Last One Standing ~ TWD Daryl Dixon

142

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Jo

"No, no, no, no," Daryl snarled. He was pacing tight, angry lines back and forth across the room. He looked from Rick to me, then shook his head and paced another line.

"It's a good idea," I argued calmly. It had been nearly ten minutes since I shared my idea and he only seemed to be getting more upset. Allowing myself to become upset and rising to his temper was not going to help convince him so I had managed to remain calm. Rick kept looking back and forth between Daryl and I as though he were watching a tennis match.

Daryl threw his hands up on the air. "No, it ain't. It's a terrible idea, it's dangerous," he snapped, his words coming out harsher than I knew he meant them to be.

"But there's guns, and supplies," I countered calmly. I liked to think I would always have been able to keep my zen when arguing a counter point with Daryl, but the truth was if I raised my voice at all my ribs screamed. So I kept myself carefully measured and controlled.

Daryl snorted in disgust. "Ya don't know that, they coulda been cleaned out a long time ago and that's a long way to go with no guarantees."

I turned to look at Rick who was leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. I arched a brow, trying to get him to come to my defense. So far he had been carefully quiet. He shot me a glare for dragging him into this then pushed himself off of the wall. He held up his hands between us. "Don't look at me like that Jo, Daryl's right, it is dangerous. And I wouldn't be the one making the trip, so it isn't up to me. We don't have any one but you two and Carl to spare and you are not taking Carl back there."

Daryl grunted, but I could tell he was mad Rick hadn't outright ruled out my idea as crazy. Truth be told it was a little crazy. But we needed it.

"There's more than one place along the way..." I said carefully, knowing Daryl would understand immediately what I meant. He was really going to lose it now.

Daryl turned back to me, his eyes hard and his jaw locked. "You're talking about one hell of a trip down memory lane darl'in," when he called me darling this time it didn't feel like a warm, term of endearment. I couldn't think of the last time Daryl was this mad at me.

I lifted my chin, trying to look as confident as one can while being bedridden. "We can do it. And it's worth it if it gets us what we need,"

"Four hundred plus miles?" Daryl snarled. "Do ya remember what it took us ta get here? Who we lost?!" he yelled.

I pulled back a little, not on purpose but he noticed and deflated immediately. I hated that. Hated when my body responded without thought or meaning. And I especially hated that it hurt Daryl. He had never done anything to hurt me, and he never would, and yet sometimes it seemed as though he was the one who paid most for it. I wanted him to fight me on this if that was how he felt about it. I didn't want him to back off because he thought he needed to protect me.

"Daryl-" I started to say.

But he shook his head. His voice was controlled once more and he had his hands hanging loosely at his sides. He was being very careful with his body language now. "There's no way to know we would even make it back."

"We would," I argued, his sudden calm made me mad where his temper earlier had not. It didn't make sense, not even to me and I recognized that, but it didn't stop me from being pissed. I wasn't necessarily mad at him, but at the situation. He was being too careful, if I wasn't hurt he wouldn't be shutting this down so readily. If I hadn't been hurt he would have at least listened to me.