AN: This prompt wanted Carol and Daryl meeting as exes who hadn't spoken in years. I took some liberties here. They don't actually "meet" in this story. I just changed it up a little. I hope it's not a big deal to the person who requested it.
Since some people need the warning, I'm offering it here. Characters can be with other people in this little "scene".
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl walked into the restaurant and took it in a sweeping glance. It had changed a good bit since the last time he'd been there. One section that he remembered having only been tables that were a small step above folding card tables was now redone entirely to have booths with heavy wooden tables and individual, low-hanging lamps that hovered above each table. The booths in the other part, as well, had been redone, though they'd always been booths.
Gone these days was the smoky smell of the section that he'd sat in—the one with the tables—smoking cigarette after cigarette to keep himself occupied while he sat and spent his time there.
He'd eaten here a lot. But then, everyone ate here a good deal. When there was a good place to eat in a town, it seldom went without business.
The place was trying to make itself upscale, though. At least, it was trying to be a lot more upscale than it had once been. Now there was a sign suggesting that he wait to be seated. Before? It had just been a sit as you will kind of location.
"How many?" An overly perky voice coming from the body of a blonde teenager asked him. She had appeared like a Jack in the Box and Daryl was startled by her sudden appearance. He was, also, immediately annoyed by how chipper she was.
"One," he said.
"Anyone else coming?" She asked, fingering some menus.
"Just me," he said. "Anybody else comes, I knowed nothing about it."
There was nobody else to come. He'd only come back to this small town to deal with a few issues that needed to be taken care of—things that had been dormant for years and now needed to be squared away—with the business that he'd left behind. He'd sold the thing to a buddy of his when he'd moved, but they hadn't gone about things quite as legally as they should have. What needed to be cleaned up wasn't major, but it was going to require at least a couple of days spent in a motel room and more than one conversation with the lawyer who would be fixing their little mess.
The overly-perky blonde showed him to one of the booths with the low-hanging lights and Daryl slid in and accepted the menu. It, too, was entirely different than he recalled. The prices, too, had changed. You couldn't get what you used to for a buck. That much was clear.
Daryl made his selection by the time that the blonde returned with his drink order and he gave her his request for food. When she walked off, he sipped the tea that she'd brought him and looked around.
To be gone from a place eight years was to be gone a while. It was more than enough time for buildings to go up and buildings to go down. Roads were changed. Businesses had closed.
Yet, at the root of it all? It was still the same small town. It was still the same, sleepy ass little town that it had always been.
He'd already seen at least five different people that he knew. Like caricatures of their old selves, they'd appeared in front of him—at the store, on the sidewalk outside the hotel, down at the office building. They remembered him, but they probably remembered him differently. He remembered them, but his memory told them that they should be a good deal younger.
Eight years was a good amount of time for the weeds to grow right on up in the cracks—figuratively and literally.
Glancing around the restaurant, too, Daryl was seeing familiar faces. In nearly every booth, seated at almost all the tables, he saw someone he recognized some way. Some of them were with other vaguely familiar faces, but some were with new people—fresh blood to the area. He could recall some names in their entirety. Others he could remember a last name or a first. He could remember some relation they had to someone else.
And then his eyes settled. His stomach did a strange sort of lurch.
Eight years since he'd seen her and she looked, to him, like she'd frozen in time. At least, she almost looked like she'd frozen in time.
Her hair was a little longer than it once had been. Not too much longer, of course. She wouldn't have liked that. She fought him over letting it get any length to it at all. Once she'd sheared it off, almost to the scalp, and it had come back mostly grey? She didn't want to do much to it—color or lengthwise—after that.
She'd cut it off with Ed. She'd done it because he bitched so damn much about her vanity. Of all the things Daryl might be able to hold against her, vanity wasn't really one of them.
It had been eight years since Daryl had seen her. Eight years since he'd heard from her too. That was as much his fault as it was hers. After everything? He'd thought a clean break was best. That's what he'd said.
What he'd really meant was that a clean break was all that there could be for him. Even though they'd agreed that they weren't working out—things weren't happening the way they both wanted them to happen? Daryl had still loved her. He'd loved other women, too, in his life, but there was something about her. He loved her, maybe, just a little differently than he loved them.
Or maybe it was because it was her that had said they were done. Maybe that's why she'd stuck with him like she had. Maybe that's why she'd gotten under his skin. She'd been the one to tell him that they were done. Before and since, he'd been the one to do the walking away.
Daryl shifted around and watched her as she sat in the booth, alone, and fumbled with the salt and pepper shakers to keep her hands busy. She was waiting on food. She had a drink and nothing else on her table. If he got up right now? If he went over there? He could sit and he could eat with her. He could entertain her in place of the glass shakers. But if he was going to do it? He should do it soon.
That's what she'd scolded him for when she'd broken things off. It was the main reason, according to her, that things weren't going to work out between them.
He wasn't quick to make a move. He wasn't quick to make any move at all. She wanted more from him. She wanted commitment. She wanted marriage. She wanted him to be a father to her daughter. She wanted another child before the battery on her clock ran down and she was out of time.
She knew the life she wanted, and he was too slow for that life.
When he'd moved in with her about four months after they started dating? He'd thought they'd reached a pretty good place. They'd reached the perfect place for him, at least. They were living together and he was something of a father figure to her daughter, Sophia. They shared a home and they shared their bills. They shared a bed.
Apparently, though, they didn't share everything. Because he didn't realize how dissatisfied she really was until she was done.
They lived together for a while before she'd mentioned marriage. Daryl didn't see any need in it, really. They were living together and he hadn't been with anyone else. As far as he knew, neither had she. But he didn't know that they really needed to be married.
He was terrified of that commitment. He didn't like the idea of it. It seemed like the marriage would make the whole arrangement go sour.
After she'd told him to leave? After she was done with him and he'd left town? More than once he'd thought he wouldn't have minded so badly saying forever without so much as blinking.
She'd mentioned, too, another kid. She wanted one more. She almost seemed to need it. One more kid. That meant, though, since Sophia had been Ed's kid that this kid was meant to come from Daryl. And that made it a whole different ball game. Daryl wasn't sure he was the kind of material to be a father. He wasn't sure that he wanted that. Sophia was fine and all. She was a good kid. But at the end of the day? She wasn't his kid. She wasn't his responsibility.
He wasn't sure he wanted that responsibility.
And that had been something that Carol hadn't liked hearing. It had been another of the things that she'd told him when she declared that it just wasn't going to work. It wasn't something she was feeling flexible on.
Since he'd left? Daryl had seen more than one old man with his kids and thought to himself that it could've been him. It could've been him holding his brand new baby and it could've been him down on the coast with the wobbly little girl chasing waves. It could've been him—and he wasn't so sure that he'd have minded it.
Because it would've been her too.
If he was going to eat with her? Tonight? He had to make a decision. He had to get out of this booth, take his drink in his hand, and gather up his courage. He had to make a decision and he had to make it fast. Then he had to go over there, apology on his lips, and he had to ask her if he could sit down.
Then? He could tell her how much he'd come to regret in eight years. He could ask her to share this meal with him. And then he could ask her to share a little more with him.
Eight years was a long time, and probably far past the time for some of her dreams, but at least they wouldn't be alone anymore.
He'd loved her eight years ago, and he hadn't really stopped. Maybe she'd feel the same.
All he had to do was make a decision.
But before Daryl could make the decision, much like things had happened eight years ago, the decision was made for him.
A large man came walking into the restaurant, a kid that was at least six walking by his side and a little of three or so riding on his hip and he walked straight to the table that Carol was sitting at. He didn't hesitate even a moment.
And she smiled at him and reached her arms out so he passed her the toddler before he leaned and pecked her cheek and then took a place sitting across from her.
Daryl couldn't hear what they were talking about—the distance was too great—but he didn't have to hear it. They were talking, probably, about his day at work. They were talking about her day at work. They were talking about where Sophia was—what she was doing. They were talking about what she'd become in all these years—probably off to college by now. They were talking about the two little ones—no doubt their "late in life" children—and some kind of kid antics that had taken place during the day.
And they were smiling at each other and laughing.
Daryl had treasured that smile when Carol offered it to him. It wasn't his any longer. It would never be his again. She was wearing a ring. It caught the light from the low-hanging lamp. She belonged to him now—whoever he was—and the redheaded children with her were the ones that Daryl was too afraid to give her.
Daryl had taken too long—at least eight years too long—but him? The lucky man in the booth with Carol? He had been right on time and, from the looks of it, had known how much time was just enough.