That night, you fell asleep easily than you had ever before, knowing that Daryl was there, sleeping on the sofa. You felt bad he was sleeping on a sofa instead of a bed, but when you had told him he'd just scoffed, telling you it was good enough. He did seem to want to sleep in your trailer instead of anywhere else, and it made you feel all kind of warm and fuzzy feelings.
However, as you slept, your fears seemed to come back to you, creeping into your subconscious. Negan was there in your dreams, having you locked inside a dark cell. You had a baby in your arms, Negan's baby, and Negan tore him away from you. You saw Negan, killing people with that bat in front of you while holding his baby,killing your new friends, Daryl, and then he turned to you...
You woke up, gasping for air...Negan...he was alive, he could escape, he could come... You sat up on the bed, your eyes finding Daryl's sleeping form on the sofa, curled onto himself. It helped you calm down a bit, though your heart was still beating fast. You wished you could go and curl up next to him... Part of you wanted to wake him up, but you knew it was silly, it'd been just a nightmare and he needed his sleep.
You thought there wasn't much time left until the sunrise, but you didn't think you could go back to sleep, and so you leaned back against the wall, hugging your knees to your chest, lost in thought. The sun was barely rising when Daryl stirred awake, his eyes landing on you as he blinked them awake, and then he frowned, sitting up.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah...just a nightmare."
"Wanna talk about it?" Daryl asked, sounding as if he wasn't too sure it was the best thing to do.
"Just....just Negan...the baby..." You shrugged.
"He ain't gonna hurt you or the baby nomore." Daryl assured you, sounding so sure of it, it made you feel like nothing bad would ever happen to you.
"I know..." You gave him a weak smile. "But it's...it's not only that..."
"What else?"
"I..." You let out a sigh, trying to order your thoughts and hugging your knees to your chest more tightly, part of you wishing it was Daryl. "I want this baby, I do...and I'm sure that I love them even though I don't know them yet..." You blinked, swallowing the lump in your throat. "But...but you know they're Negan's...what if...what if they're like him? They're his kid...could...they could grow up to be like him maybe...I don't know..."
"Nah...nah, that ain't like that. They're yours too." You remembered Daryl had told you something like that when he helped you in the Sanctuary too. "And anyway kids don't have to grow up to be like their parents."
"I hope..." You were grateful for his words, but still, your maybe silly fears were there and you couldn't help it.
"You remember Judith?" Daryl asked you and you nodded, she and Gracie had been gone for less than a day and you already missed them. "She ain't Rick's...I mean, she's, but she ain't blood. His dad was someone from our group, long ago...a real ass. Tried to kill Rick. But Judith ain't like him. Your kid won't be like Negan either."
You were shocked by what Daryl had told you. You'd have never imagined the biological father of such a sweet, lovely little girl, could be the kind of man that Daryl was telling you.
"Thanks...thank you, Daryl." You smiled and Daryl shrugged, giving you half a smile. You decided it was time to get up and be useful. "Do you want to have breakfast with me?"
"Yeah, yeah thanks."
*
That day was a come and gone of people. Rick and Maggie agreed on sending the captive Saviors that had surrendered back to the Sanctuary, where they'd have to work to make something good out of it, and volunteers from Hilltop, Alexandria and The Kingdom would make sure of that. The three settlements also agreed on taking in any of the workers that Negan had kept in the Sanctuary, if they wished to leave it.
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.
You were pregnant, to begin with, so having something with you would be a whole package, a baby that wasn't his included. You were sure that was something most men didn't look forward to, if not all. Sure, Daryl wasn't like many men, and sure you knew he'd take care of the baby too, whether it was as a friend or something more, but you wondered if asking for something more, if you ever dared to, would be fair.
It wasn't just that you were pregnant, you were pregnant of the man who had murdered Daryl's friends, tormented his people, and tortured him. It was enough that Daryl had become your friend, that he cared for you like he did, no matter you were carrying that man's baby, how could you ask for more? He'd never said anything about the baby that wasn't good, he'd actually told you several times that they wouldn't be like Negan no matter what...but you still felt like it wasn't fair.
And so you said nothing, and just enjoyed Daryl's company, his friendship as it was.
Little more than a week had passed since that day the Saviors and Negan had been defeated, which was still hard to believe for you. The first rays of sunshine were filtering into the trailer, barely illuminating it. You had been asleep but you woke up when you felt your bed moving.
You opened your eyes and in the almost darkness you found Daryl getting ready. He always woke up early but took good care of never waking you. That morning, it seemed he had bumped your bed without meaning to.
"Sorry," he apologized in a whisper. "Go back to sleep."
"Wait," you sat up, rubbing the sleep of your eyes. "Are you going out to hunt? Can I go with you today since I'm awake?"
You felt like you had been inside walls for so long, first at The Sanctuary now at the Hilltop. You had never felt like going outside, scared of the monsters, both walkers and humans, but going with Daryl made you feel as if nothing bad would happen.
"No, it's dangerous." Daryl's answer was firm and it didn't surprise you.
"I'll be by your side all the time." You didn't intend on leaving his side. "So I'll be okay. I can't remember the last time I went outside walls."
For a few seconds, Daryl didn't say anything. "Alright...get ready. I'll wait for you outside. Don't forget the knife."
You changed clothes quickly, throwing a shirt over your tank top in case weather wasn't good, and strapped the knife to the holster of your thigh. You didn't go anywhere without it, no matter you were behind walls. You walked outside to join Daryl, bag and crossbow strapped to his back and knife secured to his belt.
"Here." He reached out to pass you an apple, breakfast for the day. "Got water in the bag, if you want to."
"Thanks." You grinned at him. "Come in, we can walk while I eat, I'll follow you."
"Stay by my side, alright..." Daryl was still eyeing you as if he weren't very sure this was a good idea, and you were afraid he might just change his mind, so you nodded quick, and he let out a sigh but began walking, and so you both walked out of Hilltop.
For a while, you both walked through the path outside Hilltop, until at some point Daryl decided to get into the woods. He looked around as he walked and you wondered if he was trying to track something, so you followed close but as silent as you could, so as not to scare the game and to not distract him.
"Are you tired?" Daryl's eyes landed on you after a while.
"No, I'm good." You assured him, you hadn't been walking for even an hour. "This is beautiful." You hadn't really been in the woods like that before, and you were enjoying it. The silence around, except for the occasional bird, the smells, the landscape with the flowers and the trees... Daryl nodded, giving you a half-smile.
After a while of following Daryl through the woods, with him periodically checking on you to make sure you were okay and weren't tired, which was sweet but at the same time made you feel a bit weak, though you knew he didn't mean bad, Daryl had caught a couple of squirrels, but it seemed it wasn't enough for him to go back. You weren't going to complain, you were enjoying the little trip.
Daryl had been silent for the most part, and at some point you noticed him grinning as he looked at the ground, before looking at you. "Deer." You weren't sure if you were on board with the idea of hunting Bambi, but you knew a deer would feed the Hilltop for days, and so you didn't say anything and hardened your heart. You also liked to see Daryl smile.
His smile was gone soon, though, frown on his face, when you both began to notice blood on the ground, and then you found the big buck, dead on the ground. His antlers were bloodied as if he'd died fighting, but at the end, he'd lost, and he'd been thoroughly chewed on. You felt your stomach turn at the sight and you tried to fight a wave of nausea.
"We have to leave, now." Daryl squeezed your arm to caught your attention and you tried to look at him instead of at the dead buck. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah..." You nodded, taking a deep breath, you didn't want to worry Daryl more and you didn't want to throw up.
Daryl didn't say anything else but he nodded back, placing a hand on the small of your back softly and giving you a gentle push so you'd walk with him. You knew he was worried that whatever had killed that buck might still be around, and you were scared of it too, but Daryl's hand made you feel reassured, you knew he'd make sure you were okay.
You hadn't been walking for long when you heard those growls you'd recognize anywhere, and Daryl tugged at so you both would hide behind some trees. There were only three walkers, though, and one of them seemed in a pretty rough condition, crawling instead of walking, all bloodied and disbowelled, and you wondered if the buck had done that.
Daryl aimed his crossbow and shoot, putting down one of them. The other two turned their heads towards the commotion, but they were slow, and so Daryl put down another one, leaving only the one who crawled.
"Do you want to put it down yourself?" He asked you, surprising you.
"Really?" Daryl was always making sure you were safe so you were taken aback, but you guessed the walker didn't look too dangerous and maybe Daryl wanted you not to forget how to do it, if you ever needed to put down one again.
"You don't have to, I'll do it." Daryl grabbed his knife and went to the walker, and you rushed behind him.
"No, wait, I want to." You took your knife and approached the walker, Daryl as close to you as your shadow, knife ready.
"Don't get to close or it'll grab you." He instructed. "Okay, hold its head so it won't bite and you can stab it."
You reached out to hold the walker's hair, mindful of his claws reaching for you. Daryl's hand hovered next to yours and you smirked. So much for letting you do it yourself. But you felt more confident knowing he'd grab the walker before it could bite you if you did something wrong. You held the walkers head in place and sank the knife into his skull.
"Careful so the knife doesn't get stuck," Daryl warned you, nodding when you retrieved it without a problem. "Well done."
"Thanks." You grinned at him.
"Let's head back." Daryl gave you a half-smile, reaching to squeeze your shoulder and guiding you to walk with him.
By the time you arrived at the Hilltop, Daryl had also managed to hunt a rabbit, hanging from his belt along with the squirrels. You had taken off your sweater, the day warmer than you had expected it, and you had it tied to your waist. It tightened your tank top over your belly, and you realized once more how the still small bump was visible for everyone by now, not only for you or for Daryl, who seemed to notice everything around him. You still didn't know how you felt about it, but most times it brought a smile to your face instead of tears to your eyes. You guessed it was an improvement.
As you walked through the door, you spotted more known faces from the Sanctuary.
"That's another wife, Nadia!" You grinned at Daryl, pointing at the woman.
"Go talk to her, I'll go clean this and get it ready.
"Okay!"
"You did good today." Daryl gave you a soft smile and your heart skipped a bit.
"Thank you. I really liked it, going out to the woods with you." You smiled shyly.
"I liked it too." Daryl nodded, looking down. "Go talk to your friend."
Notes:
So...they're getting closer, and Y/N has a crush on him! But what about Daryl? Well...next chapter is going to be fluffy, I'm looking forwards to it.
As always, thank you for reading, drop me a comment if you have time, those really make my day when I'm feeling insecure about this fic, and excuse my english and mistakes since it's not my first language.