Rick sits on the bed with an exhausted sigh. "Five o'clock," he mutters. "Quitting time." He crosses one foot over his leg and begins unlacing his boot.
In the adjoining bathroom, Michonne turns on the faucet to the tub. It gurgles and belches and then clear, cold water spills out. "Holy shit!" she calls to Rick through the open door. "Put the kettle on the fire, babe!" She pushes the plunger down into the drain and then shakes off the frigid water from her hand. They can mix boiling water with the cold tub water to make a warm bath.
"You mean Javier actually fixed it?" Rick asks.
Michonne steps into the bedroom as the water plummets into the tub. "All I can say is – Rosita better fuck that man until his eyes roll in the back of his head."
[*]
There is no vineyard at the Clifton winery – just a few acres of overgrown grass extending to the forest behind a large wooden structure that sits on stilts, allowing for an expansive back deck that overlooks the trees.
They enter through the unlocked front door and into the spacious tasting room. Four people have clearly been living here, but it appears they've died and turned. Given the large number of empty bottles scattered over the floors and tables, and the flies buzzing around stale vomit, alcohol poisoning might have been the culprit.
"Romantic, huh?" Daryl asks after they slay the lurching creatures.
"We can camp outside on the back deck."
But first they go through a door from the tasting room straight into the small winery, where the cement floor around the oak barrels has turned red-black with soaked-up wine. It's as if the people camping here took a hatchet to the barrels, captured what wine they could in glasses, and then let the rest flow to the ground. "What a waste," Carol mutters.
"One left." Daryl rolls out an unopened barrel and stands it upright. "Wanna share a barrel with dinner?"
"Maybe we can find a bottle. Let's take the barrel home."
Home. It's odd that she's already thinking of their new camp as home, but maybe it's not. Home is where her people are. And maybe, by the time they're done with this journey, they'll have brought more of their people home.
Maybe.
Carol's heart is half full of hope, and half braced for disappointment. Daryl, as if reading her mind, slings an arm across her shoulders. "C'mon," he says gently. "'S eat."
[*]
Michonne leans back against Rick's bare chest in the tub and hands him the washcloth.
He kisses her shoulder and lets his eyes roam her naked body through the clear water. Her abdomen seems a little less taut than usual.
Good, he thinks. It's good she put on a few pounds during the times of plenty at the Hilltop, because it might be a lean winter.
[*]
While Carol searches for unopened bottles of wine, Daryl brings in their backpacks, sleeping bags, a mixed box of food from the truck, and a hatchet. He carries them out to the large back deck. Eventually, she scrounges up three unopened bottles among three hundred empty ones, and when she comes outside, Daryl is chopping up old wine barrels to make wood for the brick fireplace. The chimney of the fireplace rises through an opening in the wood awning that covers the entire deck.
The air is crisp and fresh. No hint of the stench inside wafts out, and the autumn forest view is spectacular. A tapestry of gold and orange drapes the trees. There's no staircase leading up to the deck, which is twenty feet above the ground, so there's no chance of walkers reaching them while they sleep.
Carol chooses the Chardonnay for their dinner because she's serving it with the canned tuna they got from the general store, which she mixes with some pickle relish, spices, and honey mustard to make a tuna salad. She sets a two-person table using plates, silverware, and wine glasses she found in a small dishwasher behind the tasting bar. The table she chooses is not in front of the fireplace – there's a white wicker couch and a glass coffee table there instead – but it's close enough for some warmth and situated for an excellent view of the forest. She opens the wine, pours them each a glass, and then lights a candle in a red glass holder at the center of the table, even though the sun hasn't begun to set. She just likes the added touch. "Dinner's ready."
The fire is now lit, but Daryl is still stoking it. He drops the poker with a clang to the deck and looks strangely nervous as he walks over and sits down at the table across from her.
She jokes, "What, never been on a fancy dinner date before?"
"Ain't never been on any date."
"Never?"
"Ain't no virgin!" he clarifies. "Just...never saw the point of datin'."
"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" she asks.
"Weren't no poon hound neither. Just…" He seizes the glass of wine she's poured him and takes a big sip. When he puts it down, he admits, "Dunno what people's s'posed to talk 'bout on dinner dates."
She smiles. "Then let's not call it a date. Let's call it Carol and Daryl eating dinner together, like we've done a few hundred times."
Daryl takes another sip of wine. He digs into his tuna salad and shovels a heaping forkful into his mouth. "Mmmmmm," he murmurs, and closes his eyes for a moment. "Damn good. "Like what ya done with it."
Carol's more pleased by his compliment than she lets on. "It pairs nicely with the Chardonnay, doesn't it?" she quips.
"Mhm."
Silence descends. Carol's used to silence with Daryl, but now that she's foolishly set this up as a fancy dinner, the silence is suddenly awkward. So she blurts, "Michonne's pregnant."
Daryl swallows and coughs, but the news gets him talking. "How'd Rick take it?"
"She hasn't told him."
"Hell not?"
"She's nervous about his reaction."
"Hell, he'll be happy as a dead pig 'n sunshine."
Carol peers at him over her wine glass. "That doesn't sound very happy."
"When a dead pig lies out 'n the sun," explains Daryl, setting his glass down with a clink, "Lips start to pull back from 's teeth." Daryl stretches his own lips in demonstration. "Looks like a big ass grin."
"Well, Michonne's worried."
"Dunno why. Rick'll step up."
"Those two just work," Carol says. "Though sometimes I don't get the attraction."
"What?"
"I don't know what she sees in him."
"Know 'zactly what she sees in 'em." Daryl flicks up the thumb of one hand. "Handsome as fuck." He raises his index finger. "Smart." He puts up his middle finger. "Can build shit." He holds up a fourth finger. "Bad ass." He holds up his last finger. "Good daddy." The he starts on the thumb of his other hand. "Got honor." Index finger. "Treats 'er right." Third finger. "Takes charge." Fourth finger. He looks like he's thinking deep. "Handsome as fuck," he repeats.
"Sounds like someone has a man crush."
"Bet Rick always knows what to say on a dinner date, too."
"You're not doing too badly yourself."
"Don't ya like Rick?" Daryl asks.
"Except when he left Sophia behind. I blamed him for that for a while. Maybe not fairly, but I did. And I didn't like it when he didn't tell us that everyone has the disease, as if that was his secret to keep. I wasn't too thrilled about his Ricktatorship."
"Ricktatorship?"
"You know what I'm talking about," she says. She once called Daryl Rick's henchman, after all. She'd wanted, so much, for Daryl to step up and lead them back then. "And I can't say I loved it when he banished me."
"Mhm. Yeah." Daryl grits his jaw, takes a bite of the tuna salad, chews slowly, and swallows hard. "Ya like 'em now, though?"
"Now? Now I love him like a brother. But sometimes your brother infuriates you. And sometimes you can't see how your brother manages to get such a beautiful, elegant, competent, courageous, artistic wife."
"Sounds like someone's got a woman crush."
Carol chuckles. "Maybe a little. Listen, don't tell Rick about the pregnancy. And don't tell Michonne I told you."
Daryl zips his lips with his fingertips, picks up his wine, and drinks it down to the last sip.
[*]
As Rick sits down before the fireplace in the library and stretches his legs under the coffee table, Judith pats his head and says, "Clean, clean, Daddy. Allllll clean!"
He wishes that were true. He wishes he could wash away all the blood of the last thirty months, that this book-lined room, the comforting fire, his happy little girl playing with a puzzle, H.G. sleeping peacefully in the play pen, Gracie lounging happily against Michonne on the couch…he wishes all this quiet innocence could be the true reflection of their world.
His hand falls to the oriental rug beneath the table, and it lands on wood. "Hey!" he tells Judith. "I found the missing piece." He hands her a wooden puzzle piece, which has a picture of the earth and the sun and the moon, with a big red handle to make it easier to hold and place.
"Sun!" Judith says, pointing to the sun. "Mooooon!" She points to the moon. Then she points to the earth. "Woiled. Woiled!" She's trying to say world, but still finishes with "woiled." Judith tries to cram the puzzle piece into the open spot on her puzzle frame, but she's got it upside down.
"You have to change it around," Rick tells her.
"Change it," Judith echoes, turning the piece clockwise. "Change it." She turns it a little further. "Change de woild." She pushes the piece in, and it clicks in place. "Judith changes de woild!"
Rick puts a hand on her head and almost chokes on an unexpected surge of hope. "Yes, sweetie," he tells her. "I believe you will."
Aaron pokes his head into the library. "Dinner time. I cooked, but I already ate so I can go relieve Morgan on watch."
"Come on, sweetie," Michonne tells Gracie, rousing her from her nap. "Let's eat."
[*]
Daryl, pouring until the wine almost overflows the brim, refills their glasses.
"You're supposed to leave some room," Carol says.
"Hell for?"
"Because the owner fires you if you don't."
"Ain't no owner here. 'Cept us."
"Damn right." Carol plucks up the glass. A little liquid sloshes out onto her fingers, and she drinks the glass down to a manageable level. "This kind of reminds me of that night in the CDC."
Daryl huff-laughs. "Glenn's face got so damn red."
"And Carl took that tiny sip and practically spit it out."
"I's so damn drunk, I made a pass at Andrea."
"Andrea?" Carol exclaims. "Why not me?"
"Even that drunk, I knew ya was too good for me."
"And what did Andrea say?" she asks, feeling a sudden jolt of jealousy, which is silly, because it's not as if Daryl owed her any fidelity back then.
"Hell you think? She told me to fuck off. Then Dale cornered me in the hall ten minutes later and told me I damn well keep it in my pants or he'd sit on it for me."
Carol bursts out laughing. "What?"
"Or somethin' like that. Don't 'member what he said 'zactly. Told him to go back to On Golden Pond and sit on Jane Fonda's dick."
Carol covers her mouth as if that could contain her laughter.
[*]
Javier joins the Hillcrest camp for dinner. There's spaghetti. Piles of it, but not much else. Nabila removes the nursing blanket she's covered herself with, burps H.G., and then hands him over to Ezekiel, who takes a break from eating to cradle the infant in his arms so that Nabila can eat.
"Why are you planting the upper west field?" Javier asks.
"So we can have food," Ezekiel answers matter-of-factly.
"But why start there?"
"Because the grasses are less overgrown there. There's far less to cut down, and we can prepare the land with greater haste."
Javier scoops up his water glass. "Ever ask yourself why the grasses are less overgrown there?"
"Nabila is an excellent gardener," Ezekiel insists, "she knows what she is doing."
"Okay then." Javier shrugs as he sets down his water glass. "Don't listen to me. What do I know? I just have a degree in agriculture. And a master's in crop science. And I was a farm manager. By profession. For a decade. I still am."
"I thought you were a plumber," Tara says. "Isn't that why we have water now?"
"My father was a plumber," Javier replies. "He took me to work a lot, when I was a kid."
"A jack of all trades…" Rosita raises her glass to him, and he smiles.
"Gardening isn't exactly the same as farming," Nabila tells Ezekiel, looking a little embarrassed not to be sure of her choice of field. "Most of my life experience has been in urban gardens, like we had in the Kingdom." She turns her attention to Javier. "Where would you recommend we plant instead?"
Javier and Nabila talk about agriculture for a while, until the radio on Javier's hip crackles, and Mason's syrupy drawl comes through: "Where the hell are you? You were supposed to relieve me twenty minutes ago. Are you still fraternizing with that chaquita bonita you got your eye – "
Javier abruptly turns the radio all the way down, tosses his napkin on the table, and stands. "Excuse me," he says. "I have to get back. Thanks for the dinner. I'll show myself out."
Rosita's chair scrapes back, but by the time she gets around the dining table, he's already out the front door.
[*]
"Cab pairs well with stale ding dongs," Daryl says.
They've eaten a package each. Carol thinks she only had one glass of the second bottle of wine, but somehow the entire wine bottle is empty, and her head is buzzing.
Daryl grins at her dopily. "So goddamn beautiful," he mutters.
Carol looks over her shoulder. "Who?"
"M'Girl." He pushes back his chair, walks over to her – with a slight stumble in his step – and holds out his hand.
Carol takes his and stands up. "Are we going to dance?"
"If'n ya want." He yanks her close, wraps an arm around her waist, and sways a little. His face buried in the crook of her neck, he beings to nibble the sensitive flesh, which sends a shiver all the way down her spine. He kisses his way up her neck, and his teeth scrape her earlobe. "Wanna dance?" he whispers, his voice husky in her ear.
"Uh-huh" is all she can manage.
Daryl puts his hand on her lower back and pushes her body against his. He claims her mouth in a hungry kiss. Their bodies are only swaying, but their tongues are dancing, twirling over each other in a wild tango. Daryl rips his mouth away and, breathing hard, steps back.
Carol wants to scream. She thought this was going to be the time - the first time he finally started something - the first time she didn't have to ask. But he's already stopping.
"Daryl," she pleads, but her next words are drowned out by the sound of him clomping over to the coffee table in front of the fireplace. He kicks the table away from the couch with his heel. It slides, scratching across the deck. He kicks it again, twice more, until the floor in front of the fireplace is clear.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
He yanks the one-piece, dark green, futon-like cushion off the whicker couch and lets it fold out flat on the deck, like a full-size mattress, before the crackling fireplace.
"Oh," she says.
Then he seizes one of their sleeping bags, frantically unties the strings that hold it together, and unzips it with a series of clumsy rasps before flicking it out open over the top of the mattress. He looks at her hopefully. "'S okay?"
Carol smiles. "It's perfect."