A/N Hey everyone! Hope you like this week's update. I love that I'm still getting new followers. Much loves 3
"Maggie already gave me a bunch of her clothes, so I don't need much else." Sam says, rooting through her closet "But there's a few things I'll be glad to have back."
Daryl stands in the middle of her room, unsure what to do with himself. "Why did I have to ask if you needed anything else?"
She just laughs "I'll try to be quick. Sit, look around, do something. You just standing there is making me uncomfortable."
He slowly walks around her room while she throws stuff in a duffel bag. He looks over when he hears something metal hit the floor after missing the bag. A pair of handcuffs sit on the floor by his feet, he picks them up, letting them dangle off his thumb and looks at Sam with a raised eyebrow.
Sam stands up flustered and bright red "I um, well, you know. We might need them for someone. Never hurts, right?"
"Uh-huh." he smirks and drops them in the bag.
She quickly goes back to the closet and Daryl resumes his inspection of the room. He looks at all the pictures and posters hanging on the walls, the corkboard above her desk is covered with pictures of people.
"You had a lot of friends up here?" he says, looking at all the different groups in the pictures.
"Yeah, a lot of those are old though, before everyone left for college and everything." she stands, zipping up the bag and looking around "Ah! There you are."
He waits until she is half under the bed and distracted before quickly swiping a few small things off her desk and securing them in his pocket and hiding some in the bag. She wiggles out from under the bed, clutching her prize in her hand.
"I couldn't leave with out this." she puts on a gritty and broken in baseball hat.
"Didn't peg you for someone who liked sports." he says
"Oh yeah, Sox, Pats and the Bruins? Those are my boys." she takes the hat off and bends the brim more "Were. I have to keep reminding myself to use past tense."
Sam walks around the living room, taking some pictures off the wall and adding them to a half empty photo album she found. Daryl sits on the arm of the couch, trying to wait patiently while he watches the sun drop lower behind the buildings.
"Sam." he finally says "If we're gonna to get out of the city tonight, we gotta go now. It's gonna be dark soon."
She glances out the window, then around the apartment with a sad face "I know. I just…"
"You want to stay here tonight?" he asks, shaking his head when she nods yes "Why didn't you just say that?"
"I dunno." she shrugs.
"I'm gonna see if there's anything in the kitchen we can use."
"So" Sam yells to him "when are you gonna teach me to use your bow?"
"I dunno, whenever." he yells back.
"Tonight?" she asks "I'll paint a target on the wall and everything."
"Yer getting awful excited bout this."
"I haven't learned a new weapon since the farm, and your bow is way cooler than a gun."
"Might as well, since we'll be here all night anyway."
"Come on girl, pull that string back." Daryl encourages her.
"I can't." she says, struggling to pull the string back half way.
"Bull shit you can't. Do it like I showed you." he insists "You gotta be able to get it back before you can learn to fire it."
She puts the bow on the floor, holding it with her foot and finally secures the string with a click.
"Good. Now do it again."
"Oh come on. I just did it a bunch." she starts to complain.
"Yeah, an yer gonna keep doin it until it's reflex, second nature. Until you don't even have to think about it. It ain't like using a gun, where it reloads on it's own, you're gonna have to do this after every time you fire."
She groans "I know."
"Just a few more times, then I'll let you shoot some stuff."
"Yay!" she says with renewed enthusiasm.
Making good on his word he shows her how to securely load the bolts and lets let go to it.
"Ready to try something a little harder?" he asks after she's hit at least close to every bulls eye, and picks up a pillow "Moving targets."
"Come on. Just a few more." Sam begs "I only hit them half the time. I need to get better."
"You hit half of em. That's great for your first day with it." he says, leaning back in his chair "We should get some shut eye so we can head out tomorrow."
Sam reluctantly hands the crossbow back to him. "Fine. I guess if we have to."
"You don't wanna be tired while we're runnin back through the city."
"I know. But it's fun."
"It ain't gonna do you no good if yer runnin round half awake."
"Ok mom." she says with a smile, sitting on the chair with him.
"Shut up." he gently shoves her shoulder.
"Come on, you can sleep in my room," she whispers in his ear "just make sure nobody else sees you."
"You sure you're ok with heading back?" he asks her when they finally make it back to the Jeep "You don't wanna stay and try to find them?"
"Oh my god, Daryl." she grabs his arm, exasperated "There is no way to know where they are now, I wouldn't know where to start. I'll be ok."
"Alright, fine. Now get me the hell out of this city." he says with a smirk.
"What? You didn't like your mini tour of Boston?"
"I'm sure it's a great place. Cities just ain't really my thing."
They set out on the road, reaching the New York state line just after dark.
"So we can take our time on the ride back, right?" Sam asks "We still have a few months before they even meet us at the first town."
"Yeah, but we don't know how much the weather will set us back yet. Best not stay in one place any longer than we have to."
"I guess." she says with a sigh.
"The roads are gonna be hell once it starts snowing. We might end up stuck somewhere for a few weeks."
"Well, we would just have to make the most if that time." Sam says with a grin.