Before she leaves Henry's dorm, Carol stops in on a few other people to see how they're settling. She's genuinely interested, but she's also aware that she's up for re-election in three months and that making her presence known is a necessary part of the political game.
Carol is the second Mayor of Hilltop, after Maggie, whose first term ended abruptly when she was killed in the War with the Whisperers. Carol was elected in a hastily held special election and served out the last few months of Maggie's term. She was then re-elected for another, full, two-year term, but that term is now drawing to a close. If she wins, this next term will be her last, as the town charter places term limits on the mayor.
So far, only one candidate has declared against her, a man named Roderick Hamilton, who currently serves as the Director of Farming. Roderick is a capable man, in his field, but Carol doesn't think he's ready to be Mayor. The only person she would refuse to campaign against is Aaron, but he hasn't indicated a desire to run. He's saving his bid, she thinks, for when she's done with her final term and he can no longer serve as Chairman of the Council due to term limits.
The sun has set by the time she leaves the dormitory, and she follows the sound of barking dogs to John and Julie Markwood's cabin, where she assumes she'll find Daryl. John is one of their best hunters, squarely in the top five with Daryl and Henry and part of the permanent hunting team.
When she comes around the side of the cabin, she sees a gray tentacle of smoke and is assaulted by the spicy-sweet smell of unfiltered tobacco. Daryl and John sit on the porch smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Merle is humping Daisy on a blanket of fallen leaves a few yards from the porch. The scene is illuminated by a pair of torches planted at the foot of the porch stairs.
The men don't see Carol and continue their conversation. "Wish it was that easy for us," says John, gesturing with his cigarette to the dogs. He scratches his silver-gray hair, which in combination with his old-school handsome features and perpetually fine stubble has always reminded Carol a bit of George Clooney. "Just jump on 'em whenever the hell we want."
Carol can't hear if Daryl agrees.
"I swear, Julie only has sex with me once a month now." John has an old south, Virginian accent, the kind with just a faint hint of English in it. "And it's as if she's doing a chore. I have been seriously thinking of widening my net, if you catch my drift."
"Don't piss away yer family like that, man," Daryl replies.
"Jacob's full grown. He's moved out of the house. That woman from Oceanside, the redhead? She's been giving me the eye. And you know what they say about redheads."
"Got yerself a decent woman," Daryl tells him. "Stuck with you through all this shit. Don't fuck it up for a piece of ass. Yer gonna regret it."
"I don't recall writing you a Dear Abby letter about it."
Daryl blows out a sharp stream of smoke. "Well don't fuckin' mention it if ya don't want my advice."
"How often you get laid?" John asks. "How many times a month?"
"None of yer fuckin' business times a month."
John chuckles. "So you've got it as bad as me, then?"
"Trust me. I'm doin' just fine."
"Really?" John asks. "I mean you aren't exactly Mister Romance."
"Carol likes me is all. Hell if I know why."
Merle has finished his mating and is sniffing a trail toward Carol now. She makes a lot of noise as she approaches so the men won't continue their private dialogue. Merle barks, runs to her, and jumps up on her until she tells him to heel.
"Howdy, Carol," John calls over the porch rail when he spies her. "I keep your man too late?"
"Well, I need to pick up Hershey from his friend's and get a late dinner started. So unless you're planning on feeding him - "
"- I assure you Daryl does not want my cooking. And my lovely wife is working late tonight with the Deputy Director of Education. Something about the new primary school curriculum?"
"I couldn't say," Carol replies.
"I thought the mayor knew about all these details."
"Well, they haven't brought it before the Council yet."
Daryl grinds his cigarette out beneath the heel of his boot and heads down the porch stairs. John calls for his dog, and Daisy runs to him.
As they walk home, Merle trailing after them and sniffing the ground, Carol says, "I thought you quit those nasty cigarettes."
"Ya thought wrong."
"They're going to kill you, Pookie."
"Not 'fore yer naggin' does."
Carol snorts. "What were you and John talking about?" she asks, even though she knows.
"Nothin'," he lies.
"Nothing? It's hard to talk about nothing."
"Breedin' the dogs. Huntin'. Usual shit."
"Aha." She laces an arm through his and playfully kisses his leather vest over his shoulder. "Did you happen to have a little talk with Henry today while you two were out hunting? Did you tell him he should call me mom?"
"Don't know nothin' 'bout that."
"Well, I suppose I'll take it, even if you made him to it."
"Ya kiddin'? I can't make that kid do shit."
Carol chuckles and slides away from his arm as Merle, barking, pushes himself between their two sets of legs. Carol looks down at the dog. "Mommy and Daddy are going to cuddle sometimes, Merle. You can't keep trying to stop it."
[*]
When Carol comes out into the living room later that night after tucking Hershey into bed, Merle is asleep on the bearskin rug before the fireplace. Daryl sits in his beloved arm chair sharpening one of his knives with a stone. The dishes she asked him to take care of are still on the table. As she gathers them, she clangs them together loudly and pointedly.
"Said I'd get those," Daryl mutters.
"Yes. But saying you will do something and actually doing it are two different things." She brings them over to the washing tub and dumps them in. "And I see you aren't rushing over to help me."
"Seems like ya got it under control."
Carol adds some soap to the water, and begins scrubbing. "You can take them out to the hand pump and rinse them when I'm done scrubbing."
"Yes'm." He hisses suddenly, puts his finger in his mouth, and sucks.
"You cut yourself?"
"Nah. Just nicked my thumb."
Carol rolls her eyes. "That would be cutting yourself. You need some antibiotic?"
"Nah. I sucked off the blood."
"Good Lord, Daryl. Sometimes…" She shakes her head as she resumes scrubbing.
Later, when he comes back from rinsing off the dishes at the hand pump, with the washing tub spilled out, she's at her rolltop desk. After putting away the tub and the dishes, he pokes at the fire to get it blazing better. Merle whimpers, lifts up his head, licks his chops, and settles back to sleep.
Daryl sinks back into his arm chair, where he begins sharpening a second knife. A few minutes later, Carol leaves her desk to curl up on the couch. First, though, she grabs her novel from the end table, the one she's been trying to find time to finish for two weeks.
After she's been reading for about ten minutes, Daryl looks up from his blade and peers at her curiously. "You done workin'?"
"I actually finished most of my work during the day today, believe it or not."
"Good. Ya deserve some time to relax."
"You know what would be even more relaxing?" she asks as she shuts her book and lays it on the end table.
"Sex?" he asks hopefully.
"No." She swivels so her back is against the arm of the couch and stretches out her legs across the cushions. "A foot rub."
Daryl lays the sharpening stone down on the small, circular table by his arm chair, stands, twirls his knife three times around, and then slides it with a click into its sheath. He begins to unbuckle his belt.
"I said not sex. A foot rub."
"Heard ya. Don't want all the shit on my belt pokin' ya." With his belt buckle hanging loose, he pauses to unclip and lay on the circular table his three sheathed knives, his holster and handgun, and his magazine pouch with two spare magazines. Then he empties his pockets of two pocket knives, a small box of matches, three spent shell casings, a stray bullet, and –
"Is that an arrowhead?"
"Yeah, found it in the woods today." He lays it with all of his gear, which is nearly spilling off the table. "Used to collect 'em when I's a boy." He slides his belt loose with snap and tosses it in his arm chair.
She chuckles. "Used to, huh?"
He shrugs. He picks up the arrowhead and holds it between his fingers to show her in the dancing light of the fire. "This one's pretty cool, though, ain't it? Cherokee or some shit."
"Bring it closer."
He walks over and hands it her. She lifts her legs so he can sit on the couch and then lowers her stocking feet into his lap. As he yanks off one of her socks, she says, "It's pretty. It's almost a jade color."
"Could make a necklace out of it for ya." He yanks off the other sock and rests a cool hand on her bare ankle. "If ya want."
She smiles. "And you don't know why you get laid more often than John?"
His eyes widen. "Ya heard that?"
"Every word."
He avoids her eyes and concentrates on her foot as he begins to rub it.
"What do they say about redheads?" she asks.
"Hell," Daryl mutters. "I don't even know who they are."
Carol turns the arrow head in her fingers. "Yes, please. I'd like a necklace. I'd say for our anniversary, but we don't really have one, do we?"
Daryl stops rubbing and looks at her warily.
"I told you, I don't care about formalities." She shrugs. "It's just…we do have a way of making it official, if we wanted to. The Hilltop has had a town marriage book for three years now."
Daryl begins rubbing her foot again. "Don't want to put it in the marriage book."
"Why?" she asks, feeling wounded by his response. Does he really not feel like this is a marriage?
"If'n we put it in the marriage book, got to date it with whatever day we put it in the marriage book. Be like sayin' we ain't been married all these years."
"Oh." Relief eases through her. "Well, we could backdate it. People have put their marriages in there who were married before the Turn, and they just put the date they were married in the old world, B.T."
"Bee tea?"
"Before the Turn. B.T. and A.T. After the Turn. Pookie, that's the calendar we've been using for four years now." Of course, Daryl never fills out his paperwork and has no need for dates. She smiles. "Do you even know what year it is?"
"Judith's 10 so…10 A.T.?"
"11 A.T. So do you want to? Put our marriage in the book?"
He works a knuckle down her foot. "What date would we put?"
"Maybe when we moved into the cabin together?" she suggests.
"When was that?"
"6 A.T. Sometime in early October." She remembers the month because they had trick-or-treating a couple of weeks later, for the first time in Hilltop. Henry thought himself too cool to go at the age of fourteen, and he regretted not participating and eventually joined in, under the guise of volunteering to supervise a then two-year-old Hershey. Maggie let Henry take her son around, and she ended up hanging out at Carol's new cabin, drinking hot mulled cider and talking about her dreams for the future of the Hilltop, dreams Carol has been working to realize. "We gave out peppermints, remember?"
Daryl chuckles. "Yeah. Stale as fuck."
"Well, I hope fucks never grow stale around here."
He smiles and ducks his head. He shifts his massage to her other foot.
"So… we're doing it?" she asks. "Recording our marriage? Say…October 5, 6 AT?"
"October 7th."
"Why the 7th?" she asks.
"'Cause seven's a lucky number. Number of perfection or some shit, right?"
"I like seven," she agrees. "And it's already two weeks past October 7th, so you can give me that necklace for our belated anniversary."
"Leather chain okay?"
"Best kind."
When he stops massaging her feet, she shifts and curls up against him. "Want to fool around?" she asks, in that same teasing tone she once used at the prison.
"Pffft."
"I'm not joking."
"Yeah? Two nights in a row?"
"Hey," she says. "I can be unpredictable."
"Yeah? You serious?"
She stands from the couch and holds out her hand to him. "Come on. Tuck me in."
Daryl grins, takes her hand, and follows her to bed.