11

He slowed the bike in front of the trailer. "You get off first," he instructed.

She carefully got down and stood awkwardly as she looked around. "Is this where you live?" She meant to sound curious, because she genuinely was. But she understood how it sounded as soon as she saw his face.

"Yeah," Daryl answered distantly. "We moved here after the fire."

"Sorry."

"The hell're you sorry about?" She shrugged. He left the key in the chopper and checked the driveway. No one home, and the sun wasn't due to go down for a while. "I have to run in and grab some things. Then I'm going back to the car. If you wanna come," he added shyly.

She shrugged. 'Guess I might as well." But he noticed that she had a small smirk of a smile running across her face.

"You guard the bike and let me know if you see anyone coming."

"Is all this super-spy stuff necessary?"

"Fine, don't do it. Just keep quiet and follow me."

She nodded and followed him into the trailer. He turned on the light switch and was greeted with exactly what he thought he would be. A mess. When he did stay there, he took a small amount of interest in maintaining a basic level of cleanliness. His absence was apparent. His eyes fell to the overflowing garbage, the mountain of dirty dishes, and the overabundance of empty beer cans scattered around. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"The hell're you sorry for?" She smiled when he realized she was throwing his own words back at him.

"I'm sorry your six senses are being assaulted right now," he said with full honesty. He headed to the dresser in the corner of the room with an empty garbage bag.

"Are you staying away because of your dad?"

"No, I'm staying away because of the fucking tooth fairy." She looked genuinely hurt and he wondered if he really was meant to be an asshole. "Sorry. But, uh, seriously? What do you think?"

"Guess I thought so. But it just seems so wrong." Her eyes fell to the BB gun on the floor and the shot up beer cans assembled across the TV set. "Does he fire that in here?"

Daryl shrugged. "It's just a BB gun." He began loading clean clothes into the bag, and continued till it was full.

"Won't he notice anything missing?"

"I hope he does." He signaled that he was time to leave, and Sadie rushed out ahead of him.

"You left the light on," she informed him as the sun fell below the trees.

"I know."

—-

They shuffled back to the safety of the boxcar in silence. Once they were inside Sadie plopped herself down on the bed with an exhausted sigh. "These escapades in the woods are killing me," she breathed.

He laughed a little. "You're just not used to it. This car isn't even that far out."

"Why the woods?" she asked laying back. "What's so special about it?"

He gaped at her. "Well, have you seen it out there?"

"Yeah, it's like… the woods."

He found this observation oddly frustrating. "You didn't grow up out here," he reasoned. She nodded, waiting for him to continue. "You find a place, deep out there," he began. "It's away from everything." He found himself struggling. "It's away from everything that's not natural. You let the earth take over, the trees, the animals. It just balances." He noticed her surprised eyes. "What?"

"That's very poetic."

He shrugged. "It's the truth." He made himself busy transferring the clean clothes to the backpack and emptying bad food into the trash bag so she would stop talking to him. He watched her from the corner of his eye. She sat on the edge of the bed and played with the edge of the blanket nervously. "What's your brother want with mine?" he asked finally.

She froze. "You don't know?"

He felt his defenses go up so fast that he felt a chill. "What should I know?" She refused to make eye contact with him. "Sadie!"

She looked past him and stared at the wall. "You should just ask your brother. I don't want to get involved."

He threw up his hands in frustration and they came back down in clenched fists. "Obviously you're already involved!"

She tensed and stood up, visibly annoyed. She placed her hand on her hip and cocked her head. "You calm the fuck down, Daryl Dixon," she commanded in an even voice.

He stepped toward her and he felt his temperature rising. "No one tells me to do anything!" he heard himself challenge her.

She finally found his eye and smirked. "What're you gonna do, fight me?"

He found his lips smashing into hers.