AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
This one is a little longer because I had to get to a good place to cut it before we continue on.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol was finally asleep and it didn't matter to Daryl if it was almost time to start the morning or not. He intended to let her get whatever sleep she could before some fit of wakefulness took over again. Daryl slipped out of the bed as quietly as he could so that he wouldn't wake her. He dressed and left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
They weren't allowed outside just yet, but Daryl could tell by looking out the window that Woodbury was starting to come awake. Their new house had a better view of the entrance to Woodbury than their old house had. The earliest workers were moving around. Guards were arriving. They would already be preparing breakfast for the community. Soon they would begin the rounds to open all the houses so that everyone could come out and start their day.
Daryl took advantage of being awake early to order breakfast and make a few calls. He didn't have to hold and he didn't have to wait. The official side of Woodbury was awake, but most of the citizens were still sleeping.
In their kitchen, Daryl started a pot of coffee, lit a cigarette, and leaned against the kitchen island while he smoked. With a pencil, he worked at a crossword puzzle from a book of puzzles. He was so involved in trying to figure out his next clue that he almost didn't realize he had a visitor. She was quiet enough, too, that he might not have noticed her presence at all if she hadn't sneezed.
Daryl looked up and smiled at her.
"Bless you," he offered. "An' good morning. How'd you sleep?"
Daryl didn't expect a reply, and he wasn't surprised.
"Cup of coffee?" Daryl asked. "That'll be brewed soon. It ain't bad coffee. I'd offer you a cigarette, but I don't think your Ma would appreciate that."
"Mama?" Sophia asked.
That word seemed to be one of the few that Sophia had mastered. Daryl figured that she knew a great deal more than that, of course, but for whatever reason she wasn't ready to share with them—not with any of them—the full extent of her knowledge and understanding. But Daryl could be patient. That's what Sophia needed from everyone and that's what Carol needed, in particular, from Daryl. He could offer patience. Their lives, these days, had taught them patience. There was no need to be in a hurry for anything. Nothing was going to happen any faster than it was simply going to happen.
Daryl moved his book away and put down the pencil to focus on the cigarette and somewhat limited conversation.
"She's sleeping," Daryl said. "Had a rough night. Couldn't quite get to sleep an' then? Couldn't quite stay asleep. She was havin' some nightmares. Bad dreams. You ever have those?" Daryl waited a moment to see if Sophia would respond. She didn't say anything to him, but she did nod her head. Daryl smiled at her and nodded his head in response. "They're shit for all of us, ain't they? Dreams are one place you just can't protect yourself. Damnedest thing is that you're needin' to protect yourself from yourself, but you can't. You're just stuck there. Long as I've known your Ma she's had these nightmares. Most of 'em have been that she couldn't find you. Couldn't get to you. Bad shit. The ones last night—she didn't tell me about 'em. I'm sure she'll tell me about 'em later. Did you have nightmares last night?" She shook her head, but she offered him nothing more. "You sleep OK?" Daryl asked. He got a nod. At least he was getting some response.
Daryl made himself a cup of coffee and glanced over his shoulder at Sophia.
"You want coffee?" He asked. "It's decaf. Your Ma don't need the caffeine right now. Not good for her. It's just about flavored water. You ever had coffee?" Sophia shook her head and Daryl got another mug. He poured some coffee in it and set about preparing it for Sophia. "I'm gonna fix it like I like it—with everything in it. Your Ma don't like sugar in hers." Daryl laughed to himself. "I tell her that's 'cause she's already sweet enough, but I could use some sweetening up. You might not need it, but it'll cut the bitter."
Daryl offered Sophia her coffee mug by putting it on the island in front of her. She stared at it a moment, but he supposed that she'd eventually pick it up. He drank from his own cup and she followed suit. She made a face and Daryl laughed to himself.
"Does that mean you don't like it?" Daryl asked. "It's an acquired taste, I guess. Some people don't never like it. You don't want it, you don't gotta drink it. You won't hurt my feelings."
Sophia put the mug down. Clearly she didn't care for the coffee at all. She looked around like she was taking in every square inch of the kitchen and then her eyes settled on Daryl again.
"Mama?" She asked.
"I told you she was sleepin'," Daryl said. "Still sleeping. You hungry? I called in breakfast already. They'll be bringin' it by for all of us when they get it made. If we can, I'd rather we didn't wake your Mama up until breakfast. Or until she gets up on her own, whichever comes first."
Sophia nodded her seeming agreement to Daryl's plan. Daryl thanked her and then focused on his coffee while he chewed over what he might say to her next. It appeared the full weight of carrying the conversation was on Daryl's shoulders.
"I don't know if I make you nervous 'cause you don't know me or—'cause you're at that point right now when everybody makes you nervous," Daryl said. "I know that point. I was there. In prison. When you're in prison, though, you kinda go from everything makin' you nervous to gettin' where you just don't give a damn. You're damned if you do an' you're damned if you don't. They say don't do this or that and you gonna be alright, but it ain't true. You try to follow all their rules, but the rules just keep changin' on you. Here though? I mean—I'm on edge. Hell, you gonna be. Forever, I guess. Maybe that don't never go away. Not completely. But it's different here than it was in prison. Shit changes, of course it do, but it don't change as much. Some of 'em around here—they tell it to you straight. Straight as they can, I reckon. The rest of us? The people that live here? We're all in the same boat." Daryl held Sophia's eyes for a moment. "They think I'm just as wild as you are. And I know, just as good as you do, that we ain't nothin' but people. I know you're nothin' to be scared of. You gotta know I'm nothin' to be scared of. I live here. I try to take care of ya Ma when she lets me. I'll take care of you, too, if you'll let me. Just—Sophia, I'll get you whatever you need. Do whatever I can for you. Long as it's in my power. I don't got much of that around here. Power. Just—I'm just askin' you to be on my side. Ya know? Don't do anything to try to—push me out or nothing. Be on my side and I'ma be on yours. And we gonna both be on your Ma's. That's—that's really all I'm askin' from you."
Sophia stared at him, hard. Her eyes were a different color than Carol's eyes, even if they were the same shape. Their differing color was evidence of the man that had fathered Sophia—a man that she wouldn't remember because she'd barely known him. They were evidence of a man that Carol had once loved. A man that Carol had told Daryl about. A man that Daryl would never meet and he was grateful for that because, knowing what he'd heard from Carol, this was a man who had taught Carol about torture long before her days at Region Thirty Three had begun.
He was a man that Daryl might have liked to kill if he were letting the so-called wild side of himself act as it felt driven to act. The world had long since taken care of the man for Daryl, though, so he'd never get the chance to find out how he might act in his presence.
Despite his presence in her eyes, though, Daryl would never hold Sophia's old man against her because he knew that old men were, sometimes, not much good for anything at all. He also knew that, in cases like that, nobody wanted their old man to be used against them.
Daryl had his father's eyes.
And with those eyes, Daryl held Sophia's for as long as she held his. Finally, she nodded her head gently.
"OK," she said.
Daryl smiled to himself.
"OK," he echoed. "Now that we on the same team—you wanna talk about breakfast? Maybe help me do somethin' special for your Ma? Somethin' to make up for them nightmares she was havin' all last night?"
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Giving Sophia a job to do hadn't healed her of whatever scars she was carrying around, but it had certainly done something for her morale. She had eaten breakfast with Daryl while Carol slept and then, when Daryl gave her the go ahead, she'd carried Carol's food into the bedroom while Daryl had come behind her with Carol's coffee.
The wake-up call was clearly unexpected by Carol, but she lit up over seeing her daughter first thing in the morning. Her happiness only grew when she realized she'd been brought breakfast in bed.
She'd thanked Daryl warmly, but he'd directed her to thank Sophia. Maybe Carol knew what he was doing, but she pretended that she believed it had all been Sophia's idea and she thanked her daughter with a hug and a kiss.
Sophia had curled up next to her mother in the bed—clearly the place she'd been thinking about being all morning—and kept Carol company while she ate her breakfast. Daryl sat, cross-legged, on his side of the bed and kept watch over the two of them. When Carol had finished eating and had offered her dishes over to him to move away from the bed, Daryl assumed it was time to finally start discussing the things that they simply needed to cover.
Daryl cleared his throat and drew the attention of both Sophia and Carol.
"Sophia—I know you don't want to talk much, but I believe that...I believe that'cha can understand more'n you're willin' to say," Daryl said. "So—there's somethin' we gotta tell you. An' you might not be ready to talk about it right now, but you can think about 'til you ready to talk about an' then..." Daryl stopped and looked at Carol. She was staring at him. She was giving him the floor right now. She was leaving it all there for him to handle, at least until she felt like she needed to step in. "When you ready to talk about, Sophia, we're here to talk about it."
Sophia furrowed her brow and looked quickly between Daryl and Carol. She sat more upright and Carol quickly wrapped her arm around her to soothe her and offer her some comfort.
"It's nothing bad, sweetheart," Carol said. "It's nothing bad. It's something—very, very good. It's something that makes us very happy."
"We just hopin' it makes you every bit as happy as it makes us," Daryl offered.
He sat there for a moment, but the words weren't coming out. Carol didn't seem to know what to say either. They'd assumed that it would simply flow for them when they started, but it didn't. Daryl finally unfolded his legs and got off the bed. He slipped into Sophia's room and looked around. Out of the piles of things they'd brought for the girl, it wasn't difficult to put his hands on what he was searching for. He picked it up, examined it by turning it over in his hands, and then he brought it into the room where Carol and Sophia were waiting on him. Instead of circling around the bed to get back in his original spot, Daryl sat on the edge of the bed nearest Carol and Sophia. He offered the baby doll to Sophia and she took it.
"You know what that is?" Daryl asked.
Sophia nodded her head.
"What is it?" Daryl asked.
"Daryl..." Carol said. Daryl held his hand up to stop her from telling him that he might be pushing Sophia too hard to speak right now.
"It's OK," Daryl said. "Let's just see. Just—can you tell me that, Sophia? What is that?"
Sophia looked at it. She looked at Carol and then at Daryl. Then she looked back at the doll.
"Doll," Sophia offered.
Carol smiled and Daryl nodded his head at her.
"That's right," Daryl said. "Doll. Baby doll."
"She had a doll for a little while," Carol said. "While we were out there. She had several dolls. I'd get them for her whenever I could. We always ended up having to leave them behind, though. It was difficult to travel with too much stuff and—things always seemed to happen to them."
Sophia hugged the doll to her.
"You gonna keep that one," Daryl offered. "If you fond of it. All of 'em you got. But—that's a doll but it's s'posed to be like a baby. You know what a baby is?"
Sophia nodded her head. Somewhere she'd heard about babies or seen them. Daryl wasn't going to press her to give him the details, though, of her knowledge. They were taking things slow. Daryl licked his lips.
"You know—where they come from?" Daryl asked. "How they get borned into the world?"
Sophia shook her head and Daryl glanced at Carol. This was her show. He wasn't about to decide how much education her daughter got in one day about babies and how they got there.
Carol shifted around, changing her position. She took her time, starting to speak and stopping several times, before she seemed to settle in on what she wanted to say. She looked at Daryl almost apologetically before she began, so Daryl assumed that she might think he'd find what she had to say either embarrassing or boring.
"Sophia—when two grown up people love each other like...well, a certain way, then sometimes they have a baby together. When they do, that baby will..."
Carol broke off and looked at Daryl like he might protest to what she was saying. He didn't protest at all. What she was saying might greatly oversimplify the whole process, but until they could really be sure of how Sophia was functioning, there was no need to get too complicated with things. She didn't need all the details. All she really needed was enough knowledge to help her understand that Carol was carrying her brother and sister. Daryl nodded at Carol to press her to continue. Carol sighed before she spoke again.
"If they're having a baby together," Carol said, "then they'll make the baby together and—and it'll grow in the woman's tummy. It'll grow there until it's big enough to be born. Then it comes out to meet the world."
"Then it's a baby that looks like your doll," Daryl said. "Once it's fully growed an' all."
"Do you understand, sweetheart?" Carol asked. "That's—it's how babies are born. You were a baby, once, in my tummy. You grew there until you were big enough to be born, and then you were here with me. And you grew up from that into—into the beautiful girl that you are today."
Sophia smiled to herself and then she shared the smiled with Carol. She glanced at Daryl and he nodded at her.
"You grew up good," Daryl said. "Look like your Mama. That's a good thing."
Carol laughed quietly. Then she got Sophia's attention again.
"Sophia—Daryl and I love each other," Carol said.
Daryl swallowed. It didn't matter how many times she said it, and she'd said it quite a few times, every time that he heard Carol say that she loved him with her own mouth it made his throat tighten. He still couldn't believe that he was that lucky. He couldn't believe that something so good had come out of the mountains of shit that he sometimes felt like he'd been shoveling through his whole life.
Sophia glanced at Daryl when her mother suggested that they loved each other and Daryl nodded his head.
"We do," he said, in case Sophia needed the extra assurance.
"And we decided to have a baby," Carol said. "Out of our love. But—we got very, very lucky. We got so lucky that our love—it didn't make one baby. It made two babies." Carol reached over and took Sophia's hand. Sophia let her have it willingly, but she watched her mother's movements carefully as Carol moved her daughter's hand to rest on her belly. "Right in here. We have two babies. And now? We're just waiting on them to grow. We're waiting for them to—come and join us."
Sophia looked at Daryl and he nodded his head again.
"You don't believe us," Daryl said, "you can go look in that other room over there. The one with the closed door? Across the hall? Go look in it. You'll see we got cribs an' baby things. All the stuff we gonna need to bring 'em on home with us. They gonna be your brother an' sister. You got one of each. One boy and one girl. They gonna be about the size of your doll there an' you can play with them too—gentle like."
Sophia glanced at Carol only have a second before she got off the bed. She rushed out of the bedroom, doll in hand, and Daryl could only assume that she was going to investigate the nursery. He looked at Carol. She looked worried and Daryl smiled at her. He reached his hand over and brushed her cheek before he gently patted her belly.
"Don't look so scared," Daryl said. "What's she gonna do?"
"What if she doesn't react well?" Carol asked.
"She's gonna react fine," Daryl said. "Just goin' to check things out. It's a lot to take in."
"Do you think it's too much?" Carol asked. "I don't want to throw too much at her."
"Throwin' love an' family at someone ain't throwin' too much at 'em," Daryl said. "There's worse stuff she could get thrown at her."
"I think you might have grossly overestimated the size of our babies," Carol said. "If you think that they're both going to be the size of that doll."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Not that big?" He asked.
"Not even close," Carol said. "At least—I hope not."
"Eventually, though," Daryl said.
"When they're about—six or eight months old," Carol said. "What do you think she's doing, Daryl? Do you think she's OK? I should check on her..."
Carol started to get out of the bed and Daryl reached a hand out and stopped her. He shook his head at her.
"You stay here a minute. I'll just take a peek. Make sure she's OK. Won't interrupt whatever she's doin' unless she don't look OK. We'll give her a little space. Some time to think. Let her wander a bit in the house. Give her whatever freedom she might need. She'll come to us when she's ready to talk about it—or ready to move on, whichever it might be. In the meantime, after I check on her, there's—uh—there's somethin' else I wanna talk to you about, OK? Somethin' I just wanna talk to you about. In private just for a minute. I'd appreciate if you'd—if you'd wait on me? Lemme talk to you? I called in and talked to Melodye this morning and..."
"You talked to Melodye?" Carol asked, cutting him off.
Daryl could practically hear Carol's pulse kick up when her expression changed. He shook his head at her and leaned forward, kissing her on the corner of the mouth when she didn't immediately move to respond to him.
"Sophia really does look like you, you know that? Especially when you're both worryin' over something. Stop worryin'," Daryl said. "Nothin' bad at all, I promise. Lemme just go check on Sophia. I'll be right back and I'll tell you everything. In the meantime? Don't worry. It ain't bad, and I don't lie. Not to you."
