Chapter Text
The CDC was the worst. Even worse than not finding Merle on top on of the roof. It took forever for someone to shakily fingerspell out what was going on.
When camping out and driving he always had a notepad and pen beside him. When the lights shut off in the building and air seemed to stop moving he had run out of his room without them.
As soon as the realization hit that death was in their near future, Rick had already started banging on the metal doors. Daryl yelled for another one and joined him. Noting that even as they swung with all of their strength, it didn’t seem to be doing much good.
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When they had joined the camp, Daryl once again had to rely on Merle to communicate what was going on. He hated the feeling of dependence, but sometimes it was worth showing weakness when trying to hide your strength. It was true, he was deaf and missed most verbal cues, but what he didn’t miss led to much deeper revelations. He knew that Lori was having an affair with Shane, Carol secretly wanted to kill her husband (everyone knew that there was abuse going on, but the hatred she held for him wasn’t for everyone to see), Glenn was much smarter than anyone gave him credit for and Amy had a thing for T-Dog. Those sweet blue eyes couldn’t seem to look away from him.
Fortunately, women seem fascinated with sign language and most of them took up learning on their own. ABC’s were the easiest but after a few weeks of living in close quarters they started picking up words, enough to make conversation easier. Not that Daryl made conversation with anyone easy.
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Rage. That is what he was experiencing right now. If he was going to die then he wanted it to be on his terms. No one else’s. That is what made him turn on the doctor with the axe. After he was thrown off course, he tried lip reading…the desperation on faces in the half circle was clear that they weren’t getting through to the doctor.
Shane started forward, shooting like a maniac. Rick took him out, the group silent and staring at them both.
Rick starts yapping at the doctor again, Daryl gave up on trying to figure out what was going on and went after the metal door again. He wasn’t going to give up, not yet. All the sudden the door slid down, he looks back at the group, yells unintelligibly for them to come on. The entire group starts and then stops again. Damn, what was their problem? Daryl gives up and heads for the stairs.
Finally he see daylight, one to come against a wall of glass blocking their way. Chairs, axes and even a bullet doesn’t seem to penetrate it. Next thing Daryl sees is Rick with a grenade in his hand. Jumping behind a desk with the rest of the group he feels the explosion and looks up to see shattered glass.
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He jumps in the old truck’s cab. At a loss for what’s next…but willing to see if this Rick guy has a plan.