In the End (Daryl Dixon x Reader)

•Chapter 2•

Your POV

After a while, we finally got close to camp. I could see the RV on top of the hill as I drove closer. Finally, I pulled into camp and slammed on the breaks, putting it into park.

"Holy crap," Dale cursed, "Turn that damn thing off!"

"We don't know how!" Glenn shouted back.

Shane and Amy came over, both of them yelling two different things over the car alarm.

Shane was telling me to pop the hood while Amy was asking about Andrea. I popped the hood while Glenn answered Amy.

Jim pulled a plug in the car, shutting the alarm off finally.

"Where is she? She's okay?" Amy asked for the umpteenth time.

"Yes!" Glenn answered her again, "Yeah, fine. Everybody is. Well, Merle not so much."

Shane turned to us, asking, "You crazy driving this wailing bastard up here? Are you trying to draw every walker for miles?"

"I think we're okay," Dale told him.

"You call being stupid okay?"

"Well, the alarm was echoing all over these hills. Hard to pinpoint the source." Shane gave him a look. "I'm not arguing, I'm just saying." Dale turned to me and Glenn, "It wouldn't hurt you to think things through a little more carefully next time, would it?"

"Sorry," I apologized.

"Got a cool car," Glenn added, only making the situation worse.

Thankfully, we were saved by the truck pulling up. Realizing just who was on it, I made my way over to Lori and Carl. "So, we found... we found someone out there."

"Found someone?" She reiterated.

I nodded, looking between her and the van, "It's better if you just see."

At that moment, Morales called out, "Hey, Helicopter Boy! Come say hello." He directed the next part to Shane, "Guy's a cop, like you."

Rick walked out from the van and that was when Lori, Carl, and Shane saw him. Lori looked over at me, eyes wide, almost asking if this was real. I teared up, smiling as I nodded, "It's really him."

She and Carl ran to him, hugging him tightly as they all cried. I looked over at Shane, and his reaction surprised me. He seemed almost... disappointed. Maybe it was just shock, but I couldn't get over what looked like a forced smile.

Shane told us he was dead, and I'm sure he thought that was the case. But now that he's standing here in front of us, I guess I expected him to be more... excited.

That Night...

"Disoriented. I guess that comes closest. Disoriented," Rick explained. While we all sat around the fire, he was telling us the story of how he woke up from his coma to find the world had ended. "Fear, confusion—all those things, but... Disoriented comes closest."

"Words can be meager things," Dale replied, "Sometimes they fall short."

"I felt like I had been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else. For a while, I thought I was trapped in some coma dream, something I might not wake up from ever."

Carl looked up at him, saying, "Mom and Aunt Y/N said you died."

"They had every reason to believe that," Rick replied, looking up at me and Lori for a moment, "Don't you ever doubt it."

I couldn't help but glance a little at Shane. He had been the one to tell us Rick was dead, so that's what we had gone on believing all this time.

"When things started to get really bad, they told me at the hospital that they were gonna medevac you and the other patients to Atlanta, and it never happened," Lori said.