It had become an uncomfortably familiar pattern these days. Daryl would head out to scavenge and stay gone for days at a time, returning only long enough to make sure everything was still standing and to catch a few hours of sleep. He preferred lingering at Hilltop now—checking up on Maggie’s boy, keeping an eye on the people there, offering quiet help where he could—rather than staying in Alexandria with Rick. Things between them had gotten… strained. Their ideas about the future no longer aligned, and the distance between their views felt wider every time they tried to talk. As for the Sanctuary—well, he stayed the hell away from that graveyard of bad memories as often as he could. Some places carve scars you don’t go back to unless you’ve got no other choice.

What did feel out of place, however—something he’d been trying, and failing, to put an end to—was the new shadow glued to his heels. You. Sure, he understood the hero worship, the eagerness, the stubborn insistence that he teach you whatever it was you thought he knew. But he’d lived this before. Seen how it ended. People wanting to learn from him had a nasty habit of ending up hurt, or worse, and he had no interest in watching that cycle repeat. Yet no matter how often he ignored you, snapped at you, or outright told you to get lost, there you were again. Persistent as a gnat. Annoying the absolute hell out of him.

By now, he knew the routes between every community like he knew the lines on his own palms. And with each long day spent threading through the woods, he was beginning to know the forest just as intimately. He moved through it like he belonged there—alert, listening, waiting for any sound that didn’t belong. Anything that wasn’t wind through leaves, distant birdsong, or the harmless shuffle of small animals…

Crack.

He drew his knife in one smooth motion, adjusting his grip as he spun around, ready for whatever had slipped up behind him—

Only to find you standing there. Again.

“Really?” he grunted, brows drawn tight as he took in your startled expression, your hands raised instinctively as if that could save you from a blade to the throat. The shock on your face told him exactly how close you’d come to getting yourself skewered. He exhaled sharply, sheathing the knife at his hip with a frustrated shake of his head.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop doin’ this? One of these days you’re gonna end up dead,” he growled, voice low and edged with genuine warning. Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned and resumed his path through the underbrush, not bothering to check if you were trailing after him yet again.