It was a side of Daryl you had never witnessed before.
The man who lunged forward at the prisoner was filled to the brim with red firery rage. Plain and simple. Everything he had gone through, the pain and the torture and all of the loss, it flowed from him like blood. Hot, thick and with no intent of slowing down.
It shocked you, despite the fact that his reasoning didn't surprise you. He had valid reasons to charge at Dwight the way he did. He was tortured; treated like some kind of animal at the hands of that man. Dwight had taken so many people from him. Whether he was the one to truly kill Abraham and Glenn, it didn't matter. Not to Daryl. He did however, take Denise. And you knew Daryl still hung tightly to that unwarranted death.
Tara urged him to do it, and you couldn't blame her. She was still mourning. But looking at Daryl in that light, you grew fearful. You grew fearful of the fact that you knew Daryl would kill him.
It wasn't your place to stop him, you knew that. You knew he might never look at you the same way after you stopped him, but you were scared you wouldn't be able to look at him the same way after he did do it.
So moving forward past the others, you stood beside Rick who was the only person holding Daryl back. Your hand reached for his shoulder, and the moment you touched him Daryl looked downward at you.
His usually calming blue eyes were anyting but in that moment. They were no longer the steady ocean you remebered them to be. They had become a storming sea, waves of cold blue that threatened to turn black they were so dark.
"Don't do this," You whisper lowly in a voice only Daryl can hear. "Not now. Not here."
You saw the way his anger shifted slightly as outrage and disbelief towards you clouded his mind. He looked at you as though you were insane or had just betrayed him somehow. But you stood there strongly, praying to yourself that he would one day forgive you for stopping him.
The screen door bangs softly behind you as you step out onto the front porch. The night sky sprinkled with tiny stars as you walk out into the moonlight. But the moment you reach the railing, a shadow sitting on the top step draws your eye.
You know who it is far before taking the few steps forward to sit next to him. His presence was enough to give him away; you had grown to know when he was near.
"What are you doing out here so late?" You ask softly, anxiety racing through your veins as you fear saying the wrong thing to him.
"Could ask ye the same thing." Is all he responds with. His head raising not once to look your way.
Sighing, you look down at your hands that lay folded in your lap. It had been days, the longest days of your life it felt like since Daryl last spoke to you or even came near you. He had iced you out, just as you feared. But here he was now, sitting out on the porch of the house you both once shared. And that had to mean something.
"I know you're angry with me. I know it, I can see it. Hell, I can feel it. But what I did Daryl, it was out of love and out of good intention for you. You have to realize that."
"Do I?" Daryl quips and his head snaps up in your direction.
Blue had returned to his eyes, but something was still missing from them.
"Yes. You do." You bite back just quickly as he did.
Being with this man for as long as you have been, you've grown to pick up a thing or two from him. And not backing down from an argument was one of those things. You could fight just as well as he could.
