AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
Thank you to those who prodded me to get back to this one!
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Henry helped Daryl unload the wagon in virtual silence. There was a heaviness that came from things that needed to be said between them, but neither of them was ready to be the first to speak, so they kept themselves busy with their work and let the words wait as words would. The only words that they bothered to exchange were the ones that were absolutely necessary to identify the desired location of some item or another that was being unloaded.
At the Kingdom, Carol had exchanged a few words with Ezekiel—the man who called himself the king and, for years, had called himself Carol's husband. She and Ezekiel had, essentially, publicly dissolved their marriage with a speech to the people of the Kingdom which mostly involved Ezekiel speaking in some Shakespearean language—which Daryl was sure that most of the people probably didn't understand—while Carol stood beside him as a source of strength and support.
The only part of the whole thing that Carol even bothered to clarify at all was that there was absolutely no bad blood between she and Ezekiel. She assured the people of the Kingdom that she would still continue to help rule the Kingdom, and she would be there to help them when they needed her, even though she would be residing outside the Kingdom's fences in a place that everyone simply knew as "Carol's House."
Daryl almost didn't want to take her outside of the fences. He had most liked that she was with Ezekiel because he felt like the Kingdom—behind its guarded fences and gates—was one of the safest places she could be. Her status as queen, as well, would mean that the Kingdom guards would protect her with everything they had in them.
Daryl loved her enough that he was willing, without hesitation, to let another man love her to be sure that she was properly cared for and protected.
He hated, even now, to take her somewhere where he knew she wasn't as safe as she had been in the Kingdom. When she visited him in his camp, and during the few nights that they'd spent together at the little house throughout the years, he'd barely slept for the need to be sure that she remained safe through the night—until he could get her back behind the walls that he trusted to protect her from everything that he wasn't sure humans, alone, could shield her from. Now he wasn't sure how he was going to keep her safe for however long they ended up calling the little house home.
The little house, at least, was somewhat protected from Walkers by some decently strong fences. They'd been reinforced by Ezekiel's merry men, and Daryl had fully supported the practice, when he'd become aware that the older fences around the little house were beginning to decay and wouldn't hold strong for long. Despite its protection from Walkers, though, the little house was pretty open to attack by people who were smart enough to get over and around fences without simply having to try to go through them. They all knew that people were the real threat these days. Walkers were only a nuisance in the face of what they'd seen when dealing with others who dared to call themselves human.
Daryl didn't have any reason to leave the little house once everything had been brought into it off the wagon. He had very few possessions in the world and everything he had was on the back of the wagon. He didn't have anywhere to go or anything he needed to do. The farthest he might go was to the Kingdom if Carol needed something from there, or to the woods surrounding the little house to hunt meat to smoke in the smokehouse he intended to build as soon as they were settled.
Daryl had no reason to leave Carol alone and unprotected for any span of time, but, if he did, he'd already decided that he would take her back to the Kingdom.
Daryl didn't doubt in the least that Carol could protect herself. She was more capable than most of the men that had surrounded her since the world went to shit. In many ways, she was more equipped for survival in this world than even Daryl. She didn't need him to hold her hand and keep the bad guys away any more than she'd needed Ezekiel and his armed soldiers to hold the world at bay. She would be sure to tell him that, too, if he insisted that she did.
But everybody needed a little help sometimes and Carol wasn't too proud to accept the protection and care that was offered to her with the understanding that it was help and not something she couldn't do without. She let Ezekiel protect her—especially when Daryl made it a personal request as well—and she let Daryl protect her.
She understood, without him having to spell it out for her in so many words that he would have found difficult to string together, that his need to protect her was more about him than it was about her.
And now, the heavy feeling in his gut that he got when he thought about her being somewhere, exposed to the seemingly incessant cruelty of this world, was even heavier—and he had barely even begun to believe that the extra weight she carried was evidence of his child.
"That's the last of it," Henry said, putting down one of the boxes of Carol's things that she'd brought from the Kingdom.
"That's your Ma's," Daryl said.
"You wanted it somewhere else?" Henry asked.
"She prob'ly wants it in there," Daryl said. "In the bedroom."
"Never mind," Carol said, coming out of the kitchen. She carried a glass in each hand. "We'll get it later. Come drink some water, Henry. Daryl. You're both sweating and you don't want to get dehydrated. Dinner won't be a feast. The cabinets are a little low. But it'll keep us all from starving tonight." Carol offered Daryl and Henry both a glass of water. Henry drained half of his and wiped his mouth with his arm before Daryl had even fully registered that he should consume the liquid. Henry put the glass down on the piece of furniture next to him like he might return to it in a moment and drain it entirely.
"I'll bring you some food from the Kingdom tomorrow," Henry said.
"You don't have to do that," Carol said.
"We can get our own food," Daryl said.
"Dad's going to insist," Henry said. "We've got plenty and there's nowhere else out here where you're going to get fruit and vegetables before winter."
"We could go on a run," Carol said.
"We've cleared towns up to thirty miles away," Henry said.
"Then we'll go forty," Carol said with a smirk.
"We ain't doin' no such thing," Daryl interrupted quickly. Carol looked at him and he shook his head. "We'll take the food. We appreciate it. Got some things to get set up around here to get the house ready to withstand the winter an' we don't got the resources to go days in either direction just looking for food if there's food to be had at the Kingdom."
"It's not the Kingdom's responsibility to feed us," Carol said.
"You heard Dad," Henry said. "You're still the queen and—well—I'm still the prince. That's still my…brother or sister." He glanced at Daryl. Daryl's stomach twisted. He suddenly understood it all. He felt it all. He felt the anxiety that was practically palpable as it radiated out of Henry. "Unless—you've changed your mind about that, too."
Daryl's chest ached at the words and Daryl knew that, even though Henry was clearly having to come to terms with a great deal, he couldn't have hurt Carol more if he'd hit her in the face with the fire poker.
She frowned deeply and swallowed. She stepped toward Henry and immediately pulled him into the tightest hug that she could.
"Don't you say that," she said, some bite behind her words. "I don't ever want to hear you say anything like that again. You understand? You know that—I'd never change my mind about you. Never. I can't. You're my son—my—you're my Henry. And I'm your Mom—if you haven't changed your mind about me."
Having the accusation somewhat turned around on him must have struck Henry. He squeezed Carol. She wobbled with him and, for a moment, Daryl instinctively reached his hand out to touch her arm and steady her in case they were both at risk of toppling to the floor.
"I love you," Henry declared, his voice muffled by the fact that he'd buried his face in the crook of Carol's neck.
"I love you," Carol said. She pushed him away just enough to kiss the side of his face and Daryl saw the dragon tears dropping out of her eyes when she blinked. "And—don't you ever, ever, let me hear you say something like that again. I'll love you forever."
"And Dad?" Henry asked.
"I'll love him forever, too," Carol said. "Just like I told you. Like I told him. There are lots of different ways to love, Henry. Even Daryl knows that."
Henry pulled away from his mother enough to half-glare at Daryl. Daryl didn't hold it against the boy. He imagined that all of this was a bit of a shock and an adjustment to him. Daryl couldn't imagine how he would have felt in Henry's place—mostly because his own mother had been gone by then and his old man had never meant that much to him anyway.
And unlike Henry—who had been orphaned—there hadn't been anybody who'd been looking to adopt Daryl and give him the kind of love and support that Carol and Ezekiel offered Henry.
Henry meant the world to Carol and that meant that Daryl would do anything for him. He hadn't been able to save Sophia for her. Sophia had been lost and he hadn't been able to get her back for Carol.
He wouldn't let her lose Henry and, if he had any control at all over such a thing, he wouldn't let her lose the baby she carried, either—not even if it had been Ezekiel's child.
"Your Ma ain't lyin'," Daryl offered. "She loves your Dad. Just different, I guess."
"Just different," Carol said with a sigh.
"Like a friend?" Henry asked.
"Like a very good friend," Carol assured him. She reached out and smoothed his hair like he was a small boy instead of an almost grown man. He allowed her the affection. "And I love you like a son and I love—I already love this baby. Like my baby. And I love Daryl…" She stopped and looked at Daryl. She stared at him, hard. He might have worried that she didn't know what to say. He might have worried that she wasn't sure how she loved him. But that wasn't how she was looking at him. She was looking at him like she was afraid. For a moment, Daryl might have sworn that Henry resembled her. He'd seen that face only recently. She was looking at him like she feared that he might just disappear. She looked like she feared that the wrong words—or even saying them out loud—might send Daryl running out the door of the little house to disappear into the woods forever.
He nodded, gently, to give her encouragement and to let her know he wasn't going anywhere. As surely as she would remain a fixture in Henry's life, he would remain in her life—even if he hadn't exactly told her that before. There was even more, now, that bound them together.
"Go ahead," Daryl said softly.
Carol nodded her understanding and a few more of the over-sized dragon tears dropped from her eyes as she smoothed Henry's hair under her palm again.
"I love Daryl like something else entirely," Carol said.
"More than a friend?" Henry supplied.
Carol laughed to herself.
"Like much more than a friend," Carol said. "And I'm sorry that hurts you."
"It doesn't," Henry said. "Not really." He hesitated a moment. "It won't. I want you to be happy."
"Then we got somethin' in common," Daryl offered. "Maybe a couple things."
"And this is your brother or sister," Carol said. "Always."
Daryl nodded his head slightly when Henry looked at him.
"And this is your house," Carol said. "I meant what I said. You can stay whenever you like. You can stay tonight."
"I need to get the wagon back," Henry said. "And the horses."
Carol frowned and nodded her head.
"Tomorrow night, then," Carol said.
"I think—I need to stay with Dad for a while," Henry said. "In the Kingdom."
"I understand," Carol offered. Daryl wasn't sure if she really did or if she was just saying that for the benefit of the boy.
"But—I'll bring you food," Henry said. "Tomorrow. In the morning. Promise you'll take it."
Carol caught his face and turned it so that she could kiss his cheek again.
"I'll take it," she said. "But—if you're leaving, you better go on now. I don't want you out in the woods after dark. You understand?"
Daryl watched her as she pushed Henry toward the door. He listened to her as she half-heartedly scolded the boy about staying up too late and declared she loved him again just after the sharp flick of the reins. Daryl took the glass that Henry had used and his own to the kitchen.
He would be there to listen, too, when Carol came back and was ready to talk.