Title: A Better Grave Than This
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: I really wish I owned it
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,300
Summary: She's wrong where it matters, in the end.
Note: Spoilers for 5x08 - Coda. Deathfic. Title from Epitaph by Elinor Wylie. Written in one sitting, the working title for this fic was "Therapy", because that's really what this is: unbeta'd, unstructured, stream of consciousness, spur of the moment therapy to console myself after watching the mid-season finale and to get it out of my system so that I can write happier things. ...Darnit, Gimple. We trusted you!

They bury her by the church. He carries her there, her weight in his arms growing heavier with each step, and tries not to think about the last time he did it. Doesn't think about the way she laughed, the way the candlelight played across her face or the way she'd sung him to sleep the night before.

He thinks she might have weighed less back then, with her arms coming up to wrap around his shoulders, because he can't image ever having carried such a heavy load as the one currently in his arms. It's hard to tell.

They bury her in hallowed ground beneath a wooden cross, to words from scripture read by a real man of God. Old times it wouldn't have been considered much, but these days it's more than they could hope to offer anyone.

God provides, Father Gabriel says, a snippet of a sermon Daryl's turned a deaf ear to. He's shoveling dirt into the grave, a mindless action, and he doesn't look down into the grave because he hadn't wanted to let her go. Had felt her grow colder in his arms, had watched the bedsheets they'd wrapped her in grow stained with her blood, but would have kept her there forever, pressed safely up against his chest, if only he'd been able to.

Sermon over, the eulogies begin, and Daryl keeps on shoveling. His arms ache and his vision's swimming and now when he risks a look down into the grave he can't see her any more, trapped under all that loose dirt. Looks like just another hole to fill, and the thought makes his stomach turn.

He doesn't realize it until much later, but he buries something of his own down there with her. Hope and faith and light ripped right out of him and left to rot six feet under, and the cavities they leave behind are so large that nothing seems to be able to fill them.

He tries. Swear to God, he tries everything he can think of to piece himself back together, because the world keeps spinning and time keeps ticking and people keep dying so he has no excuse. None. He hunts and he tracks and he protects, and the close calls keep coming faster, getting closer, and Carol begins accompanying him on runs.

You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.

He does. Can't feel much anymore, can't even put a name to the few things he is still feeling, but that ache in his chest can't be anything but her.

...

They're on their way to D.C. with no more than six miles left when they run across a scouting party from the Alexandria Safe-Zone. Wary, with memories of Woodbury brewing in the back of most of their minds, they accept the offer of hospitality.

Sounds too good to be true, but it isn't.

Alexandria's walls are sturdy. There is plenty of food, enough for everyone several times over, and real beds to sleep in after warm showers to wash away the grime.

The mattress in Daryl's room feels uncomfortable after having spent so long on foot, too soft to offer much sleep; when he closes his eyes he imagines flickering candlelight and the soft notes of a piano, a song that doesn't sound right because it's been too long and he's forgotten the sound of her voice.

The first night of many, Daryl sleeps on the floor.

...

One winter. That's how long he makes it.

He hadn't seen it coming. Not that many do, these days. It's his own damn fault anyway; he's grown fearless – careless – and it was only a matter of time. He's seen the looks the others give him, the way Rick keeps sending Carol with him when they head out on supply runs.

He hasn't been wanting this. Hasn't gone looking to get bit, no matter what the others may think. Hasn't gone looking, but damn if he doesn't feel strangely calm in that moment, rolling up his sleeve to check the still bleeding bite.

It hurts, a dull ache that grows fiercer with each heartbeat, hot to the touch. By the time Rick appears in the doorway, a black silhouette against the sunlight, his shadow falling over the wispy blonde hair of the dead woman on the floor, Daryl's already stripping off his jacket, sweat dripping off his brow.

He expects them to leave him behind, to let him wander off into the woods to die alone. It's a foreign thought, brought on by the pain and the fever that's already washing over him and making his skin burn. It can't have been more than half an hour since he got bit but he's already going down.

The fever fuels his temper, makes him run just as hot, and he finds himself snapping at Sasha and Carol, shrugging Rick's hand off his shoulder and lashing out, telling them to leave him be. He strains against their hands as they load him into the back of the truck, but they outnumber him and even in his current state of mind something prevents him from hurting them in an attempt to break free.

By the time they drive through the gates of Alexandria he's too weak to put up much of a protest, even when they carry him into the the safe-zone's makeshift clinic and deposit him on one of the beds.

He hadn't been there when Bob got taken, but he's heard what went down. The Termites, the ambush in the church, Bob succumbing to the fever. It was slow going for him, with enough time for a proper goodbye, and Daryl hadn't thought much about it at the time, too numb to care.

It hadn't mattered, because he'd believed her. After all of her hoping, after being proven right, he'd believed this too.

You're going to be the last man standing.

She'd been wrong where it mattered, in the end. Even his fevered mind knows enough to know that, and as the members of his chosen family trickle into the room to begin their vigil, he's glad for it.

The procession doesn't last long. He's burning up, was floating in and out of consciousness on the drive back, but he manages to summon up whatever strength he needs to make it through these last few minutes.

Rick bends down to touch his forehead to Daryl's, calls him brother one last time. He helps him lifts his hand to card through Judith's hair, soft as silk, and Carl's grip is strong and steady in comparison. Carol presses a kiss to his temple, calls him a good man, and the rest follow.

Maggie is last, smiling down at him, a perfect picture of strength and grief. She touches his cheek, just the slightest brush of her fingertips, and he can see it then, the resemblance between half-sisters. He aches.

"You go on, Daryl Dixon," she says. "You go find my sister and you tell her that we love her."

He will. Never put much thought into an afterlife, but if there's anything close to it, he'll tear through fire and brimstone and claw his way up into the clouds to find her.

Won't be too hard, he thinks as the world starts to spin and grows narrow, sound and pain fading away into an echo and darkness bleeding into the edges of his vision until there's only a pinprick of light left in the distance.

He'll just head for the light at the end of the tunnel.