in a dark meadow -- daryl dixon

left behind

word count: 4232

Their group was broken, and Avery didn't have the strength to build it back together.

When her tears had eventually subsided, Rick and Avery returned to the cell block. Her anger with Daryl was temporarily suspended when she saw her two friends, throwing her arms around their necks in relief. Maggie returned the hug, but Glenn did not seem to have the strength to.

Holding him at arm's length, Avery looked over Glenn. The skin around one of his eyes was swollen and purple, the rest of his face bearing congealed blood and a handful of small cuts. He held an arm wrapped around his stomach, as if the simple action of standing had exhausted him. But his eyes - they were different. There was a look in them that Avery didn't recognize. What once held warmth and empathy was replaced with ice and bitterness.

"What happened in Woodbury?"

"Merle did this." Glenn's lip curled over his teeth as he pointed at his bruised eye. "He beat and tortured me for information about the prison. He set a walker on me."

Avery swallowed, the inside of her mouth feeling like sandpaper. "And Daryl-?"

"Daryl knew everything his brother did and he still went with him. He left us, Avery. He went off and left you without a second thought, OK!? He left all of us-!"

"Glenn!" Maggie cut him off, her eyes wide. His yelling felt like a slap to Avery's face - he'd never spoken to her like that before. And somehow, that hurt more than the reality of his words. Glenn exhaled through his nose and averted his gaze, but he didn't apologize. He stalked off before anyone could ask if he needed medical attention.

The tension in the cell block was so brittle that Avery felt like it might snap. Oscar had been killed. Glenn and Maggie avoided one another, for reasons no one knew. Rick held his crying daughter with indifference. Eyes watched Avery but no words were spoken to her. But what was there to say? A core member of their group had abandoned them at a finger snap instance, without any regard to the woman who stood by his side through it all. 

Once again they had found themselves weak, vulnerable, and broken.

Avery dreaded walking up to her cell that first night without him. The warmth and peace within it had been emptied. One of his backpacks slumped in the corner, and an extra pair of his boots were tossed haphazardly across the floor. She looked at the unmade pile of blankets on her bunk bed, the ones she shared with him. Sinking onto her mattress, she closed a fist around the fabric. Her serene place, in his arms - she'd never be there again.

Curling up into the blankets, Avery buried her face, hating that the fabric smelled of him, and cried. She thought she'd emptied them all but the tears came, choking the breath out of her body. She'd never known anybody to cause her a pain as deep as this. 

In this heartache, the sun would not shine and the wildflowers would wilt. She loved him. She knew that now.

The mattress shifted as a weight settled beside her. A warm hand reached out and rubbed soothing circles against her back, and Avery recognized the soft cooing of Carol's voice. Avery shrunk into herself further, her nurturing somehow making the pain worse. He'd left Carol behind too.

Avery did not rise out of bed the next day. All night she had fought against a mixture of resentment, sadness, and grief, each of them vying for dominance over her. The others noted how uncharacteristic it was for her to lie around and do nothing, but Avery didn't care. She wallowed in her nest of blankets, eyes throbbing and red from a night of unrest.