Honey || Daryl Dixon

• 4 •

Fuck, today is not my day. How am I supposed to get to any medical supplies like this? I can't exactly lean on Bonnie for support. It would be just my luck to bleed to death in the middle of the woods because of some trigger happy prick.

To make matters worse, there's only a few hours of daylight left. Once the sun goes down it'll get colder, and any of our blankets or warm clothes are still in the car. The dead get bolder during the night too. When it gets dark, the dead grow more active for some reason.

To clarify, we have no food, no water, no weapons, and no car. We're also three or four hours away from nightfall with no means of keeping warm. If that wasn't bad enough, I'm also losing more blood every minute than my circulatory system can replace and we have no medical supplies to stop the bleeding. Survival rates are not looking good.

"Mommy?" Bonnie whispers, leaning toward me, "'Mommy are you okay?"

I go to reply, only to find my mouth wont move the way I want it to. Everything feels numb. There are black sports dancing across my eyesight, and I begin to feel drowsy.

I can't pass out. There's no way I can pass out now. Bonnie needs me! Bonnie can't protect herself... she can't...

"Mommy?"

My eyes flutter shut — against my will — to the sight of Bonnie's tearful eyes staring down at me.

🏹

The first thing I notice when I regain a drowsy sort of consciousness is the soft press of hands against my thigh. I panic, jolting my leg away from the invading hands, despite the pain it causes to go through me, and try to roll away.

"Don't move," A soft, though slightly gruff, voice instructs, "S'only gonna hurt more."

The voice sounds familiar. Familiar enough that I blink quickly to adjust my vision in order to see the owner of it.

Dark hair dances across my eyesight, slowly joined by a pair of blue eyes. The hands return to my thigh, pressing and prodding (what I assume is) as lightly as they can.

"Daryl?" My own voice sounds croaky, as if I haven't drunk anything in days. Has it been days since I was last awake? Daryl sure as hell wasn't here when I passed out.

"Yeah," He replies softly, "S'me."

"What happened?" There's a pounding in my head that makes talking uncomfortable.

Daryl's hands press against my thigh harder, "Found ya not far from the highway. Went back to find ya, but the car weren't there. Thought you'd left until we saw the blood trail."

"Wouldn't'a left." I mumble, leaning back against whatever's behind me again and closing my eyes, "We were waiting, but they came from down the highway. They saw the car, I think. Fuckers shot at me."

"Yeah," Daryl says, "I can see that. You were passed out when we found ya. Good news is the bullet went straight through, so it's just a matter of stitching ya back up and stoppin' the bleeding. Didn't wanna start stitching till you were awake, in case you woke up an' panicked."

I open my eyes to watch him as he presses a wet rag against my thigh. He's cut the jeans so that the bullet wound is clearly visible without the blood-stained cloth around it — he must've done it while I was passed out. He wipes the wet rag across my thigh, cleaning up the dried blood.

"Had a belt wrapped around it for a while," Daryl murmurs, glancing up at me before turning his attention back to my thigh, "To stop the bleeding. I figured I could clean some of the blood. Sorry."