The Hardest Words Are Spoken Softly
"What. THE. FUCK."
She'd barely gotten through the door, it was still half open and she knew his voice would carry out to the street. She slammed the door behind her and stood pressed up against it, warily. She trusted him with her life, no question, but she'd also never seen him this angry before. Ever. She shrank before that kind of rage, even as she steeled herself for it.
He paced around the room, barreling through anything in his path and the knickknacks of suburban decor were falling around him in the wake of his fury. She hated all of the things that filled every space in Alexandria, all the useless detritus of a world that couldn't keep its shit together when things went bad. One unnaturally cold winter and they could burn all of it for fuel.
He was still yelling but her mind has wandered again. That had been happening a lot lately, this inability to focus in the moment, and she'd be worried about it if she could find the energy to care.
"Of all the people? Him? HIM? One of the most useless of all the useless fucks in this place? Why, Carol? WHY?" She could barely keep her eyes open. It was so exhausting to try to answer him, it required too much effort to try to formulate the words that she should say. Her eyes shut, the lids too heavy to maintain a state of openness.
He was on her like a flash, her silence and impassivity only fueling his rage. His fist crashed into the wood next to her head, making her jump. Eyes open now. She found herself wishing he'd aimed better, she never had to worry about drifting into complacency when Ed was around. He continued his tirade about the overall incompetence of the Alexandria folk, but Tobin especially was nothing but a fucking meatbag waiting for the right walker to eat his face. His stupid fucking face. It went on for a while. She waited until his own exhaustion caught up with him and he just ran down. "What the fuck were you thinking?"
He'd looked at her in a million ways in the years they'd been together, a million fucking stories that she once upon a time tried to read in his eyes. She gave up eventually, not even sure when she just let it go and became glad for what it was. No questions anymore about "what if?" or "what did that mean?," the two of them just were like the sun and the moon. But the look he gave her now when she whispered "why do you care who I kiss?" was one of sheer disgust, something she hadn't seen since back on the farm. Not from him, at least. He glared at her, lip curled, turned his back and left the room. She was certain that if she hadn't been blocking the door he'd have walked out on her, maybe forever this time.
That, she felt. That broke through the quicksand she'd been sinking into, so close to swallowing her up. The idea that he could, and would, leave her alone again to die a little each day in this place. THAT made her angry.
She stomped after him down the short hallway that separated his room from the rest of the downstairs, twisting the door handle and flinging it open to crash against the wall. No knock, not a whispered "can I come in?" at the door this time. There's no expectations of privacy in a fight.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed with elbows on his knees and his arms cradling his head as he shook with…tears? She didn't run to him to make it better. She didn't kneel down by his feet, hug him to her, offer words of comfort and the balm of human touch. They'd always been that to each other but her anger kept her rooted in place. It wasn't the bright, hot kind of anger that burned itself out between heartbeats, tempering their bond layer by layer over time, no this was darker, deeper. Corrosive. Something that ate away at her from the inside, weakening what made them them, whatever it was that had snaked out and caught them up over the handle of a pick axe and bound them together, tight, over a flower and a doll.
"What was I thinking? I'll tell you exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking that no man had looked at me like that, with desire in his eyes, since well before the world went to shit." He suppressed a snort. Plenty had, but he had nipped that shit in the bud. "I was thinking I am still a living, breathing human woman, and I have needs no different than anyone else. And sometimes I even think I deserve some attention, some goddamn affection, that maybe someone might want to touch me on occasion without making me feel like a dog being tossed a bone." He winced. If he made her feel that way? - even if he didn't mean to do it - it was like a punch to the gut.
His pain, his grief… good she thought, unconsciously, and shuddered in horror at this monster emerging from the pit of her soul, growing there and gaining strength, while she had been sleepwalking through survival.
She slumped, eyes closing of their own accord. She knew, without question, that things could never go back to what they had been between them. She could walk away now and they'd keep going, their relationship unchanged on the surface but rotten underneath. But he'd have his life back and she'd have hers. It would be easy. It would keep the walls in place. He'd never again have the right to look at her like that, to judge her like that, she'd be free of the last chain holding her here. Even if her body stayed, her soul would be unfettered, her survival a choice.
Or, she could stay, do whatever needed to be done to make him feel loved again, make him feel like someone chose him over all the rest. Like he deserved to be chosen over all the rest. And she would slowly die inside when he didn't do the same. When he chose others over her. When he kept leaving her behind. When he looked at other women, other girls, with an appreciation and interest that he never directed at her. But that was only natural, only right the monster whispered. You aren't the kind of woman that inspires men's fantasies, especially not someone like him. That's insane! You aren't his kind of woman.
It seemed fitting that her love, her desire, was a monster from the pit ready to devour her up. If she freed it, it would destroy the only relationship that had ever mattered besides her baby girl. There really was no choice. He deserved her love, he deserved whatever he needed from her. She didn't have a right to deny it to him, even if it left her empty and alone. Her anger crawled backwards, sunk back into the hole inside her. She opened her eyes, ready to do whatever was necessary to keep that creature contained.
He was staring at her. Watching her. Seeing her. "STOP," was all he said.
He never had problems reading her. Carol broadcasted all her emotions, hell all her thoughts, in the quirk of her mouth and her big blue eyes. First time he realized that maybe it was just him who spoke "Carol" was back at the quarry. Shane was talking shit about how some women just couldn't give up on a man, give up on love, until that love killed them. Daryl couldn't believe they were talking about the same woman, looking at the same face… What he saw was desperation, tamped-down rage, and a woman trapped in an ugly situation in an uglier world. There was no love, not when she looked at Ed. There was no hope there.
Then or later, she didn't need to talk for him to know what she was saying. One look at her face and he knew exactly where she stood on matters, and since that tended to follow his line of thinking, she became a thermometer for his read of any situation even before they had spoken more than a few words to each other. The difficult twists and turns of polite society were outside his realm of experience, but Carol's face gave him a map, directions, a fuckin' GPS to figure out what was going on underneath. That's why he stared at her all the time, he told himself, I'm just lookin' for guidance. It gave him an excuse, up until he realized every other soul around saw through that shit…with the possible exception of the woman he couldn't ever seem to take his eyes off of.
In the quarry, he thought he wanted her approval. Her respect. She was smarter than any other person he'd ever met, certainly smarter than any of the dumb motherfuckers in that camp, and she was genuinely good. For just a quick second she reminded him of his own mother, at least how he chose to remember her. His mom kept her hair cut shorter than a man's too, so his pop didn't have anything extra to catch hold of. But haircut or not, that comparison didn't last long at all. She was too young, too pretty, and too sweet. She always thanked him for any little thing he did, for her or for any of them, and it made him want to do more just to hear her soft voice say his name. "Thank you, Daryl," she'd say, too low for her husband to hear, holding her daughter against her like she was teaching Sophia the right way to be: how to be classy, how to be a lady. And she'd smile at him, that wide, beautiful smile, while looking straight into his eyes so he knew she meant it. No matter if smiling would crack open cuts on her lips or crinkle the skin around her swollen eyes in a way that was painful to look at, she'd say "thank you, Daryl" and he'd warm up inside. Damn if it didn't make him feel like he could take on the world.
Every time she said his name he promised himself that soon, soon, he'd step up and rescue her from that asshole husband of hers. He liked thinking about it, thought about it more and more the longer he and Merle lived in that camp, all the various ways he'd rescue her from whatever threat was bearin' down on her or Sophia. He thought about how she'd smile at him, and say his name, and not turn her back and walk away before her husband caught her talkin' to that dirty redneck Dixon. She'd be able to stay and he'd get to hear her say his name over and over, in that tone she used just for him, that gracious, soft voice that made him feel so appreciated. Respected. Even, maybe, admired. Sometimes he'd think of her saying his name at other opportunities, screaming it even, and it felt so good for a time but after he'd feel like he did something to her, something dirty and wrong. She deserved better than a quick, hard fuck against a tree.
He felt cheated by that walker, the one that killed Ed.
When Sophia disappeared into the woods, he thought maybe this was his chance, maybe God set this up so that he could be Carol's hero even though he save her from Ed. Despite failing her, over and over, she never blamed him, never looked at him with anything but gratitude and admiration. It would be easier to be the cause of so much disappointment to her if she'd just slap him for once, just give him what he deserved. If she could hate him for it, instead of looking at him with those big blue eyes like he was her hope. When Sophia came stumbling out of that barn, when he would never again have a chance to be her hero, he watched the first mask settle over her face and adhere to the contours of her cheeks. He watched some of the light die in her eyes and sweetness abandon her lips, and some hopefulness and joy died in him that day too, and there wasn't that much to spare.
Looking back, sometimes he saw it opposite: she took off a mask, didn't put one on. Like the first layer of civilization, whatever it was that bound her in rules and kept her tethered to polite society, maybe that just cracked and broke off that day. Whatever it was, she was even easier for him to read now, even clearer in his sight. And that was always the way after that. Whatever she did or whatever was done to her, whatever happened that made her the inscrutable warrior they all depended on, it all made her as easy to read for him as a walker's trail.
Which didn't mean he always understood her.
"Don't. Jest don't," he said, still bent over, staring at her from under a flap of lank hair. "You're shutting down again. You were back for a second," he rasped, his voice rough from yelling.
She focused on him. She didn't think anyone had noticed. Of course he noticed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes fixed on his. "I was Alexandria Carol for so long, and it was so…difficult. It was too much like…" Ed. But while she only felt sorrow now, sadness tinged with relief, for that young bride who went in so hopeful and came out barely alive, the thought of Ed filled him with rage again, and shame. Shame at failing to protect her, shame at being a coward while wanting to be a hero.
"Then why kiss HIM," he shouted, glad to see her wince. He wanted her to hurt just like he did. "You think he sees you? He don't, no more than the rest of them. WHY KISS HIM?"
She slumped down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped protectively around her knees. Her filters were slipping, words came out as she thought them without consideration. She trusted Daryl or she wouldn't be here at all, and that trust made her sloppy. "I've thought about this a lot, you know, trying to figure out these impulses I have. Never acted on them since Ed, my best lesson in impulse control, but I've felt them."
She was staring at the wall somewhere near him, but not really seeing that neither. There was so little light in the room, just a thin puddle spreading from the bottom of the door. He was frozen in place, not wanting to break the spell that got her talking, finally.
Her voice was soft but not faltering, there was no doubt. "I'm not proud of the answers, what I think are the answers. I'm not happy to be this way, but I'm not going to feel shame about it either. I kissed him because he wanted me too, and I have a bad habit of doing what men want me to. I kissed him because he noticed me.
"I kissed him because he wanted to kiss me, and that doesn't happen very often. I've never been some boy's first prize, I'm the consolation gift, and I kissed him because no one else has wanted to kiss me in a very long time. It felt good to be wanted." She paused, deep in thought, her face etched with loneliness and it broke his heart to have missed it. Misread it. But he waited. She wasn't done.
"Always kind of had this problem when I was younger, I'd be so grateful for any attention that I'd let a boy do anything he wanted." He wasn't sure if he wanted to puke or smash someone's face. "No, that's not quite right, that makes it sound like I just laid there like a doll, that wasn't it at all. I was very much a willing participant in the moment…usually…" Her brow creased and her voice faltered, and his fingers clenched down on his knees so tight that his knuckles throbbed in protest. She swallowed it down and continued. "But I never understood why I never got flowers from any of them. Never got taken on real dates or, I don't know, wooed. Other girls did.
"Here I was, game for anything…hell, I was so desperate for attention that I would have fucked any man who kissed me — and I did — but the men I really wanted? The men that made me stutter and blush but who also seemed decent and kind, like they might treat me good and care if I lived or died? None of them ever did. None of them ever kissed me. They still don't." She trailed off, and he could see she was starting to shake. "Why did I kiss him? He said nice things to me, and despite everything I'm still that girl who thinks that fucking someone is the proper response to a compliment." Her voice broke. She took a deep breath and blinked rapidly, fighting back against the tide. "Huh. I guess I can feel shame after all."
That was it. He couldn't take any more of it, not from her. It was his fault, this whole thing was his fault. All he ever had to do was everything he wanted to do and they would have both been saved years of hurt and loneliness. His own insecurities and doubts were nothing compared to the toxic soup that swirled in her brain, feeding her lie after lie about who she was and what she was worth. He didn't know. He didn't see it. All the times he thought he saw her, he didn't see shit.
"Carol," he croaked, the lump in his throat was strangling him. She looked up, a little shocked to see him still sitting there, and he could see her trying to recall all the things that had just spilled out. "I'm saying this plain," he rasped, his voice steadying as his resolve did. "You ever kiss him or any other man ever again, no matter what they say to you or do for you, and I will shoot them. Maybe not a kill shot, but it won't be pretty neither."
That was anger building up in her and about to froth over the top. She might be sad, and she might be lonely, and she might have her self-esteem worn down to nothing by year's of abuse, but she was still a grown-ass woman who could make her own choices. He didn't move a muscle, just sat there facing her across the room, his chin raised up and his voice steeling itself the longer he spoke. "There I go again, not being clear. I mean to say that if you kiss him, or any other man…besides me."