Daryl had essentially been evicted from Carol's room at nine on the dot. She'd been awake a few times while he was there, never for too very long, and he'd seen a number of doctors and nurses who gave him very little information. Some of the nurses had been nice, though, and had treated him like he was supposed to be there, leaving him to help her with her dinner and letting him know that if she needed more of the pills they gave her after they took away the morphine that he could ask them if it was time for them.
Daryl was standing outside now, smoking a cigarette and searching the parking lot with his eyes. He'd done a once around and knew that no one was there to pick him up yet, but he assumed that someone would eventually come.
Daryl decided, when he was done with the first cigarette, to smoke another. He entertained himself by trying to balance on the curb with half his feet over the side. Merle and Andrea were both famously late, and apparently tonight was no different than usual.
Daryl thought about Carol while he was out there. He'd woken her up a little before he left to let her know that they were running him out, but that he and Michonne would be back in the morning. She'd mumbled something to him and thanked him for staying with her, but he was pretty sure that she was back asleep before he left the room. He hoped she slept through the night so she wouldn't be awake and alone later.
Finally Daryl saw Andrea's Pontiac pull into the parking lot. She pulled almost to the curb and he swung open the passenger side door.
"Lookin' for a date?" Andrea asked.
Daryl got in the car without responding to her and buckled up.
"Ya late," he said.
"Yeah well, shit happens," Andrea said. She reached in the back seat and flung a greasy paper bag into his lap. "Picked ya up some dinner. Figured you probably ate shit all day if you ate anything at all."
Daryl looked at the grease soaked back that very likely contained something like a burger and fries.
"An' this ain't shit?" He asked, grinning at Andrea and opening the bag to see what his prize was.
"Well it's not Christmas dinner, but it's better than something out of a vending machine," Andrea said.
Daryl wasn't arguing, of course. He hadn't actually eaten much of anything. He'd finished some of the food that was left over after Carol had eaten her fill from one of the trays, but the shit had tasted terrible and he'd decided he wasn't that hungry.
"Where's Merle?" Daryl asked, his mouth full.
"Merle is at home, being Merle," Andrea said. "Said something about how he wasn't riding all the way out here when you could have gone home with Michonne. So I'm your chariot."
"Thanks for pickin' me up," Daryl said.
"No worries," Andrea responded. "I'm sure Carol appreciated the company."
Daryl chucked and crammed a few of his fries in his mouth. When he'd swallowed them he spoke.
"I don't think she knew I was there half the time," he said.
"All the same," Andrea said, "it was very Hershel of you to stay."
Daryl chuckled again.
"I'da wanted somebody ta stay if'n it was me," Daryl said.
Andrea grunted.
"I hate hospitals," she said. "I'd have wanted someone to stay too, but Merle wouldn't do that shit. He'd have dropped by…maybe…and then when he saw everything was alright, he'd have left. The only reason he stayed last night was because he didn't have any other choice."
Daryl knew that Andrea was probably right. Merle wasn't one that was going to sit with you for a while just so you felt better about your situation. Merle was more the one to check on you, make sure you weren't likely to bleed out in the next few minutes, and then tell you to suck it up and deal with it.
It was different with Carol, though. Daryl liked being with Carol, whether she was awake or not, and he didn't like knowing that she was in pain or scared. If him or anyone else being there would help that some, then he'd rather know that somebody was there. He didn't know if that was really a Hershel and Miss Jo kind of thing as Andrea would say it was, but it was just how he felt. He didn't know if Merle had ever had anyone in his life that he liked being around that much. He wondered, had it been Andrea, would Merle have really just blown her off, or would he have surprised them and stayed?
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Daryl felt like he'd waited with Michonne for hours for them to finally release Carol. He'd begun to grow quite bored with waiting, but there wasn't really anything to do, so he'd sat and tried to entertain himself by counting things in the waiting area and by watching the people around him. He was trying to figure out, for his own entertainment purposes, why everyone was there and who they were waiting on.
When they'd finally released Carol, they'd brought her out in a wheelchair. She'd smiled at both of them, though she still seemed groggy. Daryl waited quietly with her until Michonne finished signing things, and then he pushed the wheelchair out the door and to Michonne's car.
Daryl helped Carol into the passenger seat of the car and Michonne returned the wheelchair while Daryl climbed into the backseat to wait on her. When she got back, they were finally headed back toward Sweet Junction. Daryl had already said that he was staying the rest of the day to help Carol get settled in at Michonne's since Hershel had given him the whole day off.
At Michonne's house, where Daryl had never been before, Michonne got the suitcase out the back that Andrea had packed for Carol. Daryl helped Carol out the car and supported her while Michonne got the house open and led them inside. He took Carol, per Michonne's instructions, to the couch and helped her get comfortable.
"I'm not an invalid," Carol said, as Daryl tucked the pillow under her head that Michonne had brought her.
"Hush up," Daryl said. "Ain't nobody said ya was."
To prove his point, he tossed her blanket at her and stood over her, watching her trying to unfold it. He couldn't stand watching it, though, so he finally took it from her and spread it over her.
"Looks like you've got quite the nurse," Michonne said, appearing from the kitchen with a glass of water. She walked over the Carol and dropped some pills into her hand. "I'm supposed to give these to you now."
Carol obediently took the pills.
"I don't know what to do with both of you staring at me like that," Carol said.
"Well, I'm not going to be staring at you any longer," Michonne said. "I've got some work that I've got to do so I'm going to slip into my bedroom and get on that. There's television, movies, books, whatever you want. If you don't know where something is, just ask me."
"Can I have a mirror now?" Carol asked.
Michonne shook her head and shot a look at Daryl shaking her head again.
"You look fine," Michonne said. "You don't need a mirror."
"The fact that you've kept me away from them tells me that I don't look fine," Carol said. "I'm going to the bathroom eventually and then I'm going to look. You might as well bring me a mirror and let me get it over with while I'm sitting down."
Daryl saw Michonne look at him again. He didn't have any idea of what he was supposed to say or do. If she wanted to look, then he thought she should be able to look. He shrugged at Michonne and she sighed. She disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later, handing a decent sized hand mirror to Daryl.
"I'm going to work," she said. She turned her attention to Carol. "Take it easy and stay down. You're on the mend and you need to stay put. Don't make me break your legs to go with everything else."
"Yes ma'am," Carol said, giggling a little.
Michonne smiled and disappeared back down the hallway. Daryl heard a door close and figured that she was shutting herself away, leaving them to do what they would.
"OK," Carol said, "let me see it."
She held her hand out to him and he looked at the mirror he was holding. He walked over to the couch and sat down on the floor beside it, offering her the hand mirror.
Daryl watched as Carol looked in the mirror. At first she stared at it intently, moving it around, and then she repeated the action. He watched, then, as her face started to transform a little and tears puddled up in her eyes.
He reached then and took the mirror, quickly sticking it under the couch because he didn't know where else to put it.
"Don't'cha do that," he said. "It's gonna hurt if ya try ta cry an' it ain't worth that 'cause it ain't gonna change nothin'."
She looked at him, sucking back the tears a little and he got up searching around the living room. He had no idea where a single damn thing was in this house, but he knew that lawyers had to have tissues somewhere. It just seemed like a very lawyer type thing to have. He finally found a box stuck on the table beside the other couch and he brought it over, handing a couple to Carol. She carefully dabbed at her eyes and wiped at her nose, trying not to cry.
"It ain't that bad," Daryl said, sitting back on the floor.
"Daryl, you're sweet, but you're a bad liar," Carol said. Her voice was shaky and it was evident that she was still on the verge of tears.
"I ain't lyin'," Daryl said. "It ain't that bad. He coulda killed ya. Ya could still be laid up there in that hospital 'cause ya brain got smashed up or somethin'. So ya got a couple cuts an' bruises an' stuff, that ain't nothin'."
"Daryl it looks terrible," Carol said.
Daryl knew that women were real particular about every little aspect of their appearances. He knew they spent a lot of time gooping make up on and fixing their hair. Since Andrea had moved in he'd heard more whining about bad hair and messed up make up than he thought was possible. What was funny to him, though, every time he heard the complaining was that he didn't really understand any of it.
Andrea would snort and stomp around the apartment complaining about her hair and humidity and how it made her hair look bad. Still, for all the stomping and snorting she did, he didn't think she looked any different than she normally did. It was just hair. Sometimes it was a little poofier than others, but it was always the same idea.
And when he looked at Carol, that's all he saw…he just saw Carol. Sure, he could see the bruises and the cuts, and they looked bad, but the reason they looked bad was because he knew they hurt. He knew that Ed had given them to her and he'd had no right to do it. He knew that they hurt, and he didn't like knowing that things hurt her. They didn't change her, though, she was still just Carol.
Daryl didn't know how to explain that to her, though, or what she'd say if he tried.
"They gon' go away," Daryl said. "It might take 'em a bit, but they gon' go away. Important thing is ya alright an' they said ya gon' be just fine."
Carol nodded at him, but she didn't say anything. She picked at the edge of the blanket.
"I hate him," she said finally.
"Ed?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah," Carol said. "I know we're not supposed to hate people, but I just can't help it. I absolutely hate him, even if it's wrong."
Daryl nodded his head a little. He knew what it was like to hate people, even when you didn't want to hate them. He'd heard all the speeches about turning the other cheek and forgiving people and he thought it was a real nice sentiment, but he hadn't figured out yet how to do it.
He hated Ed too, and hearing her say it just made him hate the man a little more.
"It's alright ta hate him," Daryl said. "I reckon he deserves it."
"So he's locked up now?" Carol asked.
Daryl nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "They tryin' ta make sure he ain't got no options ta post no bail neither. Michonne said she reckons he's gon' be there a good long time."
Carol nodded her head a little.
"He always said that I deserved it," Carol said, "but I don't think I've ever really known why."
She leaned her head back on the pillow and Daryl moved, sitting on the couch beside her. He gently brushed some of her hair out of her face.
"It's 'cause ya didn't deserve it so he couldn't never tell ya why," Daryl said. "Ain't nobody deserves some asshole like Ed."
"Maybe I did," Carol said. "Maybe I do."
Daryl shook his head at her.
"Stop that shit," Daryl said. "Ya just runnin' ya mouth an' ya don't even know what'cha sayin'. Why don't'cha try ta sleep or somethin'?"
Carol shook her head.
"Watch a movie?" She asked.
"Sure, what the hell ya wanna watch?" Daryl asked.
"Doesn't matter," Carol said.
Daryl got up and crossed the living room. There was a shelf with a bunch of movies on it, but they all looked like cartoons and kid shit and he didn't know if that's what Carol had in mind. He decided he'd go in search of Michonne. He slipped out the living room and started down the hall. All the doors except the one at the end of the hall were closed, so he just started knocking on them. He'd knock, wait a second, and step to the next. He was fairly certain he knocked at a closet once, but finally the lawyer opened a door.
"Something wrong?" She asked.
"She wants ta watch a movie," Daryl said.
"She can watch movies," Michonne said.
Daryl realized the woman thought he was asking permission. In reality he was more interested in finding out where movies that people old enough to keep down solids would want to watch were located. He was also certain that he had no idea how to work the electronics in the house. The only television he and Merle had ever owned only picked up stations with rabbit ears and tinfoil.
"Where's a movie?" He asked.
Michonne sighed and stepped out of the room. She was wearing pajamas now and she padded down the hall in front of him back to the living room. She opened a cabinet and presented it to him like it was some kind of game show and he'd just won the big prize. He walked over and picked out one of them, having already glanced at Carol and seen she was watching the whole thing through heavy lidded eyes anyway. There was a good chance that his interactions with Michonne were just as entertaining to her as any movie would be.
Daryl held the movie out to Michonne.
"How do ya make it work?" He asked.
Michonne took the movie and instructed him, a little more quickly than he would have liked, on how to set it up and how to use the three different remote controls that she offered him. Once the thing was playing, he decided that he'd just not touch it until it was done and that would solve that problem. If Carol wanted him to put another in some other time then he'd just bug the woman again because he wasn't going to remember the laundry list of instructions.
By the time the movie was playing, though, Carol had fallen asleep.
"Is it OK she sleeps a lot?" Daryl asked Michonne.
Michonne nodded.
"It's fine. She needs to rest and there's not much else that she can do," Michonne said. "At least she's sleeping right now. I'm afraid of when and if the nightmares start."
Daryl nodded his head. He didn't know if Carol had nightmares, but he thought that most people did and what had happened would be enough to trigger them. He knew that Merle had nightmares. Sometimes his were bad enough that he'd knocked a hole in the wall in the last place they'd lived just trying to get away from something. Daryl usually woke up from his own nightmares, typically sweating, but he didn't react as violently as Merle did. Andrea had nightmares the night after the incident with Ed, but Daryl didn't really know if they were common or a side effect of whatever she'd taken. He imagined that Carol was likely to have them soon if she hadn't already started.
"Ya gon' be alright with her at night?" Daryl asked.
Michonne nodded and sighed.
"I'll be fine," she said. "I'm used to not sleeping through the night. If it gets too bad I'll just move her into my room with me. There's enough room there. They said at the hospital that last night she had one and they gave her something to get her back to sleep. I have a feeling we've only seen the tip of the iceberg."
"Yeah…well…" Daryl said. "If ya ever got pounded on for no reason by some asshole like Ed I reckon ya'd be prone ta seein' shit in ya sleep."
"I've been lucky," Michonne said. "I've seen it happen, but I've never been on the receiving end."
"Ain't no damn fun," Daryl said. "Ya can bet on that."
Michonne walked over to where Carol was sleeping and Daryl watched as she readjusted the blanket some and moved Carol's hair out of her face.
"Ya care about her, don't'cha?" Daryl asked finally.
Michonne turned around then and started like she was leaving the living room. She half smiled at him.
"She's my friend," Michonne said. "Of course I care."
"How long ya been friends for?" Daryl asked.
Michonne smiled again.
"Long enough," she said. She leaned against the doorframe leading out into the hall and Daryl turned his attention to arranging the remotes that he didn't understand on the floor beside the couch. "You care about her too, don't you?" Michonne asked.
Daryl turned around. He considered the question a moment.
"Yeah," he said. "I reckon I do."
Daryl didn't know if his answer was satisfactory or not, but he didn't have much practice with this sort of thing and he still wasn't able to put much of a clear definition on his feelings, even for himself. He did care, though, that much he knew.
Michonne nodded at him, half smiling again. She didn't say anything about it, though.
"I'm going to work," she said. "Let me know if y'all need anything."
Daryl nodded back at her and sat back in his position on the floor to watch whatever movie it was that he'd put in and wait to see when Carol woke up and needed something else.