Chapter Text
Daryl walked through the woods. This was his second day out on a gathering mission. He’d hidden the truck he took a few miles north of where he was and was debating if it was time to go back or set up camp. He knew when he left the prison, he told the rest of the council he wouldn’t be out long, but sometimes it was really hard for him to go back. Don’t get him wrong, even though he’d never say it out loud, that place was home for him, the people there were his… family. But this is where he was meant to be, this is where he’d spent most of his life before the world went to shit, and he’d spend most of his life here after.
Still, he felt like he was doing something wrong, that he should be back at the prison; he knew he was needed there, but he just couldn’t force himself to go back. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t working for the people, even all the way out here. He was grabbing all the supplies he found and marking every place down that was completely raided already.
He’d been tracking a deer for the last few miles, ready for some good eatin’ tonight. He never thought he’d say it, but he was getting tired of squirrel. He walked quietly as a mouse through the woods without even having to pay attention to it anymore; it had become second nature to him long ago. Finally, he found the deer and took a small step to the side to get a better aim. But he tripped over a branch he should have easily missed, and he would have if he hadn’t been distracted.
The sound of the branch and his stumble immediately made the deer run. Normally, that’d really piss him off, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of what distracted him in the first place. His hand slowly reached forward and ran his fingers over the bark of the tree in front of him, a crescent moon with a small star on either side. Too unique to just be a coincidence, Moon, he thought. He ran his finger over it again. It was new; it couldn’t be longer than a week old. He looked around, looking for someone he thought long dead, before turning his eyes back to the tree, wondering if he was just imagining it because he wished for it so many times.
Moon. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. For a second, he swore he wasn’t alone. He looked around again, still hoping for the impossible. He looked down, hoping for some sort of tracks that’d lead him to whoever carved this into the tree, if only to get the thought out of his head, the hope. There. They’re faint, but there’s something. So, with the deer long forgotten, he started his new search, hefting his crossbow up on his shoulder for the trip. An hour later, he let out a growl; the tracks were gone completely. They were barely there to begin with. She was always better at hiding her tracks than he was.
‘No,’ he yelled internally, ‘it’s not her, don’t let yourself think that,’ He took out one of the last few precious cigarettes he had, packs were getting harder and harder to find, and lit on, feeling his whole body relax on the exhale. He leaned against a tree and ran his fingers through his hair, just so confused, wondering if he was just going insane. If the stress of life after the world ended finally got to him, if missing her finally got to him.
Moon. That’s what he called her anyway. He couldn’t remember a time when he actually called her by her real name. They met in high school, she, the preppy straight-A student, and he, the stoner who barely made it to class, and when he did, he had a black eye or two. They got placed together on one project, and even though it was rough at first, they were basically inseparable after. They stayed together for the next decade, moving in together not long after she graduated. They were happy. Then, Merle came back, and Daryl let his brother drag him into all his shit. Started spending most of his time drunk and high, sure, he wasn’t using the hard drugs his brother did, but Daryl was willing to admit to himself it was only a matter of time before he did, if the world ending didn’t get in the way.
She stayed with him as long as she could after that. She tried to support him, help him, get his shit together, get his job back at the garage, but he was lost in Merle and all his bullshit, so he kept pushing her away, until he did something she just couldn’t forgive, and she finally walked away from him. He regretted his choices every minute since then, but was gone, and she wasn’t coming back, which just proved what he knew all along: he was nothing, just like his brother, just like his father, so he might as well lean into it and be the piece of shit he knew he was destined to be.
Still, he missed her; he missed her even more when the world went to shit a few months later. When it started happening, he went to their old house, determined to keep her safe even if she hated him while he did, but it was too late; she was gone. He remembered he’d stood in the empty doorway, shouting her name until his throat went raw. But she’d moved at some point after he moved out, and he didn’t even fucking know, too lost in his own self-pity and the numbness he created with a mix of drugs and alcohol.
He looked up, noting the time by the sun in the sky; it was going to be dark in a few hours, and there was no way he’d make it back to the truck before then. So he looked around, deciding to find a safe place to camp for the night, mad at himself for letting dreams of the past get in the way of his mission today. It was a fool’s dream anyway. Sure, it was a rare symbol, but he was sure she couldn’t be the only one to use it. So he walked, hoping to find an abandoned cabin or at least a sturdy and big enough tree that he could sleep in without getting bitten in the middle of the night.
He tried to focus on finding food, on staying alive. Told himself to stop being a bitch, stop thinking about the past. It was useless. A distraction that would get him killed. But still, his stupid brain wouldn’t listen; he kept remembering the first time he took her out into the woods, how he showed her how to hunt, how fucking terrible she was at it in the beginning, how being quiet seemed like an impossible task for her. His lips quirked up at the memory before he savagely pushed them back into a scowl. He remembered that marking the trees was really the only part she thought was interesting that first time because she loved to draw, and it took her three weeks before she settled on what’d be her sign. He’d told her it was too complex, that it was only supposed to take a second and only had to be visible enough so she’d be able to see it in case she got lost, but she rolled her eyes and muttered something about how she liked to make things better than they were before she touched them, not worse.
Again, he told himself it wasn’t her, couldn’t be. But his boots didn’t listen. They carried him deeper into the trees anyway. An hour later, he saw an old abandoned hunting shack in the distance, and with another look up at the almost setting sun, decided he had to stay. The door hung crooked, the wood silvered from years of weather. Looked dead, like everything else. Still, it was shelter. It was a small place with a door he could lock; it wasn’t much, but it’d keep him safe for a few hours. Slowly, quietly, he walked up, keeping his eyes open for any sign of movement, whether it be dead or alive. He quietly put the squirrel he caught down, wanting as little to slow his movements as possible in case he needed to fight.
Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary. The door was closed, so no walkers made it into the shack. Everything was covered by dust; it seemed like this was one of those places untouched by time, still exactly as it was before the dead started rising. There were a few old magazines, probably meant to entertain the hunters while nothing was happening, a few cans of food and jerky stored up in the corner, along with a half case of water, score. There was even an old, dirty couch in the corner that he could sleep in and a heavy stand by the door that people used to rest on while hunting. He pushed that up against the door to barricade himself in, along with locking the door. The whole thing was only about ten by ten, but it was big enough for him to stretch out, and he didn’t have to sleep on the floor. The couch sagged under his weight, springs biting his back. Didn’t matter. It beat dirt and roots. He’d slept in much worse places before.
He used a tarp from his bag to cover the window. Hide the light from the fire. Even cooking the squirrel, he barely made a sound. Staying quiet was second nature by now; unlike most, he had decades of experience in staying quiet, hiding. First, hiding from his father. Then from hunger. From the animals he had to kill to keep breathing. Now from the dead. Same shit. Different world. Fucked-up life.
He lit the second half of the cigarette he had put out earlier after he finished his dinner. He kept the tarp up but moved it a little so he could keep watch on the woods around him. The only sounds were the chirps of the crickets that were somehow still alive in a world where everything else was dead or dying. He stared out of the small crack for hours, even moving the couch closer to sit comfortably while he did. When the couch scraped across the floor, something clinked underneath. His stomach dropped. He crouched, pulled it out. An almost full bottle of Jack.
“Shit,” he muttered, his first word in days, voice raspy, staring at it like it might vanish.
He opened the lid and took a long swig. The whiskey hit hard, fire tearing down his throat, and every nerve in his body lit up. Felt like coming home. Felt like hell. Memories flooded him at the sensation, not many of them good. He let out an annoyed scowl when his thoughts went back to her and the year leading up to her finally giving up on him. She tried so hard to get through to him, so hard to bring him back to himself, and he just kept pushing her away.
A memory flashed of her nose wrinkling at the smell of alcohol, disappointment flooding her eyes. “Daryl, it’s barely noon. Smells like a distillery in here. You promised me we could go on a ride today.”
The scowl turned into a growl at the thoughts as he took another long swig. What the fuck was wrong with him? Sure, he used to think of her all the time, once every few minutes, but after he found his place in the group, it slowly lessened. He slowly accepted all the fucked up shit he pulled and accepted that it was all his fault. Used to think of her every damn minute. Later, only when something reminded him. Rare now. Manageable. But today, those thoughts were back, assailing him constantly.
He took another long swig, and he blinked, glassy-eyed, realizing the bottle was already lighter in his hand. Quarter gone. Maybe more. Oh well, he knew he should savor it, fuck, he should take it back. Share it. Do the right thing. He lifted it to his mouth anyway. Missed being numb more.
He wasn’t sure what time it was anymore; he lost track of that long ago, probably when there was half a bottle left. It was almost empty now. He felt his eyes keep closing against his will, the edges around his vision blurry, but he got what he wanted, didn’t feel a damn thing right now. He fell asleep with the bottle in his hand, hanging off the couch, unsure if he had closed the hole in his tarp.
It felt like he opened his eyes right after he closed them, all his limbs heavy and the room spinning, but he knew something woke him up. Some part of himself was calling himself fucking stupid, leaving himself so vulnerable, but the majority of him was too drunk to care. He looked around the room again and saw a shadow in the corner. He squinted his eyes, trying to see clearly, and was sure his mind was playing tricks on him when he did. Sleep dragged him under, but he forced out one word before it claimed him.
“Moon?”