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theteasetwrites · 7 months

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Begin Again

Chapter 2: Ami ou Ennemi?

❧ Media: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon ❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Season 1 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: violence, scary situation ❧ Word Count: 4.8k

❧ In This Chapter: On the road west, things take a turn when the first people you and Daryl come into contact with in France turn out to be a bit less welcoming than you'd hoped they would be. Meanwhile, a watchful pair of eyes just might be what saves you.

❧ A/N: Okay so this was going to cover the whole rest of the first episode but I didn't want to cram it all into one giant chapter, so here's a smaller (kinda boring tbh) chapter! This chapter is necessary because it leads up to the kick-off of the storyline in Chapter 3, which I promise will be MUCH more interesting (and have way better Reader x Daryl interactions, of course). But for now, please enjoy this chapter! I am having so much fun writing for the spin-off ahhh

Carried by a limp and an aimless hope still lingering in your heart, you walked.

In fact, you walked for days. About five total, you were sure. Well, you couldn’t be too sure. Everything was a blur, and you’d given up keeping track with the tally marks you’d scribbled on the edge of the map. All you could bother to rely on now was the natural movement of the earth, the sun rising on one shoulder, setting on the other. Then a few hours of sleepless sleep, then walking again, through what seemed to be a once sparsely populated countryside, amongst a collage of ancient ruins.

From your navigation, you’d determined that the snow-capped mountains you walked just at the base of were those of the Pyrenees. For miles you walked along those foothills of thick green shrubbery and ever-expanding stretches of woods, through which a wide gravel road snaked and occasionally branched into small hamlets or mysterious medieval ruins you didn’t care too much to research.

As your eyes squinted hard at the map you’d come to loathe the now taunting familiarity of, you felt your steps slow to a halt, crushing the ancient gravel underneath you with a dying enthusiasm. Daryl followed behind you, himself preoccupied as well, but by the wound on his arm, which had been festering for almost two days now.

You’d been tending to it, of course. Daryl could’ve done so himself, but you hardly trusted him to be as diligent with the care of his own injuries as you were.

The good news seemed to be that the burn did not inflict a fever upon him, or have any other kind of deadly effect. Still, as Daryl put so eloquently, “It hurts like a son of a bitch.”

You turned around, approaching him as he studied the burn, in the distinctive shape of a handprint. Taking his arm in your hand, you frowned at the festering wound, still a little too raw for your liking.

It seemed to be healing a little, though, with only slight accumulations of yellowish fluid around the parts where flesh had been burnt. That was good. It meant the wound was draining properly, exuding serous liquid that would help the flesh to heal and eventually scar over. But the inflammation, the redness, worried you.

“It’s not purulent,” you said. “So that’s good.”

Daryl looked at you, eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t have to speak to convey his confusion at the SAT vocabulary word.

“There’s no pus,” you clarified. “No green drainage… But we should cover it up again.”

Nearby, you settled by an abandoned car, mangled and ravaged by time. It was a good cover for the moment as you sifted through a first aid bag you’d scavenged yesterday. Thank God you had, otherwise his arm might’ve looked much worse than it had.

As he knelt beside you, you set out a roll of gauze, then uncapped your canteen of water. Daryl couldn’t complain too much about you using the water to wash his wound now, considering how much it was beginning to burn.

The sting was worse than yesterday as you poured the cool liquid over it. You yourself winced at the sound of Daryl’s hiss, knowing full well that his tolerance for pain was much higher than anyone you knew, so that burn must’ve been agonizing.

Spinning the gauze around his arm, you wrapped the burn tight. He sighed softly in temporary relief, but he could already feel the festering begin to return.

The back of your hand situated itself against his forehead, brushing back the loose hairs as you did so.

You swallowed down the lump in your throat. He was warm. Daryl always ran a little warm, of course. You’d often referred to him as a human heater. But this was off for Daryl, warmer than you were used to feeling.

It terrified you.

The thought that this burn could be akin to a bite was one which haunted you the last two nights, keeping you ten times more aware of Daryl’s state at all times.

You’d seen plenty of people in the process of turning. You’d known the signs. It was hard to tell now. Daryl didn’t have enough of a fever to render him fatigued, but it was enough to worry you.

“How do you feel?” you asked, still brushing back the hairs that framed his face, as if fixing his hair could somehow improve his condition.

“Like shit.” He took a sip of water from your canteen. A small sip, of course, lest he leave you without enough water to keep you moving.

“You just need some rest,” you said, watching as he began to lift himself to his feet, with half his body weight supported by the spear that had served largely as his walking stick.

Clearly, he wasn’t going to be resting anytime soon.

“I’ll rest when the sun goes down,” he replied gruffly, while a gust of wind began to blow his hair in wild patterns across his face. You rose up, too, despite your body’s inescapable urge to sleep right there on the gravel. “We still got a few hours of sunlight… Best to keep movin’.”

With a strained grunt, he reached for his spear, pressing it into the dirt below as he started to lift himself, using the spear as leverage.

The day Daryl would listen to you when you asked him to rest was the day Hell would freeze over, but you couldn’t fight him. After all, you weren’t itching to stay put in any one place for too long. You had to keep moving, to try to find some kind of way back home.

You raised yourself to your feet alongside him, reaching into your backpack to tuck the gauze and your canteen back inside. But there was a slight tremble in your hand, and a racing of your heart as your body reacted to the intense burn of a distant stare before your mind even could.

Daryl felt it, too.

Practically in sync, both of you turned to face the direction of the stare. There was a cliff just ahead, surrounded by lush shrubbery. The distance was great enough to ease your paranoia, but still too close for comfort.

There was a figure atop the cliff, looking down. Well, you supposed so, despite not being able to make out the figure’s face. What you could see was a reddish cowl encircling their head, but the rest was simply the shape of a human, standing still, watching.

It sent a shiver down your spine, the inescapable fear of being watched suddenly taking hold over you. It was something you’d known since childhood, with frequent nightmares of a decrepit elderly man cupping his hands as he looked in through the window of your childhood bedroom, smiling wide at you. Despite your dream self’s attempts to escape, you couldn’t move, you could only cry as the man stared at you, watching you.

But of course, that man was only a figment of your imagination, a childhood fear that stuck with you all through your life. You hadn’t thought of that man in years, but now, feeling the eyes of a stranger on you, you felt it again. Only this was real. Well, perhaps it was a mirage, induced by the emptiness in your stomach and the fog in your head, but it did not matter. There was nothing you could do. Maybe that was what was so frightening about it.

“C’mon.” Daryl’s hand brushed your forearm, dislodging you from that momentary stupor. Fortunately, he seemed much less perturbed by the mysterious apparition, though he couldn’t deny the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Keep movin’.”

So you did, following behind him by just a few steps, until he stopped abruptly shortly after, examining the road sign standing before him. On its pole, a small piece of paper was plastered to it, with handmade strokes of black paint spelling out three words: DIEU VOUS AIME.

Your curiosity piqued, you quickly shrugged off one strap of your backpack, reaching back to unzip the largest pouch and grab the French-English dictionary you’d so wisely picked up back at the boat in Marseille.

Looking between the pages and the sign, you flipped through the book, until the phrase appeared among the list of D’s.

Daryl looked at you in waiting as you let out a slightly amused huff.

“God loves you,” you said.

“Pfft.”

An hour or so down the road, and the eerie light of the dying afternoon had begun its domain.

Sleep was the new objective, somewhere to hang your hats for the night that would soon be upon you.

Just ahead, beyond a desolate field of tall, green grass, was a lone building, decrepit and overgrown, with a thick, swirling layer of fog rolling over the ground at its base. Not particularly inviting, but it could be a good place for shelter.

The place was dilapidated, to the point where you could hardly tell what it had once been, but there was just enough shelter to provide some protection from the elements, and the dead. It looked as though there had once been a fire, as the walls were blackened and opened up into a courtyard through a section of destroyed wall.

As you stepped carefully, quietly, over fallen beams and overgrown twining vines, you set sight on a string tied between a bush and the wall, stretching across the walkway with rusty tin cans tied to the twine. Either someone had once called this place home, or someone still did.

Stepping over the trap, Daryl went first, with you following shortly behind, alertness as high as it possibly could be given the famished state you were in.

A rustling from your right startled you. Daryl moved somewhat quickly to peer around the edge of the wall into the open courtyard—a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, standing by an overgrown well and pouring the water from the bucket into a tin pail.

Daryl didn’t get a very detailed look at the woman nor the area, but he could tell that he didn’t want anything to do with it.

You weren’t so sure, however. People were exactly who you needed. You wouldn’t be able to get home without people, and maybe this woman knew English. She could help you, somehow.

But Daryl backed up, too fast for you to notice that he was about to activate the tripwire just behind him.

As the cans rattled together, making a loud clanging sound, you almost felt a bit of relief.

Looking back towards the woman, you began to step forward, ahead of Daryl, who followed rather reluctantly.

Unsure of what to say as you met the woman’s gaze, coming further into the pale light of the diminishing day, you raised your hands up in a gesture of peace which you hoped was universal. Daryl followed suit, moving close behind you, despite his instinctual urge to stand in front of you. It took a great deal of willpower not to, but he figured you were possibly more friendly looking than him, with the huge spear he used as a walking stick.

“Bonjour,” was the only word you could make out, the rest was a blur of very beautiful-sounding gibberish. From an archway leading further into the building behind the woman came an elderly man hobbling in on a cane. So far, the first two French people you’d met turned out to be rather unintimidating, which was a good sign.

The two of you kept moving forward, perhaps more out of confusion than curiosity, but a part of you just wanted some semblance of human interaction. As much as you loved Daryl and his company, it was a sight for sore eyes to come face-to-face with another woman, even if you couldn’t understand anything she said.

But she seemed friendly enough, raising her hand in a wave as she carried the pail across the way, coming closer, but never too close. Finally, she spoke another word you could understand: “Madame? Monsieur?”

You turned to look at Daryl, whose face looked confounded, bordering on worried.

As per usual, you’d have to be the more sociable one.

“I’m sorry,” you began speaking, despite your fear that speaking in English might be a waste of breath. “We don’t understand you.”

On the contrary, the woman seemed… excited.

“Ay!” she exclaimed, the old man now right behind her as they slowly but surely moved closer. “You Americans? And I speak English very good!” Her mouth formed into a wide smile. So far, so good. “What’s crackin’, noobs?”

Despite your slight confusion at her use of the colloquial term, one you had not heard since you were in college, you smiled back, nodding.

The woman spoke another French term, and waved her hand, gesturing for you to come closer. You did so, despite Daryl’s hesitation as he looked at you. He didn’t have to speak or even sign to indicate what he thought: I don’t trust them.

But it didn’t matter whether either of you trusted them or not. They had food. They must’ve, as they looked to be pretty settled here, at least for the night.

He followed your lead, stepping faster to match your pace as you moved closer, further into the courtyard.

“My, uh… grandfather, he hurt the ankle” the woman spoke again, carrying her pail of water to a gently roaring fire. Around it were a few bags and crates used as seats. A modest setup, but comforting nonetheless. “Only… Only small English, him.” She gestured towards her grandfather, whose eyes were covered by a black cloth wrapped around his head. Still, he waved in your general direction, then started to speak.

“Hello,” he said.

You smiled, your heart beginning to soften at the sight of the poor elderly man. You always did have a soft spot for older people, one which Daryl feared would make you a little too eager to spare your medical supplies.

“Hello,” you spoke back.

Daryl said nothing.

The woman’s face turned more serious now. “You got medical?” You did not answer, unsure of what to say. While you did have it, you weren’t so sure you’d give it away on a whim. You already had one old man to take care of—Daryl. “We trade you for apple or, um, uh… a rabbit, maybe.”

“Very good rabbit,” chimed in the old man.

Daryl heard rabbit, and suddenly he was walking past you, coming closer to the woman as he slung his backpack off his shoulders.

The man was always food-motivated, afterall.

Setting his pack on the ground, he kneeled as he rummaged for the first aid kit. For a moment, he held it up, then tossed it underhand towards the woman.

“Merci,” said the old man.

“Merci,” the woman repeated, the first aid kit now in her hands. She pointed towards a wooden crate just a few yards away. “Food there.”

Daryl did not hesitate, hurriedly crossing over to the crate as if the offer would be taken away at any second. You followed suit, coming up behind him and taking the handful of shiny, red apples that he held out to you, while he himself bit into one and chewed it hungrily.

“So,” the woman continued, but for a moment, you couldn’t hear her over the sound of your own chewing as you bit into an apple. “Where are you going to?”

This time, Daryl answered before you even had a chance to speak. The fact that they had given you food must’ve warmed him up a little bit.

“Back where we came from,” he said matter-of-factly, looking up at the woman to address her, then returning to gathering as many apples in his hands as he could.

“Across the ocean?” questioned the woman again.

“Yeah,” Daryl answered.

As he stood up, you both looked curiously at the woman, who spoke something to the old man in their native language. They appeared to be laughing, too. You wondered, in that self-conscious way the two of you shared, if they were making fun of you. Not that it mattered terribly, since the idea of someone making fun of you was nothing compared to what most people in this world would do without any hesitation. If subtle ridiculing was the worst of what you got out of these people, you’d consider yourselves lucky.

With a huff, the woman sat herself down on an upside down crate, whilst holding the skewered rabbit that had been roasting over the fire. Your mouth practically watered at the sight, which must’ve meant you were truly on the verge of starving. It took a lot for you to want to eat a rabbit.

“I’m Maribelle,” she said with a smile. Next, she pointed to her grandfather. “Um, he Guillaume. So maybe we go together, you know?”

That piqued your interest, but Daryl moved behind you, taking the apples to his pack and almost hurriedly stuffing them inside.

“Get somewhere safe, maybe?” Maribelle continued, and you wanted so much to say something, to say yes. Anything would help. Of course, you knew you couldn’t trust these people, and something about them, despite their friendliness, threw you off. Daryl must’ve felt it, too, because almost as soon as he settled in, he was ready to get out of there. “You can help us. We can help you find a way.”

Following Daryl, you knelt down beside him as he packed. You couldn’t speak much above a very hushed whisper. “They can help us get back.”

He looked up at you momentarily, a stern look in his eye. “No.”

“Hey, yankees.” Suddenly, Guillaume spoke up. You both looked his way.

Guillaume spoke more, but only in French. You turned your attention back to Maribelle, your eyes begging for translation.

She spoke with a slight laugh. “All the time he talk about World War II.”

“La résistance,” Guillaume continued, like the ramblings of your grandfather. In fact, you recalled his stories from that war, how young he was when he was stationed in England. Not quite France, but close enough. “U.S. GI’s fight together. Your country, my country. Like friends.”

Daryl did not say anything, only turned his attention back to packing his bag. You stood up slowly, managing a smile. You weren’t sure if the man could see it, but you wanted to somehow convey to him that you appreciated his ideology. Afterall, you needed friends.

But you couldn’t think of what to say. You knew Daryl was not going to budge, and it wasn’t your place to accept his offer of friendship. All you could do was think of something nice to say, but before you could, Guillaume spoke again, catching onto the silence that lingered for several moments.

“You are no friend,” he said, a tinge of vitriol in his voice.

“There ain’t no countries no more, neither,” Daryl replied.

You huffed, frustrated by his coldness. It wasn’t your favorite side of Daryl, his harshness, but you couldn’t entirely blame him—he was stressed, injured, and sad. You could tell, despite him never letting it really show. He held emotions inside, whereas you wore them on your sleeve. Still, you knew him better than anyone else, and you knew that this situation you found yourselves in was taking a greater toll on him than even he realized. You hadn’t pressed him about it much, but you knew: he missed your babies.

He missed home. He missed your friends. He missed the life he’d devoted himself to creating with you. Ultimately, he was tired.

Before you could try to talk some sense into him, though, you heard something that startled you: a distant roaring of an engine, coming closer. Fast.

Daryl stood up quickly as a rather militaristic looking jeep came through the wide archway into the courtyard. Two men were sitting in the front seat of the uncovered vehicle, both armed with guns.

Upon the hood of the vehicle was some kind of symbol painted in white that you couldn’t quite make out without taking your eyes off the two men as they stepped out, their guns seemingly locked and loaded.

Daryl kept a firm grip on his spear, you on your knife. Still, there wasn’t much you could do against a gun, especially in this open area.

As the men came forward, you took note of their appearance: each were heavily armed and wore camouflage patterns. They looked like some sort of paramilitary group, and from your history with such groups, you were not looking to make friends.

One of the men set his sights on you and Daryl, while saying something in French. All you could do was stare back at him, until he raised his gun, speaking again. This time, he spoke more commandingly.

Your heart dropped for a moment, but Maribelle spoke quickly to the man, then turned to face you both. She held her hands up, as if in surrender.

“Sit down, he said,” she said to you seriously.

Daryl exchanged a quick look with you, somewhere between reassurance and a warning of cautiousness. In situations like this, perhaps you fell into that old trap of taking the man’s lead, but Daryl had had a gun pointed at him many more times than you had, and it was true that he looked much more threatening than you, so you followed his lead, walking several steps with him over to the crates around the fire that were being used as seats. If you were going to sit down for two French assholes with guns, you were at least going to be a little bit comfortable.

Now sitting, each of you dropped your weapons, slowly raising your hands to match Maribelle. The two men seemed to trust you both much less than they did Maribelle and Guillaume, as both their guns were pointed towards you—one of you, one on Daryl. It was not quite reassuring.

One of the men began to speak to Maribelle again, going back and forth for a moment. The only word you could make out was American, which you weren’t sure was a good thing, given the way the man looked at you both suspiciously.

No, you did not like these guys one bit.

And now, after a few more rather ominous sounding words in French, he came forward, taking Maribelle by the shoulder and tugging on her jacket, pulling her away to God knows where. Though you couldn’t understand what he had said, you feared for Maribelle, knowing the kinds of things men could do, especially to women… It boiled your blood, especially as she tried to get away, yelling something at him in French and struggling against him.

The other man, meanwhile, kept his sawed-off double-barrelled shotgun pointed at Daryl, but he looked away, his eyes focused on the scene as the other man struggled to drag Maribelle away. When he became frustrated with her reluctance, he backhanded her hard, the force causing her to fall down with a thud.

And, with one look exchanged between you and Daryl, you knew it was time to do something… So much for making friends.

Daryl moved first, reaching for the knife he kept strapped to his leg and standing up to grab his spear with the other hand. He moved faster than you, and faster than the man who was supposed to be keeping an eye on you.

He used the blunt edge of his spear to first hit the man’s leg, then, as he raised his gun to defend himself, Daryl disarmed him, then dropped his spear to raise his knife and puncture his neck.

You stood up, too, sprinting towards the gun that had been dropped on the ground, while Daryl held the dying man in front of him like a meat shield. If there was one thing about Daryl, it was that he was resourceful.

But just before you could get your hands on the shotgun, the other man came towards you both, shouting in French as he held his gun out. In a matter of seconds, he fired, shooting towards Daryl.

The loud gunshot made you flinch and grab your ears as you instinctively flung yourself onto the ground, trying to dodge it. Immediately, though, you looked up, your sights setting on Daryl, himself on the ground, holding the left side of his neck and sticking out his right hand in surrender. The man did not seem so eager to show mercy, leaning down beside you to pick up the shotgun and point it towards Daryl.

“No!” you cried out rather helplessly, crawling on hands and knees to Daryl’s side. If you couldn’t sacrifice yourself for him, you’d die together. At least you’d die knowing you tried to save him.

But Maribelle moved quicker, striking the man in the back with Guillaume’s cane. The blow was so hard that he fell to the ground, allowing Daryl to quickly stand up and grab the shotgun. As he held his bleeding neck, he pointed the barrel towards the fallen man.

“Stop,” said Maribelle, coming forward with a spear. “Save the powder.” She plunged the spear into the man’s chest, causing you to wince in slight surprise.

Maribelle turned to Daryl, uttering a simple, “Merci.”

Quickly, you stood up, coming over to daryl and removing his hand from his neck to get a look at the damage. Obviously, the bullet must’ve only grazed him, because if the bullet had gone just a bit more to the right, he might not even have a head right now.

“Just a superficial graze,” you said, taking off your glove and pressing it to his face as a bandage, but of course you’d need something more suitable.

As you carefully helped him sit down on his knees, you called out to Maribelle, “Can you hand me the medical bag, please?”

All your attention, now, was on him, so much so that you didn’t notice how suspiciously silent it was, and how the two Frenchpeople did not seem eager to help.

But that was all peripheral to you, as you brushed back Daryl’s long hair to get a better look at the injury.

“You’re gonna be fine,” you said, with just a tiny curl of your lip to offer him some comfort.

And it did, his tired eyes softening as he felt your hand caress his cheek. Despite the stinging pain and the feeling of blood seeping into the glove you held tight against his wound, he couldn’t help but believe you. If there was anything in this world he truly believed in, after all, it was you.

But there was a horrible sense of suspicion growing between you, a lingering threat that became more and more apparent with each step the man behind Daryl took.

You raised your eyes, and Daryl turned to look at whatever had caught your attention—Guillaume.

His eyes were uncovered now, and beady with aggressive intent. But most startlingly, he held his wooden cane much too high for your comfort. He wielded it more like a baseball bat than a walking stick.

But he wouldn’t do what you thought he was going to do, would he?

Yes. He would.

The cane struck Daryl across the head, knocking him to the ground. Eyes wide as you started to lift yourself, you were met with the same fate: a strong hit to the head that sent you back down, reeling in pain.

You weren’t unconscious, though. Neither was Daryl, who opened his eyes despite the intense blurring that obstructed his vision. He caught sight of Guillaume, rummaging through his bag, while Maribelle got to work rifling through yours, throwing out its contents with carelessness as she seemed to be searching for something more useful than the maps and blankets you’d collected along the way from Marseille.

Notably, though, you watched the blonde Barbie doll you’d carefully tucked away in your bag get tossed behind her back like a worthless piece of junk. It almost riled you into a fit of sudden strength, but your head swam too much to allow your legs to carry you.

Your eyes became fixed on that doll, left abandoned amongst overgrown blades of faded green grass. Somewhere in your haze, as unconsciousness threatened to take over, was her voice, speaking the words she said to you before you left: “It’s okay, Mommy,” she said, her small voice echoing in the dizzied cavern of your head.

Just then, you felt a presence coming towards you, one which seemed both known and unknown.

Turning your head, your heavy eyes focused as well as they could on the approaching figure, cautiously side-stepping into the courtyard. Though you could not make out their face, you recognized one thing: a red cowl.

“We’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”

A gunshot rang out, muffled by your fading consciousness. It had come from the approaching figure, and had seemingly run off Maribelle and Guillaume, which may have been either a good thing, or a bad thing.

“Maybe when you get back, Wes will know some more words.”

Your eyelids became immensely burdensome, and with each blink, you found yourself unable to keep them open for much longer.

“Yes… Robin…”

Thanks for reading! Likes, reblogs, and comments of any kind are always appreciated!

Series Masterlist Next Chapter ➳

#begin again series #begin again #the walking dead #the walking dead: daryl dixon #daryl dixon #daryl dixon spin-off #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead: daryl dixon fanfiction #the walking dead fanfic #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #norman reedus #norman reedus fanfiction #norman reedus fanfic #twd fanfiction #twd fanfic #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon x you

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theteasetwrites · 8 months

Text

Begin Again

Chapter 1: Aux Portes de la Mort

❧ Media: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon ❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Season 1 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: violence, blood & gore, scary situations, mentions of death ❧ Word Count: 7.6k

❧ In This Chapter: When you and Daryl awaken in an unknown land, far away from home, the world becomes twice as dangerous as it once was, with a whole new breed of dangers lurking around every corner. You have no choice but to begin again on a new mission: Get. Back. Home.

❧ A/N: IT'S HERE. I'm so excited to be writing for them again ugh it's been too long. I love this reader because she has all that history with Daryl from the first series so it's a real treat to keep all that in mind when I'm writing their scenes together. Also I am posting this before the premiere of the show. This chapter is based on the events of the sneak peek that was released on AMC+! So here ya go, the first chapter! Shoutout to Dahlia (@simpbyday) for helping me with the French translation for the title. She will be my official French language correspondent throughout this process. And if anyone else also knows French, I would love to get feedback on my usage of French throughout the series as well! <3

“Near death” did not mean much to you anymore.

You were either dead or alive, nothing in between. That’s how you felt about it now. There were few areas in life that were black and white to you, and that was one of them. If you were alive, you were alive. Maybe you’d be a little worse for wear, but you were alive. That was the important thing.

That’s what you told yourself, anyway. As a way to condition yourself, to be stronger. For Daryl. For Robin. For Wes. You had to be strong for them. Maybe that’s what got you into this mess.

No, Daryl did. Daryl got you into this: tied loosely to the back of a lifeboat, one foot missing a boot and hanging off the edge, dangling pitifully in the ocean as the small vessel drew you closer to the shore.

You might’ve stayed asleep if it weren’t for the splashing sound, followed by the familiar grunts and wheezes of gasping breath. You felt the rope across your hips pull in the other direction, where Daryl fought with the current to come back to the air. Through heavy eyes, crusted by a long sleep and sensitive to the bright light of what must’ve been mid-afternoon, you saw him struggle to lift the rope from his body as a wave pummeled him back down below the water.

Your throat burning, rendering you unable to so much as cry out his name, you freed yourself from the rope, sliding into the water. What happened next would fade into the obscurity of rumbling waves carrying your weak bodies closer to shore, until the feeling of ground underfoot welcomed you.

But that feeling was short-lived. As soon as your feet felt the sand, you were knocked down by another wave. Now you could only crawl, with what little strength you had left. Even Daryl, so very hearty and always physically stronger and more durable than yourself, began to stagger, falling less than gracefully to his knees just a few feet from you. There was no need for verbal recognition or even touch—you felt him there, crawling beside you, alive.

Now with only your feet still clinging to the sea, your arms gave out underneath you, like two pieces of boiled spaghetti, limp and sprawled out not far from Daryl, who lied with his face pressed against the sand, his wet hair shrouding any semblance of his visage.

Though you could hear his sharp breaths, his heavy pants that withdrew with high-pitched whimpers that sent a shiver down your spine, you could hardly tell if he was moving.

Momentarily frozen, you gathered all your strength to extend your arm across the sand. Your fingers stretched out to the fullest extent, crawling like a spider until finally you gripped his hand, entwining your fingers with his and shaking it roughly, urging him to move.

You had been near death enough to know that the worst thing to do was to stop moving. That was like accepting death, and wherever you were now, you weren’t going to face it without him.

Your movement brought him to life as he lifted his head, his sight first taking in his surroundings—a beach.

And not far in the distance, a small blue bucket.

You followed his gaze, which seemed transfixed on the object, partly buried by the wet sand that must’ve remained untouched for God only knows how long.

Having a near encyclopedic understanding of Daryl’s mind, you knew what he was thinking of—survival. There was water in that bucket. Sandy ocean water, but water nevertheless.

All you could think of, though, was how familiar that little bucket was. Robin had one just like it. Last time you’d taken her and Wes to Oceanside, they played on the beach for hours, making sandcastles with her little bucket and shovel that she’d gotten for her seventh birthday last May. Somehow she’d convinced Daryl to let her bury him under the sand. You had the Polaroids to prove it somewhere in one of the pockets of your vest, if they hadn’t been lost to sea.

The memory faded quickly, as he pulled you up, still holding your hand. At least now he was moving, dragging you and himself towards the bucket.

He’d let go of your hand to pick it up, digging out as much sand as he could before handing it to you. Without a word, you brought the rim of the bucket to your lips, taking just a few sips, despite the painful drought in your throat.

Daryl took the rest, downing the sandy saltwater like it was the nectar of life, and here, at the gates of death, it was.

When the water was gone, he let the pail fall back to its final resting place. You couldn’t bring yourself to even raise your head. You could only watch it fall, the bright blue plastic taking you back to a time that seemed so far away now, to a world you wished you’d never left.

But Daryl, ever the pragmatist, always planning the next move, was already narrowing his eyes, looking around for the answer to that burning question that lingered between the two of you—where the hell are we?

You could’ve looked at that little bucket forever, if he hadn’t tugged on your hand, not unlike how you’d done so to his just minutes ago.

“C’mon.”

The further the two of you walked, slowly, limping, the more you began to take note of your surroundings, without too much thought of the complete and utter shit you two were both in. For all the differences between you, you both knew one thing was true—there was no point in dwelling on how you got here, the only thing that mattered was getting back home. That was the unspoken truth.

As you walked further, the sand beneath your feet turned into concrete. Some kind of parking structure, or what once was. You passed the rotting, rusted shells of cars, their windows smashed and their hoods lifted, no doubt due to survivors looking for parts to salvage. A clump of neglected bicycles leaned against a graffitied pole. Like most graffiti, you couldn’t make out what it said.

Passing a small overgrown boat, you spotted a signpost not too far away. You walked ahead of Daryl, all too eager to see what it said. The letters were faded, but you could make out the arrows, meaning it would point you in whatever direction you needed to go in. That was all you needed now: direction. Some delusionally hopeful part of you, deep down, wanted to believe the sign would display the word “HOME” with an arrow accompanying it, leading the way without confusion or ambiguity.

But of course, you knew that was impossible. Still, you did not anticipate what you saw.

Squinting your tired eyes, your weakened legs slowed to a halt as the sign’s lettering came into view. Your heart sank as you stepped back, almost terrified of what you read. But you backed against Daryl’s chest, which caught you before you could lose your balance from the shock of the realization.

You could not read the sign.

Pla… place de… ste?

Port de… Martegues?

… Cimetiere?

Shit.

Some kind of port city, somewhere in France.

That’s what you decided upon, in the silence of your heavy thoughts as you walked together aimlessly, still not speaking. How could you speak to him? What was there to say? You had no hope now. It was gone, and usually, that was the only thing that kept you talking in times like these.

And Daryl, he could go hours without speaking, if he had nothing to say.

He, too, was at a loss for words. After all, he knew he’d gotten you into this. He knew none of this would’ve happened if he’d just… It didn’t matter now, though. What mattered was getting home.

But you weren’t safe here.

You always knew that the whole world must’ve fallen, of course. When everything happened, the world went dark. France was no exception. The state of the place was proof enough. In this old city, with cobblestone streets littered in the abandoned remnants of a once prosperous civilization, every corner you turned was the same—empty, ruined, overgrown.

By some instinct, you both walked along a path just on the edge of a canal that seemed to run through the city. Perhaps it was just a gut feeling, or perhaps the both of you knew to stay close to the water, on the off chance that you’d find some kind of seafaring vessel. Though you still couldn’t shake the taste of saltwater, you knew that the only way you could get back home was to get back on the water. That was your priority.

Sure enough, you came upon a boat, moored at the edge of the path, floating upon the water, and looking as though it had been there for centuries.

Just outside the boat on the cobblestone path, it looked as though someone had set up camp, once upon a time. Whoever had been there, though, they were long gone. As you passed a desiccated corpse, completely barren of flesh with a long fisherman’s spear skewered through its head, you wondered if this body had once held the poor soul of the boat’s former occupant. You didn’t wonder for long, though, as these days, you’d seen enough dead bodies to almost completely desensitize you from any human curiosity. Now, it was just a bag of bones.

Approaching the stern of the vessel, Daryl went into the cabin first, his sights set on the wine bottles perched on a wooden shelf, in the hopes that maybe they’d contain some water. He picked them up one by one, shaking them. Nothing at all.

You busied yourself, rummaging through a bag you found hanging from a nail near the door. Your hand gripped on some long, cylindrical plastic, ribbed and seemingly filled with liquid.

“Daryl.”

You held the water bottle out towards him as he turned around. You hadn’t caught a good glimpse of his face yet, until now.

The skin of his face and neck were reddened terribly by the sun, but that didn’t worry you as much. It was the scarlet red cut stretching diagonally over his forehead, and the paleness of his lips, dry and dehydrated. The saltwater you both drank earlier only made the thirst more potent.

Deciding he needed the water more than you, you pressed the bottle to his chest, despite his brief protest that he gave with only a knowing look on his face, as if to say: You drink first.

You returned the look, but with more conviction as you shoved the bottle harder now, as if to say: No. Drink.

Reluctantly, he did, drinking less than half before handing it back to you, with the same force you applied when giving it to him, and the same stern, protective look: Drink.

You took the rest of the water, wincing at the aged taste. But you drank it down slowly, steadily, the cooling liquid coating your barren throat.

Lost in the brief relief it gave you, you hadn’t noticed Daryl’s continued russling as he pillaged the tiny boat cabin, looking for anything and everything that could somehow be useful.

As you used your long, torn sleeve to wipe away the dripping water from your chin, you were startled by the sudden sound of a man’s voice, not Daryl’s.

With a flinch, you turned around to see Daryl, sitting at the small dining table, holding a tape recorder.

“Nineteen months at sea,” said the man’s garbled voice, with an accent you deemed to be Irish. “Hoping to stay ahead of this thing.”

On the table before him was a map of Europe, and a photo of a family. There was a man that must’ve been the owner of the voice you listened to now. Beside him was a woman, his wife, Daryl assumed, because on her lap was a little girl, holding a large stuffed penguin, about half the size of her. She couldn’t have been older than Robin, he thought.

They looked happy, all smiles. Somewhere in one of his pockets, he was sure he had a picture that looked almost exactly the same, only with his family—Robin, Wes, Dog, you. He quickly willed the thought away, though. If he kept thinking about it, he was sure he’d break down, when at this point, what he needed to be the most was strong.

“Circled Spain,” the voice continued. “Nowhere safe… We’ll try Marseille next. Maybe the south of France is good… There’s got to be a safe place somewhere.”

You were sure you’d uttered that phrase once. Maybe around the same time he did. Just goes to show how much this world changes you, which was saying something—you always believed the world hadn’t changed you nearly as much as it changed everyone else. But you knew now that there was no safe place in this world, except in the arms of the ones you loved. And even then, that was only a metaphor. But you had to believe it, to convince yourself it was true. Otherwise, you were no different than the dead.

Night was closing in. There was no more time to waste.

Still without hardly more than a one-word sentence exchanged between you, you got to work setting up a night’s worth of camp, while Daryl speared a fish in the canal. Just one was all the energy he had, but it was more than enough for the both of you. A white fish of decent size, which Daryl cooked over the makeshift barbecue near the boat.

Sitting on the boat, you got a lantern working, providing just enough light to see what you were doing as you tried to filter the muddy canal water through the mesh lining of a jacket you’d found inside the boat. Across the way, you’d glimpse at Daryl, now draped in a tarp he’d fashioned into a poncho, in only the way Daryl could even think of doing.

His tired face was illuminated by the fire over which he cooked the fish, turning it over with a small knife until it was cooked through. You wondered what on Earth was going on in his head, if he was as frightened as you were, if he had any hope left.

You didn’t have much hope anymore. Not now.

In this world, you’d found that your hope had been tested constantly, but only a handful of times did it try you like this. When the farm fell, when you lost the prison, when the Saviors took Daryl…

But you always got it back. You always found your strength again.

You weren’t sure if you could get it back this time.

Still, you had Daryl. If you were alone, in a strange place, thousands of miles from home, you were sure you would’ve given up by now. But he was here.

The silence between you persisted into the night, as you sat across from each other, under the dark blanket of the night sky, eating the charred fish straight off the bone, with only the dim flickering light of the lantern just barely lighting your faces.

When the silence became unbearable, Daryl had pulled the tape recorder from his pocket, playing it again, as if he found comfort in the man’s voice, despite the ultimate tragedy that must’ve occurred.

“Sue had a heart attack.” You could only assume that was the name of his wife, the woman in the photograph. “I had to… take care of it.”

You’d heard stories like that before, of someone having to put down their loved one before or, God forbid, after they turned, but it would never cease to send a shiver down your spine. The thought of having to do that to Daryl… It was a nightmare you’d had more than once.

“Our tenth anniversary would’ve been in June… Holly keeps crying. She wants her mum back.”

That was when you stopped eating, a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

“She wants things the way they were.”

You swallowed hard in an attempt to suck down the lump forming in your throat.

“She wants to go home.”

“Turn it off.”

The sudden sternness in your voice nearly surprised him, or maybe it was just how many words you spoke at once.

He grabbed the recorder and turned it off with a sharp click, restoring the heavy silence that lingered like a thick fog between you.

Daryl watched intently as you hugged your legs against your chest, your eyes downcast and glued to the worn and torn stuffed penguin, buried underneath some ropes and an empty old fuel tank. You recognized it from the photo.

He could read the look on your face, and the thoughts that he knew were flying through your head at a thousand miles an hour. He knew that you were thinking about home, about your family. Still, he couldn’t shake this discomfort. This quiet.

For all the years he’d known you, he’d never gone this long with such silence between the two of you. Of course, he’d been separated from you before for much longer, but together? You were hardly ever at a loss for words. He couldn’t remember the last time you were like this, but he didn’t like it. Funny, Daryl was always the quieter one, the one who more often than not needed to be coaxed into talking. He always preferred the quiet, but this was unbearable.

He needed to hear your voice, now more than ever. He needed your hope.

“You haven’t said more than three words since we got here.”

Washed up here, your mind corrected.

He leaned forward stiffly, still eying you, despite your gaze still transfixed on the once pristine stuffed animal.

Several painful moments passed. Daryl couldn’t take it anymore. He’d beg for you to speak, to say anything to him. All he wanted was to hear you.

“Please.” His voice was low, soft. It was always like that with you, but something about it now seemed more desperate. “Please say somethin’.”

Finally, you raised your head slowly, meeting his silvery blue eyes, visible through several loose strands of hair that framed his face. If you were in better spirits, you might’ve smiled, just seeing his face, despite how badly he was in need of a good shower. You were sure you looked rather filthy yourself.

But you couldn’t smile. You couldn’t even imagine such a thing. The last time you smiled seemed so far away, you could hardly even remember it.

“What do you want me to say?” Your voice was shaky, hoarse, tired. He’d been with you through Hell and back, and back again, and yet he’d never heard your voice so defeated, so… lost.

“I don’t know,” he replied simply, still holding your gaze. Now, you both stared intently, as if battling to see who could dare to look away first. “I just…” As he trailed off, his eyes sank in defeat. He’d lost the battle. “I’m sorry.”

With a sniffle, you replied. “What are you sorry for?”

It took him several moments to speak, as he tried to compose himself. If he opened his mouth too soon, he might start crying, and despite how much you encouraged him to be vulnerable, to not neglect his emotions around you, he could never fully let himself cry in front of you without feeling that ingrained sense of failure and inadequacy, like he wasn’t the strong man you needed, no matter how many times you reminded him of how strong he was.

“For gettin’ you into this.”

Your lip quivered, your eyes softened.

He continued, “If I hadn’t asked you to go with me—”

“Then you’d be sitting here, across the world, alone, and I’d be in Alexandria worried sick about you.”

“But you’d be safe,” he said, an almost imperceptible shake in his voice as he was reminded of the danger you were now mired in, all thanks to him.

“How many times have I told you… I’m safest when I’m with you.”

That thought was nice, but it still could never completely alleviate Daryl’s worries.

And there was another reason he wished he hadn’t asked you to come along.

“But you’d be with the kids.”

Your eyes sank as though they were anchored to the floor of this decrepit old boat. He knew that would get you, you were sure. He knew that, besides him, you loved your children more than anything else, and being so far away from them, lost with no immediate hope of seeing them again, was crushing you.

A silence befell you, and Daryl felt like he lost you again. God, all he wanted was to hear you. Your voice was the most comfort he could have right now, just to know you were near.

Now Daryl looked down, focused on the mud caked around his brown boots. He raised his hands to his face as he huffed.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

You weren’t angry. Just sad.

With a sniffle, you looked back up. He still sat with his head in his hands, until he lifted his eyes above his fingers just enough to see you.

“It’s okay,” you said, your voice a cracking whisper.

“Nah,” he said abruptly. “Nothin’s okay.”

Daryl always had that bad habit of blaming everything on himself. You knew it well. It frustrated you—his inability to give himself any credit and his tendency to dwell on his flaws instead of celebrating his accomplishments. Granted, one of the many traits you admired about your husband was his humility, but sometimes, you wished he would consider the things he’d done right instead of all the things he did wrong.

You raised yourself to your feet, crossing the boat to sit beside him. He did not look your way or pay you much attention, still lost in his thoughts. Still, you carefully, slowly, wrapped your arm around his waist and his shoulders, holding him.

He was stiff, but under your touch, he slowly began to soften, as he always did. It was then he had realized how long it seemed he’d gone without your touch like this. You’d been with him the whole time, but survival did not allow for many moments of pure, gentle intimacy between two lovers.

“We’re alive,” you whispered. As you leaned against him, you pressed a small, but firm, kiss to his cheek. “We’re together.”

Without a word, he gave you a knowing glance. He narrowed his eyes almost suspiciously, while he chewed his bottom lip in deep thought. He didn’t need to say anything for you to know what he was thinking.

You smiled. “One of us has to be the positive one. We can’t get anything done if we’re both sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves.”

“Yeah… I know.”

“It’s shitty,” you said. “This is a shitty situation… Maybe the worst situation we’ve been in, but we’re going to get back home.”

Though you spoke with conviction, you weren’t entirely sure that you really believed the words you spoke. It was hard to believe. It was hard to believe you were here in the first place. Nevertheless, you’d die trying to get back home, to see your children again, to watch them grow.

There was no way in Hell you were going to sit back and do nothing.

To your relief, Daryl’s hand found yours, curling around it and squeezing it tight. He nodded, then raised your hand to his lips.

“Yeah. We will.”

You smiled as you roamed his face, finding comfort in the familiarity. In this world of uncertainty, this new world where neither of you belonged, you found safety in each other—you saw Alexandria in his face. All the memories. It was like a photo album, everything flashed before your eyes. You saw Robin, Wes, Aaron, Lydia, Maggie, Michonne, Rick… everyone. Everyone you loved, alive or dead, all in him.

And in you, he felt the same, but not only that. He saw everything beautiful and pure in this world, everything worth protecting and keeping alive. As you held him, he held your face, his thumbs moving gently over the apples of your cheeks.

Your face was worn, tired, with a few knicks and scratches scattered about over your usually smooth and unblemished skin, but nothing could distract from the perfection of your features that he knew and adored so well.

And you, you couldn’t help but eye that nasty cut on his forehead. You swept away the stray pieces of hair that obscured the cut, then huffed. Though you had already washed the cut with water, you were itching to find a real first aid kit to prevent infection. The one on the boat was cleaned out, and whatever first aid kit you had brought with you was in a bag lost at sea.

“S’fine,” he said, knowing full well what you were thinking. “M’fine.”

“It’s just… I don’t like it.”

He smiled. “I know.”

“We’ll find something to help it. If I could get my hands on some calendula or even some marshmallow…”

That thought prompted you to look around, the darkness of the empty waterway in the desolate, ruined city. Even if you could find some herbs with healing properties here, you wouldn’t know where to start looking.

The south of France wasn’t exactly the same as Virginia in terms of flora and fauna.

“First thing we gotta find is a way back,” he replied.

“We could fix up this boat.” Daryl’s mechanic expertise started and stopped with cars and motorcycles, but you figured a boat couldn’t be much different.

“Nah. Engine’s shot, and I dunno the first thing ‘bout how boats work, anyway.”

“Well… We’ll just have to find another way. There have to be people somewhere.”

He looked at you with a raised eyebrow as he chewed the last of his fish. “You remember what happened the last time we asked a bunch of strangers for help?”

Ah, yes—the Commonwealth.

At least that turned out in your favor, eventually. It took almost a year of turmoil, but in the end, it was worth it.

“Daryl, I don’t see any way out of this without some help. Besides, we haven’t seen any walkers yet… Maybe France is faring better?”

“Or maybe they’re all dead.”

“Stop it. That’s not true.” You held his cheek and turned his face towards you. “You know it’s not true… It can’t be.”

The rest of that night passed slowly, quietly. Maybe it was out of habit, or just his need to be aware of his and your surroundings at all times, but Daryl spent a good fifteen minutes checking out the general vicinity, scanning the perimeter around the little boat on which you busied yourself by fashioning a bed of sorts out of pieces of seats and blankets.

Daryl returned not long after he left, with a curious trinket in his hands: a Barbie doll.

You looked up at him from the makeshift bed. He took the liberty of posing the little blonde doll, sitting her atop the small dining table with her arm raised as if she were waving. Her hair was only slightly mangled, but you knew many tricks when it came to freshening up Barbie dolls and making them good as new for Robin, and sometimes Wes, to play with.

“Only you could find a Barbie doll in France,” you said.

“It’s not just any Barbie doll,” he said, sitting himself down beside you with a huff. Gravity forced his body to the bed. Well, bed was a generous term for the dismantled chair covered with blankets. “It’s a veterinarian.”

You studied the doll closer from a distance. Indeed, she had a little white doctor’s coat and a pink stethoscope. You would’ve thought she was actually a doctor Barbie, but only a trained, professional eye like Daryl’s would spy the light pink paw print pattern on her lab coat. Thus, she was distinctly a veterinarian, to be sure.

A smile spread across your face as you laid back, snuggling close to his side. He smelled faintly like fish, but you were certain that you didn’t smell so great either.

“She’ll love it,” you whispered. There was no question who you could possibly be talking about. “I’ll keep it in my bag until we get home.”

Daryl couldn’t respond verbally. He could only chew his bottom lip as his arm snaked underneath your side and wrapped around to stroke your shoulder with his hand. Perhaps that was the ultimate reason he took the doll—as a way to further motivate both of you to live long enough to see your family again. And you would. He’d make sure of it. He knew it. He had to.

At length, you spoke again.

“It’s clear?”

He nodded. “Yeah. No walkers, no people… No nothin’.”

That was good. If Daryl felt it was safe enough for the both of you to sleep tonight, that was a victory in your book.

“Tomorrow,” you began, “we should start heading north, towards Paris.”

Daryl’s lip twitched into a slight smile as he began to close his eyes, still holding you. Sometimes, you hardly noticed he was holding you. A long time ago, it had become second nature, so habitual that him holding you in bed at night was a feeling you couldn’t quite sleep without.

“Paris?”

“Yeah… There could be people there. Biggest city, biggest population.”

“Yeah, biggest population of walkers.”

You sighed. “Well, I don’t know then. You got any bright ideas, Einstein?”

He raised his eyebrow as he looked at you, with only one eye open, the other squeezed shut as his nose scrunched up and he made a faux scowl. It was almost enough to make you laugh.

He chewed his bottom lip, deep in thought. “How about west?” he asked. “Least we can head that way first, see if we find anyone or anything. Best to stay as far away from the city as possible.”

“You're right,” you replied, resting your head upon his chest. Somehow, it was always much more comfortable than a pillow, despite its relative firmness. “You're always right.”

“Not always,” he said lowly, his fingers finding the ends of your hair and twirling around them as if by instinct.

“Yeah… Not always.”

“Pfft…”

“What?”

“Jus’... Can’t believe where we are right now.”

You nodded in agreement, but you could tell where this line of thinking was going—this negativity that sometimes clouded Daryl’s almost unwavering hope. That was where you came in, though your hope was in serious question, too.

“Well, you did promise you’d take me on a vacation.”

He scoffed again, but it was almost a laugh. Almost.

“France wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Me neither,” you said. A few beats of silence, then you added, “I would’ve preferred Italy.”

Three days had passed, all of which were spent hiking through ruins and desolate hills. Daryl used the long fishing spear from the boat as a kind of walking stick, and a weapon, along with whatever else he scavenged from Marseille. You’d found a few good knives, but nothing to quite balance out the slight limp you’d woken up with when you washed ashore.

No encounters with walkers, you’d noted, though you’d seen some wandering in the distance, ambling aimlessly through deserted stretches of wilderness. At certain points, you feared you might’ve been walking at the same pace as the rotting corpses, but they were far enough, and none of them seemed as fast as some of the climbers you’d seen.

Wilderness eventually faded into a somewhat industrialized town, much further away from the coast you’d started from.

It was small, but a good place to stop off for the night, you’d hoped.

Wandering through the small alleyways, littered with debris and overgrown vegetation, you came upon a large building, something like a warehouse turned into what appeared to be a supermarket. At least, that’s what you gathered from the signage, despite its unknown language.

Oh, how you wished you’d taken French instead of Spanish in high school now.

Daryl entered first, quietly opening the creaking door. The general protocol when entering new, unknown buildings had always been the same: be quiet (silent if possible). Although, if there were any walkers in there, odds are, they could smell you before you’d even say a word.

Still, you felt Daryl’s hand tap your shoulder lightly. He signaled to you, signing the phrase, “Me left, you right,” as he mouthed the words.

You always hated splitting up, but you signed back, “Be careful.”

Connie and Kelly would’ve been proud, you were sure.

The two of you split up, Daryl searching the leftmost side of the building, you the right.

As you examined the place, you took note of its state. It was abandoned, of course, but it was one of those places that had been left alone since the very beginning. It looked as though there had been a farmer’s market here, with long tables and booths with once meticulously laid out displays of crafts and homemade wares. Surely, whatever fresh produce had been here had long since deteriorated into nothingness, but there was always the chance of coming across dry foods. Grains and legumes and the like. Those were the ideals.

If fortune favored you, you could even find some dried herbs or medicinal plants to use on Daryl’s cut, but that was a longshot.

Still, you kept a lookout, your mind, and your stomach, much more focused on finding food than on scoping the place out for walkers. From across the way, you heard a small thud that made you flinch. Your eyes followed the sound—Daryl had set down his bag rather carelessly.

Eyes wide, you looked at him. He seemed entranced by a jar he was in the process of opening, only to smell its contents and put it back. Feeling your gaze on him, he looked up at you.

“You OK?” he signed, mouthing the words.

You sighed quietly, recovering from the startle. “Yeah.” With much more emphasis, exacerbated by the firmness with which you moved your hands, you once again signed, “BE CAREFUL.”

“OK,” he signed back, his face bordering on slightly annoyed with your protectiveness.

But another thud quickly drew your attention, though this one was not from Daryl, who also turned to locate the source of the ruckus.

You could only see a faint movement that was rather close to the ground, as though an animal was stirring, but as the familiar groans and wheezes started, you knew what it was.

Much to your surprise, Daryl seemed stunned for a moment, standing rather still as he simply watched the walker crawl out from underneath a pile of rubbish. As for you, you gripped the handle of your knife, removing it from its holder on your belt. But you were much further from him, and where there was one walker, there were, more often not, much more.

Suddenly, more walkers seemed to awaken from their slumber. Sleepers, you’d grown to call them. In your fascination with the habits of walkers, you’d begun taking note of how they seemed to have their own mode of hibernation during times of inactivity.

From what you could see, about eight or so of them had emerged from the far left, somewhere behind the produce stands, and were heading towards Daryl. You had the luckier draw, with only three or four setting their sights, and their gnashing, rotten teeth, on you.

No need for signing anymore. Dinner was officially served, and tonight, fresh American meat was on the menu.

“You got it?!” you called out to Daryl, raising your knife as the nearest walker limped towards you, its skull just barely clinging to the remainder of petrified flesh that hung loosely from its face.

He hesitated for a moment, worrying you. Daryl seemed off his game when it came to fighting walkers. Perhaps it was because he was still frazzled by the strangeness of your situation, or perhaps, God forbid, he was more worse for wear than he wanted you to know. After all, Daryl did have a tendency to downplay his injuries or his illnesses, a habit which frustrated you perhaps beyond any other quirk he had, because this was the most dangerous to his health.

But you couldn’t think of that now. Not when there were walkers snapping at you, and even more at your husband.

“Yeah!” he finally called back as he got a grip on his spear.

He set his focus on the first walker that had risen, which began slowly limping towards him. From behind him, though, was another walker, making quicker progress. He turned briefly, skewering the walker’s head with the sharpened point of the spear. He followed that with a kick to the walker’s abdomen, removing it quickly from the weapon.

On the other side of the place, you drove your knife into the nearest walker’s skull, but not without the usual splash of blood that came spurting out afterwards.

This spurt, though, was no ordinary one.

As you tugged the blade from its skull, you noticed a stinging sound, like that of a singe. It came as the blood spattered over the floor, and continued as it poured from the walker’s head. You stepped back, brows furrowed as you watched the trail of blood seem to evaporate, but it left behind a cloud of… smoke.

In a way, it reminded you of a branding, how the hot iron had been embedded into your skin and eaten away at the flesh with a horrendous burn until an X was forever scarred into your back. Whatever was going on with that walker, if its blood had gotten anywhere near your skin, you were sure it would have a similar effect—an agonizing, flesh dissolving burn.

But you hadn’t any more time to think about the strange walker, as there was another one coming behind you.

Meanwhile, had just skewered another walker through the face, then pulled the spear out to fling the walker backwards and tumbling back against another one.

Stepping backwards, just about to turn around and face another batch of walkers, one lunged forward, reaching its hand out to grip Daryl’s forearm, but this was not any ordinary death grip.

Most walkers’ touches were cold, lifeless, but this? This… searing, stinging, agonizing sharpness that made him scream.

With one last kill, you turned towards him, your eyes wide and your mouth agape with the fear of the most profound variety. Daryl never screamed like that. At least, not when you were around. Suddenly, every nightmare and intrusive thought of Daryl being bitten assaulted your mind all at once.

All you could see was him struggling against a walker, whose grip on his forearm must’ve been so strong that even Daryl couldn’t immediately pry himself away.

But the walker’s grip really wasn’t that strong. No, its hand was simply stuck, with Daryl��s burning, melting flesh acting as a kind of glue.

As he tugged and yelled in frustrated pain, you quickly bounded across the room, taking down another walker on the way.

The closer you got, the more you saw it—the small swirl of smoke emerging from Daryl’s flesh as the walker’s hand seared the flesh of his arm.

Just before you could get to it, Daryl managed to rip himself free, stepping back a moment to briefly scowl at the strange burn.

Immediately, you came forward, plunging your knife into the walker’s head.

Daryl’s eyes flashed to meet yours, a simple exchange of breathless nods between you enough to suffice until the rest of the walkers were taken care of.

You looked around swiftly, and Daryl did the same. Six more walkers. Between the two of you, it would be light work. That is, if there were no more SNAFUs.

Daryl took the high ground, situating himself on a large wooden table to better approach the threat.

You kept on the floor, using one hand to pull the walkers toward you, the other to strike with your knife.

Once again, Daryl found himself with the unlucky situation. Underneath the table he’d taken defense at was another walker.

Plunging the end of his spear through the wood, he successfully impaled the walker’s head, but not without his spear getting stuck.

He tugged on the spear with all his strength, but the thing wouldn’t budge—the spear was lodged too deep in the walker’s skull, causing it to bang on the underside of the table with each attempt to tug it back up. In perhaps a less serious setting, the image might’ve been quite comical.

Daryl’s grunts combined with the repeated banging sound alerted you to the situation, and to the other walker coming closest to him.

You quickly charged the walker, finally taking it out with a swift but jagged movement. Meanwhile, Daryl had just freed his spear, and now moved to kill two more walkers in his path.

He was fast this time, killing them within hardly a second between each other. It was just enough time for him to turn around and see the very last walker coming towards you.

Without another second to even hesitate, you raised your knife, only for another one to fly into the side of the walker’s head, sending it falling to the ground at your feet.

Sometimes, Daryl’s flying knives startled you more than the walkers.

With a huff, you reached down, pulling the knife from the walker’s head. Just as you’d seen from the other one—a splash of burning, corrosive blood, a hissing sound as it hit the floor, and a small plume of smoke.

What the hell are you? you asked the corpse in your head.

But that wasn’t important now. You quickly turned your attention to Daryl, who pulled up the sleeve of his poncho to reveal the raw flesh of his burn.

Within a moment’s time, you were at his side, holding his arm as your eyes frantically took in the wound. In your confusion, and your fear, you looked up at him, all the color drained from your face. From what you knew of burns, this looked to be second degree, oozing redness and blisters already starting to form.

“We’ll bandage it up,” you said, nodding to yourself, as if to reassure both him and you. “We’ll clean it first… Some water and—and if I find some aloe…”

He caught your gaze, holding it for a good several moments of heavy silence.

“You ever seen a walker do that?” he asked, knowing full well that the answer was no.

You turned to investigate the last walker you’d killed—on the surface, not unlike any other walker you’d seen before, except you supposed he had a certain… je ne sais quoi, if you will.

“Maybe… it’s a French thing,” you replied. “I have no idea.”

Daryl let out a deep huff as he sat, still wincing at the unsightly burn on his arm.

You sat beside him, reaching into your satchel to procure a crinkly plastic bottle of water.

“Don’t,” he said lowly. “You need to drink that.”

Ignoring him, you dabbed several drops of water onto the clean rag you’d taken from the boat in Marseille. With Daryl always getting hurt somehow, you knew it was a good find.

He hissed between his teeth as you lightly cleaned the wound as best you could, but it still seemed to ooze.

It worried you, to say the least.

And Daryl… he only worried about what might happen to you if this thing was even more sinister than it looked.

“What if it’s—”

“It’s not,” you replied quickly. If you knew what he was going to say, you weren’t even going to let him speak the possibility into existence. “It’s not like a bite.”

“But what if it is.”

After all, what you knew of walkers was that their bites were deadly. What if their… burns were too?

But you refused to believe that.

“It’s not,” you said back. “We’ll patch it up. It’ll be fine.”

From the look on his face, he appeared not to believe that, his eyes clouded with fear and uncertainty the likes of which you’d almost never seen in him. Daryl didn’t fear death, though. He feared the thought of you being alone, in a world where the two of you needed each other more than anything.

Again, here you were, trying to lift his spirits despite the possibility of death lingering all around you, in this French supermarket that reeked of death and rotten flesh. But you weren’t just reassuring him, you were reassuring yourself.

“Hey.” Your hands cupped his cheeks, forcing his gaze to face yours. Your eyes were soft, but firm enough to remind him that, just as he would never let anything happen to you, you would never let anything happen to him. Your voice barely above a whisper, you spoke to him with the gentleness he knew and loved so well. The gentleness he’d needed all his life, and would need until the day he died, and after that, too. “Sweetheart… We’re alive.”

That was enough. It would have to be enough. Enough to begin again.

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