Faded Scars (Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 36

Third person
(6 months later)

Daryl made his way towards Carol, who was serving food to the people of Woodbury. "Hey, Daryl." Daryl turned his head towards the sound. "What's up, Dr. S." He said back. Once he did the area erupted into people waving and saying "Hey Daryl." Daryl continued on his way, uncomfortable with all the attention.

"Smells good." He came up to Carol, who handed him a bowl of food. "Just so you know, I liked you first." She said with a smile. "Stop." Daryl grumbled. Leona began to walk up and the people called out to her, Leona just throwing them weak smiles. "Hey, have any of ya seen, Scar?" She asked and looked between the two of them. "No, I haven't seen her." Carol said and looked towards the fence. Leona muttered something and ran off towards the fence. "You know, Rick brought in a lot of them too." Carol looked up at Daryl, who was eating his food with his hands. "Not recently." Carol said and Daryl looked towards her. "Give the stranger sanctuary, keeping people fed, your gonna have to learn to live with the love." Daryl scoffed. "Right." He looked towards the fence and saw Leona grab someone. They pushed Leona off and walked in the other direction. "She's being to hard on her." Carol said and Daryl turned towards her. "But Scarlett, she's taking all of it so well, that it freaks Leona out." Daryl turned back and saw Leona shouting back at the figure.

The figure began to come up to the people of Woodbury and Daryl could see Scarlett wipe the blood from her lip on the back of her hand. As she came up the room erupted in shouts of "Hey Scarlett." Scarlett shoved her hands in her pockets and looked at all of them, hating the attention. She walked over to Carol and Daryl, Carol handing her a plate. "Thanks." She mumbled and Carol gave her a smile. "Everything okay?" Carol asked as Scarlett leaned next to Daryl. "Leona's lost her mind." Scarlett said and ate some of the food. "She's just worried." Carol said and handed a plate of food to one of the people from Woodbury. "When you're worried about someone, you don't punch them." Scarlett said. Daryl leaned closer to her and Scarlett looked up at him. He sucked his thumb and then ran it over her busted lip. "You should get this checked out." He said, his voice throaty. "I'll be fine, Daryl, really." He scoffed and then turned back to the people of Woodbury. Scarlett nudged him on the side and he rolled his eyes.

"Well, since y'all are both here. I need you to see something." Carol said and asked Patrick if he could take over. Before they walked away behind Carol, Patrick stopped Daryl. "Uh, Mr.Dixon, I just wanted to thank you for bringing that deer back yesterday. It was a real treat, sir, and I'd be honored to shake your hand." Scarlett looked over at Daryl and then at Patrick, who was waiting with his hand outstretched. Daryl sucked each finger and gave the boy a handshake, while Scarlett and Carol smiled behind him. As they walked away, Patrick had a giant grin on his face. Scarlett chuckled and looked up at Daryl. "I think you have a fan, Mr. Dixon." She joked and Carol chuckled. "Yea yea, whatever, woman."

Scarlett's view:

"About today, I don't know if we're gonna be able to spare a lot of people for the run." Carol said as me and Daryl followed alongside her. "That place is good to go. We're gonna move on it." Daryl said as we walked up to a part that overlooked the courtyard. "Yeah, the thing is, we had a pretty big buildup overnight. Dozens more towards tower three. It's getting as bad as last month. They don't spread out anymore." Carol said, watching some of the people down below stab walkers the through the fence. "With more of us sitting here, we're drawing more of them out. You get enough of those damn fence-clingers, they start to herd up." Daryl stated. "Yea and pushing against the fences again." Carol sighed.

"Too many of them might bring the fence down." I said and Carol turned towards me. "That's what I'm worried about, so far it's manageable, but unless we get ahead of it, not for long." I looked up at Daryl and then turned back to the people below.