As always, my love and gratitude to my lovely BETA doctorkaitlyn - she is the best.
Dearest Mr. Hawkeye,
I have to confess – I'm a tinsy-winsy drunk right now. Just a wee bit. XD I do remember my oath to never get near alcohol again, but you know what? To hell with that! There are many valid reasons for me to have a drink this time. Like:
Maggie's not found Fluffy and the kittens. Yay!The end of the cockroach 's fine.I'm at Daryl's place! (I mean how crazy this can even get, right?)
First of all, as I've already wrote – Maggie's not pregnant. You can't imagine how relieved I am! That may sound like a total douchebag thing to say, but I really can't help myself. Let's face it: I'm not ready to become a father. Not now at least. That's a huge responsibility and with my income I can never be sure if I can afford dinner every day, much less to provide for a family…
Oh, yeah. Maggie and I had a pregnancy scare – guess you'd figured that out from my ramblings above. It was a shock really, when she told me. I had no idea how it might have happened. I mean, technically, I knew how. But we used protection and everything! And you know what else? I'm terrified of babies! They are so small and tiny and loud… I could have never handled one. I'm the youngest child in my family (I have two elder sisters) and have never dealt with babies in my life before.
But don't you worry. I'm not a complete asshole, I did propose to Maggie when she told me about her possible pregnancy. What else was I supposed to do? Fleeing the country was not an option. Lol.
I even bought her a ring! Nothing fancy of course – just the cheapest one from the Dolgen brother's little pawnshop on the corner of the street. I had to borrow most of the money from Dale. Also I know one the owners – Pete, the youngest brother, made a discount for me. Not that I'm cheap, of course! I would've bought the biggest rock from Tiffany's if I had the needed resources… Or if it was some kind of apocalypses like in those sci-fi movies and books (no one would care for jewelry – it would probably be lying around useless). An alien invasion, or the riot of robots, or mutation of the lizards that turns them back into the dinosaurs… the resurrection of the vampires, perhaps? (Nah, the latter one is too cliché...) Hmm, I wonder if I could survive in such a hostile reality... I guess I could – I'm fast and wiry. And the time I spent in the pizza delivery business kind of trained my survival instincts.
Probably I'd be able to get by on my own for a while…
Anyway. I'm getting distracted.
In the end, it wasn't the stupid ring or a proposal that mattered to Maggie. She wanted to know how I felt about her, whether I loved her or not. And that was the point where our relationship crumbled. She broke up with me yesterday because I couldn't answer her question. I mean… The time we'd been dating hardly covers a month! I'm not even sure if it can be filed under the term "dating" at all… with the whole "on and off" thing. Don't get me wrong, I do like, respect and admire Maggie and I will never regret being in a relationship with her.
But for some reason it never felt… right. I don't know how to explain it. I should be over the moon that she simply glanced my way because, let's be real, she is way out of my league. She is smart, beautiful, funny and absolutely great in every possible sense… To some extent, it was a huge pressure on me. I had to live up to her expectations but not having much experience in the relationship field, I feared that I would fail. I've never had a serious one before. I wish I could've been a better boyfriend and been able to give her what she wants… what she deserves. I wish I could've been more like Daryl… I mean look at him and Carol! They seem absolutely perfect together…
Oh, speaking of the devil, I think I hear something! Brb.
UPD: Nope. Everything is okay! He is sleeping like a baby. Seems like the sleeping pills are working. He looks so… I don't know how to describe it… almost vulnerable in his sleep. It makes me want to protect him. Can you imagine it? Me as Daryl Dixon's protector?! Lol. I probably have too much booze in my system.
Ooh, look what I just found! A site called The Love Calculator! This might be interesting… Should I try Maggie and me? Let's see… :P
Huh… not such good news for us as a couple: only 17 %. Gives you an interesting perspective on our breakup, doesn't it? And you know what? Maggie never approved of my friends. She thinks that I allow them to take advantage of me.
IDK. Maybe she is right. Take that incident at the camping trip for instance. Last Saturday, Rick organized an outdoor event for the tenants of our apartment complex. There had been some tension lately and he wanted to make things better. Unfortunately not everybody supported his idea and ultimately even Rick himself couldn't come along because he was summoned to work that day. As a result only I, Maggie, Lori, Andrea, Carl, Shane and T could come.
It was… awkward, tbh. I'm kind of starting to see Dale's point when he says that Shane gives him the creeps. That guy is weird. And he shaved his head all of a sudden! Though, I must admit that he really pulls off this new look! I'd even say that he looks hotter! That is… I would've said that if I were a girl! He looks "manlier". Yeah, that's the word I was going for. Shane has a nicely shaped head. I would've looked ridiculous had I shaved my hair off. My head is not shaped as nearly as well as Shane's… Btw, are you bald? I think I've asked you this question once but never got any answer… :(
Oh, yeah. The camping. If it weren't for the tension and awkwardness I'd say it was almost fun. Mostly thanks to T - that guy is hilarious and really knows a lot of interesting stories! We'd nearly covered half of our route when we heard some strange noise. Turned out it was a baby deer that had somehow got himself perched on the little ledge of the rocky cliff – the one we were coming down from. It looked so helpless and scared that we couldn't just leave him there! [In hindsight I understand that if bad ideas were an Olympic event, this would've taken the gold.] Not sure what exactly happened but the next thing I knew, I was hanging down from the cliff, trying to catch the baby deer… On the bright side – now I know that I'm afraid of heights! :S
I won't go further into details (because they are kind of embarrassing for me) – all I can say is that we should've listened to T when he said that deer were skillful climbers and that it would've gotten out without our help (he saw that on Animal Planet. I should start watching it too!)…
After that, Maggie lectured me on the topic of my apparent incapability to say "no" to my friends. Even though the main reason why I volunteered to help the deer was because I wanted to impress her!.. And to save the deer of course. She doesn't like my friendship with Miguel and vatos either.
Ha! I am almost a perfect match with Daryl, though – there's 91 % of a chance becoming a successful relationship! Well… Dr. Love has a strange sense of humor! I mean, we are on friendly basis again (as of last week) but are we that close? I'm not so sure. XD Oh, better go check on Daryl again. I'll be quick.
UPD: He is fine. I just tucked in his blanket. It's such a strange feeling. And even stranger is the fact that I'm writing you this email from Daryl's personal computer! He doesn't even use a password - I'm utterly scandalized. And I've known his wi-fi password for several weeks now. It's DixonsCrossbow – it's so simple that I don't even feel ashamed to use it from time to time. I mean it's not like I'm over abusing this opportunity for free internet or anything. And I do have shortage of money at the moment… so…
Oh! I've never explained why I'm here in the first place, haven't I? Well, as you might remember from my previous e-mail, I had a moral dilemma on my hands – whether to oblige my gf and stay silent about the cockroaches or do the right thing and clear the attic. Eventually, I asked for advice from Dale. You know, at the end of the day, I always go to the old man with all my problems because he knows stuff, he's wise. Dale tried to speak to Hershel – tried to persuade him to get rid of the garbage. But Hershel got stubborn and refused to listen to us. So I had to tell the others. Even Maggie eventually agreed with me on this (probably because she had seen the size of those cockroaches too).
Rick wanted to solve the problem peacefully – he personally talked to Hershel and made a deal with him according to which we would've given Hershel a couple of days to move "the most important things" from the attic to a storehouse. Rick even offered to help with the transportation. But then Shane and Daryl entered the picture. With axes. Hershel refused to open the door to the attic himself and didn't give us the keys. So the axes were the only reasonable solution in Shane's opinion. Strangely enough, Daryl, who normally keeps away from Shane, supported him in this case. Daryl said that he was sick of the cockroaches in his kitchen and that there might be other disease bearing creatures in the attic – like mice and rats. That pretty much was the only argument Shane needed and actually everybody else too…
Oh, God – you should've seen that mess! And the smell! UGH. We had to cover our noses because it was rather unbearable in close contact. Side note: Daryl looks really hot sporting a bandana over his face! Damn. Seriously, what is it with me today?! Oh well, it's probably the alcohol talking… At least you won't tell anybody! LOL.
Where was I? Oh, the cockroaches. You'd never guess what we discovered when we were clearing out the room! Fluffy! Yeah, at first we thought that the vague mewing sounds were coming from the outside. But the farther in we went, the louder the sound got. And then we saw her – she was sitting on the top pile of the junk by the western wall. She probably followed Hershel in unnoticed on his last visit to the attic and he accidentally locked her in. But that's not the best part! The thing is that Fluffy had kittens in that attic! The three of them were hiding in the shoe box on the top of said pile. Daryl and Andrea took the rescue mission upon themselves. There was nothing to worry about. Or so we thought.
I'm not sure what exactly happened there – I, Rick, Shane and T were sorting out the garbage bags downstairs (Shane and Rick were mostly bickering than helping, though) when we heard a crashing sounds from upstairs – naturally, we all hurried back to the attic. When we got there we saw Daryl lying unconscious on the floor, with Andrea terrified at his side. Hershel was nowhere to be found so I called the ambulance.
Andrea said that she didn't even understand what had happened – one moment, she'd been holding the ladder (which Daryl had climbed to retrieve the kittens) and the next thing she knew, the ladder had slipped from her hands and Daryl came crashing down. Thankfully, he gained his consciousness pretty fast and even got mad at us for calling the doctor (he was diagnosed with a mild concussion). Good thing that Carol was around to keep him still or else he would've ignored the doctor's orders altogether.
Btw, the kittens and Fluffy are fine – Rick and Shane took care of that. I guess Andrea felt bad about Daryl's accident, though no one really blamed her for that, so she offered to take care of the cats. They are at her place right now since Carol left town for the weekend - something about trying to reach an agreement with Ed. Christmas is only a month away and she doesn't want to celebrate it without Sophia. Her flight to Florida was booked for tonight so she couldn't miss it or take the pets with her.
Hmm… Daryl has some kind of a fancy email messenger program installed in his laptop. It informs you about the new messages every time you get one. Just shut down a couple of them from the "Horton" crossbows fan forum (?!). I don't even want to know… But it's kind of distracting because the stupid message bubble keeps popping up every 10 minutes! And it makes a rather annoying sound...
Sorry, I need to go look how Daryl is doing. And also throw up. I blame that last glass of beer!
Oh, I haven't yet explained why I'm a bit tipsy, have I? Well, it's all Hershel's fault. Like I'd mentioned earlier – it turned out that he had left the building while we were clearing the things out. Maggie couldn't find him anywhere and, given the state he was in at the time, she assumed that he might have gone to the bar. This wasn't good news at all because Hershel has a nasty history with alcohol. This old man is just full of surprises, isn't he? Naturally, I offered my help to find him and bring him home. Maggie couldn't go because Beth had had a nervous breakdown of her own - something about problems with her boyfriend Jimmy (long-distance relationships rarely work out, if you ask me).
The worst part was that Hershel's favorite bar was located in a very bad neighborhood. I've been there a couple of times on my pizza delivering routine and I must tell you, that those are not the best memories of my work! Luckily for me, Rick offered his help too. Thank god he already knows about Lori's pregnancy! Or else the trip to the bar in his company would've been a real torture for me. I could've blurted out accidentally!
Long story short – we did get Hershel home safe and sound but in the process, he somehow convinced me to have couple of drinks with him (I hadn't had anything since breakfast so it went a long way). And we kind of bonded tonight? IDK. He even seemed somewhat upset when I told him that Maggie and I weren't dating anymore…
Rick got us a cab when he was summoned on duty. Turned out there was some incident involving our new tenants? I'm not sure what it is but according to Rick, it's something serious. He is gathering a house meeting tomorrow.
Anyway, on my way home I got a call from Carol who was at the airport and was worried about Daryl. She wanted to know if I could keep an eye on him during the night – just in case. So here I am!
Oh, I've entirely omitted telling you about my studies of late, but though you might not imagine it from my emails, my free time is exclusively occupied with school assignments (i.e. when I'm not working or doing other important stuff). I have a big test next week, but who's afraid?
Btw, I'm thinking of going to Michigan next week. You know, what with Thanksgiving and everything. Let's hope I'll manage to survive the family gathering.
But right now, all I want is to get some sleep. Which brings me to another important question: where am I supposed to sleep? Should I go to my place or stay here?.. What if something happens and Daryl needs help? I probably should stay here – just to be on the safe side. Then again, the couch in the living room doesn't look appealing at all and it's extremely uncomfortable – the cushions are all saggy, uneven and smell weird. I bet Merle used to sleep on it – won't go anywhere near it. You never know what you may end up getting after. :S I guess I have no other choice but to settle for this armchair I'm sitting on rn.
If Daryl had a larger bed… No. That's a crazy thought. He'd kill me for even thinking about it. Not to mention – awkward. And I just got our friendship back. Oh, well. Good night!
Yours with love, G.
PS. Maybe it isn't proper to send love? XD If it isn't, please excuse - I must be way too drunk. Wow, this email is huge! Feel free to mark it as spam. LOL
A/N: Thank you very much for reading and supporting this little fic! It really means a lot to me! Thank you for all your reviews and kind words! :3
I'm so sorry that it's taking me so much time but I assure everyone that this fic will be completed. It's not abandoned in any case! Again, thank you for your patience! I know that I deserve to be punched in the face for my late updates.
Happy holidays to all my US readers! :)