AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"I gotta admit," T-Dog said, "I'm a little pissed off that you lied to me."
Daryl wasn't all worried about them being overheard. They were entirely alone. The community genius—or whatever he was—was sending out radio signals and attempting to contact anyone who might still be alive out there. He was smart, apparently. He was real smart. And everyone figured that he'd be successful in at least finding a couple of people who could hear the message, make it to the community with his directions, and contribute to the group.
In anticipation of their arrival, they'd decided to go ahead and get a couple of houses cleaned and ready for those that might come needing a place to live. Daryl and T-Dog had volunteered to go and open the designated houses and do some quick checks over basics like plumbing and electricity—taking care of any minor repairs that might need to be done as that house was opened up, after a rather long slumber, and connected to the grid for the first time.
Daryl laughed to himself. T-Dog might say he was pissed off, but he didn't sound pissed in the slightest.
"You're laughing, but I'm not lying," T-Dog said. "I just wanna know how long, man? Back at the rock quarry? I know you hated Ed Peletier. Honestly, I just figured it was for the same reasons we all hated him. He was a man that was easy to hate. But did you hate him for something else?"
Daryl shook his head, and ducked back under the cabinet where he was working with a leady pipe while T-Dog sat on the edge of the bathtub and pretended that he was doing anything constructive.
"I can still hear you," Daryl offered. "Don't let me workin' interrupt your speculation."
"I know when it was," T-Dog said. He hummed, confirming to himself that he'd figured everything out, and Daryl laughed, again, to himself. "The CDC. I thought it then, but I wasn't sure. What the hell were you doing? Waiting until we were all asleep so you could run over to Carol's room while Sophia was sleeping? Or did she come to yours?"
Daryl eased out from under the cabinet so that he wouldn't hit his head—again, since he'd already hit it more times than he really preferred to hit his head in one day.
"Tell you what," he said. "I'll tell you all you wanna know, if you'll tell me whether or not you an' Jacqui was doin' the wild thing at the CDC." T-Dog's facial expression said everything that he was clearly hesitating to say with his mouth. "That's what I fuckin' thought. I knew there was somethin' going on there."
"Nobody knew about that," T-Dog said.
"Sure they didn't," Daryl said. "Rick and Shane and their clan didn't know about it because they were so damn wrapped up in whatever the hell they were doing. Andrea didn't know about it because she was about neck deep in a fucking nervous breakdown. Dale didn't know nothin' about it 'cause he was so stuck up Andrea's ass he couldn't have seen daylight if he was outside the buildin'. Glenn didn't know nothin' about it because, honestly, I think he was too damn innocent for that shit—barely even knew what was goin' on with Shane and Lori. And Carol didn't know nothin' about it 'cause she was busy just learnin' what it felt like to breathe without Ed in the world. So, nobody knew shit about it. But I did."
"Man, fuck you," T-Dog said with a laugh. "How the hell'd you know about that shit?"
"Because I'm observant," Daryl said. "And I'm not blind, and deaf, and stupid. I noticed there was a difference in the way y'all was talkin' to each other. Actin' with each other."
T-Dog's face was a lot more solemn and contemplative, all of a sudden, than it had been.
"I still miss her, you know," he offered.
"We all miss her," Daryl said. "You prob'ly more'n any of us, but she ain't forgotten."
"Sometimes I get mad at her," T-Dog admitted. "I think—why, you know? I mean maybe I wasn't anything to live for or something like that, but we were just getting started…"
"I don't think Jacqui felt like there was any kind of future ahead for any of us," Daryl said. "What fuckin' reason did she have to think there would be? We got to the CDC and it was fuckin' euphoria for all of us. Suddenly it was like—we made it. We could live like that. Lookin' back, that wouldn'ta been no kinda life. Eventually the food would have run out. We were below ground. We'da had to come outta hiding eventually. Back into the world. At the time, though, we were just caught up in the sleepin' good and feelin' safe. But when that place was set to blow? And it was go back out to what we'd just come from—what we thought was gonna kill us or…stay there? Maybe Jacqui just felt like there weren't no kinda future, and she didn't wanna die slow and painful."
"If she'd've just held on for a little while," T-Dog said.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I don't believe in offin' yourself," Daryl said. "No damn matter how bad it gets, I just got this feelin' that you gotta keep on livin' as long as you're alive. But that's me. And that don't mean I'ma force that shit on nobody else or call 'em wrong if they choose somethin' different. Jacqui was scared, and she mighta enjoyed them days with you…I'm sure she did…but she weren't prepared to go on. She didn't want the heartache."
"But it's better," T-Dog said. "Look around. Look at all we've got here. We're doing shit that matters. We're building lives. This place is real and the future is real. Jacqui missed all of that. She missed this—and everything it could be."
Daryl hummed.
"Maybe you're forgettin' a lot of where we been," Daryl said. "Jacqui missed all this, but she also missed damn near dyin' in a herd on the highway. She missed seein' you so sick with fever I was pretty sure we were gonna lose you. She missed Sophia gettin' lost and killed. She missed Carl damn near dying. She missed Shane losin' his ever-fuckin' mind an' Rick killin' him. She missed watchin' the next safe place we found, after the fuckin' CDC blew up, burn down around us. She missed Patricia and Jimmy and…she missed those deaths of people she never got to know. She missed us leavin' Andrea behind. Missed us wanderin' around lost, without a plan in the world and not knowin' what the next day was gonna hold or if we were gonna die. She missed—starvin' half to death to keep Lori an' Carl fed. Givin' up everything we had to practically burn it on the damn altar Rick built for us—demandin' his daily fuckin' sacrifices of anything even halfway decent that we got in our lives."
Daryl stopped. He could feel anger bubbling inside him that he'd thought he'd doused. He could feel it burning hot in his gut.
"Tell you a secret? I'm still pissed at Rick. I still think of Carol—how damn skinny she looked that night. Nothin' but belly an' bones…and I wanna go back to when I had him at the point of that knife. I think about—what if I'da just done what my anger wanted me to do?"
"Easy man," T-Dog said drawing Daryl out of his anger and back into the room. "He ain't here. And if you'd've done that, we'd've inherited Lori and both her kids. And that would've been hell on Earth for all of us."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Still, it pisses me off," Daryl said. "That weren't even my point, though. My point was that Jacqui missed all that, too. And who can say if…if she wouldn't have done it some other way, you know? Some way that weren't as easy or as good for her. Who can say that she wouldn't have gotten overwhelmed by all that and just ended it?"
"It doesn't get easier losing people," T-Dog mused.
"That it don't," Daryl agreed.
T-Dog's expression lightened, again, and he smiled to himself.
"But it's always good gaining people," T-Dog said. "I'm no fan of your brother, but he seems alright."
"Merle without the damn drugs weren't never too much of a problem," Daryl mused.
"It's good to have Andrea back," T-Dog said.
"And to think her crazy ass has gone an' got knocked up," Daryl said. "Brave ass woman that'll bring a mini-Merle Dixon into the world."
"She might not have had much of a choice," T-Dog mused. "Birth control is scarce."
"So I heard," Daryl said. "You and your lady friend—Michonne…and there ain't no sense in tryin' to hide it, because I've already caught her creepin' out the house a couple times now. You…two…uh…?"
T-Dog's smile spread into a shit-eating grin. Daryl laughed to himself, just in response to the expression.
"We aren't trying," T-Dog said.
"No offense," Daryl mused, "but I don't know how much tryin' or not tryin' there is these days. If you're fuckin', you're tryin'."
"You know," T-Dog said. "You've turned this shit around on me, but it wasn't about me, asshole. If I remember correctly, you wanted to know about what I was doing at the CDC in exchange for answering some of my questions. So—was this shit going on back then? Has it been going on under my damn nose the whole time? I bet that baby's really yours…"
"Wind your ass up and let you go," Daryl mused. "You don't need nobody else. You'll sit your happy ass on the side of the bathtub, all the fuck alone, and come up with a whole day's worth of theories. I don't know what the hell you need me for. Sounds like you've figured everything out."
"Am I right or am I wrong?" T-Dog asked.
"I'll tell you the truth," Daryl said, "I honestly wish you were right." He saw something in T-Dog's features fall again. He seemed genuinely disappointed to learn what, honestly, he already knew. Daryl shook his head at him. "We owe the whole thing to you. I mean maybe we'da figured it out, out there, eventually? But it would've taken us forever. Hell—it's still new. We're still workin' it out. I'm starting to think that the feelings have maybe been there for both of us for a long time, but we didn't recognize them, or denied them, or both. The truth of it is, though, that we didn't start this until you lied an' put our asses together."
"You owe me," T-Dog teased.
"I do, man," Daryl agreed. "You just gotta let me know where I can pay you back. It ain't like you've needed a lot of help with Michonne. I mean you seem to be progressin' with that, all on your own."
"Maybe I owe you for that," T-Dog said. "A lot of it was kinda your vouching for me. The whole—family man says this guy's OK thing."
Daryl hummed to himself.
"Well, then you're welcome for whatever I did, if I did anything at all," Daryl said. He sighed. "If I'm bein' honest? I think things between me and Carol would've worked out eventually, anyway, you know? It just feels like it had to happen. I think it might've even happened earlier if we'd've had something kind of pushing us in the right direction. The thing that bothers the hell out of me, most every day, is that that baby ain't mine. It's Ed's kid. I didn't lie to you about it. Didn't even know it was there until the night before we split."
"Does Carol want it to be your kid?" T-Dog asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I don't know that it matters what she wants," Daryl said, "anymore'n it matters what I want. The fact of the matter is that it was Ed that made that baby with her. He put it there. It weren't me."
"Let me tell you somethin'," T-Dog said. "When I was growin' up, I had two good parents. The kind of parents that you used to see on television shows. They raised me in the church. My Mama was the kindest, holiest, most wonderful woman you'd have ever met. You'da liked her, Daryl."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I'm sure I would have," he agreed, allowing T-Dog a moment to visit with his loved ones.
"My Daddy? He was a deacon. He used to go to people's houses whenever they were sick, or old, or just needed a helping hand. He'd do whatever they needed: cut the grass, fix the sink, hang a new clothesline. It didn't matter. Every Sunday, and most evenings when he got off of work, he'd throw the football around in the yard with me. He's the one that got me started playing."
"That's good, man," Daryl said. "And I'm sure you miss 'em. But I—know you'll understand what I mean when I say that…I can't relate, and I'm not real sure why you're tellin' me this unless you're just feelin' kinda sentimental."
"You got a thick skull sometimes, you know that? Must be a damn Dixon thing," T-Dog mused. He didn't sound half as annoyed as his words would have suggested he was. "My Daddy wasn't my biological father, Daryl. I didn't know that 'til I was about ten years old. They thought it was best to tell me, but…they told me that it didn't matter. They told me that it wasn't blood that made a family. They weren't wrong. My Daddy was the greatest man in the world to me, Daryl. And I never really cared that much about the other man that I never knew. Carol would want you to be that baby's daddy?" Daryl hummed, nodding his head.
"I think so," he said.
"You wish that baby was yours?" T-Dog asked.
"More'n any damn thing," Daryl admitted.
"Then that's all the hell there is to it," T-Dog said. "It's yours. If you don't believe me—talk to Carol about it. I bet you she'll tell you the same thing."
"Yeah," Daryl mused. "I might."