“Who were ya’ before all this?”

The question surprised you, especially because you were asked by Daryl, who is usually not a big speaker. You searched for the right words to describe yourself, but only a few came to your mind: “An empty person, and alone.”

You two went on a side street in search of a still running car with enough gas.

“We’re all alone.”, he answered.

“Yes, but I didn’t notice it at the time, do you know those pretty and always smiling girls?”

“No.”, the man said it with a mixture of disgust and disapproval in the voice that always made you smile.

“Good in sports, in love, in highschool, even in college, I was always the best, at least I was so far that I could skip some classes.”

Daryl cast a questioning look at you. “How old are ya’?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Then not.”

Your question seemed to upset him. “Unfortunately I came from a rich family and despite the success, I was alone.”

“So that they all hated ya’.”

“I think so too, even the girl I am today hates the girl I was, but I also feel sorry for her.”

“And why?”

“Because everything changed when I met you in the prison and it’s thanks to you because I’m different today than I was before, I didn’t do anything to change it, I’m finally filling in my empty life, thanks to you… My family… I lost my mom when I was very young and I never really had a dad, he was only interested in his money and now I have you and the others as a family.”

“Ya’ counting me now to ya’ family too?”, Daryl asked resignedly. In fact, you were alone now and your subconscious repressed how you stood to each other in the beginning.

“Fuck…” You felt a pain in your chest that you could barely stand. It was the sadness that pulled you down, so you took a deep breath to calm yourself. You tried to distract yourself by asking him the same question he asked you: “What about you, who was Daryl Dixon?”

“I was nobody. Nothing.”, he answered softly and in a low voice.

“Come on, you don’t deceive me, you couldn’t be put into a situation worse than mine.”

It took a while for him to react. “My mom died when I ’s a kid, dad acted like I didn’ exist, ‘nd worse… I ran away from home 'nd lived with my brother for the last couple of years.”

You raised your eyebrows and were visibly confused. “In what sense, what made your father so bad?”

Daryl answered after a long pause. “Don’t wanna talk 'bout it, I’ve already told ya’ too much.”

There was a certain amount of embarrassment in you as you went back again to the person you hardly knew. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was such a sensitive topic, I didn’t mean to bother you…”

In a moment between you there was a frosty silence. Nevertheless, you recognized differences in his behavior when you met him. “But you have changed, too.”, you said, breaking the silence.

“How can ya’ say that?”, he replied. In his voice you found an arrogance that reminded you of the first few times in the prison when Daryl turned to you just to show you how much hostility he 'accepted’ within the group. Anyway, he wasn’t wrong with the fact that you didn’t know him well.

“I know nothing about you. The only thing I know is that in the beginning you acted like a real asshole to me, you even threatened to kill me, but then you saved me. I don’t know what made you do it, you could let me die, you could have done it often, but you never did, and you even cried with me, then I’ll just get more convinced that there is something new in you. Something different. Something to love.”, you said, remembering when he talked to you about Judith.

“Shut up!”, he interrupted you. His voice was as cold as ice.

“I just want to say that you are not the asshole you seem to believe in. The truth is that you worry, and that’s why you’re still looking for the others in our group.” Daryl suddenly stood in front of you to look at you. You paused, surprised by his aggressive behavior as he approached your face and reminded you of it when he did it for the first time.

“I told ya’ to shut the fuck up, stop talking 'bout it!” He was so close that you could feel his breath on your skin. Only a few inches away from you. You remained silent and instinctively took a step back, annoyed by him, invading your personal privacy.

“Ya’ don’t know me!”, he hissed with his eyes on the ground. For the first time, you saw him hesitating.

“Repeat it by looking me in the eyes, Daryl Dixon.”, you answered seriously.

His nostrils widened, he was breathing heavily, but his eyes stayed low, looking for a way out of this situation. After a moment he lifted them and looked in yours, his eyes blue and cold, revealing that the past Daryl Dixon hadn’t completely disappeared. “I waste my time lookin’ for the others, 'cause I’m listenin’ to a stupid bitch who thinks she’s still alive 'nd not dead inside!”

His words hit you hard in your face. Not so much for the insulting way he spoke to you, but for what he thought about the other members of the group. “You… Don’t you think they are still alive?”

“Course not! If they’re alive, we would’ve found 'em already, or not?”

Tears began to roll over your face and you couldn’t stop them. You cried, because if Daryl Dixon says that, it means it’s probably true. “So you think that-…” The man interrupted you again. “I don’t think anythin’!”, he blurted out. “All I know ’s that in three days we’ve done nothin’ but wander 'round like idiots lookin’ for people who almost certainly died long ago!” He nervously walked in a circle and shook his arms in your direction as if it was all your fault. “We’re wastin’ energy 'cause of yer ridiculous fantasies! Yer nothin’ more than a sentimental bitch who needs affection!”

Only now did you notice that you fell to your knees on the ground. You stared into the void and cried on, unable to protect yourself from the cruel words of your companion. You thought that if he beat you, it would have probably been less painful. You felt stupid, but most of all you felt alone again.

“We’ve to keep lookin’ for a damn car.”, he ordered.

You wiped your face, wet with tears, with the sleeve of your jacket and sniffled. “I was wrong.”, you said, standing up. Daryl glanced at you before returning to the journey. “'Bout what?”

“You haven’t changed at all.”

Dawn rose as you prepared your things. The trekking backpack that you found during one of the many runs for supplies will from now on be your only travel companion. You filled him with half of the supplies you had and felt too generous with Daryl, who, unlike you, was still able to catch food with his own hands. You put the backpack on your shoulder, ready to go alone. You spent the night in a makeshift camp in the forest, a few hundred yards from the road you were traveling. A tent of a now dead person was your salvation. Now Daryl is hunting and you took this opportunity to go. You couldn’t stay with him anymore, not after what he had told you. You decided that you would be better on your own while looking after the rest of your family. Before you left, you tore a sheet from your notebook and left a message for the rest of the group with a pen.

❝ Middle of September:

I’m looking for you, at least until tomorrow. In the next few days I will start to move on. Alone. I hope to see you soon.

Y/N.❞

You left the note in the tent and knew that Daryl would read it too. But you didn’t care. So you return to the street and look at the map. If you’re not mistaken, you should be about nine or ten kilometers west of the prison, and on this road to the east you should be able to inspect the area north you last wanted to control with Daryl. If you don’t find anyone in the next few days, you will continue marching. You got no idea how long it will take, maybe months, but you’ll go as lame as your legs will carry you. You looked at the camp one last time and before you left, you whisper the farewell words: “Take care, asshole.”

The arc that the sun made in the autumn sky told you that you had already gone several hours. Just when you wanted to stop to take a break, the side of the road opened south to a wide grassy area. Just what you needed to rest with a watchful eye on what surrounded you. You sat on a rock about twenty yards from the road and ate a snack. As you noticed this disgusting taste, you saw a few Walkers coming from the end of the clearing. They also see you and accelerated the pace. You stayed still and waited for them and when they were only a few yards away from you, you pulled out the machete and killed them with little effort by cutting off their heads. On your way, you met other Walkers that were quite far apart so as not to jeopardize your safety. When you thought about how a lonely life wouldn’t be so bad at all, suddenly a wandering, decaying Walker from the forest appeared on the roadside and surprised you. With your arms you tried to push him away, even if it wasn’t so easy. He pushed you to the ground and made you lose your balance. You fell back and hit your head on the asphalt, and your vision began to fill with black dots. You thought it was over now and you were going to die… Your temples throbbed with effort. The Walker above you growled, and into your nose came the smell of death and decay, when suddenly something happened. You did not know what exactly killed the Walker, so you looked at the body above you and you understood: Your hands were in the rest of his neck, which was in an advanced state of decomposition, sunk, from the jaw to the skull. At the moment you touched the brain, hot, wet and sticky. As soon as you recognized the situation in which you found yourself, you repressed the disgust that rose in you. You threw the Walker away from yourself, or at least you thought you did, because right after the wording of that thought, everything around you turned black…