Healing Broken Wings [Daryl Dixon] The Walking Dead

Sixty| Never Stopped Caring

🌼Carol🌼

I watch Daryl fire, and his bolt hits a snake, pinning it to the tree. He holds his crossbow out to me, so I take it while he goes to retrieve the snake. He cuts off its head, places it in his chest pocket, then pulls his bolt free, hanging the snake around his neck. If Kristina could see him now.

He goes over to put down the walker caught in one of his many traps. I stare at the back of his head as he keeps moving. "You just gonna leave him there?"

"Yeah. Keeps the animals away." He leaves the path, and heads into the woods. "You've been out here longer than I thought you'd be. Longer than you said you'd be."

"Yeah, I like it. It's quiet." I shake my head as I follow close behind him. He takes a rabbit from the snare, then begins to reset it. "How's the King?"

"He's having a hard time letting go. I'm taking Henry to Hilltop. He wants to apprentice at the smithy."

"Well, I appreciate your visit. You seem real good." You don't, I think to myself. Reminds me of how Daryl withdrew from the group after Sophia came out of that barn. How he'd rather be alone than with his family. Only this time his isolation has lasted six years. I'm done letting him get away with acting like this.

We all miss Rick, but he needs to stop this, and go back to his wife and kids. "You gonna tell me why you're really here?" He asks as he finishes, and comes back over to me. "I want you to come with us. I can't stay at Hilltop. We've got problems of our own at the Kingdom, and I'd just feel a lot better if you were there with him."

That's half the reason. "You want me to babysit your boy?"

"I want you to stop isolating yourself! I want you to make things right with Kris. I gave you space, and you've been out here for six years. I'm not gonna let you waste another year out here! Rick would understand." He sighs, and looks down at the rabbit. "Besides, Henry doesn't need babysitting. It's not like that."

"How is it, then?"

"Henry's an idealist, just like Ezekiel. I love that about him. I do. It's important. But it can also be dangerous, too."

"No. He's gonna have to learn, just like everybody else. Just like you and I did." He takes his crossbow back, then steps past me, walking away. "And what about Shawn? Andrea?" He freezes, so I move towards him.

"Kris has sent me letters over the years. Shawn barely remembers your voice and Andrea... she doesn't have any memory of you at all. She was barely two years old when you left. Do you have any idea how that effects them? You're okay with hurting them like that?"

He slowly turns around to face me and I see the sorrow in his eyes. "You know the answer to that. I think about them every single damn day! And I hate myself. For everything I've put them through. What I put Kara through! It kills me."

I stare at him sadly. "Then why don't you go to them? They went to Hilltop. They didn't leave Georgia."

"Everyday I get up and for just a second I think about that. I say I'm gonna do it, but then I think about Rick. All the shit we'd been through together. How it's my fault... my fault that he's gone..." He hangs his head and covers his eyes with his hand. "No, Daryl. It's not."

"He would have been in camp if not for me! Or at least I would've. I should've been there to stop them from firing their guns. Drawing that herd. But I wasn't. Cause I couldn't let it go."

"He killed Glenn, Daryl. Glenn. We all wanted him dead. It's not your fault. Rick wouldn't blame you and none of us do either. Just like Rick wouldn't want you out here instead of being with your family. You know that. So please, come with me. You deserve to be happy."