Chapter 28

The next few days the people of Alexandria concentrated on enriching their food supply. Losing the van full of food hurt the community; so many more people were out on supply runs than usual. They found they had to go further and further out to find what they needed. It took a lot of food to feed the fifty plus people inside the walls and every day it was getting harder and harder to do that.

Daryl was one of the people who normally didn't do the supply runs who were out daily trying to bring back food. Emma worried every time he left and didn't breathe a sigh of relief until she saw him exit the vehicle he had left in.

Emma had volunteered to go on a run, but Daryl vehemently denied her. He didn't want her to have a chance meeting with any if the Saviors and be recognized. There was no way he going to lose her again. Emma was not happy with his overprotectiveness, but she put up with it, as she knew it came from his love for her.

On any given night Emma was cooking for anywhere from six to a dozen people just within their group, then she had up to ten others that she cooked the evening meal for. She was feeding almost half the population of Alexandria on some nights. Cooking kept her busy and made her feel useful.

One afternoon she took a walk around the houses and noticed a plant that caught her attention by a vacant house. When she got closer to it, she recognized it as a chive plant and in fact there were three of them all lined up in a row. Emma was excited. Fresh herbs would help her favor her meals that at times really needed help. She kept checking the planting bed and found a large sage bush along with a tarragon plant. These were even better finds.

Emma hurried home to grab a pair of shears so she could cut some of the chives for breakfast. This would make the powdered eggs they had found so must tastier when she cooked them in the morning. No oatmeal for everyone tomorrow, this would be a big treat.

After cutting the herbs she wanted to take back with her, Emma was on her way back to the house when she saw Maggie walking down the front steps to the sidewalk. Glenn and Maggie had finally returned, but Maggie was still quite depressed about losing the baby. Emma hoped to get to know her better as Daryl considered her a close friend.

"Hey Maggie, wait up," Emma called out.

"It's Emma, right?" asked Maggie. "What can I do for you?"

"Daryl told me that you've been trying to grow vegetables without much success. Could you show me where? I'm doing so much of the cooking here, having fresh vegetables will help. Look I just found herbs growing down the street." Emma showed her the newly cut chives and tarragon she still held in her hand.

"Sure," Maggie said. Together they walked to where Emma saw white PVC pipe set up to be used as a trellis, but there wasn't anything growing below it. Maggie signed sadly, "See nothing grew."

"The seeds must have been no good. Did everything come from the same place?" Emma asked her.

Maggie smiled softly as she remembered when Glenn had given her the seeds he had found. "Glenn found then during a run. Nothing grew from any of them. Not the tomatoes or the cucumbers or the squash."

"There was definitely something wrong with the seeds. We need to have the people going on runs keep an eye out of any type of vegetable seeds. Once we get this going, it'll feed us well," Emma told her with a friendly smile. "I'll ask Daryl to spread the word."

"What you girls doing?" asked a voice. When Emma turned around she saw it was Maggie's husband Glenn.

"Talking vegetables and coming up with a plan," Maggie told him. "We need new seeds and Emma's going to ask Daryl to have everyone keep an eye out for them. I hope they can find them. Maybe we can enlarge the garden…" Maggie kept on talking to Glenn but there was finally life back into her eyes. She had something she wanted to do. Emma quietly left the couple, but not before Glenn mouthed the words 'thank you' to her.

Emma headed back to the house, as it was time for her to start getting the dinners ready for tonight. She had a good feeling that they would be seeing Maggie and Glenn at dinner and it made her happy that they were slowly rejoining the family. Rick called them all family, so while very few were actually related, they all loved and trusted each other as if they were. Daryl was the perfect example that blood didn't mean everything, his family, including his brother, were awful to him. Rick was the brother he deserved and now had. That was family.

Everyone was in a good mood after dinner and hung around the living room of the main house they occupied. Emma worked a miracle with the limited food they had and a touch of tarragon helped the flavors. Since she did the cooking, Sasha, Rosita and Tara did the cleanup, so Emma was able to sit with Daryl and enjoy the conversation.

Emma had felt really good and happy all day. While everyone was still sad about losing Abraham, they were telling stories about him and his unusual way of saying things. Maggie had wandered off to the kitchen, so Glenn was telling the guys about the 'Bisquick and pancakes' comment he had said to Glenn.

"He's talking about making pancakes and I'm like what the hell is he talking about. Is he hungry? Then it finally clicked. How did he come up with making pancakes as an analogy for making a baby? Man, he was something else," Glenn laughed and everyone else joined him.

The girls from the kitchen joined the rest of everyone already hanging out and for the first time in a long time, everyone was fairly relaxed and happy. All of their problems from the food to what to do about the Saviors were put on the back burner for that night. They were just a group of friends having a good time.

Maggie and Glenn were the first to leave to head to their room and slowly everyone else went their own way. Daryl and Emma headed up the stairs together leaving just a handful of people still chatting below.

"That was fun," Emma sighed as Daryl closed the door to their room behind them.

"It was. Good to have Glenn and Maggie back too," Daryl said as he sat on the bed to take off his boots.

Emma popped into the bathroom to quickly change into an oversize t-shirt and brush her teeth. She knew she was being silly not changing in front of Daryl, but it still felt awkward being naked. As she brushed her teeth with a very tiny amount of toothpaste, Emma thought about her and Daryl. Unless she did something to help her get past this fear of sex, she was never going to make any progress. Maybe she should try taking some baby steps, she wondered.

Kissing and cuddling she did just fine, but that was simply not enough. Daryl wanted more and so did she. And no matter how patient he promised to be with her, Emma worried that at some point this would drive them apart. Tonight she would try a baby step.

Having made even a small decision as this was, made her extremely happy. She left the bathroom with a gleam in her eye that Daryl noticed right away. Emma tossed her clothes on the floor in front of the closet without a second look, which confirmed to Daryl that something was up. Emma never did that and always gave him hell when he did.

"What?" he asked her warily.

Emma smiled shyly at Daryl and crawled up on the bed next to him as he lay there in his boxers waiting for her to come to bed. She snuggled in between his arm and his chest. His strong arm automatically wrapped around her. Emma kissed him and while she had done that dozens of times since their return to Alexandria, Daryl knew this was different. There was a slight hunger in her that he hadn't sensed since they lived together all those years ago.

Daryl didn't waste a second. He captured her mouth with a soft groan, moving gently at first coaxing a response with his soft lips. When Emma parted hers, he wasted no time in deepening the kiss, running his hot tongue along her bottom lip before slipping past her teeth in search of her own.

Overwhelmed by how right it always felt to be in his arms, Emma slipped one arm up towards his neck and opened her mouth a little wider inviting him to deepen the kiss even more. Daryl didn't need any further persuading.

He wrapped his other arm around her and crushed her against his chest, his hand kneading her back, waist and finally wandering down to her backside pressing her into his hardness.

A familiar ache flared to life simultaneously as the panic started to surge. She wanted him so bad, she was trembling, but he was also the first man to touch her after those awful days and nights where she was raped repeatedly. Those horrid memories started to come flying back and Emma did her best to suppress them. This was Daryl she kept trying to tell herself. This was Daryl.

She tried to concentrate on how good he could make her feel and the love she had for him. Between those thoughts and Daryl's mouth on hers she was able to pull herself off the anxiety ledge.

Emma's t-shirt had ridden up to her hips exposing her panty clad bottom. Daryl placed his hand on her low back and ran it back and forth for a while, and then he slipped it under the shirt touching her baby smooth skin. He didn't feel Emma tense at all, in fact if anything, her kisses intensified.

She took her kisses further and moved from his lips to his face, then to his neck and she then kissed the 'x' he has tattooed near his collar bone. She always loved that little tattoo.

Daryl was getting lost in Emma's kisses as the fiery trail she was leaving all over him was setting him on fire. She was pushing beyond the limits they had gone and he was doing his best not to let his desire for her take over.

His hand continues to travel over her body stroking her back, hips, and buttocks. Emma's hand also was exploring his chest, but not venturing any lower. God, he so wanted her to touch him there, to move lower and take hold of his dick the way she used to. He was sure she could see his erection that was making his boxers tent up. Way up.

Emma kept on caressing and kissing him, so Daryl took that as s good sign. He moved his hand from her back downward so he was cupping her butt again. After lingering there for just a little while, he moved it her hips, then up her side. His forearm brushed her breast. Emma didn't flinch and Daryl wanted so bad to place his hand over it. He was a guy that loved breasts and Emma was blessed to be extremely well-endowed. Before the turn, when they were living together he couldn't keep his hands off her or them.

His fingers skimmed the rounded curve of her breast before he covered it with him palm and squeezed. "Got that feels fuckin' incredible," he thought to himself and he felt himself get even harder. Daryl turned on his side to get better leverage, but in doing so his hard erection pressed up against Emma's pelvis again

Emma froze. Daryl didn't realize it immediately and he kept massaging her breast while unconsciously pressing himself against Emma.

She could feel the anxiety start to build again and she tried to tell herself this was Daryl and he wasn't going to hurt her, but it kept growing and growing until the panting that Daryl mistook for desire, was actually her not being able to catch her breath. Emma pushed him away and jumped off the bed. She ran into the bathroom slamming the door behind her.

Daryl was momentarily confused, until he realized that he must have pushed her too far. He ran to the bathroom door and turned the handle, but it was locked. She had never locked a door on him…ever. "Em, I'm sorry. Please open the door," he begged.

The only sound he heard was her sobbing uncontrollably inside. Daryl slide down the door so his back rested against it as he sat on the floor listening to the most important person to him in the world completely fall apart and there was not anything he could do.

Daryl didn't move an inch and stayed leaning against the door for what felt like hours. He heard the sobs subside, but still Emma didn't emerge. He didn't know what to do. Should he break down the door, which he would do in an instant, if he felt she was in danger, but he knew she would never hurt herself. That wasn't Emma.

So Daryl did the only thing he could do which was talk to her. It was completely a one-sided conversation, but it made him feel like he was reaching out to her and it was all he could do.

He told her about his life after he and Merle got separated. He talked about the CDC, Hershel's farm, the prison, Woodbury and he kept going on and on. He talked about the people they lost and the new ones that joined. And he told her about Beth, the little sister he never had who had helped change him for the better.

Emma couldn't help the panic attack she had and it completely embarrassed her. This was why she was still hiding out in the bathroom. Once the attack subsided, she couldn't bring herself to face Daryl. Everything had been going so well. She loved him kissing and touching her. Even when he touched her breast, it was good and Emma was thrilled at that. That was better than she expected as after days of being assaulted by those animals, her breasts had been bruised and sore for days. She realized that it was every time she felt his erection against her, it scared he to death.

She had no idea how long she had been in the bathroom, when she realized that Daryl was talking and talking on the other side of the door. Emma couldn't make out all the words so she moved closer to his voice so she could hear him better. Leaning against to wooden door, Emma could hear him perfectly and it was only then that she realized he was telling her about what happened to him and everyone during their time apart. Some names she knew, others she didn't.

He talked and she listened with the width of the door the only thing separating them. Daryl had been through some crazy horrible circumstances. She could hear in his voice when the prison was attacked and everyone got separated, how that devastated him. He had lost the only constant in his life.

He had been stuck with Beth. Here he was one of the strongest paired with what he considered the weakest and she was being annoying. That was until he started to hear what she was saying to him. That night at the moonshiner's shack she made more sense to him about his life than anyone ever did. He never thought an eighteen year old girl could be that insightful.

"After that night, things got better for me, Em. I was in a better place to deal with the shit that went down when I was growing up and dealing with missing you. She didn't know about you, no one did, but she helped me." Daryl stopped talking for a moment. He owed Beth more than she could ever imagine. Her death was nothing but a senseless act. There had been no reason for to die…but she did. Her killer died immediately after by Daryl's own hand.

Emma sensed that all of this was hard for Daryl to talk about, but he did. He was trying to connect to Emma by sharing his life that she missed and she loved him even more because of it. She stood up from the floor where she was siting and unlocked the door.

Daryl immediately got up at the sound of the latch being freed and he saw Emma's pale face as she opened the door. She flew into his arms and neither let go for a long time.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered into his neck where her face was nestled.

"You have no reason to be sorry, Em. We both got caught up, but it's okay. We're okay, right?"

Emma pulled back from him and looked into his blue eyes. She had always loved his eyes. "We're okay on one condition."

"Anything!"

"That this Beth wasn't anything more than a sister to you, because if she was my girls here are on strike," she told him pointing at her breasts.

"C'mon she was like eighteen and I'm forty-fucking-something, no way. There's only been one girl for me …ever and I'm looking at her right now." The smile on Daryl's face showed how relieved he was that everything was still good between them.

"I love you," she told him.

"I love you and the girls too."

Emma laughed at him and pulled him back to the bed. It was still the middle of the night and they needed to get some sleep. She lay in his arms for a few minutes with only the beating of their hearts quietly thumping. "You know I was okay, up until I felt your hard-on against me. If I can just get past that stupid fear that comes on, I'd be okay."

"We'll figure this out, Em, but not now. We need sleep," he said softly to her. "Go to sleep. There's always tomorrow."

"Thank you," Emma whispered before drifting off to sleep.