Chapter Twenty Eight
Merle scowled when he realized there was a kid in his room, sleeping soundly on a pile of blankets right next to the damn bed. The woman, Katherine, hurried in and was about to wake the kid up to move her but he shook his head. "It's been a long night, lady. Give the kid that medicine and then just leave her."
The woman looked down at the girl and then back up at him before shutting his bedroom door. He narrowed his eyes. "Can I talk to you for a second?" She asked, glancing around the room nervously.
"Lady, I don't think that husband of yours is gonna be all too happy about you bein' in here with the door shut."
She nodded. "That was what I wanted to talk to you about. He isn't my husband. Brody isn't my son. Richard lied because he said that you and your brother would probably try something if you thought I was just some single woman with a child."
He scowled and sat down on the edge of the bed. What a fucked up night. "My brother ain't like that."
"And you?"
"I'm a different story. I'm no rapist or anything but you're a good lookin' woman. I'd probably try to talk you into sharin' a bed a time or two. Then again, I don't like that Richard guy much so I probably would have hit on you eventually, even if he was your husband."
She looked shocked but then she just nodded. "Would it be too much to ask if maybe I could sleep in here too?" Her face turned three shades of red.
Merle glanced down at the sleeping girl on the floor and then back up. "I can't fuck you with your little girl in the room but if you wanna go out-"
"What! No! I meant... Oh my goodness, I wasn't meaning for us to-"
Merle huffed. "Well, I guess I don't mind that either. Can't say I'm not disappointed though."
"Oh. I... it isn't that I don't find you attractive or anything. I just-"
He sighed. "Just not the right circumstances for you to jump on my dick. No worries, lady. Get some rest." He climbed into the bed, not feeling the least bit guilty about making her sleep on the floor. It was his damn bed. He was willing to share it but he wasn't willing to give it up for anyone.
She stood there staring at him, her eyes wide and her face still flushing. He folded his arms behind his head and met her stare unflinchingly.
"So, if you ain't Dick's wife, who the hell are you?" He asked once she finally got herself to moving, grabbing the quilt at the foot of his bed.
She spread it out on the floor and looked at him. "I was his house keeper."
He lifted a brow at her. "So you're a maid. Carol is too. Last night she cleaned my brother's pipes," he grinned but she just looked at him quizzically. He shook his head. "Never mind."
"They seem very close," Katherine said quietly.
"You could say that," Merle said.
"He's extremely protective of her. His face tonight..."
He raised his head. "What's your point?"
She shrugged and then sat down on the floor. "It must be nice to have someone care so much. The world is lonely. Much more so than it was before."
He thought about that for a few moments and then shook his head. "I don't guess I feel that way. It's uglier, but I got the people I care about here. Minus a few," he added quietly.
Her dark eyes came up, meeting his. "I'm sorry you lost people."
His mood plummeted and he looked away. "Yeah, me to."
"Thank you for sharing your room. Goodnight, Merle," she said, lying down out of sight.
He reached over and killed the lantern, plunging the room into darkness.
~H~
"Be still!" Sophia hissed.
Damon shook his head but finally stopped trying to pull away from her. Piper was asleep in the bed while Sophia and Damon sat on the floor, a small candle burning between them while she tried to clean up his face. "It's nothin'," he mumbled, making a face as she wiped at the cut above his eye with an alcohol swab from the first aid kit.
"It will be if these cuts get infected," she said, wincing every time he winced from the sting of the alcohol.
"I've been in a lot worse fights than that one," Damon grumbled.
Sophia gripped his jaw and turned his head so he had to look at her. "You broke his arm. You broke his nose. I think you knocked two of his molars out. How much worse could it have gotten?"
"He hit your mom," he said, his eyes boring into hers. "He's lucky he's still able to breathe."
She shook her head. "I can't believe he thought he could get away with something like that," she said, anger causing her hands to start shaking all over again.
"Your mom is one of the good guys, you're both one of us. No Dixon would stand around and let somethin' like that happen without doing somethin' about it. I'm just glad you and Piper were up there on the roof."
She nodded. "Me too. And you're right. My mom's been through a lot already. I mean, we all have, but the way Ed used to treat her was really awful. It reminded me of that. I hope she's okay."
Damon scowled as she put a small bandage on the cut. "Your dad used to beat your mom?"
Sophia nodded. "Yeah. It was really bad. He's put her in the hospital a time or two. He's been dead for years though and it's just been me and her. Tonight she had that look in her eyes that she had back then, when he was alive."
Damon sighed and shook his head. "Man, if I'd have known that I woulda tried to get her inside before I beat the shit outta the guy. I wouldn't worry about her though. Daryl's got her."
She smiled. "What is it with those two anyway?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. It's weird but it's a good kind of weird. They're both kind of fucked up. They're good for each other. And Daryl would kill somebody before he ever let them hurt her."
She started putting everything back in the kit and pushed it into the corner. "You're suppose to be sleeping in the bed," she said as she glanced up at Piper who had one arm dangling as she breathed deeply. Worrying about her dad had really exhausted her.
He smirked. "Yeah, well, change of plans. You're stuck with me."
She met his eyes. "I'm not having sex with you."
He looked offended, placing his hand over his heart. "What kind of man do you think I am, Sophia?"
She fought a smile and shook her head. "The kind that needs forewarned that there won't be any of that happening."
They spread out the blanket a little more and they both laid down on their backs. "For what it's worth, I kind of already knew that," he said, looking up at the ceiling.
She blew out the candle and settled back, knowing that she wasn't going to be getting a whole lot of sleep. "Good."
He chuckled but he didn't say anything else. Their arms barely brushed and she took comfort in his presence.
"Damon?" She whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for doing what you did for my mom."
"We gotta take care of each other up here. If we don't then ain't none of us gonna make it very far."
~H~
Daryl didn't have to worry about waking up in the same position he had the night before. He dreamed of her but it wasn't the same. This dream was filled with bruises and blood and eyes pleading for the pain to stop. He woke up in a panic but it only lasted a few moments. The panic dissolved, leaving him feeling mostly confused.
Merle was right. He cared. He cared a whole fucking lot and he didn't understand it. The memory of the dream left him troubled and even though he tried, he couldn't go back to sleep. He was pressed against the wall, her body was pressed against his, but for once, he wasn't thinking about having sex with her.
She had been afraid of him earlier and he wasn't sure if it was all just residual fear from her time spent in an abusive marriage, if it was fear brought on by the events of the night or if maybe, deep down, she suspected that he would end up hitting her, or worse. He hated to think that she would be scared of him. He had meant what he had said to her. He was an asshole but he wouldn't ever touch her.
He opened his eyes when she mumbled in her sleep and tried to shift closer to him. There was really no physical way to get any closer than she already was, though. She rolled over until she was facing him, her arm snaking around his waist and her head tucked under his chin. She sure as shit didn't act like she was scared of him now. He wasn't sure what to do with his hands. One arm was trapped between them but the other one was aimless.
He rested his hand on her waist. He felt like he couldn't be still. He was filled with nervous energy and he glanced at the door on the other side of the dark room, longing for some kind of escape. He sighed, knowing he wouldn't leave her here by herself and he wouldn't be able to pry her off of him without waking her up.
She sighed heavily, her breath warming his shirt. "That feels good," she whispered.
His eyes snapped open again and he realized that the tips of his fingers were moving over her side, lightly tracing invisible patterns onto her skin. Without thinking he had slipped his hand under the thin material of her shirt and let his fingers move over her. He stilled, feeling like a creep.
"And again I have to open my big mouth and ruin it," she breathed. He could feel the smile in her voice. He felt her try to move away so she wasn't pressed against him but he tightened his hold on her, forcing her to stay where she was. She settled back into him.
He continued doing what he had been doing, his fingers moving in an aimless pattern across her skin, only this time he was very aware of what he was doing. Aware of the way she would squirm slightly and goosebumps formed when he would hit a particularly sensitive spot. He refused to let his mind drift to places other than where he was at the moment. He refused to think about how the rest of her body might feel under his touch. He focused on this. He focused on just being in a moment, instead of worrying about how he would feel about it when the sun came up.
His fingers made a slow path up her ribs and she squirmed, tightening her hold around his waist when he brought them back down her sides. On his journey back up his thumb grazed the side of her breast and he froze as she squirmed again. He swallowed thickly, sure that she thought he did it on purpose. He really hadn't meant to do it but she would never believe that. Reluctantly he slipped his hand around to her back tracing her spine and pretending that he hadn't noticed.
But God, he had noticed. He knew that she noticed. Why did things have to be like this with them?
