pigsfeet | shhh.

"Oh. Good." And then, after a moment, smiling and self-conscious, she adds, "That...also hasn't always been true."

Men in the 80s and 90s were pigs. That's what it comes down to, basically.

He knows from long experience he can't undo the pains of the past, so instead of brings Dana in so she can be kissed. It's a slow thing, gentle and not at all deep. He just wants to comfort her. "Is now."

And it really isn't even a pain, just a fact: some men want porn stars who never make a strange face or sound. You're always on display for them, always thinking about how you look and act, never letting go and enjoying yourself. Ironically, the man who used pornos as sleep aids wasn't one of those - and neither is Daryl.

She sinks into the kiss, deepens it, lets it carry both of them away from the conversation. When she does finally break it, it's to murmur against his mouth, "And you're not as bad at sex as you think."

The kiss is all the answer he needs, soft and deep and welcoming. He's finally got it through his thick fucking skull that she might really like him, and how he'd convinced himself she didn't-- when she'd been willing to get undressed around somebody like him-- he doesn't goddamn know. Except, maybe, that he'd seen too many girls holding onto guys for the security, the money, the kids, any reason other than actually liking the guy they were with.

But that was the old world, and it's gone. He kisses Dana in the new, and lets the cold puff of her breath wash over the bridge of his nose when she speaks. "Then lemme prove it," he says. His hand is still on her hip, and his fingers press down, just slightly.

"Well, if your really want to..." With someone else, she probably wouldn't let her voice go quite that teasing - but Daryl seems back at ease, and so is she, and it's hard not to let her voice sway into something a little more flirtatious.

Figuring out just how to talk to him in bed is oddly difficult. The balance of just what he finds sexy is something she's still discovering - and she really wants to discover it. For someone who's used to reshaping her own behavior to what a partner likes, whether she means to or not, a man without strong opinions is a curious challenge. She tries something that seems fairly safe, as this kind of thing goes, leaning in to whisper in his ear. "I want to feel your fingers inside me."

He sucks in a breath, but it's all hot, like his blood. Somehow, Dana can turn quiet calm to lightning without even trying. Maybe that's just being with anybody you care about, but something tells him it's a special feature of Dana's particular dynamism, her refusal to lie or be shocked by anything. He wants to melt into her. He wants to kiss her. He wants to get her off, almost desperately. (He wants to fuck her; he doesn't think about that, because he can't.)

"Can do that."

But if it's gonna be all about her, and all about him getting her off-- a fantasy, admittedly, where he doesn't have to work on some unknown timetable-- he'd like a better angle. He positions her gently, so she can move away if she wants, until her back is to him. It's easy to reach his hand around for a better angle, to feel the rest of her up, to make sure all the pressure isn't just on her cunt. It's easy to kiss her shoulder like she's the most precious thing he's ever held.

She lets him move her the way he wants, curious what he has in mind. Daryl describes himself as out of practice, but he clearly knows something of what he wants here. And it's sweet, really: spooning, his arms encircling her, one hand slipping down between her legs.

No one's come to the door yet. Even when he was suckling at her clit like it could win them the war, she thinks she had the presence of mind to keep an ear out. And if no one's here now, she wants to believe they won't be coming.

So she rocks with his hand as he fucks her with it, and when she's close, she feels for his other hand and laces their fingers together, squeezing as she comes. She's all breath by then, a whining sigh escaping her.

God, she's beautiful, and she feels amazing under his hands. He thinks for a moment he'll get hard again, just based on the noises she's making alone, but the feeling passes, and he's content with it. What really matters is how it feels when she comes. He memorizes the sighs, the way her body tenses, all the little signs that tell him she's close. He's always been good at reading people, and maybe that's why this is such a source of constant fascination. Maybe he just wants her to be happy. It seems like she enjoys it more than him, so why shouldn't she have the best of it?

Maybe he's half-hard, and maybe if he's careful she won't notice. He kisses her hair instead, and pets the flat of her stomach, interrupted by that one curve of metal. "You're beautiful," he says, because it's all he can think to say, and the only thing, in that moment, that matters.

She smiles at the wall, and this time, she lets herself be lazy about everything, basking in the afterglow. "So're you."

It's when she leans back a little, intending to turn back over her shoulder just enough to peck his head - doesn't matter where - that she realizes he enjoyed fucking her nearly as much as she did. "Are you sure you don't want to try for round two?"

Does he really not want to, or is he afraid? In the haze of a job well done-- and a compliment so absurd he can't begin to respond to it-- he's starting to see the difference. He could give or take getting off a second time, but he knows he wants her to touch him, and he's sure he's afraid of that happening. Fear and want have always been tied up with each other; is it really so surprising that they became entwined in sex?

He's just never had cause to think about sex, much, or how he thinks about sex.

And she wants to. She has to, or she wouldn't keep suggesting it.

"Okay," he says, soft. "Same rules. However you wanna."

She thinks about it for a moment, trying to decide. The options are somewhat limited by the fact that they can't consider vaginal penetration, and by the fact that she's frankly too tired for anything as absurd as she and Mulder used to get up to. (She also doesn't have a pair of handcuffs here.)

But when she decides, she sits up, slow and and deliberate about it, and crawls down the bed. Once she's kneeling between his legs, she says, "You know, I liked blowing you."

Seeing her there, next to his quickly hardening dick, feels like he's insulting her. He has to keep reminding himself she wants to be there, she put herself there of her own damn choice.

"Uh, good," he says. He still doesn't know how to deal with this, being wanted for something more than what he can give. Is it how she feels?

God, he's such an asshole.

She's not sure what she expects - not a quip, certainly, but something beyond a kind of puzzlement that brings to mind a stag facing down rush hour. But that's exactly what she gets, and for a moment, she falters. The magic of sex - the thing that makes you attractive instead of a silly, fortysomething woman playing around at sounding like a porn star - is that everyone's in on it. When that isn't the case, she just feels ridiculous.

But she wasn't lying when she said she liked sucking him off, and if his cock's any evidence, he's still interested. So she disappears into that instead, fisting one hand around him and taking him into her mouth. It doesn't really matter if he comes again or not; they'll see how it goes, and it'll probably feel good regardless.

It takes him longer this time, something that, were he in possession of his conscious mind, would drive him to distraction. As things are, Dana is the sum of the universe, and he screws his eyes shut and knocks his head back and thinks of the silk feeling of her skin under his hands. Even her scars are soft. (Everything is soft compared to his hands.)

It takes longer, and he's sweaty and panting by the end of it. He's not really sure where the time went, or how long it's been. He just knows he's moaning her name as he comes, his back bent like a drawn bow.

That it lasts longer feels good. There's time for her to show him a decent time, for him to really enjoy himself. Every time she glances up at him, his head's tipped back and his eyes are closed, and that seems like a good sign to her.

And it is, if only because he does come again. Who wouldn't be proud of that? She's made the impossible happen. After she swallows, she presses a kiss to his right iliac crest and flops down beside him. The moment probably doesn't need words, since she can't think of anything to say that isn't self-satisfied, so she gives him another kiss, this time to his jaw.

He wants nothing more than to fold himself inside of her warmth, and for once he can see no reason why not. He grabs her, holds her close, smells her skin and pets her hair. Her head on his shoulder, he angles their bodies in a matching constellation. She can lie on him. He wants her hand on his chest again, so he places it there. With both of them satisfied (god, he hopes so) there's latitude for getting what you really want, and what he wants is to be close to her.

He can feel sleep darting close at the edge of his consciousness. He should cap off the night with clever words, but as ever, he has none. He lets himself be kissed instead, and kisses back, his hand in her hair.

Scully has clever words for him, if anyone does. A yawn, her head bumping against his, and she murmurs, "Turn off the light. I can't reach from here."

It's hard to say exactly what about coming a second time turned Daryl into a cuddler, but she doesn't mind - at the moment, anyway. It's starting to get cold out, and his body heat makes up for whatever blankets she might lack in this drafty trailer.

"Shit, yeah." He forgot the light. He's still too used to sleeping outside, in direct sunlight, if he has to. He fumbles for the light, and gets it out after a few tries fiddling with the old style switch.

And he still doesn't know what to say, so he says it to himself, a promise in his own head. He'll get her books, and they'll live through the war, and find her boy, and make everything as right as it's in their power to make.

Of course, the next day is spent hiding. Daryl sequesters himself inside a half-finished wall when the Saviors roll in, and Negan introduces himself to everyone who hasn't yet met him. He takes another helping of goods, what little they have-- it isn't food, it's mattresses and clothes and things that would help them through the winter. And it turns out he needs a doctor, and he's just so goddamn impressed with the way that woman's arm was knitted up. He packs Dana away like she's just some thing.

Daryl finds out after they've already left, and he's almost sick, right then and there.

Scully kisses him and mumbles a sleepy good night, and though it's still early, that's a good thing. The next day starts around five, the sky still dark as she slips out of bed and pulls on clothes. Getting dressed all so she can stand naked under a chilly spray of water - it never quite gets warm enough, especially now that autumn's here - is an absurdity that she's grown strangely fond of. She can get all cleaned up and head directly to the infirmary trailer after, head wet and stomach empty.

The woman recovering is named Gina, and she's doing better. She's still asleep, but everything is healing reasonably well, and Scully's late-night study of surgery texts has ensured the stump is neatly covered and all the skin secure. It's meatball surgery of the type that belongs on sitcoms about the Korean War, but that's all they're capable of now.

When Negan comes, Scully's still in the trailer with her patient, and under the circumstances, she can't actually keep up the pretense that she's a medical failure. Carter is nowhere to be seen, and she couldn't ask him to lie for her, anyway. The question of who the hell did this? only has one answer, but it comes out of Scully with tired resignation. "I did."

Of course Negan's excited to hear that. Of course his hand clamps down on her shoulder as he steers her toward the door of the trailer. Not for the first time, she's abducted by a man who sees an object instead of a woman. There's no time to pack, no way to get a message to anyone outside of Negan's hearing. She's told to go, and because the Hippocratic Oath starts with a promise to do no harm, she does.

He'll kill people if she doesn't.

"Thought you were the one who lost her license," he says, on the way back to his community. Simon clearly reported back to his master, an obedient dog of a man. "And it turns out you're a goddamn surgeon! We'll call that a mulligan, because Sanctuary needs a good doctor, but I'm telling you, Dana. Doctor Dana. I'm telling you, Doctor Dana: Don't lie to me again."

The way his voice turns in an instant, shifting from this false good humor to danger, chills her. All she can do is nod.

There's no defense to mount, no search party to assemble. Daryl is left with the horrifying possibility that he'll just have to wait it out, a potential he entirely rejects. But as a messenger arrives from Hilltop, it seems, at least, that they're not alone. Negan took Eugene, to be his bullet farmer. Father Gabriel is missing, probably trying to get them back. Rosita shot somebody, and got a scarred face for her efforts.

If Dana had been there- if he'd been able to protect her- if only-

The war is ramping up. Rick has declared a side, in view of all these losses. There's only so much he can bear. They have to shore up defenses, and wait for the opportune moment.

And Daryl prays that Dana is alright, that she isn't pressured into being some kind of smiling, vacant wife. Living as he is now in her trailer, it keeps him up at night.

Scully's too old to make a good wife to Negan, and for that, she's guiltily grateful. Negan's taste runs more towards taut college girls, and she's close to fifty at this point. Having wrinkles saves her. Having medical knowledge saves her.

But it doesn't save her from seeing the girls he surrounds himself with, the misery hiding behind their eyes when they come to her with minor health complaints. She's already dreading what happens if he impregnates one.

The Sanctuary is a beehive of a place, constantly busy, and somehow, Eugene is starting to thrive there. Scully despises him for it, and wonders if he despises her in turn.
She isn't exactly fighting the power as she cares for the sick and injured - mostly injured, sometimes horrifically - of the community.

Rosita and Daryl get to talking. Let's get Eugene becomes let's save everybody and Rosita does her best not to ask about his 'girlfriend'.

The doctor, huh? and Daryl doesn't answer, and that's the end of it.

They roll up there like they know everything, and it isn't hard to grab Eugene when he's taking a piss. He doesn't want to go, though. He wants to stay in the place with running water and girls who pretend to want to talk to him. Daryl wants to break his jaw. But he tells them Dana's alright, and that they'll never get at her. The medical area is right smack in the middle of Sanctuary, too fortified to get into. Daryl tries anyway, and is nearly killed for his efforts; him and Rosita run home with their tails between their legs, and Daryl stops sleeping entirely.

The next day, they hear Father Gabriel had the same idea as them, and got captured in the process.

Scully hears about the break-in only after it's over; she hates herself for that, knowing that Daryl and Rosita were so close, but not actually realizing it or doing anything to help them. Gabriel stares hard at her when he sees her, like he's trying to convey a message through the air, and she doesn't know what it means. His presence as a pastor is an odd thing, comforting while somehow feeling insubstantial. She'd prefer not to think it's because he's not Catholic, but at this point, who knows? Who knows anything? She's being held captive in a place called Sanctuary. Nothing about this chapter of her life actually lines up comprehensibly.

It's not actually that bad, she reminds herself. After every awful thing she's lived through - most of them before the dead rose, no less - Scully can't actually claim that living in a closet of a room and doing her job as a doctor is really torture. She's here under duress, vaguely concerned for her life, but while Negan is capricious, his cruelty tends to follow a certain logic. He believes in rendering unto Caesar, and compared to most of his followers, her burden is a light one.

She tells herself this every night before she goes to bed, and she still wakes up full of dread. Today, she might treat an industrial accident, part of a finger snapped off by a machine, or she might be told to stand in a ring with the Saviors and watch a baseball bat pulp a man's head. Or one of the girls might finally come to her pregnant and terrified, or there'll be burns to treat - or nothing, a quiet day of waiting for horror and never seeing it.

Every night she reminds herself that her life is easy compared to everyone else's here, and every night, she wonders when she's allowed to decide what she's doing is hard.

The war ramps up. Guns get loaded, pointed, aimed. A girl Daryl hardly knew died in a skirmish, but her hair is red and Daryl wants to puke. Is this how Rick felt, all the time, caring so much about somebody that it felt like your whole soul is in another country? How did he not kill himself, when he thought Judith was dead?

Because he still had a boy to raise. There are other people in the world who need you, Daryl keeps reminding himself. It just doesn't feel real.

A group of saviors march toward Hilltop, and Maggie's quick thinking saves all of them. It drives Gregory insane, and he tries to stab her; the guy ends up in the same chicken wire prison as the rest of their prisoners of war. Constantly, they discuss whether or not to kill them. It's a drain on resources. It's a liability. Does Maggie want her child born in the same place she committed a war crime?

People think the ever growing bump on her stomach makes her weak, but Daryl can see how it's making her into a long thin line of a person, a knife that only points in one direction. He'd be scared, if he wasn't so relieved. At least one person isn't losing their mind.

It's easy to fall behind Maggie's instruction, anyway. She knows what to do, and he helps however he can. It helps him sleep, a little, knowing someone else is making decisions. But mostly he curls up in Dana's bed at night, a pathetic little worm of a thing, and tries to remember what her voice sounded like, how her hair shined, how her skin felt. He needs to get a photo. If he ever sees her again, he's taking a picture.

The war drags on. Two more months of scavenging and skirmishes. Simon gets killed, which Daryl only hears about through the grapevine, weeks after. The Saviors go on a rampage, with cars full of stolen gas, and try to decimate the Kingdom. Negan decides he needs to eradicate all of them.

There's a shootout. Daryl fully expects to die. And then all the guns backfire, and Rick slits Negan's throat. There's some talk of letting the motherfucker live, but Daryl doesn't have the time to be angry. He steals some Savior car parked high on the hill, and drives and drives and drives until he's at Sanctuary's gates. It's staffed by a skeleton crew of frightened women and children, all the people Negan couldn't force to fight. He stomps right past them, through the building, shouting Dana's name.

He feels desperate, and stupid, and entirely sure this is the only thing that matters.

In retrospect, choosing to leave their doctor home for a gunfight will be ludicrous to Scully. Bullets tear flesh, and someone has to repair it. But Negan had expected the wholesale massacre of a side he didn't care about rescuing; in his plans, he couldn't account for what would happen if his people were injured. Doing that would have required him to give a single, solitary crap about his people.

So Scully's still in the heart of the Sanctuary, helping a pregnant woman - not by Negan, thank God - with the petty discomforts of having another person inside oneself. It keeps her busy and stops her from thinking about the Saviors and their bullets, and all her people facing them.

It keeps her busy until she hears her name yelled from afar, in a voice she hasn't heard for months, and her hands are freshly washed. She doesn't even think to excuse herself, once she hears Dana! a second time. She just leaves, breaking into a run when she sees him.

She's no worse off than she was when she was escorted from Hilltop - not in appearance, anyway. They've fed her as much as anyone else, and probably more. The clothing she's wearing actually fits, and after belted pants and necklines that occasionally drooped past bra straps, these slacks and sweater might as well be tailored to her thin frame. But when she throws herself into his arms, her face a mix of shock and worry and hope, she can feel just how bad it's been.

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