AN: This is just a little post-season story that was inspired by therealsonia's tumblr prompt of autumn.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Autumn had always been Carol's favorite time of year. It brought cool respite from the suffocating heat of summer. The world cooled down. People seemed to cool down. With the cooling, there came a natural slowing. The world prepared to go to sleep for the winter—each to hibernate in their own way. The sudden bursts of chilly air that rode in on the breezes and pierced through the lingering heat that summer left behind sent random chills through a body and urged the wrapping up in blankets and sweaters that felt like wearing gentle hugs.
The chill also brought a change in feeling toward other people. The sticky hot summer urged for separation and distance. Touch only made the heat worse. Autumn was a time for pulling closer, though. It was a time for craving that touch and the nearness of others. It was a time for holding hands and sharing warmth in preparation for the cold to come.
Autumn smelled different. The scent of everything seemed to travel for miles on the cool, dry breezes. It smelled like fire and smoke—like meaningful, wanted, purposeful, fire and smoke. It smelled like tea and coffee and cider brewed, for the first time in some time, to warm a body from the inside out. It smelled like stews and baking and heavy meals meant to prepare the body to remain warm and settled in the coming winter. It seemed to Carol that the smell of autumn could even overcome the smell of Walkers that sometimes hung a little too heavy in the air.
Autumn had always been Carol's favorite time of year—it was the time of year when she most wanted to get close to someone. It was only natural, then, that she realized she'd never told Ed that it was her favorite time of year. She'd never let him know that she relished the little moments of autumn and all the glories that the season brought with it because, for the most part, there weren't many opportunities when she wanted to get close to him.
But now? There was someone that she wanted to get close to. And she'd told him, like a teenage girl blurting out far more than she ever intended to say at a speed which surprised her, and probably him as well, everything that had come to her mind one night. Among those pieces of information that she couldn't believe she'd chosen to share with him, she'd told him that autumn was her favorite time of year.
And he told her that he'd never thought about it, because he was equally fond of most times of year and equally bothered by them too, that he supposed that autumn was a fine time of year. He liked it more, he'd said the next day over breakfast, because of the way that she'd painted it.
He'd told her that, maybe, she could make autumn his favorite time of year as well. And, maybe, he could make the other seasons equally as pleasurable for her.
So she wrapped herself in the comfort of the clashing cool of the room and the warmth of the fireplace and she'd set to work at the gas stove to bring him all the flavors of autumn that she wanted him to experience. There would be stew for dinner—slow cooked from meat that he'd hunted for them and vegetables that would go bad if she didn't use them soon or can them like the others that she'd put away for winter. There would be apple cider that she'd made from the apples that were still growing on the trees not far from the little house. She'd boiled it that morning, strained it, and she kept it simmering on a back eye of the stove. And there would be cookies. The smell of them drifted toward her from the place where she left them cooling.
All the best pieces of autumn that she had to offer him, she would offer him, while he tackled the worst pieces of autumn outside.
When Carol heard him call her name, she was snatched out of the dull and dreamlike state in which she'd spent the morning. She grabbed her knife, unsure of what she'd find when she darted out the door, and she ran out to see what was wrong. She ran down the porch steps and around the side of the house, keeping an ear out for Walkers that, so far, hadn't made it through the fence surrounding their little home. She prepared herself for any type of trouble that she might stumble into.
So, of course, she stopped abruptly and confused to find that there appeared to be no danger. To the contrary. In the back of the little house, Daryl stood beside a pile of leaves that was half as tall as he was, rake in hand, and smiled at Carol.
"What's wrong?" Carol asked.
"Who said there was somethin' wrong?" Daryl asked.
"You were calling me," Carol said.
"That means there's gotta be somethin' wrong?" Daryl asked.
Carol realized that, honestly, it didn't mean that something had to be wrong. Her life, however, had seemed to train her to believe that any time someone wanted her attention, it must naturally mean that there was a problem—and she was either responsible for it, she must fix it, or both.
"You raked all this?" Carol asked. "This morning?"
"You can see I got more to go," Daryl said. "But I figured I'd burn these first. Don't want the fire to get too high and get away. Kinda windy out here."
At his suggestion, Carol shivered against the cold of the wind that she seemed to feel only in her mind.
"You need me to help you burn them?" Carol asked.
"Would appreciate a second set of eyes," Daryl said. "Make sure it don't jump. You got somethin' goin' on you gotta take care of first?"
Carol shook her head.
"Everything's fine in the kitchen," she said. "Low heat. It won't burn."
"Come here," Daryl said, waving her toward him.
Carol walked toward him and he outstretched the hand that wasn't holding the rake. She walked into him and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her against him. His body was warm against the phantom chill that had sent a shiver up Carol's spine. She closed her eyes and indulged a moment in rubbing her face against him. He curled into her a little more, enjoying the sensation probably more than he would admit.
It hadn't been three months since it had happened. They were calling it the Great War, but really it had been a war like any other. People had died. A lot of people had died. They'd made the ultimate sacrifice to rid the world of some people who really didn't need to be in it. Negan was gone. The Saviors were gone. Those who had lived had a choice—they could move on or they could join with the other communities – Alexandria, the Hilltop, the Kingdom. They all stood. They were damaged, but they weren't broken. They would rebuild. They would rest for the winter and they would rebuild.
It hadn't been three months since Daryl had returned to Carol's little house—a house they considered an "outlier" to the Kingdom, but part of it nonetheless. It hadn't been three months since Daryl had asked to stay and Carol had discovered that her "alone" strangely had room enough for him.
But they had been the best three months that Carol could recall.
Under her wish for solitude, people had invaded her space frequently. Under their collective wish for solitude, it happened far less often. Jerry still came, once a week at least, with food from the Kingdom. Rick still came, once in a while, with news from Alexandria. But, most of the time, there was no one else there. It was just the two of them in the little house.
Slowly, Carol could feel the long hoped for peace entering her soul.
She sighed and broke the hug that she didn't want to break. There would be others. There would be so many others. Once Daryl had discovered how much he enjoyed them and how easily they came at his request, it seemed he couldn't quite get enough of them—and Carol wasn't complaining.
"Let's burn these," Carol said. "I think you're going to like dinner tonight."
"I think I like dinner every night," Daryl teased. "But I didn't mean burn 'em right away."
"What are you going to do?" Carol asked. "Piled up like this we'll get snakes if we leave them."
"Didn't mean leave 'em neither," Daryl said.
A look came across his face that Carol knew well. A glimmer of something devilish showed on his features. Carol smiled in response to it even as she questioned what he might be thinking. She didn't have to wait long, though, to find out what was on his mind. In a swift movement, Daryl moved his hand and, his palm against her chest, shoved her backwards. The fall confused her senses and terrified her for a second, but the soft landing in the pile of leaves that swallowed her up relieved all of her stirred up concerns and she laughed.
She heard herself laugh—loud and clear—like she was somehow outside of herself. The laughter still felt foreign to her, even though Daryl had a way of making it happen more and more these days.
"Asshole!" Carol declared. "You raked them all up for that?"
Daryl laughed too and dropped the rake he was holding.
"Not just for that," he said. "This too."
He threw himself into the leaves, then, right next to Carol. He flicked some of them at her like they were water and they showered down over her. She rolled in the pile and rolled on top of him, pinning him down into the half-destroyed mountain that he'd made himself.
He smiled at her, all the way to his eyes.
"That was always my favorite part of autumn," Daryl said.
Carol leaned down and kissed him. He hadn't liked the kisses at first. She'd thought it was her—that maybe he'd never like kissing her—and then he'd told her the truth. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't think he was good at kissing her. He worried that he wouldn't meet her expectations. But a little pretending that everything was perfect, and a little practice making it that way, and Daryl exceeded Carol's expectations in almost every way.
"It's not a bad part of autumn," Carol said, moving her body against his. "That's for sure."
"Except we gonna get chiggers if we roll around out here too much," Daryl said. "I just figured—before we burned them? Might as well get good use outta the pile."
"But now you have to rake them back up again," Carol said, getting off of Daryl as he steered her off of him. He got to his feet and offered her a hand. He pulled her to her feet and she picked a few leaves off of him while he pulled them free from her hair.
"Not as much," Daryl said. "Still worth it."
Carol offered him another kiss and Daryl took it, missing her face so that his lips landed on the corner of her mouth. She smiled at him and dusted off the last of the leaves that she could find on his body.
"You get them raked up," Carol said. "And—I'll go check on dinner. Then I'll be back out to help you burn them."
He nodded his acceptance of the plan and Carol returned to the kitchen. She moved the stew to a lower flame on a back eye and gathered together the cookies that she'd made in a bowl. Sealing the lid on the bowl, she rested it under her arm and picked up two mugs she prepared of the warm cider. Carefully, she navigated her way back to where Daryl was working and found that he'd already lit the pile of leaves. The tiniest of flames flickered in the pile and sent up more smoke than was absolutely necessary for its work.
Seeing her carrying so much, Daryl took the mugs from her and gestured to her to sit. She took her place on the ground, some distance from the fire, and he offered her the mugs again before he sat beside her. As soon as he was settled, Carol returned his mug to him and opened the cookies so that he could eat them.
"Dessert before dinner?" Daryl teased.
"Special occasion," Carol responded. Nearly every day, she'd found, was a special occasion if she wanted it to be.
Daryl complimented her on the cookies and the cider. The little flame gobbled up leaves and grew in the pile that was a short distance away from them. They watched it burn, keeping their eyes on the burning leaves as they drifted up, still aflame, and burned out before they could make it too far in the gentle breeze of the late afternoon. As they settled in, Daryl wrapped an arm around Carol's shoulder and she leaned into him, enjoying the warmth of his body and the closeness that the season inspired.
Carol watched the flames slowly consume the pile of leaves that they'd rolled in only a short time before. The leaves burned quickly and the pile shrank dramatically. The wind wasn't strong enough to carry the flames too far and it wasn't dry enough for the flames to run across the ground just yet and try to consume everything in their path.
Carol used to think that she and Daryl were like those leaves. They would burn hot for a moment in the world, but then the world would consume them. It would burn them away. They would, like the pile of leaves that had been half as tall as Daryl, be there one moment and be gone the next—reduced to nothing more than a small pile of black and gray ashes that would be washed away by rain or blown away by the breeze. There would be nothing left of them.
But Daryl had been right. They were still there, not at all like the leaves.
Things had changed for them, and they would likely change again. That's what Daryl had told her. That's what he was teaching her, and Carol was starting to feel it, down deep inside of her. The change might come, but it didn't have to always be everything horrible that they could imagine. It was change, after all, that had brought them to where they were now. And just as summer had fallen to autumn, so autumn would fall to winter—and winter would bring, with it, all the things there were to love about winter.
Daryl tightened his hold on Carol's shoulders when she leaned further into him. He hummed at her and said something—an observation about the fire—and Carol hummed at him in response.
For now, Carol didn't fear the change. She didn't fear the winter. She was simply enjoying what was. Autumn, after all, had always been her favorite time of year. And this autumn, so far, had been the best that Carol could recall.