AN: Here we go, another chapter.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl was two doors down and he could hear the noise of Jake arguing with Carol. Or, maybe, it was Carol that was arguing with Jake. To be honest, Daryl couldn't quite sort out the one from the other at this distance. He wrapped up what he was doing as quickly as possible and walked quickly to Carol's room to see if he couldn't solve the problem before it escalated any more than it already had.
It looked like a standoff. Jake had been reduced to simply standing at the foot of the bed, hands on his hips like he was trying to figure out how to approach her, and Carol was leaning in her bed and holding onto the remote like she intended to bludgeon him with it if he should dare to come closer.
"I can't leave you alone for ten minutes," Daryl commented, disarming both of them momentarily as they turned to notice his arrival to the scene. "What's going on?"
"She won't cooperate," Jake said. Daryl bit the inside of his cheek not to laugh at the slight theatrical nature of Jake's gesture toward Carol. He was exasperated, there was no doubt about that.
"It's a simple job, man," Daryl said. "All you gotta do is take the tube out. Two minutes—four with good prep."
"She won't let me touch her!" Jake exclaimed.
It was pretty clear to Daryl, at this moment, that even if Carol would allow Jake to touch her long enough to remove the feeding tube, he didn't want the young man to do it. Whether or not any of them liked to admit their own shortcomings as humans and, especially, as caregivers, things didn't always work out in the favor of the patient if they'd reached their limit with patience. He'd be unnecessarily rough now just because he was worked up.
"Forget it," Daryl said. "Go—clean some bedpans or change some I.V. bags or something. I got this."
Jake visibly relaxed now that he was being excused from the job that he didn't want to do. He started toward Daryl, taking his leave of the room with no more word to Carol than if she'd been unable to communicate with him, and he stopped just before he reached the doorway.
"You're sure?" Jake asked.
"I'm sure," Daryl confirmed.
"You're not going to—to turn me in or anything, are you?" Jake asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"We've all had difficult patients before," Daryl said. "Get outta here. I'll find you later."
Daryl crossed the room to Carol's bed. She was still clutching her remote to the point that her knuckles were white and she glared at Daryl as he came closer.
"I'm not difficult," Carol growled at him. Daryl had to bite the inside of his cheek again to keep his composure. Carol was slowly getting a reputation for being difficult—at least for anyone who might come into her room besides Daryl.
"You sure ain't easy," Daryl responded. "If you weren't difficult? He'd've been outta here by now and you'd be without that feeding tube. At any rate, you're about to be without it now." Daryl reached to touch Carol's gown, meaning to move it out of the way, and she flinched instinctively. He raised his eyebrows at her. "Gonna club me to death with that?" He asked, glancing at her weapon of choice.
"No," she responded.
"Gonna tell me why Jake couldn't do something so simple?" Daryl asked.
Carol sighed deeply, clearly trying to relax herself a little.
"How simple is it?" Carol asked. "Are you going to—give me anything?"
"Anything what?" Daryl asked.
"Anything to—numb it? Or whatever?" Carol asked.
Daryl shook his head.
"Not gonna hurt," he said. "Don't need to numb it."
"See, that's what he said," Carol responded. "But that doesn't make sense to me. There's a plastic tube in my stomach and you're going to—what? Pull it out? And you're telling me that it's just—just not going to hurt?"
Daryl nodded.
"That's what I'm telling you," Daryl said. "Can I do this? Because—you're ready to be free of this thing and they prefer you don't have all these extra accessories when you start physical therapy. Get it down to nothing you don't absolutely need. And you don't need this for a single thing. You're eating fine and you're digesting fine. Put on a little weight even."
"That's not a nice thing to say to a woman," Carol pointed out.
Daryl laughed.
"Might not be out there," he said. "But in here? It's like saying—like saying your face is like the moon or something."
"Your face is like the moon?" Carol asked, laughing at Daryl's choice of words. He didn't care that she was laughing at him because she was clearly relaxing. She was sinking back into her pillow and she'd let him move her gown. He was getting closer to his goal and she barely seemed to be noticing it at all. She could be a handful for him, but she was much more willing to bend to his will than she was for anyone else. She trusted him.
"I'm not a poet," Daryl said.
"Surely you can do better than that," Carol said.
"Not on the fly, I can't," Daryl said. He readied the bandage that he'd place over the hole that would be temporarily left behind and got his own pair of gloves. It was only when she saw him putting them on that Carol clearly tensed again and he saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest that she was trying to hide from him with a less than panicked facial expression. He was learning her, though, now that he'd had almost two weeks to spend with her awake, and he knew more about her reactions than she thought he did. "Breathe," he said. He rested his hands on her, but made no move to do anything. "You want me to talk you through it?" Carol nodded, her voice seeming lost for a second. Daryl cleared his throat. She liked things explained to her. He couldn't really blame her. "Simple. You see this here part?" She nodded. "You got another one inside of you that's flexible. It's the only reason this tube doesn't just come out on its own. So—what I gotta do? Is just tug it enough that it folds up on itself and slides right on out. The tube'll come out after it. Same as pulling out an I.V. and that doesn't hurt, does it?"
Carol let out a breath she'd been attempting to hold and shook her head.
"But there's nothing holding an I.V. in," Carol pointed out. Daryl nodded.
"You right," he agreed. "Still—won't hurt. You'll feel a little pressure. That's it."
Carol crinkled her nose at him.
"I have learned that the word pressure is another word for it's going to hurt," Carol said. "Bad. I distinctly remember that word being tossed around when I had Sophia."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"You can forget you had breakfast this morning, but that you can remember?" He asked.
"Some things you don't forget," Carol said.
"Not that kind of pressure," Daryl said. "If you'll let me do it, it'll be over with. And then you don't have to worry about it anymore and we don't have to even talk about it." He'd readied himself to the point that he could have the tube out in a few seconds. Still, he knew that much of the rest of Carol's recovery depended on him keeping her trust, so he didn't go with his instinct to simply pull it out instead of continuing to talk to her. He rested his hand on the tube and Carol tensed. "Relax as much as you can, OK?" She let go of the new breath she'd pulled in. "You can keep breathing, just relax," Daryl added. "Just a little pressure. I promise. Done before you even know it."
On his final words, he went with his first instinct. He pulled the tube and, though she tensed against the pressure he'd promised her, he removed the tube without any great show of discomfort from Carol. He cleaned the area quickly and put the gauze covering over the hole.
"That's it?" Carol asked, panting a little. She'd stirred herself up more with her emotions than she'd been affected by anything having to do with the quick procedure.
"That's it," Daryl said, taping down the gauze pad and starting his clean up. "That's what all the worry was about. All the bickering and complaining."
"You don't have to—sew it up or anything?" Carol asked, gingerly touching at the gauze.
"It'll close quickly and on its own," Daryl said. "But I'll keep a check, just in case."
Carol sunk back like she was as exhausted by the whole thing as a body could be.
"It wasn't that bad," she confirmed.
"Knew it wouldn't be," Daryl said. "You just needed to complain about it."
"I don't complain," Carol said. "He comes in here and says you sent him to pull this tube out of me. What am I supposed to do?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Jake's working on his presentation skills," Daryl said. "I'm glad you're on my side now. Because—up next? We're getting rid of this catheter while we're plucking things off of you and then? You're one more step closer to freedom."
Carol groaned.
"Gonna hurt less than that," Daryl offered, stepping away to toss his gloves and wash his hands once more for good measure before he got a fresh pair.
"One step closer to freedom means one step closer to getting out of here?" Carol asked, not bothered by the short amount of distance that was now between them.
The question, all by itself, made Daryl's stomach knot up.
For two weeks Carol had been in recovery. For two weeks she'd been making steady progress in one area or another. It was slow going, there was no doubt about that, but she was pushing through like a champ. Sophia was back in Atlanta, though she only popped in every now and again for a visit and quoted long-distance work as the reason for her common absence, and Daryl spent a good bit of his "free" time with Carol. When he'd first taken her on, as a conscious patient, instead of sending her to the active recovery ward, he'd been worried that he'd tire of her—that the need to speak so often would simply get old for him. Now he was so used to her that he almost dreaded going back to his customary silence without the chance to pop in on her, from time to time, as a break from his other patients. He loved working with them, holding tight to the hope that he had for them, but she was a breath of fresh air. She was a reminder that the hope could play out. She was a reminder that, outside of his patients, there was life in the world.
The thought of her leaving twisted up Daryl's guts to a point that he was sure they were likely more uncomfortable than hers had been when he'd done the dreaded procedure and removed the tube that had once been responsible for her nourishment.
"You'll be out of here before you know it," Daryl confirmed, coming back to Carol's bedside.
Carol frowned at him.
"That look on your face doesn't make me feel too sure," Carol said. "You don't look very happy. Something you're not telling me?"
Daryl shook his head.
"Not about you getting out of here," he said, hoping that she didn't press him to find out any more information. "Maybe—I'm just going to miss you. You ever thought about that?"
Her expression was far more serious than it usually was when she looked at him. Immediately, though, she forced a half-smile across her lips.
"You'll miss me?" She asked. "Even though I make your job so much harder with all my complaining?" Daryl shook his head gently. It was the only response he could give her to what he knew to be teasing. The smile she'd forced, fell. "You'll still see me," Carol said. "Just—not as much. Not all day, every day."
Daryl didn't respond.
Carol apparently mentioned her belief that they were, somehow, together to Sophia from time to time, but she'd never brought it up to Daryl. She'd never mentioned it to him and, beyond the constant teasing that took place between them, she'd never really let on that she believed that there was anything there. Daryl wasn't really prepared to tell her that she was wrong, if she did bring it up, but so far she hadn't given him the opportunity to even think about how he might handle it.
But if Carol was leaving, sooner or later they'd have to handle it.
Because he couldn't, in good faith, say if he'd ever see her again. That would be up to her. His control of any situation involving Carol ended when she crossed the threshold of the automatic doors out front.
Daryl was pretty sure, though, that today wasn't the day that he wanted to handle the situation. He still wasn't prepared for it. He wasn't sure, in all honesty, if he ever would be.
They still had a little time, though.
Daryl forced a hint of a smile for Carol's benefit –or at least he forced the softening of his features since he wasn't sure his expression ever really reached the realm of true smile— and she immediately responded to it with some visible relief of her own.
"Just not as much," Daryl said. Carol made something of a soft sighing noise in response and nodded her head at him. "Don't be hardheaded with me this time. Let's get the catheter out. I want to call 'em tomorrow and say you're ready to try a little therapy."
Carol groaned and made a fake sobbing sound—entirely too over the top to be true—and then she smiled at him, this time sincerely.
"Aye aye, boss," she teased. "But—I get ice cream for all this."
"It's not even lunch yet," Daryl said. He smiled to himself at the expression that she gave him as a response. "Fine," he said. "But don't go complaining to me no more when I point out that you're putting on weight."
"I thought you said it was a good thing," Carol said.
Daryl hummed. It was a good thing. It was one of the many things that he had to keep a fairly constant check on. And it was one of the signs that Carol was doing well and that there was progress in her physical state, even if her memory hadn't bothered to restore itself very much as of yet.
"It is," he said. "It is. It's all good."