Double Crossbow (Daryl Dixon) [The Walking Dead]

Chapter 44 ↣ Where are they?

"We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward."

— Alison Croggon

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Kathryn

THERE'S A SECOND when you first wake up that you don't seem to remember anything about life, and then it all rushes back to you. On any other morning, I would've felt heavy with the weight of life. My mind racing with what needed to be done that day. Perhaps I would even be trying to shake the screams of a nightmare.

As this first second of the morning ticked by, I felt no weight come crashing down on me. The memories of the night before flooded my senses, and a heat clawed at my neck. Had I really done that? Had we done that? The answer was obvious, but it was still something to process with the little social skills I had in my arsenal.

I blinked the sleep from my eyes before trying to get up. As I shifted my weight, a grip tightened around my waist. An oof escaped me as I fell back to the pillow. Narrowing my eyes, I looked over my shoulder at Daryl. He was still sleeping—his heavy breathing gave it away.

Shuffling in his grasp, I was able to flip myself around. I placed a soft kiss to a mark that was left on his shoulder, and retraced the other spots my lips had been the night before until a quiet whine sounded. His grip loosened just enough to allow me to slip away. "Sucker," I whispered before putting on my boots and making my way into the common area.

I was surprised to find I wasn't the only one up. Merle and I made eye contact. He huffed before going back to loading a cartridge. "Good morning to you too," I said, sitting down across the table from him and loading a cartridge of my own. He glared, and I didn't let that faze me. "What are you doing up so early? Not many can beat me up."

"Couldn't sleep," he grumbled. "You?"

"I've never slept especially well. It's better now then when I was younger, but...some things never change." I looked Merle in the eye.

"You getting at something?"

"I'm simply stating an opinion."

Merle smirked and leaned forward onto the table. "How'd you end up running with these people? Been meaning to ask."

"I was on a hunt, and Daryl stole my kill. Shane came into the picture before either one of us shot the other and invited me back to their camp."

He narrowed his gaze. "That's it? You just went with 'im?"

"Pssh, no. I never had any intention of staying. I just wanted Shane to shut the hell up. The next morning I ran into Daryl while I was trying to get away. He...annoyed me into staying, and every other time I tried to leave he was conveniently there to talk me out of it."

"My baby brother...always the sweet one."

"That's not an adjective I've heard used to describe him before."

"Ah, Blondie, you ain't seen 'im when he was tiny. All blonde and baby-faced." It amazed me how Merle relaxed when talking about Daryl. He was as asshole, but he cared about his brother as much as he could—in his own way. "'Course yous was probably the same." I raised an eyebrow. "While you could make a grown ass man shit his pants now, ya couldn't always."

"True. Quite opposite actually." Merle held my gaze for a long while, thinking hard about something. "What?" I asked.

"Nothin'," he grumbled, dropping his eyes.