The floorboards groaned beneath your feet as you continued to pace aimlessly back and forth across them. Their protests not lost as they echoed within the bedroom walls that surrounded you. Each creak and crack sounded louder than the last, as if they were begging for you to take a seat on the bed.
You had long since taken off your socks--that you had paced holes into-- and the bare padding of your feet against the wooden floors sounded like a light heartbeat of their own. A calmer beat surprsingly, than the one that tremors inside of your constricting chest.
You had picked up a habit from being with Daryl Dixon for so long, and it was clear now as you chewed nervously on your thumbnail. You were close to biting completely through the skin, but you couldn't stop. It was as if you had no control over your actions right now, your mind completly paralyzed.
Fear and anxiety consumed every inch of your body and your conscious was hidden in some crevice where you couldn't find it. Right now, the nerves were taking over.
The heavy closing of the front door downstairs sounds and rattles the house gently. Bringing your heart to a skidding stop and your mind to suddenly clear like the door had triggered a delete button. Boots could be heard walking slowly through the foyer, and closing your eyes, you willed yourself to take a breath.
Daryl. He was home... you couldn't hide any longer. The time had come to tell him the truth.
You felt foolish to be afraid of the man who was your husband--just without the legal papers to prove it-- but you couldn't halt the fear from rising. His reaction to this news would tell you if he would stick around or leave you on your own, and already anticipating his answer, fear was the only emotion to be felt.
"Babe?" His deep voice rings through the first floor of the small Alexandrian home, and floats up the staircase to you. "Where ya at?"
Swallowing the lump growing thickly in the back of your throat, you call out to him. "Up--Upstairs."
Closing your eyes, you curse yourself for letting your nerves seep into your voice. Your stuttering was sure to tip Daryl off that something was going on. That something was troubling you. And he wouldn't rest until he lifted the weight from your shoulders with his bare hands.
Loud thuds of the man's heavy footsteps echo within the house as he tracks up the flight of stairs, and the closer he gets the harder you work to breathe slow and even breaths. And just as you hear his hand turn the doorknob, you take one last deep breath.
Opening the door slowly, with a small creak from the hinges that need oiling, Daryl's head peers inside. Spotting you standing feet away from the bed, he enters the bedroom and closes the door softly behind him.
Instantly, the scent of Daryl Dixon captures the air in the room. And the soft tones of the wind and the woods swirl around you, all mixing with the rich scent of cigarette smoke and sweat that clings to his flesh like tight fabric. But there was something about Daryl's district scent that could bring only you a calming sense of comfort. For the scent that followed him engulfed you before his arms could, and held you close and safely until he reached you.
"What's goin on?" Daryl asks you with a soft gruff breath. His eyebrows knit with a tension you'd seen before, and you question if your anxiety is truly that obvious.
"Hm?" You hum softly, chewing on your thumbnail as your eyes gaze up at him through your dark lashes.
"You're pale like ye saw a ghost or somethin." Daryl informs you and instinctively, your hand presses against your cheek. As if it were possible for you to feel the color your skin was right now.
