Silent warrior: A Daryl Dixon Fan fiction

Chapter 23: Friendly Banter

Denise comes up to the room the next morning. She starts to remove the stitches from my leg and tells me about Flax. He was moved to another space to help him recover from his wound. He's heavily sedated to deal with the pain, although I know it's at Rick's order to keep him from talking . I tried not to hear what she was saying, I didn't want to think about Flax. I didn't want to think about any of them. There isn't too much pain when she removes the stitches and she's happy with how well the wound healed. She moves the conversation to what it's like being the "doctor" in town now. I do my best to listen and stay engaged but my mind keeps wandering back to Daryl. "Uhh, Shannon?" Denise calls to me.

"Oh. What? Sorry." I say being pulled from the daze.

"Worried about Daryl?" She asks putting her tools away into a bag and removing the gloves she wore.

"That obvious?" I ask biting my lower lip. If Denise can figure it out then surely everyone else can too, maybe everyone except him.

She smiles "I'm sure he's alright. With what everyone is telling me happened in the woods the other day.." She looks away for a moment saying that "he's probably out looking for monsters to kill to get out his anger." She says.

"He shouldn't be doing that alone" I tell her though.

She shrugs "I don't think he's alone. But if he was he'd be fine. Daryl's a lone wolf like that." She returns. She must notice my reaction and adds on "until you came around" she says. I give her a look to call out her lie but she only defends her words "I mean it. He was the one always wanting to go out and find people to bring back, even when Rick didn't want anyone else comin' in. He always held out hope he'd find the good ones. He must have really found one in you because he hasn't gone back out with Aaron since you've been here" she tells me.

"Really?" I ask "he goes out looking for people to bring here?" I question

"Yup." She says now moving to the door "you know, you should tell him how you feel. I think it'd help open up his shell a little bit.." she goes to leave "yours too." She adds on.

Before I have a chance to respond to her though she leaves the room. I mull over what she says to me in a shower. It feels so good to stand in a shower again. I rinse my hair and go back into the room to get dressed. I know I've been fine with being cooped up lately but now that my leg is healed I feel the need to get out. I need to move! With Daryl gone,  I decide to just leave the compound for the day. I know I should clear it with Rick, but he's busy. I'll just head out to the main gate and tell whoever is there that I'm doing a deeper perimeter check than usual. I walk downstairs and a few people look at me. No one says anything when I go to leave the house. I walk down the front steps quickly and make my way to the main entrance keeping my head down just in case. Most people were busy with something else so I was lucky. When I reach the gate Spencer looks down from his post "Can I help you?" He asks when I'm still a few steps away.

"open the gate, would ya?" I holler back up to him.

He looks at me strangely "why you wanna go out there?" He questions.

I throw my hand up to cover my eyes from the glare the sun is casting "I'm gonna' go do a perimeter check." I tell him. It's not a total lie, when I'm out there if I do see any biters, I'll take them out. It's a two birds one stone kind of thing.

He begins to make his way to the bottom of the tower and I stand with my hand on my hip and the other still blocking the sun while I watch. He comes and stands across from me "why would ya go and do something like that for?" He asks me.

"Been cooped up for like a week, I need to get out." I tell him honestly.

He turns his head to the side and purses his lips "Rick know you going out there?" His eyes and head do a quick jolt towards the gate before eyeing me for my answer.