chapter thirty four: the first attack
4136 words

The hellfire of lead rained down upon the prison meant only one thing. The Governor had found them and come to exact his revenge. On what, Lin didn't care to dwell on as she scrambled up the tower steps, near scraping her knees to the skin as she went. The Governor had side men, two of them from the sounds of it.

Lin kneeled beside the tower windows, behind the thin sheet of steel that acted as the only thing between her and a head full of metal. She breathed, counted to three and swung the door open, aimed blindly in the direction she knew the Governor to be in and fired. One round, two, then a third, as many times as she could before he spun on her. Sliding back into the room, she laid across the slope of the stairs, sparks of bullets colliding with steel showering over her. The steel would hold but the glass wouldn't and even then Lin was far from taking that chance. She went back out, fired some more, put as much ammo out into the air that she could before it was volleyed back her way.

Then, by some miracle, it stopped. The silence scared Lin, enough so she peeked out from the glass. The Governor was just standing there. What the hell was he doing? Lin lined up her shot and nearly took it right there. Until the Governor cocked his head just so and set his eyes on her. It was unnerving, the kind of look on a man Lin hoped to never see again. It frightened her, to put it simple.

The gunfire resumed with a few well placed shots at Lin's head. She ducked to the floor, unable to do much more than cower. And the Governor, the conniving bastard he was, just stood and watched. Lin shut her eyes, cowering and shaking as the glass of the tower shattered.

Hershel was still out in the yard, laid on his belly in the grass. Michonne and Rick were too, hidden respectively behind the overturned school bus and under a tiny walkway over a narrow creek outside the fence. When the gunfire let up, the assault rifle overheating to the point of nearly misfiring, it let Lin stand and shrink back to the stairwell. Another bout of silence, broken only by the distant rumbling of an engine. The tower rattled as the front fence gave way, the red and white van slamming through it. Lin shivered in the silence, afraid of what she couldn't see.

It took an inward surge of confidence for her to push back up into the tower, to look out through the glass. The van was parked in the center of the field and Lin watched on in horror as the long ramp at the back of the van dropped down hard into the dirt and began to let dozens of walkers spill out. The front fences were near obliterated in the crash, chainlink bent and warp to the hood of the van.

They had people out in the yard, Hershel, Michonne. Lin fired once to break the glass of the window, pushed the barrel of the rifle through up to the scope and peered out of it. The driver of the van hurried out, pulling a pistol of their own to shoot at Michonne from there. The samurai was smart enough to hit the dirt and take cover. Lin followed the armor clad driver and with a twitch of her finger, sent a bullet through the protective helmet.

She heard Hershel's name drift her way amidst the chaos. Through the smudged scope she struggled to locate just where the older man was until walker bodies began to collapse near the fenceline. He only had so many bullets in that pistol and she had all the better vantage point from up high. She picked them off one by one. Rick's python thundered out from beyond the fence until he too ran out of ammo.

Satisfied with the damage they had caused, the Governor peeled away from the prison on screaming tires, inches away from hitting the truck Glenn drove back in. He jerked around in his seat as the other car vanished behind him. All he heard was gunfire. All he saw were walkers. He slammed his foot down on the pedal.

Lin fired in rapid succession, missing near a quarter of the shots she took. Chaos was the only way to describe it. Glenn sped through the tall grass of the yard, going straight for Hershel who propped himself up on one crutch when he got close enough. He angled it for a moment up at the tower for Glenn to see and though he couldn't make out who it was beyond the dark glass, when the walker closest to him burst into pieces, he had a pretty good inkling they were friendly and in need of a ride back up to the prison, especially because now the door to the tower basically let out into the woods now.

Lin got the message loud and clear when the truck began to reverse her way. She tripped down the tower steps, threw the door open and slammed it shut behind her. Glenn barely stopped in between reverse and drive, throwing the gear shift forward as Lin clambered into the truck bed. She had one foot over the tailgate when he floored it, just about tumbling right back out.

"Shit, Glenn!" Her shoulders rammed hard against the box in the bed of the truck as she lodged herself there, rifle in her hands. The wind pushed her hair into her eyes, forced her to comb it back with her hand, to lower her rifle from where she was brandishing it out in front of her. The walkers lunged her way, wriggling hands reaching for her but failing with their severe lack of speed when it came to going up against Glenn's driving. The kid was a pizza driver after all.

Maggie and Carol rolled the gate open, hurried to shut it once the truck was through. With the lock shut, Lin climbed out of the back, searched for the sheriff's hat on her nephew's head. Carl darted to her side, his gun still between his hands. He leaned into her but didn't hug her. She pushed the hem of his hat back, scanned him for injuries. Nothing serious, nothing more than the typical dings this life warranted.

Daryl stood at the fence, walker bodies at his feet. Lin's hair shone in the sunlight, like the flickers at the heart of the campfire.

"Lin." Carol's voice was soft as she pushed on Lin's shoulder, forced her to turn just enough to spot the three figures standing at the fence looking in, the three distinctly human figures standing there. A curly-headed cowboy, a man with one and a half arms, and an archer. They'd come back. Lin's heart jumped up into her throat. They'd come back.

Maybe it was childish, how quickly she prepared to throw herself through that gate to get to Daryl. A whole prison yard between them and it was the closest he'd been to her since the day before. It felt like everything and nothing at all, a paradox akin to the dead walking among the living. The fire and the flood, the burn and the balm, the hunter and the healer. She was angry, rightfully so, but Daryl was alive and came back to them, to her. For now, it would have to do.

Rick held his python by the barrel, chest heaving with some twisted combo of adrenaline and unfiltered rage. He'd let the Governor walk straight up to the prison, to their home, and blow the doors off. How many people were hurt? How many people were dead? He was afraid to know; he was afraid to ask. But fear meant nothing to the will of the walking dead.

Rick led the Dixon brothers to one of the side fence gates, the three of them carving a path for themselves back up to the courtyard. Difficult sure but possible none the less. Glenn met them there with the keys, unlocking the padlock the moment they were close enough to slip through. Forgotten was the problem of Merle Dixon in the wake of Rick making sure his family was alright. He tugged Carl in by his space between his shoulders, went to do the same with Lin when he saw that she wasn't there.

Lin reached to set her rifle down against the fence but it clattered to the gravel, just short of the chainlink. She paid it no mind, eyes firm on the archer who squirmed under the sudden observation. Never the one for such attention, he tried to shy away. Even Merle saw it, glancing between the two in thinly veiled confusion. It made sense though. He was the only one of the group that didn't know about the two of them. Even Michonne had hung around long enough to see the both of them liplocked.

Lin's lips parted to fire some smartass comment Daryl's way but it just didn't feel right, not then, now when he'd left on a stupid whim to get his brother back, when he'd left without a proper goodbye, when she was so so angry at him and yet the only place she wanted to be was right in his arms. So that was exactly what she did.

Daryl caught her when she rushed his way, dropped his crossbow to his feet. The resounding rattle it made went unheard, unnoticed. The archer's hands went to her hair, tangled in red that for once wasn't blood. He could have breathed her in and she wouldn't have been close enough.

Lin knew she was crying and not the pretty kind either. Silent, heaving sobs into the fabric of the new shirt Daryl had stopped to put on, the kind that came from the gut, from the heart, from the exact moment Rick told her that Daryl wasn't coming back. Daryl wasn't any better than she was, bar the fact that he wasn't crying. Merle watched his younger brother hold Lin, connecting the dots in his head. Oh, little brother got some since he'd been gone. What a development.

Daryl's hands moved, shifted, went to hold her to him, to hold her face where he could look at her. She was still beautiful under all that mess, still his sunshine. Lin let him, only for a moment, then she drew herself out of his arms, silent all the way. Daryl stood silent as well but not confused. He knew what he had done. He knew that she was angry at him.

Lin left Daryl's side for Hershel's, helped the older man limp his way back into the prison without the help of one of his crutches. Daryl stood alone but surrounded by the group. He'd fucked up, big time, but it came down to a crossroads he could not ignore. What he did brought his brother back, brought Merle back to him when he thought he'd been dead all this time. How could he ignore family like that? He cared for Lin something fierce, something scary, something all encompassing. Going on nine months they'd been a something together, unwilling to define what they had with a damning label. Leaving her behind punched a hole in him four feet wide that itched and burned with every step he took further away from the prison. Being back had patched the wound but hadn't erased whatever hurt he'd done to Lin. He understood but the distance she just put between them stung like salt.

Rick kept Merle out in the common area, locking him in there where everyone could see him, where everyone could keep an eye on him. Lin tucked herself into the corner of the perch, Judith happily nursing away at the bottle she held up for her. Daryl stood at the other side, in the cell doorway, watching her. The silence persisted, broken only by Judith's hungry gurgles every so often. Lin didn't have any qualms with the silence either, content to keep it exactly as it was until she had a reason to break it. If she chose to then, she was sure all she'd do was yell and yelling was the exact opposite of what she wanted. If she yelled about Daryl leaving, she wouldn't know when to stop. Lori giving birth, Rick's insanity, T-Dog giving himself for Carol, Axel dying for nothing. One thing would lead into the next and she'd put the blame on Daryl when he didn't deserve it. It wasn't fair to him. So she kept her mouth shut and glanced his way only when she knew he wasn't looking.

He looked good, blessedly unharmed and chewing the corner of his thumb nail. She suspected that he was waiting on her to rip his head off, to reopen the hole punched through him. Lin shifted the bottle a little higher for Judith as it began to slip from her fingers and when she did, she took the moment to turn away. She found Merle standing out in the common room, leaning in such a way that she could see him through the shut cell door. It wasn't locked, not yet, but that would come with the night. It just made her think of the growing list of to do's when it came to easing the tensions in the prison.

Talk to Daryl about him leaving, probably argue a bit. Catch up with Merle, if that was the right word for it. Ask Rick what the hell he was seeing. All talking. Seemed no one did enough of that these days.

"Daryl," Lin hummed. Judith spat out the nipple of the bottle, finished with her midday meal. The archer's eyes snapped to meet hers, almost thinking he'd heard nothing but his own mind conjuring up her voice. It wouldn't be the first time. She adjusted Judith to burp her over the cream-colored cloth draped about her shoulder. "We're going to talk about what happened, you know that right?"

Daryl search her face for hatred, for anything that would show any contempt she would rightfully hold for him. He found nothing, as Lin intended for him to. He nodded. "Yeah, I know." How could they just ignore what happened?

Lin rubbed up Judith's back, patted just firm enough. "Sit with me? Just for a bit." She nodded her head to the space next to her. "I'd rather be mad at you up close then far away right now." And even though her words were posed as a joke, Daryl saw through them. He nodded once again then came over to do as she asked him, to do as he wanted more than that. He dropped down at Lin's side, hand pressed into the concrete landing so he didn't hurt himself. Lin scooted herself closer the moment he touched down so their arms would meet.

More silence, purposefully unbroken as Judith let out the last of her burps. A little formula drunk, she too lapsed into a peaceful silence. They didn't move, didn't speak, didn't do much more than enjoy each other's company as it was. It had been one day, one full turn of the planet from sun up to sun down, that he'd been gone and yet it felt like eternity bleeding into forever.

Lin leaned closer into Daryl, let her head fall onto his shoulder where it fit perfectly. Daryl's hand shifted in reply, lifting up and pausing in the air, unsure and cautious. Then he set it on Lin's leg, gripped the muscle and flesh there with surety. She wasn't going anywhere. He was right there with her, as simple as the contact was, and though he could no longer promise that he would not leave her, he wished that he could.

Lin didn't realize that she was crying until Judith squirmed unhappily, the sudden rocking of her aunt's chest waking her up and not at all happily. Daryl's hand tightened around her thigh, drew her closer, as close as he could get her. There they stayed util Lin's cried ebbed to nothing more than stalled breaths into the crook of Daryl's neck. He let her. He would let her do whatever it was she needed whenever she needed, within reason of course because they couldn't evade reality.

Carol came up for Judith when the night began to bleed through the prison windows. She eased the baby out of Lin's arms with a gentle smile to take her to bed for the night, to ease the burden from Lin's shoulders. With empty hands, Lin let them fall into her lap. She thought of taking Daryl's, touching him, holding him. If she did, she wouldn't be able to stop. She had to talk with him, about what happening.

Daryl shifted only when Lin did, glancing down to watch her press her face into his sleeve. "Meet me out in the courtyard, near the back gate."

Had he been dreading this moment because he knew he'd done her wrong, or because he was afraid she was buttering him up for the end? Whatever it was, he hoped she did it quick. One shot to the head, a painless death. He nodded once, squeezed her leg before she stood. One last grounding touch, a separation without the validation of one last kiss.

Daryl Dixon never dragged his feet to anything but that talk they were going to have outside would have to be his first. Guard up, walls bricked firm, he found her standing in the moonlight with crossed arms and a furrowed brow. She had her bow with her, her arrows he'd left in the cell they shared. They looked right on her, at home on a person who was strong enough to wield them. She'd always been strong to him. And they had their fair share of disagreements before. Why did this one feel so different?

"You left me."

Oh, right. That was why.

"I went after Merle. He needed me." Daryl knew his brother and he knew his own reasoning. That was something he wouldn't back down on. Lin's brow curled further, her fists tightening around the fabric of her shirt. She was trying, desperately, to keep her temper about her.

"We needed you Daryl. I needed you." To this, Daryl had no answer. He knew that. Lin stared hard at the cement under her feet. Her eyes stung, burned as she tried to keep the tears at bay. She hated crying, hated how it hurt when she did. But how often had she cried in this world? Too many times. Too many things she'd lost to invoke her aching sadness. It started with Jim, with Amy and Dale. "Did you think of me? At all?"

Daryl scoffed. He did. She was all he thought about. "Course. Knew ya'd understand. Merle's blood; he's family. Ain't no one would have let him stay here, not even you."

Lin brought her head back up, tried to meet his eyes because she'd missed them, because arguing with him was the last thing she wanted to do but he'd hurt her and he needed to know it. "You didn't give me the chance, Daryl. Am I not family to you?" Her mouth set in a line, quivering lips stilled by her teeth.

"Lin," he tried but she shook her head. It felt like it was spinning, tearful sadness hardening to anger, anger far stronger than what she'd felt the moment Rick told her that Merle was the reason Daryl wasn't coming back.

"Was I just someone to make you forget how alone you were?"

Daryl's expression dropped and his shoulders instantly arched skyward. It was thin ice she was treading on, very very thin ice and she absolutely knew it too. "Alone?" He laughed with no humor. "Sweetheart I was far from alone."

"Weren't you? Merle ran; he didn't even come back to take it out on Rick. He's your brother and I get that, believe me I do. But he's no good for you, you have to know that."

Daryl was tired of people telling him about Merle. He knew. From the moment Merle held that Hispanic family up he knew. But he was so fucking tired of it from everyone else, especially from Lin. He never gave her shit about Lori, never anything more than a passing joke. "Ya think Lori wasn't bad for you? Ya spent months starving yourself for her and Ass-kicker. Think she ever said thanks for that?"

"She doesn't have to! That's what family does, Daryl."

His brows rose, weight shifted to his other hip. Lin realized what she had done and sighed. As she did, Daryl swore she aged right there in front of him. Shoulders rigid with tension, she drew herself up to stand straight. Her hackles were up. She never thought she'd have to raise them for Daryl, never in her life.

"He's your brother, I get that. But you left me behind. You are the one person I can't stand to lose like that. I have no one else but you. Lori, Dale, hell even Rick's gone off the fucking deep end." She stopped there, the words on the tip of her tongue heavy like lead. Nine months. She had known Daryl Dixon for nine months now, cared for him for a little less, but it didn't dampen whatever it was that she felt for him. "Daryl I-"

"Don't say it. Don't say it cause ya don't mean it."

Lin clenched her fingers tight. "You don't know shit about what I mean, Daryl Dixon!" The first time she'd let her voice raise to him, the first time she'd completely and totally lost her temper with him. And Daryl, for the life of him, would never forget how her eyes widened at his words. What else was he supposed to tell her, that he loved her? He left her behind. She deserved far fucking better than he could ever give her. "If you knew that you wouldn't have left."

Lin shook her head, shut her eyes and exhaled hard. She didn't want to cry and yet she was, again. "I'm bunking with Carol tonight. Move the mattress out onto the perch if you want." From there, she walked away. It was hard to do and she was afraid of what she had just done, but the ache in her heart refused to be cast aside. Leaving Daryl there alone in the moonlight felt as if she'd cast away half of herself to walk alone. She needed time, time the world wasn't willing to give her.

Carol looked up from Judith's mail box cradle to the shuffle at the door. And it was safe to say she was rather surprised to see it was Lin standing there, looking small with her hunched shoulders and tear-stained cheeks. The older woman didn't have to ask Lin what was wrong or what happened to make her cry so. She held out open arms and Lin walked into them.

It was crushing, the weight of so much guilt, so much mourning, pressing down on just one person.

"I miss Lori," Lin mumbled into Carol's shoulder.

"I know." It was a lame answer at best but Carol couldn't say much more. She couldn't speak for the dead, nor could she comfort those that hurt in their absence. All she could do was be there for a friend when needed it so that was exactly what she would do. She guided Lin to the bottom bunk, helped her into the threadbare covers she did have.

When she was settled, Carol laid beside her, facing her, and held her arm out for Lin to either accept or reject. Lin nearly whimpered at the kind contact, leaning into what Carol was offering her. It was in that position that the two fell asleep and when morning came and Lin was the first to wake, she crawled carefully from Carol's embrace and out into the block.

She wasn't the first up out of everyone though, Hershel seemed to always be up early, but she sure felt like it. Soft snores, the deep breathing that came only from the purgatory of sleep, the safety of a mind miles away. Lin longed to be just asleep and unaware of the world around. But the world cared not about those in need of rest. Day broke and the sun ambled across the sky, leading the weary and the cruel alike to the edge of the cliff. One day, Lin knew she would stand at it. One day, Lin knew she would either sit or step off.

an: ahaha hello everyone! it's been almost two years since I've hit the publish button on this fic but wow, here i am. it's been a very very long and rough time for me if I'm completely honest. but there wasn't a day i didn't think about this fic. i just never sat down to clear my head and truly write it until now. I'm not sure when ill be able to update past this but I've had this chapter in the drafts for a bit so i finally pulled together and gave it a few more reads so i could publish it. no meme today just for my own mental health. maybe ill publish one later to make up for it.

i also realize that in a past chapter i said i was doing reader character submissions into the story. I'm not sure if that will hold still because of how long it has been and i have not only lost the journal i wrote everything down in but i cannot find the chapter even though I WROTE IT. but anyways i shall update you guys too on that when the time comes. thank yo for your patience and all your polite questions on the status of this fic. lin and daryl arent going anywhere any time soon if i can help it. it just may be a little bit before i am able to publish again. all of my love to you.

p.s. rose leslie in the gif for this chapter looks so much like sarah wayne callies to me,,, its the projection of my own family bc my little sister is a ginger and I'm not LMAO