Unbreakable threads

Chapter Sixty-Four: Rick comes back.

As Daryl and Alyssa walked away from the block where the vulnerable were kept, the weight of everything they had experienced lingered in the air between them.
Back at the store, when the roof had caved in and walkers had poured through, Alyssa had screamed a word he hadn't expected. "Dad." In that moment of terror, she'd called for him, using a title that still whirred in his mind, carrying with a flood of pride and confusion. Alyssa hadn't even called Rick "Dad" yet, and as far as he knew, she still hadn't. But in that split second of vulnerability, she'd reached out for him with that name, a name he hadn't realized he'd longed to hear.

Daryl wasn't sure what it meant, what he was supposed to do with that feeling stirring inside him. She was more than a friend, more than another survivor. She was someone he'd come to see as family. But he'd never told her that. He wasn't good with words, not with feelings, and he didn't think she'd needed to hear it. Until now.

The realization that she saw him that way—at least enough to cry out for him in a moment of fear—was both a gift and a responsibility he hadn't anticipated. Daryl had never thought of himself as someone who could be a father figure, never thought he deserved that role or was even capable of it. But Alyssa had given him that trust, even if it was unintentional, and he felt a fierce, quiet pride settle in his chest.

As Alyssa and Daryl stepped into the main block, the atmosphere was heavy with the silent despair that had settled over the prison like a dark cloud. Hershel was still in the quarantine block, tending to the sick with tireless dedication. But now, Alyssa saw Maggie, slumped against the wall, her shoulders shaking as silent tears traced paths down her cheeks. Her usually strong, resilient expression was broken, her face a mask of grief and fear.

Alyssa's gaze followed Maggie's to where Glenn was resting, his face pale and drawn, the sickness visibly taking its toll on him from behind the glass of the quarantine block. He was the love of Maggie's life, the one person who kept her grounded in this fractured world. And now he was lying on the other side of a barrier, fighting for his life. Alyssa felt her chest tighten, a pang of empathy for Maggie's pain intertwining with her own worry for those she cared about.

Without a second thought, Alyssa crossed the room, moving to Maggie's side, her heart heavy with compassion. She reached out, placing a gentle hand on Maggie's shoulder. "Maggie," she said softly, her voice filled with understanding. She knew the weight of loss, the constant fear of losing the people they loved. And though she didn't share her secret love for Beth with anyone but Daryl, she cared deeply for Beth's family—Maggie was part of that, bound by the silent connection Alyssa held to Beth.

Maggie looked up at Alyssa, her eyes red-rimmed and glistening with unshed tears. She tried to put on a brave face, swallowing her emotions down, but the anguish was still raw in her gaze. "I—I don't know what to do, Alyssa," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Glenn... he's so sick. And I... I can't help him. I can't do anything."

Alyssa wished she could offer words that would make it better, that would take the pain away, but she knew that in this world, sometimes all they could do was hold each other up. "You're not alone, Maggie," Alyssa whispered, squeezing her shoulder. "We're all here for you. And Hershel's doing everything he can. Glenn's a fighter—he'll hold on."

After spending time with Maggie, comforting her as best she could, Alyssa steeled herself for the next conversation she needed to have—the one she'd been dreading but knew was necessary. She needed to find Rick, her father. He was somewhere out in the fields, probably tending to crops or fixing the makeshift fences that protected their meager vegetable patches. Farming had become his obsession, a way to find some semblance of peace after everything he'd lost, but Alyssa could see it for what it was—a retreat.

Alyssa understood, maybe better than anyone, why he'd done it. They had both cracked under the relentless brutality of the world they lived in. Rick cracked after Lori died, he felt the weight of that loss every day, while Alyssa had faced her own demons, haunted by visions of Shane, the day she'd ended him at the farm. Watching T dog die. Putting down Andrew. They'd both been broken in their own ways, and the quiet of the new community at the prison had given them a chance to heal, to patch over the wounds.