Delilah Dixon - OC Introduction
a tie in with erase me (glenn rhee) on wattpad and ao3
“Act kindly, be gentle, go softly.”
Character
overview of delilah's character, including personality, appearance and past.
ᥫ᭡. Overview
delilah rose dixon grew up in a trailer park close to the appalachian mountains, as the youngest and only daughter of will dixon and her mother, olivia caldwell, who she never met. she was the product of a very fast paced and quick to end relationship between her middle aged father and a very young waitress at a diner he was at during a bender. nine months later, will dixon was called to the hospital to pick up his daughter after olivia left her behind, and he took her home to her two half brothers, merle and daryl dixon. when she is twenty two years old, the apocalypse hits and she escapes atlanta with her brothers and finds a small camp near the quarry where she finally feels like she has found a home.
ᥫ᭡. Appearance
delilah is played by american actress maude apatow
she has light brown and naturally straight, fine hair. as a child, her hair was a lighter blonde that eventually darkened despite her daily exposure to the sun. unlike her half-brothers, delilah has hazel eyes that often look both brown and green in different lights. they are similar to the sights of the woods she grew up in, flashes of brown and green like the trees she spent so much of her childhood running through. she is around average height, and her smile is so big that it lights up her entire face.
delilah has a few scars around her arms, torso and legs from the abuse she sustained from her father as a teenager. they are well hidden and she prefers to cover them up.
ᥫ᭡. Personality
delilah is a kind and considerate girl, finding comfort in softness and the smallest joys in the world. as a small child, she would stay awake at night making gifts for her brothers with anything she could find. usually, she made bracelets and crowns with the flowers that she gathered from the woods, which they would accept when she was very young.
delilah is a free spirit who spends all of her free time in the woods surrounding the trailer park. she had next to no adult supervision, but she still didn't choose to stray far from home. she loves being in nature, finding flowers to take home and bonding with the wild bunnies, even trying to find deer to talk with. as she grew up and her dad's abuse started getting worse, it became delilah's solace.
ever since she was a baby, delilah has been sensitive. she is quick and easy to tears, something that comes as a disappointment to her father. when he would take her older brothers out hunting, delilah would cry for the animals that they killed and brought home, especially the bunnies that she loved so dearly. after an incident with their father where he punished delilah for crying, merle and daryl vowed to never hunt a bunny and bring it home again. daryl keeps this promise even years after the apocalypse broke out.
while delilah's trauma is different from her brothers, her father still abused her in many ways. when she was very young, it wasn't as bad, seeing as she was a toddler and the only girl of the family. once the novelty of her existence wore off, her father began to get angry at the smallest things she did, expecting her to be seen and not heard and wanting her to act like how he expected women to act. when she could not fulfill his expectations, he would get violent. this impacted delilah a lot and she became reserved and kept to herself, which only got worse once her brothers left and hardly found time to come back, leaving her alone in that house.
however, despite all of this, delilah has maintained a hopeful attitude. she never knew her mother, but still wrote letters to her every single week that she never found the courage to send. she would pray that her brothers - who despite their redneck appearances and attitude truly loved her - would come back for her and take her away. this is naive thinking, since delilah never considered that living alongside them, constantly moving from place to place and around dangerous people, would be just as bad for her as living with her father where she could at least roam free in the woods. delilah has always had hope that things would get better, counting on her vivid dreams of what her future could look like to get her by. in this way, she is a romantic.
delilah grew up lonely but always wished to experience love like the characters in the books she'd read in the library, always stuck daydreaming in her own head about a life where she is swept off her feet and will never have to remember the horrors of her childhood again.
ᥫ᭡. Past
nine months before delilah was born, will dixon left home to go on a week long bender in atlanta. his oldest son merle was doing a stint in juvy, leaving his youngest son, daryl, alone. he met a young waitress named olivia caldwell and the two of them had an affair before he returned home to the trailer park, never to speak to her again.
on a sunny night in june, will dixon was called to the hospital where baby delilah was waiting for him. olivia had added his name to the birth certificate and left her behind, leaving will no choice but to take her home to his trailer, where her half-brothers live.
as she grows into toddlerhood, delilah became a smiley and happy child who idolises her older brothers. at the age of two, she hasn't quite realised the reality of her situation. she spends a lot of time trailing a seventeen year old daryl around the trailer park despite its dangers, and sometimes on very rare occassions, merle will give her piggyback rides all the way home. her first few years of life are spent a lot safer, untouched from her father's abuse and just seen as the small little girl she was.
she first ran into problems with her father when she turned six and began getting attached to the animals she spent hours with in the woods. she would cry for them when will, daryl and merle went out hunting and returned home with dinner, especially when they killed the bunnies she loves so dearly. the first time she did it, she wept openly and ended up getting hit for it. as she grows up, will expects her to keep her opinions to herself and take care of herself. however, daryl and begrudgingly merle vowed to never kill a rabbit again just for her.
when delilah started attending school, she was excited to finally meet some kids outside of the scary older kids who would taunt her around the trailer park. but the kids at school had already been warned by their parents to stay away from her because of her family, leading to her often eating lunch alone and doing her homework assignments in the library. she instead found solace in the small moments of happiness she could find, especially with her older brothers, who were getting louder and would struggle more often against their father. she spent the majority of her free time in the woods, but would occasionally walk to the market where the old ladies who ran the stalls would feel sorry for her and let her sit with them for a few hours.
when delilah was eight years old, merle and daryl left the trailer park for good. she didn't know it at the time, but they would move around from place to place, causing trouble and holing up wherever they could become it was better than staying at home. merle had already done this thousands of time in the past, but this time he took daryl with him and left delilah in the trailer with their father alone. they would be around if she ever needed to find them, but they hardly stepped foot in the trailer again. because of this, will dixon's anger and violence as a result of his drinking was purely focused on delilah, and her abuse got much worse. later on in life, daryl was never able to forgive himself for that.
when she could get him on a good day, delilah would ask her father questions about her mother and he would answer as honestly as he could, but nothing could ever quench delilah's curiousity and belief that if her mother had taken her home that night of her birth, her life would've been so much better. she starts to write letters to her mother that she never sends, dreaming of this reality.
delilah studies her way through elementary, middle and high school hoping to get herself into nursing school so that she can get out of the trailer park for good. she gets the best grades she can, staying late until the school librarian kicked her out to keep her grades up. she gets into nursing school but not on a scholarship, meaning she would have to defer for a couple of years to pay for the tuition herself. she finds herself a job at the florist in town and manages to finally move out of the trailer park at just nineteen, scraping her way through with the bare minimum just to escape her father.
Family and Friends
the people delilah is closest with. contains spoilers for chapters that are currently out and future chapters.
ᥫ᭡. Glenn Rhee
glenn rhee is the first person delilah ever grew close to outside of her own family, the first person to ever accept her for who she is, and not for who her family is. delilah found solace in glenn from the day they met. when he would go on supply runs, glenn would look for things to make delilah happy, such as a little brown bunny plushie after she told him she's never had a stuffed animal before. they both fell in love hard and fast, developing a soft and gentle relationship that changed them both for the better. their love is young and simple, becoming exactly what delilah needed after a lifetime of abuse and abandonment from her father.
ᥫ᭡. Daryl Dixon
daryl is closest to delilah out of everyone in her family. when she was a young child, he would give her piggybacks and allow delilah to follow him around the trailer park like a little duckling. when daryl grew older and decided to leave home with merle, he left delilah behind, something he will regret for the rest of his life. daryl sees delilah in everything soft; in the rabbits he won't kill because of her sensitivity, in the flowers that bloom even through the apocalypse, in people like beth greene who change him for life and become his second chance he never got to make things right with his baby sister.
ᥫ᭡. Merle Dixon
merle has always loved delilah, but he was never able to show his love in any way she would understand. he left when she was very young, never seeing her in the woods the way daryl would, and even after the apocalypse, removed himself from ever bonding with her again. their relationship will always be complicated, especially once glenn became involved with delilah.
ᥫ᭡. Amy Harrison
amy and delilah are the only girls relatively close in age in the quarry camp, so they became pretty close friends. delilah has never experienced friendship before, and finds herself drawn to amy's carefree personality. when amy loses her life in a walker attack, delilah is devastated.
ᥫ᭡. Will Dixon
delilah's father never truly wanted her. he was left with her after her mother fled from the hospital following her birth, and didn't spend a lot of time trying to raise her. as she grew older, will grew tired of her, often taking out his anger on her because her brothers weren't home and she was the only one there. will cost delilah her childhood, something priceless that she will never get back.
Plot
a summary and recap of events that happen in delilah's life during the story. contains spoilers for chapters that are currently out and chapters coming in the future - do not read if you plan to read the fic.
ᥫ᭡. Erase Me
delilah's story opens on her living her daily life as a twenty two year old woman living on the outskirts of atlanta. she is spending the evening in her apartment when she gets a call from the hospital that her father has taken a fall. she is kind and generous, and despite everything in her urging to hang up the phone, delilah leaves to pick him up and take him home. she does just that, leaving shortly after dropping him off with two broken legs from a night out drinking.
a couple of days later, the idea of her father unable to get out of the trailer plays desperately on her mind, and against her better judgement yet again, she drives to the store and picks up a couple of groceries for him. however, when she arrives at the trailer, far away from any other civilisation, she finds her father dead and turned into a monster that she can't explain. just as her father is about to lunge at her, an arrow shoots through the air and hits him right between the eyes. daryl and merle had come back to save her, explaining that there was some sort of epidemic going around.
the three of them travel through the cover of the woods, trying to figure out their next steps. within a day or two, they discover a camp set up nearby a large quarry, reclusive enough that walkers could be kept out. while merle and daryl were planning to wait it out and rob the place for all it had, delilah found herself drawn to the camp and the people living there.
delilah grows closest to two people at the camp. one of them is amy harrison, who becomes her best friend. the two of them exchange stories and bond over their struggles to adapt to life without society. the other is glenn rhee, who never fails to make delilah's stomach do flips in his presence.
delilah and glenn fall in love quickly, spending every day together. they would go on dates by the quarry, kiss under the water and have splash fights, hold hands over the fire at night. one time when glenn was on a supply run, he found her a stuffed brown bunny and brought it back as a gift, and she fell for him even harder. her brothers watched all this happen from a distance, finding it strange to see their baby sister so happy. however, merle was still convinced that they had to rob the place and get out.
merle never gets the chance. he goes missing on the rooftop and before delilah even has a chance to grieve, walkers attack the camp and kill amy right in front of her. she clings onto glenn for a day and a half following the attack, her eyes glimmering with tears everytime she thought about the loss of her friend.
the group don't leave the camp right away, and while delilah is staring at the site of graves, she decides that she wants to do something to help the group, which she has grown attached to. she begs glenn to let her go on a supply run with him, and after a lot of convincing, glenn agrees.
but something goes terribly wrong. they're both distracted, they don't notice a lone walker creeping up behind them. before either of them can make a move, it grabs delilah and bites her shoulder. glenn can do nothing but hold onto her as she dies, begging her to stay with him and listening to her final words as he sobs. he forces himself to take her out once she passes, picking her up and taking her home one last time.
when daryl realises his baby sister is dead, he is shattered, overwhelmed by regret and grief and horror. glenn is never the same, losing the girl he loves so violently and completely blaming himself. merle doesn't find out about delilah's death until he catches up with andrea, and he blames glenn and seeks out his revenge.
ᥫ᭡. Protect Me - Delilah Lives Au
protect me is an au in the works where delilah doesn't die from a walker bite, and lives all the way through the show.
introduction to protect me (in the works)
ᥫ᭡. Teenage Au
oneshot series exploring an au where glenn and delilah knew one another as teenagers, currently in the works
Resources
where you can find more about delilah and her story
you can read erase me on wattpad here.
you can read erase me on ao3 here.
