Firecracker ➝ Daryl Dixon

Chapter 1: Saved

Sights of death were nothing new to Daryl Dixon but as his eyes looked down upon the unknown woman his stomach twisted with disgust. Her face was caked with blood, dirt, and sweat thus making it difficult to approximate her age. Cheek bones protruded from her sunken face which was also the home to dry thin pink lips, a petite nose, dark unkept eyebrows, and vacant brown eyes. Her long black hair was matted atop her head, full of dirt, leaves, and dried blood.

“Stay here,” he whispered, looking over to Maggie who had one hand covering her mouth while the other wrapped around her waist, “I gotta see if she been bit.”

Based on the amount of blood on her face Daryl was sure this girl had to be bleeding out from somewhere, but the three thick blankets covering the stranger made it difficult to tell what kind of condition she was in.  Lowering his crossbow for only a moment Daryl threw the blankets to the side only to have to turn away and pinch his nose shut.

“She’s got rotten food under there, smells like piss too- I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”

His warning did little to dissuade Maggie who inched closer to the female.  “Oh my god,” bile began rising in Maggie’s throat as she took two long strides away from the stranger and tried to regain her composure.   “How long has she been here?”

"No clue," Daryl turned back around and began inspecting the female's body. She wore a light pink tank top covered by a dark green utility jacket. Her long legs were covered by black pants which looked to have once fit her but were now loose in some places. Her black combat boots were filthy and Daryl could see flesh and organs stuck to the bottom of the worn out shoes. Hesitantly Daryl scanned her entire body before looking up at Maggie, "No bite marks," he began "Isn't bleeding from anywhere either which means all this blood isn't hers but I can't see how this girl could have killed any walkers seein how she's just skin and bones. Probably doesn't weigh over a hundred pounds."

“Is she alive?”

Daryl leaned into the female, the horrible order filling his nostrils as he placed his ear next to her mouth.  “Yeah,” he concluded, standing up and wiping his nose with the back of his hand, “Barely but yeah she’s still kickin.”

“Do you think she chained that walker to the tree?”  Maggie raised a finger and pointed at the walking corpse whose focus was on Daryl.

“Must have, don’t seem to be anyone else here besides her.”

“We can’t leave her here.”

“I’m not stupid,” Daryl retorted, learning down and grabbing a worn out blue backpack, “Help me pack all her shit up and take it to the car.”

Most of what was around the campsite was trash- rotted food, paper towels, empty beer cans- things they had no use for which made hunting down the important things even more difficult.  Maggie found a bag buried under some leaves with three hand guns, a shotgun, and seven bullets inside.  Daryl found a box of feminine hygiene products and after asking what the hell it was made Maggie pack it in her bag.  The only edible food the pair found was four granola bars in a brown paper bag.  Lastly there was a large orange hiking bag with clothes and other random items like a few books, a toilet paper role, a small photo album, a beat up camera, some colored string, a makeup bag, a few pens, and a flashlight.

“Looks like she wasn’t always alone,” Maggie pulled a pair of boxers out of the hiking bag and held them up to show Daryl.

 Daryl took a moment to look at the male clothing item before tossing the blue backpack he had filled over to Maggie, “Maybe she’s a cross dresser, take those bags so I can carry her.”

As Maggie walked off with the bags Daryl slung his crossbow over his shoulder and bent down to scoop the girl up off the ground.  As her body was lifted into the air a low moan escaped her lips as her head fell backwards and eyes slowly blinked.  “N…no.”

“C’mon now you’re gonna be uh gonna be alright now,” the whole comforting someone thing was something Daryl didn’t consider himself any good at but considering he was holding a nearly dying female who reeked of piss and death he figured he had to at least try and make her feel better.

“No,” the girl repeated, desperately trying to raise her head to look up at the man who was in the process of carrying her away from her camp, “No!”  The scream was weak and mumbled, but enough to make Daryl stop walking.

With a painful growl the female tightened her abs in an attempt to pull her head up, but it took Daryl awkwardly moving his arm under her neck for this to become possible.  Her eyes were barely open and rolled around in her head as she unsuccessfully tried to focus her gaze.  “No,” she repeated, weakly raising one arm and letting it fall against Daryl’s chest in a feeble attempt to slap him.

“No what?” Daryl cocked an eyebrow before letting out an agitated sigh, “Fuckin’ delusional, you probably have no clue what’s even goin on right now do ya?”

“Not….de…lu…sional.”  Forming the utterance seemed to take every bit of energy this woman had and Daryl couldn’t help but chuckle.  For being so close to death this girl certainly had some fire to her, though Daryl still thought she must be in some sort of delusional state.

As Daryl walked the stranger in his arms had been moving ever so slightly, as if trying to get out of his grasp but to no avail.  Once exiting the forest and with the car in sight all movement stopped.  For a split second Daryl believed her to be dead- it wouldn’t be surprising after all for someone in her condition to be muttering one second and dead the next.

“She okay?”  Maggie questioned, watching as Daryl lifted the girl higher and placed his ear close to her lips, “Is she-“

“Just unconscious,” Daryl could see the relief spread across Maggie’s face, “I don’t see this firecracker dying out anytime soon.”

“Why do you say that?”  Maggie opened the back passenger door and helped Daryl lay her down as gently as possible.

“Girl was talkin, wasn’t very clear but she kept sayin ‘no’ as if tellin me to stop carryin her away and to be sayin something like that when she looks like this, means she still got some fight in her.”

A sad smile came to Maggie’s face as she took a moment to look down at the sleeping female before shutting the car door.  Before entering the vehicle Daryl looked out at the forest, he had really been hoping to bring back some meat for everyone back at the prison.  He hadn’t expected to stumble across a survivor, let alone be bringing her back to camp.  His eyebrows furrowed together as he wondered what Rick would say when he saw her.  After Lori’s death Rick hadn’t been in the best state of mind, having to deal with the Governor certainly didn’t help either.  It’d been close to two weeks now since the Governor attacked the prison and although things were calming down everyone was still on high alert.  Leaving this dying girl out in the woods certainly wasn’t an option but Daryl wasn’t sure if bringing her back was a good idea.  No telling if she’d be accepted as part of the group or if she even deserved to be.  This girl was a nobody, just a stray found on the side of the road that was being shown some compassion.  Blue eyes turned away from the forest and peered into the vehicle to see Maggie staring at the backseat.  Women, Daryl thought sourly, Gettin attached to people before they even know em.

The sound of Daryl opening up the driver side door startled Maggie making her raise her hand to her heart.  As Daryl started up the car he sent a warning look over to his female friend, a look that she understood immediately.  Maggie had seen people get turned away from their group and it could very well happen to this girl they picked up.  “She ain’t nothin special,” Daryl stated as he drove back towards the prison, “So don’t go thinkin she’s anythin more than that.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Note: There's chapter one for you!  I'm planning on updating every two to three days- if it takes longer I'll post an update on my profile.  Just so you know this story is taking place during the months between season three and season four.