AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
By the time that Carol emerged from Judith's bedroom to allow Michonne to pass inside and finish the bedtime ministrations, Daryl had to fight against his desire to laugh at her almost comical appearance. She looked fatigued and quite a bit like she'd just been through some kind of long and drawn out wrestling match.
"What?" She asked, narrowing her eyes and raising her eyebrow at him. It was a challenge, and he fully recognized that, but he also recognized that there was no real warning behind the challenge.
Daryl laughed to himself and tucked stray hair behind her ear before he pushed the other stray locks over her shoulder. She realized, then, that most of her hair had come loose from the clip she used to hold it in place, and she reached up, removing the clip, before she shook her hair loose around her face.
"What'd she do to you?" Daryl asked with a laugh.
"Nothing I won't survive," Carol responded with a snort.
Daryl wrapped his hand into her hair and tugged it gently, directing her head toward him. She came willingly, a half a smirk on her lips, and she kissed him.
It was a good kiss. A real good kiss. And it didn't take Daryl long to feel there was a difference in that kiss and so many others that had come before it. Carol was relaxing in a way that she hadn't really relaxed in a while. It was Carol that gathered Daryl's shirt up in her hands and pulled him closer to her so that he wouldn't end the kiss—if that had been anything he'd even been considering.
He smiled at her when she allowed it to break, and he appreciated the impish smile that she gave him.
"Break it up, you two," Michonne said.
She was standing in Judith's bedroom doorway when Daryl turned to look at her over his shoulder. There was no more sincerity to her words than there had been to any of Carol's earlier warnings. She smiled and stepped fully into the hallway. She pulled the bedroom closed behind her.
"I promote lots of loving among the parents-to-be in my household," Michonne said. "But not when I'm trying to keep it quiet enough for little eyes to stay closed."
"We were just headin' downstairs," Daryl said.
"Sleep where you want for the night," Michonne offered. "Mi casa es su casa. But—I'm turning in."
They both offered Michonne a quiet goodnight before Daryl wrapped Carol's hand in his and tugged her after him and down the stairs. On the bottom level, he took a moment to light one of the camping lamps that Michonne kept around, and he switched off the one electric lamp that she'd left glowing. Then, he took the lamp in one hand and Carol's hand in the other, and he led her to the basement stairs.
"Dog," Carol said.
"What?" Daryl asked as they reached the bottom and he took the camping lamp over to turn on one of the electric lamps. Dog, hearing his name, bounded toward Carol to demand attention and Daryl made a noise at the animal to surprise him and deter him from leaping up on Carol.
Dog would never hurt her on purpose, but Daryl didn't want him to hurt her accidentally with his enthusiasm.
"He'll need to go out, Daryl," Carol said, rubbing the happy dog's head.
Daryl blew out the flame and put the camping lamp down. He whistled and Dog stopped bothering Carol to come bounding over to Daryl to demand his attention. Daryl pulled the arm chair near the one of the little tables he'd brought down and piled high with various items. He lit a cigarette for himself and dragged a glass bowl over to use as an ashtray. While he sat in the armchair, he rubbed Dog's head and ears to satisfy the animal.
"Took him to piss while you was finishin' with Judith," Daryl said. "RJ's book was short an' he was readier for sleep than he thought he was."
Carol made her way over to the unmade bed. She looked at it, for a moment, like she wasn't sure what it was. Maybe she simply wasn't pleased with its location.
"We can move that, if you want," Daryl said. "I just put it somewhere 'til you decided where you want it."
"I might want to move it," Carol said.
Daryl smiled to himself. He was pleased with the fact that she might want to move the bed. He was pleased, too, when she started burrowing through the garbage bags he'd packed with any and everything they'd suggested someone might want to make a home.
Michonne suggested that Carol needed to build a nest. She needed to make a home. And, more than anything, she needed to make it comfortable and perfect for her family to live in. She needed to create a place where she was comfortable to wait out the arrival of their child.
Daryl reasoned that if he were too organized with the furniture and the other items that he gathered for her; Carol might simply believe that he'd arranged things how he wanted them to be. She wanted to please him, and he knew that. She had also been trained by Ed—may he forever rot in hell—to shy away from making changes or even too many suggestions.
The absolute chaos he'd created, Daryl reasoned, would make it clear that Carol was free to do what she wanted with everything—and it would give her plenty to do to keep her happy and occupied. He didn't know exactly how long women needed to nest—or even what all that required—but he wasn't going to let her run out of things to keep her entertained and satisfied enough to remain there until their daughter had come safely into the world.
"What'cha lookin' for?" Daryl asked when Carol growled instead of sounding pleased.
"Sheets, Daryl," she growled. "Our bed has no sheets. We don't have sheets."
He took a drag off his cigarette. With each word, she sounded a bit more desperate than annoyed. She sounded a bit more like the sky might be falling.
"We got sheets. We ain't sheetless. Try that black bag over there. Near the foot of the bed. One of them's a bag of nothin' but blankets an' sheets for you to pick from, Carol."
"If I can't find them," Carol grumbled, half to herself and half to Daryl, "I can just—go steal them off the bed upstairs."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"There's a whole bag of 'em, Carol," Daryl said. "Like—more'n you ever gonna need in your life."
Carol rummaged through a few more garbage bags and came up with sheets. She trailed them across the floor—half in frustration and half in satisfaction—as she spread them out over the bed and started to make up the bed.
"You want me to help you?" Daryl asked.
"No," Carol said. "I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine at this particular minute, Carol," Daryl offered. She straightened up, rubbed her back with her hand, and sighed. "You want me to—rub your back? I got strong hands. Prob'ly be pretty good at it."
Carol laughed to herself.
"I'm fine," she reiterated. This time she sounded a little better than she had. "And I don't need help making up the bed. I'd—really, I'd rather do it."
"Then I'ma stay right here," Daryl said. "But you ain't said no to that backrub."
Carol hummed and returned to working at the sheets.
"Because maybe I don't mean no," Carol said.
"Magic hands," Daryl offered, sitting back in his chair. Dog was done with affection for the moment and he'd gone to hop up on the couch that sat at a weird angle in the room until it was dragged to whatever position Carol thought was best for it.
"That's pretty big talk," Carol mused.
"It ain't talk if you can back it up," Daryl teased. He laughed to himself at the volleying back and forth, but he liked the lightness in her voice—and the smile on her face that he could see every time she turned her head enough for him to get a clear glimpse of it—enough to keep the teasing going for as long as she wanted to play.
"If you're really good at it," Carol said, "then I might expect a standing appointment. You might save yourself some trouble and pretend to be bad at it."
Daryl hummed at her and toyed with his lighter. He tapped it on his thigh—sliding it through his fingers until it flipped—and then then he turned it to repeat the action.
"I tell you what," Daryl said, "I'll make you a deal…"
"A deal?" Carol asked, clearly amused, as she wrestled pillows into pillow cases. Daryl resisted the urge to ask her, once more, if she wanted his help.
"You—work on growin' our kid nice an' strong," Daryl said. "And I'll rub whatever the hell you want rubbed, whenever the hell you need it rubbed."
The smile on Carol's face spread out even more dramatically. Her cheeks probably ached from it. Her cheeks blushed pink in the dim light of the basement, and Daryl felt his own face grow warm as he prepared himself for what he absolutely knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was coming.
"You might be setting yourself up for a lot rubbing," Carol offered.
"And you growin' a whole person that you gotta get outta there later," Daryl offered. "And—even though I've never born witness to it, I've heard stories about how that shit happens."
"Touché," Carol said with a laugh. "You'll rub anything, huh?"
"That's what I said," Daryl responded.
"With your magic hands?" Carol teased.
"Unless you got some damn thing else in mind, Carol," Daryl said. He tried to hold it together and pretend that he was serious—that he was entirely unaware of how quickly this conversation had unraveled and spiraled into something else, but he couldn't hold it together too long and he laughed at her. She echoed his laughter and went back to rummage through more bags, this time in a clearly better mood than she had been in before.
"I like the sound of that," Carol offered. "All of it."
"One of the many services I offer," Daryl teased.
"What are the others?" Carol asked, finding a quilt that she clearly liked and dragging it toward the bed.
"You don't get to know every damn thing at once," Daryl said.
"Your services are on a need to know basis?" Carol asked.
"They're on a need to be offered basis," Daryl said.
He watched as Carol walked at least a half a dozen times around the bed smoothing the quilt. The sheets beneath it, Daryl was sure, were so perfectly placed that they could have bounced quarters on them. The quilt was smooth and perfect as Carol raked her hands over it repeatedly to chase away wrinkles.
If she were suddenly this meticulous about everything in her nest, it would take her until the baby came to make her way through all the bags.
Daryl cleared his throat.
"We about to go to bed," he offered.
"Hmm?" Carol hummed as he drew her out of her concentration on the work she was doing. From the relaxed expression on her face, Daryl wondered if she found smoothing the quilt to be soothing.
"We about to go to bed," he repeated. "There ain't no need to make that too perfect."
She furrowed her brow at him and then smiled before she sat down on the side of the bed that allowed her to easily face him.
"I just wanted it to be nice," she said.
"It's nice," Daryl assured her. "Did you—want me to help you move the bed?"
Carol looked around, up near the ceiling. If Daryl hadn't known what she was looking at, he might have looked up himself. The way that the house was constructed, though, the basement wasn't entirely underground. All around the top part of three of the walls, there were small windows that reached just above ground level. They were designed to allow sunlight to filter into the space instead of leaving it the kind of damp and dark basement that would have been entirely beneath the ground.
She shook her head and hummed in the negative.
"I'd like to wait until tomorrow," she said. "See what the natural light is like in here."
Daryl smiled to himself.
"Sounds like a good idea to me," he agreed.
Carol looked back at him and pursed her lips somewhat as she fought against a smile. She was amused by something—likely something she was thinking. Some passing thought. She smiled a lot when she was happy and relaxed, and Daryl was glad to see it. Her hair tumbled in her face and he fought the urge to simply marvel over how beautiful she looked and how amazed he felt as his mind reminded him that she was his. She was his wife. This was their home—however temporarily. This was all theirs.
And she was all his.
"What?" Carol asked.
Daryl smiled to himself.
"Just thinkin' you beautiful," Daryl offered.
She rocked from side to side on the edge of the mattress like the compliment had filled her with some kind of nervous energy she needed to release. She looked at the pillows and then back at Daryl.
"Aren't you coming to bed?" She asked.
"You got your mouth all set for one of them backrubs, now, don't you?" Daryl teased, already getting to his feet. He walked over and Carol got up. He pecked her lips as he passed her and plugged in a lamp near the bed before he dragged one of the nightstands close to the bed. Carol turned back the blankets and made no pretense about starting to undress as she walked toward the basement bathroom.
"I'd really like a backrub," she ceded. "It sounds really nice. If you're—sure you don't mind."
"Never gonna mind," Daryl assured her. He returned to the other table long enough to switch that lamp off, and then he started working his way out of his own clothes. As he undressed, he made his way to the bathroom to join Carol. It was a full bathroom—perfect for the two of them—and she was already unpacking the items they would need: items that they'd brought with them and, therefore, were easy for her to find.
"If you're not too tired afterwards," Carol said. "I wouldn't mind—if you wanted to rub a few other things."
Daryl laughed to himself and did his best to swallow it down.
"Yeah? What'd you have in mind?" He asked.
"I'm sure we'll—figure out a few things as we go," Carol teased.
"Yeah?" Daryl mused. "Just me doin' the rubbin'? Gettin' the oxytocin flowin' around here?"
Carol laughed to herself.
"If you do a good enough job," she teased. "I'm sure that I could do a little rubbing too. Just to—help things along."