No Tomorrow

.

We sat there in silence staring at one another as the fire crackled and a strong wind started picking up outside, he fiddled with the necklace until I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you wanted to talk, so talk. I don't have much to say to you otherwise."

A few more seconds of silence, then he dropped the chain and let his hands touch the faded area of the knees on his jeans.

"I probably should have tried this months ago, but....I've been trying to deal with it on my own and it hasn't been going well at all.....it's gone to shit. I wanna talk about us...about our baby."

Air hissed up through my throat in an involuntary growl but I managed to cover it up with a cough, if I hadn't lost my child it would be due in a matter of mere 3 months.

"The last that I checked, there was no us, and there wasn't a damn child. Y o u r brother is the one that killed it."

Daryl blinked a few times and a few tears slipped down his cheeks but a quick swipe across his face and they were gone; when he spoke next his voice was actually cracking.

"I know! I'm sorry, ok? I was panicked about having a baby wih you because that solidified everything....I thought that I didn't want any kids but the more that I thought about it? I actually imagined it- having a family and a few children with you I mean. But mostly trying to fix what I fucked up."

He messed with his hands a few times and I actually felt a little sorry for him now, when I was strong enough to stand on my own back then I'd hunted down every walker within a 15 mile radius with no rest or food for a solid week. My heart throbbed with his words and yearned to reach out to him but my brain was two steps ahead of his words.

"I grieved too, like you wouldn't think to imagine..."

I looked down at my lap and sniffed, I knew the pain of losing my unborn child would never leave me but it was getting easier to think about it with each passing day.

"...there's not a day that goes by where I don't think about what could have been. I've been alone with my thoughts ever since then and it's a nightmare."

The couch creaked a little bit and when I looked back up again Daryl was so close to me our knees were touching eachother and I felt his body heat hitting me in waves, he reached a shaky hand out and rested it along the top of my left leg. It felt...weird, but like an old dream, his touch still sent little shocks of fuzzy heat across my skin but I wasn't too surprised. Daryl had starred in my dreams several dozen times since the summer but I never understood just how powerful our love had been until I saw first hand what imprinting did to a person.

"....I'm sorry that I was never there for you Belle, I really am."

He lifted that same hand up closer to my face and I leaned back away from him with a small whimper, away from his touch until my back was smushed against the back of the couch. He just looked at me dumbfounded.

"Please don't.....I've done so well, if you touch me now then all of it would have been for nothing....I don't want....I don't want to go back to....to what it took."

I looked at his fingers so close to me and blinked a few times, surely it could be so easy...to just give in......I sighed with defeat and leaned back out so he could touch me and when our skin made contact everything came undone. All the nights that I spent crying, all the days where I questioned myself, all gone. New tears started rolling down my face and I didn't have the energy to stop it, Daryl pulled me tightly into his chest and the sobs grew louder in volume, masked just barely by the sound of the wind that was blowing itself into a storm outside. His own body shook a little bit and we stayed that way until my voice ran itself hoarse and the muscles in my lower back were complaining from all the shaking, the wind bashed one more time against the house before the rain started in full force and it sounded like faded gunfire against the tiny roof. I suddenly felt very tired with all of his warmth around me and I wanted nothing but to sleep.

"I'll wait however long it takes, I promise you that. I'll give this back to you one of these days."

One hand kept me pinned to his body by the small of my back and he tried to gesture to the chain around his neck with his other arm but I grabbed at it and held it close to my chest, his hand was placed over the spot to my heart so he could feel the beats under his palm.

"We'll see about that, but please don't get your hopes up."

*One More Month*(December)

"Hey, chill out on that you fat fuck of a soul."

I pawed at the huge bowl of food that Jay had in the middle of the tiny table and Holly laughed at the face he made before he ate some of the food sloppily and kissed her, I grimaced and turned away to look at some of the children who were drawing on the concrete flooring with some chalk; there were mounds of snow everywhere outside but with everyone compacted in here it stayed fairly warm most days, some mothers were chasing their children around as they ran out into the snow and my eyes stayed on a heavily pregnant woman until she was well out of sight.