This chapter's plot randomly popped into my head the other day and I wanted to get it written.
The next chapter will be Beth's birthday and some much-needed Beth/Daryl fluff.
…
Chapter Fifteen. Oven.
Luke tried to concentrate on the sketch he was working on and not look up every time the door opened and the bell rang, signaling a new customer entering. He just kept sketching and drank from his glass of Coke and it never got too low before Amy was there, giving him a refill and asking him if he wanted to order anything. He had five dollars in his pocket and the diner had the best French fries but he didn't want to spend his money and he wasn't feeling really hungry at the moment.
He still wasn't entirely sure why he was doing this. His mom had asked him at least a dozen times just that morning if he was and every time, he had nodded because at the time, he hadn't been exactly sure but he knew that this was something he had to do. Not something he necessarily wanted to do but he figured it was just one of those unpleasant things that people had to do from time to time throughout their life.
He was thirteen years old now and he had been with Daryl and Beth Dixon for almost nine years already. So much of his life up to this point had been with Daryl as his dad and Beth as his mom but for the first four years he had been alive, he had had something entirely different. He had had Mark and Valerie Ridgeway and no matter what his last name was now, he still had the Ridgeway blood.
Their town was small and the newspaper was only weekly and the library had every issue dating back for years. He had gone once to look at them for a school project and had found a story written about them; about their arrest. Their pictures were printed. Black and white and grainy but Luke had sat at the table and stared at them, losing all track of time and sense of the world around him. He looked like just like him. Mark Ridgeway. His dad. It actually almost made him feel sick.
The man was photographed being led out their old ramshackle house in handcuffs by two police officers. They had gotten arrested when Luke had been at the daycare center for the day so he hadn't been around to see both of his parents be led off. Sherriff Grimes had come to the center and Luke remembered being jealous of his hat. Beth had called him over and asked him if he would like to go home with her and her husband that night and Luke hadn't even hesitated before answering with a resounding yes. The four-year-old him hadn't even thought about it because he was able to go home with Beth and Daryl Dixon and they fed him dinner and he got to take his first bubble bath ever and he slept on their soft couch with a warm blanket and in the morning, Beth had made pancakes.
They had been in his life ever since. They became his parents in every sense of the word. Beth was there, giving him medicine and feeding him chicken noodle soup when he got sick, and taking him shopping for new clothes and taking him to his first dentist appointment and his first haircut. Daryl was there, teaching him how to hunt and track and he taught him how to ride a bike and when he fell and scraped his knees, Daryl was the one to clean him up and put band aids over his cuts. They never yelled at him or slapped him or beat him until he was cowering in the closet, crying and trying his hardest to ignore the pain that engulfed his body.
No one knew how much of his old life he remembered because he never talked about it. He never saw a reason to. It was in the past and in his opinion, it wasn't important to remember. Why the hell would he want to remember it anyway? Of the beatings and of being starved or ignored altogether. Daryl had had the same childhood and he never talked about it so why would anyone expect Luke to talk?
The bell rang again and this time, something pricked him on the back of the neck that had Luke lifting his head to see the newest arrival in the diner. And this time, it was her. Her eyes scanned over the diner before they found him, sitting in the corner booth, and she seemed to take a deep breath as if she was nervous, too, but then she came towards him slowly and did her best to give him a small smile.
"Hi, Luke," she said and slid into the bench seat across from him. "Have you been waiting long?" She asked.
Up until that second, he didn't know how this was going to go or how he was going to be. He had considered just sitting there and not saying a word but he decided that since he had been the one who had agreed to meet her, he should at least talk.
"Not long," he said. "I got here a little early. Mom dropped me off."
He was surprised when he saw that she had no reaction to him calling another woman "mom" but it was the truth of the entire situation. Beth was his mom. This woman was nothing more than an oven.
Amy came to their table and asked Valerie if she wanted anything and Luke took the opportunity to study the woman sitting across from him. When he had seen her in Aldi for the first time a few weeks ago, he could tell immediately that she was clean now. The memory he had of this woman was with greasy hair and scratches and pot marks all over her face and dirty teeth. This woman wasn't like that anymore. For one thing, it looked like she had bathed in recent memory.
"Would you like anything?" Valerie asked, breaking through his thoughts.
Luke just shook his head and Amy gave them a smile before walking away. He wondered what Amy thought about this lunch meeting. Everyone in town knew how Mark and Valerie had treated him and everyone knew when they had gone to prison and everyone knew when Daryl and Beth adopted him, changing him from a Ridgeway to a Dixon. And now, oven and son were sitting together in the diner. Luke imagined that everyone in town would know about this, too.
Silence fell over them for a few heavy, awkward minutes but Luke didn't think to break it. Valerie was the one who wanted to meet him and he had agreed. He had done his part. If she wanted to talk with him – and he imagined she did – she would actually have to be the one to pick the topic of conversation.
"What are you drawing?" Valerie asked.
Luke turned his sketchpad over without protesting. He never minded showing people his work. Not even her.
He watched as Valerie studied the pencil sketch he had been working on and then she began looking through the others before it, her face intent as she looked at each one, not rushing, taking minutes on each one. Amy came to their table with the cup of coffee Valerie had ordered and another glass of Coke for Luke and Valerie lifted her eyes, looking at Luke across from her.
"These are amazing," she said almost in a hush.
Luke shrugged and took a sip of his soda through the straw. "There's been a couple of art shows at my school. I've won a few ribbons," he said, looking down at the table rather than here when he spoke because she kept looking at him and he saw that they had the same green eyes.
"That's so wonderful, Luke," she said and slid the pad back across the table to him.
Silence again. He finally lifted his eyes but wished he hadn't because when he looked at her, he saw tears brimming in her eyes and he couldn't help but feel angry at the sight of them. He frowned at her.
"Why are you doing that?" He asked and was surprised to hear his voice so hard.
She quickly shook her head. "I just… I don't know anything about you and I am just so happy that you've agreed to meet with me."
"You don't know anything about me? Well, whose fault is that?" Luke asked and he could hear his voice getting a little louder. "Are you expecting me to feel bad?"
"Of course not, Luke," Valerie quickly interjected. "I know this is all my fault. Mine and your father's."
"He's not my father," Luke said. "And you're not my mother. You're an oven."
More tears flooded into Valerie's eyes and he only felt his anger growing at the sight. He didn't know why she was crying. She had absolutely no right to cry. She had been right there, beating him right alongside Mark. It wasn't as if she did anything to protect him. If anything, sometimes, he was more afraid of her than of Mark.
And now she was going to sit there and cry just because she went to prison and got clean? Luke didn't care. He really didn't. He might have died if he stayed there with them any longer. Either being beaten or starved to death. He was their own son and they hadn't given a shit about anything other than where their next high was coming from. This whole thing was such bullshit.
"Do you want to see my scars?" Luke then asked. "I've got plenty of them."
"No, Luke," Valerie shook her head again. "I don't want to see them."
"Why not? I have to look at them every day."
Tears began trickling down her cheeks and he hated that she thought she had any right to cry right now. Especially in front of him.
"I'm sorry. I'm so… I'm so, so sorry, Luke. I know it doesn't fix anything me or your… Mark did to you. And you have every single right in this world to hate me-"
"Glad we finally agree on something," Luke said.
With that, he stood up from the table and grabbed his pad, shoving it under his arm.
He didn't know why he had agreed to meet with her. He didn't know what he had been hoping to get out of it because even all of these years later, sitting across from her, he realized that all of these wounds, all of the damage she and Mark had done to him, it was still too fresh. He never would have thought because he never thought about them anymore. He had no reason to. He had parents and siblings and a nice house and dinner on the table to eat every night. And he may have had Ridgeway blood and Valerie's green eyes and Mark's dirty blonde hair but he was a Dixon.
He couldn't help from storming out of the diner and stalking down the street. He was clenching his jaw so tightly, his teeth were beginning to ache, and he tried to get himself to breathe. He didn't think about it as he started heading in the direction of Dale's garage – just started heading there and kicking at a pebble on the sidewalk.
He expected Valerie to follow him but thankfully, she had taken the hint. He didn't want to see her. Probably never again. Maybe He would be ready to see her again someday. Maybe when he was forty and had been able to truly leave his past behind him without his scars aching at the sight of her.
The garage was open on Saturday but as he walked through the open bay doors, he saw that it was pretty quiet. He could see Dale sitting in the front office and the only mechanics who seemed to be working that day were his dad and Oscar. Luke went into Daryl's bay and without a word, he sat down on the ground, resting his back against the wall. Daryl's upper body was underneath a car so Luke sat there for a few minutes, going undetected, taking the time to get his heart slowing down again.
When Daryl slid out again and sat up, he stilled at the sight of Luke. He looked at him for a moment and then pulled the red rag he kept in his back pocket and wiped his hands. He didn't say anything or even looked surprised to see him. Luke wondered if Daryl had been expecting him ever since Luke had told him and Beth that he was thinking about meeting up with Valerie.
Still, without a word, Daryl stood up and Luke stood up, too, and followed him towards the back of the garage. The employees had small lockers and they stopped at Daryl's as he grabbed a cigarette and a lighter before heading out back. Luke sat down in one of the lawn chairs the guys had set up, resting his sketch pad across his thighs, and Daryl sat in the chair beside him, lighting the cigarette and turning his head and exhaling the smoke away from him.
"I hate her." He said the words quietly but firmly. "I don't know what I was expecting," he then admitted barely above a whisper.
Daryl didn't say anything. He didn't tell him that hate was a strong word or tell him how he shouldn't hate anyone like Beth would say if she had heard him. Instead, Daryl sat silently and smoked his cigarette.
"Your mom told me somethin' a long time ago," Daryl then spoke after a moment, his voice a little rough from not having used it for the past couple of hours. "It was when we had started seein' one another and I finally showed her my back."
Luke turned his head and kept his eyes on him.
"She's got scars of her own, too, and it took just as much for her to show me hers."
Luke knew the scar but it was something they never talked about. She wore bracelets covering it all of the time and he wasn't an idiot. He knew what that scar was but he didn't ask because he understood that about scars. A person with them would only talk about them when they wanted to talk about it.
"She told me that we gotta stay who we are. Not who we were."
Daryl was quiet after that, finishing his cigarette, and Luke was quiet, letting those words roll around in his head for a few minutes.
"You can hate that woman all you want, Luke," Daryl said. "I'm not gonna tell you that you can't. I hate my ol' man for what he did to me and sometimes, all you can do is hate 'em to get through it." He looked at him then, his eyes intently settled on him. "As long as you don't let yourself feel only hate."
He kept looking at him, to see if he understood, and Luke nodded because he did.
Luke stayed for the rest of the morning, sitting on the floor of Daryl's bay and finishing his sketch, as Daryl finished work on the car and when noon came and Dale closed the garage for the day, Daryl drove them home in his pickup truck.
They found the others in the backyard. It was hot and they had set up an inflatable pool in the grass, one that Hunter and Abby – in their bathing suits – were now splashing around in. Beth was kneeling in her vegetable garden, weeding as she kept an eye on them, and she saw Daryl and Luke coming through the back door, smiling at them as she stood up. She pulled off her gardening gloves as she came to them and without a word, she hugged Luke, kissing him on the head.
She didn't ask how it went and he was relieved for that.
"Want to go change into your swimming trunks?" She asked him. "I laid them out on your bed for you, just in case."
He nodded and she smiled, kissing his head again, before he turned to go back into the house. He looked over his shoulder, expecting them to be talking about him, but instead, he saw Beth push herself upwards and Daryl leaned down and they kissed.
"There was a spider in our bathtub so I closed the door and haven't been in there for hours," she then told him. "I was waiting until you got home."
Daryl smirked at that. "I know you only married me 'cause I kill your spiders."
And Beth just smiled up at him. "Did you think there was any other reason?"
Luke went inside and upstairs to change into his swimming trunks and when he came downstairs, Daryl had dragged the hose out to fill the pool with more water and Beth was kneeling down, spreading more sunscreen lotion on Hunter and Abby.
"Luke, you're next. Get over here!" She called out as soon as she saw him. "I'm not having any of you kids burn."
And Luke smiled a little to himself as he went over without argument.
…
Thank you so much for reading and please review!