Hey, it's me, your local resident cliffhanger cockblock.

Honestly, I just suck. I don't really know what happened - I was busy this summer traveling and school picked up, the usual excuses, blah blah blah - but I really did have this chapter about 75% written when I published that last bit. I mean, I know I'm awful, but I never intentionally meant to be THAT awful. The longer it went untouched the harder it became to come back to it. But, here I am, with a chapter that I'm not at all sure was worth the wait but that I am going to put out there anyways because there were several of you that continued to PM me about this and people reviewing and y'all don't deserve to be left out in the cold. So here we go, because what do I have better to do than post some fanfic at midnight on a Friday? Nothing. So enough of my babbling. And truly truly truly thank your for anybody who cared enough about this to check back after months of silence, and anybody who cares to read it now.

She just stood there.

She didn't mean to. She knew this wasn't the right reaction - if there was really a right reaction - and she was tearing through her thoughts and memories as quickly as she could to try and think of what needed to be said right now. When the roles had been reversed, when he'd seen her wrist, he'd given her space to explain and to breathe, but they were both naked and in this shower and he wasn't offering any sort of explanation. She guessed he didn't have to. So many scars, ugly and deliberate, some crossing over each other, and he was letting her look. She couldn't even begin to understand what that might mean. She knew what this was just like he'd known what hers was, and even if she'd figured some things out about him she was beginning to understand how little she understood.

And she was thinking, too, of other things, mind racing in all nonsensical directions. There was something she'd liked to do, long enough after the hospital that her family had started to trust her and let her out on her own, and that was to let herself feel small. Choosing a crowded place with plenty of foot traffic, maybe taking her journal if she felt like she'd need it, and just watching. Watch so many people with so many lives, all unique with histories and loves and heartbreaks of their own, so many stories and so many intricacies and she wasn't in any of them. Wasn't even a character. She was just another face in the crowd, not a feature or a side thought or anything.

There was something comforting about that, about seeing all these gears turning both together and individually, and allowing herself to be a part of the background. She might've lost some of her faith, but seeing all of it come together like that gave some of it back.

But now she was looking at Daryl and the hurt that had been done and it hit her all over again how little she knew. How little she could even guess. She knew he had history, that he hadn't just sprung into existence when he'd sat in her section that night, that he carried some years and that those years carried stories just like all those people she'd imagined thoughts for. Maybe she could've guessed this. Should've. She wondered if she'd missed something, somehow, or why here and now.

He hadn't ever been naked with her and she guessed now she knew why.

She was taking too long and he wasn't saying anything, water falling in rivulets down his back, dripping from his hair made black. She felt wildly out of her depth, here, young in more ways than just her years, naked in more ways than just her clothes. It was cold standing where she was, too, out of the reach of the water, steam billowing off the spray and off his skin as he stood strong and tall and lean and dark. She was frozen, and before she could even stop it those same words she'd learned to dread when the roles were reversed were coming out of her mouth: "Do you want to talk about -"

"No," he said, cutting her off and looking back forwards. "Is what it is is."

No room for question. "Okay," she swallowed, nodding even though he couldn't see. "But, Daryl, I - have you ever -?"

"Beth." Louder. Almost pained, his head ducking forward to pull the muscles around his neck taut.

So he didn't call her in here to talk. She guessed, really, that he hadn't called her in at all. But he'd left the door open and hadn't done anything to stop her and she'd thought - but he was saying no. She could respect that. She could understand.

She couldn't stop herself from seeing, though. From seeing all of it, the extent of the damage, and she couldn't help but wonder. His brother was her first thought, but she quickly shoved that aside. No. She might not know a lot, but she knew he wouldn't have stayed with him if that's where this'd come from. She'd heard a little about his mother, and hadn't noticed any malice there. So that left his father, which maybe it wasn't even important but of course, yes, it was.

"Who - was it -?" she tried, her voice sounding small.

"He's dead," he said, finality ringing even as his tone went inflectionless. "Don't matter."

"Oh," she said, but yes, it mattered, and yes, it was important just like he was important, and standing here looking at him she thought she might be getting some small glimpse into how her family had felt when they'd looked down at her in the days after.

And hadn't she hated that? Hadn't it just made everything worse? Being stared at like something lost or broken, fragile and delicate and on the verge. This was different. She knew that. Different kinds of heartbreak, different wheels turning and different stories being spurned on, but she found herself rooting into the similarities. She looked at him, feeling an unfamiliar, viciously sorrowful anger stirring in her chest, and this was another one of those moments where he didn't seem old at all.

Okay.

Deep breaths, even though the air was visibly thick with humidity, making her lungs feel dense. She remembered some things, from right after she'd woken up in that bed so weak, not bleeding anymore but newly stitched and red and raw. Before she'd had the cuff, she'd gone out for the first time on her own just for some simple errands, but she'd underestimated how quickly people would suss out her wrist and come to their own conclusions. It was beautiful, sometimes, the kindness of others. But it was also awful in ways she couldn't quite articulate.

She's learned. Gotten some bracelets and then the cuff. Didn't use that hand for much unless she had to. Wore something to cover up even at home so her family couldn't catch guilty glimpses of what she'd tried to do. One scar was easier to cover up than the dozens she was looking at now, though, all in varying depths and lengths and colors, and she wondered briefly what kinds of things he'd missed out on trying to hide this. How old he had been. For how long.

But she was staring and standing again, and if she felt lost she couldn't even imagine where his head was at. She couldn't expect him to be the one to move on from this, to bridge the gap from where they had just been a few minutes ago to where they were now.

So she reached past him for where there was a bar of soap in the little built in shelf, letting her chest brush up against his back, feeling him stiffen. He didn't even have a rag in here, which she guessed wasn't all that surprising. He barely had anything in here at all. There was that crossbow under the bed, but nothing in the way of possessions. Things, tangible and able to hold history or stories. But that was a problem for another time. For now there was the soap in her hand, the way he pressed just barely away from her when she leaned to kiss his shoulder and then a little more when he felt her fingers at his spine.

"What're you doin'?" he asked sharply, clearly alarmed.

"Didn't you come in here to shower?" He didn't answer, taking another quick glance at her over his shoulder before looking away and nodding. "Okay. Then that's what I'm doin'."

She hadn't been nervous when she came in here and she wasn't nervous now. She'd never been so exposed before, and she'd never seen this much of him before, but it was all framed differently now. She was being gentle. So, so gentle, because maybe he needed a little gentleness right now, or maybe always. Even as she dug her fingertips in near his shoulders, massaging, she was gentle. No nails here. Nothing but heat and water and them, even her words sounding saturated with the density of the air.

"Maggie came home with a tattoo, once," she said, sudsing away. "Her first year of college. Right on her hip. Didn't even make it a whole night before Daddy and Mama saw. Little butterfly," she said, and snaked her arm around to tap him on the spot that mirrored it. He was still stiff under her hands, but oh, my God, he was strong. Not that she hadn't known or guessed just from the broadness of his shoulders and the way he could lift her - or hold her down, now - but there was a difference between imagining and seeing. "Maggie was screamin', Mama was hollerin', Daddy was just sittin'. I listened from the top of the stairs."

His head ducked down again, his arms reaching out to brace himself against the wall so that his shoulders flexed, muscles moving so gracefully under the skin and ink and scars that all she could do was stare for a second.

"It went on for forever," she went on when she'd found her breath again. "I thought maybe - Maggie sometimes did things to prove a point. I went downstairs. 'I think it's fake, Daddy.'"

He didn't answer at first, and she waited, twisting the soap in her hands to renew the bubbles. He didn't move when he spoke. "Was it?"

She smiled. "Yeah. It was. Maggie'd never get a butterfly." His shoulders didn't seem as tense now, at least, and he was even starting to sway with the pressure of her fingers as she worked her way easily down. She put the soap back where she'd found it, giving his back a final rub. "I thought of maybe gettin' one after that, though," she went on absently, stepping up onto the edge of the tub so she was looking down at him, reaching for his lone bottle of shampoo - 2 in 1, of course, more utility over luxury - and tapped on his shoulder. "Turn to me."

He didn't, at first. She thought she could see him breathing, shoulders leaning into a second that pulled on for longer than it should've. But then he did, wooden feet and wooden steps, padding until he was facing her with his eyes level at her chest.

Her turn to breathe. In, hold, out. Not that she was burning for him anymore, but he was looking at her - eyes not dead like she'd feared, but alive and aware and sharp - just like she'd been looking at him, and it always hit her more deeply when it was like this. He wasn't hard anymore, not like how she'd seen him when he first walked in here, but it wasn't about that now. She just wanted so badly to look at him. Touch. Explore. Learn. There was so much of him that was beautiful to look at, and so much she wasn't familiar with. She wanted the education his anatomy had to offer her, even as innocently as this.

But it wasn't the time, and instead she emptied some shampoo onto her palm and then just onto the top of his head. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands or with his anything, really, eyes still focused on her chest and neck with his arms hanging heavy and useless at his sides. He was beginning to resent this, she could see, obstinate refusal to give himself into the moment.

"Don't gotta fuckin' wash me," he muttered, still not looking, falling in closer to her when her fingers urged him towards her. "Not a damn dog."

"I know," she said, massaging more towards the base of his neck. "But it feels good, doesn't it?" He was relaxing more now despite himself, shoulders falling, head bobbing a little with her hands. He looked a little funny, always out of place when it came to anything even remotely domestic, but she didn't laugh. "You deserve to feel good."

He didn't say anything, but she didn't expect him to anymore when she said things like that. She made a quiet note to do it more often. Maybe he was uncomfortable with it, but he could adapt. She felt all of a sudden like she had years upon years of other people's disappointments to make up for, like no amount of kindness she could offer him would be enough. But she could start here, massaging his scalp, pressing down towards the nape of his neck when his head finally fell forward so the crown of it rested on her sternum. She could see his back again, and she took the time to look without the layers of shock and sorrow coloring her vision. Wanted to get it out of her system now. Wanted to memorize. It was beautiful, in an odd sort of way. The way the lines moved when the muscles underneath them flexed, the way they accented the shape of him. She had hated her own scar for so long, for everything it represented - weakness in a moment, there to remind her for life - but she looked at him and saw strength. Survival. Endurance.

She didn't think calling him beautiful right now would go over very well, but she leaned in as close as she could without losing her balance, letting her hands find his shoulders for a gentle squeeze before returning to his hair.

"What would you get?" he asked after a few more minutes more of that, enough time that she had gotten just as lost in the process as he had.

"Hm?" she asked drowsily, pulling herself back into the moment.

"Ink." His voice was muffled from his angle, but not as sharp as before.

"Oh." She considered it slowly, reaching for the shower head and tugging before realizing it wasn't adjustable. She sighed, rinsing her own hands before pressing him back into the spray. "Something to do with music, I think."

He nodded, still not looking at her as the water ran clear. She was just touching him now, collarbone and chest and arms. "You didn't?"

She grinned. "Think you would've noticed by now."

"Yeah," he agreed, and it was almost there, a smile just a breath away, close enough that she could feel her heart fill at the prospect of it.

She thought of the devils he had inked on his shoulder, outlined his chest. The water was starting to lose its edge of heat, and she could tell he was starting to get uncomfortable again. "Did it hurt?" she asked, trying to distract him, not wanting to leave yet. "The tattoo."

He shrugged, and to her surprise one of his hands came to the outside of her leg, the backs of his knuckles trailing down. He was looking at her like she'd looked at him, eyes going everywhere, not lingering in any one place. "Not after a while."

There were more questions she had that she wasn't going to ask, and that she wasn't sure she ever would, about timelines and the decisions he'd made and how he'd gotten here. She swallowed those down, reaching with her foot to swivel the handle so that the water turned off, leaving him dripping and her shivering. "I'm guessing you don't have towels?" she asked, looking behind her.

"One," he answered, but then there was his arm wrapping around the back of her thighs, picking her up as easily as ever as he stepped out over the edge. Her hands flew to his shoulders, her head barely ducking in time to avoid the curtain rod. She curled herself over him a little, getting a firmer grip with a hand at the back of his head as he used his free hand to open the door. There was a whole new level of cold, then, doubled when he set her down to grab his clothes from the floor.

She turned to give him some reprieve of privacy, pulling her own shirt from the bed. Her phone that had been tucked into her waistband had fallen to the floor, and as she glanced at it she saw it light up with what looked to be the third or fourth message she had received. The morning had long since broken past dawn, sun coming in warm instead of cool and new, and time was running out. "You said you had work?" she asked, moving for her phone. All the notifications were from Maggie. She glanced over them - mama's awake, how long you gonna be, if you miss breakfast you're on your own - and felt her stomach tightening unpleasantly with anxiety. She didn't want to leave things like this, better but still unfinished. She hadn't figured out that perfect arrangement of words to say, couldn't quite tell where his head was.

"Yeah," he said, and she turned in time to see him redoing his buckle. "Late."

"Sorry," she said, putting on her shorts, distracted by her own scrambling. She didn't want him stewing over this for the rest of the night, mulling over the scene to pull all the negativity out of it that he could, imagining all the things she wasn't saying.

"S'alright," he mumbled, turning back and grabbing a towel from under the sink to rub haphazardly at his hair. She was half surprised he didn't just shake around like a wet dog.

"Daryl," she started, picking at a cuticle.

He looked up at her and then away as he stood, dropping the towel on the ground and walking past her in a couple long strides to sit on the edge of the mattress. "S'fine. I'm fine," he said, pulling his boots out from under the bed and yanking them on.

She watched until he was done, then went to stand in front of him. Before he could say anything, she leaned down, pressing her lips against his forehead for a long and chaste kiss like he'd given her that time in front of her fridge, hoping he felt the same tingling warmth and safety and quiet affection that she had.

"I know," she offered, lips still against him. She took another quick kiss before looking down at him, smiling softly. "I'll see you tonight, then?"

He seemed a bit speechless, which she would accept as a good thing. He nodded once, clearing his throat. "I'll see you."

"Okay," she said, giving him another quick smile before bending down to gather her own socks and shoes and keys, gathering them to her chest before quickly padding her way through his living room and out the door.

She took a deep breath when she was outside. The air was refreshingly cool, not yet warmed by the sunrays that had already made their way over the horizon, and she tried to clear her senses from the shower's humidity that still seemed to cling to the inside of her lungs. She needed some of that freshness now, needed to think back on what had just happened with some kind of perspective. Scars and stories and histories and secrets.

She felt kind of like they'd only just begun.

As of… Feb 19, I am officially working on the next chapter of this, for those of you who are still reading. All the love in the world.