AN: So the Tumblr prompt sent to me was "I didn't drive all this way to say 'hey'".
This is just a little story for fun.
There's mention of each of them having had past relationships. They're literally just mentioned. But I know some people like to be warned about that, so there's your warning.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Thirty years.
For thirty years she was his best friend, even when they didn't talk anymore because the man she married tried to cut her off from the rest of the world. Daryl didn't have that many friends, and most of the ones he thought he had turned out to be assholes anyway. The old saying went that nobody was so rich as to have the ability to throw away a friend, and Daryl believed in that.
He couldn't have thrown her away anyway.
He loved her too much.
He loved her even when she married Ed Peletier because Ed had the balls to go after her and to tell her the things she needed to hear—things that he didn't mean, things that Daryl did mean, and things that Daryl never could bring himself to say.
He loved her even when he'd gone and married Patricia because he figured that he'd never really love anyone as much as he loved her so he might as well settle for someone he could tolerate—someone who never really loved him all that much either.
They'd both made mistakes. Mistakes were easy to make and, sometimes, they were difficult to undo.
For thirty years, Daryl had considered her his best friend even when he didn't speak to her and the feelings had come flooding back the day that he'd gotten that first phone call from her after such a long silence.
He still remembered the way her voice trembled on the line. He remembered how scared she was that he wouldn't remember who she was. She didn't even realize that he could never forget her. He could forget a lot of things, but he could never forget her.
Years of silence lay between them. Years of growing in different directions and building different lives. But they were still the same people somewhere deep down inside.
She was still his best friend and he still loved her.
So when she'd told him about her divorce, he'd been happy to hear that she'd escaped the asshole—even though it pained him to hear the details of all that she'd suffered under the man's hand. When he told her about his divorce, she was happy to hear that he was feeling relieved and lighter—and that he didn't take it to heart when things that were never meant to last finally fell apart.
Painful confessions of poorly spent years out of the way, the conversations came easier.
She was taking a cooking class and over the speaker phone she'd tell Daryl how to make the food that she prepared while she laughed at the sounds of him messing most of it up on his end. Daryl would talk her through changing her oil or fixing the leak in the bathroom sink, and he'd worry when she described to him the mostly minor injuries she sustained when he didn't explain well exactly what she needed to do when he was talking her through some renovations in her home.
Thirty years of friendship lay between them and none of it was lost for good. It was all there, despite the silence that many of those years had held.
They found it again easily, if it had really been lost at all.
And Daryl found the love again that had never really burned out in his heart for the woman who had been his first love and, if he were being brutally honest, his only one.
Almost two hundred miles lay between them now, though. Daryl had stayed in the sleepy town where they'd grown up together, but the man who had married her had taken her away from there to keep her for himself. It was easier to keep her, after all, if he didn't have to deal with the prying eyes of those who had really loved her.
Daryl had sent her a birthday gift, a Christmas gift, and an anniversary-of-her-divorce gift to the little house she lived in now.
But the phone made the distance easier. It made it almost like it didn't exist at all. Daryl could hear her voice and he could imagine that she was right there. He could read her messages and carry her with him wherever he went.
With time, the conversations took a bit of a turn.
A few too many glasses of wine and Carol told him she loved him. She told him she'd always loved him. A few too many beers had on his end to keep up with her on a Friday night and he confessed that he'd always meant to tell her everything that Ed had told her way back then and then some. He loved her. He'd always loved her. He always would.
And he meant it. He meant every single word of it even though he cursed himself for the fact that it had taken thirty years and a half a dozen drinks to get it out of him.
But when she'd texted him the next day, he'd openly admitted that he wasn't sorry for his admission and he didn't want to take a single word of it back.
That night, the conversation had taken a different turn.
"I wish you were here," Carol said. She was texting. Sometimes she did that when she wasn't quite brave enough to say the things that she wanted to say. Daryl did it too. It was easier, sometimes, to say things that were hard to say with a screen between them.
"What would we do if I was there?" Daryl asked.
"Talk?" Carol asked.
"We're talking now," Daryl said.
"Really talk," Carol said. "I'm sure we'd find something to do. I'd make you dinner."
"I already ate," Daryl said.
"What would you want to do?" Carol asked.
Daryl stared at the phone. He typed one word and then another. He erased all of them and typed them again to erase them once more. He continued the dance with himself for several minutes, staring at his phone screen. Two steps forward and four backward, but his pounding heart wouldn't let his fingers hit send.
"Are you OK?" Carol asked.
"Fine," Daryl said quickly. "I was getting something out the oven."
He winced at his own lie. He couldn't send what he wanted to send, but that had practically poured out of his fingertip.
"You already ate?" Carol responded.
"Dessert," Daryl lied again. He had to say something because he had to save himself from himself. He swallowed and returned to what he'd been trying to type earlier. "If I was there, I think I'd like to kiss you. I never kissed you before."
"There was that one time," Carol said.
"Doesn't count," Daryl responded. "You didn't mean it."
"You decided I didn't mean it," Carol responded.
Daryl's pulse picked up.
"You didn't say no," Daryl said.
"Back then?" Carol asked.
"Now," Daryl said.
"If you were here?" Carol asked.
"Yes," Daryl responded.
"I'd let you kiss me," Carol said.
The bubbles danced around for far longer than Daryl thought they would after her first words came through. He watched them, trying to decide if it was his turn to speak or if she wasn't done. If she had something else to say, it might very well change what he decided to send. If she was waiting on him, though, then she might misinterpret his silence. Finally, Daryl decided to type something back to her dancing bubbles.
"I'd like to kiss you," Daryl said.
"Is that all?" Carol asked.
Daryl shifted around on his couch. His breathing picked up just reading the message. He read it twice to make sure that he was reading the words correctly and that he could still understand English. His heart thundered in his chest.
"No," Daryl said.
"What else would you want to do?" Carol asked.
"Are we still talking about dinner and conversation?" Daryl asked.
"I thought we were talking about kissing," Carol said. "Unless you weren't."
"I was," Daryl said.
"Is that all?" Carol asked.
"No," Daryl responded back. "No. No."
"What else?" Carol asked.
"What would you want to do?" Daryl asked.
"It's been a long time," Carol said.
"Years for me," Daryl responded.
"I'm not that creative," Carol responded.
"I don't know if I like creative," Daryl responded. His mouth was dry. He put his phone down on the couch because he realized he was holding it so tightly that it might actually break in his hand. It might just shatter.
"You might not like what I would want," Carol said. "You might not want it."
"Try me," Daryl said.
Holy shit. He was going to explode. His whole brain was going to explode and take his body with him. He felt more like the sixteen year old boy that he'd been, in that moment, than the forty-eight year old man that he was.
"I'm embarrassed to type it," Carol said. "You know messages stay around forever. The government or something could probably read this."
Daryl laughed to himself. Sweet Carol. His Carol. He loved everything about her, even her paranoia.
"They've got better things to do," Daryl said. Carol didn't respond back quickly. She didn't respond back at all. Daryl watched her bubbles dance and stop and dance again for a few minutes and then finally he sent through another message. "Call then," Daryl said. "You can say it if you can't type it."
"I can't say it over the phone," Carol said.
"You can," Daryl assured her.
"I can't," Carol said. "And then what? I'd be here touching myself while talking to you on the phone? You would think I was pathetic."
Holy shit. No he wouldn't. He wouldn't think she was pathetic because he was fighting every urge inside himself to keep from doing the very same thing and she hadn't even said anything to him at all.
"No," Daryl said. "Not pathetic. You're never pathetic. What do you want?"
"Just you," Carol said.
Daryl swallowed.
"You mean that?" He asked.
"Of course," Carol said.
"Me how?" Daryl asked.
"All of you," Carol said.
"Say it," Daryl said. "Tell me what you want."
"You. All of you," Carol said.
"What else?" Daryl asked. "What exactly?"
"I can't," Carol said. "I'm too embarrassed typing it. I start and I stop. I delete it all. I can't."
"Call," Daryl said.
"I can't," Carol said. "Forget it. I'm sorry. It was crazy. Maybe I'm crazy. I'm sorry. I just can't."
Daryl stood up. He glanced at the microwave. It was seven. It was late, but it wasn't that late. Normally Daryl would think that taking on a two and a half hour drive at that time of the night was madness, but at the moment he was almost certain he could run the same distance in the same amount of time.
Without wasting any more time, Daryl picked up his phone.
"Hold on," was all he bothered to send through to Carol.
He grabbed his coat, stepped back into the shoes he'd kicked off, and found his truck keys. He did a quick run through of the house to make sure it wouldn't burn to the ground and he darted out the door. His hands were shaking when he locked the door and they hadn't stopped by the time that he'd shoved the key in the ignition.
The tank was full. It would get him there and he'd worry about the gas for the trip back when it was time to worry about such things.
Daryl's heart didn't stop pounding even after he hit the highway. The roads were open. Most people were home and not out driving. There wasn't much traffic and Daryl dropped his foot on the gas, only just staying below what he knew the cops would ignore.
He might've believed that the old Ford was flying for a little while, and he drummed his hands nervously on the steering wheel as he drove to try to distract his brain from screaming at him to turn around.
He'd wasted too much time in his life turning around. He'd wasted too much time in his life thinking of words just to never speak them. He'd wasted too much time typing messages to delete them and never send them. He'd wasted too much time not going through with the things he wanted to do.
He was done wasting time. Instead, he was focusing on making time.
And he made good time. He made excellent time.
And even though his knees absolutely felt like they were made of poorly set Jell-O when he got out of the truck and brought only his keys and phone with him, he forced them to carry him up the little walkway to the house that he knew had to be hers. It was her address. The mailbox said "McAlister," and Daryl recognized the little snowman on the mailbox because it had belonged to her parents—he'd seen it before, though that had been a good many years ago.
Daryl stood in the walkway and opened his phone. There was a strand of questions from Carol about where he was and if she'd offended him. There was a string of apologies for saying something that she thought was crazy. Daryl laughed to himself.
Maybe she hadn't seen crazy just yet.
He could practically hear his heart pounding. It almost echoed in the silence of the cold night air.
"Open your door," Daryl said.
He put his phone in his pocket, walked the rest of the way to the front door, and stood there a moment before he knocked around the Christmas wreath that hung there.
When Carol opened the door, Daryl took a moment to adjust to the changes that the years had made to her face. She'd hadn't wanted to send pictures, but Daryl couldn't understand why. She was every bit as beautiful as she'd been when she was sixteen. In Daryl's opinion, she might even be more beautiful. A little age and maturity looked good on her. He wasn't sure, though, that the same could be said about him. He could only hope that she wasn't disappointed.
Daryl smiled at her. And as soon as the shock wore off of her features, she smiled at him. She didn't look too disappointed, if she was disappointed at all.
"Maybe I'm crazy too," Daryl offered.
Carol's smile broadened. She leaned against her doorframe.
"Hey," she said with the same familiarity she'd used every time she'd ever greeted him before.
"I didn't drive all this way just to say 'hey'," Daryl told her. "You free to talk now? More comfortable this way?"
Carol laughed to herself.
"It's more comfortable," Carol said. "But—maybe there's not that much need for talking. Come inside? We can talk there."
Daryl smirked at her.
"What are—we gonna talk about?" He asked.
Carol raised her eyebrows at him and then she somewhat shrugged her shoulders.
"Whatever comes up?" She asked. She smiled when Daryl responded simply by laughing and shaking his head at her joke. "We'll think of something. I think—if we try hard enough? Something will come up."
She stepped out of the way, inviting Daryl inside.
"Oh, I promise," Daryl said, stepping in the door behind her. "Somethin' will come up. In fact? It already has."