War Of The Damned - (Daryl & Beth) - The Walking Dead

23. Fragile

This chapter is dedicated to @prettyjennifer04 because you're so awesome and your comments are just lovely...thank you so much lol. Also because you've voted for every chapter so far! This chapter was written to "Fragile by Tech N9ne". It's a beautiful song. Y'all should really check it out ;)

Thank you for reading everyone, and commenting and voting <3 Keep 'em comin' y'all, said Daryl. Hahaha. ENJOY !!!

23. FRAGILE

| RICK |

Beth's reaction was surprising, to say the least. Since when did she care about Daryl? I mean, we all care about each other. We are a family. But she didn't just care about Daryl, there was something more there...something tangible. Love, I think, then shake the thought from my mind. No, that cannot be it... Can it?

We bypass the dead walkers and what looks like the remnants of what was once a man, and place Daryl on a thin quilt in the cottage, using his signature poncho as a pillow to support his head. Then me, Bob and Abraham, the man I had met briefly at Terminus but had proven himself to be a friend to our group, got to work. I scrummage through the medical supplies the others had picked up on their way here finding a item that looked similar to a scalpel and some sterilizer. Abraham carefully removes Daryl's clothes covering his front until he is left in nothing at all, we didn't have the luxury of tearing up clothes these days. While one of the women - Maggie, I think, - cleans away the dried blood from them, I use the scalpel to cut around the bullet wounds a little, before Bob and I dig our fingers into his body to find the bullets. Luckily for Daryl, the bullets hadn't pierced any major arteries.

Daryl groans multiple times as we work but Beth is right there at his head soothing his face with a wet cloth. Locating the first bullet was difficult. It had fractured one of his ribs and stopped. Eventually I feel the distinct hardness beneath my fingers, mumbling a quiet apology for causing him further pain before I quickly pull it out. Daryl's body convulses during those excruciating slow seconds of me retrieving the bullet, but he doesn't regain consciousness. I wipe his blood off my hands and hand the bullet to Beth to get rid of, as does Bob. We make a good team Bob and I, and I am even a little proud of myself when I finish stitching up Daryl's wound. All those years of medical school before I became a cop had finally paid off.

We clean him up as good as we can and I inject him with some standard antibiotic and morphine to ease the pain, while Bob wraps clean bandages around him. I check our medical supplies, counting six vials of antibiotics and four vials of morphine and a couple of decongestant drugs used to decrease pulmonary congestion in the lungs, which will in fact come in handy in the coming days. "We need to get him somewhere safe, somewhere he can rest." He could be out for days, weeks or even months. None of us can be certain about anything anymore.

"A hospital." Answers Beth. I - everyone probably - give her a disbelieving look because for one a hospital would mean we would have to go into a city, a city with thousands of walkers in it no doubt. And two, we would have to carry Daryl, all one hundred and something pounds of him, into a city with thousands of walkers in it. It would be a suicide mission for us all. But Beth just glares at me, and says, "He would do it for any one of you." As if she knew exactly what I was thinking.

Maggie comes to kneel beside her sister, a hand on her shoulder that Beth just swats it off. Maggie sighs, "Bethy, we all want to help him. All of us. Ok? But--"

"But what Maggie?" The younger sister demands, looking like she wants to rip her head off. "What you want to help but you don't want to risk your life!? If it wasn't for Daryl your husband would be dead! And you," her eyes snap to me, "if it wasn't for Daryl your daughter would be dead! All of you would be dead if it wasn't for Daryl! So I suggest you all buck up your fucking ideas and do everything you can to keep him alive!"