Detached [TWD Fanfiction]

Chapter 10

The next time he saw her he wasn't sure how to feel.
Of course, Daryl had never fully believed Lucy was dead. After finding the corpse that looked strangely similar to her, along with her knife, he'd accepted that she was gone. Not necessarily dead, but gone. He knew it was possible that it really was her he'd found, which was why he had decided to accept that he wouldn't be seeing her again, but he couldn't seem to convince himself that she was dead. Perhaps he just doubted how well he recognised her.
But when he saw her, crouched behind some wheelie bins at the side of a house, Daryl knew it was her. Eight months later she still wore the same duct-taped jeans. Her hair was a little longer and she looked tired and hungry, but she had the same emotionless face and tough stance.
The group was still looking for a permanent place to stay, and with Lori's baby nearly due it was becoming increasingly important that they found somewhere secure. After months on the road they had spent a couple days holed up in a hay shed. It was cold and damp and the wind broke through the rafters with ease, but it had provided them with somewhere to put their bags down for a short while. Daryl and Glenn had ventured out in hopes of finding food and basic supplies and had split up to cover more ground. Whilst Glenn had headed into a small town, Daryl had taken his bike through an estate of houses. He was driving back down a wide road with large houses on either side, bag filled with batteries, cloths and other small necessities, while shooting at the few walkers that had gathered along the street to watch his bike. He was in a bad mood - they all were - and was taking it out on the dead for no reason. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't come across some bullets, and he felt there was no real harm in wasting some when he had his crossbow.
He spotted Lucy while shooting and initially aimed to shoot her like one of the dead. He felt relieved that he hadn't, and that she was alive and okay and nearby and he could go and talk to her. He also felt a sense of confusion. Why had she left a body for them to find? How had they been in the same area for 8 months and not yet seen each other? By the time he was able to gather his thoughts he had passed the spot where he'd seen her and was further down the road. It didn't take long for him to turn his bike around and head back.
As he parked up in front of the house he noticed she was no longer there. There were scuff marks in the dirt where she had been, indicating she had left in a hurry, and footprints leading behind the house. He followed them, crossbow loaded and raised. He really wasn't sure whether to expect her to be dangerous or not. She had to have known it was him. She'd seen his bike before and if he had been able to see her face, she must have seen his. He paused, thinking for a second. She had probably seen him raising his gun at her too, and heard other shots. From her perspective he could be out to get her. He lowered his crossbow as he reached the backdoor, looking through the glass for any sign of walkers or Lucy. There was some dirt on the floor forming a small trail towards the stairs, but the entire place seemed to be a mess. He wondered if she had been staying here or just happened to be passing through at the same time as him.
Daryl opened the door, stepped inside and listened. The house was silent. He noticed a stopped clock and remembered that he needed to get back to meeting Glenn soon or he'd start to worry, and he didn't really want to be out much longer anyway. He just wanted to find her. The house seemed to have been picked clean of anything useful. Cupboard doors were half opened and pots and pans were stacked in the kitchen sink. The curtains in the living room had been ripped down on one side and blood stained them at the bottom. The coat rack was empty and there were no shoes by the door. Several photo frames were dropped on the floor with no photos inside. Somebody had left in a hurry and taken everything.
Upstairs was the same messy image. He crept quietly, still holding his crossbow but not aiming at anything, and continued looking around. The doors were all shut, but no dirt trails led him to any of them. He moved to the first room, pushing the door gently and peering inside. It was silent and empty. No sign of anyone hiding in there. The second was the same, with only a bare bed. He checked underneath it, feeling like it would have been a rather awkward place to have found her if she had been there. The third room, a bathroom, gave him hope. The shower curtain was drawn and his eyes told him there was a shadow behind it.

'Lucy?' Daryl called out, desperately hoping it wouldn't be anyone else. There was no answer. He couldn't hear breathing. His mind wandered to the day they'd first met at the small church and how she'd sat there, almost lifeless. He'd thought she was dead on account of her silence. Taking a breath, he moved the curtain, readying his weapon for the worst case scenario. All hope quickly faded. What he'd thought was a shadow had been mould, growing to cover the whole of the wall. Perhaps she didn't come in here, he thought. Maybe it wasn't her. Despite trying to convince himself he might have just been seeing things, he couldn't shake that he knew it had been Lucy. He sighed, and began to head back down the stairs, debating whether or not to even mention this to the others.

When she heard the backdoor close and the bike start up, she finally let out her breath. Daryl hadn't noticed the loft hatch in one of the bedrooms. She'd managed to lift herself up and slide the cover back over before he had come in. Her things were already up there - she'd spent a week or two inside the house - and had gone down to check a house down the street for supplies. There'd been nothing there anyway, but when she'd heard a bike heading towards her and shots being fired she panicked and ran, ducking behind the bins for cover. She had recognised Daryl's bike when it passed her and her mind immediately flooded with memories of those few days she'd spent at the farm; she'd almost been able to forget that group and everything that had happened with them. The last eight months had been tough by herself and even she began to believe a conversation with a human could do her some good, but he was shooting and she felt scared. When the bike turned around she had ran into the house and pulled herself into the loft as quickly as she could, focussing on slowing her breaths and staying silent. She'd barely been able to hear his footsteps as he'd moved around the bedrooms until he was directly beneath her, and she silently wished she could have been anywhere else.
When he'd called for her in the bathroom she was desperately tempted to go down to him and reveal herself. She could easily refuse going anywhere with him, deny the need for humanity and run away if she needed to, but she was frozen. Her mind held the image of his gun pointed at her and against her better judgement, she stayed put. Deep down she knew he wouldn't have fired, even by mistake, but she'd been tricked too many times before and couldn't risk it again, especially not if it meant having to kill him. Never again.
So she let him leave with her last chance of any kind of human interaction while she held back tears. She so badly wanted to trust again, especially now. She'd always thought she was better off on her own, even before the world ended, and only now did she see just how wrong she really was.