I don't know what this is or where this came from. There was never meant to be a part 2.
Currently I am blaming wine. I don't own anything
He thinks he's finally accepted that she's alive. Thinks he's got it through his thick skull. Thinks he doesn't need the constant reassurance. That he's getting past the stage of having to see her physically in front of him to know she's there.
He's doing well. Better than he did a few weeks ago, maybe not as good as he'll do a few weeks from now.
There's always that moment though. That moment first thing in the morning when he opens his eyes and the panic sets in, and he thinks it's all been a dream and he remembers how she died right there in front of him.
Right there in front of him.
She fucking died in front of him.
And then he remembers that she didn't.
And for a moment he goes slack in his bed and he doesn't feel anything at all.
There's a twisted irony to all this. Some black humour he may once have laughed if it were, you know, humourous.
It's not.
So he doesn't.
But still there's some cosmic joke going on here. And it's on him. And he doesn't quite get it.
Because when he thought she was dead - when he'd tried to accept she was really, really gone - that moment, the one that now exists as pure white-hot panic, the split second he can only describe as after "sleep" but before "awake" was peaceful, a moment of bliss before the reality set in.
And now it's the other way around.
It doesn't matter.
He'll pay the price. It's only small, after all. A moment of panic, a day of her. It's a trade he makes every morning, a transaction he negotiates every night.
It's better this way. It's infinitely better.
Still, he's up early; still, he walks the house, bare feet on creaky floorboards; still, he stands outside her bedroom straining to hear the sound of her breathing.
Still, he can barely believe it when he does.
It's colder now and they don't have their afternoons any more. He knew they'd come to an end eventually. Knew there'd be a day she wasn't there to sit with him in the grass.
Fingers almost touching.
Yes.
Almost.
It wasn't because of some duty though, something that interfered with them, something they deemed more important than each other.
No, it was much more pragmatic than that.
A light fall of rain, the cold bite of wind, the smallest dusting of snow.
He thinks maybe the elements are against him.
Against them.
He thinks it's only right that they should be.
They've conquered the living dead and the actual dead.
So really it seems fitting that they'd be foiled by something as mundane as snow. The odd icy gust of wind.
And now, well now it's too complicated to find an alternative. Too official. Too everything.
Their afternoons are still free though.
His shifts start early. 6am and he's outside doing sweeps of the city. He's done by two, home by 2:30. She teaches kindergarten, she's also done by two. But so is Maggie and without the garden as an easy escape to them, she watches Beth like a hawk. Consumes her time.
He thinks she's trying to make up for leaving, for giving up on Beth. He thinks they all are.
So there's no time and no space and he still can't sit around making chit chat and he still doesn't know what this thing is between them. And he still doesn't know how to spend time with her without actually spending it.
He guesses he's kind of a wreck. He guesses he's kind of useless.
I know you lost something back there, says Rick.
Sometimes he thinks he's selfish when he wonders if they lost more here.
She seems to feel it too though, sometimes he'll catch her watching him from across the room, eyes big and stormy, yet impassive, ready to shed tears but also hard as ice. Other times her fingers will brush his as they pass each other, a gentle caress of skin across skin.
It could be an accident.
He knows it's not.
And still, still he does not know how to go to her, doesn't know how to let go of that pull to the darkness.
He guesses he's just afraid to lose her again.
Guesses it doesn't make a difference though.
With her or not, losing her doesn't hurt any less and anyone who tells you different is a liar.
There are times he's worried she's forgotten though. Forgotten or just got tired of waiting for him to say something. Like she thinks it should be simple for him. Like she doesn't know it's bone shattering and heartbreaking. Like she doesn't know how hard this is and thinks it should be easy.
And it should be.
It fucking should be.
And he doesn't know why it's not.
Except when he does.
He gets that he's fucking this up but he doesn't know how to unfuck it.
I know you lost something back there
He thinks maybe it was him. Maybe that was the trade. Maybe that's the actual deal he makes every night with himself, with fate, with a god he doesn't believe in.
She's dead and he can love her; or she's alive and he can't.
It ain't even a question.
Sometimes he asks himself why. Other times he just stands outside her door waiting to hear her breathe.
They dance around it, they pretend things are back to how they were in the prison. And every day he feels her slipping through his fingers a little more, like fine grains of sand, an hourglass emptying itself out until someone, someone new - not him you hear, not him at all - turns it back over.
He waits for that day like he waited for their summer afternoons outside to end, for their fingers to stop touching in the long grass. Waits for her to come home with a new Zach, a new Jimmy. Some college boy who mirrors her pretty smile, whose hands are soft, skin uninked.
It doesn't come.
Not yet at least.
But in his bones he can feel that it will.
I know you lost something back there, says Rick, but you found it again. That's a one in a million chance Daryl. Ain't no one here been this lucky. Ain't no one on Earth been this lucky.
Rick knows. But all the same he doesn't.
He thinks maybe he's hard to understand, thinks maybe Beth is harder. Thinks Rick maybe sees them as people or something, a version of him and Lori, of Maggie and Glenn. Doesn't see them as who they were the weeks after the prison fell, as those wild creatures of the forest. Transcendent. Mythological even. Doesn't see Beth as she is.
He wonders if this isn't part of the problem. Maybe he sees her as something she ain't. Something fabled and fanciful, something not quite human.
But then he remembers that she died. She fucking died and still came back to him. If that ain't fucking transcendent he doesn't know what is.
She fucking died and came back to him.
That has to count for something.
He wants to ask if it does. Thinks if they still had the garden, if it hadn't fallen to the snow, if it wasn't a gummy mess of mud and autumn leaves that he would. That he might just slide his hand over hers in that summer grass and ask.
He's always braver in his head.
He's always braver everywhere than he is here.
So he makes deals, deals with death. He won't love her if she can just stay alive, he won't touch her if they can just live here forever, he won't tell her anything that he feels as long as he can hear her breathing every morning.
He makes so many deals.
But when he's near her he forgets them all.
And then there's a night. A night he never thought would come. And they're alone. The rest scattered to whatever social norm they're trying to make work in a world of no norms.
Looks like it's just us then, she says when she gets home and he likes the sound of that.
She makes dinner and they sit at the table to eat.
And it's good, whatever it is that she's made, something with chicken and tinned tomatoes and curried potatoes. Homemade bread on the side.
It's really good, but he finds it hard to concentrate on the food, hard to look anywhere but the line of her shoulder, the red of her lips, the way her eyes reflect the candlelight and her fingers play with the rim of her wine glass.
And he wonders how this suddenly became a date.
They don't talk, not much really. If he talks she might say "Oh" again. And he might say "You know".
And she might get flustered and he might too. And he might end up chasing a black car with a white cross all night.
And she might die
And she might not fucking come back.
These are the deals he makes.
The deals with death.
I know you lost something back there.
But he's losing something here too.
So they eat slowly. Having food like this is a luxury. Food you can prepare, not found in a tin.
And he watches her. And in his head he tells her he loves her.
He's always braver in his head.
And when they're done she clears the dishes. She bites her lip as she does. He let's himself wonder if she was hoping for more.
He makes a deal with himself not to do that any more.
Her hair is loose when she turns her back to him. Loose and long. He wonders how it would feel in his fingers. Strong and thick or like those grains of sand he keeps losing. If he could bury his face in it, breathe her in through it. If it'll be like keeping a part of her with him for that moment of panic in the morning.
Another deal, another promise he can't keep.
He stands to help her, grabbing a drying up cloth from the rack next to the teacups.
Yes, they have teacups.
She's already running water and he's drawn to her shoulder again, the way her oversized white sweater has slipped off it, the small beauty marks on her neck.
Look away, look away or she'll disappear again.
He looks away.
Looks at the teacups, the draws which hold candles and cutlery and tablecloths, bottle openers and paring knives. Draws that hold the old world. Draws that deny the apocalypse.
Never you mind that the dead walk. Never you mind.
She hums, he knows the song. He adds the words in his head as she goes.
Oh it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on*
He wonders if it's a message.
If she's asking him to leave.
In his head he does, just to test it out.
In his head he walks out the door.
In his head he never sees her again.
He's always braver in his head.
So he dries as she washes. And he goes slow and so does she.
And occasionally he tosses a plate or a knife back into the sudsy water so she can wash it again even though it was perfect the first time.
And she smiles behind her hair and he hates that he can't see it.
And when they're done, well and truly done, she cleans out the sink and he wipes down the already clean counters.
And her hips knock into his and her thighs rub against his as she moves. But she doesn't tell him to leave, to get out of the way, to move his ass out of the fucking kitchen so she can finish up.
So he stands, out of place, like a fool with a damp dish towel in his hands.
And he looks at the teacups. And he thinks they're mocking him.
And he looks around the room, this house where they pretend to be normal, where they pretend the world hasn't gone to hell in a handbasket. And he looks at the couch and how even the fucking upholstery is perfect and how there's a Turkish carpet on the floor which isn't even the slightest bit threadbare and probably worth thousands of dollars in a world that cared about dollars.
And it's all mocking him.
This place, this world, the deals he makes every night and the sound of her breathing in the morning.
The fact that she's here with him and he can't go to her and touch her and tell her how he feels.
And then she's in front of him, in his space and she's holding out her hand and for a second he thinks she's offering a handshake and he wonders what this means. If this is them now. From handholds to handshakes in a matter of months.
He knows he's fucking up. He doesn't know how to unfuck it.
But then he realises she's asking for the dish towel and fumbling, he holds it out to her. It's clammy and damp and disgusting and will end up in the next batch of laundry because they're normal now, they're so fucking normal that they do laundry and worry about wearing the same shirt twice on a summer's day.
And, as she takes it from him, her hand brushes his and he doesn't think he imagines her fingertips lingering on his knuckles or the way her eyes meet his.
And he doesn't imagine the sound of her breathing or the way her lips part.
And then there's no time for imagining and no time for deals because he's lowered his mouth to hers and she's standing on her tip toes to meet him halfway, to rest her hands on his shoulders and touch her lips to his.
It's a kiss of sorts. It's not wild or passionate, but it's a kiss.
And it lingers. It lingers long and hard and full. It lingers in their flesh and bones, in the scent of her hair and the slide of her skin.
It's still a kiss though, a kiss too long to be chaste, too wet to be innocent.
But it's still a kiss.
And it still breaks every deal he's ever made.
With God.
With the devil.
With himself.
And he tells himself it doesn't matter.
They weren't real deals anyway.
And she's sweet and soft and when he pulls away she smiles and touches his cheek.
And for a moment, just a moment he leans into her hand, turning his face to kiss her palm as his blood pounds in his ears and his legs tremble.
And when she lowers her arm her sweater falls again. Off her shoulder, halfway down her arm, creamy flesh, scented skin. And he waits for her to cover up. Cover herself like she did that night when Zach died.
But she doesn't.
She leaves it, waits for him to move.
And he almost does.
He almost lays his hand on her, he almost presses his lips to her skin.
Almost.
He's always braver in his head.
Instead he tells her he needs to get to bed and she smiles, giggles even, although he can't be sure. And they're all business, the type of ridiculous efficiency that only comes with the most crimson embarrassment.
He thanks her for the meal. She nods and thanks him for the help cleaning up.
And they're giving each other the widest of berths and yet somehow the room is still too small, and they're bumping into each other and out of themselves.
And eventually he just turns to make his way up the stairs, to leave, to get away from the buzzing in his head and the crackling tension in his bones.
But when he gets to the top step he hears her call his name and he can't help but look at her, small and slight and luminous. And he can't help but think that he's right and Rick's wrong. And she is something otherworldly and transcendent.
She fucking died.
And yet she came back for him.
That has to mean something.
It has to.
I won't leave you, she whispers, I won't.
And he nods because he doesn't know what else to do, what else to say or who else to be.
I won't leave you.
And she doesn't.
Because she is not a liar. And she keeps her word.
And he sleeps fitfully that night because he's broken his. Or maybe because he's kept it.
But the panic isn't there when he wakes up in the morning and somehow that makes him panic all the more.
And he gets out of bed and pads down the hall to her room, laying a hand against her door, feeling the grain of the wood against his palm, wondering what lingers on the other side.
I know you lost something back there
He touches his fingers to his lips and hears her breathing, even and deep and so very much alive.
And he wants to go inside, slide under sheets which smell of rosemary and sage and her, draw her into his arms and hold her close.
Maybe he'll kiss her again, maybe he won't.
But he'll be there, with her, in an honest to God, real bed. And there'll be no panic and there'll be no fear.
But he doesn't.
He's always braver in his head.
I know you lost something back there.
Yeah but maybe he found it back here.
Maybe it found him.
And she's alive and she's beautiful.
And he kissed her and she didn't disappear.
And she didn't die. Even when she did, even when she fucking died in front of him, she still came back to him.
And that has to mean something.
It has to.
And the panic is gone.
And his heart is pounding.
And his throat is dry.
But his head is clear.
And the world is bright.
And he doesn't feel that pull to the darkness.
And maybe he knows how to unfuck this. Or at least how to start.
And for a while he stops making deals.
* Lou Reed, Perfect Day