They were two days into their mission. She had been up and lingering inconspicuously in the vicinity of the Feina headquarters since dawn - a total of ten hours. He could feel her feet hurting from her uncomfortable shoes, and her stomach was growling with hunger. She had a headache coming on because she had taken too little time to eat and drink enough during the day despite him urging her to. By now, she was so tired that her eyes were burning. Even blinking hurt her at this point. He ached for her. She needed to rest.
He was closely monitoring traffic, police and military patrols both on foot and on the street, as well as the general traffic situation every time she was within sight of the Feina headquarters. Whenever possible, he made sure that she wasn't the only person in any one place so that there were enough people to draw unwanted attention away from her. Carefully guiding her through the maze of little roads around the compound, he finally got her to enter a small pub located in a deserted street. Relief flooded him when she sat down, taking her weight off her poor feet.
„Get some food and drink into yourself - we've got enough time", he instructed her. „There are no patrols anywhere near you, and you kinda need a break. Actually, I'd prefer for us to call it quits for today." He felt her lids closing over her tired eyes and for just a moment had the impression that his kitchen was getting slightly darker. A shiver ran down his back. The intensity with which they were linked was almost frightening by now, and they had agreed the day before to keep this to themselves - they were both afraid that Hershel would break them up as soon as he learned about this.
And neither of them wanted to be broken up.
No attachment.
He slowly got up, pins and needles shooting into his legs. Moving carefully, making sure to set his feet down firmly and keep his unfeeling legs under control, he made his way to the sink and filled his glass from the tap. Several hours before, he had made his slow way over to their kitchen table from the living area because he had been unable to sit, lie or lounge on the couch any longer, even in the most comfortable positions he'd been able to find. Now, the kitchen chair was causing him agony as well. Too much of a good thing was still too much, and this included even comfortable chairs, let alone the rickety catastrophe he'd been sitting on for the past four hours.
Draining his glass, he dug a white pill out of his pants pocket, filled his glass once more and washed it down with a mouthful of water before emptying the glass again. His head was a pounding battlefield, and he was grateful that he had been able to shield her from it so far. Setting his glass on the drain board, he grabbed the box of fried protein cubes that he had set aside for today and ripped it open. Squeezing the dreadful sauce from its foil sachet into the lid, he dipped the first cube into it and shoved it into his mouth.
„Ew, that's gross, what are you eating?" she complained at once. Chuckling, he ate another one, taking the time to actually chew it for a change, and got more distaste from her. „Don't eat this junk food, Daryl, that's not good for you", she admonished him.
There was a tugging sensation in the pit of his stomach at the sound of her voice in his head, and deep down inside he knew that they were far too attached to each other already. This could only end badly.
„You're already at a restaurant - I'm at home. I'd have to either cook something from scratch or get properly dressed and then walk two blocks to that one place I like, and I don't think I'd have enough time for that before you're finished", he answered, making a conscious effort to keep the mood light. „And I made you eat them during training, remember?" He felt her smile at the memory and his face grew warm. „A few protein cubes ain't the worst thing happened to me, so don't you worry, okay?"
Silence hung between them like a physical object. He could feel her reaching out for him and quickly narrowed down the contact, making sure she could still sense him and be assured that he hadn't abandoned her. With his body slowly waking up again, he now acutely felt every aching bone in his back and his tingling legs and carefully made his way to his bedroom.
Stretching out on his bed, he opened the link again, and this time he allowed some of his pain and exhaustion to seep into it. Her concern was instant and touching, and made his heart beat faster. „Sorry for leaving like that, but I really need a break", he admitted, noting with pleasure that she was already eating and had emptied half a glass of water. „I sat on that bitch of a chair for four hours non-stop and my butt is killing me."
As he'd hoped, admitting that he himself was done in by ten hours of monitoring and filtering a shit ton of data from different channels while simultaneously taking in and reacting to the input he was receiving from her made her relent. He clamped down on his own discomfort as soon as he felt her agreeing that they had indeed gathered enough information for one day.
They had covered several guard changes at four different posts - two in one place, three in each of the others, paying close attention to their procedures while making sure that she wasn't spotted. He had carefully entered everything they'd learned into a list he had prepared and would now draft in his computer to upload to the protected TE drive at work the next day.
Listening to the entire left side of his body screaming after ten hours of sitting down, he had to block out what she was feeling after ten hours of walking around. He for one couldn't wait to finally rest after cleaning up his notes once they'd finished for today. He dimly took note of her delicately wiping her hands and mouth on a napkin one last time before rising from her seat.
„You're almost asleep already", she observed, gently nudging him. „Hey, if you're this tired you don't have to take me to the bus stop."
„Ha, you wish - I know what you're supposed to do when you're escorting a lady", he retorted with a snort. „And it's not leaving her alone far from home." Sitting up, he leaned sideways to grab his computer from the floor under his bed. Placing it on his thighs, he opened and started it, absent-mindedly looking at his naked feet while beginning to draft today's report in his mind.
He didn't intend to leave their meld until her bus was well on its way, with her safely inside it.
.-.
Strolling down the sidewalk, Carol tried to remember the route he had taken her on the first day of their mission without relying on his input too much - she needed to know her way around without him as well. Noticing that he wasn't actively providing her with information anyway just now, trusting her to find her way, she blocked out a good part of his signals, concentrating on her surroundings instead.
However, their link was still intense enough for her to sense him in the back of her mind. He was in pain, and it didn't really feel as if it had only been caused by sitting in an uncomfortable chair for some time. His whole left side seemed to be on fire, but she wasn't sure how much she was reading into this that wasn't there at all. In addition to that, he had a full-blown headache by now, much worse than the one she herself had headed off in the nick of time by downing two huge glasses of water at the restaurant.
And she was receiving optical input from him again, no doubt by accident - he would never want her to see this, of that she was certain. He was lying in a bed, and she was looking at his naked feet sticking out of his pants through his eyes, with what was clearly a surgical scar complete with the small dots left by stitches in plain view on the inside of his left ankle.
By now, when she asked him personal questions or allowed him to learn things about herself, he no longer brusquely put her down but went along with it, only stopping her when he was approaching information overload or was getting a feeling that she was giving him identifiers. But he still never talked about himself. He had certainly never mentioned getting injured, but was, on the contrary, doing his best to keep any personal clues about himself from her as best he could. His problem was that he was an incredibly strong transmitter - even though he was obviously clamping down on it, he was still flooding her with sensations.
Thinking back to their first encounter and that feeling of great power tightly controlled, she remembered his file.
She had stored it safely after linking with him for the first time because she had felt that she no longer needed it. He was a fantastic link partner and she felt safe with him, which was all she really needed to know. However, after working with Daryl for a few weeks now she was quite certain that she would view it with different eyes and maybe notice things she had missed the first time around if she were to look through it again. Clearly, there was something here that she wasn't seeing.
She couldn't wait to get home.
.-.
Even though they were no longer actively exchanging information - she was on her way home, after all, and he must not know where she was going - she could still sense his concern for her when she reeled with hunger and thirst by the time she entered her apartment. Her feet were killing her, so the first thing she did after closing her door was kick off her shoes. They had felt comfortable enough when she had put them on that morning, but obviously more than ten hours of walking around in them had changed that for good.
Stepping into the kitchen, she got herself a huge glass of water and downed half of it in one go before preparing herself a quick meal. In the back of her mind she sensed his contentment when she sat down to eat, digging into her food ravenously. The one meal he had forced her into toward evening had only taken the edge off her hunger, but hadn't really been enough to fill her at the end of a long, physically exhausting day.
Remembering his file, she got up, wiping her hands on the paper napkin next to her plate, to find it among her private things. She already started reading on her way back to the kitchen, trying to find information between the lines that she had overlooked when reading it the first time.
Sitting down again, she narrowed her eyes, looking down at the open page in front of her. It was only half a sentence, and she couldn't remember readying it before - but of course, it hadn't been important to her then. „After several years as an agent …" So he had been out there himself? Why had he stopped? She remembered the scar, and the pain attack that had overwhelmed him after today's run. What had happened?
.-.
The apartment was quiet, but didn't feel deserted. Therefore, he kept his noise to a minimum, closing the door with one hand instead of kicking it back into its maglock. Standing between the kitchen and the living room, he looked around and saw signs of Daryl's presence everywhere.
The blankets on the couch making up his bed were disturbed, which was out of character for his brother. Daryl regarded the couch as Merle's private space and was careful not to violate it. Whenever he did sit on the couch, he always took the time to straighten it again afterwards. One of the kitchen chairs stood askew in the middle of the room, and there was a glass on the drain board. Merle's insides clenched up. It wasn't like Daryl to leave stuff standing and lying around in what he considered disorder.
As Merle was currently looking at two of their three rooms and both were empty, there was only one place left where he could still find him.
He opened the door to Daryl's bedroom and stopped dead in his tracks.
His younger brother was fast asleep on his bed wearing only a T-shirt that looked too big on him, his pants crumpled in a heap on the floor next to the bed. He looked for all the world as if he had passed out in the process of going to bed rather than fallen asleep. A battered closed laptop rested on his thighs, with Daryl's left hand lying on top of it almost protectively. His right hand, curled up against his side, was still loosely holding the bottle containing his painkillers. His head had rolled to the right in his sleep, and the overhead lighting was casting the scar in his left eyebrow into sharp relief, just like it highlighted the raised straight red lines and parallel rows of small red dots lining them that marked the inside and outside of Daryl's left leg from high up on his thigh down to his ankle.
Merle immediately concentrated on Daryl's face, a look of grim determination masking his own features. Leaning down, he slid the computer out from under his brother's limp hand and put it on the nightstand. As Daryl was lying on top of his covers - sleep had surprised him big time, obviously -, Merle all but tiptoed over to the wardrobe and wrestled his door open. He got out the spare bedding blanket for his couch and unfolded it, then went back to the bed.
It was a shame that Daryl would never get to see the look of love and care on Merle's face as he gently spread the blanket over his brother.
He plucked the bottle of pills from Daryl's right hand, careful not to touch or disturb it, and pulled the blanket up over Daryl's shoulders. As a final touch, he took great care to make sure that there were no air tunnels around the edge of the blanket. He knew that Daryl hurt much more when he was cold - it was amazing that he hadn't woken up already, in fact, as his room was quite cool. Switching on the small lamp on the nightstand, he placed the bottle of painkillers and the bottle of tap water that his brother kept next to his bed on the front edge of the nightstand, within easy reach of Daryl's right hand.
Reaching out one last time, he gently swiped a strand of hair away from Daryl's left eye, his fingers brushing his brother's cheek as lightly as a feather.
Turning away from Daryl's bed, Merle left as quietly as he'd come, switching off the overhead light before closing the door.
.-.
She'd been wandering around seemingly aimlessly all day, taking turns left and right out of the blue, never arriving at a destination. At the end, toward evening, she had boarded a bus and left. He had no idea what this was about, but he would find out. He had been lucky enough to all but stumble upon her here, and the rest would be no problem at all.
He would find out where she lived.
And he would find Sophia.
And then god help her.
God help them both.