror. Daryl watches as you give yourself a disgusted look for your tears and angrily wipe them away.  

“Sunshine,” he whispers, but he didn’t get beyond the nickname before you whirled on him.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” you snarled, dangerously, “you lost the right to it.” Daryl didn’t stop the wince at the statement, but you ignored it. “What the fuck do you want, Daryl?”  

“I….I came here to make things right,” he answered, honestly.  

You gave him a blank look, then your glare came back. You looked even angrier than earlier.  

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, DIXON,” you snarls loudly, “what fucking planet do you think you live on that after you say those things to me and treat me like that. Showing up at,” you gesture to your bed, “what essentially is my death bed now to apologize?!? Are you fucking kidding me?” You let out an incredulous laugh. “What? Don’t like the idea of our last interaction with each other was you taking my heart, that’s been waiting for you since the fucking prison, and fucking obliterating it.” He winced. “No, god forbid that be our last moment together. No. Men like you only feel remorse for doing something so shitty when you know the person you were absolute shit to is dying, right?” You grabbed a pillow from an armchair that was in the room and threw it at Daryl. “Go deep throat a cactus, Daryl. I don’t want your damn apology,” you snarled at him, “I’m not obligated to forgive anyone. Least of all you.” You point at the door. “Get the hell out of my room, Daryl, and don’t you dare come back in. Don’t even show up to say goodbye to me when I leave for Sanctuary either. Let the last time you see me be this.”

With that, you returned to the foot of your bed and sat back down. You deliberately kept your back to him. Refusing to even let him see your face one last time. You would give him nothing. You would forgive nothing. Who knew that it only took you possibly dying for you to become the very person Daryl believed that you should have become after everything that happened. Daryl could only stare at you with a broken expression on his face. His mouth had opened and closed multiple times as he tried to say what he should have said to you sooner.  

So much sooner.  

But he couldn’t.

With one last sad look at you, he leaves the room. He closes the door and walked a couple steps down the hall before he stops when he heard a sound. He never realized how thin the walls of Barrington house were before now. He only did now because he heard noise coming from your room. It didn’t take him long to identify the noise.

You were crying.

He felt frozen in place as he heard your muffled sobs through the old wall. As the seconds passed, the resolve that he though he lost suddenly came back with a vengeance. With a determined face, he spun on his heel and stormed back to your room. He burst into the room, closing the door behind him, and walked over to where you sat. You glared at him and stood up. Ready to yell at him to get the hell out, but he stopped you.  

“I never should have said those things to you, Sunshine,” he tells you, completely disregarding your earlier statement forbidding him from calling you that.

“But you did,” you hissed back. Tears stained your face.  

“I know,” he agreed. He sighed. “I was angry over what had been happening. From Denise’s death to…..to when I thought I lost you that day….at the fuel depot.” You kept your face blank as you studied him. Daryl gave you a pained look. “I was a mess when I thought I lost you. I just shut down. I wouldn’t eat or sleep. I couldn’t. I just did my normal thing and did as I was told whenever Rick or Maggie or Jesus or anyone asked me to do anything. I felt like I was one of the dead. Wandering around aimlessly, waiting for someone, anyone, to come along and put me out of my misery.” His eyes got glassy with his own tears. “Then, you came back. At first I couldn’t believe it, but when everyone greeted you. I realized that I wasn’t imagining things…..and…..and I just got so angry, Sunshine. But none of it was ever meant for you. Everything just built up in me and I just lost it when I saw you.” His lips quivered as he thought back to that regretful moment. “I never should have said those things to you. I should’ve kissed you right there instead. I should have kissed you that night in the prison when you told me to tell you when I was ready. Fuck, I should have told you that damn winter after that illness hit us.” You stared at him in surprise. “Instead, my head went up my ass and I ended up hurting you instead of telling you how much I fucking love you.”  

You had a shocked expression on your face as you processed the last statement. “You love me,” you repeated, softly.  

Daryl moved closer to you and took your hands in his. “I love you,” he said again, “I love those stupid jokes and puns you make to try and lighten to mood. I love each and every one of the stupid nicknames you’ve ever given me. Yes, including Dixie. Hell, I’d take being called nothing but Dixie by you if it meant I could see that smile you give me. The one that says that you’re up to some kind of mischief or trouble.” He leans his forehead against yours. “I love the sound of your laughter. I love it when you sing. I love how good you are with Judith. How you were with Carl.” You both got teary at the mention of the teen. “I love how you’ve been trying to keep me and everyone one in our family from turning into all the monsters that we’d seen since the start of this. I love how you always try to see the damn positive in every damn situation.” He wrapped his arms around you. Holding you tightly in his arms like he should’ve when you came back after the fuel depot. “I’m so sorry, Sunshine. Please forgive me,” he pleaded with you, “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. Hell, I should have apologized to you sooner.” He pulls away to look at your face. “I had planned to apologize after this war, but that was a mistake. I never should have treated you that way. Never. You are the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful person I’ve ever met,” he finished.  

“Daryl,” you started, but he didn’t let you say anything else.  

He smashes his lips against yours. One hand buried in your hair and the other pulling you against him. You froze at first, but then you melted into him. Your own hands threading themselves in his hair, gripping the locks tightly. As if scared that if you let go, he’d be gone and you’d be left alone in this room again. Tears rolled down your faces in fat dollops as you two finally kissed. Something that should have happened instead of the fight. You’d part when your lungs started screaming at you for air. The both of you gasping after such an intense kiss. With your eyes closed, you’d rest your head against his. Your eyes slowly opening to see his equally tear stained face.  

“I love you, Sunshine,” he says again.

You wanted to still be mad. To be angry at him, your family, Negan, the war, your situation, but you were so damn tired of being angry. You hated being so angry. You hated saying what you had screamed at Daryl. You shouldn’t have, but you were so angry that you wanted to hurt him just like he had you when you showed up. Instead, your lip quivered as more tears flowed down your face.

“I love you too, Daryl,” you’d tell him in a broken voice. You didn’t want to die. You didn’t want to go to Sanctuary. You wanted to be with Daryl. You wanted to live and spend the rest of your life with him. “I’m sorry I said those things,” you whimpered at him. His gorgeous blue eyes meeting yours. “I was so angry, like you that day, and hurt. I wanted to hurt you too for how you hurt me.” You let out a sob as you wrapped your arms around his neck to hold him close. “I’m sorry,” you sobbed, “I’m sorry. I love you, Daryl. I’m so, so sorry.”

Daryl wrapped his arms around you as well, holding you just as close. His own tears streaming down his face as he cried silently. “I’m sorry too,” he whispered in your ear.

Of course, Siddiq would come in to do his last check before deciding if you were to leave with Rick or not. Despite being emotionally drained and still injured, Siddiq gave you a clean bill of health. The relief you and your family felt washed through you all in waves. You were so happy that you grabbed the front of Daryl’s vest and smashed your lips against his in a searing kiss in front of your family. The relieved laughter and wolf-whistling reminded you that other people were around and caused the two of you to break apart.

After that, the war and the next few years went by like a breeze. The life that you two should have had together sooner was now a reality.

Daryl woke up as the first light of dawn slipped into his room. He was lying on his back and blinked blearily up at the ceiling. He turned his head to your side of the bed to see your bare back to him. The sheet down to your hips. He stared at you as his eyes glossed over every scar on your back. He knew the story behind each and every one of the pale marks on your skin.

The graze on the side of your arm from when the Governor and his men had attacked the prison and rammed a van full of walkers through the prison gates. You got shot shooting the driver in the leg to get the dead’s attention away from Herschel and took a shot in the arm. It was just a graze, but when Daryl saw you sitting with Herschel to get stitches for them, he just about lost it. He regretted leaving the group for Merle even more after that. The branded x on your back from when Jocelyn had kidnapped the children of Alexandria and stolen all of the community’s food. Daryl could see the wound from the arrow Dwight had shot you with. The burn and shrapnel scars from the fuel depot that left its mark all over your body. And so many others.

He reached a hand out so he could trace the faint marks that he could see from where he laid. His fingers gentle as they ghosted over your skin. After a moment of tracing them, he stopped when he saw you take a deep breath as you did when you woke up. He pulled his arm away as he watched you turn around so you could face him. A sleepy smile on your face as you looked at him. You clutched the sheet to your chest as if to give yourself some form of modesty, despite the fact that Daryl knew that he left a wonderful assortment of hickeys and bite marks all over your body last night. He could see a few of them peeking over the sheet. He also knew if he looked down his chest, he’d see that you had left your marks on him as well.

“Morning,” you rasped out to him. Your voice still heavy with sleep and scratchy as all fuck from your activities from last night.

“Hey,” he said, a small smile of his own forming on his face.

He motioned for you to come closer. You do, of course. You snuggle up to him as he rolls to his side to face you. An arm slipping under his head and the other arm wrapping around you, pulling you tight against him. He leans down to press a tender kiss to your lips. You smile into the kiss and your hand cups his face. He feels the gold band around your ring finger press against his face as you returned the kiss. When the two of you broke the kiss, he rested his head against yours.

“You gonna go hunt,” you asked, sleepily.

“I should,” Daryl admitted.

You blinked up at him blearily. “Let’s stay in bed today,” you suggested. Daryl huffed a quiet laugh. “‘M serious. We’re always working.” You sighed as you buried your head into the crook of his neck. “Let’s just stay in bed today. We can just grab food from the kitchen when we’re hungry and eat in here.”

“What if we’re needed,” Daryl asked. Amusement heavy in his voice.

“We tell everyone that unless the dead are swarming outside the walls or we’re under attack by some shit group, we’re having a day off,” you grumbled out your answer. Then, you yawn and curl up more into Daryl’s embrace. “They can survive one day without the two of us. I promise.”

“But you have your appointment today with the doctor,” he reminded you, “got to make sure the little one inside you is okay. Plus, I don’t think Merle or Dale are gonna let us sleep once they wake up.”

You groan at the mention of your two sons. “Shit, you’re right,” you grumble. Then, you looked up at him. “Maybe we can kick them out for the day. Send them to Michonne’s or Aaron’s. You know they’re always offering to take them for a day so you and I can have some us time.”

Daryl snorted. Then, grabbed the sheet and moved it further up your bodies.

“Yeah, I guess we can do that,” Daryl concedes, “now get some more sleep. The boys won’t be up for another couple hours and I know we both need it.”

You smile as you close your eyes again. Your head returning to his neck.

“I love you, Dixie.”

Daryl chuckles. “Love you too, Sunshine.”