First and Last

11/27

If all days in Aaron's life whenever he went out looking for people were like the couple of days Daryl had spent with him, he didn't know how the man was still alive. They had not only lost the man they had been trying to find and help, they had also ended up almost losing their lives themselves, falling right into a trap like a couple of idiots.

They had gotten themselves trapped inside a car, surrounded by a herd of walkers, and Daryl had honestly thought it was the end. He didn't know what to do. The only thing that had come to his mind was that he couldn't let Aaron die there, and so he thought he might get an opening for him, distract the walkers while Aaron ran away and hope he would make it...he might die anyway, and Daryl himself would be devoured, but it was something and he couldn't come up with anything else.

Aaron didn't let him, though, saying that they were together in it, and whatever they did, it'd be together. It made Daryl feel strangely comforted. He had thought Aaron would just leave him, he wasn't that important. It wasn't that important if he died. What did he have in Alexandria? He had tried, but he couldn't integrate. His family...they'd miss him, but they'd get over it, it wasn't their first loss, and they didn't need him anymore. Y/N...she thought he didn't care for her...

But Aaron had cared, he hadn't left him. And now, in hindsight, Daryl could see how he probably had been wrong. His family...maybe they didn't need him, but they cared, even if Daryl didn't realize it sometimes, he knew they did, it'd hurt them if he died. He couldn't do that to them, to Carol and Rick, if he could help it. And Y/N...

Daryl didn't know what to think, he wasn't sure if she thought that he didn't care for her, if he had made her think that ignoring her letters, but he knew he had fucked up leaving her house without a word after she brought it up. Maybe now she did think that he didn't care...or that she didn't mean to him what she actually did...

He had tried not to think about her while he'd been out, he'd hoped for it, but he couldn't help it. He had thought that the mess of feelings that she gave him would fade if he was away, but it seemed it just grew. What did she think of him? Was she angry at him? Upset? Did she...did she still care? If she did and he'd have died out there, it'd have hurt her... Daryl felt an ache in his heart thinking that maybe she didn't care anymore, that he had messed his chance to be friends again by walking away...

Y/N was important to him, weird feelings or not, and there was no way of denying it. Maybe he should tell her...he didn't know how, though. He just knew that she made him feel strange things and that he couldn't get her out of his head, not even in his dreams.

Turned out neither Aaron nor him had died, a man called Morgan had come out of nowhere and saved them, and weirdly enough, he seemed to know Rick, and was looking for him. Not knowing what else to do, Aaron and him were bringing him to Alexandria.

On the way there, Daryl couldn't enjoy the ride, his brain lost in thought again. Y/N...he had to fix it, had to tell her why he hadn't answered the letters, but the idea of admitting it embarrassed him. But she needed to know that if he had wanted to forget her, it wasn't because he didn't care anymore or because he was angry or anything like that, but the opposite...that it didn't mean he wasn't happy to have found her now, that he wanted her back in his life, that he didn't want to lose her again...lose her as he did in some of his dreams.

It came to his mind now that he had asked neither Carol nor Maggie to train Y/N. He had been so worried about that, and yet he had left as nothing. Y/N still didn't know how to wield a knife or anything like that. What if something had happened in Alexandria? What if walkers had gotten in? What if they had been attacked? Y/N couldn't protect herself and Jane.

It was ridicouls, though. He'd been away just a couple of days, Alexandria was safe, they still had walls...but that's what you always thought of places that seemed safe. But anyway, if they were attacked, no matter how improbable it was, his family was there. They'd help defend Alexandria, and they'd take care of Y/N and Jane.