AN: Here we are, another chapter here. I think there's one or two more chapters here, depending on how they work out.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was a certain weight that seemed to be hanging over Daryl. She could practically see it draped across his shoulders like a metal blanket. When the morning came, and she was feeling better, he begged her to take just one more day—and one more night, by extension—to rest before she insisted on getting back to her usual work. A day and a half, he said, of recovery was only fair for two and a half days in the hot, dark isolation cell of what he called "the tombs." Carol thought about arguing with him, but decided against it. She didn't care about proving anything to anyone else, and she was enjoying her time spent with Daryl and Sophia. Besides that, she wanted to do whatever she needed to do to simply help lift the weight off Daryl's shoulders.
For an entire day, though, Carol gave herself over to Daryl's will. Admittedly, it wasn't much of a sacrifice. Where Ed's will would have been to bend or break her, Daryl's was simply to care for her.
Carol couldn't remember the last time that someone had cared for her so thoroughly, so she was feeling no urgent need to tell Daryl that she simply couldn't allow him to continue to fawn all over her.
He brought her meals to her, and his and Sophia's besides, and Carol suspected that he simply liked eating, in private, with her and Sophia as much as he truly felt like she was better off eating away from the crowd. He brought her water for bathing, and plenty of water for drinking, and he brought Sophia's toys so that the little girl was easily entertained in the cell with them.
He took her outside, once, for a long walk around the prison yard while Sophia played, and he let her greet everyone and receive their hugs, warm wishes, and declarations of happiness to see her alive and well, but he stayed close to her at all times—closer than usual. He stayed close enough that he could touch her at all times, and Carol sensed his insecurity and his desire to be in the position to reach her, without any chance of failure at all, were something to happen.
He took her down to Oscar's grave, and Carol stood looking at it for a moment, silently paying her respect, to the man that had held off the Walkers long enough for her to even take refuge in the little isolation cell that had saved her life. She let her eyes drift over to the other grave.
"Mine?" She asked.
Daryl hovered nearby, smoking a cigarette and watching Sophia as she uprooted the grass, in a small patch of ground that held her interest, with her fingers.
Daryl hummed at her.
"It's just—an empty grave," Carol said.
"There are some things I'm pretty fuckin' glad of," Daryl mused. Carol laughed to herself at the sentiment. He hadn't meant it as a joke, really, but it still struck her.
The grave, which was really nothing more than a spot of grass, was marked with a cross that had been nailed together like Oscar's. In front of the cross, on the ground, was the letter "C" marked out with pebbles and other small stones. Resting in the "C," and around it, were several wilting and browning Cherokee Roses.
"You brought me flowers?" Carol said.
Daryl just frowned in response.
"Sophia brought them pebbles," Daryl offered. "I made the—I put 'em there, but she found 'em."
As if to illustrate her technique for Carol, Sophia walked over to Daryl. She was unbothered by the dark dirt smeared on her cheek and clothes. She was unbothered by the fact that her digging had her looking like she was wearing dirt gloves. She walked over and patted Daryl, open-palmed, on the leg as high as she could reach.
"Here, Da-dee," she offered. Carol smiled to herself. She was beginning to draw the syllable out. She was beginning to mimic what they said—how Carol and Daryl referred to the man who thanked her profusely for whatever she'd dug up to give him.
"What is it?" Carol asked, watching Sophia trot back to her patch to continue her work. Daryl turned her gift over in his hand and looked at it.
"Spent shell," he said. "Too old to be one of ours. Some relic of some asshole reloadin' his pistol. If she keeps diggin', I bet she finds more."
Carol laughed to herself.
"Do you think—it's a bad thing that our daughter is excavating old shells from out of the ground of…of the prison yard where she lives?" Carol asked.
Daryl turned the shell over in his hand. He stared at it, hard, and then he glanced back toward Sophia. She might find more shells, but she wouldn't find them immediately. She'd plopped down on her bottom, near her hole, and she was smiling broadly at a wiggling earthworm, barely big enough to see from the short distance between them, that was squirming around on her open palm.
"I'm not an expert in the Mayberry type childhoods," Daryl offered. "But—I know a thing or two about shitty ones." He shrugged his shoulder and pocketed the spent shell. Carol assumed he would throw the thing away later, keeping Sophia from finding it again, because it could be considered some kind of hazard for a small child. "I like to think she's doin' alright."
Carol's stomach tightened as she watched his face. Without meaning to, she'd struck some kind of nerve—and it was obviously one that was very tender at the moment. Daryl didn't look like he wanted to scold her for it. Instead, he looked like he simply wanted to melt away and, perhaps, get absorbed by the very dirt in which Sophia was digging.
His shoulders slumped and he turned, heading back toward the prison.
"Daryl?" Carol called after him. He didn't respond. He simply kept walking. He only slowed down when he heard Sophia—noticing his departure and running after him as fast as she could—call out to him a few times.
"Daddeeeeeee! Daddeeee!" She called, determined to get his attention.
Daryl stopped, letting the toddler catch up to him, and he scooped her up before kissing her forehead and continuing his walk toward the prison.
Carol didn't take his silence personally. She knew, at this point in her life, how to tell the difference between hurt and anger. She wanted nothing more than to soothe the obvious hurt that the man she loved clearly felt. She followed after him, giving him his space and silence, determined to simply be there when he felt ready to share with her.
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"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Carol asked, slipping into the cell and closing the privacy curtain they'd hung using a blanket.
Daryl reclined on their bed while Sophia—whom he'd wiped down, and whose hands he'd washed before he'd covered her spot on the bed with a towel— sat near him playing with the multi-colored shapes she had, doing her best to force them into the matching shapes on a box that, later, Daryl would empty for her to do the whole thing again. Scattered over the blanket were also some assorted plastic horses and dinosaurs which she unceremoniously forced through the shaped holes from time to time. When she couldn't get a piece to go through, she would hold it out to Daryl and demand his attention until he helped her manipulate the box to find the right shape.
He didn't immediately answer Carol. First, he paused to help Sophia get a green triangle into the triangle shaped hole.
"Triangle," he said, holding up the green plastic toy. "Can you say it? Triangle?"
She said it, though not with even the same level of enunciation as Daryl. He ruffled her hair, pointed to the hole, and watched with a half-smile as she pushed the triangle through the hole and grinned at him for approval. He praised her abilities.
"Was it—thinking about…your past?" Carol asked. Daryl shrugged his shoulders in a jerky sort of motion. "Talk to me? Please?" Carol prompted. She walked over and sat down on the side of the bed, as close to Daryl as she could get. Her stomach ached at the look on his face—around his eyes. He was hurting, and it wasn't something as simple as a festering splinter that she could remove or a cut she could stitch. "Please," she pressed, putting her hand gently on his thigh.
It took him a moment longer—and a brief explanation to Sophia about why it was that a dinosaur didn't really fit well through any of the holes—before Daryl finally spoke to Carol.
"They don't want me to be Sophia's daddy," Daryl offered. Sophia looked up at him, not fully comprehending what he said, and she offered him a horse that she was currently trying to force through a square opening.
"Horsies don't go in the shapes real good, Soph," Daryl offered, passing her the horse back after he'd tried it on several different possible holes.
"What do you mean?" Carol asked. "Who doesn't want you to be Sophia's daddy?"
Daryl shrugged his shoulders. Carol had already accepted that the shrug wasn't an answer. It wasn't meant to be a real answer. It was simply a response that he could give her while he bought himself a moment to get his feelings under control.
"Maggie, mostly," Daryl said. "Glenn with her, I guess. Lori. Whoever else they been talkin' to."
Carol felt like she'd been punched in the sternum. She shook her head.
"I don't understand," Carol said. "It's not—nobody can feel like you should or shouldn't be Sophia's daddy. You are her daddy."
Sophia looked at Carol. Her brow was furrowed. She didn't know what was going on, but it was clear that she knew something was going on, and she could pick up on enough words to know that it involved her and Daryl. She paused in her playing for a moment, waited to piece together what was going on, and then returned to her work with a little more hesitation than before.
"She's listening," Carol offered. "So—I'm going to be as careful about it as I can. Daryl—I don't know what you're talking about, but…you are her daddy."
"Yeah, long as you here, everyone pretends that's OK with 'em," Daryl said.
"Someone said something to you?" Carol asked.
"Offered to take care of her," Daryl said. "Maggie said she and Glenn would."
Carol sucked in a breath. She wanted to make sense of it all. She wanted to understand.
Part of her did understand. Part of her instinctively knew what had happened. She longed for her gut instinct not to be true, though.
"To help," Carol said. "Everyone would—want to help. They wouldn't want you to feel like you were alone in the world."
Daryl looked at her like he was bored with her answer more than anything else.
"I'm not an idiot," he said.
"I know you're not," Carol clarified quickly.
"I know what the hell she was sayin'," Daryl said. "And you don't 'cause you weren't there. They ain't wanted to help. They didn't want my ass involved. I overheard Maggie talkin' to Hershel about what she was thinkin'."
Sophia abandoned her toys. She was done with them—suddenly and completely. She stood up on the bed and started toward the edge to beg movement to the floor, but Carol caught her.
"We're staying up here, sweetheart," Carol said. "We're staying in here for a few minutes. OK? Then we'll get you a good bath."
"Please," Sophia offered, trying to go around Carol and get her freedom.
"No, Sophia," Carol said sharply. "We're not leaving the cell right now. Mommy is talking to Daddy. Play with your toys."
Sophia's eyes went wide. She wasn't accustomed to Carol being sharp with her—especially not when she was still wallowing in the fresh bliss of having her back, and certainly not in the latter part of the day when she was beginning to get a bit cranky. She backed up, dropping down on her bottom, and opened her mouth in the kind of silent cry that would come out, later, as a loud burst of uncontrolled sadness.
Daryl grabbed her under the arms and dragged her up the bed so that he could hold her. She rolled over in his arms and scrubbed her face against his chest, never fully giving into the eardrum bursting cry that Carol expected. She was tired and, suddenly, she seemed to realize how tired she really was. Instead of a loud burst of crying, she settled for rather quiet and pathetic sobs against Daryl's chest as he patted her back.
"She just gets bored," Daryl offered quietly.
"It won't hurt her to be bored sometimes," Carol said. "I'm not worried about Sophia. She's fine. She's tired and she needs a bath. After that, she'll eat and everything will be wonderful in her world. I'm worried about you."
"They don't think I got what the hell it takes to teach her how to be no decent person," Daryl said. "Maybe they're right. I didn't come from shit, Carol. I ain't never been worth shit."
"You're worth the world to me," Carol said. She offered him the best smile she could muster when everything inside her hurt. She nodded her head toward Sophia. "You're her world. Her protector. Her provider. Her—comfort. And her role model. Isn't that worth something? Isn't that worth more than what—than what Maggie, or Lori, or anybody else around here thinks?"
Daryl frowned. It looked like it pained him to swallow. Carol could relate. Her throat ached, too. Sophia, unaware of the situation, and her earlier sadness forgotten, rested against Daryl's chest with her bottom up in the air, and she swayed it, from side to side, to go with the tune that she began to hum to herself.
Carol laughed to herself, thankful for the little girl's antics, and leaned to gently bop her hand against the swaying bottom. Sophia hummed in disagreement and put her hand up, pushing back at Carol's hand.
And for the first time in a little while, Daryl laughed. He forgot, for a second, that he was supposed to be feeling like he didn't belong in the family. He swiped at Carol's hand, too, joining in with Sophia.
"Stop it, Mama," he commanded when Sophia offered a half-sleep-slurred "Stop" to Carol. Still, Sophia clearly liked the game because, when Carol stopped, Sophia called out to her and, grinning as she looked at her with her face against Daryl's chest, she wagged her behind some more in the same manner so that Carol would playfully pat her again and start the game once more.
By the time it was done, and Sophia sat up and found a renewed interest in her toys, Daryl looked lighter and happier.
Carol smiled at him and moved closer, leaning over him so that she could reach him. She pressed her lips to his, and she returned for a second kiss when she tasted how good the first was. She smiled at him when she pulled away, but then she frowned when he frowned in response.
"You deserve better'n me," Daryl said. "You both do."
"Daryl—if I searched the whole world over," Carol offered, "and if I was left with my choice of…of any man left alive? I still wouldn't find a better man to…to love me. Or to be Sophia's daddy."
"You're just sayin' that," Daryl offered.
Carol smiled to herself and shook her head.
"I'm not," she said. "You're the best man that I've ever known. And you're the best daddy in the whole world. Sophia agrees with me, and you know it."
"She's just a baby," Daryl said.
"And? That doesn't make her opinion any less valid," Carol said. "In fact—it makes it even more valid. There's nobody I'd rather be Sophia's daddy."
"Yeah?" Daryl pressed.
Carol's chest flooded with warmth. She leaned and kissed him again, gently pressing her lips to his and holding it for a second.
"Yeah," she said with a smile when she pulled away. "I know I'm too old and—my body would never let me. But if I could? I'd have a dozen children with you, Daryl. And I'd want every single one of them to be just like you."
He laughed to himself.
"OK, now I know you're full of shit," he said.
"I'm not," Carol said. "A dozen. A baker's dozen, even." She laughed to herself. "We'd have little Dixons coming out of every nook and cranny around this whole prison, and there's nobody else that I would rather have as the daddy to my—to my baker's dozen."
Daryl laughed to himself, and he worked the tops of her arms in his hands as he held her close to him. Her back felt strained from the position, but she wouldn't dare ask to move at the moment.
"You'd go crazy with all that to watch out for," Daryl said.
"That's the thing," Carol said. "I could do it because—I know you'd never let me do it alone."
"No," Daryl said.
"Because you're a good daddy," Carol offered. Her heart picked up a couple of beats. She could see it in his face that he was relaxing. Maybe he was finally believing her. Maybe the thought of chasing after twelve or thirteen rambunctious children simply amused him to the point that whatever cruelty had touched him didn't hurt so much. Maybe the realization that he'd be there—happily chasing after those twelve or thirteen little ones—made him accept that she wasn't just feeding him some kind of line.
"I love you," he offered.
"I know you do," Carol said. "And I love you."
Daryl nodded. It was his way of saying that he knew, and he accepted her love.
"I love—bein' Sophia's daddy," he offered, a hint of melancholy dropping into his tone as, perhaps, he remembered that someone might have tried to take that happiness away from him.
"She loves you," Carol assured Daryl. "And she's certainly happy that you're her daddy." Daryl nodded his head. He chewed at his lip, and nodded again. Carol understood. He was trying not to let anything out. He didn't want to let anything out. So, she decided to help him and offer him a welcomed distraction. "Come on, Daddy," she said softly. "Let's go get some water and give Sophia a bath."
