He doesn't know how long they've been locked in, but there's no longer any light shining through the cracks in the train car. He's feeling fidgety and cramped. He wants to pace the car but can't. The blackness creeps behind his eyes, a disoriented feeling he hasn't felt since he was a kid.

His heart flutters, the beat unsteady and fast, so erratic he can barely breathe. His lungs start to ache and burn. Burning like when the old man used to out cigarettes on his skin. He tries to push the images out of his mind, knowing he can't lose it in this enclosed space, with all these people.

"Stop, just stop..." he mutters under his breath.

Everything is intruding in on him, on his space. Everyone else is sucking all the air out of the god damned room and he can't breathe. Anger wells up out of nowhere and courses through him. He wants to punch the walls and scream and feel the sting of split knuckles. Tears start to gather at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill.

He wants to take his shirt off from under his vest but he can't even get his fingers steady enough to unfasten the buttons. He leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes, willing himself to breathe long and steady breaths. He clenches his fists closed, then open again in rhythm with his breaths. A hot wave of nausea hits him, threatening to pull him under into the darkness where he'll never catch another breath again. He starts pulling at his clothes, hoping to feel cool air against his damp skin. Standing abruptly, he stumbles over whoever lay beside him and slings the vest onto the floor. He pulls so hard on the neck of the shirt that the buttons pop off the threads and scatter to the train car floor. He mumbles to himself, his eyes shut tight to stop the tears that are escaping. Someone is next to him in the blackness. He feels a light touch on his bare arm, a hand on his elbow.

"Hey, you ok?" Rick whispers, his voice gruff and gentle.

Daryl nods, still unable to catch a full breath. A broken sob escapes as he tries to answer, his face becoming a wet mess of tears and snot.

"Daryl," he asks, insistent this time. "Are you ok?"

Daryl manages a strangled response that sounds like 'yeah'.

"You're shakin'." Rick gently envelops Daryls hands in his own and guides him to sit again.

"Can't... breathe" he chokes out between sobs.

His cool hand rubs large soothing circles over his back, over the scars painted on his body by years of abuse. The slow steady rhythm encouraging him to breathe in time with the motion. The gentle pressure grounding him again, whispered comforts in Rick's voice reassuring him over and over that he was fine, he could breathe. And finally, he could breathe.

So he cried. For himself. For the child he used to be. For what those assholes had put Carl through. For the man that Rick didn't think he was anymore. For Beth, wherever she was. He cried until his eyes were swollen and sore and his head felt like it would burst. Rick's fingertips brushed back and forth over his arm, lulling him into a sleepy haze. When he woke, it wasn't dark anymore.