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It didn't smell like a church. None of that smoky incense from the Saint candles or the pulpit to tingle at her nose. The staleness of the Holy Water basin, or the slickness of marbled floors. It was certainly absent of the overpowering scent from all the neighborhood ladies' overused perfume bottles, as if smelling like gardenias was a ticket to Heaven.
But for all intents and purposes, this shed-like expanse was the cathedral Deanna had given to Father Gabriel, and he worked in it well enough.
"Surprised to see you here," the priest said from behind the wooden podium that he stationed himself at. His voice was always like a whisper, and she wondered if God had to strain to hear him as much as she did.
"Abe kept talking about the new benches they made for you. Figured it was about time I actually came to see them," she said, running her hand along the back of the rough cedar wood. She'd find a splinter if she wasn't careful.
"Is that all you came for, Carol? To look at some benches?" Father Gabriel kept his eyes still on the Bible in front of him, the loose pages that he had ripped out shoved inside of it carelessly.
She took in a deep breath, her eyes shutting for half a second as she identified the new smells. Sawdust. Strawberries. Paper. Nothing close to God as she ever knew it before. Opening her eyes she brought herself to stand behind the first bench. There were only three, one in the very front and two angled off behind it, but Abe had promised the construction crew would be making more. Leaning against it, she clutched the back of prickly wood and brought her eyes up to meet the small metal crucifix that hung in the center of the wall.
"Do you believe in confession, Father?"
He looked towards her, the way she studied the silver cross in that same calculated way that she studied everything. If there was one thing he knew about this woman, it was that she never did anything by accident. She shifted numerous times since they met but the changes were always run through an algorithm until she knew it would produce the outcome she needed. Every question was a trick, but her games were never without reason.
She didn't strike out in fear, like he did. His moves were always messed in cowardice but Carol possessed that kind of bated restraint that could allow her to conquer this world instead of merely making it through alive.
"Everyone has something hidden inside that must rectify itself one way or another. Confession can do that," he moved around the podium, coming to stand beside the table haphazardly covered in cloth where the small bowl of Holy Water would rest. It was empty. Beside it were the strawberries one of the women brought to him days ago, a small amount of white fuzz growing between the fruit. He didn't care to remember her name, not wanting to know the intimates of a new flock when the names of his past gathering rang through him in a continuous scream of suffering.
"But do you believe that by simply speaking out our sins, that they're really erased? That they stop stewing where they've settled deep within ourselves?"
She said it like a challenge, but her expression spoke otherwise. Lulled but eager, like maybe she actually wanted an honest answer.
He flickered towards the crucifix, his arms folded across his chest as he contemplated the metallic figure of the man he had failed so often. When he locked the church doors, he sacrificed the parts of him that were Godly, the parts that were easiest to get rid of. It left him with an ugliness, ruptured and crumbling.
How many times had he confessed? Knelt in his church, dark and alone with the drooling, dripping growls that scratched at the walls, his hands clasped tight and his lips whispering in a hellish fury. Nights filled with a wailing penitence, but never an ounce of forgiveness.
"No," he said, resolute as he tore his eyes from the crucifix. "This world is only filled with punishment."
"Yeah it is. Out there," she threw a casual glance out the window towards the high, steel packed walls they lived behind. "But in here it's tuna casseroles and neighborly smiles. Or have we just transcended to a different kind of retribution, to live in a world we've left behind in daydreams and know we can't really be a part of it."
He knew she was talking about themselves specifically. They couldn't carve themselves out of these cherry-picked mini mansions and manicured lawns, the fallen priest and a mercenary hiding beneath paper versions of who they used to be. They weren't like the others, filled with disquiet and fear. Something else lurked within them.
It reflected back to him from the cool of her eyes, the same darkness that clawed from within even his smallest cracks to devour him. He wondered what she did to deserve that kind of agony, but he didn't have room beside his own sins for anyone else's.
"Demons have no obstacle which they cannot penetrate. Those walls can't hide us."
"Then how do we live with…how do we live here? How do we deserve this?" she asked with the same quiet defiance that ran beneath all her words.
"But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die, Ezekiel 18:21." His body ached with each syllable, the word of God weighing heavy on his tongue, tainted with bitterness. "We keep our penance, we resist and hold our temperance against temptation. Against our happiness and our comfort and our ease. That's how we deserve this, how we live through the fog of our ghosts."
She swallowed, the muscles of her neck tensing and cast her eyes down towards the bench she still held onto. "They're nice. The benches."
"I hope they were worth the visit," he offered her, holding her unspoken confession between them.
"Me too," she nodded to him, her pupils refocusing as if she had lost sight of where she was. With one last sweep of her finger against the back of the coarse wood, she patted it strangely and turned, the heels of her loafers hardly sounding as she hastened out the door.
She had been expecting the house to be empty by time she made it back to their little corner of Alexandria, but there was no mistaking the muddy prints that led up to the once shiny front door. Without having to open the door she knew what would be waiting for her inside, the way his sweat-filled hair would be wrapped around his face, dirt clinging to his skin and eyes that wouldn't let go once they found her.
He had been extra careful with her the past few days, worldlessly helping her with cleaning the dishes or putting away plates. He helped her pack up tuna casseroles that she had to deliver, something he would have scoffed at a week ago.
You look ridiculous.
She gave Aaron most of the credit for settling him; bringing back the hint of ease he had at the prison, the one that meant he felt comfortable and even happy. He went so far as getting two new pairs of pants and a new pair of boots that weren't ripping and falling apart—something to match who he was now. There was something new to his eyes, though, a soft gaze that lingered with her even after she curled up into her bed, wishing she couldn't feel him through the walls.
It met her now as she walked through the door. A look that was broken and hopeful at the same time.
"Hi," he cracked at her, standing at the foot of the stairs.
She tried to smile but it didn't feel real. Pulling off her cardigan and rolling up the sleeves of her blouse she set herself to the kitchen to start baking the next day's deliveries.
"You been busy today?" He leaned up against the counter, begging.
"Not really."
"Was waiting here for awhile. Where you been?" He kept his tone soft, just enough concern so he wouldn't spook her into thinking he was keeping tabs on her.
"Around. Thought you weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow."
"Saw some more of them W's. Getting closer."
"They better be ready," she muttered, turning from the island counter to the sink and filling the measuring cup with water.
He turned the faucet off before she even realized he had walked around her to get to it, refusing to be drowned by the rushing water.
"Carol…"
It stilled her, the curl of her name around his tongue, with the a low, dropping to the back of his throat and the l trailing on as if he ran out of breath before he could finish saying it. As if just her name could do that to him.
He wanted her to look at him but she just couldn't. Looking at him was like swallowing the sun; warm and full of pain. It was in the way his eyes haunted her, pleading for her to answer questions neither of them were brave enough to ask.
The way she ached had brought her to Father Gabriel that morning, because she knew what Daryl wanted but she didn't have it in her to give it to him. The old familiar pains were being taken over by him, swallowed by his tenderness and she didn't want to lose them. She didn't have a right to, and Father Gabriel had only helped to affirm it.
To resist. To repent.
Nothing was said of redemption. And it wasn't what she was looking for.
"I'm sorry about the way I was when we was out there. On the road."
He paused and she nodded, hoping that was all he needed to say, but he continued with his thumb held against his lips, "I knew you were sufferin', too. 'Specially after Ty but I didn't—"
"You had to deal with it, with Beth dying, and you did what was best for you. That's all I ever wanted so you don't have to apologize to me about it."
He continued anyway, his voice so quiet even though they were alone, "I know I haven't been great company the past few weeks. I pushed a lot of things aside…pushed us aside."
He took a step towards her and she couldn't even bring herself to run from him. She had watched his walls crumble bit by bit, and she knew this was coming once he was able to climb over. Her heart pulled at all the parts of her, at her throat and her stomach and her lungs until it was all bunched together, beating too fast for her to keep control over.
"But even though I didn't act like it, I never stopped loving you. Not for one minute. Maybe I can only say this now because we're safe, and if we end up out on the road I might close up again. But that doesn't mean I don't—"
He stopped himself, red-cheeked and panicked. They had never said it out loud, in such plain ways, preferring soft glances and thoughtful acts to speak for them. But it was here now, loud and intrusive as it sat between them with Daryl's chest heaving in anxious breaths and her being forced to wither away from it.
When she pressed her hand to his chest she felt the rapidness of his heart. He looked like he was suffocating, his chest tight as it rose and fell heavily. A part of her hoped he choked enough that he'd have to run out for air, and his lungs would take too long to fill for him to find her alone again. It would be easier if he'd run away like he used to.
But, she didn't want to resist, not this. It would break him, and it wasn't in her to make him suffer. He thought he saw a light in her, but she knew he'd learn someday that she was a darkness that swallowed up little girls and spit out monsters. And when he knew, that would be punishment enough.
For him, she touched her hand to his chest, to the back of his neck, feeling the rough and dirt marred skin that covered him. She brought her lips to his, a kiss so soft that they could pretend it was only a dream. She held herself to him, feeling his heart slow with every long and tender second that she let him have what he wanted. What he needed. What she didn't deserve.
Against her fast beating heart was the void, the one that screamed with her into the night and lurked in the shadows. He melted into her but she kept her back straight.