Hey everyone!
Thank you all so much for your love! I'm humbled and grateful and lucky for the always warm reception :) I can't believe TLOS has over 1000 reviews, the mere thought makes me emotional! I remember wondering if anyone would bother to read and review when I posted the first chapter… I keep wondering the same thing every time I press the post button…
About this chapter… Remember little Hope? I promised you all a long time ago that eventually we'll find out how she came into the walker world and the time to deliver on my promise has finally come :) This looong two-shot is a standalone, but for those invested in the stories that want a continuation in the narrative, the following chapters will provide a memory refresh: we first met Hope in chapters 31 and 35 and about Carol's pregnancy the respective chapters are 42 and 43. Loose connections, not at all mandatory reads. Hopefully, this chapter isn't too mixed to make sense, but it does have a total of three flashbacks in italics. Some details set in present seem a little off in the beginning but everything will make sense as you read. Warning: This is huge, mushy bomb ahead :)
perfectvelvet has posted the sequel to "Shelter From The Storm", titled "13 Days". Seriously, don't miss it, it's brilliant! For a wonderful comical read, check out "The Walking Dead – Online Dating Profiles" by missdaryldixon. It cracked me up! Tip: Make sure to wear a diaper before reading it unless you don't mind peeing on yourselves (which is fine, I'm not judging…) :)
Enjoy!
3 months pregnant
Retching, Carol plopped down on the frigid bathroom floor, one hand protectively cupping the imperceptible bulge of her belly, her free elbow propping her head over the toilet rim. Last night's dinner was spewing in waves.
Too old, that was the thought racking her mind. Too old to go over all this again, especially under these circumstances and the savage conditions they lived, deprived of contemporary medicine and modern comforts, deprived of everything they used to consider a given. But happy, nevertheless. Hating the symptoms did nothing to rivet her from worshipping the cause of them. A baby. Daryl's baby. A second chance in life in a world striving for survival. A contradiction. Life raising high to confront the daily horror of death; subdue it, maybe even annihilate it. As long as people brought children into this world humanity still stood a chance. Hope. Babies, in all their absolute dependence on grown-ups were a constant value that never faltered even in mid-apocalypse; they were hope.
Even emptied of any digested substance, her body refused to take a break and her stomach clenched again, puking fluids. Morning sickness had been whipping her through and through for several weeks, but today she had completely lucked out, it was the worst ever. Another violent jolt and she heaved, mostly coughing and gasping for air as her elbow gave away and she nearly leveled with the toilet, dizzy and drained, when a calloused hand pawed her forehead, steadying her above the marble surface.
She didn't flinch at the contact. The touch, even startling, was familiar and impossible to stray further from threat. It was Daryl and Daryl was safety, stooping over to shore her up while tart slime spluttered out of her mouth, his other hand covering hers atop her belly. A few more abrasive throes mingled up with agonizing moans and her head felt swimmy, eyes fuzzy as their surroundings whirled around. But his grip was steadfast and she trusted him blindly to keep her in the right position until the queasiness gradually tided away.
"I think I'm done," she mumbled, still shaking with the aftershocks of visceral spasms. Thankful for the bottle pressed in her lips, she gurgled a couple of mouthfuls to rinse the sourness, the taste in her mouth instantly ameliorating. And then the same embrace, unrefined but protective shuffled her away from the toilet, assisting her to clamber up against the wall.
Daryl crouched in front of her, fishing the red, threadbare rag out of his pocket to tap the beads of sweat forming on her temples.
Bleary-eyed, she offered a tight-lipped smile. "Thank you."
"Let's get back," he grunted sullenly. "It's freezin' down here."
"Just give me a minute, will you?" It was killing him, Carol knew. Daryl was a man of action, a doer, and having no say in her body's reactions to carrying a baby had been vexing him beyond comprehension since the signs of her pregnancy stepped to the forefront. He resented that he could do nothing for her not to vomit, not to be dizzy and nauseated the entire time, not to have a bobbing blood pressure, not to get tired relatively easily. He could do nothing to seclude any of these symptoms and somehow, despite her efforts, he was worked up in a self-battering maze where everything that happened was miraculously his fault. Incapable to contrive ways to actually make her feel better in a physical sense and permanently too clammed up to verbalize his feelings, he was deprived of the emotionally equivalent heavy artillery he possessed to show her how much he cared.
However, he did care. He loved her, even if it only slipped as an innuendo while teasing each other and had never been an outspoken profession, Carol still knew. The way his eyes trailed her orbit, inspecting the soil she was about to trample on when she was outside. Never openly staring at her, he always knew the exact number of bites she'd swallowed during dinner whatsoever. Never asking her if she was cold or not, the abundance of blankets in their cell had propagated before the frosty December crept within the frigid walls. Never questioning her ability to meet her normal daily chores, the mundane tasks that demanded her attention kept lessening since the news of her pregnancy broke and she knew he was behind everyone's reluctance to allot her with obligations; the only thing she still was allowed to do was being in charge of the children's education and practice and cook one meal per day for the members of their small community. Never touching issues of comfort, their double bunk had been sawed in half and screwed together and the back-killer cots replaced with a commodious and restful double mattress that stuffed all the free space of their cell but made her feel nestled in a cloud every time she lied down. And she wasn't even granted with a vocalized expression of her gratitude, because Daryl didn't want her gratitude.
"What's wrong?"
"Ain't you supposed to put on weight with all this pregnancy shit?" he grouched, an epic scowl wriggling his forehead. "Ain't nothin' left of you but a bunch of bones. Not a huge fan of what it does to you."
Yes, he did care. Still cared. Although she missed the awe-struck expression and enthusiasm-saturated timbre of his voice the first time he placed his palm above her belly and realized their baby was growing inside. He had looked dazzled back then, like a little boy unwrapping the best birthday gift ever, almost too good for it to be true, cracking an ear to ear grin when she told him the baby was the size of a bean. A few days later morning nausea kicked in, though, and his zeal contorted into anger towards himself and the baby. He stopped referring to it as 'the baby' and settled with an aloof 'it'.
Like he had just done. At least he wasn't completely unresponsive to her efforts to goad him back to those sweet first days. He stiffened but never denied her when she rested his hand on her belly and after some pampering of his brewing fits he'd mostly mellow out and join her musings about the baby. And she loved him just the way he was, tantrums and warts and all, the full package.
"It will get better, Daryl. Soon I'll round up like the globe and you best be happy about it," she said, fingers fumbling with his until enticing him to touch the slight hump beneath her sweater. Defeat and disappointment gnarled her tone as his gaze roved over her in a quick, albeit indiscreet once over. She really was a woman after all; pregnant and in her forties, in love with a man who excelled every standard to surge as an A class model, but still a hundred per cent feminine. Pity was nonexistent in the list of emotions she wanted him to harbor for her, and despite acknowledging that this wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the reason their mangled souls had wormed a crawlway to each other, sprawling before him chalky white, drenched in her own cold sweat and quivery-kneed was too meek of a sight to be even remotely desirable for her man."And don't be mad at the baby. Children are hope, remember?"
Reassessing her poor condition once again, his wrinkled frown softened until a lopsided smirk flourished in the corner of his mouth. "Makes quite a fuss for a three month old bean."
"The baby is a Dixon," Carol chuckled, mindful to keep up 'the baby' repetition. "Nothing short of a full-fledged temper should be expected even in the fetal state."
Snorting a laugh, he moved to get up, a light tug at her waist and an external muscular strength peeling her off the floor. Carol sighed when she had to grip both his arms to straighten herself and maintain a precarious balance, still light-headed.
"I hate you seeing me like this," she whispered.
Shooting her a derisive glance, Daryl didn't bite the bait. "Like what? Pukin' alone? Ready to pass out head down in the fuckin' toilet?" He swatted closer and she discerned no grain of pity in a gaze full of concern. "This shit's been goin' on for weeks. Best get a bucket in the cell instead of sneakin' out alone every damn mornin' to puke."
"Still, I don't want you to-"
"'Cause it's so much better stalkin' you down to the toilets like a fuckin' creep," he grumbled, the get-go of a new scowl lacerating two deep creases on the top of the nose. "You can throw up all you want in the cell, all warmed up and cozy before you catch your death down here."
Carol quirked an eyebrow, eyeing him mischievously. "Stalking? Stalking as in this not being the first time you followed me down here kinda stalking?"
"Stawp."
"What? Every day?"
"Can't let you get killed simply 'cause you have a death wish, can I? My kid's stuck with your crazy ass."
His kid. Stifling a smile at the sound of those words, she ushered him to the hallway, an arm around his waist.
"Are you getting the fuckin' bucket or what?" he bristled and scoffed at her head shaking in mute refusal. Scanning the area and detecting no movement in the still slumbered prison, he hugged her back, offering support and overwhelming body heat. "Thought we might skip the part where I'm chainin' you up on the bed, but suit yourself."
Carol regarded his face tentatively, inches away from hers, as they trudged back. Full of contradictions he was; crude and soft, harsh and gentle, masculine and childish at the same time; private, but with the heart on his sleeve; he could snap her like a twig, but coddled her like a china doll.
"I love you," she purred, laboriously puffing up the staircase.
"Yeah, I'm a fuckin' adorable, pussy whipped asshole, ain'I?"
Carol giggled, but later that day she stepped into their cell to find a bucket cuffed to the banister of the makeshift bed. Morning nausea vanished after approximately three weeks and 'the baby' reference was briskly redeemed in Daryl's mouth.
xxxxx
It had been raining since the crack of dawn that day. It initiated with a humming drizzle peppering the air with a pinch of sultriness that progressively evolved.
He had this gut-wrenching hunch the moment his eyes fluttered open and Carol's side of the bed was empty and cold. Crankier and edgier than usual he tumbled down the stairs in haste, squinting at the first sun rays tipping over the faraway horizon, and found her gazing at the rainfall contemplatively, standing below the threshold of the entrance. There was something about the tenderness her arms locked around that protruding belly that moved him to the crux and never ceased to amaze him throughout the long months of her pregnancy.
Much to Daryl's complacency she had finally filled out some during the last months, mainly around the hips, and there was something straightforwardly arousing in the swaying of her curves. Her natural paleness looked healthier with those extra pounds, her cheeks rosier. The dreadful sight of the ossified woman that scared the shit out of him was nothing but a distant nightmare. Not that any of it bore any significance now that they were gearing into the home straight.
His innards coiled, forked and spooned like spaghetti when she failed to mask the painful grimace before turning to him and the ominous feeling blistered, mauling up to his chest.
"No hunting for you today, it appears," she said softly, nose crinkling from the effort to smile. "I'm glad I get to have you here."
"What's wrong?" He knew it, before her next line soared in the space between them, he fuckin' knew it.
"Can't be long now. The baby is sick of me, wants out. Time to meet daddy and everyone else."
"Fuckin' shit, get to the infirmary! Or no, just wait here and I'll get Bob." Every remnant of grogginess had swiftly obliterated now as his whole body tensed and knees turned to jelly. Michonne and Maggie had given him detailed instructions about this moment, but he should have kept notes, because despite the over-secretion of adrenaline in his bloodstream he was still loitering there gawking at her like an idiot.
Carol laughed wholeheartedly with his crippling apprehension and flicked her dreamy eyes back to the landscape. "Not yet. We still have plenty of time."
Mind reading wasn't his forte; Carol was the one with the natural knack for rationing out every rumination rampaging his brain, he simply sucked at reading between her lines. But at that certain moment, as her eyes darted back to the morning dew and the droplets lapping in mud puddles on a bed of lush greenness and flourishing vegetation, she wasn't an indecipherable riddle. In the end of May, spring was ballroom dancing with a ballerina grace in her pirouettes, prompting the wilderness into a blossoming orgy before curtseying and scurrying away in a haze of glory to relinquish the throne for the newborn summer. And Carol was taking in the rain, the prison yard with the crops, the tree line of the forest edge, the humid air, the ashen-tinged blanketed sky, musing over everything they had journeyed through, that long, craggy path steering inexorably to right here and right now, shamelessly memorizing nature and bidding her farewells before him.
"Don't do that," he ordered sternly, desperate to stave off the eerie atmosphere as the daylight seemed mysteriously obscene and the frigid gush of death wings flapping above them crawled down his spine. "You're gonna be fine. Both of you."
"Promise me," she whispered intensely, the melodic tint of her voice barely jiggling the stillness of the wee hours of daybreak. "Promise that if it goes south for me, you won't blame the baby."
"No."
"Daryl-"
"Quit your goodbyes, will you?" he sputtered poignantly, accentuating emphasis stressing his words as his forefinger jammed into her collarbone. "I know what you're up to and there ain't no way in hell you're pullin' this shit with me now. You're the one to uphold a promise!"
Enveloping his hand in both hers, she placed a kiss on his knuckles. "You're right, I'm sorry." She turned around to settle in his arms and craned her neck until she was resting against him, fingers dawdling over his wrists while he rubbed circular patterns around her belly.
"Don't try anythin' stupid, Carol. Please," he muttered after a while, chin nested on her shoulder. Please. Never had he begged for anything in his life, not even for that –his life. Never until now.
"I won't. I'm nowhere near done with you yet."
"Good." As compelling as it was to stubbornly lodge in the emotionally familiar residence of anger and straight-faced detachment, he found it impossible to suppress a smirk at how huge she had grown to be. Plus, she had done well, better than he gave her credit for, trying to get herself killed just once in a time span of nine months and that was no cinch for Carol's magnetic attraction to lethal perils. "You have your lives, remember? Squanderin' them around the whole fuckin' time, but still have a few stocked."
"You've made sure of that, haven't you?"
He grunted, but said nothing in response, eyes skimming at the impervious rain. Maybe there was nothing foreboding about their predicament. It was just rain and labor. And babies were hope –even the Dixons ones. Maybe.
"Daryl?"
"What now?"
"I'm happy."
xxxxx
5 months pregnant
It wasn't her fault. No, definitely not her fault. It was the freaking hormones swirling inside her out of control, messing with the mind, her mood, her libido. And the first two Carol more or less managed. After an eternity of submissive compulsion wasted with Ed, her only gain out of this was that she had finally contrived how to distinguish reality from the tricks her mind occasionally had in stock for her and be at the helm of it all. And it had come in handy now. She could say with absolute determination and unwavering conviction which thoughts were rational and which tainted with chemical reactions, surrendered to the hormonal vortex. Her mind and her mood, she had them both in check.
Which wasn't the case with her libido. Her fears that Daryl would altogether lose any sexual interest in her now that any grains of charm and seductiveness she possessed were squelched under her expanding mass and unwieldy movements had proven untenable at least. He wanted her even more during the pregnancy and this unforeseen blast of serendipity had blown completely out of proportion in her mind, sending her to dwell permanently in Glee-land. He was lustful and made her feel desirable when his darkened gaze lingered on her thighs, when his hands explored her cavities and mounds inch by inch, when his throbbing manhood unleashed his inner beast. She was sexual, she felt sexual. And she had zero interest or inclination to restrain herself. Fortunately, neither did he –most of the time.
Shivering, Carol shrunk deeper into her woolen jacket and trekked through the snow-coated yard, cocking her face towards the sky to savor the sensation of flakes floating around like fluffy tufts of cotton. The baby was calm, safe and insinuated inside her womb and she smiled. As heedless as it was in its blissful state, both her and the baby had struck a vein of gold with Daryl. That man, her man, would protect and guide it and that baby's life would bear no resemblance to Sophia's tragic counterpart whether Carol managed to survive all this or not. The paternal figure encompassing it would make all the difference in the world.
Shaking off Sophia's memory, she opened up her gait and secured her hands around the hot bowl. The door of the guard tower slammed closed and Daryl was glowering down on her from the catwalk, yapping something about her ass freezing out there when she ascended the staircase. Slanting over the seedy wall, she grinned despite her chattering teeth, but her luring advances were hindered by a calloused hand hustling her inside.
Daryl flipped the lock behind him and took the bowl. "Where's yours?"
Carol shrugged. "I ate with the others."
"Hershel and Bob are on my side that you must put on some weight."
Another nonchalant lift of her shoulders and she registered a flash of ire flickering in his gaze. "I've been eating like a pig, Daryl. It just doesn't stick to me and you can't keep-" Muzzled by two fingers shoveling a chunk of meat inside her mouth, she recovered immediately from the shock of the unmitigated affection and tethered his digits between her teeth. "Oh, I might reconsider if you opt to feed me."
Daryl scoffed but miserably bungled to conceal the shudder zapping him when her tongue glided around his fingertips. They spent a few minutes in comfortable silence, Carol ogling him greedily and Daryl casting surreptitious glances in her direction, stuffing her mouth with huge bites and holding the smaller morsels for himself.
He wanted her, too, she could tell. Hell, she could tell because she knew; and she knew because he showed her. In his own ways. The raw, devoid of manners and common courtesy ones; the sincere ones, with no hint of game tingling inside them. Like turning the delicate and profound act of feeding the subject of his affection into a hissy fit. She knew that he wanted her and it was enough, more than enough; no need to brag to his face about it.
He wanted her but was going to play hard to get nonetheless and Carol had no idea when this attitude had become such a turn on. Chewing absently, her breath hitched as she scrutinized the virile figure towering in front of her, the broad constitution, the muscular arms bulging beneath the sleeves, the unkempt scruff caressing the coarse skin…
"You're starin'."
His blatant declaration shattered her jumbled reverie. "Huh? Sorry," she laughed off her embarrassment and hooked a finger in the loop of his cargo pants when he tossed the bowl on the dusty desk. "But can you blame me? Too damn sexy for your own good."
He scoffed again, but didn't retreat. "No way."
"No way what?" she asked sheepishly and scooted closer until her belly fondled his stomach.
"No way you know what."
Ignoring him unabashedly, Carol tiptoed, her lips ghosting over his in a feather kiss.
"Can't," he drawled in her mouth. "I'll hurt the baby."
"The only way to hurt the baby is by hurting me. Which you do right now by the way."
Daryl scorned and parted his lips grudgingly, a ragged breath chaffing Carol's flesh. His arms curled around her waist simultaneously with hers snaking to his neck and the kiss deepened. "That was low, even for a perv like you."
"No one's in danger, Daryl."
"Ain't so sure about it," he chortled, nibbling her lower lip. "You seem pretty set to molest me."
Carol melted into him, lips pliant beneath the insatiable mouth that littered her with kisses. He was a legendary kisser, at least for her likes and standards. She had knocked down the foundations of his inhibitions and timidity for his ignorance long ago, droning on and on that practice makes perfect and he had lived up to the challenge with the reverent devotion of a true zealot. A perfectionist he was with everything he delved into, the kissing thing constituting no exception to the canon. Skillful, dexterous, resourceful, passionate, he glided the bow against her strings, cajoling her to sing any tempo his masterful performance wished, be it an andante, an adagio or a larghetto. Virtuoso technique and craving unquenched in spite of it, Carol writhed into the furnace of his embrace, grabbing fistfuls of hair as she reciprocated his fervor and gradually prevailed in the joust for dominance. Maundering when his hands framed her face, she swayed forward, puckered lips lumbering for his the moment he unglued his mouth and the surrounding iciness wedged between them.
Opening her drowsy eyes, she confronted a sly smugness embellishing his features. Damn. "Please, Daryl," she pouted, but he kept her in arm's length.
"You're beggin' for sex now? Even lower…"
Beaming regardless her obstinacy to keep pouting, she shimmied a hand in her back pocket and pulled out a cigarette. "Look, I brought you a gift."
Daryl grabbed it, lips twitching in a crooked smirk. "Bribin' me too? How low can you go?"
"A girl has to do what a girl has to do."
She crushed on him again, but he tilted his head just a notch and eschewed her kiss. "You really wanna have sex in the guard tower in the middle of February?" he asked seriously this time. "With temperature below zero and frost all around?"
"Just wanna have sex is all, I guess." She sighed, grinned and drew back, eventually giving up. "You're a true knight, you know, so thoughtful and protective." He was worried she'd freeze in there, he couldn't fool her, she couldn't fool him; and even though they seemed snared in an infinite regress of constantly calling each other out, the feeling of them being so intrinsically connected bore an ethereal essence that drifted around them like a silk coverlet.
Daryl rolled his eyes. "Yeah, my middle name is Lancelot."
"Daryl Lancelot Dixon? Talk about a tongue twister!" Carol giggled as he pushed her to the door. "All this snotty attitude just to take care of me. Like I wouldn't figure it out."
"Forgot you're Dr. fuckin' Phil," he snickered. "Go straight to our cell and maybe you get lucky in an hour or so. Deal?"
xxxxx
Carol didn't move into the infirmary they had fully equipped as a nursery until the timeline margins between the contractions narrowed notably and this didn't happen until noon. She was doing it on purpose just to thrust him over the edge and make him lose his mind, Daryl was certain beyond doubt. No wonder, though, he should have known by now that this woman would be the death of him. Maggie was done giving birth to her son in a couple of hours, but Carol had evidently decided to take her time.
By afternoon he was sick of waiting, not even sure what he was waiting for anymore. Everyone was parading in front of him and nobody had any kind of useful information to provide; Maggie would offer a vague consolation materialized into nothing tangible and Bob would only reiterate that everything progressed as expected like a broken record.
Flashes of lightning tore into the grey sky and with one final, deafening clatter the rain escalated into a downpour, matching his restlessness. Carol loved rain but hated storms; he suspected she was just afraid of them but she had never admitted so. Gnawing on his thumbnail to tame down his apprehension, he shuffled closer to Rick, Ty and Glenn who had hunkered beneath the awning to shield themselves from the tempest, seemingly engaged in a casual chitchat.
He resented them all for treating him like an idiot, pretending they didn't notice his nervous trepidation, amped up with each ticking second. Yes, all of them. Most of all Carol, for doing this to him. He also hated vehemently the architects of the prison for designing the infirmary so far away from the D block's entrance and, consequently, out of his ear range. The indolent conversation between the men rattled on and on, in sync with the hubbub of rain drops and hail crashing on the metallic surface above their heads.
By the time Maggie and Bob cantered back to C block under a fluorescent umbrella –how ridiculous this bright fuchsia hue was anyway?- to retrieve something his acute audition failed to register amidst the resounding clamor, he almost exploded. Damn Carol and her pride; she obviously hadn't confided to either of them that she trembled like a leaf during gales way more gentle that the one unraveling like a fucking tornado around them. Taut nerves throbbed across his temples and when the boom of a thunder clap cloaked every other noise, he leapt up and marched inside the building, his adamant veto to her repetitive pleas for him to be present during the labor long immersed into oblivion.
A guttural groan chocked up in a strained gulp when he popped in the doorway. "You don't wanna be here, Daryl."
"Whenever you're done beatin' around the bush and drivin' me nuts, just ram the kid out, will you?" he snarled with thinly-veiled aggravation. She responded with a hyperventilating distress, reaching out for him, and his anger sputtered and died out in a heartbeat. "Fuck, I swear I'm gonna kill you one of these days."
"Not if I kill you first," Carol hissed with equal aggressiveness as she laced their fingers together in a death grip, shoulders hunched, legs dangling from the bedside, toes curled and features scrunched up with anguish. Writhing with the buildup of a peaking contraction, she went on undeterred. "I might slit your throat while you sleep."
He couldn't quite put his finger on what precisely was happening there. For Carol, snarky remarks were always apt to connote a sassy taunt, but she didn't look too fond of joking at the moment. "Thought that was your Merle master plan," he slurred in utter befuddlement.
"God, I hate you so much right now!"
Daryl gaped at the hostility of the tone, shooting her an incredulous look as a paralyzing consternation sank in and his airway clogged up. He could barely tolerate himself most of the times and with all his shitty behavior Carol had constantly to deal with, every now and then he'd wonder if there was an actual breaking point in her empathy and unconditional acceptance, an upper limit that once trespassed, going back and fixing things would never be a possibility again. But why now? Of the surplus of opportunities he had given her to hate him, why now?
"Why?"
"Oh, no, Daryl! No, no, no, no, I don't mean it!" Grabbing the collar of his shirt with a stamina that propelled him forward and almost ripped the garment into shreds, she fought to catch a breath, face crimson with otherworldly exertion. "Remember me talking about it?"
"Um?"
"You can't hold it against me!" Carol grunted through gritted teeth. "No matter what I say you can't hold it against me, 'cause I'm in labor and I hate you."
"Okay…"
"I'm saying awful things but I don't mean any of it. Uuugh… God! It's the excruciating pain speaking. Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, remember?"
"Yes!" Damn, everything flooded back in now. He was such an asshole. He had two damn things to keep in mind and had fleetingly forgotten them both. One, that she could say anything she wanted while in labor with no repercussions, same way Maggie had cursed a very remorseful Glenn with all sorts of colorful name calling not that long ago. And two…
"And what else?"
"And children are hope," he recited fluently. "Godammit, Carol, don't you think I've learned my mantra by now?"
Heaving a sigh when the combers of the contraction ebbed away, she regarded him doe-eyed. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. Without the epidural, it's even worse than I imagined."
Daryl shook his head, tucking the pillows behind her back. "You're doin' great," he said huskily.
Fuck, he was afraid. And even the avowal of that was an understatement. He was petrified, an unbeknownst, numbing terror that only underscored his deficiency to provide her alleviation. It was beyond words what the sight of Carol suffering this amount of pain did to him. His thumbnail was practically hacked, the tissue of his lower lip minced off and those budges were but a frugal externalization of the blizzard brawling in his chest. His heart was walloping violently to vault out, skipping beats and suspending his breath and all he wanted was to quail and flee and go kill something to vent some of the pent-up emotion crammed in his core. Only there was no more one step forward and half back for them, that inner quandary was resolved a long time ago; he wasn't going anywhere if that's where she needed him to be, not anymore.
Readjusting her stance, Carol cracked a weary smile when he dragged over a stool and perched in front of her, his hand rubbing her tummy. "You'll have to let me rape you for a year to make amends for what you put me through."
"Sounds fair," he complied with a smirk, recruiting every ounce of mettle to pick up on the banter. She didn't want him to worry too much.
Another crack of thunder struck and the hailstorm erupted, ricocheting off the concrete structure of their safe haven with a sonorous pound like the devil was kicking at their door. Carol gasped and snagged his hand, nearly jumping out of her skin, wide eyes skittering around. He slid on the bed and chuckled when she nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck, her steel hold relaxing as his lips brushed across her forehead, delivering a soothing hush.
"You came because of the storm, didn't you?"
Just rain, hail and labor. And hope, always hope.
"I came 'cause you're a pain in the ass."
xxxxx
7 months pregnant
"Daryl!"
Carol stormed inside the prison's main building, trotting heavy-footed through empty corridors. No sign of him in the kitchen and common room. Everyone was in the yard, piling up bodies and debating between giving a proper burial to their dead ones or setting the corpses on fire since a contagious infection appeared to be in its infancy. But not Daryl. Daryl was nowhere to be found since he threw a shitstorm of temper and Ty ushered her away from the gory chaos.
Murkiness blurred what ignited the bloodbath. From the looks of it, one of the elder newcomers from Woodbury passed away and turned in her sleep, wreaking havoc and death in cell block D. In the chaos of cries for help and shrill screeches that elicited, everyone lost each other. Carol was familiarizing Glenn with crops and seeds, coaching him stridently for the forthcoming months that she would be too bulky to tend them herself when the first scream slashed the indolent chant of cicadas and she watched his regal face morph into a mug of pungent panic.
Their cells, the cells of the so-called original members of the group consisting of the Atlanta and farm survivors were in C-block. The infirmary, however, where Maggie was resting after giving birth to a baby boy the day before was in D-block and soon Carol was panting, incapable of catching up with Glenn's frenzied sprint.
She headed straight to the infirmary while Glenn fought off the reanimated corpse of Mr. McCoy with bare hands and shushed a very scared Maggie who was snuggling HJ to her chest, before shutting and locking the door behind her. Her movements were slurry and slower than she recalled them to be as she unsheathed her pocket knife, but she attributed her sluggishness to rusty muscles and months long lack of any close combat, convinced that her sizzling blood would compensate for the rest. And then… well, she might have screwed up a little.
But now she had to find Daryl… A distant bustle was filtering through the prison air and Carol located the sound source in the cell they shared. Mounting the stairs as fast as her belly allowed her knees to bend, she clearly distinguished the dull thud of the table toppling over and everything neatly and scrupulously arranged above heaping on the ground.
"Daryl!"
Without acknowledging her, he staggered backwards, unfurling and jerking his scalped knuckles before mustering the stamina to launch his balled fist against the wall once again.
"Stop!" she hollered and thrust her body between him and the cement, his fist plowing in her open palm.
The brunt of the blow sent her reeling and then she was plunging to the ground as time dwindled, terrified of what the impending collision at this stage of the pregnancy would mean for the baby. Her eyes sealed hermetically with their own free will and she braced herself when something clamped around her vice-like and stilled, thwarting the free fall. Carol opened her eyes, breathing harrowingly, and saw Daryl staring back at her, indignant and scared in equal doses. Daryl, and his god-sent, quick reflexes.
"Fuckin' Christ," he gasped, leveling her with him. "Did I hurt you?"
"No, no, I just tripped on my stupid feet," she mumbled, still struggling for breath and put a hand on his chest. "Simmer down, Daryl."
He yanked away and paced the length of their cell, fuming like a caged bull. "What were you thinking dammit? Have you lost your fuckin' mind?" he yelled. "I didn't reach you in time. You'd be dead if it wasn't for Ty!"
She bowed her head like a child ready to receive a well-deserved chastisement while mulling over her puny excuses, a fidgeting leg scribbling abstract traces on the ground. "Guess I overestimated myself. I'm slower these days."
"You guess?" he seethed, wrath barely harnessed behind a blazing gaze. "You guess?"
"I saw you there, surrounded by walkers and scooping kids outside and I- I snapped."
"So?" he barked. "So what? You cropped up a suicide mission and just went for it?"
Looping her hands around her belly, she focused on her boots and fell silent, stifling a wince of pain at the bumping protests of the miniature creature living inside her. She couldn't do this to Daryl, start weeping like that on the top of it all. The looming guilt never skulked too far in the shrubs for him–he didn't need any more incentives to pile additional blame on himself; so she clenched her jaw and obstructed the welling tears, forcing her equanimity back into place.
Daryl's frenzied tempo devolved after a few swears and with one last cuss under his breath, he blundered back to their bed where he sagged heavily, burying his face in his hands. Allowing him some personal space until the heaving of his chest waned, Carol ambled closer with a few hesitant strides and stroke his hair, the mist in his gaze when he glanced up breaking her heart.
"Come here," she whispered and cautiously lowered on his lap, expecting him to shove her away, but he didn't. "I'm sorry I scared you."
One hand curved on the top of her belly and the other wrapped around her waist, head sinking on her collarbone. She hugged him tightly and burrowed her chin atop his hair.
"You ok?"
"I'm perfectly fine," she said reassuringly.
"The baby?"
"Pissed at mommy. Been kicking the crap out of me to prove what I fool I was. But we're fine."
More minutes passed and his stiff muscles loosened, every viperous fleck of oxygen stuffed in his lungs clawing out in kindling puffs of air. She could feel him growing pensive and spacing out in his bleak speculations and her fingers kneaded his nape to coax him back until he stirred and sat up again, eyes stormy.
Carol shunted an unruly wisp of hair behind his ear, regarding him adoringly. "A penny for your thoughts."
"You're selfish, Carol," he murmured blankly, avoiding her gaze until a light tilt beneath his chin coerced him to face her. "And a hypocrite. Preachin' about love and how you can't lose me and all sorts of bullshit when you're tryin' to get yourself killed the whole fuckin' time."
She nodded her understanding and granted him a blank check to release everything out of his system.
Tension was oozing from every pore of his body and when he continued, his voice rippled with emotion. "What about me? Sometimes I look at you and all I can think is that the baby will kill you for sure. Do you even give a shit about your life?"
At a loss for words and too overwhelmed by his wretched desperation to trust her composure to utter anything, she swallowed the lump in her throat and repositioned his palm at the lower part of her belly, taking in his eyes goggling when a fierce kick recoiled it.
"Motherfucker!" he exclaimed alarmed. "I'll get Bob!"
Latching onto his shoulder, Carol pinned him down long enough to explain. "And tell him what? That the baby's kicking?" she smiled and watched his jaw slacken in a rictus of benumbed stupor. "That was the baby, Daryl."
"Thought you said it was the size of a bean," he floundered, mouth still hanging.
"I did, almost five months ago. What do you think all this tummy is from? Beer-belly or indigestion? It's growing into a little creature." Carol was radiating serenity, her tone merry and patronizing. "I'm seven months now. If we had an obstetrician around, he could tell us the sex long ago."
"But I brought that portable ultrasound stuff," he sulked with the peevish temper of a petulant boy.
Her brow quirked in an illustrative look. "But Bob isn't an obstetrician. All he can say is that everything looks normal."
"So, it's like Jude and HJ when they were born?"
"More like E.T. right now. Or somewhat better."
"Don't call my kid an alien, you dumbass," he scolded, the corner of his lips twitching upwards. "What if it hears you?"
"It's still growing and shaping," she glowed tranquilly. "And in two months it will be exactly like Jude and HJ were."
There was a flicker in his eyes, a glistening flame she had never seen before and she knew the message was conveyed. He blinked and sucked in a shaky breath, an avalanche of sentiment wagging his sternum. Carol understood the devastating power of countervailing forces vying for his clarity: overflowing happiness tangled up with dread and awe, way more than a troubled man like Daryl could process. She understood, though, not because of her higher position on a pedestal, but because she was as damaged and broken as he was. Not his tutor, just his mate.
"It's real, Daryl," Carol went on softly, caressing his cheeks and pecking his lips, the blue ocean of his eyes rustling with wakes and eddies. "It's our little person, not some sort of whim or a stunt I pull to make a statement or something. It's our baby. Our hope, right next to Jude and HJ. And I know you're angry, but, yes, I don't mind dying for it. I'd die for our baby with the same eagerness I'd die for you."
He frowned and squeezed her closer and closer to lessen the inexistent distance, as if the ultimate physical proximity was nowhere near satisfactory for the level of intimacy he yearned for. Or as if he feared she was going to be cleaved away from him. "Ain't never said it's ok to go die for me."
"I know, but I would," she placated. "And that doesn't make me suicidal. It doesn't mean I'm not about to fight with everything I have for my life."
Pursing his lips in a firm line, he bit out an unforeseen question. "What do you need?"
Carol was confused. "Huh?"
"I love you, ok?" he rasped and pressed his forehead against hers. "Is that what you need to know?"
Her idle smile broadened into a grin. They weren't bequeathed the perfect first kiss or the perfect first time they made love, but there she was, getting the perfect first 'I love you'.
"I do," he blurted, "and you ain't allowed to die."
"Or you're gonna kick my ass," she cheered and he nodded in assertion.
"All the way through hell."
"That's some serious threat I have to take into consideration here," Carol pondered teasingly.
"Damn straight."
"Can you say it once more? Just to make sure I didn't mishear you?"
Blushing a whole spectrum of crimson hues, he shook his head. "Naw."
"Ok."
"Stawp."
"No, it's fine, seriously," she taunted again, poking him mercilessly. "You just got me motivated to live for a second."
"I love you," he grumbled. "Will you shut up now?"
"I won't die, Daryl. I promise to do my very best. Have some hope."
xxxxx
His most recent memories had been erased.
He remembered Carol's groans reverberating deafeningly in the confined walls of his skull.
He remembered Maggie chanting reassurances and comfort to both of them.
He remembered Bob's commands for her to keep pushing.
He remembered his heart squishing into shards at her struggling throes.
He remembered her nails digging blood from his flesh and him feeling no twinge of pain.
He remembered Bob huffing and puffing, his teeth grinding, a cascade of sweat springing down his face.
He remembered the grim declaration that the baby was coming upside down the frantic pace of his work after that.
He remembered Carol screaming.
He remembered the dead silence and then a hacking, high-pitched cry.
He remembered the baby, a tiny form covered with gunk and two fists swinging in the air.
He remembered honestly believing it was a heart attack at the beginning. The way his heart grappled beneath the serrated maws of invisible pliers pulverizing his lungs and instantaneously detonated, pumping a scorching pain across his chest… What else could it be?
He remembered Carol slumping in his arms.
He remembered Maggie swaddling the infant in a pink towel.
He remembered Bob's lips moving, shouting something that never pierced through the uproar of his ears.
He remembered wondering how the hell those dwarfish lungs produced wailings of that volume.
He remembered Bob leaning outside the door frame and Rick, Glenn and Ty bursting inside the infirmary in a flash.
And then nothing.
He found himself in the prison yard, sprawled over the waterlogged ground, coagulated mire pooling around him as he panted a few stabilizing breaths. He had no clue why and how he ended up there, regarding heavy-lidded the canopy of bright stars sparkling like Christmas ornaments that adorned the royal blue sky and the full moon lighting the darkness, casting a saffron-tinted halo to enhance the smooth outlines of the soggy atmosphere. It was night and the rain had stopped, hurling a refreshing breeze that winnowed the overgrown strands of his hair in its wake.
"Cool off, Daryl." Glenn was slouching over him, the swell of a fledgling shiner bruising around his left eye.
"What the hell happened to you?"
"Nothing. Don't worry about it."
"You got into a fight?"
Glenn ducked his head, swallowing hard.
Propping up on his elbows, disoriented and alarmed at the sight of Ty and Rick eyeing him warily behind Glenn, Daryl furrowed his brows in grave concern, gaze lingering on each one of them. "What the fuck happened, guys?"
"You punched me," Glenn said throatily. "But it's nothing, really."
Failing to grasp the truth of the breaking news, he just batted his eyes repeatedly at the announcement, completely at a loss. "What? I- I- What?"
Rick spun around at the sound of his name when Hershel hobbled in the front perch and instantly run past Beth who trod near the rest of them, cradling something in her arms.
Scrubbing his eyes in an attempt to clear his thoughts, Daryl idly clasped the hand Ty had outstretched to drag him to his feet. A ragged exhalation slipped through his lips and he didn't identify the sound of his own voice. "Where's Carol?"
Beth took a stride closer and Daryl cringed when the cargo in her embrace stirred, releasing a whimper. The protective dam his mind had mustered to sequester everything that weighed way more than a person could bear fissured and scattered recollections gushed in, towing into a meaningful order: Bob covered in blood and pus, Carol not responding to him when he started shaking her; Rick's and Ty's arms locked around his torso, detaining him in an unbreakable clutch, wrestling to lug him out of the infirmary as he squirmed and thrashed like a rabid wolf, seeing nothing but red when Glenn's face blocked his field of vision.
"Hold her, Daryl," Beth implored. "She needs her daddy."
"I don't want it." Voice virulent, contorted into a howl, nostrils flaring and red-rimmed gaze watering again.
Beth shivered at the icy pangs of his tone and the bone deep rejection. It.
"Where's Carol?" he deadpanned.
"Maggie and Bob are still working on her. Haven't controlled the bleeding yet."
"Why are you naggin' at me then? Beat it!"
Glenn stepped in the space between them, hands lifted defensively.
"They're doing everything they can, Daryl," Beth soughed.
"Doesn't sound like much, does it?" he countered snidely. "Rick?"
"He'll be back in a minute," Ty said cautiously.
Daryl growled and shoved past him, never squinting at the baby's direction. "Just take it away from me."
Hope and bullshit.
To be continued…
"Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." ― Stephen King
Really hoped you liked it! You know how afraid I was to write the baby story, so be gentle If that was a failure :)
In the meanwhile, I'm seriously freaking out with that new pic :) Daryl is hugging Carol (and then they get married and have babies, but, hey, this is just me)! *happy dance* And the way he's looking at her… *rolls on the floor*Can you feel the love tonight? *runs away*
Caryl on, guys, Caryl on!
