A/N – Two chapters… one day. :) Okay, I'm taking a break from this fic now to work on one of my others. But don't worry, it shouldn't be long before I get another update up this week.

Hope you like! Thank you for your great reviews! I'm enjoying this one and I hope you are too. Please read and review.


Chapter 9

"It's no bus'ness of his who ya are," Daryl's voice sounded from the entrance of the house, and Carol whipped her head around to look at him. She caught his eye and she could practically see the anger rising off him like a steam. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Told-ya to keep yer ass in the truck," he muttered angrily at her before stepping into the house and coming to stop on the other side of the mantle, his focus now on the man on the couch.

"N-ow is that anyway to talk to my guest?," the old man said sarcastically, his voice strained with effort and then he started to cough again.

Daryl exhaled loudly, shifted on his feet and scowled. He looked from Carol to his old man as he spoke… "Carol, this is my old man, Frank… Frank Dixon."

Carol shifted uncomfortably and nodded, her eyes meeting with Frank's and his gaze glinted devilishly before he averted his eyes back to Daryl.

She dropped the hand that had been keeping the gun on Frank, and let it rest at her side, the handle of the gun still in its grip.

"The fuck ya been, boy? Yer fuckin trespassin, I oughta call the fuckin cops," Frank sneered and then he started to laugh.

Carol put her empty hand to her mouth and bit back the tight smile she felt threatening the corner of her lips.

Daryl's father was… crotchety. She imagined he'd been cruel when Daryl was younger, cruel and angry and a drunk. It was etched across his face – the father's – and written across Daryl's contemptuous gaze. She thought about the scars that Daryl bore… the ones on his chest that he'd been quick to cover up when she'd walked in on him at Hershel's farm. She was sure there were others as well. She wondered if Frank had always been that way, this way… the man on the couch with the angry, gleaming eyes, the sarcastic tone, he hardly seemed the same man she'd seen with the smile in that first photograph on the mantle.

When had he changed?

She knew without knowing. The pregnant woman in the photograph… when he had lost her, Frank had become what he had become… this man, this sarcastic, cold, bitter man. She could see it in the smile that crossed his face now… he was like Ed.

"Oh yea, go 'head, call whoever ya fuckin like, pop. Ain't gonn' matter," Daryl jabbed back.

Frank's face contorted into a wide smile. "Ya 'member that time I tried to gut ya?," Frank said and Carol looked at him in horror. "Woulda done it too… how's them scars doin'? I wanted to play connect the fuckin dots with yer face but yer damn brother…"

"Shut the fuck up, old man," Daryl hissed. In a quick move, his hand was on Carol's suddenly and he had taken the gun from her. He raised his hand to point it at Frank's head.

Frank snorted. "Ya gonn' kill me now boy? Ain't got the balls."

Daryl growled and advanced moving forward like a cat stalking prey and shoved the gun closer.

Frank's smile got wider and he leaned forward on the couch – the springs groaning under the pressure – and pressed his forehead into the gun that Daryl was pointing.

Carol moved to Daryl's side, put her hand on his arm softly; breathlessly she said, "no Daryl, you don't want to do this…"

Daryl cast a glance at her with a glare that spoke volumes. It screamed get back, get away from me. She removed her hand from his arm like it burned her and backed up a step.

Daryl turned his fiery gaze back to his father who leaned harder into the barrel of the gun. "I got the balls, pop. Ya gave 'em to me… beat 'em in nice and bloody. Ya wanna meet yer maker?"

Frank kept his eyes on Daryl, let the smile fade for a moment. "Fuckin' do it, ya lil' sally girl. No better than yer fuckin' whore of a sister…"

Daryl snarled and raised the gun suddenly, smashing the butt of it into Frank's face. Frank didn't cry out, didn't raise a hand. He sank back into the couch a little and wheezed in a breath before smiling again. Beads of perspiration were forming on Frank's forehead. Carol saw the yellow in his eyes as they rolled a bit into his head and then came to rest again on her for a moment before back to Daryl.

"You don't talk about her… it's yer fault she left… ya fuckin destroyed 'er, you sick fuck. I know what ya did. I know 'xactly what ya done. I fuckin saw it," Daryl yelled, his voice thick with rage.

She heard him click the safety off the gun and she stepped forward, her hand coming down to rest on his arm again. He didn't acknowledge, she leaned forward and said, her voice shaking, "Don't do it Daryl. Don't do this. There's no peace in this… no peace down this road… trust me…"

Carol was lying face down on the wood floor at the bottom of the stairs. She groaned, moved her head slowly and slid her cheek across the warm slick wetness that she was lying in. Blood, her blood.

As what had happened came back to her, she started to sob, she rolled to her side, drew her knees up and curled into a ball on the floor, and she cried gut-wrenching sobs. Her head ached. How much blood had she lost? Had she passed out? How long was she out? She'd been at the top of the steps… and then she'd been at the bottom.

Is the baby okay? She was only four months pregnant… her belly barely distended in a small bulge.

She heard the creak of the staircase as someone descended. Then her stepmother stood above her, leaning over, peering down, shaking her head.

"What a pity," Jolene said, shaking her head. "You really should start watching where you walk… one of these days you're going to have an accident that does more than break a few bones."

Carol was dizzy as she rolled over again, this time onto her back, staring up at Jolene's hard face.

"You… you… pushed me," she whispered.

Jolene smiled viciously. Then looked away from Carol, glancing around the room. "Whose to say how you fell? No one here but us hens." Her smile grew wider. Then she glanced away from Carol, down Carol's body… "You're bleeding, honey… I don't think this baby's gonna make it." Her face looked satisfied… as if a goal had been met.

Groaning, Carol moved a hand down her body, feeling the area where her dress – Ed liked her in dresses – had lifted up slightly and she placed her cool fingers to her warm, sticky thigh, pulled away and saw blood on the fingertips.

She heard a sound that sounded like pure unadulterated anguish, like the saddest sound anyone had ever heard, and then she realized it was coming from her. She rolled onto her side again, and sobbed, the low, anguished, guttural sound still pulsating from the back of her throat.

She heard the tsk-tsk clucking sound Jolene made as she stepped around Carol, and moved out of the room into somewhere else in the house. "Suck it up, honey… Lord knows, I did," Jolene said casually as she disappeared from sight.

Ed was away… traveling. He traveled a lot. When he left, Jolene always stayed at the house with Carol. Not because Carol wanted her to, but because Jolene and Mrs. Peletier were afraid Carol would leave before Ed got back.

Carol wouldn't have left… she'd been told enough what would happen if she did. She wouldn't make it far, wouldn't make it on her own. They'd find her. Hunt her down. She wouldn't care if they killed her… she'd do it if she thought they'd kill her for it. But what they'd do would be worse than death. The three of them – Jolene, Mrs. Peletier, Ed… they could do worse than death, much worse.

She sobbed on the floor, until finally she lay there in silence, her hair stained in blood that had leaked from her head. There was so much of it, she was lightheaded, but she knew it wasn't enough to die. It was never enough to die.

She wished for death, but wishes were nothing. Wishes didn't help. Nothing helped.

She pulled herself up off the floor, slowly, tentatively, feeling each wound, each bruise as she did it. One arm ached… it was broken, she thought. She wouldn't be surprised. It would heal… they always healed.

She stood, lifted the skirt of her dress and inspected between her legs. There was blood drying on her thighs, she pulled down her panties slightly… red with blood. This was her first baby… dead in her womb, blood on her thighs.

Carol moved like a robot down the hallway, into a room that Ed used for his den. She moved to the desk, rummaged through it. It took minutes for her to find the object of her desire. She pulled it out and turned it over in her hands, gazing at it.

Ed's gun… a revolver. Her wet hands left bloodied fingerprints everywhere they touched. She shut the desk drawer and looked at the gun, feeling its weight in her hands.

"What are you doing with that?" Jolene's voice was glib from the doorway to the den. She looked at Carol like one would look at a child. Carol wasn't a child anymore. Carol was twenty-eight years old. She'd been a wife for eleven years now. She'd been nearly a mother… for four months. Her gut wrenched and she looked up calmly at her stepmother.

Jolene gave her a scolding look. "Put that down. You're not going to shoot yourself."

Carol lifted her arm, pointed the gun at Jolene. "I wasn't going to shoot myself… I was going to shoot you." Her voice was soft, sullen and serious.

Jolene's lower lip dropped down slightly and her eyes widened. "No," she said petulantly, "no you're not…" Her words were drummed out by the gunshot. Carol was knocked back slightly as the gun bucked in her hand. It had been awhile since she'd gone hunting with her father… not since before she was married had she held a gun, had she discharged a weapon. She steadied herself, watched as red bloomed across her stepmother's blouse.

Jolene frowned, looked down at her bosom at the hole made in the fabric of her blouse where the bullet had gone through, had plunged deep somewhere in her chest, blood now draining onto the fabric, spreading out across her chest. She looked up, meeting Carol's eyes… "What did you do…"

And then Jolene crumpled to the floor and Carol started to cry again, sobbing, dropping to her knees and heaving as she gasped for air, her stomach churning, her head pounding…

"There's no peace down that road, no peace if you do it, Daryl… trust me," she repeated, her voice pleading, her hand tightening on Daryl's arm. Something in her voice must have reached him. The gun wavered slightly in his hand, and he looked at her… truly looked at her.

Carol's father found her hours later… Carol and Jolene. Jolene dead on the floor, and Carol covered in her own blood curled up in a ball beside Ed's desk… sleeping in a little ball on the floor, her eyes red-rimmed, the contents of her stomach lying emptied beside her.

He took the blame. He told the police that he had come in to see Jolene push Carol down the stairs. He said they'd had words, he had been enraged, went for the gun in Ed's desk… she followed, and he shot her in the doorway to the den. He'd tidied the scene so that it matched his story.

Carol stood there, emotionless, her body wracked with defeat, and let him. The police questioned her and all she could do was nod and shake her head. She was destroyed. But he took the blame.

Her father. The man who had taught her to shoot. He told her that it had to be this way. He had sworn to protect her. He should have done better before then, he'd said. It was better this way – if he took the blame.

Of course, without him, she was lost. He was arrested… held without bail. Eventually he was convicted.

She hadn't lost the baby that day. It was a miracle. The only miracle she'd ever witnessed. It was the only bright spot in the months that followed. Five months later, Sophia was born… and life moved on. She couldn't leave Ed… she'd thought about it, but there was Sophia, and Mrs. Peletier – she knew. Carol never knew how she knew, but she knew. She dangled it over Carol's head… her knowledge… what she knew Carol had done. And Carol couldn't leave… she could never leave.

"Daryl," she said softly, his eyes suddenly soft on hers – his father on the couch all but forgotten – and she felt the weight of her memories on her chest… the world started to go black and suddenly she was crashing down to the floor, Daryl's arms encircling her at the last moment before she hit her head.