AN: Here we go, another little chapter.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol knew she'd catch the tail end of the lunch crowd today. She'd been too busy to make it any earlier and she'd missed breakfast, so she was glad that she wasn't going to have to wait in line too long.
She hadn't slept much after Daryl had left. She'd gone to bed, but she hadn't slept.
Alice had come by her house early that morning to ask if she could come by and meet with Paul…so she'd gone.
And he was warm and he was funny and he was the kind of man that you wouldn't believe had seen even half the heartache that left so many people at this point since the turn looking hollow eyed and lost.
He was optimistic and it was almost contagious. Carol had taken up most of his morning, which she'd apologized for later, making him listen to her and talk to her before she'd ever succumb to any kind of examination. And he and Alice had both humored her, talking about possibilities but deciding that if she was going to go through with trying to have the baby, optimism was going to be something that would help them all.
And Carol had reminded herself of that while she'd gone to put in for lighter shifts, one a day…while she'd stopped by to put in her meal card that got her the better selections for meals…and while she'd gone to post to put in her rations card that would give her part of the fresh produce and the "real" milk that the community produced, things she'd always said were for "those who needed them".
But she tried to remind herself that she needed to be as optimistic as she could. She needed to scrape down and find the part of her that she'd tried to beat down a long time ago…the part of her that had some hope for the future. It was the part of her that had barely survived all the things that she'd seen since the turn. The part that had barely survived losing Sophia, and then as soon as she'd done all she could to revive it, it had barely survived losing Mikka and Lizzie…and then losing them again.
But she knew it was still there and she had to find it, as much for herself as for anyone else.
By the time she'd dropped off the extra supplies she got at the house and made it back to the commissary to eat, most of the people who had come in from lunch from morning shifts were gone again.
She stepped into line, reminded the lady serving her that she was on the special meal list, and accepted her congratulations for what it was worth, offering her the most sincere thank you that she could as she accepted the plate and the well wishes and went to find a table to sit at and eat the meal in silence.
She saw Michonne at the exact moment that the woman headed in her direction. Michonne didn't ask permission to sit, either, she simply sat in front of Carol.
"Are you still mad at me or can we move past that?" Michonne asked.
Carol rolled her eyes up in Michonne's direction before returning them to her food.
"I'm not mad," Carol said, shaking her head slightly. "I got called in off the run…brought the whole thing back in."
"I heard," Michonne commented. "Look…I'm sorry…I didn't really mean to say anything but there's no need to go out there into something that's potentially dangerous when you don't have to."
Carol just nodded slightly.
She wasn't mad. She was over being mad. Honestly, she felt like she had so much going on in her head at the moment that she didn't have any time to really linger on any one thought or emotion for even the amount of time that it probably deserved. She was simply dropping emotions as quickly as she picked them up so that she could move onto another thought.
"Abraham called it in," Carol said. "It doesn't matter now. Everyone in Oasis either knows or they will by dinner…I'm off runs, missions…everything."
Michonne chuckled.
"You sound so down about it," she remarked. "Do you really think you're going to miss going to play Boy Scout with some assholes that much?"
Carol stared at her.
"I liked the independence," Carol said, point blank. "I liked…that here I was going out on runs. I came into the community as someone who could handle that kind of thing and I liked it…it was better than being always kept behind the prison fences…cook this and wash that…"
And until she said it, Carol hadn't really thought about what the runs and missions had meant to her, but it was true. She had no real affinity for traipsing through the woods or rummaging around in stores that had long since been forgotten and picked clean by the first pack of roaming people that were probably now Walkers.
It had to do more with feeling independent and with feeling…capable.
She'd been given exactly the same jobs as everyone else. She'd been given run rotation that matched, exactly, that of everyone else that was on run rotation. She wasn't being "put in her place" by anyone, and her "place" wasn't just one of domesticity.
And it wasn't that she minded the domestic parts of the life they led. She did cooking shifts and cleaning shifts and laundry shifts…she did all the things that she'd done before at the prison, all the things that she'd done as Ed's wife who wasn't allowed to have a job outside the home. She didn't mind doing them, but she liked the idea that it wasn't all she could do.
"That's not what this is about," Michonne said. "You're still independent…you're more indepenedent right now than most of us are. If it were me…I'd do the same thing, you know? Take your time off…take it easy. You don't have to prove anything to anyone."
Carol nodded her head.
"Yeah…well…I'm doing everything…right…I've got my nutritious food, that I don't want as much now did as I did before I got it," Carol said.
Michonne hummed at her.
"Your appetite will pick up," Michonne said. "Do you even know how far along you are yet?"
"Mmm…" Carol hummed. "Maybe ten, maybe eleven weeks…I thought it was less than that, but I found out today."
"It's going to be fine," Michonne said. "You'll see…"
Carol chuckled to herself and rolled her eyes toward the woman again.
"Feeling optimistic, are we?" Carol asked. "I thought you and Rick were going to have kids…wasn't that the plan?"
Michonne made a face.
"We're…trying…talking about it…" Michonne offered.
"Talking or trying because they're two different things," Carol said.
Michonne made another face and Carol knew she was pushing her…but she was pushing her for a purpose.
And for a moment she continued to prod at Michonne, deciding that the woman had herself to blame for having come to join her for a lunch full of baby discussion, until finally she got what she wanted. She got the halfhearted confession from Michonne that she'd suspected all along.
She "wanted" a baby with Rick, but she was "nervous" about actually going through with it.
Carol nodded at her as soon as the confession was made and pointed at her with her fork.
"That…right there," Carol said. "That's all I want you and everyone else to realize…if I'm not as…excited…as maybe I should be? It's because I'm too terrified of everything to be excited."
Michonne's face had gone serious, all of the joviality of earlier erased off of it.
She leaned toward Carol a little.
"I'm not denying you that," she said. "I promise that I'm not…and if that's the side of this that you want me to emphasize, then you let me know. I just thought that it might be better…for you…if I tried to be positive and happy about things."
Michonne paused a moment before getting up from the table, nothing to carry with her because she'd brought nothing when she came to sit, apparently having already finished her meal.
"I know a little bit about where you're coming from," Michonne said. "If you want to talk…I'll talk…just not in the cafeteria."
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They'd changed the course of their trip a little because they already knew, now, what was a day's walk in the one direction.
And whether it was the course or the slightly damp weather or the pull of the Earth, they'd come across four or five times as many Walkers in this trek as they'd come across in the earlier attempt at the run.
Daryl didn't care, though. He trudged along with Abraham not two feet in front of him and Rick walking off to the side marking trees that were on the specified lumber list with fluorescent paint from a paint can he carried in his hand.
Daryl had gotten them both organized early this morning when it became clear that there was no need to wait. None of them had shift duties that couldn't be passed off to anyone and they might as well get the run under way. Rick had started to protest, muttering something about the kids, but apparently he'd gotten that straightened up when Abraham had simply suggested that they choose someone else off the run list…someone who didn't have quite so many obligations requiring them to stay inside Oasis.
Daryl was quiet because he didn't have anything to say.
He kept playing the night before with Carol over and over in his mind. He didn't know what he wanted her to say…he didn't know what he wanted as a response from her…but he'd wanted something more than what he'd gotten. He'd wanted, perhaps, her to at least acknowledge the fact that he would have gone after her.
And he would have gone after her, even if she'd done the killing. He wasn't going to leave a friend behind…they'd learned what leaving people behind did to them.
And maybe it was his thoughts over the conversation or maybe it was something more brewing around in there, but it was bringing up some feelings with Rick that Daryl didn't care for.
The man had told him they were brothers, and in many ways he'd given Daryl more confidence over the years that he'd known him than Merle had in all the years the were together. So maybe, in some way, they were brothers…but Daryl knew that being someone's brother didn't mean that you had to agree with every single thing that they did…every single thing that they said or thought. He knew that well. There had been more that he and Merle disagreed on than they'd ever agreed on.
He must have let some of it show, too, because by the time they were ready to break camp and he and Rick went in to clear a falling in farmhouse that they'd found while Abraham kept watch outside, Rick was addressing him about it.
"Something on your mind, Daryl?" Rick asked as they walked, back to back, through some of the rooms that almost appeared haunted. "Something I've done?"
At first Daryl didn't respond. He usually would simply say "no" and let things slide. He would figure that things would pass, but at the moment he wasn't feeling like letting it slide…maybe some of the boldness that had carried him across Oasis and up Carol's porch steps the night before hadn't faded entirely.
"Lemme ask ya somethin'," Daryl said, when they were fairly certain the place was clean and they both dropped their guard a little in the back room of the house. "Why'd ya do it? Why'd ya haul Carol out there an' leave her…an' you ain't even asked my opinion?"
Rick did the thing that Rick always did when Daryl asked him something that he didn't want to respond to. He contemplated his shoes or the floor very carefully before he finally made eye contact with Daryl that lingered long enough to make anyone uncomfortable. It was a cop thing…Daryl knew that.
"She was dangerous," Rick said. "She would have killed any of us if we'd been sick…she wasn't stable. I was afraid for the kids."
Daryl stared back at him.
"You coulda said somethin' ta me…ta Hershel…any of us," Daryl said. "You got Judith back…you wouldn'ta got her back if…"
He stopped and shook his head.
Rick reached out, putting a hand on Daryl's shoulder.
"What's going on?" Rick asked. "What's brought this up again? I thought it didn't matter…not anymore."
Daryl shook his head at Rick slightly.
He didn't have an answer for what was going on and he didn't have a clear answer for what had brought the whole thing up again. They'd never really discussed it, not in any great detail, and not since Rick had first told Daryl what he'd done and then everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.
"Never stopped matterin'," Daryl said finally. "You had just as much right as she did, I reckon…you was just as damn wrong…"
Rick furrowed his brows at him.
"What did you want me to do, Daryl?" Rick asked. "Why was I supposed to get your permission to do what needed to be done?"
Daryl stared at Rick again.
He didn't want to start conflict, but in a way he felt like this was a conflict that had always been there. He simply hadn't addressed it before.
And maybe now he was realizing that part of the reason that shit had turned out the way it had was his fault, but part of it, and at least that's how he felt at the moment, was Rick's fault. And it was easier, right now, to focus on the part that was Rick's part.
"Forget it," Daryl said. He shook his head slightly. He'd just let it drop like he'd let it drop before…he'd just swallow all the shit back down again. "Gotta set up the damn camp 'fore it gets dark," he muttered as simply something else to close the conversation and turned to start back through the house.
"Daryl," Rick said, catching his attention. Daryl turned and waited. "If I had told you before…would you have gone with her? Or would you have stayed with us?"
Daryl didn't respond to the question. He simply turned, leaving Rick for the moment with his unanswered question, and went outside to tell Abraham the space was cleared.