#daryl the morning he wakes up and realises its the day he meets jesus......oh boy........

[hotdadlicense]

hi i’m in walking dead mode right now so ignore this but u know how theres like quite a few AUs where like......rick wakes up and its the start of the apocalypse again after living through a fair chunk of it and its like him correcting mistakes or whatever OR the au where they all kinda wake up but theres no zombies and the end of the world was all a dream but they all collectively had it so they find each other in the modern world and meet up????? thats neat and all and i will read those fics till the day i die but u know what i have not seen and i rly wanna like. cry over? daryl. 

daryl waking up at the start of the end of the world? okay i haven't put much thought into pre-rick era so like maybe just before rick comes in? maybe when merle and the crew leave for the city???? and its like a post-negan daryl thats waking up here. mayhaps the night glenn d*es and daryl gets taken? OR EVEN better maybe when jesus rescues daryl and daryl finally falls asleep for the first time in months on an actual pillow surrounded by certain members of his found family and then he just????? 

wakes up and he’s at the fcking quarry. his bitchass loudmouth brothers nowhere in sight cos as daryl figures out later, merle left the previous day. its the highkey reset button that everyone kinda wishes they had because they’ve all lost so much over the past 2-3 years but like... it can not be real. okay i will readmore the rest of this so you can all stop suffering now

or! and i haven't actually seen past carl dying so i’m not positive about things but hmmm maybe when rick ~dies. the bridge explodes. rick, for all intents and purposes of the show, /DiEs/. and daryls a fucking mess becos that was on him and maggie and idk who else was involved in that plot or even if thats actually what happened. but from what ive gathered rick and daryl were kinda on the outs with the negan shit and that bridge scene could’ve been avoided. if things had just gone a bit differently. if they could go back in time just for a second! just one more chance! one more shot at things going differently and daryl could totally fix everything. then the next day daryls waking up at the quarry.

ugh quarry era daryl and saviour/negan+ era daryl are so different? like the heart of him is the same but they all barely know each other at the start and daryls so angry and skittish and runs on fight or flight mode but alexandria/saviour/negan era daryl has like......bleed for these people? provided food and water for these people? led these people to safety? put his life on the line on several occasions for these people? made some of these people smile and laugh by just existing? stepped in as leader when rick has his moments? or like co leader with michonne & co.?

like would he tell anyone?? would he speak up more and try lead them to the farm cos that was a good move they did before? does he keep up pretences and chuck a tantrum over the crew not returning with merle or does he like. go ‘okay.’ and everyones like what the actual fuck. does he go into the prison and head for the cafeteria straight away to get the remaining prisoners out and kill that one bitch that fucks shit up for them?? 

he absofuckinglutely saves sophia. jumps that fucking guardrail before rick can even get out from under the car properly. carol literally not letting sophia out of her sight for days after daryl and rick and sophia all return like 2 hrs later, wet and covered in dirt and some blood but safe.

if he did tell someone, who would it be?????? rick?? carol?? like how would that even go down. would he tell them maybe later on? prison era maybe. when michonne finally comes and they’re all debating whether to let her in or let her fuck off and stuff and daryls like wow i cant take this anymore rick that is ur future WIFE man. patch up her fucking leg. 

or maybe carol. when they’re on watch together and carol casually mentions that daryl was over and into the woods, right on sophias heels, before people even realised which direction she went. how rick mentioned once to her that daryl seemed to know exactly where to find her. even picked up her doll without even seeming to stop. just seemed to know exactly what was happening. daryl just shrugging.

also side note. we, and daryl, do NOT know a butterfly effect. absolutely no ‘oh he saved xoxo and that means them and 2 others are gonna die!’ plots. nope. no way. this is the do-over of all do-overs. a one time fix it and fix it for the better.

THAT ALL BEING SAID this post is me being like hey what if daryl got a second chance whatever but no! what this post is truly about at its core is: IMAGINE a daryl thats lived....lets go with the ricks just died version. daryls lived that long and lost that many members of his family. 

and then he hasn't.

imagine daryl seeing beth for the first time again. the last time he saw her, he was carrying out her dead body to her sobbing sister. then they’re all at the farm again and she’s theres. alive and well and still young and bright and smiling. ‘you’re gonna miss me so bad when i’m gone’ he fucking did. he missed her so fucking much. he like. physically stops himself from like just going up and grabbing her and hugging the shit out of her. 

daryl seeing sophia grow up? seeing carol become that mum. the mum that she always wanted to be and become still the strongest fucking women daryl had ever met but also like........her and sophia. every time he sees them together he just wants to cry. carol deserves this so fucking bad. after everything, if he could save nothing else. he can make peace with himself knowing he gave carol this. this time with her daughter that she got robbed of.

daryl seeing glenn, alive, so so so young it seems compared to the the last glenn he saw. seeing him at camp at the quarry. seeing him talk to maggie for the first time. going from seeing him alive and so so so fucking real then his sleep being filled with nightmares of That night. how long after glenns death did daryl blame himself. would’ve put his head under the bat without hesitation if it meant that glenn could live and meet his son. him and maggie can run hilltop together. and now he’s real and he’s tangible and he’s funny and daryl spent so much of his time remembering glenn and feeling guilty that he never even really let himself miss him? but fuck he’s missed glenn so fucking much. missed having his back out on runs and glenn having his. 

meeting aaron and eric again. going to that spag bowl dinner, eating the fuck out of it, just enjoying watching these two gays in love have dinner with each other at the end of the world. thinks about how they specifically invited him over for dinner. erics not gonna die this time round. they're both gonna met gracie. bring her back number plates. help her put them on the wall, put them amongst all her drawings.

meeting merle again. knowing that merle died for him. them. the whole family. michone. idk if i want merle to live or die idk lets move on.

hershel lives!!!!!!!!! no beheading here!!!!!!!! fuck that!!!!!! fuck the governor!!!!! maggie and beth and glenn do not ever have to witness their father (in law) being killed in cold blood! no! hershel fits in v well with the alexandia community and thrives there. daryl makes damn sure of that. 

the road is long and things look bleak at some stages but everyday daryl gets to look at this group of people, who fucking survived! against all odds!!!! and he can smile and breathe and it doesn't matter that food is scarce. it hasn't rained in a while. everyones exhausted. doesn't matter!!! they're all alive and okay and no where near as jaded as they could be right now. every single time in the past 3 yrs where hes thought ‘if i could just go back and fix this ONE thing’ and he got that chance and he fucking excelled at it. his whole families right here, having a bbq, theyre met new people, saved more people, gotten smarter quicker.