Thank you all for the wonderful reviews so far! You have no idea how much they mean to me. I really, really tried to avoid making this drabble as fluffy as it is but I just couldn't. Daryl's actions are probably so far out of character here but I'd like to think that maybe Andrea can bring out his softer side.
I also totally disregarded her hookup with Shane because as far as I'm concerned, that never happened anyway. ;)
Andrea has twenty-three freckles.
Twenty-three freckles, seven scars, two mosquito bites, and a faint birth mark on her left thigh.
On her right shoulder, she has a tattoo of a cluster of flowers. Daryl thinks that they might be lilies, but he can't say for sure. On her left shoulder, she has a fading bruise and a healing scratch from when she'd accidently tumbled backwards into a tree two days ago.
She has prominent hipbones, thick eyelashes, tiny feet, and toenails that are painted red.
Her fingers are long and graceful, though her nails are jagged and worn down from constant biting—and he's got several angry red scratches running down the length of his back to prove it.
The very tip of her nose and the apples of her cheeks are sunburned and starting to peel and her bottom lip is chapped. It's also a bit swollen and red, but Daryl can take credit for that.
Her hair is just a little knotted around the ends where it had begun to curl against the back of her neck and his fingers catch in it when Daryl runs them through. He likes her hair like this; natural, messy, and falling across her face. He wishes she'd wear it down more often.
Andrea shifts in her sleep and Daryl then catches sight of a tiny twenty-fourth freckle on her neck, right below where his fingers are nestled into her hair.
He stares at it for a moment before he leans in and presses a kiss to the spot.
Twenty-four freckles, seven scars, two mosquito bites, a birth mark, a tattoo, bruises, scratches, and chipped red toenail polish—these are the little things that make up Andrea, little things that no one else but Daryl has the privilege of knowing.
It gives him a strange sort of sense of fulfillment to finally be able lay with her; to be able to trace her scars with the pads of his fingers and to appreciate and commit to his personal and private memory everything that has made her into the person that she is.
Daryl's lips linger against her skin for the tiniest fraction of a second before he shifts himself around so that he can curl around her, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
The barn, the walkers, Herschel, Sophia, the funeral— everything fades away from his mind when he closes his eyes, and he falls asleep thinking of freckles, feelings, and the gentle, graceful fingers that wind themselves around his own.