Chapter 10

"Ouch," she laughed, as she stumbled over Daryl's hunting gear.

"You ok?" he asked, quickly taking hold of her arm and helping her steady herself.

"Fine," she said with a giggle, as he pulled his arms around her. "You probably would've been better off coming camping alone. I'll probably scare all the deer away with my clumsiness." Daryl snorted at that and kissed her.

"Didn't bring you out here to hunt deer," he pointed out. "Now take off your clothes."

"Oh, you're getting awfully demanding, Mr. Dixon," she said with a flirty grin, running her hands down his chest and resting her fingertips against his belt.

"It's been two weeks," he panted, eyes dark with desire as he reached for her. She swatted his hands away.

"I know, and I'm sorry," she pouted, leaning in to give him an all-too-brief kiss on the lips. "Let me make it up to you."

"How ar—oh." She moved to her knees, jerking at his belt, and he felt his dick twitch in response. "Christ." She looked up at him, eyes dark with passion now, and she slipped his belt from the loops. The second she had his pants undone and around his ankles, she tugged down his underwear and took his dick in her hand. She wasted no time, taking him between her lips, sucking at the tip before taking him further, slowly squeezing him at the base as she circled the head with her tongue.

"Aw, fuck, Carol," he panted. She hummed softly, and he thought he might die. It had been too long. Reality had taken a toll on them both these past two weeks. He'd been slammed with trauma after trauma at the hospital, and she'd been busy with conferences and end-of-the-year test grading. Ed was out of town, and Sophia was at her grandmother's for the whole weekend, and both of them were in a hurry to just be together.

It had been too long, and Daryl could feel himself losing control. He gently tapped at her shoulder, urging her to stop, and she looked up at him innocently before releasing him.

"Something wrong?" she teased.

"Yeah, you and that mouth are gonna be the death of me," he replied, as she scrambled to her feet and tore at his shirt with her fingers as his mouth closed over hers. He quickly grabbed her behind the legs and lowered her down to the ground, crawling over her as they both worked together to strip one another.

But just as he was reaching to yank her panties down, a startling noise from outside ruined the moment.

"What the hell?" he grunted, pausing on top of her, as she stared, wide-eyed at the open tent flap.

"What is that?" she asked, as the noise sounded again.

"Oh fuck," he grumbled. "Fuck. Fuck."

"What?!"

"Get up. Get up. We gotta go, Carol." The sound happened again. The piercing shriek had Carol grimacing as they both fought to pull their clothes back on.

"What is it?"

"A fuckin' screech owl is what it is. We're campin' right under its nest."

"Oh. Is that…bad?"

"You wanna get any sleep tonight?"

"I wasn't planning on it, no," she said with a grin, giving his ass a squeeze. At her teasing, he smirked.

"Alright, don't say I didn't warn ya when it wakes ya up at two in the mornin'. You ain't gonna like that so much."

"Oh," she muttered. "Yeah, let's find somewhere else. Ooh, there's a nice motel with a Jacuzzi a few miles down the highway."

"What about camping?" he asked.

"Daryl, I love you," she murmured, pulling her arms around his neck. "But within two seconds of having my clothes off, I had ants in places there shouldn't be ants. And the bird? Well, let's just say I'm not feeling very sexy right now."

"Oh," he murmured. And without words, he was tearing out of the tent. Carol rushed after him, straightening her shirt.

"I'm sorry," she offered. "You're not upset, are you?"

"You kiddin'?" he asked, tossing things into the back of his truck. "Let's get the hell outta here." At that, a grin spread over her face, and she helped him tear down their little camping setup in ten minutes flat.

The next few days were uneventful. Daryl hadn't heard from Carol, and he assumed she was dealing with arrangements for Ed, and he didn't want to press her for company, because he knew pushing wasn't the answer.

He'd kept himself busy continuing to look through his charts from the last six months, hoping to spark some sort of memory. When he'd worn himself out, he'd returned home and rested. He was healing, and he felt better each day, but he knew he wasn't near ready to go back to work yet.

By dinnertime on the third day that he'd gone without seeing her, he'd given up on seeing her, so he'd stopped in at the coffee shop to get a cup to go on the way home. To his surprise, she was waiting on his doorstep when he got back.

"You don't call?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I can go."

"Don't want ya go to. But I been waitin' to hear from ya."

"I know. I'm sorry," she said quietly. "Um, Ed's been cremated, and I gave his ashes to his mother. It's done. It's…over."

"You ok?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so," she said softly, taking in deep breath. "I think I'm still a little numb."

"How's Sophia handlin' it?"

"She's sad. She says she was scared of him, those last few months. I told her he was sick, tried to make her feel better. Hell, I tried to make myself feel better." She shook her head. "It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make anything better. He's gone, and there's no changing anything." Daryl nodded, chewing the inside of his lip for a moment. "I feel like an idiot."

"Why?" he asked, helping her up, fingers lingering against hers as they stood toe to toe on the stoop.

"The past few months, all I could think about was how I was going to finally get up the nerve to leave Ed without any guilt. I was going to make a new life, and I was going to be happy. And then my husband goes off the rails and gets us all into an accident. He hurts my daughter, almost kills us, almost kills you. How could I be so stupid to think that everything would just work out?"

"You weren't stupid. You ain't," he insisted.

"No?" She looked up at him, eyes wide with hope and fear. "You don't…still? Nothing?"

"Nothin'," he said quietly. "M'sorry."

"It isn't your fault," she replied with a shake of her head. "It's not. I know that. But I can't help but think that maybe…maybe you not remembering means that this…"—she gestured between him and herself—"wasn't meant to be." She let out a dry sound, something crossed between a laugh and a sob.

"Are you upset with me?"

"No! No, I'm just frustrated. I'm frustrated, and I miss you. Him. The Daryl I fell in love with. God, this is hard."

"There's something here," he said quietly, opening the door and holding it wide for her to step inside. "There's somethin'. I feel it. It's there. I just can't explain it. And I wanna understand it." He shut the door behind them, and Carol moved into the living room, draping her jacket over the back of an arm chair. She turned then, facing him, and she took a deep breath.

"I've spent the last few days going through everything. And I wasn't…I didn't tell you everything. I just…I don't even know if I should."

"Tell me what?" he asked, taking a step toward her. "What is it?"

"I need to give something back to you." She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. She held her hand out and opened her fist to reveal a beautiful silver band with a sapphire setting. Daryl swallowed the lump in his throat and looked down at the ring in her hand.

"What's this?"

"You gave this to me. A few weeks ago. It was…a promise. It was a promise that everything was going to be ok, that we were going to be ok. I tried to give it back to you, told you to be serious, and you said you were. You said you'd never been more serious about anything. You really have a way with words, you know?" She chuckled a little before wiping at her eyes. "I just wanted you to have it back. I want you to know that it's ok. Whatever happens. It's ok, and I understand. We can move on. You can. I'll understand." When he didn't make an effort to reach out and grab the ring, she took his hand and placed the band in his palm. When he felt the cool silver against his skin, he could hear the chime on a door, feel the disapproving gaze fall over him as he walked through that door in torn jeans. He could hear himself thinking that if he'd come in wearing scrubs, they never would have bent over backwards to get his business.

He took a deep breath and a step back, and Carol's eyes widened with worry.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah. Just…it's…nothin'," he said quickly. "Can I get ya somethin' to eat?"

"No, thank you. I'm not hungry," she murmured as the hope left her eyes.

"Ya didn't have to bring this back. If I bought it for ya, I wanted ya to have it. You should keep it."

"No," she said with a shake of her head. "It's…I haven't been able to wear it. And today, for the first time, I took off Ed's ring, and I put on yours, and I can't do it, Daryl. I can't hold onto a ring when the man who gave it to me can't even remember giving it to me, can't remember loving me."

"I'm sorry for all this," he said quietly.

"Stop apologizing. It's not your fault," she said gently, bringing her hand up to his cheek. She smiled then, blinking through her tears, and she gently ran the pad of her thumb along his cheekbone. He could suddenly hear her soft laughter, smell the scent of lilacs, feel the goose bumps along a soft thigh. He flinched then, and Carol withdrew her hand.

"I should go," she said softly. "I just wanted you to have that. And I wanted you to know that I'll always be here for you, because you were there for me. And this baby…you can…you can be as involved as you want. I won't stop you from being a part of his life."

"What're you doin'?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "You breakin' up with me?" She smiled sadly and shook her head.

"You can't break up with a ghost," she murmured. "I can't leave you. I love you too much. But I don't want you to feel pressured. Maybe this time around, you won't feel the same. I don't want you to feel obligated. I want you to be happy. That's all I want." She reached out and took his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze, and he could feel the beat of her heart in her fingertips. He could almost feel the brush of her lips against his neck, the beautiful ache of being surrounded by her, buried inside of her.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and she took a step back.

"Daryl? Are you…are you ok?"

"Yeah," he lied. "M'fine." He swallowed hard and nodded. Looking back up at her, he felt something tug at his heart. He felt something. He didn't know what he was feeling, what he was experiencing. Those flashes, like grainy videos playing in his head, they had to be for something. "I wanna be there. I do. The baby…all that. If I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna be a dad. I ain't gonna make you go through that alone." He saw the sad smile on her face again, and he ached to comfort her. But she was turning for the door then, and he felt the moment pass by, ghosting over them, between them, putting miles between them in its wake. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob

"I have a doctor's appointment next week," she offered. "If you'd like to go? Maybe we'll hear the heartbeat."

"I'd like that," he said quietly. "Very much. Um, thanks, Carol. Thank you." She nodded and gave him a little smile before she started out the door. "Hey." She turned on the porch and looked at him through the screen door.

"How about breakfast tomorrow?"

"I can't. Work. Um, maybe Saturday. Sophia likes to stay with her grandmother on Friday nights."

"Alright. Saturday then. It's a date." He saw a flash of pain cross her face, but she put that smile back on and nodded her head.

"Yeah," she murmured. "Goodnight, Daryl."

"Night," he murmured, watching her head down the steps toward her car. He turned toward the living room and noticed her jacket draped over the back of the chair. "Hey! You forgot—" But she was already in her car and fixing to pull out. In his haste, he grabbed the jacket, and started back for the door, but she was gone, and something fluttered out of the pocket. He bent down to pick up the folded piece of paper. It was soft and worn from being opened and folded so many times. He knew it wasn't his business, but he already had it open and under the hallway lamplight. He recognized the handwriting as his own, and as he began to read, he couldn't help but feel like he was intruding on a private conversation, even if he was the one who'd written it.

Carol,

Last night was one of the best nights of my life. I ain't good with words, and I ain't always good about talking about my feelings. But I wanted you to know that I've never felt about anybody the way I feel about you. And I know things are complicated. I know you got a whole other life at home. I know you love your girl more than anything, and I know you still love Ed in some ways. So when I gave you the ring, it wasn't about pressuring you. It was a promise that someday we could both be happy. We could be ok. And I don't want you to feel obligated. I know you feel obligated to Ed. I know you don't want to leave him when he's having a hard time. But you're not happy, and I want you to be happy. And I think I can make you happy. Someday, I promise you, you will be happy, whether it's with me or with him or with some other guy. I love you, Carol, and all I want is for you to be happy, no matter what. Above anything else, you're the best friend I ever had, and whatever else happens, I will be here. That's a promise.

Love,

Daryl