Born Nameless

Chapter 16

Hey all, back with my second longest chapter yet, so I hope you all enjoy it! Lots of Daryl in this one, I hope for a few comments as a reward for giving you guys Daryl;) Plus, I'm feeling low as my friend left the country and I'll only see her in a year and a half again, so could use some love haha! Thanks to the amazing TestSubject19, for her great comments!

Enjoy!

Chapter 16

She slowly became aware of noise around her. Not loud noises or bad noises, but noise nonetheless, as everything had been soundless where she'd been before. Then she started to feel her body. She didn't think she could move it, not even an inch since it felt that heavy, but she could feel where her arms laid at her sides and her head rested on a pillow. Next came her taste, the fuzzy taste of sickness on her tongue causing her face to grimace and it was as if that grimace unlocked her body, as her fingers twitched after.

That twitch caused the noise around her to spike for a bit and she could hear voices and footsteps around her bed. Inhaling and exhaling steadily, she tried to force her eyelids open, despite feeling as if a cement block was glued to them. Light filtered through her lashes slowly as her mind became less fuzzy and she blinked, hoping to speed up the process. Though she had, strangely, a feeling that she was safe, she still didn't like being vulnerable and not knowing what was going on around her.

When she finally managed to peek through her lashes, the first person she saw was Daryl, standing besides her bed with his eyes trained on her like a hawk. Aaron stepped forward next, peering around Daryl's bulk and smiling when he saw her eyes open. Denise was fiddling with her shoulder and Anamika would have shrugged her off, but her body still wasn't cooperating to that degree. Damnit, she felt like a newborn, unable to move and she had no idea why!

"Wha-" She cleared her throat, accepting the straw Denise held to her lips and draining almost the entire glass of water, before she tried again, "What happened? Why do I feel so fucking weak?"

Aaron laughed, his face relieved at her annoyed tone, while Daryl scoffed.

"Ya about killed yourself that's what." She furrowed her brows, but Denise spoke up before she could muddle through her memories.

"You were shot when you tried to protect Carl. Only you continued fighting with a bleeding wound and collapsed from blood loss. You also had a fever for the last two days and we were worried that your wound got infected with walker blood, but the fever finally broke early this morning, so it was just a regular infection luckily."

Anamika couldn't even think about the fact that she had come so close to death, either by bleeding out or being infected by the walkers. Her mind was stuck on the memory of Carl getting shot, of her inability to save him and she felt her heart clench.

"C-Carl? Is he alright? Is he alive?" She felt her breath hitch when Denise hesitated, but before she could fly into a full-blown panic attack, Daryl leaned down to place his hand on hers, the look in his eyes serious.

"The kid's fine, your actions saved his life." She blinked, taking a while to process that, but when she did, her eyes filled with tears, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.

"Th-thank god, thank god, I thought he was dead. I thought he was dead."

"No, you saved his life." She looked up at the new voice, seeing Rick standing in the doorway, his own eyes red and bloodshot. He walked forward, taking her hand and kneeling as he brought it to his face, pressing it against his forehead.

"Thank you. T-Thank you so much. Thank you." She bit her lip, not wanting to break down like she was threatening to, as the sight of Rick, who was always so strong and hard, almost broken, on his knees in front of her was too much. She didn't know what to say, so she stayed quiet, instead gripping his hand tightly.