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Chapter Text

The days were getting shorter and colder as the group of survivors scavenged the woods for shelter, only finding small wooden cabins to spend the nights. Rick and the others knew that they could not stay like this, not with Lori’s belly getting bigger and especially not with the harsh winter that was to come. Doing his best to keep up the morale of his group, Rick and Daryl went out to look for food and hopefully a shelter that they can stay for the months of the winter. Thankfully, they had come across an old abandoned warehouse, large enough for the group to temporarily live in comfortably. 

They get to work on securing their temporary home, pushing up wooden planks up against the doors and windows to keep the wind out. Lori and Carol start up a fire in the middle of the building but the small fire wasn’t able to warm up the large place. Gloria looks around and finds metal drum tins, she calls for Glenn’s help to arrange them in a circle then fills up the finds with pieces of broken wood, setting them on fire for light and heat. The others start to lay out their sleeping bags and blankets, exhausted from their long journey. Gloria is still looking around the place when she finds a few metal buckets and she gets the idea to let her group have the luxury to clean themselves off.

She looks around and sees many wooden skids strewn all over the ground, “Hey, Glenn, Daryl, come here for a minute.” she calls over to them, “can you help me move these skids up to make a little private room, I think the others wouldn’t mind a private place to clean themselves off.” 

The boys smile and nod, then proceed to move the skids, arranging them so that they have a makeshift bathroom. As they do that, Gloria goes out to retrieve snow into a bucket from outside, then places the bucket over the fire and waits for it to boil. Once the first bucket of water is boiled, she places another bucket of snow over the fire and brings the first to the makeshift washroom. 

“Alright, the towel bath is set up for anyone who wants to use it first, but be careful, the water is just boiled so it’s really hot.” Gloria announces.

The others smile at her appreciatively, Rick insists that Lori be the first one to use the bath, followed by Carl. Gloria reaches out to Daryl who grabs her hand and helps her back to the campfire, letting her sit down by her bag. 

“Ya need to ice that?” he asks, looking down at her ankle.

She looks down at her ankle then nods, “I think so.”

Without another word, Daryl gets up to go outside to get some snow for her. Over the past few weeks, her ankle had healed a lot but not completely yet. Gloria was very grateful for Daryl as he was persistent on not letting her walk; he would have her sit on his motorbike while he pushed the bike from behind. 

“Here.” Daryl says as he comes back from outside, handing her his red rag with snow wrapped inside. 

Gloria smiles at the makeshift ice pack and places it gently on her ankle, hissing at the sudden cold on her skin. A while later, everyone had washed up, T-Dog being the last one to walk out from the wooden skids. 

“Yo, Gloria, it’s your turn, I helped you change the water already.” he calls out to her as he walks back to his sleeping bag.

She smiles at him, “thanks, T’!” 

As she struggles to get up, Daryl gets up from beside her and grabs her arm, pulling her up to stand. Daryl begins to walk Gloria to the makeshift washroom, his arm wrapped around her waist. 

“Hey, Daryl.” she says in a soft whisper, “are you going to help me scrub my back, too?” 

He blushes at her teasing but scoffs, trying to hide his embarrassment, “if ya need me to.” he mutters, making Gloria chuckle as they reach their destination.

Daryl stands there awkwardly, not knowing what to do as he wanted to help Gloria if she needed it but also knew he should give her some privacy. Although, Gloria didn’t seem to mind or even notice that he was still standing close to her and watching her as she crouched down to wet the towel and wrung out the excess water. She draped the towel around her arm then grabbed a second towel, wetting it and wringing it out, then tossed it over to Daryl, letting him know that she was aware he was there. 

“You gonna just stand there?” Gloria teases, taking off her denim jacket then proceeds to wipe down her arms, her chest and her neck. 

Daryl scoffs then takes the towel and does the same, wiping his arms of dirt and grime accumulated throughout the last few weeks. As Gloria cleans her skin, she realizes that she actually won’t be able to properly clean her backside. She glances at Daryl and a smirk grows on her face.

“So, were you serious when you said you’d scrub my back if I needed you to?” she says looking up at him, playing innocent as he blushes at her words. 

He eyes her for teasing him again but then nods, crouching down to her level and gestures the towel to her as if telling her to turn around. Gloria smiles at him, pleasantly surprised that he was actually willing. She turns around, her back facing him as she pulls off her black tank top. Daryl moves her long black hair to the side over her shoulders, he steadies his breath as he looks at her smooth back. She lets out a soft breath of relief as Daryl wipes her back with the warm towel, humming in satisfaction and enjoyment at the warmth on her back. Once he’s finished, Gloria turns around to face Daryl.

“Your turn.” she says with a smile, gesturing him to turn around.

Daryl bites his lip, hesitant but still turns around. Letting out a breath, he pulls his shirt over his head. Up until now, Gloria had completely forgotten about the scars littered on Daryl’s back. The sight of them jogged her memory and then she realized why he was so hesitant. 

“Shit. Oh god, I’m so sorry.” she mutters as she turns away from his back.

“Ya’ve already seen ‘em before, right?” Daryl says, glancing at her over his shoulder.

She purses her lips and nods, stuttering, “I have… I just… I forgot you had them…and I-I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.” 

“It’s okay.” he tells her, then sighs when she still hesitates, “girl, would ya hurry up, my backs gettin’ cold!” 

Gloria looks at Daryl then nods, muttering a soft sorry then wets the cloth again with warm water, ringing out the excess then starts to wipe down his back. As she does so, she isn’t able to stop her mind from wondering how he got all of these scars, but Gloria also knows better than to ask him about it. Teasing him is one thing, asking about his past traumas are another. 

“Was my dad.” Daryl suddenly speaks, not turning to face her. 

She’s surprised that he would share something like this with her. But his words made her heart ache, it dawned on her that this was why he was always so flinchy and awkward with any physical contact. Daryl glances over his shoulder at her again when he hears her let out a soft sigh.

“You won’t get hurt like this ever again.” she says softly then looks up at Daryl, “not if I can help it.”

He scoffs at her words, turning back around to face forward, “Jus’ keep wipin’,” he says with a small side smile tugging at his lips.

—

After months of the cold, the winter had finally passed. Daryl had been going out everyday to hunt for the group so that they all had some kind of meat. Gloria’s ankle had finally healed properly as she had been icing it nearly every day and keeping off of it. Now being early Spring, Rick has wanted to find another place to stay. The warehouse was nice but it was only temporary as it was in the middle of nowhere and barely offered any protection from walkers or other potential dangers. 

“I’m gonna go on a run, see if I can find anything before we move on,” Glenn announces as he puts on his pack. 

“You’re going out there alone?” Maggie asks, worry evident in her voice.

Glenn shakes his head then points to Gloria, “she’s coming with me.”

Gloria looks at him and blinks, “I am?” Glenn hums a yes as he grins cheekily at her then leads the way, “I guess I am.” 

She follows him out of the warehouse with her own bag slung over her shoulder, daggers equipped to her belt. The siblings walk down a path set in the woods, scanning the area as they look for any cabins or houses they can rummage. Gloria uses her dagger to carve an ‘X’ in the trees they pass just in case they get lost.

“So, is today the day we can discuss what’s going on between you and Daryl?” Glenn asks as he walks beside her. 

She rolls her eyes at the question, “Is that the only reason why you asked me of all people to come on a run with you?”

He smiles sheepishly at her, “Well, not the only reason, you’re good on runs too. But don’t change the subject, so what’s going on? I told you about me and Maggie.”

“Please, you didn’t tell me shit.” Gloria chuckles. 

Glenn scoffs at this, “Are you kidding? I told you everything that’s going on, back at the farm and after!”

Gloria stops walking and turns to look at Glenn, her arms crossed, “Glenn, you didn’t even tell me that you and Maggie first hooked up in the pharmacy.”

Hiding her smirk when she sees Glenn’s face turning bright red, she continues on the path, leaving him behind until he snaps out of it. He jogs to catch up to her.

“What else did Maggie tell you?” Glenn asks, worry in his voice. 

“Well thankfully, for my sanity, she spared any details.” Gloria tells him.

He sighs, slightly relieved but curiosity is still engraved in Glenn’s mind, “at least tell me when you two started, I could tell by that kiss on the highway that that wasn’t the first time.” 

It’s Gloria’s turn to scoff at him, “you’re an expert at analyzing kisses now?”

“You could say I’m experienced now,” Glenn grins proudly.

Gloria shakes her head and keeps walking, not revealing anything to Glenn about her potential relationship with Daryl. He pokes at her, knowing that she’ll give in eventually. She sighs as she knows Glenn will not give up until he gets his answer, Gloria glances at him then smirks, she’ll just have to make him regret asking.

“Daryl and I slept together at the C.D.C.” she blurts out, then turns around when she realizes that Glenn isn’t walking beside her anymore, a look of horror on his face, “you wanted to know.” 

Gloria shrugs and continues walking, a look of victory on her face as she hides her laughter. 

Glenn groans as he resumes walking, “Come on, I only wanted to know about a kiss, not when my little sister got laid.” 

“Kisses can lead to other things, but I’m sure you knew that,” Gloria laughs when he groans again, “plus, that’s revenge for when Maggie told me about you two, she doesn’t realize how awkward it can be with us since she has Beth, so I’ll let that slide with her. You, on the other hand, enjoy the awkwardness.” 

Glenn shudders jokingly, making Gloria chuckle, “do you love him?” he asks suddenly. 

His question makes Gloria stop in her tracks, “What?”

Glenn looks at her seriously, “all jokes aside, do you love him?”

Gloria ponders for a moment, pursing her lips together as she thinks. She is attracted to him, that’s for sure, and she enjoys his company. It always made her happy whenever she was able to make him smile or laugh, and she’d always worry about him when he went out on his solo hunting trips. Gloria had thought she found love before, but this time it felt different. So… was this love? 

“It’s getting there, at least… I think it is.” Gloria says as she smiles shyly.

Glenn smiles warmly at her as he pats her back, happy for his little sister. The two continue hiking through the woods on the path when Gloria spots a cabin in the distance, she nudges Glenn and points to it. Wordlessly, they agree to go and check it out. As they approach it, they notice that rather than it being a small cabin, it turns out to be a decently sized house. Gloria stands by the side door, holding one of her daggers ready to stab at anything that comes out as Glenn is on the other side of the doorframe, crouching and holding the handle. He looks up at her as he silently counts to three, then pushes the door open, both of them prepared for any type of threat but to their surprise, the house looks empty. 

“Look out for any traps, this place looks way too clean.” Glenn says quietly as they walk in.

Gloria cautiously walks through the house, noticing that it looks barely touched by anyone, “either this place is too hidden in these woods for anyone to find or someone is still living here, there’s no way this place can be untouched.” 

“Or not.” Glenn says as he comes across the living room, his face a solemn expression. 

Gloria walks over to him and looks into the living room to see a family of five, dead. Bullet holes in all of their skulls. She lets out a sigh at the scene, then snarling from outside catches her attention. She goes over to the windows and looks out, frowning at the sight in front of the house. 

“Glenn… this place was fully protected.” Gloria tells him.

“What?” Glenn goes over to the other window and looks out, “Oh my god…”

Around the perimeter of the property, walkers were lined up, bloody as they were caught in barbed wire, some impaled by wooden pikes sticking out of the ground. There were also small craters in the ground, scattered around the yard looking as if created by small explosions. The upper halves of some walkers were still wriggling around the yard. 

“We must have gotten lucky with going through the back door.” Gloria perceives, glancing at Glenn.

He nods in agreement, “but if they were this protected, why did they still off themselves?” 

Gloria shrugs, looking away from the window then going towards a picture frame hanging on the wall, “because there were supposed to be six of them.”

Glenn turns in her direction, going to the picture and sees that there are six people in the photo. An older man and older woman, assuming to be the parents of the four younger adults. Two ladies, and two younger men. 

“They must have lost one, didn’t see a point to go on after that.” Gloria sighs at this conclusion. 

Glenn sighs too, then turns their attention to scavenging, “come on, let’s see what we can find.” 

He heads upstairs while Gloria covers the main floor. Opening every drawer, she isn’t able to find anything useful until she comes across two working flashlights. The kitchen was empty, wiped clean of anything. She sighs in frustration and confusion. This didn’t make any sense, the house was spotless, as if no intruder had come in before them and if there were, they would have no reason to leave the house this clean. She goes out of the kitchen and down the hallway where she sets her attention on another door. Gloria grabs the doorknob and cautiously opens it slowly. The door leads down a set of stairs but it was too dark to see anything. Making use of her find, she turns on the flashlight and shines it down the stairs where she sees the start of some shelves. She bangs on the wall and whistles, listening intently for any snarling and she proceeds down the stairs when she hears silence. 

“Holy shit…” she whispers to herself when she gets to the bottom of the stairs.

Packed along the endless shelves are boxes upon boxes of food, others stacked with medical supplies. This place was a goldmine. 

“Glenn!” she calls with a grin on her face as she waits for her brother to meet her in the basement, “Glenn, down here!”

Light footsteps from the upper floor could be heard making their way down to the middle then reaching the basement, “Gloria?” Glenn calls out to make sure before going down the stairs, “Holy shit.” 

Gloria grins as she glances at him and hands him the second flashlight, “Jackpot.” they both say in unison. 

The siblings start to pack up as much as they can into their bags. Soon, both of their bags are packed full of food and supplies, when Gloria comes across another shelf. Smiling to herself as she picks up a bottle of prenatal vitamins, she grabs a few and packs it into her bag as well, knowing Lori would appreciate them as she was getting bigger as each day went by. 

“Come on, let’s go.” Glenn says as he zips up his bag, putting it on over his shoulders. 

Gloria does the same thing and they both head upstairs and out of the house, making their way back to the warehouse. Unable to contain himself, Glenn woops as they get into the warehouse, catching everyone’s attention as Gloria shakes her head at him. 

“Guys, we hit the jackpot!” Glenn announces as he puts his bag on the ground, kneeling over it and opening it, revealing all the food and supplies they had found. 

Rick grins at the sight, “Where did you two find all this?” he asks as the rest of the group ogle at the findings in awe. 

“Found a house in the middle of nowhere, barely touched and found their full supply in the basement.” Gloria tells him as she too puts her heavy bag on the ground beside Glenn’s.

“Hey Rick,” Glenn calls out, “how about we stay here for one more night, eat and rest up and head out tomorrow, you know, to boost our strength and morale?”

Rick smiles and nods at the idea, “yeah, that’d be great. Thank you, you two did us a great one.” 

The siblings smile and nod at Rick, then head to do their own things. Glenn goes over to check up on Maggie and Gloria digs through her bag as Carol goes up to her. She lets her go through her bag to see what she wants to cook up for the group, taking a few cans of corned beef, corn, and tuna. As Carol gets to cooking, Gloria takes the few bottles of prenatal vitamins and goes over to Lori.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” she asks as she sits down beside Lori.

“Weak and tired, some days I feel like I can’t even get up.” Lori sighs, her answer worrying Rick who’s sitting beside her.

“Then I guess we’re lucky I found these at the house,” she says as she hands Lori the bottles of vitamins, “take two a day, max, and you should be feeling better soon, assuming you keep hydrated and fed.” 

Lori looks at the bottles in her hands then back up at Gloria, she smiles and pulls her in for a hug, “Thank you, thank you so much.”

“It’s nothing,” Gloria says, smiling as she pats Lori gently on the back. 

Rick pats her on the shoulder, smiling warmly at her as a silent thank you and she nods back at him. Rick looks up as he hears footsteps entering the warehouse and he spots Daryl coming in, seeming to be looking around for him as well. 

“Rick!” Daryl calls out when he spots him, then gestures him to come over. 

Frowning as Daryl sounds eager, Rick gets up and goes over to Daryl. The two men talk in private, then Rick looks to the group, an unreadable expression on his face. 

“We’ll be right back.” Rick says as he and Daryl leave the warehouse together. 

As the group waits for Rick and Daryl to return, they’re feasting on the meal thrown together by Carol. Lori keeps her eyes on the entrance of the warehouse, waiting anxiously for Rick to return. Gloria pats her shoulder, trying to calm her down but Lori sits up when the two return, a grin on Rick’s face.

“Everybody, I think Daryl found us a place we can make our new home.” he announces.

“What kind of place?” Maggie asks, a look of uncertainty on her face.

“It’s a prison.” Daryl says simply.

“I’ve seen it, it’s got fences, a large courtyard and walls that can keep walkers out. We can make it work,” Rick looks around at his people, “it’s not a long walk away, if we head there now, we can secure the yard by tonight.” 

The group is silent, unsure of their new finding as it sounds too good to be true. They’ve been wanting to find a permanent place to stay ever since the farm got overrun, so this was something they needed to be true but they didn’t want to get their hopes up. Gloria looks around and sees the rest of the group hesitate so she takes initiative and gets up, walking to her bag and zipping it up.

“Come on guys, it’s gonna get dark soon, we should clear it now while we still have light.” she says, looking at everyone encouragingly. 

Rick smiles at her then Glenn nods and starts to pack up his stuff too along with Maggie’s. Carol, T-Dog, Hershel, and Beth start to pack up their things too. Carl helps his mom carry her things and they all head out, following Daryl and Rick to their new potential home. 

Chapter Text

Rick had scoped out the prison and decided it was perfect and secure for his group. They had easily cleared out the courtyard with Rick’s leadership and teamwork they had all developed over the few weeks of travelling together. They had decided to rest in the now safe courtyard and wait until the next morning to take over the rest of the prison. As morale was high in the group with their recent wins, they easily cleared out the entrance to the prison. Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and T-Dog enter the prison walls first to clear out any walkers and Rick finds two sets of keys that open the gates to the cell block. Giving one set to Daryl, he goes to open the gate to the cell block. The rest of the group file into the cell block, claiming cells as their own and moving their belongings inside. 

“I ain’t sleepin’ in no cage,” Daryl says as he makes his way to the stairs to the second level of the block, “I’ll take the perch.”

He throws his bag on the ground, taking the perch as his area. Gloria chuckles then follows him up the stairs, wanting to take a cell up on the upper level. She chooses the one closest to the perch, putting down her things and laying down on the bed. 

The next morning, Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, Daryl, Maggie and Hershel were preparing to head deeper into the prison. Rick had suggested the night before that they need to find the infirmary, armory and cafeteria. He had also asked Gloria to stay back and watch over Lori and Carl. She agrees, knowing that with Hershel going she needed to make sure Lori was feeling fine. Carol and Gloria were both in Lori’s cell, looking after her as she didn’t look very well. 

“Carol, can you help me get Hershel?” she pleads and Carol nods, leaving the cell immediately to get the vet. 

“What’s wrong?” Hershel says in a soft voice as he kneels down beside Lori.

“Lori thinks she lost the baby.” Gloria tells him, sadness in her voice. 

Hershel purses his lips in deep thought, “have you felt the baby moving?” 

“No…” Lori says through her tears, “what if… what if it’s already dead inside me… what if it starts to rip me apart from the inside?” 

Gloria grabs onto Lori’s hands, squeezing gently, attempting to comfort the pregnant woman, “No, Lori, don’t think like that.” 

“Gloria’s right, you’re letting fear take over you, that’s not going to happen.” Hershel says reassuringly.

Lori sniffles then looks at Hershel and Gloria seriously, “What if I end up dying during childbirth… what if I turn and end up attacking you, or Rick, or Carl, or the baby? If that does happen, I want you both to promise me that you will put me down immediately.” 

Hershel sighs then looks at Gloria who also glances at him, then she gives him a nod, “Okay, we promise. But I want you to remember that you have two doctors with you, so that should ease some of your worries.” 

“Hey, I’m just a doctor in training.” Gloria says jokingly to try and lighten up the mood. 

Hershel chuckles, “that’s still a doctor.”

Gloria smiles then she turns to Lori, “have you taken your prenatals for the day yet?”

Lori smiles softly and shakes her head. Gloria pats the back of her hand and gets up to go get the vitamins for her. As she leaves the cell, the others are all armored up to head deeper into the prison. Hershel leaves to join them and Carl closes and locks the gates of the cell block when they set off. Gloria gets back to Lori’s cell and gives her the vitamins then walks back out of the cell. 

“I think we could clean up the place before they get back, what do you think?” Gloria asks Carol. 

She nods, “Yeah, we should.” she says smiling. 

With that, the girls start to clean up the cell block that has now become their safe haven. Gloria goes up to the second level and takes a mattress from one of the unoccupied cells, laying it down on the perch where Daryl had slept the night before. She then proceeds to clean up more scraps and garbage littered around the area. Carl is still standing by the gates then hurries to open the gate as he hears Rick calling out for them to open the gate in a panic. The rest of the group rush in, pushing a makeshift stretcher with Hershel lying unconsciously on top of it, the bottom half of his right leg cut off and bleeding out.

“Beth, get blankets, pillows, towels, bedsheets, anything that can soak up blood. Now!” Gloria orders the younger girl as she rushes into the cell.

Maggie and Rick make way for her as she kneels down beside Hershel. Gloria holds onto the towels that were already on Hershel’s stump, pressing down hard with her hands, coating the towels into a deep scarlet red. Beth rushes to the cell with bedsheets, pillows, and more towels. Gloria takes off the blood drenched towels and grabs a bedsheet from Beth, wrapping it tightly around Hershel’s thigh to try and cut off as much blood flow as possible. She then grabs a pillow and presses it down hard on the wound. After a vicious cycle and many bloodstained pillows and towels, Gloria finally managed to stop the bleeding, wrapping up the tender wound with a fresh bedsheet. 

“Did you guys manage to find the infirmary?” Gloria asks, slightly breathless while looking up at Rick.

He sighs and shakes his head, “No, not yet.” 

“We’re going to need to find it, and quick. Hershel’s going to need antibiotics to keep this from getting infected, who knows how dirty these bedsheets are.” she says with a frown.

Rick nods, “we’ll keep looking.” he says then pats her shoulder before leaving the cell, heading out the cell block.

Gloria gets up from Hershel’s side and immediately is met with Beth, hugging her tightly and crying. She hugs the young girl back, patting her back in hopes to comfort her. 

“Thank you… thank you for saving my daddy,” she cries.

Gloria sighs then pulls away from Beth, “don’t thank me yet, your dad will still need antibiotics otherwise I can’t guarantee that he won’t develop an infection. You gotta stay strong for him though, okay?” 

Beth sniffles and nods, “okay,” she wipes her tears away, “okay, I will.” 

Gloria looks over to Maggie who’s leaning on the doorway to the cell, her eyes wet with tears. The two women nod at each other with a mutual understanding then Gloria walks out of the cell as Maggie walks into the cell to comfort Beth. Gloria walks up to Glenn who’s leaning on the wall across Hershel’s cell and looking in with his arms crossed. 

“I stopped the bleeding, but we really need to find the infirmary.” Gloria tells him. 

Glenn nods at that, “Yeah… we have to find it soon.” 

Gloria sighs heavily, looking down at her blood soaked hands and attempts to wipe the drying blood on her pants, trying to distract herself from the bloody scene she just had to endure. She always had to calm herself down after something like that, even in her days as a nurse working in the ER. In the moment, she would be fine, keeping herself calm, collected, and professional but once it was over, her emotions and panic would catch up with her. Knowing her well, Glenn puts his hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down.

“Hey, breathe slowly, deep breaths, come on. Breathe with me.” Glenn instructs as he helps her slow her breath, “you did really good just now.” 

Gloria doesn’t say anything and just nods and focuses on taking deep breaths. As she’s trying to calm herself, movement from outside the cell block catches her eye. Rick and Daryl were leading a group of unknown people outside when one of them turns to look in the direction of their cell block and she could swear that she saw him smirk at her. 

“Who are they?” Gloria says, gesturing to the people outside.

“Prisoners. They were locked up in the cafeteria.” Glenn informs her.

Gloria smiles a bit at that, “at least we found the cafeteria.” 

“Yeah,” Glenn chuckles, “that’s a small plus in our long chain of negatives.” 

Gloria glances over at Hershel’s cell, taking in the heartbreaking scene of Beth and Maggie waiting for their father to wake up. They needed to find the infirmary but Rick and Daryl were busy dealing with the prisoners. She decided to take it upon herself to look for it.

“Hey, look after Hershel, I need a bit of a breather.” Gloria tells Glenn and he nods, understanding.

She couldn’t tell Glenn she was wandering off on her own to find the infirmary, he’d never let her go, not alone anyway, so she had to lie. Rushing up the stairs to the upper level, she goes to retrieve the flashlight from her bag and equips her daggers onto her belt then heads out the back of the cell block. She sneaks down the hallway, dagger in her dominant hand, flashlight in the other lighting up her path. Gloria is cautious, listening intently for any snarling of walkers, killing any that get in her way. She uses the walker blood to mark her path, drawing a large ‘X’ so that she doesn’t get lost on her way back. After going through what seemed like a maze of identical walls, Gloria finally makes it to a set of double doors. She pushes the right side of the door cautiously and hears snarls from the inside of the room, she listens close to pin-point which side of the room the sounds are coming from. She peeks through the crack of the door, seeing shadows moving on the ground that told her the walkers were on the right side of the room. 

She skips to the left side of the door, letting the right door swing shut, she pushes the left door slightly to check how many walkers are in the room. Luckily, there were only three from what she could see and all of their backs were facing her. Gloria pushes through the door and in one swift motion, stabs at the walker closest to her in the back of the head, killing it then does the same to the other two. Looking around cautiously, she lets out a breath of relief as she sees that there are no more walkers in the room. Instead, there are fully stocked shelves of medical supplies. Grinning at her discovery, she starts to pack up bandages, painkillers, and antibiotics to bring back to Hershel. As she’s about to leave, a sight in the corner of the room catches her eye. She chuckles to herself as she sees a very familiar old friend: crutches. 

Taking the supplies back to the cell block, she smudges out any ‘X’ marks she made that didn’t point to the infirmary. When she gets back, her heart drops as Beth and Maggie are in the hallway, holding onto each other as they cried. Fear swallowed her as she thought that Hershel hadn’t made it. When Beth sees Gloria, she storms up to her.

“Where were you?! Daddy stopped breathing and you weren’t here!” Beth yells as she cries. 

“I-I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have left, I’m sorry.” Gloria says, feeling bad for leaving the young girl, “I found the infirmary and got supplies for your dad, he’s going to be okay.” 

“You went alone?!” Glenn exclaims, frowning at her, “why didn’t you tell anybody?” 

“Someone had to! You had to look after Maggie and Beth and I don’t want them leaving Hershel’s side, and I sure as hell am not letting Lori or Carl go exploring the prison.” Gloria retorts, she then goes into the cell where Hershel is laying, she puts down the supplies she’d retrieved on the ground in the corner of the cell, “how is he?” 

Maggie had returned to Hershel’s side, “he’s breathing again, Lori gave him CPR.”

Gloria nods, a small smile of relief on her face, she takes a bottle of antibiotics and a roll of bandages from the bunch of supplies then goes to Hershel. 

“Here, give these to him when he wakes up.” she says as she gives Maggie the bottle of antibiotics. 

Maggie nods with a small grateful smile on her face. She watches as Gloria begins to unwrap Hershel’s stump, replacing the bloody bedsheets with proper bandages. 

“These should also help with preventing infection.” she says, standing up and pats Maggie’s shoulder reassuringly, “your dad’s gonna be fine." 

Just then, Daryl and Rick walk into the cell block. Rick goes into the cell where Hershel is and Gloria leaves the cell so that it isn’t as crowded. Gloria leans on the wall as Daryl walks up to her, frowning.

“What happened to ya?” he asks, referring to all the blood on her. 

“Had to stop Hershel’s bleeding.” she tells him, looking at the ground. 

He then gestures to her neck and shoulders, "ya got blood splattered all over ya, that from Hershel too?” 

“Walkers. I went to find the infirmary.” Gloria sighs then she adds just before Daryl is about to yell at her, “Don’t. Glenn already went off on me for going alone.” 

Daryl says nothing to that, pursing his lips together then notices that Gloria seemed different, “wha’s wrong?” 

She shakes her head then pushes herself off the wall, “I’m gonna get some air.” 

Daryl watches as she walks out of the cell block and outside the building altogether. He sighs and retreats to his spot on the perch, noticing the bed that was now laying there. A small smile pulls at his lips as he knew it was Gloria who did this. Later on, Hershel had finally woken up, relieving everyone in the cell block. Only Gloria didn’t know of this piece of good news as she was still sitting outside on the picnic bench. Daryl was leaning on the railing on the upper level of the cell block, contemplating whether or not to go out and check up on Gloria when Glenn walks up the stairs and stands beside him. An awkward silence emits between the two of them. 

“How’s Hershel?” Daryl was the first one to speak.

“He’s better. Talking with Beth and Maggie right now.” Glenn nods, then another moment of silence comes between them when Glenn finally speaks up again, “so, I’ve noticed something going on between you and Gloria.” 

Daryl scoffs at that, “what, that kiss on the highway in front o’ everyone wasn’t obvious enough?”

Glenn chuckles lightly, “well, I don’t know exactly what it is you have going on or what you can have going on, I just hope you can take care of her.”

“Ya ain’ threatenin’ me that ya’ll kill me if I hurt her, are ya?” Daryl side smiles at him.

“Nope,” Glenn says, “we both know that if you end up hurting her, she’s going to be the one who kills you.” 

Both of them laugh at that, Daryl nods, knowing that’s definitely true then he looks at Glenn, “I’ll take care o’ her.” 

Chapter Text

The night air was cool and crisp as Gloria sat on top of the picnic bench, staring off into the courtyard as the stars twinkled above her in the clear night sky. The groans and snarls of walkers in the far distance were drowned out by Daryl’s footsteps as he made his way to the bench, a bottle of water and a plate of food in his hands. He sets the plate and bottle on the table and sits down beside Gloria. 

“Brought ya some dinner, Carol made it.” Daryl says when she doesn’t greet him.

She glances at him, “thanks…” she says in a small voice. 

“Ya alright?” he asks, looking at her with concern.

She nods, “with how everything’s going, I gotta be.” 

“Wha’ d’ya mean?” Daryl frowns, confused.

“When you guys wheeled in Hershel like that today, everyone panicked, no one knew what to do. I had to step up and take charge.” She sighs, “I’m glad he’s fine now, but I hate how much pressure it puts on me that I had Hershel’s life and literally his blood on my hands.” 

Daryl looks down at her hands, noticing that she didn’t bother cleaning any of the now dried blood off them. He takes the red rag he keeps with him out of his back pocket and grabs the water bottle, opening it and pouring some water on the rag. He takes Gloria’s hands in his and starts to wipe the blood off, trying to clean her hands and arms as best he can. Gloria doesn’t say anything nor does she resist, she just watches him. 

“Ya shouldn’ have that kind of pressure on ya. I get why ya do, but I wish ya didn’ have to.” Daryl says, not looking up at her as he continues wiping.

A small smile pulls at her lips, “thank you. I’ll be okay though, it’s what I signed up for when I decided to become a doctor anyway.”

“The world is different now, ya don’t gotta be a doctor anymore.” Daryl tells her.

“If I didn’t do what I did today, Hershel would have died!” Gloria snaps at him, her emotions taking over her.

“Well he didn’t ‘cause o’ what ya did.” he says as he looks at her in the eyes, “ya can do yer job but forget the burden that comes with it.” 

“I really wish it were that easy,” she sighs and looks down before continuing, “when I worked in the hospital, the doctors always felt a sense of responsibility for their patients and whenever anything went wrong, or in the worst case that they died, they’d carry that with them for the rest of their lives. But that never stopped them from doing their jobs and trying to save others.” 

She smiles sadly and wipes a tear away from her face, “I should just suck it up. Hershel’s alive and I should be happy instead of moping around like this.”

Daryl wraps his arm around Gloria’s shoulders, “ya don’t have to hold onto that burden yerself, ya got me to lean on if ya wan’.” he tells her shyly. 

Gloria looks at him, smiling at him gratefully then leans on him, her head on his shoulder. They sit together in silence for a moment, the only sounds being crickets and groans from the walkers outside the fences. 

“I don’t want ya goin’ anywhere near Cell Block D,” Daryl starts, “we found some prisoners in the cafeteria today, lettin’ ‘em stay in that cell block, but they’re-”

“They’re dangerous, I know.” Gloria finishes his sentence, “like you said before, I’m not a nurse anymore, I’ve got no reason to help prisoners. Especially if they’re a threat to us.” 

Daryl nods, “I heard one of ‘em say they were in put in here for murder.” 

“Why didn’t Rick just kill them, then?” Gloria questions.

He shrugs at that, “Guess it’s ‘cause they haven’t done shit to us yet.” 

“It’s only a matter of time before they do,” she sighs and she feels Daryl nodding in agreement, “are you gonna be near them?”

“If I gotta be.” Daryl says simply.

“Be careful.” Gloria tells him to which Daryl hums in acknowledgement. 

Another moment of silence passes by them as Gloria’s words of concern remind Daryl of his conversation with Glenn just a few hours ago. He chuckles at the memory making Gloria look up at him, an eyebrow raised as she looks at him questioningly.

“Ya know, yer brother talked to me ‘bout ya today?” Daryl says with a side smile.

This news causes Gloria to groan as she sits up, “God, he didn’t give you the big brother talk, did he?” she asks in embarrassment.

He chuckles at her reaction, “Nah, he just said that if I did anything to piss ya off ya’d kill me.” 

“Well, he’s not wrong.” Gloria smirks then lightly nudges him, making him scoff at her. 

Daryl glances behind him, remembering that he brought Gloria dinner, “hey, ya haven’t eaten at all, have ya?”

She blinks at him then shakes her head, “I forgot, I guess.” 

He shakes his head as he takes the plate and passes it to her. She gratefully takes it and starts to eat, humming happily at the meal. 

“Ain’t it cold by now?” Daryl eyes her as she eats.

“It’s Carol’s cooking, it’s good even if it’s cold.” she grins at him and Daryl rolls his eyes at her. 

“We should head back in when ya done, it’s gettin’ late and chilly.” he tells her. 

Gloria nods as she eats, enjoying the food and company of Daryl. It isn’t long until she finishes her dinner but she doesn’t say anything, wanting to spend a little more time with him outside under the stars. She couldn’t deny it anymore, her feelings for him were growing more and more as each day passed. 

—

The next morning, Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, and Carol all went out to the courtyard to clean up the bodies of walkers. Daryl looks around for Glenn but doesn’t see him anywhere. 

“Yo, where’s Glenn, could use some extra hands.” he questions to no one in particular.

“I think he spent the night in the watchtower.” Carol tells him.

“Watchtower?” Daryl looks at her then up at said tower, “Yo, Glenn!” 

The others look up at the guard tower as they see movement in the windows. A shirtless Glenn comes out of the tower, awkwardly struggling to zip up his pants. 

“H-Hey guys!” he says, completely embarrassed, “w-what’s up?” 

“Ya comin’?” Daryl grins.

“What?” Glenn says as he pulls on his shirt.

He chuckles then repeats himself, “Ya comin?” 

“Oh, y-yeah! Hang on!” Glenn, now fully clothed, rushes down the guard tower to help the group clear the bodies. 

Gloria walks out from the prison building, making her way to the fence as she watches the group load up bodies onto the back of one of their trucks. She waves at Daryl who’s now sitting on the back of the truck as they start driving out of the courtyard to dispose of the bodies. He raises his arm, waving back at her. Gloria watches them leave then wanders around the prison walls. She frowns as she spots a shadow going around the corner of the prison.

“Carl?” she calls out, wondering if it was the boy sneaking around the place as she knew how much he loved to explore. 

When she doesn’t get any response, she rounds the corner but gets even more confused when she doesn’t see any sign that anyone was here. Gloria tilts her head in confusion, there wasn’t even a walker in the area. 

“Did I really just hallucinate?” she chuckles at herself. 

Shrugging, she decides to go back to the picnic bench and sit there to wait for the others, but before she could turn around, she feels something move quickly behind her. Unable to react in time, Gloria feels a blunt pain to the back of her head. Her vision goes blurry and she falls to the ground and blacks out. 

—

When Gloria comes to, she finds herself in a cell. The back of her head thumps with a dull pain. Getting up, she looks around and finds that the cell wasn’t hers. In the hallway outside the cell, there are people talking, or rather yelling at each other, voices that she couldn’t recognise. 

“We shouldn’t be doing this, Tomas! Just let the girl go!” 

“Shut up, Oscar! You’ll get a chance with her too, so don’t worry, yeah?” the man, Tomas, sneers at the larger man, Oscar.

“Yeah, we deserve this anyway. Those assholes think they can just come in here and take our cell block from us like they own the place? Hell nah! They owe us this much at least!” another voice chimes in.

Oscar shakes his head, “this still isn’t right…” 

Judging from their conversation, the men outside were the prisoners Rick had found in the cafeteria and the girl they were talking about had to be Gloria. Instinctively, she reaches down to grab a dagger from her belt but finds that her belt had been removed from her. Looking around the cell, she finds it empty as well. She’d have to rely on her fists with this one. 

“Finally awake?” Tomas says as he walks into the doorway of the cell, blocking light that was coming into the cell. 

Gloria looks up at him and recognises Tomas as the man who smirked at her the day Rick had found them. Knowing that she’s outnumbered, Gloria decided it was best for her to play dumb. She nods at his comment and gets up from the bed. 

“Yeah, now that I’m up, I’m just gonna head back to my cell block. Thanks for helping me out there.” Gloria forces a smile on her face and attempts to walk past Tomas.

Of course, he doesn’t let her through, holding an arm up to stop her from moving further, “I don’t think so.” 

Gloria looks him dead in the eye, not showing any fear of the man, “please, don’t make me have to hurt you.” 

Rather than taking her words as a threat, Tomas laughs at her, amused. His laughter causes the smaller man on the outside of the cell to also snicker. 

“Oh princess,” Tomas shakes his head, “you ain’t gonna do nothing to me.” 

Her blood boils when he challenges her and doubts her words. She lets out a small breath and quickly swings her arm, punching Tomas in the face, making him stumble back. Gloria’s about to walk out of the cell when she hears the cocking of a gun. She looks to the smaller man and sees that he’s holding a gun to her. Tomas snarls as he gets back up, wiping the blood from his now split lip with the back of his hand. 

“Oh, now you’ve just pissed me the fuck off, you bitch.” Tomas glares at her, rage and fury in his eyes. 

She looks at him then glances at the man holding the gun to her and she just laughs, “you two are just pathetic, you gotta rely on a gun to take me down, a girl no less. What kind of men are you?” 

Gloria knew that provoking them wasn’t the smartest thing to do, hell, she knew it was probably one of the dumbest things to do since they were holding her at gunpoint. Something inside her though told her that the man with the gun wasn’t going to shoot her, they didn’t want to kill her, they wanted to do ‘other’ things to her and they couldn’t risk doing that with her dead. From what she learned in the past, she had to get them riled up and angry because people generally didn’t think well on their feet when they were angry. 

“I’ll show you what kind of man I am.” Tomas growls at her then quickly lunges towards her. 

He tackled her with all of his body weight so that even as Gloria tried to push him off her, she wasn’t able to as he was too heavy. Fuck, she did not expect this. She landed with her back on the bed and Tomas on top of her, gripping her wrists with one large hand, he pins her arms above her head, making it even harder for her to move under his body. 

“Fuck you! Let me go!” Gloria screams, struggling and squirming from under him.

Tomas growls as she struggles, as if her struggling only excites him more. He forcefully leans down and starts roughly kissing and biting Gloria’s neck and chest, causing her to scream more.

“Tomas, stop!” Oscar shouts from outside the cell, but he’s unable to do anything else as the man with a gun points his gun at him. 

“You shut up, or I’ll have to shoot you too!” he threatens. 

Oscar watches helplessly, feeling guilt as he anxiously looks to the door of the cell block, “come on, Axel…”  

Chapter Text

Back in Cell Block C, the survivor’s block, Rick and the others have returned from their task of burning the walker bodies. Daryl was fidgeting with his crossbow on one of the tables in the main area while Rick went to check on Lori and Carl. 

“Where’s Gloria?” Glenn asks anyone who knows the answer as he looks around, worried since he doesn’t see his sister anywhere. 

“She told me she was going to patrol outside, you didn’t see her?” Beth told him, sitting at the other table with Maggie. 

Glenn shakes his head, “I didn’t…”

Suddenly, Daryl instinctively picks up his crossbow and aims it at the dark corridor that leads to Cell Block D as he hears quick-paced footsteps . A blonde, bearded man quickly emerges from the corridor but stops in his tracks as he sees Daryl holding the weapon up to him.

“Woah woah! Don’t shoot! Please!” he pleads as he holds his hands up, surrendering.

“Gimme one good reason not to!” Daryl shouts at him, his voice brings Rick out from the cell block. 

Once he sees the man in their area, Rick pulls his gun from its holster, “I thought I told you to stay away from my people!” 

“I-I know! But I had to come to you! Tomas, h-he took one of yours.” he stutters, afraid for his life, “t-the pretty Asian lady.” 

His words triggered Glenn to bolt towards him, grabbing him by the collar, “Where is she?!” 

“B-back at our cell block!” he tells them quickly. 

Glenn pushes the man out of the way and dashes through the corridor with Rick, Daryl, and the blonde man following him. As they get closer to the cell block, they can hear Gloria screaming and cursing at her captor. 

“Stop! You asshole! Fuck you!” Gloria screams and cries, continuing to thrash under Tomas. 

“Shut up, you bitch!” Tomas slaps her hard across the face. 

“Hey hey-hey stop! Stay back!” a voice calls outside the cell, but assuming it’s just his friends arguing with each other, Tomas ignores it.

He growls lowly in Gloria’s ear, “still doubting the kind of man I am?!” he rips off Gloria’s shirt in one swift movement, causing her to scream for him to stop, tears streaming from her eyes. 

A gunshot rings from the cell block, catching Tomas’s attention then he’s thrown to the ground as Daryl proceeds to beat his face, lashing out his fury on him. Rick chases the man with the gun down the cell block and Glenn rushes into the cell, pulling Gloria up to hold her but she screams again, still caught in the trauma and thinking Tomas is back to terrorize her. She struggles and pushes him away, but Glenn doesn’t give up.

“Gloria! Gloria, it’s me! It’s big brother, it’s Glenn!” he says as he holds her tight, saying the endearment she likes to tease him with in Korean. 

Gloria’s vision returns to normal, the visual of Tomas turns into Glenn as her mind warps back to reality. She starts crying, sobbing from the trauma and relief that she’s now safe with her brother. 

“Glenn…” she whimpers as she cries into his chest. 

He pulls away from her and takes off his sweater then wraps it tightly around her, wanting to make her feel more secure. He looks over to Tomas’s now dead body, his face bloody and disfigured from Daryl’s beatings. Glenn looks at the man’s corpse in disgust, feeling absolutely no remorse for him. Daryl’s sitting on the ground, heaving from his lashing out. 

He turns to look at Glenn and Gloria, “she okay?” 

Glenn nods, “I think we should get her out of this damn cell though.” 

Daryl nods and gets up from the ground and heads for the door of the cell, waiting for Glenn to help Gloria stand. They escort her out of the cell where Oscar is still standing, looking at Gloria, regretful that he couldn’t help her more. Seeing him triggered more anger within Daryl and he started to make his way to the man when Gloria reached out to grab his arm, stopping him.

“Oscar tried to help… he tried to stop him.” she says in a frail voice. 

“Ya tried?” Daryl glares at the man, “well, why didn’t ya try harder?!”

“Andrew was holdin’ me and Axel at gunpoint man, I had to distract them so Axel could go get you guys, I had no choice, man.” 

“Just leave it, Daryl.” she says, almost pleading, she just wanted to get out of this cell block. 

Daryl looks back at her and his expression softens, “okay, let’s go.” 

The boys walk her back through the corridor to the main area where the others are waiting anxiously for their return. Maggie and Carol gasp silently when they see the shape Gloria is in; her hair was a mess, clothes torn, lip split and bleeding, Gloria just wanted to hide. She lowered her head once she saw them looking at her, letting her hair fall to hide her face. She was humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed, and afraid, she just wanted to be left alone. 

“Gloria…” Carol calls out to her. 

Feeling tears well up in her eyes again, she lets out a sob as she pushes Glenn away and runs into the cell block, up the stairs and into her own cell, slamming the gate shut. Glenn tears up as he watches her run away, he was angry and hurting for what happened to her. He punches the table in anger and frustration, Maggie watches him with a worried expression, not knowing what to say to help him feel better. Later on, Rick had returned from the corridor as well.

“I chased that asshole down, led him into a part of the prison that’s full of walkers, he’s as good as dead.” Rick tells them, bitterness dripping from his voice. 

“I killed that prick, beat his face in.” Daryl says, still angry from the situation as if killing him wasn’t enough.

“I saw that…” he then looks at Glenn and softens his voice, “how is she?”

Glenn sighs and shakes his head, “she locked herself up in her cell, not talking to anyone.” 

Rick sighs at this then pats Glenn’s shoulder, “give her some time and space, she’ll be okay.” 

Hours had passed as Gloria sat on the edge of the bed in her cell. She’d been trying to calm herself down, trying to forget what happened, but the memory was just too fresh for her to stop thinking about it. It was dark in the prison now, the moon peeking through the windows being their only light source as everyone had gone to bed. Realizing how late it actually was, Gloria decided she should sleep. She lets out a sigh and lies down on the bed, closing her eyes only to open them again as she sees Tomas towering over her. She gasps loudly for air and sits back up, looking around but sees no one; that’s when she realizes that her cell looked exactly the same as the other. She couldn’t stay in there. Getting up, she runs to the gate and opens it hastily, stumbling onto the railing that overlooked the lower level of the cell block. Gloria holds onto the railing, breathing heavily with her eyes closed shut, her knuckles turning white from how hard she’s holding onto the railing. 

“Hey.” a voice calls out to her. 

Gloria gasps in fear and flinches, not knowing that there was someone else there with her. She looks at the person in front of her like a deer in headlights. She calms down a little when she sees that it’s Daryl.

“Sorry…” he says, feeling bad that he ended up scaring her. 

She shakes her head, “No… I’m sorry for reacting like that… I usually don’t scare that easy…” 

Daryl purses his lips together, “Ya can’t sleep?”

She nods at that, “I can’t be in there, in any of these cells. They’re all… too similar… too suffocating. I just… I can’t stay in there.” 

“Ya gotta sleep though.” Daryl tells her.

“I can’t!” Gloria chokes out a small sob, hating how weak she was at this moment.

Without saying another word, Daryl carefully and slowly reaches out to her, taking her hand. He’s relieved that she didn’t flinch at his touch then guides her to the bed on the perch. He ushers her to lay down on the bed while he sits on the ground by her side. 

“Ya gotta sleep.” Daryl repeats his words from earlier. 

Gloria looks up at Daryl, her eyes still wet with tears from trauma and fear. Daryl reaches out and gently caresses her face. 

“I’ll make sure nothin’ like that happens to ya ever again, I’ll protect ya.” he says in a soft voice. 

A small smile makes its way to her lips, “are you just going to watch over me as I sleep?”

“Ya wan’ me to?” he asks back, giving her a side smile. 

She shakes her head, “that’s just creepy.”

Daryl chuckles at her, deep down he’s happy that she’s talking to him like she was. He hated what happened to her today and the very thought of it made his blood boil. It soothed his heart when he saw her finally able to calm down and joke with him, her small smile warmed him and if he hadn’t already, he would have made it his life’s mission to protect her. She had finally been able to drift off to sleep while holding his hand. Her peaceful face, however, didn’t last very long. Gloria soon started to whimper and shift in her sleep. 

“No.. Please don’t…” she cries softly. 

Daryl was not a stranger to this, she was having a nightmare, most likely reliving the events of the day. He slides into bed with her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to him. 

“Shh.. ’s okay, you’re okay.” he whispers softly into her ear. 

Her cries and whimper soon come to an end, her shaking body stills as her hand grabs onto Daryl’s shirt. Gloria is still asleep as she snuggles into his chest, her breathing slows to a calm pace. She’s finally able to feel safe as she sleeps in Daryl’s arms. 

Chapter Text

A few days after Gloria’s incident with Tomas, she had worked up the courage to apologize to Carol and Maggie for running away from them when they were only trying to help. Of course, they never held it against her, understanding that she was going through trauma. With everyone’s encouragement and care, Gloria had returned to her normal self again, much to Glenn’s relief. Daryl and Gloria had made it a regular thing to share the perch at night. Oscar had brought it upon himself to return Gloria’s daggers that were still in Cell Block D. Glenn, Daryl, and Rick were going in and out of the courtyard, getting rid of more walker bodies and gathering wood. Carol, Maggie, and T-Dog had moved cars into the court of the prison for easier access, and Gloria, Beth, Carl, and Lori had just come out from the cell block, assisting Hershel with his crutches. 

“Hey, Hershel, wanna race?” Carl calls out with a grin.

“Just give me a few days and I’ll take you on, young man.” Hershel chuckles.

Their small banter on who would win brings up the mood. A warm and peaceful moment is shared within the group. Lori looks out towards Rick, the couple share a loving look. Just then, Carl looks behind his shoulder and gasps.

“Walkers!” he yells, backing up and pulling out his gun from his belt, shooting at the closer ones.

“Beth! Take your dad and get him to a safe place!” Gloria orders the young girl and then she pulls out her daggers, rushing to kill the walkers closest to the group. 

Rick, Daryl and Glenn all rush back towards the prison once they see the ambush of walkers, yelling at everyone to get back inside. Carol and T-Dog shoot at the walkers, rushing towards the gate that’s been opened, allowing the walkers to flood out. Maggie had ushered Carl and Lori inside the prison while Beth and Hershel rushed their way up a set of stairs to a gated block.

“Daddy!” Beth calls out when she sees a walker right behind Hershel.

Gloria looks in their direction when she hears the girl’s cry and rushes to them as Hershel struggles to hold up the walker. She swiftly sinks her dagger in the back of the walker’s head and tosses it to the side, allowing Hershel to climb up the stairs freely. She gets inside the gated block with Hershel and Beth, locking it from the inside. 

Suddenly, an alarm starts to blare, drawing any walkers towards the prison. Daryl and Glenn are quick to get to work, shooting at any speakers they see in attempts to stop the alarm but it’s no use, the speakers are all over the prison building. Rick spots Oscar and the blonde prisoner, Axel, walking towards the group from the courtyard.

Rick angrily storms up to them and yells, “how the hell can this be happening!?”

“I-it has to be the back-up generator, there’s three that’s connected to a diesel tank, okay? A-and each one controls a certain part of the prison. The hacks shut ‘em all off when the prison was overrun.” Oscar explains with his hands up, in case Rick decided to shoot him. 

“Do you know how to stop it?!” Rick yells over the blaring of the alarm.

“I’ve only worked there a few days, but I can try!” Oscar tells him then Rick pushes him forward to lead him to the control room. 

Rick, Glenn, Daryl, Oscar and Axel rush to the control room while Gloria is with Hershel and Beth in the gated block. After a while, the alarm stops blaring and Gloria turns to Beth, giving her one of her daggers. 

“I’m gonna go find the others, you stay here and protect your dad. Remember, aim for the brain, through the eye is the easiest way, okay?” Gloria instructs her, she then smiles at her when Beth takes the dagger and nods, patting the younger girl’s hair, “I’ll be back soon.”

Gloria opens the gate and shuts it behind her, heading off to find the rest of the group. She finds Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Oscar and Axel in a dark corridor. 

“Hey, what happened?” she asks, slightly out of breath. 

“That damn prisoner Rick chased out the other day… he did all this.” Daryl huffs, angrily.

“Where is he?” Gloria asks, her hands balling into fists.

“Dead.” Rick says as he walks by her, “Oscar shot him.”

He leads the way out of the corridor when they come across a body of eaten flesh. They recognize the body as T-Dog’s. A dark silence surrounds them as they reminisce their fallen companion. Gloria glances to the side and her eyes fill with tears as she spots Carol’s scarf on the ground. She lets out a shaky breath as she picks it up, biting her lip to try not to cry, now was not the time for that. Daryl puts his hand on her back and guides her out with the rest of the group. Hershel and Beth make their way out of the gated block as they see the others coming back. 

“Did you find them?” Hershel calls out. 

“Carol and T’ are gone.” Daryl sighs, looking at the ground.

“But that doesn’t mean the others are, we gotta find them. Maggie, Carl, Lori, we-” Rick’s words are cut off when they all hear the cries of a baby.

They all turn in the direction of the sound and see Maggie walking out of the prison, tears staining her face and blood staining her hands as she holds the baby in her arms. From behind her, Carl walks out with a solemn expression. The sight gives Rick the realization that his wife is gone, she had died during childbirth. Not wanting to accept the reality, he walks towards Carl and when he sees his son’s face, Rick starts to cry, breaking down at the loss of his wife. Glenn walks over to Maggie, trying to console her sobs as best he can as Carl goes over to her and takes his little sister from Maggie. 

“Let me see her.” Hershel calls out to Carl.

The boy brings the baby to him as he checks on her. He nods as he sees that she’s healthy. Daryl goes over to Rick who has fallen over from grief to check on him, unfortunately, he is unresponsive to his calls. Without saying anything, Rick gets up and grabs the axe that’s laying on the ground and rushes into the prison, seeing red and ready to massacre any walker he comes by. Daryl sighs as he knows he can’t do anything to help Rick, he’d just need to let him go through what he’s feeling. He goes back to the rest of the group.

“Yo, we got anythin’ a baby can eat?” he asks them all.

Gloria shakes her head, “she’s gonna need formula, otherwise she’ll starve.”

“No, not her, I’m goin’ out for a run.” Daryl says, slinging his crossbow on his back. 

“I’ll come with you.” Maggie says, following him.

“Me too.” Glenn joins in, following the both of them.

Daryl nods then turns to Beth, glancing in Carl’s direction, “hey, kid’s just lost his mom.” he whispers to her.

Beth nods, understanding what he’s trying to tell her, “I’ll look after him.”

He then turns his attention to Gloria who’s staring off in the distance of the door Maggie had come out of, he pats her shoulder in concern, “ya gonna be okay?”

She looks at him and nods, “I’ll be fine, just go. Hurry.”

Daryl purses his lips and nods, then turns to run to his motorcycle. Glenn had stayed behind in the end because of the wreckage on the road and Daryl could only take one more on his bike. Maggie insisted on going with Daryl as she said it was the least she could do for Lori. Gloria and Glenn were in the courtyard digging graves for Carol, T-Dog and Lori. Oscar and Axel walk up to them, silent, but wanting to help in any way they can. 

Gloria glances at them but doesn’t stop shoveling, “should we watch our backs with you guys too?” 

“N-no, we wouldn’t do anything, I promise you.” Oscar says, furrowing his eyebrows together.

She glares at them now, stopping her task, “Rick should have killed all of you the day he found you.” 

“Gloria, stop, they helped us.” Glenn pleads to her, although he understands her point. 

“We don’t know what the hell these two have planned behind their backs!” she snaps at Glenn then turns towards Oscar and Axel, “what is it, huh? You gain our trust then slit our throats in our sleep?!” 

Anger and grief was blinding her judgement, deep down she knew that they weren’t at fault and they did indeed help the group, but Gloria was just so upset and distraught. She throws down her shovel and storms off towards the prison. Glenn sighs as he watches her leave, he then gives Axel and Oscar his and Gloria’s shovels so they can help dig. Gloria runs into her old cell, curling up on the bed and starts to cry for their losses. Her and Lori weren’t very close when they first met, but as she kept checking up on her and the baby, Lori had become a good friend to Gloria. T-Dog had saved her and Glenn when the outbreak first started. He had become her second older brother and the protector of the group. Carol’s loss hit her the worst, Gloria had always seen Carol as an older sister, sometimes even a mother figure and she loved her dearly. She was the only reason Gloria could be strong after losing Sophia. Sobbing, Gloria looks down at Carol’s scarf that was wrapped around her right hand. 

‘Can you stay strong for me? Can you do that?’ Carol’s words echoed in Gloria’s mind. 

Taking a deep breath, Gloria nods as if answering the voice in her head. Wiping her tears away, she goes down to check up on Hershel, Beth, and the baby. After seeing that they’re doing fine, she walks out to the main area right outside the cell block where she sees Oscar and Axel. 

“Hey…” she calls out to them as she walks up to the two, “I’m sorry about how I was before. I wasn’t in my right mind and I-” 

“No no no, don’t apologize, we get it.” Axel is quick to interrupt her apology.

“Ya’ll just lost three members of your family, ‘course it’s gonna be hard on ya.” Oscar says, a sympathetic look on his face. 

Gloria sighs and nods, “thank you for understanding, I still feel kinda bad though. You two have saved me not only once, but twice now and instead of a thank you, you guys get me telling you that we should have killed you first.”

Oscar shakes his head, a small smile on his face, “Listen, I really hated what Tomas did to ya, and I’m genuinely sorry that it happened. I’m gonna do whatever it takes to protect ya and your people.” 

“Me too.” Axel says confidently puffing up his chest. 

“Thank you, really.” Gloria smiles at them, “you’ve both earned your place, but we’ll have to see what the others think about you staying in our cell block.” 

Later on, Daryl and Maggie have come back from their run, bringing back supplies and formula for the baby. Gloria quickly prepares the formula for the crying baby and hands the bottle over to Daryl as he’s holding her in his arms. Gently, he feeds her and her crying instantly stops. 

“She got a name yet?” Daryl looks at Carl.

“Not yet, I was thinking… maybe Sophia? Then there’s Carol, too. Andrea… Amy… Jacqui… Patricia… or Lori. I don’t know.” Carl says, his reminder of the fallen females of their group brings the mood down drastically. 

Seeing this, Daryl looks at the baby, “Yeah… you like that, huh? Lil’ Asskicker.” he glances around, the mood lifting slightly at his suggestion, “Right? Tha’s a good name, right? Lil’ Asskicker, you like that, huh? You like that, sweetheart?” 

As Gloria stands beside Daryl, she affectionately places her hand on his arm, smiling lovingly. He glances at her and gives her a comforting smile. Later on that night, Beth had taken it upon herself to care for the baby. After making sure Beth is doing fine with the baby, she goes to check up on Maggie who’s sitting alone on the bed in her and Glenn’s shared cell.

“How’re you holding up?” Gloria asks softly as she walks into the cell. 

Maggie sighs then looks up at Gloria, “Have you…. have you ever had a patient die… right in front of you?”

“I have…” she answers, “after trying so hard, doing whatever I could to keep them breathing, I couldn’t stop it from happening. No matter how many other nurses or doctors told me it wasn’t my fault and that I did the best I could, it always felt like they were lying.” 

“How’d you deal with that?” Maggie asks, her voice breaking as tears run down her face. 

“I just do…” she sighs, knowing that answer wasn’t helpful at all, “time helps, your friends and family help too, but there’s always going to be that guilty question in your gut that what if you could have done more to stop it.”

Gloria sits down on the bed beside Maggie and holds her hands, “I wish things were different, I wish it wasn’t you that had to bear this responsibility.” 

Maggie sobs at her words, Gloria wraps her arms around her and lets her cry on her shoulder. She does her best to comfort her, rubbing small circles on her back in an attempt to soothe her. Gloria knew that Maggie needed to let it all out, she would feel better that way. After a while of Maggie crying in her arms, Glenn comes by the cell to check up on them. His heart breaks at the sight of Maggie in her broken state, Gloria looks up at him and nods pointedly to her, signalling him to take over. Glenn nods as Gloria pats Maggie’s back gently, then gets up from the bed and goes to the door of the cell. 

“Thanks.” Glenn whispers to her, patting her arm as he walks into the cell. 

She nods at him, giving him a small smile before making her way up the stairs to the perch. Gloria sits down on the bed and sighs heavily, tugging at the few loose strands of Carol’s scarf. Daryl comes up the stairs to find her and sits beside her. 

“Ya alright?” he asks, looking at her hands fidgeting with the scarf.

Gloria shakes her head, “it’s not fair… we couldn’t even give Carol a proper burial…” 

Daryl wraps his arm around her, pulling her close, “I’ll go in the mornin’, clear out the rest o’ the prison and find her. I will.” 

She nods and doesn’t say anything else, just resting her head on Daryl’s shoulder. He holds her like that until she ends up falling asleep. He had to find her body tomorrow, Daryl told himself, it’s the least they could do for Carol. 

Chapter Text

Rick had come back to the group’s main area to check up on Carl, Glenn had told him that he and Maggie were going on a run for more supplies and formula for the baby. Daryl lets him know that he’s going to clear the other side of the prison. Once he’s all filled in on the situation, Rick goes back to the dark corridors to continue clearing off his side of the prison. After sending Glenn and Maggie off on their run, Gloria wanders around the prison, checking outside the perimeter, making sure the fences are secure. When she comes back she sees Carl, Oscar and Rick back in the main area but still no sign of Daryl. 

“Daryl’s still in the corridors, he got worked up when we found Carol’s knife.” Carl says as if reading her mind, “I think he’s gonna need some time alone.”

Gloria sighs but nods, “Thanks, buddy.” 

She pats his shoulder then goes to the cell block to check on Beth and the baby, seeing if they need any assistance. 

“We’re going to be out of formula soon if she keeps eating the way she does.” Beth informs her.

“She must have Carl’s appetite.” Gloria chuckles, making Beth laugh lightly.

Shuffling footsteps emit from the back hall and draw Gloria’s attention away from Beth and the baby. Wary of the sounds, she puts her hand on one of her daggers as she walks slowly towards the entrance of the back hallway. Daryl emerges from the entrance carrying a weak but alive Carol. Gloria’s eyes well up with happy tears at the sight of her. Daryl carries her to one of the cell blocks as Gloria follows them. Carol sits down on the bed and leans on the wall. Gloria immediately goes to her side to check up on her as Daryl steps back, giving them space. 

“I’m so glad you’re alive.” Gloria tells her, a smile on her face as tears stream down her face, “you must be dehydrated, I’ll be right back.”

Carol smiles weakly at her and nods, then Gloria runs out to get Carol a bottle of water. On her way out, she sees that Rick had brought in a stranger with a katana laying on the floor. She decides not to pry as Carol is her first priority and she knows that whatever the situation is, Rick can handle it. 

“Hey Rick, you’re gonna wanna see this.” Daryl calls out from the cell block.

Gloria rushes back to the cell, opening the bottle of water and handing it to Carol. She takes it generously, parching her dry lips. Rick and Hershel come by the cell and relief is written all over their faces when they see Carol is alive. They both take turns hugging her, smiling and with tears in their eyes. Carol then looks at Beth who’s holding the newborn baby and a realization hits her. 

“I’m so sorry…” Carol says as she looks at Rick. 

“Yeah…” Rick sighs, then walks out of the cell. 

Daryl and Hershel follow him out to the main area while Gloria stays with Carol. She removes the scarf that’s wrapped around her right hand and hands it to Carol. 

“This belongs to you.” Gloria smiles softly, “you must be starving, I made some oatmeal earlier but you’re going to have to bear with it, I’m nowhere as good a cook as you.”

Carol chuckles and shakes her head, “that sounds lovely.” 

She smiles then heads back out to the main area towards the kitchen. Gloria grabs a bowl and a spoon for Carol then she’s about to scoop up some oatmeal into the bowl.

“The supplies were dropped by a young Asian guy with a pretty girl.” the stranger with a katana said, her words making Gloria freeze. 

“What happened to them? Were they attacked?” Rick asks.

“Not attacked. Taken. Taken by the same asshole who shot me.” she tells them.

“Those are our people. You tell me where they took them, now!” Rick yells in her face. 

She looks up at him, not backing down, “find them yourself.”

“Hey,” Gloria calls over to the stranger, Hershel, Daryl, Rick, and the stranger turn to look at her as she walks towards them, “you have to tell us where we can find them.”

“Why should I?” she looks at her warily.

“That young Asian guy, his name is Glenn. He’s my brother. And that pretty girl? Her name is Maggie, she’s his daughter.” Gloria gestures over to Hershel, “They’re our family, our blood. We’ll get them ourselves, just please, tell us where they are. I’ll get on my knees and beg you if I have to, please!”

The stranger has a thoughtful look on her face, as if contemplating her words and then finally gives in, “There’s a town called Woodbury, run by this asshole guy who calls himself the Governor. Military commander wannabe. I’m sure they got taken there.”

“How did you know to find this place?” Rick asks, crouching down to the stranger’s level.

“Overheard them mentioning a prison.” she says simply.

Rick turns around and looks up at Gloria who nods at him before she turns around to head back to the cell block, “Gloria will take care of your wound, she’s a nurse.”

“Was.” Gloria calls out as she walks to the cell blocks, then gets her newly put together first aid kit from her cell that she now just used as a storage room. 

Before heading back out to the main area, she asked Beth to get Carol some food as she would be busy helping the stranger outside. 

The stranger did not resist much as Gloria patches her up and the group starts to prepare for their mission to rescue Maggie and Glenn, loading up their cars with weapons and other supplies just in case. As Gloria puts a box into the trunk of the car, she’s about to walk away to get more supplies when Daryl grabs her arm and gently pulls her to the side. 

“Ya should stay back here.” he tells her quietly. 

Gloria frowns at him, “how can you tell me to stay here, we have to go get Glenn and Maggie!”

“And we will, but I need ya here. Carl’s a kid an’ Carol’s still weak, I ain’ countin’ on Axel to keep everyone safe.” Daryl reasons.

Seeing his point, Gloria sighs and nods, “you better bring them back, Daryl Dixon.”

Daryl smirks at her then nods, “I will.” he takes her hand and holds it up to his lips, kissing it gently before turning to head to the car.

The ones left behind watch as their rescue team drives away. Axel is manning the gate, opening and closing it as the car passes. Carol puts her hand on Gloria’s shoulder, understanding her worry. 

“They’ll be fine, they’ll be back before we know it.” she says, trying to comfort her friend. 

Gloria smiles softly and nods, “yeah, they will be.”

—

Hershel, Beth, Carl, and Gloria were back in the cell block waiting for the others. Carol and Axel were on watch. Gloria had tried to convince Carol to come inside to rest but she was insistent on wanting to do something for the group after being gone for so long. She knew it was a losing battle to argue with Carol when she had already made up her mind, so Gloria agreed but forced Axel to stay out there to keep watch with her. Hours pass as Carl and Gloria are sitting on the steps when they all hear a scream coming from one of the halls of the prison.

“What was that?” Beth asks, worry on her face.

“Was that Carol?!” Carl wondered aloud.

“No, she’s still out on watch.” Gloria says as she gets up, she looks at Carl, “Carl, you stay here and watch over your sister, Beth and Hershel. And lock the gate!”

Without saying anything else, she runs off to check the corridors the scream had emitted from. Flashlight in hand, she goes through the dark halls, following the screams to find a group fighting for their lives in one of the abandoned rooms. Seeing they’re struggling with the walkers, Gloria rushes up to them and stabs one of the walkers in the back of the head, letting it fall to the ground. The new group look at her in surprise. 

“Come on, we gotta get out of here, move!” Gloria shouts at them and leads them back to the main area. 

Ushering them through the door to the main area, she closes and locks the door to that corridor to prevent any walkers from coming in. The new group was frantic, one of their people, a woman, was already bit and they had laid her on the ground. Carl comes running out from the cell block.

“What happened?!” he asks, surveying the scene. 

“Found them getting attacked in the boiler room.” Gloria tells him. 

The man kneeling by the side of the bit woman’s body was crying heavily, she had seemingly died from the bite. Seeing this, Carl takes out his gun with a silencer attached from his belt and aims it at the head of the woman.

“Woah woah, kid!” the larger man of the group pulls him back, looking at him as if he were crazy.

“I have to do it before she turns!” Carl argues.

“We can handle our own.” the large man says, making Carl back down.

Gloria takes Carl’s hand and pulls him away from the group as the larger man takes a hammer from a younger boy in the back. 

“You gotta let them take care of their own, she’s one of theirs, not ours.” Gloria whispers to him and he nods. 

She ushers him back into the cell block as the new group put down the woman with a hammer. Carl shuts the gate and locks it, preventing the new group from coming into their block. 

“Hey… hey! What are you doing? You can’t just leave us out here!” a woman from the new group calls out as she walks up to the gate. 

“You’re safe where you are, you have food and water.” Carl tells her, standing his ground.

“Open the door!” she yells at him, hitting the gate. 

Gloria lets out a frustrated sigh and goes up to the gate, “you’re safe there. We don’t even know you people and yet I still saved you. We aren’t going to let strangers into our home, we’ve lost enough already by trusting the wrong ones.”

The larger man from before comes up from behind the woman and pulls her away, “Sasha, enough, let them be.”

“You don’t know that you can’t trust us!” Sasha pleads. 

“You don’t know that you can trust us.” Gloria says then turns around to go up the stairs when she hears Sasha banging on the gate again.

“Let us in!” she shouts.

Gloria turns to glare at Sasha, “You listen here, we’re already doing you and your group a huge favor by letting you in these walls, giving you food and water, but you try anything, anything at all and I will lock you back where you came from with nothing, do I make myself clear?!”

The larger man pulls Sasha away again as they both waiver at her threat, “Yes, ma’am, we’re sorry.” 

—

“What the hell is he doing here?!” Glenn shouts, fuming once he sees that Merle is with Rick, Daryl, and Michonne, the stranger with the katana; he points his gun at Merle, heaving.

“Woah woah, Glenn, just calm down. We can figure this out.” Rick says holding his hands out to calm Glenn.

“Figure out- what is there to figure out?! We’re not bringing him back with us!” Glenn shouts, his face turning red. 

“The hell ya mean, he was originally one o’ us! Ya forgettin’ Gloria brought both o’ us back?” Daryl defends, Merle is his brother after all. 

“Oh yeah! Gloria, how’s she doin’? Still gotta repay her for stayin’ wit’ me up on that roof that ya’ll deadasses left me on!” Merle drawls out, cackling.

“You are not going anywhere near her!” Glenn angrily lunges towards Merle but Daryl catches him, holding him back. 

“Ha! Like ya can stop me! That girl deserves some lovin’, while the rest o’ ya’ll damn left me for dead! Ya deserve what I did to ya! Damn ass T-Dog deserved what he got too! Leavin’ me up there, and don’ let me forget about-” Merle was cut off as Rick knocks him out with the back of his gun.

“Asshole.” Rick mutters as he walks away from Merle’s unconscious body. 

Maggie, Rick, Glenn and Daryl are gathered by the car as they discuss what to do with Merle. Glenn is not giving up as he is very against taking him back after Merle had almost killed him. Daryl is torn but in the end, he makes his final decision. 

“If he’s out, I’m out.” Daryl announces, “‘sides it’s always been just him and I out there ‘fore all this.”

“Daryl, you know you’re a part of this family.” Rick tries to convince him.

“Yeah, but like ya said, he ain’t. And I ain’t leavin’ him, already did that once.” he says as he makes his way to the car with his things. 

Glenn sighs deeply then follows Daryl to the car, “what about Gloria?”

Daryl stops in his tracks at the mention of her name, “what about her…”

“You’re just gonna leave her behind? She loves you, you know that?” Glenn informs him, he wanted to prevent him from leaving, he knew that if Daryl left it would break Gloria’s heart.

Daryl glances behind him, “she said that?”

“She did, a while ago.” Glenn says, hoping that would change his mind. 

He glances at Merle then back at Glenn, “she’ll get it. Take good care o’ her,” he says then continues walking to the car. 

—

Back at the prison, Carol was on guard duty while the others were in the main area outside Cell Block C. Carl was sitting on top of one of the tables watching over Sasha’s group while Gloria was seated on the seats at one of the tables to control the situation if needed. The sound of the door opening draws their attention away from whatever they were doing and a beat up looking Glenn walks in. 

“Glenn?!” Gloria gets up quickly when she sees his face, rushing to him, “the hell happened?”

She follows him into the cell block and goes up to her cell to get her first aid kit then rushes back down to Glenn and Maggie’s shared cell. Gloria sits beside him as she patches up her brother, they don’t speak and Gloria decides not to pester him on it either. Maggie comes to the cell shortly after, watching by the door of the cell quietly. There’s a silence within the cell and Gloria glances between Maggie and Glenn. 

She packs up the kit and closes it, “I’ll leave you two to rest up, you’re probably exhausted.”

Gloria gets up from the bed and is about to walk out of the cell when Glenn reaches up and grabs her arm, stopping her. Confused, she looks back at him with an eyebrow raised. Glenn looks at her reluctantly and sighs.

“Daryl’s gone.” Glenn says simply.

She blinks at him, ‘gone’ in this new world of theirs can mean a lot of things, “what do you mean he’s gone? Is he… is he dead?”

Glenn shakes his head, “he’s alive, but he’s not coming back.” 

“He left with his brother.” Maggie tells her, feeling bad that they have to break the news to her.

“Merle? You guys found Merle?” Gloria looks at Glenn who nods, “well that’s great, why didn’t he just come back with you?”

“Because we didn’t want him to.” Maggie says, pursing her lips together.

“Merle used to be one of us, why wouldn’t you-” Gloria gets cut off by Glenn.

“Because he’s the one who did this to me!” Glenn snaps, “he’s the one who took us and brought Maggie to the damn Governor to terrorize her!” 

Glenn was seething in anger at the memory, he didn’t mean to snap at Gloria since she had no idea but he couldn’t help it; his little sister was defending their abductor and calling him one of them. Gloria’s face softens when she hears Glenn’s words, understanding why they wouldn’t want Merle with them. Tears well up in her eyes when the realization that Daryl left hit her. He left her without even saying goodbye. He chose Merle without a second thought and just left. 

“Gloria…” Glenn sighs as he sees her expression but she storms out of the cell before he can say anything else. 

She runs out of the cell block and out of the prison building altogether, making her way up the watch platform. Gloria lets herself fall to the ground, allowing the tears to fall as she cries about the man who left her without a single word.

Chapter Text

Daryl had separated with the rest of his old group and gone off with Merle, like how it was supposed to be in the beginning. Just him and Merle wandering the woods together, tracking and hunting their dinner. Unfortunately, they didn’t catch much, only a few squirrels to split between the brothers. Daryl wasn’t with Merle; physically he was, but his heart and mind weren’t. All he could think of was Gloria, and what Glenn had told him today. She loves him. 

“Foods gettin’ cold, baby brother.” Merle calls out as Daryl stares into the campfire they’d lit.

Daryl grunts and throws his portion to Merle, then continues his staring contest with the embers. Merle glances at their supper then back up at Daryl, eyeing him with a frown.

“Wha’s wrong wit’ ya? Missin’ yer old pals, that it?” Merle accuses and scoffs when Daryl doesn’t respond, “or is it about what the chinaman said ‘bout Gloria?” 

Daryl finally looks up at Merle when he says her name, earning a cackle from the older Dixon. 

“So, ya were finally able to step up yer game after I was gone, huh? How far’d ya get with her?” Merle heckles, leaning in.

“Don’ know what the hell ya talkin’ ‘bout.” Daryl mutters, throwing a few sticks into the fire.

“Don’ think I didn’ see how ya were lookin’ at her since day one, little brother.” Merle says, making Daryl look at him warily, “yeah, I saw it. Ya were like a beast eyein’ its prey, ya wanted her bad.” 

Daryl looks back down at the fire, hoping that Merle wouldn’t catch the blush in his cheeks. He couldn’t deny that what Merle was saying was true, the moment he laid eyes on Gloria he was attracted to her. Her beauty was beyond compare to any other woman he’s seen, and his attraction to her only grew the more time he spent with her. Gloria was someone who could carry her own and not need to be protected, hell, she could beat up Merle without breaking a sweat, and that only made him want her more. So, when she offered herself to him at the C.D.C., he couldn’t resist her, especially with the alcohol in his system. 

“Did ya fuck her?” Merle smirks, trying to get a reaction out of him.

“Don’ talk ‘bout her like that.” Daryl mumbles, his fingers fidgeting with a rock.

Merle scoffs, “fine, did ya ‘make love’ to her? ‘S that better?” 

Daryl glares at Merle, “what’s it even matter to ya? Ain’t yer damn business anyway!”

“I’m jus’ concerned for my brother! Ya got yer mind all wrapped ‘round this one girl, can’t think straight, can’t hunt, can’t even eat! Let me tell ya, that girl prolly don’ give a rats ass ‘bout ya.” Merle makes it over to Daryl’s side and puts his hand on his shoulder, “I’m the only one who’s ever gonna care ‘bout ya, little brother, don’t ya think otherwise.” 

Daryl’s eyes narrow at his words, his blood boiling as he shrugs his brother’s hand off him angrily, “she cares. She cares more ‘bout me than ya ever cared to show!” 

“The hell ya talkin’ ‘bout?!” Merle shouts back, angrily getting up as Daryl stands. 

“Ever since she brought us back to that camp, she cared! She helped me when I was hurt and made me feel like I was part of the group when she didn’t need to!” Daryl yells. 

“She was jus’ usin’ you! Ya hunt for the group and bring ‘em fresh meat, tha’s why she helped ya!” Merle argues.

“She cared ‘bout ya too but ya didn’ give ‘em nothin’.” Daryl spits out.

Merle frowns at this, “how’d she care ‘bout me? Huh? Punchin’ me in the face and tryin’ to break my arm in front o’ everyone?”

“How ‘bout stayin’ wit’ ya on that roof and makin’ sure ya didn’ bleed out when ya cut off yer own damn hand?!” Daryl reminds him, “she saved yer life and what did ya do? Stuff her into a damn closet and leave her there?! She blamed herself for ya leavin’, ya know that?!”

“I did what I had to, a'right?!” Merle shouts back, “ya have any idea how many damn walkers were on ‘em streets? Makin’ their way into where we were? Huh? I had to go alone, I had to lead 'em away! Otherwise, ya and the Chinese kid wouldn’t’ve gotten to her ‘fore gettin’ bit.” 

The brothers stare at each other in silence for a moment before Daryl sighs and looks away, “they’re Korean.” 

“Whatever…” Merle scoffs, “look, she can’t be the last woman out there, we can find ya another one if tha-”

“No!” Daryl cuts off Merle before he can finish, “I ain’t gonna care ‘bout any other woman like I care ‘bout her. She’s special to me an’… we had somethin’ good goin’… best thing I ever had goin’ on in my whole life!”

Merle falters at his brother’s confession, “y-ya gonna go back to 'em then?”

“Nah…” Daryl sighs, “she’s gonna be pissed that I left in the first place… might never come back from that…”

“‘M sorry.” Merle says, almost sounding sincere.

“Only thing special I ever had and I fuck it up ‘cause o’ ya…” Daryl mumbles and walks away. 

—

Unable to sleep, Gloria had spent the entire night up on the platform. She’s been keeping a lookout for any potential threat to the prison, looking for any kind of distraction from the pain in her heart. She saw Sasha and her group leaving the prison the night before, figuring that Rick had made a decision that they weren’t welcome, but Gloria didn’t care. She glances to the side as she hears the door to the platform open as Glenn comes to join her. 

“Hey, you need to take a break, you’ve been out here since yesterday afternoon, rest and eat something.” Glenn tries to convince her but as she doesn’t respond, he sighs and sits down next to her, “look, I know Daryl meant a lot to you-”

“Did he?” Gloria scoffs bitterly, not even looking at Glenn. 

“Yeah, I’d say so, I’ve never seen you so worked up over a break up before.” Glenn frowns at her reaction.

“Break up? This isn’t a break up, Glenn, you wanna know why?” she snaps, finally turning to look at Glenn, “Because there was never anything to break in the first place! All those times you asked me if there was anything between me and Daryl, I told you there was nothing because that was the truth! There is nothing going on between me and Daryl because we mean nothing to each other!”

Glenn looks at her sympathetically, he knew that denial was her way to cope with what she was going through, that if she kept denying it, maybe she’d end up believing it herself, “you know that’s not true… Daryl almost came back when I mentioned you.”

“Yeah… the keyword there being ‘almost’.” Gloria laughs bitterly, her sarcasm breaking through her words. 

Realizing that this was not the approach to go for, Glenn tries something else, “Daryl might not be here but you still are, and we still need you with us. Maggie’s going through a lot and Rick isn’t fully in his right mind. You’re the only one who can hold the group together.” 

Gloria sighs at his words; Glenn definitely knew her too well. He knew that she would only be willing to take care of herself if it’s for the sake and convenience of others. 

“Someone needs to keep watch.” Gloria says in a small voice.

Glenn gestures for her to go, “I’ll be here. And get some food while you’re at it.”

Gloria nods and gets up, walking past Glenn, “I still plan on sleeping up here tonight.” causing Glenn to chuckle at her.

She makes her way down to the main area and takes some food Carol had made for the group then heads over to the cell block to check up on Maggie. She sees her lying on the bed, her frontside facing the wall. Gloria goes up to her bedside and gently pats her shoulder. 

“Have you eaten yet?” Gloria asks.

Maggie glances up at her then looks back to the wall, “no, I’m not hungry.”

“There’s still food out in the kitchen if your stomach changes its mind, and if you need anyone to talk to, I’m here for you.” Gloria says, not wanting to pry into what happened at Woodbury. 

Maggie nods, “I know… thank you.” 

Gloria exits the cell and heads outside to the picnic bench where she can oversee the courtyard, she starts to pick at the food on her plate. She watches as Rick is on the outside of the fences picking off walkers as Hershel is on the inside of the fences, accompanying their leader. Carol and Axel are overlooking the courtyard as well but standing closer to the inner fences of the prison. Gloria jumps at the sudden sound of a gunshot and sees Axel fall to the ground, his body falling on Carol as more gunfire erupts onto the prison. 

“Carol!” Gloria shouts as she jumps off the table to gain cover. 

Maggie runs out from the prison as she heard the gunfire from inside, carrying rifles and shooting at whoever was shooting at them. 

“Carol, go! I’ll cover you!” she shouts as she shoots.

The gunfire ceases and Carol is able to get to where Maggie was hiding, she straps on the rifle Maggie had given her and gets ready for the second round of gunfire. The roar of an engine disturbs the silence as a van heads straight towards the prison, ramming through the gate. It stops in the middle of the courtyard and the backend of the van drops open, letting dozens of walkers stumble out.

Gloria had made her way over to the fence and panics when she sees the herd going straight towards Hershel who had fallen inside the courtyard, “Maggie, Carol, cover me!”

Gunfire erupts again as Gloria dashes towards the gate, opening it and slamming it closed behind her as she rushes out into the courtyard. She runs towards the herd of walkers, flailing her arms around.

“Hey! Hey! This way! Over here!” Gloria shouts at them, taking their attention away from Hershel.

“What is she doing?!” Maggie wonders aloud as she shoots, covering Gloria from any potential bites. 

Carol looks around, examining the situation and spots Hershel in the field, “she’s trying to save Hershel." 

Unsheathing her daggers, Gloria stabs any walkers that come too close to her. The driver door of the van pops open and the driver climbs out, taking out his gun and pointing it directly at Gloria. 

“Shit…” Gloria swears as she sees this, walkers starting to surround her.

Two simultaneous shots are fired. The first one being Carol’s, hitting the driver’s throat; the second from the driver’s gun, hitting Gloria in the shoulder causing her to fall to the ground. The herd is now split in half; one half going towards the driver and eating him alive, the other half making their way towards Gloria who fights her way through the walkers. To her relief, a katana swings right above her, killing the walkers coming for her and freeing Gloria. 

“Come on.” Michonne helps Gloria stand and directs her to start running towards the truck Glenn had driven into the courtyard. 

They both climb into the truck and Gloria is relieved to see Hershel is safe and sound in the truck. As Glenn drives towards the gate, Hershel looks over to Gloria who is pale and looking weak. 

“Gloria… you’ve been shot.” he announces when he sees her bloody shoulder, causing Glenn to worriedly glance in the rearview mirror.

“It’s a deep one…” Gloria groans in pain.

Glenn drives the truck through the open gate, parking the truck he quickly helps Michonne carry Gloria into the cell block. 

“Maggie, get the supplies, we need to get the bullet out of Gloria!” Hershel calls out as he goes into the cell block with the others.

Michonne and Glenn rush Gloria into an empty cell on the lower level of their block. Setting her on the bed then moving back to give Hershel room as he examines her wound. Gloria glances at Hershel and sees a frown on his face. 

“I-is it really as b-bad as it feels?” Gloria says, breathless.

“It’s a deep wound like you said.” Hershel looks over at her with a serious look, “your bone stopped it from going straight through, and it’s close to your joint.” 

Knowing what Hershel is getting at, she groans, “so if you don’t get it out now, I might not be able to use my arm again.” 

“It’s going to be excruciatingly painful for you, Gloria.” Hershel tells her, concern all over his face.

“Well, I can’t exactly wait for any anesthetic to kick in, can I?” Gloria grimaces, then she looks over to Hershel’s oldest daughter, “Maggie, get me a towel to bite on.” 

“Glenn,” Hershel calls out to him, “I need you to hold down your sister, try and distract her from the pain.” 

Glenn sits on the lower half of the bed and leans his body on Gloria’s legs, holding her hands in place, “It’s gonna be okay, sis, you’re gonna be okay.” 

Maggie comes back with a clean towel and Gloria takes it in her mouth, biting onto it as Hershel looks at her with steady eyes. She nods at him, doing her best to ready herself for the pain to come. Hershel digs into the wound, causing Gloria to scream out in agony as she squeezes Glenn’s hands tightly, trying her best not to thrash her body. 

Outside the cell block, Rick had just come inside with Daryl and Merle. He let Daryl know that Gloria hadn’t been the same since he left. Rick frowns when he sees Carol rushing into the cell block with towels, he also sees Beth and Carl looking on from outside the cell, a look of fear and worry on their faces. Before Rick could even ask what happened, a blood curdling shriek erupts from inside the cell. 

“Carol, who is it?” Rick asks.

Carol glances over at him with teary eyes then spots Daryl, “it’s Gloria.”

Blood drains from Daryl’s face at the news and he dashes into the cell block but Carol holds him back from going into the cell. 

“You can’t go in! Hershel’s still removing the bullet!” Carol shouts at him through her tears. 

Daryl is right at the cell, standing outside as he watches Gloria crying and screaming in pain and agony. His heart breaks at the sight of her being in so much pain. To Gloria, it felt like hours had passed when in actuality it was only a few minutes when Hershel had finally gotten the bullet out. She lets out a pained whimper as her grip on Glenn’s hands loosen. Glenn starts to panic when he sees her unconscious. 

“W-what happened?! I-is she…” Glenn looks to Hershel, his face stained with tears.

“She’s just passed out, her body must be exhausted from all that pain she just had to endure. I’ll patch up her wound and we should all let her rest.” Hershel tells him, nodding at him reassuringly.

Glenn nods, sighing in relief as he looks to his sister who’s laying still on the bed. Daryl stands in the doorway, still, and unsure of what to do. He’s unable to take his eyes off her pale face. He’s relieved that she pulled through but the sounds of her pained screaming haunted his mind. With guilt pulsing through his veins, he escapes into the main area where he had left Merle.

“Hey…” Merle calls out, “‘s she okay?” 

Daryl swore he could hear a hint of genuine concern for her in his voice, “she will be, she’s a tough one. She’ll pull through. She has to…” 

Chapter Text

It was the morning after the Governor had attacked the prison and Gloria had not woken up yet. Daryl was sitting on the steps just outside the cell she was resting in while Glenn went to check up on her wound. Color in her face had returned and she did not have a fever, which was a good sign. Relieved to see that she is going to pull through, he leaves the cell.

“Hey, Glenn.” Daryl calls out to him when he sees the other man leaving the cell.

“Hm?” Glenn turns around to face Daryl.

Daryl nods pointedly over to Gloria’s cell, “how’s she?”

“Still asleep, but no fever and she’s not as pale, so I think she’ll be okay.” Glenn says, then he sighs, “Daryl, you remember what I told you about hurting her?”

Daryl purses his lips and nods, “Yeah.” 

“You hurt her really bad, man. I don’t even know how long it’s gonna take for her to warm up to you again.” Glenn says with a frown.

“Yeah I know… I know I messed up.” Daryl says, looking down, guilty and ashamed.

Glenn sees his guilty expression then goes up to him and gently pats his shoulder, “hey, regardless, I’m glad you’re back. And now that you’re here, you can make it up to her.” 

He smiles softly at Daryl then turns to leave but before he walks out of the cell block, Glenn glances back at him, “And seriously, keep your brother in check.” 

Daryl scoffs at him and nods as Glenn leaves the cell block. A few hours pass and Daryl had gone back to the perch to lie down, but he wasn’t able to sleep. Not with Gloria still passed out from her injury, Glenn’s words did comfort him a little but worry and guilt still ate at him. In the cell, Gloria finally wakes up with a dull thumping pain in her shoulder, not letting her forget that she had gotten shot. She winces slightly as she sits up on the bed and gets up. She goes to the kitchen area outside the cell block to get herself a glass of water. 

“Oh, would ya look at that, she lives!” a familiar voice calls out, stopping her in her tracks.

Gloria turns in the direction of the voice and sees Merle sitting on top of one of the tables, smirking at her. She blinks at him, confused. Was she still passed out and dreaming or was she hallucinating? Or was Merle actually there?

“What, no hello? No ‘how ya doin’ ol’ Merle’?” he chuckles. 

His words register in her mind and she realizes that he actually is there, he’s real and still being a conceited little shit. Her memory seems to come back to her as she remembers that he’s also the one who nearly killed Glenn, this made her blood boil.

“And why the hell would I say hi to you when you almost killed my brother?” Gloria scoffs at him.

“For the record, I saved all y'all asses jus’ the other day, so we’re even.” Merle says as he leans forward, “and if ya ain’ gon’ thank me for tha’ ya should at least show me some respect. Don’ even know why I busted my ass to save y'all when ya jus’ left me on that damn roof.”

Gloria rolls her eyes at him, “do you need a reminder that I stayed with you on that roof? And for your information, they went back for us, Rick, Glenn, Daryl, T-Dog, they did. Oh wait, nevermind, you locked me up in that damn closet and ditched me, so how the hell would you know?! And for your information, if you didn’t leave, you would have never gotten separated from the group in the fucking first place, asshole!”

“They only went back ‘cause o’ you! Not me! They didn’ give a shit ‘bout me! And neither do you! Ya only stayed back ‘cause ya got the hots for my baby brother.” he smirks at this and chirps mockingly, “oh yeah, heard yer bro telling mine that ya love him.” 

“Yeah, you’re right. I do love Daryl, but I shouldn’t. I should have never let myself get close to him. I should have just left you on that roof alone and Daryl should’ve died trying to find you in that fucking city!” Gloria snaps, seething in anger at the man in front of her, she misses the split second falter on Merle’s face.

Merle lets out a whistle, “‘ooh, tha’s cold! Ain’ that cold, baby brother?” he looks in the direction of the cell block. 

Gloria glances over in the direction of the cell block as well and sees Daryl in the doorway looking at her. Blinking away the tears forming in her eyes, she looks back at Merle, glaring at him.

“It’s only a matter of time before Rick and Glenn kick you out of here,” she then directs her words to Daryl, “and when that time comes, you’re just going to follow him out again.”

Without another word or waiting for a response from either Dixon, Gloria storms out of the prison. She looks up to the watch tower and sees that Maggie is there for her watch shift. Gloria decides that she needs to let out her anger physically so she goes over to the gate of the courtyard and opens it, closing it behind her and proceeds to clear up the walkers left by the Governor. She hauls the already dead walkers into the van that ran through the gate as a walker approaches her from behind, snarling. Glancing over her shoulder, Gloria unsheaths her dagger and swings it into the walker’s skull, killing it instantly. She yanks the dagger out and lets the walker fall to the ground. Looking at the dagger in her hands, she sighs as she remembers the moment Daryl had given them to her all that time ago back in the quarry camp. 

“Now’s not the time…” Gloria sighs to herself, brushing away the memory.

She continues picking up walkers and tossing them into the van, killing any that came too close or just weren’t dead but laying on the ground, groaning and snarling up at her. Hearing footsteps approaching her from behind, Gloria instinctively swings her good arm back with her dagger armed only to be caught by the person who approached her, Daryl. The two share a brief eye contact just before Gloria yanks her arm out of his grip and continues to clean up the courtyard. Without saying anything, Daryl helps her load the walkers into the van but not without noticing her wince when she uses her injured shoulder to pull at the walkers. 

“Ya shouldn’ be out here doin’ this with that injury.” Daryl calls out to her.

His words stop her in her actions, then glares at him, “don’t pretend you care about me, Daryl.”

Daryl sighs at that, “I do care ‘bout ya.”

“Oh really?” Gloria rolls her eyes and scoffs, “is that why you left? Because you care so goddamn much?!”

“Hey, if ya had to choose between Glenn and this group, ya would have done the same thing!” Daryl raised his voice at her, getting frustrated.

“No! I wouldn’t! I would have tried harder than you ever did to get them all to come back! You say Glenn didn’t want Merle to come with us to the prison but that’s just your excuse because where is Merle now, huh?! He’s inside the damn prison with us whether Glenn likes it or not!” Gloria yells at him, her chest heaving as she tries not to cry again, “If anything I would have at least tried to come back and say goodbye, but I guess I don’t deserve that because that’s how much you care about me.” 

Daryl looks down, biting his lip, not knowing what to say to her anymore. He knew he messed up big time, and he hated himself for it. He knew he might never be forgiven for leaving her so the only thing he can do is make sure she’s safe and protected. Daryl watches as she continues hauling walkers into the van but turns around to notice that their argument had drawn in more walkers to them. 

“Hey, we should head back.” Daryl says, gesturing to the walkers starting to surround them.

Gloria looks around and sees what he’s talking about then drops the dead walker she was holding to the ground. She doesn’t wait for Daryl as she walks back towards the prison as Daryl follows her anyway. He rushes forward to open the gate for her as well as the door to the prison for her to go in first, closing both after himself. 

“Hershel!” Daryl calls out for the vet who comes out of the cell block with his crutches, then gestures to Gloria; Daryl saw that she was bleeding through her bandage. 

“Gloria, sit down.” Hershel instructs her.

She does so with a sigh as she lets Hershel inspect her wound. He unwraps the bandage and sighs softly when he sees that she’s torn the wound open. 

“Maggie, I need you to get me some fresh bandages, please.” Hershel orders his daughter as he cleans up the blood on Gloria’s shoulder. 

Maggie nods and heads into the cell block to get bandages as Glenn comes out of the cell block, a frown on his face. 

“What the hell were you doing out there? The courtyard is full of walkers, you shouldn’t even be outside with your injury!” Glenn lectured, worry and frustration written all over his face.

“I just wanted to kill something, okay?!” Gloria didn’t mean to snap at him, but she was in pain, in more ways than one. 

Glenn sighs at her response but doesn’t say anything more, backing off. Maggie comes back out with the bandages and Hershel takes them. He proceeds to patch up her wound again. 

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you, Gloria.” Hershel says with a smile. 

Gloria furrows her eyebrows together, confused, “for what?” 

“I saw how you took it upon yourself to distract those walkers so Glenn could get to me, you risked your life to save mine.” Hershel smiles warmly.

“I did what any one of us would have done, we can’t risk losing you.” she tells him, returning his smile.

“We can’t risk losing you either.” Hershel says with a chuckle.

Gloria grins then adds, “well I guess that’s why you’re patching me up so well.” 

This makes Hershel laugh and the mood in the room lightens up. Daryl’s lips curl into a small smile as he sees her smile again. Gloria looks over to Maggie who’s smiling gratefully at her then she mouths the words ‘thank you’ to which Gloria smiles and nods. 

“Dad!” the door opens and Carl rushes inside, “Andrea’s outside!”

The announcement alerts everyone, worried that it’s the Governor returning for another attack against the prison. Apparently, Andrea got away from the farm alive and had been surviving with Michonne until they found Woodbury. Daryl, Rick, and Glenn ready their weapons and rush out of the building. Glenn ordered Gloria to stay inside with the others as they went out. Soon, they brought Andrea inside the building. They all look warily at her as she looks around the prison.

“You’ve all been staying here?” Andrea asks in awe, looking around at the group surrounding her. 

“Yeah.” Rick says simply, eyeing her.

Her eyes land on Beth as she’s holding baby Judith, “Oh my god… is that…” she then looks around, seemingly to try and find Lori then her face softens when she doesn’t see her, then turns to look at Rick, “Rick, I’m so sorry.” 

“Yeah…” Rick sighs then takes a breath, “I didn’t think you were here to catch up.” 

Andrea sighs, “no, I’m not. I’m here to talk you guys out of fighting with Phillip.”

“Phillip?” Gloria raises an eyebrow.

“You know him as the Governor, I know him as Phillip.” Andrea states, “I don’t want this to turn into a war.”

“It already has.” Rick tells her, “when he decided to take his people here and shoot at us, he already declared a war.”

“He said you shot first.” Andrea says defensively. 

“O’ course he’d say that, wants to look like the victim in front o’ his woman so ya can give him some good lovin’.” Merle coos with a grimace. 

Gloria looks at Andrea with a look of judgement, “you’re sleeping with the Governor?” Andrea glances at her and looks away, confirming her words then Gloria scoffs under her breath, “of course you are.”

Gloria’s last words anger Andrea as she looks straight at Gloria, “you’ve always had a problem with me, haven’t you?”

“Of course I’ve always had a problem with you.” Gloria stands up from the table, “you’re always doing stupid shit that jeopardizes the group. Do I need to remind you of the time you shot and almost killed Daryl? Or maybe you need to remember when you left Beth alone to slice up her own wrist. And now you’re sleeping with our enemy, who by the way, shot me, and you expect to waltz into our territory and tell us to not kill your precious boyfriend. So yeah, I’m always going to have a problem with you.” 

Gloria looks like she’s going to pounce on Andrea from how worked up she was getting and knowing his sister, Glenn held her back. She was breathing heavily as she glared at Andrea who was now looking away from Gloria, knowing deep down everything she said was valid. She then looks to Rick with a pleading expression.

“You shouldn’t fight this war, Rick. You can’t, you won’t win. They have more fire power and people, plus there are innocent people in Woodbury.” Andrea tried to reason.

“Yeah, well those ‘innocent people’ were cheering me and Merle to kill each other in some messed up arena.” Daryl scoffs, “ya can go back and tell ‘Phillip’ that the next time I see him, I’m gonna take his other eye.”

“I’ll try to arrange something with him so you can all negotiate something, okay?” Andrea looks at Rick.

“What makes you think that this man even wants to negotiate?” Hershel points out, frowning.

“He’s not who you guys think he is. A war isn’t what he wants, he-” Andrea is cut off by Rick.

“Go ahead and set up your meeting, if he wants to negotiate, great! If not, he’ll get exactly what he asked for. A war.” Rick tells her. 

Having a verbal confirmation from Rick that he was willing to go meet with the Governor was enough for Andrea to leave. She told the group that she’ll let them know when and where the meeting will take place. The group’s reunion with Andrea did not ease their minds about the Governor, it only heightened their worries because now they knew he had a larger army and more weapons. The next few days were definitely going to be burdening for the group as they prepare for the war to come. 

Chapter Text

The next day after Andrea had visited the prison, offering to set up a meeting with the Governor, Rick took Michonne and Carl out on a run. He had mentioned the night previously after Andrea had left that they needed to stock up supplies, more specifically weapons, for when the Governor attacks. Glenn, Hershel, Beth, and Judith were in the cell block while Maggie and Carol were both on watch. Daryl was outside having a smoke on the picnic table outside as Merle was lounging about in the connecting hallway of Cell Block D; Maggie and Glenn didn’t want Merle always hanging around outside their block so Rick and Daryl agreed to move him to another cell block. Gloria was at the kitchen area washing some dishes from lunch. As she put the last dish away to dry, she wipes her hands on a cloth before hanging it over the sink. She’s about to walk back to the cell block when she hears a whistle emitting from where Merle was. Gloria rolls her eyes as she looks over to the man who was already looking at her through the gate. 

“What?” she says, not amused.

“Listen, I jus’ wanna talk.” Merle tells her, he raises up his arms to show her that he’s not being hostile, “no tricks or nothin’.”

Gloria ponders for a moment before nodding and follows his lead to his own cell block. She knows that Merle can’t beat her in a fight, injured or not, Merle still only has one hand and Gloria was able to beat him up when he still had two. Plus, she had her daggers on her. 

Once in the cell block, Merle lets out a sigh and turns around to face Gloria but is met with her fist. He stumbles back at the punch, not at all expecting it. Before he’s able to shout for her to stop, she knees him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

“That was for beating up Glenn and taking Maggie to the Governor!” Gloria seethes in anger, she then strikes his back with her elbow then pushes him to the ground.

Merle groans in pain, “an’ what was that for?!”

“All the times you pissed me off.” Gloria huffs then leans on the wall, crossing her arms as she looks at him.

Instead of being angry, Merle laughs at her answer then sits on the ground, leaning back on his hands and pauses a bit before he starts talking, “‘M sorry. For what I did to your brother and that farmer girl. But I do have to let ya know, if it weren’t for me, Glenn’d be dead.”

Gloria rolls her eyes and scoffs at his words, “Do you actually think I’m going to believe that you saved Glenn by beating him up? You were going to execute them! You think I’m stupid?!”

“If it were anyone else, Glenn’d be dead. They woulda killed him, I jus’ dragged it out! Had to make it look realistic or they’d jus’ shoot him straight up!” Merle defends and Gloria eyes him, not knowing whether to believe him or not, seeing this, he sighs, “look, I didn’ want Glenn to die ‘cause o’ what ya did for me on the roof. Ya stayed. Even if it was for Daryl, ya still stayed.” 

Gloria’s face softens at his words, hearing the sincerity behind them, “you still threw a walker at Glenn…” 

“Come on, I knew he could take it! Kid’s a ninja!” Merle exclaims causing Gloria to scoff.

“Ninjas are Japanese, Merle.” Gloria corrects him.

Merle rolls his eyes at that, “hey I’m tryin’ ‘ere, a’right? Gimme a break.”

Gloria chuckles then lets out a breath, “is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Nah,” he shakes his head, “I wanted to talk to ya about Daryl.”

Gloria frowns, confused. Why would he want to talk to her about his brother? She looks at him, Merle’s expression unreadable but serious as he looks back at her. 

“My baby brother,” he starts, “he cares a lot ‘bout ya. I know jus’ by the way he looks at ya, I’ve never seen that look in his eye before, not wit’ anyone. But you, you’re the reason he came back to this prison.”

Gloria ponders his words, “he… did he tell you that?”

“Hell nah! He’d never admit that shit!” Merle chuckles, covering up for Daryl, “but he didn’ need to, I jus’ know, I raised him after all!”

A sense of guilt raises inside Gloria, she doesn’t know what to think. A few days ago, she had yelled at Daryl for leaving, saying that he didn’t care at all about her or the group. Sure, they were words of anger but Gloria was trying to convince herself rather than him as a sense of protection in case he ever left without a word again. Now, Merle was here vouching for Daryl, telling her that he cares a lot about her in particular. 

“Jus’… take it easy on my brother, a’right?” Merle says with a heavy sigh, “he ain’ good with words an’ ain’ ever been good at relationships, hell, he doesn’ even know the love of a parent… but he’s tryin’, ya know? He’s tryin’ for you.”

Gloria looks up at him, a thoughtful look on her face, “why are you telling me all this?”

“‘Cause you’re the only broad I can see worthy o’ takin’ care o’ my brother. Ya sure can pack hell of a punch, and if ya can keep ol’ Merle in check, ya definitely can keep Daryl in check.” Merle says with a genuine smile. 

Gloria’s about to respond but both of their attention is taken away from each other as they hear quick paced footsteps emitting from the hallway. They turn their heads to look at the door and Daryl and Glenn emerge with worry written on both their faces. However, their look of worry is soon replaced by looks of confusion as they survey the scene in front of them. Gloria was leaning on the wall, unscathed, while Merle was sitting on the ground with a split lip and bloody nose. Glenn and Daryl glance at each other, communicating without words on who won the fight. Daryl makes his way over to help Merle up as Glenn goes over to Gloria who pushes herself off the wall.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Glenn says, his tone full of disapproval.

“Getting revenge for you.” Gloria shrugs then follows Glenn back to their cell block.

Daryl pulls Merle up to his feet and gives him a onceover, “she beat ya up again?” he asks, trying to hide a look of amusement.

“Ya got one hell of a woman there, little brother.” Merle chuckles as he watches the blush creep up on Daryl’s face, he then places his hand on Daryl’s shoulder, making the younger look at him, “she’ll come around, and when she does, ya hold on to her. She’s a keeper, that one!”

Wanting to hide his embarrassment, Daryl scoffs and pushes Merle’s arm off him, “shut up.” 

Merle laughs as he watches Daryl walk out of the cell block back to his own. He shakes his head at how flustered the younger man can get. Smiling to himself, Merle retreats to one of the many cells and rests.

—

The next day, Rick, Daryl, and Hershel had left the prison to meet with the Governor for possible negotiations. When Rick had come back from his run with Carl and Michonne, he had brought back a full artillery of weapons to fight the Governor. Andrea had told them that they were to meet up at noon the following day, but for precautions and to scope out the area, the three of them had left in the morning. Gloria and Carol were on watch together on the watch platform leaving everyone else back in either the cell block or main area. 

“How’s your shoulder?” Carol asks, giving Gloria a smile.

“It’s good,” Gloria glances over at her bandaged shoulder then back at Carol, also with a smile,  “doesn’t hurt anymore, so I’d say it’s healing well.”

“What about things with Daryl? Are they also healing well?” Carol asks, curious while also giving Gloria a knowing look.

Gloria blushes slightly at the question then looks away into the courtyard, “I had a chat with Merle about Daryl yesterday. He says that Daryl… he really cares about me and that I’m the reason he came back.”

“Do you believe him?” Carol questions, more for Gloria than her own curiosity.

“I don’t know… I mean, he didn’t sound like he was lying but…” Gloria lets out a sigh and looks down.

“It’s okay, give it time. I don’t think you should give up on Daryl, people and feelings are all we truly have these days. And what you have with Daryl is special,” Carol puts her hand on Gloria’s shoulder as Gloria nods, “have you forgiven him yet?”

“Honestly? I don’t even know.” Gloria purses her lips, “whenever I think about how he just left, I still feel mad, but I am glad he’s back. I’m happy he’s back with us. I just don’t know when I’ll stop being mad at him for leaving.”

Carol nods, understanding and gives Gloria’s shoulder a light pat but before she can say anything in reply, a gunshot sounds from the direction of the cell block. Both women glance at each other, exchanging looks of worry before bolting off to the cell block. Once they open the door to the prison to the main area outside of their cell block, they see Beth holding a gun aimed to the ceiling and Merle on the ground wrestling with Glenn. 

“What the hell is going on here?!” Gloria shouts, gaining everyone’s attention.

“Merle wants to intrude on the meeting with the Governor,” Maggie explains while glaring at Merle, “but Glenn isn’t letting him go.”

Gloria sighs and goes down the steps, “Merle, get off of Glenn, now!”

Merle, who is still pinning Glenn down on the ground, glances up at Gloria then back at Glenn and pushes himself off the ground, freeing her brother. He takes a few steps back from the other man as Glenn gets up as well, both men eyeing each other. 

“All o’ ya say ya wanna beat the damn Governor, but ya ain’t doin’ shit to beat him! We know where he is! We can ambush him and kill him there!” Merle shouts.

“Merle, you know that puts Daryl and the others in danger too, right?” Gloria asks rhetorically. 

“And them three goin’ doesn’ put ‘em in danger? How do we know that the Governor didn’t bring his entire army to this meetin’?” Merle yells back, his worry evident in his voice.

“You’re right, we don’t know that. But what you’re suggesting is too big a risk to take.” Gloria takes another step down on the steps so that she’s level with the others, “think about it, Merle. Regardless of whether the Governor took his entire army, if they have a lookout and catch us trying to ambush them, Daryl, Rick, and Hershel are still with the Governor. They could turn it into a hostage situation and it puts them in even more danger. You may not care about Rick or Hershel, but I know you care about Daryl and you want to look out for him, but wanting to ambush the Governor does the complete opposite of that.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve all been trying to tell him but he just doesn’t get it with that thick skull of his.” Glenn says, still glaring at Merle.

His words provoke Merle as he growls, lunging at Glenn but only to be stopped as Gloria unsheathes one of her daggers and presses it to Merle’s throat, making him freeze in place. 

“Keep moving and see what happens.” Gloria challenges him.

Merle glares at her but moves back, he can’t help but admit to himself that he’s quite impressed with how badass Gloria is. Still huffing in anger, he backs off from Glenn and the others. 

He then looks at Gloria, “I didn’ wanna cause trouble, like ya said, I only wanted to help Daryl.”

“You can help him by shutting up and waiting for them to come back.” Gloria says as she puts her dagger back into its sheath then turns to Glenn, “and no more bitter retorts from you either.”

Glenn crosses his arms and huffs, not saying anything else as he knows he was guilty of provoking Merle. He lets out another breath before making his way to the door and going outside to get some air. Merle goes to the hallway connecting his cell block to the main area and sits along the wall. Gloria looks over at Carol and they both sigh, glad that the damage of the altercation was somewhat minimal to say the least. 

Chapter Text

Rick, Daryl, and Hershel had come back from meeting with the Governor. Unfortunately but predictably, Rick told everyone that there was no negotiation and that the war would be fought. With this information, the group started to prepare for the battle; hiding guns and bullets in places only they know about, creating barricades and shields for each other to hide behind. The atmosphere of the entire prison is tense and fearful as the burden of war is upon them. 

“Hey, has anyone seen Merle?” Daryl calls out to anyone who can answer him.

“Isn’t he in his own cell block?” Gloria says as she sits on one of the tables loading a gun. 

Daryl shakes his head, “Nah, jus’ came from there, he ain’ there.”

Rick looks around the main area outside the cell block and frowns, “does anyone know where Michonne is?” his frown deepens when he sees everyone shaking their heads then shoots Daryl a knowing look. 

As if keeping something from the group, Rick and Daryl rush off to try to find Michonne and Merle. Gloria looks over at Glenn with a raised brow to which Glenn shrugs and continues on loading the weapons. When the weapons were all loaded, Gloria, Glenn, and Maggie took the guns and boxes of bullets to hide in certain areas in case the prison got ambushed and they were trapped inside. After hiding their artillery, they went back to the main area with Hershel and Rick had just come back but Daryl was nowhere to be seen. Rick had a rather distressed look on his face as he looks around at everyone in the room.

“Everybody… I have something to tell you.” Rick starts, he waits for the others to gather around him before continuing, “when I went to meet with the Governor, I came back and told you all that there was no negotiation. But that was a lie. The Governor was willing to negotiate but what he offered was something I knew none of you would accept.”

“What was it?” Glenn asks, crossing his arms.

“He wanted Michonne. He said that if we gave him Michonne he would leave the prison alone.” Rick informs everyone.

“But you don’t buy it.” Gloria finishes for him. 

Rick nods and sighs, “I thought about it and I thought about it… I told Daryl and we both told Merle…” 

“That’s why you were so worried about both Merle and Michonne going missing.” Maggie voices what everyone is thinking, to which Rick nods.

“I should have told you all before. I should have discussed it with you all as a group. What I said before about us not being a democracy, I realize that that was wrong. That isn’t how things should be, not anymore. And I’m sorry for that.” Rick says, pursing his lips as he looks at the group, relief washing over him as they all smile at him approvingly, Hershel nodding. 

“You think Merle took matters into his own hands and took Michonne to the Governor?” Glenn says standing up from the table.

Rick runs his hand through his hair, “that’s the thing, when me and Daryl told him, we basically asked him to do it… I wanted to find him to tell him that the deal is off.” 

“Well, let’s go look for him then, they couldn’t have gotten far, right?” Gloria says, also standing up from the table.

“Daryl already left to find Merle. If anyone can track his brother, it’s him.” Rick informs.

The group nods at this. It was a fact, Daryl is the group’s best tracker and if he wasn’t able to find the two then there was no chance of anyone else finding them. They all decided to wait it out, hoping that all three of them would make it back in one piece. It was rather worrying though when Michonne was the only one who made it back to the prison.

“Glad to see you’re back safe,” Gloria says as she opens the gate for her, “where are the other two?”

“Merle let me go and Daryl went to look for him.” Michonne tells her as she walks into the gates.

“Wait, what? Merle let you go?” Gloria asks, wanting confirmation.

Michonne nods and sighs, “he left me behind to go fight the Governor on his own.” 

Gloria nods, accepting her answer as Michonne continues to walk towards the prison but then she calls out to her, “hey, Rick didn’t want to go with the deal, he changed his mind in the end, hope you know that.”

Michonne glances back behind her shoulder and nods, “I know,” she then continues walking back.

Gloria sighs, hoping that Michonne wouldn’t hold anything against Rick for agreeing to the trade at first. She leans against the fence, waiting for the Dixon brothers to come back. After what seemed like hours of waiting, Daryl had finally come back to the prison but he was alone. Gloria pushes open the gate for him but he doesn’t look at her as he walks in. Noting that he was alone, Gloria figured that Merle hadn’t made it back, especially judging by Daryl’s mournful expression. She watches him as he walks back to the prison building before locking up the front gate. 

By nightfall, Gloria walks back to the prison building. She stayed at the gate in hopes that maybe, just maybe Merle was alive and wanted to stay outside the prison walls a bit longer. As she walks closer to the building, she sees Daryl sitting alone on the picnic table having a smoke. Gloria hesitates but comes to the decision to go and sit with him, keep him company after what happened that day. 

“You know those things will kill you, right?” Gloria says after a while of sitting with Daryl in silence and Daryl grunts in response, she sighs, “I’m sorry for what happened to Merle. No matter how much of an ass he was, I never wanted this to happen.”

“Didn’t ya hate him?” Daryl says, his voice soft and tired, he’d been crying.

“I didn’t like him, that’s for sure, but no matter how much I disliked him I’d never wish death upon him.” she takes a breath, “I can never imagine how it would be to lose Glenn, and I wouldn’t ever want you to go through such a thing.” 

Daryl nods, not saying anything else as he takes another puff from his cigarette. Gloria watches him as Merle’s words and actions from the last few days replay in her mind. Merle trusted her to look after Daryl, and everything he did was to protect his little brother. Even with risking his life to take on the Governor alone, that wasn’t for anyone else but Daryl. As much of an ass Merle was, he only cared about one person. 

“Daryl…” Gloria slowly reaches out to hold his hand that’s resting on his knee, “everything Merle did, he did it for you, you know that right? He only cared about you.” 

She feels Daryl tense up at her words. He’d been trying to hold in his emotions, he was supposed to be strong, he couldn’t cry. Even if it were for the death of his only family left, he couldn’t, but Gloria’s words pushed him over the edge. Of course he knew that Merle cared about him, he loved him and showed it in his own twisted way. He’d been trying to deny it all so he wouldn’t have to face his feelings. 

“Hey,” Gloria calls softly, “come here.” 

She takes her hand off his and wraps her arms around Daryl, urging him to come closer to her. Daryl cracks out a sob as he leans into her, falling into her embrace as he cries. Gloria lets him cry, stroking his hair, letting him know that it’s okay for him to cry to her like this. 

“We’re going to win this war,” Gloria says softly, “we’re going to kill the Governor. Merle gave his life for us, and winning the war is how we can honor his death. We can’t let Merle die in vain.”

Daryl nods but doesn’t move from Gloria’s embrace, he sniffles before muttering, “I’m gonna kill him.”

—

The next day, Rick had devised a plan for the fight. He believed that after Merle had taken down many of the Governor’s men, he would be furious, wanting to invade the prison the next day. Rick’s prediction had come true as the Governor and his army rolled into the premises of the prison, fully loaded and trampling down the fences. Luckily, Hershel and the younger members of the group hadn’t been discovered as they were hidden in the woods outside the prison. Carol and Gloria were in the control room waiting for any sounds of the intruders, Carol armed with an assault rifle and Gloria holding a smoke grenade in her hand. Faint footsteps could be heard coming down the dark hallway and Gloria looks over at Carol as she nods.

“Three… two…” Gloria whispers, “one.”

She throws the grenade into the hallway after pulling out the pin and quickly makes her way to the prison alarm controls. Carol starts to shoot down the hallway as the smoke fills the space and Gloria pulls down the levers, triggering the alarms. Panicked shouts and gunshots can be heard in the hallway as the alarm blares through the prison. 

“Retreat!” a voice within the hallway commands.

The Governor and his army rush out of the prison, trying to make their way out to their vehicles in an attempt to escape. Maggie and Glenn are both on the watch platforms armed in riot gear and assault rifles, shooting at the intruders as they run out from the building. 

“Get the hell out of here!” Glenn shouts as he shoots.

Maggie and Glenn have successfully run the Governor and his army out of the prison. They look at each other, grinning, knowing they’ve won this battle. They meet up with Rick and Daryl, who were on the other side of the prison block shooting within the building, and Carol and Gloria. 

“We should take it back to Woodbury, finish ‘em off once and for all.” Daryl suggests, looking at the others.

Rick nods, “Yeah, we should. Let’s check on the others first, make sure they’re okay, then we can go.”

“We’ll stay here, just in case they decide to come back.” Glenn tells Rick who nods in approval.

Hershel, Beth, Carl, and the baby, Judith, had made their way back into the main area outside their cell block. Rick had come in to make sure that they were unharmed, then gone off with Daryl and Michonne to finish off the Governor. Gloria goes inside with Carol, leaving Glenn and Maggie on watch. 

“Hershel,” she calls out to the vet as she walks up to him holding a map, “can you show me where Rick met up with the Governor?”

Hershel takes the map and eyes Gloria cautiously, “what’s this about now, young lady?”

“There’s something I have to do, it’s not anything stupid, I promise.” Gloria says, urging him with the map, “please?”

Hershel sighs at her persistence then shows her the meeting place on the map, “before you go anywhere, I really hope you tell Glenn what you’re planning to do. I’m not going to pry but Glenn has a right to know.”

Gloria nods and smiles at him, “I will, don’t worry. And thanks.”

Hershel smiles back and nods. Taking the map, Gloria goes back outside and sees Glenn standing near the gates on lookout. 

“Glenn, I’m taking a truck!” Gloria shouts to him as she runs towards the vehicles.

“What?!” Glenn frowns as he chases her and grabs her arm before she can climb into any vehicle, “where do you think you’re going? The Governor is still out there with his army, you aren’t going out there!”

“I gotta find Merle’s body and bring it back here.” Gloria tells him, “it’s the least we can do for Daryl after everything.”

Glenn’s expression softens as he listens to Gloria, “let me come with you then.”

“No, you promised Rick you’d stay here and watch over everything with Maggie. I’ll be fine, Hershel already told me where they had the meetup.” Gloria pats Glenn’s arm reassuringly.

Glenn ponders a bit, then hesitantly nods, “take the blue truck, it’ll be easier to load the body.” 

Gloria smiles then goes over to said blue truck and climbs inside. She starts the truck as Glenn goes over to the gates to open it for her to drive through. Glenn shouts for her to stay safe and Gloria sticks her arm out the driver window to wave in acknowledgement. Following the map, Gloria soon finds her way to the meeting area; Rick had mentioned before that the trade off would be at the same place of the meeting. She slows down the truck as she sees a litter of corpses all over the ground. Turning off the truck engine, she jumps out of the vehicle and looks around for Merle’s corpse. 

“There you are…” Gloria sighs as she finds his body.

Although his face was mangled, he still had that unmistakable metal stump replacing his right hand. Gloria goes to his body and grunts as she picks him up, dragging him to the truck. She pushes his body onto the back of the truck and closes the tail panel so that he doesn’t fall out. She goes back to the drivers side and climbs in, starting the truck and drives back to the prison. When she gets back, she sees that Daryl’s bike isn’t there, telling her that the others aren’t back yet from trying to find the Governor. 

Gloria proceeds to drive into the courtyard towards their graveyard. She parks the truck and climbs out, then goes to get the shovel the group kept in the back of the truck. She starts to dig a hole for Merle. 

“Hope you don’t mind resting beside him, T’,” Gloria remarks as she digs beside T-Dog’s grave.

As she digs, the revving of a motorcycle can be heard in the distance. Gloria didn’t even need to turn around to know that Daryl, Rick, and Michonne had come back to the prison. She wasn’t in a rush to go back to them though, she knew that they would update her on whatever happened when she went back inside. However, she did find it odd that she saw Rick driving an old bus into the prison though when she glanced back. Dedicated to finishing her task, Gloria continues on digging and when she was done with the hole, she goes over to the truck where she hears footsteps approaching from behind her.

“Hey!” a familiar rough voice calls out, “What’re ya doin’?”

Gloria turns to face Daryl who had a look of confusion written on his face. It was no wonder why he was confused though, no one on their side had died from the battle so who could she be digging a grave for. She answers the silent question by stepping to the side and letting Daryl see the contents of the truck. Daryl’s look of confusion is now replaced with one of shock and sadness as he sees his brother’s corpse in the back of the truck.

“I thought that Merle deserves a grave at least, he’s been one of us since the quarry. I couldn’t just leave him out there to rot.” Gloria says looking down, not entirely sure how Daryl would react.

She was worried that he would be mad at her for going out just to bring his body back. Gloria knew that seeing his body would bring back memories and even trigger some emotions that Daryl had been trying to suppress. When Daryl nodded in agreement to her words, she let out a breath of relief that she didn’t even know she was holding. 

“Help me carry him? He’s heavy as hell.” Gloria asks with a slight chuckle in her tone. 

Daryl smiles softly at that and nods again, making his way over to the truck. The two pick up Merle’s body and carry him to the newly dug grave. They carefully lower his body into the grave and Gloria picks up the shovel again.

“Ya’ve done enough for me.” Daryl says, taking the shovel away from her and starts shovelling dirt into the grave.

Deciding not to argue with the man, Gloria retrieves two flat pieces of wood from the ground and carves the initials M. D. into one of them with one of her daggers. She then wraps a rope around the wood pieces to create a cross.

“So, what’s with the bus?” Gloria asks as she finishes up the cross. 

“We brought back people from Woodbury, old folks, kids, they had nowhere else to go. Damn Governor abandoned the place.” Daryl explains as he continues shovelling.

“I take it you guys brought Andrea back?” she guesses, her and Andrea never really got along, but leaving her behind just because she didn’t like her was not an option.

Daryl shakes his head, “nah… she’s gone.”

“I’m… sorry…” she didn’t know what else to say to that, “did… you guys find the Governor at least?”

He sighs at her question and shakes his head, “nah, found their cars and a bunch o’ dead bodies, but no asshole with an eyepatch.”

Gloria sighs at that then plants the cross at the head of Merle’s grave once Daryl had finished filling up the hole with dirt. He leans on the shovel and looks down at the grave, a soft smile tugging on his lips. A moment of silence lingers between the two when Daryl looks at Gloria. 

“Thanks.” he says, earning a nod and smile from Gloria, “‘re we good?”

Gloria chuckles at his question, “I just went out of my way to get your brother’s body back and made a grave for him, and you’re still asking if we’re good?” 

Daryl scoffs at her, “can never really tell wit’ ya.”

“We’re good.” Gloria says, patting his arm as a reassurance, “you know, Merle talked to me about you.”

Daryl eyes her at this information, not sure what to say or what to expect. What would Merle tell her? A slight feeling of anxiety and potential embarrassment creeping up in his gut as he waits for Gloria to continue.

“He said you look at me differently. That you… you really do care about me.” Gloria says, now looking to the ground, shyness taking over her.

Daryl rolls his eyes, “been tryin’ to tell ya that but ya wouldn’ listen.”

“Can you blame me? I was pissed at you for leaving.” Gloria retorts, making Daryl chuckle.

Another moment of silence passes between them. Daryl looks over at Gloria and hesitantly reaches out to hold her hand. Even though she told him that they’re on good terms, he didn’t know what to really expect or where their boundaries lie. He smiles softly when she gladly takes his hand in hers, then tugs her hand, wanting to pull her in for a hug. Gloria doesn’t resist as he puts his arms around her, holding her close.

“Thank you.” he whispers in her ear, “this means a lot.”

“It’s nothing.” Gloria whispers back, wrapping her arms around him, enjoying the embrace.

Daryl shakes his head at her words, “it ain’ nothin’.”

Gloria pulls back and looks up at Daryl. His hands on her waist, still holding her to him. He looks into her eyes meaningfully as Gloria smiles at him, caressing his cheek with her hand. Daryl leans into her touch.

“You know what, you’re right.” Gloria says, making Daryl furrow his brow, slightly confused, “this isn’t nothing.”

Her hand slides up behind his head as she leans forward and kisses his lips. Daryl reciprocates, kissing her back as he tightens his hold on her. There was something unspoken about the kiss, a mutual understanding, a mutual love. It didn’t need to be said with words, it was official for them. He was hers, and she was his.