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
Chapter Seventeen
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
Lochie sighed, leaning back against the tree and squinting across at T-Dog who was on watch. They still hadn't decided what to do with themselves, Rick didn't want them splitting up and risking getting cut off from each other but they couldn't stay here forever. They were all hungry and tired and sitting in the open was by no means safe. In the end Cassidy and Daryl had agreed to go scouting ahead to see what they could find. Rick hadn't been keen on losing his two best chances of survival but, as Daryl had argued, the two of them were most likely to stay alive and be able to find the rest of them should they be forced to move in their absence.
She glanced across at Rick who was discussing something with Daryl. Daryl was nodding, every now and then injecting a reply but his gaze kept flickering over Rick's shoulder. Lochie followed the direction of his bright blue eyes, already knowing what she'd see. Cassidy and Carl had moved a little away from the others, sitting on the back of the powder blue truck. They were deep in conversation, strands of Cassidy's long red hair lifting in the breeze. Lochie kicked at the ground gloomily. No one had ever looked at her that way, not once… Urgh, she was definitely going sappy. She needed to get a grip on herself.
She blinked when she realised that Rick was talking to T-Dog and Carol a few feet away. Eventually he made his way over to her looking serious. He came to a halt besides her, his shadow falling over her thighs. She looked up when he said he wanted to speak to her.
"Look Sheriff, can we just skip the 'you're a great girl, but' speech? I'm really not in the mood."
He frowned, sinking down onto his haunches besides her.
"You are a great girl." He said quietly and she could feel him staring intently at her bowed head.
"Go on." She said cheekily and his lips flickered irresistibly into a smile. She sighed. "You're married. You're almost twice my age. The world is in the toilet. We might die any second. You have to show that these idiots can trust you, which they probably won't if they find out you kissed me." She paused for breath, feeling thoroughly miserable. "Save your breath, Sheriff. I know all the reasons you're going to use." She leaned forwards so suddenly that he reeled backwards in surprise, automatically catching her shoulders to keep his balance. "And do you know what? I don't care."
He stared at her, seemingly at a complete loss for words. Lochie knew that T-Dog and Carol were trying not to stare and that Lori was glaring a hole into Rick's broad shoulders. Oh so after treating him like garbage she gets all bent out of shape over this? Lochie sorely wanted to kiss him, just to hear Lori's hypocritical moral outrage. He was still looking at her as if she'd hit him over the head with something extremely heavy. His eyes flickered down to her lips, her cheeks pink with emotion and her eyes glittering brightly.
"Now. If you want to hide behind your excuses, that's fine. But I am not your whining two-faced wife and I will not sit back while you drown yourself in your own guilt. So if you want to put me off, try harder."
"I-" He paused, chewed on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully for a moment, then cocked an eyebrow. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like you." He said ruefully, sighing in a surrendering sort of way.
"Nope." She gave him a sad sort of grin that made guilt prickle in his stomach. "And you never will either." Lochie leaned back against the tree, closing her eyes tiredly. "I hope she's worth it, Sheriff. There isn't much point in being any more miserable than you have to be nowadays."
Rick stared at her for a moment longer but she kept her eyes shut tightly. He would never leave his pregnant wife, no matter how he felt. She knew that. Even if it might not be his baby. She glared at Lori who had flounced away from Rick before he'd even reached her. He scrubbed his hands over his face irritably, flicking a glance at her over his shoulder. Lochie stared impassively back. The sooner he wised up to Lori's attitude problem the better.
"So what's with the long face, Eeyore?"
Carl smiled weakly but he didn't laugh. He was glowering down at the grassy verge beneath the truck from under his hat, swinging his legs jerkily.
"I killed Shane." He blurted abruptly, sounding as if he expected her to spit at him or something.
She waited calmly without commenting and eventually Carl managed to get the whole story out. The parts he knew anyway. Cassidy pieced the rest of it together with what Daryl had told her earlier.
"So you shot a walker." She clarified bluntly.
Carl winced.
"Shane-"
"Was already dead." She interrupted. "It wasn't Shane anymore. You know that. Those things wandering around out there, they're just bodies. Bits of meat. Not people. Not anymore."
Carl didn't look convinced, he'd clearly heard all this from both of his parents. Cassidy studied him carefully for a long moment, then she sighed.
"Okay kid, listen up. I've never told anyone this before."
"Not even Lochie?" Carl asked suspiciously, peering at her from under the brim of the huge hat.
"Not even Lochie." She confirmed.
"Or Daryl?"
"Daryl is very good at figuring things out on his own." Cassidy conceded with a wry grin. "But I haven't had this conversation with him, no."
Carl was so surprised that she was actually going to tell him one of her many secrets that he forgot to look so miserable.
"Do you know what I did before this all happened?" She asked him. "I killed people. For a living."
He gaped at her. His mouth hung open for so long that when he tried to speak his voice came out as a croak. Cassidy held a hand up to halt him.
"There are three kinds of killers in this world, kid. The kind who kill because they have to, like you did. The kind who kill for pleasure. And the kind who kill for profit. Like me."
"But the people you…" Carl broke off with a gulp. "They were bad people, right?"
Cassidy looked him in the eye, her face drawn and tired but deadly serious.
"Some of them probably were. Some of them might not have been. I never asked why. I took the money and I did what I was paid to do. A lot of people would say I'm evil."
"I don't think you're evil." He hurriedly offered.
She gave him a weak smile.
"It's alright if you're afraid of me."
"I'm not!" Carl snapped shrilly, blushing pink when she eyed him in amusement. "You're still my friend. You never hurt me. Why should I be afraid of you?" He sounded almost defiant.
"Well okay then." Cassidy nudged him with her shoulder playfully and he grinned. "So a little less of the guilt-ridden sulking, please?" She jerked her thumb at Lochie who was looking very serious with Rick under a nearby tree. "We only need one emo around here and she's got the wardrobe for it."
Carl laughed, looking marginally happier and she ruffled his hair. He gave her a long considering look.
"You lost your bag."
She blinked at him in surprise.
"Your sister's stuff…"
She shrugged, not at all pleased to discover a lump in her throat.
"It's just stuff." She waved it off absently. "It was stupid to keep hanging onto it, anyway. Just slows you down."
She leapt down from the truck and his frown returned.
"You are going to come back, aren't you?"
"Obviously. I'm here, aren't I? Besides." She leaned down to whisper into his ear as Daryl made his approach. "I've got Dixon over here to protect me. I feel safer already."
She winked as she followed Daryl away and Carl hurriedly buried his giggles behind his hand.
"You good?" Daryl grunted, breaking the tense silence that had surrounded them for the past few hours.
"Fantastic. If I never see the fucking woods again, it'll be too soon." She muttered, swiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm.
Daryl shot her a look and she glared back stubbornly. Before she could open her mouth Daryl tensed as if turned to stone. Cassidy knew better than to question him and she let him grip her wrist, yank her towards him and toss her rather unceremoniously into a clump of bushes. Thorny bushes.
Before Cassidy could quite organise her limbs into a more comfortable position, the ground beneath them gave a sickening rumble and then vanished. Only the pair of them becoming entangled in the netting holding the camouflaged flooring prevented them from a very nasty, and probably rather sticky, end. Cassidy retrieved Joseph's knife from inside her jeans and cut them loose. They landed with an unceremonious thump on the muddy ground, inches from the planted sharpened branches.
"Nice instincts, hunter." She said pointedly as Daryl checked his bow for damage. "For a minute there we almost got caught in a trap."
He snarled at her, almost exactly like an animal caught in a trap and she rolled her eyes. Before either of them could start an argument that would most definitely become unpleasant, they were distracted by the tell-tale shuffling of a walker. Its distorted shadow passed over them but came to a halt, staggering around the edges of the hole. Daryl clapped an unnecessary hand over her mouth, pressing her back firmly against the muddy wall of the hole. They were a few feet down, not close enough to be reached or smelt by the walker. If they kept out of sight it should just keep going.
There was a loud startled shriek followed by the thunder of frantic running hooves and then the crash as something heavy hit the leafy floor. Cassidy tensed, eyes fixed firmly on the rim of the hole. The walker was huffing and whatever had fallen nearby was shrieking and thrashing around wildly. It sounded like it might be a deer. Cassidy shivered and Daryl cut her a swift glance. The shrieking was becoming gurgling and the thrashing became even more frantic. Neither of them had to guess very hard at what was going on.
"We'll have to wait it out." Daryl said quietly, dropping down onto the ground with his bow propped on his knee.
Cassidy followed suit, trying not to listen to the noises still drifting down from above them. That amount of racket would draw every walker in miles right on top of them. They could be down here for a long time.
"How badly do you think Rick is freaking out right about now?" Cassidy commented idly.
"Not as bad as Lochie will be." Daryl grunted.
Cassidy snorted. It was completely pitch black. They'd been sat down there for hours, listening to the walkers feasting on the trapped dear. It had been quiet for a couple of hours now but Daryl wasn't ready to try their luck yet.
"So." Daryl said quietly as if they were merely continuing a conversation they'd started earlier. "The scum who-" He paused with a confused frown. "Hurt your sister. Is that when you started-" He broke off.
Cassidy stared. She had been expecting something about her attack, not digging deep into her past.
"You really want to have this conversation?"
He couldn't see her at all even though he knew she was so close, just the sparkle of her eyes in the blackness around them.
"Not likely to get a better time."
She didn't reply for a moment, sitting silently besides him in the dark.
"They weren't my first." She finally said slowly. "I worked my way up to them. I hadn't planned on becoming this. I tried to hire someone, that's how I got into it. It took a long time to find someone serious, we're not exactly easy to find… not anyone good enough, anyway. I finally found a real professional when I was eighteen. I met him in a bar, told him everything. He listened to everything I had to say without saying one word. When I was done he looked at me some more… then he asked if I really wanted a stranger to do it… or would I rather learn how to do it myself." She broke off for a moment, lapsing into thoughtful silence. "I still don't know what made him offer me that chance… what he saw in me. How he knew I had it in me to be a killer. He told me to think about it."
He felt her lean back besides him and her body was rigid, muscles hard as iron and tight with tension. She'd taken on the same rigid tone as when she'd told him about her sister.
"It really doesn't take that much work to be a trained killer, you know." There was something under her tone, almost as if she were warning him. "You either have it in you or you don't. It's not nearly as glamorous as it looks on the big screen. I already knew how to fight, I'd been taking lessons since I was eleven. In the end there really isn't any training that can prepare you." She sighed. "Mikael taught me a lot; picking locks, how to trail someone without being seen, weapons training obviously, poisons and sedatives, torture techniques…"
He felt her eyes burning into him but he didn't reply, waiting for her to continue.
"I didn't use torture. Too messy. Complicated. Leaves too much evidence." He felt her shrug. "I was quite good, you know. Developing a reputation, raking in cash."
"You didn't torture them? Not even-"
There was a heavy silence between them and he felt her tense up even further, coiled like a spring until it must have been painful for her.
"You've only killed walkers so you wouldn't know… the intimacy when you kill someone. It creates such a connection between you, like you take a piece of them into yourself that you can never be rid of. I couldn't stand to be connected to them in any way. Not any more than we already are. Mikael did it. I didn't even watch. When it came to it I couldn't. I sat in an expensive hotel room in Paris, watching crappy movies while it was happening. I suppose it was a sort of intimacy, having Mikael do it." She snorted in a sort of flat amusement. "Even if I had to pay him to do it."
Daryl felt jealousy snaking to life in his gut, clawing up through his lungs and his hand clenched convulsively on the bow in his lap. His breathing must have hitched because she was looking at him again. Her eyes shining brightly. She read him as well in the dark as she could in the light and she stifled a snicker.
"Don't worry, he didn't initiate me into the arts of love-making while he was at it." She mocked. "I wasn't his type." He felt her hand snaking down his thigh. "I'm missing a vital piece of anatomy. So. Do we do your murky past now?"
He remained silent but she wasn't surprised. She pressed in tighter against his side and he felt her head nuzzling into the crook between his chin and shoulder.
"I don't suppose it really matters anymore. Who we were." She felt the scratch of his stubble against her forehead as he turned towards her in the dark. "I guess we could be whoever we want to be now."
"Who do you want to be?" He asked in a very strange voice, his breath warm against her hair.
"I don't know. I always liked who I was anyway." He felt her smile against his collarbone, the silky tickle of her long eyelashes as she blinked. "I wouldn't have minded being a princess though." She said thoughtfully.
"A princess." He snorted in disbelief.
"What's wrong with that? You get to wear a crown, order people around a lot and no one can answer back."
His silence was completely disbelieving.
"Hey you've only seen me in my casual clothes, I can assure you that once I slip into an expensive dress I could blend in with the best of the royal crowd."
Now that he did believe.
"Sure." He felt her smirking against him. "I bet you'd be the only broad there who went commando under that expensive finery, though."
"Hey! That only happened once and if that creepy Count hadn't tried to put his hand down the back of it, no one would have ever known what was under that dress." She paused thoughtfully for a moment. "I love that dress. Black velvet. Floor length. Backless. Couldn't wear underwear without ruining the line. Made my ass look incredible." She sighed. "Probably gone along with all the rest of my worldly belongings."
"I can't believe we're sitting here talkin' about clothes." He grumbled.
She opened her mouth to retort but hurriedly snapped it closed when something splattered her face. She touched it warily but it wasn't warm or foul smelling as anything from a walker would be. It tasted like rain. Great. Within minutes it had become a deluge, heavy raindrops thundering onto their exposed heads and drenching their clothes.
"We just have all the luck." Cassidy grumbled, swiping her sopping hair out of her eyes.
He felt her scramble to her feet, a sudden cool draught filling the space and chilling his side where she'd been sitting. Her feet sank straight into the churning mud, sucking her down a few inches. He could only see her outline through the backdrop of sheets of silver rain.
"Come on, boost me up before we drown down here." She ordered.
He cupped his hands so she could clamber out of the hole, slipping and sliding against the muddy walls. It had been well made but not reinforced and the mud was crumbling in slick chunks, rolling over both of them as they climbed out of the hole. What was left of the deer lay to one side. A few walkers were still grouped around it but the sheets of rain masked them and their scent from the predators. They stayed as low and as silent as they could when the ground kept absorbing their heavily booted feet and each footstep emitted a loud sucking noise. Cassidy was quite content to follow Daryl's lead. The trees all looked exactly the same to her through the rain, which was only getting heavier, but Daryl seemed to know where he was going. She kept close to his back so she didn't lose him, keeping just enough distance between them in case they were attacked.
If they were attacked it would be impossible to see it coming through this. If it was this bad in the midst of a bunch of trees, she'd hate to see how bad it was out on the road. She thought longingly of the creepy farm that had at least included an intermittently warm shower. She could feel mud slick on every inch of her. It had soaked into her clothes and clung damply to her bare skin. The rain didn't seem to be washing it away either, if anything it was caking it on even more. Her jeans felt as if they weighed a ton and the shirt was almost nonexistent it was so wet, except where splotches of mud streaked it.
As graceful as she was, her feet were sliding all over the place as they traipsed along the waterlogged path. After a while the trees started to thin which would have made visibility a little better if it hadn't merely let more rain pour down on them.
"You know Rick is totally going to lay an egg when he finds out we've been gone for so long and we haven't found anything." Cassidy muttered as they emerged from the trees which sort of like stepping out of a shower and into a waterfall. "I didn't even think this sort of rain existed."
He ignored her, squinting through the rain up and down the road. They had only emerged a few yards from where they'd been camping but the area was deserted. Figuring they would do what they'd done with Sophia if they'd left of their own accord, Daryl stamped over to the truck Rick had been driving and yanked the door open. Scrawled in what looked like lipstick on the inside of the window was a short message telling them they'd had to move further down the road.
"We could keep going, catch up to them in a few hours." Cassidy estimated, touching the sticky lipstick to see how long it had been on the window.
She didn't think it was possible to actually get any wetter, her clothes were completely saturated and the rain was now simply bouncing off her. Her hair was so wet the weight had dragged it out of the knot she'd tied it into.
"Won't get two feet in this." He grunted darkly.
"Okay then."
She circled around the truck to where they'd moved Daryl's bike. It was sheltered between the truck and a tree and, given the slanting direction of the rain, was almost dry. She dug around in his saddle bags until she'd retrieved a relatively clean towel. She clambered into the back seat of the truck. Whilst the rain was still thundering down, it was still tolerably warm. The sudden downpour had not broken the muggy weather and Cassidy had no problems stripping down to her underwear to dry off with the towel. Daryl followed her in, taking the front seat once he was sure all the doors were locked and secured. The towel hit him in the face with a slap and he glowered. She smiled back at him sweetly, completely naked apart from the patches of mud.
"Hope they don't come back, that'd be awkward." She sighed, wiping a small clean patch on the window.
"Ya gonna sit like that all night?"
She shrugged, shooting him a wicked glance over her shoulder.
"Well I would slip into my favourite flannel pyjamas but they don't seem to be at hand right now."
If he'd been about to laugh he swallowed it when he glimpsed the bruises on her thighs and the tazer burns still vivid on her delicate skin.
"Come on, Dixon." She sighed. "Not now. Let it go."
He threw open the truck door and disappeared into the driving rain. She peered after him miserably. She had always been able to tease him out of his moods before but this time he wasn't biting. She wasn't sure what to do. She had wanted to show him that she was okay, that she'd been shaken by what had happened but that she was strong too. But now she was starting to think that his sullen mood wasn't because of how she was dealing with what had happened to her, it was how he was dealing with it. She had no idea what to do with that. It had been so long since anyone but her had been affected by her escapades. She grabbed the towel from the front seat and wrapped it around her riskier zones, huddling miserably in it. This was why she didn't get involved with people.
She managed to hide her surprise when he reappeared, shoulders squared against the thundering rain as he yanked the door open and tossed something at her. He shook himself like a dog, which made almost no difference whatsoever, then climbed back into the car. Cassidy looked down at the bundle of material in her lap. It was one of her sweaters, an overly long grey one which almost fell to her knees when she had it on. She must have left it in his tent at some point. He was muttering to himself in the front seat as he stripped off his vest and carefully placed his bow on the dashboard.
"Well put it on." He snapped when he saw her still sitting there looking at the sweater with a strange look on her face.
"Dixon." She said sharply. "I'm in the back seat of a truck. I'm naked."
"I know." His vest landed with a discernable slop on the floor of the truck, weighed down by the water. "That's why I nearly drowned out there getting it."
"Dixon." She repeated irritably. "If you don't get your ass back here with me in three seconds flat, I will beat you to within an inch of your life."
He lifted his head to glare at her but she grabbed the front of his soaking shirt and yanked him over the front seat. He scrambled to catch his balance, swearing as his knee caught on the seat and he floundered face first into the rather stained musty backseat. She was giggling and he struggled to right himself so he could tear her a new one but then her mouth was there, pressed teasingly against his sending lightening through his veins. Sparks flew between them as her familiar fingers relieved him of his shirt. He kicked off his waterlogged boots as she pushed him down against the seat, her body warm and inviting above him. Her hair was dripping over her bare shoulder, the water running in rivulets into hidden corners of his body as she pressed tiny kisses along his throat, nipping gently at his earlobes. He opened his mouth reluctantly to tell her that she didn't have to do this but her hand clapped over it.
"I'm going to have my way with you, redneck. So shut up."
She felt him smirking against her wet fingers, his hands sliding under the damp towel.
"Have it your way, lady."
She grinned.
SaraLostInes - :D:D
LisaBoston – thanks, glad you enjoyed it
SharonH – I am too :D if I had my way she wouldn't find her way back to them at all, useless woman
LadyLecter47 – thanks I feel loved :)
eloquent dreams – I'm glad you liked it, I think I'm going to run a little wild until the new series comes back on :D
Synvara – I hated Lori right from the beginning, she's just so pointless. There will be some Lori bashing in the next chapter and I actually can't wait to write it lol I'm so twisted.
Samwise252 – thanks here you go
JTellersOldLady – me too, Daryl definitely deserves some love!