AN: Someone on Tumblr requested this little prompt, and I couldn't say no to this! It's right up my alley of fluffy, holiday goodness.
I own nothing from The Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! If you do, please let me know!
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Daryl had been to three different stores around town looking for the particular vanilla and spice eggnog that was the only one that would do for Carol.
Daryl wasn't particularly fond of the holiday beverage. He would occasionally drink it, but it took little more than a sip for him to feel that he'd had enough. If the season passed without so much as a swallow of eggnog, Daryl wouldn't feel that he'd been any less thorough in celebrating the Yuletide than he'd ever been before.
But Carol loved eggnog. In particular, she loved this one type of flavored eggnog that was vanilla and spice—and, apparently, this early in the season, they only carried it at one store in town, and that had been a small stock. Daryl had bought both cartons on offer and made sure that the manager knew that he had a very strong interest in acquiring more as soon as it came in.
It was, honestly, a bit early to start celebrating Christmas. The day before had been Halloween, and most of the houses in their neighborhood were still decked out in false spider webs made of stringy cotton and pumpkins. At the end of the road, someone had cleverly attached a broom to a tree and made it look as though a witch had crashed into the pine. A few houses had artificial ghosts hanging in oaks.
Carol wanted to celebrate Christmas, though, and Daryl didn't really care one way or another when the so-called festivities began. She'd woken him up talking about the eggnog, and he'd taken a chance that the stores might have some, since they'd started putting out Christmas items somewhere around the end of September.
Carol told him that, while he was gone, she was going to begin dragging the Christmas decorations out of their storage building so that she could start decking the proverbial halls—their pumpkins and orange, yellow, and red decorations from Halloween would soon give way to a veritable Winter Wonderland—despite the fact that it was still, essentially, sweltering in Georgia.
Daryl and Carol were spending their first Christmas together in their new home. It was their second Christmas as a married couple—their last Christmas having been spent in some "affordable" apartments that had, more than anything, provided them with a great deal of "stories" to share in life—and it was their third Christmas as a couple, in any way shape or form, since they'd started dating just before Christmas three years back.
Carol was excited about seeing their new home all decked out for the holiday and, though their house wasn't a magazine-worthy house by any means, Daryl was excited to see his own home twinkling with little lights, draped in garland, and ready for their first "Family Christmas."
The two of them joked that it was their first family Christmas because, though their little one would likely be compared to some piece of fruit for the holidays, thanks to a million websites they followed religiously on their phones, Carol was expecting their first child and, miniscule as the baby may be to everyone else, it made them already feel like a family. It was, for them, something definitely worth celebrating.
And it was also the reason that, the day after Halloween, Daryl was willing to drive around scouring stores as far as the outskirts area between their town and the next to find Carol the coveted vanilla and spice eggnog.
As Daryl drove through their quiet little neighborhood, he waved at the neighbors he saw. Some were walking their dogs. Some were tearing down decorations. Others were putting up decorations. It was quiet and peaceful, and Daryl smiled to himself just to see it. Maybe, after all, he was feeling a touch more of the holiday spirit than he'd let on. It would be difficult not to, though, since Carol had been humming Christmas carols since her feet had hit the floor, despite the fact it had been nausea that had made her feet hit the floor at somewhere just after three in the morning.
As Daryl reached his own house, turning his truck into the driveway, he saw a sight that very nearly caused him to go into cardiac arrest.
He was out of the truck immediately after putting it into park, leaving the keys in the ignition and the acquired eggnog in the front seat.
"What the fuckin' hell are you doin'?!" He yelled, his voice echoing out. He was certain everyone in the neighborhood had heard him, and quite a few wouldn't care for his tone, his choice of words, or his volume, but he didn't care.
Daryl ran back and forth in the front yard for a moment, feeling not at all unlike those cartoon characters in the shows he'd enjoyed as a kid who would try to catch something like a piano—not knowing where to stand nor seeming to realize that their efforts were entirely ridiculous—until the piano landed on them and crushed them.
Daryl wasn't trying to catch a piano, though. In reality, he wasn't trying to catch anything. He hoped, in fact, that there was nothing to catch at any point. More than anything, he felt desperately like he ought to do something, but he simply couldn't quite land on what that was at the moment.
Carol was up on the roof.
Daryl's pregnant wife was up on the roof.
And Daryl was trying, to the best of his ability, not to succumb to a stroke, or something he felt must be very much like one, in his front yard.
"What the hell are you doin' on the fuckin' roof, Carol?!" Daryl called up.
Carol leaned over the side of the roof.
"Holy shit! Back the fuck up!" Daryl exclaimed when he saw her peeking over the side at him.
Carol laughed.
"I'm hanging Christmas lights," she called down to him.
Daryl's face felt numb. He thought that, maybe, his fingers and toes also felt numb. Maybe, he thought, he was really having some sort of episode and, in response to the whole thing, he would just fall out in the grass—maybe that would bring Carol down off the roof.
"I don't give a damn if you're hangin' up Christmas lights, Carol! Get down off the roof!"
"I'm not done," Carol offered.
"What part of I don't give a damn did you miss, Carol?" Daryl responded.
"I can't leave the lights half-hung, Daryl," she argued.
"Then come down off the roof, and I'll hang the lights! What possessed you to get up there in the first place? You're pregnant!"
"I'm not that pregnant, Daryl," Carol offered.
Daryl understood exactly what she was trying to say—she was only just starting to show even the slightest bit, and really what they knew was owing to the baby was easily mistaken for simply a little extra weight gain in certain areas.
"This ain't a ride at Six Flags, Carol," Daryl said. "There ain't no sign that says you gotta be this pregnant before it's bad to fall off the damn roof!"
Carol laughed at him.
"I'm not falling, Daryl."
"Not yet, you ain't," he said. "But don't you think it's a good idea to come down before you do? Comin' down the ladder's a whole lot better'n comin' straight down on the ground."
"I used to do this when I was married to Ed," Carol offered. "I know what I'm doing."
"I don't care if you were a tight-rope walker in a previous life, Carol Ann, come off the damned roof!"
Daryl scurried over to the ladder, finally deciding that was the best place for him, since Carol didn't seem to be moving too quickly to come down.
"I'm comin' up after you, if you don't come down," he warned.
"Then what are you going to do, Daryl?" Carol asked with a laugh. "You can't carry me down the ladder."
Daryl felt a little like stomping his foot in protest and frustration.
"I'm serious, Carol, you're freakin' me out."
"Daryl—someone has to hang the lights."
"Come down here, and I'll do it," Daryl said.
"You said you didn't like heights," Carol said.
"Yeah—well—turns out I just now figured out somethin' that scares me about a hundred times more'n heights, Carol," Daryl said. "I can't hardly stand you up there, and it's ten times worse knowin' you got our kid up there. Please come the fuck down this ladder right now before I have a damned heart attack and die."
Carol laughed, and Daryl's pulse seemed to tick in beat with it for half a second, actually slowing a little at the warming, welcomed sound. She stood up, and started toward the ladder.
"Holy shit, Carol! I'm serious…sit down!"
"Daryl! How the hell am I supposed to sit down and come down the ladder at the same time?" She asked, not sitting at all.
"Crab-walk or some shit across the roof. How'd you get all the way over there, anyway? Have you been walkin' around on the roof since I left?"
"Not the whole time," she said, ignoring his suggestion that she crab-walk and simply strolling over in the direction of the ladder like she spent half her damn life walking around on roofs. "I had to get the lights out of the building, first, and I brought the ladder from the garage."
"OK—see—you aren't makin' this better, Carol."
She laughed again and turned around to climb onto the ladder.
"You got me?" She asked.
Daryl held the ladder.
"As much as you'll let me," he said.
Carol climbed down slowly, and Daryl held the ladder until her feet were firmly planted on the ground. His own feet didn't feel so stable. His knees certainly felt like they left something to be desired.
Carol turned around and immediately wrapped her arms around him, looping her fingers through the belt loops on his pants and pulling him a little toward her. She smiled at him.
He might want to be mad at her for scaring him so damned bad, but he couldn't. He could hardly ever bring himself to be genuinely mad with Carol about anything.
He did, however, feel like he was shaking, at least a little, against his will.
Carol kissed him, and he accepted the kiss, but he felt like he didn't do as good a job of returning the kiss as he might have wanted.
"Better?" Carol asked.
"I feel like I could puke," he offered.
She crinkled her nose.
"That's not a good feeling," she said, shaking her head. "I feel like that most of the time. Bushes?"
Daryl felt himself relax a little. He laughed at her suggestion that he hurl in the bushes, only briefly wondering if she might have already done so in the course of the day. He leaned and kissed her forehead.
"I didn't really mean to scare you," she offered.
"I know," he said. "But you did. Damn near scared me to death."
"I wasn't going to fall," she said.
"You don't know that," Daryl countered. "And—shit—I couldn't stand the thought of losin' you. Or even seein' you hurt. Couldn't stand the idea of somethin' happenin' to our kid." He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, steadying himself a little. "Just—promise me that you won't do that no more."
Carol smiled at him.
"I won't go up on the roof again," Carol said. "But—if you go up, you have to promise me that you're going to be careful. I don't want to lose you, either, you know."
Daryl laughed quietly.
"You ain't gotta worry about that. I'ma be travelin' on my ass the whole damn time I'm up there. Stay low—that's the key to keepin' your balance on the roof when you don't normally travel around up there. I ain't takin' no chances of fallin' off. I got shit to do—can't be dead or laid up in the hospital. Gotta—deck the halls with my wife and get ready for our kid. Ain't that the plan?"
Carol smiled sincerely.
"That's the plan," she assured him.
"Come on," Daryl said. "I need a cigarette and—I left the truck door wide-ass open. I got your eggnog. Had to go damn near to Warner to get it, but I got it."
"You do love me," Carol said, squeezing him as they started to walk together toward the truck. In her voice, there was the lyrical sound of laughter and teasing.
Daryl squeezed her back.
"More'n you ever gonna know," he said. "I'm even willing to go up on the damned roof for you—and that's' sayin' a lot."
