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~
Just like every lock’s got to have a key, every river flows looking for the sea. – Neal McCoy
~
“We need to find Daryl,” Rick says, like that’s all there is to it.
There aren’t any should we’s or could we’s—just a simple statement of fact, because like once before at Woodbury, finding Daryl is the priority.
It’s only been short days since he and Carl have been reunited with Michonne after the prison fell, but already Rick feels like something’s missing. Like he’s a puzzle piece adrift without another to lock him into place. A heartbeat without an answering rhythm. Like the other half of his whole, the part of his soul where Daryl’s hollowed out a space for himself, is just gone.
“We’re not going back to the prison,” Carl says, his expression flat. Something coils tight in Rick’s chest at that, because there should be light in those eyes, and joy, but all he sees reflected back at him now is truth and reality, all of it hard and cold and none of it kind.
“If anybody else made it out, it’d be him,” says Rick. He won’t let himself remember the baby-softness of Judith’s curls, or the feeling of her chubby fingers wrapped around his. The warmth of her small, hiccupping breaths against his chest.
But Daryl—Daryl’s not a fool’s hope, he knows it.
“You don’t know that,” Carl snaps. “You don’t know anything. What if we’re just wasting our time? What if he’s one of them now, huh? A Walker? Can you put him down?” His hat’s been knocked askew by the force of his anger and his trembling both, showing just how afraid he is that what he’s saying is true. “Can you?”
Michonne throws Carl a look, like he’s gone too far, and Carl at least has the grace to look ashamed at his outburst, but he doesn’t back down, and he doesn’t take back what he’s said.
Rick won’t let his shoulders slump the way he feels like they do. “Michonne found us,” he says simply. “Maybe Daryl can too. Or we’ll find him.”
Michonne, who’s been characteristically quiet until now, speaks. “We’ll look for Daryl,” she says, as if it’s a foregone conclusion. “If we don’t find him in three days, we move on.” She looks toward Rick for affirmation, and it’s funny how even now, everyone still looks to Rick for direction. Turns to him, consciously or not, for him to give the final word on a matter.
Rick blinks hard, thinking fast. Three days. It’ll be eight if he counts the days since the prison. Of course Daryl could make it for eight; he’d survived for even longer before, tracking game far into the woods. “Yeah,” Rick says, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Three days.” Wonders why not four or five or six, because he would keep looking, keep searching for Daryl forever, if he could.
“It’ll be harder to pick up his trail once we’re past the three-day mark,” Michonne explains, as if she can see the agonizing thought process Rick’s going through. “And that’s only if Daryl wants to be found.”
Rick’s hard-pressed to agree, but even he can see the logic of that. Three days, he allows himself to plan for, knowing he’ll bend, he’ll break, and find a way to stretch it into more.
They take what supplies they need and leave the suburbs behind them, because Rick knows Daryl’s not meant for airy houses, or picket fences, or neatly manicured lawns. If they want even half a hope of finding him, they’ll have to take to the woods—a place that’s always been Daryl’s domain.
~
You can’t track worth shit, Daryl had said to Rick once, after Rick led them into a small Walker herd, thinking he’d latched onto the trail of buck with an injured leg. Can’t hunt worth a damn, either.
His words had been fond and amused, but as Rick, Carl, and Michonne continue making their way through the woods, finding their way back to the prison, Rick’s forced to admit Daryl was right in his assessment, brutally honest as it was.
He’d wanted to try anyway, because it’s Daryl, and Rick needs him. He’s the one who’s always got Rick’s back, deadly and dangerous in a way all his own, but isn’t afraid to pull Rick’s moral compass true north again when Rick’s veered off course.
They don’t find Daryl in three days, or four or five or six. What tracks they do find—found mostly by Michonne who’d quickly agreed with Daryl’s assessment of Rick’s tracking skills—end with scenes of slaughter and scattered remnants of dead Walkers or dead once-survivors.
Rick takes comfort in the fact that Daryl’s not among either the Walkers or the dead.
They’ve wandered closer to the main road now, following it out to another set of houses to search for food, when a truck rolls up, bulky and noisy and meaning all kinds of business, and stops with a harsh gust of exhaust.
“That’s some skill y’got with a tire iron there,” says the driver, jumping down from his seat, as he surveys the mess of Walkers that Rick and Michonne have just taken out. He crosses his arms over his chest, and even as he leans against the side of the truck all casual-like, he looks poised to strike at a moment’s notice, everything about him screaming military man, through and through. “What else y’got?”
Rick has to look up to keep his gaze level with the man, but he doesn’t look away, his tire iron still at the ready. “Who’s askin’?”
“Sergeant Abraham Ford,” says the man, marching forward, and he holds out a hand like they’re meant to shake, somehow. Like these social niceties still exist, in a world gone to hell.
Rick takes it, gripping the soldier’s hand with his customary firm grasp, and he can see Abraham likes that, like Rick’s solid, dependable. “Rick,” he says, nodding once. He’s left titles like sheriff’s deputy and officer behind him for now, because it takes more than just a friendly handshake to know someone, and the destruction of his home’s left his trust levels in the gutter.
“That there’s Rosita,” Abraham says, the hard line of his shoulders relaxing a touch as he motions back at the truck, “and that’s Eugene—he’s the scientist. We’re lookin’ for people to come with us on our mission.” He spends a moment taking the measure of Michonne and Carl, before saying, “Y’got a camp? Somewhere y’all came from?”
“We did,” says Rick. It takes every ounce of his willpower not to look back in the direction of the prison, because just the mention of it brings back memories of days in the sun and the restful quiet of his crop fields. Of Daryl sidling up to him as Rick worked, to talk, or toss him a bottle of water, or if he was feeling particularly generous, kisses to hands and mouth and brow. Of how Rick had actually had time to spend with his kids, teaching them things besides how to kill. To survive.
It hadn’t been perfect, not by a long shot, but they’d been comfortable. It’d been enough.
“It was overrun,” Rick says simply.
Abraham makes a sound of commiseration, before he’s sizing them up again, and Rick knows he’s assessing their potential skill sets, seeing if they’re just more mouths to feed or if they’ll actually contribute. It’s not something he can blame the man for, because he’d do the same if their positions were reversed. He watches Abraham’s eyes flick to the Python slung low on Rick’s hip, the way his hand’s resting easy on it, but ready. The way Michonne’s fingers linger within a second away from drawing out her katana again.
Then there’s Carl, a gun holstered on his own hip, eyes narrowed under the brim of his father’s hat. “That your boy?” Abraham says, jerking a nod at him, his stance too relaxed as he turns to Carl. It’s the mistake everyone makes, Rick thinks, underestimating Carl just because he’s young. It’s the last one this group will make, if they try to cross Rick and his family.
Rick nods, small and subtle, a dual meaning in the motion—it’s a signal to Michonne and Carl to be ready in case things go south. Further than they have already, at any rate.
“There any more of you?”
“There was another in our group,” Rick says slowly, and suddenly, his throat’s knotted tight as he speaks, with emotion, and longing, and everything else he hasn’t let himself think about until now. “Got separated when our camp was overrun. We’re lookin’ for him now.” He thinks of chestnut-dark hair and eyes the blue of the Chattahoochee in spring, but these aren’t people he knows, and this isn’t a poetry class. “Brown hair, blue eyes. Carries a crossbow,” Rick says instead. “You seen him?”
Abraham only shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Who is he to you?”
Rick looks this heavyset, muscled man in the eye—this living embodiment of all features masculine—and says without missing a beat, “He’s my husband.”
For a moment Rick’s wondering how he’s gone from He’s one of our group, more or less to this, before realizing there’s nothing to wonder about at all. Even if they’ve only shared kisses and cuddles and soft, cautious I love you’s, Rick’s sure Daryl won’t mind the sentiment, and he’d been meaning to bring it up with Daryl—meaning to, but the timing wasn’t right, or the mood wasn’t right—then the prison had fallen, and nothing’s been right ever since.
They’d never been able to have the conversations of what are we and what do you want to be, even if Rick’s got a good idea of what Daryl’s answers will be to both.
Abraham, for his part, doesn’t do an immediate double take, but he stares and stares, eyes flicking from Rick to Carl, to Rick again, before he decides to leave well enough alone. Like he doesn’t want to touch on the dynamics of how Carl and Rick and Daryl work.
From beside Rick, Michonne and Carl give him the most incredulous looks: the furrow in Michonne’s brow says everything from when did this happen to never mind when, did you even talk to Daryl about this, while Carl just looks faintly ill and his bug-eyed expression says wait, what the even fuck.
“Ain’t seen no one since…” Abraham says eventually, before he closes his eyes and draws a hard breath. “Since,” he says simply.
Rick’s begun entertaining a wild thought somehow, of commanding this group to help his family, in return for help on this ‘mission’ of theirs. They’ve got a working vehicle, decent manpower, and what looks like a healthy collection of guns in the back. But these people, with their armoured military truck, could just as easily knock them on their asses and leave them for dead.
“Please,” he finds himself saying, instead. “We need your help. We need to find him.”
Michonne and Carl gape at Rick like he’s lost his mind, because it’s unheard of for Rick to beg, to plead with total strangers for help like this—not since Atlanta, or the farm. Wasn’t it only a moment ago he’d been signalling them to get ready to fight, if need be?
“We need to find him,” Rick forges ahead, ignoring their stares. He’s not sure the other man’s entirely convinced, and thinks to mention that Daryl’s good at hunting, for procuring food, just anything to get help to find him. “You said you needed people?” Rick tries. “He’s the one who—”
“You’re wastin’ your time,” Abraham cuts in, shaking his head. “He’s gone.”
Something about that makes Rick ball his hands into fists, because Daryl’s never been a waste of time, even if so many people around him have said so at some point. He’s not a waste of time, and he’s not gone, and if Rick has to burn down all of Georgia to find him, face a hundred Governors just to take on another thousand Walkers, he’ll do it.
“Not Daryl,” Rick says, adamant. “He’s alive.” Rick swallows, hard. “He’s out there. I know it.”
“Daryl, huh,” says Abraham. He looks back at the truck, the back of it empty, like it’s made for fitting more passengers, more comrades. “Well,” he says, after a moment’s thought, “we’ll need people for what we’re doin’. Got anywhere else to go for now?”
Rick shares a look with Michonne and Carl, and shakes his head.
“Get in, then,” Abraham grunts. “We’ll find your damn husband on the way.” He laughs, a low rumble like thunder rolling in from a distance, as he glances at Rick getting into the back of the truck, after Michonne and Carl. “Just don’t be neckin’ in my truck when we do. Eugene here’s got a weak stomach.”
Along the way, Abraham shares what he can of their mission—something about heading to DC to get the scientist of their group there, and savin’ the whole damn world—but Rick’s barely listening to his chatter. He’s not thinking of the world, or the country, or even the state of Georgia, for that matter. Just thinks of Daryl, Daryl, Daryl, each bump of the truck along the Walker-infested road another bump closer to finding him.
He’ll find his Daryl this way—at least, in the truck, they’ll cover more ground. Ground north of the prison, maybe as far as Atlanta. Perhaps even beyond that.
It’s as good an idea as any, and Rick hunkers down in the truck, to count the minutes and miles back home to Daryl, wherever he might be.
~
Except, of course, everything goes down in a spectacular shitstorm after that.
The truck breaks down after they’re ambushed by a herd. And the promise of a safe haven on the train tracks back, a place for them to rest and resupply before Rick begins his search anew, ends with them being crammed into a boxcar at Terminus, like sardines waiting to be fished out for the day’s meal.
There’s only one silver lining to all of this, and it happens when Rick steps into the boxcar they’re herded into; it’s a quiet rasp of “Rick. Rick,” followed by a shape barrelling out of the shadows to wrap arms around him, warm and familiar and safe.
He can just make out the silhouettes of Glenn and Maggie and a friend of theirs in the far corner, but Daryl’s here, filling his space, his thoughts, the very air he breathes, and there’s no room for anyone else right now.
“Missed you,” Rick manages, his voice rough from the knot of emotion forming in his throat. “Missed you.” He buries his face in Daryl’s neck. Slips fingers through Daryl’s hair, soft and warm and light, just touching and touching, because he’s been without Daryl for so long and he’s needed him like air, like the sun above, and ground beneath his feet. Wants to kiss him, hard, to know that Daryl’s here, that he’s not another mirage, but he’s not sure Daryl wants it, not in front of people he doesn’t know.
But then Daryl’s carding fingers through Rick’s hair, nails catching on rough curls as he strokes and pets like he’s never touched before. Like he hasn’t done this a million times, like Rick being here is a marvel, a wonder. So Rick steals a small one, a gentle press of lips to Daryl’s temple, to say I’m here, I’m here, and thank god, so are you. Revels in the kiss that Daryl brushes to his ear in return, small and sweet and subtle.
He’d held out the wildest hope that Daryl might be here at Terminus, and now, his search is over.
From a shaft of sunlight peeking into the boxcar, Rick sees Abraham raise his eyebrows in question. Is that him?
And Rick twitches a nod back in return, but only that, because it’s Daryl, in his arms again, Daryl, who he’s returned to touching and hugging, because he can’t get enough now that Rick has him back.
This is him, Rick thinks.
He lets his eyes slip shut and breathes in the sweet musk of Daryl’s hair. The scent of earth and woods and all things wild.
This is my Daryl. My Daryl. Mine.
~
It’s after they’ve all introduced themselves and traded what intel they can on the situation, that they reclaim different sections of the boxcar. Huddle close enough for comfort, but just far enough apart for privacy. Rick’s flanked by Daryl on his left, and Michonne and Carl on his right, while Abraham, Rosita and Eugene form a triad in the opposing corner and Glenn, Maggie and Tara cluster together further to their left.
“Well?” Rick says, turning to Daryl, his voice low. “What do you think of ‘em?” Daryl’s the truest judge of character he’s known, and he’d like to know what Daryl thinks of their new companions.
“Your friends’re my friends,” Daryl says, without a moment’s hesitation. He pauses when it looks like Rick’s searching for something more in his assessment. “Seem nice. Think they’re all right.” He shrugs, like that’s his final word on the matter, before adding, “Most of ‘em.”
“Yeah?” says Rick, relieved. They’d helped him find Daryl, even if in a roundabout way, and he finds he breathes a little easier at hearing Daryl’s opinion align with his. Wonders if Daryl’s made friends of his own during the time they were apart. “Where’ve you been until now, anyway?”
Daryl scuffs at the floor of the boxcar with his boot, and his gaze doesn’t meet Rick’s for a moment. “Fell in with another group. Bunch of hunters and bowmen callin’ themselves Claimers.” He shakes his head. “But I didn’t know what they could do. What they were capable of.” He swallows hard, in the way that Rick thinks they must’ve violated Rick’s basic tenets. That their answers to How many people have you killed? Why? are ones he’s better off not knowing.
“I left ‘em, in the end,” Daryl says simply.
From the bruises and cuts on his face, Rick thinks it couldn’t have been easy to part ways. But he figures the circumstances of what happened are something Daryl will tell him about in time, and until then, he won’t push. “How’d you find this place?” Rick asks instead.
It’s a stand-in for the question he really wants to ask, which is Why’d you come here?
“Same as you, probably,” says Daryl. “Saw signs. Group I was with said it was a lie, though.” He jerks a nod at the cold metal crate they’re trapped in. “Guess they were right—ain’t no sanctuary here.” He loops arms around his knees and draws them tight to his chest. Breathes into the space where he’s curled in on himself, like he’s trying to warm his limbs, and Rick reaches out a hand to chafe warmth into Daryl’s shoulder. His thighs. The tear in the leg of his jeans where it looks like blood’s clotting over, dark.
He’s thinking of brushing away the hair that’s fallen into Daryl’s eyes, the way Daryl lets it when he’s hiding, when he doesn’t want people to know how he’s feeling, and his hand’s halfway there when Daryl speaks again. There’s an undeniable edge to his voice now, that Rick can’t quite read.
“Heard you got hitched again,” Daryl says, his voice low, with just a hint of menace.
He’s eyeing Abraham, his gaze suspicious, like he’s either heard the rumour from him, or for some ridiculous reason, suspects Abraham of being Rick’s new beau. Rick remembers Your friends’re all right—most of ‘em and thinks he knows the reason for that qualifier now.
“Yeah,” says Rick, and despite Daryl’s tone and the situation they’re in, a small smile spreads across his face, because he knows exactly where this conversation’s headed.
Daryl narrows his eyes, which for him, means they narrow into this piggy little squint that wrinkles his nose, like he’s found something rather distasteful. It’s a motion Rick finds oddly endearing, though he won’t tell Daryl this, ever—not even on pain of death. “The hell’s that about? Heard you been lookin’ for him, too.” At Rick’s raised eyebrow, Daryl spits out, “Your husband.”
From the looks of things, the others haven’t told Daryl the whole story of Rick’s desperate search. Maybe it’s to let Rick fill the blanks in himself, or it’s their skewed idea of a joke, and though it throws him for a loop, Rick decides to play along. To see where Daryl takes this.
“Yeah,” says Rick again, sidling closer to him in the boxcar. He’s near enough to feel Daryl’s warmth radiating off him, even at each point they’re not touching, and oh, how he’s missed this, missed him. “You heard right.”
Rick bites down on the chuckle threatening to bubble to the surface, because he’s never quite seen Daryl jealous before. It’s riveting somehow, the way Daryl’s eyes flash a dark indigo-blue, so different from his usual denim-warm hue. The way he’s pitched his voice low, menacing, a gravel roughness that stirs the coal of want in Rick’s belly.
By now, Abraham and the others have looked up, obviously listening to this exchange despite desperately focusing elsewhere. Tara’s twiddling her thumbs in a show of feigned innocence, and Abraham and Rosita’s conversation has slowed to a murmured hush. Eugene just stares at them openly, not even bothering to hide his interest. Or confusion.
Glenn and Maggie, who’d been scavenging for scrap pieces of metal or wood to sharpen into spikes, pause in their work and bite back knowing smiles. Meanwhile, Carl rolls his eyes and Michonne just sighs, because they’ve heard lookin’ for my husband enough times to sing the national anthem ten times over before they got here, though Michonne glares at Rick hard enough to get her message across: Get your act together and just tell him.
Daryl’s hackles are raised now, and he looks positively dangerous, lighting the fire in Rick’s belly, igniting the coal of want within him.
“Didn’t know you had time for that,” Daryl says. He flings a pebble he’s found on the floor hard enough at the opposite side of the boxcar to make a loud clang. It narrowly misses Abraham, and Rick thinks it’s intentional somehow, because when Daryl really aims, he doesn’t miss. “Shoulda just left your sorry ass here. Let you take care of your own. Since you got so much time and all to find someone new.” He growls when Rick bumps their shoulders together, nearly claws at him, like a feral cat. “Only came here ‘cause…” Rick hears him swallow in the near dark, the soft click of his throat too loud in the quiet of the boxcar. “’Cause I thought you might be here.”
Rick only hums and presses closer, and while he hears something that sounds very much like an adoring aww from Tara’s direction, he ignores it. There’s a revelation in all of Daryl’s venom, one that’s naked and honest and real, and by the time Rick’s processed it, Daryl’s words catching up with his brain, his next breath stutters in his throat, heart skipping a beat in his chest.
Daryl could’ve made it on his own out there, even if he’d left the group he was with. But despite the early warning signs and dangers Daryl no doubt would’ve caught, that he still came here, for the off chance Rick might be here—that touches something deep in his heart, and Rick has to fight to keep from touching Daryl everywhere, from pressing small, grateful kisses to the cut on his nose, his chapped lips, and winding arms around him, tight, for an embrace into which Rick can throw every ounce of his being.
From saying, You damn fool, you walked straight into the lion’s den just for me.
They’re aligned at thighs and knees and toes by now, and even though Daryl looks like he wants to jerk away, he can’t. Not when Rick’s crowding him into the corner of the boxcar like this, snug. Like they’re two peas in a cold, metal-lined pod. Rick’s made up his mind to tell Daryl everything, a confession that’s just as honest as the one he’s been given, because Daryl should know—about how Rick had searched for him for days, how he’d begged for help from strangers, and how he’d come here for the very same reason as Daryl’s.
He should know, about the utter gladness in Rick’s heart the moment he’d stepped into the boxcar and found Daryl, alive. But Rick’s not sure where to start, or how, and the words won’t come because there’s too much he needs to say, too much love he needs to share, and Daryl deserves only the best of explanations because Daryl is the best man he knows.
Then Daryl’s speaking again, his voice a beacon shining through the fog of thoughts in Rick’s mind, but it’s far too quiet, too small, and vulnerable in a way that breaks Rick’s heart.
“Did you find him, then?” Daryl says. “S’he here?” There’s something suddenly resigned about the way he asks, that makes Rick think it’s time to give up this charade right now, because Daryl sounding this lost, this hopeless, hurts, and Rick doesn’t want to be the cause of it. Not ever.
“Yeah,” says Rick again, gently. And this time, he’s slipped his fingers through Daryl’s to wind their hands together, warm. Leans in to touch a kiss to Daryl’s cheek, his bruised eye, and the corners of his mouth, soft and sweet and slow. He’s surprised Daryl doesn’t protest the kisses, before recognizing Daryl’s needed this reassurance, needed to hear this from Rick, so he adds another kiss, then another, each hotter and hungrier than the last, for good measure. “Found him,” Rick grins. “Right here.”
“Oh.” He can see the moment Daryl realizes, really sees what he means, from the slow-spreading smile that tugs the corners of his mouth. The cherry flush that’s coloring his cheeks. And even though he looks puzzled and lost in an entirely different way—the arch of his brow saying Damn, Rick, you shoulda talked to me about it first and his half-shrug saying I’m fine with this, I guess—all he says for now is, “Good.” Cups the back of Rick’s neck and surges forward for a kiss that’s greedy and messy and all kinds of possessive. “Good,” Daryl says again, fiercer this time. “I’m glad.”
They hear sighs of fuckin’ finally echoing from all corners of the boxcar, leading Rick to believe that they’d had a bigger audience than he thought, but Rick can’t bring himself to care, because Daryl’s kissing him again, his mouth warm and sweet against Rick’s and there’s no room for anything else in his mind after that.
Rick knows they’ll have to talk about this, about how to get out of here, and everything else in between.
But for one lovely, quiet moment, he has Daryl back in his arms and Rick can finally think again, breathe again, just be again.