A/N: Don't own (although I'd love to have my very own Norman Reedus :D) don't sue!

Lyrics are from 'Rain' by Patty Griffin

Rain

Hiatus Drabble 2

It's hard to listen to a hard, hard heart
Beatin' close to mine
Poundin' up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep, deep, deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep, weep, weep
With all this rain fallin' down
Strange, how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain
It's hard to know when to give up the fight
Some things you want will just never be right
It's never rained like it has tonight before
Now, I don't wanna beg you, baby
For something maybe you could never give
I'm not lookin' for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live
Strange, how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holdin' on underneath this shroud
Rain

He wondered how she could look so calm and collected after what she'd just done to him in his tent. He squirmed at the thought of it, surprised that he still had the energy even to twitch at the memory. How could a girl so relatively young, twenty-four he had to keep reminding himself, be quite so talented at such debauchery? He could still feel her mouth on him, see her big eyes peering up at him innocently as she worked, her tongue flickering like an eel at places he hadn't even known existed. It was that expression on her face, that sweet innocent look coupled with the lowered lashes and the wicked glint. It made him shudder just thinking about it.

He shifted in his chair, readjusting the bow in his lap. He swiped the sweat beading his forehead with his grimy forearm. She glanced at him over her shoulder, clearly sensing his gaze scalding into her back. She smiled. He twitched again, more forcibly this time, almost uncomfortably against the rough denim of his jeans. That goddamn mouth. When it wasn't throwing teasing insults and digs at him, smirking as if he were there purely for her amusement, it was sending him over the edge of pleasure. It curved into a smirk now, as if she could see right through his head. The plump lips still swollen and slightly reddened from what she'd been doing.

He brushed some more sweat from his cheek. It was hot out here. She turned back towards T-Dog, laughing at something he'd said. She threw back her head to laugh and he eyed her long throat hungrily. His grip tightened unbearably on his bow as he remembered exactly what had been trickling down that throat less than an hour ago, tracking a sticky trail over the contours beneath the smooth creamy flesh. He forced himself to release his grip on the bow before he broke it, flexing his aching hand.

She leant over the RV, burying her head under the hood. T-Dog leant over besides her, keeping as respectable a distance between them as he could in such close quarters. He pointed something out to her and she nodded, leaning even further over to discuss something. He couldn't tell from this distance whether she was showing T-Dog something or the other way around. You never knew with Cassidy, she was still a total enigma. Sometimes he was sure she did it on purpose, leaning over the RV in those tiny shorts. In fact, if he hadn't started to understand her a little, he would have believed the bitchy things Andrea kept saying about her. She wasn't the type though, she really wasn't the type to put on a show for him or anyone else. It wasn't that she wasn't aware of how she looked, it was just that she didn't care what any of them thought about her… at all.

He licked his dry lips. It wasn't like he'd never had a blow job before. It wasn't even technically the best one he'd ever had, it was the way she'd done it. He'd been sitting quite happily in his tent, polishing his bow and working the blood and gore from all the nooks and crannies when she'd walked straight in.

"Somethin' I can help you with, Red?"

He'd made the mistake of glancing up from his bow. He'd never seen that look in her eye before. She'd knelt down before him, sliding the bow from his slackening grip. He made some sort of noise when she unbuttoned his jeans but she ignored him, sliding her small hands inside. He barely had time to blink before she'd been there, her mouth and hands at work.

Afterwards, when he'd barely been able to assemble words in his head never mind blurt them out, she'd just smiled at him and licked her sore lips. She'd just knelt there, her cheeks flushed from the exertion and her lips glistening.

"What was that for?"

"Just testing a theory."

She'd got to her feet and headed straight for the still open tent flaps.

"Hey!" She'd paused. "That it?"

"That not enough for you, Dixon?"

He'd felt embarrassment surging over him and he'd glared at her.

"Not what I meant."

For the first time since he'd met her, she'd looked uncomfortable. It was only a fleeting instant but it had been there nonetheless.

"Hey Cassidy!"

Cassidy had given him a last long considering look and disappeared out of the tent.

He snapped back to the present when he realised she was frowning at whatever Rick was saying to her. He looked immensely disturbed by whatever he was saying. She reached out and touched his arm and Daryl felt his muscles snap taut. Cassidy went out of her way to avoid touching or being touched by anyone except Lochie. Even he didn't touch her too much in public. He felt suddenly hot and awareness of his surroundings snapped into place. With a sickening lurch he realised he was jealous. Jealous of the way she was looking at Rick, her hand still resting on his arm. After a moment they separated. Rick nodded at him on his way past and Daryl regarded him coolly.

He remained seated, watching the sudden activity as Cassidy re-emerged from her tent with her pack and her knife, clearly about to set off into the trees. Glenn joined her after a moment. His usual cheery grin eased some of the tension knotting Daryl's stomach as they made their way past him and into the woods. She paused for a moment, glancing back over her shoulder at him. He met her cool green gaze. She turned and vanished into the tree line.

"Do you hear that?" Cassidy breathed, throwing out her hand to halt Glenn.

"What?" He gasped, staring wide-eyed at the trees around them.

Cassidy didn't answer, instead she grabbed hold of him, threw him to the ground and rolled him into a patch of prickly bushes nearby. They waited as the walker shuffled by, moving surprisingly quickly through the debris from the trees above. Once it was gone they continued to wait, just in case.

"That might be the sexiest thing I've ever seen." Glenn muttered in a strangled whisper after a very long pause.

Cassidy glared at him. They were nose to nose under the bush, her legs pinning his arms to his sides.

"If you get a hard on, I swear to god-"

"Hey! It's a natural reaction… a hot girl throws herself at me-"

"I did not throw myself at you!" Cassidy hissed angrily, scanning through the thorny branches for signs of any more walkers.

"Oh my god!" Glenn wailed suddenly.

Cassidy glanced down suspiciously but there was nothing to see. Any excitement he'd been gleaning from the situation had apparently vanished.

"Daryl will kill me if he finds out."

She blinked at him in confusion.

"What's Daryl got to do with anything?"

"Well, you… and he… you're… well you're both… I thought… it's like… you… er… aren't you?"

"We're having sex, yes." Cassidy said brutally, quite enjoying the pink flush that spread over Glenn's neck and jaw line. "So?"

Glenn continued to sputter and trip over his tongue. In the end he resorted to glancing furiously to her bare legs on either side of him.

"What about it?" She asked, looking thoroughly amused at his discomfiture as his cheeks burned as red as a stop sign.

"This… you… me… my…" He looked very close to tears.

"You mean me being on top of you? Or you getting hard at me being on top of you?" She offered helpfully, peering at him innocently.

He looked as if he was literally choking on his tongue and his eyes bulged out of his head. She rolled her eyes and rolled off of him. Another walker was shuffling past, staggering around the clearing besides them. They held their breath but it was on the other side of the clearing, too far away to hear them but too close for them to move yet.

"You won't tell him?" Glenn whispered fiercely in her ear as they lay side by side under the bush.

Cassidy frowned; she'd already forgotten what he was talking about. Her hand was grasping her knife so tightly it hurt. She shook her head a fraction when she realised he was still concerned about Daryl. She found it intently amusing that Glenn was more worried by Daryl thinking he'd groped his girlfriend in the woods than by the walker currently inspecting the remains of a dead squirrel a few feet away.

"Tell him what?" She muttered distractedly, watching intently as the walker snatched the squirrel from the ground.

"About the… my… when I… when you… it… my…"

She glared at him.

"Why would I tell him?"

He was staring at her in wide-eyed fear and she wondered if it wasn't kinder to keep his attention on her and not alert him to the walker currently chowing down on the rancid squirrel remains.

"Glenn." She murmured, shifting a little closer to whisper in his ear. "Nothing happened between us… except me dragging you down here to save your life. There's nothing to tell Daryl about."

"I know." Glenn shifted unconsciously, bending his knees slightly. "But Daryl isn't exactly rational."

She didn't argue with him, watching the walker as it finished its meal. She knew perfectly well that if Daryl heard about Glenn's 'situation' he'd burst into a ball of fire, not because he'd be jealous or anything, they weren't in that kind of relationship, but because he was possessive. It sent a forbidden thrill through her just thinking about it. The walker finally left the clearing and she crawled out from under the bush.

"Are we nearly there?" She asked in an undertone as he joined her on his feet again.

"I think so." He scratched his head under the cap, peering into the trees thoughtfully. "We were through there I think."

She sighed.

"I can't believe you lost the supplies." She grumbled, shoving her way through the low branches.

"I didn't lose them!" Glenn protested feebly. "I fell. I know where they are I just can't reach them."

"What makes you think I can?"

He gave her a disturbingly shrewd look and she glowered at him. Apparently her sparring sessions with Lochie had firmly established how flexible she was to the others… which was how she'd ended up being roped into retrieving a missing bag full of medical supplies from a tree half dangling over a quarry.

"You guys are more trouble than Lochie… and that's saying something." She muttered.

"Higher! I said higher! Left! Your other left genius! OW!"

Daryl halted and glanced carefully around. No walkers. Not yet… but given the racket they were making it was only a matter of time. He'd sat impatiently waiting for her to return, trying not to think about the flutter of anxiety pulsing in his gut. Eventually he'd gone to Rick and forced him to tell him what was going on. Rick had looked at him in astonishment, then explained where they'd gone. It wasn't too far into the trees so he'd only put up a feeble amount of protesting before Daryl had stomped off anyway. He shouldered his way through the low hanging branches towards the noise. Cassidy was swinging like a monkey from a dangerously loose branch hanging over a very deep ditch.

Glenn had a long branch extended towards her and it took Daryl a startled moment to realise that he was trying to hook the bag from the branch beneath her. The way the branch she was on was situated, if she removed it by crawling towards it she'd plunge headfirst down the quarry. As far as he could tell she was trying to aim the stick so it caught on the bag without her having to go any further out.

"Gimme that." Daryl snapped, snatching the branch from a surprised Glenn and extending it back out towards her.

After a great deal of irritable shuffling and some quite painful whacks from the branch on both ends, they succeeded in hooking the bag and dragging it back onto solid ground. When Cassidy scrambled back down out of the tree she was covered in moss and dirt with lichen smushed all over her face and hands, twigs showering out of her hair and cuts all over any exposed skin. Daryl surveyed her critically although she could see that the skin around his eyes and lips had tightened where he was forcing down a smile. She grabbed the bag from the ground, dumped it into Glenn's hands and flounced off through the trees.

Daryl looked at Glenn. He was staring wide-eyed at Daryl and, unless he was very much mistaken, his skinny knees were shaking beneath his jeans. Daryl lifted an eyebrow at him questioningly and Glenn darted into the trees after Cassidy.

Daryl could hear Cassidy long before he could see the camp. She was in a towering rage and Shane and Rick were looking quite disturbed as she hissed at them like an angry cat.

"Just because I can do the splits does not make me the designated gymnast!" She snapped acidly as he approached. "I am not a performing monkey."

She turned on her heel and stalked off towards her tent. Even from this distance Daryl could see that Rick was mortified, terrified that he might have genuinely upset her. He was such a pushover when it came to his ridiculous sense of gentility and chivalry. Of course, ignoring basic common sense, he went straight after her.

Daryl pondered (Cassidy would have called it lurking) for a while. He very much wanted to stay out of her way while she was in this explosive mood, but he couldn't quite ignore the squirming in his stomach at the thought of her and Rick alone in her tent. He had no concerns that Rick might try something. He'd seen the occasional appreciative glances Rick had sent her way when he was too deep in thought to realise what he was doing, but Rick was loyal to a fault and he would never betray Lori that way. Even if Cassidy was right and she did deserve it somewhat. He didn't even think Cassidy would try anything with Rick… yet his insides were writhing as if he'd swallowed a nest of live snakes for lunch.

He scrubbed his hands back through his hair irritably, slapping his pockets for his cigarettes moodily. When he couldn't find them he strode over to her tent to demand some from her. Lochie was sprawled on the grass a few feet away from the open flaps, fiddling with something small and finicky. She lifted her eyebrows as he stumped past but didn't comment. He paused outside the tent entrance, peeking into the dim interior.

Rick was saying something in a low apologetic voice to Cassidy's slightly hunched back as she tended to the scratches up and down her bare arms. When she didn't reply, Rick placed a tentative hand on her shoulder and Daryl froze. Cassidy did not like to be touched. He realised he was holding his breath and his heart was thumping painfully as he waited for her reaction. After an endless moment of waiting, Cassidy slid out from under Rick's hand.

"The next time you put your hands on me, Sheriff, you better be prepared for what comes next."

There was something in her tone that made it impossible to distinguish whether she was flirting or threatening. Daryl felt heat flood his loins and he was quite sure that he was scowling.

LadyLecter47 – My holidays were pretty good thanks, hope yours were too! I've been watching the first season and the first half of season two to tide me over. Hope you like it

SaraLostInes – lol thanks that was what I was going for.

Dalonega Noquisi – I know I'm unimpressed, all my shows are on hiatus grrrr.