Daryl joined Rick on his back porch. He'd promised to share the last third of the bottle of bourbon he'd been keeping in his clothes drawer since the first run to Cabela's. A hell of a lot had changed since that day. Carol now had a daughter of sorts, in Sofie. The monk was a monk no more and was about to get hitched, and Daryl...well, Daryl had Carol now, in a way he'd never let himself dream of having her.
It was fifty degrees tonight as they sat on the rocking chairs on Rick's back porch, a torch planted in the ground on either side of the stairs, casting a flickering glow on their faces. "So Carol lets you out of the house to hang with your ol' buddy?" Rick asked.
Daryl poured a little bourbon in each of two whiskey glasses. "I ain't got to ask for permission like you."
"Karen's really jumped in running," Rick observed, "on the Council."
"Got some good ideas," Daryl agreed.
"So..." Rick asked. "Are you and Carol shacking up now or what?"
"Been in the same house since we took in the monastery refugees."
"You know what I mean. Are you two...you know...getting it on?"
Daryl sipped again and rolled the bourbon on his tongue before swallowing. "Why, you got money ridin' on it?"
"You know Michonne was joking about the pool, don't you? There is no pool. No one was betting on you two getting together. We all always assumed you were together. Somehow. And that it didn't matter how. Just mattered that you were." They drank in silence for awhile, until Rick said, "Lawrence screwed it up for me, asking Nadia to marry him. Now I'd just look like a copycat if I popped the question."
"Well, 'Chonne won't mind if'n ya don't. She ain't never been married. Didn't even marry her baby daddy."
"And how do you know that?"
"Spent a lot of time with her when we was searchin' for the gov'ner. Ya know that."
Rick was silent and a little sullen.
"Swear, Rick, man, we only played strip poker the once. Was a long night."
"Screw you," Rick said.
Daryl laughed behind closed-lips. "She sucks at bluffin'."
Rick reached between their two rocking chairs and drew a line in the air. "Don't cross that line."
Daryl squinted at the air between them. "I'll try, but it's hard to see."
Rick changed the subject. "You ever been anyone's best man before?"
Daryl shook his head. "Wish Lawrence hadn't asked. Ain't got a damn idea what to do."
"It's not that hard. I've done it twice."
"Ain't never even been to a weddin'," he said. "Might of, if Merle had married that one girl." Merle had been thinking about it, Daryl knew, because the girl had started hinting she wasn't going to stay with him if he didn't put a ring on it, and Merle really did like her. He'd been with her ten months, which was four months longer than he'd ever been with any other girlfriend. "But she went and got arrested for distribution. Merle thought it best to keep his distance."
Rick chuckled.
"What's so funny?"
"You just reminded me of that time you tried to fight me and Shane, and you told him chokeholds are illegal."
"Hey, I know my rights," Daryl said.
"Every punk does. I would have despised you in the old world."
"For awhile, ya despised me in this one."
"And you me," Rick reminded him.
"Well, y'all did force my brother to cut off his own hand. And all we ever did was hunt for the group and feed it."
"That wasn't all Merle ever did. He called T-Dog a...you know what, beat the shit out of him, put a gun in his face, turned that gun on everyone else, and insisted he was in charge. What was I supposed to do?"
Daryl hadn't known all the details until now. He felt a little sick, to think of his brother acting like that, but he knew it wasn't unlikely. He'd seen Merle in enough bar fights - backed him up in enough bar fights - to know how easily he could fly off the handle. "He weren't gonna kill nobody though."
"How in the hell could I know that?"
"Couldn't," Daryl admitted. "Don't matter nohow. Merle's dead. And you ain't the one that killed 'em."
"He sacrificed himself in the end," Rick said. "He gave us all a fighting chance."
"Yeah." Daryl drained his glass of bourbon and poured himself a little more. He didn't want to talk about Merle. "Shane had a mean chokehold, too. Bet he was a real asshole cop. Bet you were always havin' to cover his ass with the brass."
"He wasn't too bad, all in all. Shane was a good friend. I mean, except for that part where he fucked my wife and then tried to kill me."
Daryl had just taken a small sip, and he nearly spit the bourbon out of his mouth. He swallowed it hard, and it burned in his throat. But when it was all the way down, he laughed. "Sorry, man," he said. "That weren't funny."
"Gotta laugh to keep from crying," Rick told him. He sighed. "I worry about Judith growing up in this world."
"Guess ya worry 'bout 'em growin' up in any world. Less'n yer a shit parent." Daryl's parents never seemed to worry about him much, even when he was gone for days.
"I worry about Carl, too," Rick said. "He's becoming a man, and he's only sixteen."
"Gotta be a man by sixteen here," Daryl said.
"Guess you were before then, even in the old world," Rick told him.
Daryl didn't reply. Carol didn't think so. She didn't even think he was a man when this whole damn thing started. She'd told him he'd changed when they were looking for Beth. That he'd been a kid when she met him, but he'd since become a man. He hadn't known what to think of that then, but he wondered now if that was when she started to like him, not like a teasing friend, but like a woman likes a man. Suddenly, he wanted very much to be back at the house with her, even if he wasn't getting any. He drained his glass. "Gotta get," he said. "Keep the last two ounces."
When he got home, though, it was later than he realized. Her bedroom door was shut, and there was no light seeping through it. He whispered her name at it, but he didn't hear anything, so he just went to bed in his own room.
[*]
Will Dixon cursed and threw a beer bottle straight over Daryl's head. It slammed against the wall. The brown glass shattered, and the liquid spewed out. A four-year-old Daryl burst into tears. "Mamma!" he yelled, wondering when his mamma was gonna come out of that bedroom she'd been in all evening, wondering when she was going to gather him up in her arms and tell him everything would be all right.
"Quit yer cryin' you pansy ass weaklin'!" his father yelled.
Daryl was blinking back his tears, trying desperately to stop them, when his eleven-year-old brother squatted down right in front of him, his hands on Daryl's shoulders, looking him straight in the eyes. "Let's play hide and seek, little brother. Yeah? you go run and hide. Out in the woods. I'll find ya." And then Merle pushed Daryl toward the door, drew himself up, and turned to face their father. "One," Merle counted, "two...you better hide, little brother...three..."
Daryl flung open the door, ran deep into the woods, waded through a muddy stream, and found an alcove under a tree by the shore, but when he tried to crawl inside, there was a little girl there. Daryl stared with surprise into her blue-green eyes, and her face began to morph into that of a rotting corpse. He fell backwards on his ass. Daryl began to walk, crablike, back through the stream, looking in horror at the undead girl. But then her face turned again, back into that scared little girl, and she pleaded with him, "Don't leave me! Please don't leave me!" But he did. He turned and stumbled and ran, up another bank, farther into the woods, until his foot got caught up in a necklace of human ears. Daryl stumbled and fell into a trap dug in the forest floor, but the trap became a well, the well at Hershel's farm, and he fell through pitch blackness, down, down, down...
Daryl awoke suddenly, his entire body jerking against the bed, as though he'd just hit it, hard, from above. He sat up with a gasp and lay a bare hand down on the sheets, which were damp with his own sweat.
[*]
There was coffee sitting in the French press on the kitchen counter. The ex-monk was on the back porch, praying. The sun was just beginning to rise, painting the railing with flickering rays of light. Daryl eased through the screen door, closed it softly, and sat down in the rocking chair, cup in hand. He sipped and waited.
At length, Lawrence rose and sat in the rocking chair next to his. "Bring me any?"
"Thought you had some already." He extended his cup. Lawrence raised his hand and shook his head. Daryl went back to sipping.
"Weather's warming," Lawrence said. "Not long before spring. And my wedding."
"Mhmh."
"What brings you out here?"
Daryl looked into the cup. "Weird dreams."
"They say that God speaks to us in dreams."
"Then God don't make no damn sense."
"Your weird dream...it's made you think, though, hasn't it? About something?"
About far too many things. Daryl breathed in the morning air. The bitter smell of coffee wafted to his nostrils. He sipped. "When I look back...think maybe my brother took my daddy's blows for me. 'Til that first time he went to juvie." Daryl had been six that year Merle was convicted for aggravated assault. That was also the same year their father started whipping Daryl, the very day after Merle was gone. Daryl ran a hand over his dry lips. "Used to blame him for leavin' me alone with that man, popping in and out of juvie and then finally signin' up. Never thought he might have got tired of takin' both our licks." He sighed. He sipped. And then he said, "I miss 'em. I miss my brother."
"I miss my sister," Lawrence said.
"Younger or older?"
"We're twins. Were twins. I don't know. Maybe she's still alive. Maybe she made it to D.C., and maybe she made it out again before they burned it."
Daryl didn't tell him how unlikely he thought that was.
"But I guess she and her family would have tried to make it back to the monastery, if she had."
"Why didn't they come with ya in the first place?"
"They'd heard there was a vaccination in D.C. I tried to talk her out of it. The world was collapsing. We couldn't rely on the gods of government. I thought, for a moment, it was Armageddon."
"But ya don't think that anymore?"
"I wonder sometimes if we're in purgatory." The screen door opened and Nadia stepped out. Lawrence glanced at her. "But I'm working my way out and up to heaven."
"What's this about heaven?" she asked.
Lawrence smiled. "I said you look heavenly this morning."
"In my doctor's smock?"
"It becomes you."
She laughed and bent to kiss him, quickly, on the lips. "Lower your expectations," she told him. "I hear it's the key to happiness in marriage. And I'm no angel."
"If woman lost us Eden, my dear," Lawrence said with a smirk, "then she alone should restore it."
She patted him on the cheek, a teasing slap. "You need to take out the trash. It's burn day."
"What sort of wedding ring do you want, my love? We're going on that supply run soon."
"The usual," she said. "A simple gold band. But you might as well get me a giant rock while you're at it."
[*]
Carol peeled and chopped the garlic she'd picked in the greenhouse today. She'd already gone door to door and given each household a clove, and then recorded the distribution in the town register. She was still somewhat amazed that Alexandria had become a place of rule and order in this vast ocean of lawlessness. It was a strange thing, watching a country being born. Strange and exciting, and Carol was glad to be a part of the machinery. Ed never would have imagined her capable. He hadn't thought she was capable of holding a job outside the home, let alone being a founding mother of a new nation.
After closing the refrigerator, she opened the screen door between the kitchen and the back porch. Daryl was sitting out there, skinning something. She eased into a rocking chair and adjusted the strap on her sling so it wasn't cutting so much against her shoulder. "Thank you," she said.
He looked up from his knife. "For what?"
"For doing it on the back porch this time." She smiled. "If you're not careful, I'll domesticate you."
"Ain't gonna happen." He flayed off a strip of fur.
"I'll at least make you into an indoor-outdoor Daryl."
"Pfffft."
"Is that a skunk?" she asked.
"Mhmm." He flipped over the skinless carcass and cut a slit down the center.
She wrinkled her nose at the thought of it. "What's a skunk taste like?"
"Not like it smells. Not if ya cook it right."
"How should I cook it?"
"It ain't for tonight. Gotta soak it in milk first. Guess the powdered shit'll have to do." They were out of the fresh milk Jesus had brought.
"How long?"
"'Til dinner tomorrow. Roll it in flour. Season it. Fry it up good. You'll come up with somethin' tasty. Always do."
"Is it fair, that we get all this meat, and the rest of the town doesn't?" she asked.
"Dug us out a couple hibernatin' snakes, too. Ethan took 'em to his house."
"The houses with hunters eat fresh meat every day, and everyone else gets Spam or sardines twice a week?" Carol asked.
"When I get a deer, I'll share with the whole damn town. Be more to hunt in spring. Winter's slim pickin'." He poked around inside the skunk, looking for diseased organs. She knew that's what he was doing. She'd learned a thing or two from him.
"Is it clean?"
"Mhmm."
Carol rocked and looked out over the porch railing. There was a very thin dusting of snow on the ground, but it wasn't overly cold. It was at least 45 degrees, and that snow wouldn't last long. It was probably the last of the winter. "When are you going on the run to get the wedding rings?"
Daryl put his bare hand inside the skunk and yanked out its bloody organs, which he tossed unceremoniously over the porch rail, like he was throwing a baseball. "Next Wednesday. Want anythin'?"
"A pretty necklace would be nice. A pendant. I like sapphires."
"I ain't got any idea what's what."
"Let Lawrence pick me out something."
He grunted.
"Or Michonne," she said. "Tell her to pick something that matches whatever bridesmaid dress she finds for me. Where are you going?"
"Someplace near somethin' called Crystal City."
"Sounds magical," Carol said. "Like something out of The Wizard of Oz."
"Well I hope it ain't overrun by flying monkeys. Harder to shoot than walkers."
She chuckled. "You think it will be overrun by walkers?"
"Lawrence thinks no. Says the firebombin' in D.C. burned up a lot of 'em near there."
"And what do you think?" Carol asked.
"Think Nadia's gonna end up with a Cracker Jack ring from CVS."
She laughed. "But you're going anyway?"
He looked up at her. "Ain't just about the rings. Regular supply run, too. It's my job, Carol. One of 'em."
"I didn't say a word about it. I just wish I could get back out there with you." She nodded to her sling. "Do something valuable."
"What ya do here? Feedin' people? Makin' somethin' good outa next to nothin'? 's valuable."
She smiled. "Really? You don't think it's ridiculous?"
"Nah, no, I said that when you was pretendin' to be someone else. Wearin' that stupid sweater thing. Not cause you can cook."
"I do actually like to cook, it's just..." Carol sighed. She needed to remind herself of her strength, of her ability to survive beyond the gates. She couldn't grow complacent. She couldn't grow soft. She couldn't let herself become dependent on any man, like she'd let herself do with Ed. The damsel in distress had nowhere to turn when the knight's armor turned out to be less than shiny. "You know me."
"Mhmhm."
"How long will you be gone?"
"Not likely more 'en a night. Ain't but a few miles." He went back to working on his skunk.
Carol watched him for a moment and then asked, "Ready to play best man?"
Daryl wiped off his hands on a cloth. "Don't make no damn sense," he said.
"I know it seems strange to you, but you're probably the closest friend he has here."
"Ain't what I mean. Mean the whole damn thing. One day she ain't givin' him the time of day, next one, they's gettin' married."
"I don't know. Nadia said they'd known each other for ten years. Maybe this wedding is long overdue." Carol thought it was good for the community to see life going on in that way. A few months ago, she would have thought a formal wedding to be a sign of naivete. Now she saw it as a sign of courageous hope, as a symbol of the sort of things they were continually fighting for. "I think it's nice, that they're doing this, that they're making it formal."
Daryl said nothing to that. He cleaned his knife on the cloth he'd used to wipe his hands, running it over the blade and wetting it with blood.
"You don't think much of the whole idea, do you?" she asked.
"Just don't get the point," he said, standing and sheathing his knife.
"Of people getting married?"
He nodded.
She shrugged. Given her own horrible marriage, she supposed maybe she shouldn't get the point either, but seeing Glenn and Maggie, Lawrence and Nadia...she thought maybe she did. "It's a promise. A vow to stay together and be faithful to each other, no matter how bad this world gets. A way to celebrate that commitment with the entire community."
"Ain't worth a damn thing, all this promisin' and vowin'." He reached down and plucked up the carcass of the skunk. "A woman either stays or she don't."
"And a man?"
"Same thing. Don't matter what he says." He opened the screen door and disappeared into the kitchen.