AN: Sorry about the late post. I don't know if I like this chapter or not lol I think it's why it took so long.
It may have only been two minutes since I was last awake or it could have been hours. I am lying back on the dingy carpet with my feet to the door. A walker is pawing at the wood that acts as a barrier between us. My eyes are heavy with sleep and paralysis has found my limbs. The empty feeling is back; it feels like I am being torn open, ribcage prying skyward. But at the same time, I feel as if I am closing down on myself and impaling slowly. Maybe it was a little of both. How is it possible to feel richly whole one moment and side scraped empty the next?
It has been several hours since I locked myself in the room. The moon hangs bright in the black sky and taunts me with its freedom. The parking lot has a milky glow and there are several walkers moving about.
The calmness I feel should probably be alarming in my situation but at some point during the night, fear had become my oxygen. And now I find that I can breathe it quite regularly.
Daryl was right. I should not have come. Even the fleeting, simple thought of him shakes me awake. I need to get back to him.
I stand up and shake the numbness from my arms. I need a plan. The window was out, and judging from the moaning, so was the door. That only left the small air vent in the corner of the room. I wasn't quite sure I could even fit through it and the only way to get high enough would be to stand on the desk, removing the only significant weight holding the door shut. I search through its drawers and the only semi weapon is a silver pen. I grab one of the pennies that lines the bottom most drawer and put it in my pocket.
Standing in front of the desk, I lean my palms flat against the top and take a deep breath. I will have to be fast. Before I can back out I grip the table top and yank it backwards in the direction of the vent. The shelf now thuds back into the door and the scratching becomes more desperate. When it's in the right position I climb atop of it and try to pry the screws from the vent corners. When it's loose, I fling it to the floor. The shelf slides down the door and cracks against the floor. I shove the pen up inside the air duct and grip the edges of it trying to pull myself up. I get about half way when a body slams full force into the door startling me. I lose my grip and drop back down to the table. This time I buck my body upwards and kick my legs, allowing my elbows to rest on the vents bottom and pull myself up and in. I don't wait to see if the walkers get into the room.
The vent is tight and I have to keep my arms below my body tucked into my sides. The skin of my arms slides along the metal but they are slick with sweat and glide easily. I crawl for several minutes trying to put as much distance between me and the room. When I get to the fourth vent I look between the slats and see the break room. The stairs should be just in front of me that lead back down to the store. I pop the covering off and stick my head out of the duct to look around the room. There are two walkers standing outside of the door above the stairs and a few are down the hallway. Another is standing just below me but hasn't realized I'm above him.
I scoot over the opening and let the top half of my body hang. One arm is holding on so that I don't fall out and my legs brace the inside of the duct. My right arm sways with the pen clasped in my hand. The walker staggers slightly and I jam the pen right through the top of his head. I thought the pen would do enough damage to the brain. I was wrong. The walker jerks its head, and its arm flies up to mine gripping onto my wrist. I am yanked from the ceiling. My leg gets caught beneath me and my ankle turns in a strange direction sending a sharp pain through my leg. My fall had knocked the walker over but it is crawling towards me. I pull myself up and when I turn, the two walkers from the stairs are standing right in front of me.
To my right is the line of lockers and I tear through them looking for anything that will help. There is nothing. The three walkers push at each other but have freed a straight path for the stairs. I run.
The rest of the store is just as vacant as before though there are a few walkers now. By the time I reach the front doors it is just becoming light outside. I limp through the parking lot until I reach the road. Daryl said to never walk the roads; people are sometimes more dangerous than the walkers. He also said never to get too deep in the woods without him because it's easy to get turned around. I opt for walking nearest the line of trees along the road.
I don't remember it taking this long to get from the church to the store, though we were driving and I am slow with pain. The sun is almost directly above me and my throat is dry with thirst. The throbbing ache in my foot begs me to take a break but I pretend Daryl is dragging me through the forest and it keeps me going a little longer. Somewhere inside I know that I will find him eventually. I am set on a compass that seems to only point at him.
I continue for what seems like days but is probably only an hour, if that. I haven't seen the marker tree for the church's road but I may have passed it already. I slow and look back from the direction I came. I am almost positive I have not seen it yet. I continue to wander. I am lost.
It's cooled considerably but the hazy sun is blurring the road just over the horizon of the hill. I stumble through the grass and let myself collapse to the softness to rest. My ankle is swollen and deep purple but it has to last to the church. I rub slow circles at the top of the bruising when I hear an engine. I manage to stand before I fully see it.
The golden SUV speeds down the hill and it's all I can do to rush out to the road and fling my arms about in the air trying to get their attention. It screeches to a halt about 20 feet away and the door is being thrown open and out comes Maggie with Daryl close behind her. Knowing that I am safe lets me relax but it also finally lets me feel the pain in my leg and I almost collapse but then Daryl's arms are around me holding me up. My hand grips the material of his jacket and I am shaking. Daryl.
"Shh, I gotcha." We sink to the asphalt and he holds me tighter. Maggie meets us on the ground and grabs my face between her hands though Daryl does not release me.
"Easton, I am so so sorry. Thank god you- I'm so sorry-"
"Maggie," I stop her rambling and place a hand on her arm, "it's okay. I'm okay."
She nods her head and Daryl is inspecting me for wounds. When he finds my ankle he touches it gently but stops when I whimper. One of his arms hooks under my knees and I am pulled up with him. "Let's go yeah?"
Glenn is sitting in the front of the SUV with a wide grin on his face and I wave weakly at him before Daryl sets me down in the car.
"We stayed as long as we could Easton but the walkers-"
Daryl cuts him off telling him it's enough for today. I sit in the middle seat and his body warms up the right side of me. I sink back into the tan leather and hesitantly lean my head on his shoulder. At first he is stiff but soon relaxes against the weight of me.
Hershel insists I sleep on the cot for tonight and Carol sits with me while I eat like she did the first night I was here. She tells me a story of Sophia when she was six years old. She had been climbing a tree and chanced her weight on too thin of a branch, sending her crashing down to the ground. She had broken her arm in three spots. While she tells me this, her hand is stroking unconsciously on the blankets over my covered leg. The other is propped up. I eat slowly so that she will stay and keep talking to me. When I am done and she is gone, it is only a few minutes before Daryl comes in.
He sits in the chair at the head of the bed. "Hi." I say.
"Hey."
He doesn't speak for awhile and begins twisting his red rag in his hands and squints at it. For a minute I think he forgets where he is and he holds an intense stare at the cloth. I reach out and take it from him, placing it on the nightstand. He looks up at me embarrassed and his cheeks darken. Why he's uncomfortable I don't know.
"I was worried about ya." He looks down at me with hooded eyes. "Does it hurt?"
"A little," I pause.
"When they first came back I thought maybe ya'd run off or found yaself a walker."
"I don't want to die anymore." I shake my head at what he said.
"What changed yer mind?"
"You."
His eyebrow raises but he doesn't say anything back. No quick retort or cheeky comment. Something is changing and I don't know if I should be afraid. He exhales my name and brings his elbows to rest on the side of the cot. The springs squeak under the pressure and he covers his face with roughly calloused hands.
I reach out and grab his arm, pulling one hand down but he refuses to look at me.
"What's the matter?"
"I thought ya were gone." The hoarseness saturates his words.
My grip loosens on his arm. My palm slides down his forearm slightly and he flexes the muscle when he realizes I'm still holding onto him. He won't stop staring at my hand.
"Daryl."
Finally I see the blue eyes I've become accustomed to, eyes that I'm often too afraid to look at for long. But he still doesn't say anything. Instead he covers my hand with his and he gives me a sad smile. Sometimes I wish I could read this man's mind. Other times I'm afraid of what I'd find. At the moment I don't know which I feel.
He yawns and his eyes blink slowly. "Tired?"
"Couldn't sleep." He says. He stands to go but I catch his arm.
"Stay." I slide over closer to the wall and throw back the blanket. He sits slowly never taking his eyes off me. He stays like that for awhile but sometime after my eyes have closed I feel the mattress shift and the pressure of his head on the pillow.
In the morning Daryl is gone. Rick said he has gone hunting but he still doesn't come back to our room at night. The two nights that follow he is already asleep when I come in.
Finally, after a week of not even saying a word to him, I climb the stairs to where I know Daryl will be on watch. The climb is somewhat difficult even though my ankle is not as swollen anymore. If he had heard me climbing the stairs he doesn't acknowledge it. The sun causes him to look like a harsh shadow against the bright light. His arm muscles are tense, jaw clenched tightly. I walk over to him and lean against the wall. Just like before, he refuses to fully look at me.
"Ya shouldn'ta walked up the steps with yer foot." He growls.
"Look, I know that I should have been more careful but-"
"I ain't mad at ya fer gettin' hurt." His head shakes slightly.
"Then why are you treatin' me like this?" I turn toward him; inches remain between him and me. His eyes cast down to my body and the proximity to his own.
"Like what?" His voice catches on his question.
I don't know why but I laugh. "You're avoidin' me," I say. "I don't know what I did. If you aren't mad then what's wrong?"
I see his finger nails digging into his arm and he blinks hard. Once. Twice. A few more times. He turns his head toward me briefly but I finally see a crack is his exterior. I've been holding my breath. He leans forward against his arms over the windowsill and I step even closer. Gently I bring my hand to his cheek and turn his face towards me. It looks like I am hurting him.
I bring my lips to his the best I can, but with my ankle I can't stretch high enough to reach him. For a moment his eyes harden to mine but they flicker to my mouth and back, before he closes the distance. It is soft and hesitant.
I slide my hand along the back of his neck pulling him lower but in an instant I am being lifted up. He sets me down on the windowsill and my back faces the windowless air. He latches his arm around my back while the other is already tangled in my hair.
When he pulls me to him, closing the little gap of space between us, my leg knocks against the wall. The sharpness in my leg elicits a muffled whine and he knows he's hurt me. He pulls back and searches my face. Our ragged breathes are mixing in the air between us and the blues of his eyes are almost completely devoured by his pupils. I try to focus on them but I can't keep my mind from my hand that has somehow found his lower back muscles underneath his tattered shirt. I trace my fingers down the scars that converge with his spine. His chest rises and falls. Rises and falls.
Daryl ducks his head and rests his cheek against mine, "I can't-" I'm gripping onto his back like he's going to disappear. The fabric of his shirt in knotted between my fingers and my face contorts in pain. Don't run. Don't do this. "I can't need you like this."
And my hand is tugged away from the dark blue cotton and the scruff on his chin slices away at my cheek as he pulls away and sets me back on the ground. His lips linger over mine but he doesn't kiss me again. "I'm sorry."
I'm left standing in the sunlight and flakes of dust are floating in the air. It reminds me of the field where I felt light and free. Like I wasn't even in my own body. Like a ghost, lying down in the dewy greens. As if I was already dead.
But I don't feel that now. Instead I feel the pain in my foot and a different kind that slowly spreads from my chest, through my blood stream all the way to my toes. It hums in my finger tips.
The empty hole I was desperate to fill with his love is slowly stacking full of butterflies and their bones.
