AN: This was requested by someone on Tumblr a while back. I'm sorry I'm just getting around to it. It's just a fluffy little Caryl birthday fic.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"There you are," Carol said. Daryl nearly dropped his cigarette out of surprise. He'd been sure that nobody would even think to come looking for him behind the side wall of the prison—and mostly that was because nobody ever did when he slipped away—but Carol could show up at the damnedest places and with no warning at all. He recovered quickly, hopefully without her even noticing his slight fumble, and replaced the cigarette between his lips.
"What you lookin' for me for?" He asked. Her expression was one of surprise and maybe disappointment. She'd been wearing a satisfied smile over finding his hiding place, but now it had dropped. He cleared his throat, disappointed in himself for being harsh, and spoke again with a slightly softer tone to his voice. "You need somethin'?"
"Just to know when your birthday is," Carol said. "You were the only one that never answered me before."
Daryl stared at her. She'd asked everyone the same question. She'd asked him twice already. Each time he'd simply changed the subject or gone on to do something else, but now she had him cornered—and she'd asked at least three times.
"What the hell you wanna know for?" Daryl asked. "Why's it so damn important?"
She shrugged gently.
"It's your birthday," Carol said. "I want to know."
He narrowed his eyes at her. He knew why she wanted to know. Everyone knew why she wanted to know. No matter what their lives had become these days, Carol was still focused on making something good come out of everything. She could find a silver thread in a box full of horse shit. A year, at the very least, living in a prison and she made a calendar for herself so she could keep up with everyone's birthday. There wasn't much to do, and there wasn't much to give—after all they got by on the bare necessities—but she still tried to do something.
Mostly her birthday "celebrations" consisted of slipping the birthday boy or girl an extra helping of food—a helping that Daryl had noticed, more often than not, simply came from Carol denying herself the normal rations for the day—but sometimes it was slipping them something that she'd found in a box from a run. Some trinket or another would be offered to them, wrapped in a page from a magazine if nothing else was handy, and then Carol would treat them like they were royalty for at least an hour or two.
Daryl thought the whole practice was dumb. It cost Carol more than it cost anyone else, and it wasn't like it did a whole world of good for the person who was "celebrating". Most of them even forgot to give Carol more than a quick "thanks" they tossed out as they gobbled their food.
But, for some reason, it made Carol feel better about everything.
Daryl sighed.
"April," Daryl said. "Twenty eighth."
Carol smiled at him. The satisfied expression she'd worn over finding his hiding place returned entirely. She nodded her head at him gently.
"Thanks," she said.
He nodded his head at her and finished the cigarette. She started to walk off, leaving him at peace in his hiding spot, but he called her back with a quick utterance of her name.
"What is it?" Carol asked.
"What about you?" Daryl asked. She raised her eyebrows at him. "When's your birthday?" Daryl asked.
Carol's expression changed entirely again and she shook her head.
"I don't have one," she said.
Daryl snorted.
"Well you come from somewhere," Daryl said. "Gonna tell me your ass just—fell to Earth or something? Just appeared?"
Carol's lips curled slightly and she shrugged.
"Maybe I did," she said. "It doesn't matter. My birthday's just another day..."
"They all are," Daryl said. "Ain't but three hundred and sixty five days a year. That includes birthdays. Which one is yours? You're so damn keen on knowing mine."
Carol huffed at him. She shrugged.
"Don't remember," she said, smirking slightly.
"Don't fuck with me," Daryl said, hiding his own amusement. "When the hell is it? I told you mine..."
"And I'm eternally grateful," Carol responded.
Daryl thought that, if he'd had anything to pitch in her direction, he might have thrown something at her then. He stood up, straightening his stance, and shook his head at her in frustration. Her expression softened and she shrugged again.
"September," Carol said. "Twenty seventh—we almost had something in common."
Daryl swallowed. They had a lot more in common than a date on a calendar. He wasn't going to point that out to her, though. He hummed.
"Thanks," he said, responding to her exactly the same way that she'd responded to him. She nodded and started to walk off again. He called her back once more and she stopped again, this time tipping her head to the side, maybe with a little frustration at being converted into a human yo-yo, to wait for him to ask her what it was he wanted to ask.
"What—uh—what day is it now?" Daryl asked. "Since you the one that's figured that out."
Carol hummed.
"It's not an exact science," she admitted. "But—it's June. The sixteenth. If I'm right. I wish you'd have answered me earlier about yours—I had a feeling about when it was."
"You're as right as anyone else," Daryl said. He ignored her comment about his birthday. "June—sixteenth."
She hummed and nodded. She didn't move, though, probably for fear that he'd just call her back as soon as she started to make some progress. To excuse her, without having to say the words, Daryl stretched his back and started to walk off. She followed after him. And, as soon as they were clear of the prison wall, she turned and headed off to do whatever it was that she was going to do with her day.
It was June sixteenth, if Carol was right. And there was no one to argue that because she was the only one who even attempted to keep track of time. Daryl memorized the date, repeating it over in his mind, so that he could keep his own sort of calendar.
After all, it was always handy to know what day it might be.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Carol had almost perfected sleep-walking. But not the kind that everyone else knew about—the kind that happened after you were asleep and rose from wherever you'd fallen. No, Carol had almost perfected the kind where she could simply close her eyes while she was doing something and continue her activity while catching a little desperately needed sleep.
It was the direct result of exhaustion and too much to think about doing the next day. She nearly slept while she showered, but she kept reminding herself that she had to get out of the shower. And quickly. She had to save water for the next person. She dozed, maybe, a little while she dried herself and dressed in the clean clothes that she'd washed by hand. She walked with her eyes barely open, almost napping in the corridors, while she made her way back to her cell.
But then, like most every night, she was almost wide awake as soon as she looked at her cot, in the corner of her cell, waiting on her.
Carol sighed. Going to sleep would be nice, but the dreams were never that good. The rest was needed, but even through the exhaustion there was the feeling that she'd rather be awake. She'd rather be doing something else. There was a frustration that buzzed around in her body—she was tired of the monotony of every day. She didn't long for the excitement of their lives before they'd secured this place, not at all, but she did long for something. Even if she'd never really be able to say what that something was.
Carol straightened up a few things in her cell that didn't really require straightening. The action wasn't to accomplish any real goal, it was just to give her something to do. Maybe it was just to help her avoid the going to bed that she didn't feel particularly inclined to do at the moment.
Once everything was as tidy and neat as a prison cell could ever expect to be, Carol changed out of the clothes that she was wearing—clothes meant merely to protect her modesty while she walked through the prison until she wore them to work the next day—and slipped into the simple cotton nightgown that she'd gotten out of one of the run-boxes. She had to face the bed. She had to face the night because the morning would come too early and would make her regret her dallying.
Before she could even screw up the determination to go to bed, though, she heard something just outside her cell. A scuff and a catch. The sound of someone walking who hadn't picked their feet up just enough. Maybe, even, it was the sound of someone tripping over their own feet when their shoe caught on the concrete surface of the floor.
Carol walked to her cell door and pushed back the homemade curtain enough to see if she might see who it was that had nearly fallen. Her cell was on the end of the row, out of the way, and it was rare that anyone came down there without a purpose.
She opened the curtain to find Daryl standing there, just outside the curtain, chewing on his thumb and looking like he might be considering how one might knock at a "door" such as that which the curtain provided. Carol furrowed her brow at him.
"Is something wrong, Daryl?" She asked. She glanced around him to make sure he was alone. He was. It wasn't unusual for him to seek her out—for some little chore he needed done or sometimes just for Daryl-style conversation which seemed to be nothing more than having her in his presence while he enjoyed his silence.
Daryl shook his head at her.
"You gone to bed yet?" He asked.
Carol fought the urge to point out that she was standing in front of him and, therefore, clearly had not gone to bed. Instead, she simply responded with a quiet "no" and left the rest out.
"Gettin' late," Daryl said.
Carol nodded. Maybe tonight was one of those times when he was seeking her out for conversation, but this time, instead of being a silent conversation, it was going to be a conversation where he took his time pointing out all the obvious things around them and Carol confirmed his observations.
Even though Carol wanted something to break up the monotony of her day, she wasn't sure that was exactly what she wanted.
"Did you need something?" Carol repeated.
Daryl stared at her like he was trying to decide how exactly to express what it was that he needed—because Carol thought she could see something like the urgency of need in his eyes—but he finally just shook his head. Carol bid him goodnight and he echoed the sentiment. He didn't immediately walk off, but Carol let the curtain fall between them once more and she returned to her bed.
She could've sworn she'd been tidier in making her bed that morning, but some mornings she did the task half-asleep and so it looked different to her awake eyes. She pulled the covers back, though, and revealed one of the main reasons for everything looking so disheveled. In the bed, just below her pillow and nestled in the sheet, was a lump that was twisted up in an old shirt. Immediately she recognized the shirt, she'd seen it before. It was one of the old ones that Daryl kept around to wear—one that she'd told him more than once really ought to be retired to the rag-bag.
She picked it up and, at almost that moment, heard the same scuffing scrape outside her cell. This time, when she turned around, Daryl was standing in the doorway of the cell with the curtain somewhat draped over him. He was neither in nor out—not fully committed to either side. Carol cocked an eyebrow at him.
"You did this?" She asked, picking up the bundle. A flicker of a smile drifted across his lips, but it didn't stay long. Daryl wouldn't have allowed it to stay too long. He nodded.
"What is it?" Carol asked.
"That's part of gettin' a present," Daryl said, his voice low. "You gotta open the damn thing to know what it is."
Carol was confused, but it was pretty obvious that he was doing nothing to resolve that confusion at the moment. She loosened the knot that had been tied in the shirt to keep the bundle together and the cloth fell to the sides. The lump in the middle—the present proper—was revealed to her. It was a carving of the most rudimentary type. It was an old board, likely one of the ones left over from the piles they brought to burn from their efforts to clean up the back part of the prison, and in the middle of it was carved something she'd seen before, though it didn't look like an exact replica.
"It's a Cherokee Rose," Daryl said. Carol felt a light shiver run through her body at hearing him say those words again—this time very differently than he'd said them before.
"You did this?" Carol asked, still studying the board because she couldn't bring herself to look at him for the moment. He hummed in the affirmative.
"Not very good," he started. She heard the light scuff of his boots as he let himself fully inside the cell.
"No," Carol said, interrupting him quickly before he could talk himself down with the self-deprecation that was sure to follow. "No. It's perfect. I—I—it's perfect."
In hindsight she would realize that her speech, itself, wasn't perfect at all, but it seemed to do the trick. Daryl stopped apologizing for the surprise gift. Instead, when she finally brought herself to look at him, he was just standing there. He was staring. Not at the board that she held in her hand, but at her.
"Why?" She asked.
He shrugged.
"It's your birthday," he said. Carol furrowed her brow at him and the same hint of a smile came across his lips as had been there earlier. Just as quickly as before, too, he wiped it away. "September," Daryl added. "Twenty seventh."
Carol felt her chest tighten.
"Nobody's ever given me..." she stopped herself. She didn't want to dive into old memories. She didn't want to go through the chest of past hurts where her birthday would come and go without a word from Ed—or worse, would come with some kind of fight about one thing or another. She didn't want to lament, anymore and certainly not at that moment, anything about the years she wasted with Ed or the birthdays she watched tick by. "Nobody's ever given me—something so thoughtful before."
The light in her cell was nothing more than the flickering of a small flame caught behind the glass of the oil lamp. It didn't do much for revealing subtleties to the eyes, but still Carol thought she saw a change in the color of Daryl's face. There was a slight change in his expression.
He was pleased with himself, and he was embarrassed for the sentiment.
"I should go," Daryl said, but he made no move, beyond the sweeping motion of his head toward the curtain, to do so.
Carol swallowed, feeling her heart start to pound with the suggestions her brain was giving her. Her breathing, even, became a little more labored. She tried to suck in an extra breath without being too obvious. It had taken a lot of courage from Daryl to come here—to hide his carefully prepared carving—and to wait for her to open it. More than likely, it was taking a lot of courage for him to stand there and try to figure out what to say, even though the words weren't necessary, or even what he was supposed to do now.
So Carol tried to find her courage to match his. She swallowed and clung to the board, for just a moment, like a security blanket. A promise that Daryl wanted to be there—a promise that he must have been thinking about it for some time.
"Instead of going," Carol said, her own voice betraying her and coming out a little weaker than she'd imagined it would. "Why don't you—stay? For a while?" She saw the expression on his face change once more, but he didn't run. She offered him the best smile that her nerves would let her offer in the moment. "It's my birthday," she said. "And—I missed yours this year."