Trust Me | Daryl Dixon

Part 45

"Rick? Rick what are you doing?" Michonne yelled, slowly bringing me back to reality as the door we had just came through slammed shut, "Rick!"

"What?" I said confused, my head feeling like it was spinning as I looked around the room, "Where is he? Rick- where'd he go?"

"He's out there," Michonne mumbled, impatiently standing over Carl, "Rick's out there!"

"Hold on." Denise said calmly.

"He needs my help-- he needs our help!" Michonne pleaded, "Liz, you need to go out there!"

"One more suture, Michonne." Denise said, trying to calm her down.

I nodded, my head still slightly spinning as I looked down at the bloody knife that was already in my grasps.

"Liz, go!" She ordered, causing me to quickly run out the door, my head immediately clearing as I saw the herd in front of me again; the sight nearly making me stumble back.

My eyes soon found Rick as he stood in the middle of all of it, continually swung his axe at any walker that came near him.
I then ran through the herd, shoving away any of the dead that was in my path until I neared him and joined in on whatever he was working towards.

As tired as I was and as much as my muscles ached, I promised I'd do anything to protect these people, and that's all I wanted to do right now, even if it meant facing what I feared most and risking my life in the process.

Before I knew it, Rick and I were accompanied by Michonne, Aaron, Spencer, and Heath, all fighting with the same goal in mind; to protect the ones we loved.

"Knock them away, drive them down!" Rick instructed as even more Alexandrian's joined in, "We can beat them!"

***

As we continued fighting, suddenly, the sound of rifles cut through the groaning, catching my attention as well as the attention of others.

"What was that? Where did it come from?" Spencer asked before continuing to jam the butt of his gun into the faces of oncoming walkers.

"I don't know.." I breathed, trying to look around the perimeter as much as I could, "Maybe someone else got to the armory?"

"Well, we better fucking hope!" Rosita exclaimed as her knife went deep into another skull.

"Everybody back up!" Rick yelled as the herd drew near, forcing us closer and closer against the wall, "Move it!"

As I looked toward the herd, still outnumbering us by hundreds, I felt like, even though we did so much, it still wasn't going to be enough. I felt like how I did when I was on top of that car; helpless and thinking that this was the end, when suddenly.. it wasn't anymore.
Everyone froze as a ball of fire, from the middle of town, rose into the air; catching the attention of the herd.

"Don't let up!" Rick yelled, getting our attention again as we continued to take out the large group of walkers that still stood in front of us.

***

I allowed my body to collapse to the ground, as did some others, as the last of the herd were finally killed; my body shaking from exhaustion as I stared down at my blood covered hands. For once, my mind wasn't racing, it was empty of all thought and left me feeling drained and hollow. I was surrounded by the people I loved and we just accomplished something so amazing and yet, I felt so alone. Deanna was bit, Carl was shot, and the others were still nowhere to be seen and somehow I felt like it could all be my fault. If I didn't tell Spencer to shoot the driver of that truck, it would have never rammed into the guard tower and maybe that wall would still be up and Deanna would still be alive. If I would have just stood somewhere else in line when we were trying to get to the quarry, maybe Carl wouldn't have gotten shot. Maybe if I was just able to handle myself outside of these walls, I could've helped the others and all of this could've been avoided.. but I couldn't, and I can't.

"Is everyone ok?" Rick asked, looking at the group around him as bodies of the dead littered the ground.

A collective 'yes' was heard as everyone finally began to catch their breath.

"We're gonna need some people to go check out where that fire came from-" Rick began again before getting cut off.

"That won't be necessary, Rick." Abrahams familiar voice said, causing us to all quickly look up to see the people we'd been missing and desperately waiting for; Abraham, Sasha, Daryl, Enid, and Glenn with Maggie by his side.

As they all walked up to where we were, and reunions between people were held, I couldn't stop the tears that poured over as my eyes locked with Daryl's.
Immediate relief ran over me at the sight of him, even though his body was bruised and bloody, he was here and he was alive, and that's all I needed to bring me back to reality.

I quickly pushed myself off the ground as another burst of adrenaline hit me, before Daryl and I finally came face to face again, my arms quickly wrapping around him as exhausted tears continued to flow.
His tense body soon relaxed under my touch as he wrapped an arm around me, holding me close before murmuring, "Told ya I's comin' back."

_____
Daryl and Liz are back and all is well again

The reunion between the two literally took me so long to write and there was about 4 different versions of it before I finally picked this one, and tbh, I'm not that happy with how it turned out.
But anyway, what's done is done and now we can get back to cute Daryl and Liz moments.