my tears ricochet

Chapter Sixty Nine

His heart had started changing the moment he first found Ivy. Daryl was just slow to process the way everything shifted in response; how the girl he was so busy wrangling had stolen a portion of his soul, that she set a path that he was still working out.

And he had lost her once. Ivy had vanished in gunfire and smoke, disappearing beneath layers of chaos until their journeys managed to align themselves together, mending the parts that he had damaged.

Daryl didn't want to lose her again.

Ivy was rarely silent like this. Even in her edgier, anger moments when she was inclined to sit quiet alone, the girl was constantly in some kind of motion; knife twirling, feet scuffing on the ground, a page turning. This version of Ivy was slack, held under by layers of drugs, and Daryl couldn't help but touch her wrist to monitor her pulse or to feel the steady rise and fall of her lungs to ground himself back down.

"You're gonna wake up," Daryl said to the bottomless midnight, hour as sharp as his knife. "And then I'm gonna take you home."

Ivy had a rebellious streak that came natural to feeling out limits and the brutal consequences that went with them. But she knew enough to stick to his side when the time called for it, when he wasn't playing around. And he expected obedience this time around. "You'll sleep better in your own bed," he informed her.

She was still wearing her hospital gown. The minute she woke up with coherency, Ivy would want back into her own clothes. They were still sitting folded up on the side table from where Maggie had left them and the bag was over by the door from where Beth had dropped it off. Her switch blade was still sitting out, far enough away that a feverish hand couldn't snag it.

And he kept waiting. He kept confirming that Ivy was still alive and safe. Daryl held Ivy's slack hand in his and watched for any sign that might suggest a decline in health.

But the night began to shift, midnight gloom transformed into three AM. Ivy's hand twitched, fingers shifting around Daryl's before a sharp exhale. "Hey, you're okay," he said because those were always his words when she first woke up and had to detangle herself from the remains of nightmares. "Just you and me."

Ivy didn't like to be physically touched when she was waking up but Daryl was selfish enough that he couldn't drop her hand. "Where-" she rasped, gaze jumping around the unfamiliar room. "No, no."

"We're in the clinic. No where else."

"But-"

"You're not in Woodbury." The light left on in the hallway illuminates just enough of the room that he could still see the fear frozen across her face. Her free hand shifted towards her side and he caught it before she could start prodding recent stitches. "Don't touch that for a bit."

The silence of the room is his single advantage. She listened to the hard note in his voice and obeyed, allowing Daryl to adjust her hands away from her side. There was an IV on the left one and he was careful to make sure that it wasn't stretching poorly. "Are you- are you hurt?" Ivy asked, squinting through the shadows. "Andrea shot you. Where's Hershel?"

"Hey, hey. None of that. You were sick. Had to take you in and let Bob take a look at you."

"Oh," Ivy frowned, considering the words slowly. "I was sick. But... but I'm better? I'm not dying?"

The invisible knife lodged in his chest twisted. "You're fine. You did real good. But, you keep talking about dying? You'll be grounded for a lifetime."

"Okay," she sighed. "Is it safe? M'tired."

"Yeah, sweetheart. Go back to sleep for a bit."

"I can take watch... in a bit."