Daryl Dixon: A Beautiful Disaster (SEQUEL)

Chapter 22: Where there's Smoke

Daryl's P.O.V.

I can only let Shannon sleep for less then an hour before I'm forced to wake her up "hey, we gotta move!" I shake her leg with my hand.

"What?" She startles awake, she asks next "what's that smell?"

"The camp, it's on fire. We gotta move before it reaches us" I tell her, keeping an eye on the rising flames.

The overwhelming smell of smoke emitted into the air about 10 minutes ago. A few minutes after that the sky started to light up a light orange-red color. I knew what was going on. My father's camp is burning down. "It's on fire? We can't go, what if there are people in there that need our help." She stands up quickly, finally seeing what I can see above the tree line.

I mutter to her "we gotta help ourselves before we get surrounded. Come on." I pull at her arm to move in the opposite direction of the flames. This one's big and it's moving swiftly as it eats up all the dead tree's and leaves from the dry summer season.

She sighs but must agree with me and we take off running. We stop sprinting after about a half hour and slowly jog for another hour or so until it starts to steadily drizzle. When we stop, she huffs out "think we're far enough?"

I look behind me and shrug "depends on this rain, but we're good for a minute."

She bends down over her knee's and asks "what do you think happened? Do you think that was us?"

I shake my head "no way. Rick wouldn't risk innocent lives like that. That was my father."

"How do you know?" she questions me back.

I don't want to tell her the real reason but I don't want to lie so I just mutter "he's got a thing for fire."

She eyes me, catching my serious and low tone. She stands up, both of us still panting "you really don't like him, do you?"

"If I never saw him again, that would be too soon." I answer her, really wanting her to know just how much of a scum piece of shit I think he is.

She asks next "so, he's always been this bad?"

I push my lips together before answering "let's just say you ain't the only one he's scarred." I eye her leg for only a second, telling her it's physical and not just emotional that he did to me.

"I'm sorry" She returns.

I shake my head, not wanting sympathy from her and tell her just that "I don't want your sympathy, its fine. He was a shitty person before I came along and will continue to be a shitty person until I kill him."

"Daryl, you really think you could kill your dad?" She questions me.

"After what he's done, and who he's hurt." I stare at her, wanting her to know that I'm talking mostly about her "there's not a shadow of a doubt I'm going to end that bastard." She just nods, her breath starting to calm down to a normal rate.

Shannon's P.O.V.

The way Daryl looks at me when he says he's okay with killing his dad wasn't frightening like I thought it would be. I was wondering to myself if Daryl killed his dad, would that make him as bad as he is? But I know Daryl isn't a bad guy, he's the farthest from it. He's actually too good for himself, making choices to help others that he doesn't have to make. Putting himself at risk for the greater good. That's something his so called father would never have done. I've only interacted with him twice, but I can see why Daryl is the way that he is. Although I'm not thankful for how he got to be this way, I'm just glad he's in my life now. "Why did he do it? What should we do next?" I ask him, referring to the fire. Clearly our plan for coming out here is no longer in play.

He bites the inside of his cheek and I tell myself not to stare. He answers "we can go back home or wait to see when it burns out, go back and see what happened."

"You think that's a good idea?" I ask him.

He shakes his head "none of this is, but maybe we get some answers."

"yeah, I guess. But if he burned down his home, where do you think he's going next?" I ask, not sure why I think he has all the answers.

He shrugs one shoulder "you said there were other camps, he'll probably go there."

My stomach drops and I say what I fear "what if they run into Rick and the others? We have to warn them!" My heart begins to race, knowing if they took the entire community they had with them then they wouldn't stand a chance against Lyle and his men.

"By the time they get there, our people will be gone. Besides, I wouldn't even know where to go from here. I was pretty distracted when Clint was taking us there." He tells me.

"Oh, yeah." I remember know the only reason Rosita knows where the other camp is, is because Clint took her and Daryl there "well, guess we wait."

Daryl adds "the rains pickin' up now, shouldn't have to wait too long."

"Good ole' summer showers." I smirk back, the tension between us rising as I start to feel hurt again by what he did leaving me without him at the camp.

We sit under separate trees trying to cover ourselves as much as possible from the rain. I wrap myself tightly up into a ball against a tree to try and stay warm. I notice Daryl move to my right but don't look over to watch him. It's not until he gets closer that I look over and up to him "here, you're gonna get sick." He passes me his leather vest.

I squint "if I take that then you'll get sick."

He shakes his head "you were just sick the other day and still recovering. You're gonna get worse if you don't warm up. Here." He pushes the vest further toward me in his hand.

I take it slowly and ask "aren't you going to be cold?"

He shakes his head "nah, I'll be fine." He turns and walks back over to three he was resting against to my right. I wrap the large vest around my arms and hold is closely to my chest, feeling just a bit warmer with it around me. As I sit there, I steal the occasional glance to Daryl. He sits cross legged, back slouched and eyes ahead. He's not shivering but something about the way he's sitting there, I know he's cold.

I stand up and walk over to him, taking the vest off "here, I know you're freezing."

"I'm not gonna take it, you're gonna get sick." He insist, his voice low and firm.

I sigh, spitting out the idea I had that made me go over to him in the first place. "Not if I'm leaning against you."

"Wha?" He meets my gaze.

"I'm about to pass out over there, I'm so tired. Why don't I just rest against you and sleep and we can keep each other warm?" I offer, wanting so badly to close my eyes.

"Oh. Uhhh" he stutters "uh yea- yea. Sure, I guess. If yer good with it."

He takes the vest from my hand as I start to bend down in front of him. He opens his legs flat out and I take a seat in front of him, my legs flat next to his and my back against his chest. Just as my eyes close to fall asleep he puts the vest down on top of me like a sort of blanket "Dar—"

He interrupts me from going on "I'm warm enough now. Just take it, would ya?"

"Fine. Thank you." I whisper back, already drifting off.