Savage World •••Daryl Dixon•••

Not A Pet

The sun lifted on the damage done by the walkers that ripped through the camp. Ed and Amy, they were both gone. Asher and the others were all working to move the bodies that needed to be burned and prepared to bury their dead so they could move on, but Andrea refused to let them take her sister away. So now that the others were where they needed to be, they were stuck waiting.

"How long is this gonna be? The other walkers from the city are bound to be heading this way." Everyone looked to Rick and Shane, except Daryl and Asher who kept their eyes on the woods and the grieving sister.

"Let her be for now. When she's ready she'll let us take her." Daryl announced that he was going hunting, Asher saying she'll go with him. "No, you need to stay here we don't need you running off like a kid." Asher glared at the newest addition to their group, hand slipping into her pocket for her knife.

"I go where he goes." Daryl fought back a wicked smirk and the two vanished into the woods together. They stalked through the woods looking for tracks or prey, both silently comfortable with the other.

"Dixie?"

"I still hate that nickname." Asher softly chuckled and they both knelt down to look at a few tracks before he motioned for her to follow him to the right.

"Why did you do it?" He stopped and turned to her with a concerned and confused expression in his eyes.

"What do you mean? Are you meaning about why I left to look for Merle?" Asher shook her head no and glanced down at the ground. She had been afraid to ask them this question ever since the beginning. She was afraid of how Merle or Daryl would react.

"When you guys found me. You could have just left me there, but you didn't. Why? Why did you keep me?" Her voice was shaky and cracked and she kept her head ducked low in fear that he would swing at her.

"Keep you? Is that what you think we see you as? A pet?" Asher bit her lip to hold back her tears and she kept her eyes locked on her converse.

"Can I get closer?" She nodded and waited for an attack, a scream, a yell, something violent at all. Instead, a few gentle fingers slid beneath her chin and slowly lifted her face to look up at Daryl's.

"You're not a pet, Asher. We ain't ever seen you that way, me an' Merle." She sniffles and tried to blink back the tears threatening to spill over her lashes. Both of his hands skimmed up to gently cup her cheeks and wipe away the stray runaway tears with his thumbs.

"If I'm not a pet then what am I?" Daryl softly huffed before kneeling down to her size, grassy eyes soft and kind.

"You're family to me, Asher. When Carol called me your father that's when I knew. You weren't just some kid we found beaten in a basement, you're not some kind of burden, and you're definitely not a pet. You're mine, my family, my-my baby girl and I love you." Her tears broke free and start to flow thickly down her cheeks, pooled against his skin and flowed over.

"I-I love you too, Dixie." The Dixon brother smiled and pulled the girl to his chest in a tight hug. "I do, I do, I love you, I love you so much, Dixie." Daryl buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent and enjoying her affirmations.

"I love you sweetheart, with everything I have. You're not a pet, you're not a burden, yer Asher Dixon, yer my baby girl." They pulled away with small smiles. "Look at the two of us, blubberin' out here in the woods. C'mon, let's find some real food." Asher nodded and wiped her tears away before the two of them continued to follow the tracks he found before. Before long they bagged a few squirrels and a rabbit. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing at all. Daryl quickly field stripped the animals and tossed the entrails far before they headed back for camp.

"Where do we go from here?" Glenn asked as the other crowded around Rick and Shane. All except Andrea who still mourned her dead sister by the RV. After a few minutes, Amy turned and woke back up, fingers reaching to yank the older sister towards her chomping teeth.

"I thought I'd have more time." Andrea shot her sister in the head with a loud sob and a low thump of her corpse returning to the dead.

"We should head for the CDC, it's not too far a journey and they may have a cure for all this."

"That's in the other direction from Fort Benning. We don't know if the CDC is still standing." Shane argues but soon everyone overruled him and they made for their cars to start packing. While others packed, Glenn and T-Dog buried Amy. Daryl spotted a black motorcycle in one of the trailers, a slim black beauty.

"Hey, who's bike is that?" The group got quiet and glanced over at Carol and Sophia.

"It was Ed's. He never rode it, I don't think he knew how to be honest. You can have it if you want it." Daryl nodded and hitched the trailer up to one of the cars before climbing in the driver seat. Asher jumped into the passenger side, the backseat filled with Carol and Sophia with everyone's things in the trunk. Sophia was asleep before they even started to move, and sleep was biting at Asher's eyes as well.

"Asher, if you're tired you should get some sleep while we're driving." She looked back at Carol with a small shake of her head.

"I'm good." Daryl reached over and held the back of her neck to guide her head over to lay in his lap like Sophia was doing with Carol. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other softly raking through her hair. It wasn't long before he felt her relax and fall asleep against his legs.

"You're really good with her." Daryl softly scoffed at Carol's voice. Sometimes it felt like he wasn't good at all. "I saw her scars, and her ribs. Down at the quarry."

"If there's something you want to say then spit it out." The car was silent for a few miles after that.

"She said you guys saved her life." He curtly nodded and glanced out the window at the whizzing landscape peppered with shambling walkers. Everyone says that he saved her, but to him it was the other way around.

Daryl may have saved her from that basement, but she was saving him everyday.