broken claims

Part 6

"How's that Mr. Hitler and the Mrs?" Merle asked from where he flipped through a parts catalog. He barely paid Daryl any attention when he kicked him underneath the table. Merle thought it was funny when Leigh accidentally parroted the titles to her grandparents and kept invented new versions of the same concept. "They sitting alright in that big ol' mansion?"

Leigh was fussing over some homework that was sitting beside her plate. Daryl frowned watching the pencil scratch a word out. "They're okay."

His brother folded a page down neatly. Daryl tried to judge the amount of homework finished before he tapped his hand down on the table, forcing her attention back up. "Focus on that food. Don't waste it."

"I have to finish—"

"It'll still be there when you're done."

Leigh traded her pencil for a fork but didn't move to start on her dinner. "Do I have to go there this week?"

She had started dragging her heels about going. Daryl knew it was something bound to happen, Leigh stubborn about taking the bus after school on Friday to visit her grandparents for dinner. He had waited until she was old enough to ride alone, making her call his phone the minute she got through the door. "You mama'll be there."

"I know."

Sharley was currently graduated from her third stint at rehab. He brought Leigh to visit her once but it spooked her so bad that the second time he tried pushing it, she had hid beneath her bed and refused to come out until Merle was the one coaxing her out from the dust bunnies.

"They'll want to see you. It's just one dinner," Daryl lied. Every Friday was marked on the table with a red slash on pen. The Swans wanted Leigh and they got Leigh. If he stopped allowing it, they would start asking for more. It wasn't fair but he was trying to fend off more of their attention, save them both from what could be coming.

"Dixie's parents got split and she doesn't have to see her dad anymore."

Dixie's dad, Daryl thought grimly, had a history of smashing windows and calling up women barely legal. "Well, things are different."

Merle was side eying him plainly with a lack of approval but kept silent.

"I don't want to go."

"Rosalie," Daryl clipped out, catching her attention with her name. "Finish your food. We can talk about it later."

Her scowl, he realized, was all him.

Leigh's resistance to allowing him to help her diminished the more her temperature grew hotter, but catches of frustration lingered in her expressions, an unwillingness to allow herself to need him again. At first her hands had pushed back at him whenever he tried to help the process along by hauling her up but now she was silent. Daryl didn't know where to push. He barely comprehended what he was doing, how he was suddenly reliving old history. Most of the drive to the camp grounds was spent with her sleeping against the window with the occasional mumbled thought from the feverish delirium which he listened intently to, starved for every spare detail he could find.

Where have you been, Daryl wanted to ask her. I left you and now you're here. What exactly did I miss?

She had been a silent child once. He never knew if that was something natural or if it was influenced by Sharley, but Leigh had kept fairly quiet in the early days. Daryl used to be the one to get nervy when driving places with her in the backseat if he wasn't checking on her every so often. Eventually she grew up into the habit of chattering his ears off but back in the early days his skin itched if he wasn't reaching one hand back to catch against a tiny foot, confirming everything was as it needed to be. It was ridiculous paranoia back then but he had done it anyways, needing to check to sooth his own mind.