Healing, Soothing, Hoping

"What happened?" Rick shouted, running towards the truck.

"Walkers," Glenn replied, "Herd came through."

"Is he bit?" Carol asked worriedly.

"No," Maggie shook her head, "Crashed his bike though. His leg's pretty messed up and he hit his head."

"Carl, go help Hershel get set up," Rick instructed as he and Glenn supported Daryl between them.

"Daryl, can you hear me?" Rick asked and Daryl groaned in response. Rick and Glenn quickened their pace.

"Lie him here," Hershel said and they lied him down on one of the bunks.

Hershel immediately went to work.

"Hold that on his head," he told Carol who pressed a cloth to Daryl's head wound as Hershel started cutting away Daryl's pant leg. He glanced over his shoulder.

"Rick, Maggie, I'll need your help," he said and the other realized this was their dismissal.

"Didn't think he'd appreciate an audience," Hershel murmured to Rick as the former sheriff knelt next to him.

"What can I do?" Rick asked.

"We're going to need to clean his leg," Hershel said.

Maggie nodded and rushed out of the cell to get some water. She returned only a moment later and Hershel started cleaning.

"How's it looking?" Rick asked.

"He tore it up pretty bad," Hershel replied. "You said he crashed his bike?"

"Yeah," Maggie nodded, "Herd came out of the trees and he swerved, the bike dragged him and bit and he crashed into a tree, hit his head."

"That explains all the dirt," Hershel said, wiping more of the offending substance off Daryl's leg. "Some of these cuts are going to need stitches."

The man groaned.

"Daryl?" Carol said as he groaned again and slowly opened his eyes.

His eyes darter around the cell, but didn't really settle on anything as his breathing picked up.

"Daryl, it's alright," Carol said, but he didn't seem to hear her.

"Help him sit up, might help if he can see outside the cell," Hershel said and Rick and Carol helped Daryl into a sitting position.

The man groaned as the movement jostled his leg.

"I know, I'm sorry," Rick murmured. He nodded at Carol in understanding as she sat behind Daryl, still holding the cloth to his head as she supported him.

"It's okay," she whispered soothingly. "I know you don't like the cells, but you're safe. You were hurt and Hershel's getting you cleaned up."

She had no idea if any of what she was saying was actually making sense to Daryl, but he seemed to be relaxing a bit more as she spoke.

"Hershel's going to stitch you up now so you have to stay still, alright?" she went on. "So long as you stay still we can keep you sitting up like this."

Surprisingly, Daryl did manage to sit still, though whether it was because of what Carol had sad or because he was too out of it to even bother, they didn't know.

Whatever the reason, Hershel soon finished with Daryl's leg and they had to lie him down again on his side so Hershel could see his head.

"It doesn't look too bad," the ex-vet told them. "Gonna need someone to wake him up every couple hours though. He's been pretty out of it and I'm not sure if that's from the pain or a concussion. Other than that we just to wait for him to get better and hope he doesn't get an infection."

Carol brushed some hair off Daryl's forehead as the man slept again. Next time she had a bad gut feeling she was locking Daryl in a cell and never letting him out.

2019 UPDATE:

Anybody still there? Maybe? Sorta?

It's been a while, hasn't it? Literal years.

Obviously this is not a new chapter, but this is a little update on what is to come.

I'm currently in the process of going through and editing all my stories, starting with my one-shot series, then my one-shots, then my longer series.

I will be fixing spelling and grammar issues, as well as editing the stories to make them flow better. This might mean changing the wording of some things or even adding or removing some things.

The stories will keep the same plot, but I wrote a lot of these when I was really young and my writing style and ability has changed a lot since then. I'm not going to be changing a lot of things (at least not in my one-shots, series fics are another matter), but I want to make them the best they can be.

My goal is to have all the editing done (with the exception of a couple multi-chapter fics) done by the end of this year. Meaning I would be able to start posting new chapters come the new year.

The only ones that might take longer to edit are my Supernatural Multi-Chapter story and my Walking-Dead multi-chapters stories. This is because, honestly, I'm not thrilled with the direction either of them went.

I might add chapters, remove certain things, make chapters longer, who knows. I'm gonna see what happens when I get there.

I love writing and I love fanfiction and if there's still anyone out there who was reading my fics, I apologize for abandoning them.

I wish I could explain why I haven't updated in so long, but in the time it took me to do that I could probably write 10 new chapters.

So instead I'll let you know I'll be back in the new year with new chapters and new content, and in the meantime, I'll be reposting each chapter on my fics all polished and shiny.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and I look forward to what is to come!