AN: Here we are, another piece to this one.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know, if you do!
111
The work was hard and nearly every day seemed to bring a new calluses to Carol's hands. In the afternoons, when the light was best for such things, Carol would tend to Daryl's hands and extract the splinters out of his palms and fingers that got embedded there so that they wouldn't fester and cause infection. Daryl, too, would tend to Carol's hands.
Carol noticed, though she never said a word to Daryl about it, that his hands shook when he was working on tending her hands. The shaking got worse if she ever made a noise to express discomfort with the whole thing, like if a splinter lodged itself too deep in the tender tissue.
Carol tried to swallow back all of her discomfort, when she felt it. She didn't like to make Daryl uncomfortable.
Still, she noted the care with which he tended her wounds, minor though they may be, and she recognized his genuine wish that she not suffer even such minor discomforts as the ones brought on by the building of their home.
For a man that Andrea had described as looking like he was at least part grizzly, there was a tenderness in Daryl that Carol felt and appreciated. She wanted to tend to him every bit as much as he seemed to ache to tend to her.
While tending to her hands, as though they somehow ought to be excused from all the work that needed to be done to build them a life, Daryl would lament that she had to do any work at all. He wished he could do it all. He wished he could build their home, and the barns they would need, and break the ground to grow what crops they could for food, and put up the fences that would keep their cattle, once it came into their hands, safe on their land.
And, while he tended her hands, Carol reassured him that he could do all those things himself, if he really wanted to, and if she wanted to allow it, but they would take longer, and that would mean that it would take them longer to see their life come to be what they wanted it to be. It would take them longer to have everything they wanted, and everything they were sure to have. As his mate, it was her right to help him, she said, as long as that's what she wanted, and she figured that a few calluses and some splinters were well-worth suffering in order to have the life she wanted with Daryl as quickly as she could possibly get it.
As the days and months rolled on, and their progress became truly visible, the work was hard, but the living was, honestly, easy. Carol's life was easy, and it was good, and she enjoyed it.
Carol didn't mind sore hands and sore muscles. She didn't mind the exhaustion that consumed her mind and her body to the point that, at night, when she closed her eyes, she sometimes felt like she was drifting down on the wind, just like some kind of leaf, swaying this way and that toward ground that she was already laying on.
She worked hard, she ate with great enjoyment and appreciation of her food, she relished the feeling of washing clean with Daryl in the water that felt nearly cold enough to freeze them right to ice, and she slept better than she ever had in all her days.
And she loved.
How she did love.
If Daryl was part grizzly, then Carol could only consider herself a lover of bears because she treasured, in all ways, the man who called her his mate. She would have been content to spend the whole of her life sleeping out under the cover they made for themselves with the slicker and blankets, but she was just as thrilled when their house was up and set to keep them sheltered from the weather.
"Got a lot of work left to do," Daryl said, washing Carol's back for her. The soap and the roughness of his hands scratched over her skin. It made her shiver more than just the frigid temperatures of the quickly moving water.
"Got a roof, though," Carol offered. "A real one."
This night would be their first night sleeping in the house as a finished house—or, at the very least, finished enough until they could spend more time putting touches on here and there without worrying about the most basic elements. They could also turn their attention, now, to fences and barns. They could turn their attention to cattle, and everything they needed for the winter.
The house could still grow—it was a basic structure—but it would keep them dry and warm. It would be a home for them in which to build a life together.
"You deserve more'n that," Daryl said. "A nicer nest."
"Let me wash you," Carol said. Daryl turned around and he laughed. "What are you laughing at?" Carol asked.
"Your lips is blue," Daryl said. "You shakin' so bad you can't hardly stand it. I swear I can hear your bones rattlin' around."
Carol laughed. She laughed heartily, and Daryl laughed right along with her. The laughter warmed her up despite the fact that she was actually feeling a bit like she was freezing. Daryl was freezing, too. She could see evidence of all over his naked body, just as she knew her body gave her away.
"Soon as we get all washed up," Carol offered, as Daryl turned and she started to wash his back, "then we'll go in our house, and you'll start us up a fire in that nice fireplace, and I'll cook us something to eat. We'll get our bellies full, and we'll get warmed up in our pallet."
"I'ma make you a real bed," Daryl offered.
"I know you will," Carol said. "But for now, what we've got'll do just fine."
Daryl turned around. He caught her in his arms. Wet and slippery from some residual soap, Carol soaked in the contrast of the warmth of his body, chilled as both of them were, against the coldness of the water that ran around their legs.
"It ain't enough," Daryl said.
"Your lips are blue, too," Carol said with a laugh. She hugged tightly against him.
"There you go, talkin' about what we weren't talkin' about," Daryl said.
"It's enough," Carol said. "More than enough. Everything you give me is all I ever wanted and then some."
"It's been a long time since I made you my mate," Daryl said. "Shoulda give you somethin' better by now."
"We mated for life, right?" Carol asked. Daryl hummed. "Then—we got plenty of time. Come on, Daryl. Let's finish up so we can get the fire going!"
111
Carol appreciated everything.
If Daryl brought her a rabbit, it was the finest rabbit that she'd ever seen. A prairie dog garnered just as much happiness from her as any other fine thing to eat. If he put it before her, Carol treated it as the best thing he could give her, and she praised him profusely for providing for them both.
The land he'd chosen was the finest land. Molly and Basco were the finest mules that anyone had ever had—better animals than even the fancy horses that some men owned. The water from their little river was the cleanest, sweetest tasting water. The house that Daryl had built, with Carol's help, was the best little house that any man had ever built—fit to keep out the weather and predators, alike, more than any other building ever had before.
Daryl negotiated what business he had to better than anyone else, and he knew more about how to pass, mostly unnoticed and unbothered, through the town in ways that nobody else knew. He was better at finding the yellow than any other man, and there would be nobody that could handle cows better than he could, even though they had yet to own even a single head beyond the single milk cow that Daryl had acquired to give milk and help supplement their food while both of them spent most of their time occupied with the building of their home.
By the time Daryl had brought all their things in from their rough-built storage outside, Carol was fluffing up their pallet and declaring that the fire he'd built for her to cook on was the best-built fire that she'd ever seen.
He couldn't help but find her praise warming and cheerful. The most important thing, though, was that Daryl believed her.
He didn't believe, not for a minute, that he was the greatest at everything that anyone had ever done. Rather, he believed that Carol meant the praise that she gave.
And her praise made Daryl feel good. It made him feel like he was doing everything right, even though something in his gut made him feel like he wasn't possibly giving her what she ought to have. He wanted her to have everything, after all.
And he must be doing something wrong. He must be doing something wrong because, at every turn, it seemed that all he'd ever heard from any men he'd ever spent any sort of time with, was that having a mate was difficult. It was hard. It was a struggle. She would make him miserable, and that was just part of having a mate. Mates were wonderful, he'd gathered, for some of the things they could offer, but they were demanding, shrill, and denying for the most part.
Carol was none of those things, except for wonderful, and though Daryl liked that, it did sometimes make him wonder if he was doing everything right or not.
"Your supper's alright?" Carol asked, heaping the last of the meat and gravy onto Daryl's plate where the last of the biscuits she'd made were already waiting.
They sat on the floor in front of the fire. They had no furniture just yet, but they would have some soon enough. Daryl didn't think it would be too hard to build a table and chairs and a bedframe. They could work on the rest as they went. He'd ask around, in town, about the things it was good for a woman to have, now that he'd built her a proper house to live in.
"Good supper," Daryl assured her. She smiled at the simple praise. "You eat enough? Here—you take some of this."
"I've eat plenty," Carol said. "I wouldn't want a bite more, honestly. I'm going to have some of that milk with the hot coffee. You want coffee?"
Daryl hummed and nodded, offering "please" around a mouthful of food as soon as he could, just to be polite. Carol was happy to serve him his coffee and milk, just as she served herself.
"Figure I go into town tomorrow," Daryl said.
"We'll go into town," Carol said. It was neither wholly a question nor a statement.
On the whole, Carol was so perfectly agreeable that Daryl might not have believed she was real. The one thing she didn't really care for, though, was being left alone. Despite the time between them—considerable time, Daryl thought—she still worried that he would leave her. She still reached for him in the middle of the night, and curled her body against his. He didn't mind, of course, because he reached for her too, just to be sure that she was still real and still there, but he noticed her nervousness. She liked going with him into town, even if that only meant going so far as the place where he left her in the company of her whore friend, Andrea, who praised him for the yellow he passed to her, joking that it was time off her back and in the company of all she really knew as a friend, and so Daryl hardly ever went into town without Carol.
"Take you to Andrea," Daryl said around his food.
Carol smiled and nodded.
"I can give you a list? For the mercantile? Things we oughta have. We're runnin' low on some supplies."
"Wish you would," Daryl said.
"I will," Carol said.
"Gonna make you a bed," Daryl said.
"I know you will," Carol said.
"Table. Chairs."
"I know," Carol said.
"What else you want, Carol?" Daryl asked.
"Nothing special," Carol said, shrugging her shoulders.
"I don't know hardly a thing about livin' in a house," Daryl admitted. "I don't know what's good to have."
"You're doing fine," Carol assured him.
"I knew you'd say that," Daryl said with a laugh.
"Is there something wrong with me saying that? You don't care for it?"
"I just figure…you're supposed to be wantin' more," Daryl said. "Every time I come across some cowpoke runnin' his jaws about his woman, she's always wantin' more than he's give her. More'n he can even manage to give. She's always denyin' him, and threatenin' him. And you don't do none of them things. You're always happy with me."
"Because you make me happy," Carol said simply. "You don't hurt me. Never. You gave me this house. Give me everything I need. I'm never hungry, Daryl. And I'm always safe."
"You don't want more?" Daryl asked.
Carol stared at him. She finished off her coffee, and Daryl realized his own was growing cold—a little film across the top had formed where the milk had grown something of a skin. He didn't care. He'd drink it however it was, and he wasn't too thirsty for it just now, anyway.
"You want me to want more?" Carol asked.
Daryl shrugged his shoulders.
"Might make me feel like—like I was doin' somethin' if I was…givin' you somethin' you were sayin' you wanted."
Carol smiled after a moment. She nodded her head.
"You're right," she said. "I do want things I don't have."
"Things I can give you?" Daryl asked.
"You could try, if you wanted," Carol said.
"What you want?" Daryl asked.
"That bed," Carol said. "And—a table and chairs."
"It don't make a difference, Carol, if I was gonna get it for you anyway," Daryl said.
"There's more I want, Daryl," Carol said. "If you were wanting it, too."
"I'll do the best I can," Daryl said, feeling himself tense up a little at some of the first genuine requests Carol might actually make of him. She smiled and nodded.
"I know you will," Carol said. "I would like to be married to you, Daryl."
"Married?" Daryl asked.
"Can't be nothing official, really, except between us, because I'm not so sure that I'm not married to Ed—I don't know how that works, really, but…we could be married between us, couldn't we?"
"Married…" Daryl said.
"Same as mating, really," Carol assured him. "Just—promising, I guess, that forever you're going to be with me. And, forever, I'm gonna belong with you. At least, that's the idea."
"As long as nobody don't take you away," Daryl said.
"Nobody wants to take me away," Carol said. "I'm not worth anything to anybody else, Daryl."
"I wanted you," Daryl said. "Coveted you bad."
Carol smiled at him.
"And you've got me," she said.
"I don't intend to let nobody else have you," Daryl said. "I don't care how hard they covet."
Carol laughed quietly.
"I wouldn't want them anyway," she said. "But—I would like to be married to you. Along with the mating, and all. That don't stop. They go together, really. Just between us, since I don't know if we can do it official. I don't know if anybody in Sweet Springs would have any way of knowing I'd been married before to Ed."
"They don't matter," Daryl said. "I'll marry you. But—I don't know what I do to make it happen."
"You just—say you wanna be married to me. For now, and for always."
"I do," Daryl said.
"I do, too," Carol said.
"And what else?" Daryl asked.
Carol shrugged her shoulders.
"That's really all there is," Carol said. "You just—promise you're gonna be with me, and that you'll never leave me anywhere. Not if you can help it. Not for good."
"Never," Daryl agreed. "But—you gotta promise you don't never run off, and you don't go off with nobody unless you just can't help it."
"Even if they took me off," Carol said, "I'd run off from them to find my way back to you."
"There's more to the marryin'?" Daryl asked.
Carol hummed.
"Now, you gotta mate me as your wife," Carol said. "It doesn't become all real until you do."
"And then it's real?" Daryl asked.
"All the way," Carol assured him. "I have to warn you, though, that I wasn't a good wife. Ed said so."
"I might not be much of a husband," Daryl admitted.
"You're much better than Ed was," Carol said.
"I love you a whole lot more'n it seems Ed ever did," Daryl offered.
"I don't intend to fuss with you as much as you've been told wives do," Carol said. "And—I don't intend to deny you, so I'd just as soon you didn't expect me to do that."
"I'd rather you didn't," Daryl said. "The thought of it makes my stomach ache. But—I do want you to want things from me. I like the idea of givin' you somethin' you want."
Carol nodded.
"I can do that," she said. "But—sometimes you just gotta understand that what I want is what you want to give me, and you're still workin' to give me what I want, it's just that we're married so we're wantin' the same things. And that's good, too. That's just fine. It's how it oughta be, really."
"If I don't give you enough, though, you scold me," Daryl said. "Make me do it right."
Carol laughed.
"And if I don't be a good wife to you, then you scold me," she said. "Punish me for it, so I do what you want."
He frowned at her.
"I don't wanna punish you," he said.
"And I don't wanna scold you," Carol challenged, raising her eyebrow at him.
"How you gonna tell me if I'm doing wrong, then?" Daryl asked.
Carol laughed and leaned toward him. He leaned toward her, sensing what she wanted, and met her for a quick kiss. She leaned a bit too far forward and fell a little. He reached out and caught her.
"Maybe—I'll just tell you gentle-like," Carol said. "And you'll just tell me gentle-like. And together we'll fix whatever we're doing wrong so that we're both doing it right. That suit you?"
"Suits me fine," Daryl said.
"Me, too," Carol agreed.
"What do we do now?" Daryl asked.
"Clean up from supper," Carol said. "And then, we gotta mate—so we're officially married and all, between us."
"Then, we're just married?" Daryl asked.
"Then, we're just married," Carol agreed.
"That suits me fine, then," Daryl said. "Let's clean this up."