Triggerfinger ➳ Daryl Dixon

t w e n t y

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omf thank you so so so so so so much <3 You're all amazing and I can never thank you all enough. And I just noticed I now have 500 followers.Wowowwowowowowowow ya'll are greatI know I said no more fast replies, but you deserve it

BUT NOW WE ARE GETTING ONTO AN ACTUAL SCHEDULE

Presley drew her knees to the chest as she stared absently across the room. The rest of the group in the neighboring house moved quietly past the windows every few minutes. Rick had obviously set up watches to keep their eyes on the windows. 

They had nothing to be afraid of. 

Rick and his group thought that they were doing the group a favor by coming into Alexandria. She'd known that the second Morgan had appeared and had taken the time to tell them about it.  She grazed her fingers through Zeva's long fur before she picked up the comb once more. 

The dog's sleek fur was matted from months without brushing. Presley quietly picked through each clump of fur, patiently humming to herself. When the clump was too thick, she pulled out the makeshift sheers and sawed through the fur. She looked  little bald and choppy in some places, but it still looked better than the knotted clumps. 

"Presley." John said, looking over the edge of his newspaper. He was seated in the recliner across from her, his back to the window. "Why did you leave earlier?" 

Presley didn't look up from her work. She sawed through the fur instead, never stopping her humming. 

"Presley Iris." 

She finally looked up, pausing from her work. Even Zeva, who had been soundly sleeping on Presley's lap, glanced up when the contact stopped. She shifted and sat up, sighing quietly. Zeva rolled off of her, watching with a cocked head as Presley went for the bag laying on the coffee table. She unzipped it and pulled out one of the bottles of pills, eyeing it briefly before she tossed it.

He caught it with one hand. 

"Leave it to you to find something I've been looking for for years now." He didn't sound excited. She wasn't expecting excitement, though. 

"You're just like her, Presley." He said quietly. "She... She would have loved you."

She sat back down, gently slipping her fingers through Zeva's now silky fur. She had nothing to say. He'd told her all that before-- that she looked like her mother, that she sounded like her. Never, however, had he ever said she acted like Mary. 

"But that boy, honey... He makes you weak." 

It was that moment that Presley went very still. She didn't look up, she just stared down. She could feel her heart speed up and her immediate instinct was to defend him. Daryl was her lifeline before John had showed up. She bit her tongue quietly, so hard she thought she tasted the metallic taste of blood. 

"You care about him-- I know you do. That's obvious." He said, leaning toward her. She refused to look at him. "But that's what makes you weak, honey, remember? I thought I taught you that."

If by teaching he meant isolating her so that he was the only one in her life, then yeah, he taught her. 

John had chased out every individual in Presley's life that she had ever cared about. Friends, boyfriends-- anybody who had ever mattered to her. In his mind he was protecting her feelings, but in reality, Presley had suffered all throughout the time that she was in school until she managed to escape Washington.

She hadn't moved to Colorado just for fun. She'd been trying to have a life where everybody she talked to wouldn't have their lives threatened by an overprotective father. 

"It'll be easiest to leave now. The longer you stay the more attached you'll be."

She looked up ever so slowly. "I'm already attached, dad."

"Then we should leave before it gets any worse. It'll be just you and I and the world, darling."

Presley stood once more, finally meeting his gaze. She didn't say anything. She stared at him for just a minute before she turned on her heel and escaped the room. She found a bedroom with a freshly made bed and locked the door behind.

She couldn't bring herself to be angry. There was no anger that she could bring out. She curled up on her side and drew her knees to her chest, cradling herself. Zeva flopped down at the foot of the bed, her spine barely brushing against the bottom of her feet.

The only emotion she felt was sadness. 

Sadness because she knew that John was right.

She'd become too attached. She'd never understood why he'd chased away every person in her life until the apocalypse. She hadn't thought it was fair. It wasn't until she really began losing people that she realized that life with other human beings was a dangerous one.

Not because humans could wield knives and guns, but because they had a way to forcing themselves into your heart and making you care about them even when you know you shouldn't.

Humans brought out the humanity in people who were thought to have none. 

She'd been with Daryl and all those people for too long. She'd lost people-- she'd felt the pain. She just hadn't quite accepted the fact that she had to let them go... but it made sense.

To let go of the pain of losing each individual... Would it be worth the pain of losing the ones she'd come to love.

Within a year, though, they could all be dead for all she knew.

Even her Daryl. 

That was only death she could never bring herself to overcome-- she knew that. The death of Daryl Dixon would also be the death of Presley Scott. 

Silently, she wondered if she would be better off not knowing if he were dead and alive.