Healing Broken Wings [Daryl Dixon] The Walking Dead

Forty Nine| The Beginning of War

🗡️Dean🗡️

I stand on the platform connected to the wall, looking out and noting that it's peaceful, apart from the bomb Daryl and the others are making in a moving van beside the road. "Hey, Dean!" I turn and see Jamie down on the ground holding two cups in his hands. "Mind if I come up?" I smile tiredly and gesture him up, setting my rifle down.

He walks over and climbs up, holding a cup out to me. "Oh, please tell me that's coffee?"

"Yep." I smile and take the cup from him, blowing away the steam and then taking a sip. "Thank you, Jamie."

"No, problem. You've been up here since we got back. Couldn't sleep?"

"Why? Were you watching me?" He laughs and looks down at his coffee. "I was just a little worried after our close call last night." He didn't deny it. "Yeah, I meant to say thanks for saving me last night."

"Happy to do it again."

"Well, let's hope you won't have to." I take another drink from my cup. "Hey, Dean?"

"Hmm?"

"As someone who's had a "sheltered" life, there's not much that I can tell you."

"Yeah, sorry for saying that."

"But it's true. And I'd like to get to know more about you." I turn and look at him. "Your serious?" He nods and I watch the activity on the other side of the wall. "My life rarely had sunshine in it. I was orphaned at five years old. Parents were killed in a car accident. I was bounced from foster home to foster home. And when I was fifteen I ran away and ended up becoming homeless."

"Must have been hard."

"Yeah. I was half dead when Maggie and her father took pity on me and saved my life. In return, I became their farmhand and I become part of the family." I sigh and look down at my cup. "All that time I never sunk low. Didn't steal and never hurt anyone until now."

"What do you mean?"

"What I said that day was true, I've never murdered anyone before. But I have hurt a lot of people. I hear their screams at night, them begging for mercy. I think to myself "how much of myself did I lose just to survive?" and I ask myself that every day."

"Dean, you were just doing what you had to to survive."

"No, I've listened to the stories. Rick and his group never did I what I did. They didn't join the governor when he was banging on their gates when he kidnapped their friends, they didn't become cannibals like Gareth to survive, me I chose to make a deal with the devil just to continue breathing."

"Dean, it doesn't mean that you're a horrible person. It means you're human."

"One night, after spending a month with the saviors I was in the car with four other men, one was my boyfriend Jiro." He looks at me and I continue to watch Daryl and Rosita. "We were on our way back to the Sanctuary when we saw a campfire."

"Jiro stopped the car and said we needed to check it out. So, we did. And it was two men and a woman. They only had the clothes on their backs and a small crate of food. The moment they saw us they raised their hands and said to take whatever we wanted. Negan's favorite saying is that people are a resource."

I lean against the railing and fiddle with my knife handle. "But Jiro didn't really care there were only three of them and Negan never had to know. So, he shot one of the men and the woman screamed, she was so scared, she pleaded and begged them not to kill them too. To take the food and just leave them."

"I knew it was wrong, but I knew better than to speak up to Jiro unless I wanted another bruising. So, I just watched as he and another guy put bullets in their heads. Took the food and we returned to the compound."