chapter twenty nine: baby girl grimes
4218 words

The baby was crying.

Maggie held the baby girl to her chest in Carl's shirt, her body worn and her soul tired. They'd left without Lin and it only occurred to her as the gate creaked open and Rick spun to face them, how it must have looked with just the two of them returning. Four had gone into the prison and only two came out. She stuttered on her words, choking on them as she tried to find the right words to saw to the new widower father. He couldn't find the words either, looking down then back up as if Maggie were mirage.

Daryl felt fear grip him tight when Lin wasn't with them. Where was she? Maggie's hands were covered in blood.

Rick's axe clattered to the ground.

Daryl's fingers flexed around his crossbow.

Maggie's cries came faster, her lip quivering as Rick neared. Daryl stepped closer, eyes planting firmly on the door they had come from.

"Where- where is she?" Rick repeated himself, his disbelief palpable. Except the baby was here and Lori was not. Rick walked past Maggie, to the gate and Maggie stopped him with a hand on his arm. He couldn't go back and see that.

"Where's Lin?" Daryl was not an animal. He didn't growl at people the way a scared and hurt dog would. But if he had to categorize the way his own voice sounded coming from his lips, it would be just that.

Maggie's lips parted but no sound came out. Daryl stepped closer. "Where is she?" He wasn't going to wait around forever for her to answer. If she didn't, he'd storm the whole prison until he found her and he wouldn't stop a moment before.

"She stayed behind, made us leave." Then Daryl was gone. Before anyone could have blinked or followed, he was through the gate and up the stairs. He had not the slightest clue where she was but that didn't matter. He'd find her. He always found her, no matter the distance between them. His sunshine was strong. She'd pull through this. She pulled him through Merle, he'd pull her through Lori.

"Lindsey?" He shouted into the empty halls, his voice bouncing along the cement until his own echo answered him. He stopped at a corner, forcing himself to still enough so he could listen. But there was nothing, just the shuffle of walker feet. He had no time. The baby would need food. And they had none. He was not going to let that baby die. He had to find her.

It was silence after that and then, Lin screamed. The gunshot that followed was nothing compared to the thundering of Daryl's feet as he ran to where he'd heard her scream come from. It was a room tucked away around a corner, the door wide open and streaked in walker blood.

"Lin!" He called her name again, crossbow raised as he rushed around the corner of the room, into the furthest corner. She was there, sat against the wall, Maggie's gun held out in front of her. He was prepared to chew her out to high hell, to ask her just what the fuck she was thinking staying here alone and letting Maggie and Carl leave with the baby. But then he saw the look in her eyes, the walker body on the cement in front of her, Lori's body beside that. She flinched only when he was close enough for him to see her. Couldn't she hear him? "Okay, sunshine. It's just me." He lowered the crossbow all the way to the cement, dodging the pool of blood there. He held his hands up for her to see that they were empty, that he wouldn't hurt her. He had to get her back with the others, back to Hershel who could help her. "I need ya to put down the gun, sunshine." Lin's fear filled eyes flicked between him and the loaded gun. The recognition began to bleed into her posture. Did she not know where she was, what she was doing?

He inched closer to her, close enough to see that her hands were shaking, her elbows locked to keep them up where her strength began to fail her. Daryl reached for the handgun, slow enough not to scare her, slipping it away from her grip and easing his hands up her wrists.

"We need to go, sunshine. Come on." He began to stand, pulling on her arms to get her to follow. When she didn't budge, it was obvious this was not going to be as easy as he imagined. "Lindsey, we need to go. It's not safe. That baby needs ya."

"I can't leave her." Lin shook her head, lip quivering and breaking the archer's heart, eyes focused on his lips as he spoke as if she could make out the words he was speaking.

"We'll come back for her, Lin. And we'll bury her like she deserves but we need to get ya back with the others." He pulled again because his patience was gone and there was no more time for her to wait. He'd help her rebuild but he could not do it here. "Sunshine you either walk or I drag you but you're not staying here." Lin's eyes drifted to Lori's body and her shoulders collapsed, her arms limp in his grasp. She was giving up. He pulled her so she was standing up then ducked for his crossbow. Get her back to the others.

"Can ya walk?" There was no answer from her, her eyes focused somewhere on his chest. He brought her close and swept her up to carry her the rest of the way. It wasn't practical but she needed the comfort and he couldn't afford to let her trail behind. Lin's hands fiddled with the front of his shirt until her fingers slipped between the buttons. She shut her eyes into his chest, unable to look as she left Lori behind. It felt like she was forgetting her, abandoning her. After everything they'd been through and now Lin was continuing on without her. It felt wrong, like Lin had left behind one of her limbs in the boiler room, like it had been her abdomen cut open and left to spill on the concrete. She couldn't feel anything, not her arms or legs, not Daryl's rushed steps as he carried her back to their block. When she blinked, she was outside with the others and Daryl was gone.

Was that all real? Or had it been some fever nightmare, plaguing her thoughts with hallucinations until the line between reality and the impossible blurred? Lin rotated her hands, unable to tell if the red painting her skin was real or just her mind conjuring the worst thing she could imagine. One shaking hand dipped down to her jeans pocket, fishing for the one thing that could tell her if this was real. She pulled her hand back and the silver chain that tumbled from her fingers into her lap was the answer.

It was real.

Lori was dead. She wasn't coming back.

Lin dropped her face into her hands, the tears spilling over and her muffled cries inaudible under the roar of Daryl's bike. Beth set her eyes on the nurse, Daryl having asked her to watch over her. She and Rick were out of commission, existing somewhere that wasn't here. They were processing it the same way, in silence with glassy eyes tipped to the sky. The baby was still crying, probably hungry.

Daryl had slipped into the role of leader effortlessly before he'd taken to this bike to find formula for the baby. He wasn't going to let her die, not her, not when she'd only just taken her first breaths in this world, even if it was a dangerous and unfair world.

Rick had taken off before Lin could process it. He was there one second, and then with the slink of the axe blade on concrete, he was gone.

Everyone left her. One way or another everyone would leave her. The last thing Lin wanted was to be alone and yet, as she sat on the step with her head in her hands, she was alone. Lori was dead. Rick vanished into the prison and Daryl was moving further and further away from her with each moment that passed. When would this end? When would this not hurt? Would it ever ebb into the melancholy of distant mourning? Dale's death had nearly eaten her away from the inside out but this? This was the death of her other half, of a piece of herself greater than her own identity. She'd always been Lori's little sister before she was Lindsey, before she was the nurse or the healer. And now, as the deepest pits of this dark hopeless world opened the swallow her whole, Lin didn't know who she was.

T-Dog and Carol were missing. Lin had not missed that. But she was afraid to ask. She didn't want to know, not if they were going to tell her they were gone.

Beth walked to Lin, kneeled in front of her to take her hands. Lin had been there for her on the farm, when she'd been too buried under her loss to think beyond it, to remember the family she still had and not the family she had already lost. If she could be there for Lin, show her that she still had someone there to listen, it would be enough for her. Her daddy told her that Lin was in shock, her and Rick both were, and the needed to be treated as such.

"Let's get her inside," Hershel said, the click of his crutches timed to her still racing heartbeat. Beth wrapped her hands around Lin's bicep and pulled so she was standing. Lin didn't fight it. She didn't have the energy to. Beth wrapped her arm around the older woman's waist, brought her arm over her shoulders. It was blur, as everything seemed to be to her. Lori's ring and necklace tumbled from her lap to the ground. And it was there it stayed until Carl picked it up, turning the ring in his fingers. How trivial all his parents' fights seemed now that she was dead. They'd fought because of this stupid piece of twisted into a circle. His hand tightened into a fist around it and though he wanted to chuck it into the forest through the link of the fence, he couldn't. So he forced his fingers apart and let the ring fall away.

Lin's ear was still ringing and though the other was still perfectly good, it seemed that no sound would pass through the cotton barrier that clogged it, nothing save for the cries of her niece. She was hungry, dangerously so, and Carl. was struggling to keep her quiet. Rocking her could not fill her empty stomach. Soft words could not quell her hunger. Lin felt helpless sitting against the bars of the cell block door. Maggie and Daryl had been gone too long. The sun has set, wicking Lin's will and fight away from her. She was tired. She was ready to give up. Lori, Daryl, Rick, they were all gone leaving behind the shattered pieces of her heart to pick up. She could not feed the baby. She had nothing to give.

Daryl had warned her that if she wasn't careful, this world would suck her dry. And he was right.

The door to the common area opened frantically and when Lin dared to look over, it was Maggie and Daryl that she saw. How had she not heard the motorcycle? Did they lose it? She raised her hand by her ear and when she pulled it away, spotted the lingering traces of dried blood on the pads of her fingers. Oh.

Maggie dumped her bag onto one of the tables, Beth joining her with her water flask. Daryl yanked his poncho from his shoulders and took to Carl's side. It was a hurried dance, the way Daryl brought the baby up into his arms, Maggie measured the formula, and Beth passed it to the archer who waited with hand outstretched. Lin watched from where she sat as Daryl offered her niece the bottle until she took the rubber nipple and latched, quieting now that her needs were being sated. It prompted smiles, relieved sighs, the contented silence of a job well done. So why didn't Lin feel better? Why did it not hurt any less?

Daryl looked at home with the baby in his arms. He cradled her perfectly supported her head when she fed. And he smiled too. Lin's vision went fuzzy, tears slipped down her cheeks along the paths that already lied.

"She got a name yet?" He asked Carl but then shot his gaze to his girl.

"Not yet," Carl shook his head. "But I was thinking maybe Sofia." Daryl was silent as he listened, rocking from side to side to comfort the baby, pensive even as Carl considered the right name for his sister. "Then there's Carol, too. And Andrea." Carl could barely finish his thoughts without the overbearing sadness of their losses hitting him one by one now that he stopped long enough to consider it.

"Amy. Jacqui. Patricia. Or," Carl stopped, breathed, then continued, "Lori. I don't know."

Daryl watched Carl carefully then the baby who was sucking down her formula that it was her job. She'd been very hungry and he and Maggie had been just in time. Lin brought her legs up to her chest, dropped her head onto her knees.

"You like that? Huh?" Daryl cooed softly, tilting in such a way that she could see everyone around her. "Little ass-kicker."

Lin smiled against her jeans thought her heart was plagued with the reminder that Little Ass-Kicker was all she had left of Lori. When she looked up, all eyes were on her and she felt compelled to shrink away. But the group knew better than to let her. They were all mourning, not just her, and she deserved to know that.

Carl swallowed, left his sister with the archer to comfort his aunt. It hurt no less for him and he was angry with RIck for giving up his mom the way he did, giving up the family they once were. Lin never had. He sat beside Lin, waited a moment, and then leaned into her side. Lin waited just as long and then brought her arms around her nephew, one of the still living pieces she had of Lori. Carl felt like a child being held like she held him but he didn't care. He looked at her and he saw the age in her face. These past eight months had aged her years.

Lin's hand held his head to her shoulder, fingers slipping into his hair. It was a touching moment, dampened only by the path of events that led up to it.

"Do ya wanna hold her?" When Lin looked up again, Daryl was facing her. Little Ass-Kicker was just about done with her food. He'd need to burp her after. When Daryl stepped closer, she realized he'd been speaking to her. Her brows lifted, her lips parted but she produced no sound. But Daryl understood. He always seemed to with her.

He waited until she was done feeding, passed the empty bottle to Beth, then began to shift baby girl Grimes in his arms. Lin leaned to help him when she fussed, brought to tears once more at the feeling of her niece against her shoulder. She patted her back firmly, shut her eyes and rested her cheek against the downy soft baby hair on her head. The scene was quiet, it didn't have to have words to have meaning.

The baby's arms shifted about as she burped and just the innocent motion, the feeling of Lori's baby in her arms, was enough to pull silent shaking sobs from her. Lori's baby was beautiful, strong and healthy despite any of her dispositions, the environments, the lack of any medical supplies, the world she'd been born into. And Lin couldn't help the fact that she was crying. Of all the horrible things this world had taken from them, Lori had given the world this baby. And they'd treasure her.

Her reaction, her cathartic tears over her niece, gave Daryl a little bit of hope in how she would be recovering from this. In his very brief mourning of Merle, before they found that the son of a bitch stole their van, he'd gotten physical, lashed out. He didn't regret his actions, he was past that now, but he wanted to keep Lin from going down a similar path. He knew her. He'd paid attention to her long enough that her thoughts were no secret to him. He might not have been the affectionate one between them but he was the perceptive one. Not to say that Lin was blind to her partner but Daryl found himself sitting and staring at her far more often than she did him. He liked the silence that came from his afar adoration. It let him watch her.

That night, after Hershel set the baby down to sleep, Daryl found himself alone on the mattress. Lin never turned up the opportunity to lie with him. He should have known this would happen. The archer kept his feet silent on the steps and he found her out in the common area. She was sitting facing the barred door that led to the rest of the prison, the door she and Maggie had led Lori down when walkers had gotten into the block. They should have stayed and fought. There couldn't have been more than a handful. Had they shut Lori up in the tower, had they stood their ground with what little weapons they had, Lori could have had a chance. She could have had Lin and Hershel together, the two of them fighting the course of nature. Maybe that would have been enough.

"Sunshine," Daryl crossed the space, mumbled her name low enough to keep it only between them. She didn't turn, didn't move, gave no indication she heard him. He imagined she was still in shock, the emotional trauma of watching her sister die in front of her still burning the coals of her mind. He wanted to reach for her but the absence in her posture, the absence of the look of her eyes told him not to. So he sat beside her at the table, the chair placing him behind her right flank. It was something he couldn't yet admit out loud but wanted to show her. She wasn't alone, not when she had him.

"I can't hear you out of my right ear," the raise in her voice told him that she wasn't lying. Her voice was raspy too, all the evidence he needed to know she hadn't used it in a while.

"Why?" He asked. Lin shut her eyes, opened them, and turned his way. He frowned at the signs of her crying, the red rims about her blue eyes.

"I had to stop her from turning." Firing a gun should have made her ear bleed the way it had, unless she'd held it right next to her face. Given that she'd been so unwilling to part from Lori's body, he imagined she'd done just that, placed her head beside her sister's and fired there.

Daryl wanted to help her. He wanted nothing more than to see her smile. But he couldn't make her sister come back. He could only hold her until the pain dulled, until she could mourn without it aching. He reached his hand out, slowly, where she could see, and placed it on her shoulder. When she seemed to relax into him, he moved it further up to her neck then her cheek. He didn't say anything, just let her lean into him.

Lin didn't want to put this on him. He'd been through enough on his own. He didn't deserve any more pain. Daryl watched as she shut down right in front of him. It was once that he couldn't predict her thoughts. He couldn't get inside her head the way he usually could, even if she was in his arms. She was so far away but right there with him. And he wasn't sure if it hurt more than when he didn't have her, when she'd been in the prison and all he could do was hope she was alright.

Lin leaned closer, into him, the space disappearing as he pulled her close. He'd been wrong. Not having her here was worse. He could help her like this should she chose to accept it. It wasn't a black and white thing; there was no sudden cure to her sadness. But he was willing to help her, as much as he could. She'd done the same for him, though he knew it wasn't a matter of favors.

They sat in silence, not out of choice but rather out of the fact that neither of them had anything to say. Sure, Daryl could have told her it was going to be okay. But that wasn't something he could promise her. It wasn't something he was sure would come for a while. Her and Rick, despite their attempts, would be out of commission for a while. And it was to be completely expected.

Lin had begun to cry again, silent sobs into Daryl's shoulder. And she kept crying and crying until she had none left the cry. When she had none left to cry, she shut her swollen eyes and fell asleep. Daryl just held her the way he knew she needed, pushed her hair back enough to check it she was really asleep. When her head lolled ever so slightly to the side, he caught it with his palm against the side of her face and guided her back to his chest. He lifted her as best as he could to get her up to the perch. He never minded carrying her. If he could show her how much he cared, carry her in his own arms wherever she needed, he would. Not the most romantic, but purposeful.

When he set her down, she stirred, eyes opening and searching him out. She feared he'd too been a dream, ripped out from under her. Her hand found his face, thumb smoothed the line of his jaw. He was there. He was real.

"Go to sleep, sunshine. I got ya." She nodded slowly, eyes slipping shut at his gentle command. She nosed into his side of the mattress in his absence, though he wasn't to be gone from her embrace for long.

Daryl pushed his hand into his pocket and fished for the metal he knew was there, warmed by the heat of his skin. He'd found it outside and knew that it had to be important. He'd seen Lori messing with in the past eight months. She must have given it to Lin and Lin must have dropped it. He pushed her hair away from her shoulders took either silver clasp between his fingers and lowered it around her neck. The clasp fell into place where it belonged; Lori's ring found a home with her sister. Tomorrow they needed to clear out the rest of the walkers the siren had brought in, prevent the morning from happening again. He sat against the brick wall, pulled Lin in close so her head was in his lap. And it was there that he thought of who they had lost. He didn't like to dwell on it, didn't like to think of the fate of Lori and T-Dog and Carol. Carol. She'd disappeared into the prison and she hadn't come out. He shut his eyes tight, trying so hard not to think about it. But not thinking about it wasn't an option. Thinking about those he had lost put the fire under his ass to keep that number the same, to not add to it. Lin, Beth, Carl, the new baby. He wasn't losing anyone.

Daryl fell asleep like that, sitting up against the wall. And he woke up like that too, with the sun in his eyes and Lin's head in his lap. Carol deserved better than just a memory, a half-assed apology in his head.

He found a Cherokee Rose out at the fence, roots growing through the chainlinks. He picked it carefully, leaves and all, shoved it into the inside pocket of his vest. Graves had been set up, an effort to ease the events of the morning before. Stones outlined the initial of each person, an L, a T, and a C, three people too many. Daryl pulled the Cherokee Rose from his pocket, careful not to wrinkle the petals as he did. He thought of the farm. He thought of Carol losing Sophia, Carol leaning on him, Carol taking care of him when he'd been hurt, Carol pushing him to Lin because she could see the thing blooming between them better than he could. She deserved better than a makeshift cross and a dingy flower.

an: so i don't love this chapter with everything in me and it isn't nearly as long as i'd like to give you guys after waiting for nearly three weeks for an update. i got behind on my prewriting and then fell behind on this book entirely and thats super duper my fault. i'm not losing inspo per say because i do still very much want to write as much of this book as i can. the later seasons for these two are going to be so exciting,, season 10 daryl is perhaps the most domestic we've seen him and i've got such big plans for these two (wow i keep hyping my own book up) enjoy these two memes as like a quarter compensation for waiting so long!