AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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The decision to put off looking for another place to stay for a few days more was made over breakfast and born entirely out of practicality. The motel room where they were staying was completely safe. There was no need to rush to abandon it. Beyond the smell, to which they were honestly becoming adjusted, there was nothing about the room that made it uncomfortable. There was enough space. Two people could comfortably sleep while the third kept watch, and there was no need to worry too much about Walkers.
At the time of the turn, perhaps, there had been a healthy number of people visiting the motel as evidenced by the number of cars in the parking lot. All the way around the building, there were cars that hadn't been touched—cars they could pick clean and from which they could siphon gas. The motel was in a popular area for tourists to come year-round to see the changing of the seasons and to seek a quick escape from the mundane lives they lived elsewhere.
A quick exploration of the motel suggested that, though there may be Walkers trapped in rooms and other closed-in spaces, there was no reason to enter too many of those areas. There was a small kitchen area that had offered up two Walkers when the door was forced open, but they hadn't been hard to get rid of. There was relatively little food there that hadn't already expired, but they would take what was available—mostly packages of oatmeal and other things like that. Carol was grateful, too, for a few of the larger pots and such that the small kitchen area had provided. As far as food went, the cars around them would offer more than enough in the way of snacks. People always travelled with snacks.
The orange-roofed motel was built in the shape of a square. In the middle of the inner courtyard, which was Walker-free, was a swimming pool. It was almost empty except for a nasty puddle of sludgy, dirty water in the deep end. The pool had likely been full at the end of things. Time had evaporated out most of the water and, knowing places like this, the slow seeping out of water had probably been helped by the fact that the pool likely had a leak somewhere that was unproblematic while it was regularly tended and refilled.
The empty pool was the perfect place to build a fire. It would naturally contain the flames, and the shape of the building would help obscure the source of the smoke from any eyes that happened to notice smoke, which did not belong to their own fires, as it blended in with the natural hazy nature of the mountains. They could cook there, and they could warm water to make their rag-and-bucket baths more pleasurable.
All around them were wooded areas and it took Daryl all of half an hour to explore the nearby surroundings, while smoking a cigarette and enjoying an instant coffee made with room temperature bottled water, to find a small creek fed by a natural spring not too far from the motel—the likes of which he knew would be plentiful throughout the area.
There was no need to leave the motel in a rush. They hadn't even begun to explore all that the quiet little oasis might offer them.
What was most important, they decided over breakfast, was that each and every member of their three-person group feel as though they were capable of defending themselves and protecting the others when they did decide to venture out in search of something they hoped to make a permanent home.
T-Dog was fair with a gun. Daryl had seen him hit a few of the targets which he chose for himself in various situations since they'd met. He was good with a knife as well, but it was clear that he had a natural preference for the tools that kept him from having to get up-close and personal with the Walkers. He would have to branch out from that preference, but he was well on his way to knowing his way around some of the weapons available to them.
Carol was good with a knife, but it was new to her and she was clearly not confident with it just yet. She had been given relatively little opportunity to practice with any other type of weapon and, therefore, she had no confidence in any of her abilities.
Daryl had practically been raised with a knife in one hand a gun or crossbow in the other. For him, his weapons were an extension of him. He couldn't imagine himself without them.
It was Daryl's hope, though, that all three of them would feel as comfortable with weapons by the time they looked for their new home as he already felt.
Guns were dangerous for a number of reasons, and they were unreliable. Guns were loud without silencers, and they were often clumsy with silencers. Too much noise meant that Walkers were drawn to places where they hadn't been drawn before. Ammunition for guns was a one-time use item, and this wasn't a world where such luxuries were regularly available.
The place they'd stopped on their way up to the mountains had yielded a good number of weapons in addition to Carol's now-prized knife. None of the weapons they'd gathered, however, were guns. People had cleared those out first, of course, because they'd been the most obvious weapons. Everyone knew about guns. They were the first thing that people laid their hands on and, now, they knew that they were the least useful.
The bags they'd packed into the back of the truck held blades of various shapes and sizes to suit any need or skill level. They'd gathered up several kinds of bows and arrows, and Daryl had even found a few crossbows that were nice enough to keep in reserve in case something were to happen to his current preferred one.
Without any of the necessities—like wood and meat—to prepare them a really nice breakfast, Carol had done the best she could with all the ready-made foods that they had in storage. She'd fed them well enough that Daryl wasn't complaining. T-Dog, still thrilled with being allowed to eat his fill at every meal, wasn't complaining either. Immediately following breakfast, T-Dog had set to work picking clean some of the cars in the parking lot, and Daryl had taken Carol and a few of the weapons out to the wooded area nearby so that she could practice using them.
Daryl favored a crossbow for the power it had. He favored a crossbow, as well, because he felt that he wasn't as accurate with a standard bow as he was with a crossbow. Everyone, he understood, had things that just felt right in their hands. Almost immediately, it was clear that Carol favored a bow. She'd rejected the smallest crossbow that Daryl had as soon as she'd shot one bolt into the space around them. The bow she seemed most drawn to was a wooden self-bow that was primitive, but a nice piece of craftsmanship.
Daryl might have steered her away from the weapon in light of the difficulty that he'd had in the past trying to accurately shoot such bows, but Carol's first arrow had sailed fairly straight and landed within three inches of her intended target—which Daryl considered a fairly good show for a first arrow.
Instead of trying to talk Carol into what made him more comfortable, Daryl accepted that everyone was different. He turned his focus for the day, instead, to making her better with the weapon she chose. He understood, after all, how to use the weapon even though it wouldn't be the one that he would choose for himself. He tore bits off of some old towels to make her a protective cuff for her arm—deciding that a much nicer one could be made or found for her soon, since it was clear she would be using it a great deal—and then he spent the bulk of the afternoon teaching her how to hold her elbow, reminding her how to hold her face to get the truest view of where the arrow would go, and watching her send arrow after arrow sailing toward various targets that he assigned her.
It was Daryl who had ultimately speared the five rabbits and ten or fifteen squirrels that they gathered in a sack for dinner, but Carol had come close to catching a couple of them with her bolts, and she'd certainly sent more than one of them scurrying right into the path where Daryl could hit them.
"It's only your first day," Daryl reminded her when he caught her looking somewhat mournfully at the squirrel that she picked up—bolt and all—to drop in the sack for later cleaning. She looked at him in question and raised her eyebrows at him. "You're sad because—you didn't hit it? Or you're upset 'cause the bushy-tailed rat is dinner?"
Carol looked like she was caught between laughing to herself and crying for a split second. She immediately cleared up the expression.
"I didn't hit my target," she said. "Not even once."
"That ain't so," Daryl said. "You might notta got a bullseye, but you hit the target."
Carol's face was set in a frown. She could pretend that she wasn't upset, but she couldn't entirely erase what she was feeling. She went after another of the animals designated for their meal and Daryl stepped over to pick it up before she could reach it and bend down to get it.
He caught her eyes when she looked at him with some kind of annoyance after he intercepted her self-appointed task. He smiled at her.
"You've got a good eye," Daryl said. "And you're steady. You got good potential to be like a marksman."
Her cheeks blushed pink and she looked away from him for a second before she looked back at him. The frown was gone and, in its place, was the slightest hint of a smile.
"Now I know you're just trying to make me feel better," Carol said.
"You think I'd lie?" Daryl asked.
"A marksman?" Carol asked with a smirk.
"What would I gain by lyin'?" Daryl asked. "Gonna have you out there with my ass needin' you for backup—you think I'm going to gain something by tellin' you that you can do somethin' you ain't really capable of doing?"
"I didn't hit anything," Carol said.
"First time I shot anything, I didn't hit shit," Daryl said. "Second and third time, neither. Hell—you in the neighborhood and that's good enough for the first time out. Today was more about seein' what felt good in your hands. What felt good up here." Daryl reached his hand out and touched the side of Carol's head, just at her temple. He didn't miss that she flinched slightly and closed her eyes for a fraction of a second before his finger made contact.
Her now-dead-and-rotting asshole husband had taught her to have that reaction and once, on Hershel's farm, Daryl had accidentally reminded her that he was capable of anger, too, that could come with threats.
He was capable of anger—copious amounts of anger—and he was capable of making threats, but he knew himself well enough to know that he would never go through with them. He had promised himself, watching his mother and his father while he'd grown up, that he'd never put his hands on a woman in that way. Merle, too, had made him swear it the same way that other brothers might have sworn blood oaths over stupid promises made around campfires. It was a promise they'd made with each other—the Dixon stigma of being a woman-beater ended with them.
And Daryl would never hurt Carol. Not on purpose.
He sometimes thought of touching her—more so than the touch required to change the position of her arm or chin while she aimed the bow and more so than the touch required to get her attention like he was using now to signal her temple—but he never thought of touching her roughly and cruelly.
He couldn't admit to her, though, how he thought of touching her.
And convincing her that he'd never touch her with cruelty in mind was something that she was only going to learn as time passed and she witnessed what he did—or rather, what he didn't do.
For now, he accepted the flinch, and he didn't say anything about it. He simply offered her a half-smile when she opened her eyes to him and realized that he was only gently touching her temple.
"Right here," he said softly. "This is where the most of it takes place. This is where you decide what feels good on you. Where you decide—what'cha can do. What kinda skill you got. You see it here first, an' then…" He took her arms and she watched him as he slid his hands down her arms and caught her hands. He squeezed her fingers in his hands. He liked touching her and, as soon as he thought of that, he shivered. He hoped she missed the shiver and the fact that his saliva caught in his throat and nearly choked him. He was thankful that he was able to get it under control before he sputtered and choked and embarrassed himself. "You see it up there. You believe it. Then it comes out here." He finished.
Carol smiled at him, but she didn't take her hands away from him. She didn't try to pull away in the slightest.
"If you'll help me clean these," she said, "I'll get them cooked."
Daryl nodded his head.
"We'll need to help T-Dog with the cars," Carol said. "It isn't fair for him to handle all that on his own."
"We'll help some this evening. Then, tomorrow," Daryl said, "you'll practice in the morning. Then—we'll help with the cars again. Gather supplies."
"Siphon gas," Carol said.
Daryl shook his head.
"You gather supplies," he said.
"I can help with the gas," Carol said. "I've done it before."
Daryl shook his head again.
"That was before we knew…" he stopped and gestured toward her belly. "Don't wanna take no chances. You ought not even be around the fumes. You sure as shit ought not to be puttin' it in your mouth."
Carol smiled softly and nodded her head.
"Fine," she said. "I'll cook and—search for supplies. Organize it."
"And practice," Daryl said.
"And practice," Carol assured him.
"Because practice makes perfect," Daryl said. "An' I weren't lyin' about you bein' some kinda potential marksman. You keep going, and you'll see. You're gonna be our secret weapon."