Carol had gone to bed and slept for a few hours after talking with Nadia, probably due to the painkillers the doctor had insisted she take. When she awoke, she found Sofie by her bed. The little girl asked if she could get her anything. There wasn't much Carol wanted except company and something to do. So they went down to the kitchen a played checkers. She didn't think Nadia could scold her for the little effort that took.
"You're good at this game," Carol said as she studied the board and saw nowhere she could move without being jumped.
"They had road trip travel games at Cabela's," Sofie said. "Andy and I..." her voice hitched. She steadied it. "Andy and I played a lot of checkers and Parcheesi." She double jumped Carol. "I wish he'd gone with you, that first time. I wish he'd just told you where I was. But he was afraid you might be bad people. Even though you let him live, he was afraid you were lying about Alexandria."
"He was trying to protect you."
Sofie put her good hand over her stub. "We'd never met good people before."
The roar of a motorcycle rattled the window panes of the kitchen, and Carol's eyes widened.
"What's that?" Sofie asked, her voice tinged with alarm.
"I think Daryl's back. Mr. Dixon." Carol heard the motorcycle swerve into the alley between the two houses and glanced out the window to see Daryl cutting the engine off. She stood from her chair and felt suddenly uncertain what to do with herself as he dismounted and began walking toward the back of the house. His boots clattered quickly up the back stairs of the porch. She stepped a little closer to the kitchen door as the screen door creaked, and then the inside door opened.
He was covered in dirt and walker guts when he stepped inside.
"You're filthy," she said.
"Happy to see ya, too."
Carol had an urge to throw herself against him, to wrap her arms around him, but that would be hard to do, with one of those arms splinted and in a sling, and him standing there, not making a move, covered in dirt and blood.
He nodded to the sling. "How 's it?'
"Hurts. Can't do what I want to do. But I'm alive."
"You should've took your boots off on the porch, Mr. Dixon," Sofie said, standing from the table and walking over to peer at him. "Instead of tracking in mud."
"Next time," he promised.
The girl looked him up and down. "What happened to you?"
"Sofie," Carol asked her, "would you go over to the monks' house and check if they have that meal ready they were going to make for us?" Sofie disappeared. "What did happen?" Carol asked him.
"Found their cars. Found their camp. Walkers got 'em. We got the walkers. I got a Harley."
"You need a shower."
He nodded. Where he stood, he stripped off his boots and then carried them the rest of the way through the kitchen.
[*]
Daryl was no stranger to jerking off in the shower, but this was the first time he'd thought exclusively of Carol. For quite some time now, she'd been a part of the indiscriminate, high-speed slideshow in his mind, but as one member of a large ensemble cast of women. This evening, she was the sole star.
When he was done, and he stood with the hot water running in streams down his naked body, he felt a little guilty.
Merle had walked in on him once, when he was 13, in the bedroom they shared whenever Merle happened to be around. He'd made fun of Daryl for a week, and Daryl hadn't touched it for six months after that, which was damn hard to do when you were 13. He'd always felt a little weird about it ever since. But that wasn't why he felt guilty now. This was Carol. Carol deserved more than the crude fantasy that had just unraveled in his mind.
As he scrubbed the dirt from his chest with a foaming lather of soap, he wondered if she would want that. Sex. With him. He hoped that she would want it. But he also worried she would want it. He hadn't had sex since a few months before the Outbreak. He'd gotten used to instant gratification. He was bound to disappoint her. Hell, maybe Glenn was running a pool on that too. Odds Daryl Dixon won't last long enough to get Carol Peletier off: 99.9%.
He gritted his teeth, lowered his head, and let the water cascade over him.
[*]
Carol was cleaning up the checkerboard when Nadia came in the kitchen, still wearing her doctor's coat. "Who's in the shower upstairs?"
"Daryl. They're back."
"And Lawrence?"
"I haven't seen him, but I'm sure he's back, too, or Daryl would have mentioned it."
As if on cue, the front door opened and closed. Nadia brushed back her hair with her fingers and Carol couldn't help but smile. The monk plodded into the kitchen, barefoot, his boots in one hand. He'd thought to take them off. He was covered in less dirt than Daryl, but he had his share of walker residue on him. The toe of one of his boots was practically solid black with blood.
"Good to see you up and walking around," he told Carol. "I'm thirsty as the devil."
Nadia poured him a glass of water, and he thanked her when he took it from her hands. He drained it and set it down on the counter, leaving a muddied palm print on the glass. He told them what had happened, with considerably less brevity than Daryl had used. "I better get cleaned up. I need to head over to Karen's after dinner so she can review my latest few pages. I have a problem with commas, apparently."
"Won't it be a bit late for that?" Nadia asked.
"I'll make it up to her by bringing a bottle of wine." He was studying Nadia when he said so, and Carol thought he was trying to judge whether she was jealous.
"Well," Nadia said. "I'm glad you've made it home safely."
"Are you truly?"
"Of course I am."
Upstairs, Carol heard the water turn off, and she excused herself from the kitchen.
[*]
Michonne jumped slightly when Rick slipped into the shower with her and kissed the bare flesh at the back of her shoulder blade. She chuckled, turned and kissed him as the warm water cascaded over their naked bodies.
"I missed you," Rick said.
"I was barely gone two days."
"Felt like a lifetime."
Michonne pushed him away. "Later. No one gets off properly in the shower. Someone always ends up in the cold. And I'm filthy and need a good scrubbing."
"Oh, you're a filthy girl all right." Rick snaked an arm around her again.
She pushed him back again. "I want my shower to myself."
Rick sighed, stepped away from the spray, and slipped out of the shower.
"I'll more than make it up to you when I'm out," Michonne promised as he snapped a towel loose from the rack and wrapped it around his waist.
[*]
Daryl was walking to his bedroom, a white towel wrapped around his waist, when Carol got to the upper landing. A few droplets of water weaved their way in between the scars on his back. He'd reluctantly told her about that, the first time she'd seen him without his shirt, at the prison. His father had flogged him with lashes made from firm, often jagged, twigs. Sometimes, Daryl had been sent out into the woods to pick his own lash. Once, when he was seven, he hadn't come back with it. He'd run away instead. The next day, unable to catch anything to eat, he'd come back home, and he'd gotten a worse than usual beating. After that, he just picked the switch.
Ed had never used anything but his fists. He'd been sweet to Carol at first, during their quick, six-month courtship. It was three months after the wedding when he first hit her, and he was all apologies afterwards, swearing it would never happen again. But it did happen again. A month later. And instead of walking away, as she should have, she blamed herself, the way her own mother had taught her to do. After awhile, it had just become a part of life. She learned Ed's moods. She avoided the pain when she could.
"Daryl."
He turned in the doorway of his bedroom. A single drop of water weaved its way between his pectoral muscles. Carol couldn't take her eyes off of it - off of him. "Are you back for a while?"
"Dunno. Rick's talkin' 'bout askin' the Council to send a party down to Waynesboro. Make sure there ain't still another camp there."
She looked up from his chest to his eyes. "Why Waynesboro?"
"That's where Jesus heard them say they's from."
"Do you think there's still a camp there?"
"Doubt it," he said. "Think they spied us a ways back, brought all their shit and people up. Planned to move in here."
"Then why go?" she asked.
"Better safe than sorry. If there's more, they'll come lookin'."
"If the Council does decide to send a scouting party," she said, "why does it have to be you who goes again?"
"Can track better than any of 'em. Ya know that."
She took a few steps closer, until they were nearly face to face, her sling between her chest and his. Because he didn't lean in to kiss her, she did. She started with a quick peck on the lips, ready to pull away if he didn't respond, but he did. Daryl wrapped one arm around her, yanked her close, and kissed her hungrily. In the process, he thrust her broken arm against his bare chest, and she cried out in pain. He stepped back immediately. "Sorry. 'M an idiot."
"It's okay. I'm fine. We just have to be careful."
He looked down at his bare feet. "I uh...best get dressed. Shouldn't show for dinner in a towel." He drew his eyes back up to hers. "Manners, mhm?"
She smiled, but as he was disappearing through the open entryway, Carol called his name. He turned.
"I'm really glad you're home safe," she said.
"Glad to be home."
She was surprised by his use of that word, home. "Does this really feel like a home now?" she asked. "To you?"
Daryl chewed his bottom lip. It slid out from under his teeth, a little raw. He lowered his eyes. "Home's wherever you are." He turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.