AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"Listen—last thing I wanna do is sound like I'm tryin'a drive everything or like I'ma be some kinda repeat of Rick," Daryl said. "I don't have any idea where we wanna go or where we oughta go. As far as I know, we can go anywhere we want on the whole damn continent and that's a lotta space. Like I said at breakfast, we just about learned that there ain't no government left, so it don't make sense to go lookin' for it or thinkin' that they set up some kinda government oasis for us that we just gonna waltz right into to start livin' the big life. Where we go, in my opinion, is up to us."
"I agree with that," T-Dog said. "And higher populations then means more Walkers now. So it's not a smart move to go toward anywhere we know was too overpopulated before it all went to shit. That's another reason not to go looking for some government handout that's not going to be there—especially when it'll lead us to some capital city overrun with Walkers."
"If we go that way, we're lookin' for trouble," Daryl agreed. "My point, though, is that I don't wanna demand that we go anywhere or do nothin' specific, but—I do have to make sure we're on the same page about a few things if we're all gonna travel together."
"Go ahead," T-Dog urged. There was nothing in his voice nor his expression that said he was worried or offended.
Carol was working on their laundry, as she'd suggested she might if they were to stay there for a days. Daryl and T-Dog were bringing back every fallen limb and downed tree that they could find in the wooded area for fires before they resorted to chopping down anything living. The wood would keep them warm in the house at night, it would provide her fuel for her cooking fires, it would provide them with warm bathwater, but it would also keep Carol from doing laundry by hand in the almost freezing well water that they pumped out of the ground.
"We need somewhere we can stay for the winter," Daryl said. "Where it is—I guess it don't really matter all that much as long as it's safe. We'll need fences. Somewhere we can hope to get a lil' bit of meat stored up ahead of time would be good. Smoke some of it. Stock up on what we need. We don't wanna move around too much once the cold really starts to set in 'cause we don't wanna risk some of them stretches where we can't find nothin'. Don't wanna end up doin' without. And we wanna pick it with enough time to get it set up and make sure it's gonna have what we need before that cold does set in."
"Before the baby comes, too," T-Dog added. Daryl swallowed and nodded.
"Didn't wanna mention it. You know, in case you got a bad taste in your mouth for kids comin' into the world these days," Daryl said.
"The kids haven't done anything," T-Dog responded. "They're not responsible for what their parents do. Besides—I didn't even know Carol was pregnant until last night, and I wouldn't have known it then if she wasn't so..." he stopped and gestured so that Daryl understood, perfectly, what he was trying to say.
"Yeah," he agreed with a laugh. "I know. Kinda obvious. Once you see it, you can't believe you didn't see it. Like—I think I'm pretty observant but..."
"How long have you known?" T-Dog asked.
"Day longer'n you," Daryl said. "That's all. And it was an accident. She'da kept hidin' it if she could. Just so happened we was sleepin' in that den together an' she didn't wanna try to sleep all bundled up in everything she was usin' for camouflage. I told her I wouldn't look..."
"But you looked," T-Dog said, some amusement slipping across his features as he bent down to pick up a stick and return to the gathering that they were supposed to be doing as they continued to carry wood back to the house.
"Didn't mean to look," Daryl said. "Just—sorta happened. Weren't a lot to look at while I was just sittin' there." T-Dog hummed, but he didn't really say anything and Daryl wasn't entirely certain how to interpret his hum. "Anyway—that's when I found out."
"I shouldn't have said what I said about being sick of pregnant women," T-Dog said. "I didn't mean it. I mean—I meant it, but I didn't mean Carol. Hell, I didn't even know she was pregnant."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"You're sick to death of pregnant women that's gotta remind you they pregnant every five minutes in case you forgot. They pregnant so—they get the best of the food, and all of your food. They get the best beds, and every night. They don't take watch ever 'cause they gotta sleep and they don't take no kinda guard 'cause they gotta be careful, and they walk in the middle of the crowd so you get eat first if a Walker comes up. The kind that—gets all the water and don't carry their own shit and...no matter what, you gotta remember, at all times, that they pregnant."
"But when you say it like that, man, it kinda makes me feel like an asshole that I was pissed off at Lori for wanting those things. I mean—aren't those the kind of things that a pregnant woman ought to have? Food, water, rest, protection...?"
Daryl hummed.
"I don't think none of us ever wanted to deny her that," Daryl said. "I don't think we wanted to deny her none of it. I think it was more the way it was done. Like it was expected. Not like it was appreciated. Hell—I'da never let her go hungry if I coulda helped it, but there was a difference in goin' hungry an' always gettin' the most an' the best. I don't want no pregnant woman to starve, but it don't do her no damn good if we all starve to death tryin' to keep her alive."
"You won't get any argument out of me," T-Dog said. "But—I don't think Carol expects us to starve to death." He laughed to himself. "At least I hope not since she's cooking our food."
"She'd rather starve to death herself than ask you for food," Daryl said. "I get pissed every time I think about how much food Rick took out her mouth to feed Lori—Lori's kid—an' we didn't even know he was takin' it right away from Carol's kid when...when she done...ya know...lost a kid."
T-Dog nodded his head. He looked solemn, though, for a moment.
"Look—I know I said what I said about being sick of Lori, but now that I know? I'm not gonna let Carol go hungry. Not if I can help it."
"She ain't gonna go hungry if I can help it," Daryl echoed. "If we can help it. But—she ain't gonna ask for nothin' neither. That's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about. Findin' a place. She ain't gonna say it, but we oughta find some place for the kid to come. For us to hole up durin' the winter."
"Yeah," T-Dog said. "We'll find something."
"Warm, dry, and comfortable," Daryl said. "Safe enough we don't gotta worry constantly. We'll find it, but that's—it's what we're lookin' for."
"What we find is more important than where it is," T-Dog said. Daryl hummed his agreement with T-Dog's words.
"Gotta remember that she won't ask for help outright," Daryl said. "We done seen that with how she didn't even bother to tell nobody that she was pregnant. And she's really not gonna ask us for help now that we've been around Lori all this time and we've gotten worn out by how things were handled there. I won't take food out your mouth or clothes off your back—an' I won't ask you for much more'n a hand to keep us all goin'—but I'm lettin' you know that the extra? What we don't need? I'ma try to keep it goin' in her direction because she won't say when there's a need."
T-Dog laughed to himself.
"I'm not an asshole," T-Dog said. "And—I want it clear that I didn't hate Lori. I didn't begrudge her what she got and I wanted to see her kid make it. Both of them. Hell—we need the kids. They're like a sign that this isn't the end of the world. There's still more to come. I was as upset, too, when that little girl came out of that barn. Sophia was a good kid. A sweet kid. At the rock quarry, she was the kind of kid that would make you think about the fact that—you wouldn't mind having your own someday. Carol got a raw deal losing her daughter that way. And—like I said before—it wasn't Lori's kid that pissed me off or the fact that she needed things. It was the fact that Rick seemed to forget that the rest of us needed things, too."
"And he took away our fuckin' voice," Daryl interjected.
"That, too," T-Dog said. "If I had felt like I was contributing because I wanted to? It's a whole different thing entirely. But as soon as I have to, and I don't have the right to say that, today, I think I'm going to finish eating this? Then I start having a problem."
"So you're sayin' that—you support my plan to try to do what I can to help Carol?"
T-Dog laughed to himself again.
"What I'm saying is that I was going to do the same thing," T-Dog said, "so you don't have to worry about me complaining."
"Thanks," Daryl said.
"No problem, man," T-Dog said.
Daryl went about gathering up more wood in silence while T-Dog worked to do the same. With any luck, Daryl could come back later, after everything had been still for a bit, and find them even more meat for dinner than the leftovers they still had from Carol's stew—a stew that had gotten them all through lunch when the oatmeal they'd found for breakfast left them hungry for something more. They would likely have more than enough wood to get them through the few days that they planned to stay in the little house.
Their intention was to take a few days to rest, clean their clothes, and fill their bellies. They needed an opportunity, after leaving the group, to simply rest and gather themselves. They also wanted to give their former comrades time to find them if there was anyone else who decided to break free from Rick's oppressive control.
When those few days had passed, they would move on. They had no idea where they were going. They had relatively little idea of where they were. They had no map and, even if they had a map, it wouldn't tell them much without a destination in mind. They knew, more or less, what they were looking for, but they were wandering blindly until they happened to stumble upon it.
Of course, maybe it had always been that way. Maybe they were only acutely aware, these days, of the reality they'd actually always been living.
They were looking for a place that was safe, defensible for a good amount of time, and provided them with enough that they could take care of themselves and gather enough provisions to survive the winter—or longer if they decided to stay.
Daryl didn't know where they would find it, exactly, but he was confident that they would find it. They just had to keep looking.
"I got about all I can carry this load," T-Dog said. "Looks like, if we need much more, we're going to have to cut something down."
Daryl jumped. He'd been concentrating on what they'd discussed about the future with enough focus that he'd almost forgotten that he wasn't alone gathering sticks and limbs. He was lucky that there were no Walkers in their surrounding area looking for something to eat, because one of them might have surely snatched him up.
He quietly scolded himself about not paying attention. He should know better than to let himself slip, and that was especially true these days. He felt, whether he had a reason to feel that way or not, that he certainly had a great deal more responsibility than he'd ever had before.
He hummed and did his best to recover quickly so that T-Dog wouldn't notice that he'd practically jumped out of his skin at the interruption to his daydreaming.
"Yeah—yeah—cuttin' down some off these saplings won't be nothing," Daryl said. "Saw a couple dead ones that oughta come down, too. A couple years from now, us thinnin' the trees out a bit'll be the best thing we coulda done for this area."
"Yeah," T-Dog said, but it was clear that he was making the sound simply to have some way to respond to Daryl. "You good? I mean—you got what you can carry? Ready to head back?"
Daryl could probably pick up a stick or two more without dropping the load he was already balancing, but he decided to simply make another trip once they'd dropped these off, refilled a couple of buckets for Carol, and made sure that she didn't need anything else.
He hummed.
"Yeah, I got enough," Daryl said.
"You good?" T-Dog asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Just said I got enough," he said.
"But you good, man?" T-Dog asked.
Daryl furrowed his brow at him, but T-Dog only furrowed his brow back in response. Finally, Daryl nodded.
"I'm good," he said, figuring that he'd been found out. T-Dog knew that he'd been distracted. He probably assumed that Daryl was only running through a list of possible places in his mind where they might head when they finally moved on.
"Good," T-Dog said. He started back toward the house, leading the way, and Daryl followed. They'd only gone about ten steps in silence before T-Dog slowed his steps to walk beside Daryl. He smiled at Daryl—not the same shit-eating grin that Merle used to give him, but a grin in the same family—and laughed to himself. "Don't worry so much, man," T-Dog said. "I'ma help you look out for Carol."
"The hell's that s'posed to mean?" Daryl asked, more in regard to the expression than the words. T-Dog just laughed to himself, double timed his steps on their way to the little house, and left Daryl several feet behind and walking in silence.