Disclaimer: TWD does not belong to me.
A week later she tries again. Maybe she got a little full of herself, silently dancing down the stairs, already thinking of rushing through the creek and longing for the screech of an owl at her back. Conveniently, she ignored the fact that Daryl had known she snuck outside, the tea and mug a little reminder that he was watching.
But he hadn't said anything all week.
Sitting on the last step, Lydia slips her shoes on, her eyes wide in the dark. Her hand is on the doorknob when the kitchen light flicks on.
"You should be sleeping," Daryl says without any heat. It's barely above a whisper, but his voice carries in the dead silence.
Caught, Lydia pinches her shoulders and releases the knob. "So should you," she returns, just as softly.
"Can't argue with ya here." His chuckle draws her into the kitchen like a moth to flame.
Daryl's at the table with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. Lydia copies his stance and waits for the reprimand. But, instead of shooing her back upstairs, he slides a steaming mug across the table.
He's always surprisingly kind despite his gruffness and she's had a hard time reconciling that. She's only known strength as violence and kindness as weakness.
It's a trap, she thinks, even as she pulls back a chair. The drink will keep her at the table, probably fill her with that sleepy herb and by the time Daryl says goodnight, her eyelids will drop and with them, her chance to be in the night. Is she giving in when she accepts the offer and sits? Has she lost her taste for conflict, the urge to fight that her mother meticulously impressed on her?
Lydia ponders this as she takes a sip.
"Ya gonna tell me why yer sneakin' out in the middle of the night?"
"No," she says.
"No?" He presses gently.
Lydia shrugs and repeats an excuse she'd heard other kids say, "It's just something to do."
"Is that right?"
In between sips, Lydia hums her response and that's the end of it.
So much for a reprimand.
The heat from the mug permeates her scabs from the other night. She thinks back to then, when she had been so sure she had escaped unnoticed, only to be welcomed back by tea and a mug. Now, under the curtain of her hair, she eyes the man she once mistook for Henry's father. Circumstance had thrust her into his care. There had been plenty of chances for him to leave her, pass her onto someone else, or turn a blind eye while she disappears, but here he is, at the kitchen table with his own mug.
She doesn't know why she suddenly wants to pick a fight but she does. "I hate this place," she says with conviction she doesn't actually feel.
Daryl runs his hands over the table and sighs. "I hated it too, at first."
Her eyes narrow; apparently she can't goad Daryl into chiding her for being childish, for not being thankful for everything here. Lydia doesn't have to ask why they share this hate. Even if Henry hadn't told her, she'd seen the way he lived in the woods before. At the same time, she's seen the way he was welcomed back, how people looked to him with loyalty and trust. She couldn't reconcile it; her whole life she had been told you couldn't be both. If you lived behind walls, you lived a lie and you were weak.
He wasn't weak. Far from it. And he wasn't a liar. If he could fit in here, maybe she could too.
Maybe.
"What changed?" Hope laced her voice, a delicate wish woven into two words.
Daryl frowns, takes a long drink. By the time he taps the mug on the table, he had an answer. "I had a friend. Well, he wasn't a friend then...Aaron. He and his husband Eric took me under their wing."
Lydia mouths the lip of the mug so that the corner of her mouth doesn't give away her disappointment. Henry's absence stings again, a broken promise, a stolen future. She represses a shudder. Friends, huh? She can't name any and if that's what it takes to belong she might as well jump the fence and disappear into the woods.
Lydia stares into the murky bottom of her mug as she whispers, "What would have happened if they hadn't?"
Daryl huffs, half smiles, and then shrugs. "Dunno. Probably would have just kept butchering opossums on the front porch till..."
"Opossums?" Lydia wrinkles her nose.
"What? You prefer squirrel?"
He's teasing her. And the only reason she doesn't bristle is because she suspects Daryl doesn't mind squirrel or opossum.
She blows the steam from her drink and with it goes her hope for a convincing solution to her problem. Resigned, she meets his gaze and says, "No. Hog is good though."
Daryl nods his agreement and stands to refill his mug. The wind rattles the window pane and they both glance at the offending window in sync. The cold fails to permeate the house's walls. Lydia turns back to her drink.
It's been a long time since she's experienced winter. She likes it because the cold keeps her inside and away from people and their judgmental stares. Come spring, she won't be able to hide away in the house sorting clothing. There will be vegetables to pick, supply runs to make. Lydia sends out a silent wish for a long, cold winter. Another day locked inside is another day before she has to try and fit in here.
Because, she can live outside, she's done it for most of her life, but as she sits across the table from Daryl and cradles her tea, the ache to belong settles in her bones. Her grin is bittersweet with the memory of Henry and his certainty that she could have a place here.
But, without him, how?
When Daryl comes back to the table, he asks, "Have you met Carly yet?"
She shakes her head.
"Nah. I guess not. She's a little older than you and usually works on house repairs."
Lydia's a little sleepy now, warm, and the adrenaline from before has seeped out of her blood like the tea from the bag. Because Daryl isn't one for idle chatter, she forces herself to focus, half wondering how this Carly person relates to hogs and opossums.
"Could introduce ya, if ya want." When she doesn't respond right away he adds, "I'm sure hanging out with the kids and me ain't all that great."
Her mouth drops open as she pieces together his proposal: a potential friend and with it, a possible way in.
"Sure," she whispers, gaze suddenly wide again.
"Tomorrow then," he says as a way of departure, taking his newly filled mug to the basement.
The door clicks shut behind him and she's alone again. Lydia clasps the mug and slurps up the last of her drink. Hope returned, her heart patters against her ribcage in the silence. Tomorrow. When she stands, she notes the glowing light under the basement door, hears someone stir upstairs, and corrects herself.
Not alone.
Encompassed.
She puts her mug in the sink, because she is learning the ways of house living. She doesn't linger by the front door, even though the wind whistles at her through the cracks. She pads upstairs as quietly as she had descended and slips under her comforter, eager, for once, for morning to come.
Thanks for reading. Feedback is greatly appreciated!-randomcat23