Lucy didn't catch up to Daryl till mid afternoon by the time they gathered supplies and prepared to leave Atlanta. She was pissed that he blew her off all morning but maybe he just felt funny with everyone around. She was ready to give him a pass on the bad behavior from that morning, but he was actively avoiding her.
She finally found herself near him and out of ear shot of everyone else as they were loading cars and deciding which way to get back to the main road. Lucy watched his shoulders tense as she began to speak.
"Hey,"
"Hey," Daryl replied and he seemed annoyed. He was miles away from where they had been just the day before. His attitude was worse than it had ever been, he was wound up and angry almost.
They worked side by side not saying a word for a few minutes and Lucy had a feeling that everything had changed, he was so cold. She took out a cigarette and lit it, took a drag and offered it to him.
"Share?"
"No," He was purposefully being short with her and she wasn't taking the hint. He hated like hell to be this way but it was what was best for her. He would have to make sure she understood that he was not good for her.
"Daryl, is there something wrong? Are you upset with me?"
"Nope."
"Can we talk, I feel like we need to…"
"Just leave me alone Lucy," He stopped loading the truck for a second and faced her, "I was just trying to get laid, ok that's all it was?" He hissed, "Just scratching an itch, nothing more."
Lucy stopped dead in the road, "What did you just say to me?" She could not believe the audacity of him.
"You heard me," He snapped and started walking back to the pile of supplies to load more stuff up again without looking back at her. A few of their friends heard what was going on, including Merle, who just shook his head.
Daryl didn't know how to get out of his own way.
She furious now, it was like he was a totally different person, and she yelled across the street at him, she didn't care who heard it either, "Fuck you, Daryl, fuck all the way off!"
Everyone heard that and nobody said a word as they got into their respective vehicles, Lucy climbed into the RV passenger side, Amy and Marylee climbed in the back. She stared straight ahead the entire way out of Atlanta lost in her thoughts and full of regret. But she didn't cry, she was not giving that son of a bitch her tears.
Daryl told Merle to shut the fuck up before he even said a word when he got into the truck. Andrea was on the bench seat between them and she just shook her head. Nobody spoke in that vehicle either.
/
Lucy sat down in the adirondack chair outside and lit a cigarette, taking a long drag and blowing it up towards the night sky. It was quiet, she could hear the crickets and see fireflies out in the field before her. The sky was clear and in the distance she could see Daryl walking the perimeter of the property on watch again, they were not speaking to each other.
The group was on the road to Ft. Benning, but the highways were congested and they were having difficulty getting past the cars that died in the streets, they also had seen other people, and they didn't look friendly. So they got off the road every night, no matter where they were to avoid others.
Lucy and Daryl had not told anyone about what had happened to them on the road, but it was unspoken, others were to be avoided. He might have been the one to suggest that to Rick, she didn't know because they were successfully avoiding each other.
Glenn joined her as she sat on the front porch of the house they were staying in for the night. It was an old tract house, in a gated community that had been abandoned but it would do for the group to rest for a night or two. Ft. Benning was 100 miles away, this was going to take a long time, it was disheartening.
There just didn't seem to be any rush now. The disappointment at the CDC made them a little wary of what might lie ahead for them. Everyone was dragging for one reason or another, it was like there was a cloud over them now.
Jenner had said there was no hope and maybe he had been right. Lucy had a conversation with Rick at dinner and he seemed troubled, but he denied it. Maybe he was just feeling it too, things had not turned out the way they expected, for any of them.
Lucy wasn't sleeping again, just like before they had joined the group and her sister was worried about her. As usual when she was wounded about something Lucy had been avoiding everyone all day and Marylee had asked Glenn to talk to her.
Glenn was quite sure that whatever was bothering her she would keep to herself, he had been asking her for days already. Lucy was being tight lipped and so was Daryl and both of them were in a bad mood.
He knew what it was anyway. The day she and Daryl had gotten to the CDC they were practically holding hands with heart eyes, and their feelings for each other were written all over their faces..
Now they hadn't said a word to each other in four days that Glenn could tell and Lucy was upset or at least tense over it, Daryl was too in his own way.
In the distance they could still see him with the crossbow slung over his shoulder out in the shadows, along with Shane, walking the yard to keep them all safe.
"You ok?" Glenn asked as he sat in the chair next to her.
"Yeah, why?"
"You've been…" Glenn shrugged, surely she knew how she had been and he was worried about her.
"I'm ok."
No she wasn't.
"What's going on with you and Daryl?"
"Nothing now." Slipped out before she could stop it, she was still so mad at him, and she needed someone to talk to. She couldn't tell Marylee about this and Andrea and Merle were out on a run. It would have been easier to discuss this with Andrea but now that she had started, it was going to be Glenn.
"Did you two..?"
Lucy nodded and Glenn's eyes bugged out of his head. He was so expressive and it was so easy to read him.
"Don't act so scandalized," Lucy laughed, Glenn looked like he wanted to climb under a rock. But he was oddly curious, Lucy had fucked Daryl and now they weren't speaking. It was like a bad '80's movie.
"Was it?..."
"Amazing, yeah, and now this bastard is giving me the cold shoulder, which is fine, fuck him," She answered.
"Well…" Glenn laughed nervously.
"Yeah I know," She exhaled, "I already did."
"You knew I would say it…"
"Of course," She gave a slight smile, and shook her head with a laugh, " It's fine Glenn, I'm fine."
"Marylee said you havent been sleeping."
"It'll pass, it always does," She shrugged, he wasn't the first guy to dump her. She had really felt something though, a true connection and he had felt it too, but apparently didn't want it at all.
"Like a kidney stone full of blood and pain…"
"It was just a thing, and now it's over…" She answered, "That's all."
/
Shane and Daryl remained out in the field and they were silent. Unlike Glenn and Lucy who were having a heart to heart, they didn't say a word. Daryl was having trouble detaching from her, and he had never gone through this before. It had always been so easy to put a woman out of his mind.
It took as long as it took to put his boots back on to forget any girl he had ever been with. This whole thing had backfired on him, he wanted so much more than a quick fuck with Lucy but his instinct was to end it before they were in too deep. He had almost got her killed, and if that had happened he never would have forgiven himself.
What he had told her before had been the truth. He had never had a girlfriend and he had never wanted one. Then he wanted her for his own, but it wasn't meant to be, it could never be.
"You should tell her before it's too late," Shane said out of the blue.
"What?"
"Lucy, you should…"
"Ain't nothing going on with her and me Walsh," Daryl snapped.
"I'm just saying, I dropped the ball on the most important conversation of my life," It was unspoken between them what and who he was talking about, "Don't make the same mistake, life's way too short now man."
"Don't tell me what I should do and not do ok?" Daryl hissed.
"Don't be like me."
Daryl turned to see Merle approaching, in the distance he could see Lucy and Glenn sitting on the porch, she was smoking like a chimney all day and he knew it was his fault.
"Lucy says hi," Merle said just to poke the snake a little.
"Merle I know goddamn well she didn't say that, why you got to be this way."
"Cause you're being a dick to a sweet girl who cares about you…" Sweet girl, that was what he had called her. Come here sweet girl.
If he told them what happened on the road maybe they'd understand, but he couldn't even put his fear into words. He had nightmares about it where there was more than one guy, and they held him down while they each assaulted her. Sleeping was horrifying to him, and every dream ended with him watching Lucy die and him powerless to stop it.
He knew Shane and Merle were right, he was being an unnecessary dick, but they didn't know what happened. This way if anything happened he wouldn't hesitate and she wouldn't have to go through what she went through because he couldn't pull the trigger.