a_littlefaith | [December 25]

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daryl

[December 25]

She's made special arrangements with the shelter to pick up the kitten on Christmas morning. They've been very nice to her this whole time, helping her every single time she shows up at the shelter, letting her hold kittens, letting her pet them and play with them until she settles on a little female kitten, black with big yellow eyes. She's sweet and she's vocal, meowing loudly every time Beth comes in to see her, and she's sure Daryl is going to love her.

So bit by bit, she's bought the necessary supplies for having a kitten. In the closet of the bedroom she barely uses anymore she's hidden a litter box and litter, food and bowls, a little scratching post, some toys. And a cat carrier with a soft blanket and a t-shirt of Daryl's that she snagged from the hamper earlier in the week because she'd read somewhere that giving the kitten something that smells like their new owner is a good way to introduce them and help then bond.

She's set an alarm, but she doesn't need it. She wakes up long before the sun rises, then forces herself to lie in bed for ten more minutes, making sure Daryl is asleep before she slips out from under the covers. Even though she doesn't want to wake him, she can't help but brush a soft kiss against his cheek after she's dressed. She leaves the apartment carefully and quietly, then walks to the shelter, the empty carrier in her hand.

When she gets back home less than half an hour later, the little black kitten is curled in a corner of her carrier and Daryl is still asleep. She grins, creeping back into the room, then sets the carrier very gently on the edge of the bed and opens the door.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the kitten creeps out, treading lightly on the sheets and Beth has to muffle her laughter against her hand as she slides back into the bed beside Daryl, fully dressed this time. The kitten hesitates, then treads across Daryl's chest, walking straight toward his face.

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He's dreaming. Later he won't remember what about, only that it was weird enough that it bled into reality rather neatly. He stirs, mutters something, and on some level he becomes aware that side of the bed that's become Beth's is empty. Which isn't strange in itself, but that, plus the odd shifting pressure on his chest, starts dragging him fully toward consciousness.

Then something is ticking the side of his face, something cool and slightly damp brushes his cheek, and something velvety and tipped with what feel like tiny needles bats at his nose. And it's Christmas morning, and he's staring into two enormous yellow eyes about an inch from his own.

To his credit he doesn't actually freak out. "Jesus fuckin' Christ."

When Daryl opens his eyes, the fur on the kitten's back goes up and she darts back a few paces, standing on his stomach and looking at him warily. Beth laughs again, pressing her fingers against her mouth as she watches this, and the second the kitten seems to regain her courage and walks straight back toward Daryl's face, she's sure she picked the right one. The kitten's little nose twitches and Beth doesn't know what that means, but she hopes it means she's recognizing Daryl's scent from the shirt that's in her carrier.

"Good morning," she says, leaning over to press her lips against the top of Daryl's head. "Merry Christmas."

She's sure he can figure out by now that his gift is the little thing staring at him from the position she's taken on his chest. She kneads her tiny paws against him a few times, then curls up in the centre of his chest, still looking at him, her eyes big and bright.

Now he can focus. He lifts his head slightly, suddenly and completely conscious in the way of which he was once capable when his survival depended on it. But it doesn't now. And he's looking at a kitten curled up on his chest, and the full implications of this begin to make themselves clear to him.

What she's done. What this means.

He lifts a hand, not quite sure if he can pet the kitten yet, if they're that well acquainted, but operating mostly on instinct. He looks up at Beth, not quite grinning, still trying to process.

A kitten. She's gotten him a kitten.

"You seriously fuckin'..."

"Yeah," she says with a grin, pushing her hands under her thighs for a moment because if she lets herself, all she's going to do is pick up the kitten and start snuggling with her and that's supposed to be Daryl's job. "She's almost nine weeks old. I got her at the shelter. There was a whole bunch, but this one..."

The kitten yawns and stretches, then gets up and sniffs the blankets before she meows, surprisingly loud for such a tiny little body. She turns to look at Daryl and meows again, then walks up toward his face and butts her little head against his chin.

Still grinning, Beth watches them, then says, "I got all the stuff you'll need, too. Litter and food and toys and stuff."

He glances at her again, faintly incredulous smile pulling at his mouth, and carefully pushes himself up on one elbow, allowing himself to stroke his fingers carefully down the kitten's back. She meows again, softer, and arches her back against his hand. Maybe she hadn't been sure about him, but she seems to be warming.

"You..." And she called him sneaky. He doesn't think he's exactly oblivious - not about some things, anyway - but he had no idea.

He shakes his head, still half in disbelief. Of everything she might have gotten him... But he told her the story about the baby rabbit, and she saw how he was with the cats.

"She got a name?"

"No, you gotta name her," she says, sprawling out beside him on the bed on her stomach. She grabs her pillow -- because it's hers now, it really is -- and bunches it up under her shoulders so she can prop herself up on it and watch him with the kitten. She's so small, especially under Daryl's big hand, but Beth had picked her because she's sure this little kitten won't be pushed around. She might be small, but Beth had seen her with the other kittens, and she's sure there's some fight in her.

"I mean, they were callin' her Sooty at the shelter, which is a pretty stupid name if you ask me," she says, wrinkling her nose a little. "She's too young to know her name, though, so you can name her anything you want." Just as long as it's not Sooty. That's what the look she's giving him says. Anything but that.

He huffs a laugh. Sooty? Yes, that's a pretty stupid name indeed. It strikes him as a lazy name somehow, a name people give something they can't be bothered to think too much about. Which makes sense, if it was a shelter - somewhere she was never meant to stay for very long. But it won't do now.

He sits up a little more, pushing his own pillow against the wall and leaning back. The kitten is settling again, still purring, and he's sure that he likes her. It hurts a bit, the way in which he does - he remembers the way he wanted something like this, something to have that would ask only simple, clear things of him and wouldn't be angry with him for things he didn't understand or couldn't control.

Something he could make happy.

He shrugs and glances at her, once again a little shy. I'unno.

Edited 2014-12-28 06:22 (UTC)

She loves him so much that it feels sort of unbelievable at times. Like no one person is ever meant to feel something this big or this much and she wiggles closer to him on her stomach, close enough that she can rest her head on his stomach and look up at him. The kitten is close to her head like this and she feels a little paw bat at her hair, a gentle sort of pressure on her ponytail. But the purring is close and it's soothing and she thinks she might end up loving this cat just as much as Daryl does.

"You don't have to name her right away," she says. "You can take your time. Figure it out."

He looks a little shy, though, and that makes her smile. because it does something inside her. It lights her up and pulls something tight and makes her wonder how, in the entire world, this is where she ended up. Exactly where she needs to be. She wonders if she's been guided here, if they all have, but no matter what, no matter how they got here, this is the right place. They found it.

He watches the kitten paw at Beth's hair, still smiling a little. No, he doesn't have to find a name immediately, but he feels like there should be one. Her bright eyes, her glossy fur and the sharp alertness about her - she deserves a name. Even if it doesn't make any difference to her - because she's a cat - it matters to him.

There's one. But it's silly, stupid even, and while this shouldn't worry him now, he's not sure he can say it. Not without a fair amount of embarrassment.

But this is Beth. Who's seen his scars. Touched them. Heard him say more than he's said to almost anyone about how things used to be.

"I had this turtle," he says once - a little haltingly. "Like... just for a while. Named him Anthony. Dunno why, just really liked the name. But that's a boy's name," he adds, uncertain, and he feels like a fucking kid about this, an awkward kid, but there's something about tying then to now that feels important. Worth doing.

And if anyone at all might understand, it's her.

"So?" she asks, lifting her head again and replacing it with her hand, gently stroking her fingers against his skin. It's Christmas morning and they're lying in their bed. There's a kitten lying curled up on Daryl, her little chest rumbling with her purrs and although Beth has always tried to be positive, although she's always tried to make the best of any given situation, this is exceptional. It isn't always easy to be the ones who are here when there are so many of their people still back there, but Beth tries to remind herself that they don't deserve happiness less just because some of their people are missing.

They're all deserving. And this is something special.

"You can name her anything you want, even if it's a boy's name," she says, turning over onto her back and settling against his arm so she can look at the kitten. "If you like the name Anthony, that's what you should name her." She wants him to be happy. That's it. That's everything.

He's well aware that he shouldn't give a fuck what anyone else thinks. He told himself he didn't, once it became clear that such an attitude was expected of him. But it wasn't quite true. He does care. Not just her, but a vague and vaguely defined audience, faceless and profoundly judgmental. Not his father, not his mother, not Merle, not Rick - who he doesn't think would be that way anyway - not any of the rest of the group. All of them and none of them. He'd like to be able to shake it. That day hasn't yet come

But with her, it's a little easier. A lot easier, maybe.

"Guess it don't matter," he says quietly, and strokes the kitten's back again, smiling very slightly to himself. "Alright. Anthony."

The kitten meows again, kneads her paws against Daryl and then settles. Beth smiles, tilting her head back so she can see him. "She likes it," she says, although the kitten's meow could have meant anything, she's sure. But this is more than just a Christmas gift, though it's that. It's important and it's a way for her to tell Daryl that any of that stuff he wanted as a kid, any of the things his father or Merle tried to take away from him, he can have it all here. It doesn't matter that he's an adult now, it doesn't matter that they might not be here forever. He can still have it.

She wants him to have it.

Turning onto her side, she slips her arm across his chest and presses herself against him. He's still warm from the bed, warmer than she is, and all she wants is to burrow back under the covers with him. She has to get up and cook, he has to get up and help her, but not yet. "Merry Christmas," she murmurs again, then presses a kiss to his shoulder.

This isn't from Santa Claus, no. But the time for that was long ago, and this is so much better. This takes all of that badness and covers it over, builds something new on top of it. This is something - something that really he's always sort of wanted - and it's coming from her.

He turns his head and kisses her brow, smiling against her hair. This might be how she felt with the piano, a little. Because he can tell this took time and planning, and effort. This wasn't something she just threw together.

She wants to make him happy. It's still something he's learning to deal with.

"Yeah, 's alright so far."

"Well, I hope you're not expecting much outta dinner, because the closer I get to it, the more I realize I don't know what the hell I'm doin'," she says with a laugh. "This might be the peak of the day."

She's looking forward to giving everyone else their gifts, to watching Judith tear hers open, even if she doesn't know what to do with the paper or whatever is inside. There's just something about knowing she's able to do this, she's able to have her first Christmas away from the walkers that feels really important to Beth.

But this still might be the best part of the day. Lying in bed with Daryl, watching as a little black kitten falls asleep curled up on top of him.

"Pretty good peak," he murmurs, still leaning his head against hers, stroking the kitten. Yes, it might not get any better than this, but that can't possibly be a bad thing, because he doesn't even know what would improve on this. He doesn't know how he could be happier.

She keeps doing that to him. Keeps making him feel that way.

"You're gonna be fine. Most important thing's we all got each other." He kisses her again. "Anyway, how hard can it really be?"

She tips her head back to give him a look at that, one that says really, because she might not know much about cooking a Christmas dinner, but she's pretty sure it's not going to be very easy. Her mom had always made it look like it was no big deal, but she knows that can't possibly be true. She'd just been doing it for such a long time and sometimes Beth wonders if the first time she made a big meal like this it was hard for her, too.

"Most important thing's we all got each other," she echoes, because at least she agrees with that. "We'll see how hard it can be when I'm makin' you mash up all the potatoes I bought."

"Mash anythin' you want," he says, his voice a low and amused rumble, and he leans in and grins against her cheek before he kisses her there too. He has no doubts about this. It might not be the easiest thing, there might even be some fuck-ups, but he can't imagine it mattering. He can't imagine anyone caring. It's Christmas.

"Thanks," he adds after a moment, and it feels strange to say. He's never said it very much, though it might be in part that he's only recently had much to thank people for. But he is grateful to her. For this, for the furry little thin purring under his hand, but most of all for her, and that's been true for a long time.

The look she's giving him fades pretty quickly when he kisses her cheek because he's warm and solid and still naked in bed, which, as far as Beth is concerned, is a much nicer state to be in than dressed and on top of the covers. They have to get up eventually, he'll have to set up the litter box and the food dishes for Anthony, she'll have to start cooking pretty soon just to make sure everything is done by the time everyone arrives, but it's still early. They can put it off for a little while. It's Christmas.

"You're welcome," she says, reaching down to undo her jeans and she pushes them off, kicking off her socks as well, then slides back under the covers beside him, pressing close and reaching over to stroke Anthony's ears. "Why did I decide to do dinner? I like this way better."

"Can still call it off." He sighs softly when she settles herself against him, angles himself toward her as much as he can without disturbing the kitten. He doesn't mean it, would in fact be pretty disappointed if she did, but he wishes he could slow the time down a little. Enjoy this as much as he can, his first Christmas morning even vaguely like this.

He shifts one arm behind her head, combing his fingers into her hair. "Never fuckin' call me sneaky again."

"Nah," she says softly, because she really doesn't want to anyway. Having everyone over, having a big gathering, that's the entire point of Christmas and Beth doesn't want to miss out on it because they're in Darrow. It won't be the same but she's not expecting it to be like how things were on the farm. Darrow is something else entirely and she wants to make new traditions with the people who are here instead of trying to cling to something that's long gone. It doesn't mean she's going to forget the people who aren't here, it just means she wants to make something new.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," she continues with a laugh. "It's a lot easier to get a kitten into an apartment than it is a piano. Plus, I didn't need to sneak this morning at all, you slept right through me gettin' up and gettin' dressed and everything."

"Yeah, you fuckin' wore me out. That was sneaky." And he's still tired, a little, but it's a good kind of tired. It's a kind of tired he'd trade a lot of things for, including sleep. Regardless of how easy it would be to go to sleep again now.

Having a little cat on his chest is, as it turns out, soporific.

"Probably your plan all along."

"I didn't do it on purpose," she says, still laughing, but she sounds pleased with herself all the same. It's not the kind of thing she expected to ever hear from anyone, mostly due to the fact that she'd never given much thought to what it might be like to be in a relationship like this. It's different in so many ways and not only because Daryl is different, but because he doesn't look at her the same way most people have her whole life. She doesn't know when that happened or what really triggered it, but, looking back, she's pretty sure he's the only person who's made her feel capable.

He doesn't try to teach her things because he thinks she's weak or stupid, he teaches her because he knows she can do them.

She slips her arm around him under the blankets, her fingers sliding over his hip. "Besides, you could've stopped me any time."

"Guess I coulda." He presses a little into the touch, still careful to not disturb Anthony, though she already looks dead to the world. He doesn't want her to move. She's a comfortable little weight, relaxing in a way nothing else he's ever encountered really is. But this is making him even less inclined to get up at all.

"Mm. Like I ever would." He thinks I'm gettin' good at this in her happily pleased voice and almost laughs. Yes, they both are. They're getting good at a lot of things. Just this, even. Being together. Not that it was ever hard.

And that, too, pleases her, so she smiles, pressing her cheek against him and looking at the kitten still peacefully sleeping on top of him. Like she belongs there. Daryl was made for stuff like this, for looking out for those smaller than him, those who might not always be able to look after themselves, and she thinks that's why he's drawn to Judith the way he is.

Maybe why he'd even been drawn to her at first.

It makes her think of what he might be like with a baby of his own someday and she has to hide her face against his arm to cover her smile. It's not the sort of thing they've talked about and she's not ready to consider it, but maybe. Maybe one day.

"Gonna have to fight a kitten for your attention now, huh?" she asks when she can look at him again.

"Yeah, not sure I see you winnin' there." He's still stroking her hair, his eyes half closed, but he still sees her when she looks at him, and yeah, she's pleased with herself. And she is sneaky. All this and he never suspected, and he likes to think he's not totally oblivious. That he notices her.

Well, it's fine that he didn't. Because this is better as a surprise.

He smiles at her, tugs gently at a strand of her hair. "She's cuter'n you."

"Cuter'n you, too," she answers, swatting at his hand, but she's still smiling and she doesn't mean that at all. The kitten might be small and fuzzy and when she meows, it is awfully cute, but Beth's not sure anything is cute enough for her to like it better than Daryl.

"But I'm a better conversationalist than she is," she points out, arching her neck to press a kiss against his shoulder, then his jaw. "And you know she's not gonna contribute even a penny to rent."

"Since when do I give a shit about conversation?" He laughs, a low rumble in his chest, and tilts his head back slightly. There is not a single part of this he doesn't love. Maybe next Christmas will be better, or the one after - if they can stay here, if they can make a life here that lasts - but he's not sure how that would be possible.

And he does give a shit about it. Even when he doesn't talk much, he likes listening to her. Even when things had been horrible and he had pulled back, pulled almost completely away from her and into a dark place where she nearly couldn't reach him at all, some part of him had been glad she had refused to be quiet. That she hadn't allowed the silence to eat them both.

Edited 2015-01-08 03:17 (UTC)

"Y'know, at first, back at the prison, I kinda thought it drove you crazy how much I talked," she says and she's still close enough to him that her lips brush against his skin as she speaks. There's stuff to do, food to prepare, desserts to bake, but it's probably going to take something close to a miracle to get her out of bed today. This is what Christmas is supposed to be. Happiness and love and warmth, finding a place where you belong and staying there for as long as you need.

"But no one ever asked you to come see Judith when I was watchin' her," she continues, then presses another kiss against his jaw. "And you never had to stick around if you thought I was annoying. You didn't have to be the one to come tell me about Zach. Didn't have to spend time with me at all if you really didn't want to."

And it wasn't as if they were that close, it wasn't like Daryl spent all his time around her, but it had been enough. Enough for her to realize she didn't annoy him nearly as much as she had originally thought.

"Here I thought I totally had you," he murmurs. She's right. He hadn't needed to do any of those things. No one told him to, no one forced him. He could have arranged things any other way if he wanted. By the time the place filled up it wouldn't have been hard to avoid her a good deal of the time if he had wanted to. For the most part they didn't do the same work at all.

But he had arranged things in the exact opposite direction. He had found excuses to be around her. Not all that many, and maybe he hadn't meant to, but now that he looks back...

"Didn't know," he says more softly. "Had no fuckin' idea."

Edited 2015-01-09 21:33 (UTC)

"Don't worry, it's not like you were outta the loop," she says. "I had no idea either." And neither did anyone else. She doesn't think it surprised Michonne all that much, but Carl had seemed genuinely shocked and she can almost picture Maggie's face if she was here to find out about it. Most of the time, she's pretty sure she only started to get a hint of it at the shack and that she'd only really understood in the funeral home, but there was something there before that. Something she'd refused to examine, something she hadn't wanted to focus on for very long just in case it did mean something.

And it had. It had all meant far more than she'd ever realized and she's wondering now how long it might have taken her if the prison hadn't fallen.

"I liked havin' you around, though. I knew that much," she says, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Guess you were alright too." His fingertip finds the edge of her jaw, traces it slowly. It used to hurt to think about that, about that time before everything went to hell all over again - how he had been so close to truly happy, to finding his place. Where he fit.

Where he was somebody.

But now he has that again. It's not like it was, and he's missing people he might never see again, but he has something. He has a life, he has at least some of his family back, and he knows not everything was lost in the end.

And he has her.

"Your singin' never annoyed me," he murmurs.

It's not like she's really thought it had for a long time now, not since that night in the funeral home, but hearing him say it still makes her smile. It feels like something significant in its way, too, admitting to something that's maybe been here longer than either of them had allowed themselves to realize. Somehow that feels really important to her. She meant what she'd said on his birthday, that she had been afraid to tell him how she felt because he's her best friend, because the thought of not having him at all is worse than the thought of never having him like this.

"Good thing it doesn't, since you got me a piano," she says with a little smile. "If it annoyed you, that'd just be askin' for trouble."

She closes her eyes, her cheek against his shoulder, then says, "You make me real happy, Daryl. When I was... before, when I went to the store and freaked out, when I was nervous about everything, that's what Pepper said to me. And Olive. That all I really gotta think about is if you make me happy and the rest would just work itself out."

He made it past this the night before, with the piano - when she started telling him everything he is to her, everything he means, and it had been almost more than he could take and he needed to hide himself in her until he could breathe again. This isn't like that - this is sleepy and relaxed and he's close to dozing against her, half lost in how much he loves just feeling her with him - but it's an echo of it. Whenever she tells him that he makes her happy - tells him, leaves nothing free for any other interpretation - it fills him up almost to overflowing, and it comes to him again how he would do anything for her. Anything at all, to hear her say that.

"Don't think that's kinda oversimplifyin'?" he asks softly, but he doesn't think it really is, and after a second he adds, softer, "You make me real happy, too."

But he knows she knows that.

She smiles when he says she makes him happy, too, just a little curve of her mouth where she's still leaning against him. It hasn't happened yet, but sometimes she thinks she might worry about that, somewhere in the future she might start to wonder if she can really do that for him, if she can really make him happy when the things she wants are so normal compared to what they have. Sometimes she wonders if he'll want those things, too, if he'll want them with her, but she's never really let any of those thoughts settle. Not now, not yet. Certainly not today.

"Maybe it is," she says. "Oversimplifying. But.. but I don't know, maybe it isn't. Maybe it really is just the most important part to remember."

She doesn't know, she's never done this either. Dating others, it's been different, and she hates to admit it, but she'd never really imagined any of those relationships lasting. Not really. She sort of expected them all to peter out eventually, but not this.

"Kinda don't think I'm gonna forget." Not that he thinks she means that, exactly - but since he really started seeing her this has been there. How she made him happy just being around her and he wasn't sure how or why, but not only that. How she was with other people. How she was with her family, especially Hershel after he lost the leg, how she was with Carl, how she was with Judith and Carol, doing whatever little thing she could to make everyone's lives a little better. Easier. Happier. She did it quietly. Not asking for anything in return. Just... doing it.

He wonders how many other people noticed it.

It's part of who she is, and he still can't really understand why she's chosen to focus that nature on him.

"Never gonna let you forget."

"Okay," she agrees with another gentle smile. That's something she's more than comfortable with and she keeps thinking how she doesn't want to get out of bed, she doesn't want to go anywhere that isn't right here and it's not possible, but that's what he does to her. And she's not naive, she knows every single day won't be like this, she knows that's just not possible, but if they do what they've said, if they don't let the other forget, she thinks most days will be their own kind of special.

He makes her chest ache in a good way and she thinks about that line of poetry she'd said to him the day before, the idea of carrying his heart in hers. She wonders if that's what this ache is, like something full up and about to spill over because she's not just carrying her own anymore.

She doesn't know how to say something like that, though, and so she falls back to the words that encompass everything and yet still seem to fall a little short. "I love you," she says. "More'n I think you maybe really know."

"Maybe not," he murmurs, and his smile widens just a touch as his fingers continue to slide up and down the line of her jaw, just the lightest of touches. No, maybe he doesn't know. Probably he doesn't know. It might be something he'll never understand at all, one of those things that's simply too big for him to get his head around. She says he's smart, but that - like the way he looks - is something he's simply never thought much about except when he was being told he wasn't. So the idea that he might not understand something is familiar to the point of being comfortable.

With something like this, that's okay. He's not sure he needs to. He can believe her just fine without understanding it.

He can have faith.

"Maybe figure it out, eventually."

The touch against her jaw pulls a shiver out of her finally, but she doesn't want him to stop. It's just one more thing she never wants to stop and she burrows a little closer against him and tries to think of a better way to say it, but she can't. For someone who spends so much time writing in her journal, who jots down lines of songs she thinks might explain it a little better than she can, when it comes to actually finding the words she's at a complete loss.

Maybe she'll have to figure it out eventually, too.

"I just don't know the right words," she admits, not quite looking at him, not because she's embarrassed at all, but because she's relaxed and still a little tired and so comfortable. "Y'know, I say I love you, and I do, but sometimes they don't feel like they say everything I wanna say."

He's quiet a moment. What she's saying feels like every second with her, and not even since he realized he loves her this way - which is maybe why it had taken him so long to say it. It had felt so powerful and at the same time so inadequate. A single word couldn't hold it all.

But even before that, just coming to understand that he liked being around her. That, later, he was glad she was there with him even when he seemed angry with her, even when he was being cruel to her. And after that, being so sorry and not being able to say it. None of the words working, none of them being enough for what he was feeling. And how it had knotted up in his chest, frustration on frustration, until he had been looking for anything he could do to release it - not in violence but in the management of the tiniest details.

"I just try to show you," he says softly. "When I can't... I just try to do stuff. I mean... I dunno. Sometimes it feels like it almost works."

She smiles then and tilts her head so she can see him. "It works." It's important that he know that. They haven't talked about it very much, but he's said enough that she knows he might feel like he doesn't know what he's doing or that he's not doing things properly and she wants him to know he is. Or maybe not that he's doing things properly, whatever that means, but that she knows. She feels it. When he makes little gestures, when he does things for her, when he smiles at her in just the right way, she knows.

"I know how you feel. I knew before you said it. And all I need is exactly what you do already. Just you bein' here, that's enough." It's enough that she knows, that she feels how much he loves her. And she trusts him more than she trusts just about anyone and that's important to her, too. She knows she can come home and if she needs him, if she really needs him, he'll do his best to be there for her.

"You keep sayin' that." For once he's not protesting, not making a vague attempt at argument. Yes, she keeps saying it, and every time she does he believes it a little more. He begins to grasp how it might be so. He even wants to hear it, is learning how to hear it, and when he does it doesn't make him shy away, overwhelmed and unable to respond at all.

That's not what it's about anymore. She tells him that, and he sort of believes it, but it also doesn't really matter. Not in the end. Not to what he does. He knows she knows how he feels.

But all of it still has to go somewhere.

"Still gonna keep showin' you."

"I don't mean that I... that I know everything or that I know better'n you, I just mean... it works. The things you do, they work." Even when they've fought in the past, the fact that he's stayed there with her, the fact that he's been willing to fight instead of just walking away, that all means something. He tries for her and she'd have to be a real jerk not to notice that. Even before when she'd slip her hand into his, he wouldn't shake her off, he wouldn't tell her to stop. He tries and she's so lucky.

"You can do that," she says with a smile. "I'm not gonna stop you." And she can do it, too. She can hope that even a fraction of what she does for him makes him understand how she feels about him.

"And I'm gonna do the same, because sometimes the words... it's just not all of it, y'know?" And she can't tell him that she's been writing things down, figuring out how to work the feelings into music, how to turn them into songs because that's the way they feel most right. She can't admit that, not when everything she's started is only half finished.

"Yeah, I know." For a while he hadn't been sure. He's used to assuming that everyone else finds words much easier than he does, and maybe they do, a lot of them, and her especially - she always seems to know what needs to be said, even if he's bad at hearing it for one reason or another. But with some things... Yes, they're just too big for the words.

So they can be in this together, just like they've always been since this first began - figuring it out together. Fumbling through it. So far that's worked pretty well. So far it's almost been like a kind of harmony, albeit a strange one.

Their kind of harmony.

"Wouldn't want 'em to be," he muses, in a fit of abstract thinking. "Wouldn't want it to be that small."

"Yeah," she agrees, grinning at him. That's it exactly and that's part of what she likes. She wants these feelings to be too big for her to find the right words for them, she wants to know they're the kind of feelings that defy definition, the reasons why people write poetry and songs in some kind of vain attempt to capture what it is. But she's here now, she's in it, and she can't think of a single song she's ever heard that actually captures this. Maybe it isn't possible, but she knows that will never stop people from trying.

It certainly won't stop her.

"I think maybe... maybe not really bein' able to find all the right words, maybe that's part of how you know," she says, more thoughtful than anything. "Like how people say they just know when they love someone. I asked Maggie once and she said she just knew. My dad said the same thing. There's nothin' else you can say, just that you know."

He nods. He knows that. Gets it, in a way he might not have ever believed - and then again maybe it's not so surprising. He's always felt things deeply, trusted those feelings even when people were trying to tear them down. Not necessarily that they were always going to lead him true, or into good places, but that when something deep told him something important he should listen.

Like in the funeral home. Watching her. Trying to figure her out. Trying to figure out himself, what was happening inside him. The way he was changing, the way she changed him a little more every time she looked at him. Spoke to him.

"Even if you don't know what it is it when it happens?"

"Yeah, even then. 'Cause you know somethin' happened. Didn't you?" She certainly had. Maybe she hadn't known what to call it when they'd been sitting on the porch, drinking moonshine and trading stories, but she'd felt a flicker of something there, something she couldn't name. And maybe she hadn't known what it was in the funeral home that first night when he'd watched her play piano, but the flicker had been stronger then, a fluttering of something under her ribs, a little notice that he was looking at her. Always looking at her. She'd felt his gaze and she'd known something.

And then the night she'd come here. Oh. She couldn't name it, not even then, but the flicker turned flutter had turned into a beating drum against her chest that night.

"I did. Maybe I didn't know what, but I knew it was somethin' and I knew it wasn't how things used to be. I knew somethin' was gonna change." She just hadn't known it was going to take her seven months to figure it out.

"Ain't just one thing." There was never just one moment. Not really. It had taken a long time - he wishes he could tell her, could explain it, how it felt to be changed like that from the inside out and to go from being frightened of it to welcoming it. How in her way, she had been relentless.

Except he can tell her, a little. He said it was hard for him and she knows and doesn't blame him for it, but maybe it's easier now.

"You were singin' in the prison yard that first night," he murmurs. "You and Maggie. It was like... For a minute everythin' was different. Listenin' to you. Maybe it started then."

She nods at that, too. He's right. It had never been just one thing or one moment. There are the ones she remembers, building upon the others which had been built upon flashes of feelings she'd barely acknowledged when they happened. The way he is with Judith, how much he'd cared about her well-being right from the start, how determined he'd been. The way he'd trusted Beth to take care of people. Really trusted her.

But then he says maybe it started then, in the prison yard, way back then, and the smile that bursts onto her face is both pleased and a little bewildered. That night stands out clear in her memory, feeling a little shy and a little embarrassed, but wanting just to make her daddy happy.

She doesn't know what to say to that, really, so she just presses herself against Daryl's side and hides her face against his arm.

Gotcha, he thinks, a warm wave of pleasure washing over him, and a small amount of satisfaction, because finally he's said something that, he senses, has done a little bit to her what she regularly does to him with what she says. Filled her up to the point where words don't feel like they entirely work, where he almost wants to hide in her until he can handle things again. Hide in her and feel broken open but safe.

He doesn't know if that's quite what this is, but he likes the thought that maybe he's made her feel even sort of that way.

"My girl," he whispers against her temple, and it's one of those times where the words are actually easy. "I love you so much."

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[December 25]

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