A/N: A Christmas chapter for Easter day. Okay, my timing is a bit off. Thank you for all the comments!
December 25
On Christmas morning, Carol awoke to the sound of Andre shouting, "It's time to get up!" and Michonne shushing him. It was still dark.
Daryl opened one eye. "Hell time is it?"
Carol rolled over and looked at the glowing numbers on the battery-operated clock. 6:15 AM.
"'Least wait until sunrise!" Daryl yelled and closed his eyes. But fifteen minutes later he was getting up and getting dressed anyway. "Might as well put the coffee on."
By 6:45, everyone was awake and the whole house was gathered in the living room, with the Christmas tree lights plugged in, the faux fireplace pumping heat lightly from its vents, and Andre in his footy, red, green-crown-checkered pajamas bouncing on his knees before the pile of presents beneath the tree.
Dixon settled in the armchair with his leg stretched out and his wrapped ankle resting on the coffee table, and Beth sat on his lap, which caused Hershel to raise an eyebrow, but he didn't comment. Hershel, T-Dog, and Patricia settled on the couch, and T-Dog stretched his arm out behind Patricia's shoulders but didn't settle it down on them. Maggie and Glenn brought in wooden chairs from the kitchen for everyone else, though Daryl stood with his arm slung across the mantle instead.
The gift opening began. Almost everything for the kids came from the gift shops, but that didn't stop them from excitedly dumping their stockings or tearing through the presents and letting out gleeful chirps of "Thank you! Thank you!"
Max and Daisy growled playfully and chased the discarded red, gold, and silver wrapping paper whenever a child would fling it aside. The dogs tore the paper into shreds, and Michonne said, "You kids are cleaning all that up later."
One thing not from the gift shops was Sophia's beaver fur cap from Daryl, which she turned over in her hands with a look of confusion. "Is it…a stuffed animal?"
"It's a hat!" Daryl said.
"Ohhhh!" Sophia situated the hat on her head, with the flattened beaver tail hanging down in back. "It's kind of heavy," she said.
Daryl shot Carol a what the hell? look and she said, "I told Daryl you wanted one because of your fascination with Davy Crockett."
"That was in like fourth grade, Mom. And Davy Crockett wore a coon skin cap." Sophia looked at Daryl. "But thank you! It's really warm!"
As the gift opening continued, Daryl meander from the mantle over to Carol's chair, put a hand on the back, and muttered, "Steered me wrong on that one."
"I really thought she'd like it," Carol whispered back.
The Grimes family and Andrea had wrapped up gifts from the Woodbury stationary store for everyone over eleven – fountain pens, envelopes, writing paper, and journals. For the younger ones there were picture books.
Mika now looked behind the tree at something standing against the wall, rolled tightly, and tied sloppily with thick red ribbons. "Daryl got something for all of us!"
Luke ran to where she was standing and helped her drag it out from behind the tree, which they nearly knocked over in the process. The dogs barked and ran in excited circles around the kids as they lowered the roll to the floor. Luke and Mika and now Andre excitedly tore at the ribbons.
"Calm down, calm down," Sophia scolded them like a mother hen. "You're making the knots worse. Let me untie them." Soon, the ribbons were untied and the kids had rolled out the bear skin rug.
Daryl prepared himself for another lackluster reaction, like Sophia had to the beaver fur hat, but instead Andre let out a squeal of delight and beat his feet up and down, and Luke said, "Cool! It's still got it's head on!" and Mika stroked the fur, saying, "It's so so soft!" Sophia, telling the kids to stand back, insisted, "This goes right in front of the fireplace!" And when it was there, the dogs claimed it like a throne.
Carol craned back her neck and smiled up at Daryl. "You did good, Pookie," she said.
"Ain't never given Christmas gifts before," he admitted.
"Never?" Beth, overhearing, asked in shock.
Dixon rested his hand on her hip. "But you got them right? When you were a kid?"
"Yeah. Sort of. Some years my folks would wrap up shit I already had and give it to me again."
"Are you serious?" Dixon asked.
"Got a hubcap once, though, from my pa. That was new. Mean, new to me."
"For like…" Beth furrowed her brow in confusion, "to go with a car he bought you when you turned sixteen?"
Daryl snorted. "Did Hershel buy you a car when you turned sixteen?"
"No, he gave me a horse."
"My mom got me that red motorcycle for my birthday," Dixon told her. Then, turning his attention to Daryl, "So…your dad just gave you…a hubcap?"
"Probably stole it off someone's car when he was drunk. We all got 'em that year. Me. Mama. Merle. I was five. My mama used hers for a serving tray when she was feeling fancy."
Mika, who had been playing Santa by distributing the presents, now walked up to Beth and handed her a gift. Beth looked at the tag and smiled. "To Beth, From Dixon," she read. "Is it okay to open in mixed company?" she teased.
Dixon smiled, and Hershel glowered.
Beth unwrapped the paper, pulled out a silver picture frame, and gasped. "How! Where! Dixon, how did you get this?"
Maggie crept over to look at the silver frame, and then she gasped, too.
"What is it?" Hershel asked.
Beth, still looking stunned, handed the frame to her father. Hershel took the frame in his hand and swallowed hard. He ran his fingertips over the glass covering the photo inside. "It's a family photo," he explained to those who hadn't seen it. "Of my wife Annette and my stepson Shawn."
"That was your mother and your older half-brother, right?" Dixon asked Beth.
Beth nodded. She reached out for the photo that Hershel handed back to her. "But how did you get it?"
"The day before yesterday, when I said T-Dog and Glenn and I were doing a security check of the nearby roads…we were actually going back to the farm to see if the herd had passed. It had, most of it. We killed about ten that were still lingering."
"You were killing walkers on crutches?" Beth exclaimed.
"Well, Glenn and T-Dog did most of the shooting. I shot one. There weren't that many. We would have turned around if the herd was still there."
"We didn't tell you," Glenn said to Maggie, "because we didn't want you to have to see the farm like that. There wasn't much still standing. The house, barns, and stables…" He shook his head. "They're all ashes and char. The animals…picked over."
"But somehow," Dixon added, "that picture survived the wreckage…like a miracle, almost. And that's not all." He glanced at T-Dog.
"Mika," T-Dog said, "can you bring the gift from me to Patricia?"
Patricia sat forward on the couch and put a hand to her heart as Mika poked around beneath the tree and brought back something. Patricia opened the package to reveal a wood jewelry box likely taken from a gift shop, but it wasn't gift shop jewelry inside. She pulled out a silver locket and gasped.
"The dresser was in ashes," T-Dog said, "and the metal case you kept that in was charred black. But the necklace survived. I thought it must be valuable if you had it in a case like that. I assumed it was yours because of the name engraved on the back. I mean, it's your last name, but Emily was the first name?"
Patricia swallowed and, her voice a little hoarse, said, "Emily was my daughter. This is a locket of her hair. She died in infancy, ten years ago. SIDS." She wiped a tear from her eye with her thumb, and T-Dog finally let his arm fall around her shoulders.
He hugged her against his side. "Sorry. I didn't realize – "
"Thank you!" Patricia cried and turned and hugged him tightly. She kissed his cheek softly, and he grinned. Patricia began to put the necklace on, and T-Dog helped her to fasten it.
"Mika," Glenn said. "Get the one for Maggie." He turned to Maggie, who had sat back down in the wooden chair next to his. "It's not sentimental like the others. Sorry. It's just practical. But it survived, and so I thought you might want it."
Maggie carefully opened the wrapping paper on the box Mika gave her as though she planned to save the paper for reuse. Then she opened the carboard box and pulled out an stirrup iron with her initials etched on it. "Oh, Glenn." Maggie exhaled until she'd steadied her emotions. "You were wrong. It is sentimental."
"It is?" Glenn asked hopefully, as though he didn't want to be outdone by the other men.
Maggie swallowed and nodded. "My mother gave me this to me when I was twelve." She glanced at Hershel. "Daddy's first wife. The month before she died. It's too small for my foot now. But I've kept it ever since." She wrapped her arms around Glenn's neck and kissed him warmly on the lips. He was grinning when she pulled away.
"We also checked the root cellar," T-Dog said. "The fire burned the door off it, but a lot of the stuff inside was still good."
"The pears were rotten," Glenn explained. "But we got out a lot of onions, kale, garlic, carrots, broccoli, and apples. We put them all down in the park's root cellar with that deer Daryl's got hanging there. And the jarred stuff that was down there – the preserves – are in the warehouse now."
"Boo-ya!" Daryl shouted. "Merry Christmas to us!"
"I'm making a huge salad to go with Christmas dinner tonight," Carol insisted. "And a fresh apple pie."
"We may need to pickle and jar some of those vegetables before they go bad," Hershel said. "Since we also got that crate of vegetables from Woodbury."
Mika now handed Dixon a present.
"It's going to seem really stupid after what you got me," Beth said with an apologetic frown.
"I'm sure I'll love it." Dixon opened his box to reveal a knitted black and red scarf.
"It's not from a gift shop," Beth hastened to explain. "Patricia's been teaching me to knit. And there's all that yarn in the Craft Corner in Kids' Kingdom. I just thought…you'd get cold riding your bike in winter."
"It's cool," Dixon reassured her. He wrapped the scarf and flicked the black fringes on the end. "The fringes are bad ass."
Beth chuckled. "You don't really think so."
"It's an awesome scarf. Soft, too."
"I made it red and black to match your racing jacket," Beth told him.
"But…" Dixon smiled. "You wear my racing jacket now."
"But then we'll match when we ride together. And you've got that black leather jacket from the gift shop, so it'll match that, too." Dixon had picked a jacket from the same store from which Daryl had snagged his angel wings vest. His jacket also had a picture stitched on the back in white thread – a sword and shield. Beth adjusted the scarf around his neck and patted his chest. "I think you look very handsome."
"That's all the presents!" Luke announced as he looked under the tree.
"Nah. Think there might be one more," Daryl said. "Thought I saw one more." He and Carol had talked about this. It was Carol's gift, but it was going to be Sophia's Christmas surprise.
"Nope!" Luke insisted.
Mika crawled under the tree and found the small box between the legs of the tree stand and crawled back out from under it. "You make a terrible Santa," she told Luke and then turned the little box to read it. "Who's Miss Murphy?"
Carol chuckled. "It's for me."
Mika brought it over and Carol looked at the box. "From Daryl," Carol read. "I wonder what this could be?" She held the box next to her ear and shook it. "Maybe a really good Dungeons and Dragons twelve-sided die," she speculated.
Daryl, smirking, came out from behind her chair to watch her open it. Carol caught his eye and smiled. She unwrapped the paper to expose a jewelry box. "Jewelry?" she said. "I wasn't expecting that."
She lifted the top of the box to reveal the wooden band nestled inside and then let out a fake, surprised gasp. She covered her mouth in pretend shock.
"Is that a wedding ring?" Michonne asked.
Sophia looked at Michonne in open-mouthed surprise. "Is it?"
Daryl got down on one knee in front of Carol, and still smirking a little from the show they'd both known would happen, asked, "Carol Murphy, will you marry me and make me the happiest man alive?"
"Yes!" Sophia shouted. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Mama, say yes!"
Carol hid her laugh at Sophia's reaction behind her hand as Daryl's grin grew wide. When Carol had gotten control of her expression, she lowered her hand and nodded solemnly. "Yes, Daryl Dixon," she said. "I'll marry you."
"Yes!" Sophia clapped with every yes. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Andre, with no idea what was going on, jumped up and down in imitation of her excitement. "Yes!" he said. He squeezed his little fist into a ball and pumped it. "Yeeeees!"
Now Carol was laughing and Daryl was sliding the sturdy wooden band onto her finger.
"What just happened here?" T-Dog asked.
"You didn't get down on one knee for me," Maggie complained to Glenn.
"There was a puddle!" Glenn replied defensively.
"Is that an engagement ring or a wedding ring?" Dixon asked as Daryl stood from his kneeling position.
"Both," said Carol as she held up her hand for all to see. "I'll take it off and he can put it back on again at the ceremony. We'd be honored, Hershel, if you would marry us. You did such a lovely job with Glenn and Maggie's wedding."
Hershel nodded. "I'd be honored to."
Sophia walked over and seized Carol's hand to look at the ring. "Awww….it has the same kind of flower as on your knife." She let go of her mother's hand and threw herself at Daryl and hugged him. He was momentarily surprised, but then hugged back.
Sophia looked up at him. "Does this mean I can call you Dad now?"
Daryl's mouth fell open slightly and then shut. He swallowed. "Yeah," he said, trying to sound casual, but his heart was thudding with a powerful affection for this girl coupled with a fear of not living up to the name of dad. "Yeah, sure, 'course. Whatever ya want to call me. 'S all good." He caught Carol's eye. She'd been so right about what this would mean to Sophia.
Carol smiled at him.
"I call dibs on flower girl this time!" Mika insisted. "Andre can be the ring bearer."
"I would not trust Andre with a ring," Michonne said. "But maybe you can both be flower…kids."
"I guess I could play the wedding march again," Sophia said as she drew away from Daryl.
"Oh, no, sweetie," Carol told her. "You're going to be my maid of honor."
"I am?" Sophia asked excitedly. "Can I wear a dress?"
"Of course," Carol told her. "If you can find one."
"There's a shop in Kingdoms of South America that has a really cute one." She frowned. "But it's short sleeve. And it's winter."
"We'll have a spring wedding," Carol suggested. She looked at Daryl. "First day of spring. March 20?"
Daryl nodded.
Sophia gave her mother a hug. "I'm so happy for you!"
Beth slid off of Dixon's lap to come admire the ring, and soon Carol was showing it off to all the women. Daryl slipped away from the gaggle.
"Congratulations, man," Glenn said, standing from his chair and walking over the mantle where Daryl had retreated. "Welcome to the club." He held out his hand, and Daryl shook it.
T-Dog stood. "This calls for champagne!"
"Nobody cracked out the champagne when I announced my engagement!" Glenn cried.
"Well, you did announce it the same day we were attacked and had to kill seven men," T-Dog replied. "It wasn't exactly Christmas-timing. It should already be pretty much chilled." T-Dog began to head through the living room and down the hall. "Daryl keeps the heat in the armory and storage hall set at only forty-five degrees."
"Gun powder don't get cold at night!" Daryl called after T-Dog as he disappeared. "Long as it don't freeze, it's fine."
"I'll get the crystal flutes." Patricia headed for the dining room hutch. Michonne and Maggie followed to help her. They returned and set the flutes on the island counter. T-Dog was not far behind with a bottle of champagne. There had been four among the wine looted from the rich man's wine cellar.
"Does no one think 7:30 in the morning is a little early for champagne?" Glenn asked.
"Could get the Sunny D out and make mimosas," Daryl suggested.
"I don't know what kind of redneck mimosas you grew up drinking out of your hubcaps," T-Dog told him as he set the bottle down on the counter. "But I'll stick with just the champagne."
"We do have several ten-ounce bottles of orange juice left," Carol suggested. "From that breakfast café. It's not fresh squeezed, but it's not Sunny D either. We've only got another three months on those, probably. Might as well crack a few out. I wouldn't mind having a Christmas mimosa. And there's not enough in that bottle for us all to have full glasses of champagne."
"I'll get them," Maggie volunteered, and Patricia followed to help.
Hershel stood from the couch. "Make my mimosa all orange juice, please."
"Mine too, because I've never had a drink of course," Beth said innocently while smiling at Dixon, who was still sitting in the chair.
Dixon stood, grabbed his crutches, and made his way over toward the kitchen bar. "I'll take a little champagne in mine." Hershel gave him a wary look. "Just a tiny bit," Dixon clarified. "Because I don't really drink. Much."
"Can I have a little champagne, too, Dad?" Sophia asked.
That Dad sent a nervous flutter through him. "Yeah. Sure. Course!" Then he looked at Carol, realizing that might be one of those parenting things they were supposed to discuss first. "I mean if your mama agrees."
Carol smiled. "I think an ounce or two in your flute would be fine."
The cork popped and smoky mist curled out of the neck of the bottle. T-Dog raised the bottle as it spilled over ever so slightly. He began pouring.
Michonne poured the flutes for the kids, Beth, and Hershel full of orange juice. The rest were filled half and half with champagne and orange juice, except Sophia's, which was two-thirds orange juice. That entirely drained the bottle.
As Glenn took a flute, he said, "I still can't believe Daryl gets champagne for getting engaged and I didn't."
"We had wine the night of your wedding," Michonne reassured him.
"We have wine three times a week!"
Maggie put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. Getting engaged is probably a bigger accomplishment for Daryl. He had farther to come."
Glenn chuckled.
"Hell's that mean!" Daryl growled.
"At least you didn't make her a ring out one of those tabs from a beer can," Glenn said.
Daryl glowered, but then he made a closed-lip chuckle. "That's how Merle proposed to Dixie."
Dixon leaned forward on his crutches. "Really? And my mom said yes to that?"
Daryl shrugged.
Soon everyone was holding a flute. "To the happy couple," T-Dog said, "and to a long, safe future behind the fences of Fun Kingdom!"
Glasses were clinked as the lights twinkled from the Christmas tree.