Sophia was excited by the race car bed. "Awesome possum!" were the exact words that flew out of her mouth, and they made Daryl chuckle. Now, Sophia and Carol disappeared into the only bathroom with a kettle of hot water to add to the cold water to wash up, and Daryl could hear the murmur of their voices in there. They seemed to be talking about Beth.

Meanwhile, he went to the kitchen sink to spot scrub his filthy flesh, not bothering about the fact that the water was frigid. He scoured his hands and face with a rough bar of Irish Springs soap. The mud and blood of the day trickled down the open drain, and his own clean skin, slightly paler now from his sunless days inside the nursing home and hotel, emerged. He even cleaned behind his ears, which, he realized, he hadn't done in a week. He ducked his head under the cold stream and ran his fingers through his hair before standing up and shaking like a dog. Dirty droplets of water splattered the counter tops. Then he went so far as to brush his teeth, which was not something he typically bothered with more than a few times a week. Daryl was living with two people of the female species now. He figured he should make a daily effort.

The toothpaste made him wretch. It tasted like bubblegum. He'd snagged it from the bathroom before Sophia and Carol went in there, but he must have gotten the kids' toothpaste by mistake. It was in a normal-shaped tube. How the hell was he supposed to know? Spitting with annoyance into the stainless steel tub below, Daryl forced himself through the unwelcome process.

When he was done, he settled at the four-person, circular kitchen table in the breakfast nook to clean his handgun. It didn't need cleaning – he'd only squeezed off two rounds at the Greene farm – but it was something to do.

Eventually, Sophia and Carol came into the living room in their pajamas. Both had on black sports shorts and a short-sleeve t-shirt. Carol's shirt was white, and Daryl tried not to think about the fact that she probably didn't have a bra on underneath it anymore. So instead, he thought about how he would have to find them both some thick, flannel PJs once winter rolled around. Maybe some footy pajamas for Sophia. He'd loved footy pajamas when he was a boy. His nana had given him a pair, all camouflaged. If he'd wanted to, he could have run out of the cabin and slept in the woods and no one would have found him. Not that anyone would have come to look.

In this little cabin, the living room was only a few feet from the breakfast nook, so he could see and hear everything that was going on. And what he saw was Sophia settling on the couch and Carol putting down a DVD player on the coffee table before her. "Just fifteen minutes of the disc in here," Carol told her, "and then it's bedtime."

That DVD player looked awfully familiar. It was a weird shade of blue, which was something he'd noticed about the DVD player Merle had picked up at Walmart.

Daryl dropped the loose barrel of the gun he was cleaning. It clanked onto the wooden table, and his chair scraped back against the wood floor as he lunged into the living room and snatched the DVD player from the coffee table before Carol could press play. "Don't just play whatever's in there!" He slammed the screen shut.

Carol laughed, and he could feel his cheeks growing red. "You don't think I checked it when I found it?" she asked, "You think I'm just pressing play without knowing what's in there?"

Shit. She'd seen what was in there. She probably thought all that porn was his. Some of it was damn hard core, too. Why had he told Darlene to show her that cabin? And what movie had Merle been watching last?

"I put the Looney Tunes in there," Carol told him. "I found a collection in the kids' bedroom in the big cabin." Carol held our her hand. "Now may I have the player back?"

Daryl handed it over to her. "Sorry," he muttered, and then he ducked his head and went back to the table.

He concentrated fiercely on reassembling his gun as the Looney Tunes theme song drifted from the living room, and when Carol came and sat down at the table across from him, he stood without looking at her, shoved the handgun in the waistband of his pants, and plucked up the crossbow he'd leaned against the nearby counter. "Goin' to batten down the shutters."

Daryl spent a long time outside. He not only secured the shutters but also did a full walk around the perimeter of the cabin. Then he wandered down the hill to the park between the two cabins, climbed up the ladder of the treehouse play structure, and walked around the outer balcony to where Rick stood on watch with an AR-10 in his hands and a pair of binoculars slung around his neck. An oil lamp sat on the wooden deck, burning low.

"Take yer shift," Daryl said.

Rick shook his head. "You're on at five in the morning."

"Do both."

"I planned the shifts so people would be well rested and alert."

"That's five hours 'tween. Be fine."

Rick sighed. "Look, Lori's pissed off at me right now, and I'd really like to go back to the cabin after she's asleep."

"'Cause of that thing ya said 'bout Darlene probably bein' a firecracker in bed?"

"Yep." Rick looked solemn for a moment but then he grinned. "Is Darlene a firecracker in bed?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"I just assumed you two - "

"- No. 'Sides, ya need to tend to your own wife and not worry 'bout what other people was doin' 'fore the world ended."

"Tend to my own wife?" Rick asked. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Nothin'. Don't mean a goddamn thing. Forget it."

Rick gave him a cutting look. "Means something."

"Just…if I had a pretty wife, and she was the mother of my kid? Wouldn't be talkin' 'bout other women 'round her like a dumbass."

"Is that so?" Rick asked. "You'd be the ideal husband, would you?" He laughed.

Daryl scowled because Rick was right. He'd be a shit husband. He wasn't even a very good housemate. He'd left Carol wondering where he was, which was suddenly obvious to him because his sensitive ears picked up the sound of the front cabin door opening and closing way up the hill. "Give me them 'noculars."

Rick slid them off of his neck and handed them over. Carol had come outside the cabin, still in her sleep clothes, but with hiking boots now and her handgun drawn and held down at her side. She had good trigger discipline, he noticed. She walked down the stairs and through the grass-pocked, gravely dirt to peer around the corner of the cabin, probably wondering why he hadn't come back inside yet.

Daryl shoved the binoculars against Rick's chest, shimmied down the ladder, and jogged into view. When Carol spied him from the distance and waved, he slowed to a walk.

[*]

Carol hadn't realized quite how tense she was until she spied Daryl near the park and every muscle in her body unwound at once. He hadn't been bit out here. He'd just been avoiding her in his embarrassment over the DVD player. He would likely take his sweet time walking up that hill now. She shook her head at him and went back inside the cabin.

"Did you find him?" Sophia asked nervously when Carol came through her bedroom door. The girl was lying on her back in the race-car bed and had her black-and-yellow Nascar sheet pulled up to her chin, but the comforter was in a pile on the floor. It was much too warm for that.

Carol pulled the desk chair up beside her bed and sat down. "He was just talking to Mr. Grimes. He'll be home soon, honey. Let's say our prayers."

Sophia tented her hands together atop her stomach. "Lord God, thank you Mr. Dixon is okay. And please help Beth to be okay. And help Ms. Maggie to fall in love with Mr. Rhee because I think he really likes her." Carol suppressed her chuckle. "And make Mama happy too. And let me win at Battleship tomorrow. And thank you for this cabin and that we have running water and food. Amen."

"Amen." Carol leaned over and kissed her forehead. "You're a very sweet and thoughtful girl, Sophia."

"Can you read to me for awhile?"

"Of course." Carol looked through the books on the small, two-shelf bookcase next to the desk. She wanted something light and uplifting for Sophia tonight. She settled on a collection of poems by Shel Silverstein, and once back in the chair, she opened the book to a random page and began to read, "Sara Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out!"

Sophia knew this one, and she was already chuckling.

[*]

When he got inside, Daryl could hear Carol reading to Sophia through the open doorway leading to the girl's bedroom. After propping his crossbow against the side of the armchair, he sat down. The barrel of his handgun poked uncomfortably against him, and he pulled it out of his pants and laid it on the end table. He had to stop walking around like a gang banger and find himself a holster like Andrea had. Carol needed one,too. He would search the cabins tomorrow for a pair.

His boots clomped onto the area rug as he kicked them off by the heels. The moldy stench of sweat wafted to his crinkling nostrils when he peeled his socks off one by one and tucked them inside the boots. Only when he swung his bare feet up on the coffee table did he realize how filthy they were. Daryl sighed and made his way to the kitchen sink, grabbed the same kitchen towel he'd used to dry off his face earlier, and wet and sudded it to scrub his feet. They were still a bit discolored - but considerably less stinky - when he put them up on the coffee table again a few minutes later.

He closed his eyes and listened to Carol's soothing voice as she read:

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow...

Daryl thought of them all leaving Atlanta, fleeing that concrete prison for the open air and piney scent of this private paradise. To think these cabins had also once felt like a prison to him when he was here with Merle, and now...now he thought it could be something else. A home.

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends…

When he heard her coming out of the room, Daryl grabbed his crossbow from the floor and pretended to be doing something important with the strings.

Carol eased down on the couch not far from his arm chair. "You were out there so long, I was afraid you got bit."

"Just talkin' to Rick."

"Did he say anything about Beth?"

Daryl shook his head.

"I'm worried about her."

"Mhmm."

"Don't you think Darlene was a bit much tonight?"

"Darlene's always a bit much. "

Carol chuckled. "I don't know. Maybe this world calls for more brutal honesty. We don't have time for subtly anymore."

"Got all the time in the world now," he said. "Up in these here mountains." There was so much peace here, after the horror of the quarry camp, the slaughter at the nursing home, the killings on the Greene farm.

Carol crossed her legs at the knee and leaned back against the cushions. "Maybe."

He was relieved that she wasn't mentioning the porn she'd found. Maybe she knew it was Merle's. She hadn't been treating him like she was disgusted by him, after all. "Think it's nice that ya still read to Sophia," he said. "Even though she's plenty old enough."

"Well, she has dyslexia. Sophia's always hated reading. But she likes to be read to. I tutored her a lot, with all these books and special programs…and she's gotten better, but it's always been a struggle. Kids used to make fun of her in school."

It was a strange feeling, this sudden urge to pummel children who probably didn't even exist anymore.

"It makes her feel stupid," Carol continued.

Daryl knew something about that. "She ain't stupid."

"No, she's not. Sophia's a really smart girl in other ways. She's great with puzzles and strategy games."

"So…she cain't read?"

"She can read. And she does read for information, but I think it feels like a chore to her. I wanted her to learn to love stories and poems, even if she never willingly picks up a book on her own. So I read aloud to her as often as I can."

Daryl wanted to say that she made listening to stories and poems easy, that she had a beautiful voice, but he had a harder time saying things than he did thinking them. The words always floated around in his head like the ghost of a body, all essence, no form. So he just said, "Mhmhm." And then he fiddled with his bow.

"Quiet in here," Carol said after a minute or two of silence.

"'S nice. Think I got the best end of the cabin deal."

"Don't be so sure of that," she teased, "I might talk at you all evening."

"Long as ya don't 'spect me to answer."

She smiled, but she didn't talk at him. Instead she got up and went to the kitchen – which was a stone's throw from the living room – and put the kettle on the wood stove. She made two cups a tea and brought them over, setting his on the end of the chest-shaped coffee table, with the string still hanging over the side.

"Ain't a tea drinker," he said.

"You drink sweet tea, don't you?"

"Sure."

"I put lots of sugar in it."

"Yeah, but it ain't cold."

"A simple thank you would suffice."

"Thanks," he muttered contritely. But he didn't touch it for a while. He kept messing with his bow. Eventually she took his tea bag out and lay it on a napkin next to hers. He didn't want to offend her, so he reached for the cup, ready to choke it down, but it actually tasted good. "Ain't bad."

"It's jasmine," she said.

"Like the flower?"

"I think that's what it's made from."

"Ya know that story?" he asked.

"What story?"

"This duke in Europe, he got this one jasmine flower from China. Just one." Daryl slurped the tea. "Rich asshole wanted to keep it all to hisself. But he had this poor gardener wanted to give his sweetheart somethin'. Gardner picked a sprig for 'er to wear. She planted it…thing took root…grew big…and they made more cuttin's from it. Gardener sold 'em and got stinkin' rich, so then they could afford to marry and buy their own land. True story."

"Did your nana tell you that story, too?" she asked. "Like the Cherokee rose?"

"Mhmhm." Daryl nodded. "Told me lots of stories 'bout where all the stuff in nature came from. How it got where it got."

"Were you close?" Carol asked.

He shrugged. "She died when I's seven."

"But you still remember all her stories."

Daryl ran his fingertip around the rim of the coffee cup, dipped it in to the burning tea, and then licked it off. "She told 'em good." And she had never raised a hand to him, not once. She hadn't even raised her voice often.

"Your mom's mom?"

Daryl nodded.

"Three of my grandparents died before I was born," Carol said. "And my grandfather thought children should be seen and not heard. He certainly never told me any stories." She took a sip of her tea. "Do you think I should tell Sophia about her grandfather? Show her the cabin? Let her read the letter?"

Daryl shrugged.

"I don't want to make her sad about it, you know."

"Ya don't think she already figures he's dead?" he asked.

"I suppose she must." Carol's cup shook a little when she sipped.

"Might could be nice for her to know he was thinkin' of her 'fore he died."

Carol nodded.

"Just don't...don't tell her I's the one - "

"- I won't," she promised him. She seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then she said, "I may not have had good grandparents, but I was luckier than either you are Sophia. My parents…they were decent parents."

"What the hell ya talkin' 'bout? Sophia's got a decent mama."

Carol smiled faintly. "Thank you."

"Yer daddy was a good man?"

"Yeah. If he had lived, I don't know...Maybe I would have gone to college. Maybe I wouldn't have ended up with Ed. I don't know. None of it matters now, does it? Nothing we did in the old world matters anymore."

"Ain't a bad thing, maybe," he said. "We get to start over."

She smiled, a little sadly, a little sweetly. That smile made his chest tighten. "We do, don't we?" she asked. She stood and reached for his cup. He drained the last two sips and handed it to her.

Daryl watched her as she walked to the kitchen, thinking that he could get used to evenings like this. His eyes fell to the bow in his lap when she began walking toward him again. Carol paused with her fingertips on the arm of his chair. "I'm so tired," she said. "Guess I'm not used to all that shooting. Goodnight, Daryl."

"'Nite." He sensed, rather than saw, her leave. He resisted the urge to turn and watch her walking away.