Lost ; Daryl Dixon

Chapter 22

Daryl watched Y/N sleep. She'd been out for hours and he thought it had probably been a long while since she'd let herself get any real rest. He longed to reach out and touch her, stroke her hair back from her face, but he didn't want to wake her. She'd stayed awake just long enough after they'd gotten reacquainted to pull her pants back up her legs, and then she'd drifted off in his arms. He'd forgotten how small and fragile she felt, how warm her body was against his chest as he held her close, how peaceful her smile was after she'd come down from her high. God, he loved everything about her. Finding her alive, he felt like he'd been given a second chance, an opportunity to make things better, to stop pushing her away and be the man she needed him to be, and he swore as he watched her chest rise and fall in her easy slumber that he would make the most of every single moment with her, if she'd let him.

He knew that at some point it would occur to her stressed out, overworked brain that if Alexandria was still standing then there was no reason why they shouldn't go back there. He was a little surprised that she'd so readily accepted his makeshift camp in the woods as home, but then again, at that moment in time, home was simply where the other was, and the time alone was something that he at least was treasuring. He hadn't felt this close to her in a long long time.

As she stirred, he trailed his fingers over her cheek, watching as her mouth quirked into a contented smile as she twisted to press a soft kiss to his fingertips, her eyes fluttering open to meet his gaze.

'I love you.' They were the first words out of her mouth as the haze of sleep cleared and his heart skipped a beat as he realised how lucky he was to have had the most important thing in his world returned to him.

'I love ya too,' he whispered, leaning down to graze her lips with his, eliciting a soft sigh from her. 'More than anythin'.'

It was true, had been true for such a long time that he'd forgotten what it was like to live without her dominating his every waking thought. The pain of her betrayal, her marriage to Negan, had barely crossed his mind since he'd found her, and he hoped that that would mean they had the strength to move past it, though he knew that at some point she'd want to discuss it, to come clean and ask for forgiveness. That's just what Y/N was like. She wasn't one to run from problems. She tended to want to face them head on and resolve them, just something else that had driven them apart before. She'd wanted to talk, and Daryl had wanted to bury his head in the sand, so they'd achieved nothing. Never again.

He knew too that he'd have to talk to her about the things he'd done, the pieces of himself that he'd lost. He needed her to know, to understand and accept this new damaged version of him, but he just wasn't sure how to bring it up, how to start the conversation. He figured it would come up naturally over time, particularly when she started questioning his decision to split from the others. For now, he didn't want to ruin the moment by forcing honest truths on his girl that she wasn't prepared for. Better to wait.

Y/N pushed herself up so that she was sitting, stretching out her aching muscles, her face contorting in a yawn before she spoke again.

'D, can we go home? Back to Alexandria?' Sensing his hesitation, she gave him a small smile. 'I don't mean now, obviously. We won't make it before dark. But tomorrow, maybe?'

Or not...

*****

'Hand over your weapons.'

Daryl's eyes scanned over the bikers that blocked the road in front of the tanker he'd managed to get running when Dwight and Sherry had left him and Y/N in the woods. Even reunited with Sasha and Abraham, they still outnumbered his small group, and they looked well-armed. Even so, it went against the grain to follow orders issued by a complete stranger, and he was pretty fed up with being taken for a ride after the day he'd had. All he wanted was to get Y/N home, back behind the safety of the fences, so he could lick his wounds and curse every damn person that had tried to put a bullet through their skulls. 'Why should we?'