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Breaking Free

Chapter 23

Wake me up, wake me up inside I can't wake up,
Wake me up inside, save me,
Call my name and save me from the dark, wake me up
Bid my blood to run, I can't wake up
Before I come undone, save me
Save me from the nothing I've become.

Evanescence “Bring Me to Life”




Later that night, Daryl laid on the couch in the living room and stared up at the moonlit ceiling. Blake had told him that the couch folded out and the location of the spare sheets in the downstairs linen closet, which sounded a lot more pleasant than sleeping on the slightly scratchy upholstery of the couch, but the task of actually doing anything other than flopping down and going to sleep sounded highly tedious. Hell, it wasn't like he hadn't slept in shittier places, another night on the couch wasn't the worst thing in the world.

After the day he'd had, following Mia from one location to the other all damned day long, the only thing Daryl had wanted to do at bedtime was lay down and rest. However, now that he was stretched out on his bed for the foreseeable future, his mind refused to shut down. Instead, his brain was busy going over every aspect of the day, from being rudely awakened by Mia that morning, all the way to the point in the night when she had bid everyone goodnight and disappeared upstairs with what could only be described as a defeated expression on her face. Even though he was fairly certain he cared nothing for Mia Carter, Daryl couldn't quite get his brain to stop thinking about her.

He wanted to know what had been said between her and Gage that morning, what had caused her to be so angry and upset upon leaving that she had tripped and fallen in the middle of the street while fleeing the man who was screaming at her from his front porch. Curiosity had him aching to know what transpired on the second floor of the home she had led him to afterwards. What had kept her locked away with one of the girls for a solid hour and caused her to come down stairs with reddened cheeks from what he assumed were tears, but the evidence of any waterworks had already been wiped off her face. He wanted to know what went on behind the doors of every house she had dragged him to after that, sequestering him to the front porch while she went inside and did God knows what for the remainder of the day.

He didn't know why he wanted to know, but damned if that desire wasn't there. The curiosity was festering inside of him to the point that he was halfway tempted to march up the stairs and demand she tell him the answers to all the questions in his overly-awake mind. Luckily, sheer stubbornness kept him rooted to the couch. The very last thing he needed was to have Mia Carter think he cared about her. Or, more like it, the very last thing he needed was to develop a care in the world for Mia.

Instead, Daryl continued to lay on the couch, flipping and flopping on the damned furniture in hopes that he could find a position that was comfortable. By the time his mind started to shut down, the sliver of moonlight on the ceiling had shifted from one side of the room to the other, letting him know just how long he had laid awake. Sleep slithered in and closed around him, drooping his eyelids and relaxing his body, but just as the world slipped away for the remainder of the night, a shrill scream filled the air and jerked him upright.

Eyes wide open now, his body alert and awake, Daryl reached for his weapons, before realizing that he had yet to have them returned to him. Grimacing, he poised for attack and listened to his surroundings in order to determine where the scream had come from. A loud thud sounded from upstairs, followed by another howl of pain, that had Daryl off the couch and clamoring up the stairs with little to no thought of what he was going to do once he got up there and confronted who or what was causing the noises.

His bare foot hit the top landing at the same time Mia stumbled from the bedroom on the left, the light from a lantern just inside the open doorway giving away just enough illumination to show what was happening. “The fuck is going on?” He asked, his sleep deprived voice as scratchy as steel wool, as he glanced from the doorway to where Mia was slumped against the wall. Conflicted feelings gave him pause as he tried to decide between helping the woman at his feet off the floor or run blind into the bedroom to face the unknown.

In the end, he had to do neither, as Mia pulled herself up from the floor and shakily headed back across the foyer into the bedroom she had stumbled from. As she stepped across the threshold, the sound that emanated from inside the room sounded like someone was being torn apart and entirely too close to a walker for Daryl's tastes. His mind made up, he reached through the doorway to grab hold of the thin tank top Mia wore and pulled her from the bedroom.

Paying no attention to her angry protests, Daryl inspected the room cautiously, searching for not only the cause of the sounds, but in hopes of finding either a weapon or something that could be used as one. Instead, he found Micah curled up in the middle of the room, lying in the fetal position on top of an old braided rug that had long since seen its better days. Brow furrowed in confusion, Daryl glanced around the room for signs of an intruder, searching the shadow filled corners all the way back around to the open bedroom door where Mia was standing.

That's when Daryl realized that the howls of pain, the screeching sounds of madness, the agonizingly painful screams, were all coming from the figure that lay curled up at his feet. Micah's brother whimpered now, clutching his head and weeping earnestly, a midst the fragments of posters, scattered books and all around general disarray of the bedroom that looked as though a madman had torn it apart. And that's when he remembered Micah's nose bleed and Blake's words about a mystery sickness. Whatever the man was plagued with was tearing him apart from the inside.

Feeling a twinge of sympathy for the man who had been decent enough to him since they had met the night before, despite the way he felt about the man's sister, Daryl turned to Mia and asked, “Where's my bag?”

“Your what?” Mia asked, more than slightly confused by Daryl's question. “Your bag? Shit, I don't know. I've got more things to worry about.” Stepping into the bedroom, she grabbed hold of his arm and ushered him towards the door. “I've got this.”

Outside the now closed door, Daryl cursed and repeated his question with a colorful expletive thrown in, but of course Mia didn't answer him. Not that he blamed her, since he had unfortunately forgotten to add in the reason why he needed his bag. Of course, it had been a while since he had seen the backpack he'd had with him when Mia and Blake had brought him to the compound. By now, the pills he'd gotten from the last house he had stayed at could have already been used up, but there was no harm in checking. Daryl tried the doorknob and wasn't at all surprised to find it locked and raised his fist to knock, when Blake stepped out into the foyer from his bedroom with the backpack in his hand.

“I heard,” Blake started to explain, but opted to just hand over the dirty bag instead. “I didn't go through it much, just found that notebook of yours. Everything else should still be there.”

Daryl knelt on the floor and unzipped the bag, pulling out the few pieces of dirty clothes inside and the knife he had assumed had been taken away from him. He took a moment to shove the knife sheath into his back pocket, before continuing on in his search for the painkillers he assumed were still buried in the bottom. Back when he had found them, he had taken the time to roll the bottles up in the only pair of decently clean socks he still owned, so they wouldn't rattle around when he walked. And, thankfully, they were still where he placed them.

“Pills?” Blake asked, his voice on edge but colored with hope at the sight of the brownish orange pill containers Daryl held in his hand. “Are those painkillers?”

“Yeah, expired a while ago, but should still work. These things don't go bad as quick as you'd think.” Daryl shoved the items he had taken out back into his bag and zipped it back up before standing up with the bag slung over one shoulder. Holding out the bottles, Daryl gestured towards Blake and said, “Give them to her.”

“Why don't you,” Blake started, only to break off when he realized what he was about to ask. The transaction would go over a hell of a lot smoother if the offered items came from Mia's friend, instead of the pain in her ass that was assigned to her couch. Nodding once, causing the disheveled ginger hair that stood on end atop of his head to bounce cartoonishly, Blake took them from Daryl and said, “Thank you. He needs something to get him through the nights.”

Without bothering to reply, Daryl turned and headed back downstairs to his couch and hopefully, a few hours of sleep. Doubtful, but a man could hope.

Once again, he was halfway to the land of slumber, when a sound pulled him back from the edge of sleep. This sound was softer that the noises that had woken him earlier, this was a gentle brush of bare feet against the carpet near the couch, just loud enough to catch his attention. Cracking one eye, Daryl found himself staring at the silhouette of a woman's body, the moonlight now shining through a window at the rear of the house was bright enough to show off Mia's curves as she approached him.

“I, um, I wanted to thank you for the pills,” Mia said in the near dark, her usually husky voice as silky as melted chocolate as she lowered her voice as to not wake the brother she had undoubtedly just gotten to quiet down and rest. “You didn't have to do that, and you did. I appreciate it...Micah will appreciate it.”

“It's what they're there for,” Daryl replied, shrugging off her sentiment as though what he did truly meant nothing at all. In this day and time, any medication was a blessing, much less something that could take away a person's pain, even for a small moment. To give away something like that without expecting anything in return, well, that alone was unheard of and unexpected, especially when it came from someone who butted heads with you nonstop.

“Yeah, well, doesn't mean you had to give it to him,” Mia continued, her voice now thick with the emotions she was trying her best to keep at bay. He could hear her tears in her words, the thickness that sadness caused that no other emotion could manage, and for the second time that day, Daryl had to stop himself from showing Mia just how much a woman's tears upset him.

It was his greatest weakness, or at least to Daryl it was. Years of listening to his mother cry after being beaten by his father had left a mark on his heart as well. For most of his adult life, Daryl had managed to keep that ingrained reaction to a woman's tears under control, but as the years had passed after the outbreak, that control had slipped away with each woman he had grown to care for and the tears they cried. Beth had chipped away at that cold, dead heart of his, Carol had inched inside as well, but Lily had broken down each and every wall, and caused his heartache at the sound and sight of a woman crying to break him down...even if he couldn't stand the woman in question.

Mia sniffled and in the pale light of the room, he saw her lift her hands and wipe them across her face. He watched in silence as she struggled to gain control of her emotions, completely clueless that he was struggling as well, trying to not offer her some type of comfort. She had no idea how relieved he was when she finally dropped her arms and silently left the living room.

“Shit,” Daryl muttered softly to no one but himself, when Mia was back upstairs and he could finally breathe again. As he got settled on the couch once more, Daryl reminded himself for the millionth time the reason he was there and that it was not, under any circumstances, anything to do with forming any type of bond with Mia Carter.

Staring up at the ceiling once more, Daryl reminded himself of that fact over and over until the sky started to wake just outside the window. And, for the first time in a very long time, the woman in his mind as he succumbed to sleep wasn't Lily and when he would realize that upon waking, his heart would break just a little bit more.

Notes

Thank you so much for the comments last week! :) I am at work, super busy and couldn't watch tonight's episode. Waiting on pins and needles for the reshow later tonight. Eep!

Comments

@Serenity
I look forward to it....always was one of my favourite stories on Fan fiction.

Lewis Lewis
6/5/18

@lewis7


Glad to see you under any name! Thanks so much for all the comments! I am hoping that my muse shows back up, so I can write some more. I have had some ideas about writing short, one shot stories with Sam and Daryl from Need You Now. There were several scenes I had sketched out that didn't make it into the actual story, so I would like to write them out and post them if muse cooperates.

Serenity Serenity
4/25/18

Back to signing in as Lewis 7 as mel2a has stopped working!!
Love this story and really going to miss it and your brilliant Daryl story telling.
Will keep an eye out for you for future stories.
Thank you for your stories and writing talent.
xx

lewis7 lewis7
4/22/18

@Arubaredx


I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for commenting and good luck with the move!

Serenity Serenity
4/19/18

In the middle of packing to move so everything is crazy, but managed to finally catch up on your final chapter:) A very joyful ending, and very deserved for them too. Very much enjoyed this journey.

Arubaredx Arubaredx
4/18/18