AN: Holy lawnmower, Batman! Thank you all for the kind reviews to the first chapter! I'm so glad that you seem enthusiastic about the story! I really do appreciate it!
In fact, I thought you were all so lovely that I'd go ahead and write the second chapter for you, even though I hadn't intended to write it this evening.
I really hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you think!
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The truck stop was such a welcomed sight that Carol couldn't be happier to see it if it had been a Ritz Carlton. Just the thought of getting off the bike for a little while was about as great a gift as she could hope for in the moment. Everything ached. The lower half of her body was numb…her whole body was almost numb, in fact. It was to the point that they rode so long and the breaks were so short that she felt like her teeth kept vibrating long after she'd crawled off.
But she'd ride on the bike as long as she could without complaint. No matter whether they were riding in nice weather where the wind and the sun felt good, except for the occasional burn, or whether they were riding in the biting rain, she felt safe and comfortable on the bike.
She knew it was Daryl that did that for her. The very air surrounding the man felt like a protective shield of some sort.
Daryl was a man that was made of solid muscle. She should know, she'd spent enough hours with her body pressed against his back. But he wasn't a threatening man. He didn't seem prone to random acts of violence, though she had seen that he would surely react if he felt that something merited him doing so.
Many of the others, she felt, regarded Daryl as someone not quite "like them," for lack of a better explanation. She felt like he got talked down to a good deal and that people tried to oversimplify things thinking that it would somehow be beneficial to him. She wondered if his speech and, perhaps, lack of a formal education was what led them to think that Daryl might not be every bit as intelligent as anyone else in the group…Rick or Shane especially…but Carol knew that he wasn't dumb in the slightest.
Daryl Dixon was a man that was made for this world. From what she'd gathered from him in the few conversations they'd shared together, he might not have felt like he was made for the world before all this, but he was made for the world they found themselves in now.
Carol would forever appreciate that he'd tried to find Sophia with a dedication that she couldn't have imagined from anyone, certainly not from Ed. He'd been willing to put himself in danger. He'd almost died, even, and it was all for a little girl that he really owed nothing to.
But that was the kind of man that Daryl was, and Carol appreciated a man like that.
The group spoke of being a group, a family. So many of them walked around speaking as if they were something like a large bunch of Musketeers. One for all and all for one. Carol knew, though, that it wasn't the truth. They were all they had left in the world, and perhaps the only living people left, but they were far from being all for one and one for all. If she'd ever believed they had been that before, she knew it wasn't true now.
The real name of the game was one for their loved ones and their loved ones for them. Rick had Carl, and when he wanted to, he had Lori…though that was as complicated a mess as you ever wanted to see. Hershel had his daughters, and Glenn had morphed right on into becoming a Greene right before their eyes.
And then there were the leftovers. There were T-Dog, Daryl, and Carol. The three odd men out. Perhaps they were the real Musketeers. They were the only ones left without anyone looking out for them.
It was hard to believe that the others were gone, but they were. Their group had lost a lot of people, and Carol tried not to dwell on the loss since most of them made her stomach sink somewhere down around her feet and there wasn't time for that anymore.
Carol took her turn stepping into one of the bathroom stalls and stripping out of her clothes. She didn't know exactly why some of the others were making such a fit about changing. She and Daryl were the only two that were soaked to the bone. The rest of them had maybe gotten a little damp waiting for the place to be cleared out, but it certainly wasn't fatal. Even soaked as she was, Carol didn't think it was that much to complain about. She simply changed her clothes, a little thankful that the rain had washed away some of the grime that started to build up over time, and took her wet clothes out to the dining part of the truck stop to hang them out to dry.
Everyone was setting up the pallets and sleeping bags, preparing to get whatever rest they could. They'd have to eat, though, and Carol knew that they had very little food left. She could only hope that the place had something to offer in its coffers.
Carol knew her place in this group. She knew it well. She was an extra, and worse than that, a burden. Daryl and T-Dog, at least, were pretty good at protecting the group, but she couldn't say the same for herself. She wasn't anything but a used up, old housewife. She had no doubt that, truth be told, many of the group members were probably sorry to see that Daryl had saved her that night instead of Andrea. At least Andrea had something to offer them.
But Daryl hadn't saved Andrea, and Rick hadn't let Daryl go back to look for her, even though he'd tried to do so.
Daryl had saved her. She'd been sure that she was dead…and she really deserved it anyway…but he had saved her. Since then she'd silently stayed with him. She rode with him on the bike, set their pallets up near each other for when he was going to try to rest, and they even shared their blankets from time to time.
Carol didn't know what she had done that had been so wonderful as to earn her the friendship of Daryl Dixon, but she was thrilled to have it. It was nice to have somebody in this world, even if it was just a friend, and she was glad that the man who had apparently had very few friends in his life had chosen her.
He wasn't bad to look at either. She knew that a man as handsome and well-built as he was wouldn't ever look twice at a woman like her, but it didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy the view.
She knew what she looked like. Ed had taught her well. She was old beyond her years and she was ugly. She was useless before all this had happened and it had only gotten worse. She really had nothing to offer anyone and she couldn't blame the group for seeing her as a burden. So she was grateful for Daryl's inexplicable kindness, and she was grateful for any that was shown to her by the others as well.
The most she could do was try to keep busy. She tried to help with everything she could and hoped that somehow they thought she was useful enough to keep around. She stuck close to Daryl and she tried to take care of Lori.
She looked after T-Dog and tried to help heal the broken heart he seemed to suffer after the loss of Jacqui. The two had gotten very close, and though he barely talked about it, Carol wondered if he hadn't begun to fall in love with her. Regardless of if he loved her or not, though, T-Dog had at least seen Jacqui as a friend and he was without her now. Carol tried, then, to offer him whatever she could to make him feel less alone…less like the outsider that he was.
Carol had also developed a little of a bond during these months with Hershel. He was a nice old man and he seemed comfortable around Carol at least. He let her watch on when he took care of the cuts, scrapes, burns, and the like that happened from time to time and she was hoping that she could learn enough to become something of an assistant to him. That might, at least, make her useful in some way to the group, especially with Lori pregnant.
Carol wasn't sure exactly how far along Lori Grimes was in her pregnancy, but the existence of it was evident and Carol felt for the woman. She knew that for as much as her body ached with the grueling pace they set in moving from place to place, Lori must be miserable. It didn't help, Carol was sure, that Rick wasn't exactly the doting husband to Lori.
Lori had an affair with Shane, and everyone knew it. It was like the elephant in the room. They tried to pretend, for the most part, that it was some kind of big secret and that everyone believed the baby was Rick's, but Carol had her doubts, as did the others.
Lori and Shane thought they were secretive when they were together and thought it had been hush, hush, but nothing had been secret since the beginning. Everyone one of them wore their dirty laundry right there for the world to see. This life had taken away pretty much all that was left of privacy.
Carol wasn't sure if she faulted Lori or not for what she'd done. At least not in the beginning. She had thought her husband was dead…so she was a free woman, so to speak. Carol tried not to judge her on the fact that her mourning for the man that was supposed to be a beloved husband and father was very short lived. Life these days didn't offer the luxury of a long mourning for anyone. You did your mourning quickly and you finished it alone, in quick spurts, during the time permitted. It wasn't like it once had been.
So it wasn't so much the affair with Shane that Carol could fault Lori for as much as for what she had observed happening between them all afterward. There weren't clear lines drawn, and blurry lines in things like that made for messy situations. Lori had declared, and Carol had heard it more than once, that she was done with Shane once she knew that Rick was alive, but that wasn't always what it had looked like and it wasn't always what her actions and her body language had said.
Carol hadn't been the only one to notice it either. Andrea had mentioned it several times to her in random bits of ranting conversation. Andrea had, at times, been angry toward Lori for much of what happened with the group.
Daryl was angry with Lori often too, though Carol wasn't entirely sure what he was angry about. He didn't care for the woman, her words, or her actions. Carol knew that much. She left him alone with his feelings, though. They were his and he had every right to feel however he liked about anyone that they encountered.
Carol didn't have a problem with Lori, though. She got along with her and considered her just as much a friend as anyone else in the group besides Daryl. She assumed that the woman, like the rest of them, was a victim of her circumstances and now she was caught in a difficult situation. She was expecting, trying to keep up with the strenuous travel schedule they had, suffering from the malnutrition that was leaving most of them hungry at best, and her husband was "taking care of her" only in the most general sense of the term.
Carol dug through the storage area in the back of the truck stop, not failing to notice that she was alone back there. Apparently she was the only one greatly concerned with the fact that it had been at least a day since most of them had eaten. There was water back there, though, and there was canned food. It was more than enough for a meal now and something the following morning before they hit the road.
Carol grabbed up a box of the assorted canned food and carried it out front to the grill area where she could see what the place had to offer. She was pleased, upon inspection, that there was a gas stove with separate propane tanks and the thing worked. There would be a hot meal tonight, at least. That was something to be thankful for.
"T-Dog?" Carol called out, catching the man's attention.
"Need something?" He asked.
"Can you bring some of those flats of water out here? Make sure everyone gets some?" Carol asked.
He nodded his acceptance and stepped into the back, carrying her thanks with him.
Carol quickly set to work finding a pot and beginning to mix together the canned goods to form the best kind of stew that she could make out of the random food. She liked, as much as anyone who had once taking their cooking seriously, to make the food taste as good as she could, but they were always limited to what was available and these days you didn't turn down nutrition for flavor. That wasn't a luxury they could afford.
As Carol waited for the food to at least warm, she glanced around at everyone. They were obviously exhausted. There was no hiding that all of them needed some rest.
Daryl was at the door, keeping watch by a window not a few feet from it. He was almost always on guard and Carol had to remind him to eat and to rest whenever they stopped or he'd never take even a moment to himself.
She'd be sure, this night like most others, to put him a bowl of food aside before the others descended upon what there was like vultures. If she didn't, he might not eat at all besides what little bit of jerky was left in the saddle bags of the bike from one of the last places they hit that had enough food to take with them.
Rick was pacing between the back of the truck stop and the place where Daryl was keeping watch. He had taken it upon himself to be leader of this group and no one had argued with him after his violent outburst. If he wanted to call himself leader of a ragtag bunch of survivors that were simply pounding the pavement and trying to keep on living, then it really wasn't that big of a deal to Carol.
As soon as the food was warmed up, Carol scooped out a bowl for Daryl before she alerted anyone else and covered it with a rag she found, sliding it away from the pot so that no one would pay it any attention. She fixed another bowl for Lori and one for Carl, making sure to make a show of it so Rick would notice that she was at least being useful in taking care of his family, and crossed the room to deliver them.
"Food's ready," she called out while on her way to delivery.
Sometimes they all sat and waited for her to serve them, and most of the time she obliged them when she could, but she was too tired at the moment to feel like standing and handing out plates and bowls. Let them serve themselves the heated mix of vegetables and soups.
"How are you feeling?" Carol asked, handing Lori the bowl with the spoon it and passing one to Carl who thanked her quietly before beginning to eat with all the hunger she knew he had to be suffering from.
"Just fabulous," Lori said. "Thank you."
Lori took the plate and Carol knelt down on her knees by the woman for a moment, offering her a smile.
"We're going to get settled soon," Carol said. "Daryl's bound to come up on something before long that looks safe enough. You'll see."
Carol wasn't sure she believed her own words. It wasn't that they weren't looking, but it was hard to say these days what was going to be safe. They had ideas for things they might be looking for and places that it might be possible to fortify against the moving herds, but no one really knew if the places were safe or not…and even if they were they hadn't found any of the ideal locations yet.
Lori nodded a little.
"Yeah," Lori said. "It's great. I'm sure we'll find it tomorrow."
Carol understood Lori's negativity. She didn't know how long they'd been travelling, but it had been a decent stretch of time and not having found a thing yet that looked promising made the whole thing disheartening.
Carol reached out and rubbed Lori's shoulder before she got to her feet.
"Eat up," she said. "There might even be enough for seconds if you're still hungry."
Carol knew that the baby needed food and would take it from Lori if it had to, and she didn't want either of them to suffer. It wasn't the baby's fault that things surrounding its paternity hadn't exactly been wonderful and the little thing didn't deserve to suffer because of it.
When Carol had been pregnant with Sophia Ed had been an asshole about it, like he'd been about most things, and she knew too what it felt like to be hungry and expecting. You wanted nothing more than to take care of your child and to give it all that it needed, but you could only give so much if you had nothing yourself.
No one had noticed, at least, that she'd given up one or two of her own meals to have a little more to hand over to Lori. She didn't want anyone saying anything about it because she thought Daryl might say something simply out of his dislike for the woman. It didn't matter who it was, Carol wasn't going to let an expectant mother and her baby go hungry, not if she could help it. She'd done the same for Carl too.
Most people could fend for themselves, but there were some that needed your sacrifices from time to time and Carol was no stranger to sacrifice.
"Daryl," Carol asked, approaching him with a bowl and glancing out the darkened window where he kept watch, "you need to eat."
Daryl took the bowl and offered her a gruff thank you. He started eating and glanced back out at the appearance of nothing.
"Ya eat already?" He asked.
Carol shook her head.
"I'm getting something in a minute," she said.
The storm outside raged on and Carol had to admit it was one of the worst that they'd seen in a while. She hated the sound of the thunder cracking and she found it unnerving that when it hit especially hard the floor beneath them vibrated with the sound.
"It's a really bad storm," she said softly. She would never have admitted to anyone, and especially not Daryl, that she hated thunderstorms. She was grateful, though, that at least she knew she'd already put their cots down in the corner together so she wouldn't be sleeping alone.
"Yeah it is," Daryl said. "Hope it lets up or it's going to be a bitch riding in it tomorrow." He hesitated for a moment. "You could ride with T-Dog in the truck if you want. Wouldn't blame ya not wanting to get all tore up from the rain."
Carol shook her head.
"It doesn't bother me," she lied. "I'm fine on the bike."
"Suit yaself," Daryl said, taking another bite of the soup. Carol thought she saw a small smile flit across her face, but she dismissed it.
"Do you think that if it doesn't let up and we don't see a lot of activity we might stay here for a second night?" Carol asked. "Everyone's so exhausted and there's food here. The stove even works…I just think we might all need the break if we've got any time to spare."
Carol knew that if Daryl felt it was possible and he liked the idea, he'd be the one that could talk Rick into it. No one else had that power, but Rick seemed to at least respect Daryl's thoughts on travel and survival. The same couldn't be said that much about Rick's attitudes toward anyone else in the group.
Daryl bit at his cuticle a second before taking another bite of the food. He nodded a little.
"If we don't see too much we might could swing it," he said. "Wouldn't stay for longer than that, though. Could be able ta catch a couple a' squirrels or somethin' an' get us a bite a' meat ta eat."
Carol smiled. Meat was something they didn't get much since they spent so much time travelling and it would be very welcome. She knew it would be good for Lori too, but she didn't dare to point that out.
"Oh that would be wonderful," she said. "Do you think you'll talk to Rick about it?"
Daryl shrugged a little.
"Gotta see what the night holds, but I reckon I'll talk ta him in the mornin' if it looks like a good idea," Daryl said.
"Do you have watch tonight?" Carol asked.
She hoped he didn't have watch. If he did it meant he'd only sleep for a couple of hours at best. That was bad for him because he'd be even more exhausted, and that was bad for her because it mean that she'd be sleeping alone in her corner while the storm raged on outside.
"Couple a' hours," he said. "Dog's offered ta do it for a while, though, so I'ma be tryin' ta get some sleep 'fore long."
Carol nodded at him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"I think I'm going to try to rest too," she said.
"Do that," Daryl said. "If'n we do hit the road tomorrow ya don't need to be dozin' off on the bike. I know ya can't help it but I don't want'cha ass fallin' off. Eatin' a shit load a' asphalt at sixty miles an hour ain't gon' be good for ya."
Carol smiled.
"I'm going to eat now," she said. "Then I'll get some sleep."
She knew that a declaration like that was about the best you got from Daryl. It meant that he cared about you. It meant that he didn't want to see you get hurt, and from Daryl that meant a lot.
Carol didn't know how she deserved to be his friend, but somehow she'd done something right, and she really did appreciate it. She passed by the pot and frowned at the fact that it had basically been all but scraped clean. She dug out what she could and started across the room, intending to eat on her pallet and lie down until she fell asleep or Daryl's watch was over, whichever came first.
"Was there any left?" Lori asked softly as Carol walked by.
Carol stopped and smiled down at the woman. She handed her the bowl.
"Just a bit," she said.
Lori shook her head.
"Is this your dinner?" She asked, taking the bowl.
"No," Carol lied. "I already ate. I was just seeing if there was extra. You go ahead."
Lori thanked her and Carol stepped past her and made her way to the pallet. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world and the cement floor was hard under her, but after the ride she was sure she could sleep eventually.
Carol lie there awake for a while, shivering a little against the clapping of the thunder outside, and finally Daryl came, lying down beside her and fumbling around to pull the blanket over him. Though they didn't touch when they slept, unless it was on accident, Carol almost felt wrapped in comfort when she could smell him so close to her and feel the warmth radiating off his body. It was nice not to be alone in this world, even if the only comfort you had was that of a dear friend.