my tears ricochet

Chapter Twenty Nine

He knew Merle was following but Daryl forced himself to pretend that he didn't care. That it didn't matter that his brother was shadowing from a distance, a magnet propelling itself along in a tangle of brush and branches, refusing to change course.

Oscar had left a clear path to follow and it didn't take long to meet since Ivy had dug her heels in, refusing to completely leave. She was angry and upset but he still saw the flash of relief on her face when he came into sight. "We need to chat," he said, trying to keep his voice even. He remembered the day at the farm when she had taken off by herself to look for Sophia and how unbothered she had been at the idea of risk.

This was a thousand times worse.

"You wanted to go back to the prison," she protested, voice sharp. Ivy jerked her chin blindly in a general direction of where it lay. "So let's go."

Oscar took a few steps back before pointing at a bush of wild berries growing. "I think we can wait long enough to pick some? Bet the folks back home might appreciate it."

Daryl ran a quick eye over the berries and ran them through his memory of poisonous types to stay away. They would be mildly tart but edible. "We're gonna chat over here."

His daughter stormed twenty feet away, a storm cloud armed with a gun still in her hand. Lori had once told him to communicate his concerns for her safety but he wasn't sure Ivy cared enough about her own physical wellbeing anymore. Ivy had shut everyone out but Beth and Maggie, pretending to sleep and staying up at night to kill walkers through a fence. She didn't want to talk and the tension was beginning to rattle loose inside her, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

He should have seen her solo march to Woodbury sooner. Daryl had spent two days burning the bodies she left by the fence and tried giving her peace, not wanting to crowd her anymore than he had to. "What?" She asked, irritation painted across her face.

'You can't ever do that again. You can't go off to die. You can't leave and vanish. You can't die for this.' Daryl thought, trying to bind his anger tight. He wanted to shake her hard. He wanted to never feel the raw panic of turning around and finding out that she was missing, that someone had plucked her up from the side of road and taken her by force.

"Don't you ever take off like that again," he warned. "I'm not burying you."

"I'm doing something. He'll just come here himself and that's my fault," Ivy jabbed her finger to her chest. "I told him where we were. That's on me."

He wasn't gentle when he grabbed her shoulders, yanking her towards him. His fingers dug in and he could feel bone beneath his touch. "Whatever that man did to you, that wasn't on you. Are you hearing me?" Daryl only had pieces of details of what had been done. He knew they had hit her and she had taken it. Someone slammed her hard enough to leave bruises all down her spine, violent black marks that made his heart seize the time he saw them. The devil had taken her and touched and he couldn't undo that kind of scarring. But of all of it, Ivy hadn't broken. Not until the damage had been spun around and she had seen the gun aimed at someone else.

That's all it had taken. The idea of someone else hurting.

Ivy froze in his grip and his hands went loose, wary of reminding her of someone else. "I shouldn't have given up the prison. We're going to lose everything now."

Daryl shook his head. He sank down low so he wasn't towering over her and could meet her eyes. "I lost you when Michonne showed up at the fence with your knife. I thought I lost you in the woods when you were bleeding. I'm not losing you again."

Her blood had soaked through his shirt and left it plastered to his skin. Ivy had mumbled something about waiting before turning into dead weight, passed out from blood loss and trauma, only rousing to try and steal his knife later. For an awful moment, Daryl had thought she died on the floor of the woods, passing out when they were at a standoff over Merle.

If she had died, it would have left him a ruined man. He would have turned into his brother and father, into every demon that lurked in his history. Everything Daryl could become would have gone up in the flames of grief.

"I'm still here," she said, a touch of anger extinguishing between them. "I'm fine."

She had been saying that since she first woke up after the stitches. She was fine, she was fine. Ivy was fine even when she wasn't sleeping, crescents painted beneath her eyes, walking around the yard at night with Beth to kill walkers or to watch stars. Daryl had kept a keen watch out, pretending like he was oblivious to her nighttime wanderings. He had even left a flashlight out beside her cot as easy bait, hoping to interest her into staying put with a book and dropping off into sleep after a few hours.

"You're still hurting."

Ivy shook her head but one hand caught Daryl's wrist and held firm. "If I sleep, he's in my head. I can't do it."

"I know."

"He needs to die. I need him dead." She ground out each word with loathing, trying to explain how deep the hurt went into her bones, the way grief hollowed her out. "I need to see it."

Daryl shook his head. "And I can't let you die in the process."

"I'm not the same person I was. You picked the wrong girl."

"You're my kid," he said because he knew she liked hearing it in the same way he liked saying it. "I wouldn't pick anyone else."

The words caught at something soft and he could see Ivy folding, the way she edged forward with a cautious shift, one arm tentatively reaching for him. He met her halfway, pulling her close and holding her tight. Maybe he should have done this sooner but he had felt caution at approaching her with physical touch so soon after what had been done.

Ivy's arms trembled but she clung, fingers digging into his back with a desperate clutch, pressing her face into shoulder so tight he doesn't know how she's breathing. His arms in turn feel like a cage, a feeble attempt at bracing her against the world, patching over wounds that haven't been healed yet. The gun is on the ground beside his foot and he keeps holding his part of the world tighter until he's hurting from the force of it.

He could feel her heart beating and kept count, filling his mind with the knowledge that his daughter is still alive, that he isn't digging a small grave for a small body.

"I thought I was going to die and you wouldn't know," she confessed, pulling back slightly to force the words out. "That you wouldn't know what happened."

It wasn't my fault, she was saying. Whatever happened had been done to her. The words caught Daryl off guard and he tried not to imagine a life where Michonne hadn't shown up, that they went on without knowing Glenn and Ivy's fate.

"I was always coming for you."

Ivy squinted at him. "How did you find me?"

"You're bad at covering a trail," he lied. Ivy had clearly put some thought in her movements to keep from leaving evidence but Daryl knew the land better, knew his daughter more. He had found her in the same way Merle was in his shadow, because somethings couldn't be kept separate. "You can work on it later."

He would show her a few tricks, but not everything. It would make his life easier if he had a chance in picking her line up in the woods. Daryl only had so much faith in fate.

"You can't go off like this again," he warned her, filling the silence. He still has her in his arms and he pulled her tighter as he said the words, trying to cement her where he could keep her safe.

"I'm not promising anything," she warned back.

"Then I'll keep coming after you." A promise and a threat, bundled together. "I'm not letting you die for part."

The devil can't take the girl in the aftermath. Whatever was coming would have to be endured and people would bleed through the storm and maybe no one would survive. But Ivy couldn't die by her own hand, wrecked by pain and grief.

"I just don't care that much," Ivy lied and he could see the falsehood clear as day between them as she pulled back, stealing one of his hands in her own. "You do what you want."

They left the woods together, her gun in her free hand, Oscar at their side. Somewhere another man followed their tracks, reading the dirt and roots for direction, each following heart strings all the way back.