Trying to Make It Right

Dying to Wake up and Try Again

            Running. Fuck ever since the Prison fell, since their sanctuary fell, their lives had reduced to running and losing the people who they cared about. Hell Rick didn't even know where Carl was, if he was still alive. He had alienated his son so much over the years that one morning he and Daryl had woken up to find the 18 year old man had left in the middle of the night while he was on watch. In doing so he left the two older men sleeping and in a position where walkers could have walked right up and eaten them and they never would have been the wiser. Rick had no idea Carl hated him that much, and Rick was convinced that the teen had to have hated them to leave them in such a vulnerable position. But ever since the prison his son had been different. The younger survivor had been harder and more quick to anger when he was dealing with his father. He was less so with his step-father but that change was still there with him too.

          Carl had taken 7 year old Judith with him when he left, and they had no idea in hell where the teen had gone. No amount of tracking that his partner had done had found them in the months that had followed and Rick could only hope that his children were still alive out there. He trusted Carl to keep Judith safe where ever they were, but people died every day now from sickness and from the walkers so the two men could be looking for corpses for all they knew. After all the damned virus was in them all and with each new death that wasn't handled correctly a continuous supply of fresh walkers existed. It was because of that the walkers hadn't died out yet, unfortunately for those who were still clinging onto survival.

         Their son's abrupt departure had been the beginning of the end for the pair. Now, when he had his partner's, his lover's, head in his lap and a damned bite mark on his arm he wished he could have known all of this before hand. He would have changed so much of what he had done if he had only known. So many people would still be alive, would still be with them and he might not be facing becoming a walker himself. In the very least there would be someone to put him down after he changed, but now he was going to kill whoever found them.

          Daryl was dead, he'd gotten bit the night before and Rick had forced himself to end it before his lover turned. He knew Daryl wouldn't want to be a walker, but he can't do the same to himself. He had gotten stupid after Daryl died, worse than when his wife Lori had passed in fact, and he had gotten bit himself during his break from reality. Hell he wasn't sure how he was coherent enough to be sitting here now, with Daryl's bloody corpse resting in his lap, but he was. He was also out of damned bullets and stabbing oneself in the head isn't as easy as you think it turned out.

        He snorted at that thought. Daryl would lie here and rot after he passed and he would walk around and do the same, maybe he would even tear out some unsuspecting survivor's throat if they managed to get in- he'd locked himself in here with Daryl, but if he knew one thing about the remaining population it was that someone would come scavenging sooner or later. He pitied the poor fool who ended up finding their previously safe house. They wouldn't know what hit them if they were dumb about it.

        He shivered as the fever settled in full blast, and ran his hand through Daryl's hair to try to sooth himself in some way. He had missed so much time with this man by being such an idiot before, by not seizing the chance to be with him the very first moment that he realized that his attraction was returned by the other man. And now he wasn't ever going to hear Daryl grunt at him, or see that crooked smile directed at him, or their people again. Fuck he hated seeing the people he loved die, but at least... At least he was going out knowing that Daryl wasn't going to be alone in this world. Not like Daryl had to face when he was dying the night before. And damn it he was proving his lover right by dying. Daryl had muttered that Rick was going to get himself killed without him there to cover his back before the fever had taken his senses. And he had done just that.