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 Two
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
"What's with them?" Lochie muttered, peering curiously across the courtyard at Maggie and Glenn.
"Maggie's all bent out of shape because Glenn won't share a room with her right under her father's nose."
"Huh." Lochie cocked her head thoughtfully. "You'd think she was way too old to still be in her rebellious phase."
Carol, who was scrubbing blood from one of the windows, winced. Cassidy cast a quick glance around, assessing where everyone was. Rick and T-Dog were securely boarding up the other fifteen rooms to keep out any stray walkers; Hershel, Lori and Carl were sorting through all the furniture they'd pulled out of the rooms, stacking what could be used as firewood or weapons and piling the rest up to be distributed fairly; before they'd started arguing Maggie and Glenn had been burying the burnt remains of the walkers away from their new camp. Cassidy winced and swore loudly as she caught her thumb on a stray splinter in the doorframe. The two of them had been making the five rooms as secure as possible with what they had, fixing broken window frames and locks. Lochie dropped her screwdriver with a loud clatter, hissing a long stream of curse words that made Carl giggle.
"Nice job, klutz." Cassidy snorted, grunting with the effort of forcing a broken slat back into place.
"Hey I'm used to picking locks not locking them." Lochie grumbled, shoving her hair out of her eyes.
Cassidy stood back to admire her handiwork. Well… it would hold anyway. She glanced over her shoulder again. She knew Daryl was deep in the trees, searching for food, and she knew he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself and any walkers he came across. She still had a bad feeling though. The skin at the back of her neck was crawling. Turning back she found Lochie peeping out of the corner of her eye at Rick, who was looking forlornly at Lori and Carl again. She huffed, glaring at Cassidy when she found her looking.
"I know I know. I don't want to talk about it. Hey kid." She forced a smile for Carl who was struggling to keep hold of a pile of freshly aired, and beaten, blankets. "Need a hand?"
They were distributing any useful furniture between the rooms. The first room was hers and Daryl's, the next was Rick, Lori and Carl's, then Maggie and Glenn (theoretically), then Lochie and Carol and then T-Dog and Hershel. All of the adjoining doors were to be left unlocked in case of an emergency. Carl shook his head but one of the blankets tilted dangerously towards the rocky ground. Cassidy rescued it and took most of the pile from him.
"Come on, let's change these manky sheets and get the hell out of this sun."
Carl was uncharacteristically quiet as he helped Cassidy strip the beds and re-make them with the clean sheets.
"You okay, kid?"
He jumped about a foot in the air, dropping the bundle of dirty sheets in his arms. He flushed.
"I'm fine."
She eyed him. He looked pale and thin, the too-big hat sliding over his sweat-slicked forehead and the ugly yellow work gloves they'd found making his arms look skinnier than ever.
"Sure, and I'm the Queen of Sheba." He blinked at her. "Don't bullshit me, kid."
His flush darkened and he glanced around as if he expected his mother to pounce on them at any moment.
"You miss Shane." Cassidy hazarded.
Carl's face paled and he looked caught between guilt and grief.
"Look, I'm not good with emotions but I'm pretty sure you have the right to miss someone you grew up loving. Don't feel guilty about it. I'm sure your dad feels just as confused as you do."
They worked in silence for a while; methodically stripping out the old sheets, flipping the mattresses and re-making them with the fresh bedding. The work was simple enough for her mind to wander and her thoughts automatically strayed to Daryl. He was out hunting for something for them to live on but they couldn't live like this forever. The hotel was too hard to secure indefinitely, even if they could get the water running again.
When they'd finished with the beds they dragged the pile of dirty sheets out into the sun to see what could be salvaged. T-Dog, Rick and Glenn were huddled together discussing something.
"What's going on?" Cassidy asked Lochie warily.
"They're trying to figure out how to fix the filtration system on the pool-"
"We have a pool?!" Carl blurted excitedly.
"Yeah it stinks like you wouldn't believe." Lochie wrinkled her nose and Carl grinned. "Can you fix it? Because I could totally spend a few days by the pool with a dozen cocktails."
"We'd need to find the chemicals and stuff for the water." T-Dog mused thoughtfully.
Carl and Lochie broke into excited babbling and Cassidy rolled her eyes, slipping away to find some water to cool her dusty throat.
Cassidy stretched languidly, arching her back and stretching out her spine. Daryl's gaze flickered briefly from the squirrels he was skinning to her bare navel. She was resting before dinner, half watching Carl and Lochie who had scavenged half a dozen inflatables from around the pool and, after wiping them down, were blowing them up with much giggling and rude noises. Cassidy had commandeered a big pink lilo to stretch out on. A shadow momentarily blocked out the lowering sun and Cassidy cracked open an eye behind her mirrored aviators. Lori was towering over her glaring irritably.
"You wanted me?" She ground out between clenched teeth.
"Only for your winning personality." Cassidy muttered.
"What do you want?" Lori snapped.
"My own private Caribbean island, complete with topless slave boys armed with leafy fans and fruity cocktails."
Lori huffed and turned away.
"Talk to your son." Cassidy snapped after her. "Sulking at his dad isn't helping him."
Lori swelled like an indignant bullfrog, clearly gearing up to explode but Cassidy rolled away from her and eventually Lori stamped off in a cloud of righteous indignation. Daryl watched her retreating back without commenting, tossing the squirrel skins into a small furry pile besides his boot. He'd returned to the hotel almost an hour ago, his grimmer than usual scowl deflating Rick's hopes of an all you can eat extravaganza. He'd eyed them working on the pool, then pulled up a dusty sun-lounger a few feet away and got to work.
"Roasted squirrel again, huh?"
He glowered and she pushed herself up into a sitting position.
"We can't live off rodents forever." She gave him a sideways grin. "Not that you don't do a very good job of catching them. I'm sure it's thoroughly sexy when you're out there alone doing your survival thing." He scowled. "If we don't get some actual food we're going to starve out here. Winter will be here soon." She scrubbed her hands over her face tiredly. "Urgh I'm not used to having to look out for people. Worrying, watching." She glowered into the distance. "I don't think I like it."
"Don't think ya supposed to." Daryl muttered gruffly.
"If this is what it feels like to be a parent, I am out." She shuddered delicately. "Totally not worth it."
Daryl cast a shrewd look over her and she glared.
"What about that one?" He jerked his head towards Carl, who had been winning the race to blow up a rubber ring until Lochie had pounced on top of it and flattened all the air out of it and was loudly reproaching Lochie for cheating.
"Not mine. Not my problem." He lifted his eyebrows and she jutted her chin stubbornly. "Stop playing with those things a minute."
"I ain't playin', we gotta eat. Got a whole camp full of hungry whiny people."
"Really?" She giggled. "I'm sorry but you totally just sounded like my grandma."
He opened his mouth furiously but she slipped between his knees, snatching the half-skinned squirrel from one hand and tossing it unceremoniously over her shoulder. It landed with an unpleasant splot somewhere behind her. She tipped his hand until the knife slipped out of his grasp, landing in the pile of skins with a thump.
"You two aren't going to start making out or anything gross are you?"
Daryl turned his fiercest glare on Lochie, standing behind them with Carl.
"You want something?" He growled dangerously.
"Just to ruin your day." She said sweetly, dodging out of range when he kicked the squirrel skins at her.
She whirled away from them and almost toppled right over Rick. He tried to steady her but she yanked her arm away from him.
"We're calling it a night, everyone's pretty exhausted."
He scratched at his cheek, one hand on Carl's shoulder.
"Huh. I can't remember the last time I had a curfew." Cassidy teased.
Rick frowned and she laughed. He was right, it was getting chillier and the sun hadn't even fully set yet. Daryl gathered up the skins and disappeared into their room while Cassidy and T-Dog helped Rick secure the outer doors of all five rooms. Once they'd clambered in through the window of Daryl and Cassidy's room and secured it again behind them, they seemed to be at a loss. As tired as everyone was it was still too early to sleep. The problem was resolved by Lochie opening up all of the adjoining doors as everybody spread out.
"So what are we going to do, stare at each other until we fall asleep?" Cassidy muttered, stretching out on the bed as Lochie settled down and started a game of cards with Carl, Maggie and Glenn on the floor of Rick's room, Carol and Lori were talking quietly on the bed.
"We could tell stories." She suggested cheerfully. "Okay I got a great one."
The sun was fading rapidly and the rooms were already pretty dark from being boarded up. Carl inched a little closer to Lochie as she talked.
"Okay so there's this girl. Real hot. All dark hair and grey eyes and an incredible-" She broke off when Carl giggled. "Anyway so she was having problems with this evil old witch. More of a hag really. Now this girl had a thing for this Prince. A handsome knight in shining armour. But this hag was jealous of the girl's beauty so she sent these hell hounds after her. Every night when the sun went down the girl would hear them howling all around the house, clawing at the doors and snarling. No matter where she went they found her and anyone who tried to slay them was mauled to death."
Hearing such a creepy story from someone as innocent sounding as Lochie had cast a spell on them. Even Hershel was listening, he was trying to look as though he wasn't but his room was the furthest away and he had leaned slightly towards the open adjoining doors.
The roof creaked ominously as T-Dog changed positions above them and Carl shot about a foot in the air, grabbing onto Lochie's arm. Glenn squeaked in fear and then blushed embarrassedly when Maggie smirked.
"I don't think we need to hear ghost stories when our entire life is one giant horror movie, Loch." Cassidy chastised.
Lochie rolled her eyes but allowed Maggie to take over and fill them in on how stolen a tractor at the age of eleven. Wandering into the bathroom Cassidy encountered a string of squirrels dangling from the ceiling above the dirty bathtub.
"Darling?" She purred, sticking her head out into their main bedroom. "I like what you've done with the place, it gives it a real redneck feel."
He gave her a dirty look and she grinned. Cassidy cast a furtive glance around, latched her fingers into Daryl's shirt and yanked him into the bathroom. The room was really too small for any kind of manoeuvrability and Cassidy banged her elbow hard on the sink, the toilet cistern digging painfully into her back. She heard Daryl's muttered oaths against her cheek and she giggled, he'd caught his boot in the door as it slammed closed and tumbled forwards until he'd cracked his knee on the seat of the toilet. There was a lot of fumbling and giggling and swearing until they finally managed to arrange themselves comfortably enough for Cassidy to pull his head down towards hers. One hand steadied them against the wall and the other was sliding purposefully along her thigh.
"Think this thing can hold us?" She whispered breathlessly, indicating the cistern she was propped against.
"Hell no." Lochie's voice startled them and Daryl swore loudly. "Yeah, we can hear every nasty thing you guys are saying and doing. These walls are about as sturdy as a sheet of paper."
Daryl moved away from Cassidy reluctantly, helping her jump down.
"We definitely need to find somewhere else to set up camp." Cassidy sighed, straightening her shirt and following Daryl out of the room.
LadyLecter47 – my holiday was amazing thank you, hope this is worth the wait
JTellersOldLady – thanks
JDMlvr1 – thanks glad you like it, hope you enjoy this too. There'll be more Cassidy and Carl to come.
deadorworse – here's your update :)