AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Merle tugged Carol by the hand and she followed along with him, clearly comfortable with his physical guidance.
"The Liberty Inn," she mused, looking around as she walked through the lobby of the motel.
Daryl laughed to himself as he kept up with them and only allowed Merle a few feet of distance to be ahead of him and act like a tour guide.
Merle clearly understood the tone of voice behind Carol's musings, and he understood Daryl's laughter.
"Gonna look good, Sugar," Merle assured Carol. "Just you wait an' see."
Andrea and Sadie had already disappeared on their own little adventure within the walls of the soon-to-be Liberty Inn. Upon their arrival, Negan had snagged Andrea—whom he called the "First Fuckin' Lady of the Judges"—to have her put her stamp of approval on the aesthetic changes that his people were already committing to making to the place. They'd start small, of course, and they'd use most of what the old owner left behind before they tried to upgrade, but there were a few things that simply had to be done to get the motel back up to inspection-passing—if it had ever really been passable in the first place.
Carol might have tried to go trotting off after her companions, but Merle had snagged her too quickly by the hand and insisted that he had something else on which he required her professional input.
"I'm sure it will," Carol responded, still looking around. There wasn't a hint of sarcasm in her tone, though. She clearly had a great deal of confidence in the ability of Merle, Negan, and those which they brough into the project, to make the place into something that was far better than acceptable.
"This here's where you come in," Merle said as he finished weaving his way through to the kitchen. Carol followed him through the double doors into the kitchen area, and Daryl slipped in behind them before the doors could fall back completely shut.
"What are you wanting me to do?" Carol asked, still not pulling her hand free from Merle's. "Clean it up?"
Merle laughed to himself.
The kitchen was a small kitchen, but it had all the fixings of a fully functional professional kitchen. Just outside, there was a dining room, and the whole ensemble was complete with a service window.
The person who had actually been responsible for building and opening the motel, back when Daryl was small enough that he was missing his front teeth and had perpetually skinned knees and elbows, had aspirations to become a chef. The original owner had wanted to have, essentially, what Merle wanted to have. They'd prepared to be able to serve meals to the motel's patrons on a small scale.
The place needed work, and there was no denying that it wasn't a kitchen straight out of Buckingham Palace, but it had more to offer than the little kitchen at the Chambers that Carol had been working out of since her arrival.
"You damn well better clean it up, Mouse," Merle said. "Gotta pass inspection."
"Inspection?" Carol asked.
"And you better figure out what the hell works an' don't work. Get me a list of what you need. Got plates, utensils, shit…lemme know what'cha need to do what the hell normal business you do at a lunch service at the Chambers."
"Better double it," Daryl said. "You gonna serve dinner—a sit down dinner? Tables an' every damn thing? There's gonna be twice as damn many people in here tryin' to be outta the damned house."
"Serve dinner?" Carol asked.
She was looking at Merle with her brow furrowed and Daryl bit the inside of his cheek to keep from giving anything away. She couldn't have looked any more confused if Merle had suddenly started speaking Chinese to her.
Merle laughed to himself and smiled at her.
"Can't you serve dinner, Mouse?" Merle asked.
"Well—of course I can serve dinner," Carol said. "To the Judges?" She asked after a second. "Or—to the Saviors, too?"
"Judges, Saviors, and any damn body else that's got a mind to eat," Merle said. "You been workin' outta the Chambers good. Real good. You cleaned that place up. Took us from the red to the black an' then some. Place was damn near a ghost town before you got here. Hell—Teeter weren't fit to be runnin' it no more. He's just about ready to head on out to keep Miss Jo company while she makes lunches for Hershel an' his hands. He 'bout shut that place down far as a business went. An' you got it so that I can't come check on shit any time around lunchtime 'cause the motherfuckers is lined up, almost to town, waitin' to get in the parkin' lot to put in an order."
"I'm sorry," Carol offered softly.
Daryl hummed to himself.
It didn't matter what anybody said. It didn't even matter how they said it. Carol always heard, it seemed, just the negative in it—and if there wasn't any negative to be found, she seemed to let her imagination create it and shove it into the gaps where the silence had originally lived.
But he forgave her, because he knew what the hell it was to overthink shit. He did it, too. Sometimes, he imagined the worst before there was any reason to even think it. Just the idea of a conversation with someone—if that person really mattered to him—could send him into having difficulty breathing because he could imagine that the conversation that lie ahead of him was surely one in which whatever unforgivable act he'd committed would be uncovered to him.
Merle, too, had a streak of that in him, though Daryl thought he was either better at hiding it or else he'd truly perfected the art of pretending that he didn't give a damn about people being upset with him.
He laughed quietly to himself at Carol's apology, but Daryl noticed that he still hadn't let go of her hand.
"The hell you sorry for?" Merle asked. "Makin' the fuckin' MC enough money to keep shit runnin' an' keep the damned lights on?"
Daryl knew that they had never been in dire straits like Merle was pretending—and likely Carol knew it too—but he understood and appreciated Merle's way of making it clear that his teasing about the long lines of customers wasn't meant as a criticism.
Carol barely stammered out a sound in response before Merle continued.
"No, Sugar," Merle said. "You done good—done real damned good. An' that's why the hell we movin' the eatin' outta the Chambers. It was Teeter started sellin' food outta there a long time back—long damn time. Tryin' to bring in another source of cash for the club. Figured he was retired an' what the hell else was he doin' with his time? Wilma used to sell pies an' shit she baked in town. Judges always been tied up with food an' money. Now it's time to do that shit proper. Open up the food here—right outta this kitchen an' served in that dinin' area. At least for a while—gonna lay the foundation next week for a real damned restaurant right out there on that empty plot of land. Custom-order. Exactly what the hell you want. Hell—you can call the place the fuckin' Mousehole or Mouse Trap or Liberty Café or whatever the hell you want. Got some people owe me a favor an' they workin' with Ty. Gonna put the place up, but it'll be a couple months to get it up. Give you time to figure out how you wanna run the whole big thing. For now, though, you gonna get this up an' runnin' for movin' the cookin' you been doin' at the Chambers."
Carol stared at Merle.
"You want me to run a restaurant?" Carol asked.
"That's what the hell I was gettin' at, Mouse," Merle said. "You gone deaf like Alice's lil' friend? Missed all of that?"
"I don't—know how to do that," Carol said.
Merle laughed to himself.
"The hell is there to know, Mouse?" Merle asked. "That you don't already know, I mean."
"It's a whole business," Carol said.
"An' you keepin' books for the Chambers an' for the shop," Merle said. "An' shit's comin' up so damned balanced that they ain't hardly havin' to get checked again when I take 'em to Roberta to handle that shit official like. She'll pick up the accountin' for this place just the same. You keep a record of what goes in. You keep a record of what goes out. Let us worry about shit beyond that. You can cook, Mouse. Cook real damned good. People wanna eat what'cha make. Barbecue. Burgers. Hot dogs. Even them cookies you was sellin' three to a pack all wrapped in Saran wrap. It don't matter. You keep doin' what the hell you doin'. Decide what the hell you want for the restaurant. Sky's the fuckin' limit out there, Mouse."
Carol stared at him. She visibly swallowed several times and Daryl suddenly got the distinct impression that she might be sick. He'd been standing back, hovering just outside of her peripheral vision so that he didn't interrupt, but remaining close enough so that she could feel his presence if she had any interest in doing so. He stepped up, though, at the thought that she might need a little air. He reached for her arm—the one whose hand Merle was still absentmindedly holding like he meant to say grace at Hershel's house at any given minute—and Merle gently handed her hand over to Daryl.
"You OK?" Daryl asked.
Carol shook her head and Daryl nodded at her. He understood that he'd read her expression right and he pulled her out the back door of the kitchen—a door that led directly into the back parking lot. This time it was Merle that followed them.
Outside, Carol didn't vomit in the parking lot like Daryl expected, but she did find a spot to support herself against the wall. She clearly drank down, very happily, a few gulps of clean air that didn't smell at all like the closed-up smell of the motel or the slight grease-and-cleaner scent of the kitchen.
Daryl dropped her hand, but he kept a hand on her shoulder.
Merle didn't hover too long before he slipped around in front of Carol. He reached in the inside pocket of his cut and produced a hip flask that had been a present from Alice one year. He unscrewed the top, held it out to Carol, and nudged her hand when she tried to refuse it.
"For fortification, Mouse," Merle said.
Carol took the flask and she drank down a longer swallow of the flask's ingredients than she would have likely drank if she'd known what was in it. She coughed out her response as Merle took the flask. He laughed as he took a swig, offered it to Daryl, and returned it to his pocket when Daryl waved it away.
"Good stuff," Merle said. "Not the rot-gut we serve cheap at the bar. As my House Mouse, short-order cook, and future fuckin' business associate—is there somethin' I oughta know about why the hell my giftin' you a better location to grow that food business has you out here all green around the gills?"
He lit a cigarette to entertain himself and, then, he clearly thought it a good idea to share one with Carol to calm her nerves. He gave her the cigarette and she seemed glad to accept it. He lit another for himself, so Daryl followed suit. Carol was clearly calming down and they were simply going to continue their conversation in the parking lot on the backside of the motel instead of inside the little kitchen.
Carol shrugged her shoulders after she'd taken a long drag on the cigarette that suited her better than the long pull on the flask had.
"What if I can't do it, Merle?" Carol asked.
"What the hell if you can?" Merle asked with a laugh. "You done been doin' it."
"It's a lot to ask," Carol said.
"I'm askin' you to keep doin' what you doin'," Merle said.
"I'm only one person," Carol said.
"Then I'll hire you a workforce," Merle said. "Scrounge 'em up, for now, from ole ladies if you gotta. Get the big place built an' you can hire proper. Interview an' everything. Make your own damned decisions about your employees 'cause I ain't involved with that shit."
"What about Teeter?" Carol asked.
"We gonna paint it as a fuckin' relief. He gets to put down the burden of that place out there. Got him another job he ain't gonna remember applyin' for. Gonna work for Miss Jo as what the hell she's gonna call a handyman. Drink lemonade an' bust knuckles tinkerin' on shit for as long as it keeps him satisfied. Don't'cha worry, Mouse. Teeter—he ain't goin' nowhere 'til prob'ly the Grim Reaper decides the Devil needs some fuckin' competition."
Daryl laughed to himself and Carol caught the laughter. She relaxed a little more and leaned comfortably against the brick of the motel. She smoked her cigarette with focus—clearly thinking about everything—and Merle and Daryl both guarded the silence she needed to think. Finally, she spoke.
"What if I fail, Merle?" Carol asked. "What if the restaurant loses money? Goes belly up? Has to shut down?"
Merle smiled at her.
"Businesses sink some damned times," Merle said. "Fact of life. If everybody that was worried a business might go belly up just didn't bother openin' the damned thing? We couldn't get a single fuckin' thing done in this whole sorry world, Mouse. I ain't askin' you for no promises. An' I ain't holdin' your ass to the fire for some kinda success. Hell—we don't know what's gonna happen with this rat trap. But we all got just enough fuckin' adventure left in us to find the hell out. That's all the hell I'm askin' you, Mouse. You got enough adventure in you to wanna find out what the hell could happen?"
Carol clearly thought about it a moment longer, and then she smiled at him.
"It was a kind of adventure that brought me here," she mused. She glanced at Daryl and smiled softly before she flicked her blue eyes back in Merle's direction. "Another that made me a House Mouse and—another entirely that made me an Old Lady."
"Lotta damn adventure, Mouse," Merle said. "You got another left in you?"
Carol laughed to herself.
"I just might have one or two," she offered.
Merle was clearly pleased, and Daryl felt his chest ache with his own kind of happiness—a happiness that came from seeing her face, more than anything, as she settled into truly believing the words that she'd said.
"Good damn thing," Merle said. "Now—let's figure out how damn quick we can have this place up an' runnin'. I got an inspector in my pocket that can come out on a whim. And don't'cha worry, Mouse. I'ma call in reinforcements to get it clean an' set up like you like it. You just call the shots."