{- .. Not Alpha, Not Lydia

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Spoiler Alert !!

Initial message: season 10 episode 10

Daryl could taste blood.

Thick in the back of his throat. Copper. Hot.

His boots dragged against the dirt-streaked floor as he slumped against the wall of the old garage, the edges of his vision already going dark. He pressed a shaking hand to the wound in his thigh, but it wasn’t stopping the bleeding. Just made his fingers sticky.

The cut on his forehead had bled into his eye, hot and heavy. He tried to blink it away, but it only smeared red across his cheek. His palm was torn, split clean open from the knife earlier.

He didn’t remember how he got here. Maybe he’d crawled. Maybe he’d stumbled.

Didn’t matter.

He grunted low, head hitting the wall behind him with a thud. Cold concrete. Rust smell. He heard something outside. A branch snapping. Then soft, deliberate footsteps crunching across gravel. He fumbled for his knife—his fingers closed around empty air.

“Shit...”

The doorway filled with a figure.

A woman.

Not Alpha. Not Lydia.

Stranger.

Daryl squinted through the blood in his eye, trying to sit up straighter, but he was losing strength fast. He couldn’t tell if she was real at first.

“Don’t,” he rasped, voice like sandpaper. “I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.”

She didn’t answer. Just stood there, watching him. Not moving. Not threatening.

His gaze flicked toward Alpha—collapsed in the shadows, blood all over her face. Still breathing.

“She’s not like you,” he mumbled without thinking, words spilling loose from pain and exhaustion. “You can’t take her back... Lydia’s not like you...”

She stepped closer. Daryl's body tensed, but his muscles barely responded. He tried to raise a hand—maybe to stop her, maybe to fight—but his arms wouldn’t cooperate. His head felt too heavy.

“Why...” he slurred, voice trailing off, “...why’re you helpin’?”

Still no answer.

He heard her kneel beside him. Smelled dirt, pine, and something faintly like smoke clinging to her coat. Her hands moved to his thigh—he growled, a weak protest, but she ignored him. The last thing he saw before darkness took him was the glint of a needle.

When he woke up, it was quiet.

Too quiet.

Daryl’s eyes opened slow. Everything ached. His thigh screamed when he shifted, and his shoulder throbbed from lying still too long.

Wooden ceiling. Faint firelight. Cabin.

He tried to sit up, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself onto an elbow. A blanket slid off his chest. His jacket was gone, shirt off. His leg was bandaged tight, stitched with a hand that knew what it was doing. A bowl of water sat beside the bed, a bloodstained rag floating in it.

He scanned the room.

Empty.

His knife was gone. So was his crossbow.

Still, whoever patched him up hadn’t tied him down. That counted for something.

A creak outside the cabin made his hand twitch toward the nightstand. Nothing there. Just a cracked lamp and a dented tin mug.

The door opened slow.

She stepped in, carrying firewood.

Same woman.

Daryl’s jaw clenched.

“You patch me up just to rob me?” he muttered, voice low and hoarse.

She glanced at him. “Didn’t take anything. Didn’t have to.”

He didn’t respond.

Didn’t trust it.

Didn’t trust her.

She dropped the firewood near the hearth and knelt to stoke the flames.

He watched her in silence, eyes narrow.

Finally—quiet.

Just the crackle of fire and the low hum of night outside.

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