AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol was getting ready to put the stew on for dinner and she couldn't help but think to herself that this would be an evening when the stew would just seem perfect. It would seem right. The chill in the air that had made her finally give in and button the oversized sweater she'd found in one of the clothing boxes, probably meant for a man three times her size, was the kind of chill that welcomed something like a warm stew to eat.
Beyond that, she knew that everyone would enjoy it. There was hardly a soul that hadn't been hard at work that day. The chill was driving them on, surely, but there was something else in the air. Maybe it was the stirring up of the long dead memory of the comfort and happiness of holidays. Maybe it was the quiet peace that the chill brought on—there hardly even seemed to be Walkers stirring around outside the fences at the moment. Whatever it was, though, something had everyone diving into their work with more zest than usual, and Carol knew that would mean that she'd be something of a superstar when she told them all that the hot and fairly hearty stew was waiting to warm them when they were done.
She left her pot, too heavy for her to lift alone now that all her "helpers" were busy doing other tasks, and walked quickly across the yard to where Daryl was working. He'd been coming in and out of the fences all day hauling heavy bags over his shoulders. Those who couldn't do heavy work had been outside, in a small patch to watch each other's backs, combing the floor of the nearby wooded area for nuts, dried berries, half rotted fruit, or anything else that might be of use to feed their pigs. Others had been responsible for raking together straw and dead grass for feed. Daryl had been one of the ones hauling it back inside the fences to either use or store away.
As Carol walked toward him, Daryl noticed her. For a moment there was just a quick jerk of his head, the movement he made to distinguish what it was that was moving in his peripheral vision. Then he turned his head back and looked at her head on, a small smile curling up the one corner of his mouth.
"Sashayin' like you on a damn catwalk," he called.
Carol smiled to herself. Maybe there was something to that. Maybe there was something there that hadn't always been there. She'd never, as far as she'd known, sashayed before. But she felt different.
Maybe Daryl had a lot to do with it.
"You like what you see?" She responded, ignoring the regular and expected quick burn of her cheeks. It always accompanied her teasing him, but she was learning to push past it.
The smile grew a little.
"That damn sweater looks ridiculous," Daryl commented back.
"It's warm, though," Carol said.
At about that moment, she closed the distance between them. Daryl dropped the bag that he'd been holding over his shoulder—a bag that appeared to be heavy but seemed to haven't bothered him in the slightest, and he squared in front of her. Knowing what he expected, but wasn't always quite comfortable requesting, Carol closed the last little bit of space between them and puckered her lips at him in a silent request for the kiss that he wanted her to ask for. He obliged her with a quick and easy peck at her lips before he pulled away and immediately had to study the location of the bag on the ground instead of noticing if anyone might be around and watching them.
"I need you," Carol said.
Daryl's head shot back toward her and she smiled at him. He made a humming noise to go with his smirk.
"For that later," Carol said with a wink, the familiar burn returning. "I need you to move my pot. It's too heavy."
Daryl let out a breath with a loud rush of air. Then he chuckled.
"Move your pot. Do the heavy lifting. And then? Maybe later..." Daryl said.
"Maybe definitely later," Carol said, wagging her eyebrows at him. "It's getting cold in the prison."
"Even colder in the guard tower," Daryl said. "But—you got your sweater."
"Maybe I want need it," Carol responded.
Daryl shook his head at her. It was the sign that he'd run out of things to say. He'd reached the end of the teasing that he could handle. He gestured with his hand back toward the area where Carol's fire was burning and waiting for the pot that he'd placed on it and Carol nodded and turned, starting back in that direction.
In the upper part of the yard, before they reached the pot, Carol greeted Andrea who was sitting and working on one of the projects that she'd been given. They'd brought in quite a few boxes of clothes, all grabbed willy nilly on a run, and she had the job of sorting them out into somewhat organized piles on a sheet on the ground. When she was done with that, should she finish and still be looking for tasks to do, Carol had gathered together a basket full of clothes that they had which required stitching. She assumed that the jobs would take Andrea a few days. She hadn't counted on, though, the fact that Eugene would be so keen to be Andrea's little assistant with everything.
"I believe Eugene has a crush," Carol whispered to Daryl as they walked toward the pot. "He's hanging around Andrea a lot."
"I think Eugene's got a crush on anything that keeps him from actually doing shit," Daryl said.
"Andrea's doing something," Carol said. She didn't mean it to come across as defensively as it naturally did, but she was quick to defend Andrea against anyone who might suggest that the small jobs she did weren't useful.
"It's fine for Andrea," Daryl said back quickly and maybe a little more loudly than he meant to. "Fine for her. She's knocked up and can't haul shit—I get that. He could do a little damn more than he's doin' though."
Carol hummed, she wasn't going to argue against that.
"Except Abraham wants him kept safe," Carol said.
"Wants his damn girlfriend tucked away," Daryl said. Carol clucked her tongue at him to scold him and he laughed to himself.
When they reached the fire, Carol gestured toward the pot that was put to the side so that she could assemble the ingredients for the stew without being burned by the flames. It wasn't an ideal way to cook, and she'd certainly made better food in her life than she sometimes made now, but she was learning and nobody complained too much. After all, most of them were just pleased to have all their meals prepared for them.
She helped him lift the pot and move it to the fire by the large handle and then she thanked him with another quick kiss that was much like the one she'd greeted him with. He offered her a smile once more and then he gestured a farewell to her with his hand and started to walk away—this time in the direction of Andrea. Carol assumed he was going to tease the blonde—Daryl being one of the few whose teasing she took as entirely innocent—and maybe to try to rile Eugene into actually being a working man for a day in his life. After all, he could at least pile things in the small storage shed they had and that would never even take him near a Walker.
Carol stayed absorbed in daydreams and planning while she watched the stew. Every now and again someone passed by—inside to get some water, outside headed somewhere else, stopping by to ask a question or make a request for her to do something or get them something—and she spoke to them and broke her thoughts, but for the most part the time she spent cooking was time that she spent not focused on anything else. Mika, one of the young girls that had come with Abraham's group, joined her for a bit to prattle on about the stew and where the meat had come from and how she wished that they could hunt the animals without actually having to kill them, and Carol listened to her and entertained her speech. After all, she'd learned, a long time ago, how to listen to Sophia while she did a number of other things.
And the day crawled slowly on with everything running as it would in the quiet, crisp afternoon.
So Carol was as taken by surprise as everyone else was when the rumble of thunder started, low and long, and her first thought was that she needed to go for the cover she kept for the pot and hope that the rain that came—if it ever did—wasn't enough to extinguish her flames. The rumble didn't last long, though. It stopped after driving in a few of the people who were still outside gathering things. It stopped after it had simply brought about a bit of confusion over the clear skies.
And then it was replaced by something else.
The three vehicles came roaring down the small access road to the prison so fast that Carol's only response to their approach came in the form of an irregular heartbeat. She found herself paralyzed and frozen to her spot despite the fact that everything inside her immediately told her that all was not right. Slowly everyone seemed to be making their way to have a better view of what was happening—forgetting entirely the actions they'd rehearsed as the proper ways to deal with surprises such as this.
In an instant, they seemed to have come undone.
When the doors to the SUVs opened, though, Carol felt her muscles loosening. Somehow she was slowly gaining the ability to react again. Her heart picked up its pace, thundering in her chest, when she recognized the man that got out of one of them. Then the organ seemed to come to a screeching halt when he produced, along with the help of whoever the people with him were, Michonne from the backseat of one vehicle and Hershel from another. Both were bound and, immediately, they were brought to their knees on the ground. He was speaking, but at the moment Carol couldn't make out a single word that he was producing even if she knew it wasn't for the volume of his voice.
He had Michonne's sword. He had them on their knees. He had three SUVs and a handful of people. Careful shooting, if even Carol could get to a perch in the tower, would at least take him out before he could do anything at all.
But nobody was in the tower. Hardly anybody was armed with more than knives, and though Carol could see the guns from where she was—it would be difficult to get them without being seen. A glance at Daryl, though, moving his feet slowly with his upper body straight and tense told her that he was trying to do just that.
He was the first to move. He was the first to speak. It was as if nobody else was even aware yet what was happening. Carol and Daryl were alone, for a moment, in a world where everyone else was frozen and they were watching it unfold.
Until Maggie's scream for her father echoed out and seemed to make a few trips around them. She repeated the scream and Carol heard another scream, but it was muffled before it even finished. Standing, frozen, Andrea covered her own mouth—don't scream. Don't give it away if he hasn't noticed you yet. There wasn't any escape, though, because he'd notice if they all fled for the prison at this point.
And then the thunder returned. This time not so low. Not so distant. Not a quiet rumble. It still signaled a storm, though, that Carol felt in her bones. The tank, then, came slowly rolling toward the prison, ignoring the access road, as it made its way through the overgrown grass of the field.
He'd arrived. Despite their preparations, he'd caught them all by surprise. Despite their plans, they had none active and in place. And he had two of their own.
