Chapter One: One Day at a Time
A/N: So I was seeing a lot of people on Tumblr talking about more and I've posted a few drabbles that I have wrote upon Carolyn's roleplay blog. But this is the long awaited sequel. I'm still piecing together a plot, though it has nothing to do with season three because I stopped watching after episode two of the third season. So the burning of Frederick is not a thing here. TV show canon for that is ignored and book canon is acknowledged (as it may or may not be addressed in future chapters). As stated, I rp Carolyn on tumblr now so if anyone is ever interested, I can hook you up with her url.
It had taken a considerable amount of time. They'd broken up to work on their own health. Though there had been days for the both of them that they'd missed each other a tremendous amount, even when both knew that they'd be together once more. Healing always took a good amount of time and they'd both suffered greatly. Neither could speak to comfort the other, there'd been the occasional text, but other than that they'd kept a low profile, both focusing on their own recoveries.
Carolyn's came at the hands of a great surgeon. It had taken hours of work, but she'd woken up. Flesh from her thigh had been taken and molded to create a new tongue for which she could speak again, though it had taken months for her to speak once more, but the Long stubbornness and complete will to survive even under the most intense of circumstances had won out, and it had taken a mere two months for her to regain her speech after months of living in silence, only depending on written words to get by.
Though in that time, she'd lost her job as a waitress. It had been a blow, but it had been Frederick who'd given her words of encouragement through an assistant. He'd had her send flowers, one thing he'd known had always cheered her up, and those flowers had sent her back down memory lane, to a time before Frederick had ever entered her life.
She'd worked all through high school to help her father get her mother back and forth from chemo treatments. They had needed the money and she had taken a job at the local flower shop where she'd learned the art of flower arrangement, a talent that she still held even two decades of disuse. Now, as then, she'd taken that job just to keep her bills paid.
In her time on her own, just after she and Frederick had mutually broken it off, she'd adopted a dog for her own protection and peace of mind, a golden retriever named Bear. She had changed the locks and had checked every corner of her home. No one was getting in if she did not want them, and the paranoia that he would come back always lurked in her mind.
He would always be there. He was always going to be the monster in the dark that had hurt her and had placed Frederick at Death's door. She'd never forgive him, that much she knew.
Now safely behind closed doors within Frederick's newly decorated home, all touches of their previous life, of that nightmarish night, were all but gone. New flowers had been placed in every room as they had before, now made by Carolyn's own talented hands. She leaned against his shoulder as the television played an old black and white movie that neither of them truly had any interest in at the moment as her fingers laced within his, her free hand folded over them both where his grandmother's ring still lay upon her ring finger.
"I can't believe you still have that old thing," Frederick whispered as he toyed with his grandmother's ring, his voice so soft to keep from breaking the simple, soft mood that fell over their surroundings. It was going to be a cold winter, that's what the man on the news had reported, and his predictions had come to be true. Snow continued to fall outside, leaving them both within the warmth of his home that he still wished to share with her.
"Of course I'd keep it. You gave it to me," Carolyn looked up at him, looking passed the scar that she knew worried him. So many nights she had set up with him through his nightmares of Gideon and of the shooting, reassuring him that she was there, that there was nothing wrong. He was safe, and of course, she now had her share of those nights, dreaming that he was there.
They'd worked on themselves with the physical pains, now they had each other to help with the mental ones.
She could hear Bear from the back, locked away in his own little den to keep him from eating Frederick's shoes or getting on top of Frederick to push him out of the way.
"I think Bear's getting used to you," she smiled as she spoke, her 's' slightly slurred as a side effect of the surgery, but only heard when her words were softly spoken.
Frederick's arm around her warmed her more than she had been warmed any other time of her life; the smell of his cologne was a scent that she wanted to have near her at all times, it was calming, and she needed that now more than ever. Just as he needed her fingers laced around his and the soft tickle of her locks against his face when she leaned against him or took hold of him in a big hug.
It was easy to say that both were more in love than they had ever been. They had been in love before, but the events that had pulled them apart had only strengthened their bond.
"I've missed you," Carolyn whispered as she pulled herself from his side to look at him fully, her free hand moved from his hand to touch at his unscathed cheek with the knowledge that he'd flinch from her touch if she even dared to brush against his scar.
"I've missed you too."
It was a hard confession for him, but hard confessions seemed to come easy when it came to Carolyn. He could lie, cheat, and steal from everyone but her. She'd seen passed his bullshit, she'd suffered through his corny lines, and she actually saw into the man that no one else wanted to see. They had all seen him as some manchild nipping at the heels of success while sneering at the ones that had it before him, Carolyn had seen him as a man at a diner in need of warm coffee, she'd ignored all those people that had told her he was a louse of a customer who had always made unreasonable demands of waitresses in tiny diners. She had told him she'd inherited her mother's giving heart, but he knew it had been so much more. Infatuation perhaps...but he knew she had changed his life. She'd shown him the difference of living and living well. Something had been missing in his life, something that he thought success could fill, but it had been Miss Carolyn Long, the pretty little waitress that he never truly noticed until she'd slipped him her number, that had filled it. Every night was sweeter than the one before and his mornings were easier to face, even on nights when they had their share of night terrors.
Now with Carolyn so close, her beautiful blue eyes staring at him as if he were the only man in the world, he felt his heart ache for the life that they could have had with what they had lost. And then Carolyn smiled and he knew he could have it all with her. She could help him with his book and he could help her with whatever endeavor she wished to pursue.
Carolyn's hand slid across his unscathed cheek as she leaned close to press her warm lips against his, sealing one of many kisses that they both knew would be shared through the night. She smiled as she heard his soft whimper as his hands trailed to her hips to hold her closer to him.
"I don't want to ever be without you again," she whispered as she broke the kiss and pressed her forehead against his.
"No," he confided in agreement, his words soft as he chased after her lips to initiate another kiss, one that would hopefully not end as quickly as the first one had. He had plans. He'd been planning since they started their relationship again.
If she said yes, he'd have a Mrs. Chilton to introduce to everyone. He'd be the proud husband of the most beautiful waitress turned florist that anyone had ever known to exist. She'd be his, and he her's…
...if only his plans went according to plan and she said yes.