Don't look back

Untitled part

Months later, Daryl is still thinking about Claire's words. He doesn't know much about Merle's situation, but now he knows he's indeed getting an early release, though not until months. Daryl still means what he told Claire, he's not going to stop being her friend, seeing her an Emily, but he can't help but be nervous about what Merle is going to think and how his life is going to be with his brother back again.

He's gone to the woods, further than usual, camped the night there, both to try and clear his mind and also to try and hunt a deer. He's been only successful at the latest, and so now he's trying to tie the deer to the bike, which is not that easy. Maybe he shouldn't have taken the bike for this, but he wanted to ride.

He rides back, plans on going to see Claire and Emily, give them some deer. Between the kindergarten and Claire working more, he doesn't see them as often as he did once, but still often enough. He doesn't want to show up at her place with a dead deer over his shoulders and so first he goes to his place to get it ready. It takes him a while, so when he rides to Claire's place he knows Emily would be back from the kindergarten and Claire'd have finished working too.

"Hi!" Claire grins when she opens the door. "How was your hunting?"

"Got a deer." He hands him a pack with some of the meat he got ready.

He walks inside and finds Emily inside that kind of big cage that Claire calls park, playing with some toys. She smiles when she sees him, reaching out to him, babbling something that sounds like "hi." She does that lately, she stills babbles nonsense but also things like no, mum, and some other little words. Claire has said she's going to teach her to say 'Daryl' and he's not sure if she was kidding or not, but the idea makes him feel giddier than he wants to admit.

"Hi darlin', what did you do to end up in baby jail?" He asks as he kneels down next to the park thing, picking Emily up and placing her outside.

"I told you not to call it like that," Claire says, humor in her voice, as she goes to leave the meat in the kitchen. "It's a park."

"A park, yeah, sure, does it looks like a park to you, sweetheart?" He wouldn't be caught talking like that to Emily outside that house, the idea mortifies him. He's still embarrassed doing it in front of Claire, but not as much as once he had been. Emily babbles a "no" and Daryl looks at Claire, smirking. She rolls her eyes but smiles too.

Emily holds on Daryl's hands as she tries to stand up. Daryl helps her steady herself as she tries taking some steps, his smile going wide. She's always been a fast crawler, but now she's trying to take steps too. "I'm going to come one day and you're gonna be walking already, uh?"

"Then she's going to be spending more time in baby jail. She already manages to get everywhere just by crawling the moment I don't have my eye on her, I don't want to think about her walking."

"Nah, I'll bail you out." Daryl keeps helping Emily stumbling steps until the little girl gets bored of it and she sits down on Daryl's leg, reaching out to grab a stuffed bunny that was one of her favorites.

"Bun." She babbles as she tries to push it onto Daryl's hand, he's not very sure as for what.

"Hey, that's a new word," he says as he holds the bunny, still unsure of what Emily wants him to do with it.

"Yeah, a bunny." Claire goes to sit down next to them. "Like the ones Daryl hunts and I've been feeding you, doesn't that seem conflicting to you?" She jokes, Emily's little enough not to understand what she's saying. "No? Then wait until you watch Bambi and Daryl takes you hunting deer."

Daryl snorts, nudging Claire with his shoulder, but Emily just smiles, unaware, taking another plushy, a fish this time, and pushing Daryl with it again. "What does she want me to do?"