A/N – Another chapter… as you read this, keep remembering that my end game is Daryl and Carol together. It's angsty I know. Don't hate me yet, I promise there's a payoff and it may not be what you might think. I can't give anything else away, lest I spoil it. Hang in there, I promise it will be okay.
Thank you so much for reading and for the reviews! For all the most recent and wonderful reviews, I want to thank SOA Loving Mom, Spikesslayer8, LopezG, hockeydrmr9, TrixPandawan, abovetherim, hopelesslydevoted2svu, and anon.
Chapter 55 – Lost and Alone
Carol was lost. Lost in her grief. Lost in this world without Daryl. The day Andrea dragged her away from the edge of that cliff, Carol had let herself be pulled along numbly. T-Dog and Andrea had loaded her into a vehicle, and they'd driven off back towards the golf course.
The whole time in the backseat of that car, Andrea had held on to Carol, holding her friend and stroking Carol's hair. And Carol had wanted to die. She didn't cry during that car ride back to the others. She didn't cry when they entered the golf club building to find everyone standing there waiting in the foyer for them. She didn't cry when Andrea told the others what had happened. She didn't cry as they all hugged her, murmuring their apologies and condolences.
It wasn't until moments later, when Maggie had given Rose to Carol, and Carol had fled with the baby into their bedroom, that Carol had cried. The door had only clicked shut behind them and Carol collapsed on the floor, clutching Rose to her chest. And she had sobbed. She had felt the world break into two around her, and she had sobbed with such distress and so loudly that she thought for sure Rose would fuss and scream. But the baby merely cried along with her, as if Rose understood.
Carol cried for hours that day, well into the night, huge racking sobs until she couldn't breathe and was on the verge of vomiting, until she finally did vomit. She cried after she placed Rose in her crib that night; while she lay on the bed, her head next to his pillow, not letting herself touch it, not wanting to disturb the place where he'd last lain.
She had insisted they go back, the very next day, insisted they go and look for him. He would have done it for them. T-Dog, Andrea and Glenn agreed, and they went to look. She had insisted on going too. She knew by the looks on all of their faces, the others knew they wouldn't find him. But she had to know, she had to see for herself. They didn't find his body. There was no way down that they could find, no way down safely to the bottom of the cliff.
Andrea had told Carol that she knew Daryl was gone. No one could have survived that kind of fall, and even if somehow he did, the waters below were rough and dangerous, and there was no way up and out. It wasn't possible that Daryl had lived. They all said so, standing there at the cliff's edge, gazing down at the bottom, searching for signs of life. And Carol had felt it, the weight of loss crushing down on her, and she had broken down again, crumbling to the ground, sobbing.
And for weeks after, Carol kept sobbing. She held it together when she had to be around the others. But she was basically useless to them at that point. She would step out of her room each day, attempt to be useful, do laundry, cook, but she'd stand there in the kitchen weeping into the pot as she stirred it. She'd do laundry in silence until she stumbled upon something that Daryl had once worn, and she'd start to sob, draining her tears into the clothes until they needed to be rewashed.
The others talked in hushed voices around her, worried but not wanting to push.
She cried in the mornings while she showered, sobbed into the running water, praying for this all to end, letting the tears gush each morning until she vomited into the drain.
She was sick with her grief. The loss of Daryl affected her in ways she'd never imagined the loss of anyone could.
In the darkness of the bedroom, when it was just her and Rose, she would stop crying and think about if she was betraying Sophia by being so overcome with loss and affliction at Daryl's death. Had she done a disservice to her daughter by not grieving like this back then for her? She let the guilt of that thought consume her. She let the grief and guilt and shame of it all fill her empty shell of a body until that was all that was there. Until that was all she was… just shame and guilt and grief.
Rose was the only blessing she had. Her salvation when there was no hope. The others tried. But they didn't know how to talk to her, how to help her. Carol was lost and the only way back was hers to find. No one could help her. She was broken, but only she, herself, could find the glue to piece herself back together.
The only love she had left was Rose. The only time an emotion aside from her grief and guilt and shame rose up inside of her, was when she was with Rose. When she held Rose in her arms and gazed at the beautiful baby that Rose was developing into. Rose was her only joy, her only chance at redemption in a river of pain.
Weeks went by as Carol cried; as Carol grieved. She sobbed until she was sick. She sobbed until she was numb. And when the numbness set in, she went weeks where she wouldn't speak to anyone except Rose.
Glenn and Maggie announced that they were getting married, that Maggie was having a baby. Hershel was going to officiate. And Carol congratulated them numbly before fleeing to her room and curling up on the floor, too numb to cry, only able to focus on the feel of the scratchy carpet against her skin.
She saw Carl help Astrid with her English, and watched Astrid attempt to teach the boy Swedish, as the two developed a friendship akin to something he had had with Sophia so many months ago.
She witnessed Andrea and T-Dog develop into more than just a friendship, more than just a fling, but a full-fledged relationship, and she wanted to be happy for them. She loved Andrea, her friend, the person who kept her eating and living and breathing when she stopped trying, when it hurt too much to try in the beginning. But Carol couldn't be happy.
She struggled against the grief, against the numbness and the aching loss of Daryl, but it was a wound too deep, too raw, and each night she let herself succumb to it, just to have to build herself back up the next day.
She woke one morning to the sound of Rose babbling in her crib. The dull ache was there in her chest as she opened her eyes. Nearly three months had passed since the day she lost Daryl, since the day she last saw his face, last told him she loved him, last felt the link between their souls as their hands held fast together.
She pulled herself up and off the bed and shuffled over to peer in at Rose. The baby giggled with glee at the sight of her, and Carol, in spite of herself, smiled. A vision of Daryl holding the baby to his chest and rocking her on the morning of their last day together flashed through Carol's mind and she grinned wider. Her memories were no less vivid than they were the day after she'd lost him, but somehow she was finding more joy in them than grief. She didn't know when it had changed, but it occurred to her at that moment that it had. That maybe she was coming out the other side of the long tunnel she had been moving through, finally moving forward. Not moving on, because she would always love Daryl, for as long as she lived and even after she was gone, but somehow moving forward, missing him at the same time, but moving forward all the same.
She moved down the hallway holding Rose, approaching the kitchen. She could hear voices and the banging of pots and pan, the clanging of spoons. "Morning," she said as she entered. Andrea and Maggie spun in surprise at her presence.
Andrea smiled widely, "well good morning!"
"Glad to see you're up," Maggie said. The younger girl had put on weight, five months pregnant now, and she finally had the smallest of baby bulges. Her face was glowing. Carol couldn't remember noticing that before, but it thrilled her to be noticing it now.
"How are you?," Andrea said intently.
"I'm…," Carol said, nodding her head slightly as she spoke, "good, I think. I think I feel… okay… not happy, but okay, maybe. That's good, right?"
"That's wonderful," Andrea and Maggie both said simultaneously.
"Can I help?," Carol offered, passing the baby over to Maggie who accepted the reprieve gladly. The two women had taken more than their fair share of responsibility of the cooking and cleaning while they let Carol work through her grief. She was thankful, but felt guilty at the same time for letting them do it. She knew Andrea especially was not a fan of the more menial tasks.
Carol moved over to the pot that Maggie had been stirring. She lifted the cover and the steam hit her nose. A wave of nausea came over her and she must have made a face because Andrea said with concern in her voice, "what's wrong?"
Carol shook her head, forcing herself to swallow thickly, trying to quell the nausea. She cleared her throat. "I don't know," she said.
"Are you feeling okay, Carol?," Maggie asked. "You look a little green."
"Who looks green?," T-Dog asked entering the room with Hershel.
"Carol does," Maggie answered.
Hershel peered at Carol, "hmm, yes, I'd say she does. Are you feeling all right?"
Carol shrugged, suddenly feeling a little sheepish for causing such a fuss. "Really, I'm fine," she said. "I think it's just because I'm hungry… I haven't been eating very well."
"You're lucky you're not pregnant," Maggie blurted out, "at least I'm over the nausea now, but it was horrible in the beginning. Glenn couldn't even stand to be in the room when I was puking my guts out every morning."
"Maggie!," Hershel chided his daughter, "that's hardly something to discuss while people are cooking dinner."
Carol felt her throat swelling up as her stomach churned and the taste of bile hit the back of her throat. She rushed from the room toward the nearest bathroom, leaving them all to stare after her in her wake.
