━━━━━━ CHAPTER FOUR ━━━━━━
Lady Bad Luck's Fault
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          MOVIES GOT IT ALL WRONG. The moment the world ended, nature didn't grow more beautiful, but itsead, it greyed out. All that death was not nourishment for the forests and no green scenery could truly fool a knowledgeable heart: there was sickness upon the world, greying rot casting over it all. Not even the water shined as it used to, because it remembered too much of the carnage that it was forced to wash away on the behalf of a dead stewart. The waters Mallory remembered were most likely all gone, this far past the end of civilization.

With careful, light steps, Daryl followed the trail that to his trained eyes looked as clear as anything could be. The forest surrounding him embraced that washed out green, tinting closer to yellow, marks of witness for the heats of summer that were dawning on the land and that have long peppered his skin with beads of sweat. His crossbow steady in his grip, armed and ready to raise at need, was the first to advance while he moved forward, planning on being far faster than Mallory has been.

It gave him hope, the fact that there had been Walkers to take out one the way to her, yet her trail persisted, clear and steady, and in the opposite direction from the beeline to the prison that the dead were taking due to noise. Her movement looked deliberate in the trails and that alone was a fuel to Daryl's hope, a light he kept lit not in his eyes, not on his features, but in his soul.

Though he had promised Hershel to be back before nightfall, Daryl had no desire to turn back, not when the trail was this promising. For all he knew, turning back or pushing forward was a choice that could differentiate between finding her alive or dead.

Eventually, when the hue of his surroundings entered a golden phase to dusk, Daryl's steps led him into a portion of the forest where the murmurs of the river tried to tamper with his hearing sense, albeit not enough for the splash of water not to get him to come to a stop. The crossbow raised, his knees bent and he advanced much slower from there to a hidden position from where he saw the banks of the river.

His heart was the first to recognize her, skipping a few beats.

There she was, knelt in the river, with her back at him, there was blood on the back of her shirt, slightly torn, but she was not in any way erratic, as a Walker would be, but instead moving her hands up and down her neck, washing away at the dirt which stuck to her skin. Finally, he could sigh relieved: she was alive.

Before he could however lower his crossbow and approach her for a good old scold, a different splash caught his attention. From the opposite side of the river, a Walker stumbled clumsily out of the forest, aiming to traverse the water, towards her. To Daryl's surprise, Mallory seemed not to have noticed the thing. His jaw clenched at the thought of what would have happened then, where he not there, so he banished that troubling idea from his mind by shooting an arrow straight at the Walker's head.

Only once the corpse dropped in the river did Mallory finally flinch. The green end of the arrow stuck out of the water and, recognizing it, she turned around, with much puzzlement.

"Daryl," she called, pushed to do so by her disbelief of seeing him there, crossing over the bushes to join her by the river. "How did you-?"

"You didn't bring any weapon with you?" After a quick survey of the river banks, Daryl simply had to interrupt her with that question. "Come on, Mals. What were you thinking running away like that? You could have gotten yourself killed." With an exasperated sight, Daryl got the crossbow's carrying strap over his shoulder, let it hang by his side, and marched into the river after her.

Though at first she had been too shocked to comprehend an answer, his steps splashing through the water gave her focusing time. "I lost my kitchen knife on the way out. There were too many to go back for a weapon." After answering him, she bit her tongue; it may not have been lying, but it sure as hell felt like it.

He cared very little about getting his clothes wet, so he knelt right down with her. "Let me see the wound you got here. It could do with some cleaning."

"That's what I was trying to do," Mallory confirmed for him, grabbing the end of her shirt and lifting it a little on her back. Daryl took it from there, lifting her shirt as much as necessary, then pressing his palm a little above the wound to quietly ask her to bend forward so he can actually see what he was cleaning.

He knew all too well that had it been a scratch from a Walker, that cut would have looked much worse by then, however, apart from the stain, he was looking at a cut that was already starting to heal around the edges.

"What's the verdict, doc?" Mallory broke the silence that Daryl let linger only for the sake of relishing in this small, yet precious victory.

His reply came tucked behind a chuckle, "You'll live. 'Gon get this washed up for you and see if I can piece a bandage from my shirt, and when we get back, Hershel will take a professional look on it too."

The thought of getting back is what finally made Mallory tense up, though Daryl mistakenly thought it was his rough hand that proved to be too abrasive not to hurt while he washed her back of blood. He even mumbled an apology, focusing on tampering his touch, even cursing himself for forgetting Mallory may not be too kin on anyone touching her this much given her last human interaction was a psychoath who kept her chained and mutilated on a daily basis — only God knew how he wanted to see that guy dead, even kill him twice, for the sake of being only a grain as cruel as he had been with her.

But his touch was not what Mallory was tense about; his presence, she imagine, could have never caused her distress. It was the thought, that unfair but often right thought.

"I think it would be better if I didn't go back with you."

"What?" Surely, he must have misheard. The river was loud, maybe his ears have finally decided to play tricks on him after long years spent around guns.

Mallory sighed, moved away from his touch then turned around. "I'm not going back, Daryl."

He looked at her like she was speaking tongues, too lost to even say anything. His hands dropped down over his knees and he sat back on his heels. The river washed up to his waist a chill that matched that which went down his spine. Don't leave again, he felt the beseeching echo in his heart.

"I know what I said before," Mallory admitted, "that I wanted to stay and I am so grateful you helped me get accepted there, but your friends... they are good people, Daryl. And they don't deserve it, the bad stuff."

"The bad stuff?"

"Me," she clarified, now earning for him a proper frown of 'you're talking nonsense'. Mallory continued anyhow, "Wherever I go, people wind up dead. Good things get spoiled and so much.... so much death. I don't want to see good people die and I sure as Hell don't want to see anything happening to you either. I don't think I could survive that."

"No." Daryl dropped his gaze to the water, shook his head after a couple of blinks, then pushed himself to get up. "No, Mals. Bad things just happen. Bad things've always happened. Before, now. And they will keep on happening 'cause that's how life goes. It's not because of you. You can't expect to live with all that guilt on your shoulders, for fuck's sake. What now? Ya gon' blame yourself for this freaking virus too? Don't be ridiculous."

"You think I am stupid?" Mallory got up after him, following a little clumisly out of the river. "I know what I said and you are not following here. I'm trying to tell you that I've become bad luck."

"Well tough shit!" Daryl puffed, refusing to look at her, a play that lasted until she grabbed his arm.

"The guy that kept me in that basement is gonna keep looking for me."

"Good," he responded with bluntness. "I'll save him a bullet."

"There are others like him, people who are after me."

"Why?" Daryl stepped towards her. "Why are they after you? What did you do?"

There it was, right in her hesitation, her wide eyes. No matter how much must have changed at her through the end of times, she had the same look when she kept something from him, when she didn't trust him enough to say what was on her mind plainly. It was the look that light the spark to the pool of alochol he drained into him the night they went their separate ways, and being sober to face it this time around twisted a knife right in his heart.

He begged wordlessly to be trusted, but how could she say it?

How could she try again to trust when she's seen so many good people be maimed into monsters by the idea that her pain and suffering could be the key to survival in this new world?

Mallory felt that fear in her chest grow: what if Daryl would look at her the way Holroyd did? Like all the other people before who either agreed with the doctors or were the cruel doctors themselves? What if it turned out to be worse and he ended up seeing her as some mutant monster? She might as well be dead if that happened and for someone who died her fair share of times, that death of spirit still horrified her.

Movement in the treeline behind Daryl put a pause to her terrors, replacing them to the front of her mind with a new-old fear. Before Daryl could protest, Mallory moved around him and placed herself between the Walker stumbling out of the bushes and him, a movement he didn't even bother trying to understand past its stupidity or the fact it alluded to: she was trying to get herself killed. In which case, it crossed his mind that maybe he should stop getting in the way of her desire, a thought otherwise quickly butchered by a much more cohesive understanding that he would rather she be mad at him than him kneel next to her corpse.

With much ease, once he noticed what was happening, Daryl lifted his crossbow and shot the dead in the head. Only a squint back at the forest revealed to him their argument had drawn more Walkers their way so though he wanted to scold her for this reckless behavior, he swallowed the comment and put his knife in her hand, closing her grip on it so she knew he would not take her refusal for a valid answer. Her free hand fit perfectly into his own, especially as he needed to make sure she was keeping up with his running, away from the river, away from the about dozen of Walkers on their tail.

No one really expected the end of times to include this much running. Most would have guessed the end to be covered in blood, entrails and odors belonging to the grave, but few would have thought there would be so much running for your life involved as well.

They didn't stop running, not really — because stopping to shoot did not count —, until well after sundown, when they took cover on the floor of a diner, at the edge of a town that came in their path. Daryl looked through the whole place for a good couple of minutes, opening every single door behind which danger could be hiding, but at the end of his search, he returned to sit in front of Mallory still on the edge.

"You're not bad luck," he whispered to her, mind clearly stuck on the conversation they left unfinished at the river. Despite being clearly out of breath from all the running around, it mattered to him that he cleared this out for her first.

I'm not bad luck? Mallory stopped herself from mocking him at that moment, her lips thinning in a flat line and her gaze hardening itself beneath the furrow of her brows downwards. The moment I get settled in with your people, Walkers break in. The moment you find me again at the river, we barely escape another group of the undead. And that's been only for the past days. How can you look me in the eyes and say I am not bad luck when all I've causing is trouble?

"History begs to-"

"Fuck history," Daryl cut her off. "I don't care what happened that made you have people after you, alright? What matters is that you helped Carol. You saved Carl." Seeing her eyebrows raise in visible relief at the news that the two were alright proved his point, which was a win he could not pass on pointing out. Daryl lifted his hand to gesture at her, "You ain't bad luck, Mals. The world's just cruel now, that's all. So no more of this nonsense, alright? You'll be safe with us." You'll be safe with me, was what he initially had in mind to say, but given their past, it felt unfitting to speak such vows, despite him thinking them.

After having said all he had to say, Daryl's gaze dropped to the ground. Yet another dirty floor on which they'd have to spend the night. Ya should have found a better place for her, he scolded himself.

"You didn't have an obligation to come look for me today," Mallory pointed out, having just then realized what had happened from his perspective, what it could mean. For so very long she thought she's screwed up her relationship with him, that she kicked her chances and burned away her blessings, all the while her heart still knew all too well besides who it belonged.

Daryl heard that and took it for the beginning of a complaint, one that he didn't have the right amount of energy to listen to, nor remain numb in the face of. He didn't feel like he had the strength yet to admit that he wanted things to go back to the way they were or that his feelings didn't change, try as he might; from the moment the alcohol left his body following that night, his anger was gone and he was left with the fact that he would never love someone as much as he loved Mallory.

So he stood up, an excuse about to be formed on his lips that he'd look for something to eat or  something to put their heads on to sleep, but before he spoke it, Mallory stood up after him.

"I'm glad you did."

Daryl managed to half-whisper a 'you're welcome' back at her before her hesitation was spent and Mallory stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him without a warning. Her heart thundered in her chest so loud she could barely hear her more reasonable thoughts; those few unreasonable ones were louder than ever in criticizing her inclination to listen to her heart, the same one which will hurt when ultimately, her bad luck will ruin this good thing in her cursed life too.

Because of that thought, Mallory tightened her hug, a sensation of desperation that finally unfroze Daryl from his shock and reminded him of his own capabilities to motion.

Far looser, he wrapped his own arms around her, a gesture and a feeling of warmth he hasn't had the chance of properly experience since she left on that voyage, one he neither sought out since anyway — somehow, he always knew it wouldn't feel right without her being the one he wrapped his arms around. In his mind, it was all too well defined that it was always supposed to be the two of them, against the world.

They were both quiet, but it was the sort of silence that melted them into this comfort, a silence they have both been waiting for, for so long. Even as they leant back from one another, the silence seemed to thankfully prolong itself and in the darkness of night, they looked each other in the eyes. Daryl felt the relief of a smile.

But the thing about silence is that the noise which breaks it sounds so much worse than it normally would have.

A single gunshot. Glass shattering. Red.

Oh, there was so much red.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:   
      Would it really be TWD without the cliffhangers here and there? Nope~

No joke, but writing this chapter made me realize that thankfully Mals and Daryl fit together way more than I initially thought they would so yay?

Also, this is Daryl to Mals: