The "present" portion of this scene isn't sitting just right with me and will likely be rewritten, but the flashbacks are the driving force behind it. These imagined moments from Carol's life are not soft, gentle or pretty. I leave it to your imaginations to fill in the graphic images.
Never Say I Told You So, by MissMishka
DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.
"I told you to stay in your room, now, didn't I?" her mother said without sympathy as she ushered the shaking young girl back to her bedroom. "Maybe this time you'll lock your door like I said…."
"I told you I not to fight it, baby," her first boyfriend said as he finally heaved his sweating weight from atop her still form. "The first time's supposed to be painful for girls…"
"I told you I don't want you talking to that man," Ed said, hand suddenly gripping her throat without warning. "He's been sniffing around you for years, wanting a piece of your crack, but that's my ring you just put on and I won't have my wife whoring with other men…"
"Told ya you were too damned dumb to do that work," Ed smirked from his recliner from around the lip of another can of beer as she set down the box of things she'd packed up from her desk. She gripped the cardboard tightly and bit her lip to keep from telling the man that her firing had had nothing to do with her intelligence. Her manager had let her go with obvious reluctance and regret, but with times getting as tight as they were the office just hadn't been able to keep on a secretary that needed so much time off for trips to the emergency room and often showed up with makeup caked on to cover a bruise mottled face.
Maybe her husband was right, maybe it was because she was too damned dumb that she'd lost that job. Too damned dumb to leave this man…
"Told you to get to bed and let me handle this," Ed said as she finally flew after him into Sophia's bedroom.
He'd already removed his belt to deliver the whipping he felt their daughter's 'backtalking' deserved, but that wasn't the worst of it. Her stomach clenched with the need to heave at the sight of his having undone the button at the top of his pants and she tightened her grip on the knife hidden behind her back that she had taken time to run for before giving chase.
"You know that teacher of hers is going to turn the law on you again if she sees another bruise on Sophia," Carol said, praying it would be enough to deflect his attention.
"And I told you, I don't care what that cunt thinks she can do, the law don't come between a man and his family!"
The fist that fractured her cheekbone was a welcomed move on his part as it gave her baby time to run and hide….
"I told you you'd come crawling back to me," Ed declared drunkenly as she thrust the front door open and raced into their small rancher.
"The guns. You've gotta get the guns!" she ran full speed down the short hallway to their bedroom, nearly falling as her blood soaked shoe skidded on the linoleum meant to look like the hard wood flooring she'd always asked for.
"What the hell you doing, woman?"
Thinking only of Sophia locked in the Jeep outside, she ignored the question and tore blindly through the items on the high shelf in their closet until her fingers found the metal box their sought. The wetness on her hands was too much for her to manage the childproof lock, so she whipped around to give the thing to the man behind her.
"The world's ending. It's go time," she said the stupid words he'd always used when he made them train for a moment like this-always thinking it'd be a race war or an "I-raw-key idjit" thinking he could wipe them all out with a bomb or biological agent.
Her utterance of the phrase did nothing to sober him into action, but the streak of blood left on her cheek as she wiped away sweat and tears-careful, by some instinct, not to get that blood near her eye-that blood did it. "Git that shit off you," he orders with look of disgust at the blood soaking the majority of her body and she didn't even want to think of the gore that might be stuck to some places.
As he goes off without further question to gather the supplies he'd hoarded, she tears into the bathroom for the quickest shower of her life then runs into the bedroom to gather the clothes she'd left behind when she finally left him the week before. Dressed in a simple shirt, capri pants and soft soled shoes, she ran to empty what had been left of Sophia's then she ran out to check on her baby.
For the first time since she'd married Ed and been brought out here twenty years before, Carol was glad for the isolation of this place because the Cherokee remained parked in the empty yard right outside the front door. Her little girl still in the passenger seat frantically looking around at every little thing to make sure someone she'd known just moments ago wasn't now trying to kill her.
The horror in town hadn't spread to here yet, but it was only a matter of time, she knew. While she also knew their chances of survival were better with Ed because he'd do his damnedest not to let anything happen to himself, she wasn't about to let him think of suggesting that they take to the storm cellar to wait this out. For them to survive this…for her to survive this without killing the bastard, they had to find others.
Sophia flew into her arms after she'd given the gentle tap tap rap rap on the window that she had said she would when she came back. Wishing she could just cling to her child forever and let that be enough to keep them both safe, she kissed the little blonde's forehead then set her down.
"Let's go help dad load everything," she orders softly, not because she cares if the work might be too much for the man, but because she knows the quicker it's done, the better. As they finally scrambled into the vehicle to leave, he finally took that moment to turn and ask her what the hell was going on.
"It's just like you said it would be…" was her reply.
"Now, Rick, I told you we should've been gone from here as soon as Carl was able," Shane was saying in a not so quiet whisper nearby.
Those words reached through the darkness enveloping her and her head slowly rose from staring at the grave Daryl was gently covering with one last shovel full of dirt.
"We would be safe and sound in Fort Benning now if you'd have just listened when I told you to give up on that search."
A stillness of worried caution went through the others as Carol slowly made her way over to the two men arguing at the edge of the gathering. Something in the way Rick froze to watch her approach must have alerted Shane, because the other man ceased talking and turned to face her as she came to a stop near the pair.
"Carol…" he began, having some sense to at least be embarrassed and seek to apologize for her overhearing his opinion on their previous searching for Sophia.
"Does it make you feel better?" she asks softly, doing a much better job than he of insuring her words would not be overheard. Even he, their intended recipient had to lean in to hear her questions. "Being able to say 'I told you so'?"
"It's not like that."
"Then what is it like, that you feel you can or should be throwing those words in anyone's face right now?" her challenge puts him back on his heels as he knows there's nothing he can say to that. He might snap back something with Rick, but he knew to mind his tongue with a woman, especially one who'd been through just a fraction of what she had that day.
"Maybe you wouldn't mind sharing this wealth of knowledge with the rest of us," her voice rises. "What sage advice do you have now? Or is it more than that?" he stumbles backward as she unexpectedly steps even closer to him. "Are you psychic? Did you see what happened to my little girl?"
"No, Carol, I…" his hands raise in a surrendering like gesture meant to placate her.
The slap happened before she even thought of hitting him. Though her palm stung like hell, the second blow was harder and premeditated.
"No, you didn't know! Just like everyone who ever says that, you guessed at an outcome and managed to be right! It doesn't mean anything," she was all the scarier to the large man for the fact that she wasn't screaming or crying with these words and he continued to try and escape her wrath. "There was just as much chance that we could have found her. There was just as much chance that the CDC would have had something to help," her slap preceding the next snarled sentence was the hardest yet and she followed it with an immediate backhand to his left cheek as she drew her hand back. "And there is just as much of a chance that your precious Fort Benning will be nothing but shit, too."
No one made a move to help Shane, but she could tell they had begun to draw nearer to her, waiting for this storm of unexpected fury to run its course so they could catch her again when she fell apart.
"I'll tell you so, Shane," she knew she was prodding a tiger now and he was ready to strike after that bitchslap that had scraped her knuckles on his teeth. "What you did here today is gonna haunt you for what may be left of your life. And well it should. There was no call for what you've done. Hershel's right to want you gone. No one here needs or wants your 'protection' any more."
Sensing a truth to that that no one else had been willing to speak and Shane was far from willing to accept, the man stopped trying to get away from her and huffed up to lash back. The blow likely to come from his clenching fist just might have the force to break her neck and part of her had maybe sought that with this prodding. She made no move to escape the blow or even brace for it.
It never came though.
She would have laughed at Shane's shocked expression when the flat of the shovel's blade hit him atop the head, but she was too surprised herself to do anything. It was little more than a tap, but the way Daryl's hands twisted on the handle of the tool he still held told them all he'd love to do more should there be a retaliation.
"You ever even think of touchin' her and next time I'll take your head clean off."
The threat was spoken with a cold quiet that froze the deputy for a moment before his head whipped around to see if any of his friends were going to speak up against the vow. When the ranks began to close around the grieving mother and her unexpected guardian, Shane spat out a curse and stomped away.
"Guess I'd best not ever say 'I told you so,'" Daryl said with his wry humor to break the tension of the moment.