The crunch of leaves beneath his feet was all he could sense. The sharp hollow sound, echoing up his body. Playing on the strings of his brain, plucking effortlessly and annoyingly.

With that, he could hear his own breaths rushing past his lips in a panicked rhythm. He couldn't focus on making them steady, he couldn't really focus on anything at all.

He came past trees, broken branches, sounds of the outside. Everything that used to seem more like home than anything else, suddenly felt like an intimate stranger.

He rose his hands to brush past fallen twigs, high grass, horizontal obstacles.

He choked out, lifting his wrists up, seeing red paint his arms. The red that came from her he almost fell to his knees at the sight of it.

He felt weak, and stupid, and goddamn helpless. And somehow, he didn't find that wrong in any way.

If course he felt this way. Of course he felt weak, stupid, and goddamn helpless. It was a given.

You couldn't just get to know her and get on with your life.

He tried desperately to move faster, rushing faster and faster, letting his blind blurring eyes guide him away from all that she left him with.

And his feet eventually led him out of the maze, and into an opening. One he nearly tumbled into what he found.

No longer the sound of his rushing lungs, or the ground beneath his feet. But now the sound of water filled his ears, the steady flow like the beat he felt against his skin in those last moments.

His hands pressed against her skin, so calm, so worryingly slow, so painfully steady. The flow of blood was cold, it was there, it turned electric under his touch.

He remembered the way she felt, pressed up against him, and that's what he held onto.

Collapsing to the ground, at the brink of the river, he dove his hands into the icy water. In a rushing stance, he painstakingly scratched his skin, tore at the colour. He ripped it away like the pages of a book.

And he still looked at it, eyes wide and teary, trying to rush all sense of her being gone, away.

His infatuation was pure, untainted, clear as day. Clear as how much storm you could see in her eyes. The brown specks, hidden behind clouds of green.

But it's long lived, it's driven, it's more than one second of "oh... it's her". It's a constant battle of knowing if your truly know everything about her, and if you know enough to even enter beneath her chains.

Like she has hooks, dug into his skin, a blessing, and a curse. Full of painful beauty, he had never seen before.

How unconventional. This broken girl, so many cracks, missing pieces, bound by darkness and cynical threats. But also so loving, so loyal, so determined.

There was something alluring about her, he couldn't touch upon it. And he remembered how Laura had put it; "Marley, you make people get real close to you."

Nothing of her own intention, just something that happened. A hanging light that hovered over her, you stepped too close, you would most likely be engulfed in flames. Ones that hurt so good, you couldn't help but come back for more.

All in all; Marley was addictive. Maybe not the true meaning of the word, but whenever falling was an option around her, gravity didn't seem to exist.

He had fallen many times.

Daryl kept at the water, splashing around and taking it up to his chest, letting out a low noise as he struggled to keep the red from touching him once more.

Once it wailed the dark colour, and rose further into the water, he stood and backed away. Like touching her blood was fatal electricity.

He had been holding his breath, and he hadn't realised, so he finally breathed out - leaning against the rough bark of a tree.

He turned on his heel, seeing something not entirely there.

"Daryl?"

The man turned away from the fire, fiddling with the stray branch between his hands. The small croaky voice caught hid attention, and he averted his eyes towards it.

She was on the ground of their camp, small but enough for them. She emerged from a cocoon of multiple blankets he had collected for her. She had been getting certainly cold lately, and he did his best to do what he thought she would want.

Marley had tired, bleary eyes. Opening only slightly to look at with a question on her features.

"What?" He asked abruptly, letting his shoulders slump.

She looked fearfully, then uttered even more small words. "I have to-" her words fell short, looking down in embarrassment.

"Fine," he sounded annoyed, and Marley recoiled at his tone. And he noticed that, so he waved a hand over in his direction, reassuring her there was nothing wrong.

She untangled herself from the multiple fabrics, standing in her old shoes. She wrapped her arms around herself, shielding the cold away from her thin shirt and torn jeans.

This was not a night she found comfort in the cold and stripped as much as possible. Revealing skin Daryl was sure had to be legal.

Most people wouldn't be bothered by the sight, might be interested in what else she had, but the man almost fell at the small part of her thighs and knees those jeans revealed.

She walked beside him, matching his pace amongst the dark forest.

Once they came to a secluded place, Daryl turned his back.

But it didn't last long, as she didn't approach the open space, in that moment her movements halted. He turned to see what she was looking at, and spotted the dark figure approaching.

"C'mon," he spoke quickly and softly, holding out his hand. She rushed towards him, taking his fingers in her own as he leads her back in the direction of their camp and back to Merle.

And then when they nearly made it, another approached and all he could do was back up and turn her around to be behind him.

They backed up towards a tree, and he pushed her lightly so she pressed up against it. He leant an elbow over her head.

He held a finger gently against her lips, making sure her body didn't move an inch as he watched the silhouettes slowly pass.

Daryl didn't see it, all he did was feel it. The splitting of his skin, and the eventual flow of blood from his knuckles. He watched the bark crush beneath his hand, and let out a breath.

He almost growled, angry, annoyed, frustrated and tearful.

He felt one hang on the brink, and he furiously wiped his eyes backing away from the scenery.

He didn't have his crossbow, and he looked around worryingly but saw no danger in sight.

He felt the need to run back and see her again, but the eventuality of going back to that house was enough for him to nearly break down.

He collapsed to the ground once again, not bothering to ease the scrapes that run up his back and legs.

Daryl felt like a lost child again, out in the woods, not knowing where the hell he was going.

Travelling on a never ending circle in a poison car, each step less taken, each one less travelled by without her was painful.

Pins and needles ran up his legs, and he swore under his breath of the complexities laying under his skull right now.

She had asked for him to forget her, maybe because she knew of those complexities. The minute she drew breath around him, he was a goner. Forever going to be caught in a hurricane that is all her doing.

And he tried to think what it would be like if she was still here.

There was nothing in his head he could recreate. You don't try and do it. The mere imagination of this girl could split atoms, and rupture thunder.

But he could remember.

He could remember the way her hands ran up his waist, the way she tucked beneath him. The way their held gaze would do things to him he never thought existed.

And he looked up to the sky, ignoring the numbing cold sensation in his hands. To some sort of higher power. One he had never believed in. Some sort of anything that could make him feel any better. It's too cold for him here, it seemed to whisper back. The air is too cold unless she clutches you tightly. Unless she holds you close, wraps her arms around his neck. Unless you can feel her heart against your own chest.

He had hated himself. He had wanted to hurt himself. He had wanted all those things in his life, and Marley was the same - if not worse.

He had never met anyone who had hated themselves so much.

And he never thought he would meet anyone like her, by mere chance.

He looked down from above him, almost tearing the hair from his head. Rising from the ground and kicking it angrily, he almost hit the tree again.

Instead, he tore himself from everything around him. And he tried to remember.

All those nights when she had a small voice, when she spoke of times he didn't seem to care about till now. Now he relished those words she spoke. Only to him - only ever to him.

It was like they were golden secrets, and he could never tell anyone else to things she said. He didn't think he was capable of recreating the sentences she had said, in the way she said them.

He hadn't noticed, but he had started walking. Going back to the house even though he didn't want to. He really didn't want to go back and possibly see her again.

To see them deal with it like they had dealt with so many people in the past. With Merle he was lucky. Merle was just gone.

But Marley, she was there. She was laying on that bed with her soft features and eyes closed, almost sleeping when she was his worst nightmare right now.

Daryl had had many nightmares in his life. This was one he wished he had before, just to prepare at least. Just to find his grounding in a situation like this.

To figure out how he would... mourn.

He soon came to an opening in the trees, looking on at the house, and almost screaming his lungs raw to try and flush all the horrible feelings he had inside. But he stayed silent, biting the inside of his cheeks just to give himself something else to think about.

A different kind of pain.

Anything other than excruciating.

He hit the ground each step he took, a defiant chant in his blood. He refused to believe that the Marley was gone from this world.

He knew she had more to offer. She had more soul inside her than anyone he had ever met, and when he saw what scars she had, it was like all she held inside was lightning. Burning hot under he skin, and it somehow cracked.

There were two people on the porch, and something inside him made a sliver of hope. The sick twisted kind, he knew Marley hated.

He wasn't used to it.

He wasn't used to knowing such things about anyone.

He wasn't used to knowing her favourite colour is blue, or her favourite play is Macbeth, or she's scared of dogs, loves ice-cream, lost her parents, burnt her childhood home down, has a lost brother, hates wearing socks to bed, clenches her fists before firing a gun, has been sick, has bled, has hated herself, has wanted to die; all these things made her, and now what was he supposed to do with all this in his head.

He rose high on the porch steps, jogging quickly and swiftly. He masked his face, dropping all the hurt he felt from his skin because he couldn't stand to let anyone see him like this.

He still felt her blood on his hands. He still felt her pressed up against him. Like she was a ghost hanging over each sense he possessed.

He looked to the left, where those people he spotted sat. Glenn and Carl together, holding each other with matching marks on their cheeks.

He felt like he should be that way too. The looks on their faces were as permanent to him as the scars on his back. Cutting deep, ripping, burning. Jagged marks both inside and out.

And then he realised, as he stared at them both - it didn't matter.

All the pain he felt, all the sorrow. Going through those woods and selfishly wanting her back. It was bad and it didn't matter.

Because... however he felt, she was still dead.

○○○

I love that gif

But I hate myself

All these chapters have just had this feel in my head

I'm gonna cry

- sylar