AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think!
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Daryl wanted his time to "sit" with things. To process them.
Carol, too, wanted her time to simply absorb the information that they'd received.
What Daryl absolutely knew, even without the time to sit quietly and process the news, was that he wanted to tell everyone. He didn't simply want to walk in the door and blurt out their news, though. Rather, he wanted to wait until it was the right moment—until the moment presented itself. He also wanted a special way to share the news with Sophia. He thought that, while he was meditating on the new developments in their life together—because Carol did consider it a kind of meditation that he wanted to do—he would probably figure out the way that he thought it would be best to handle things.
Carol needed her own time to meditate, too. She had been certain that this was something that wouldn't happen. She'd convinced herself it couldn't happen. Now that it seemed to be something that was actually happening, she felt oddly distant from herself instead of happy, like she'd wished to be.
It was shock and, like Daryl, she needed a moment to think about things.
At the house, he'd agreed to pick up Sophia after he spent a little quiet time alone. Carol had kissed him, hopped in her car, and happily driven to the motel to lose herself in putting some final touches on her area of the motel. The mundane, repetitive nature of cleaning and arranging things like she wanted them would leave her free to allow her mind to drift and think about things.
When she got to the motel, Carol slipped the lucky clover keychain into her pants pocket. She dropped her leather jacket on the seat of her car and traded it out for the vest that she had.
She liked the vest. Instead of making her feel like an object to be possessed—as the old patches had—the new patches made her feel like she was part of something. She was one of an elite club, of sorts. There was a certain sisterhood that she felt when she saw Andrea, Sadie, Nellie, or any of the other old ladies that frequented the motel in some way while they were getting it ready to open to the public.
The vest made her feel like she belonged in a very real way, and she wondered if that was what the MC members felt when the slipped into their cuts and became part of something that the outside world could never fully understand.
They would open the motel soon—at least partially. They were working double time to throw new coats of paint up in a few rooms. The plan was to have at least a half a dozen rooms that were nice and ready to go. They didn't figure that business would be booming—especially not at first—so a few rooms could at least start to bring in some revenue while they slowly updated the rest of the place.
Carol's little café—run right out of the motel—would be open soon to the public as well. They'd start advertising it in town that the food everyone had loved, and missed since Carol was giving her attention to readying the motel café instead of serving food out at the Chambers, would be back in a new location that offered a few chairs for dining and a more family-friendly environment.
She might even offer some kind of holiday meal variations in honor of the upcoming holidays.
Carol had a rush of excitement every time she stood in the little kitchen and imagined pushing plates of food through the serving window to some of Negan's employees—because Carol felt uncomfortable calling them whores, no matter what other services they offered—that would be picking up some extra cash serving her tables once business picked up enough that she could use the extra hands.
A quick glance around the parking lot told Carol that Negan and Merle were both there. They were overseeing a lot that was taking place, and they were sending people on tasks here and there to help make sure that things got taken care of, but they were also painting like it was their sole purpose in life.
In addition to the bikes of both men—which Carol now considered familiar—there was a car that indicated some of Negan's female employees were present and likely making up beds and otherwise cleaning and preparing rooms. There were a few other bikes that Carol didn't bother to identify immediately. They belonged, without a doubt, to either a Savior or a Judge that was working inside.
"Merle—I'm working!" Carol called as soon as she'd come through the door into the lobby area. At the moment, the lobby was empty of bodies and furniture. They were cleaning it up, so they'd moved everything out. The only thing that remained in the space was the counter, and that was because it was part of the structure.
Nobody was downstairs as far as Carol could see. They were all upstairs working and there was a great deal of noise coming from up there. Beyond the normal sound of footfalls, there was the sound of a muffled radio that was likely meant to entertain whoever was working, and there were sounds of some kind of machine that could have been anything from a carpet cleaner, to a vacuum, to an electric drill.
In the dining area, Carol found the little battery-operated radio that Merle had brought in for her to use. She switched it on, extended the old antenna, and turned the knob until the static gave way to a somewhat steady stream of crackling music. It was old country, and not necessarily what Carol was in the mood to listen to, but it drowned out the noises of her upstairs companions.
The music didn't really matter anyway. Carol wasn't there to listen to music. She was there to work on her new space. She was there to make it what she wanted it to be.
And the music was just background noise for a little vacation that she wanted to take from her own mind.
She wanted to relax. She wanted to forget her stupid, overwhelming, bullying anxiety. She wanted to drown it out. Silence it. She wanted to focus on the good in her life and the happiness she wanted to feel flowing freely through her.
She had a little house—and Daryl wanted to build her a bigger house. He wanted to build her the house of her dreams on a piece of land he'd been holding onto for a while. Carol had her daughter. And Sophia was doing better than she ever had before. She was thriving. She might, occasionally, say a word that was inappropriate for a child her age, but that was a small price to pay for the confidence that Carol saw bubbling up in her daughter more and more each day.
Carol had a job. She had, in reality, several jobs. The same person paid her for her work here and there, though, so she kind of thought of it all as one big catch-all job. If the café turned out to do good business, though, and Merle went through with building the restaurant they were planning to lay a foundation for soon, then Carol would likely move into the position of having one job that required most of her attention.
She was pregnant.
She might not have fully accepted that, just yet, and the thought might still make her heart beat a little irregularly and her stomach jump, but she was pregnant. Not only was she pregnant, but she was pregnant with a baby that she'd wanted before she'd known she was pregnant—the same couldn't have exactly been said with Sophia.
And she was pregnant by a man who loved her.
She should, realistically, be beyond the butterfly stage with Daryl by now. She should be beyond the point where just the thought of him made her stomach feel a little like jelly and her knees feel not entirely different. She should be beyond the point where just the thought of him—as she half-heard an old Merle Haggard song out in some distant fog in the room around her, and as she wiped down the chairs with a cloth she wrung out from a bucket she'd filled with warm water and cleaner—brought a goofy smile to her face that made her cheeks ache.
But she wasn't beyond that point. Because Daryl Dixon loved her and, when she let herself fully believe it, she believed it with more conviction than she'd ever believed anything else in her life. He loved her. And she loved him.
He made her feel safe. Protected. Loved. Desirable. Sexy. Beautiful. Smart. Talented. Funny.
He made her feel like everything she'd never been before. He made her feel like she could be anything she wanted—and like he would appreciate anything and everything she was. He made her feel like she was some kind of heavenly gift to the world.
And she loved him. Her love for him made her chest ache. It made it difficult to breathe—the same way she felt when she'd wrongly mixed some cleaning chemicals in the kitchen a day or so before and she and Andrea had both had to abandon the place to run to the parking lot and let the space air out for a while. He made her struggle to breathe just like that, but in the most beautiful way possible.
He wanted to marry her. Although the thought of marriage—especially after what happened with Ed—terrified her to the point of making her hands shake and her insides quiver, Carol wasn't afraid of Daryl. She believed, with the part of her brain that wasn't reacting with only the animal instinct, that Daryl would never hurt her. He would never change. He was too constant for that. Too steady.
She was carrying his baby.
Suddenly, for the first time, after she'd cleaned all the chairs and tables in the dining room and moved to the kitchen to dump and rinse her bucket, Carol felt the first sincere flickers of happiness sparking in her belly over the baby that she'd only just discovered. Those sparks, she hoped, would grow with time to be a raging fire of happiness burning inside her.
She was carrying Daryl's baby—and she was beyond happy about it.
The small, battery operated radio on the table nearest the doors that led to the lobby crackled and hissed. It scrambled the station that was playing. The harsh change from steady, understandable music to slight cacophony ripped Carol entirely out of her daydream.
For just a second, she stood there in a somewhat stupor. She'd been thinking hard, and she'd been doing it for a while. She'd allowed herself to get completely lost in her mind while her body worked. She'd been so involved in her thoughts that she genuinely felt like she'd just woken from a deep sleep.
After a second, she realized what had snatched her from her dream. The harsh sounds of the dial-controlled radio being off its station were worse than the sounds of stomping, loud laughter, and drifting music that came from upstairs.
Carol dried her hands on the hand towel and walked through to the little dining area. She bent down to be at eye level with the little radio and watch as the red line slid along the bar that marked its location.
She hadn't even fully straightened when the sudden tightening around her throat made her instinctively fight for air.
It was an arm around her throat. The breath that blew next to her face smelled strongly enough of what Merle called "rot-gut" that her stomach felt inclined to empty itself. She couldn't have gagged if she'd wanted to, though. She didn't have enough air. Already she was getting light-headed and her vision was spotting.
She couldn't understand entirely what the voice said to her. She couldn't hear it over her heart pumping wildly and the blood rushing in her veins. She couldn't hear it over the sound of her own brain screaming out in fear.
She only heard enough to know two things—two very important things.
The person was pissed at "cunts" and she was a "cunt like all the fuckin' rest," and the voice was no brother that she knew—Savior nor Judge.
Instinct kicked in and Carol brought an elbow back, hard, into the man's side. He spat a curse at her and slightly tightened his hold on her throat. He grabbed at her arm with the arm that wasn't choking the life out of her, and he shoved her forward.
She didn't know where she was going. She didn't know what he intended. For all she knew, he could intend to rape or kill her somewhere. Maybe he intended for her to leave the motel with him so that he could kill her in privacy.
She was determined not to allow him to do anything he might be planning to do. She stuck her foot back, purposely trying to trip him. Even if they both went down, at least he'd likely let go of her throat. She might be able to get more air. She might feel able to scream. Maybe she could run.
She stumbled him a little as he pushed her into the lobby.
"Fuckin' bitch!" The man growled. She didn't fully trip him, but she did cause him to stagger as she did her best to get her foot between his again. She made contact with his shin. She stumbled him once more. He rushed her forward. She wasn't sure if he was falling or making the choice to do so, but he slammed her into the counter as the structure stopped their forward movement. He was thrown off enough, though, that he lost his hold on Carol's throat for a second.
"Help!" Carol screamed as loudly as she could, even as her lungs barely felt the sensation of fully inflating. It wasn't loud enough and words were too hard, so she settled for simply screaming in a long, loud howl.
"Bitch!" The man growled. "The fuck you think—some fuckin'…"
His speech was slurred. Stammered. He was drunk. He was sloppy, messy, ridiculously drunk. And he must be a Savior because Merle wouldn't tolerate such behavior from a Judge—not at that time of day.
Carol didn't see him, though, and stifled her howl by slamming her down against the counter, as best he could, like he intended to knock her out with the impact. His hand came around to try to cover her mouth and she sunk her teeth into him before he pulled loose—the unbitten hand pressing the side of her head into the counter—and used the weight of his body to slam into her in complete and total frustration.
She howled again, sure it was the only sound she could make to get enough attention, and she kicked back to at least make contact with his shin as his fist made hard contact with the middle of her back.
He was too strong for her to overpower, but she didn't have to fight him for long.
"Son of a bitch!" Merle growled, alerting Carol to his presence, though her face, still smashed against the counter, was turned away from him.
"What the fucking fuck is your fucking problem!" Negan spat out, clearly somewhere close to Merle.
Carol didn't know which of them got the man first. She stayed in her position, a moment after he was no longer smashing her into the counter, as she heard the scuffling around her that came from a fight for dominance.
She had a moment to get her breath. She had a moment to feel less dizzy. She had a moment to let the adrenaline rush calm, just a little, in her system.
The drunk asshole that she still hadn't actually faced had enough to worry about. She was no longer on his radar.
And his troubles got even worse when Carol heard the sound that finally made her push herself up from her position of leaning against the counter.
She didn't know when he'd arrived, or how long it had taken him to sort out what was going on while witnessing the scuffle involving Merle and Negan. She didn't know if he'd rushed Sophia outside or if the girl had never come in because another friend had pulled up in the parking lot while they were out there and she was being entertained. Carol knew nothing about Daryl's arrival, but she knew the exact moment that Daryl figured out what was going on and chose to respond to it all. And she raised up to look at him—happy to see him, but terrified by the look in his eye.
"That mother fucker is mine," he growled. The sound was enough to stop even the scuffling of the three other men bumping around in the space.