Chapter Text
Day One
Daryl had stopped keeping track of days and time a long while ago, allowing the change of seasons and temperatures to mark that the world was still moving forward. But—when his arms wrapped around her, flooding him with her touch—he counted it as Day One.
He was caught in her. Tangled up in a desperate weave of gaping breaths and uninhibited grabbing. Her body—strong and tender—held against his in the wave of emotion that rolled off his back. If he could choke the words out that swam around his tongue he would, but nothing came but a soft whimpering that even he wasn't aware he was capable of. He missed her like the land locked sailor misses the sea.
When she pulled away from him to look at his face and their eyes flickered from each other's lips back up to fasten together, something unlocked within him. She glowed at him and if only he knew how to bottle her gaze then he would drench himself in it every morning. The blue of her eyes were healing waters to a broken man. He came tumbling down to press his face into the slick sweat of her neck.
Smoke and salt filled his nose and his throat, his own tears running a ragged race throughout him. Fingers came to cup his neck, forcing him back from the comfort of her. I found you, her quivering mouth formed only a pressed line but in the silence he could hear her—a frequency tuned for only them.
He was utterly undone and when he stepped back to watch as Rick embraced her, he knew that nothing before this mattered. And so it was Day One.