AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol and Andrea would have work for days filling planter boxes with soil from the stacked-up bags hauled in from a run and arranging sprouting plants that had been started from seeds. The planter boxes would go into the new greenhouses that were being finished up some short distance away, and they would add to the food that the community had. It was easy work. It was steady and quiet. The two women could do it without a problem, and their dedication to the planting freed up hands for a dozen other activities that were taking place all over the Cedar Falls Community.
Andrea was a bit wound up. She was talking a mile a minute, and Carol didn't mind one bit. She liked the chance to sit back, work on something that kept her hands busy, and listen to someone entertain her with their thoughts and experiences.
The first little while of the conversation wasn't exactly Earth-shattering. Andrea told Carol about some runs they were planning. She told Carol about what she'd overheard Merle discussing with a few members of the community that had come by to, essentially, pitch ideas that they had for improvement. She talked about Merle's excitement over having Daryl there and his thoughts that, together, they could really stock up on cured meat to last through the winter so that they weren't forced to butcher their growing animal stock down to the bare minimum.
And then, slowly, the discussion turned from community talk to personal talk.
"He's just so happy to have his brother back, you know?"
Carol smiled to herself.
"Daryl's happy to have Merle back, too," Carol said. "He thought he was dead."
"I guess Merle at least had the chance to believe that Daryl was out there somewhere—living a good life." She laughed to herself. "He never thought he'd be married, though, with a baby on the way. You know—I mean I saw it, though. Back then. I really did."
"You didn't," Carol teased.
"I did!" Andrea insisted. "I think—by the CDC? I knew what was going on. Merle said he saw it earlier. He said he really thought, once or twice, that Daryl was going to press the boundaries of acceptable behavior at the rock quarry and kill Ed. He figured that Shane probably would have let it happen, but he would have had to have acted before Rick got there. Merle figures that anyone who would handcuff him to a roof and leave him there would probably kill Daryl for killing an asshole like Ed."
Carol's stomach flipped at the thought of Daryl caring enough about her, at the rock quarry even, to have killed Ed. Her face grew warm.
Could Merle have really seen something back then? Was there something to see back then? What about Andrea? How long had Carol been letting her feelings show on her face and in her actions? Had there been more there for Daryl?
It was fascinating to think about it, especially in light of what they seemed to have very recently found with each other. It seemed almost too good to be true, though. Even though she wanted to talk about all her new feelings and, more than new feelings—since she'd had feelings for Daryl for a good while—the new developments taking place in her life, Carol was limited as to what she could say.
Because Andrea and Merle didn't know their secret. They believed that the relationship had been going on since Ed's death. They had to believe that Daryl would have planted the seed of the baby that Carol carried even before they'd even left for the CDC. They didn't know the truth.
"Rick might have killed Daryl for killing Ed," Carol agreed.
Andrea hummed.
"All the while declaring that we don't kill the living, right?" Andrea offered with a hint of laughter. Carol hummed, but she didn't add words to the conversation. There was no need for it. She and Andrea had both been there. They'd both seen the struggle that Rick was clearly facing—the struggle he'd shown to everyone around him.
Andrea had been left behind. And Rick, honestly, had been the voice that had stressed to Daryl that they couldn't—wouldn't—go back for her.
But Carol didn't feel the need to say that to Andrea. Not right now. It wasn't necessary.
"He killed Shane," Carol said. "Maybe he had to. Shane was crazy."
"We're all crazy now," Andrea said, somewhat nonchalantly, especially given the truth behind the statement and the implications behind that truth. "Merle's so happy to have his baby brother back. He thinks it's a chance to—make amends, I guess. You know?"
"Amends?" Carol asked.
"Well—I guess, maybe not amends. But—he's changed. A lot."
"I think we can all see that," Carol said with a laugh.
"He wants to make it up to Daryl that he wasn't what he wishes he had been," Andrea said.
"I think Daryl accepts that—the past is the past," Carol said. "I can't speak for him, really, but between the two of us? He hasn't been…well…exactly focused on his brother's shortcomings since we got here."
"Merle would be happy to know that," Andrea said. "I think—a lot of that is why he's so excited about the whole family thing. The baby. He feels like they missed out on family. They missed out on the chance to have something stable. Dependable. I think just the idea of having that? That's what's changed Merle so much. He likes having boundaries. He doesn't want me to like—control him. He doesn't want everything to be restrictions, but he likes having boundaries. He knows—I'm not going to deal with the drugs. I'm not going to deal with the bullshit. I'll yank the rug out from under him if he makes me, but he also knows that's not what I want. And I know that's not—it's not what he wants."
"He wants a family," Carol said, echoing the sentiment behind Andrea's words as her mind rolled around the fact that Daryl, too, may be very much like his brother in all the ways that really mattered.
"He wants a family so bad he can taste it," Andrea said. "Just—a family. Like a 'Leave it to Beaver' family. And, I guess, since he never got to be Beaver, he's OK being Ward." She laughed. "It's a hundred percent not who the hell Merle is, but it's also—it's exactly who he is. And that doesn't make any sense at all."
"He is who he was raised to be, maybe," Carol said. "He is what he saw and experienced and—we're all who our lives taught us to be."
Andrea smoothed the dirt around one of the small plants she gently nestled into her planter box.
"I'm not the goody-two-shoes my parents raised me to be," she mused. "I mean—I guess I am. I guess I was. As much as I could be. I just wanted to do everything right. For them. I wanted to be what they wanted me to be. They wanted me to be so—perfect. And I worked all the damn time to be that perfect. I thought I did pretty well. I thought I was doing everything right. And then Amy was born and—she was so perfect. Their perfect little princess. She never disappointed them like I did." Andrea sighed. "I regret not being the big sister that she wanted—that she deserved. It wasn't her fault. But sometimes I just had to stay away from it. I knew they loved me, but—I was always going to be Andrea. The kid they experimented on. The kid they fucked up with or something. I was never going to be the miracle baby born after Mom was sure there wouldn't be any more children. Amy—the little princess who never made a mistake."
Carol considered Andrea's words for a moment. It was clear that she wasn't saying them for any sort of sympathy. She wasn't saying them because she wanted Carol to respond in any way. She was simply speaking her truth—or at least part of it. She was reminding Carol that there was an Andrea that had existed long before the rock quarry. There was an Andrea that had existed outside of the realm of their reality.
There was a secret self, of sorts, to all of them. And they all had pasts that, maybe, they'd rather had gone differently.
The end of the world was, in some ironic way, a new beginning for all of them if they embraced it.
"I was Carol Ann," Carol mused to herself. "The only one who made it. My mom tried—I remember at least two other times. I think she got—she made it at least far enough that I remember she was showing. But the babies came early and they never came home. I don't remember funerals, but I'm sure there were funerals. She was so sad. She used to tell me that—the God-given purpose of a woman was to make her husband happy. To bring children into the world and to make a home. A woman that did that was a successful woman. Marry him. Make him happy. Serve him. It's your purpose. Have his children and raise them right. Build a home worth being proud of. So, I married a football player like everybody would have wanted and I did exactly what he wanted. I was modest and humble and I served him just like my Mama would have wanted. She understood when we moved so far away that nobody would know us there. She understood when I couldn't come see her when she got sick, because I had a home to run and a husband to keep happy. I never told her how he treated me because—that was my lot in life, right? And he was stressed, so I shouldn't hold it against him. I didn't go to her funeral. Or Daddy's. I didn't even see him in the time between—when she died and when he just gave up."
"Carol…" Andrea breathed out. "And here I am—feeling sorry for myself because…because what? My parents didn't fucking hug me enough? I'm sorry."
"I didn't tell you that for sympathy," Carol said with a laugh. "I guess—I told you that because…you let me meet Andrea. The little girl who didn't get hugged enough."
Andrea laughed to herself and clearly wiped away some tears from her face—leaving a smear of dirt in their place.
"I'm going to hug my baby all the time," Andrea said. "Every day. And I don't care if our little jellybean is good at everything or…fails at everything they try. I'm still going to hug them."
"And so will Merle. And I'm going to teach my daughter that—I hope she finds someone to love. I do. Because love—real love? It's so wonderful. But she doesn't have to love anyone that doesn't know how to love her back."
Andrea smiled.
"I think Daryl would agree with that." She worked a moment more in her box, and Carol moved to a new box to poke holes for the proper spacing of her seedlings. Andrea spoke after the silence had settled in around them. "I worry that Merle's going to—be Merle again. Sometimes. I know that's…stupid, but…we change, but we're still who we are."
"You told him what you won't accept," Carol offered.
"I mean that he'll change his mind about me," Andrea said. She laughed to herself. "I won't be what he wants anymore, you know? What if I'm not one of those women who—after the baby comes—what if I'm not one of those women whose body goes back to what it was? I'm not someone who looks—like they did. After the baby comes. What if I look like a deflated balloon for the rest of my life and he doesn't want that?"
"You mean—what if you're not perfect?" Carol asked.
Somewhere inside of her, she felt insecurity, that she'd somewhat lulled into dormancy, stretch and roll over as it roused itself to rise again. She swallowed back against it, for the time being, like ignoring it would make it go away. Instead, she tried to focus on fighting it by fighting the dragon she knew Andrea was facing—even if she knew it wasn't that simple.
Andrea looked at her and, for just a moment, Carol thought she could see a much younger Andrea looking back at her from the slightly damp green eyes that fixed on hers.
Carol forced a smile.
"No matter what—Hollywood or plastic people told you," Carol said. "Nobody's body goes back to being exactly what it was before. It has to change because you're—you're making a whole new human being. And, maybe, there will be even more human beings to come after that."
Andrea shrugged her shoulders.
"What if Merle doesn't understand that?"
Carol nodded her understanding.
"Is Merle perfect?" Carol asked.
Andrea laughed to herself.
"No," she admitted, shaking her head at the flower box. Carol couldn't help but notice the two dragon tears that dropped from her eyes to water the plants that Andrea was lovingly burying in the soil she shoveled from a nearby bucket with a hand trowel.
"Do you still love him?" Carol asked.
"Yeah," Andrea offered.
"Then give him the chance to do the same," Carol said, wishing, honestly, that she could believe her own advice with the same confidence that Andrea showed as she smiled to herself.