Perfect Storm || Daryl Dixon

29: the sun sets and hell rises

"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose." - The 12th Doctor

--)->

Erin decided not to mention to Daryl that she'd barely put any power behind that punch, figuring she'd injured his ego enough already. If he'd been aware of the training she'd undertaken in high school for kick boxing during a long summer vacation, perhaps he would have been a little more apprehensive about provoking her. 

Perhaps not since he was a Dixon - Merle had always seemed willing to fight anything that moved.

As he didn't want to explain the bruising to the others just yet while he tried to piece his pride back together, they had continued walking round to the back door of the house and were currently sat on the step in silence.

"That make us even?" Daryl surprised her by being the first to break the peace, "I pissed you off and made ya stay here when ya coulda left, so you get to throw a punch? That sorta thing?"

"I suppose so..." she sighed, picking at the dried bits of blood that had splattered on her knuckles, "Don't think I would've left anyway... I think I'm accepting being in a group is safer..."

"Safer 'til somethin' we can't handle happens..." he muttered in reply, looking over the barn to where the sun was setting, splaying a masterpiece of colours across the heavens.

She followed his gaze, trying to figure out what he meant but deciding not to question him. She'd already put the guy through enough today, he deserved some quiet time to watch the sunset if that was what he wanted.

From back towards the yard out front, she could once again hear loud voices, seemingly T-Dog's and Dale's. By the sounds of it, T-Dog was feeling better after taking whatever was in those pills, but she knew he would need stitches - if she hadn't ran off into the trees when it had happened, she would have sewed him up at the roadside. She supposed she'd have to talk to him about it once night fell and hopefully tensions fell with it.

"Erin!" Hershel's voice cut through her thoughts, muffled by how far she was from the front of the house, but still audible. Daryl heard it, too.

"Better go and see what he wants," he seemed to see the hesitation in her eyes, "I'll be fine... Might take Carol back down to the woods 'cross the fields. Try one last time before dark..."

"Be careful," she warned, smiling as he waved her away, getting to his feet and lugging his crossbow back onto his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, go on..." he shook his head at her, but there was a hint of a smile on his busted lip, "Remember, I fell, alright?"

"Whatever." Erin straightened up as she watched him head back towards the yard, the colours from the sky reflecting slightly on the worn leather of his vest. Pulling her jacket back over her shoulders, she felt a bit of a chill in the air now that Daryl - who seemed to radiate heat - had left her side. She turned and ducked inside through the back door. Maybe she should just keep him around as a heater...

She did her best to navigate the house backwards, finding her way to the front room once again where Hershel, Patricia, Rick and Lori were crowded around Carl's still motionless body. Patricia looked up as she walked in, nudging Hershel's shoulder with her elbow.

"Ah, Erin," he smiled though it didn't quite reach his eyes as Lori and Rick looked towards her, the tiredness sinking into their skin and weakening their eyes, "We need to make a decision..."

"Shane and Otis aren't back yet," she concluded as he nodded solemnly, "And you wanna operate without the respirator?"

"You said it wouldn't work," Lori spoke up, the despair clear in her voice as she looked down at her injured son, "You could kill him..."

"I said it was very unlikely to work," Hershel replied, glancing between the couple before back up at Erin, "We can't leave him like this for much longer. We can only wait another hour at the most. If the equipment isn't here by then... Well, like I said, it's your decision..."

Rick and Lori exchanged an unreadable look that lasted only a few seconds before Rick turned to the rest of the room, "We're gonna discuss this outside..." Lori appeared to shoot him a glare which he ignored before reluctantly leaving the room behind him.

Carol passed them in the hallway, stepping out of their way as they headed towards the front door and looking up at Erin, quickly answering her question before it even left her lips, "Daryl went with Andrea instead... I figured she was better with a weapon than me if they- if they ran into any walkers..."

The poor woman was so broken by the loss of her daughter, tears glistening in her eyes as Erin instinctively wrapped her arms around her. She knew a hug was no conciliation for being the one who lost said daughter, but it was what Carol needed at that precise moment and it was the best Erin could manage. She shushed her as she cried against the fabric of her jacket, her tears soaking her shoulder but it wasn't her position to complain.

"I'm so sorry, Carol... I wanted to tell you that earlier but-" she tried to explain herself but Carol cut her off, looking up at her through her reddened eyes.

"I know... The group have demonised you an-and I did, too... at the start, but now I can see that you were only trying to help her... Y-you didn't lose her on purpose..." She could barely keep herself together through the sniffles, but Erin felt a guilty weight made slightly lighter on her shoulders.

"She'll be okay...She has the whole camp looking for her, and Daryl is a skilled tracker, so is Merle." As she mentioned the older Dixon's name, she wondered where on Earth he could have got to - she hadn't seen him since he brought her truck back... "They'll find her..."

She could feel someone stood beside her and as she turned, she found Patricia looking at Carol in concern, "It's Carol, right? How about I fix you up a cup of tea? We've still got plenty of bags since everyone else around here takes coffee..."

Carol blinked a few times, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve and nodding, "That would be nice... Thank you..."

Erin watched them both head to the kitchen, Patricia trying her best to take Carol's mind off Sophia by asking her whether she was any good at cooking.

"She's a good woman. Much like yourself."

She turned at Hershel's comment, the two of them now the only ones left, "I'm just trying my best to patch up the problems I've caused..."

"But you're doing a very good job of it," he replied, holding the back of his hand against Carl's forehead, "I imagine you were a nurse before the dead walked. How wrong am I?"

She chuckled at the idea of her helping sick people for a living. She was far too antisocial and selfish for such a job, "Far from it. My father owned a farm similar to this near Macon when I was growing up. I was a ranger in Piedmont after college. My brother was the doctor of the family..."

Erin recalled how their father had never understood how different two siblings could be. They were both caring, but in very different ways, Todd preferring patients to converse with while she had an overwhelming respect for nature and the animals that inhabited it. She'd never enjoyed killing animals, but when it was the literal difference between life and death, she'd resigned to allowing Todd to shoot them with his crossbow or, more recently, using her throwing knives to bring them down. She didn't like it, but it was survival...

"I assume this brother of yours is no longer with you?" Hershel observed, seeing her shake her head before continuing, "Do you mind me asking what happened? Was it walkers?"

She shook her head again, "No, it wasn't walkers... It was worse than walkers..."

"You don't have to tell me-"

"No," she cut him off as her saw the life in her eyes dim suddenly, "No, I want to tell you... I have to tell someone sooner or later, right? Can't keep it bottled up inside for too long, right?"

She knew her rambling was probably worrying him, but he nodded, "It's the best way to move on..."