Guardian Angel
Chapter 3: I didn't know I was strong….
"The strength of a woman is not measured by the impact that all her hardships in life have had on her; but the strength of a woman is measured by the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her and who she becomes." ― C. JoyBell C.
Fear. She knew it like the back of her hand…the way it felt, the way it tasted, the acrid tang of bile burning at the back of her throat.
Despair. Nothing left to hope for. Nothing left to lose. Curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor biting back the urge to scream as cramps racked her body. Blood…warm and sticky and wet….coated her thighs as the pain finally crested. It rolled like the tide and she could do nothing but try to make it through.
Anger. She saw red…everything red. Heat lightning and thunder looking for a place to ground. Nails biting furrows in her palms, stinging and smarting and the only thing real in the world. He could scream and punch and kick but it didn't matter anymore. This time was the last time he would lay hands on her. Never again. Not in this life. The gun was cold pressed against her temple, his breath an unpleasant hiss in her ear. He muttered and mumbled…threats and promises spilling out one after the other. Love. Loathe. Despise. Detest. Nothing. Blank. Pull the trigger, asshole. End it. One little twitch of a finger and everything will be just the way we want it. I'll be yours forever. I promise.
"I want to go over your story again," Andrea rested her chin on her upturned palm, giving Carol her full attention after she and Michonne finished their conversation. "You said you called a cab, picked up Sophia and headed for the bus station. Is that right?" Carol gave a hesitant nod, her eyes shifting from one to the other as she tried to work out what they were after. "And nobody saw you leave and you didn't tell anyone where you were going." Again, Carol shook her head. "We need to get the timeline straight so there are no holes for them to weasel through. Let's take a break, stretch our legs and then we'll lay it out." Andrea shared a smile between the two of them. "You're going to be just fine."
They pushed away from the table and made their way out to the porch. The farm slumbered in the late afternoon sun, its rolling fields and shaded corners lending them a sense of peace. Carol felt knots she didn't even realize were there loosen and ease. This place was an oasis for her. She propped herself up on the railing and closed her eyes, listening to the chimes dancing in the balmy Georgia breeze.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" a pensive voice spoke right beside her ear. A soft chuckle sounded when she abruptly jerked and looked wildly around. Her gaze found Michonne laughing behind her hand as she propped up on the balustrade a few feet down. "Are you always this jumpy? I wasn't even trying to be quiet."
Carol reddened and dropped her eyes to the neat flower beds bordering the porch. "No, not usually. I was just thinking the same thing. It is beautiful." A brief flicker of curiosity prompted her next question. "How long have you been here?"
Michonne's jaw tightened something like distress on her face. "Just over two years." She hesitated, biting her lip as her eyes fixed on some point in the distance. "My boyfriend wasn't what you'd call the charming type." She tilted her chin, allowing Carol a glimpse of a thin line skating along her jawbone. "He left me for dead in a bar parking lot. It took a lot of stitches to put me back together." She folded her arms across her stomach and settled more comfortably against the post. "Andrea was the counselor the hospital sent in to shrink my head."
"I didn't know she was involved in that," Carol confided.
"She's a professional busy body," Michonne rejoined, an ironic twist to her mouth. "I told her I didn't need saving and she could take her messiah complex someplace else. She took off and I figured that was the end of it but she came back later that day and the next. Told me about this place and since I didn't have anywhere else to go, I agreed. I've been here ever since."
Carol side eyed the stoic woman, turning those revelations over in her mind. Their stories were startlingly similar in some ways but polar opposite in others. Sensing that she was on the edges of a sensitive subject, Carol groped blindly for another topic. "What about Daryl? What's his story?"
This time it was Michonne giving Carol a sly glance as a tiny smile quirked her lips up. "Wouldn't you like to know," She commented, watching in interest as Carol's cheeks turned pink once again. "It's not my place to go into it except to say that he's been around here since he was about sixteen. He helps keep the place up and lets us know when he thinks somebody needs help. You're the first stray he's brought home. I guess that makes you special."
An odd fluttering lightness in her stomach took Carol by surprise. She and Sophia were the first ones he'd brought in on his own? She didn't know what to do with that knowledge, told her not to read too much in to it. Despite all her efforts to stay on an even keel, she felt the tilt into a sort of giddy madness. Stop it, she told herself sternly. Enough. She had to think about Sophia and what her options were now. She didn't have the time or the energy to give over to a school girl pastime. She owed Daryl Dixon her gratitude but that was as all she had to give now.
"I can't thank you enough for what you've done for us," Carol admitted, twining her fingers together on the railing. "It's going to be difficult to help her understand what's happened. I really don't know what to tell her."
Slender fingers threaded through hers and gave a supportive squeeze. "You give it to her straight; make sure she knows you're not going anywhere. He's a piece of shit but he's still her daddy. She'll mourn him. She needs you to let her know that it's okay."
Again, Carol felt an unaccustomed prickle at the back of her eyes from the woman's unexpected kindness. She clung to Michonne's hand as she let out a breath, blinking back tears that threatened to fall. "I don't know what to say," she faltered. "It's just so…"
Michonne shook her head, waving away the unspoken thanks. "I think Daryl brought you here because you two are alike in a lot of ways." Carol wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as she turned toward her. "Like I said, it's not my place but I'm not going to tell you anything that isn't already common knowledge around here. The rest, you'll have to get from Daryl." Her dark eyes flicked across the farm-yard to the two figures still bent over the ancient RV. A smile bloomed as one of them raised up gesturing furiously before going elbow deep into the vehicle's rusting innards. "The Dixons are a bit of a byword around town. It started with their old man and then Merle, Daryl's brother, did his part to carry on the family tradition. There isn't a bar or brothel for fifty miles around that hasn't been busted up by one Dixon or another as some point. After their mother died, Jeb Dixon dove headfirst into a bottle and didn't come out again. The boys, let's just say that they had to fend for themselves."
It didn't take too much to put the rest of the story together. She still had no clue what made him decide to help her and Sophia. She just couldn't wrap her head around it. "So one thing led to another and they somehow ended up here," Carol ventured a guess, feeling rather guilty about delving into Daryl's past behind his back. She avoided Michonne's interested look and focused instead on a slightly wilted petunia. Her busy fingers plucked at a few withered leaves and dead petals. "You're right. I shouldn't be asking these questions. It's really none of my business."
"Merle ended up in the Army," MIchonne confided. "I can't tell you how many times he was put through the system before Judge Greene got tired of his bullshit and called a halt. The last time he gave him the option of hard time or getting his ass in gear. He also got Dale Horvath, a hunting buddy of his, to offer Daryl a job on his farm. Daryl's been here ever since."
"So what became of Merle?" Carol wondered aloud.
"He's still around," the enigmatic woman laughed to herself. "Works for Andrea's firm up in Atlanta. He's a jack of all trades which makes him a handy guy to have on the payroll." She laughed again at Carol's incredulous expression. "He's unconventional but he gets stuff done. He also gives Andrea a hard time which is good. Keeps her on her toes."
Carol glanced at her before looking across the yard to where the younger Dixon was still engrossed in the RV. "It sounds like you like him," she ventured tentatively.
Michonne straightened, her previously amused bearing fading in to solemnity. "Daryl's not the only one who picks up strays."
Realization dawned, leaving Carol staring at the woman in open-mouthed awe. "So you have a guardian angel too."
The woman shrugged, a grin breaking through the somberness. "Don't know that I'd call either of them angels. If so, their halos are dented and those wings are just about unrecognizable by now."
It was Carol's turn to laugh. "Maybe you just have to know where to look," she returned.
"Maybe," Michonne pushed off the railing and sauntered to the screen door, looking back over her shoulder as she went. "Or maybe you just have to be willing to look past the obvious."
Xoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Her thoughts spun like a top as she considered all that had happened over the course of the last few hours. Sophia was happily assisting Amy with the evening chores, chattering excitedly to her mother about all the wonders she'd seen since they first arrived. Carol hardly recognized the girl, all pink cheeked wonder and wide sparkling eyes as she recounted a slow turn around the paddock on a gentle mare named Nellie. Sophia loved horses and begged to go to summer camp every year with her friends. It broke Carol's heart to tell her no but there was no way Ed would have allowed it.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. Andrea and Michonne decided to take the divide and conquer approach to dinner. Michonne manned the grill while Andrea chopped vegetables and opened a bottle of wine to 'let it breathe' before they sat down to eat. Both rolled their eyes but it was Andrea who chose to answer.
"We've got it covered. Go and enjoy yourself. We'll call you when it's ready," the blonde casually ordered as she wrapped potatoes in foil before sliding them into the oven. "Take a walk over by the barn. There's a path that leads down to the duck pond. It's one of the prettiest spots on the farm."
She gave up the idea that they would relent and give her something to do in the kitchen and made her way back to the porch. It seemed like such a silly thing but she couldn't bear to be idle. Never in her life had someone told her to go enjoy herself in lieu of cooking or cleaning. It was anathema to her to even consider such a thing. She paused at the top of the steps and looked around guiltily. Seized by an unexpected surge of daring, she hopped down and skipped along the gravelled walkway that angled around the edge of the house. It really was beautiful here. At the edge of the yard was a gnarled old apple tree standing guard over a wrought iron bench. She walked toward it and laid an appreciative hand on the rough bark as she let her gaze rove over the green expanse of lawn and fields beyond.
It would be beautiful in the spring when the air was filled with the scent of freshly turned earth and pink tinged blossoms. It was idyllic in an enchanted, over-the-rainbow kind of way that made it seem not real. Her feet moved of their own accord, following a rutted track deeper into a shaded patch of wood. Alternating bands of light and shadow mottled the path, shadows piled thickly one atop the other, while further in, golden beams shifted and swayed as leaves danced in the balmy air.
Carol saw a glint of something through the trees, a ripple of light on water and couldn't help but hurry toward it. The trees opened up abruptly at the water's edge, embracing the shoreline in a tangle of reeds and willows. She crossed her arms and let out a long slow breath. Here now was a place where she could let go, just be for a while. She eased off her shoes and tucked them into the bend of a towering oak tree's roots where they would be easy to find before making her way down to the water. She laughed softly as tiny waves lapped around her ankles, her toes buried deep in velvety soft mud. She closed her eyes and tucked her chin into her chest and just breathed. Feeling a bit foolish, she glanced around hurriedly before kicking one foot playfully just below the surface. The resultant spray kicked up a play of rainbows and ripples. She bent at the waist; letting just the tips of her fingers skim the swells as the water ebbed and flowed around her. A distant, muffled splash pulled her head up, eyes frantic as they scanned the shoreline. It only took a second to find the cause and her heart plummeted.
He sat at the end of a weathered pier, shoes tossed behind him as he dangled his feet in the water. His head was lowered, hands braced at his sides, attention fixed firmly on the rolling surface. He couldn't know that she was a short distance away, so rapt was he on his game. She never took her eyes off him as she backed slowly to the bank. For the life of her, she couldn't make herself look away. He was always so guarded. The few times she'd glanced his way in the truck or back at the trailer, he'd intercepted it and either glared until she blinked or it was his that faltered, which made her feel guilty. This illicit watching made her feel almost brazen, bold in a way she'd seldom if ever felt before. It was heady, exhilarating to look her fill and not have a little voice in the back of her head chiding her for taking such a liberty.
His head lifted and turned, blue eyes pinning her in place. His widened and then narrowed accusingly as he noted the way she shied back into the surrounding bushes. He rose slowly, pausing to grab his boots before padding slowly back to the bank. He didn't drop his gaze as he toed on his boots and headed in toward her. "Shouldn't be wandering around alone," he grumbled, coming to a stop a short distance away. "Farm's pretty safe but you can run across a snake or the odd wild dog, especially close to the water."
"I needed to get out for a minute," she protested, fingers twisted in the hem of her shirt. "I couldn't just sit around doing nothing."
Those blue eyes were all too knowing as they swept over her from tangled tufted hair to mud splattered toes. A ghost of a smile tugged his lip up but he said nothing. Instead, he ambled off, the tilt of his head ordering her to follow. She grabbed her shoes and slipped them on before hurrying after him. He slowed as she came along side, and then waved to a tangled knot of green studded with silky white petals.
"You see it," he nodded toward the blossoms. She nodded wordlessly, and then gestured for him to continue. "It's a Cherokee Rose. The story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land on the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much. So the elders, they said a prayer; asked for a sign to uplift the mothers' spirits, give them strength and hope. The next day this rose started to grow where the mothers' tears fell." He tucked his hands in his pockets, eyes almost as soft and shy as his voice when he met her gaze. "I know it's hard now but you and your girl are okay. You're stronger than you think. You'll get through this. So will she."
What she was going to say next caught on the knot in her throat as those words hit home. He believed, this man who hardly knew her, believed wholeheartedly that she was capable of navigating the emotional hell hole her life had suddenly become. With this one simple act, he'd managed to turn her head-over-feet and she had no idea how to process it. He believed it and he wanted her to believe it too. "I didn't think I could ever be," her voice trailed off as her eyes sought the rose once again. "Ed wouldn't'…he didn't…."
"Ed ain't here," he stated firmly. "You gotta quit thinking like that. You are and you can. Period."
Carol was once again at a loss. His eyes didn't waiver. He sounded so sure. The words tumbled out before she could stop them, before she even realized they were there. "Is that what you did? Just stopped. Just like that."
The only answer was the soft mutter of the wind through the pines. His eyes fell away, suddenly intent on the crumpled grass beneath his boots. "Don't matter," he said after an interminable moment. "Ain't about me. Best you worry about you and your girl."
She stepped in close, at first hesitant and then unfailingly gentle as she laid her hand on his forearm and felt it tremble. He gave her a quick, panicked glance but didn't move away. That small victory gave her the courage to ask the question that simmered in her mind. "Why did you help us? All this time, I wanted to ask."
He shrugged the muscles of his arm growing taut and strained beneath her fingers. "I just did," he stubbornly repeated his earlier answer. "Don't have to have a reason."
Carol tightened her grip on his arm as she felt him start to slip away. When he turned a hot-eyed look on her, she lifted her chin, meeting him glare for glare. "I can't pay you back."
Surprisingly, his lips twitched into a smile, the first real one she'd seen from him. He pulled his arm out of her grasp and spun on his heel, headed back to the main house. "Supper should be done by now," he announced over his shoulder, an impish lilt plain as day in his voice. "You be alright finding your way back?"
"Yeah, sure." Her surly tone teased another smile from the man. "I'll be there in a minute." He disappeared into the trees, leaving her staring out over the water as her mind tried to unravel the snarled happenings of the past few days. "If you're going to make it through this, Carol, you have to become strong," she told herself sternly. "You have to do it for you and for Sophia."
She didn't quite know what to make of this newfound determination. It was too new, too unaccustomed, and too foreign. She only knew that a switch had been flipped and she couldn't and wouldn't go back to the woman she was before all this started.
End….chapter 3
a/n Credit for the Cherokee Rose story from Season 2's Pretty Much Dead Already goes to the writers of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, and AMC. I have merely borrowed it here. Thank you for reading.
