[fic] Let the Fire Burn
Title: Let the Fire Burn
Author: badboy_fangirl
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters/Pairings: Daryl POV; Daryl/Beth; with appearances by Carol, Rick & Glenn.
Word Count: ~800
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Spoilers through 5x01.
Summary: This is a coda to 5x01.
Author's notes: I genuinely thought I'd be done with these two after my all-hiatus writing for them, but then the season five premiere happened, and I'm just as addicted as ever. This show is so good. SO GOOD.
Finding Rick, Michonne, and Carl had been one thing.
A coincidence.
A light in the dark.
A moment, where he saved just as much as he was saved.
Necessary. Important. Two points converging at the exact right spot.
But then there was a train car filled with Glenn, Maggie, Bob, and Sasha.
Then there was Carol.
The whole fucking world just stops spinning. It's a minute, a second, maybe a split second. Maybe it's no time at all between his eyes landing on someone he knew he'd never see again and the realization that when he told Maggie she was alive, he'd really meant it.
Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith, she snarks in his head.
Goddamn, she was so full of spit and piss and vinegar. When he looks back on it, he thinks he loved her all along.
(He knows he didn't. But still. Why did it take him so long to see her? To really fucking see her?)
If Carol could find them, save their asses literally from extinction, and lead them back to Little Asskicker, how could the other be impossible?
The mantra she's alive, she's alive, she's alive is real. The possibilities are endless.
He just has to fucking find her.
He doesn't go to Rick. You'd think he would. But no.
He goes to Carol. He tells her what needs to be done.
Carol never even hesitates when she responds. She just asks, "When do we leave?"
The things that flash before your eyes when you think you're gonna die are really fucking weird.
When he went on runs when they were living at the prison, he usually didn't have the flashes in the moment; there was too much stabbing Walkers in the head and yelling at everybody to run for there to be moments of clarity. They came later, when he was alone, or when he stood in her cell and tried to tell her he was sorry, but instead she hugged him.
At the pig trough, clarity is all he has. It surprises him how much of it is her. How all of his panting breaths are clinging to the thought that he'll never get to tell her that he found their family. How she was right; how he was wrong.
How he misses her so bad, now that she's gone.
Very quickly, though, it changes. It becomes kill or be killed the way it used to be, and running, and keeping Glenn from doing something stupid because he's still trying to be good. These people were gonna chop them into little pieces, but this isn't just run for your life...it's rescue people along the way.
So, they try, they really do. And they get their people out, and let's face it, that's all Daryl really cares about. That's all he's ever cared about, even when he couldn't say it.
(She'd said it for him.)
Outside the fence, standing there trying to catch his breath while Rick digs up their guns, he hears the tension in everyone's voice. These new people are gonna have to get used to Rick's way. Glenn and Maggie are gonna have to remember.
Daryl already knows who he'll follow to the ends of the earth. They'll either get on board, or they'll die. He's not too concerned about it, to be honest.
And then there are footsteps. He sees Carol, and the world just spins a little faster.
It's funny how two chapters of his life begin anew with fire. Both started by women who he let in, just enough. Just enough, until they cracked him open so he can't go back.
"Where do we start looking?" Carol asks.
Daryl tells her about how far he ran, where the fork in the road occurred, how Joe and his guys provided a wrong choice that he just hadn't been strong enough not to make.
"Then we go back," she says. "We go back, and we choose the other way."
Daryl writes a note, pins it to Judith's shirt so Rick will see it in the morning. He tells him, You don't have to come, but I have to go.
He and Carol head out before first light. As the sun slowly filters over them, flooding the path with illuminating, eye-piercing direction, he lets himself think about it more.
He lets himself say her name. "We're gonna find Beth; somehow, I just know it."
Carol reaches over and squeezes his arm. "I have no doubt we'll find her," she says, her eyes determined.
Faith, it seems, is an all-consuming fire.
Author: badboy_fangirl
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters/Pairings: Daryl POV; Daryl/Beth; with appearances by Carol, Rick & Glenn.
Word Count: ~800
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Spoilers through 5x01.
Summary: This is a coda to 5x01.
Author's notes: I genuinely thought I'd be done with these two after my all-hiatus writing for them, but then the season five premiere happened, and I'm just as addicted as ever. This show is so good. SO GOOD.
Finding Rick, Michonne, and Carl had been one thing.
A coincidence.
A light in the dark.
A moment, where he saved just as much as he was saved.
Necessary. Important. Two points converging at the exact right spot.
But then there was a train car filled with Glenn, Maggie, Bob, and Sasha.
Then there was Carol.
The whole fucking world just stops spinning. It's a minute, a second, maybe a split second. Maybe it's no time at all between his eyes landing on someone he knew he'd never see again and the realization that when he told Maggie she was alive, he'd really meant it.
Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith, she snarks in his head.
Goddamn, she was so full of spit and piss and vinegar. When he looks back on it, he thinks he loved her all along.
(He knows he didn't. But still. Why did it take him so long to see her? To really fucking see her?)
If Carol could find them, save their asses literally from extinction, and lead them back to Little Asskicker, how could the other be impossible?
The mantra she's alive, she's alive, she's alive is real. The possibilities are endless.
He just has to fucking find her.
He doesn't go to Rick. You'd think he would. But no.
He goes to Carol. He tells her what needs to be done.
Carol never even hesitates when she responds. She just asks, "When do we leave?"
The things that flash before your eyes when you think you're gonna die are really fucking weird.
When he went on runs when they were living at the prison, he usually didn't have the flashes in the moment; there was too much stabbing Walkers in the head and yelling at everybody to run for there to be moments of clarity. They came later, when he was alone, or when he stood in her cell and tried to tell her he was sorry, but instead she hugged him.
At the pig trough, clarity is all he has. It surprises him how much of it is her. How all of his panting breaths are clinging to the thought that he'll never get to tell her that he found their family. How she was right; how he was wrong.
How he misses her so bad, now that she's gone.
Very quickly, though, it changes. It becomes kill or be killed the way it used to be, and running, and keeping Glenn from doing something stupid because he's still trying to be good. These people were gonna chop them into little pieces, but this isn't just run for your life...it's rescue people along the way.
So, they try, they really do. And they get their people out, and let's face it, that's all Daryl really cares about. That's all he's ever cared about, even when he couldn't say it.
(She'd said it for him.)
Outside the fence, standing there trying to catch his breath while Rick digs up their guns, he hears the tension in everyone's voice. These new people are gonna have to get used to Rick's way. Glenn and Maggie are gonna have to remember.
Daryl already knows who he'll follow to the ends of the earth. They'll either get on board, or they'll die. He's not too concerned about it, to be honest.
And then there are footsteps. He sees Carol, and the world just spins a little faster.
It's funny how two chapters of his life begin anew with fire. Both started by women who he let in, just enough. Just enough, until they cracked him open so he can't go back.
"Where do we start looking?" Carol asks.
Daryl tells her about how far he ran, where the fork in the road occurred, how Joe and his guys provided a wrong choice that he just hadn't been strong enough not to make.
"Then we go back," she says. "We go back, and we choose the other way."
Daryl writes a note, pins it to Judith's shirt so Rick will see it in the morning. He tells him, You don't have to come, but I have to go.
He and Carol head out before first light. As the sun slowly filters over them, flooding the path with illuminating, eye-piercing direction, he lets himself think about it more.
He lets himself say her name. "We're gonna find Beth; somehow, I just know it."
Carol reaches over and squeezes his arm. "I have no doubt we'll find her," she says, her eyes determined.
Faith, it seems, is an all-consuming fire.