Till Death Do Us Part: A Daryl Dixon Story (The Walking Dead)

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I was bleeding from my right forearm. Daryl had stuck the blade into my skin and sliced me open. I asked him to.

It had been about two weeks, fourteen days, since my womb had emptied. My will to live had gone with my child. I didn't have the heart to ask about the gender. It wasn't alive so why should I have cared. Daryl tried his best to hold it together but failed miserably. The worst thing I had done was pick up smoking again, but the lack of cigarettes in general sort of backfired on me.

I was calm. My thoughts and plans that led me to be perched upon a tree branch were rational. The reasons behind the huge gash on my forearm were sane. It was so simple I couldn't believe I had not embraced the idea earlier.

If you can't beat them, join them.

And so from the tree branch I stared at them – the walkers. Hungry, smelling my blood perhaps. They barely noticed me. Perhaps it was because my will matched theirs? I no longer had hope like the rest of them in the prison. Hope was a vile and cruel thing to have. As I left the prison earlier, many of them tried to persuade me to stay. Rick especially, the man I'd once called brother. Hope may be cruel, but to enforce it on another with false tales of a sweet ending? That was just sickening.

I'd toyed with what I would say to Daryl on my way out.

"Sorry." Plain and simple, yet that wasn't how I felt. To whom was I apologising to? My leaving had nothing to do with Daryl. It's the stereotypical "it's not you, it's me" case, yet I would say it was a stretch to say it was only me. Because I tried, goddamn. I really did. I tried to make the best of it.

"You'll be fine without me." Or rather us. First the baby, then me. If I didn't voice it, then maybe it wouldn't sound so cruel. Next.

"This is all your fault." I meant it only a little, but saying it would feel good. If only Daryl arrived earlier. If only he hadn't knocked me up in the first place, then we wouldn't know a loss like this. Again. But some part of me still existed and to purposefully hurt him would be cruel.

So I decided to say nothing.

I left before dark. I figured leaving just as the sun set would discourage anyone from following after me. They were having supper. Daryl wasn't with the crowds and he wasn't in our shared cell (I'd just been there to retrieve his hunting knife).

I eventually found him smoking a cigarette outside. Dusk was starting to set in.

"May I?" I asked, gesturing to the cigarette.

He pulled in deeply then held it out for me. The nicotine rush dizzied me. We were silent till I finished smoking.

"You expect me to say goodbye?" He muttered, looking ahead at the lazy sun taking its time to say goodbye for the day.

I was slightly taken aback. "How'd you know?"

He scoffed. "I knew since you decided this was how you was gonna fix things."

"I'm not trying to fix anything." I said calmly. "Things can't be fixed."

Silence, and then, "I'm not gonna beg you to stay."

"Then help me leave."

He narrowed his eyes. "How?"

I handed him his knife and he eyed it suspiciously. I extended my arm and ran two fingers from my wrist to the crook of my elbow. "Cut me open."

"What, can't even slit yer own wrists?"

"Something like that," I nodded in the direction of some nearby walkers. "It's for them."

He scoffed again, "Okay."

He gripped my wrist so hard I wanted to pull away. But I didn't. He held out the knife above my forearm, watching my reaction, waiting for me to tell him to quit it.

I didn't bat an eye, not even when the blade pierced my skin. Not even when he drew it upwards, gently, as if stroking me while moving inside me. Tears came when he was done. Silent, sad tears. I cried for the life we were supposed to have, for the children who were never meant to be.

The cut was superficial, yet it bled so much.

Daryl unwrapped what looked like old bandaging from his own forearm and then wrapped it around mine. "Will you come back to the cell now?"

He kissed my wrist. The tears stopped.

"Please," I said softly. "carry on without me."

My words were genuine. I turned my back to him, but his grip only hardened around my wrist. We stayed this way for nothing short of a few minutes.

I eventually did leave. And Daryl stayed. I did not dare turn around as I got into the car that had long past its expiry date – I wouldn't will a working car to die out there with me. And that was how I ended up in a tree. Too scared to go through with it immediately. I'd wait till the moon was at its highest in the night sky.

Blood is salty and metallic. I wondered if that's how we tasted to the walkers. Was salt and metal a delicacy to the undead?

Soon I'd find out.

With my good arm holding tight onto the branch, I extended my torn and bleeding arm from the tree. Taunting and teasing the ones I'd soon call brethren.