Feral

7/10

Weeks kept coming and going, and Dana seemed more and more integrated, even if she was still quiet and not a people's person, but she was one of them now...she still stayed at Daryl's side, though, and he couldn't say that he didn't enjoy it, because he did, even if those unwelcome twirls kept partying in his belly sometimes or his heart beat a bit a too fast now and then when they were together.

Daryl liked to go out to the woods with her, patrolling and tracking, hunting for their people, he liked to see her getting better at it each day, he liked their quiet conversations and he liked even more when it seemed like they were able to communicate without words. He liked it when he was working on any vehicle and she was sat down near, a silent presence, either reading or watching him working. He liked the way she smiled to him and the affectionate touches she sometimes gave him, even if it made his heart and belly do weird things.

They were in a run now, it'd been a big one and everything seemed to have gone well, Maggie and Glenn were happy with it, they had found stuff and they hadn't suffered any accident. Daryl was loading stuff into the bags attached to the bike when he felt something nudging his arm and he smiled, looking to the side to find Dana there.

"Hey, cat, you ready?"

She nodded, getting some more stuff into the bags, and then they got onto the bike. Dana wrapped her arms around him, at first she always held to the chassis of the bike , but for a while now, she'd been holding to him, and Daryl liked it more than he'd want to admit. They had been riding for a while, at the lead of the cars, when suddenly Dana tugged at his shirt.

"Stop."

Daryl did so, frowning, looking at her over his shoulder as she looked around. "What?" She didn't need to answer, though, he heard it then, growls of walkers not too far and what sounded like people fighting them. He jumped off the bike, waving at the cars. "Someone's in trouble!" He shouted at them before he ran towards the noise, already taking his knife, Dana behind him, getting into the woods.

They didn't have to go far to see a woman and a man fighting off walkers, but only the woman had a knife, putting down more walkers than probably she could alone, while the man seemed to try to desperately tug back a knife that by the look of it, had broken into a walker's skull. Daryl was already sinking his knife into a walker's head when he realized that there was another woman not far, on the ground, looking at everything with wide, scared eyes. Walkers were going to her but she wasn't getting up, and Daryl realized that she must be hurt.

He looked back and saw Maggie, Glenn, and the others, and he looked at Dana. "Take care of these ones." He waved at the walkers, he knew she could deal with them and she had the others to help now, and he rushed to put down the walkers going to the woman on the ground before they could get her. Once there didn't seem to be any threat around, Daryl looked at the woman, who was looking at him from the ground with wide eyes. "You okay?"

She shook her head. "I fell and I can't put weight on my ankle."

"Alright, come on..." Daryl reached down for the woman, helping her to get up and she leaned onto him, groaning and wrapping an arm around his shoulder. Daryl helped her to walk to the others, feeling awkward, but he wasn't going to push her away, it looked like she had broken or strained her ankle.

There didn't seem to be more walkers around, and so Glenn asked the usual questions to bring people into their place, and it was decided they'd be taken in. The woman was still clinging to him, and so Daryl helped her to walk to their vehicles, even he still felt awkward.

"Thank you," the woman smiled at him. "For everything really."

"Ain't nothin'..." Daryl shrugged, looking down.