ONLY TIME WILL TELL

IX: Reality

In the bathroom they both have an awkward moment of shyness as they haven’t both been naked together since she arrived. Jolene takes the lead and strips, taking her shirt off first and then her panties. Daryl takes her in, just enjoying every part of her naked body. She walks over and starts undressing him. She starts with his shirt, lifting it above his head. Then goes to undo his pants. She pulls them down and while bent over helps him to step out of them. As she stands back up she takes the time to graze her hands up the sides of his legs, then his hips and up to his torso. She notices that he is getting hard again and she gets higher. She continues to graze up to his neck and then his face. She leans in and kisses him softly, then turns around and goes to turn on the shower. 

Daryl, feeling vulnerable, let’s her lead and tell him what to do. He really did not know how to be intimate with a woman. s*x was one thing, but being intimate was completely different. He usually did not let things get that far or he would f**k it up somehow. Once she sets the temperature she comes back to him and takes his hand again to lead him in the shower. They both step in and Jolene turns to wet her hair and let the water get her body wet. 

Her breath catches as Daryl reaches out and starts touching her, putting his hands on her waist, pulling her out of the water, and running them up and down her body. Jolene is surprised with how gentle he is and every touch seems to set her on fire. He is looking her up and down as he touches her just taking in every part of her body. He stops at the scar across her ribs and traces a finger over it. “What happened here?” he asks her. 

Jolene looks down at the scar, remembering, “I was uh...holed up in this house by myself... somewhere in Pennsylvania...and this guy came snooping around. I didn’t hear him come in...and uh, he found me upstairs, reading. Luckily, I was awake and when I saw him I tried to introduce myself...but it was clear that he didn’t want to be friends when he came at me with a machete. My gun was on the other side of the room and as I tried to get around him to get it he pinned me down. I rammed my knee into his nuts and he started gasping for air...so I pushed him off and I guess he slashed his blade across my ribs. I had so much adrenaline going through me at that point that I didn’t feel the pain, grabbed my bag and ran out of there. I was probably a couple miles away before I started getting light headed. Luckily I was able to wrap it and it healed alright, I guess.” 

Daryl was attentive through her story, scowling. He thought about how he wished he knew who the fucker was that would do that so he could make him f*****g pay. When she finishes he leans down and kisses her scar. When he straightens back up she says, “I think it’s your turn to get wet,” grabbing his arms and turning them around so he is under the water. She laughs at him, remembering when she did that to him as a kid. He smirks at her, remembering it too. He runs his hands through his hair and gets his body wet. 

Jolene takes him in, completely nude. She liked the shape of his body, how his shoulders are wider than his hips, how toned and lean he is. He turns around to run water over his face and she gets a better look at the scars on his back. She gasps, unintentionally, angry and sympathetic at the same time. As she gasps she reaches out to touch them, but at her touch Daryl quickly turns around. 

“Don’t” he says to her, gruffly. He reaches down behind him and turns off the shower quickly.

“I’m sorry.” she responds, “What happened?” 

“Why? Is it story time now?” he asks, getting in her face. 

“What?” she asks him, taken back at his response. She can smell him as he gets closer and feels pressure in her lower abdomen, but he continues.

“Is it time for me to open up to you and tell you my life story?” he asks her, angrily. 

“Not if you don’t want to…” she starts explaining.

“What about you?” he asks.

“What about me?” she responds sternly. 

“You gonna share all your s**t? Tell me about your husband and all the bullshit that you were so lucky to have?” he asks, fuming at her. 

“‘Lucky to have’?! What the f**k are you talking about? My husband...? All that s**t is gone and in the past. Do you want to hear about having to kill my own son? My husband, my parents?! I was lucky to live a life I couldn’t afford, sure. But guess what? It’s all f*****g gone.”

“Must’a been f*****g nice. Having people who cared about you.” he responds.  

“Why are you being like this?” she asks him. 

“f**k this.” he tells her, stepping out of the shower and grabbing his clothes while still wet. He goes out the door to the bedroom. How can she possibly understand him? How can he possibly share anything with her? She had a life that he couldn’t even imagine. A normal life. She doesn’t understand the s**t I’ve endured and she never will, he thinks to himself angrily. 

Jolene steps out after him. She runs out naked, but upon seeing him getting dressed, she finds the towel she had used nights before, grabs it and wraps it around herself. He doesn’t look at her as he pulls on his shirt and his pants, still clearly upset. His wet hair dripping over everything. 

“What’s going on?” Jolene asks him.

He continues getting dressed without looking at her, ignoring her question, his clothes getting soaked. 

“Okay, this morning everything was fine. I finally felt like I wanted to be here...and then I come back after a rather revealing and trying day and you want nothing to do with me. And then this. What the f**k happened?” she says to him harshly. 

“I can’t do this.” he tells her, looking away from her, his expression concealed by the wet hair in his face. 

“Do what?” she asks.

“This!” he says, gesturing to her. “I can’t be with you.” 

“You know I never wanted anything other than s*x. I told you I wouldn’t...” she replies somberly, getting upset at the harshness of his words.

“Oh yeah, sure…so you’re just trying to be my ‘fuckbuddy,’ is that it? We’re just using each other, that right?” he asks, getting more upset. 

“Is there any other choice? How can we possibly be...what?...dating?...Does that even exist anymore?” she asks him.

He doesn’t respond, but looks at her with fire in his eyes. He moves so quickly that she doesn’t have time to react. He grabs both her arms and puts them above her head and pushes her against the wall next to the door. He uses his body to pin her there, while keeping her hands above her head. She gasps at his attack, but doesn’t fight it. His scent makes her feel heady. “This what you want, huh?” he asks her against her ear in a husky voice. She feels herself get wet, but then remembers that they were in the middle of an argument. 

“Let go.” she tells him, giving him a scowl. 

“No, this is clearly what you want.” he says to her as he puts her wrists in one hand, while running his other up her inner thigh, under her towel to her wet cunt. 

“Stop…” she gasps out, but she wants him to do it. She closes her eyes and bites her lip. He finds her c**t with his fingers and caresses it expertly. She moans and arches her back, pushing herself up against him, still pushing into her with his arm between them. He inserts a finger into her wet slit while continuing to rub her c**t with his thumb. She feels her walls tighten as she comes hard onto his hand. Her body shivers at the release. He stared at her face the whole time, angry. He wanted to make her c*m one more time, but he wouldn’t do it again. She was just using him, like everybody else. She never really wanted him, she just wanted his d**k. 

“f**k that. Whatever this is. It’s over.” he says in a gruff whisper.  

At those words Jolene just stares at him, speechless. She didn’t know what to say to fix the damage she had unintentionally done. She felt the urge to cry, but kicked herself mentally. Don’t give him the satisfaction, she thinks. 

“Fine.” she responds stoically. “I’ll finish the week and leave. You can arrange that right?” She walks away before he can respond and goes back in the bathroom. She closes the door, locks it, and turns to face the shower. She pushes herself against the door and crumples to the floor. She feels like she had been hit with a ton of bricks. There is a lump in her throat, making it hard for her to swallow. She finally starts to realize that she is heartbroken. Why does it hurt so much? Did I really love him? f**k, what did I do? She thinks as she sits on the cold tile crying. 

Daryl feels pressure in his chest, like somebody has knocked the air out of him. He stands there scowling at the bathroom door, trying to figure out what to do. Do what she asked. Just leave before you do something else stupid, he thinks. He contemplates staying there, but knows that she wouldn’t want that. She clearly didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He leaves and goes back home.

Four days later…

Jolene does as she promised and finishes out the week with Abraham at the construction site. Work on one wall is complete and they get a good head start on the remaining sections. Jolene is as cordial as she can be without giving away the animosity she feels towards Daryl. She talks about everyday things as if all was normal, but she was ready to leave. Other than work, she doesn’t attend any town functions or meetings and nobody argues with her. She thinks he may have talked with Rick about her absence. She doesn’t see Daryl for the remainder of the week, but isn’t sure if he is avoiding her intentionally or just too busy. Maggie gives her the go-ahead for ammo and she gets a clip for her semi-automatic near the end of the week. She takes it and puts it in her pack for when she leaves. Although she already felt empty before coming there, somehow Daryl had really killed the last part of what she felt made her human. On day 7 she has everything that she came in with, as well as some food and her ammo and she heads to the gate. Daryl must have kept his promise as the guard, Heath, lets her leave without any argument. He does give her a worried look, however. Something that she did not miss as she walks out, looking forward to leaving and never coming back.

In her heart she secretly wishes that he would come after her and tell her to come back with him again. Tell her that he loves her and be with her for what remaining life she has left, but he was done with her and she was done trying to fight herself. If he did she knows exactly how she would react, and it would not be good to have her heart broken again. She spends the day walking as far away as she can from Alexandria, to keep herself from going back. When night starts to fall she finds an abandoned house and holes up there for the night. She is sure that the room she stays in is secure so she could hear anybody that comes in. That first night she barely slept. Back in the real world, she thinks to herself. She decides to take her gun out, clean and inspect it to be sure she would be ready for whatever comes next.

While she drinks some water slowly her mind wanders back to her late husband and the first time he taught her to shoot a gun. They went to a local gun-range and Jolene was nervous the whole time. There were people already there and they were shooting, possibly the loudest guns anybody could fire, rifles and shotguns. 

“It’s a semi-automatic, so you can keep pulling the trigger to fire rounds. There are 12 in the clip. I’ll show you first.” he told her. When he fires she gets hit with one or two hot shells and feels petrified, almost tearing up. She was scared she would f**k up at the time and had never had a need to fire a gun. 

“I’m too nervous Jack, I can’t.” she told him once he loaded the next clip. 

“Don’t worry. You got this.” he told her, offering the loaded gun. He smiled at her, putting her at ease.

She took the gun and she remembers how it was heavier than she expected. He loaded a new paper target and clicked the button to slide it back far enough. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, lifted the gun and fired the first shot. Adrenaline rushed through her body and she squeezed off another one. Her adrenaline and excitement mix and she decided to try to actually aim better and she hit the target right in the chest. She unloaded the remaining clip and smiled from ear-to-ear. 

“Told you. How was it?” he asked her, sliding back her target. 

“Terrifying and exhilarating.” she responded. Then he showed her how to reload and they took turns again. Later they would move on to bigger and badder guns. She would always be thankful to him for that. Then she gets a flash of him with undead eyes and blood running down his face and she shakes her head to clear the images that haunt her constantly. 

She finishes cleaning the gun so goes digging in her backpack for something to do. She has a couple of worn out books that she has read over a thousand times. Her favorite was The Princess Bride. She always enjoyed the humor and characters in that book and it was fun to reimagine the movie again, like things were normal. She falls asleep halfway through reading it.