Words: 5,111 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: The Whisperers Warnings: violence, gore, mentions of blood, language, fear and anxiety A/N: The patron and requester for this fic is the lovely goddess @burritoplant! Thank her for the existence of this miniseries, because without her support it wouldn't have happened! A/N: This is part 1 of a new miniseries! AHHH!
Your name: submit What is this?
Someone came banging into the house and Michonne was immediately on guard, rushing toward the front door to find an out of breath Rosita in the front entryway.
Michonne’s brown furrowed and her expression was intense. “What is it?”
Rosita shook her head, a little at a loss. “Daryl just came through the front gate…”
An expression of understanding grew on Michonne’s face and her eyes closed for a moment. Her head dropped and she raised a hand to swipe a hand across her forehead anxiously before she regained her composure. “Alright. I’ll go talk to him. Can you just watch the kids?”
“Are you sure? I can go—or maybe Aaron?”
“It’s alright. I’ll go. I’ve known him longer.”
Rosita nodded. “Too bad Carol isn’t here,” she mused.
Michonne sighed. “Yeah. Where was he headed?”
“Home,” she replied.
“Okay. The kids are in the kitchen. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Michonne jogged down the steps and turned to head toward the apartment building down the block. She felt jittery with nerves. She wished she didn’t have to be the one to explain—it felt like she was inserting herself right into Daryl’s personal shit and that was making her supremely uncomfortable. But someone had to talk to him.
The door to his apartment was standing partially open when she arrived, and Michonne raised a fist and knocked lightly on it. She could hear some movement inside but no one answered so she nudged the door open a little. “Daryl?”
“In here,” came a gruff drawl from farther inside. “C’mon in.” His voice was softer and distracted this time.
Michonne stepped inside and headed toward the sound of his voice to find Daryl standing in the doorway, his hand gripping the wood frame, staring into the bedroom. Over his shoulder, Michonne could see that half the closet was standing empty and there was empty space around the room that had previously held now missing belongings. She felt a constriction into her throat. “Welcome back,” she said gently.
Daryl turned and faced her, his blue eyes narrowed beneath a furrowed brow. He didn’t say anything and Michonne could read a question on his face. She tilted her head back toward the main room and Daryl’s bootsteps followed her out. He sunk down on the edge of a chair, looking unsettled.
Michonne sat opposite him and clasped her hands together. “Any luck out there?”
“Mm,” Daryl hummed, shaking his head. “Sorry.” A tense silence fell. “Where’s Y/N?” he drawled. She thought she heard nerves in his voice.
Michonne gulped. “She—isn’t here.” Daryl continued to stare at her. “You haven’t seen her?”
His brow furrowed more deeply, casting his eyes into shadow. “Was I s’posed to?”
Michonne shifted uneasily and shook her head. “I don’t know. She left. Left Alexandria.”
There was another beat of tense silence and some confusion flashed across his features. “For how long?” Daryl could see the empty spaces in the room you’d shared in his mind’s eye. They’d been glaring as soon as he hit the threshold.
“I’m not sure. She left some things behind. At my place. Asked me to hang onto them. For a while after she left, we’d hear from her every now and then.”
Daryl chewed on his bottom lip anxiously. “And now?”
Michonne shook her head and felt a small wave of emotion rise up in her chest. “We haven’t heard anything in a while.”
“What’s a while?”
“Around seven months,” Michonne replied.
Daryl stood up suddenly and turned his back to Michonne, pacing over to the window and staring straight out into the gray morning beyond the glass. “And nobody thought they should come tell me that?” There was an undercurrent of anger in his tone.
Michonne sighed. “She asked us not to…” This was perhaps the hardest thing to say yet. She thought she saw Daryl flinch at the window, like her words had stung.
Daryl ducked his head and squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment he turned back to face Michonne again. “Alrigh’.”
“I thought she might go see you,” Michonne said. There was a question in the statement and Daryl anxiously pulled his bottom lip back in between his teeth and chewed it.
“She did. For a while while I was out there. Once a month at least but—” He shook his head and ducked his eyes again. “After a while she didn’t anymore.”
Michonne felt her heart sink. “Daryl…” She didn’t know what to say. “I’m—”
“I’ll come up and see the kids in a bit. I just gotta get settled,” he interrupted.
Michonne took the hint and climbed to her feet. “Okay. They’ll be excited to see you. Take your time. We’ll be around, okay?”
He nodded, still unable or unwilling to meet her eyes. Michonne headed for the door but turned back at the doorway to glance at the archer. He looked worn, tired. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. Then she turned and left, closing the door quietly behind her. As soon as Michonne left, Daryl collapsed into a chair, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his face. Gone. You were just… gone. Vanished. Along with what seemed like any trace of you. For all he knew you could be a ghost, a dream instead of a memory. He stared at the coffee table in front of him. It was coated with a layer of dust which obscured the place where your novel used to sit.
Seven months. Michonne had said seven months… Where were you? What the hell were you doing? What if you were—no. He couldn’t think like that. Why the fuck hadn’t he come back sooner? He’d meant to. He really had. But being in the walls felt like a lie, like he was playacting. After Rick… how could he look everyone in the face if he hadn’t done everything possible to try and find him?
You’d asked him to come back. Not permanently, but more often than he had been. Then after a while you just stopped asking. And then, at some point, you’d just stopped finding him out there. He thought maybe it was for the best. In the same way that he found being in the walls painful, you seemed to find combing the riverbanks unbearable. And eventually you couldn’t do it anymore. That’s what he’d assumed. He’d assumed that you were safe back here in Alexandria, making yourself useful, keeping everyone moving forward. You were good at that.
But coming back to this empty apartment, this news that you had vanished, it was a punch in the gut.
* * *
Daryl stared at the way the slowly shifting light from the windows was illuminating your bare back. The shadows deepened in the lower bend of your spine and joined with the swirls of fabric around your hips. Golden light caught the edges of your shoulder blades and spilled onto the graceful curve of your arm before it dipped beneath the pillow. He tried to resist as long as he could, but eventually he had to run his hands over your silky skin and you stirred beneath the roughness of his palms and fingertips.
You turned over to look up at him with a sleepy smile, hair tousled and messy and he drank in the sight of you deeply, a sustaining draught.
“Hi,” you whispered, stretching and sighing a little before eagerly moving in closer to him, pressing yourself up against his warmth.
“Hey,” he drawled, his voice gravelly with sleep still. He smoothed a hand over your hair and you sighed.
“Did you sleep?”
“Mhm. A bit.” He could have slept more, but when he woke up and saw how you were illuminated with the haze of sunlight glowing through the curtains it was too good to miss, and he simply wanted to watch the day begin over your peaceful form.
“Good,” you said softly. You traced a finger along a scar across his chest before pressing your lips softly to it and settling against him more heavily.
Daryl’s heart jumped and he tightened his arms around you. “I gotta tell ya somethin’,” he drawled.
“Hmm?” You met his blue eyes.
“I’m—I’m in love with ya,” he managed. You’d simply held his eyes for a moment and then a wide smile grew on your face and the next second you pulled him in and crashed your lips together. He felt like he’d been set ablaze.
* * *
Knock knock knock.
Daryl shot upright in bed, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. He tried to gain control of his breath again.
Knock knock knock. Loud on the apartment door.
“Jus’ a sec,” he called out, rubbing a hand over his face. He climbed blearily to his feet, trying to shake off that dream. Dream? Memory. Whatever. He rushed through the apartment to the front door to find Michonne there with Judith and RJ.
“Uncle Daryl!” Judith launched herself at him and he dropped down to one knee to accept her hug. A moment later RJ collided against him too and he let out a deep laugh, squeezing them extra tight.
“You said you would come visit,” Michonne said. “They were too excited to wait any longer.” In truth, she’d also wanted to check on him after the worse than bad news the previous day.
“Sorry. I fell asleep,” he drawled. “Lemme look at you two.” He held Judith and her brother at arm’s length and smiled at them. It crinkled the corners of his blue eyes and Michonne felt some sense of relief at the sight.
“We missed you a whole lot,” Judith asserted.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and ruffled RJ’s curly hair. “I missed ya too. Thought ‘bout ya ev’ry day.” Daryl stood up and caught Michonne’s eyes giving her a nod.
“Are you gonna stay and help with the new part of the wall, Uncle Daryl? Mom said I can help watch for walkers.”
Daryl pushed a hand back through his hair. “Ya must be pretty good with that sword now if yer mom is lettin’ ya do that.” Judith nodded eagerly.
“We’d appreciate the help,” Michonne said pointedly.
He chewed his lip anxiously. “I… I can’t. I gotta—head back out tomorrow,” he drawled.
“Tomorrow?” RJ asked, markedly disappointed. “But you just got here!”
Daryl glanced down at him. “I know. M’sorry, little man. But I got work to do back out there. Ya understand, right?” Judith’s posture had slumped too. “But I really do think of ya ev’ry day. And ya know what? I could really use some new pictures to put up in my tent. Think ya could make me some?”
RJ nodded and grinned at him but Judith was peering up at him inquisitively. “Are you going to search for Aunt Y/N and Daddy now too?”
Michonne gently put a hand on her shoulder. “Judith, we talked about this—”
“S’alrigh’,” Daryl stopped her. He met Judith’s eyes and struggled to find the right thing to say. “M’sure Aunt Y/N is fine, alrigh’? She—she chose to head out there. Not like yer dad. But ya know I’ll be keepin’ an eye out for her.”
Judith nodded. “If you see her, tell her to come back and visit. We miss her.” Her big brown eyes were almost enough to crack Daryl’s stoic exterior.
“I know. I’ll tell her,” he drawled. “Now why don’t ya go home and work on those pictures for me? I’ll come by in a bit.” He gave Michonne a nod and watched her gently nudge the kids back to the exit. Later that day, after visiting at the house, Michonne found Daryl out on the porch smoking a cigarette and staring out at the activity on the street. She sighed and leaned back against the railing beside him, drawing his blue eyes. “You really are leaving tomorrow?” she asked.
Daryl blew out a cloud of smoke and tapped the ash from the cigarette. He nodded, avoiding her gaze now. “I can’t be here,” he said. “I just can’t.” Now more than ever, he thought.
Michonne nodded. “I understand. But we really miss you.” She stood and gave him a friendly squeeze on the arm before heading back inside.
Several Years Later
Daryl had barely gotten off his bike before he could sense that something was wrong. He broke from his hug with Aaron and took in the worried expression on his face. “S’goin’ on?”
Aaron explained that they’d found Rosita out in the woods the previous day, a little hurt but mainly exhausted and dehydrated. They’d gotten her back to Hilltop and she was going to be fine, but Eugene was still missing.
“We could really use a good tracker,” Jesus said seriously.
Daryl nodded. “Sure. O’ course.” He was just glancing back at Carol and Henry, who were both standing nearby and looking grim, when he heard a familiar voice in the distance. Tara was heading hurriedly down the hill, calling for Jesus, and he went to meet her.
Daryl looked back at Carol. “This alrigh’? Me headin’ out?” Carol had asked him to look out for Henry while he came to apprentice as a blacksmith at the Hilltop, be a grounded role model. It was a job he’d accepted somewhat begrudgingly, but had already started to grow on him.
Carol nodded. “Of course. Go. Find Eugene. It sounds serious.”
He nodded and glanced back at Tara and Jesus who seemed to be having some tense and animated discussion. He started over and caught a few words.
“That’s what I’m telling you. Y/N left this yesterday at the drop-off. Look at the date,” Tara said, holding out a piece of paper to Jesus. “Read it.”
Daryl felt like he’d been punched in the stomach and came to a dead stop. “Whoa, whoa… What the hell did ya just say?” Tara glanced up and for the first time realized he was there.
“Daryl!” She rushed to him grabbed him into a hug as Jesus scrutinized the letter she’d passed to him. “God, it’s good to see you,” she said earnestly. There were worry lines between her brows.
“Ya. Ya, you too.” He shifted uneasily and cleared his throat anxiously. Carol stepped closer, watching him carefully. “What’d ya—uhh, did ya just say tha’s a letter from Y/N?”
Tara looked tense, but she nodded. Daryl felt Jesus’s eyes on him too.
“She, uhh—” he rubbed a hand over his mouth. “She come by here?”
Tara ducked her eyes to the ground. “Not exactly.”
Daryl shifted, his heart pounding. Beside him, Dog whined, and he absently patted him and told him to stay. “What’s that mean?”
Jesus came to stand beside Tara and absently folded the letter in his hands. “We have a drop-off location not that far away.” He seemed on the edge of saying more but hesitated and met Carol’s eyes over Daryl’s shoulder. The archer immediately spun to look at her, an accusatory look on his face.
“Ya know ‘bout this?” Daryl asked, his voice sounding extra gruff and heavy with gravel.
Carol shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t know what to tell you,” Carol said. The muscle in Daryl’s jaw tensed as he clenched his teeth. “A couple years after she left Alexandria, we started getting messages from her at The Kingdom. Not long after that, Hilltop started getting them too, and later, Oceanside and Alexandria. She became sort of an unofficial watchdog for the communities,” Carol explained quietly.
Tara interjected. “She keeps us up to date on what she’s seeing on her travels. Lets us know if there’s anything to worry about.”
Carol stared at her friend’s expression and tried desperately to read it. “I didn’t—I didn’t know what to say.” Carol lowered her voice and stepped closer to Daryl. “And I figured if she wanted to—to connect with you, she’d be able to find you. Daryl, you’ve been out there all this time, searching. I really thought sooner or later the two of you—”
“I thought she was dead,” he growled at Carol in an undertone. A shadow seemed to veil his bright blue eyes. “Ya think ‘bout that? Not hearin’ a damn thing fer all these years. I thought she was fuckin’ dead. What the hell was I s’posed to think?” he snapped. He withdrew from Carol a little angrily and turned back to face Tara and Jesus. Henry looked on confused and went to gently grip Carol’s arm and give her a sympathetic but confused look. She gave him a tight smile so he wouldn’t worry.
“Ya’ve seen her?” Daryl pressed Tara. “Ya picked up this letter from her?” How is she? he wanted to ask.
Tara shook her head. “We haven’t met in person in a long time. She’s always moving. We have a designated spot where she drops off any information she thinks we should have. Sometimes we leave a few supplies for her, but she usually doesn’t take them. We just check the drop-off regularly. It’s on the route of one of our patrols.”
Daryl shifted. “How often she come around?” He was trying hard to keep his breathing and heart rate under control, but they seemed like they had their own ideas.
This time Jesus answered. “It’s not regular. Sometimes every couple weeks, but more often than not we can go well over a month without hearing anything.”
Daryl came suddenly back into himself and realized there was some other pressing shit on the table; Eugene. And based on the grim expression on Jesus’s face, obviously there was something in your letter that was important. He stepped back, his hand clenching and unclenching along his side and nudged his nose up a couple times in a nod, his eyes fixing on the grass under his boots. “So, what’d she say?” he asked. He was still whirling, but there was something urgent on that damn piece of paper, the way Tara had come barreling down the hill toward them.
Tara and Jesus exchanged a glance and he sighed. “I don’t know what to make of it. She’s been seeing walkers in the area that are behaving… strangely,” he said.
Daryl’s eyes narrowed. “Strange how?” he drawled.
“Whole herds moving in circles out in the middle of a field, just swirling, stationary. Changing direction unexpectedly. Ignoring noises or lights that would normally draw them.” Jesus shook his head and held the letter out to Daryl. “Here, read it for yourself.” By now, Aaron, Carol, and Henry had gathered around and were listening closely too.
Daryl gulped and then his fingers closed on the worn piece of paper. Glancing down he saw your familiar scrawling script. He could almost hear your voice in his head and he hurriedly read it. When he’d gotten through the main body of the report, he thrust it back out toward Tara as if he’d been burned. She accepted it with a sideways glance.
“I don’t know what this is, but if we’re going out to look for Eugene, we need to have our guard up,” Tara said.
Jesus nodded. “Yeah. The only thing we usually have going for us with the dead is that they’re fairly predictable. This is… something else.”
Daryl nodded. He was struggling to compartmentalize what was happening, but he pushed his personal bullshit down as best he could and nodded. “Alrigh’. We’ll play it extra safe. But we need to cover some ground before it’s dark. We can follow Rosita’s trail back to Eugene if we can pick it up.”
“Daryl—” Carol stepped forward and matched his stride back over to his bike. “Daryl—”
“Not now,” he growled, slinging his bow over his shoulder. “Dog! Let’s go!”
“Be careful!” Carol called after him. He glanced back over his shoulder at her and headed for the gate.
Henry stepped up beside her again. “Mom? Who’s Y/N?” he asked.
She sighed and patted his shoulder. “Let’s just go get you settled, okay?”
_ _ _ _ _ _
Eugene was back, but the rescue mission had been a disaster.
Jesus was dead. And Daryl was staring down at a mask made of skin.
The warnings in your letter had turned out to be all too necessary. The reason the dead weren’t behaving like the dead was because the living were hidden among them. Daryl had seen the results with his own eyes.
And Jesus had paid the price for you all to find that out.
The living, concealed in freakish skin masks could control hordes, turn herds, and travel among them. And Daryl couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that you were out there. You’d been at the Hilltop’s drop-off location the day before. And based on your letter, you didn’t know what was happening yet.
He stood up abruptly and headed to find Tara. She was overseeing the preparations to lay Jesus to rest. The entire community was mourning, and when word reached them the other communities would be too. “Hey,” he drawled when he reached Tara. “Can I borrow ya for a sec?”
Tara nodded and stepped away. Daryl could see the weight that was now lying heavily on her shoulders. She would be the one to keep things going here at the Hilltop now. “I’m goin’ back out there,” Daryl said.
Tara’s eyes narrowed. “What? After what just happened—Daryl—” She sighed and glassy tears filled her eyes before she was able to blink them away. “Jesus isn’t even buried yet. What reason could you possibly—”
He ducked his head. “Ya said she dropped that note off yesterday. If she’s still in the area, she’s out there with them and she dunno. And I dun think that girl Lydia is tellin’ us the truth yet. I think there’s more of them. Maybe a lot more.”
Tara closed her eyes as understanding washed over her. Of course it was about you. “Daryl—she can move fast if she needs to. She’s probably on her way to another community already to give them the same warning. Even if you can track her, she’s a day ahead of you.”
He shifted and bit his bottom lip. “I gotta try. I gotta at least go check the trail and see what’s what. If it’s cold already, I’ll come righ’ back.”
Tara gave him a long look and finally nodded. She knew better than to try to change Daryl’s mind once it was made up. “Alright. I’ll put Enid and someone else on guard for the girl. We’ll keep listening in, but honestly without you here I don’t know how much this is gonna move. Just be careful. We’ve already lost too much to these… monsters. And we could really use your help here.”
Daryl nodded. “Where’s the drop-off?”
Not long after that, Daryl was on his way with Dog. They were staying away from roads and trails, keeping to the woods. It was slow going but he thought it was less likely that he’d encounter a huge herd if they were bushwhacking. The plan was to get to the drop-off location, a massive old oak stump with a lockbox hidden underneath it, and track your trail from there (if he could find it) the same way they’d back tracked Rosita’s to find Eugene the day before.
He was a bundle of anxiety, trying to picture how the hell this was gonna go if he actually found you. It’d been years… and it seemed to be pretty clear that you didn’t want to see him. If you had, he had no doubt you could have found him. And when he looked back on that time after Rick’s death, when the relationship between the two of you became more and more strained, there were a hundred things he should’ve done differently.
Shit. Focus. Ain’t no damn time to be stuck inside yer head. . Things were a lot more dangerous now that they knew someone was controlling the herds… The trip was uneventful until he had to cross the river and the wet meadow on the other side.
Creeping to the edge of the woods, Daryl looked out and saw a small herd of the dead, maybe 40. But just like he’d seen with Jesus and Aaron the day before, they weren’t walking in any particular direction. They were swirling in a circle in the middle of the open space. Beside him, Dog whined. “Shh! Dog!” Daryl could swing wide to try and avoid them, but at some point, he had to cross out in the open. He swore under his breath and rubbed a hand over his face. If he was doin’ this, he didn’t have a damn choice.
Daryl crept along the edge of the trees, staying as low as he could. He picked a spot along the river that had taller vegetation and a little bit of topography, but once he crossed he would be in the open. He’d have to army crawl if he wanted to stay out of sight.
He made the river crossing safely, staying hidden in the thicket of willows, Dog at his side. The river was shallow, and he hugged a deeply incised cut bank to stay below the line of sight. But he hit a snag on the other side. The meadow was inundated with stagnant brown water and the bottom was uneven and potholed. Thick vegetation snagged his boots. Walking was hard and crawling was impossible. He’d simply have to keep as much of himself submerged as possible and carefully find his footing to avoid attracting attention. He envied Dog who slinked through the challenge like it was nothing.
Soaking wet, cold, and caked in mud, Daryl kept as low a profile as he could when he crossed into the woods on the other side. But he was hardly ten feet in when he realized something was wrong. Dog froze beside him and faced back toward the meadow, sniffing the air. His hackles rose and he bared his teeth, letting out a low growl. Daryl squinted back across the terrain and saw that the herd was no longer circling aimlessly. They’d changed course and they were headed right toward him.
When the breeze kicked up, he swore he could hear frail whispers carried on it—the sounds Rosita and Eugene had described.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled softly. “Dog, let’s go!”
Daryl turned and rushed forward through the brush as quickly as he could, but his progress slowed as he came across a section of forest that had been pounded by a storm or straight-line winds. The ground was covered in old deadfall, the trunks parallel and lined up like matchsticks in a matchbook. But the tangle of other branches and regrowth made it difficult to navigate and Daryl’s bow and pack continually snagged or threw him off balance as he climbed over the trunks. The herd was gaining on him. At this rate, the archer knew he couldn’t outrun them. He needed to change tactics. He needed somewhere to hide.
Daryl cut to the closest edge of the windfall even while the hissing of whispers in his ears seemed to grow louder. He stumbled his way through some brush and was surprised when his feet hit clear dirt. He was on an old logging road. And he hoped against hope that he could get some distance and find somewhere to hide until the herd gave up.
“Dog, this way! Search!” Daryl rushed to keep up with his four-legged companion and was encouraged when he passed a rusted-out truck stuck sideways in the logging road. Just past it was an old state highway, though it was now narrowed by years of forest growth. A few decaying cars still sat rusting on the crumbling asphalt. Ahead, Dog let out a couple barks and Daryl rushed to find him. He found himself staring at an old radio tower, now broken off about halfway up, and there was some kind of cinderblock outbuilding beside it. “Good boy. Good boy,” Daryl breathed. He rushed to the door and banged on it as loudly as he dared, straining to listen. No movement inside. No growling or moaning. He wrenched it open but immediately knew it was no good. There was only the one way in or out and he quickly saw that it could be a death trap if the herd did manage to trace him. He’d have nowhere to go. “Shit,” he growled.
He picked a direction and ran a short way through the undergrowth but soon found himself staring up at a substantial rock wall. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he started to hurry along it, looking for an opening or a way up and over, but he quickly realized that they had ended up in the bowl of some small canyon. The only way out was back the way he came or up sheer rock formations that Dog couldn’t climb and he would have a hard time of.
Daryl crashed back through the underbrush but as he neared the highway again his heart dropped into his stomach. The herd. They were circling on the highway and he could hear the raspy whispering more clearly than ever.
Find. Kill. Kill. Circle. Circle. Wait. Find him. Daryl signaled for Dog to back up and he started to shrink back more deeply into the brush. And it was right then, at the worst possible time, that Dog yelped. A sharp stick had punctured into his paw.
The whispering rose to an entirely new volume, like white noise or blaring static, and the herd’s movement again became deliberate. They started to move ahead, straight toward him.
