❛ I need someone to show me the things in life that I can't find. I can't see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind. ❜

SEASON 4, EPISODE 4
indifference

━━━━━━ October 14, 2011

HALF A DAY PASSED on their scouting mission, silent, as their minds stayed at the prison. Cal focused on one moment, where Bianca told him to go on this trip without her. She had trouble communicating what was on her mind. Especially when it came to what she was feeling. Typically, Cal could read her and what she was trying to do, but with everything crashing down, he could only listen. Now, he worried that it was the wrong choice. Cal didn't know what she was up to but was sure it wasn't because they needed her.

⠀⠀⠀Cal's head was a mess as they turned up at a gas station, nearly walking past when Bob spoke up.

⠀⠀⠀"You see somethin'?"

⠀⠀⠀Daryl looked between the brush wrapped around the store.

⠀⠀⠀"I dunno. Maybe," he said, clearing the leaves and branches to reveal a car.

⠀⠀⠀They worked together to get the side door open. Daryl climbed inside to jump-start the car while the rest cleared the remaining growth. After a few minutes, Daryl reappeared and sighed.

⠀⠀⠀"We gotta find us a new battery," he explained. Daryl tried to clear the dirt from one of the windows when a biter slammed against it, snarling. "Got some friends inside. C'mon." They walked around the building to the front door. "Let's clear a path. See how many we got."

⠀⠀⠀Cal stood between Tyreese and Michonne, using a Bowie knife to slice through the branches. As he worked, he noticed a familiar growing intensity radiating from Tyreese. A similar feeling that Bianca sometimes had as well. Tyreese's brow furrowed, and his jaw clenched as he used his anger to cut through the leaves.

⠀⠀⠀After losing Karen, letting Tyreese come on his trip seemed like a strange decision. If Bianca died, Cal would be a mess. He would be angry, close to blowing up, and deeply heartbroken. It seemed Tyreese was no different.

⠀⠀⠀"Hey, man. Go easy. We don't know what we're dealin' with," Daryl told him.

⠀⠀⠀Tyreese continued. His machete snapped at the branches until it caught on wires. They clung to the end of his machete until he wrenched them off. He continued for a beat before biters started to pop up inside the vines. The first reached out to Daryl. It took him by surprise before he punched it through the head. Cal and Bob were next.

⠀⠀⠀One took Cal's arm and pulled him forward. A surge of panic burst from Cal's chest and made his head dizzy. All the worries of Bianca back at the prison and the knocking of death at his door made him freeze. He played out in his mind his death and how they would leave him behind. Daryl would have to return to Bianca and tell her Cal was dead because of his fear.

⠀⠀⠀Cal realized he made the wrong decision. He shouldn't have left Bianca. She didn't need his protection, but they needed each other. The thought of her alive out there kept him going while at Woodbury. The idea of leaving on his own accord to fight by herself had him suffocating.

⠀⠀⠀Daryl's knife plunged into the biter's head seconds before its teeth sunk into his arm. Its head hung cradled by the vines wrapped around its neck. Daryl sent Cal an icy glare, ready to snap at him, but held himself back with the chaos still around them.

⠀⠀⠀Tyreese was on the ground with a biter on top of him. Daryl darted over, dragged the biter off, then Bob unholstered his gun and shot.

⠀⠀⠀"Why the hell didn't you let go?" Michonne snapped at Tyreese.

⠀⠀⠀All Cal could pay attention to was the angry expression on Daryl's face.

DARYL SIGNALED CAL TO follow him inside the gas station while the others stayed outside to clear the car. Cal was nervous to follow him inside. He was Bianca's best friend and protector after everything happened. He saved her from turning the night her family did, and they would always be linked.

⠀⠀⠀Cal felt like he needed to impress Daryl as if he were her dad. Unlike Henrik (her real dad), Daryl cared for her, never pushed her away, and loved her more than anything else. He was the father figure she so desperately needed, and it took the end of the world to find him.

⠀⠀⠀And now, Cal was more scared of Daryl's opinion than dying.

⠀⠀⠀They silently walked through the auto shop, heading for the back, and listened for any stragglers. In the battery section, Daryl plucked one off the shelf and opened the top to see if it was still functional.

⠀⠀⠀"Cells look dry," Cal noted as he glanced over Daryl's shoulder. Daryl glanced up with a frown. "Bianca's shown me a thing or two."

⠀⠀⠀Daryl huffed, then said, "A little distilled water will clear that right up." He closed the lid and picked up the battery. Then, he eyed Cal, making him feel on display under a microscope.

⠀⠀⠀"Everything alright?" Cal asked nervously.

⠀⠀⠀Daryl rolled his eyes and moved on. Cal followed.

⠀⠀⠀"That's puke," Daryl pointed out. On the floor, there was a bloody stain against the floor leading to a blue bottle of antifreeze. "Those douchebags in the vines... took themselves out, holding hands—kumbaya style."

⠀⠀⠀Cal rolled his eyes and laughed under his breath. "Right, douchebags."

⠀⠀⠀Daryl spun on his heel with a glare. "You have somethin' you wanna day?"

⠀⠀⠀"I just don't think they're douchebags 'cause they decided to kill themselves. They didn't want to die suffering... well, more than they did," Cal said, glancing at the puke-stained ground.

⠀⠀⠀"They are if they could've gotten out," Daryl grumbled. He turned around and busied himself by looking for something useful.

⠀⠀⠀"Not everyone's fit for this life," Cal said, exasperated.

⠀⠀⠀"Like you?" Daryl asked, quirking an eyebrow.

⠀⠀⠀"What?" Cal asked, taken aback.

⠀⠀⠀"I saw you out there. Frozen while a walker could've ripped you apart. Trying to take the easy way out?"

⠀⠀⠀"No, I—I just got in my head," Cal explained. His hands raised defensively, and he took a few steps back.

⠀⠀⠀"You can't get in your head! Not now. Not when people are countin' on you," Daryl snapped, then stormed off.

⠀⠀⠀Cal followed but didn't move to argue. His mom used to get like this. She projected her own problems onto him when she was angry. It worked best to just take the verbal beating rather than to argue. It would only make matters worse.

⠀⠀⠀They reached the front, where a biter lay under the rubble. Daryl glanced at him, then waved at Cal to continue on.

⠀⠀⠀Cal waited a moment and frowned down at the biter. Pictures were pinned to the walls of his life before, of the biters when they were human. They were long dead. When Cal looked back at the biter—at the man—underneath, he was reminded that biters were once people. They were humans who had lives. They might be dead, but every time one died, thousands of real memories died with them. A whole society was ruined; any day, that could be him and Bianca.

⠀⠀⠀A tear slipped down his cheek as he noticed a pole hanging on the wall. He picked it up and stabbed it through the head, hoping he brought it peace.

THE COLLEGE WAS RUN-DOWN even when Cal was in attendance there. The exhausted students were replaced by similar-looking biters, the vegetation was overgrown, and there was a melancholy overreaching the entire campus.

⠀⠀⠀If Cal wasn't over-emotional after his conversation with Daryl, he would feel like he'd gotten hit by a truck with a flood of memories. He could see the courtyard where he and Bianca first met. He knew the path from here to his dorms. He remembered the long nights at Bianca and Elena's dorm, just watching movies.

⠀⠀⠀He tried to bottle up his emotions, but it seemed fruitless when Michonne rested her hand on his shoulder to comfort him. There was a lot of pain in going to a place you could never return to.

⠀⠀⠀"Looks like we're gettin' closer," Daryl noted.

⠀⠀⠀"The building we want is just up ahead," Cal said. He forced a smile and walked ahead.

⠀⠀⠀Inside the veterinary school, Cal directed them to the classroom with the medicine. Daryl entered first, brushing past Cal, and cleared the room before they all went inside.

⠀⠀⠀"Alright, let's make this quick," Daryl said.

⠀⠀⠀Cal picked up anything that was inside a see-through bottle with a label. It didn't matter to him if it wasn't necessary now. They could find a use for anything there. They were in and out of the first classroom in a breeze and moved on to the next.

⠀⠀⠀They ended up splitting into groups. Cal stayed with Michonne and Bob to scour the medicine cabinets while Daryl and Tyreese collected supplies.

⠀⠀⠀"Anything ending with -cillin or -cin, C-I-N, grab it," Bob directed the two. "We'll dissolve the pills in the IVs, put 'em right into the bloodstream. Dosage will be tricky, but considering the time we lost..."

⠀⠀⠀Cal and Michonne nodded in understanding. They threw everything they found with the suffixes Bob told them to find in a bag and checked the cabinets twice to ensure they didn't miss anything. As they were doing their third check, Tyreese and Daryl returned.

⠀⠀⠀"How'd you do?" Bob asked.

⠀⠀⠀"Bags, tubes, clamps, connectors. Everything on the list," Tyreese said.

⠀⠀⠀"What about y'all?" Daryl asked.

⠀⠀⠀"Yeah, we got it all," Bob said.

⠀⠀⠀Cal nodded his head as he passed his flashlight over the containers. "Yeah, all good."

⠀⠀⠀"Alright, let's roll," Daryl said. He lifted his crossbow onto his shoulder and led them out.

⠀⠀⠀They left the room and traveled through the halls after Cal. Daryl walked a step behind Cal, practically breathing down his neck, then whispered for them to pause. He looked inside a classroom with breezing blankets and a slight rasp. Biters emerged from the curtains, and the group sprinted to the end of the hall. Cal turned right into a room with a locked door.

⠀⠀⠀"Hey! Door's busted," Bob called.

⠀⠀⠀"Oh. Hold up," Daryl said, working with Bob to shut the door before the biters could get in.

⠀⠀⠀"There," Michonne whispered, indicating a stairwell.

⠀⠀⠀A growl appeared out of nowhere, and a biter had Tyreese by the shoulders. Before anyone could react, Tyreese pinned the biter against a cage and repeatedly stabbed his knife into its skull.

⠀⠀⠀Michonne found another door, chained together. Biters pushed against it, their hands clawing inside for them. It'd only be a matter of time before they forced themselves in. Behind them, the biters were already making their way through, one tumbling to the ground.

⠀⠀⠀"We can take 'em!" Tyreese exclaimed.

⠀⠀⠀"No!" Bob shouted. "They're infected. Same as at the prison. We fire at 'em, get their blood on us, breathe it in. We didn't come all this way to get sick."

⠀⠀⠀"How do we know the ones in there aren't any different?" Tyreese asked.

⠀⠀⠀"We don't," Michonne snapped.

⠀⠀⠀"Well, it's gotta change sometime," Daryl said. He caught Cal's eye, telling him he needed to be ready, and Cal nodded.

⠀⠀⠀Daryl took a chair and broke it apart so he had a stake.

⠀⠀⠀"Ready?" he asked.

⠀⠀⠀"Do it!" Tyreese shouted.

⠀⠀⠀Daryl ripped the stake through the chains and forced them to break. Behind them, the infected biters slowly made their way closer to them. Only a few were outside the door, and they were down in a bullet and clean katana slice. They sprinted through the door and up the stairwell with the biters still on their asses.

⠀⠀⠀They flew through the halls on the second floor, but the biters seemed to get faster. Michonne tried a door, but it was locked.

⠀⠀⠀"Don't have an exit," she said.

⠀⠀⠀"We make one," Daryl stated, standing on a window ledge.

⠀⠀⠀"Get down!" Tyreese shouted, then threw a fire extinguisher through the window.

⠀⠀⠀Cal ran over to them and helped Michonne onto the ledge, then Daryl through the window.

⠀⠀⠀"Jump down to the walkway below," he instructed her.

⠀⠀⠀"They're here!" Bob shouted.

⠀⠀⠀"Let's go! Go, go. Move!"

⠀⠀⠀Cal followed after Tyreese with Daryl's help. He ran across the ledge with the others waiting for everyone else to catch up before moving further. Below them was a rally of biters screaming for them to jump.

⠀⠀⠀Once everyone was out, they could start moving, but it was never that simple.

⠀⠀⠀Bob's bag got caught by the hands of the biters below. He was pulled back, and rather than letting go, he tried to take it back. He wasn't frozen like Cal or angry like Tyreese; he was desperate. He held onto that bag with a vice-like grip. His face contorted like his mother trying to find the last sips on a bottle.

⠀⠀⠀Cal and the others went to his side. They pulled him over the ledge and begged him to release the bag. He saved it, and the bag flung onto the roof with a clank against the metal. Cal's face paled as he realized he wasn't too far off.

⠀⠀⠀Daryl went for it and pulled the alcohol out of Bob's bag.

⠀⠀⠀"You got no meds in your bag? Just this?" Daryl asked as he raised the bottle for Bob to see.

⠀⠀⠀Bob stood before them, breathing heavily as his eyes trailed the bottle.

⠀⠀⠀"You should've kept walkin' that day," Daryl hissed.

⠀⠀⠀He went to chuck the bottle, but Bob exclaimed, "Don't!" as his hand landed on his gun.

⠀⠀⠀Cal had seen Daryl in many different lights. He could be rude or playful, fatherly or distant; even earlier, Cal had been caught in his protective anger. But, at that moment, Daryl was more than angry. Every stride he took held a rage; his shoulders tensed with the people he cared for resting on his shoulders, and his eyes shone with resentment.

⠀⠀⠀Daryl stood toe-to-toe with Bob, who bowed his head when Daryl was in his face. Daryl stalked Bob like his prey and let it sink in what Bob had done to them. He took the gun from Bob's holster and put it into the waistline of his pants. His hand wrapped around the collar of Bob's shirt, and he seemed ready to beat the ever-loving shit out of Bob.

⠀⠀⠀"Just let it go, Daryl," Tyreese called. He was the last person Cal thought would be their voice of reason today. "The man's made his choice. Nothin' you can do about it. Just gotta let it go."

⠀⠀⠀Daryl listened, but he didn't move away.

⠀⠀⠀"I didn't want to hurt nobody," Bob whispered. "It was just for when it gets quiet."

⠀⠀⠀"Take one sip. When those meds get in our people, I will beat your ass into the ground. You hear me?" Daryl hissed. He took a moment to let it sink in before backing away and leading them out.

AUTHOR'S NOTE —

Overprotective Daryl is my favorite. He just wants what's best for Bianca. Sorry to Cal for being on the other side of it.

I wasn't going to post this chapter this weekend. I haven't been feeling great throughout the week. But, I realized that this chapter isn't the one where I needed to write a whole scene! So, yay, chapter on a Saturday :)

SONG: Paranoid by Black Sabbath

Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you'd like, they keep me motivated! However, this is an all kind of reader safe space. So even if you ghost read or comment every chapter, I hope you know it means the world to me that you've come into this fic ♡ I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and until the next one.