AN: Here we are, another chapter here. It's a Caryl chapter. It's fluffy. I have to have those sometimes for survival, lol. You've been warned.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"I'm telling you, I see him," Daryl said. He ran his hand up his face and pushed his hair back, slinging more water than just that caused by the shower spray, and smiled at Carol with the half-smile that said that he was amused with something but trying to hold back the full range of emotion that he felt.
"You do not," Carol insisted again. "You don't!"
She turned around and turned the knobs, cutting the water off to their shower, and then she pulled the curtain back and stepped out of the tub. She passed Daryl his towel before she started to dry off with her own.
"I do," Daryl said. "What do I get for sayin' I do if I don't?"
"I'm sorry, Daryl," Carol said. "But you can't. It's not possible. I'm not far enough along to be showing. You can't see any evidence of the baby yet."
Daryl huffed behind her and she bit her lip to keep from smiling at him. He dropped his towel, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and walked her forward until both of them were aligned with the bathroom mirror.
"What do you see?" He asked.
Carol smirked at him.
"A lot that I like," she said.
Daryl made a face at her and snatched her towel out of her hands. She couldn't help but laugh at him.
"Gimme that," he said. "Look. At you, not me. What do you see?"
Carol sighed.
"I see that I look a lot older than I used to," Carol said.
"Everybody does," Daryl said. "Keep going."
"I see that—Daryl it's just fat," Carol said. "I've been eating a lot more lately. We all have. It's part of having those regular meals coming in. Never getting told no because we're stuck in taming for days at the time. That's all it is. I'm filling out."
"If you were filling out, then you'd be getting fat everywhere to match up to it," Daryl said. "I'm tellin' you it's the kid."
"And I'm telling you that it's too early," Carol said. "Look, Andrea's probably at least four weeks ahead of me. And I think she's showing a little, but that's with about four weeks more growth there. Me? It's just too early. And I'm sorry. I know you want some proof of things. But it's just not there yet. You don't see the baby!"
Daryl looked disappointed enough that Carol wished she hadn't said anything. In hindsight it wouldn't have hurt to just let him think that the extra pounds she'd apparently picked up were directly related to the baby. It wouldn't have hurt anything to let him just be happy believing something that didn't matter at all to anyone except him—especially when it wasn't hurting anything.
"Whatever," Daryl said. In show of his feelings on the matter, he tossed Carol's towel over shoulder and squeezed past her to leave the bathroom.
To give him a moment, Carol finished toweling off. She hung up her towel and his so they wouldn't sour, knowing that it would be a day or so before they were brought fresh ones from the laundry. Then she stood in front of the mirror and ran her fingers through her hair, combing out her shaggy curls. She turned sideways and ran her hands down her body.
She had shown earlier than some with Sophia, but she wasn't even as far along now as she had been when she'd started showing with Sophia. She felt like she was barely pregnant enough to consider herself truly pregnant. In the old world, she might not have even started telling anyone, yet, that she was expecting.
The extra weight gain had to be just that—extra weight gain. And it puddled around her tummy because that was one of her body's favorite places to store anything that it wasn't sure what it should do with.
But Daryl wanted to believe that it was the baby. He wanted something concrete. He wanted something he could see and he could touch—something he could say was proof of the baby. He wanted to talk about it and ask questions about it from the time he got up in the morning until they went to bed at night. That was the only way that he felt like he was getting to be a part of it.
And Carol wasn't used to that, because she'd never had it before, but she'd always thought that she would've liked Ed to be more involved. Now Daryl wanted to be entirely involved and she was just hurting his feelings and, essentially, stomping on what he saw as his new toys.
And Carol realized that life was too short, and too hard already, to crush his happiness over something that wasn't hurting anyone—over something that he deserved to be happy about.
Carol left the bathroom and found Daryl in the bedroom. He was sitting on the bed, his back to her, looking out the small window there—the closest they got to being outside unless they were working or heading to a meal.
She crawled onto the bed and he didn't look at her. She crawled across it, finally reaching him, and she rested herself against his back and rested her cheek on his shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and he didn't push her off, even if he didn't exactly respond to her.
"You could be right, you know," Carol said. "It could be the baby."
"You just said it weren't," Daryl said.
"But—I wasn't thinking about it," Carol said. "And—it's my second baby. I'd—I'd probably show earlier than I did with Sophia. I was thinking about when I was showing with her. It would be different this time."
"You don't gotta lie to me, alright?" Daryl said. "I don't need you coddling my ass. You say don't look pregnant, then you don't look pregnant. You can just be fat. There ain't no damn law against it."
Carol rocked back on her feet and let go of her hold on Daryl. She crawled around him and sat down on the bed next to him, allowing her legs to hang over the side as she sat normally. For a brief moment she was glad that they weren't really allowed to be out and about. Anyone who might have come by their window at that moment—even though they had sheer curtains—would have gotten more of a show than they probably bargained for.
"I'm not coddling you," Carol said. "It's true, Daryl. I don't know for sure. I could be showing. A little. It could be the baby. I know—my breasts are swollen."
Daryl chuckled quietly to himself, the movement of his body giving it away more than any real sound he produced.
"I know that too," he said. "And I know you get sick—but half the time you just stay in the bathroom worrying over the toilet instead of actually doing something productive about it and throwing up whatever's bad in there."
Carol laughed to herself.
"It doesn't work that way," Carol said. "It's not like I can just throw something up and then it's gone. It's the baby that makes me sick. It's—my body adjusting to it. And I don't usually really throw up. I just feel like I'm going to. It's really not that bad, though. My morning sickness was horrible with Sophia. This time? I just feel gross, but I don't feel like I'm going to die."
"Shit ain't morning sickness," Daryl said. "It's after supper sickness. It's damn—three in the morning and you should be sleeping sickness."
"Maybe the baby can't tell time," Carol said.
At least she got a laugh out of Daryl with that one. He seemed to be relaxing a little, at least, from his earlier upset.
"I don't know why the hell not," Daryl said. "I keep trying to tell him what time it is every time he starts that crap up. Tell him every night—it's three a.m. and it ain't time for puking. It's time for sleeping."
Carol laughed to herself. He wasn't lying. He really did say that to her—and in particular to her stomach—at least once every night that he came to check on her while she was in the bathroom floor keeping watch over the toilet.
"I don't know if he can hear yet," Carol said. "I don't know when they can hear things that are happening outside. So maybe that's the problem. He just can't hear you."
"Better'n just ignoring me, I guess," Daryl offered.
"It won't be that long and Alice will do a sonogram for us," Carol said. "We'll get to see him on a screen. Listen to his heartbeat. Just like she did for Andrea."
"Yeah?" Daryl asked, his interest piqued at least a little. Carol nodded at him.
"I'll warn you, though, it's hard to see much. I mean—she shows you where he's at and what everything is, but it's hard to see much of anything. I don't think I really saw anything in Sophia's that I could identify on my own until I was at least six month's pregnant," Carol explained.
"But we'll see something," Daryl said. "Hear a heartbeat's good, right? Make sure it's—working like it's supposed to. Fix it if it ain't."
Carol swallowed and nodded at him. She knew what he meant, but she didn't know if he understood that—if anything wasn't quite right—there might not be a whole lot of fixing it.
"Yeah," she said. "Hearing the heartbeat's my favorite part. Right up until he starts kicking. That was really my favorite part. I loved to just—feel Sophia moving around. It was a constant reminder that she was there. She was OK."
"When's that start?" Daryl asked.
"That's going to be a while," Carol said. "At least—it's going to be a while before I can feel it and then it's going to be a little longer after that before you can feel it. Baby has to get stronger before it can kick hard enough for you to feel it."
"I'm the last to know everything about this, ain't I?" Daryl asked.
"It works that way," Carol said. "I have the unfair advantage, you know? Since—it's inside of me and everything." Daryl laughed quietly to himself again and rocked to the side so that he bumped Carol. She laughed at him when he growled at her that she was an "asshole" for her response. "You're not the last to figure everything out," she offered. "You're officially the first to realize I was showing early. That's all you."
"I spend just about every evening paying attention to every piece of your body," Daryl pointed out. "I bet you that—I could pick your body out of a lineup of fifty women. If your heads were covered up and shit? I'd pick you out of any of 'em."
"I'd hope you weren't staring at a lineup of fifty naked women," Carol offered. "And that I wasn't in it with my head covered up."
"You know what I mean," Daryl said.
Carol sucked in a breath.
"I do," she said. "I know what you mean. And—I think I could do the same. But it's because—I've never paid attention to things like I do now. Before? Everything was so fast. It was so busy that I missed everything. I missed a lot. Now? There's a lot more time to pay attention to things. Things I used to just—take for granted? They seem a lot more important now."
Daryl reached a hand over and rested it on Carol's thigh. He squeezed the muscle and she fought back the urge to move when it made her muscle want to jump in response.
"You're important," Daryl said.
Carol rested her hand over his.
"And you're important to me," Carol said. "And this is important. Sitting here on the bed with you. Our lives now. Our life. It's important."
Daryl looked at her and moved his hand up to scratch his fingers at her stomach a little nervously. Then he settled down and rested his hand flat there before he patted her. It was how he always approached touching her. It was like he wanted to touch her, but he was always afraid that he shouldn't—even though she'd never stopped him from it before. He had to settle into it every time.
"He's important," Daryl said.
Carol smiled at him and nodded.
"He's important," she agreed. "He's very—very important."
"And I can see him," Daryl said, cocking an eyebrow at her in challenge.
Carol accepted it.
"He's important," she repeated. "And he's very big, too."
