A/N: Don't own (although I'd love to have my very own Norman Reedus :D) don't sue!
Lyrics are from 'Rain' by Patty Griffin
Rain
Chapter Twenty One
It's hard to listen to a hard, hard heart
Beatin' close to mine
Poundin' up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep, deep, deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep, weep, weep
With all this rain fallin' down
Strange, how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain
It's hard to know when to give up the fight
Some things you want will just never be right
It's never rained like it has tonight before
Now, I don't wanna beg you, baby
For something maybe you could never give
I'm not lookin' for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live
Strange, how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holdin' on underneath this shroud
Rain
"Well this was a good idea." She felt Daryl scowling behind her, his glare burning the back of her neck. "No really. As plans go it's pretty much flawless. I don't see how it could possibly go wrong."
Cassidy peered down through the branches. The walker was still there. Of course it was.
"You know, setting a trap to catch us some actual food. It was a very gentlemanly thing to do, the equivalent of asking me to dinner." She leaned over the edge of the branch to get a better look. "Who could predict a walker wandering into it? And how could we know that we'd be unable to get down and release it without putting our tender firm flesh within biting range?" She cocked her head so she could see him sitting on a branch above her. "And would that same psychic genius ever be able to predict our prolific hunter extraordinaire dropping his crossbow at the first sign of trouble?"
"I didn't drop-" Daryl broke off, looking very much as if he was praying for patience. "I was busy tryin' ta get your ungrateful ass outta danger."
She rolled her eyes, leaning back against the trunk of the tree.
"Don't even. You never get distracted, least of all by me." He glared at her through narrowed eyes and she grinned. "I meant when our butts are on the line. You are totally focused. Always. Very focused. On getting the job done. And you get the job done. Very well." She blinked when she found him staring at her. "Sorry. Distracted."
He scowled. He could transmogrify remarkably quickly into a sulky spoiled teenage brat at times. Usually when he was angry at himself. Right now he was furious, quite unable to believe that he'd dropped his crossbow. Although to be fair he hadn't dropped it, it had caught on one of the lower branches and he hadn't been able to stop and untangle it without becoming a meal for the walker they'd inadvertently taken hostage. He could see it gleaming between branches below him, sturdily hooked on two branches caught on the strap and the bow string. It had seemed an excellent idea to wait out the trap from the lower branches. Of course the walker had been caught in seconds and they had barely had chance to scramble further up out of its reach. It was a huge burly walker, at least six feet five with shoulders wider than a dumpster, as solidly built as a truck. As nimble as Cassidy was she very much doubted she could climb down the tree and avoid its grasp long enough to kill it.
"It kinda looks like my ex boyfriend." She mused thoughtfully.
Daryl grunted, eyeing the walker critically.
"I went through a bad boy phase when I was fourteen." She hesitated for a moment. "What about you? Did you have a bad girl phase?"
He flicked her a brief glance then returned to staring at the crossbow as if he could will it to leap into his hands again of its own accord. He shifted uncomfortably on the branch. People didn't ask about his past, they generally weren't interested as long as he kept them safe and well fed. He shrugged, feeling the flush under his collar that he always seemed to get when he was the centre of attention.
"Can you get into the next tree?" He asked, ignoring her question.
She tilted her head to work out the distance to the branches of the next tree.
"No. Theoretically I could reach but any branches close enough wouldn't hold my weight." She smiled sweetly at him. "Next suggestion."
"What's your bright idea?" He growled.
"Hey I didn't get us into this mess."
"You didn't help." He snapped. "I thought you were a trained killer."
Rather than snapping back as he expected, he was greeted by nothing but a stony silence. Curiosity getting the better of him, he leaned over. All he could see was the top of her head, her gaze turned away from him. He could see the hint of rosy flesh at her chest and her long slim legs stretched out along the branch.
"I didn't tell you about that so you could throw it in my face." She said stiffly.
He didn't reply. He didn't know what to say. He felt the tree trembling as she moved and then her head popped up besides his thigh. She looked at him, her bright cat eyes searing right through him. She didn't say anything, gripping the trunk besides him and hauling herself up.
"I'm going to get a good look at the area." She called over her shoulder as she climbed past him.
He watched her progress, her slender fingers wiggling into minute cracks in the bark and her booted feet catching purchase and showering moss and leaves onto his head. Of course the sight of her in too small jeans from beneath more than made up for the discomfort.
"Okay there's no way I can get into any other trees without breaking through the branches and falling on my ass so here's the plan."
There was more rustling and she dropped down onto the branch above him. Straddling the branch her boots swung on either side of his shoulders. It was starting to get dark and her face was in shadow, her eyes glowing and looking more cat-like than ever and her hair slipping out of her ponytail and trailing over her shoulder. He realised she was talking again and he managed to force his attention back on target.
"So can you?"
He stared at her. She stared right back, then she rolled her eyes and repeated herself rather irritably. He had the feeling she was angry.
"I said: I'll distract it long enough for you to get a hold of your penis extension down there." She cocked her head. "I can kill it for you if you'd like. If it would make your mental vision of me more accurate."
Oh yeah, she was angry. She didn't wait for him to reply, swinging over the branch until her bared midriff dangled tantalisingly close to his nose and then she'd dropped down and was climbing like a monkey to the ground. He scrambled around, getting as close to the crossbow as he could. The plan went relatively well with only a few minor scrapes and bruises attained. Daryl glared at her, quite clearly attempting to gloss over her anger by inflaming his own.
"You coulda been killed." He snarled, kicking the walker out of the way once he'd retrieved the spent bolt.
"And we could have starved to death in that tree." She countered calmly. "They can wait us out long after we drop of dehydration."
She squinted into the trees. It was getting dark. And hot. She swiped the sweat from her forehead with one dirty hand, smearing moss and lichen across her brow. It was too dark to keep looking for food, there was nothing for it but to head back to the road and find somewhere to camp for the night. She kept a pace and a half in front of him, her back rigid and unwelcoming. Daryl had no problem with silence, at times like this it could make the different between life and death but this was a brittle silence emanating from Cassidy. It was far more distracting than anything else she could have done.
"What's wrong with the Dodgers?" Cassidy demanded, retrieving the slightly bloodied blue and white cap from the road and pulling it onto her head.
"What's right about 'em?" Daryl cast the cap a thoroughly derisive glower.
"They're a good team! Don't you follow the sport?" Cassidy wrinkled her nose. "Didn't you follow the sport?"
"Tryin' ya best to hit a ball and run in a circle ain't no sorta sport." Daryl grunted.
"Ah. Couldn't hit a home run as a child I take it." Cassidy patted his arm soothingly until he jerked it out of her reach peevishly.
"And where'd all that swingin' get them in the end? Exactly where it got him." Daryl nudged the slain walker with his boot to prove his point.
"Maybe." She conceded thoughtfully. "Either way it doesn't really do us much good right now."
"You tired, Red?"
She ignored the jab.
"I'm longing for a warm bed and a hot shower." She turned and squinted at the road they'd been travelling down. "We're almost out of sunlight."
Daryl's grunt was muffled, his top half was buried in the car they'd stumbled upon crashed down the embankment by the side of the road. Cassidy took a moment to enjoy the view, then she headed over. He handed her a crisp map that had been folded neatly in a square. Several points on the map had been circled in marker pen. Motels. Cassidy turned to the walker they'd found in the car, squatting down besides him. She rooted around in his pockets until Daryl almost felt jealous of the guy. Eventually she returned to her feet holding a slip of soiled paper.
"Is there a Bobby's Rest Stop on there?"
Daryl scanned the map, then looked at it again. Eventually he shook his head.
"Flip it over, redneck."
He glowered but turned over the map. On the back was a neat handwritten list of all the rest stops, gas stations and motels along the route he'd been taking.
"Bit stuffy for a sports fan." Daryl sniffed.
"More like his wife wanted a complete record of where he was going to be at all times." Cassidy guessed. "So our friend here used Bobby's which is here." She pointed at a spot on the map. "There is a motel here, so we have to assume we're somewhere in between."
Daryl nodded. It was a reasonable assumption considering they hadn't passed a motel or a rest stop so far, logically they were somewhere between the two points.
"How much is in the tank?" Daryl asked, scratching his stubbled chin thoughtfully.
She leaned in.
"About two thirds."
Between them they managed to get a rough estimate of how many miles he'd likely travelled since filling up, based on the type of car and a few rather dodgy attempts at math. Eventually they agreed that the motel couldn't be more than two or three miles away.
"Best not to get our hopes up." Cassidy said tiredly, they'd been searching for days and still hadn't found anything even slightly promising. "It'll probably be infested."
Daryl grunted. They looked at each other but they both knew they had no choice. Cassidy looked at the map again.
"If we keep walking we can probably get there by dawn." She estimated, peering up at the sky.
He looked at her as if trying to work out whether she was up for it or not. She bristled, looking much more like her usual self than the cold silent character she'd been portraying since the incident in the tree.
"Let's go, Dixon."
"Definitely going to be infested." She sighed unhappily.
He didn't reply, she could practically see the cogs turning in his head. The safest thing to do would be to return to the others and clear the walkers out with back up, but then they'd be putting others at risk. And apart from Rick, Maggie and Glenn she had very little faith in any of the other survivors lasting more than a few seconds without needing to be rescued. Even Lochie would probably end up as more of a liability.
"So the way I see it, we have two choices; go room to room or get them all out at once." She mused. "If I had Vera I'd opt for the latter but with what we've got…" Daryl's grip tightened on his crossbow and he glowered as if she'd mortally offended him. "If we let them all out we could end up overrun."
He did nothing to indicate he'd even heard her but she saw the worry line between his brows deepening.
"Room by room?" She prompted.
"Room by room." He agreed grimly after a long pause, frowning when she tucked her gun securely into the back of her jeans.
"It'll make too much noise." She reminded him.
"So you're goin' in there naked?"
"I hadn't planned on it but if that's what gets you going…"
He scowled and she rolled her eyes, retrieving a rather wicked looking knife from the strap at her thigh. The worry line was back. She was going to have to get up close and personal to take out any walkers with that. If she could read the worry churning in his gut she didn't comment on it, she was working out their plan of action. There were only twenty rooms, fifteen forming three sides of a square and the remaining five a single row slightly apart from the others.
They started with the office, Cassidy thrusting the knife through the manager's forehead. When he was still they dragged him outside to burn later.
"Hey look, there's a pool." Cassidy fluttered her eyelashes. "Have you ever had sex in a pool, redneck? It's an experience."
Daryl peered at the dusty tepid water and snorted as if the very idea was ludicrous.
"That water ain't been cleaned in weeks, Red."
"Neither have we." She pointed out.
They took the keys from the board behind the desk, working their way through the rooms. Most of them were empty given the apocalyptic state of the country, and the few walkers they did encounter had been starving for so long they went down relatively easily. There was a rather hairy moment when a spry walker sprang through the adjoining doors and grabbed a fistful of Cassidy's hair. His slavering maw was mere centimetres from her cheek when Daryl nailed it. After that they carefully locked each of the doors behind them and barricaded them with furniture.
It took the rest of the day and most of the night but finally the motel was walker free. It was nearly sunrise when they piled the last of the bodies outside to be burned.
"We'll have to wait for morning to burn 'em." Daryl squinted up at the brightening sky. "Fire's only gonna attract more of the suckers."
Cassidy stifled a yawn. They'd decided to stay in the five isolated rooms, they offered a complete view of their surroundings and adjoining doors meant a hasty exit possibility.
The shower wasn't working, much to Cassidy's chagrin, so they barricaded themselves into the room closest to the road. Daryl had intended to keep watch but once Cassidy had changed the sheets for fresh ones, she had managed to coax him to lie down besides her. They both smelt pretty ripe after everything they'd been through, but Cassidy didn't complain. She liked his scent, all blood and sweat and metal, and when she lapped her tongue against his throat she could taste his heady intoxicating scent sharp against her tastebuds.
They were too exhausted to take it any further but he enjoyed the way she curled against his side, her nose mere millimetres from his arm, her breath fanning warmly across his cheek. At some point during the night he woke to find she'd rolled over and his cheek was buried in her hair spread across the pillow. It was warm from her body heat. He inched closer until the arm lying between them brushed the planes of her back. She returned the pressure even though she didn't wake and he felt a flash of worrisome reassurance.
He climbed to his feet, sliding away from her silently so she could rest. When he returned from his patrol she was gone. He tensed, lifting the crossbow and scanning the room.
"Calm down." She laughed, emerging from the bathroom behind him.
She had been washing in the tepid water she'd filled the sink with, soaking her sweaty hair and scrubbing what dirt and grime she could from her body. She had stripped out of her smelly clothes and wrapped herself up in a surprisingly comfortable looking bathrobe, her wet hair dripping down her back. She coiled around him from behind, her damp hands pressing against the planes of his chest.
"If you want to wash I filled the sink with some clean-ish water for you." She said, stepping around him.
He caught her back, running his hands up into her wet hair.
"I just washed that." She chastised as his hand slid in between the folds of the robe. "Go wash."
He muttered something under his breath but she was quite firm, and he stomped off to the bathroom. He washed as best as he could in the dark, shucking off his boots to rinse his hot tired feet and trickling water over his lank hair. When he returned to the bedroom she was curled up in the middle of the bed, the over-sized robe swamping her. She sniffed experimentally.
"Much better." She giggled suddenly and he scowled. "I was expecting you to come out in one of these?" She lifted the collar of the robe then she giggled even harder and he snapped at her. "Sorry. I was just picturing you in my robe at home. It looks like a Jedi cloak. It's awesome."
She looked very young all of a sudden, drowning in the expansive material, her wet hair pulled over one shoulder. Her smile dropped and he knew she was remembering that she'd probably never see that robe again. That was how it hit you nowadays, like a boulder to the head, the realisation that you'd never just sit down with a paper again or go to the supermarket for milk. She yawned, stretching her hands up until the luminous sleeves dropped down to her elbows. Her arms were marred by scratches and bruises from their travels. He pounced onto the bed, the springs screeching in protest as he loomed over her. She grinned as his damp hair trickled over his bare neck and chest, spotting her nose and freckles cheeks.
"I thought you were supposed to be protecting our asses?"
"There're all kindsa ways to do that." He slipped his hand up under the robe, caressing the curve of her thigh. He came to an abrupt halt when she winced. "What?"
She shook her head and he glared, grabbing her hip and rolling her firmly over before she could protest. Whipping up the robe with very little ceremony, he revealed a nasty yellow and purple bruise on the back of her thigh. He shoved her over onto her back again.
"Ow."
"Go to sleep." He grunted, rolling onto his back besides her. "We gotta long way to go tomorrow."
LadyLecter47 – here you go, sorry it took so long I was on holiday
zaii – glad you liked it so much
JTellersOldLady – he's the only good character in it so he better be there to stay, the rest are just fodder. Lol well that was the aim, here's your update
SharonH – Rick strikes me as a very guilty person lol and Lori has her hooks in pretty deep.