Carol's not going to sleep in the infirmary tonight. With Sophia in the prison, she's not sure it sends the right message to be spending the night in what is essentially Daryl's bedroom, especially now that he no longer needs the IV or the heart monitor. It's still very early in the relationship, after all, and even though nothing more than a kiss would be happening in there, Sophia doesn't know that. That and she doesn't want Sophia to have to sleep alone in a cell tonight in a camp that, though it houses friends, also houses strangers. She explains all this to Daryl when she goes to say goodnight, just after Lilly, who has been checking his vitals and changing the dressing over his stitches, leaves the infirmary.
"Don't want 'er to think you're easy?" Daryl asks with a smirk.
"I'm not easy, mister," she replies as she sits on the edge of his bed by his feet. "You're going to have to work for this." She waves a hand over herself from head to knee. She's teasing, of course. He's barely willing to make a move to try for a kiss without prodding. She doubts he would try to take her to bed anytime soon, even if he hadn't been recently shot, and she's determined not to rush him. When it happens, she wants it to be natural to him, guilt-free, not an itch he's scratching only to feel bad about it afterward.
By the curious way he's looking at her, she realizes maybe it wasn't the best-formed joke. After all, not long ago he feared she was only kissing him because he had worked for her – worked to put food on her table and a roof over her head. "I didn't mean work," she clarifies. "I just mean I've never slept with a man on a first or second or third date before." Or any date. She wishes now that she hadn't lost her virginity on her wedding night. Maybe if she'd had sex with Ed on the first date, she would have known what a selfish asshole he was, and she'd have stopped dating him, long before he'd slowly cut her off from her friends and her job and every source of refuge. "And you haven't even taken me on a date yet."
"Sposed to take you on a date?"
"Isn't that what boyfriends do?"
"Fuck," he mutters. "Thought I was just signing up for free kisses."
She chuckles, and he smiles and ducks his head, in that awkward way of his that she's coming to adore. "Maybe one more free one," she tells him, and slides off the bed to come over and bend down and kiss him. This one's a little longer than usual, and she even pulls away before he does this time.
"You ain't serious are ya?" he asks. "'Bout the date?"
She shrugs. "We're already living together. I guess we have plenty of opportunities to get to know one another better without that."
"Kind of dates did you used to go on?" he asks.
He's never been on a date, she supposes, unless you count the time he must have spent at the bar while Merle picked up women for them. "Ed never took me out once we were married, but he did before. Denny's and a movie, mostly."
"Fancy. Hell, I'd of just taken you to Waffle House."
She laughs. "I could have done without the Denny's, but I sure would love to go to a movie again. With the popcorn and the Coke and the Snow Caps."
"Snow caps?"
"The candies, you know? Chocolate with those white sprinkles? You've been to the movies, right?"
"Snuck in a few times when I was a kid. Ain't never bought popcorn or candy."
"What was your favorite movie?" she asks. "That you snuck into?"
He seems to think about it. "Promise you ain't gonna laugh?"
She sits back down by his feet and rests a hand atop the sheet on his knee. "Promise."
"Stand and Deliver."
"Why would I laugh?" she asks. "That's a great movie."
"'Cause who the fuck sneaks into a movie about passing a Calculus test?"
Now she does laugh.
He chuckles, too. "Just saw the poster. Thought it was gonna be about some high school gang banger taking on a Mexican cartel or something. And then I…dunno. Didn't want to get caught sneaking out. So I just sat there in the back. Watching."
"See, this is the kind of thing you go on dates to learn about each other. Now you ask me what my favorite movie was at that age."
"What was your favorite movie?"
"Promise not to laugh?" she echoes him.
"No."
"Fine. It was Splash."
He shakes his head.
"The romantic comedy? Where Tom Hanks is dating a mermaid?"
"Tom Hanks dated a mermaid?"
"Not in real life. In the movie. I forget his name in the movie. I was 13, and it was the first time I ever went to a movie with a boy. We all rode our bikes up to the strip mall with the second run theater. It was a double date. And he held my hand. But he never tried to kiss me."
"That why you don't remember the character's name? Too damn busy holding hands?"
"No, because it was a long time ago. And to be fair, I don't remember my date's name either," she admits. "I think it was Taylor. Or Tyler. Maybe Tanner."
"Better not forget my name," he grumbles.
"I could never forget your name, Darren." He glowers at her, and she chuckles as she slips off the bed and steps closer to press her lips down on his forehead. "Sweet Dreams," she tells him.
When she reaches the cell Oscar has given them for the night, Sophia has already claimed the top bunk.
[*]
Daryl's excruciatingly bored staying at the prison for another day. Carol knows it, but she really wants Sophia to enjoy her time with Carl, and she's been enjoying catching up with Glenn, Lori, Maggie, and Beth. Besides, she knows when they get back to Copper Creek, Daryl will probably begin to do things he shouldn't be doing physically. Her boyfriend is stubborn like that.
She uses that word today, boyfriend, while helping to carve pikes for the pike line the Council approved, just to let Maggie know she wasn't wrong to use the term.
"I thought you said you two weren't official?" Maggie replies with a raised eyebrow as she pushes a slanted pike into the hole in the ground right before the chain link fence.
"Well, we are now. Officially official."
"He's a good guy, right?" Glenn asks as he sharpens the tip of his pike with a carving knife. "I mean…he doesn't ever…He's good to you, right?"
Carol knows what he's getting at. "I'd never again be with a man like Ed. Yes. Daryl's good to me. He's just a little rough around the edges."
"Aren't we all at this point?" Lori asks. She's currently squatted down and using a garden shovel to dig a small hole for Glenn's pike to be rooted in. "I don't guess we would have made it this long far otherwise." She stands. "Besides, he does have nice arms."
Carol smiles. "Hey, that's my boyfriend you've been checking out."
"Just because you're on a diet…" Beth says as she hands Maggie another pike to place with a freshly carved tip. "Wait, that's not how that goes. That's for if you're looking even if you have a boyfriend. Not looking at someone else's boyfriend."
Lori's face clouds. "And I'm not actually on a diet anymore."
Beth winces. "Sorry. I didn't mean to remind – "
"- It's okay. It's not like I'm ready to be back out there anyway."
"Wait, if you're both here," Glenn asks Beth and Lori suddenly, "then who's watching the kids?"
"Daryl," Beth answers. Glenn looks alarmed at that answer, but when she adds, "And Patrick," he shrugs as if relieved.
"Speaking of boyfriends," Maggie says, "when are you going to let Jody know he's not actually yours? Because he's starting to think he is."
"I've never said that!" Beth exclaims.
"You're too nice to him," Maggie insists. "You need to be clear."
"Not everyone is like you. And I am clear. I keep reminding him I'm about to turn 18 and he's barely 16. I hear there are older teenagers and college-age guys at Copper Creek, though." Beth glances at Carol.
"There are five young men between the ages of 17 and 24," she answers.
"You aren't going to Copper Creek," Maggie says.
"I might," Beth counters. "Why not? The Council said Carl can go on the first one with Glenn and Oscar, so why not me?"
"That's too many people out at once," Maggie tells her. "You know the rule."
"No more than two council members out at once. There's no rule about no more than three people out at once."
Carol leaves them to their arguing and pike line building to go back into the prison to peek in on Daryl with the kids in the library. He isn't showing them The Simpsons or Monty Python. He's actually got on a U.S. history video, probably at Beth's earlier direction, and Patrick is watching cross-legged on the floor right along with the rest of the kids, with RJ nestled in his lap. Daryl pauses the video. "Pop quiz," he says, and then asks the same question he asked Carol the other night: "Who's the hottest U.S. President?"
Carol covers her mouth to hide her laugh and stays half hidden, peeping around the door frame.
"What?" Meghan asks.
"Oh, I know, I know!" cries Luke, raising his hand high.
Daryl points at him.
"George Washington!" Luke declares and then pulls his hand down.
"Wrong."
"But he was the tallest President," Eryn says. "And girls like tall guys."
"Wrong," Daryl tells her. "Abrham Lincoln was the tallest president. And there ain't nothing wrong 5' 10"."
Carol stifles her laugh. She suspects that must be his height.
"Girls like rich guys, too," Meghan says. "Who was the richest president?"
"We ain't talking 'bout rich. Talkin' 'bout hot."
"Isn't that a matter of opinion, Mr. Dixon, sir?" Patrick asks.
"Nah. Read it in a book. They surveyed historians. 85% named one guy."
The figure has increased, Carol notes, since they had this discussion.
"That's an opinion survey," Patrick reasons. "Not a fact."
"Who?" Norris shouts. "I want to know! Who was the hottest president?"
"Franklin Pierce," Daryl tells them.
"Who?" all four of the kids ask at once. RJ sits forward in Patrick's lap and looks back and forth at them. "Oooo?" he echoes.
"He was the 14th President," Patrick informs the kids. "In office starting in 1853. He only served one term. But he was disliked in the North for his position on the Kansas-Nebraska act, so the Democrats didn't nominate him again."
"Yeah, listen to the nerd," Daryl says. "He knows his shit."
"I'm…I'm not a nerd," Patrick insists.
"Sure you are. Total nerd. Ain't nothing wrong with it. You heard what Meghan said. Girls like rich guys. And nerds become rich guys."
"Not since the collapse," Patrick mutters. "Fighters and hunters are the rich guys now."
"Someone's got to rebuild some of this shit," Daryl tells him. "Check back with me in ten years, when you got a girl on each arm, and them tell me I'm wrong."
Patrick laughs. "Yeah, okay, sure."
Daryl spies Carol. "A'right. Back to the movie. Keep and eye on these kids for me, Patty boy?"
Patrick nods.
Daryl walks through the doorway, from which Carol has retreated into the hallway. "You should have been an elementary school teacher," she tells him with a barely repressed smile. "Or junior high."
"Ain't nothing else to do around here. You wouldn't let me carve pikes."
"We'll leave in the morning," she assures him. "I'm about to go start helping to prepare the dinner. I just wanted to peek in and see how you were doing."
"Yeah? Wasn't coming to give me a kiss?"
It's ridiculous, she thinks, the way her stomach flutters, like she's some junior high school girl with her first crush, as she rests a hand on his hip and shares a kiss in the hallway.
"Ooooooh!" comes Luke's voice in the doorway, and Carol steps away. The little boy turns and calls back into the room, "Mr. Dixon has a girrrrrlfriend!"