AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"What'cha doin' here, Al?"
Carol heard Daryl speak to Alice before she ever saw the brunette. Her heart felt like it came to a screeching halt in her chest. Her knees felt a little like Jell-O against the floor where she was scrubbing, with a heavy brush, to try and clean the grout.
Very few of them were there at the moment. People were at work in the cases where work couldn't be ignored. Otherwise, they were out running numerous errands related to getting the motel up and running. Daryl was outside, Carol knew, trying to do his best to clean the carpets with a carpet cleaner Merle had borrowed off a business owner who owed them some money for protection. He'd been happy to offer his cleaner in exchange. Besides Daryl, Carol wasn't sure if there was anyone else at the motel at the moment.
"I just need to talk to Carol," Alice said.
The woman clearly knew where to find her because Carol didn't hear any bumping around or searching going on. Alice appeared, almost immediately, in the door and leaned against the jamb. She was wearing purple scrubs and a hospital name badge. There was no question where she'd come from.
Carol changed her position to sit on the floor instead of remaining on her knees.
"If you weren't coming," Alice said, "all the hell you had to do was send me a text message. Just shoot me a fuckin' line that says I'm not going to make it, Al. Have a good life. But you ignored me—every single time—and I kept waiting because this is important to me. Daryl is important to me and, by extension, that makes you important to me. And that makes how the hell you feel important to me. So, I'm done giving up my breaks to sit in the office and wonder if you're coming or you're not. I have an appointment set for you with my friend—James. It's day after tomorrow, though, and he wants shit from the lab before you get there. So, you tell me right now—are we getting this done, or do I tell him you're not coming? Because inconveniencing me pisses me off, but I'll get over it. Having me use some favors with a friend for you to inconvenience him and have him push a real patient to some other time? That's going to piss me off enough that you and I won't be on favor asking terms for a long while."
Carol could tell that Alice was upset. It practically radiated out of her brown eyes. Still, she was clearly pretty good at controlling her emotions because, even though Carol could sense her anger, she didn't feel like Alice was a loose cannon that was set to go off at any moment.
"Hell's goin' on here, Al?" Daryl asked, catching Alice by the shoulder as he came up behind her in the doorway. He tugged her backward, but she rocked back onto her feet. "You good? Everything good?"
"Everything's fine," Alice said.
"Then what the hell you doin'? Don't you have work?" Daryl asked.
"I've always got work," Alice said. "But I'm exercising some of my flexibility to come down here and talk to Carol because Merle took away her phone or some shit."
"Merle didn't take away her phone," Daryl said. "Merle take away your phone?"
Carol shook her head at him.
"Oh—see that's where the confusion was," Alice said. "I thought that, since you haven't answered me in a day and a half, that Merle took your phone away, or you broke it, or dropped it down the garbage disposal, or some shit. I was waiting for a real great story, Carol."
"I'm sorry," Carol offered.
Daryl bent down and wiggled his way, somewhat awkwardly, under Alice's arm where she was mostly blocking the doorway and had practically jammed herself in by locking her elbows. He put himself in the middle of the space between Carol and Alice.
Carol didn't feel, though, that his physical protection was necessary. She had the distinct feeling that Alice never had any intention of moving beyond the barrier she'd chosen for herself with the doorjamb.
"What's goin' on?" Daryl asked when he was in the middle of things.
Carol got up from the floor, wanting to be on equal footing with Daryl and Alice.
"I'm sorry, Alice," she said sincerely. "You're right. I should have come. I should have texted. I meant to—but every time I started to…ask for a couple of minutes to drive out to the hospital or…every time I started to text…"
"Something came up," Daryl offered. He had no idea what they were talking about or what was going on, but he was doing his best to try to give Carol some help.
"No," Carol said. "That's an excuse, and it's not the truth. "Every time I started to come or I started to text you, I got nervous. And I just—froze. And I didn't do it."
"What's goin' on?" Daryl repeated. "You OK?" This time he wasn't checking on Alice to make sure that she didn't have some anger that was about to get out of control. This time he was directing the question to Carol with his brow furrowed.
"You talked to him?" Alice asked from the doorway. She'd relaxed, now. She was standing in a much more casual position.
Carol shook her head.
"Not yet," she said.
"Talk to me about what!" Daryl barked, his panic level clearly rising.
Alice sighed.
"Too damn much trouble sometimes to be part of this fuckin' family," she offered. "Listen—Daryl—it's nothing, OK? Nothing you need to stress about, or worry about, or whatever. Just—think of it as routine. Lady stuff."
Daryl visibly relaxed. Lady stuff he could understand. Lady stuff he could accept without wanting to dig any more deeply than what they wanted to openly share. Carol could have rushed across the room, at that precise moment, and kissed Alice for knowing what to say and how to soothe Daryl so quickly—especially when Carol's own mind was moving so quickly with anxiety that everything she could hear inside her brain was practically a howling noise.
"If you don't want to do it, Carol," Alice said, coming entirely into the room now that she was clearly relaxed, "then just let me know and I'll tell James he can take someone else for that spot. He's pretty popular. His dance card fills up. It won't be a big deal, but don't stand him up."
Carol's stomach was churning with nerves, but she could no longer even distinguish what the nerves were for. Her body was responding like it was in grave danger from every direction, and she knew that it was simply the result of an overactive nervous system—she wasn't really in danger at all—but she couldn't help it.
She nodded her head.
"I want to do it," she stammered out. "Thank you…I'm sorry…I just…"
"It doesn't matter," Alice said with a sigh. She held up her hand and shook her head. "Really. I get it. You're nervous or whatever and—you stood me up. But I brought a kit, so if you want to do this, we can do this, and I can get back before they're expecting me. Get a chicken salad sandwich from the cafeteria lady that likes me so damned much and—it's almost lunchtime. The two of you can go get something while you've got the Chambers shut down." Carol smiled at her as much as she could and nodded her head. Alice raised her eyebrows at her. "That sound good? I can go get the kit out my car?"
Carol nodded and laughed to herself. She could feel herself shaking, but she didn't really want to move.
"Go get the kit," Carol said.
"Great," Alice said. "Awesome—Daryl? Get her a chair?"
Daryl was watching Carol as closely as she'd ever been watched before, but he jumped a little when Alice addressed him, and he disappeared around the corner to the dining area and came back with one of the chairs they'd already wiped down and stacked up in preparation for eventually cleaning the carpets.
He carried the chair into the kitchen, put the chair down, and then guided Carol to sit in it.
"You OK?" He asked.
Carol smiled to herself. His concern was so genuine that it did something to start to untangle the knots she felt in her body. She nodded.
"I'm fine," she assured him.
"Just—somethin' routine?" Daryl asked.
"No big deal," Alice said, walking quickly back into the room with a bag that was larger than Carol expected. "Can you drag me one of those little prep tables over here, Daryl? Does the sink work?"
"Sink works," Daryl said.
Alice reached into the bag and produced, from among other things, a plastic cup. She offered it to Carol.
"I'm going to set up. Can you—fill this up for me?"
Carol nodded and took the cup. Her hands were shaking, and her body still felt like it was made mostly of jelly, but she got to her feet.
"You can go with her if you want or—if she needs some help?" Alice offered.
"I'm fine," Carol assured both of them. She tried to send Alice a pleading look to ask her not to talk to Daryl about anything—to give her the opportunity to tell him herself, over lunch, what the appointment was really for and what her hopes were—and she felt like Alice might have understood her. There was a nod from Alice that made Carol feel reassured in some strange way.
In the bathroom, Carol focused on relaxing. She told herself that Daryl would be supportive no matter what happened. No matter what news she got—even if it was the worst that she could imagine—he would be supportive. He'd said it didn't matter to him. He'd said that, either way, they'd get through it and they'd be happy together.
And she felt like he was being sincere. She felt, from him, more support than she could ever have imagined being contained in one human body before.
The fact that she still felt like she'd be letting him down if she could never give him some kind of ideal family—and that she'd be the reason that he'd have to live without everything he wanted and deserved—was all her own insecurity, and she was the one who would have to deal with it.
Carol had never realized how difficult it was to pee until that day. She took the cup out, finally, and found Alice and Daryl walking around the kitchen while Daryl talked to Alice about plans for the motel.
"I thought you fell in," Alice teased. "We were going to call a plumber, soon, to come get you out."
Carol offered Alice the cup.
"It's the best I could do," Carol said.
Alice laughed and packed it into her bag.
"And it'll do perfectly," Alice said. "The lab doesn't need a gallon of any fluids. Have a seat. Get comfortable. Last leg of torture and I'm outta here."
Alice had already unpacked everything, and she washed her hands and put on gloves before she came back and tied the elastic band around the top of Carol's arm.
Carol smiled to herself when Daryl, without her asking him or in any way indicating she might appreciate it, came over and took her hand in his. She smiled at him and he made a face at her—a kind of goofy smile—that she understood was his attempt to make her laugh. It was just something he was doing especially for her.
"You should know I'm exceptional at this," Alice said, getting everything ready. Carol didn't look at her. "Really—like I'm super precise. I could just about cut a carotid artery and sew it back up before the asshole bled to death."
"She's super fuckin' modest, too," Daryl teased.
"It's not bragging if it's true," Alice said. "I'm precise—that's one thing I have going for me."
"It's one reason she makes her own rules at the hospital," Daryl teased.
"The other is because nobody wants to work in Liberty, so we have to have some perks. You prefer if I tell you or you like the surprise?"
"Surprise, please," Carol told her.
"Good choice," Alice said. "Me, too. Do you know that Andrea's so bad—she has all her doctors send her lab orders to me. She won't go anywhere else. She pitches a fit if anyone even dreams of touching her with a needle. Worse than a child, sometimes. Easy—got'cha. See? Just a scratch. No big deal. She gets them to send all her labs to me and I send her samples to the lab for her doctors to get the results. The hospital's so small that nobody really cares. I call her the one-stick wonder. She says it's because she doesn't like strangers sticking things into her body—she says she reserves that to Merle and me."
"That shit has led to more than one terrible ass joke at holidays," Daryl offered.
Carol smiled to herself. He was working her hand in his. She didn't know, at this point, if it was to distract her or to distract him. Honestly, he looked more uncomfortable than she felt at the moment. Alice hadn't lied. She was good at what she did and Carol was actually feeling more relaxed than she had in the bathroom.
"Al—you gonna leave her some of that?" Daryl asked after a minute. "I think she needs some of it."
"I'm taking a lot," Alice ceded. "But not more than she can spare. I'm just filling the order I got for labs. Still—keep an eye on her for a bit, OK? Just in case she gets a little light-headed or woozy. Neither of you need to freak out. You're fine, you'll be fine—but nobody wants you blacking out for a second, or something, and hitting your head. When I'm done—I want you to take her down to the Dairy-O. Fill her up. Get her lots to build this back up. Burger. Red meat—no compromise on that. Eat the whole thing even if you eat it in shifts. And I think the milkshake should just be payment for putting up with the donation to Al's vampire bank."
Carol laughed to herself. She finally looked at Alice again when the woman was busy taping down the cotton.
"We're finished?" Carol asked.
Alice smiled at her. She winked.
"We're finished here. Just getting started, too. Leave that on for a couple of hours. I'll take these directly to the lab. They'll take a little time there, but they'll send everything he needs directly to James. I'll send you the information on your phone about the appointment—if you know where your phone is."
Carol laughed to herself.
'I've got it," she assured her.
"Your appointment is Thursday," Alice said. "I think it's at ten, but I'll let you know to be sure. I'll send you the info, but he's in the hospital."
Carol nodded.
"Thank you," she offered.
"No problem," Alice said. She glanced at Daryl and then back at Carol. "It's what family does."
Carol smiled to herself. The words made her chest ache in a good way.
"I'm sorry, Alice," Carol said again.
"Already forgotten," Alice said. "Gotta go—I want that chicken salad sandwich before the line is backed up to hell and back. Go, you two. Get lunch. Have some time to just—you know. Eat. Talk. About whatever comes up."