Lost ; Daryl Dixon

Chapter 35

The church was quiet and cool, a haven from the world outside, and you sat there for a long time, the backs of your thighs going numb from the pressure against the hard wooden pew. Your mind was whirling, your emotions free-falling as you tried to process the day's events. You weren't sure that you'd been right to lose your temper with Daryl. You knew you'd probably overreacted, but you felt that your opportunity for revenge had been snatched away from you, and it had been like a knife to the heart, stealing your breath away and causing your chest to tighten. Negan would live. It was pretty much a fact now, and one that you were struggling to come to terms with. Should you have just accepted the fact, nodded calmly and curled back into the archer's embrace, enjoying the intimacy that you'd just rediscovered and letting everything else cease to matter? Maybe, but it was too late now.

The door to the building creaked open, and footsteps echoed around you as somebody made their way down the aisle, sliding in to the pew behind yours and resting a warm hand on your shoulder.

'Never had you down as one for praying,' Rick's southern drawl was instantly recognisable, but you didn't look round, simply shrugging as the statement. 'He answered any of your questions yet?'

'I'm not looking for answers. I'm just looking for peace.'

'I think Daryl's doing the same thing in his own way.'

You scoffed, shaking your head. 'By stabbing Negan? Yeah, that's real peaceful.'

'I would've thought it's what you wanted.'

'I wanted him dead,' you admitted. 'But not like that. Not some rage-driven, spur of the moment attack. I wanted him to know he was going to die, and I wanted him to fear it, just like we all did. It should have been slow and painful and it should have actually worked.'

'Wanted? You don't anymore?'

'Oh, I do,' you insisted. 'But I know it won't happen now cos you won't let it. You'll increase the guard, and neither Daryl nor I will ever get within 10 feet of him again. Am I right?'

'Pretty much, yeah. I've spoken with Daryl and I think he understands that now. He has to live, Y/N. It's what Carl wanted.'

'Carl was a kid, Rick,' you snapped, turning in your seat to glare at him. 'He was a smart kid, sure, but he was a child. What the hell did he know about war and vengeance and torture? You shouldn't be basing your decisions on some childish notion that the world can be a good place. It can't, not anymore.'

'You're really that cynical?'

'Yeah, you know who made me that way? Negan! He did this to me, Rick. He broke me, and he pretty much broke Daryl too. Nothing's the same as it was before, and I don't think it ever will be.'

'It won't,' Rick agreed. 'But it can be better. Carl believed that and he showed me the way.'

You shook your head but kept quiet, not wanting to insult his son's memory any more than you already had, but unable to agree with anything that he was saying. You'd tried to believe in a better world, but it kept knocking you on your ass. It had taken so many people that you loved, it had stolen your freedom, and when you finally thought you'd found somewhere safe, you'd been targeted for your innocence. At the rate things were going, it wouldn't be long before it took Daryl from you too, and then you'd have nothing left.