I'm trying to cross-post everything with ninelives and I must have missed this one! It's not so much fluff as introspective semi-fluff... Just read it, you'll like it maybe (hopefully!)
Carol's favourite room on the entire farm was the tack room they'd turned into something of a schoolroom-slash-library, with its big high windows and soft yellow walls. When they'd found the farm, the three barns arranged in a horseshoe shape had been in good condition, but dusty, and the large tack room had been filled with bridles hanging on hooks and a mixture of saddles sitting long-unused on their racks. The walls had been a smart but uninspiring wood paneling, and the tile floor had been grey with dust.
Since the farm had been enclosed and they were established there, they had spent a good six months turning one medium-sized field into a large garden and getting everything set up for them to live self-sufficiently.
It was Daryl's comment, made on the night they spent after raiding the closest bookstore that gave her the idea of starting up a small library in the well-lit room. Rachael had been a high-school Science teacher before the Turn, and agreed to try and teach the seven school-aged children whatever she could. The first thing they had done was debate what to do with the horse equipment. Most of them had been impartial over where to put it, but Maggie and Beth had spent one afternoon with a tub of leather conditioner and some rags and scrubbed each piece until it gleamed, and a few of the prettier bridles hung from the walls in the barns, and the saddles were returned reverently to the racks that lined the room.
Carol and Daryl found some buckets of warm yellow paint and spent one of their free days rolling the walls and ceiling, getting blobs of paint dripping down into their hair and playfully flicking liquid sunshine at each other.
Shelves of textbooks ran along one wall, covering a range of useful subjects like biology, applied physics and chemistry, and survival books. There were three low tables with chairs clustered around them, and a whiteboard that was reversible, with one side covered in useful diagrams of how to skin animals or the best way to purify water. The other wall was covered with novels and children's stories, and the remaining wall was covered in artwork.
It was the artwork that made her love the room so much. Daryl had suggested they teach the kids which wild plants were edible and which were poisonous. Rick had seconded it and came back from a run with a massive ream of poster-sized paper and a seemingly endless supply of crayons and felt-tipped markers, and as a result there were three posters, complete with leaf rubbings and sketches of plants headed 'Safe to eat', 'Poisonous', and, as an afterthought, 'Medicine plants- bring to Carol' with a smiley face after it.
Glenn had a talent for sketching and had faithfully and painstakingly copied the drawings of identified medicinal plants like St. John's Wort and Calendula from one of Carol's herbal remedies encyclopedias, and they decorated the walls of the classroom with brightly coloured notes attached to identify the properties of each.
The pictures nearest the window were the drawings done by the children in their spare time, between lessons and chores and playing in the orchard or caring for the myriad animals. Mika's one had reduced Carol to tears when she'd presented it, a little nervous but smiling hopefully. It was a beautiful piece, all light, flowing lines, artful shadows and pops of colour.
It was of the day she'd taught Judith to make flower crowns and Daryl and Carol had been sitting near the blossoming apple trees, enjoying the sun. She'd drawn Carol tall and willowy, the bright blue of her eyes standing out against her soft pencil hair and pink lips, and Daryl all bold lines to Carol's softness, both lounging in the pastel green grass. The love was evident in the look she'd captured between them, and the way she had captured every detail, from the hair ties on Carol's wrist (one pink, for Sophia; one dark blue, Lizzie's.) to their linked fingers partially concealed by the lush grass. The rush of emotion had rocked Carol as she gazed at the picture in her shaking hands, and the tears had overflowed before she realised she was crying. Mika's face had crumpled in concern and she'd taken the picture back, making to fold it in half.
"Don't." Carol had rasped. "Don't crease it."
"I'm sorry." Mika had replied. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"Oh, sweetheart!" Carol had given a watery chuckle and pulled her in for a hug. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
That picture had pride of place on the wall, surrounded by the palm-sized sketch she'd done of Carl kissing a baby Judith and Beth and Maggie laughing as they groomed one of the horses, along with some Polaroid photographs they'd captured and a plentitude of scribblings done by the other children.
Daryl often found her curled up in the sunlight on a mountain of large cushions, lazily flipping through a picture book with Caleb while he read to her out loud and gleefully mangled difficult words. At four years old, he had Daryl's straight hair but in a rich reddish-brown, a few shades darker than Carol's had been. His eyes were a brilliant, almost bizarre mixture of Carol's bright blue and Daryl's green, and he had the thin lips of both his parents. After Daryl had finished a shift that Carol was rostered off from, he'd go first to their house and grab a bite of whatever she'd saved for him and then head to the library, where she would often be with Caleb and usually a few other young children, reading a well-worn copy of 'Green Eggs and Ham' or something similar.
Something about the way Caleb's unnerving eyes would light up at his presence would always make him grin and bend to catch the boy as he invariably launched himself at his waist, and he privately dreaded the day when his son would be too big to lift, or too old to want it.
She enjoyed the classroom even when she was the only one in it, curled up with a silly romance novel and a cup of her raspberry tea. She took every lull in the sometimes endless activity of the farm to sit and read in the quiet room. The way the yellow walls and messy art seemed to capture the warmth of the sun always made her feel relaxed, and while Caleb was off playing tag or hide-and-seek with Rory under Maggie's watchful eye she reveled in the peace for a few minutes. It was even better when Daryl would come in, bearing something to eat if it was after lunch, and drop gracelessly into the armchair, content to just sit quietly and let her lean against his legs, running his fingers through her hair and over the back of her neck as she read.
The gentle scratch of his fingernails over her skin would often lull her into a state of half-sleep, and the book would often drop to her lap as her eyes fluttered closed, moments before he would invariably jostle her upright and tug her into the chair with him, letting her doze until her shift started.
The quiet moments were few and far between, what with Caleb running rings around them and their respective roles on the farm, but Carol didn't mind.
The routine meant they were organized, and being organized meant that they were safe.
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