Zedler, M.D. // Daryl Dixon

Chapter One Hundred and Seven: Mabel

•one hundred and seven•

Beatrix

"Where's Carl?" Are the first words out of my mouth when the gate opens.

"Is he," Enid pauses, looking around me as Carol drops her rifle, engulfing Daryl and Judith in a hug. "Is he not with you?"

"No, Rick and Michonne were supposed to be headed back here with him," I shake my head and decide that I have to tell her the truth. "He got bit."

"No, no," she mutters, shaking her head as he face twists into grief ridden sadness. She falls to the ground, starting to cry, and I drop down on my knees to hold her. "No, not Carl,"

"Hey, calm down," I pull her into my chest, rubbing her back. "It's gonna be okay. I gave him my blood. I think-I hope he'll be okay. They probably just got held up. They're on the way."

My words don't seem to have much of an effect on her, because she starts to cry hysterically. I glance up at Daryl, who passes Judith to Carol before bending down beside of us. He gives me a very concerned look as he rubs Enid's back, the two of us desperately wishing we could do something to help her.

"Come on, Enid," Daryl says, helping her stand up. Her body feels so light as we both help hold her up and get her into a trailer. Enid and I sit down on the couch while Daryl goes to get her a glass of water.

"You have to calm down, honey. You're going to hyperventilate," I say, rubbing her back as I hold her. "We gotta have faith, you know? Carl could be fine. We don't know for sure. We just need to hold onto the hope that mine and Daryl's blood worked. He got it about twenty-four hours before, and then we dropped some directly into his wound."

"He can't die," she manages to choke out, shaking her head. "He just can't, Bea. He can't die."

"Here," Daryl holds the glass of water in front of her face, and she slowly takes it, drinking half of the glass before handing it back. "I know how it feels, when the person you love most in the world gets bit. I'll go after him. See what happened and bring them back."

"You don't have to," Enid sniffles.

"I know," he tells her. "I want to."

"Thank you," she mutters, pulling herself away from me and wrapping her arms around Daryl's torso. He hesitates for a moment before hugging her back, holding her tight against his chest and places a kiss on her head.

My heart aches for Enid, it truly does. I also know what it's like to know the person you love most in the world got bit, even though I was a little more confident in his recovery by the time I found out. It sucks, and it sucks even more that he isn't here with her. I try so hard not to think about all of the different reasons they could be held up, but it's so hard. It's so hard not to think about the bite killing Carl, because that is a very real possibility. I don't know what I would do, other than blame myself for the rest of eternity.

Daryl and I say our goodbyes to each other, and he promises to be back by dark. After he leaves, I return to my spot on the couch with Enid, holding her tightly. After a while, I start to cry too. It's so incredibly unfair how many people we've lost, how many people we continue to lose every day. None of them deserved the fate they got, and especially not Carl. Carl is one of the only good, pure things left in this world, and if he dies, so will a lot of my hope for a future.

Sometime while Enid and I hold each other, we fall asleep, drifting off into a dream world. Unfortunately for me, this time my dream world is a memory, the memory of that night in the forest. My last memory of Lucas. The image of his skull getting bashed in by that fucking bat plays over and over in my head, except in my dream world, a few things are different. The biggest difference is Lucas looking at me while the bat hits his head, screaming "This is all your fault, Beatrix!"