[December 25]

[a_littlefaith]

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.

Comments

[nobodys_bitch]

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?"

[a_littlefaith]

"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.

[nobodys_bitch]

"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."

[a_littlefaith]

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.

[nobodys_bitch]

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."