Golden Cage

16/24

And so for a couple of days, you found yourself recognizing some faces as they arrived, people who you had helped as a nurse, most times without Negan knowing it, trading sweets or liquor with the Saviors in exchange of their silence. The happiest day was when two of Negan's wives, with whom you had shared months and months of your life, arrived, one of them with her partner who now she was finally allowed to see again.

"She used to cry so much during the first weeks, she was there because her partner was very sick and needed medicines." You were talking to Daryl about one of the arrived ex-wives that evening, sat down cross-legged on your bed while Daryl was sat down on the sofa next to it. "She was terrified of Negan whenever he called her. He'd tell her sweet words and whatnot, Negan was always boasting about how good he treated his wives, but she was just so scared..."

"Did he?" Daryl interrupted you. "Treat you right?"

"Well...he didn't beat us or hurt us like that, if that's what you mean." You shrugged, you felt like slowly you were starting to being able to talk about Negan and your time at the Sanctuary without feeling like you couldn't breathe. "But told you, no one of us was there because we wanted to, and no one of us slept with him because we wanted to...so..."

Daryl just hummed, shifting to lie down on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. You lied down too, snuggling your pillow and looking at him. He'd kept staying in your trailer, so whenever you woke up during the night or before him, he was there on the sofa, and you couldn't stop yourself from thinking how cute he looked curled up as he slept, or from having the urge to lie down next to him and wrap your arms around him.

You knew you had feelings for Daryl that were beyond friendly. When you saw him, butterflies would twirl in your belly and your heart would beat faster, just thinking about him brought a smile to your face, and when he smiled to you, it felt as if your heart skipped a beat. He was a kind man with a good heart, loyal to his friends, who'd do anything to take care of them and protect them, and it seemed he'd do it for you too, which made you feel all warm.

You'd wanted to help him since that day you saw him hurt at the Sanctuary, but everyday, the urge to protect him and take care of him just grew more and more, as it did your feelings for him. He was busy all day, working around Hilltop, fixing things or going out hunting, and yet he always found time to check on you, make sure you were okay. At evening, sometimes he joined Maggie, you and the others for dinner, sometimes he didn't, but he always spent a while talking to you inside your trailer before sleep.

You liked to share your mind, your worries, and your ideas with him, happy when he did it too, but what you liked the most was when he'd tell you stories about his life before, either things that he'd lived with his group since the apocalypse started, or things from before the walkers roamed the word, though he didn't talk much about that. You always found yourself captivated by his words, eager to learn more about him, and just caught up in whatever story he was telling you.

Most nights either him or you would wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, and if the other was awake, you'd talk quietly about it in the darkness. It made you calm down and feel better, but you couldn't help yourself from wishing Daryl would join you in bed, holding you close after you had a nightmare, or the urge to hold him whenever he had one.

You never had the courage to voice your feelings, though. You knew, by the way in which he was with you, that Daryl cared about you. He liked to spend time with you, and he took care of you, but that didn't mean his feelings were beyond friendship, and it could just be his own nature, that drove him to help people, protect them and take care of them. That was the way Daryl was, which just made you like him more.

You weren't sure if maybe, if the context where different, you'd have been able to push past your shyness and confess your feelings for Daryl, but at that moment, you didn't feel like you could. You were afraid of his rejection, and also you didn't feel it'd be fair to drop that on him. You knew you had baggage.