Note: Hello readers!
I actually hated writing some of this so its fairly brief and all set in the past but I packed it with emotion. I listened to 'Hurt' by Johnny Cash for the inspiration, if you listen to it for a bit maybe you'll feel how I feel about this part of my little story. Even the best of relationships can have sour moments. In an apocalypse I imagine those moments get magnitudes worse. I recon the next chapter is gonna be more cheerful than the last two have been. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully! I hope you don't all think this is going to start being cliche, believe me there's some major plot twists in development here. ;)
Thank you so much for your reviews, its part of what makes this fun to write! Enjoy. As always if you enjoy it, review it. If not, let me know whats wrong with it! Ciao!
Chapter Three- Flashback.
(What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away in the end
And you could have it all,
My empire of dirt
I will let you down,
I will make you hurt)
(Five years, nine months and 28 days ago)
Lori hadn't lied as Carol had expected. Until now she had refused to believe what she was told about Daryl, she knew he wasn't that kind of man. But there she was, curled up in the fetal position in a darkened corner of the prison's basement, her face devoid of color as she simply watched in silence, her eyes wide and full of pain. For one fleeting moment she wished Daryl Dixon would drop dead in front of her or she could just drop through the floor and into the abyss and escape this new wave of horror. She had bounced down the basement steps seconds ago into Daryl's makeshift meat locker to tell him she was pregnant with their first baby, she had the pregnancy test in her hand and a twinkle in her eye. Then she had seen him... With her.
There he stood, arse naked with that new-comer Michonne equally bare and bent double before him. She watched, listened, cried as the one thing keeping her soul tied to the Earth dishonored her right there in plain view. He rolled his head back onto his shoulders and she noticed his eyes were closed, his teeth bared and a thin trail of saliva dripped from his lips and ran the length of his thick neck. Daryl didn't notice her laying there, coiled up shuddering on the ground. Thinking of Carol with every thrust was the only way he found pleasure in their intercourse, but she wasn't to know that. This was a one-time thing, he told himself. By the next morning he could be back in Carol's arms and done with Michonne, she had told him she was planning to head out in a few days anyway and take their secret with her. He knew when all was done he would feel guilty, but Carol had been so frigid and snappy with him of late that he felt he had to find acceptance in someone else's hands. That was his reason anyway. He knew from the start that it was bullshit.
(The needle tears a hole,
An old familiar sting,
Try to kill it all away,
But I remember everything)
A part of Carol's sanity tore right then in that moment as she watched them together. She felt the ache in her head and the sudden loss of control of her mind that sent her reeling away, fumbling blindly to her feet in the dark. With one swift flailing movement she turned clockwise on her heel and threw the pregnancy test across the room, shattering it loudly against a wall. Both of the copulating pair before her froze and their eyes snapped open. Daryl pushed his lover aside and span around, quick enough to catch a glimpse of a tiny-framed woman with a shaven head racing up the stairs, her face in her hands.
"Awh shit! Carol, wait!"
Upstairs she charged through the prison, stumbling, a maddened look in her red eyes. She half expected someone to stop her as she reached the doors, but no-one was bothered. Nobody cared about weak, crazy, bereaved Carol. She taunted herself, her mind filling with sick thoughts; she should have left the group and sacrificed herself to the Walkers weeks ago, she should have fed herself to her dead zombie daughter, she couldn't forget about her lost family, if she had Daryl would have loved her, wouldn't he? She was there to be used abused and cast aside like an old rag, nothing had changed since Ed had died. Same story, different heartache. She didn't bother to return to her room and dress, she simply left her 'house-keeping' linen sundress on and stormed out into the cold. Her hands shook as she slipped open the great wooden door and tossed herself outside, heading straight for the parking lot where Daryl's pickup truck groaned in the rough winds to itself. She knew the drivers side door was unlocked for easy access so she slid in, found the key in the glove box and slowly reversed her way out onto the open road, idly turning one Walker into pavement mush on the way. Daryl was supposed to be there, stopping her from leaving but he was nowhere to be seen. Why wasn't he there begging her to come back, perhaps feebly trying to explain what had happened, maybe chasing the car as she edged away? No doubt he hadn't quite 'wrapped up business' with Michonne yet, she said to herself, her inner voice sarcastic and cruel. She laughed out loud and slammed her foot on the accelerator, pulling away from their temporary home and out into the darkness alone.
The more her foot found the gas pedal, the more she swerved on the road. It had been a long time since she had last driven and she hardly noticed how fast she was traveling. She wanted to go home, but she didn't know where home was. Subconsciously she had set off on the path that would lead her back to Hershel's farm to be with Sophia but she didn't realize that. All she could think of was Ed, how through every beating she had always reminded herself that he must see some good in her, feel some kind of love to have never left her or found a better wife all those years. She thought of Sophia; when her daughter died she thought she could never give her heart to anyone ever again but she had, idiot Carol had fallen in love with Mr. Wrong again. She wanted to tear open her own stomach and pull out the baby, his baby, throw it onto the road and drive back into a time before all the suffering. Back to the Quarry camp. So she could stay in the tent on the night the camp was attacked and die violently next to Ed. In the dirt with her abusive white trash husband, where she belonged.
(You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt)
It felt as though a pair of hands had reached into her cranium and grabbed a hold of her brain and they were tugging and twisting lumps of the grey matter away. Her ears rang and her eyes stung with every drip of sweat that rolled off her brow into them. The pain was so intense, so magnificent that she surrendered herself to it, allowing herself to slide into a deep madness which engulfed her and drove her senses over the edge. She could still smell Daryl's musky scent in the truck, taste the sweat, remember the times they had held onto each other in the back seat and driven each other to sweet relief. She had never seen him do what she had just seen, he had never done it like that with her before. Always when they had 'made love' he had seemed so tender and unsure with her, as though she were made of a thin sheet of glass and could smash at any moment under his weight. He had run the backs of his hand down the length of her skin with a look of ecstasy, as though her body was made of gold; like every curve, dimple and blemish was a brand new treasure specially made for him to unlock. She had been so sure then that she was his one and only and she had blossomed into a whole new person full of confidence and happiness. How could she not have seen those sly glances at Michonne, their hurried whispers whenever they thought she wasn't there. 'Meet me in the basement tonight, Michonne' came the imaginary voice in the back of her head, as snide as ever, 'I'll show you how the Dixon brothers do it.' Carol closed her eyes for a split second and felt momentarily as though she was about to calm down and escape the anger, like her mind was about to clear.
That was when she blacked out. The panic attack had come so quickly that she hadn't even felt herself start to hold her breath and starve herself of oxygen. Her foot slid off the accelerator, tapping at the break just as her consciousness faded but not before she had gained enough speed for the vehicle to swerve out of control. Her tiny undeveloped baby jostled around in her stomach and it felt the painful bangs and bumps as the car met some kind of debris on the road and it flipped and crashed into an accompanying ditch. All fell still. Carol didn't wake up, the baby abruptly stopped moving inside her and the car steamed quietly to itself in the wind. She was miles away from the Prison and Daryl hadn't even finished frantically searching the immense number of rooms for her yet, screaming her name into the dark, echoing halls. He wouldn't find his vehicle gone for another hour. Rick wouldn't find the crashed wreck of the truck until the next morning as they searched for her. By then her newly crushed rib had formed massive black bruises on her abdomen, her shoulder had been dislocated and it was a race against time to save her and her baby.
Nobody in the group ever looked at Daryl the same way again. He was given the cold shoulder by everyone, they all knew he had essentially killed what was left of Carol's spirit in favor of one night of romping with a stranger. He admitted there was nobody else to blame but himself, though he didn't appreciate Lori's spying on him. That wasn't like him, they had all thought, but he had done it. Michonne was thought no differently of, she hadn't known much of Daryl and Carol's prior commitments to each other, after all she had only rolled into camp a day or two ago. The now humbled Daryl Dixon sat by Carol's half dead body day and night until she began to regain consciousness. It was a mental breakdown, Hershel had told everyone. A mental relapse brought on by extreme emotional turmoil from which she could take days, months or years to recover. It wasn't before time either, he speculated, she had lost the few things that mattered to her recently and she hadn't had any time to grieve, it was no wonder she hadn't been able to cope. He took that opportunity to purse his lips tightly and throw daggers at Daryl with his glare.
"She had just started to find happiness again and all of a sudden it was taken away from her. She's suffered more than enough."
It was just under a week before she awoke fully. She had been given a bed in the prison's cramped medical ward where the walls were steely grey and the windows were barred. If she hadn't just had a nervous breakdown perhaps she could enjoy that she actually had a bed, and some blankets instead of sleeping on a thin horse-skin rug next to Daryl. Daryl. Where the hell was Daryl? She sat bolt upright and automatically probed the surface of her stomach. Nothing. She was confident she had lost the baby. Maybe that was for the best, she speculated through her rage and regret.
(If I could start again,
A million miles away,
I would keep myself,
I would find a way)
It was a miracle that the baby survived the crash. The first thing Hershel told her when he came to check up on her in the afternoon was that her womb was still in tact, nothing had hurt the child. It was a gift from God, he told her, though she had to disagree, particularly when he told her how he had informed Daryl that she was pregnant and it had shook him up totally. Evidently he had been discussing 'the bump' with Daryl while evaluating her condition to him and his face had been totally blank so he took it upon himself to ask- 'you did know about the child, right?' He had rampaged and stormed out of the prison to go 'hunting' which essentially meant he needed to be alone for a while, which brought fresh tears and anger to Carol's face.
One by one each of the other members of the group visited her; Andrea brought food and sat beside her, filling her in on things she had missed during her 'absence', Rick told her about the crash, how he had seen the smoke from the wreckage miles away and it was amazing she had survived it, Lori talked to her about pregnancy... One by one everyone, even Michonne who came to tell her how very sorry she was, filed in and left. Except him.
It took another week for Daryl to sort out his feelings, by which time Carol was up and walking again, slowly regaining use of her legs and feeling more and more positive about the baby. He stood outside the prison walls with an unusually pitiful amount of game slung across his back, looking up at the barren stone like it was the reason for his pain and conflict. How the hell was he supposed to know she was going to attempt a stunt like that? How was he to know that she was carrying an unborn child? Did it matter now, could she ever forgive him? How the hell were they going to raise a baby in this world, it wasn't like he could take her to the hospital to get her medicines when she needed them. What would happen when she gave birth? Would he be the one to deliver it, or would Hershel have to do it, the guy who birthed cattle his whole life? He shook his head at his own pathetic attitude and swallowed deeply, aware he was about to either make or break something he hadn't realized the importance of until now. He loved Carol, it had taken a shock to the system for him to realize how important it was that he made amends with her. He took one deep breath and headed to the doors, about to face destiny.
