His hands shook. His heart stopped. His body trembled. His mind crumbled. The man that was Daryl Dixon broke. A man built of strength and bravery was deafeted in a single second, and there was fear he would never be put back together again.
His skin felt sticky, as her blood lay caked onto his suddenly cold pale hands. They were weak, as if the crimson liquid drained his hands of all strength. He couldn't even curl them into tight fists he was so weak. They instead hung limp at his sides; numb.
His face felt stiff. Trails of tears that had fallen from his red and burning eyes had long dried against the tan skin of his cheeks. Stiffening his skin like paper mache.
His feet moved although he didn't even realize he was walking. His brain had powered down and his being went numb, yet somehow his feet still walked him to the door and out of the Alexandrian infirmary. Moving till the night air hit his pale skin, and stopping once he reached the steps.
He felt like a computer that had just been drentched in water. Malfunctioning and dying at the same time. For he couldn't think, he could hardly breathe and everything around him blew by in a blur of unrecognizable color. His life had come to a hault, he could no longer process anything he saw or heard. Everything bled into the background.
And all that was left was a shell of a man.
A man who stood lost on the steps leading up to the infirmary. Unable to move, unable to sit down. He was incapable of doing anything other than standing there in the chilled night, numb and broken.
Rick found him as he sprinted towards the infirmary, spotting the redneck standing stockstill on the second step. All life drained from his face and it was like someone had stolen the soul from his body. Leaving behind a statue of a man that once was. Rick slowed as he approached the steps, watching Daryl intently thinking he may say something. But he says not a word.
Rick doesn't need to ask anymore if she was inside, if Daryl had seen her or if she was alright. The lifeless being before him told him all the answers he could ever search for. The single tired and completely drained look in Daryl's once bold blue eyes explained it all.
Daryl had seen her. He had made it back in time to see her. But she wasn't alright.
Rick climbed the rest of the short steps, joining Daryl on the second one. And rests a hand gently on the shoulder of the still man.
"Daryl," Rick's voice enters the evening air, and it feels boisterous in the ominous silence that had clouded around them. "Do you want to sit down?"
Daryl doesn't respond; he can't. He doesn't even look to Rick as he stands there ready to help him. He instead does nothing but stares off into the night.
Rick looks down at Daryl's hands that hang lifelessly by his side, and notices that they are more red than flesh colored. A deep tone that is not from him. Her blood Rick knows coats his hands. Dying the cracks in his palms and collecting in the cuticles around his nails.
Reaching behind Daryl, Rick grabs hold of the red rag that always hung out from his jean pocket. Holding the fabric, he turns to the railing beside them and dunks the rag in a small puddle of rainwater that had collected. Turning back to Daryl, Rick rests his other hand back down onto his shoulder. And gently, pushes the broad man he stands beside. Until his knees finally bend and he's able to sit beside Rick on the step.
It was like someone else controlled Daryl's body. He didn't speak, he didn't move and he hardly blinked. Even as Rick lifted Daryl's left hand and began to wipe off some of her blood that had become a second layer of skin almost on his hands, he doesn't do anything.
Seconds turn to minutes as the two men as close as brothers sit there together. The darkness swallowing them both into the night. Until, somehow Daryl finds the strength to move his head. Looking downward at his hands that rest in his lap, one still getting cleaned gently by Rick. He can hardly feel the rag rubbing against his skin, but watching her blood wash off of his hands... That he can feel. He feels it like a knife to the chest. As if Rick's gentle movements are washing away any last trace of her.
"I was too late."
His voice doesn't sound like his own anymore. Its lifeless; dead and flat. And hearing his voice enter the air, Rick stops his movements and looks to the redneck that still stares downward at his bloody hands.
"I made it back to her a little too late."
The confession doesn't release anything from Daryl's broken heart. Instead, it only hurts him further. For the truth hurt.
"I didn't get to say goodbye."
That maybe, was what hurt the most. The fact that he would never have that closure of being there when she passed. Being there and getting to say goodbye to her before she left. Being by her side and telling her one last time that he loved her. It hurt to know that she laid there on that cot, bleeding out, and he wasn't there. She died by herself, minus the doctor, but she died alone because the person she loved the most wasn't there.
He saw her body minutes later, but he was too late. All life was gone. And when she died... Daryl died too.
The moment her soul passed onto the next life, Daryl slipped too. But it wasn't till he saw in person, her pale and lifeless body, that any part of himself still functioning stopped.
When God took her... He might as well have taken Daryl with him. For she was his will. His fight. His reason. Without her... He was nothing.
"I didn't get to say goodbye." Daryl repeats in a whisper so soft it blends into the wind.
Daryl had always prided himself in keeping her safe. He protected her far before she was his to have and long after. He never wanted her to fear more than she had to. He never wanted her to be alone in this world. Yet when it came down to the very end... He failed her. Daryl Dixon had let down the single most important person to ever step into his life.
And somehow, he would have to carry on. Walk on with the weight of that lonely goodbye on his shoulders for the remainder of his days. And maybe one day, when his soul finally crossed over... Maybe he'd get the chance to tell her he was sorry.
A/N: Ouch!😭💔
