Double Crossbow (Daryl Dixon) [The Walking Dead]

Chapter 28 ↣ Them?

"Home is not where
you are from,
it is where
you belong.
Some of us
travel the whole
world to find it.
Others,
find it in a person."

- Beau Taplin, The Explorers

↣ ↢

Kathryn

THREE WHISTLED NOTES pierced the cold air. I instantly straightened and replied with the next three notes of the sequence.

Not a minute later I heard, "There you are."

I turned to face Daryl. "Here I am."

"You're pretty damn good at covering your tracks."

"Why thank you," I said.

"You shoulda got me up before you went running off," he grumbled.

"No reason for you to get up," I started. "We have the whistle figured out, and we both know there isn't any game out here." Daryl shrugged off my comment with a grumble, and I just rolled my eyes.

It seemed as if a lot had happened since that night around a dying fire. By my guess, it had been at least four months. The days were shorter. The game was scarcer. Lori had long ago started showing. Him and I were closer than we'd ever been. Funny how things worked out. Daryl seemed to read my thoughts then because he looked down at me with a curious glint in his eyes. He didn't say anything, though. He just looked back to the path in front of him.

"What?" I asked.

"You look good in leather."

I scoffed, looking at my worn leather jacket. I had owned this jacket for years and rediscovered it folded at the bottom of my bag once the temperature plummeted. "How was everyone this morning?" I asked.

Daryl looked down at me. "Quiet."

I shook my head. The rest group had learned about Lori's...affair? That wasn't the right word, but whatever. Rick was finally coming to the full realization of it. He was taking it rather hard. Not that anyone blamed him, but something had shifted in Rick. There was a coldness that followed him. This, in turn, affected the group as well. The silence that covered us was suffocating. This was one of the many reasons Daryl and I strayed away from the group every now and then. Who could've guessed that we'd end up running from silence.

He grabbed my hand then and laced our fingers together. "Damn," he said, coming to a stop and pulling my hand against his chest. "Your hand's an ice cube. It ain't that cold, is it?"

I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip. Giving up, I said, "No, it's not that cold out. I just have bad circulation." His eyebrows furrowed and he began to rub a circle on the back of my hand. He then did a head tilt that I had learned to mean 'go on'. "I was...in a car accident when I was eighteen. Got a little dinged up in the process." I saw a flash of worry go across his eyes. I quickly added, "But I'm fine of course..." I wiggled the fingers on my other hand. "Just bad circulation."

Daryl took a step closer to me. "Now I know why you're always stealing all the covers at night."

I scoffed. "I do not steal the covers."

"Tell that to my cold ass," he said with a smirk. He then pointed a finger at me. "You always steal that really warm blue one too."

I paused for a moment. "I do like that blanket."

Daryl laughed. "I guess I'll let it slide...for now."

"Oh, I'm so scared," I teased.

He threw a glare at me before going in for a tackle, but his weight shifted a moment too soon, giving away his next movements. I ducked under his arm and used his momentum to pin him to the tree he undoubtedly wanted me to end up against. His chin fell to his chest in defeat.

"Fuck," he muttered.

"Pay up," I said, smug as ever.

Daryl's lip curled before pressing a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. I cherished the warmth that flooded my chest. It was all so easy with him, and both of us were terrified to lose that ease. In a life that had become so harsh, we guarded what we had like the darkest secret this world held. We kept to stolen kisses far away from the group and a language comprised of whistles, gestures, and looks.

Reality snapped back into place as branch snapped off in the distance. Daryl and I instinctively reached for our bows and dropped to a crouch. Looking over at him, I shook my head a made a walking motion with my pointer and middle finger. It's not a walker.

Daryl nodded in agreement. He gestured to his right. I responded with a gesture to my left and just like that we were in hunter mode. As I made my way to the left of where the sound was, I couldn't believe what I saw. Just sitting there in a clearing was a rabbit. I made eye contact with Daryl across the way. He made a circle with his pointer finger above his head. Take the shot.

I didn't hesitate to release a bolt, and it, of course, hit its mark. Daryl stood up first and retrieved the kill. "What were you doing out here?" Daryl asked the limp rabbit.

"Are you expecting a response?" I asked him.

"Shut it," he said and started walking back to camp.

Quietly navigating the rows of storage containers, Daryl and I swiftly made our way to where our group was camped out. We kept our ears trained for any sound. We didn't exactly want to broadcast our presence, and if someone was watching, we'd need to send them on a goosechase. This was something him and I had already choreographed.

When we finally reached the correct container, I turned away from the door and did one final sweep of our surroundings. I nodded once, and Daryl quietly tapped on the door in a sequence the group would recognize: tap-pause-tap tap-pause-tap.

A second later the door lifted up. Daryl and I slipped inside, leaving no trace on the outside world that we were ever there.

The group all looked up at us, and Daryl lifted up the rabbit.

↣ ↢

"You think you're sneaky?"

I looked up from the book I was trying to read in the minimal light. "Sometimes, but I do know you're standing in my light."

Daryl gave a huff and sat down next to me. He pulled the blanket up around him before saying, "I saw you give your portion to Carl."

"And I saw you give yours to Lori," I replied, raising an eyebrow. "Who thinks they're sneaky now?" Daryl huffed once more, knowing he had been caught. "Starving is a game. You just gotta play it right," I said with a note of finality.

"Do you think Rick's right? 'Bout there being a place?" Daryl asked after a moment.

"I think that there's a place for them."

"Them?"

"Lori, Carl, that baby...but not one for me." Daryl looked at me with confusion. "Four walls and a roof isn't something I need. Never has been. I need..." I broke off my sentence, realizing what it meant. He did that head tilt once more. I took a breath and continued on. "I just need y'all to be saf—okay, and for most of the group that means four walls and a roof. I don't even know if that'll be enough to keep everyone okay."

"I gotta feeling we'll find something."

"Are your feelings normally right?"

"Hell yeah they are." A smiled pulled at the corner of my lip. "Don't go hogging all the blankets tonight," he added.

"No promises," I replied, taking hold of the blue blanket.