"I dislocated my shoulder when I was thirteen. I was staying with my foster parents the Boyd's in Boston at the time. I dislocated it doing karate" Sydney laughed. She was currently lying in a hammock in the back of Daryl's trailer as he cleaned his knifes.

"You did karate?" he snorted not even looking up from his task.

"Yup! My foster parent Neil wanted me to learn how to defend myself. I actually thought that would end up being my actual parents and not foster. They did too, that's why they let me take all these classes"

"What happened?"

"What always happens; Jill got pregnant and they could no longer take care of a foster kid and a baby on the way. After that I never expected to be adopted by any foster parent. Didn't want to keep getting hurt so I just reframed from getting close to anyone"

"When I was younger, I never really played with any of this kids around the neighborhood. When Merle would end up in juvie that changed. I would hang out with the kids and made friends and had fun doing shit kids do together. But when Merle came home that all changed. He'd only be around for a bit and then be gone again. Those friends never really stayed and had no one after. Hard to keep any relationship"

It's been almost 6 months since they started…doing whatever they were doing. Everyone knew about them, but everyone knew Daryl too so they didn't say anything. He started to open up more with her, but not as much. He talked more then he normally did but he still his short-tempered self. She would get to a point where she wanted more and wanted to call it quits. Just one look into his blue eyes and she couldn't bring herself to do it. She knew she doomed, and it was all her fault. She knew she shouldn't have fallen for her. She knew that type of relationship would never happen.

Things between them were different though. She could tell in the way he would talk to her or by the way he started to chew on his thumb nail less and less around her. She took this as a sign that he felt more comfortable around her. She could tell things were different even by the way they had sex. Daryl participated more and took things a bit slower. She wasn't complaining at all.

"Yeah, I get that. Constantly moving from foster home to foster home didn't really help with my relationships. Friend and boyfriends, especially boyfriends."

"You have a lot of boyfriends?"

"Not really. I tried to stay away from that because I moved around a lot. I broke up with my last boyfriend before I came here. The distance and constant travel didn't help. We were in a band together and the girls always throwing themselves at him didn't really help either. I kind of just wanted to settle down somewhere, was tired of never having a permanent home."

Daryl looked at her lying in the hammock messing around on her phone. "Is that what you want? To stay here and settle down?"

Sydney shrugged and looked at Daryl. "I really don't know what I want. When I decided to come here I was hoping to meet my mom maybe get to know her, finally have a mom. Maybe meet someone settle down here start a family. I don't know"

Daryl nodded his head and got back to cleaning his knifes, a little more aggressively this time. "I aint boyfriend material you know? I sure as hell ain't no prince charming. That ain't never going to be me, should know that by know" Sydney looked at Daryl and saw him starting to put his knives away. He wasn't looking at her. Even when he got up to wash his hands at the hose that was right buy her. Rolling her eyes to sat up from the hammock and started to put her boots back on. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going home. I already know where this conversation is going and I'll shared both of us the grief and not wanting to here what I have to say and your response to it. I know you aren't going to like it and get all awkward and shut me out. So I'll spare both of us the grief." She took of his flannel and threw it at him. "This was fun Daryl I'll see you at The Bull Dog"

Daryl just stood there dumbfounded as he watched her walk home. Women. He thought as he rolled his eyes and headed back to the shack to put away the hunting tools.

When Sydney entered the house she expected to smell the wonderful aroma of her aunt's blueberry muffins but all she smelled was burned muffins. Her aunt never burned her muffins. Sydney walked into the kitchen to see Mimi passed out of the flower of the kitchen. "Mimi?!" she ran to her and fell on the floor turning her over on her back.

When she felt her head she had to move her hand off of skin right away. She was burning up. "Hold on Mimi" she got up and grabbed her phone calling 911 as she turned off the oven.

"911 what's your emergency?"

"Hi, My name is Sydney Cooper and I found my aunt passed out on the floor. She's running a very high fever and her breath is very shallow"

"Okay, we'll be there right away. Has your aunt been sick?"

"No, but um she's HIV positive"

"Okay Sydney, we're sending out an ambulance and they should be there in a few minutes. Until then I need to get a cold washcloth with ice in it and put it to her face. It should lower the fever a bit"

The next hour passed in such a blur for Sydney. She felt like she waited for the ambulance for hours when in reality it was only for 5 minutes. She followed her aunt into the wailing ambulance with tears running down her face. She was so scared she was going to loose her aunt. It wasn't fair; they said she had a year. It wasn't her time to go!

She could see the neighbors standing out of their homes watching to see what was going on. She wasn't sure who was standing there watching them, but knew for sure one person was watching when she met those blue eyes she would constantly dream of. Their conversation was the furthest thing on her mind. She might loose her aunt sooner then she thought. She wasn't ready to loose another mother.

Her aunt was diagnosed with pneumocystis jiroveci, it was a type of pneumonia aids patiences often got. Sydney currently was laying her head on her hands bed and she held her hand waiting for her to wake up. Mimi was hooked up to all kinds of machines. She looked so frail and broken. "Hey Sid". She looked up and saw Mimi smiling down at her. "Got pneumonia again?" Sydney couldn't talk, she was too afraid she'd break down if she did. "Haven't gotten it in a long time" Mimi just sighed and closed her eyes. "Sing me Octopus's Garden kiddo"

Sydney wiped her eyes and started singing one her aunt's favorite songs

I'd like to be under the sea

In an octopus's garden in the shade

He'd let us in, knowns where we've been

In his octopus's garden in the shade

Sydney looked up at the sky as she took a deep intake of her cigarette. She leaned her head against the wall of the hospital as she tried to concentrate of the stair constellations above her. Mimi had fallen asleep to Sydney singing to her, Sid had to get out of the hospital. She didn't want to loose it in front of her aunt. As soon as she got outside into the fresh air she broke down. She was in a secluded area of the hospital so no one saw her bawl like a baby.

The light from the moon was blocked and someone's shadow was currently covering her. She looked up to see the last person she thought would come to see her. Daryl just stood there not looking at her; he would just flick his eyes to her briefly and look away.

She stood there very stiffly with his arms crossed and a sour look on his face. He looked very uncomfortable to be there and most likely fought himself whether or not he should have came.

"I'm not boyfriend material. I ain't going to bring you flowers or any type of damn gifts. I'll forget your damn birthday and other dates. I ain't going to take you to no fancy restaurants. Hell, I might not even take you on dates; especially no damn double dates. No one needs to know our business. Shit between us ain't changing. I'm not going to be sweet now and treat you any other way."

She smiled and stood up facing him. He had that bored look on his face again. She knew he was extremely nervous just by looking in his eyes. Never in a million years would she have guessed that Daryl would be asking her to be his girlfriend. Yeah, she knew that's what his big rant was about.

"Who would want that?" she said in a deadpan voice.

"Sarcastic bitch" he growled as she rapped her arms around his neck bringing them close.

"Stupid hick" she smirked before kissing him

Authors Note:

I am on an updating roll! Check out my other Daryl story and let know what you think and this one too!