A few hours later found Daryl standing on the front porch while the storm he'd been predicting for the last two days was coming, finally unleashed its full fury upon them. Rain lashed, wind howled, and bolts of white light fractured the groaning sky. However, the small farmhouse behind him was just as warm and cozy as any animal den. Yet, he just wasn't able to bring himself around to going inside and relaxing with the rest of the group. Even after finding Kat safe and sound, he'd remained on edge. He'd paced from window to window, door to door, back to front until he couldn't take it no more. What exactly was bugging him, he couldn't say. He just knew he was edgy and nervous and that it was making him more ill-tempered than usual. Something was coming; he could feel it deep down in his bones. He just couldn't identify what the something was.
Not yet at least.
He tried to busy himself by helping with moving things around and getting the house secure, but it only served to increase his anxiety even more. When he found himself snapping at everybody who ended up crossing his path, he'd decided to haul his ass outside for a bit of a breather. It wasn't like he could help how he was feeling. He lived by his gut. And it was telling him that the shit was about to roll down the hill. He blew out a breath and tipped his head back to watch as more lightning fractured the clouds overhead.
This storm was gonna get much worse before it was gonna even start getting any better. The howl of the wind was full of teeth and threats now. The rain was a smothering curtain that hid any lurking predator from his view and the lightning a dangerous weapon he had no defense against. His fingers clenched upon the wood railing, hard enough he could hear his knuckles crack. It was making him itchier than a deer in a roomful of hunters.
Arms coiled suddenly around his waist in a familiar embrace and a soft kiss was pressed to the back of his shoulder before he heard Kat ask, "Wanna tell me about what's got your panties in a bunch?" in that low, husky voice she tended to use whenever he was being a royal asshole. It managed to settle and soothe his frazzled nerves even as it reminded him about how he needed to make amends for his piss poor attitude.
"Panties?" He tossed her a mildly amused look from over his shoulder. "I ain't wearing no damn panties."
"You prefer I use boxers, knickers or tighty whities instead? Or…" Her lips curved into a suggestive smile as her hand drifted across his stomach. "Have you started going commando finally?"
He caught her wandering hand before he burned to death from the fire she was starting and muttered, "quit it," at her.
He felt more than heard her sigh.
"Still no fun, I see," she replied in a playfully morose voice. "Fine. Guess if I can't distract you with subtle innuendo that I'm obligated to return to my earlier question." She paused to allow the drum solo playing above them to die down before asking, "What's got the burr in your saddle?"
"Don't worry about it."
Why he even bothered to tell her that, he didn't know. He knew the damned woman was gonna worry. She always worried. It was her mission in life to worry. And he knew she was worrying when her arms tightened around him and she pressed another kiss to his shoulder. Predictable, he thought as a slight smirk twisted one corner of his lips. Even if some things had changed in the two years they'd been apart, there were still those key elements that had remained the same.
"Daryl," she said gently now, "you've had somethin' stuck in your craw ever since you got here." She angled her head around to look at him. In the brief flash of light that illuminated the night sky he could see her gaze was imploring. "Can't you tell me what it is so that I can help with diggin' whatever it is out?"
He didn't immediately reply because silence was the next step in this two-step they were doing. It was a dance they'd been doing for the better part of their lives. If he noticed how easy it was to fall back into old patterns, to settle into the old routine, he paid it no never mind. The only thing that mattered was that she was here and this was how the dance went.
"Trouble coming," he muttered after the appropriate length of time had passed. "Can feel it."
"And this here little ole rainstorm is just keepin' you from goin' out and findin' whatever the trouble is and stoppin' it, ain't it?" He felt her lips curve against his skin. "Since when has gettin' a little wet scared you?"
"Are you mockin' me, woman?"
"Nooo," she said with a feigned innocence that had his lips twitching. "I'd never poke fun at you or your seeming fear of a little ole thunderstorm, Daryl."
"Right," he snorted. "Believe that about as much as I believe in haunts and boogers."
"Was a time where you didn't believe in walkers."
Daryl rolled his eyes. "Would you hush up? Swear," he muttered. "You're like a dammed magpie."
"You gonna make me if I refuse?" she teased. "'Cause I've got quite a lotta ideas for how you can go about shushing me if you've a mind to entertain the suggestions."
"I got a rag that'll fit in that pie hole of yours just fine."
She breathed out a soft laugh that cruised over his already overheated flesh and stimulated his steadily fraying nerves further. Damn, but it felt good to be out here and bantering with her. He didn't have to be as guarded with Kat or worry about saying the wrong thing and pissing her off. Kat got it, she got him. She always had. Yet as good as it felt to be trading quips with her, he still couldn't shake his twitchiness. Something was coming, he could feel it and it was making him moodier than a gator with a bad tooth. He didn't like not knowing. He couldn't prepare for the unknown.
Kat shifted; sighed. "Daryl?"
"Hrm?"
"If trouble is comin' this way then we'll handle it. Just like we always handle it," she said even as thunder barked a ha. "Together."
"Yeah." He blew out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "I know we will."
"But you still don't like it."
"No." He spoke straight with her because he felt she deserved him to be straight with her. He'd already told her enough lies for one lifetime, anyway. "Ain't never liked not knowin' when the shit was about to hit the fan."
"Can't always know when shit is about to rain down on you, though. It's just-" whatever she might have said ended on a stifled shriek as more bursts of light danced between the thick velvet clouds overhead. She ain't never liked thunderstorms. Back when they'd been kids and a storm would blow in, she'd either burrow under her bed or hide in the hall closet. As she got older she'd handled her fear by turning on every light in the house and the stereo or TV up to full blasting. Or she'd call me up and con me into comin' over and keepin' her company.
He stifled a smile when she burrowed tighter against his back and swung an arm over her head in order to draw her into his side. "I'm sorry for being such an asshole," he sighed. "Ain't meanin' to be."
"Daryl, you know that there ain't a person inside that house who faults you for being so out of sorts tonight. In fact," she said as she placed her chin on his chest and looked up at him, "I think they prefer when you are moody. Means they know not to relax or get too complacent."
"Maybe."
"No." She spoke gently, but firmly. And all the more effective because of it. "Ain't no maybe about it. Honey, the people inside that house all look to you and Rick when it comes to things concernin' the groups' survival. You set the tone. You are the standard that they all try to reach. You're the one that lets them know when the shit is about to hit and that they need to get behind a wall as fast as they can if they don't wanna get covered in it. They count on you." Her lips curved. "Same as I've counted on you the bazillions of other times when we've nearly been screwed over by the pooch."
"We ain't been screwed by the pooch this hard before," he pointed out. "Ain't never had shit hit like this."
"No," she heaved on a sigh. "We haven't been quite so royally screwed before, that's true. However..." her teeth flashed white in the darkness. "I'd rather be in the middle of the shit with you than standing on the sidelines watching you drown."
"I'd pull your ass in."
"Hell, honey, you'd know I'd jump in to save you."
She would, too. Wouldn't matter if he told her no, to stay back, to get as far away as she could. The damned fool woman would risk her neck in order to save his worthless hide. It was her courage and compassion and loyalty that he loved the most about her. The old him told him that he still didn't deserve her, that he wasn't good enough for her and never would be. That him said Kat deserved someone respectable, someone decent and good, who'd help her with raising the kids asleep inside that back bedroom.
She deserves a man like Rick, he heard the old him saying. She needs someone who knows how to weather through the tough times and who ain't afraid to enjoy the good. That him told him that she didn't need some no good hillbilly who'd followed his dumb ass brother around like a lost puppy for the last thirty odd years and done whatever it was that he was told because he didn't have the balls to tell his brother to piss off. However, if he said any of this to her she'd call him a "liar" and tell him that he was really "scared" of being with her because being with her meant that he'd actually prove all of them "wrong."
It was bullshit, of course. He wasn't afraid of being with her or in proving his family wrong. He'd done that already. From out of nowhere, a memory surfaced from the night he and Carol had spent in that shelter when Carol had said to him, "You said that we get to start over. Did you?"
His reply to her at the time had been two simple words, "I'm trying."
He'd meant it when he'd told her that. He was trying to start his life over. It was a slow going process that frequently left him feeling like he'd been 'et by a wolf and shit over a cliff, but he was still trying to start his life over. But trying to start over, he realized, also meant trying to start again. He didn't want to start over with Kat. They'd come too far, gone through too much to simply start over. No, what he wanted to do was start again.
He wanted to give them the chance he'd never really given them before all this shit went down. He wanted to try and build some type of life with her, have some type of a relationship, be with her without worrying that it was wrong for him to be with her. 'Well,' a voice that sounded suspiciously like Merle's whispered inside his head, 'you ain't doing that if'n ya push girlie away from ya, now are ya, son?"
He didn't bother answering because he knew the voice was right. He wasn't trying if he retreated back behind the mask that was most familiar and comfortable to him, if he refused to take the second chance that this new world was offering to him, if he shrugged off this opportunity to finally be with her. Hell, weren't like there were anybody there now to mock him for being in love with the woman, or call him a sissy because he bought her some damn flowers or say he was turning into a little bitch because he was worrying about respectable things like replacing that leaky faucet in the master bathroom.
It wasn't like the effort of trying had gone and gotten him killed, anyway. Trying had already given him a new family and people he was proud to call friends. Trying to start again definitely came with some big ass benefits, none more important to him at that moment than the woman currently skimming her knowledgeable little fingers over his lower back. Trying gave him the chance to be with her.
And if there was one thing he could readily admit that he wanted, it was that he wanted to be with Kat. And with Bo and Jackson,he added silently as he turned his head and rest his lips against her forehead. He'd spent the last two years telling himself that if he managed to find Kat that he was never letting her go. Now that he had her back, he wasn't going to let her out of his sight. His life was always better when it had this she-cat in it.
"Kat?"
"Hrm?" he felt more than heard her murmur. "What is it?"
"I wanna try."
"You wanna try?" A bewildered frown knit her brow. "Try what?" She lifted her eyes to his face. "Try findin' whatever it is that might be comin'?" She glanced at the sky as more electric tendrils reached down towards the Earth. "Wait until morning. Let the worst of the storm pass first. Then we can go and check..."
"Ain't what I meant about trying," he cut in with a roll of his eyes. Leave it to Kat to take his statement about trying as him meaning he wanted to brave a severe storm in order to find whoever or whatever might be waiting to attack them. Not, he added silently, that he wouldn't do it if it was what needed to be done. One quick glance at the laughing sky convinced him that keeping his happy ass at home was a much safer idea.
Then the word "we" hit him and he issued a few silent curses about her stubborn nature before staring down into her eyes and stating in a tone of voice that told her clearly he'd accept no hemming and hawing about it, "And even if I do try and go out to investigate what might be out there and huntin' us, your ass will stay here and take care of the rugrats. You hear me?"
She sniffed, once, but grumbled, "Yeah, I hear you," before muttering, "but don't you go gettin' comfortable with orderin' my ass around. I ain't always gonna listen. Or obey."
"Will if you know what's good for you."
"Just all a quiver here, Rambo," she drawled lazily. "Can't you just feel me shakin' in my boots?"
"You ain't wearin' boots," he pointed out with a smirk. "Remember?"
"I know I'm barefoot, you ass," she retorted with a snort. "I tend to like being barefoot, thank you very much."
He shook his head. "Ain't ever understood how a woman with as much sense as you could always go around barefoot."
"I like the feel of the Earth between my toes." One dark brow lifted. "And what's my shoeless state got to do with anything, anyway?"
"Rattlers and walkers love bare toes is what it's got to do with things."
"Well, then, I guess you oughta make sure that no walkers or rattlers bite my bare toes, huh?"
He snorted a laugh. "Why've I gotta make sure that no walkers or rattlers bite your bare toes? You're the one walkin' around without any shoes on."
"'Cause you like my bare toes," she teased. "Especially," she added with a playful grin, "when I'm rubbing 'em up and down your bare legs as we-"
"Stop."
She let out a soft laugh before tucking her head beneath his chin. "So, if you weren't wantin' to try and go do some scoutin'," she said. "Then what is it you are sayin' you wanna give a try here? 'Cause I'm at a complete loss here about what you wanna try."
"Well, if you'd quit your caterwaulin'," he kidded her, "I'd actually be able to tell you."
She scoffed. "I ain't the one yappin' on about walkers trying to eat my bare toes here."
"You gonna hush up or keep runnin' that mouth of yours?" She huffed a sigh that tickled the hair by his chin but actually remained quiet. He took a few seconds to gather his thoughts before taking the bull by the horns and stuttering, "I wanna give us a try."
She was silent for all of three seconds. However, her reply wasn't the one that he expected. "A'ight," was all she said.
"A'ight?" he growled even as more laughter rolled across the sky. "That's all you gotta say?"
She leaned back to look at him. "Is there somethin' besides a'ight that you want me to say?"
"Something more than a'ight," he groused. "I just told you I wanna give us a try."
"I know you did," she said quietly. "But honey, we've always been us. We'll always be us. Ain't nothing, not even an apocalypse that is ever gonna change that."
"I ain't talking about us being what we were before, woman." He fixed her with a look. "I'm talkin' about us being a family type of us."
"Daryl, we've been a family type of us for more than three quarters of our lives."
"Yeah, but-"
"It's just how it was and we've always been comfortable with it being that way. It ain't changed." She reached up to lay a hand against his cheek. "Not for me."
"I know..." he began, but she continued talking right over him.
"However, I did promise someone that if'n I did manage to find your ornery ass before he did that I wasn't gonna let you waste the opportunity for us to make an honest go of things finally."
He angled his head to look at her. "Promised someone?" he asked slowly, cautiously. "Promised who?"
He counted the seconds in heartbeats. There were two before she said, "Merle." Her thumb stroked over his cheek. "I promised Merle, honey."
A/N: Hello m'dears! Hope the week has been a good one for you!
Please, if you like this story, follow/fav!
