October 20, 2010
The slow routine they settle into at the new place, which seems to be slowly earning the name Riverside, worries Daryl a little. He doesn't like to borrow trouble, but he knows human nature too well to think that the careful segregation of the more volatile elements of their groups is not likely to last. At least none of his original group seems to resent him being their voice in things, despite not actually living with them.
Four days is enough for Karen and her boy Noah to drift to the point they're integrating more to Paul's people. Karen seems far more cheerful with Olivia and Denise than the women she's been around the last few weeks. Then again, no one in Paul's group tried to attack the child she fosters, and Olivia is another foster mother for emotional support.
While Lori and Rick stay put out of medical consideration for one and actual restriction for the other, Maggie still isn't over Michonne's firm reprimand. She hasn't left the individual property, either, effectively trapping Glenn. Daryl wonders where the line is for that relationship turning unhealthy. Maybe he should ask one of the shrinks.
Hershel might not have braved talking to Shane Walsh yet, but he's at least gone as far as the extensive gardens of the old Gloria place that Paul's people now occupy. It doesn't surprise Daryl one bit that the old man seeks out plants. It's just a matter of time before he's two houses down being a veterinarian again.
Beth and Carl behave like they've always been here, with Beth only returning home to sleep. She's hunted with Daryl as he explores new territory and gets the lay of the land. But outside of that, she's been shadowing Michonne and learning the exercise routines the woman requires before she'll teach her to use a blade.
Carl is so clingy to his quasi-uncle that he rarely leaves the man for anything other than twice a day check-ins on his mother. At least the kid is seeing the big teddy bear of a shrink at Walsh's insistence.
Carol? She's so damned happy she fucking glows with it, doing her best not to smother Sophia and carve her own spot here. He loves the easy smiles and laughter that are a constant now.
Michonne, noticing Daryl's unease with the crowded house, pointed him across the road this morning. "Not trying to evict you, but you don't strike me as the type to easily live under someone else's roof. Might make Merle feel comfortable enough to sleep in a bed again, if you're in the same house."
Considering him being there evicts the woman from her own damn bed, he finds himself standing in the yard of the indicated house. The road is a hodgepodge mix of homes, everything from one high end double wide to the almost antebellum home turned over to Paul's group. This one is somewhere in the middle, sort of a ranch style built into a hillside that rises up and away from the Walsh property.
He's not sure if it makes the house a true two-story or just one with an exposed basement. Steps lead up to a massive deck style porch similar to the one wrapping around Walsh's lakefront house. The lower level has no entrance he can see from the front, just a series of windows. Circling the house, he finds doors leading into the lower level, like some sort of shop. They're locked, so he climbs the hill further to reach the backyard.
The house looks single story from here, the lower floor dug into the hillside like a basement. A large metal outbuilding takes up a large portion of the clearing behind the house. It has three rolling bay doors, plus lean-tos jutting off both sides. A fifth wheel camper is parked under one lean-to, and a collection of lawn care equipment under the other.
The area that was once lawn is now a tiny orchard. Daryl grins, recognizing more of Sophia's handiwork in the neat rows of three to five foot trees she probably rescued from a plant nursery. They're probably fruit or nut trees, with the girl's habit of reinforcing the food supply.
Deciding to leave the outbuilding for later, he climbs the steps onto the covered back porch, noting how everything seems to be mostly as the owners left it. Much like many other houses Daryl's explored these last few months, it feels like the owners are away on vacation and just forgot to pay someone for lawn care.
Finding the key under the ceramic gnome where Michonne said it would be, he lets himself in. The first room is a kitchen, fairly narrow, but with nice enough appliances. There's a gas fireplace along one wall next to a door that has stairs leading down. He thinks someone kinked up the floorspace design, since using this open area near the door would block the walkway.
On the other side of the kitchen wall, there's a dining table with six chairs but looks expandable if he can find the leaf insert and other chairs. A big comfortable brown couch sits along the front wall of the living room/dining room combo, with two recliners forming an L with the couch to face a big television.
Down the hall, he finds two bedrooms on the front side of the house. One isn't furnished, but the signs of where a bed frame once sat are still there as indentions in the carpet. He bets it was probably one of the bunk beds now across the street, based on the childish decor. The second bedroom has that generic guest room feel to it.
The hallway bathroom across from the smaller bedroom is decent sized, although the floral wallpaper and pink theme screams bad taste to him. Next to it, occupying the back corner of the house, is a fairly large master bedroom complete with doggie steps to reach the king size bed. Betting these people had one of those small, useless yap dogs, he ventures into it to see what the small door that would lead behind the other bathroom is.
Apparently, it's the world's tiniest bathroom. He laughs at his own sense of snobbishness, like he ever lived in anything this nice before. But he likes the idea of bathroom space more private, even if the room only has a shower so small he would bump elbows trying to get clean.
That leaves the lower floor to explore, so he heads for those stairs. They're narrow and dark, making him backtrack to where he saw a flashlight on a charger in the kitchen. It's still holding enough charge to shine brightly, so he makes it down the stairs.
It's definitely more basement than originally planned living space, he thinks. To his left, the space under the living room and kitchen is a massive workshop with those double shop doors he saw outside. Damn room is a virtual hardware store for gadgets and supplies. He decides against lifting the lid on either of the two massive chest freezers, because there's no generator running.
Back down the hall, he finds a sewing room that has windows up high. He thinks Carol would really like the small, narrow room with its cheery yellow paint and shelf upon shelf of fabric. Across the hall is a utility room that seems oversized for the washer and dryer it holds, even after he finds the small bathroom behind the appliances. He supposes the open space will work well for storing supplies, and being a basement, likely stay cool.
The final room runs the width of the house, covering what would be both the master and guest room above. It's some sort of game room, with a pool table, gas fireplace, and even a kitchenette that he suspects was more minibar than actual kitchen from what he finds in the cabinets.
"Daryl?" It's not Carol, as he would expect to come looking for him, but Sophia.
"Downstairs!" Unsure if she can hear him from here, he heads for the stairs and repeats himself.
The lanky teenager appears, smiling down at him. "What do you think of the house?"
The hopeful note in her voice would probably have him saying okay even if the damn place was a former meth lab shack, he thinks. Sophia hasn't avoided him, but she hasn't gone out of her way to speak to him either. She wants her mother here, where her two homes are almost within shouting distance.
"It's real nice. You think Merle might like the old game room as an apartment?" With the downstairs bathroom having a shower stall, plus the kitchenette, his brother would have privacy without being outside the house like that camper he never slept in.
She nods, shaggy hair bobbing, and he makes the trek up the stairs so he can shut off the flashlight.
"You think your mama will like the kitchen?"
Sophia studies the little room and smiles. "It's actually bigger than what she used to have. More cabinets. Prettier, too. Her favorite color is red, you know."
He did, although it was more from observation than Carol actually stating it. Daryl figures the bright red checkered curtains in the windows and red themed small appliances like the toaster and coffee pot he can see are cute enough. At least the room isn't overwhelmed with the vivid color.
"This okay with you?" he asks, feeling like her opinion counts the most. The last thing he wants is his problem with crowded spaces making her feel he doesn't want to be around her. She never batted an eye at his relationship with Carol. "Us moving across the street instead of sticking in the same house?"
"Do I get the front corner bedroom?" she requests, expression hopeful.
Daryl thinks of that bland room compared to Sophia's flashy one across the road, but nods. Carol will probably enjoy helping her daughter redecorate. The reality of the room kicks in and he smiles.
"That one lets you keep an eye on things, sorta, doesn't it?" Between the hill and the height of the house, the bedroom Sophia asked for has a bird's eye view of a portion of Walsh's house through the trees, as well as some of the lake beyond. Come winter, with the deciduous trees dropping their leaves entirely, she can probably see even more.
The kid really is a budding tactician, because she just shrugs and runs a finger along the dusty counter. "We didn't do much here. Took stuff from the middle room when the little kids came. Shane says they had twins about Molly's age. So it will need a lot of cleaning."
"Think your mama will be offended if we start that without her?" As much as he's wanted to bridge the gap with this child he barely knows, she's stayed busy in her normal routine. All the tasks and lessons he shared with Carl and Beth are already well covered by Walsh, Michonne, and Merle, as well as her mother.
Cleaning seems like a stupid thing to offer to spend time with her, but she grins. "I think it would be a good present for her. She would like us doing it together, yeah?"
Sophia is already moving, retrieving bottles of cleaner from under the kitchen sink. Her words make him realize she's noticed Carol's wistful looks between them, too. Since Carol's occupied today in a midwifery lesson with Eastman and Beth that Sophia isn't attending for some reason, he figures now is as good a time as any.
Throwing the doors and windows open to take advantage of the cooler late October temperature and the breeze off the oxbow lake, he finds that Sophia inherited her mother's gift for unobtrusively ferreting out information. He suspects by the time they meet in the middle of the basement hall in their mutual mopping project that the kid probably knows as much about him in a morning as most people would learn in a lifetime.
She falls quiet as she looks past him to the game room they're hoping Merle will accept as being part of the household without cramping his tall, burly form onto a couch. The camping lanterns they hung to light the areas with no windows cast shadows on her face. "Can I ask you something about Merle?"
Almost anyone else asking that question would send his hackles up to protect his brother. But Daryl's had enough time to confirm the mutual affection of Sophia and his brother to not expect anything cruel from the girl. "Sure."
"Who is Jewel?"
The innocent question sends a jolt of pain through Daryl that hasn't lessened despite more than a decade passing. His hands go whiteknuckled on the mop handle, and he takes a deep breath.
"You don't have to answer. It seems really painful to him, when he slips up something about her."
Daryl swallows hard. "He talks about Jewel to you?"
"Sometimes. Just enough that I don't think she grew up, because all the small stories are about her being a kid."
Jesus Christ, this girl is Carol's daughter alright. To not only draw enough of Merle's trust to get him to share a little, but also to clue in that Jewel Dixon never made it to adulthood… that's a leap many adults wouldn't make.
Daryl honestly thought most of the good in his brother's soul died out with his niece, ripped out piece by piece as Jewel lost ground in her three year battle against Ewing's sarcoma. It occurs to him for the first time that Merle's state of mind when he amputated his hand probably was some nightmare reflection of Jewel's last years.
Keeping up on the literature for the disease like a private addiction of his own, he knows that nowadays, his niece would have had more options, maybe. But twelve years ago? The months of chemotherapy were to chase the tumors out of her lungs. The doctors never even discussed sparing her right leg below the knee.
All that hell she went through, to get only nine months of freedom before the bastard cancer came back. Infesting her pelvic bones on round two, amputation wasn't an option. Chemo and radiation made her violently ill until she begged no more.
Ever a undauntable Dixon to her core, it still took six months in hospice before she stopped fighting.
But that's too much to share, especially with a trusting kid the same age as Jewel when she first got sick. The fondness for Sophia didn't start his brother's sobriety, but Daryl thinks it reinforces the will to keep it. One day, he swears he'll ask Michonne about those early days and how Merle turned that corner.
"Jewel was his daughter," he answers at last. "She died of cancer when she was sixteen."
"Oh. I'm so sorry." She actually tears up at the thought, and it's an easy instinct now to reach out and hug the girl after weeks of looking out for Carl and Beth.
That's when Carol finds them, Sophia's head tucked under his chin as she sniffles against his chest. He gives a slight shake of his head at her concerned expression and gives Sophia a little squeeze. "Your mama found us before we finished her surprise."
That shifts her somber mood, and she releases him to turn and smile at her mother. "Did you look over the house to find us, Mama?"
"I did. It's a nice place, isn't it?" Carol smiles at them both. She lets Sophia lead her off on a tour, trusting him to fill her in later about Sophia's upset.
Daryl goes to grab the lantern from the game room and studies it. Once, he would worry about Merle living in a household with anyone other than him, since his brother's a happy drunk but a mean addict. He thinks he has to trust Merle's own Dixon stubbornness to hold solid now that he's found anchors in his turbulent world. Making him a little apartment down here, especially if Sophia and the other kids help? That should be another anchor point.
It's been so damned long since Daryl had his older brother at his side. The man of the last dozen years is not the man who raised him. Merle's never been suave and gentlemanly, but the rough and tumble man who snatched sixteen year old Daryl out of that trashy cabin? Him, Daryl wants back so badly he can practically taste it.
Resolving to figure it out with the help of the girl he knows will happily be his partner in crime and the woman he loves, Daryl laughs softly at the idea it takes a damned apocalypse to piece the fractured Dixons back together.