Chapter 57: then I saw on a white space that was left

Daryl stands there on the sidewalk with Merle for a good two minutes or so, and they just look.

It's not that there's so much to look at. The scene before them isn't complex. It's more that there's a fair amount to process - at least for Daryl there is. He's spending that ninety seconds or so processing.

Processing the street they're standing on, for one. Quiet, seemingly deserted - which frankly kind of weird for a nice Saturday still in early fall - lined with a lot of older model cars. Ancient trees that badly need pruning and are threatening power and telephone lines, sidewalks cracked and weeds doing their green best to widen them, houses all up and down in various states of disrepair. Peeling paint, shutters missing, front yards that are essentially nothing but weeds, gardens overgrown and some barely recognizable as such - but Daryl does recognize them, and it twinges beneath his breastbone, and he thinks of other overgrown gardens he's recognized in other places.

Every one of these elements is present to some degree in the house in front of them. But there's something else under all of this, and it's unmistakable.

This used to be a fairly wealthy area. A nice area.

Because the houses are large, and under the disrepair is a disintegrating dignity, like royalty in exile, and the house they've come to see is one of the more dignified of those in view. A bay window takes up almost all of the left front, its upper panes abstract stained glass - which looks like it could use a good wiping, but the colors are still vivid. A turret on the second floor, small but Daryl thinks there's a decent chance that it's more than ornamental. The clapboard siding is all light green, and the lightness might merely be fading but it's difficult to be sure. Darker blue painted gables - again, faded, and here and there bits have broken or fallen away. Elegant cornices of the same dark blue - also peeling, also broken in places. There's a covered wraparound porch. There are what probably used to be well-kept flowerbeds running around the base of this, now in the same state as the gardeny parts of a lot of the other properties, but a few spindly rose bushes are stubbornly hanging in there. The lawn is choked with crabgrass, but it's broad. A huge oak tree dominates the center of the right side of the yard, its branches twisted and already shedding leaves.

Bathed in sun like this, it reminds him in several distinct ways of the farmhouse.

And a small, soft voice in his head - that sounds very much like Beth - whispers This is the one.

Which is where the processing comes in.

Because he was never, ever, ever supposed to live in a place like this. Neverfuckingever. A place like this should have been the antithesis of everything he was and everything he could be and everywhere he belonged. He was never even supposed to like places like this. There's that softly insistent voice, and then there's a not-insignificant part of himself that wants to growl and back away like a threatened animal.

He can't ignore that part. But he also can't obey it. Can't give in. Can't do what he would have done, what he was supposed to do back when that was him. He can't be that anymore, to the extent that he has any control over it at all. That's the point. So he stands in silence and he processes, and he waits for whatever internal signal will let him know that he's ready to proceed.

He's not sure what the hell's going on in Merle's head. He doesn't feel like asking.

Suddenly the front walk - also cracked and weedy - snaps into a kind of focus, as if he's been waiting for it to shift into their reality. He glances at Merle, who doesn't glance at him.

Merle doesn't look even vaguely comfortable, and that's because he's not. Daryl insisted they put on the least awful clothes they own. It was a fight. Daryl counts the victory an extremely shaky one.

"Y'ready?"

Merle laughs, and as he does Daryl abruptly has a hard time not doing the same, because the question. They've been in fights that landed them both in the hospital, done very unwise things with very dangerous people, danced around jail cells or worse - and then of course Merle took one false step and that was that. They've had guns shoved in their faces with the safeties off, had them waved around. Usually accompanied by yelling. They have, in short, been through some extremely bad shit, and they've come through it together, and they've always found a way to laugh about it later and tell each other and themselves that they were never really afraid.

They survived Will Dixon.

Now they're looking at a slightly dilapidated house in which an elderly woman is waiting to show them its second floor, and presumably nothing else is going to happen, and Daryl isn't sure about Merle, but he knows he's nervous. And yeah, Merle might be too. It's not impossible.

And... And it feels good. Kind of. Standing here like this and facing it down and doing it together.

So maybe this really is all going to be okay.

"Yeah," Merle says, and gives him a look that basically amounts to Most of the time I really try to pretend that we aren't related. "Yeah, whatever." He jerks his chin at the house. "Lead the way, man. 's your stupid fuckin' idea."

Daryl doubts that he completely means it. But he's been doubting that for a bit now.

The porch steps creak. They creak loudly, but they otherwise seem sound, and on the far left in front of the bay window is an old porch swing that looks like it might actually not fall down if someone was brave enough to attempt to use it.

Again, Daryl thinks about the farmhouse. He didn't expect that. It feels significant.

This is the one.

He pushes the bell.

Nothing audible happens. He pushes it again, waits for a few seconds, and Merle mutters Jesus fuckin' Christ and shoulders him aside, lifts a hand and gives the door two hard pounds.

This is off to a great start.

For another moment there's nothing. Then the clacking sound of what might be shoes drifts through the pane of frosted glass set high into the wood, a dark shape appears, and the door opens.

So now there's more processing that has to happen.

Daryl expected something specifically particular. He knows this. Merle put the seed of an idea in his head and it took root and grew quick and hardy - as Merle's idea seeds usually do. He expected a little old lady with blueish hair and maybe a cane or a walker, hearing aid, some kind of shapeless clothing with a flower pattern, smelling of that weird kind of semi-perfume that all stereotypical Little Old Ladies seem to wear. Stereotypical is exactly what that seed of an idea had become. The voice on the other end of the phone - soft and a little quavery - seemed to back it up with hard evidence.

Well, he was wrong. Very.

The woman standing in the doorway is little, but her hair isn't blueish. What blue there is lies deep in the thick black in which she's dyed it, and it's set in tight curls around a face that bears a fair amount of makeup without overdoing it. She doesn't have a cane and she doesn't have a walker. What she has is a cigarette, held between fingers sporting well-manicured nails. No shapeless flowery thing; she's wearing tight jeans and a pink button-down shirt that's not all that loose either, and heels that almost match her shirt. Her eyes - behind thick glasses - are dark and keen. Elderly maybe by some standards, but she looks like she could be anywhere between sixty and an extremely held-together seventy-fiveish.

She smells like cigarette.

In the periphery of his vision, Daryl sees Merle's eyes widen slightly. Surprised as Daryl is, it's hard not to smile.

She looks at both of them, gauging and unhurried, and takes a drag, sending a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth.

"You the ones wanted to see the upstairs, I guess."

Her voice is that soft, slightly quavery alto Daryl remembers. And when she tilts her head it turns out that she does in fact have a hearing aid.

Daryl nods.

"Okay, so." Another drag. Her mouth curves the smallest bit. "Which one of you is Daryl?"

Merle flicks a thumb in Daryl's direction.

"You're the brother."

"Yeah. Merle." Gruff. But not entirely unpleasant and when Daryl shoots Merle another glance, it's confirmed. Merle is no longer dead-set against this. If he ever even really was.

This might not be off to a great start, but it's not off to a bad one, either.

"I'm Cathy." She gives them both a nod and a quick, sharp smile - not unfriendly, but, like her eyes, keen. She steps aside and gestures. "C'mon in, then."

They go in.

The interior is something else Daryl had - semi-consciously - fixed on as largely stereotypical. Faded wallpaper and doilies and old photos and maybe some creepy china figurines. And again, that stereotype is well and truly bucked; the walls are painted a plain off-white, the floors are all dark pitted wood, and as for photos and figurines...

Well, he can't see much more than the front hall, a staircase, and - through a wide entryway - part of the living room to which the bay window belongs. But there are no old photos or china figurines in evidence.

What is in evidence is a fuck of a lot of very weird art.

Paintings, mostly, and Daryl knows about a hundred percent less about art than he did about poetry, which means he's pretty much into the negatives. It turns out he likes poetry, or he likes the poetry Beth likes, but he's never cared much for art and he doesn't expect that to change. And this, as best he can tell, is art that would be considered by most people as modern in that it looks like what might happen to a canvas if a dog sat in paint and wiped its ass all over the place.

There's also a bunch of furniture, none of which matches and all of which looks like it came out of a bunch of different yard sales, which is an aesthetic Daryl can at least kind of appreciate.

On an alarmingly orange sofa are three unimpressed black cats. Daryl can't tell if they're unimpressed with the sofa or with Daryl and Merle or with things in general. They're cats; the last one is the likeliest.

Three isn't a hundred, but Merle shoots him a look anyway.

"This way." Cathy is leading them toward the stairs, her nails trailing against an intricately carved bannister as she starts up. "There's a separate entrance with stairs around the side of the house, so you wouldn't be using these." She glances over her shoulder as they follow her up, her cigarette dangerously close to dumping ash. "When were you lookin' to move?"

Daryl clears his throat. These are questions he knew he might be asked, but they aren't questions he's all that prepared to answer. Even if the answers themselves are relatively straightforward.

He was never supposed to be here.

"Uh... Now, I guess."

"Now ain't gonna work, sweetheart. Earliest you could be in here is the twenty-second."

They've passed the landing and are heading up the second flight - more stained glass high in the two windows on their right, more vivid color - and Merle shoots him yet another look, which he shoots right back. So what? What the fuck difference does it make?

"How come?"

Cathy has reached the top of the stairs and is heading toward a plain white door surrounded by those same plain off-white walls. "'cause someone's livin' there now and I can't exactly kick 'em out before their lease is up." She produces a key and unlocks the door, and swings it open on a room full of light.

It's not actually that much brighter than the downstairs. They follow Cathy as she clacks her way inside, and as Daryl's eyes adjust and he looks around it becomes evident that the initial burst of illumination was mostly due to the way the sun is currently hitting the large windows that dominate the room. The room itself is a spacious, high-ceilinged combination living room/dining room/kitchen, the latter easily twice the size of any kitchen in anywhere Daryl has ever slept and kept his stuff in for any length of time. The space the current occupants have set aside for dining is also large in a way that's vaguely jarring - a table to seat four comfortably and maybe more if people are willing to squeeze, and a credenza that looks like it might be an antique. But it's not like the space isn't being filled; the room as a whole is cluttered with shelves, books, random decorative things, plants desperately trying to escape their planters, a futon and loveseat covered in wildly embroidered cushions, and - against a far wall - a stack of what appear to be canvases. A couple are turned outward, and what's been painted on them looks suspiciously like the stuff on the walls downstairs.

The turret is next to them, a circle of tall glass. A narrow cushioned windowseat runs around it, faded and patchy blue velour.

Daryl turns slowly in place, scanning. Letting the feel of the place flow into him. Paying attention to the size, to the way sound moves off the walls and corners and ceiling, to the smell - old wood and plants and paint and lots and lots of dust - and most of all to the sun, which continues to stream through the big windows like God's searchlight. He can feel Merle just over his shoulder, can feel a similar kind of scrutiny, but when he glances back...

Merle's expression is unreadable.

At least he's not making faces. He's not talking at all. Which is weird. And something worth appreciating, at least right now.

But weird.

Cathy turns back to them and leans over, taps ash into a tray conveniently placed on a crooked side table beside her. "So like the ad said. All utilities included, with cable." She nods to the small flatscreen against one wall. "There's the two bedrooms off this room, one bath, and you got a good sized storage closet. Whole thing is a thousand a month even." She rattles this off almost as if she's rehearsed it, and stops, looking at the two of them and letting smoke stream through her nose. "Questions?"

Daryl has started to drift past her and he continues, moving and half aware of doing so. Not even entirely aware of her. It's hard to pin down exactly what it is about the room, as hard as it would be to pin down what exactly it is when he's tracking, runs out of spoor, and stops and does what he told Beth you sometimes have to do. You follow your gut.

You got instincts, you gotta listen to 'em.

From behind him Merle asks, voice utterly neutral, "Who's livin' here now?"

"Daughter of a friend of a friend and her boyfriend. They're gettin' married, gettin' their own place." She pauses and Daryl hears her inhale. "It ain't gonna last, but whatever. Her life to ruin."

That seems utterly inconsequential. His eyes are slightly unfocused now as he sweeps them over the space in front of him, feeling it, and the truth is that this might as well actually be tracking. He's in the same place in his head, and looking from it out at the world in the same way. Massively broad and impossibly narrow.

The bookshelves - not all books. Some weird sculpture things, looking like melting animals. Colored glass bottles. A bunch of tiny black lacquer boxes painted with red vines. A crystal vase full of dried pussywillows. Books, so fucking many books - novels and plays, tons of stuff on travel and art and the history of art and the theory of art, and art in general.

And, in a corner near the space that serves as the dining room...

He reaches for the book before he knows what he's doing, takes no time and expends no cognitive power on any consideration of how it might look or whether it's inappropriate. His fingers graze it, slide across the spine, and he lifts it off the shelf and turns it over in his hands.

House of Light.

He can't breathe.

Then, as he raises his head and his gaze flickers dazedly over the other things in front of him, the next thing he sees drags out what little breath remained in his lungs.

On the shelf just above the empty space the book occupied is a crystal wolf with eyes stained blue.

Yeah, it's a little weird. A tiny bit. Mostly with Merle, who - as Cathy leads them toward the first of the two bedrooms - jabs him in the ribs and asks under his breath if maybe Daryl should just get a fuckin' library card. Cathy either doesn't hear or ignores, and that's fine. Daryl is doing a fair amount of his own ignoring, not all of it intentional.

Sure, he's technically there when they get a look inside the bedrooms - one even messier than the main room with a floor that's merely a theory under piles of laundry, I told 'em I'd be bringin' people up, Jesus Christ, and the other in use as a studio, just as messy - and he notes that they're also spacious, way more than he or Merle would need, and just as bright. Big windows, high ceilings, and a curious little molding thing around the doors that he hasn't noticed before. The bathroom is also quite big, speckled black and white and gray tile that looks like no one has redone it since the eighties, but it's clean and everything appears to work.

Storage closet is big, yes. Whatever, it's a closet, and he has nothing much to store.

Cathy leads them back to the main room and turns to them with a look of mild expectation. At some point she lit another cigarette, though Daryl can't recall seeing her pull a pack out of anywhere, and she leans back against the radiator by the window and asks if she can answer any questions.

And, in a distant voice that he hears only distantly, Daryl asks what she would need from them at this point.

First month's rent. Okay. He has that much. Doesn't leave a huge amount left over, but he has it.

Lease, sure. It's... A lease. The world keeps throwing things at him that were always meant for other people, as if the world's aim sucks and keeps pulling in his direction.

Credit check.

They're... They don't believe in credit cards, credit cards are bullshit. Daryl tries desperately to make it sound like they aren't crazy or anything, just think credit cards are bullshit. They are bullshit. Cathy looks dubious. She really does need one. Should have one, anyway. It's not just credit cards - bills? Cars? Places they've rented before?

Daryl asks if he can talk to her in the hall. She looks more dubious still, but shrugs and takes him out there. On the way past, Merle gives him a look that he doesn't at all like.

At the top of the stairs Cathy turns to him, crosses one arm over her chest, takes a drag on her cigarette and regards him with undisguised skepticism. "Alright. Talk."

Daryl looks at her. Looks away. Looks at the stained glass, the beads and leaf-like whorls all in red and blue and green, deep purple. Almost flowers. Roadside wildflowers, growing on into winter and blooming bright in the sun. All they need is a little dusting to really make them shine.

This is the one.

So. What would Beth Greene say?

Beth Greene would probably just tell the fucking truth.

"Look." He's speaking fast and low, his head bent toward her, and he knows as he talks that the speed is in part a defense mechanism. Talk fast before you feel just how nervous you are, before you dwell on what - ridiculously - you've decided might be at stake. "My brother'n me... This is like..." He sucks in a breath. "This is like a second chance. Alright? I kinda... We kinda need this."

Cathy cocks her head, thin black brow arched. "Why here? You could need anywhere."

Frustration is winding itself around weird desperation in the pit of his stomach and it feels like someone wearing cleats is walking around in there. People really need to stop asking him questions he can't possibly think of the words to answer. "It's just..."

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

"I got a feeling," he says simply. Helplessly. Tell the fucking truth, tell it even if it's bizarre; tell it and pay attention and that might, if you allow it, become a prayer.

And something might hear you.

"You got a feeling," Cathy echoes softly, brow still arched. She doesn't sound incredulous, is the thing. She doesn't sound scornful.

She sounds thoughtful.

"Y'know," she says finally, and the end of the cigarette glows bright as she drags in smoke, "you both look like you're about to knock over a liquor store."

Daryl shrugs. He can't argue with that. They have knocked over liquor stores.

"But." She sighs. "I do kinda need someone in here ASAP. And..." She cocks her head, and an odd smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. "I like your face. Don't care for your brother's, but it might even out. Tell you what." Another drag, a meditative stream of smoke. "You give me first and last month's rent up front, we don't bother with credit at all."

"I." Shit. Daryl shakes his head. Those cleats are back to their pacing. "I don't got that much. Not right now."

Cathy sighs again. "Hon, I really am tryin' to work with you here."

"I know. I know. I..." Wheels turning, and it feels like they're spinning in place. Why should he feel like this about this particular place?

Then it occurs to him. The other places are actual businesses. They'll almost certainly want to go through this whole process too. And they're unlikely to be flexible. They're unlikely to like his face.

I mean, if he needs a practical reason.

"How 'bout this? How 'bout I come by tomorrow, I give you first month, then I give you the rest when we actually get in here?"

"Twenty-second?"

Daryl nods.

Cathy appears to think again for a few seconds. "You put it in my hand before you bring a single goddamn thing through that door. Cash." Her eyes narrow slightly, magnified behind her thick glasses. "And you don't get it to me then, I keep the thousand. This is a non-refundable deposit. Get it?"

Daryl is aware that he's being taken advantage of. A little. That this bargain is a particularly hard one. Unwise, even. That he might be screwing himself, screwing both of them. That he's gambling on a hunch.

He nods.

"You wanna go ahead?"

He nods.

"You got balls from here to Sunday, boy." Cathy smiles, and it's a warm, sunny thing. "Alright." She puts out her hand. "Shake on it."

They do.

Back downstairs. Cathy is talking about the logistics of actually signing the lease - not complicated, they can do it when they arrive on the twenty-second. What are they actually moving? Daryl is about to tell her that they'll be moving essentially just themselves when he collides with a walking pile of laundry.

The laundry drops in tangles of sheets, and the woman behind it half stumbles. Daryl catches her arm, steadies her, and she looks up at him with a combination of surprise and apprehension.

Slender. A good bit younger than he's guessing Cathy is. Short gray hair, soft features that nevertheless bear a vague resemblance to Cathy's own. A tightness in her mouth that tugs at something behind his ribs.

And her eyes. She's not flinching, but her eyes are.

He didn't think he looked that alarming.

"Sorry," she murmurs, and starts to bend to collect the sheets, but he's ahead of her without even thinking, wrapping them up tighter as he hands them over - she might at least be able to see better that way.

She takes them from him with a nod, a tiny smile. That apprehensive look has faded, at least somewhat, but the tightness in her hasn't. And before he can say anything else she's pushing past him and through the door opposite the living room to parts unknown.

"They go in the hall closet," Cathy calls after her. No response.

Maid, maybe.

Merle gestures at the door with his chin. "Who's that?"

"Oh." Cathy rolls a shoulder. "That's my sister. I'm actually gonna be out of of town the night you'd be movin'. That's why it's good to get you in soon as possible."

Daryl could swear: if he had a thermometer in his hand it would confirm that the temperature just dropped about ten degrees. Though Cathy doesn't seem to have noticed.

He has a conversation to have with Merle. And it's not going to be a pleasant one.

"I'll be gone three weeks. Back in November. So she's housesitting." A particularly long drag as she ushers them toward the door. "She'll handle stuff while I'm gone. Her name's Carol."

They aren't even as far as the truck before Merle whirls on him, face reddening like a sunburn. Daryl can only summon up distantly irritated resignation, as well as the hope that neither of the women is watching them. "The fuck you done in there, brother?"

Just tell the fucking truth. What the hell else is he supposed to do? "I made a deal."

"What kinda fuckin' deal?"

"No bullshit with credit, we get her first and last month's rent up front."

Merle barks a rough laugh, incredulous... But not actually all that much. "And you just went ahead and made that decision."

Daryl sighs. It's shallow. He's having trouble committing to it. Maybe he's all out of committing. "Yeah. That's about the size of it, man."

"You give it to her already?"

"Yeah, 'cause I always carry a thousand dollars around with me. No, I'm givin' it to her tomorrow."

"You ain't."

"I am." Because: "It's my money."

"Well, that's just-" Merle turns sharply away and stalks a few paces, turns back and throws up his hands. "I don't fuckin' believe you, little brother. I just don't fuckin' believe you, how you keep doin' this shit, I'm tellin' you." He stalks back toward Daryl, shoulders hunched and center of gravity low as if he's contemplating charging. Daryl stands his ground, weary but unmoving. He was done giving way before these tantrums weeks ago now. "I'm tellin' you, you don't quit treatin' me like a motherfuckin' child, I'm gonna cave your fuckin' head all in."

Daryl tilts his head, very slight. Again that weariness, but the steel under it is backed by the full faith and credit of a bag of crystal meth to the face. "You really wanna try that again?"

Merle just stares at him, a hundred different emotions crossing his face, most of them superseding each other. Anger, scorn, frustration, disbelief, contempt...

And pain. There's pain there. A lot of it. Somehow, when the rest is gone, that's all that remains.

I'm sorry.

It's taken him that same period of weeks to understand that he'll probably never be able to say that. And even if he does, Merle will probably never be able to hear it.

After what feels like approximately an hour Merle shakes his head, and when he speaks his voice is quiet, and there's no more anger in it. He just sounds tired. Tired as Daryl feels. That hurts.

"Just ain't us, man."

"Think maybe it could be?"

Daryl is well aware that they could be talking about more than one thing.

Merle shakes his head again and looks away, back toward the house. The sun is lowering, casting long shadows and throwing the finely fashioned details of the construction into sharper relief. That bay window. That turret. The wide, shady porch.

It's the one. It is.

There's no God, no gods. But maybe there's something.

"So," Merle says softly. "We gotta come up with about another thousand. And we got a week'n change to come up with it."

"Yeah." Daryl takes a long breath. "We'll figure it out. There's ways. Maybe... I could ask Hershel for a loan or somethin'. For some reason seems like he's kinda gotten to trustin' me."

Merle huffs, back to contemptuous. "Man, you ain't takin' nothin' from him. You ain't gonna owe him. That ain't how we do shit."

We. "So how do we do it?"

Merle rubs his fingers across the hard stubble on his face, thoughtful now. Still looking at the house, though Daryl's not sure he's actually seeing it all that clearly. He's gone halfway to somewhere else. "I'll think on it. I maybe got some ideas."

The cleats jump. Maybe they shouldn't, maybe it's unfair, maybe he should give his brother the tiniest bit more credit than this, but he can't, he can't, because he's been screwed over so many times, so many different ways, and the worst part - he knows in the deepest core of himself - is that a lot of the time Merle doesn't even mean to do it.

Possibly most of the time.

"Tell me you ain't gonna do somethin' stupid."

Merle jerks his head back to face him, mouth pulling into an exasperated, twisted sneer. "Man, fuck you." He turns back to the truck and starts toward it. "I'll take care of it. Jesus fuckin' Christ, you'd still be crawlin' around and shittin' in a diaper if no one kicked you in the ass."

Daryl watches him for a moment - the slight slump of his back, the set of his shoulders, strength lingering under the ravages of a lot of bad years. It comes to him, strangely, that Merle is a lot of things, a lot of things he wishes so much Merle wasn't, and if he's realistic about this, that probably won't ever change. Even if things do get better.

But there is something there. Something all those bad years didn't kill.

He's going to do this. He made a plan and he'll do it. It's crazy, it makes no sense, it's probably deeply foolish, but it wouldn't - he thinks - actually kill him to have a little faith.

He glances back at the house one more time, then follows.