First and Last

8/27

But then, Eric had to start asking questions. Daryl should have seen it coming.

"So, how you two met? You were friends in your old town, right?"

Daryl looked at Y/N. He didn't know what to say. Did they know she was a stripper? Did she want them to know? Did she want to hide it? He should let Y/N answer that, but he began to panic and spoke before she could.

"I was out hunting and found her in the woods."

Y/N snorted. "Sounds like I was a lost child or something, Daryl." He shrugged, blushing. "But yeah, I was taking a walk, and we bumped into each other...yeah, I'd say that's the first time we really met."

She smirked, looking at him, and Daryl wondered what she was thinking. He guessed she was right, though. The first time they had seen each other had been at the club, and they hadn't really met...having Merle trying to get him a private show with Y/N and him running away, nah, they hadn't really met, not until he found the real her at the woods. The memories of that night at the club made him blush, seventeen years later, and look away from Y/N.

"And so, we talked, and then we talked some more, and we become friends," Y/N kept talking. "Good friends. I had no family or friends and Daryl took care of me..." He glanced at her and she was smiling softly at him, eyes soft too even though a bit sad. She was looking at him with such fondness, as if time hadn't passed, Daryl felt those weirds feelings in his belly again and his throat tightened.

"But if you were good friends, then why you didn't see each other again in all these years?" Jane's voice made both Daryl and Y/N look at her.

Daryl didn't know what to say and he looked at Y/N, but she seemed to be struggling too, opening and closing her mouth without saying anything. She seemed in distress almost and Daryl hated to see her struggling like that, and so he surprised himself taking first again.

"Your mom had to leave the town and go to the city to work."

Jane frowned at Y/N, seeming confused. "Couldn't you be a waitress in your town?"

So...so Y/N had worked as a waitress, not a singer? Had she really stopped singing? Or she quitted when Jane was born, maybe a job singing couldn't support her and a kid, if she had been alone...again, Daryl felt angry against a man he didn't know, Jane's dad...he wanted to know who was him, what had happened, but he knew better than to ask.

"I...well...I...actually, there were no cafes or bars hiring at the town, and I...really needed a job and..."

"Our town was shit," Daryl spoke up, seeing Y/N struggling. "Your mom did well leaving, she had to, if she wanted a real job. You wouldn't have liked living in that town anyway." Especially if the father left them and Y/N raised Jane alone in their old shit town, that would have made people gossip like crazy. Though, if Y/N hadn't left, then maybe...maybe Daryl and her would have been together, and then, maybe...no, no, ending that train of thoughts.

"Then why didn't you leave with her too?" Jane was innocent, just curious, yet her words were like a dart to the heart. Why indeed.

"I...got my brother at the town, and...stuff..."

"But still, if you were good friends, then it doesn't matter you didn't live in the same place! Nora and mom lived in different places for so long too, and they were still best friends! So you could still be friends and see each other sometimes!" Jane still sounded curious, and bit like if Daryl and Y/N were idiots for not having figured that out by themselves. If the situation was different, Daryl might have laughed at her cute tone, but at that moment, he just felt his heart getting heavier and heavier.