AN: Here we go, another chapter here.

I know I'm a good bit off my "schedule" for those who follow/know it, but I have had quite the week and I'm pretty much just writing some this weekend to relax. So I'm going to simply be writing where I feel like I can write. No set schedule here. Sorry for that.

I hope you enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

"Here, sweetheart, use this until you get the hang of it," Carol said, switching out the paring knife that Sophia was trying to use on potatoes for the scraper. She took the knife herself, having no trouble at this point in her life mechanically peeling anything with any tool so long as it was at least reasonably sharp, and went to work, making her way through the other vegetables while Sophia worked slowly away at the potatoes.

"But you're using the knife," Sophia protested, even though she was already proving that she could manage much better with the peeler.

"And you'll use a knife too, one day, if that's what you want to use," Carol responded. "But for the time being, that'll get you used to the action and you'll still have ten fingers when we're done."

She saw Sophia smile slightly, almost seemingly against her will, at the idea, and she went back to her work for the moment. Carol was enjoying the time together, quiet or talking, as they simply focused on the small scale Thanksgiving dinner that they were creating. Sophia wanted to be the one to "cook" it, so Carol was serving as her sous chef and directing her about when to do all the things that she needed to do to make sure that the different dishes came off when they had to and still allowed her to finish the meal at least relatively close to the hour when Daryl would arrive home, no doubt praising how wonderful the house smelled.

It might have been extravagant, and it might have been far too much work for a regular dinner, but if Sophia wanted Thanksgiving dinner, it was really the least that Carol could do to provide it, or at least to provide something close to the experience.

Carol was lost in her daydreaming, peeling carrots into the paper bag that she was going to throw out when it was full, when Sophia broke the silence again.

"Who was that woman? The woman in the grocery store?" Sophia asked.

Carol glanced at Sophia. Until now, she hadn't mentioned the encounter, but it would be foolish to believe that she wasn't going to mention it at all or that she had somehow failed to notice the entire exchange in which she was involved.

"Her name is Pru," Carol said. "She's…nobody really. Her husband is a doctor in town."

Sophia stared at Carol like this simply wasn't a satisfactory version of the story that she was waiting to hear. She had a look of expectation on her face that said, too, that she didn't believe for a moment that Carol was done and wasn't going to tell her anything more.

Carol sighed and paused a moment in her treatment toward the carrots, not wanting to take out any of her possible frustration on the undeserving vegetables. Sophia was a child, but she wasn't a small child, and Carol got the feeling that the girl was aware of even more than she let on. She wasn't asking Carol about Pru, or even insinuating her questions, because she was entirely clueless about the situation. She was asking to see what Carol was willing to give her.

"Pru is a gossip," Carol said. She shook her head at Sophia. "And I'm not going to pretend that I care for her at all."

Sophia nodded her head and offered Carol a quick glance with a furrowed brow, something to push the story forward, before she turned back to her potatoes.

"Pru had an interest in, long before I knew him, Daryl," Carol said. "And I think that he took her out a time or two, maybe, but she decided that he wasn't for her."

"Because he was for you," Sophia offered with something of a quick shoulder shrug.

Carol laughed to herself.

"Maybe," she said. "But I still didn't know him then. This was before I met him. From what I know, Pru didn't like Daryl because…well…he wasn't good enough for her."

Sophia looked confused.

"Pru wanted a husband that made a lot of money. She wanted a husband who could…give her everything she wanted and then some. She felt like she wasn't going to find that in Daryl," Carol explained.

Andrea had been the first to tell her about Pru, and about some of the other women that Daryl had entertained throughout the years, but it had been Daryl that had filled in a few of the details from his perspective that Andrea hadn't been able to see and hadn't pilfered out of the information that Daryl had shared with Merle. Daryl wasn't particularly heartbroken or bothered by what had happened, of course, but he was aware of it and he'd been more than happy to discuss it with her when she'd brought it up after her sister in law had whispered it in her ear.

"But Daryl's a good person?" Sophia ventured, her voice coming out like she was making a statement that she was only just doubting. "You have what you want?"

"Daryl's a wonderful man," Carol said. "And I didn't mean that he wasn't, if that's how it came out. What I mean was that he didn't…well…he wasn't…he didn't fit Pru's expectations. She wanted to marry a doctor. She wanted to marry someone who…ran a hospital…not someone who worked in what she saw as a lesser job."

Sophia chewed at her lip, gnawing over the statement.

"So she got what she wanted?" Sophia asked.

Carol shrugged and went back to her carrots, feeling both calmer than she thought she would when talking about Pru, whose dismissal of Daryl then and following interest in whether or not Carol could "fulfill" his needs frustrated her a good deal, and feeling the time encroaching on them to get the sides ready to go with the food that was already cooking in the oven.

"She's married to a doctor," Carol said. "I really don't know anything about their lives. He's a good deal older than her, and I don't know how they are together, but they have…a whole parcel of children and she's expecting again. I'd say Pru got what she wanted."

"Did you get what you wanted?" Sophia asked, dropping her voice slightly with the question.

Carol felt the question hit her in an odd way. Maybe it was because it was Sophia that asked it or maybe it was because of the way that she asked it…sincere and without expectation…but it struck her.

"I don't really know if I knew what I wanted when I first married Daryl," Carol admitted, something she hadn't really admitted to anyone. The thing was, though, that there had been very little question from others about what she wanted. "I think…I wanted to be married. I wanted a family. I think that's all I ever wanted. I wanted to be married, to be…I wanted to be a mother. I wanted a family. And…I love Daryl. I love him more than I would imagine it was possible to love anyone. He's been everything I could ask for him to be. He's been…more than I could ever ask for him to be. So, I'm very happy. I have a wonderful husband. I love him very much, and I know that he loves me. Maybe…"

Carol stopped and shook her head, fully aware at the moment that she was babbling. She glanced at the girl, wondering if she was going to be looking bored, wondering if she was going to look like she regretted having shown interest at all in Carol. She wondered, even, if Sophia might be thinking that this was far more than she ever wanted to know about anyone.

But Sophia looked at her, when she stopped speaking, with interest and with the same look of expectation that she'd worn before. The only thing she lacked, really, was the expression that Carol had heard Melodye use a good deal if someone stopped talking, when she would tell them to "yes, go on…"

"Maybe it doesn't matter what I wanted or didn't want," Carol said. "Maybe…we think we know what we want, but sometimes we don't. And, maybe I can't really say that I did or didn't want the life I have back then? But I can say that I want it now. I love Daryl, and I wouldn't change that…or change him…for the world."

Sophia looked somewhat satisfied, though Carol couldn't say that she looked entirely satisfied with the answer.

"And I've got you now, right?" Carol added, smiling at the girl and reaching to touch her shoulder affectionately. Like a cat, almost, Sophia leaned into the touch, moving her neck quickly enough to swipe her cheek gently against Carol's hand.

And suddenly, Carol felt like she was swallowing back the sensation to cry, even though she wasn't entirely sure what had brought the sudden and almost suffocating tightness to her chest.

She couldn't bring herself to say anything else, for the sudden overwhelming fear that she would break down, cry for no reason, or at least not one that she could explain, so Carol quickly gathered up the carrots she'd been cleaning and moved them, entirely without a plan for what she was going to do or how she was going to cover for her sudden need to escape, farther away and down the countertops to "chop" them at some distance for the girl, focusing then on getting control of herself without Sophia being able to see, and hopefully without her being able to hear, the sounds of the rhythmic breathing she was employing to try to push back the feelings that were rising up.

"I never really wanted parents," Sophia offered quietly and solemnly, making it quite clear that she could indeed hear Carol controlling whatever it was that had washed over her…either that or she could simply feel it herself. "I didn't. Some of the other kids? They did. They…talked about their parents or about what they thought their parents would be like. You know, people would come sometimes. It was like…just like today when I was picking out potatoes. It felt like it. You stay, you're not what we want. You go in the basket. I never went in the basket."

Carol couldn't speak. She still lacked her voice. Now it was gone entirely and she doubted that even if she'd cried it would have had sound to it.

"It didn't bother me, though," Sophia offered. Carol wasn't entirely convinced it was true. It sounded true enough, but it felt like something that Sophia had told herself often enough that it had taken on the wax appearance of truth. "I didn't really want them. I was happy where I was."

Carol wasn't sure if Sophia was trying to convince her or convince herself. And she wasn't entirely sure if Sophia was maybe hinting that she wasn't as thrilled about her new home as Carol might have hoped she was.

"But…" Sophia offered, her word dragging out and heard over the sound of scraping as she returned to the potatoes she'd abandoned for some time in the sink, "I have you now too…and now? I have something…that I guess I did want too."

Carol found, somewhere and as unexpectedly as the wave of the suffocating desire had come, a burst of laughter at the statement. Sophia had turned her own statements around on her. She'd played her card well.

Carol wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, making sure that none of the tears she'd been swallowing back had overpowered her will and escaped, and then she turned to look at Sophia who was looking at her, a hint of a grin, altogether evil and smugly satisfied with herself, on her lips.

"And you're my favorite potato," Carol offered, her voice coming out only slightly scratchy and halted.

Sophia abandoned her work and Carol barely had the time to put the knife down and twist her body before Sophia had wrapped her in a hard hug that almost took her breath as surely as the desire to cry had. Carol wrapped her arms around the girl and returned the hug, though with less of a crushing force.

"We have to get the food on," Carol said. "Or Daryl's going to wonder what held us up."

"I think he might understand," Sophia offered, for the second not giving up on the hug. "He's a pretty good potato too."