It's a dog's life

6

You joisted awake, waking Cole too as your sudden movement startled him, and kicking Daryl. You had been taking too much space again, making him squeeze himself against the other door.

"Shit, sorry." You apologized, propping yourself up with your back against the door, hugging your knees to your chest.

"It's fine."

Daryl sounded tired, though, and you felt guilty noticing the dark circles under his eyes. It didn't seem he had had much sleep, and you wondered if he had slept at all. Maybe you should have tried to find a spot for Cole and you in the RV so Daryl could have had more space to sleep, but you had felt safer in his truck, with him.

"A nightmare?"

You nodded, embarrassed.

"It's okay. I got them too." Daryl said quietly and you looked at him, curious.

"About what?"

"Stuff..." He replied evasively.

"I dreamt we still were at the CDC, and we didn't make it out in time..." You began explaining, you could still hear the explosion... "God, I've never been as scared as I was when Jenner told us the building was going to explode and we couldn't get out." Just thinking about it was making you feel a lump in your throat again. "Not even when the walkers attacked our camp. I know a walker can kill us at any moment but...I don't know...this felt different...knowing that I was about to die and couldn't do anything about it...god, I was terrified..." You shuddered.

"There was this time when I...urm..." Daryl trailed off as if he weren't sure of how to say what he wanted to. "Someone got a gun to my head, I thought I was about to die."

"Shit..."

"Yeah...I'd never been more scared than then." You were surprised he was admitting something like that to you, he was always trying to show he was fearless. "Don't know if I was more scared back then or yesterday."

"How did you end up like that?" You couldn't stop yourself from asking. "Sorry, you don't have to tell me."

"He was Merle's dealer, they got into a fight, I jumped in, hit him as hard as I could until he put the gun to my head."

You didn't know what to say to that. "Well, I'm glad he didn't shoot." Was the only thing you could come up with and Daryl snorted.

"Yeah, me too."

"Sounds like your brother got you into all kind of trouble..."

"Yeah, sometimes...But I was able to get into trouble all by myself too."

"Yeah, I bet." You laughed softly and Daryl chuckled too, but you thought he looked sad. Probably he was thinking about his brother. "You didn't find his body or anything...maybe he's still around, somewhere..."

"Maybe..." Daryl didn't sound very hopeful and considering what they had told you about Atlanta, he had his reasons. "Your family, maybe-"

"They're dead." You cut him off and you both fell silent again.

"You were really gonna cut that guy into pieces?" Daryl asked you out of the blue.

"What?"

"The doc. You said you'd cut pieces of him until he opened the door."

"Oh..." You had almost forgotten it.

"Were you going to do it...or it was a bluff?"

"I was going to do it." You replied, though you weren't sure.