ONLY TIME WILL TELL

II: Surreality

“We’re here.” Says Aaron as they approach the gated community. The walls were at least 15 feet high. A slender black woman opens the gate and welcomes them in. Jo wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Aaron call her “Sasha”. As they walk in she feels nervous, like the first day of school or the first day on a new job, everything new and unknown. She was really out of practice since the outbreak so doesn’t know what to expect from herself. Daryl walks past them and heads toward a row of houses to the left, disappearing from site. Jo gets a good look at the back of his motorcycle vest and gasps. The one she made, he was wearing it. She was shocked to see that the wings had not fallen off. She had sewn them on for him so long ago, for his Mother. I can’t believe he still has it! She thinks. She starts wondering if he had ever thought of her in the years they had been apart, almost 16 years since she had seen him last. 

It all seems too good to be true and completely surreal. She takes in her surroundings: armed guard towers, rows and rows of houses, a pond and a playground. Could this all be real or is this a dream? “Right this way” says Aaron, bringing her out of her speculating.

“Where are we going?” She asks.

“Like I told you on our way, you will have to meet with our leader Rick to get you set up with job duty, but I wanted to let you get cleaned up and see where you’ll be staying. We have a couple of extra houses since some of our residents are no longer with us.” he explains.

Right, she had forgotten that detail he had explained on the way. His information about the residents was a little bit ominous. “No longer with us” could mean they’re dead or they left. Either way it sent a million questions going through her mind, but she didn’t say anything just yet. Better to find out from somebody other than the “public relations” person.

As they walk Jolene sees many people walking through the, what she guessed would be called a “town”. Many looked in their direction, but upon seeing Aaron didn’t pay them any mind. Some passed and said hello, but didn’t take the time to introduce themselves yet. She imagines they want to wait until their leader approves of her.

Aaron leads Jolene to a fairly large colonial home with a wrap-around porch. It reminded her of the type of house she would have loved back when the world hadn’t gone to s**t. Aaron then gives her a tour, room by room. There’s a front living room, fully furnished, a huge updated kitchen with an island (like she would ever be able to cook again), a half bathroom downstairs and a small office. Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a full bathroom. There is only one bed set up in what would be considered the “Master” bedroom, connected to the bathroom. Again, she felt like this could not be real. When Aaron told her she could take a hot shower, courtesy of their solar panels, she just couldn’t contain herself anymore.

You are f*****g shitting me. Is this real?! How is this real?! She thinks and not even thinking wraps her arms around Aaron. “Thank you!” She says. Realizing what she is doing she lets him go and backs away, composing her face back to neutral. “Sorry...I just...I can’t believe this. It may take me some time to realize that this is actually happening.” she says, rubbing the back of her neck with her right hand in embarrassment. Quit being an i***t. she thinks.

Aaron laughs. “I understand, really. You are very welcome. There are some clean clothes in those dressers in the master bedroom that you are welcome to. Nothing stylish, but it’s clean. We can get your clothes washed up for later if you want to change.”

She could care less what she was wearing as long as she got to shower. A warm shower! Oh my God! She thinks.

Seeing her staring at the bathroom with desire Aaron clears his throat. “Well I’ll leave you to it. Somebody will be by in a few minutes to bring you to Rick.”

“Aaron.” She says as he turns back to her.

“Thank you for everything.” She says. He nods his head and turns to leave.

As soon as he is down the stairs Jo runs to the bathroom connected to the Master bedroom. Seeing the shower and the tub she squeals with giddy excitement, something she hasn’t done in years, and starts stripping out of her grimy, dirt-caked clothing. She turns on the water and makes another involuntary squeal as the water flows out into the tub. She sets the temperature and turns on the shower. She jumps in immediately and just lets the warm water relax every part of her sore body. She notices that there are small, hotel-sized, bottles of shampoo and conditioner and a bar of soap. She smells each one and just thanks the universe for the fresh scent of soap. She pulls the rubber band out of her hair as gingerly as possible. It hurts and takes out a few of her hairs, but finally she gets it out. She takes her time scrubbing all the dirt out of her dirty blond hair and applies the conditioner rigorously, almost using the whole bottle. She then takes the time and uses the bar of soap to wash every nook and cranny. As she cleans herself she takes note of how thin and toned she has become, even more than when she was enlisted and running everyday, going through rigorous combat training.

She thinks about the fact that she is seeing Daryl again, after so many years. It amazed her how much she remembers from all those years ago, but it felt like another person’s life. He looks different now, if possible more handsome and he has a certain responsibility about him. It seemed to her that he was more adapted to this world than anybody. For the first time in a long time she thought about touching herself too. But then she didn’t know how soon somebody would be there so it was probably not a good idea right at that moment.

After fifteen minutes she realizes she should probably get out; Aaron had mentioned limited hot water and she starts feeling guilty, wondering if somebody might be going without because of her. She turns off the water and opens the curtain, realizing that she doesn’t have anything to dry off with. Cursing herself she steps onto the cold tile and starts looking around the bathroom for a closet with towels. There is a closet and she looks under the sink, but no towels to be found. Feeling embarrassed now she opens the door to the Master bedroom to look there.

Standing in the hallway Daryl gets a full view of her, wet and naked standing in the doorway of the bathroom. She quickly shields her exposed breasts and closes the door. Daryl, though, got an eyeful of her and his pants start to feel very constricting.

She yells through the door “I’m looking for a towel, is there one out there?!” Smirking he goes to the closet and finds one for her. He comes back and knocks on the door. She opens it a crack and he sticks the towel in.

Jo felt so embarrassed and yet, she rather enjoyed the look he gave her in the millisecond that she exposed herself to him. His piercing blue eyes scanned every part of her. It made her feel like she needed another five showers and more of Daryl Dixon. 

She dries herself off and runs the towel through her hair quickly. f**k! I forgot the clean clothes too, she thinks. So she wraps the towel around herself, building her confidence to again meet Daryl with no clothes on, but when she opens the door he was nowhere in sight and the door to the bedroom was closed. So she goes to the dresser where Aaron had indicated there were clean clothes. She finds a plain white t-shirt and some jeans. There was even women’s underwear that she could wear, but no bra. She didn’t want to wear the one she had so she kept searching and found a plaid button down that would better cover her body. She had never been considerably busty, but her size Cs could look a little ridiculous without support in a see-through top. Everything fit her a little bit loose so she does a bit of tying here and there to make sure she doesn’t expose any more of herself today. She finds some clean socks and puts those on while sitting on the bed and finds her boots, still dirty. She grabs them and walks downstairs to the kitchen to clean them off.

She gets to the basin-like sink and turns on the cold water to rinse them off. “Thought it’d be best to wait for you here.” Says Daryl from behind her. He startles her, making her jump and turn around with the wet boot in her hand. She splashes his face with dirty boot water. His smirk turns to a scowl. Even upset he still looked sexy to her. She starts involuntarily giggling, like a little school girl. What is wrong with you?! She thinks to herself. She stops, straightens out her face and turns back to washing her boots.

“You scared the s**t out of me.” She smiles to herself and contains her laugh.

“S’aright. I’ll wait for you in the front hall. Don’t take too long.” he says while grabbing a rag from his back pocket and wiping off his face.

Daryl seems to be somebody who likes to be on time so she quickly finishes washing her boots and pulls them on her feet, lacing them up quickly and slipping a small knife into her right boot, just in case. She walks to the front hallway.

“Okay, let’s go meet Rick.” she says to him. He has his crossbow strapped to his back with his left hand holding the strap for support and his right hand in his pocket, leaning against the wall next to the front door. He looks like a GQ model to Jo if they had the post-apocalypse edition anytime soon. The muscles flexing on his left arm make her start sweating. She wonders if he knows the effect he has on her. 

Daryl looks at her, fresh from the shower as she stops to look him up and down. Her long, wet dirty blond hair now hangs loosely to one side. He missed her shorts, but the shirt she’s wearing now leaves very little to be desired; he could see that with one button he would get a full view of what he saw earlier. Everything else looks loose on her. He starts thinking of helping her take everything off, but quickly brushes off the thought. This is not the time or place to think about that. It was stupid and he wouldn’t do it. He turns to the door and holds it open for her.

“So how’d you get stuck with babysitting duty?” asks Jolene as they walk out of the door and down the porch. She assumes that he holds more of a leadership role and has better things to do.

“Call it my medicine I ‘spose.” he responds as they walk down the road “Aaron convinced Rick that I’d be the best since you know me...wants to make you feel comfortable...stupid if ya ask me.”

Ouch thinks Jo. Well if he was trying to make her feel like a burden he succeeded. Not like it mattered to her because she was leaving as soon as she could without being noticed.

“Sorry to be such a pain in the ass.” she tries to say stoically, but not quite able to hide some of her disappointment.

Fuck I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. Daryl thinks as they continue down the road. “Don’t worry ‘bout it.” he says to her gruffly by way of apology.

She nods her head in acknowledgment. “I was surprised to see you wearing the vest I gave you. I thought you said it was stupid…ya know before I left?” she asks him. That was the last thing he had said, that he didn’t want it. 

“It was at the time. I never rode a bike, ‘cept Merle’s. I just fixed ‘em. I guess I just...it was a good fit after a while.” he responds, not quite sure how to answer her. 

“It suits you.” she tells him, slightly embarrassed. He grunts a “Thanks” and clears his throat, embarrassed himself. For some reason, she was worried about what Daryl thinks of her. She wants him to like her, to want her, to be with her, but she just couldn’t understand why she would feel this way after all this time. They walk in silence for the remainder of their walk, but Jolene reflects on her feelings, trying to suppress and keep herself together, not knowing that he was doing the same thing.