There isn't much I can say about this chapter. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading! =)
Chapter Thirty
When Daryl pulled up to the garage he was relieved to see her car there. He didn't know why he had expected to find the parking lot empty. June's car was there too.
"Shit," Damon muttered, pushing his hair out of his face.
Daryl looked over at him as he slammed the truck into park. "What? You're goddamn lucky your stupid ass ain't on your way to prison right now. Be glad you only have to deal with your mom, asshole." He was still shaken over what the boy had almost done. Ed was on his way to the hospital again, under strict orders not to say a word about who had done the damage to his throat. He'd been bleeding pretty back when Daryl had left.
"I'd rather get locked up. She's gonna be all over my ass." He didn't wait for Daryl to say anything else before he hopped out of the truck, slammed the door and took off towards the garage.
Daryl watched him go, using the silence in the truck to sooth his frayed nerves. It wasn't working though. He was wound so tight he was sure he was going to snap. The club had a safe house and he was sure that's where Carol and Sophia were going to stay. They used it for cases just like this. It was mostly just a one room bungalow with a microscopic bathroom attached to it. But it was modern, clean, safe and secure. He didn't think either of them would want to go back to that house, even if Ed wasn't in it. The two of them could stay at the safe house until Daryl could figure out something else to do. He still wanted to talk to her about moving in with him but after all of this, it just didn't seem right. He would stick to his word and when the house was ready he would ask her. The thought made him nervous so he pushed it to the back of his mind. There were more pressing matters to deal with.
He got out of the truck and made his way to the garage at a much slower pace than Damon had. He was dreading this. He didn't want to deal with the aftermath of something like this and normally, he wouldn't have. He would have taken the ladder all the way to the roof and sat there getting stoned out of his head and let someone else deal with it. But he wasn't that guy anymore. He couldn't run from the hard shit. Pussies ran from the hard shit. Men that didn't give a fuck ran from the hard shit. He wasn't a pussy and he couldn't possibly give more fucks than he did right now.
When he walked in the door Piper was coming out. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched. It was so out of character for her that he grabbed her by the arm, fearing that maybe Ed had done something to her after all. When she turned around, yanking her arm free he could see that she was a mess. Piper wasn't a crier. She never had been. But he could see that she was doing just that right now.
"I already know I fucked up, okay. I don't need any shit from you," she muttered, not looking up.
He tugged her a little closer. "I ain't givin' you shit. You didn't fuck up either." He was lying. She had scared him just as bad as Damon. Both of those kids had fucked up tonight but he wasn't going to rub it in her face.
She shook her head. "I lost it back there and I know it. Then I was still so fucking pissed I texted Damon and told him everything. If it wasn't for me then he never would have came." She looked up, large green eyes troubled and wet. "I wanted him to kill him. I wanted to kill him myself but then when June came I thought he'd really done it," her voice trailed off and she wiped angrily at a tear that escaped her. "How could somebody do something like that? How could a man try to do that to his own kid? He should have died tonight."
He threw an arm over her shoulder and steered her back inside. "Between me and you, I wish he'd have blown that bastards brains out, if he coulda gotten away with it. But you know Buck. He's got somethin' brewin'."
"I don't give a damn that I wanted him dead. I still think he needs taken care of for the shit he did, or thought about doing. For a second I was even glad when I thought Damon had killed him but I need to stop thinking like that. That's murder. That's prison. That ain't even something Buck can make go away."
"He didn't do it. He was going too. I ain't ever seen him like that. It's been a long time since I've seen anybody like that and you know we've all seen some shit. But that wasn't your fault. Ed needed the scare."
She looked up, still swiping at her face almost angrily. "You're not such an asshole after all. I thought I was in for it."
He shrugged and headed towards the stairs. "You know me. I'm a sucker for all that cryin' shit. Gets me every time."
She smiled. "Fuck off. You better not tell anybody."
"Piper!" They both turned and Merle was storming towards them, his face livid.
"Crap," she hissed. "Lets see if this teary shit will work on him. He's tougher than you." She started walking towards him and he saw Merle's steps falter when he took her in. His face went from enraged to confused and then to shock. When she finally made it to him he didn't scream and throw a fit. He wrapped her in his arms.
"I'll be damned. The little shit is gonna get outta all this scott free," he muttered before heading up the stairs. Out of all of them Merle was the toughest on her. Daryl was like the big brother that didn't mind getting in trouble with her every now and then, Buck treated her like she was some kind of goddamn black clad princess, but Merle didn't fall for her shit very often. When his ass went into dad mode he meant business.
When he made it to his room Sophia seemed to be better. Her and Damon were standing in the corner and from what he could tell she was actually fussing over him. Carol was with June, her face stricken and pale, her eyes red rimmed as the other woman talked to her. She kept glancing up at Sophia and it seemed like every time she looked at the girl a flash of pain cut through her. He wanted to go talk to her but she seemed to be preoccupied with June so he leaned against the wall, as far from all of them as he could get so he wouldn't look like he was trying to listen in on what was being said.
June finally stepped away and Carol glanced up, just realizing he was standing there.
"I'll wait downstairs with them mom," Sophia said, glancing between her mom and Daryl. June and Carol were gonna have a hard time keeping those two away from each other tonight. Damon didn't look like he was willing to let the girl out of his site and Sophia clung to his arm like she'd float away if he wasn't there to keep her grounded. He knew the feeling.
Carol nodded and waited for them to leave the room before she walked towards him. He didn't know what to say to her. She looked ready to fall over. He expected her to say something. He expected her to maybe be angry over what had happened tonight. Instead she threw herself at him, her arms slipping into his jacket, holding on tightly. He wasn't sure what to do at first, never having been one to deal well with emotional breakdowns of any kind that didn't have something to do with anger. Her face was buried in the crook of his neck. Her whole body shook and then he felt her stifle a sob.
Yeah, Sophia was definitely taking this better than Carol was. He didn't say anything because he had no clue what to say. He ran his hands over her back, hoping that he was doing whatever the hell he was suppose to be doing while the woman he loved was having an emotional breakdown.
Then he realized that he had referred to her as the woman he loved in his head without flinching and that had him feeling like smiling like an idiot. He quickly shook the thought of smiling away, unable to believe he could smile at all at a time like this. Then again this was kind of a monumental moment for him.
"How could I have not seen what was going on right in front of my face?" She hiccuped into his neck.
"This is when I'm suppose to say some kinda reassuring shit, right?" He asked, being completely serious.
She nodded but didn't say anything.
"Well, cause he probably didn't do the shit right in front of you. I'm sure if he did you woulda been wearin' his balls around your neck as a trophy, right?"
She nodded again.
"Well then there you go. People are good at hidin' who they are."
"You don't," she said, her voice shaking.
He shrugged. "Cause I ain't some sick fuck that needs to hide who I am. I'm goddamn great."
She laughed a little, hiccuped again and tightened her hold around him. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't shown up."
"Piper woulda slit his throat. I already know what woulda happened."
"We're are we going to go? What the hell am I suppose to do now? I don't want to go back to that house."
"It's late. You can come home with me tonight. Sophia can stay in Piper's room. We'll figure the rest out tomorrow. It's been a really long fucking day."
She nodded. "It has."
"You gonna be okay?" He asked after a few silent moments.
She shook her head and finally pulled away. She met his eyes and he had to blink. There was something different simmering in those blue depths. Something that he instantly felt drawn too. "I want him dead," she said, her voice stronger now.
He held her gaze. "You probably just feel that way now. He needs to pay for what he did but you-"
"No. I want him dead."
He didn't take his eyes off of hers for a long time and then finally he gave her a nod. "Then he's dead."
~H~
She was surprised at how nice the house was. Not that she had expected them to live in a dump but she hadn't been expecting something like this. It was a big house set back from the road. The nearest neighbor on either side were a half mile away. It was a sprawling one story brick house with a lot of windows and an attached garage.
"I thought you lived above the garage." She said, her voice still not sounding like her own.
"That's where I stay sometimes. I claimed it back when I was usually drunk or stoned outta my head. It was easier to climb the stairs than try to drive home."
"That's smart."
He parked the truck in front of the open garage door and jumped down, pulling her out on his side. "June still want you to go in tomorrow?"
She nodded, walking close to his side. "Yeah. I don't want to just sit around and think about all of this. Right now I just want to sleep though."
Sophia had ridden back with Buck and Piper. Carol was hesitant for the girl to leave her sight but she couldn't put her on lock down because of something Ed had done. Sophia hadn't done anything wrong so she shouldn't have to deal with her mom hovering over her all night when she seemed to just want to be left alone. She was going to talk about it though. Carol was just going to give her time to adjust first. She had even insisted on going to school since she had already missed a day. Carol thought that it would be best for her to miss another day but she shook her head, her eyes pleading and Carol had given in.
As soon as they stepped inside she turned at the sound of another vehicle pulling up. She knew it was Buck and Merle with the girls. Everyone seemed exhausted and no one seemed to want to talk about anything that had happened. She knew she didn't anyway. Not right now. Sophia hugged her tightly before she went off with Piper, Merle and Buck didn't linger either and finally Daryl grabbed her hand and led her down a hallway to a door in the very back.
She was surprised at just how messy it was. He had clothes strewn around the room, shirts hanging off the bed posts, jeans slung over the chair in the corner. It reminded her once again how very different they were. The bed wasn't made but it was big and she wanted nothing more than to crawl under the thick blanket and sleep the last few hours away.
He went to the closet and threw open the door, yanking on the light chain. He pulled a black t-shirt from the middle of a row of black t-shirts and tossed it to her. "You can sleep in that. It's the best I can do."
She held it up and laughed. The sleeves were cut off and there was a grinning skull with a some kind of faded snake crawling through the eye and nose holes. "This is fine."
He kicked off his boots and quickly shed his clothes, flopping onto the bed in his boxer briefs while she still stood there in the middle of the room holding his shirt. He folded his arms behind his head and looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "You gonna just stand there?"
She found herself flushing and she didn't even know why. She turned her back on him and took her shirt off and then her bra, tossing both onto the dresser that already had an array of items strewn about. She slipped the shirt over her head, breathing deeply when she realized it smelled just like him. Once she was rid of her jeans she crawled in, slipping under the blanket and rolling over onto her side so she was facing him, inching closer until he sighed and yanked her against him. Without missing a beat his lips were on hers. When he pulled away he settled onto his side so she rolled over, her back to him.
Instantly his arm was around her, his hand pressing flat against her stomach. She wondered as she drifted off to sleep how he would eventually react if she was really pregnant. She pushed the thought away like she had been doing all day, not ready to think about it too much at the moment. It had already been stressful enough.