AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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The snow seemed to insulate everything in its own way. When they were closed in—snug indoors—the snow piled heavy over everything, and the light flakes of it that almost always seemed to be fluttering down from the sky seemed to block out the entire world.
When they stepped outside—to do the necessary work that made sure that every last one of the people in their community would be provided for during the long, sleepy winter—the world existed in a blanket of cold whiteness and, despite the fact that nearly every animal slept, it was bustling and alive. Either energized or simply driven by the cold, people moved quickly from one place to another or from one activity to another. Their greetings and exchanged words were loud, and fast, and bursting out from them as they bustled about. Their energy transformed into enthusiasm, and their loud conversations ran in time with jobs that couldn't stop for the cold.
But when they returned to their homes and warmed themselves by their fires built with wood they hauled in those energetic bursts of life, the snow beyond their walls and windows seemed to transport them to tiny worlds were, at least temporarily, nothing existed outside of hearth and home.
Daryl loved his home. He loved everything about his life.
He'd heard stories, throughout his whole life, about long-suffering men who found nothing more than misery when they married and attached themselves to the proverbial ball and chain. They were smothered to death by needy, nagging, exhausting wives that turned into shrews the minute the rings were on their fingers. Their suffering, according to the tales, only intensified tenfold with the arrival of terrible, bratty children that robbed them of any remaining memory of their glorious freedom and happy lives as childless, carefree bachelors.
Daryl found that his reality couldn't be farther from that at all.
Even though he spent most of his non-working time in his home with Carol and Rose, he didn't feel smothered or trapped in the least. In fact, it was quite the contrary—he hated leaving them, even for the pockets of time that were necessary to attend to work or other requirements that kept their lives running smoothly.
Rose was growing. She was perfect, and beautiful, and she smiled at Daryl. She smiled at Daryl all the time. When he walked the house with her to give Carol pockets of time to just take care of Carol, since she always seemed to be doing something for Rose, Rose smiled at Daryl. When he sang to her—something he was very, very bad at—Rose smiled at him. She didn't seem to realize that he was bad at singing. When he leaned down over her bassinet to rescue her when she was awake, and needing her Mama, and Carol was stirring from sleep and making ready to tend to the baby, she smiled at Daryl—at least as long as she hadn't already gotten so worked up that she couldn't muster up any emotion but sadness.
Every one of her little toothless smiles melted Daryl's heart until he worked harder for them than he'd worked for much else in his life, not that Rose really made him work too hard to get them.
And Rose ate. She ate often, and she ate with gusto. She was good at eating, so Alice said, though Daryl thought it was a strange compliment to give someone. He assumed that eating was just second nature and everyone would be good at it, but Alice assured him that Rose was particularly good at it—and that was just what they wanted.
Rose had been out, a few times, winning hearts in the community, because everybody that saw her fell in love with her immediately. Carol would bundle her until there was no possible way that she could be cold, and she'd wrap her to her body or, at times, she'd help Daryl wrap her up so that he could carry her against his body. They'd take the little one with them to eat, or Carol would wear her while she did some task that wasn't too demanding, but still allowed her to feel like she wasn't shirking her responsibilities to the community.
And, when all was quiet in the house, they would often make little pallets on the floor out of blankets, folded neatly and stacked up, and they would let Rose lie on them and look around—something which seemed immensely boring to Daryl, but which Rose seemed to really enjoy. Carol and Alice both said that the baby was very strong for her age. Daryl figured she was just determined and, sometimes, he liked to joke that she'd be crawling before she reached two months old.
Daryl had a family—a full sized family—and he loved it. He loved every minute of it. One of the most beautiful things of all, though, was that he knew that Carol and Rose—his wife and daughter, which were two things he'd never before imagined himself being able to say that he had—loved him back as hard as he loved them.
Things couldn't be more perfect.
But then there came the morning when Alice sat, in their bedroom, and cheerfully explained that Carol was pretty well healed from the birth and that, if she felt up to it, they could return to their "marital hobbies." Without missing a beat, or really even blushing, she gave them a quick "lesson" over things she thought it was important that they remember. Daryl appreciated the lesson, and despite the somewhat embarrassing content of the lecture, he hung on the doctor's every word.
They should remember that, from this point forward, Carol could get pregnant again. Their private feelings about that—on which she didn't ask them to elaborate at all—should direct every choice they made. Carol was healed, meaning that sex wouldn't be damaging to her, but her body was still the number one expert on what was and wasn't off-limits. They should go slow and easy, and they should listen to what her body had to say about things. They should, also, be generous with the lubricant that the doctor brought in her bag and offered to them just as nonchalantly as she'd previously brought them other supplies.
She was cheerful, and happy for the both of them, and she waved back at Daryl as she went quickly down the porch steps and left him standing on the porch, smoking a cigarette and trying to convince himself that the cold bite of the icy air around him was invigorating.
When Daryl entered the house again, half-expecting to find Carol already planning how they might spend the precious few minutes that their baby girl was bound to sleep before she needed something else, he didn't expect to find what he found.
Carol sat on the corner of the bed looking positively unwell. Immediately, Daryl's stomach seemed to land somewhere around his feet. He didn't have to ask her what the sick look was about.
"If you don't wanna—have sex with me no more…" He said, stopping there. He didn't finish it. He meant it—he would never want her to do anything that she didn't want to do, and he would love her no matter what, but with the condition of his stomach as he came to terms with it, he couldn't quite put it into words.
"Of course I want to have sex with you," Carol said. Her voice was soft, and not entirely free from the heavy sound of sadness.
Daryl turned the comment over in his mind and selected the next most obvious reason she would look positively ashen at the thought of being with him again.
"If you don't wanna have another kid—I mean, I'd understand if you don't wanna have my kid," Daryl said. "It ain't like I got a whole multitude of great shit to pass on…but—there's other things we can do that wouldn't run no risk of knockin' you up, really, and, one day, you know, it won't be no problem and maybe, if you still wanna do more, then, we could…do it then."
Carol looked at him. There was no mistaking that her eyes were slightly red-rimmed. She'd tried to dry it up, but there had been at least a few tears shed in the short interval while Daryl had been outside smoking a cigarette and pacing tracks into the fresh snow on the porch.
"I wish Rose was yours," Carol said. "Biologically, I mean. She's yours in every way, Daryl, but if I had—some magical power? I wish she was yours. And I would—I would love to have a baby with you. Your baby. Because I know that—no matter what? You would help me. I wouldn't have to do it alone. And Rose would have someone else to grow up with…and…" She paused and shrugged her shoulders. "I would absolutely want to have your baby, Daryl."
Daryl's stomach fluttered. He laughed to himself—a nervous laugh that came from somewhere in the region of his semi-sick stomach.
"I gotta be honest, Carol," Daryl said. "I don't know—if you want to have sex with me and…hell, you're sayin' you ain't scared of us havin' another kid together sometime—why the hell do you look like you're damn near sick?"
Carol chewed at her lip.
"Because I might want to have sex with you, but I don't feel like someone you would want to have sex with," Carol said. "I feel—empty, Daryl. My stomach—my belly? It's just empty. Deflated."
"You're not empty and deflated," Daryl said. "Well—I mean—maybe you're emptier than you were, because Rose was in there for a while, but…that's not for real empty. And—if we had us another kid, you wouldn't feel that way. At least, not until after it was born, I guess—but that's bound to happen if you don't stay pregnant all the time."
She frowned at him.
"I can't explain the feeling," she said. "But—I look deflated."
"You don't," Daryl said, nearly laughing at her choice of words and the fact that she did, in fact, look a little deflated—but not at all how she imagined. She looked like her whole world had been smashed.
"I'm…squishy," Carol said.
"You're sad about—being squishy?"
She laughed. Daryl didn't expect her to laugh. He hadn't honestly meant to say anything funny, but he was glad that whatever he said—or how he said it, perhaps—struck something inside her. He was glad that, at least, he could make her laugh.
She stood up and wiped away a few tears that had clung to her lashes. After Alice had examined her, she'd only put back on the white robe she had, and she was wearing it now—her fingers toying with the knot at the belt.
"Men don't want women whose bodies are…soft and squishy," Carol said. "Men want women whose bodies are…hard and toned."
Daryl shrugged at her.
"I don't know what the hell men want, Carol. I can't speak for the whole of the species. I suppose that men want a great number of things—a lot of 'em different. Some men want blondes, others want brunettes. Some like tall women, some like short. Some like 'em skinny and some say they won't waste their time with a woman who don't have some meat on her bones. To be honest, I don't really give a damn what men want."
"But you know what you want, Daryl," Carol said. "And you know what you like. And—I'm not going to believe that your ideal woman has—has always had gray hair and a squishy body—and that's not what you should be stuck with forever."
Daryl stared at her a moment. He watched her work the string of her robe in her fingers nervously. He saw the anguish on her face—anguish he hoped, at least, he'd had no real contribution to creating.
"Is this one of them things like when Rose's hungry and your nipple's like right there at her face, but she's gotta sorta fuss about it because she's still rememberin' that she wanted it a whole two minutes earlier and didn't get it, so you gotta just—let her have that fussing for a minute? Or is this somethin' that I can actually—win?"
Carol laughed to herself.
"Are you comparing me to our newborn?" Carol asked.
"I'm just sayin' sometimes she's just gotta sit with her bein' angry or bein' sad before she's ready to let it go," Daryl said. "And I'm askin' if this is somethin' that you just gotta sit with or if…I can fix it? Because—I'll sit with you, while you sit with it, if that's what the hell you need right now."
Carol frowned sincerely and her chin quivered. Daryl closed the gap between them, without hesitation, and pulled her into a hug. As soon as his arms were around her, she buried her face against him and sobbed. He rubbed her head and held her against him, shushing her in the same way that he did Rose when she was absolutely inconsolable for a moment.
"All this—'cause you're squishy?" Daryl asked, laughing to himself, when Carol finally seemed to have cried herself out. She was clinging to him.
"It's not sexy," she protested. "And there's no way you could possibly want it."
Daryl laughed to himself. He backed off of her and mopped at her wet face with his hands. Then he caught her chin and held it.
"Listen—you right about one thing. My ideal woman ain't always been a woman with—with gray hair and a squishy body." She frowned at him. "Wait—don't'cha make that face at me. Hell—I can't even remember what the hell I thought my ideal woman was ten or twenty years ago. But I got a secret for you."
She smiled at him—just barely—through the sadness she was digesting.
"Yeah?" She asked. Daryl nodded.
"You wanna know my secret?" He asked. Her smile grew a little.
"What is it?" She asked.
"I know what the hell my idea woman is now," Daryl said. "And it's you. That's it. You, Carol. Just how the hell you are. Whatever the hell that might be. It was you when—when I first saw you at the rock quarry. It was you when you were full up with Rose. And she was a little bitty thing, and you looked like you were hidin' a honeydew. And it was you when she was big an' stretchin' out and you were sayin' you were huge and lopsided. And it's you, now, soggy as shit and cryin' about bein' squishy and gray haired."
"Asshole," Carol said, smiling as a tear rolled down her cheek. Daryl laughed to himself in response.
"I'll tell you somethin' else. If we get us one together? It'll be you through the whole damn thing again—right on past when we're talkin' about you bein' squishy."
Carol mopped her face with the sleeve of her robe.
"I love you," she said.
"Good," Daryl said. "I love you, too. But—if you ain't tryin' to talk me outta this for good? We gotta get a move on because Rose prob'ly ain't gonna give us more'n ten or twelve minutes more. Still—it's been a while, and I do believe I can pull it off…maybe with time to cuddle. A personal fuckin' best."
Carol laughed and Daryl laughed with her. It felt good. The laughter made him feel good—her laughter made him feel good. It was right.
They were married, with a newborn, and it felt like they were supposed to do this. They were supposed to laugh over her squishy body and him being too damn fast out of the gate. They were supposed to laugh at the stolen moments of time together before they got to spend more precious time with their baby girl.
"It's so romantic," Carol teased.
"We got a newborn," Daryl said. "And she don't know a damned thing about romance. But—if you'll give me a chance? I promise I'll do my damnedest to make it the best eight or nine minutes of your life."
Carol laughed again.
"I thought it was—ten or twelve?"
"Clock's tickin', woman," Daryl said. "I don't make the rules."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. She kissed him. The kiss was good enough, honestly, that Daryl could have been satisfied with just it, for a while, if that were necessary.
"Come on, then," Carol said when the kiss broke. "We better hurry up."
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AN: Y'all know that I'm a very transparent writer. We have a lot that's still meant to happen in this story, and I'm trying to get back to having this story in fairly regular rotation.
That being said, I hate to be this person, but I have to be. I have to be honest, because otherwise I'm going to keep putting off updating the story out of a developing aversion. Therefore, I have to say it, and I apologize to you lovely people who have to read it when it doesn't apply to you. It's a general feeling, though, and perspective about when you should or shouldn't say something about a story.
This goes for any of my stories, but it's particularly true for this one at the moment, in case anyone should need to be directly reminded of this. If you're feeling negative about this story, or if you're feeling that you could do it better, or you could/would write it differently, or if you're just feeling the need to nitpick to death every word choice or scene choice I make, I'm going to respectfully ask you to keep that to yourself. Please don't leave your negativity in the form of reviews, and please don't feel the need to contact me privately, or publicly, with your negativity.
I write for fun and entertainment. What I write is provided to you for free. I am not getting paid with anything but your reviews and comments, if you choose to leave them for me. This is not my full-time job. It's not how I earn my livelihood, and I don't want or need it to be a source of negativity. Furthermore, the negativity can make writing stories difficult and can cut down on production for those who actually enjoy the story for what it is—light, free entertainment. So, I ask you, respectfully, to not bring your negativity to me through any means. In fact, don't do that to any fanfic author, as a general rule.
For those of you who enjoy this story, I do hope to get back to updating it regularly. And I do thank you, immensely, for your positive reviews, comments, and support.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please don't forget to let me know what you think! (Unless, honestly, you cannot manage to say anything nice. LOL)