Chapter 27

Daryl was not in a good mood the rest of the day. He was pissed off at everyone – Dwight for showing up, Rick for giving everything away and Emma for not letting him touch her. It all was hitting him at the same time. The angry look on his face just made everyone steer clear of him as no one ever wanted to be on his bad side.

When he let Emma out of the closet, she could tell something wasn't right. He had a look that she hadn't seen in a really long time. Once she crawled out of the closet, Emma stretched her muscles. It was very cramped in there.

"Did it not go well?" she asked.

"Only if you consider giving away that whole fuckin' van full of food a good thing!" he snapped at her.

"Maybe Rick didn't have a choice," Emma suggested.

"Of course there was a fuckin' choice! Wiping out those assholes when they came inside the gates was the choice! This place is so god damned fucked up!" Daryl shouted.

Emma was surprised at the vehemence in his voice. She had never seen him like this. "Daryl, just calm down. I'm sure that Rick…"

"Don't you tell me to calm down," Daryl said his voice low with anger. "You know nothin' about this place or me anymore. And I sure as hell don't know you. So don't go spouting off on shit you don't know."

His words startled her. Who was this man? The Daryl she knew would never talk to her that way. She was not going to let him get away with it.

"Fuck you, Daryl," she spat at him.

"Like that's ever gonna happen again." He knew he was too angry to talk to her about this, but his mouth wasn't shutting up.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that my girlfriend, who still says that she loves me, won't let me fuck her or even touch her. The Emma I used to know was as horny for me as I was her. What happened to her, cause you sure as hell ain't her!"

Daryl didn't wait to let an astonished Emma answer him. He stalked from the room and Emma knew he had left the house when she heard he front door of the house slam. The roar from the engine of his motorcycle let her know he was leaving Alexandria. Emma ran after him, but all she saw was the back end of the bike passing through the open gates. Then he was gone.

Emma made it as far as the living room and crumpled into a heap. She and Daryl had small arguments before, but nothing like this. She understood they had been apart for a long time and they each had changed, but she didn't recognize the man that spoke to her this way.

Michonne had heard the loud voices coming from their room. The slamming of the door and the sound of the motorcycle leaving was a sure sign that not all was well with the newly reunited couple. When she wandered into the living room, she saw Emma crying on the floor.

"Are you okay?" she asked Emma squatting down in front of her.

"I don't know," Emma cried. "I think he just left me."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Michonne offered. "I may have a better insight to Daryl than you do. You guys were apart for a really long time."

"I think I need to, but not here."

Michonne suggested they go up to Emma and Daryl's room as it looked like he wasn't coming right back. Emma agreed and the two of them headed upstairs. They sat down on the loveseat in Emma's room and Michonne asked the first question.

"I heard him yelling from Judith's room. Why was he so mad?"

"I know he was upset at Rick for giving away the van, but I told him that Rick had to have had his reasons. He did, right?" Emma said.

"He did. I didn't want to lose all that food either, but they threatened to kill one of us if we didn't. If it came down to a fight today, we would have won, but that would have brought Negan down on us hard and we aren't ready to take all of the Saviors on again, not yet. Rick has to think about the greater good. Daryl hates them and what they did to him, Abraham and Denise, so his judgment is a bit clouded," Michonne explained.

"Who is Denise?" Emma wondered and what Denise had meant to Daryl.

Michonne told Emma what had happened to Denise and what she meant to the community. Knowing Daryl the way she did, she told Emma that most likely he blamed himself for her death.

"If he was pissed at Rick, why was he yelling at you?" Michonne asked.

"Ultimately he's frustrated with me and I don't blame him. I just don't know what to do." Emma hung her head in embarrassment. How was she to talk to a stranger about this when she couldn't even tell the man she loved?

"Do you want to tell me about that or is it too personal?"

"Oh God Michonne, it is, but I need to talk to someone. I'm afraid to tell Daryl and that's killing us." Emma could feel the tears starting to fall again. She wiped her eyes with her hands before continuing.

"Before all of this craziness happened, Daryl and I had a very …let's just say healthy sex life. In the years we were apart things happened…to me, that weren't very good and Daryl doesn't know." Michonne didn't say a word letting Emma continue at her own pace, but she suspected what was coming.

Emma told her how over the months then years she was always changing the groups of people that she was with due to deaths, people just leaving or because she was alone. At one point it was her and just a married couple in their sixties, when the small camp they had was overrun by four awful men. They killed the husband right in front of them and repeatedly raped the wife and her for days. The other woman ending up dying and that left just Emma. She was finally rescued by three strangers who heard her cries and figures out what was going on. The two men and woman killed the rapists and took her under their wing. A few weeks later they all joined the Saviors.

"I love Daryl with all my heart, Michonne. He can kiss me and hold me and I have no problem, but when he tries to touch me, I can't handle it. I just told him I wanted us to get to know each other again and I was hoping I could get over this, but that's not happening and he doesn't understand." Emma looked up from the floor to Michonne. "I don't want to lose him."

"You never told him, did you Emma?" Michonne asked.

Emma shook her head no.

"Oh Emma, you need to or how else will he understand? I'm sure he thinks that you don't want him anymore and that has to hurt him, right?"

"I'm afraid…afraid once I tell him that he won't want me anymore. How could he? I'm damaged goods. No man would want that," Emma said completely believing that to be true.

"I'm surprised at you," Michonne said. "You say that you love Daryl, but apparently you don't know him very well."

Emma looked at Michonne in surprise, "What do you mean?"

"Daryl is as loyal as a person comes. He constantly lays his life on the line for others so he cares deeply. He mourned you for years, I see that now. Men and women…well… will be men and women and that means they will hook up at some point. I've watched practically everyone in our group at some time or another do that, except Daryl, Eugene and obviously Father Gabriel. Eugene is just too damn odd, but Daryl always stumped me. He never showed interest in anyone. Sure he's close to Carol and even Beth when she was alive, but it was never romantic or sexual. I know now that he was still trying to get over you, so I am absolutely positive that he will not abandon you. He's going to be pissed at those men for what they did and for you not telling him. You need to give him a chance to deal with this and understand where you were coming from. You owe him that." Michonne didn't want to lecture Emma, but she wasn't giving Daryl enough credit. She had certainly been through a horrible experience, but if she kept it to herself Emma certainly would ruin what she had Daryl had.

Emma didn't answer Michonne right away as she took in everything that she said. It made perfect sense and Daryl deserved to know why she was not allowing them to be intimate. She wasn't being fair to either one of them.

Emma looked at Michonne with tears in her eyes. "You make perfect sense, but how to I tell a man like Daryl something like that?"

"Tell me somethin' like what?"

Neither Emma nor Michonne heard Daryl enter the room. He saw the fear on Emma's face when she quickly turned to face him and knew something bad had happened. "Tell me what, Em?" he repeated coming closer.

"I should go," Michonne said quietly. She leaned over give Emma a hug and whispered to her, "Tell him. He needs to know."

Michonne grabbed Daryl by the arm and he stopped to look at her. Daryl glared at her furious that she would stop him. "Listen to her. Just listen to her," Michonne told him softly before releasing his arm and leaving the room. The door closed quietly behind her.

"You came back," Emma said to Daryl. Her eyes were sad and weepy.

"Course, I did. I had to blow off some steam, that's all. What's going on Em? What do you need to tell me?" Emma had Daryl completely confused. Why was she talking to Michonne and not him?

"I owe you an apology," she started to say.

"Hell no, I owe you. I had no right to talk to you the way I did. I was pissed as hell and took it out on you. I'm sorry, Em," Daryl apologized.

Emma looked at her hands before raising her eyes to meet his. "You're frustrated with me and have every right to be. I know you want our sex life back and I don't blame you…I want it too. We were so good together," Emma sighed with a slight smile.

"We were fuckin' incredible together," he laughed trying to break the tension in the room. "We really were… so are you going to tell finally me what the hell is going on with us?"

"I am…it's just hard for me. Please be patient with me while I get this out. Okay?" she asked.

"Of course. Anything you want, you know that." Daryl took her hand in his and stroked the back of it with his thumb. "Take your time, Em."

Daryl had known something was wrong with her the moment she sidelined their sex life. He could understand waiting a day or two or three, but not weeks and she had been back with him for a couple of weeks. He didn't know how to show her he loved, wanted and desired her when she wouldn't let him really touch her without getting all weird about it. He just had no idea what it could be and prayed it wasn't that she didn't want him anymore. That would completely crush him.

"It was hard to survive after everything went bad," Emma said quietly starting to tell her story. "You would have thought the living would band together, but it wasn't always that way."

Emma told him of her existence throughout the time they were separated and he had heard much of this already. Daryl let her talk, but wondered why she was going over this again.

"After a really bad time when a decent size herd took out most of our group, I was left with just an older couple. It was odd that we survived as we were not the strongest people in the camp, but we did. We didn't have much left, but we made due for a couple of days. We had a low campfire going one night, when the camp was invaded by four men. Four disgusting horrible evil men." Emma hesitated as she got ready to tell him what happened next.

Daryl's heart started to beat faster and faster. He didn't want her to tell him what he knew was coming. He did his best to keep his expression neutral, but it was hard.

"They killed John, right away. He never stood a chance. Then …they…grabbed Helen and me and I tried to fight them off Daryl, I really did, but they were too strong and there was too many of them." Emma started to cry and Daryl pulled her into his arms.

"They raped you," he said his voice cold as steel. It wasn't a question, but a statement. His Emma, his beautiful, happy Emma was raped by animals. How had he not figured this out before? All the signs were there and he was just too stupid to see it.

"Over and over again. It went on for days until three people rescued me." Emma pulled back from Daryl's embrace. "Three good strangers heard my cries, by then Helen was dead too, and they killed the men. I owed them my life," she told him still crying. "Steve, Billy and Sharon I can never thank them enough for what they did, even though right after all I wanted to do was die. They wouldn't let me… Sharon wouldn't let me."

Daryl remained quiet as Emma spoke about the assault. He had never felt such rage before, not even for Dwight or the Governor or even Negan. His hands were shaking he was so angry that he finally had to get up and pace the room. He wanted to break something or kill someone for what Emma had gone through. He finally settled on staring out the window and banging his fist on the molding. It wasn't nearly enough.

Not nearly.

Emma stared at Daryl's back as he looked outside. He wouldn't look at her and she knew what that meant. He didn't want a woman that was used and abused as badly as she was. She was nothing but damaged goods.

"I'm sorry," she said meekly.

Daryl turned to look at her not realizing how his expression looked to her. The coldness of his eyes literally through a chill into the room and Emma shivered. He was disgusted by her she knew. She felt tightness in her chest that almost caused her to gasp as she felt her heart breaking into a million pieces.

"You're sorry?" he growled at her. "Why the fuck are you apologizing to me?"

Emma's tears started to fall faster and Daryl realized he was coming off all wrong. He slide next to her on the sofa and caressed her cheek with his hand. "Em…there's no need to apologize to me," he told her in a softer voice. "This is in no way your fault. Yeah, I'm angry, I wanna tear someone's fuckin' head off for what happened to you, but I'm not mad at you. No way."

"But I should have told you and I didn't," she admitted.

"Yeah, you should have, but I know this had to be really hard for you. I should have figured out something like this had happened when you jumped every time I touched you. I'm not mad at you at all. I'm pissed as hell at those fuckin' assholes that hurt you. As long as they are dead, and they are right?" he asked her.

Emma nodded yes.

"Good or I'd have to find them and kill them myself." Daryl once again pulled Emma into his arms and held her. He couldn't imagine the horror she had lived through, but he was going to help her get through it one way or another. He loved her, so he'd do anything for her. "Whatever you need from me, it's yours. I know I'm not good at talking about a lot of stuff, but I'll help you anyway I can. I love you Emma, you have to know that right?"

"How can you still love me after what I told you? Vile animals touched me and fucked me over and over again, how can you still want this?" Emma pointed at herself as pulled away from Daryl. She couldn't look at him when he changed his mind about her.

"Yeah, they hurt you…bad, really bad, but I love you Emma. Nothing, absolutely-fucking-nothing can ever change that. From the very first second I saw you, you turned me on like no one ever had before. You still do. I want you as much now as I ever did and what you went through doesn't change how I feel about you. All I want to do is help you through this and maybe together we can fix this, but even if we can't…I'll still love you." That was the most honest thing Daryl had ever said to anyone and he meant every word.

Emma looked at Daryl in surprise. He had never said anything like that to her before. His eyes that were hard and cold, just moments ago were now soft with love. He really still loved her. She never expected that, she certainly underestimated him. He was also not one to open up about his feeling this way and that he did spoke volumes.

Emma felt the fear inside her simply go away. He was not going to reject her as she thought he would, he still wanted to be together with her… to be a couple while she worked through her anxiety. Emma was bound and determined to find a way to do that. Daryl deserved it and so did she. They would find a way to get through this so they could resume the intimacy that they both missed. There had to be a way and Daryl would help her find it. She was certain of that.


A/N - Thank you to everyone that continues to read GONE. Been picking up a lot of new favs and follows. Thanks to jeanf, imlovinfanfic, WalkingAddiction for always leaving me a review. Very much appreciated! Also thanks to BeautifulDizasterDixon for yours too!

Sometimes it takes a big blowup to get things out in the open and that's what happened to Daryl and Emma. Let's hope he has patience with her.

Thanks again everyone!

Walker Witch