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Everything about Alexandria feels fake. Plastic. Its cookie-cutter houses, manicured streets, and clueless people are all so insufferable, Daryl doesn’t get how the rest of the group can stand it.
No, that’s a lie. It’s clear as crystal to him why his people are so comfortable within these walls—they’re the ones who don’t see a reason for Daryl’s enduring bitterness, who have been giving him shit for not wanting to assimilate, and it’s because they don’t come from the sort of place he did.
It’s always been obvious. Rick and Carl and their ilk reeked of suburbia in the beginning. Glenn’s a city boy. Sasha was a firefighter; Michonne, an upper class artsy type. Maggie may be a farm girl, but nobody in their right mind would have called her or the Greenes white trash. The group is comfortable here because it’s familiar. A box with a label they all recognize. They blend into the nooks and crannies of this place, seamless, eager to reclaim a standard of living they lost when the world ended.
The only one who almost gets it after Merle’s death is Carol, but she’s also committed herself to playing pretend. She wears blouses, and talks funny, and she’s baking cookies and gossiping with the housewives. It’s like looking at a total stranger. Not even in private does she regard Daryl as she used to—she’s rigid now. Hardened after everything she’s been through and dedicated to her staunch desire to take Alexandria for their people.
Daryl doesn’t want any part in it, and he’s implied as much from the moment they arrived. The rug got pulled out from under him: he and Michonne were the ones to convince Rick of Alexandria’s potential when Aaron came to them in that barn. Daryl believed in it then because he wanted someplace their people could finally be safe. He didn’t realize just how othered he’d feel until it was already too late.
He should’ve known. Now that they all have an excuse to indulge in the things they used to have—things that Daryl’s hardly ever seen, much less experienced for himself—it stands to reason they’d jump at the opportunity.
Carol has prodded him more than once about what it is he’s afraid of. What’s keeping him from accepting Alexandria as home. He always tells her he ain’t scared of nothin’ and nobody in these walls, but the truth is that Daryl fears being left behind; forgotten in favor of these shiny, new quarters and their stunning likeness to the old world. It’s why he won’t eat their food or partake in their comforts. Why he hasn’t yet explored the place like everyone else, instead sticking to the house in all its plain and sterile glory.
He doesn’t want to witness his people moving on so quickly without him.
Carol isn’t the only one pretending. Rick’s a damn cop again, except they’re calling him and Michonne constables, as if anything like that deserves to exist anymore, or deserved to exist before. Officer Friendly now walks the streets again with his clean-shaven face, trimmed hair, and new threads. Daryl can’t wrap his mind around how they can do it with such little effort—put on a mask and play their roles. He’s never been able to be anything, anyone, but himself, if his life depended on it. Hell, he thinks he’d rather die than force himself to be something he isn’t.
He should be happy for them, he knows, despite that it hurts, so he’s held his tongue. Even to Deanna in that stupid interview what she thrust upon him and everyone. He was telling the truth, anyway—Alexandria will prove beneficial for the group. For Judith. She and Carl, of all of them, deserve somewhere safe to call home. Far be it from him to squander that opportunity for the sake of his own feelings.
Still, for all the effort he’s put into keeping his thoughts to himself, his disdain for Alexandria is tough to hide and regularly does battle with his obligations to his people. They mix and mingle inside of him as two reactive chemicals in a sealed jar. One that only needs a nudge to blow its top.
He doesn’t regret tackling that kid to protect Glenn. Rick got pissed at him for it, dragged him off and tried to diffuse, but those sorry pricks had it coming for how they put Daryl’s people in danger. It’s not his fault that the Alexandrians are afraid of real consequences; that they hide behind Deanna to preserve their delicate sensibilities, and point and gasp when somebody shatters the illusion they’ve blinded themselves with.
Daryl thought his days of being gawked at were long dead, but here, they look at him like he’s an untamed animal every time they see him. A prowling predator what’s sneaked its way inside their henhouse. He supposes he can’t blame them for it. He feels like an animal, too, trapped in a sheet-metal cage.
The only saving grace is that the others see Alexandria’s most glaring flaws, too. Deanna and her followers have sat sheltered from fate all this time with their food stores, and their giant freshwater lake, and their solar panels. They got lucky, building their wall to keep out the dead, and that they haven’t suffered more casualties on supply runs than Aiden has already allowed with his recklessness. Daryl, Rick, and Carol have been discussing it during their excursions beyond the walls.
They faked taking Carol—poor, helpless, delicate Carol, Carol who, to these people, could never dream of hurting anyone, of staining her cardigan with blood—to practice shooting today so they can speak plain. The plan is to steal weapons from Alexandria’s armory, just for the three of them, to prepare for when things inevitably go sideways. It’s decided that the rest of the group doesn’t need to know so that they’ll keep trying to get along with the Alexandrians.
Carol told Daryl he needs to try, too. He had nothing to say about that. If he had let loose the rebuttal that sat ready on his tongue, he would have growled that he is trying. That the restraint he’s shown, the distance he’s put between himself and those idiots, is the best he can offer until they straighten the hell up.
Rick and Carol walk ahead of Daryl on the way back to Alexandria’s front gate, confident in their decision and ready to get back to the pretending. Rick, in his stiff constable uniform. Carol, in her flowery sweater.
Daryl slows down. He looks at them, then back in the direction they came from. He doesn’t want to be trapped inside those walls yet. Can’t, if he knows what’s good for him. His feet stop moving.
“Gonna take a walk,” Daryl calls up to them. “Scare up some food.”
“We have food, Daryl,” Carol says.
“Yep.”
Rick is the one to let it go, maybe because he realizes Daryl’s need to decompress is greater than the desire they have for him to keep up appearances right now.
“Well, be safe,” Rick says.
“A’right, thank ya, Officer,” Daryl says, aloof in tone, as he turns away.
Ridiculous. This entire thing is ridiculous. He wonders if he’ll ever figure a way to live in that place without it suffocating him.
It’s not just about Alexandria’s cushiness. It’s everything Deanna and her people stand for. They want to live in their bubble and emulate the way things used to be—ignore the fact that once their impressive food stores run out, they’re going to starve and die because they’ve got no useful skills and no willingness to learn. They are nuclear family, and white picket fence, and holiday dinners, and neighborhood watch, and they are everything Daryl hoped would die with the rest of the world.
Deanna eats it up. It’s just what she wants to see: folks acting civil and obedient while they try to rebuild something that didn’t work when it was the norm. Daryl hates the way she looks at him, although not for the same reason that he hates other Alexandrians leering his way. Deanna tries to peel him apart with her calculating stare, eager to get to the meat of what lies beneath his gruff exterior.
I’m just trying to figure Mr. Dixon out. But I will. That’s what she said, as if he doesn’t have a choice in it. He doesn’t want a stupid job, anyhow. That’s the last thing he needs—to have expectations put on him by folks who regard him as nothing more than an angry yokel.
At least he’s got new grounds to explore, and explore them he does now, intent on staying out as long as he pleases to cool off about everything. Turning to nature to clear his mind has always been Daryl’s way. There’s some good hunting to be done here, he thinks, especially if Alexandria hasn’t yet taken advantage of the game in the area.
He doesn’t expect to see Aaron out here, and hunting rabbits at that. He has to give it to him, though: out of all the Alexandrians, he’s the only one who talks to Daryl like a normal person, and looks at him with the same consideration he gives anybody else. One of the few who doesn’t feel like he’s a plastic doll in a dollhouse. If there’s a nervous edge to Aaron’s attitude, then Daryl assumes it’s his own fault for being aggressive and standoffish.
He wants to be alone, but when Aaron asks to come along on his hunt, Daryl allows it with a begrudging huff. He reasons with himself that maybe the guy will learn a thing or two by watching him, despite that he suspects Aaron’s real motive is to talk to him. Cozy up like they’re friends. It’s why he tells Aaron to keep quiet—so he doesn’t scare off any game, and so Daryl doesn’t have to listen to him drone on about giving Alexandria a chance.
He figures they can come up with a couple of rabbits before they need to head back, so long as Aaron does his part and acts like he doesn’t exist back there in Daryl’s shadow.
Finding a horse—Buttons, Aaron calls it—is another remarkable, unexpected thing. Such luck isn’t commonplace these days. Daryl supposes if anyone would be so lucky, it’d be the Alexandrians, for whom luck seems to have a preference. Where they lack any advantage is in wrangling the thing, if Aaron and Eric have failed at it as much as it sounds like. Daryl takes the reins and attempts to coax the stallion himself.
He’s no expert on horses if his oversight with Nervous Nelly means anything, though he comprehends them plenty. Looking at Buttons, Daryl feels a sort of kinship: here’s a creature what used to belong to somebody, yet has only itself now; an animal who trusts nothing and no one, but who could learn to again if only somebody would treat it gingerly with intent to understand rather than control; a beast capable of ferocity and harm if pushed or cornered only because it’s afraid.
The moment Daryl gets close enough to slide his lasso around its neck, the dead burst their way out of the tree line and terrify Buttons into fleeing. He’s fortunate to avoid ending up on the business end of one of those strong hooves. At the very least, Aaron is a decent shot, and he isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty by killing walkers. He and Daryl clear them in no time. Then they’re off, hoping to find where Buttons fled to.
Following a horse's tracks is easy, what with how heavy they are—how deep their hooves dig into the ground even when they’re just walking. Daryl has no trouble picking them up and tracing them through the dirt and the leaves. What isn’t so simple is keeping Aaron off his back now that he sees an opening to pester Daryl for his life story, or whatever. Give the guy an inch, and he won’t shut up.
It starts with gentle prodding, but once it’s obvious that Daryl won’t entertain his questions, Aaron gives up and comes right out with what it seems he’s wanted to say this whole time: that he realizes Daryl views himself as an outsider. If there’s ever been a moment where Daryl has experienced a little red devil on his shoulder whispering in his ear like in those old cartoons, this is it; the effort it takes to keep his irritation from spilling lava out of his mouth is significant.
Aaron talks as though he knows him already. Tries to appeal to and relate to him with his own experiences with the Alexandrians. He and Eric—they were once outsiders, too, and sometimes still feel like they are. It’s not clear to him why it would matter; he’s not them. They have no trouble staying on-beat, and Daryl is listening to an entirely different song.
Then comes the unsolicited advice, and he has to wonder if Deanna put him up to this: Aaron suggests lessening these peoples' fear of him by allowing them to know him.
By going to Deanna’s welcoming party tonight.
It’s the worst idea he’s ever heard. No way in hell is Daryl going to embarrass himself to show them he’s not the rabid dog they think he is; not for all the booze and squirrels in Virginia. He’s got nothing to prove to them, and he tells Aaron as much.
Having a party is just plain stupid. Getting all gussied up, remembering to smile on cue, figuring out when it’s polite to laugh—it won’t change the fact that his group and the Alexandrians are different breeds. He doesn’t know why he should be the one trying so damn hard, anyway: they’re the ones with prejudice. They’re the ones who took one glance at him and decided that everything he is contrasts too much with their ideal image.
In a changed world with everyone forced back onto the same playing field, Daryl doesn’t believe he should have to be the bigger person and teach these folks that they shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. He forces Aaron to drop it so they can hurry to find Buttons—he spies fresh walker tracks ambling in the same direction as the hoofprints. It’s enough to shut Aaron up.
It’s not enough to save Buttons.
Watching the dead claw and drag the stallion to the ground is a goddamn shame. They can’t just leave, though. Once they’ve cleared the walkers, Daryl tells Aaron to go put Buttons out of his misery. It’d be cruel to let him suffer more than he already has.
Aaron’s torn up about it. Gutted, Daryl can tell, after dedicating so much time and effort to convincing Buttons to trust him. They don’t say a single word the entire way back to Alexandria. They don’t catch any rabbits, either.
The gates open up to them upon their return, hungry teeth which swallow them whole and confine them to Alexandria’s innards. The streets are barren; the party has already begun at Deanna’s house. When they go to part ways is when Aaron finally breaks their somber silence.
“It would mean a lot if you tried to go to the party tonight,” he says.
“Whatever,” Daryl grumbles.
Although he’s being dismissive on the surface, the time he’s spent with Aaron today prods him into giving the party some more thought. Where everyone else has curled their lip at Daryl, Aaron has reached out his hand. Others make it a point to avoid him, yet Aaron stood at his side out there as he would anyone’s—as Daryl would stand by his own family. There’s an openness, a frustrating level of kindness, to him that doesn’t fade even when Daryl is prickly on purpose. Plainly, he’s a good guy who’s trying to make this transition more painless. Daryl can see that despite his natural reluctance.
Rick and Carol asked him to try, too. It’s hard to resist such a request when it’s coming from the two people in this world he’d do anything for.
When Daryl gets to the empty house, he roots through one of his bags and pulls out a shirt. A black button-down. He hasn’t worn it on account of it being much too hot for long sleeves, which means it’s as clean as clothes can be nowadays when you’re on the road. Daryl stares at it while the gears screech and grind in his head.
He has to give this a shot. If he doesn’t, he’ll be doing his family a disservice. He’ll be failing them. Daryl reasons with himself that once he’s in there, he can stick to the shadows and try to disappear in the crowd.
He takes some time to clean himself up, scrubbing blood and sweat and dirt from his skin and running his hands through his hair. Then, he changes into his fresh shirt and pulls his vest on after it. He has no extra pairs of pants, no other shoes than his trusty boots, so what he’s got will have to do.
The walk to Deanna’s is fraught with anxiety, and when Daryl arrives, he can’t make himself enter. He can’t even stand out front, lest someone see him—he has to dip into the trees on the side of the house to watch. Contemplate. They’re all in there laughing it up and having a grand old time. He can see them, their shadows moving smoothly behind cream-colored curtains as they talk, nod, swirl their drinks, and get to know each other. Daryl can hear the overlapping sounds of cordial chatter from where he stands outside.
No matter how long he debates it with himself, he can’t decide whether he should go in.
Everyone’s already in the flow of the festivities—walking in there right now would shove him into the spotlight instead of letting him blend into the background like he would prefer. Daryl can already see it: the spotlight would turn to him, and folks would lean in to one another and whisper. He’d be inside, but his mind would linger in the trees, desperate for escape. Some people might brave approaching him to say hello. It’d be superficial and awkward. He’d say something stupid, he’s sure, the final nail in the coffin.
It’s not him. It’s just not him.
Daryl turns and starts walking back to where he came from, a phantom in the dark. Maybe he doesn’t belong here anymore. The thought provokes a profound heaviness in his chest.
He’s always been better in the great wide open, untethered to the stuffiness of groups like Alexandria and surviving in the ways he’s leaned on since he was a kid. Even at the prison, where things were going well, and he was happy learning to settle into someplace and call it and its people his home, Daryl nevertheless felt pulled to the outside. The difference is that, back then, it was a perfect balance; a community where people knew him, appreciated him, and, dare he consider it, might have even liked him.
The prison was a home. The first real one Daryl thinks he’s ever had. It was full of folks he’d begun calling his friends and family—many of which have been lost by now. Alexandria is a clean slate, a persistent summer rain, trying to wash his friends away into the past as if they were never there. It’s all wrong. An insult to everything he and his people suffered, built, and died for, and Rick wants to take it. Make it something new, something strong, but it won’t be like the prison. Nothing will ever be like that again.
Daryl’s not meant for this. He never stood a chance here—yet it’s not fair to ask his people to give up this new safety and stability, to try finding somewhere else to make their own, simply because he doesn’t fit Alexandria’s mold. He wouldn’t dream of being so selfish.
It doesn’t leave him many options. All he knows for certain is that he failed.
As he’s passing a house, the outside lights come on and the door opens. It’s odd; he was sure everyone must have been at Deanna’s. Turns out it’s Aaron, of all people, who’s still home. He calls out from the spotless porch as if he didn’t push Daryl to go to the party and then not show up himself.
It almost boils his blood. Almost. Somehow, Aaron’s calm claim that he only suggested trying, that Daryl’s efforts were enough, quells the anger enough for him to let it go.
Aaron insists he come inside for dinner.
Daryl doesn’t want to. It may just be them in there eating spaghetti, but that makes it worse, in a way: it’s more intimate. A smaller number of people, and therefore nowhere to hide. Aaron walks back inside. Closes the door and leaves Daryl on the street, staring, deciding.
Maybe just to eat. Then he’ll go.
Aaron and Eric’s house isn’t like the ones Deanna allocated to the group. It’s personalized, Daryl realizes, full of knickknacks and decorations they must have scavenged while recruiting together. It feels lived in and warm. Eric seems nice enough as he greets Daryl from the kitchen, his hands preoccupied with pouring red wine to complement the plates of spaghetti already resting on the dining table. Aaron smiles at him, ushers him further into their home, and thankfully doesn’t demand any small-talk.
Daryl won’t admit to them that this is the first of Alexandria’s food he’s relented in his stubbornness enough to eat. It’s tasty, and pretty filling. He doesn’t know when he last had pasta.
Much to Daryl’s liking, they sup in relative silence until his plate is clear and he’s moved on to guzzling his wine. That’s when Eric asks him to look for a pasta maker while he’s beyond the walls for some lady who won’t shut up about wanting one. It causes something to unfold in the air—something known to Aaron and Eric, but not yet to Daryl.
They have something for him. A surprise. He doesn’t much care for that. Surprises can be anything nowadays. Daryl doesn’t trust either of them enough to know for certain this won’t be something unpleasant, or at the very least irksome. With caution, he follows Aaron to the garage.
The light flicks on and Daryl ganders inside from the doorway. What he’s met with is an extensive collection of tools, equipment, and motorcycle parts. They’re organized, placed deliberately on every available surface. He can see the frame of a bike hidden beneath a dust cover. It’s the type of space Daryl thinks he would’ve wanted in the Before times, if ever he could have afforded a place of his own instead of floating around meaninglessly with Merle.
He steps farther into the garage and takes it upon himself to look closer at the various workbenches and tools laid about. According to Aaron, the frame was already here when he and Eric moved in. Because he didn’t know the first thing about bikes, he grabbed up any old parts he came across while scavenging in the hopes he’d eventually learn.
What’s more is he wants Daryl to take it. Fix it up for himself and use it to help Aaron recruit for Alexandria in Eric’s place.
The injured, bitter piece of him that wants nothing to do with this community gears up to bite at the implication that his life is more expendable than any Alexandrian’s. He can’t deny, however, that Aaron has a point: Daryl is good out there. Better than most. At the prison, he always volunteered to go hunting, or scavenging, or scouting; to support and protect his people the best way he knew how.
If he’s going to be here, it stands to reason he’d do the same now and put his skills to use where they’re sorely needed. Daryl dislikes the feeling of having to prove himself and his worth, but in the face of Aaron’s offer—an offer he can see genuine care and consideration in—he tries not to be resentful.
That’s the reality of it: Aaron is giving him a delicately crafted in-between. It presents the opportunity to bridge the gap between Daryl and these people, and lets him leave Alexandria to seek comfort in the spaces where he feels the most like himself whenever he needs to.
“The main reason why I want you to help me recruit is because… you do know the difference between a good person and a bad person,” Aaron says, as if it isn’t too generous, too accommodating and tender, for what Daryl thinks of himself.
His eyes focus on the floor and the considerable stash of equipment around him. It touches him that, despite his insistence on creating distance between himself and the Alexandrians, Aaron has yet to see a reason to give up on him. He wants Daryl to be a part of things, and he’s trying to do it in a way that’s most comfortable for him. It’s a luxury Aaron and Deanna did not have to afford him, but chose to nonetheless.
Daryl curses himself for being so sour and cynical. He’s been too stuck in his head to do anything besides isolate and sulk from the beginning, ignorant of the olive branches being handed to him. He sees that now.
“... I got nothin’ else t’do,” he says, unable to allow himself the dignity of just accepting this proposal without some detachment. When he thanks Aaron for it, though, he means it.
Daryl goes home that night with a little less tension in his shoulders. Above him, the sky is black as pitch save for the bands of glimmering stars and the watchful, craterous moon.
He can’t wait to get his hands on that bike. It’s lucky, having something that interests him and all the supplies that go with it to look forward to amidst so much stress and uncertainty. Most of all, Daryl is eager to reclaim a semblance of the normalcy he and his people lost when the prison fell; he’s been missing having a bike and the freedom that comes with it something fierce.
None of it means that Alexandria feels any less idealized, but Aaron’s efforts have broken away some of the plastic shell from its people and their lives. Daryl will try to be less indignant and more patient and understanding, so long as they try to see past his rough edges. They have a whole hell of a lot to learn, and it won’t be easy—it’ll be like pulling teeth. Maybe it’s worth it, even so. Maybe, while his people are teaching them how to survive, Daryl can learn to find more of himself within these walls.
It has to start with his meetings with Rick and Carol. Tomorrow, when they pretend to take Carol out shooting, he’ll tell them he doesn’t want whatever guns they stole during the party. If everyone wants him to make nice here so bad, then this has to be a piece of it; Daryl can’t strive to be part of Alexandria and go behind their backs in the same breath. He won’t betray Rick or Carol’s trust by telling anyone of their plans, but he can’t partake in it.
Rick said it himself: if things go south, they’ll do what they have to. That doesn’t mean they need to be armed and dangerous, however. After his conversation with Aaron, Daryl feels more inclined to search for fair compromises, because it’s not that the Alexandrians are ill-intentioned—they’re just inexperienced. Ignorant of the real horrors of the outside and liable to being taken advantage of should they make the wrong choices.
Daryl can help prevent that with this new recruiting gig. He and Aaron already make a fine team out there; Daryl is certain their partnership will only grow stronger with time. Beyond that, and as much as he doesn’t want to admit it to himself, Aaron understands him. He’s proven himself trustworthy thus far.
As Daryl settles in to get some sleep, the house feels less cold in spite of its emptiness. On the blank white walls that left him morose only hours ago, he pictures the license plates and other kitschy decorations that covered Aaron and Eric’s home and wonders what sorts of things his people might choose to display now that they have the chance.
Judith could have real toys. A refrigerator in the kitchen to stick all of her future drawings on. Carl loves comic books; maybe they’ll find some posters for him, or new things for him to read. He remembers that god-awful cat statue Michonne had at the prison—he can only imagine the weird art pieces she’ll collect now.
Decorating has never been an interest of his, but Daryl thinks he could try carving out his own corner here, too. Unpack his bags, put his things somewhere, and let it be called his space, where he comes home at day’s end. At least for now.