He's Just a Baby

The Trouble

Daryl walked over to the supply truck that had just been brought into the walls of Alexandria, holding a very energetic Judith on his shoulders as they talked about random things like the way people dressed, and how many walkers in the world were wearing the same clothes.

It had been three weeks since his and Aaron's deep talk, and he had yet to take the man up on his offer of having him take care of him when he was small, despite the fact that he had been feeling more and more fuzzy as the days past.

As they reached the truck, Rick and Jesus slipped out from the front seats and looked their way. They both looked tired, but overall pretty happy, which must've meant the run had gone good.

"Daddy!" Judith called from Daryl's arms-where she had demanded to be held so that she could look taller-and he couldn't help but smile as he watched Rick run over. The sheriff scooped his girl from the archer's arms and held her tight, kissing her forehead.

"Thanks for watching her," Rick spoke, directing his attention to Daryl after a moment of smiling at his daughter.

"It was no problem," he responded. "She's fun ta' be with anyway."

Rick gave him a light smile in response and turned his gaze to his right forearm, which was wrapped in some white gauze. They both knew that the only reason Daryl hadn't been on the supply run today was because he had cut open his arm deeply by accident while escaping some deranged man who had chased him outside the walls the day before.

Or...at least that's what he had told everyone when he had wobbled through the gates of Alexandria late last night. In truth, he had accidentally dropped the point of one of his hunter knives on his arm while he was sharpening it; his lack of coordination was a clear sign that he wasn't nearly as big as he should've been.

"Daryl?"

Daryl blinked and realized he'd been absentmindedly staring at the flower pattern on Judith's yellow shirt.

"hm?"

"I asked if your arm was feelin' better?"

Oh.

"Yeah," Daryl spoke. "Yeah, it's fine."

The sheriff was watching him with slightly concerned eyes, but as he opened his mouth to speak again, Jesus yelled over to them.

"Daryl! If your arm's okay, could you help me lift this box to the storage area?"

Daryl quickly nodded and, after giving Rick and Judith a light smile, ran over to where Jesus was. Rick seemed like he wanted to argue against him lifting the box, but he ignored the look, instead grabbing the sides of the large crate. Together him and the bearded man both managed to lift the three feet tall storage box.

As they were lugging it into the town though, Daryl noticed a small crowd forming around the storage room. What was odd about the crowd though, was that it consisted of all of Alexandria's two littles and their caregivers. Aaron was standing over there as well, which made Daryl suck in a breath, as he had been subtly ignoring the man for the past week or so.

"What's in this box?" Daryl grunted to Jesus as the two men made their way over to the building.

"We found a little store today, and one side of it was barely touched. We already have the necessities, but we figured that we could grab a crate and see if the littles wanted anything."

Daryl hummed in agreement, although the explanation had left him a bit flustered. Here he was, a little, carrying a box of little items that he so desperately needed, and yet he knew he couldn't have anything. Sometimes when he was out hunting on his own, he would run into some little supplies. There were so many times that he'd wanted a pacifier, or almost gotten a toy or a pack of diapers. But in the end he never did, because Daryl Dixon wasn't some dumb baby.