Between Arrows and Hearts - Daryl Dixon

Valentine's Day

Winter was finally over. 

Thank God. 

It wasn't like Lottie hated it or anything, but after months of wearing three layers just to avoid freezing, she was over it. A few weeks ago, they'd been shedding layers of clothing like snakes losing their skin. Each jacket and sweater tossed aside made walking feel a little easier, even as the endless moving made her legs feel like they might give out.

But Lottie liked the change. For the first time in forever, she could wear a t-shirt without shivering. The one she had on now was light blue with tiny flowers on the front. It was a little too big for her, the shoulders slipping down awkwardly, but Lori had said that was a good thing. 

"You'll grow soon enough." 

Great. As if her shoes, already too tight, were not enough.

She'd thrown on one of the plaid shirts she shared with Carl over it. Carl called it sharing, but honestly, he just forgot it existed half the time. Glenn's old baseball cap was on her head, a little too big but perfect for hiding her messy hair. If anyone squinted, she probably looked like a tiny lumberjack.

The house they'd found wasn't great. Actually, it was ugly. The yard looked like a jungle, but without any cool animals. The paint on the walls was peeling, the windows were filthy, and the whole place smelled like dirty socks and something dead. It wasn't even a little smell, it was the kind that made your stomach do flips. Still, it wasn't the worst place they'd stayed.

After a small group had checked the house to make sure it was safe, everyone else had piled inside. The routine of setting up was so familiar that Lottie could've done it with her eyes closed at this point. 

Now, they were all sitting in the living room, everyone avoiding eye contact like they were all just too tired to exist. No one talked. No one moved.

Hershel sat next to her, checking one of the bags he was carrying. He had grown a beard in the last few months. Lottie thought he looked like Santa Claus... if Santa had been fired from the North Pole by the elves for not taking a bath. 

Her stomach growled loud enough to echo. She froze, hand clamping over her belly as if she could somehow stop it. Everyone was hungry, but apparently, her stomach hadn't gotten the memo to keep its complaints to itself. She glanced at Daryl, who was hunched over in the corner, plucking feathers off an owl.

He didn't say anything —he almost never did— but he gave her a small nod toward the bird in his hands. It was enough to say: You'll eat soon. 

She didn't want to eat an owl. Owls were supposed to be pretty birds you heard at night, not something you turned into lunch. But food was food. So Lottie fought the urge to make a face, Daryl hated it when she did that. 

It wasn't even fair. She wasn't allowed to say "ew" or roll her eyes at something gross. 

She glanced back at Daryl. His hair looked even greasier than usual, and her mind twitched with the urge to tell him to wash it. But then again, they all looked like crap. She couldn't exactly judge when her own hair was so tangled that brushing it felt like pulling a rake through a field of knots.

But the words were right there, tickling her tongue, begging to come out. She wanted to say, "Hey, Daryl, you look like a swamp monster." But she didn't.

Mostly because she knew better, and that would definitely fall under what he'd called "asshole honesty." 

A few weeks back, after she'd made a perfectly innocent comment about Glenn's sweaty shirt, Daryl had sat her down.