Two.

“Daryl, what happened?” Rick rushed into the room he hoped he would never be in ever again. It wasn’t like they had real hospitals in Alexandria, but they had a place that perfectly functioned as one. Tara had been there once before too.

“Where you bit?” It was the first thing that popped into Carl’s head as he walked up behind Rick and saw the archer lying inside the bed. The way Daryl looked made it seem like something really bad had happened to him. His face was almost completely covered in blood. His clothes were full of dirt and walker guts and so were his arms. At least, it looked like walker guts but it could be just as easy be his own flesh ripped apart. There was no way to tell if Daryl’s body was still completely intact.

“No, I’m not bit.” Daryl finally said after a few minutes of silence. He seemed to completely ignore Rick as he tried to move his legs to get a bit more comfortable in the bed he was lying in. He could be dead right now, he totally realized that, but all this attention was unnecessary. He just wanted to be left alone.

“Are you going to tell us what has happened out there?” Rick tried again. He totally did expect that Daryl wasn’t going to be pretending that nothing was wrong between the two of them, but he never thought Daryl would actually ignore him. He had never ignored anyone. No matter how bad things were.

“What do you think that happened? Jesus. It was just a few walkers. I’m fine.” Daryl spat out. He didn’t mean to sound so rude, especially not in front of Carl, but he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want anyone to worry about him. He made it back to the camp without being bit or hurt, so there wasn't even anything to worry about.

“It doesn’t look like just a few walkers, Daryl. Do you want me to check you?” Tara decided not to point out how rude Daryl was. She knew. Hell, she was gay herself. If anyone would get how scary that shit is, it would be her. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly that was going on between Daryl and Rick, but it was defiantly something.

“I said I’m fine.”

“You said you weren’t bit. Maybe you were scratched or something. Just let me make sure you aren’t going to die tonight.” Tara said as she headed to the sink and grabbed the nearest towel that she could find.

“Ain’t gonna die from a walker anytime soon, promise you that.” Daryl had hoped that that was a queue for all of them too leave the room, but as he could have expected no one left. Tara sat herself down on the bed next to Daryl. The towel was now wet, but it would never clean him at all. Tara started to check Daryl’s skin, which basically just meant that she was moving the gore around so she could actually see a part of the skin. It took her a while to check both of his arms and part of his shoulders that were showing.

“No scratches.” Tara confirmed that Daryl was in fact okay, all things considered.

“I told you all that I was just fine.” Daryl wasn’t feeling fine, not even close to that but he didn’t want anyone to worry about him. He didn’t want to say how he really felt and he definitely didn’t want anybody to know that he was scared. He may be save now, but it was hard to get the scenario out of his head. It kept playing inside his mind over and over again and every time he closed his eyes, even if it was just to blink, he could see the dozens of walkers that were trying to rip him apart and eat him.

“Maybe we should give Daryl some rest for now. He looks quite tired and we all know taking a shower isn’t number one of his priorities.” Michonne was the first one to leave the room, after Daryl gave her a grateful nod. Soon the rest of the group followed her lead.

Rick waited a while for everybody to leave the room. He wanted to talk to Daryl alone. Not later, now. Waiting any longer to have the talk wouldn’t make it any easier anyway. Might as well just get it over with right away. He walked over to the bed, just standing by the side of it. Was it okay if he sat down, or should he stay up?

“Can I?” Rick asked nervously as he gestured over to the spot Tara had sat not even two minutes ago. Daryl didn’t react in any way what soever, so Rick took that as a invitation to sit down.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened today.” Daryl said without making any eye contact with Rick.

“How about what happened last night?” Rick tried to bring it as lightly as he could, even though this wasn’t something Daryl would ever take lightly. Affection was a difficult thing for Daryl, no matter who it came from.

“What about last night?” Daryl wasn’t sure if he was ready to talk about it. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be ready to talk about that fact that Rick tried to kiss him and he cold hearted rejected him.

“What happened out on the porch.”

“Nothing happened.” At this point Daryl would rather have talked about what happened with the walkers than about the almost kissing incident.

“You’re not serious, right?”

“Hmm.” What else was there to say about it? If Daryl was seriously going to deal with what had happened last night, he had to confess everything. He had to tell the truth and not some lie about how he didn’t want to be kissed by Rick. Because that was all that Daryl could think about for a while now. It nearly got him killed for christ sakes. The event of last night made Daryl weak, unsteady. He wasn't on point today, because he kept thinking about what would have happened if they would have kissed and that made him less attentive.

Being in love was a very new thing for Daryl. He didn’t know how to act or what to say. He wasn’t sure how it would be to be together with anyone, let alone with someone like Rick. Daryl was simply just scared of being with somebody. He wanted to be with Rick but at the same time he didn’t, because he could be dead by now and if he let Rick get too close to him, it would have devastated him. They had all seen what happened when Lori died. Daryl couldn’t let Rick go through that, not again.

“If you want to pretend nothing happened, fine. But if you decide to man up and deal with things like a grown up, just know-” Rick didn’t finish his sentence as he walked out of the room. This went so much differently inside his head in so many ways.

“Why can’t he just say it?” Rick didn’t mean it for anyone to hear it. It just frustrated him that Daryl didn’t say anything. That he didn’t say he was grossed out by Rick. Rick just wanted to know the truth, no matter how ugly it was or how bad he would be hurt by it.

“Say what?”

“Nothing, son. Just wanted to have a grown up talk with Daryl but you know how he is.” Carl was standing outside of the house. He wanted to wait for his dad to get out to see if he could get any more out of Daryl about what happened while he was hunting.

“And so do you.” Carl responded with a little grin.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rick asked. Was his son up to something? If so, he wanted to know everything about it.

“That you should know better than to give up so easily. You just need to try again, that’s how things with Daryl work.”

“I will, later. Just gonna give him some space for now.” Rick gave Carl a pat on the shoulder as he walked past him. Of course he wasn’t going to give up on Daryl, but he knew that it might be better if he gave Daryl some time to think about it first. Set everything straight inside of is head.

“Oh, and dad. I wasn’t talking about the talk. You know that, right?”