No Tomorrow

.

"Hello? Earth to Belle?"

Holly was trying to wave a hand in front of my face but a quick snap of my jaws had her leaning back away from me into the safety of Jay's arms, he glared at me but I just got up and smashed both palms of my hands into the metal table, jostling the bowls of food that were still there.

"She was just trying to ask you something, you don't have to be a bitch about it."

"Don't talk to m e about being a bitch, I'm glad that you finally imprinted Jay, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to watch. I just ask that you treat him well or we w i l l have problems."

I smacked the table one more time before I walked out into the cold and snow in nothing but a dark blue blouse and patched jeans with high calf boots, I dodged a few children shoving snow at one another and tilted my head back to catch some of the flakes on my face; it turned into rain against my skin but it felt good. I stood there basking in the snow for what felt like half an hour before my ears detected a rumbling like noise from far away, I smiled to myself and dodged a few children on my way through the compound while Daryl and the scouting team rolled in with their goodies; every few weeks parties like this went out in search of food and gardening supplies and this time they took two vans because of the piles of snow, though, Daryl was hell bent on riding his bike everywhere; he leapt from the seat when he grated to a halt to my left and scooped me up into his arms the minute everyone had stopped and started unloading the vans. Even bundled the way he was, I still felt every ounce of his warmth and I knew that he felt mine.

"There's my girl....was everything ok while I was gone?"

"Bearable...find anything good?"

Some of the men formed a chain to unload the van faster and I noticed that one box contained some vegetables at the very top.

"I guess you could say that- you looked like you missed me a bit."

He raised a gloved hand to touch my face and I held onto it with relish, helping to warm him up by rubbing the back side of his glove.

"Mm...I'll admit that bed does get rather lonely without you in it..."

I eyed the ring he still wore around his neck and I touched it absentmindedly, fingering the tiny little band before I let the chain fall back against his chest. He saw me looking at it and smiled but said nothing about it, we'd been working on saving our marriage for weeks on end now and he never took the thing off even to sleep, I knew that I'd want it back one of these days but not anytime soon.

"Mm.."

He looked over his shoulder to one of the men who were helping to unload the goods and he cupped a hand around his mouth before he tried to speak.

"You good on help here? I wanna go get some rest before we head out next week again."

The dude heaving boxes from the back of the first van tossed another box into someone's waiting hands before he shrugged his shoulders and kicked at a brown box he'd left alone towards the right side of the gaping hole.

"I'm sure that we'll manage, but you'll have to take your own stuff back though."

"Obviously."

Daryl heaved the box onto his shoulders before he nudged me and we walked off through the snow down to the main gate where a woman on  watch hesitantly rolled the gates open for us with a tiny smile, the path to our house was marked against the trees but I stayed close to Daryl anyway to make sure my body heat would keep him a little warm. I made a mental note to stoke the fire when we got back to the house because I hadn't bothered to since he left.

"Did you run into anything out there?"

He thought about it for a second and propped the box up on his left shoulder before he brushed some of the snow from his long hair and away from his face.

"Maybe....I don't know, some of this stuff is from places that should be overgrown, but..."

We side-stepped a massive looking log coated in snow like a big frosted cake and I chuckled when one of his boots caught some roots sticking out of the ground and made him trip a little.

"These places look like they were tended to a bunch before the snow, I don't know...Rick wants to investigate it when we go back out again but I don't think we have the extra man power to spare anytime soon."

We were getting closer to the cabin by then because I could detect hints of a meal I cooked a few days ago, mashed potatoes and slices of wild boar; the smell made my mouth water.

"Could I....ask you something selfish? Without too much judgement-"

"That's never stopped you before, but sure."

I twiddled my thumbs and blew out a gust of air between my lips that furled around my face like a white cloud.

"....could we...I don't know....take a break from everyone just for a little bit and spend some time with eachother? We were always on the move before....I feel like we should take the time while we can."

He pretended to think about it for a second and chuckled.

"I'm sure they can last without me for a few days."

Coming up to the little house after a few minutes of silent walking I opened the front door for Daryl and laughed when he walked inside and instantly shivered.