Chapter 13

They were about a day and a half from Terminus when Joe had them stop for the night. They made themselves at home in an old farmhouse which looked more decrepit on the outside than it actually was on the inside and right away, Michelle had disappeared onto the second floor. Being smaller and faster than her male counterparts had it's advantages at times.

She'd quickly found what she was looking for and a moment later, a scraping could be heard all the way down to the first floor, attracting the attention of the others. Soon after, Dan's heavy footsteps made themselves heard as he climbed the stairs as well as echos of claims being laid in the kitchen and living room. She was smiling to herself, looking in the large master bedroom as the large man reached the landing.

"I claim that bedroom," he said, reaching a hand to shove her out of the way. But a second later, he felt the end of her walking stick pressed against his neck, still wet with blood from the walker she'd put down earlier.

"Can't you read?" She snarled, closing the bedroom door to show the word CLAIMED scratched into the wood in bloody red letters. "That one's taken, go find another." She pulled the wooden stick back, leaving behind its imprint as Dan raised his hands in surrender. He backed up to the stairs, before shouting down that he claimed the kids' room. As he closed the door to it behind him, he gave her one more uncertain look, whispering something she didn't catch under his breath.

Feeling pretty pleased with herself, she leaned against the railing and whistled loudly, calling out Daryl's name. A second or so later, he was taking the steps two-by-two. She was grinning like the cat that got the cream as he reached the top. "We're in here," she told him, pointing at her walkers blood graffiti on the bedroom door. The expression on his face fell somewhere between impressed and unsure as she took her backpack from him and stepping inside. "An actual bed and a lock on the door," she mentioned, turning around to see him still standing in the doorway. "I might actually get a good night sleep for the first time in ages."

He closed the door behind him once he finally stepped inside, looking around the room. The large wooden bed filled most of the it, along with a massive chest of drawers topped with a mirror and an upholstered chair in a corner next to a bookshelf. The room was surprisingly nice, the whole house was actually and didn't look like it had been looted, except for some items downstairs like the television; probably very early after the world fell apart, back when people still bothered taking those kinds of things rather than food and clothes. If they weren't already planning to go to Terminus, hoping to find Beth, this could be a good place to start over.

"I'll take the chair," he eventually said.

She turned away from the drawer she was currently going through, picking out any and all clothes that might work for either of them, and frowned at him. She looked from him to the king-size bed to that chair in the corner and then back, trying to figure out why he'd say such a thing. Surely he couldn't worry about sleeping near her, after all, they'd been sleeping in closer quarters than that large bed for weeks now. At first they'd have Beth laying between them but over the last few nights, they'd actually been back to back. But now he would choose a armchair over a chance to sleep in a real bed? Sometimes she wondered what was going on in that head of his.

"Up to you," she shrugged, it was his decision after all, even if it stung a bit. "...I wasn't planning to touch you up in your sleep if that's what you were worried about."

It wasn't, really. He hadn't even thought about that possibility to be honest, but the idea of sleeping in the same bed as her had brought back that same feeling of shame and guilt he'd felt when Beth had caught him looking at her, that one afternoon by the stream. That icy hand that grabbed at his inside and twisting them around as he tried to look anywhere other than his companion. To him, sleeping back to back for protection was one thing, sleeping in the same bed in a safe place was another entirely.

On the one hand, he wished he could explain that to her, that she wasn't the problem, but on the other, that would mean sharing far more than he felt comfortable doing. By the time it had taken him to come up with some sort of reply, she'd turned back to the chest of drawers, continuing her scavenging, and he figured that dropping the subject was the best way to go.

They were both sitting on the bed with their backs to the headboard, enjoying some of the canned goods he'd claimed from the kitchen while Michelle had been scratching out their claim in the bedroom door. Sitting together like that was the best way he could think of to show some good faith, regarding the bed situation. They'd finished up two cans of tuna and were slowly working their way through a large container of fruit salad, passing it back and forth between them; there hadn't been much talk between them since her last comment, and much to his own surprise, he found himself trying to coax her into a conversation.

"The girl in the photo," he started tentatively, hiding his mouth behind his hand as he tended to do when he was nervous. "That was your sister?"

She nodded, placing the can of fruit on the bedside table before pulling her backpack onto her lap. She pulled out the photograph and carefully, handed it over to him. With this silent permission, he wiped his hand on his pants and took it, looking at the two smiling teenagers; one of them had long light brown hair while the other kept her black hair in a ponytail, the first one's big hazel eyes lit up her soft features which contrasted with the other girl's plain looks and dark brown eyes.

"Yeah, that was my Ellie," she said, leaning in a bit to look at the photo. "My mom took it a few days after her last birthday. We even made her get doubles so we could both have a copy..."

He didn't quite know what to say, this was really personal for her and, for some reason, she was sharing it with him. "She was pretty," he commented, hoping it was the right thing to say, and feel reassured as she smiled and nodded.

"She was, definitely. She was the pretty one and the funny one, my sister. A real double threat," Michelle mentioned, with pride in her voice. Her love for her sister was plain for anyone to see, it reminded him of how Andrea used to be with Amy. "She left me no choice than to try and be the smart one, because otherwise, I would have been the wallflower to my sister's life of the party."

He found that hard to believe, that Michelle could been the wallflower type at any point of her life. She could be quiet, and then again, so could he, but that didn't mean either of them faded in the background. Although, thinking back to when Merle was still alive, how he was constantly in his shadow, struggling to find some way to set himself apart, maybe she was on to something. The end of the world seemed to have changed both of them into a person they wouldn't have been if the dead hadn't started coming back to eat living.

"Beth said you had a brother," she said, somewhat hesitant. He didn't talk about himself much and she'd been good about respecting that, but she was curious and now that he'd opened the door, she felt it was fair to ask.

"Yeah, Merle."

"Older or younger?"

"Older, by almost nine years."

She listened to his short answers, it wasn't much but it was still nice to get to know the man she'd been traveling with for weeks now. Sitting here, eating fruit salad and talking, it made everything feel almost normal which was strange and foreign but also, refreshing. She wasn't too sure that she wanted this reality to ever feel truly normal, but not being frightened and on her guard even for a short moment felt nice.

"How long ago did you lose him?"

"About six months," he replied after a moment, taking the can from her hand and finishing the last of the syrup at the bottom. He tried to block the images of Merle's dead eyes as he stumbled toward him and, luckily, her voice took him back to the present with just one word: sorry. "You probably wouldn't be if you'd known him..."

"Maybe, but I didn't. I do know you though, even if just a little, and he was your brother, and I know how much a loss like that can hurt... So, yeah, I'm sorry that you lost him..."

Silence came over them as they got lost in their own thoughts. The room grew darker as the sun set bellow the treeline, downstairs, Joe's group was arguing about something or other. Finally, she sat on the edge of the bed, unlacing her boots before throwing them in a corner. She took off the button-down he'd lent her a few days prior and placed it delicately on the chest of drawer. Lastly, she removed her glasses, folding them up and placing them of the bedside table. As she folded back the bedsheets, he realized she was getting ready for bed and move over to the rather uncomfortable armchair.

He observed her for a moment, he'd never seen her without her glasses on before, even at night, she would simply slide her gas mask on to protect them in case she rolled on them as she slept. She looked different without them, so much more like her teenage self from the photograph.

"Goodnight."

"Sleep well, Daryl," she mumbled back, the second half of his name fading into silence, her breathing slowing as she was slept away into the first good night of sleep she'd had in months.