February 26, 2011
Gray smoke curled behind the House of the Future and mingled with Carol's cloud of breath as she said, "Thought I'd find you here. Even the cold won't keep you from your evening smoke?"
The tip of Daryl's cigarette glowed orange in the night and he exhaled again. "Be in soon."
"When you do come in, can you meet me and Hershel in the dinning room? We're going to go over the wedding ceremony, decide on the liturgy and vows and all that."
"Don't care 'bout none of that. Whatever you want's fine."
"He wants us both there. I want you there."
"A'ight. Be in soon."
When Daryl came inside, Dixon and Beth were sitting on the couch with a heavy blanket draped over themselves, Beth's head on Dixon's shoulder, and their feet up on the coffee table. They were whispering and laughing to one another but paused when he walked by. In the breakfast nook of the kitchen, a space heater glowed as T-Dog, Patricia, Glenn, and Michonne played cards. Maggie must be on watch.
The dining room was a little cooler than the living room, since they kept the thermostat a bit lower in the storage hall that led to one entrance of it, in order to save energy. Hershel had made tea to warm them however, a full pot of it, and he'd already poured a cup for himself and Carol. How long was this damn wedding planning meeting going to be?
Daryl reluctantly pulled out a chair and joined them. Carol poured him a cup of tea. He'd gotten over the shame of drinking hot tea from porcelain cups, though if Merle suddenly rose from the grave – as Merle, not as a walker – he'd quickly push the cup aside.
Hershel had a yellow legal pad and a freshly sharpened pencil on the table, and beside that a Bible – not his family one, which had gone up in the flames, but one Maggie had picked up for him on a run, the family Bible of a distant farm neighbor, someone they had known, so that the black leather cover was at least broken in, and the good book was worn with love and good memories, even if those memories belonged to someone else.
"I understand you're Catholic, Carol," Hershel said, "and my background is Southern Baptist, so what I'm used to in a ceremony might different than what you'd like to have said. So stop me as we go through it if either of you want to change anything."
Daryl slurped up a sip of his tea and wondered why he had to be here for this, but if his cooperation got him laid later tonight, he supposed it would be worth it.
"Well," Hershel said, "the ceremony begins, Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…." He rattled through the whole start.
"You know that well," Carol said. "I take it Glenn and Maggie's wedding was not the first you ever performed?"
"It was the first I ever performed," Hershel assured her, "but I've attended many a wedding in my seventy-three years. Including two of my own."
Seventy-three? No man in Daryl's family had ever lived past the age of fifty-nine. He'd always thought Merle would be the first, but he supposed he might be now, if neither walker nor bandit brought him down. Of course, as Carol kept telling him, if he didn't cut back on the cigarettes…she wasn't a nag about the smoking, but there'd been subtle hints, more than a few. And he had been trying to cut back. He smoked two or three during the day now, and one in the evening after dinner, but it was a far cry less than his old half-pack-a-day habit before the apocalypse.
"Then there's a prayer," Hershel went on.
"Let that be your words," Carol said. "Unless you have something in particular, Daryl, that you want in that prayer?"
"Pfft. Last time I prayed was now I lay me down to sleep. I was four." That wasn't quite true. He'd prayed when those bullets had gone scattering into the tower where Carol was hidden during the battle with the Governor's soldiers. Not in words, exactly, but he'd prayed.
"Does it bother you if we have a religious ceremony?" she asked.
"Nah. Hell would it bother me for? This shit means something to you, so…" He shrugged. "Let's do it."
Hershel shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair at hearing his religion called shit, but he didn't comment.
"Your opinion matters to me, Daryl," Carol assured him. "That's why you're here."
"I'll let you know when I have one, then," he said.
"After the prayer is traditionally the giving away," Hershel continued somewhat warily, "but I assume we'll be skipping that part?"
Carol nodded and Daryl squeezed a honey straw into his tea and stirred before taking another loud slurp.
"Then there's usually a scripture reading," Hershel said. "1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 is often popular."
"I like that one," Carol said. Turning to Daryl, she said, "Love is patient, love is kind…"
"Yeah, yeah. Know that one," Daryl said. "Did it at Glenn and Maggie's wedding. 'S fine with me."
"Or if you want something different than what I read at Glenn and Maggie's wedding – "
"- 'S fine." Daryl didn't want this meeting to last forever. He had bolts to clean and sharpen tonight – he'd gotten a white tail deer today, finally.
"Daryl," Carol said in that cool way she said his name when she was annoyed. "Could I hear out his other suggestion please?"
Daryl tilted his head in a go-on gesture.
"This one when read is often said as an echo together by the couple," Hershel said. "I'd read a line, and you'd repeat it to one another. It's from the Book of Ruth."
Daryl looked up from his teacup. He and Carol had talked about the Book of Ruth that night he'd offered her a massage and froze in mid rub when he realized just how goddamn beautiful she was. "That part where Ruth asks Boaz to fuck 'er?" Daryl asked.
"Pardon?" asked Hershel, raising a bushy white eyebrow.
"She lies down on the threshin' floor with 'em, at his feet, says throw your cloak over me."
"I'm surprised you're familiar with the passage," Hershel admitted. "But that was a proposal of marriage, not a request to copulate."
"Pffft. Yeah. You keep tellin' yourself that." Daryl lifted his tea and slurped the last honey-sweet bit of it out of his cup.
Carol gave him a look that implied he was not being as cooperative as she would like.
"And, no it's not that part," Herself continued. "It's actually an exchange between Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi."
"For a weddin'?" Daryl asked skeptically.
"Ruth was a foreigner. A Moabite. Not a woman who would fit well in Judah among Naomi's people," Hershel explained. "She'd be out of place there. But when Moab was struck with famine, and Naomi's husband died and her sons – including Ruth's husband – died – when their world was up-ended, much as our own has been, Naomi wanted to make a home in Judah. But she had nothing to offer her daughters-in-law, so she told them to let her journey on alone, to turn back and find husbands in Moab. Orpah did turn back. But not Ruth. Ruth, in her loyalty to her mother-in-law, said these words - "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. And where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God."
Daryl fingered the handle of the teacup and swallowed. Those words hit him for some reason he couldn't explain, maybe because that's what he'd done with Carol – gone where she'd gone, stayed where she stayed, and these people in this house had become their people. He'd found a home in a foreign land among people who had once been strangers to him but were now family, and he'd found it with Carol. "Think that'd be a'ight," he said.
"I like it," Carol agreed quietly. "A lot."
"Only thing…not sure about the your God, my God part." Daryl peered over the table at Carol. "I mean, if we're actually saying these words to each other. Respect your faith. Respect that it's important to you. But I can't promise to…you know…believe it myself."
Carol nodded. "I understand."
"Well," Hershel suggested. "There's two ways we can handle that. We can just omit those words and end with your people will be my people. Or we can leave them in and, Daryl, you can reinterpret them as you see fit. We make gods of so many things, not all of them good. Gods of our addictions – I've been there. Gods of money and gods of our own anger and resentment. Gods of our old wounds that we allow to bind us. But if you two agree on the values you aspire to – the things you want for each other and for Sophia – love, forgiveness, affection, safety, a future you're building together – then those are in a sense your gods. And so you share the same God. And you would be pledging to pursue those shared values together."
"What do you think?" Carol asked Daryl.
"If that's what it means when I say it. I'm a'ight sayin' it."
"We could cut it if you want," she assured him.
"Kind of throw off the rhythm though," Daryl murmured. "Kind of like the way it sounds."
Carol smiled. "So…we leave it in?"
"Leave it in," Daryl agreed.
Hershel made a note on his legal pad. "After the Scripture Reading – or echo in this case, there's traditionally a brief message."
"Brief," Daryl emphasized.
"Under five minutes," Hershel assured him. "And that would be my own words, unless y'all have any objections."
Carol shook her head and Daryl said, "Nah."
"Then you join hands, and there is the exchange of vows. Now you can use the traditional vows, or you can write your – "
"-Traditional!" Daryl exclaimed. He didn't want to be expected to write any vows. "I ain't 'zactly Shakespeare over here."
"Carol?"
Carol smiled. She looked like she was about to tease him by demanding he write her poetic vows, but she spared him. "I'm fine with the traditional vows."
"Well, most women like to change one part," Hershel said. "I know Maggie did. It's where the woman promises to love, honor, and obey."
"Pffft. Be like tryin' to get a wild stallion to obey."
Carol smiled. "Let's change that to cherish, why don't we?"
"Then there's the exchange of rings, or, just the one ring I suppose," Hershel said. "Since you got that tattoo." Daryl hadn't been able to hide it around the house. Sophia was the first to notice. "Then if you like, you can light a unity candle, though that's not necessary."
"Let's skip the candle," Daryl said. It sounded like this wedding was going to be long enough already.
"I thought you didn't have any opinions?" Carol teased.
"Said I'd tell you when I had one."
"I'm fine with skipping the unity candle," she agreed.
"Then there's the presentation of the bride and groom, and off you go."
"Good." Daryl pushed back the chair. "We done?"
"I suppose we're done," Hershel said. "Shortest wedding planning meeting I've ever had."
"I thought you only had one?" Carol asked. "With Glenn and Maggie?"
"And two for my own weddings." He sighed. "Those took hours."
March 1, 2011
Gavin unlocked the door of the harem, and the wives snapped to attention when he entered. Frankie set aside a book she was reading. Tanya and Amber and another woman stopped playing cards and Tanya rose and came over to him with a raised eyebrow.
"Negan wants me to reward myself again," he told his sister. "Because I found another community."
"Where?"
"Alexandria. I followed a gay couple back there."
"Gay couple?" Tanya asked.
"Two men. They were kissing, so…I assumed. They were out on a supply run or something. I checked the place out from a distance. Big houses, looks like it has its own solar grid and sewage system, wells, a windmill, gardens, a pond…thirty or forty people, maybe. And they have no security. There was a rifle in this church bell tower outside the gates, but there wasn't even anyone manning it. No guards on their fence. Nothing."
"Are they idiots?"
Gavin shrugged. "It's a wonder they've survived this long. Anyway, Negan's thrilled by the description. He's going himself to initiate collections tomorrow. And then he's going to put Jed in charge of an outpost near there."
"Jed? Negan didn't offer it to you? Even though you found it?"
"He did offer it to me. I said I'd rather stick with the Kingdom. I know Ezekiel now. He's a man I can work with. Our deal's predictable. It's easy. Low risk. And I don't ever have to hurt anyone."
Tanya glanced back at the wives. "So who's your pleasure?"
"Frankie."
"Again?"
"She knows the drill. Knows I'm not going to expect anything from her." And sometimes he got good information from her.
"And you like her. Be careful, Gavin. Negan's a jealous man. You choose her too many times, and he'll get suspicious."
Gavin walked Frankie back to his old room, which was occupied by one of Negan's in-Sanctuary captains, Wade, when Gavin was at the Chemical Plant Outpost, but Wade had been kicked out tonight.
"What stinks in here?" Frankie asked.
"Wade," Gavin said. "I think he forgets to turn in his laundry. At least I picked up the place for you. He had shit all over."
She settled on the love seat. "Please tell me you have booze."
"Why'd you agree to become his wife if you have to keep yourself drunk the whole time to tolerate it?"
"Why'd you agree to become his lieutenant when you don't agree with half of what he does, and you have to bite your tongue raw around him?"
Gavin didn't answer.
"We both prefer the easy route, don't we?" Frankie asked.
"There's nothing easy about any of this. You choose the rock, or you choose the hard place." Gavin poured her some whiskey and handed her the glass and sat down beside her. "I heard rumors the scouts spied Shane Walsh out on the roadways," he said. "Twice. But he evaded them, so they don't know where he was going. Negan say anything about that to you?"
"No, but Gary did. He said he thinks Walsh and Jesus have been successfully scavenging and that the Hilltop is holding out on us. They keep giving fifty percent of what they claim to have…but he thinks they have more. So he did a search of the whole place last week…the mansion, the trailers, every root cellar, the basement, the outbuildings…every nook and cranny….but there was nothing there they hadn't accounted for."
"When did you talk to Gary?"
She didn't reply. She brushed her fiery ginger hair from her brow and then sipped her whiskey in silence.
"Did Negan reward him with you?"
"You sound jealous," Frankie said. "You think you're the only lieutenant who ever chooses me?"
Gavin gritted his teeth. Gary probably didn't take the couch and let her have the bed, either. He probably took his reward. Gavin didn't want to think about it. "I heard you took in some new people four days ago?"
"A group of three," Frankie replied. "A man named Dwight, his wife Sherry, and her sister Tina. I can tell Negan already has his eyes on Sherry, and I bet you a dollar and a donut he'll have added her to the harem within six months."
Gavin gave her a wary look. "What's he got on her husband?"
"Nothing. Dwight's been working his ass off in the yard. And Sherry's been working in the market as a breadmaker. But Tina needs medicine. And it's damn expensive. I don't see them keeping it up forever. They'll fall behind on points eventually. And a wife earns three times the points of a breadmaker." She gave him a cool look. "Just like a lieutenant."
"I'm just trying to survive here while hurting as few people as possible, Frankie."
"So am I. We're more alike than you want to believe."
Gavin stood and went to the closet to take an extra pillow and blanket down from the shelf. He dropped them on the end of the couch. "I'll sleep here. You can have the bed again."
She patted the loveseat beside herself. "Let's watch a movie first. I don't sleep easily. And Wade said he found a portable DVD player. I think that's it on top of the microwave."
Gavin looked warily at the spot she'd patted. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with her, it was just that it was dangerous. Because if he spent time with her, he might start to like her even more than he already did. And it was not a good idea to fall for the boss's wife, even when – maybe especially when, the boss made the occasional gift of her. "It's been a long day," Gavin told her. "I was casing Alexandria on foot for hours, and then I had to drive all the way back here to tell Negan. And I need to be back to my outpost tomorrow. It's going to be an early morning."
"Please. I don't sleep well when I'm left alone with my thoughts. I could use the distraction."
"You can take the DVD player in the bedroom."
"I could use the company." She looked up at him, a strange loneliness in her unusual, gray eyes. "I think you could, too."
Gavin nodded. He got the DVD player and set it on the coffee table, refilled her whiskey glass, and then poured himself a glass, too, before sifting through Wade's DVDs, which were stacked haphazardly beside the microwave. "All he has is porn. And Police Academy. All six of them."
"Then we'll start with number one."
Gavin put Police Academy in the player, pressed play, and sat down on the loveseat with a heavy sigh as the FBI warning appeared on the screen.
March 5, 2011
Carol had stayed home for this trade trip. She was working on tailoring the dresses and tuxedos for the wedding. Daryl brought Sophia, Hershel, Michonne, and Luke this time. Hershel was off talking shop with Woodbury's veterinarian, Michonne was negotiating the trades with Milton, Luke had run straight into a kickball game with a bunch of kids aged seven to eleven, and Sophia was also already off with her friends.
Daryl was heading to the Sheriff's Department Office to pop in and tell Rick they were here when Tom the Head Electrician stepped out of the bookstore with a book in his hand, looked startled, took a step back, hit the knob of the closed door, and dropped his book. "Hey…Daryl."
"Hey," replied Daryl, wondering what was making the man so jumpy.
Tom scooped up his fallen book, looking as cautious as a man picking up the dropped soap in a prison shower. "Listen, I'm sorry," he said when he was standing straight again. "Just so you know, I wasn't aware you were engaged."
"A'right." Daryl had no idea why the man would be apologizing to him for that. It's not liked they'd gone around announcing it through a megaphone across Woodbury, or like they'd sent out engagement announcements.
"When I asked, I didn't know," Tom insisted. "Now that I know, you know, I would never - "
"- Asked what?"
"Asked…" Tom fell silent and looked like a kid who's just realized he's stepped in shit. He swallowed. "Carol didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Tom's brown eyes darted left and then right like he was looking for some kind of an escape path. "Uh…about me asking her on a date."
"You asked my fiancé on a date?" Daryl looked him up and down through narrowed eyes.
The electrician swallowed. "Like I said, I didn't know you were engaged. I didn't even know you were together at all! She said no, of course, told me you two were engaged, and that was that." He held up two hands, one still bent over the book. "I swear. Nothing more happened."
"What more do you think should have happened?" Daryl asked.
"Nothing. Nothing should have happened. Nothing did happen."
"Mhmhm. 'Course not." Daryl looked at how far the man had pushed himself back against the door and chuckled. "'Course nothin' happened."
"So…we're cool then. You and me?"
"Yeah. Cool as a couple of cucumbers, Tom." Daryl chuckled, patted him hard on his shoulder – maybe a little extra hard – and walked on to the Sherriff's Department.
March 6, 2011
Carol snuggled up and rested her head on Daryl's shoulder after sex. Candlelight faintly bathed the room. She found she liked Daryl's obsession with conserving power because it meant more romantic evenings. The shadowy light from the black iron candelabra on the nightstand flickered across Daryl's bare chest and the sheet they'd pulled to their waists. "That was nice," she murmured.
"Nice?" he asked.
"Very nice. I missed you. How'd the trade trip go?"
"Well, Luke made about six new friends and got kissed on the cheek by a little girl. Hershel vaccinated the goats for entertox – some shit I can't pronounce - with those vaccine me and Dixon raided from that veterinary clinic. Michonne went on a double date with Dr. S and Jocelyn and Morgan. Soph played about six hours of D&D and got taken to the movies by three boys again."
"Patrick, Carl, and Duane?"
"Yep. The Birds."
"Oh," Carol said. "Did it scare her?"
"That a serious question? She's killed six walkers now."
"Yeah. I suppose an old Hitchcock horror movie probably doesn't have quite the affect it once would have. Did you go see it?"
"Well, I was hopin' Tom the Head Electrician would ask me for a date to the movies, but apparently he's all asked out."
"What?" Carol asked. Then with dawning realization: "Oh. Ohhhhh…."
"You forget to tell me somethin' 'bout your last little trade trip?"
"I did forget to tell you, Pookie." Carol pulled back, looked down at him, and pouted apologetically. "How'd you find out?"
"He apologized."
"Apologized?"
"Yeah. Seemed to think I knew and I was 'bout to kill him."
Carol chuckled. "Poor Tom."
"Poor Tom? Poor me! Didn't know what the hell he was talkin' 'bout when he started in on it."
Carol was laughing now. "Oh, what I wouldn't have paid to see that exchange. You didn't hit him, did you?"
"No! 'Course not. Could of blown on him and he would have fallen over. 'Sides, wasn't like he was tryin' to steal you from me. Said he didn't know we was together at all. Though I don't know why he thought I was always with you, then."
"He thought you were my bodyguard," Carol spluttered and then rolled on her back laughing.
"Yeah, yuck it up over there, Miss Murphy. Get your laugh on." She did for a moment, and when her laughter tapered off, he asked, "Hell you didn't tell me for?"
She rolled on her side again and lay a hand on his bare chest. "I'm sorry, Pookie. I would have. I just completely forgot about it. It was really a non-issue with me. It wasn't even a blip on my radar."
"Yeah, well, you're apparently a blip on his radar. A big ass blip."
"Don't call my ass big."
"Didn't. Like your ass." He slid his hand down from the small of her back and squeezed a bare cheek. "That ass is prefect."
"Poor Tom. He must have been walking around for two weeks, thinking about that date he asked me on and thinking about what he was going to do when you confronted him about it." She started laughing again.
It was a bit contagious. Daryl laughed, too. "Dropped his books when he saw me."
"Poor Tom."
"Need to get him a girlfriend," Daryl agreed. He rolled over on top of Carol, pinned her to the bed, and nipped playfully at her neck, growling, "Just not mine."