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Chapter Fourteen: Goose
**Carol**
They waited nervously until Merle returned, three large fat geese in hand, before Carol decided it was too dangerous to go back for the pigs that night, not when he said he heard voices in the woods, sounded like men-in-charge types, as he put it. Turns out when he crept close enough to the farm where they were, his suspicions were right.
He had slumped beside Carol on the grass before the bonfire to clean the geese, saying nothing for the longest time while she boiled the water to scald the feathers off the birds in order to pluck them better.
"Next khaki asshole I see is getting a blade through the roof of their mouth," he said gruffly.
She glanced over at him as she worked on building the fire.
His quick glance at her was too studious, too analyzing.
Carol hid her smirk with a bow of her head. He was worried about her, in his own Dixon way and amongst the tension of the day, it pleased her to realize that she was beginning to read Dixon. Maybe it was the Dixon baby she carried which gave a small boost to her Dixon reading abilities.
Or maybe she was getting used to the many faces of Merle.
"You know," he said after a moment. "If I were Daryl, I wouldn't have just let you on your own like he did. Cajun asshole or no."
"Merle, Daryl knows I can take care of myself," she said. "It's what draws me to him, the fact that he allows me my independence."
"Yeah? Sticking his fluid in you and leaving you with a young'un is giving you loads of independence," Merle snapped.
Carol laughed. "It's not like we were expecting a baby, Merle! Besides, I wouldn't want it any other way."
"Yeah, like you're so young that you don't know what comes from sexual relations with a young pup like my baby bro," Merle muttered. "Shooting his DNA inside you…"
For the first time since she met Merle, Carol looked upon him with genuine affection and to her amazement, his blue eyes returned it, but only for a fraction of a moment, then they dropped back to his work.
"You gonna let the damned thing call me 'uncle' or what?" He asked, playing his natural curiosity and – at least to Carol – hope off as annoyance.
"Of course," she said. "I think the baby'll have a damned fine uncle in you."
Merle shrugged. "I won't give it a beat down or anything."
"I know you wouldn't."
They went on working in silence for a moment, before Carol said, "so, what'd you say to Carl? Michonne said him leaving was because of you."
"I just told him if he wanted to be a man, then start acting like one, do what he wants ain't nobody gonna hold his hand."
"But he left, Merle."
Merle shrugged. "He's got the know-how."
"I don't know," Carol confessed softly. "I don't think he's right anymore, inside."
"Hell, are any of us, this world's even beginning to bring down that Cajun and he was the last man I thought who'd let it get to him."
Carol carefully dropped a goose into the scalding hot water and drew it up again just as fast, lying it on the clean grass to begin plucking the feathers off. "I feel sorry for anyone who he comes across," she said. "Because I don't think I'd trust him." She said this under her breath, knowing only Merle could hear her. It wasn't like she was thinking badly of Carl, but…he was off and nothing anyone could do could bring him back to what he once was.
Merle shrugged. "He won't come across anyone but the dead and those soldiers out there and I won't lose sleep if that boy puts any of them down."
They kept working in silence, before Carol said suddenly. "Do you love me?"
The man looked up at her, almost scared and horribly confused. "What?"
"I mean, am I family to you?" She asked, almost shyly.
"Well, shit yeah," he said, ducking his head back to his work. "Christ, woman, you gotta word things better."
Carol smiled and confessed. "You don't know how much that means to me."
"Well hell," he said, "let me go change into a pair of panties and we can sit down and sob together over it, huh?"
She plucked for a moment, scattering the feathers into a bag nearby for burning later. "You know, I was an only child," she said. "My mother was pretty sick when I was growing up and my daddy worked real hard, so he was never there. I think I related to the Lieutenant. That search he had for blood or something close, I don't think people with siblings truly understand how enviable that is to people with no one. I mean, even when they fight, there's always going to be love as a bottom line."
Merle was quiet and she wasn't sure if he heard her.
"I'm glad," he said after a moment, "that my baby brother has you and that Cajun in his life. I've never seen him happier."
Carol glanced up at him, still plucking away.
He cleared his throat almost nervously. "You tell anyone I said that and I'll—"
"Merle," she broke in, "it's okay to love your brother."
"No it's not," he growled. "I have no right. No right to be his brother. I joined up and left him with our daddy, because I was a coward and I left him at the mercy of our daddy. Daryl…he was only a little cockerel at the time, not very big, not prepared to go one on one with that man and I left him and that son-of-a-bitch broke him. Broke him up real bad."
Carol knew the scars well, just like she knew about every freckle and contour of Daryl's body and it hurt her to hear Merle confessing, because it reminded her that it wasn't an act of God that gave Daryl those scars, but his own father.
"Why don't you have scars like Daryl's?" She asked gently.
Merle sniffed, still cleaning a goose with his blade. "Because I was old enough to hit back and daddy liked to pick on those weaker than him. Made him feel like a big man, Daryl was just a baby, easy picking."
"But if you would have stayed," she began.
"I would have killed our daddy and gone to jail for it and Daryl would have had no one. Suppose I could have taken him and run, but…I was a fuck head anyways, still am, I suppose."
"I don't think you're a fuck head, Merle." Carol said. "I think you're a good man. You care for people, more than you'd ever let on. Even the Lieutenant, though you might say you don't. I think deep down you feel like he's blood too, because Daryl loves him so much. And on top of everything, you're a pretty good big brother to me."
"Yeah, well, I haven't snicker-snagged on you yet," he said with a broad grin.
"I don't know what that is, but you'd better not," she replied.
"Come over here and I'll show you," he shot back.
"No," she objected. "Why? What is it?"
"Come here."
"No!" She laughed. "I don't want to find out the hard way."
"Already learning not to trust the devil in me, you really are a Dixon now," he mused.
She smiled, turning back to the goose.
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Rick and Michonne also had tales of run-ins with military men when they returned later that evening. It seemed they were running thick and wild in Georgia, hell bent on finding the Lieutenant and Daryl, though to her ears it sounded like Daryl wasn't wanted alive like the Lieutenant was and that worried her.
More than once during the evening, as she stood in the kitchen frying up the goose in pieces, someone came up and asked her if she was alright and at first it confused her, before Glenn pointed out that he heard stress on a pregnant woman could induce a miscarriage.
It made her worry more, because just thinking of the pregnancy and the troubles looming, made her think of Lori.
As soon as dinner was served, she ducked out into the evening air of the convent's rose garden to escape the inquiries, only to run face first into Rick who was sitting on a bench with Judith, trying to get the girl to eat.
She seemed more interested in dumping the food out of the spoon onto the ground.
"Sorry," she apologized, feeling like she was interrupting the moment.
He shook his head.
"Try opening your mouth," Carol suggested, moving to sit beside them on the bench.
"What?" He asked.
"When Sophia was a baby she went through the same stage, the only way I could get her to eat was to open my mouth too," she explained.
He gave her a funny look, but tried it.
Judith copied him happily and he slipped the food in.
The baby smacked on the soft steamed daylily buds, stuffing her hand into her mouth to feel the texture of it.
Rick removed the hand with his and returned to feeding her.
"So?" He said. "What do we do about these soldiers?"
"Nothing," she replied. "I don't think they want anything more than Daryl and the Lieutenant. Hopefully they'll not find them, get sick of waiting around and leave. I think if they really wanted to kill us, they had the chance today."
"Well, let's hope, but what if they find Daryl or the Lieutenant?"
"What I'm worried about," Carol said. "Is that the temptation for food might be great for some and they'll turn in our own."
Rick looked at her, eyes searching her face.
"I don't know," she sighed. "I don't think anyone would, but…you never know. People aren't always what they seem upfront."
They fell silent, Carol watching Rick feed his daughter and smiled to herself. It was nice seeing a father and his little girl, gave her all kinds of matronly feelings. She touched a hand to her growing stomach and sighed.
"You think I fucked up?" Rick asked suddenly.
"When?"
He snorted. "If you have to ask, that means I'm doing something wrong."
She smiled.
"Letting Carl go," he said after a moment.
"I don't know. It's not my place to say."
"But if you were me?"
She frowned. The thought that if she were in Rick's place, that would mean Sophia would still be with them, that she would be the one facing a child who turned hard due to the world around her. "I don't know," she said. "You forced him to grow up and then forced him back into a child's position in the group by disarming him. I think…maybe it's for the best? He didn't want to be here and he's equipped to face the world out there. And letting him go, with your permission, maybe will encourage him to return someday."
Rick didn't say anything.
"Do you remember at the quarry, when I woke up and you were pressing my clothes?" He asked suddenly.
She smiled. "I do."
"That was nice of you," he said.
Carol bowed her head.
"Don't ever lose that kindness," Rick went on firmly. "Don't let this world make you hard. Not you. Some things should be kept and kind people are one of them. Sometimes I think Dale was right, we lost our humanity, but not all of it. It's still there in people like you and Beth and Grace and the sisters here. This place is good." He said. "It's been good luck to us. I wish we had found it long ago."
"I'm not good, Rick," she argued gently. "I just…I can't hate. I couldn't even hate Ed, though he remains to be my least favourite person in the entire world, living or dead, I still can't really hate him. His father was a monster and…you learn those bad traits from your parents, from your early experiences." She realized what she said, but all too late and gasped. "I'm sorry," she said to Rick. "I didn't mean—"
"No, it's okay. Carl was the product of my mistakes, I didn't teach him to respect properly. Guns or human lives. He learned from me."
"But you're a good man, Rick," she protested. "Carl just…well if you had to...do what he did with...with Lori, wouldn't you change drastically? Give him time and he'll come back."
"I hope."
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They had decided to have the children sleep in the church for the night, since the stone walls offered much better protection to them in the event of a siege.
Not to say Carol expected one, but better safe than sorry.
She tossed a pile of sleeping bags and pillows onto the floor for Annie and Nadir to sleep on, Nadir staying on the proper side of his mother Layla, who was holding Judith as Adele settled in with Celeste beside Carol.
The kids loved the idea of one big sleepover and while Nadir stayed on the far side of Layla, he still managed to toss a pillow at Annie playfully.
Carol smiled. The two had started out as dead set enemies, but children often got over things so quickly that it seemed only a day before they were nearly inseparable. Nadir, as the oldest, assumed a somewhat protective manner with Annie, but still had imp enough in him to torment her and Annie had learned to give back as good as she got.
"Carol, would you read to us?" Nadir asked in his sweet, polite tone.
"Read what? Who's got a book?"
"Oh," Adele broke in, "I have, uh…St. James brought Celeste back a book last run…it's uh…in my bag here." She dug through her diaper bag one handed, the other holding her daughter. Eventually she produced one with a grin.
Carol looked at the cover and grimaced. "This? Really?"
"Um-hm, Celeste loves it."
"Okay," Carol didn't think the children would enjoy it, but she cracked the cover anyways. "The Stolen Child," she read, propping the book up so that the kids could see the beautiful watercolour pictures that went with it, "by William Butler Yeats."
Annie and Nadir scooted in close to look at the bright and haunting pictures as she read, both intently listening.
"For he comes, the human child, to the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than he can understand," she finished softly.
As the children settled in, Carol flopped onto the blanket fort beside Annie and opened the book again to re-read it, as Annie fell fast asleep, nestled between Carol and Boo, with Clyde sleeping protectively on the other side of Boo, closest to the door of the church.
"Auntie Carol?" Annie asked softly. "I have a theory."
She smiled at the girl. "Do you? What is it?"
"The boy in that story, he died, didn't he?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Because in the book he was walking with an angel towards the light."
Carol chuckled. "He was walking with a fairy, honey, going towards the lights of a fairy party."
Annie scrunched her nose up. "Aren't fairies like angels?"
"No, sweetie."
Annie fell silent, before saying, "Auntie Carol?"
"Hm?"
"Are you making a baby?"
"I'm working on it as we speak," she replied.
"Do you feel like you ate too much?"
"What do you mean?"
"Nadir says babies are made in the belly and that when you're done making it, you're gonna poop it out."
Smothering her laughter into the pillow, Carol struggled not to wake anyone. When she recovered, she said in her sternest mother voice. "Don't ever tell your mommy that, okay? And they don't get pooped out."
"But how do they come out then? Do you puke them up?"
"No. It's…something you should ask your daddy," Carol said with a proud, wicked smirk.
"Auntie Carol?" Annie asked after a lull.
"Hm?"
"I think you're pretty," Annie whispered as though it was a big secret. "Like a fairy."
Carol smiled widely and tapped the tip of Annie's nose playfully. "Thank you. But it's bedtime, close your eyes now."
"Am I pretty?"
"Beautiful."
Annie smiled and snuggled in closer to her. "Is Uncle Daryl pretty?"
"Very."
"And Uncle Merle?"
"Yes."
"And Glenn?"
"Definitely."
"What about Clyde the dog?"
"He's stunningly beautiful, go to sleep," Carol said.
Annie fell silent, draping her arm across Carol's stomach and nuzzling into her shoulder. "The stars are fairies," she murmured sleepily.
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Brazen Hussy - Apparently stupid people can survive the zombie apocalypse as well. ^_^
Merle's Right Hand - You won't love it forever.
DarylDixon'sLover - I think I might, for fun!
spygrrl99 - You never know. Someone might, they might not...
itsi3 - That's because NR is kind of hot when he panic runs...I dunno, he just is.
Yazzy x - Yeah, it's hard when the possibility of betrayal is there, huh?
Surplus Imagination - Well, I'm assuming since Gwen has children around the same age as Carl, she feels a motherly duty to help him and Ryan is just in out of loyalty to her. Personally, with Carl, I'm more worried for them than for him, he's kind of shifty. As for the fifty/fifty thing, it was only the leadership fifty/fifty, they don't want half the food, only enough to sustain themselves through the winter. As for Merle...well he'll come into play next chapter, I'm sure. ^_^
vickih - Ah, Mrs. Douglas. That horny old woman who has the hots for the Lt...yes, she does want a slab of Marine cake, but who wouldn't?