Right Down the Line (part 1/?)
A Caryl Walking Dead fanfiction by Ikkleosu
Rating: MA (mostly for language, some small hints of sex but nothing too explicit)
Summary: Over 10 years on, Daryl reminisces about how his relationship with Carol unfolded like a flower.
"You've been as constant as a Northern Star
The brightest light that shines
It's been you, woman, right down the line"
– Right Down the Line by Gerry Rafferty
I can't believe she's mine.
The thought occurred to Daryl daily and had done for years now. He never got used to it; never relaxed into it; never believed it had truly happened. And yet, there she was, a stone's throw away from him looking at her feet as she dangled them lazily in the water.
The sun dappled on the pond and reflected in her face, all freckles and blue eyes and smiles. For him; always for him.
She turned her head and flashed one at him briefly, before turning her eyes back to the murky water. She'd sensed him watching her. She always sensed it. Just like she knew he needed almost constant reassurance. He didn't ask for it, but she dished it out like 4 square meals a day. Every morning her first words were "I love you", as if somehow he'd have forgotten overnight. And in a way, he had. It always seemed like dream, to wake up and find her there beside him day after day was a shock to his system. And every night, the last thing she'd do was kiss him. And the memory would carry him sweetly into dreams.
His dreams were better now. Nightmares didn't come like unwanted guests every night to occupy his bed and steal his sleep. And it was the same for her too. She didn't always tell him, but he always knew. He'd watch her sleep; hear the whimpers; see her body tense and flail and he knew she was remembering the horrors too. Maybe imagining new ones. So he'd hold her extra tightly, and hope the dream version of her would feel it and know he was there, and he'd always be there.
It had taken all of them a long time to relax; to trust; when it seemed that the living were starting to win the race. It had started with a cold winter and a wet spring, that seemed to thin the numbers of walking corpses out just a little. And then it just kept happening. Less and less and less of them showed up at the fences or wandered the streets, until they'd reached the point they were at now.
It had been 2 years since any of them had seen one. Older kids teased their younger siblings with ribald stories of their walker adventures, and the younger ones gasped in awe. To them, they were almost mythical like unicorns, or werewolves, or metal tubes that flew in the sky.
It had taken him a long time to stop carrying his bow everywhere. Even now it was on his bike. But even he had begun to feel it was real - with her help - and so here they were sitting unguarded in the open. He said he needed to go fishing, stock up some. She immediately said she wanted to keep him company. He hadn't argued, relishing the time to spend just being with her.
He watched her lost in her thoughts and he relaxed. He focussed his eyes on the end of his fishing pole, bobbing gently in the still water; insects buzzing and hovering all around them. He let the memories wash over him. There were things he'd forgotten, things he wanted to forget, but that day stayed bright and fixed in his memory. The day Carol told him she loved him.
Things had changed a lot since all the folks from Woodbury joined them. They'd become a community instead of a family. And there were times Daryl hated it.
He hated the bureaucracy, the sudden need to consider over 100 people's needs and feelings, and he hated some of them. There was only a handful he remembered from that night in the arena with Merle. Most had died at the hands of the Governor, but some... Oh some remained like living memories, startling him as he'd come round a corner and see their smiling face.
He tried to withdraw some, but none of them would let him, least of all her. She cagouled and pleaded, appeased and bargained and kept him in their fold.
But there were times it all got too much and he felt claustrophobic and stifled. He didn't mind people expecting things of him. He knew his role and it gave him a kind of pride. He just didn't like having to pass every crook of his pinky past a committee and wait for the disparate group to agree on a plan of action. And he'd take it out on all of them, but especially those he'd known longest. On that day, he'd had a stupid row with Glenn and a ticking off from Hershell, when he stomped back to his cell to get his bag and just get out. He wasn't going to leave - not for good - he just wanted to be outside, out there, not here.
But his bag wasn't there. None of his stuff was. It was just gone. He wondered for a minute if he'd come to the right cell in his rage, but no that was his blue heavy blanket tied back as a make shift door.
He cursed and stomped back down the stairs looking for someone to blame. He almost stalked past her cell without noticing, but something caught his eye. It was the neon glint of an arrow flight sticking up from the top bunk. He stormed over to the cell and there it was. All his stuff neatly piled up - his arrows, his clothes, his spare boots at the foot of the bed. What the hell? It was bad enough they were here, now they were touching his stuff and moving him around without his say so?
He went to find Carol, not to blame her, that didn't even occur to him. She was just the person he instinctively went to. She was his sounding board. Over the months he'd realised she occupied that position for a lot of people, he didn't think for her he was any different from all her other projects. She was the peacemaker, the reasoner, the go-between. He just thought that was all it was.
He found her alone doing some chore or other in one of the little side rooms.
"Did you know about this? Why the fuck has my cell been emptied? Who has put my stuff into your cell? I never gave my say so, I ain't going to be treated like this! Who the fuck did this?"
He let the tirade out before he'd even fully entered the room. She whipped round to face him at the sound of his voice and extended a calming hand out towards him. That was, until she understood what he saying, then she dropped it and turned back to her chore; folding laundry with calm precision.
"I did," she said evenly.
"What? You did what?" He didn't really grasp what she was taking blame for. She'd given the say so for them to move him around like an ugly ornament from a relative that you felt obligated to keep, but didn't want to look at.
"I moved your things into my cell."
"Why?" was all he could muster, injustice still running rampant through his veins.
"Hershell told me about earlier. I didn't want you running off doing something stupid. So I put your stuff in my cell."
This really wasn't making sense to him, how would moving his stuff stop him leaving? He'd quickly find it and be on his way.
"Why?" He tried again, angrier this time, more frustrated.
She turned back round to him, fire blazing in her eyes.
"Because I love you. And I want you to stop being a selfish idiot and taking off whenever you've had enough. It's not just about you. I told you a long time ago I couldn't lose you. I thought it was about time I was a bit more proactive about it,"
She hadn't shouted, but she was firm, adamant. And it knocked the wind out of his sails. He couldn't get past the first statement. She loved him. She loved him. He heard it in his mind over and over.
He didn't know what to say. After a few moments watching him mentally battle over the revelation, her face had softened again and she began to tangle with a smirk. She was clearly enjoying the nifty piece of rug pulling she'd just done.
Eventually he thought of a sensible, coherent thing to say.
"Where are you going to sleep?"
Her smirk fully escaped on to her face at his question and she turned away from him again.
"In my cell. With you."
Even the memory of it made him feel flustered. At the time he'd wandered off, ended up sitting in the yard, running his hand through his hair, wishing he had a cigarette. He tried to figure out what exactly had happened but gave up.
He said nothing to anyone else, and no one ever mentioned it to him. It was Rick that told him later that everyone had just assumed Daryl and Carol were a couple from that point - hell, some had been assuming it from day one - and no one felt a need to question it.
The funny thing was, they hadn't become a couple that day. Not in the traditional sense. There had been a seismic shift in their dynamic, yes, but it wasn't a full blown earthquake. That wasn't who they were. He was still who he had always been. He still had his father's and Merle's words ringing in his head. No-one will love you. You're worthless. You can't please no woman. And it made him gun-shy. No, it was a journey - a slow, clumsy, staggering journey - that they took after that day.
Daryl hadn't said the L word back. He didn't think he ever had. Not to anyone since his Mom. And Carol didn't push it. But every now and then she'd toss it into their conversations, letting him get used to it, like trying to get a kid to eat a new vegetable. And in time he started to feel it round his shoulders like his poncho, warming him, making him feel protected and safe.
At night he'd sleep on the top bunk, she'd sleep on the bottom. Sometimes they'd talk, sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes he'd just lie and revel in knowing she was there, so close he could smell her.
But they didn't touch, didn't wander into that territory that they both knew they were tiptoeing around.
That began the day Hershell died.