Words: 2,972 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: Alexandria, pre-Negan Warni

Words:2,972
Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader
Reader pronouns:she/her
Era: Alexandria, pre-Negan
Warnings: intense scenarios, mentions of blood, language, violence
Summary: Y/N responds to Daryl suggesting she leave Montana and join him and his family in Alexandria.
A/N: This is part of a series! You can find all the previous parts on my Master List.

Previous Chapter

Your name: submitWhat is this?

Daryl ducked his head again. “Brian—he didn’t just ask me to come find ya. He—he wanted me to bring ya back to our group. To our home. He didn’t want ya to be alone.” He ventured another glance up at you, and you still seemed frozen.

The warm flickering of the firelight sent the shadows of your eyelashes dancing and he swore he could almost see the glow of the coals and the rising embers reflected in your eyes. They were beautiful. You were beautiful. But he couldn’t tell what was going on behind them… and now he just had to wait.

“I—leave here?” you said. You almost couldn’t wrap your head around that reality. “I don’t—” You shook your head. “I don’t know…” Your voice was soft despite the hurricane in your head. Your brow furrowed and you stared back at him. “But I have everything I need here.”

“‘Cept people. S’a lot easier if ya got people. I mean, ya said it yerself, if I hadn’t been here—that grizzly—” Daryl ducked his head, clutched by a sudden grip of fear at the thought of what had almost happened. When did just the thought of you gone start to make his entire world shift? It alarmed him. He stared down at his hands. He fiddled with the edge of the throw pillow in his lap.

“But I—there’s food here, and solar panels, and hot water… and—” You gulped. But that wasn’t just it, was it? That wasn’t what had you shaky thinking about leaving. You realized it with a sinking feeling. “This is the last place—the last connection I have to my family. To my mom, and to my dad.” Tears welled up in your eyes and Daryl saw them reflected in the low light. “And to Brian,” you choked out. “It’s the last place we were all together… alive.”

Daryl nodded. “I know. I know what I’m askin’ ya ain’t easy…” You looked overwhelmed, hastily wiping a tear that broke free from your cheek. “But—s’why I came here. Yer brother, who ended up bein’ mine too… s’what he asked me to do. And sooner or later, we all need people. S’just a matter of when.”

Daryl could sense your internal spinning. “Look, ya ain’t gotta answer now. There’s still feet of snow outside. I ain’t goin’ anywhere for a while. Just—think about it, alrigh’? And I can promise ya, if ya come, you’ll have a new group, a new family. It won’t replace what ya lost and that ain’t what ‘m tryin’ to do but… everybody would—would love ya. I know it.”

You hardly seemed to move, but you nodded, that same stunned look on your face. Your stomach was clenched into a tight knot and Daryl almost startled as you stood up abruptly. “I’m—tired. I think I’m gonna head to bed,” you said.

Daryl’s expression fell and his eyes narrowed as he looked up at you. “Okay. Yeah… sure. Umm,” he scratched a non-existent itch on the back of his neck. “G’night,” he drawled. “Yeah. Long couple days…” he reasoned aloud.

“Yeah…” Your hands fiddled nervously. “Goodnight.” You hurriedly whistled to the dogs and made for your bedroom, clicking the door shut behind you. You leaned back against it as soon as it was closed, your mind racing. Leave here? The thought was terrifying and surreal. It was a miracle that Daryl had made it across the country once, could he really manage it again? Could you?

The truth was that you weren’t tired at all. Although you dutifully completed your evening routine, washing your face, brushing your teeth, pulling on your pajamas, you were quite sure that you’d be lying awake in bed until dawn.

Scratch that. You couldn’t even lie still most of the time. You paced the length of your bedroom rug on softly padding feet, wringing your hands, overwhelmed by anxiety. The dogs watched you as if you’d lost your mind, their heads and ears turning as they followed your progress back and forth. Jesus, calm the fuck down! He wasn’t asking you to go tomorrow. He just wanted you to think about it.

And was that really what Brian had wanted? This community, this group was so good that Brian wanted you to leave everything you’d ever known and go with practically a complete stranger back to… to what? What would be waiting there? Sure, Daryl had told you about Alexandria. He’d told you about his people, and he certainly didn’t feel like a stranger anymore. But you couldn’t imagine yourself in day-to-day life there… What would your “job” be? What would you wake to and spend your time on? Here, you headed out into the mountains to hunt, fish, and trap. You came home, trailing muddy feet and paws into the front room, exhausted but feeling safe and free. Mostly.

You had to admit that these strange new dead ones, the runners, were worrying you… and you did occasionally have to worry about unsavory people when you needed to scavenge supplies, but you’d done fine for yourself so far. Sure, there had been some hairy situations, but you always got out of it.

But he was right about the grizzly. You had to admit that. You’d be dead if he hadn’t been here. And eventually your luck would run out again. That’s how this world was.

But still, the thought of leaving was overwhelming.

After another bout of pacing and then lying frozen on your back on the bed, you glanced at the clock only to see that it read just after 3:00 am. The night had passed in an anxious blur and yet was dragging on excruciatingly slowly at the same time… Your room felt suddenly suffocating and you decided just to go out and make some tea, maybe stand in the frigid air in the door to the deck and draw in deep lungfuls.

You heaved a final sigh, rubbing your hands over your face, and headed to the door.

When you pulled it open, you jumped back and another “Oh” escaped you. Daryl was standing just there, his hand raised as if he’d just been about to knock.

“Sorry, I—” he cleared his throat. “I could hear ya awake and—I dunno… Uhh… Sorry,” he drawled, stepping back.

You only stared at him for a long moment.

“I just—wanted to make sure yer alrigh’,” he finished. Internally, he was groaning at himself. He’d been unable to sleep and he could hear you pacing for most of the night. Of course you weren’t “alright.”

“I’m fine,” you said. “Just can’t sleep…”

“Sorry,” he drawled again. “Feel like that migh’ be my fault…”

You shook your head, ducking his gaze. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Daryl. You just told me how it is. And I should have realized that you wouldn’t just stay here forever. I was stupid not to think of it…”

“Hey.” Your eyes lifted up to meet his. “Ya ain’t stupid. And—I couldn’t—I mean… I—ya wouldn’t want me here forever,” he drawled more quietly.

This took you aback and you studied his expression. There was only the glow of the low flames in the hearth to light his face, but you saw enough to know he wasn’t joking.

“Sure I would,” you said firmly. “Why would you say that?” Your eyebrow quirked up in that familiar way it always did when you were asking a question.

His blue eyes shot up to your face again, but his expression didn’t change.

You sighed, your hand finally slipping off the doorknob. You took a step closer to him and the space between you felt suddenly intimate and like it was shrinking even though you’d stopped moving. “You could stay here for—for as long as you want. I know you said that you have to leave and—and I get that… but you could stay. I’d be happy for you to stay.”

Daryl gulped, his heart hammering. Everything seemed to have stilled; the air in the cabin, the flames on the logs, the shifting of the shadows… He felt like he was being drawn in by you, even more so than usual… because if he was honest with himself, of course he’d thought about what it’d be like to just stay. To just stay and be here, with you and your two dogs… sinking into some kind of domestic bliss that never got boring, because you certainly weren’t boring. You’d hunt together. You’d kill walkers together. You’d wander the endless woods, finding new hidden spots that would become yourstogether.

But the bubble always burst. He did have people waiting. And not knowing what they were going through right now, the idea that they needed him and he wasn’t there, that was scarier than having to cross the country again to get home. And if he could just unify those two daydreams… Your voice broke through again, however, and interrupted his thoughts.

“Of all the people my brother could have sent, I’m glad it was you.”

And Daryl felt it with certainty that moment—that urge he’d tried so hard to suppress. He wanted more than anything to just clasp your face and kiss you.

But just then, WHAM. The sound reverberated against the front window and both of you jumped. The dogs started barking and growling and you shushed them hurriedly with gentle hands, your eyes wide and fixed toward the source of the sound.

Daryl grabbed his crossbow from where it was leaning up against the coffee table and swore under his breath. “Prob’ly just that damn owl again,” he said over his shoulder.

You tried to will your heart to slow back to normal pace. “Probably,” you agreed, but you grabbed one of your knives near the front door and went to join him at the window.

But this time, when Daryl peeled back the blinds to peer outside, there was another resounding thud against the glass shortly followed by many more. “Goddammit!” He jumped slightly back and looked over at you. “Ain’t the fuckin’ owl.”

Your eyes widened and you jolted with each new strike at the glass. Dead ones. A small group of them, maybe five or six. And based on the jerky rapidity of their movements they were runners. You pulled in a steadying breath and rushed to pull on your boots, readying your knife.

“Hey, hold up—” Daryl urged you. “Let’s just plan this out!”

“Daryl, if we wait much longer they’re coming through the glass!” you argued, climbing back up to your feet. “Let’s go!”

Having not even really tried to sleep, he still had his boots on and he tensed but nodded as you gave him a harried look. “Alrigh’. Alrigh’, ‘m ready.”

And you pulled the door open and pushed out into the snow. The dogs bounded out beside you, immediately heading for the dead ones at the window, who turned and began to charge toward you as soon as the door had opened. They were just so fast… There was no room for any error.

Daryl let fly a bolt that whizzed past you and buried itself deeply in the skull of the one closest to you.

Strider and Bear each had pulled one to the ground and were fighting with them fiercely. “Off!” you yelled at the big black lab, and he darted away from the dead one and you thrust your knife into its temple. Another one of Daryl’s bolts struck its target and a body thumped into the snow beside you. A spray of blood dotted the snow on the deck as you pulled your knife out, violently red in the whiteness. You turned, readying yourself for the next dead one, but it rushed you with alarming speed and you found yourself knocked to the ground, struggling to keep its clicking teeth and clawing hands away from you.

Daryl was there in an instant, ramming it in the head with the butt end of his crossbow and knocking it off you. You felt the thick, warm wetness of its blood dribble down onto you as the weight left. Daryl finished it with another sickening bash to the head and turned hastily to check on you after it had gone still.

You were still lying on your back in the snow, chest heaving from the exertion. The wetness and cold had started to seep through your clothes. He scrambled over to you.

“Hey. Hey—ya good?” he asked desperately, falling onto a knee beside you, scrutinizing you for wounds. “Ya alrigh’?”

Heaving in breaths, the cold stinging your lungs, you nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’m good,” you murmured, examining your own arms. All you could see was some blood spatter. No scratches. No bites. “Thanks,” you said blinking up at him beside you.

He nodded and swung his crossbow onto his shoulder, offering you his hand. “Here. C’mon. Let’s get ya up outta the snow.” He pulled you to your feet. You paused and bent forward for a moment, still trying to catch your breath, staring at the corpses littering the deck. The frigid air on your damp clothes made you shiver. The dogs still had hair raised and were panting just a few feet away from you. You glanced around the cabin into the darkness, not even aware that one of your hands was rubbing at the stiffness in your leg. Were there more just beyond the reach of your senses? More waiting to ambush you when you weren’t expecting it?

“There’s more than one,” you said.

“Huh?” Daryl asked, straining his eyes as he too looked into the darkness.

You straightened up and gestured to the corpses. “The runners. There’s more than one,” you said again.

His eyes went back to the bodies, his brow heavily furrowed. “Yeah… that ain’t good.”

You shook your head. “Let’s just get inside,” you said, exhaustion hitting you like a tidal wave. The adrenaline had waned, and you felt the full extent of your lack of sleep and the fight. “Deal with the bodies tomorrow…”

Daryl nodded and called to the dogs, and you all headed back into the cabin. You sank down heavily on the bench by the front door, meaning to take your boots off, but you found yourself suddenly frozen, staring blankly toward the rug.

Daryl shut and bolted the door, eyeing you with concern. He set his crossbow down nearby and chewed on his bottom lip. “Y/N,” he said gently. “Ya alrigh’?”

“Huh?” His voice snapped you back. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay…” you toed off each of your boots and then glanced at the blood spatter on your arms.

Daryl frowned. “Let’s get ya cleaned up. Ya got coated pretty good,” he drawled. “C’mon.” He tilted his head toward the kitchen and you followed, shivering again from the wetness of your clothes from the snow.

He ran the water in the sink until it was warm and grabbed the nearest dishtowel, wetting a corner. You leaned up against the counter near the light he’d flicked on and accepted the damp cloth gratefully, wiping it over your face and down your neck, swiping it over the blood spatter on your arms.

Your eyes were vague and fixed ahead as you sighed, the wet dishcloth now dangling in your hand.

“Hmm?” Daryl prompted you.

You shook your head slowly. “Just thinking about that owl… maybe it was a bad omen,” you said softly.

Daryl chewed on his bottom lip again. “Was just an owl,” he said. “C’mon. Ya should change outta those wet clothes. And then ya need sleep. Ya look dead on yer feet.”

You scoffed a wry laugh as you straightened up. “Poor choice of words.”

He let out a low hum. “Righ’… C’mon.”

You disappeared into your room as he sank down on the couch, having tossed another log on the fire, and then collapsed back into worried thoughts. So, there were more of them… Tomorrow he’d have to set up some alarms… maybe talk to you about more defenses around the cabin.

“Daryl.”

He looked up to see you standing in the doorway of your bedroom, in a change of dry clothes, your eyes heavy. “Hmm?”

“Do you think we could—combine forces again for tonight?” He didn’t catch your meaning at first, until you tipped your head back in toward your room behind you.

His heart jumped. “Yeah. Yeah, o’ course. I’ll be righ’ there…”

In a few minutes, both of you were settled down in your bed. The dogs were on the rug nearby, already sleeping as if nothing had happened. You shifted beneath the covers and rolled onto the flat of your back. Daryl was laying on the other side of the bed with his crossbow within easy reach.

You sighed loudly into the darkness. “So, there are more of them,” you said again.

“Yeah,” he replied into the blackness.

“We’re gonna have to change some things.” Daryl heard a note of weariness or maybe sadness in your voice. “Tomorrow. We’re gonna have to do something… I don’t know. Something.”

“Yeah,” he said again. He heard the rustling of the blankets and could sense that you’d turned onto your side and were closer to him.

“…How many more do you think there are?”

He didn’t want to tell you what he really thought. He knew that you probably already knew the answer. “I don’t know…” he drawled. Then he was surprised when he felt the weight of you so close you were almost pressed against him, and then the gentle feeling of your hand on his arm. It was still a bit cold and he wanted to cover it with his, warm it underneath his own, but he didn’t.

“I’m—I’m glad you’re here,” you said. Your voice was faint, laced with waiting sleep.

Daryl gulped. “Me too.”