We begin with some sweet Caryl reunion smut and then things get a bit more serious as Carol and Daryl start to see the impact of the Petersons' return on the lives of the Dixons.
14)
The Friday after Thanksgiving, 2 p.m.
"Do you know how much you mean to me?" Daryl asked, lightly grasping her upper arm to stop Carol outside the door to Merle's apartment as she turned the key in the lock.
Carol turned her head, tilting it upwards so she could look into his warm blue eyes, the vertical line between them the start of a slight frown of sincerity. She reached up with her free hand and pushed his sandy shaggy bangs back off his forehead and then let her hand trail down to cup his cheek, nodding yes, her mouth working with emotion.
"I'm better...with you..." Daryl continued, his hands moving to her waist, anchoring her to him, "More at peace with myself than I ever remember being...it's like we get to start over...both of us...with each other...and I just-."
Carol stopped him by leaning up so she could pull his face to hers and kissing him, easing him back against the apartment door with her other hand on his chest, her body flush against his. Daryl's hands came to rest on her hips, thumbs moving up under her shirt to find the fine smooth skin of her waist, and she shivered.
"Inside." Daryl murmured as he broke the kiss to nuzzle her cheek and neck, his tongue sweeping out, licking, making her hum in agreement. He reached behind him with one hand and turned the key, opening it and backing through it, bringing her along with him, closing the door behind them by kicking it shut with his foot.
Daryl led her through the apartment, pausing to kiss and nibble a path from her neck down to her collarbones about every third step, making her grin at his antics. He backed her into the bedroom, the kisses making her dizzy, but then turned her in his arms until she was standing in front of him facing the room, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.
"Daryl...?"
On every flat surface in the small bedroom were vases, jars, glasses, just about whatever container there had been in the apartment that could hold water and all of them were full of one or two blooms all the way up to full bouquets of the same white flower he had picked for her in the glen after their picnic, Cherokee Roses. The room seemed as though it floated on a cloud of white eyelet lace.
Speechless, Carol turned and looked up at him. Daryl was watching her carefully to see how she reacted. He'd never done something so, well, so over the top just plain romantic for a woman before. He'd arranged it with Ty and Sasha earlier this morning and had called to check with them to make sure they were done while he and Carol had been at lunch at the diner.
He'd wanted to show her, needed to show her how special she was to him, that he'd meant every word he'd said to her and thought that called for a grand gesture. Sasha had also sprinkled individual petals all over the pillows like fragrant decorative confetti and he led her over to the bed, motioning for her to sit. Carol did, wiping away the silent tears that warred with her emotion filled smile.
When Daryl knelt on the floor in front of her and took hold of her hand Carol got a slightly panicked look in her eyes.
"What are you-? Daryl..." Carol asked, raising an eyebrow and trying to pull her hand back, but he wouldn't release it.
Daryl pulled a small box out of his jacket pocket and held it out to her.
Carol's eyes went wide, finally managing to free her hand and lean back.
"It doesn't bite." Daryl said, wiggling the box slightly. Whatever was inside made a sort of swishing metallic rattling noise.
"Are you sure? Small boxes presented in beautiful romantic flower covered rooms..." Carol let her skeptical voice trail off as she looked all around and put both hands behind her back.
"Calm down, I'm not on one knee." Daryl said dryly, but Carol didn't miss the brief hurt look that went across his face before he added with a sigh. "It's just earrings. Sophia picked them out."
Carol took the box from him and he got up and sat beside her on the bed, a little apart, watching her while she opened the gift. The earrings were silver, long drops with at least a dozen tiny silver hearts and a myriad of different shades of blue beads on thin silver chains attached to the lobe wire. They were beautiful and very much her style.
"They're perfect." Carol said softly and then burst into tears. She covered her face with her hand while she held the box in the other.
"Hey! Hey..." Daryl soothed, putting his arm around her shoulders.
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...I love you...I do...but we've only been dating three months and my marriage was terrible and I'm not... I love you..." Carol choked out and Daryl pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back and making comforting noises while she sobbed against his chest.
"So. Yeah. I'm pretty good at this romance shit...made my girlfriend cry...nice going, Dixon." Daryl drawled with a wry chuckle.
"No!" Carol stopped and looked up at him, miserable that she'd hurt him. "This is romantic—it's wonderful...you're wonderful...I just-"
"You're not ready, I know that sweetheart...but at the risk of freaking you out," Daryl interrupted and he kissed her brow, "I love you and I do hope that's where this is going."
Carol looked up at him with shining eyes.
"We got time...always liked the slow burn..." Daryl grinned and pushed her curls behind her ears. "You really liked them?" he asked and found the box from where it had fallen onto the bed. She removed the earrings she was wearing, but before she could replace them with the gift ones, he took them from her and gently did it for her, finding the small holes in her lobes, his lips then brushing the softest of kisses to the shell of her ear. He ran his fingers down the line of the delicate chains and continued along her neck.
"I want you...just wearing these..." Daryl whispered, kissing the silken skin behind her ear, his fingers finding and working the buttons at the collar of her blouse.
Carol made a small whimpering noise of agreement, raising her hands to help him, but he stopped her.
"Let me?" he asked, his voice soft and hoarse with desire, "You got your present—let me unwrap mine?"
He took his time, using both his hands and lips to place caresses and teasing nips to her flesh as it was revealed to him, inch by inch, the pale lightly freckled beauty of it making him worshipful. When he finished removing her blouse his hands moved to the clasp of her bra and then lowered the straps so he could fill his hands with the succulent orbs, groaning at the sensation of their softness against his rough palms.
"Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree..." he quoted, making her giggle.
"Gangster of love?" she asked, impressing him again with her knowledge of 70s music.
"Nah-space cowboy." he said smugly, grinning at her in that adorable way he had of doing it, with just the corner of one side of his sweet mouth, until a dimple appeared in his scruffy cheek.
Carol reached out and ran her index finger over his cheek and pushed in at the beauty mark near his mouth, smiling indulgently, and then gasped as he leaned close and sucked one firm nipple into his mouth with a humming sound. He worked it with his tongue, lightly rasping over and under, circling, suckling down hard.
"God, you are good at that..." Carol moaned, her fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his head to hold him close. She scratched at his scalp with her nails and he made a growly agreeable noise deep in his throat and she felt his teeth nip at her and she tugged on his hair harder.
"Yes—oh yes—please?" Carol cried and bucked against him with gasps and cries of pleasure.
Daryl's hands slid to her back, anchoring them at her shoulder blades to hold her still.
"God you smell good...taste good..." Daryl murmured as he moved his mouth to Carol's other breast giving it the same treatment, feeling her tremble against his lips.
"Daryl...please, I need..." Carol was breathing in quick gasps.
Daryl lifted his head and smiled.
"What do you need, sweetheart?" Daryl growled, low and sultry. "I know what I need—think it's the same thing?" he asked. He pressed a kiss between her breasts and then continued on down, his hands sliding down her back and then to the front, unfastening her pants and dragging them down her hips along with her panties, her shoes and socks, quickly stripping them off of her.
Carol lay back on the bed watching him hungrily. She'd never tire of looking at him, the expanse of his shoulders and those arms, how they felt around her, and his hands on her just did something to her she couldn't define, some feeling of completeness.
"I need this...you...all the time." Daryl told her, standing and pulling his shirt off over his head. Her eyes followed his hands as they moved to his belt buckle, holding her breath as he let his pants drop and then tripped, forgetting he hadn't taken off his boots, falling, twisting to the side so he wouldn't land on top of her. The shocked looked that replaced his smoldering one was comical, especially when his momentum carried him over the side of the bed and he landed on the floor in a heap on his ass, his pants down around his ankles.
"Shit!" Daryl swore, more embarrassed than angry.
"Are you okay?" Carol said, trying to contain her giggles as she looked at him over the side of the bed.
"Fine." Daryl said, putting his right arm over his eyes, "Some grand seduction. Fail."
Carol slid off the bed, more flower petals following her down like a dusting of snowflakes.
"Hey!" Daryl grunted, his arms flying up, surprised by a hundred or so pounds of naked woman lightly landing on top of him.
She didn't say anything, just grinned as she sat straddling his waist, her hands on his chest.
"You gonna let me take my boots off?" Daryl asked, tilting his head to look at her with squinting assessment.
"Nope." Carol said, shaking her head from side to side. She snagged a pillow off the bed and handed it to him to put under his head. "Comfy?" she grinned when he placed the pillow and nodded in wary agreement.
Carol leaned over him, kissing his brow, her breasts brushing against his chest teasingly, the stiff little nipples grazing him, coaxing him into a whimper. Reaching over his head she grabbed a condom out of the bowl on the lower end table shelf and sat up straighter, letting him watch her as she opened it. Arching her back and reaching behind her, she found his burgeoning erection and carefully rolled the barrier of latex on and then with a sigh of satisfaction pushed back with her hips, notching the tip and then the broad head against her slick folds.
Daryl's hips rose in response and she sighed loudly as he penetrated her, sliding easily through her wetness, and she met him in equal measure, lowering herself onto him, leaning forward, bracing herself by gripping his muscular biceps. He groaned at her open-mouthed wide eyed expression and how she dug her fingers into his skin.
"God—always—always ready for me...take me...so sweet..." Daryl's drawl was low and careful, that honeyed tone he seemed to reserve for her alone. He raised his hands to her hips at the same time he raised his knees so she could lean back, her back supported by his upraised thighs, the position pulling him deeper inside her, forcing her to cry out his name from the sensation of being so fully filled, so aroused, her legs loosening wider.
"Don't move." Daryl said, rubbing her outer thighs soothingly, "Just want to feel you around me...so tight...just wanna live inside you..." he groaned.
Carol tried to even out her breathing and hold still, but she needed more and reached down for his right hand, drawing it up to the apex of her thighs.
"Touch me?" she requested in a breathy voice.
"Oh hell yeah." The thought of her coming around him made him follow her lead without hesitation. His fingers spread her open, exposing the swollen pleasure point, stretched tight around the girth of his cock. While he started the careful circling and strumming there with his fingertips she leaned back again and her hands moved to do the same to her own breasts, pinching their hardened points.
"Is that good? Is that what you need?" Daryl asked, breathing hard, his hand moving faster on her tender flesh.
"Good." Carol moaned. "Need."
They worked together to bring her to a fever pitch of excitement until she had to move, riding him to completion, the rhythmic contractions as she came almost more than he could bear, a carnal torture of the best kind, caressing his cock from root to tip as he filled her.
"Carol!" Daryl cried out her name hoarsely as his climax overtook him and he bucked up into her repeatedly, his fingers digging into her hips and then waist, pulling her down, holding her tightly to his chest, his arms encircling her in an intimate embrace, their mouths meeting in desperate deep kisses.
"You're amazing...you just go with the flow, don't you?" Daryl said as they lay side by side on the bed together later, having extricated him from his boots and pants after they regained their senses from the tumble on the floor.
"Shhh...kissing...there should be more kissing now for afterglow purposes." Carol admonished him teasingly.
Daryl rolled his eyes as she swooped in for several lip smacking silly kisses, but then he got serious about it and rolled her over so she was underneath him and plundered her mouth until she sighed in satisfaction.
"That's a start at an apology anyhow..." Daryl said, pouting and frowning at her and still managing to look sexy doing it.
"What?" Carol asked, holding his face in her hands, a thumb at each corner of his mouth trying to pull it up into a smile instead, genuinely puzzled as to which one of them needed to apologize for what.
"You have to admit—that was not my smoothest set of moves." Daryl mumbled, blushing slightly, "I fell off the fucking bed..." With any other woman he'd have been dressed and out the door by now, unwilling to face the potential humiliation from the clumsy maneuver that had landed him on his behind. How the hell he'd forgotten to take off his damn footwear first he had no idea...unless it was just her...what she did to him that made his usual playbook obsolete...so starved for her touch, her body, her everything that his well honed seduction skills lay abandoned at the bedroom door.
"It was fun." Carol shrugged, cuddling closer. "Romantic."
"Stop." Daryl made a phht sound of derision.
"No one's ever done something so romantic for me, Daryl." Carol reached out her hand and picked one of the soft white petals that had been strewn on the pillow case out of his hair. She rubbed its softness between her fingers and stared at it, raising her hand above their heads.
"They mean hope, you know." Daryl said, alluding to the legend surrounding the flowers.
"Every one of them represents a tear a mother shed for a lost child." Carol replied pensively, letting the petal fall back down to the bed.
Daryl took her hand and kissed her palm.
"Don't. Don't you feel sorry for her. I know you—you have a good heart—but don't you waste your sympathy on Phil." Daryl said, his mouth set into a grumpy-cat line. "She made her choices."
"She was eighteen, Daryl. Pregnant and eighteen. She was a child having a child." Carol argued.
"Hell, Carol, I stepped up!" Daryl said, his tone impatient now, his voice growing progressively louder. "I was nineteen and scared shitless but I stepped up! I built my life around my child. Phil had eight years of chances to come back and be with us and she didn't—she stayed away and now there's you, so fuck her—she missed her chance!"
His angry vehemence surprised her. He seldom raised his voice to her, especially not in anger, knowing how that was a trigger for her. She knew this was a sensitive subject for him, but she couldn't help but have empathy for a young woman who had grown up in a household very much like her own.
"I...I'm sorry...I shouldn't have said anything." Carol said carefully, looking away, her tone a bit brittle.
Daryl could feel how her body had stiffened when he swore and ranted, hear the edge of fear in her voice as she apologized and he sighed.
"No—I am. Don't ever be afraid to tell me what you think, okay?" Daryl said gently, taking her chin in his hand and rubbing his thumb under it until she raised her eyes to his again. They started at one another, blue on blue and she gave him a tentative smile of agreement.
Daryl leaned closer and gave her a long sweet kiss, helping to calm her and remind her that she could trust him with anything. She was such a contradiction sometimes; he had to remember that she could be bold as brass one minute and guarded and shy the next.
"What does Sophia know about her mother?" Carol finally asked, winding her arms around his neck to keep him close. She knew he'd explained that her other grandma Peg would be coming to dinner today and Soph had been excited, but that he hadn't broached the subject of a possible visit from Phil, wanting to see how the first meeting with that side of her family went.
Daryl frowned. He'd been careful over the years to never say anything negative about Philomena in front of Sophia, but that meant he hadn't said much.
"Enough...that she loves her, but that she can't be with us because she's off dancing in a faraway place." Daryl told her. "I guess she thinks her mom is some sort of fairy princess ballerina or something."
"She looks like one." Carol nodded and Daryl gave a little sigh of agreement. They both thought of how much mother and daughter resembled one another, long limbed but delicate, with shining blue eyes and golden red hair.
"There are pictures. She has pictures of her mom." Daryl said, "Ones I took of her when she was pregnant, ones I drew...studies I drew for the window. Soph has them in a box she keeps under her bed."
"The angel window in your room?" Carol asked, that piece of the puzzle clicking into place, "You never finished it?"
"I finished it." Daryl said, his face clouding over. "And then Philomena added her own little contribution to it. With a rock."
Carol's mouth came open. The idea that someone would deliberately try to destroy something so beautiful that Daryl had worked so hard to create astonished her into saying the first thing that came into her head.
"Bitch..."
"I love you." Daryl choked out a laugh at her contrariness defending Phil for one thing and damning her for another one mere minutes later.
"Oh, just shut up and kiss me again." Carol sighed.
Daryl was more than happy to comply.
Friday, 6:00 p.m.
"How's she doing?" Andrea asked. She was at Dale's nephew's house with him in Boston for the week and had called Carol to check in. Like Glenn and Tara she'd been worried when she heard of Phil's return.
"Sophia? She's fine. She's over the moon to know she has more grandparents." Carol laughed, "Peg brought what looked like eight years worth of Christmas and birthday gifts. Daryl let her pick one for Soph to open today and hid the rest in a closet."
"Buying her love?" Andrea asked cynically.
"No—I really do think that maybe Peg had secretly been buying her gifts every year but never got up the nerve to send them." Carol said charitably, and then sighed. "She is their only grandchild and Daryl has always wanted them to know her."
"And how are you and Daryl doing?" Andrea asked, her tone now one of concern.
"He told me he loves me..." Carol said all in a rush, leaving out the circumstances surrounding it—Merle's confession, unsure of what Daryl intended to do with that information.
"Well, of course, what's not to love?" Andrea sniffed with a superior air making Carol chuckle.
"I have to go—promised Soph I'd help her lay out the cards for her new game." Carol explained. "Thanks for checking in-I miss you."
"Miss you too. See you next week. Take care of that gorgeous man of yours." Andrea said warmly.
"You too, bye!" Carol replied, thumbing off her cell. "Okay, kiddo!" she called for Sophia, "I'm ready!"
"Thank you for calling Philomena...her father wouldn't have let me...it means so much to have her here now." Peg said, her hand on Daryl's forearm, having pulled him aside while Carol and Sophia set up the game her grandmother had brought for her on the card table with Merle kibitzing unhelpfully from the couch. He'd been on his best behavior, politely greeting Mrs. Peterson and asking how her husband was doing despite his own feelings about the way both of Phil's parents had treated Daryl in the past.
"I'm sorry-I don't know what you mean..." Daryl said, frowning down at her.
"You called her, in New York—told her about her father." Peg said.
"No, I didn't."
"But she called me that day and told me she was on her way to the hospital—I don't understand..."
"I didn't call her, Peg."
"So it was your mother?" Mrs. Peterson asked, looking over at Ellie.
"Mom?" Daryl called.
"Yes, youngest son?" Ellie looked up from the vegetables she was straining over the kitchen sink.
"Did you call Phil?"
"When?"
"To tell her that Tom was in the hospital?" Daryl asked.
"No. Didn't." Ellie said with a curious look and then a shrug, returning to her work preparing dinner.
Daryl and Peg both looked confused.
"Was it Carol then?" Peg asked looking over at her and Sophia and exchanging a little wave.
"No. She didn't have the number." Daryl said.
"Maybe she borrowed your phone?" Peg asked hopefully.
Daryl didn't think that Carol would've done that without telling him, but she might have if she thought it was important for Phil to be there for her father...No, she had seemed so surprised when Phil had shown up ...
"Carol?" Daryl called, motioning her over. Smiling, she stood and told Soph and Merle she'd be right back and walked over to them.
"She loves the present, Peg." Carol said warmly, glad that things seemed to be going so well.
"I'm glad.' Peg smiled, but then her brow wrinkled, "Carol dear, I was wondering, well, we were both wondering if you knew anything about my daughter coming to see her father after his illness."
Carol's smile faltered and she looked at Daryl for confirmation of the question.
"I was there when she arrived if that's what you mean." Carol said slowly.
"You didn't call her?" Peg asked, but as soon as she saw the silent look of dismay that Carol reflected back at her she shook her head, "I'm sorry—it's just that if no one called her, I don't understand why my daughter came back home after eight years."
"Why don't you just ask her?" Carol asked, making it simple.
"I don't want to risk chasing her away again." Peg told them, sounding sad and fearful, hoping they'd understand. "It just feels so fragile; this accord we have now." she looked over at Sophia, explaining something to Merle as they worked together to read the game directions.
Carol nodded. If there was anything she understood it was the difficulty of family relationships.
Daryl was less optimistic, knowing that there was another shoe waiting to drop, another bomb waiting to be defused before it could be detonated if Phil was involved and keeping secrets. Excusing himself, he left the room to make a phone call, determined to get to the bottom of her reasons for coming home.
Monday, 7:00 a.m.
Daryl took another sip of the now lukewarm coffee in front of him, wincing at its bitterness and wishing again that he'd asked Carol to come with him this morning. He'd told her that he had an early breakfast meeting with an out of town client for the salvage business this morning and that he'd hook up with her later today for lunch.
He didn't like the lie by omission that he'd been forced to tell his girlfriend by agreeing to the terms that Phil had set for their meeting: come alone, tell no one, and meet her here in Peachtree City instead of Senoia or Woodbury. Whatever her reason for the cloak and dagger shit he hoped it would help him get to the bottom of the mystery of Phil's return. If it wasn't because of her father, then he worried it had something to do with Sophia...
Phil had signed over her parental rights when Soph had been born, but he'd heard of them being challenged before, especially when the mother was so young. He forced down the sense of panic that he felt at anything possibly threatening his daughter's happiness and well being.
"Hey." a soft voice said and he felt a hand on his shoulder and a kiss brushed onto his cheek. She had come up behind him on his blindside as he gazed out the window, surprising him. As Phil slid into the booth bench seat opposite him Daryl noticed that she seemed subdued like she had been at the hospital.
Her long hair was in a single long braid hanging down her back and she'd made no effort to hide the shadows under her eyes with any make-up. She was dressed more casually, in worn jeans and a soft looking pale yellow blouse and white sweater that made her seem to fade into her surroundings, chameleon-like. She also looked more like she had when they'd first met, which might have been her way of trying to put him at ease, but it had the opposite effect, reminding him of all the pain she'd caused back then.
"Mornin'" Daryl said, giving nothing away. The attentive young waitress, who'd been flirting with him since he walked in the door, sauntered over carrying a carafe of coffee, a sour look on her face when she saw his attractive breakfast companion.
"Warm that up for you, hon?" she asked with a smile, ignoring Phil.
Daryl held out his coffee mug, the bitter brew seeming a fit drink for the day.
"I'd like some hot water, please? For tea?" Phil asked politely as the waitress lingered over a slow pour to fill Daryl's mug.
"Got black or green." the waitress said flatly, keeping her eyes on Daryl the whole time.
"Oh really, that's not necessary, I have my own." Phil told her, pulling a Ziploc full of tea out of her bag and that made the waitress swing around to stare at the other woman.
"Still have ta' charge you for tea." the waitress said, sounding put out, expecting an argument.
"Why of course you do, dear. It costs for the electricity or gas to heat the water and for your time to bring it to me." Phil agreed benignly, her careful veneer of charm firmly in place. She may live and work in New York now, but she was born and bred in Georgia, and just like Scarlet O'Hara she knew how to work it.
The waitress frowned at her and then shrugged, bustling away to get the water.
"Are you going to eat?" Phil asked Daryl, indicating the menu which Daryl was picking at the corner of with his left hand. "Do you still like mushroom and cheese omelets?" she chuckled, "Remember the first time Ellie tried to teach me to—"
"Phil—I'm not in the mood for a stroll down memory lane. Just tell me what you want. Why are we here?" Daryl said, keeping his voice as even as possible.
Philomena's expression went from mild amusement to a flash of anger to controlled calm in only a few seconds. She took a deep breath and then nodded at him. She rolled up the sleeves of her sweater and blouse, revealing a variety of bruises, some still deep purple, others redder or faded to a sickly yellow. There were also obvious small round red marks, the kind left by needles, over her veins on the inside of each elbow.
"What the hell, Phil?" Daryl said, quietly shocked, thoughts of her being abused or on drugs warring with each other in his mind.
"I'm dying, Daryl. I have leukemia and the only chance I have is if a blood relative has compatible bone marrow that they are willing to donate. If neither of my parents are a match I want to have Sophia tested." Phil said all in a rush, quickly and softly lobbing her grenade and then sitting back and waiting for it to detonate.
AN: The song (which has always reminded me of NR!) that Daryl quotes to Carol is "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band from their 1973 album, The Joker and includes the lyrics:
Some people call me the space cowboy; yeah
Some call me the gangster of love...
You're the cutest thing that I ever did see
Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree
Lovey dovey, lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time.
Thanks for reading!