Our Extinction Event {Daryl Dixon}

A Near-Death Experience

Daryl, regardless of his promise to Parker, was not as careful as he could have been. Falling down a slope into a river after his horse freaked was bad enough, but impaling himself on his own arrow was just the icing on the cake. As he lay on the rocks, he felt the water soaking his back, or maybe it was blood. He saw Parker appear in his vision and wondered how she had found him. 

She looked different. Her hair was clean, tied in a ponytail under the cap on her head. She was wearing different clothes, not covered in walker blood or dirt. It was Parker before the world went to hell. Daryl had gotten so used to seeing everyone, not just Parker, covered in blood and dirt that she now looked like a completely different person. 

"Hey," Parker said, crouching down next to him with a worried look on her face. "You're hurt."

"It ain't that bad," Daryl mumbled, his vision a little blurry.

"You have to go back to camp," Parker said. "You can't die here."

"Go get help," Daryl murmured.

"I won't leave you," Parker told him, and her fingers hovered over the arrow in his side, she touched his face with her other hand. "You can't die." When she touched his cheek, Daryl felt as if he had been electrocuted. A tingly feeling spread through his body, to the tips of his toes, originating where Parker had touched him. She withdrew her hand and Daryl wanted nothing more than to reach for it, missing the feeling of her soft fingers against his cheek. "Did you slip?" Parker asked, squinting up at the ridge he had just fallen down.

"I fell," Daryl answered with a wince, nodding towards the cliff. "Damn horse threw me."

"That is quite the drop." She 'tsked.' "I knew I should have gone with you," Parker bit her lip, shaking her head slightly. "We make a good team, you and I."

"Yeah, we do," Daryl agreed, his voice hoarse and weak.

"You shouldn't keep running from your feelings, Daryl," Parker sounded angry for a moment, and when Daryl blinked, for a second.. she was gone. Then she came back, this time standing over him. "You have to admit to yourself that you don't want to be alone. You already lost Merle. Why would you want to be alone? These people could be your family. They'll all accept you."

"I don't need family." Daryl ground out bitterly.

"But what about the people who need you?" Parker asked. "Carl admires you, Rick needs you and Parker couldn't be who she is without you."

"Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?" Parker crouched down next to him, tucking her hair behind her ears and a few strays under the cap she was wearing.

"Daryl, you don't have to be alone. Family doesn't always mean blood. It doesn't always mean you're going to get hurt. Parker is not your father. She is not Merle. And she sure as hell isn't going hurt you."

"She's a good person," Daryl whispered. "She doesn't deserve me."

"I think it's up to her to decide that one, pal." Parker put her hands on her hips. "You can't stop something if it hasn't started yet. That's like trying to stop a war before it starts, more people get hurt. Or attempting to stop the end of the world with just one person."

"I don't want to hurt her," Daryl murmured.

"You won't," Parker replied. "You just have to be honest with yourself about what you want. She sees how you look at her, she's not blind. You could feel your heart stop, remember how you felt when you heard her scream in that house when the walkers almost got her?"

"Because she was in danger." Daryl hissed in pain, looking at the arrow sticking through his side.

"No," Parker said, shaking her head. "You were terrified because you weren't there. Just like you weren't there when Ed put his hands on her. That fear you felt when she screamed... you don't fake things like that. You can't."