Daryl concentrates on the feeling of her hand in his, mapping it to memory. He could curl up in this feeling, sleep well, and never wake. His smile, small and lop-sided, stays in place. Dog settles his head on Daryl's shoulder, and they both stare up at Maggie in the candle light.
"Nah," he says, "it was all you. Just set it up and dragged it back. Taking you on more hunts 'cause you're good at it."
Not because he needs the help, all out on his lonesome.
"I didn't fire a single shot," she points out, not to argue but to give credit where it's due. Daryl actually killed the thing, and he had the strength to bring his kill back without help. "But I'll come out with you when I have the time. Probably safer that way."
Not that he'll need her for deer or checking the trapline, but if there's another boar? She likes their chances better when it's both of them after it.
He's looking at her, his face tired and lined - but happy, all the same, happier than she remembers seeing him in a while - and for a moment, all she wants to do is lie down there beside him and Dog, and fall asleep with an arm around his chest. It's sudden, and it's bewildering in its intensity, and if she's going to look over that feeling and make some sense of it, she's going to have to do it someplace private.
She swallows.
"I better make sure Hershel didn't trash the place while we were gone," she tells him, and on instinct, she leans down to brush a kiss over Daryl's forehead. It's good night and good work and Jesus, I need to get back to my side of the house all in one. "Get some sleep."
She kisses him, and it's not anything intense, just something women have a habit of doing with him. Mostly Carol, when he's real fucked up, and for a moment Daryl wonders if she's noticed some hurt. He can't make sense of it, really, but he lets it happen, closing his eyes and letting it pass.
He'll keep that, too, because it was freely given.
"Tell the kid goodnight for me," he murmurs, already turning away, curling up on the bed around the dog taking up most of it. "And that it was your kill."
"Our kill," she corrects him, and her hand lingers at his shoulder for a moment. And then she goes to bed.
Hershel's already heard the news, and he's ecstatic. From the sound of it, he and Judith and RJ have been imagining how it went down all day, and maybe got into an argument over who actually killed the thing, the battle lines drawn unsurprisingly. "Tell Jude I said we both did," Maggie says, right before she kisses him good night, and Hershel's disappointment is palpable. Team Mom was clearly supposed to win.
She's up a long time, lying sleepless in her bed and listening to the house settle around her. Eventually, sleep overtakes her restless thoughts, and she's so tired she sleeps until late morning. Everyone brushes off her apologies, she throws herself back into rebuilding, and the world goes on. Her thoughts keep circling, but at least her hands are busy while they do.
After dinner, a few nights later - Judith and RJ having come over for the promise of Uncle Daryl's company and Aunt Maggie's cooking - Maggie makes a deal with the kids: they don't have to wash the dishes if they spend the dish-washing time reading something. It's pure bribery on her part, and it works, the three of them thundering up to Hershel's room, where she's not convinced they'll actually pull any books off the shelf, but at least they're guaranteed to stay away from anyplace a chore's happening.
"You wanna give me a hand?" she asks Daryl, as she gathers up the plates. "I wanted to talk to you about something."
Edited (finish your sentences, dove) 2022-11-17 17:59 (UTC)
Time moves on. It's comfortable enough, reminding him more than a little of the best days in the prison. There's more stability, maybe, but it's the same rhythm-- he's a known entity, given his own space, but never quite exhiled to solitude unless he chooses it. Sometimes he chooses it. Some days he disappears into the wilds, to think or hunt or forage, to set or check traps. He doesn't tell anyone at first-- not out of any sense of secrecy, he just forgets. But unlike in the prison, he absence is noted. Lydia worries for him, Hershel and Jude ask over his whereabouts, Carol tuts, and he thinks, maybe, that Maggie gives him a look.
He leaves a note next time, OUT HUNTING, and everybody gets over their goddamn selves.
Still, it's strange to be a presence notable enough to be missed. No one shrugs off his absence anymore; he's made a shape in their lives that, once gone, leaves a hole.
It keeps him up at night. He doesn't tell anyone, but he knows he can't leave, now. He left Leah, and burnt that right down. He can't keep leaving, but how can he stay?
Maggie's request for help is a welcome distraction, though he's not sure how much good he's going to do. He can wash dishes, but Carol thinks his idea of cleanliness is lacking, and he privately suspects Maggie is just too polite (or just doesn't care) to agree aloud. But he washes, he rinses, whatever he's directed to do. And he asks, because wanting to talk to you is always code for I need you to find or catch something.
"What d'you need?" He passes a clean dish to Maggie, notices his thumb has left a smeared print, and takes it back to clean again. This would have been excruciatingly embarrassing, a few years back.
Daryl comes and goes like a feral cat, and Maggie doesn't mind it, for the most part. It doesn't change much besides how many plates she sets out at dinner - and it likely makes his life a little easier, having some time away from the house. Hershel's not always noisy, but Maggie's still not convinced they won't eventually wear out their welcome. She keeps her attention on it, keeping an eye out for the point where Daryl's quiet turns bitter or frustrated, but it doesn't come.
Maybe she shouldn't be surprised. He's been good with kids from the first time he picked Judith up as a baby. But she is, all the same, if only because he's always been solitary by nature, too.
"Just to talk." She's used to We need to talk meaning Something's wrong. That it doesn't, for Daryl, is strangely charming.
It doesn't, however, make starting this conversation any easier. She takes a breath, trying to remember what she'd rehearsed in her head earlier in the day, about the time they've spent together lately and how it's changed things - but she can't. Shaking her head, she tells him, "I'm not gonna beat around the bush here, Daryl. I think that'd be an insult to both of us. The long and short of it is, I'm attracted to you. And I think you might feel the same way."
Just to talk is never just that. People don't need to set dates for chatting. He's figuring he said something that upset Hershel, or the dog crapped on something important, or they're moving out-- nothing he likes the thought of, but all survivable. And then she just... says it.
Things go white in his mind, like bleach on paint, all runny. Embarrassment flares up next, and he turns his head. Instinctively, he's looking for Hershel. What if the kid hears him? Their places reversed, he'd kill himself in his sleep.
Their places reversed, he'd have a dad worth killing over. And- and no, no, thank fuck, it's not like that. It'll never be like that. Staring at his hands, he goes over what Maggie actually said. Attracted-- hilarious, but fine-- not anything more.
She's Maggie. He has to remind himself that. This isn't a game meant to snare him, it's not even like verbal dancing with Leah, one wrong step and everything's screaming. Maggie is a flat plane of true intention; you know where you stand with her, and Daryl thinks she prides herself on that.
He takes a wheezing sigh, trying to remember to breathe. Is he red in the face? Feels like it. (Nut up, Little Brother.) He stares her in the eyes, and asks what he's pretty sure is the only question worth asking: "What d'you wanna do about it?"
"Talk to you," is her immediate answer, neither backing down nor looking away. Life's complicated enough without trying to kiss Daryl on the mouth without warning. "After that, we'll figure out the rest."
Anything she does, with anyone, needs some conversation attached to it - clarification, if nothing else, that whatever else happens, Hershel comes first - but that necessity multiplies with someone as skittish as the man standing next to her. Oh, he might be the ideal person to have at your side in an emergency, but ask him to talk about his feelings, and he looks like he might vomit and run off at the same time.
So she figures she'll go first, in hopes it'll save him some embarrassment. She goes back to scrubbing a spatula, trying to think of everything she'd meant to say to him. "If you aren't interested in doing anything about it, we won't. I'm not a lovelorn teenager - we can stay friends, if we need to. Nothing'll change. It's up to you."
Maybe that's a lot to put on him, but there's no point in laying out what she needs from him if his answer is thanks, but no thanks. And it still could be. All the desire in the world doesn't matter if the idea of exploring what's there between them sounds like more trouble than it's worth.
Daryl ducks his head in relief, realizes this is a coward's move, and looks up again. He keeps his eyes on her face, expression carefully blank, though he's sure that just makes him look pissed off. He's never been able to keep his face neutral, not totally. People always read something in it, even if it's not what he wants, not what he's actually hiding.
He hopes she doesn't think he's pissed-- she knows him too well for that, right? Then again, wasn't everything with Leah mostly screaming? Maybe she knows him too well.
And he's dithered too much. Now's the part where he's gotta say something, and all he can think is- "Good." That isn't- "I- shit."
A long breath. He puts his dishtowel down. His hands are damp, slightly soapy, and for some reason that just compounds what an idiot he feels like.
"Ain't got much, uh, practice with this." The idea that this needs to be stated is ridiculous-- it should be obvious to everyone who knows him, that love is a shell game as far as he's concerned, but he doesn't know what else to say. "Just want you happy."
There's a brief, cold moment when it sounds like he wants to leave it at that, friendship, and she resigns herself to the fact. It won't matter. They won't speak of it again, to each other or anyone else, and that'll be the end of things.
And then he speaks again, and she can breathe again. They're already nearly out of dishes; for the moment, she wipes her hands off on her jeans and turns a little to look up at him.
"I don't mind that." Frankly, she figured that out a long time ago - it's not hard to sniff out the fact that Daryl'd rather keep his own company than risk someone else making him regret what he did with his heart. It's the second bit that's a little more troublesome. "But I'm not going into anything if it's not what makes you happy, too."
One of the snags that comes with a relationship with Maggie Rhee: It does require wanting things. More than that, it requires acknowledging as much, out loud.
Which is a normal, even kind thing to say, and it forces Daryl to reorient himself a little. First physically-- he takes a step back, then to the side, grabs a kitchen chair and parks himself in it.
What makes him happy? He's never done the sort of things Glenn did for Maggie, and he's never gonna be able to. Happiness is not failing the fucking objective. More than that, though, between two people?
On their backs in the dirt, he watched an eclipse through Leah's fingers. Through a cemetery, he carried Beth on his shoulders. In a car, he had an entire argument about music with Michonne without ever saying a word aloud. In a deep wood, he gave Carol familiar flowers. In the darkness, he called Rick's name, and was answered back.
Daryl huffs a sigh, and sounds like nothing so much as an old dog. "You got any of that wine left?"
"Sure." It's in a cupboard now, up high where Hershel will neither notice or reach. She pulls it out, and two glasses along with it. Everything else can wait; they'll talk, the kids'll play, and the last couple of forks will get washed when they get washed.
She leaves the bottle on the table after she pours them each a few mouthfuls, then takes a seat across from him. Close enough to touch, far enough that it's clearly a conversation they're having here. This time, when she lifts her cup, she says, "To truth. Whatever it might be."
Daryl groans, just slightly, at her and himself and this goddamn stupid position he's put himself in, but he drinks all the same. No water this time. He's a mean drunk, but he doesn't intend to get drunk. Sometimes, if he just takes a little, it makes him feel like less of a dick. That'd be nice, right about now.
A deep breath. Just say it, goddammit. "You make me happy."
His eyes search the floorboards for something that isn't there and can't be found. He is simultaneously sure, absolutely, that she will and won't laugh.
She smiles - which might be just as bad as laughter, who knows - but it's a relieved sort of look, like he's said what she's thinking. Sure, he looks like he wants to disappear into the root cellar under them, but she's choosing to believe him when he says he's happy.
"You do, too." Their lives here have been happy, sharing the house. "Having you around...it's been good. For Hershel, and for me."
That it's been good for Hershel feels like the important thing. She doubts she could consider a relationship with anyone who hadn't already proven themselves with her son. That it's been good for her almost seems to go without saying. Daryl understands the weight of things without having to stop to measure them; he knows what she's had, as well as what she's lost, and he can gauge situations accordingly. So few of them are left from the prison now, let alone the farm, and the fact that he was there for both makes him capable of grasping everything the people around them miss.
There's gentleness in her voice as she asks, "That mean you want to try a relationship?"
They could keep living together, exactly the way they have, and they might still make each other happy. Or she could lean across the kitchen table and kiss him.
He's trying to work out what to say, how to say it. There are things worth nailing to the floor, with Maggie Rhee, who doesn't laugh at him when he does all the stupid shit he's bound to do. She just smiles, like he passed whatever test she was giving him, even though he suspects it wasn't really a test. Most people don't have the right answers in their head before they ask the question. It took him a long time to figure that out.
He wants to talk about what this means for Hershel, and what this means for Hilltop. He knows she means to go back eventually, and he'd like that just as well-- Hilltop is larger, wilder than Alexandria, and easier for him to understand. But who will watch over Jude and RJ and poor Lydia? Carol and Rosita and Aaron and all the handful of others he trusts completely, but the kids will feel abandoned, and maybe it's better if they live in a big house where they can run wild, and wouldn't that be nice-
Soft lips brush his. He flinches back on instinct, caught like an animal in a trap. For a moment, he's sure he's patently obvious to read-- he doesn't like to be touched, because he's a coward who can't ever quite predict where people's bodies are going to meet his. Except in a fight, and even that, he prefers to conduct from a distance.
He can't explain that, can't apologize for it, can't make it right, so he'll just have to ignore it, and hope she will, too.
"Wanna stay with you," he blurts out. "Wherever you go."
Maggie draws back immediately, her brows pulling together. In that moment, she can't read him at all, whether the issue's her or him or something else she doesn't know about. All she's got is that they'll probably both be better off in the future if she doesn't try touching him without making it clear she's going to.
The easy comfort after they'd killed the boar, sitting beside him with her hand in his, feels a long way off.
"You can," she says, sitting back in her chair, and picks up her cup. She needs something to do with her hands, just for a moment or two, while she tries to figure out what the hell she's doing with the rest of herself. "I wouldn't stop you from it."
Something isn't connecting, and she's not sure she can put it into words clearer than she's already tried for. As a general rule, she's plainspoken; all her energy for coyness was burned out of her years ago. But right about now, she feels like she's being nowhere close to clear enough.
It was easier with Leah, who never ever talked to him about what she felt except for the first time and the last. It was also harder, because he had to guess all the damn time. The weight of expectation is off him, if he could just string a goddamn sentence together.
All the things he wanted to say before the kiss have evaporated. He can't remember what they were, can't focus them in his mind. It's just stupid shit getting in the way of the very obvious fact that Maggie is retreating into herself. He knows what that looks like. It lives on the same street as disappointment, and he can't bear that.
Dog trots over to sit between them, and he wonders- should he tell her about Leah? The thought is so wickedly painful it almost seems like the right idea. But petting Dog's head, having something to do with his hands and his eyes and everything that isn't just worrying and staring and worrying more... it helps. He tries again.
"Didn't do nothing wrong," he murmurs. "Surprised me, is all."
He has to just pray she won't laugh.
"I ain't never gonna be him," he says, and before cold silence turns his words into an insult- "You know that. I just... gotta say it."
He'll carry Glenn's death until he dies, being the man responsible for it. Something of that grows poison in him, the thought that he'd ever try to take his place. He isn't, and he needs to make that clear to himself as much as Maggie.
"I know that," she agrees. And she knows he needs to say as much, too, if only because Glenn's memory casts a long shadow over them both. He was a friend to Daryl, one of their group in a way that's bound by sweat and blood. Her hands have settled around her cup, one finger tapping the surface. It's the only outflow of nerves she'll allow herself.
"After Negan killed him," and though it comes out relatively easily, the shadow that crosses her face suggests it takes effort, "I thought that was it. I wasn't interested in anything except remembering Glenn and raising our boy. Had to, uh -" a self-conscious little laugh, looking down at her wine - "tell a few guys as much. They got the message, though."
But that was then. That was people who hadn't spent years fighting and getting injured and living - despite all odds - with her. Communities she'd visited, some she'd even lived at, but where she hadn't belonged the way she does here, in this kitchen.
"I did a lot of thinking before I came to you." She doesn't pray, exactly, but she imagines conversations with Glenn, murmurs her half out loud sometimes, and it feels similar. "I don't want you to try and be Glenn. I don't think you could if you wanted to - and that's not an insult, Daryl, I couldn't do it, either. But I think if he could have an opinion on this...I think he'd want us to be happy. To remember him, and love that memory, but - to go on living."
He nods, slowly, and finds he can drink the wine with ease. He'd planned on taking it fast, in nervous gulps, but speaking frank-- franker than they had before-- has calmed him somewhat. The terror buzzing in his ribs is still there, but lessened.
Careful, careful, like handling a spooked horse, he reaches for Maggie's hand. His is clumsy, ill-proportioned, callused and inked, over her fine fingered beauty. "Know you wouldn't do nothing that- that'd go against him." He's thought about this as well, though perhaps with less romantic designs. "He'd want you looked after... though I think he'd know you wouldn't need it."
But, oh, to make things easier for Maggie Rhee. It seems like the noblest thing Daryl could do with his life, just to lighten her load a little. He can make her smile; he's proven that. He wants to see that again and again, every day if he can help it.
"S'what I meant. Staying with you. But..." It means the world to me when you laugh. "S'more than that. Ain't got the words for it."
And if she's going to be happy with him, she'll need to make her peace with the fact that he's a frequent failure at coherent articulation of desire.
Their hands close around each other, resting on the table; Daryl's touch says what he can't, his rough skin warm and affectionate. Ain't got the words for it, he says, but he can still communicate what she needs to know.
This what it'd be: something quiet and tired, a relationship that fills in the gaps between hard work and the oblivion of sleep. But something honest, for all that. Something born of knowing someone years, working closely with them, sharing losses along with joys - coming to them world-weary and knowing they are, too, and that they'll understand.
"All right," she says, in a quiet voice, and she looks down at their hands. These long summer days take forever to end, but this one's starting to, the shadows outside catching up to their kitchen. It's been long enough that she'll have to keep an ear to the stairs, in case the kids get bored. "You think if I kissed you again, you'd kiss back this time?"
"Uh-" The question is a surprise, but a small one. Why she'd want to kiss him, he can't know; why anyone would is a mystery only balanced by the fact that precious few ever have. But the idea no longer feels shameful, or catches that fluttering terror of being touched when he wasn't expecting it. "I- yeah, uh."
And he can say none of that.
He takes her hand, instead, and burnishes the knuckles with his own kiss, dry and light and brief. Yes, because words never work out.
She smiles, letting him pull her hand close for an answer. It's as good as a yes, a gesture sweeter than she might have expected from Daryl, and it's enough so that she's about to stand up and make good on the offer to kiss him again.
And just as her hand drops again - there comes thunder, as six feet pound down the stairs like all three of these kids were born in a barn. (A barn'd probably have been a step up, at least in Judith's case.) "Mom!" Hershel's calling, and "Aunt Maggie!" from Judith simultaneously. RJ's quiet, following along behind them.
Maggie straightens up a little, picking up her cup like that's the entire reason her hand's up there in the first place.
"Can Jude and RJ sleep over? Please?"
"Didn't they sleep over last week?" she asks, as easily as if they'd been discussing the weather down here the whole evening. It's a relief to realize she still knows how to sneak around when she needs to, because this is nowhere even close to 'Hershel needs to know' territory yet.
"Yeah, but that was a week ago."
"Maybe," and this, she doesn't dare look away toward Daryl as she says it, "you should ask if you can sleep over with them. If y'all get permission, you can, but we're not having anyone extra over here tonight."
That, apparently, is all the encouragement the three of them need; they're tearing away again, this time toward the door in search of permission, and Maggie's draining her glass of wine in a single go.
And Daryl has always been quick with his reactions; the first sound of footfall has him straight-backed in his chair, facing away from the kitchen door the kids inevitably crash through. Their childish patter is enough to make him smile, enough to dim the embarrassment running through him like a live wire. He takes a breath. Maybe this can work, if he can face children like a normal human being after being something else entirely in Maggie's hands.
Daryl looks back, watching the kids go, watching them be kids. Completely alien children to his experience: normal, happy, excitable, even.
There's a smile in his voice when he speaks, "handled that quick."
When the door slams shut behind them - put the three of them together, and they're a little hurricane of energy, even without Gracie there to complete the group - she breathes out. "Yeah, well, I got a few years' practice."
And she won't say no to a night off, if Carol's up for keeping an eye on Hershel for the night.
"I'm not going to keep you a secret forever," she adds, finally letting herself look over his way. He should probably hear this much before they get too much further. "But I'm not...this isn't something Hershel needs to hear about yet. Not unless we decide we're in it for the long haul."
At the moment, that feels inevitable - Maggie's not sure she remembers how to want something casual - but there's no point trapping Daryl into anything he doesn't like the sound of. If he's ever had a relationship, she doesn't know about it; she's not about to ask him to make promises when it's possible neither of them know if he can keep them.
"Take your lead on that." He likes kids, likes talking to them, teaching them, seeing them happy. He has no idea how to step into the official parent role, and doesn't want to. "If the kid's angry with me-" A sigh. He doesn't want this, but- "wanna make this easy on him."
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"Nah," he says, "it was all you. Just set it up and dragged it back. Taking you on more hunts 'cause you're good at it."
Not because he needs the help, all out on his lonesome.
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Not that he'll need her for deer or checking the trapline, but if there's another boar? She likes their chances better when it's both of them after it.
He's looking at her, his face tired and lined - but happy, all the same, happier than she remembers seeing him in a while - and for a moment, all she wants to do is lie down there beside him and Dog, and fall asleep with an arm around his chest. It's sudden, and it's bewildering in its intensity, and if she's going to look over that feeling and make some sense of it, she's going to have to do it someplace private.
She swallows.
"I better make sure Hershel didn't trash the place while we were gone," she tells him, and on instinct, she leans down to brush a kiss over Daryl's forehead. It's good night and good work and Jesus, I need to get back to my side of the house all in one. "Get some sleep."
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He'll keep that, too, because it was freely given.
"Tell the kid goodnight for me," he murmurs, already turning away, curling up on the bed around the dog taking up most of it. "And that it was your kill."
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Hershel's already heard the news, and he's ecstatic. From the sound of it, he and Judith and RJ have been imagining how it went down all day, and maybe got into an argument over who actually killed the thing, the battle lines drawn unsurprisingly. "Tell Jude I said we both did," Maggie says, right before she kisses him good night, and Hershel's disappointment is palpable. Team Mom was clearly supposed to win.
She's up a long time, lying sleepless in her bed and listening to the house settle around her. Eventually, sleep overtakes her restless thoughts, and she's so tired she sleeps until late morning. Everyone brushes off her apologies, she throws herself back into rebuilding, and the world goes on. Her thoughts keep circling, but at least her hands are busy while they do.
After dinner, a few nights later - Judith and RJ having come over for the promise of Uncle Daryl's company and Aunt Maggie's cooking - Maggie makes a deal with the kids: they don't have to wash the dishes if they spend the dish-washing time reading something. It's pure bribery on her part, and it works, the three of them thundering up to Hershel's room, where she's not convinced they'll actually pull any books off the shelf, but at least they're guaranteed to stay away from anyplace a chore's happening.
"You wanna give me a hand?" she asks Daryl, as she gathers up the plates. "I wanted to talk to you about something."
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He leaves a note next time, OUT HUNTING, and everybody gets over their goddamn selves.
Still, it's strange to be a presence notable enough to be missed. No one shrugs off his absence anymore; he's made a shape in their lives that, once gone, leaves a hole.
It keeps him up at night. He doesn't tell anyone, but he knows he can't leave, now. He left Leah, and burnt that right down. He can't keep leaving, but how can he stay?
Maggie's request for help is a welcome distraction, though he's not sure how much good he's going to do. He can wash dishes, but Carol thinks his idea of cleanliness is lacking, and he privately suspects Maggie is just too polite (or just doesn't care) to agree aloud. But he washes, he rinses, whatever he's directed to do. And he asks, because wanting to talk to you is always code for I need you to find or catch something.
"What d'you need?" He passes a clean dish to Maggie, notices his thumb has left a smeared print, and takes it back to clean again. This would have been excruciatingly embarrassing, a few years back.
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Maybe she shouldn't be surprised. He's been good with kids from the first time he picked Judith up as a baby. But she is, all the same, if only because he's always been solitary by nature, too.
"Just to talk." She's used to We need to talk meaning Something's wrong. That it doesn't, for Daryl, is strangely charming.
It doesn't, however, make starting this conversation any easier. She takes a breath, trying to remember what she'd rehearsed in her head earlier in the day, about the time they've spent together lately and how it's changed things - but she can't. Shaking her head, she tells him, "I'm not gonna beat around the bush here, Daryl. I think that'd be an insult to both of us. The long and short of it is, I'm attracted to you. And I think you might feel the same way."
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Things go white in his mind, like bleach on paint, all runny. Embarrassment flares up next, and he turns his head. Instinctively, he's looking for Hershel. What if the kid hears him? Their places reversed, he'd kill himself in his sleep.
Their places reversed, he'd have a dad worth killing over. And- and no, no, thank fuck, it's not like that. It'll never be like that. Staring at his hands, he goes over what Maggie actually said. Attracted-- hilarious, but fine-- not anything more.
She's Maggie. He has to remind himself that. This isn't a game meant to snare him, it's not even like verbal dancing with Leah, one wrong step and everything's screaming. Maggie is a flat plane of true intention; you know where you stand with her, and Daryl thinks she prides herself on that.
He takes a wheezing sigh, trying to remember to breathe. Is he red in the face? Feels like it. (Nut up, Little Brother.) He stares her in the eyes, and asks what he's pretty sure is the only question worth asking: "What d'you wanna do about it?"
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Anything she does, with anyone, needs some conversation attached to it - clarification, if nothing else, that whatever else happens, Hershel comes first - but that necessity multiplies with someone as skittish as the man standing next to her. Oh, he might be the ideal person to have at your side in an emergency, but ask him to talk about his feelings, and he looks like he might vomit and run off at the same time.
So she figures she'll go first, in hopes it'll save him some embarrassment. She goes back to scrubbing a spatula, trying to think of everything she'd meant to say to him. "If you aren't interested in doing anything about it, we won't. I'm not a lovelorn teenager - we can stay friends, if we need to. Nothing'll change. It's up to you."
Maybe that's a lot to put on him, but there's no point in laying out what she needs from him if his answer is thanks, but no thanks. And it still could be. All the desire in the world doesn't matter if the idea of exploring what's there between them sounds like more trouble than it's worth.
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He hopes she doesn't think he's pissed-- she knows him too well for that, right? Then again, wasn't everything with Leah mostly screaming? Maybe she knows him too well.
And he's dithered too much. Now's the part where he's gotta say something, and all he can think is- "Good." That isn't- "I- shit."
A long breath. He puts his dishtowel down. His hands are damp, slightly soapy, and for some reason that just compounds what an idiot he feels like.
"Ain't got much, uh, practice with this." The idea that this needs to be stated is ridiculous-- it should be obvious to everyone who knows him, that love is a shell game as far as he's concerned, but he doesn't know what else to say. "Just want you happy."
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And then he speaks again, and she can breathe again. They're already nearly out of dishes; for the moment, she wipes her hands off on her jeans and turns a little to look up at him.
"I don't mind that." Frankly, she figured that out a long time ago - it's not hard to sniff out the fact that Daryl'd rather keep his own company than risk someone else making him regret what he did with his heart. It's the second bit that's a little more troublesome. "But I'm not going into anything if it's not what makes you happy, too."
One of the snags that comes with a relationship with Maggie Rhee: It does require wanting things. More than that, it requires acknowledging as much, out loud.
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What makes him happy? He's never done the sort of things Glenn did for Maggie, and he's never gonna be able to. Happiness is not failing the fucking objective. More than that, though, between two people?
On their backs in the dirt, he watched an eclipse through Leah's fingers. Through a cemetery, he carried Beth on his shoulders. In a car, he had an entire argument about music with Michonne without ever saying a word aloud. In a deep wood, he gave Carol familiar flowers. In the darkness, he called Rick's name, and was answered back.
Daryl huffs a sigh, and sounds like nothing so much as an old dog. "You got any of that wine left?"
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She leaves the bottle on the table after she pours them each a few mouthfuls, then takes a seat across from him. Close enough to touch, far enough that it's clearly a conversation they're having here. This time, when she lifts her cup, she says, "To truth. Whatever it might be."
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A deep breath. Just say it, goddammit. "You make me happy."
His eyes search the floorboards for something that isn't there and can't be found. He is simultaneously sure, absolutely, that she will and won't laugh.
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"You do, too." Their lives here have been happy, sharing the house. "Having you around...it's been good. For Hershel, and for me."
That it's been good for Hershel feels like the important thing. She doubts she could consider a relationship with anyone who hadn't already proven themselves with her son. That it's been good for her almost seems to go without saying. Daryl understands the weight of things without having to stop to measure them; he knows what she's had, as well as what she's lost, and he can gauge situations accordingly. So few of them are left from the prison now, let alone the farm, and the fact that he was there for both makes him capable of grasping everything the people around them miss.
There's gentleness in her voice as she asks, "That mean you want to try a relationship?"
They could keep living together, exactly the way they have, and they might still make each other happy. Or she could lean across the kitchen table and kiss him.
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He wants to talk about what this means for Hershel, and what this means for Hilltop. He knows she means to go back eventually, and he'd like that just as well-- Hilltop is larger, wilder than Alexandria, and easier for him to understand. But who will watch over Jude and RJ and poor Lydia? Carol and Rosita and Aaron and all the handful of others he trusts completely, but the kids will feel abandoned, and maybe it's better if they live in a big house where they can run wild, and wouldn't that be nice-
Soft lips brush his. He flinches back on instinct, caught like an animal in a trap. For a moment, he's sure he's patently obvious to read-- he doesn't like to be touched, because he's a coward who can't ever quite predict where people's bodies are going to meet his. Except in a fight, and even that, he prefers to conduct from a distance.
He can't explain that, can't apologize for it, can't make it right, so he'll just have to ignore it, and hope she will, too.
"Wanna stay with you," he blurts out. "Wherever you go."
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The easy comfort after they'd killed the boar, sitting beside him with her hand in his, feels a long way off.
"You can," she says, sitting back in her chair, and picks up her cup. She needs something to do with her hands, just for a moment or two, while she tries to figure out what the hell she's doing with the rest of herself. "I wouldn't stop you from it."
Something isn't connecting, and she's not sure she can put it into words clearer than she's already tried for. As a general rule, she's plainspoken; all her energy for coyness was burned out of her years ago. But right about now, she feels like she's being nowhere close to clear enough.
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All the things he wanted to say before the kiss have evaporated. He can't remember what they were, can't focus them in his mind. It's just stupid shit getting in the way of the very obvious fact that Maggie is retreating into herself. He knows what that looks like. It lives on the same street as disappointment, and he can't bear that.
Dog trots over to sit between them, and he wonders- should he tell her about Leah? The thought is so wickedly painful it almost seems like the right idea. But petting Dog's head, having something to do with his hands and his eyes and everything that isn't just worrying and staring and worrying more... it helps. He tries again.
"Didn't do nothing wrong," he murmurs. "Surprised me, is all."
He has to just pray she won't laugh.
"I ain't never gonna be him," he says, and before cold silence turns his words into an insult- "You know that. I just... gotta say it."
He'll carry Glenn's death until he dies, being the man responsible for it. Something of that grows poison in him, the thought that he'd ever try to take his place. He isn't, and he needs to make that clear to himself as much as Maggie.
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"After Negan killed him," and though it comes out relatively easily, the shadow that crosses her face suggests it takes effort, "I thought that was it. I wasn't interested in anything except remembering Glenn and raising our boy. Had to, uh -" a self-conscious little laugh, looking down at her wine - "tell a few guys as much. They got the message, though."
But that was then. That was people who hadn't spent years fighting and getting injured and living - despite all odds - with her. Communities she'd visited, some she'd even lived at, but where she hadn't belonged the way she does here, in this kitchen.
"I did a lot of thinking before I came to you." She doesn't pray, exactly, but she imagines conversations with Glenn, murmurs her half out loud sometimes, and it feels similar. "I don't want you to try and be Glenn. I don't think you could if you wanted to - and that's not an insult, Daryl, I couldn't do it, either. But I think if he could have an opinion on this...I think he'd want us to be happy. To remember him, and love that memory, but - to go on living."
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Careful, careful, like handling a spooked horse, he reaches for Maggie's hand. His is clumsy, ill-proportioned, callused and inked, over her fine fingered beauty. "Know you wouldn't do nothing that- that'd go against him." He's thought about this as well, though perhaps with less romantic designs. "He'd want you looked after... though I think he'd know you wouldn't need it."
But, oh, to make things easier for Maggie Rhee. It seems like the noblest thing Daryl could do with his life, just to lighten her load a little. He can make her smile; he's proven that. He wants to see that again and again, every day if he can help it.
"S'what I meant. Staying with you. But..." It means the world to me when you laugh. "S'more than that. Ain't got the words for it."
And if she's going to be happy with him, she'll need to make her peace with the fact that he's a frequent failure at coherent articulation of desire.
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This what it'd be: something quiet and tired, a relationship that fills in the gaps between hard work and the oblivion of sleep. But something honest, for all that. Something born of knowing someone years, working closely with them, sharing losses along with joys - coming to them world-weary and knowing they are, too, and that they'll understand.
"All right," she says, in a quiet voice, and she looks down at their hands. These long summer days take forever to end, but this one's starting to, the shadows outside catching up to their kitchen. It's been long enough that she'll have to keep an ear to the stairs, in case the kids get bored. "You think if I kissed you again, you'd kiss back this time?"
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And he can say none of that.
He takes her hand, instead, and burnishes the knuckles with his own kiss, dry and light and brief. Yes, because words never work out.
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And just as her hand drops again - there comes thunder, as six feet pound down the stairs like all three of these kids were born in a barn. (A barn'd probably have been a step up, at least in Judith's case.) "Mom!" Hershel's calling, and "Aunt Maggie!" from Judith simultaneously. RJ's quiet, following along behind them.
Maggie straightens up a little, picking up her cup like that's the entire reason her hand's up there in the first place.
"Can Jude and RJ sleep over? Please?"
"Didn't they sleep over last week?" she asks, as easily as if they'd been discussing the weather down here the whole evening. It's a relief to realize she still knows how to sneak around when she needs to, because this is nowhere even close to 'Hershel needs to know' territory yet.
"Yeah, but that was a week ago."
"Maybe," and this, she doesn't dare look away toward Daryl as she says it, "you should ask if you can sleep over with them. If y'all get permission, you can, but we're not having anyone extra over here tonight."
That, apparently, is all the encouragement the three of them need; they're tearing away again, this time toward the door in search of permission, and Maggie's draining her glass of wine in a single go.
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Daryl looks back, watching the kids go, watching them be kids. Completely alien children to his experience: normal, happy, excitable, even.
There's a smile in his voice when he speaks, "handled that quick."
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And she won't say no to a night off, if Carol's up for keeping an eye on Hershel for the night.
"I'm not going to keep you a secret forever," she adds, finally letting herself look over his way. He should probably hear this much before they get too much further. "But I'm not...this isn't something Hershel needs to hear about yet. Not unless we decide we're in it for the long haul."
At the moment, that feels inevitable - Maggie's not sure she remembers how to want something casual - but there's no point trapping Daryl into anything he doesn't like the sound of. If he's ever had a relationship, she doesn't know about it; she's not about to ask him to make promises when it's possible neither of them know if he can keep them.
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