Chapter 14: I draw you close with every breath

It's raining again by the time he goes home.

It blows in hard and suddenly, gusts of wind shaking the trees and flapping awnings. No one is around, no one to run for cover. Empty street at two in the morning, not even any cars to speak of, and when lightning spikes through the clouds overhead and thunder immediately cracks the sky open in its wake, he looks down and see the hard outline of his own shadow, there for a fraction of a second and gone again.

For the time it takes to blink, he's thrown into light. Then it's over.

He's an idiot. He's a sad, sick idiot and he shouldn't even be here. He should have been gone yesterday.

The town itself is so small, but there are a few residential streets and he wanders up and down each one, looking at dark houses with lawns, cars in the driveways, some with toys in the yard, most of them in pretty good repair - more normal families, happy families, and he has never felt so keenly in his life that he doesn't belong somewhere.

She's at home. She was probably home a long time ago. Sang her songs, lit up that whole fucking room, went back to her big bright house and her beautiful bright family and her bright perfect life. Kissed Jimmy goodnight, and when he thinks about that he has to stop walking, almost doubles over, for God's sweet sake, and he thinks about how her lips tasted and again he thinks sick, sick.

He's twice her age, and he doesn't fit into her bright perfect life. He doesn't fit at all.

But she seems to think he does, at least a little.

He's angry. He's furious. He's soaked. He's actually a bit cold - the rain has brought cool wind with it and he's not dressed for the weather. He hugs himself and walks a little more, tries not to think about things, thinks about everything. Everything he can get his head around, which he knows isn't nearly all of it. Because he knows on some level - on a fuck of a lot of levels now - what this is, but he doesn't have a word for it. Doesn't have the vocabulary. He knows boys with girls, going out, getting married, having some very ill-advised kids, generally fucking their lives up - he thinks about that and about the horrific bullshit he saw when he was growing up, and he thinks about Jimmy and about how Jimmy looked at her, and nothing against Jimmy, Jimmy is probably a nice kid, especially if Beth likes him, but Jimmy did fucking not look at her like he's feeling the way Daryl is feeling.

Jimmy looked like he likes her. A lot, but yeah.

Daryl thinks about not seeing her again and he thinks he might literally fucking die.

And he shouldn't. Because he's a fucking creep.

But he can't just cut and run. He wants to, wants to desperately, but he also doesn't want to, at all, and anyway he can't. He's made some deals here, and he's promised some people things, and maybe he's a coward and maybe he's a creep but some part of him is persisting in being maddeningly ethical, and he can't just do what he should probably do and go.

And he can't because he just can't, because right now it feels too late for that.

He stands in the rain and looks up, and realizes he's walked all the way back to the coffee shop. It's dark. Silent. It doesn't even look like the same place.

Maybe he should have stayed. Somehow. Stayed and maybe it would have been like a vaccine. Maybe it would have inoculated him. Enough exposure to Beth Greene and maybe he could have built up a tolerance.

Oh, that is just fucking hilarious.

He lowers his head and rain runs off the ends of his hair. He's a mess. Standing out here isn't doing anything. It's two in the morning. He should go home.

He does.

Merle is there. Merle has a slim woman with long black hair and a cheap looking bra and stockings fallen halfway down her legs bent over the sofa, and he's going at her like he could actually go for a while. He's calling her some very impolite names.

He doesn't see that Daryl has come in. Daryl looks at them both for a minute, wearily, then turns around and walks back out again. He sleeps in the truck and wakes up feeling like the absolute frozen bottom of Hell, and it's still raining.

Merle and the woman are unconscious on the bed, both snoring. Daryl barely looks at them. Showers. Brushes his teeth. Changes. He's not sure what any of this is for. He's not sure why he gives a fuck. Not sure why it ever mattered to begin with. He gives Merle and the woman one more look before he leaves and thinks about the very few times he's been with someone - drunken, awkward, fumbling sex that he didn't even particularly enjoy and barely remembered after, sex like he was doing some kind of a job - and he thinks Is that really all?

Is that really all there is?

He goes back out into the rain.

Sunday morning. Quiet street. People in church, people sleeping in. He's come full circle, he realizes. One week, a single week, and it's ending right where it began. A night. Her. Everything changing in the rain. Now she's there and he's here - she's singing in church with her family all around her and her hymnal in her hand, and he's walking up the street and ducking under an awning and trying to light a cigarette.

And he can't even do that. There's water in his lighter.

He does laugh, then, and it's a dry, hollow sound. It's an old sound. He told her he was thirty eight and so he is, and she seemed surprised and he doesn't know why, said he didn't act like it and he doesn't know what the fuck that means, but right now he feels fucking ancient. He feels like he's been walking forever. In a loop. Stuck. And he didn't know it until this week - which has become its own hellish little loop - and he has no idea if he's getting out of it after today but somehow he doesn't think so.

So of course he stops in front of the First Baptist Church. Because there are Rules in this kind of situation and they demand to be obeyed, and apparently Daryl is absolute shit at saying no to things.

He feels distant. Numb. Like he's not even really here anymore. Like he's watching himself from somewhere else. One of those near-death out-of-body deals. He supposes that might actually be kind of appropriate.

Would you just get over yourself, for the sake of every fuck in existence.

The doors open, because of course they do.

As has been the case this entire time, he could and should walk away. He could and should leave. He could and should under no circumstances remain here, because if there are Rules to this there's also a logic which underpins them, and that logic is a fucking meat-grinder at the end of a conveyer belt, and he's standing on it even though he could just step lightly off and be done with the entire thing.

And that is all a tremendous fucking lie.

The second he stopped to ask her if she needed a ride home he was completely screwed.

She comes out with her family. It's like he's literally gone back in time. Under an umbrella with her brother, laughing at something he's said, happy, preparing to hurry to the car. Go home. Be normal. Be oblivious - because whatever else has happened here, whatever else she's done, he doesn't for a second believe that she realizes what's happened to him, and he doesn't for a second believe that she meant for it to happen. This is on him. Maybe he was trapped, maybe he feels like he had no choice, but it was on him. Every step of the way.

Just like he could look away now. Because she's wearing that white dress with the slightly flared skirt - maybe the same one, maybe a different one that just looks kind of the same - her hair pulled back like always, that little braid, gold and silver bracelets, and she's so simple, not fancy at all, not trying to be anything other than what she is, no self-conscious vanity about any of it, and she's so beautiful he wants to cry.

And she looks up and sees him, her eyes lock with his, and for a second he thinks he might actually do it.

She freezes. It's not like before. There's something darker on her face now - confused. Unhappy.

Disappointed?

He does glance away. Somehow. It's like ripping his eyes right out of his head, but he does it. And when he looks back she's vanished around the side of the church into the parking lot, and after a moment - moving on numb legs, letting them take him wherever they care to - he pushes away from the wall and starts down the street again. Rounds a corner and starts to head off down a more deserted side street that ends in a vacant lot full of weeds and brambles, which feels pretty much right.

Just walk some more. Just do that. It's not like it's exactly working out for him, but it's not like it's working out worse than anything else is.

"Why'd you leave?"

It's his turn to freeze.

He has to have imagined that. He feels like he's been imagining a lot of things lately. Everything feels imaginary. He stands for a few seconds, wavering, squeezing his eyes shut, and turns.

She's standing there. Soaked. Hair hanging around her face, dress plastered to her skin. The little bit of makeup she was wearing is starting to smear around her eyes. She should look every bit as much of a mess as he feels, but instead she's still beautiful and instead he still wants to do the whole crying thing, because of course, that's how this goes.

So of course she saw him leave.

He stares at her, blinking water. He's so mad at her, Christ. "Why the hell you care?"

"I asked you to come." She's not sticking to the script. Damn, that was kind of their little thing. He actually kind of enjoyed that, thought maybe he could enjoy it even now. "I cared, I wanted you to be there, I asked you to come. You said you would, and then you just cut out."

He almost takes a step back. Reeling internally. He expected a lot of things, but he didn't in an eternity of years expect her to be as annoyed as she seems.

"Maybe I had to go for somethin', you don't know."

"Oh yeah? What'd you have to go for?"

You were doing this thing where you ruin my life and I was having trouble dealing with it. He is terrible at lying. Terrible. He can usually manage it with Merle, or he can usually manage a dodge around the truth, but he doesn't even have to do that all that much, and looking at her now, those eyes and how they pierce him, he knows there's no way in this world or any other he's ever going to be able to lie to her.

He's screwed. He's so completely screwed. And he still thinks he might cry, because she's still so beautiful.

So he doesn't answer at all.

"So you just left. Just like... for no reason. You didn't even text me or nothin'." She crosses her arms over her chest. She's so wet. He wants to do something about it. He has no idea what. He has no coat, he has no umbrella, this is so fucking stupid. "God, you are such a jerk."

But he's trying so hard to not be a creep, why doesn't she understand that? He wants to snarl at her, yell and maybe throw some things. Not at her, just in general. Instead he's still just standing there, and he can tell every second he says nothing to her is just making her angrier.

So he does say something. It bursts out of him, sharp, terse, and it's that sharpness and that terseness that makes him feel like he hasn't completely lost control of everything.

"I still don't even know why you gotta care that much. Why the fuck's it matter?" He actually manages to take a step toward her, fists clenched, summoning a little aggression, when every remaining sane part of him is banging its head against the inside of his skull in utter JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT ARE YOU DOING despair. "Yeah, I was there, I left early. Why the fuck, girl?"

"I saw your face," she says softly. She hasn't backed up. Doesn't seem at all thrown by him. Not at all alarmed. She's right where she was, planted, holding ground, and he feels like she's a wall he could throw himself against again and again and never so much as chip a piece out of. "Somethin' was botherin' you. What happened?"

He half turns, turns back, lost in an ecstasy of almost hysterical frustration. "It's none of your business, girl, Jesus. The fuck you want from me?"

"How about you give me a straight answer about somethin' for once? God, Daryl, it's not even that hard a question."

She could back down. Normally he thinks she would. Just turn around, disgusted, and walk away. That would, on her part, be her own smart move. He kind of can't believe she hasn't done that already.

And then it occurs to him that maybe he's not the only one caught in this loop. Maybe he's not the only one stuck. Maybe he's not the only one feeling the pressure of forces he can't hope to understand.

She's really bothered by the fact that he left. She's bothered by it a lot.

She wanted to show him something. She wanted to show him the ruins. Share that with him. She wanted him to share dinner with her family. With her. She wanted to bring him coffee, talk to him. Ride with him. She sang to him. She wanted him there the night before because she thought he would like it, sure, but she also wanted him there because she wanted him to hear her sing.

She sang for him in the truck. Only for him. Because he asked her.

She likes him.

Now he looks at her and he can actually see it in her eyes: she's hurt. He hurt her feelings. Somehow it meant a lot to her for him to be there, and he left after one song, and she saw him do it, and he hurt her.

None of this makes any sense.

"You could've texted me or somethin'," she says. Quiet again. The disappointment is back, and somehow it's worse than anything else. "Just... You could've done that."

He could have. It would have been easier to lie to her that way, and he could have. But he was too busy freaking out.

He shrugs. It's all he has.

"What's goin' on, Daryl?" Quiet, still. But there's something almost pleading in it. She really wants him to tell her, really wants it. She's been able to read him like a book since she met him. He can't hide anything from her at all, and he's freaking out again, and she can tell, and it's beginning to become contagious.

What's going on?

Isn't that a question and a half and then like twenty other questions.

"Beth..." If she's pleading when she looks at him now, he looks back and tries to implore her, stuff into his expression every particle of the force of the begging he would do if he could. Fall to his knees and grope at her skirt. Grovel. Please just drop it. Please just let it go. You let everything else go, mostly, please just let this go too.

She steps closer to him, arms still wrapped around herself. Shivering a little. Like that night. She was cold. He cranked up the heater for her. He has no heater now. He has nothing to cover her with, nothing to give her to dry herself off. He has nothing.

He has nothing but himself.

She's very close. He could reach out and touch her.

I ain't a creep or nothin'.

She looks up at him. "Daryl, just-"

The world breaks in half. On one side is the part of his life prior to last Saturday. All that long stretch of painful, pointless, Bethless life. In the middle is this week - this beautiful, awful, wonderful, terrifying, churning vortex of insanity.

After this is everything else.

He closes the remaining space between them in a single motion, hand against her waist and pulling her in, palm against her jaw and tilting her head up. He can see, in a blurred instant, a flush in her cheek, strands of damp hair stuck to her forehead, her eyes wide, her wet lips parting. He can see these things and they're lit up, brighter than bright, as lightning shatters the sky above them.

Then there's just her mouth.

Not like before. Not quick or soft. He can't be soft, because nothing in him is soft, because he's all muscle and scar tissue, and he wants this.

God, he wants this so much.

She stiffens, and he's sure she's going to wrench herself away, maybe kick him in the balls, and he would completely deserve it. He's exactly what he told her he wasn't. He's a fucking creep. He's a creep, and the correct thing for her to do is wrench, kick, turn and run.

She stiffens. Then she surges.

Her lips were already parted. Now they part even more - like they're inviting him, encouraging him - and she pushes herself up on her toes and combs her hands into his hair, drags him down against her as she presses up to meet him. Maybe she was cold and shivering but now she's this little flame in his arms, burning into him, and the hand against her waist becomes an arm around her, pulling their bodies flush.

She lets out a soft moan against his mouth and he has no idea why his head doesn't just fucking explode.

That would make about as much sense as anything else at the moment.

Because he's standing in the rain in a deserted dead-end street a few yards from a vacant lot and kissing Beth Greene, and she's kissing him back. Maybe she's a goddess. Maybe she's just a girl. Maybe she's both, and maybe it doesn't matter, because he's kissing Beth Greene and she's kissing him back, and he has no idea what comes after this break in his life, this dividing line, this ultimate delineation. No fucking idea.

But he knows he has this.

Girl, he thinks as her hands slide deeper into his hair, tugging a little. Tugging him down. Closer. More. Her mouth, her whole body, the heat of her. All of it. Everything.

Girl.