Chapter 28: and hold onto me like I hold onto you

He has to do something.

He doesn't see her Sunday, and he doesn't hear from her. He goes back to the park. He wanders around, he walks the paths. He finds the bench again, though he doesn't sit down on it. He listens to the kids playing, screaming; turns out the source is a small playground on the park's edge. He lets his gaze drift, unfocused, over the flowerbeds and he thinks about the little flowers in Beth's earlobes, winking when the light catches them, how he wanted - then and now - to touch a fingertip to them. Run that fingertip lightly up the cartilage of her ear. Kiss its edge.

He thinks about her hair and about how he hasn't yet been able to properly comb his fingers through it, about how maybe he could have last night if he hadn't been such a fucking asshole, if he hadn't ruined it by being so afraid and so angry at his own fear. How she might have let him. Let him touch her. Kiss her. Tongue water off her skin, spread out their towels and lie with her under the stars and just exist.

Just occupy roughly the same space.

He could have done those things, he thinks she might have even wanted him to do them, invited him out there for that purpose, and he fucked it up.

He has to do something. He's desperate. He was afraid last night but he's more afraid now, of pouring himself into this place and what's happening to him, in being close to her and in doing whatever it takes to stay that way, and losing her now.

Maybe melodramatic but he doesn't care.

He drifts numbly through the motions on Monday and as he thought she barely looks at him, barely says a word. He's studying her for any indication of what she's feeling, of what he's up against; he has no idea if he's relieved or not when he gathers - from staying for dinner like usual and watching every facial expression and move she makes and minute element of body language - that she's more sad and more disappointed than angry.

No, he's not relieved. Angry would be easier. He would understand anger. He's intimately familiar with anger. He has no idea how to handle making someone sad.

Fuck. He has to do something. And it's going to have to be big. It's going to have to hurt.

He has to do penance.

It takes him two more days to figure out what it has to be, and when the idea finally comes to him - fully formed and awful - it makes him stop in the middle of reaching for a socket wrench and curl in on himself a little and breathe until he calms down.

It couldn't be anything else. It never could.

He thinks about waiting for the weekend. Then he decides he can't. If he tells her and she says no, that's that. Or she says maybe but also later that's also that. But he can't wait. He has to do this now. Now or he won't be able to at all.

Before he leaves for the day he tugs her aside and murmurs, before she can protest, where he hopes she'll be and when he hopes she'll be there. Telling her that he'll be there regardless and if she doesn't come it's fine, but he'll be there and he'll wait.

Staring into her eyes and feeling his own pleading, unable to tell how much of it she sees or what she thinks.

He leaves, turns and goes and doesn't look back. Like before, he can feel the weight of her gaze on him.

He doesn't go home. He calls Merle, says he'll be late. He drives around as the last of the sun slips away and watches the color bleed out of the world and deepen into shadows and starlight. He thinks about the ruins - empty now, deserted - and he thinks about being there with her and about how if he never has that again he honestly doesn't know what he'll do.

Keep going. It's all he's ever done.

But he'll have lost something and it won't ever be the same.

She's already there when he pulls up to the oak tree in the deep night, and this time she doesn't wave. She doesn't speak at all when she climbs into the cab. Once more she barely gives him a glance. She just sits and waits, and he doesn't need her to direct him. Take him somewhere once and he'll find his way back every time.

He can't believe it. He can't actually believe she came.

So he's locked in now. He could try to go back, but that really would be the end of it. He's absolutely sure.

He drives them down the road to the turnoff and rumbles and thumps over the gravel, over the little rise to the fork. Distant lights to the right, scatter of broken glass starlight to the left. He turns them and even though the thing is still in drive it feels like they're coasting. Under no power but gravity. He's giving up, giving in.

He's falling into her.

This is what has to happen.

He pulls to a stop, exactly where he stopped before. He's reasonably certain that if he got out the flashlight he keeps stashed behind the seat and examined the ground, the tires would be set into their own tracks. Like all that intervening time never happened, and he's gone back, and this really is a chance to do it over.

Get it right.

He cuts the engine, opens the door, and climbs out. After a few seconds she follows, still in silence, and she trails him down toward the water.

He's still on the grass when he turns to her and just looks at her, her features soft shadows, her eyes only quick glints that flick into and out of existence when she blinks. He looks at her and there are so many things he wants to say - I'm sorry, I fucked up, I always fuck up like this, I was just scared, you need to understand, it wasn't you, it was never you, I need this, whatever it is, please don't let me have ruined it, please let me try again.

But he's always been better at doing things than saying them, so he swallows and pulls his shirt over his head and lets it fall.

And he stands there, the breeze cool on his bare skin, and he has to turn his face away from her. He just can't. Can't look at her, can't see her face when she sees it, when he turns a little to the side so she can see - he's sure she can see - the scars criss-crossing his back.

He has so many scars, and some of them are from the same place and the same person and some of them aren't, but these are the worst.

He hears her draw in a soft breath, and then she doesn't say anything at all. He looks at the water, the little rippled sparkles across its surface whenever the wind stirs it, and he waits.

It doesn't hurt as much as he thought it would.

He's expecting her to ask what happened. He's expecting her to ask who did it to him. He's expecting her to ask when and why. She asks none of these things. She has two questions and two only, and she asks them so quietly and so gently that he aches all over, and suddenly it hurts much worse than he thought it would.

And he doesn't want it to stop. It's like something twisted up inside him for years and years is finally uncoiling.

"Why didn't you wanna show me?"

It's not as bad as the other questions, but he has no idea how to answer it. He rolls a shoulder and makes an I'unno noise, flat but slightly wavering, and she lets it go. Sweet, kind girl, goddess of boundless mercy, she lets it go.

But then she asks the second question.

"Can I touch you?"

No. No, you can't. No one ever has. He thinks about that and his knees tremble and threaten to give way. It occurs to him that he's wanted to strip them both naked, wanted to explore her, wanted to see all of her and touch all of her and fuck her in so many ways, find so many ways to make her feel good, but somehow he never incorporated this into any part of that line of thinking. Like before, by the firewood racks. Her seeing him. Her wanting to see him. Explore him, just the way he wants to do with her.

If he wants to actually have any of that, this is the price.

And maybe...

Maybe it's not even about being a price.

His stomach in knots, still not looking at her, he nods.

The first touch is like she's slapped him and he bites back a whimper, squeezing his eyes closed and clenching his fists until his nails dig painfully into his palms. Her fingertips, so light and cool and so careful, running from the outer edge of his shoulder down the side of his back. She's so close to him; he can feel the heat coming off her in waves, the soft puff of her breath across his skin. He shudders, just a little, and she moves to another one and traces it the same way, and just for a second he thinks he might be sick.

Because of what she's touching. Putting herself into. Drawing connections between what she is, what she gives him, and what was done to him. And she's not afraid at all, she seems fearless, and he wants so much to be like her. He wants her but he also wants what she is. This girl who knows her place in the world and claims it. Has expectations, but not spoiled ones. She expects things of herself and others.

She expects things of him.

"Daryl," she whispers, "I'm sorry." And he knows what she's going to do a split second before she does it and he gasps, air hitting his lungs just as her lips press against his shoulder.

He shudders again. Violently. It's pain, and the fear putting in another appearance, and a weird, perverse species of shame - but it's also relief. Real relief. And need.

And heat. Because no one else has ever touched him like this, in this place, and really anywhere. No one else has ever touched him like this, and he never wants her to stop.

He doesn't pull away from her, and after a few seconds she leans her head against the space between his shoulderblades, and they just stand there together. The owl again, quieter than the last time. More meditative. A little wondering.

She slides her arms around his waist, and before he knows it he's covering her hands with his where they're linked at his belly, pressing back against her, his breath coming a little rougher. Still trembling the smallest bit, like the breeze is stirring his surface. But she's holding him. Holding him in place. She pulled him into herself and now she's cradling him, and something has happened down here with her.

He's not afraid anymore.

At last he feels her step back, and when she does he feels briefly bereft. Unmoored. He wants her back. He wants her holding him like that again. He draws in a breath, about to say her name, maybe say something else, but before he can she's suddenly in front of him, facing him, and when she tilts her head back the stars catch her eyes and bathe her face in light. What he sees there...

Her eyes are shining with tears.

"I need to show you somethin'."

This is something else he already knows. The consistency of how she wears those bracelets, how she covers that wrist - it struck him early on, and he sensed that it meant something. He wants to ask her but he couldn't figure out how. It seemed important, but he didn't feel close enough. But now here she is, unsnapping the leather cuff she's wearing, and he knows what he'll see.

But she doesn't turn the inside of her wrist to him. Instead she lays a hand at the center of his chest and leans up and kisses him, light and soft, and moves away from him, heading back toward the truck.

"C'mon."

He guesses why she's there, but instead of turning on the truck's shitty interior light - it flickers and the glow it throws is sallow and sickly - he fishes for the flashlight, turns back to her and flicks it on, sitting down sideways on the seat with her standing in front of him, almost between his knees. This has all taken on the quality of a dream, like he's not here at all, like neither of them are. It's very much like the night he went to the ruins in total desperation, grieving before he even really lost anything, and he prayed to a winged wolf god and his prayer was answered in the affirmative, because he's here now.

Because he is here. This is so vivid. He draws in a slow breath, and she holds out her hand and turns it. Palm up. Wrist up.

He looks at the scar slashed across her wrist. He looks at it for a long time. He's not sure what he feels, except that he feels everything and he feels it with a violence that completely immobilizes him. Like when she was touching him, sending his heart pressing raw and throbbing into his throat, but different. Like the woman from the bar. He aches for her. Aches for whatever happened to her, to do this. Aches for how she must have felt, because he might understand. It's just possible that he does.

Pain. Loneliness. Being stuck, trapped, and no way out.

He thought she reached out for him because she was so full of light and sweetness and she wanted to give some of that to him. To share it. She wanted him to have a nice thing. He still believes that - still knows it's true - but now he knows something else.

She saw something in him. She saw something she recognized. Something she knew.

Something she knew deep inside herself.

"I was sixteen," she murmurs. "It was... Well, I mean, it was a bad year. But everyone has bad months, bad years. Lots of bad days. It's bein' a kid. That's what happens. So that wasn't really it. It was somethin' else."

He wonders if she'll let him. He thinks she will. He reaches out, shaking very slightly, and he lays his hand under her wrist, cradling it, his thumb stroking over the knob of bone there. Trying to be as careful with her as she was with him. This moment is so heavy and he wants to carry it. She carried his. He needs to do this. For her.

For him.

"What was it?"

She shrugs, gives him a small, pained smile. "It was like this... This darkness. Followin' me around. It wasn't like it hurt, not really. Wasn't even like it made me sad. I mean, it did, but I mostly just..." She sighs and tilts her head, looking down at where he's touching her. "Mostly it made me real tired. So finally I just... Nothin' seemed like it was worth anythin'. There wasn't anythin' good tomorrow. Nothin' good the day after that. Just more bein' tired. More darkness. So I."

She shrugs again.

"Just the one," he whispers, because he knows, he's observant. He notices, notes, files away, and she only covers one wrist.

She nods. "Got that far. And I... I dunno. I saw the blood and I didn't wanna do it anymore. I changed my mind." Another smile, but less pained. Just sad. Maybe, he's almost sure, a tiny bit embarrassed. "Went cryin' to Maggie, they freaked out, took me to a hospital. I talked to a doctor. Started takin' some medicine. Started talkin' to someone. It got better. I got better."

"It still happen?"

"Not like that. Sometimes... it's still hard. When it does, writin' it down helps. I look back at the good days, and it's like... They happened, y'know? They happened. They happened after the bad ones. So they'll happen again. They have to."

The good days will happen again.

Things got better. She got better.

He closes his eyes against a sudden stinging blur.

For another moment or two there's nothing. Then he lays down the flashlight and cuts it off, gazes down at her wrist again. He can't see the scar anymore, but he knows it's there, that delicate pale line, almost pretty. Almost beautiful. Like everything about her. He understands, without her needing to explain, why she hides it, and it's not like why he does. It's not shame. It's not that she thinks it's ugly.

It's because it isn't everything. It's because after the bad days, the good days happen again.

"Can I-?"

She nods, and she slides a hand into his hair as he leans down and presses his lips against it.

Neither of them move. It stretches out. The autumn constellations turn slowly overhead.

"Daryl," she whispers finally, and she tugs her wrist carefully free from his hand and his mouth, presses in close to him and combs through his hair with both hands. He curls his arms around her waist, absolutely no hesitation, and leans his head on her breast, her heart strong against his ear and cheek and jaw, and when he starts to shake he feels her do the same.

They kick away their shoes. He pulls off his jeans and she tugs off her own, her top off over her head, and there's no color in the starlight but he knows without having to see it that she's wearing that soft blue cotton bra.

He wants to touch it. Touch her. He wants to cup her breasts, feel how they fit into his hands. But it's not time. Not just yet. He can feel it. She can too; there's a little distance. They're still working their way gradually toward each other. If they rush things, it might not ruin them, but they won't be as good. Not as good as they should be.

Later, he'll think about how it felt to know all of this and it really will be like a dream. Being so sure. Being so unafraid.

Almost naked, they walk into the water.

He moves in until he can't touch the bottom anymore and dives, her beside him. Weightless, briefly suspended and completely submerged, he thinks again about baptism in reverse, about how neither of them are being cleansed because nothing can cleanse them. Nothing needs to cleanse them. He's seen some bad shit, done some bad shit, had plenty of bad shit done to him, and for a long time he was nobody and nothing, but he doesn't ruin everything, or at least he might ruin some things but he can also fix them. He can do that. Maybe not everything, but he doesn't need to fix everything.

His hand finds hers under the water, or maybe hers finds his, and when they break the surface together she drapes her arms over his shoulders and presses close to him, he settles his palms over her hips, and as she destroys the distance between them with her mouth, her fingertips graze one scarred line and he moans against her.

It doesn't hurt, and he's not afraid.

He kisses her for a long time, until they're both breathing hard when she finally pulls back. He stares at her, blinks water out of his eyes, and realizes that something has changed. Everything has changed. He was naked in front of her and she was naked in front of him, and they went into the water together and came up again, and she's so hot in his arms and he's burning for her, but it's not like before. Not like when he first saw her in her bikini top, not like by the firewood racks when he wanted to fuck her so fast and so hard. It's a lower, hotter burn. Her lips are parted and wet and just a little swollen, her eyes wide and glistening like pools of their own, and he leans in again and ghosts his lips down her jaw to her throat, flicking his tongue against her, biting gently at the soft skin of her collarbone, and she tips her head back and gasps his name.

This isn't innocent. At all. But even so, she held his hand under the water before they surfaced. Down there where the changes happen. Where people go and come back out and grow up.

These are our last days as children, he thinks, and he tugs her back to shore.

They don't have towels, but they don't need them. He's perfectly fine to lie with her in the grass and dry in the breeze, look up at the stars. He could roll over on top of her and kiss her some more, find her breasts with his hands, settle into the cradle of her hips and rock against her and let her feel how hard she's made him. But he doesn't. He just lies on his back next to her, and she reaches down and threads her fingers with his.

"I'm gonna be fallin' asleep in class tomorrow," she breathes, and she laughs. She sounds happy. He thinks he might start crying again.

"Worth it?"

She squeezes his hand, gaze still fixed on the sky. "Definitely."

They get dressed and climb back in the truck, and they rattle on out of there. Again there's silence, but it's a good silence. He's content to be inside it with her. Already they're coming out of it, whatever it was. Whatever they fell into, it's fading. It was like a dream. He knows better than to try to hang onto it. He doesn't think this is the last time they'll go there.

Stopped at the oak tree they lean in at the same time, reaching in unison, and the kiss is hard, just a hint of teeth when his tongue slides against hers, and he moans as she does. Everything this could turn into. Everything he thinks it probably will. And all that shit, everything that was freaking him out before... Yeah, it's probably not done freaking him out. That shit is probably going to continue. And he still has no idea where this is ultimately going, this very old story.

He'll worry about that tomorrow.

He drives off into the night, still tasting her, windows down and the stars brilliant. These are good days. He can't lose sight of that. With her, they're all good days.

Maybe they won't always last.

But they'll happen again.