Home Is Your Heartbeat ('Home Is' Book Two - Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 37 - Take Me To The River (Talking Heads)

NATE

Don't know what woke me up?

The ache I'm feeling throughout every muscle and bone in my body....

....or the image of Deanna. Holding Reg as he bleeds out in front of her.

I lay still. Trying to calm my laboured breathing before the sound of it rouses Daryl.

He's finally shed his  shame I think? The perceived guilt over what his Father did to him for so long. Eventually coming to accept and own the truth. That it wasn't his fault and never had been.

His Father....his Father's actions....no one else's. Never Daryl's.

I think, know rather....that it'll probably be a long time before I can come to the same acceptance. Of the role I played in last night's horror.

Maybe I shouldn't try to accept it? Use my shame as a lesson instead. So that I never repeat it.

But if you do that, you stupid bitch? Then you'll be lying to Daryl again!

You promised him that this shit would stop! Yet here you are wallowing in it. As if it's your very own, custom-made hair shirt.

I slid out of bed and shuffled upstairs to the bathroom. Groaning once I glimpse the pile of filthy, sodden clothes on the floor of the shower.

Filling the bathtub, I chucked them in along with a bar of soap. Left them to soak while I went and sat on the toilet seat.

"Jehovah!"

Said it out loud.

Hoping a large group of women dressed as ancient Judean men will suddenly surround the loo. Start stoning me to death. Just like the scene from Monty Pythons Life of Brian.

Must be going crazy again. Swear I can hear the faint echo of Hershel's guffaws and the slap of his hand on a thigh.

Shaking my head and pinching my face, I got up. Reluctantly shuffled back to the bathtub.

*

Twenty minutes later I'd scrubbed, rinsed and wrung out our clothes. Started to hang them on the many rails adorning the walls.

I was holding Daryl's boxers in my hands when both of his snuck around my rib cage. Cupped my breasts tenderly.

"We gotta washin machine yer know."

Seeing his underwear? He took my nipples hostage between his fingers....while growling the threat in my ear.

"Yer even think about it, woman? Our kids are gonna have to be bottle-fed! So yer better be a good girl and hang em up to dry....right now! "

My lord and master's grip relaxed only slightly  as I followed his orders without a word.

"How long we got left....until that implant a yers runs out?"  He whispered.

While one hand started its journey southwards over my tummy and his lips nuzzled my earlobe.

"About two months by my reckoning. Maybe a few more after that for my body to get back into a regular fertile cycle?"

I squeaked when his hands suddenly changed direction, lifting me up and spinning me around. He carried me in a fireman's lift down the stairs....whistling merrily like one of the Seven Dwarfs.

Tapping an accompanying beat on my butt with his palms.

Muttley squinted sleepily out of the laundry to see what all the fuss is about.