Sophia ran from the kitchen when Daryl walked into the House of the Future and threw herself at him in a big bear hug around his waist. He oofed in surprise and stumbled backward a step, at which point Carol said, "Careful, Sophia! Mr. Dixon has stitches."
"Oh, sorry!" Sophia slid away from him. "Did I hurt you?"
"Nah. Weren't anywhere near my stitches." He felt his face pulling into a smile in response to the unexpected greeting.
Having been prepped by Sophia, he was a little less taken off guard when Carl hugged him, too, a bit more gently. Daryl didn't know what he should do with his hands, so he just left them dangling by his waist. When Carl pulled away, Andre came running up in his little brown leather cowboy boots from the Kid Kingdom Clothing store. He was probably just imitating the other kids, but he threw himself around Daryl's leg and squeezed.
Michonne chuckled and pried Andre off of Daryl's leg. "Don't worry, I won't try to hug you," Michonne assured him.
"All right if I do, though?" asked Andrea, emerging from the doorway of her bedroom.
"Uh…yeah. Guess." Daryl was puzzled by all these displays of affection. He stood stiffly as Andrea hugged him – quickly and careful of his stitches – and then stepped back. Everyone was in the living room or nearby hallway now, just gawking at him.
He looked around as though to ask – y'all done yet?
Shane held up his hand. "Don't look at me. I'm not much of a hugger. Glad you're alive though, man. You keep us fed."
"Shane!" Lori scolded.
"What?"
"That's not a very welcoming comment. That's all you care about? That Daryl keeps us fed?"
"Nah, 's a'ight," Daryl told her. "He's just saying I'm useful." Daryl would much rather have Shane's respect than his affection.
"We have a ham!" Glenn exclaimed, walking through the open front door with a milk crate full of food. "And some eggs and milk and cheese and vegetables."
"Milk?" Carl asked. "That isn't spoiled?"
"Fresh raw whole milk," Glenn agreed. "Who wants to help unload the truck?"
"Me! Me!" Carl cried and tore out the open front door.
[*]
Daryl was treated to a homecoming feast. They had half of the Greene Family Farm bone-in ham for dinner with Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from the food collection in the biker church, fresh apple slices, and fresh fried okra. (Daryl had once told Carol that fried okra was his favorite "vegetable," and she had apparently remembered. They'd found plenty of oil in the kitchens and she'd rolled it in cornmeal or crushed cornflakes for frying - he didn't know which - but it was delicious.) They washed it all down with sun-brewed iced sweet tea.
"Daryl, you were supposed to be on watch duty tonight," Shane said, "but I'm taking over for you. You certainly don't need to be climbing all those stairs to the Kingdom Tower Slides, and I understand you'll be needing more sleep than usual."
"And I'll be taking over perimeter check for you tomorrow afternoon," T-Dog told him.
"And the hunting can wait," Andrea said. "We've still got the rest of this ham and some alligator and I'll fish."
"We'll figure out how to spread out the protein we have," Lori agreed.
"Thanks," Daryl told them, a little taken aback by all the helpfulness.
"I baked snickerdoodle cookies to go with the milk after dinner for dessert!" Sophia announced to the table. "To celebrate Daryl being back home."
Daryl smiled. He'd always been jealous of the other kids in the neighborhood, whenever they said they came home to fresh baked cookies.
"Ask an adult next time before you start baking," Lori warned her. "You used up a half-cup of butter and one whole egg making those. There's already enough junk food in this park – including prepackaged cookies. I don't think we need to waste eggs and butter making more."
Sophia's face fell, and Daryl glowered at Lori. "Kid just wanted to do somethin' nice," he told her. "Why you gotta go and be such a bitch 'bout it?"
"Don't call my wife a bitch," Rick said thinly.
"Well maybe if she didn't act like one I wouldn't."
Carol put a hand on Daryl's knee under the table as though to reign him in.
"You can't just throw around words like that anymore, Daryl!" Rick hissed. "There are children here. Including a three-year-old. And that's a completely disrespectful way to refer to a woman. You think it's okay for you to go around complaining about people using too much power, but Lori makes one comment about trying to conserve butter and eggs, and she's a…really?"
"Kid was just tryin' to do somethin' nice!" Daryl shot back. "And then Lori goes and tries to make her feel like shit 'bout it!"
"I'm fine," Sophia said very quietly. "Please don't fight. Please."
Daryl felt Carol's hand tighten over his knee under the table and saw the fear in Sophia's face – that same look she'd gotten back in the quarry camp when Ed was insulting Carol or some other woman, and he felts a sudden heavy, weight in the pit of his stomach. "We ain't fightin'," Daryl said in a lowered voice. "I ain't fightin'. I apologize, Lori. Wasn't 'propriate what I said. You ain't a bitch. Just tryin' to ration. But Soph was just tryin' to be nice."
"I understand that," Lori said with forced calm. "And that was very thoughtful of you, Sophia. I'm sure the cookies will be delicious."
Forks began scraping against plates again as the tension gradually faded and the eating resumed.
Glenn started prattling on about the Greene family farm and how amazing it was.
"I'd like to meet Beth," Carl said. "She sounds nice. Could we visit sometime, Mom?"
"Not without an invitation," Lori told him.
After dessert, the kids cleared the dishes and then Andrea began washing them. Sophia returned to the dining room and hesitantly asked Daryl if he wanted to continue their D&D game with Carl.
"Yeah. Course." Daryl pushed back his chair. "Been lookin' forward to it the whole time I was laid up." He glanced at Carol, hoping she wasn't mad at him now that Sophia didn't seem scared by him anymore.
Carol smiled faintly at him. "Have fun."
While Carl, Sophia, and Daryl played D&D, Carol lingered in the dining room drinking hot tea and socializing. T-Dog joined them in the living room, however, and sat in the armchair before the faux fire as heat seeped from the vents. He sharpened the hatchet he'd taken to carrying on his belt and stole glances at Andrea in the kitchen.
Shane gave T-Dog a wary look as he passed behind his chair and went up the ramp to the space room. Michonne passed by a few minutes later carrying a sleepy Andre, who had a 7:30 bedtime.
A few minutes later, Shane came down the ramp, armed with the rifle with night vision scope, a handgun and a knife. "Sleep tight, y'all," he said as he left the house.
"Enjoy the slide ride down in the morning!" Andrea called after him. Shane walked on without comment, and T-Dog chuckled. "What?" Andrea asked him. "When it was my turn, I took the slide down in the morning instead of those stairs. It's kind of fun. You should try it. How about you Daryl? Is that how you got down the night you last stood watch?"
"Fuck no. Think I'm ridin' a burlap sack down a kids' slide?" He had. He'd sat on that sack and flown down that slide, and it had reminded him of that time when he was seven and he'd been desperate to join the other kids sledding on a foothill during a rare Georgia snowstorm, but he didn't have a sled like them, so he'd ripped the metal For Sale sign from Mrs. Riddley's yard and gone down on that. Mrs. Riddley had given him a tongue lashing when she caught him, but she hadn't reported the incident to his father, thankfully.
"There's no height limit," Andrea said. "Just 250 pounds." She tossed the dish towel she'd been using to dry the dishes on the counter, caught T-Dog's eye, and nodded with her head toward her bedroom.
T-Dog smiled and nodded back, and then Andrea said something about being very tired and went off to take her shower. About a half hour later, T-Dog silently left his chair in the living room and slipped into her room.
[*]
"Those two fuckin' now?" Daryl asked while Carol turned up the thermostat in his room. "T-Dog and Andrea?"
"Most likely. I guess you noticed Shane moved out of her room into the space room?"
"Jesus. I go away for a few days and y'all are playin' musical bedrooms?"
"Not me." Carol sat down on the second bed facing him. He was in his usual spot, sitting up against the headboard – black sweatpants, white muscle shirt, only now he had gauze creeping out of his shirt at the left shoulder.
"Lori and Rick still married?" he asked.
"As of this evening, anyway." She sighed and crossed her legs. "So what was that little display at dinner? With Lori?"
"Sorry." Daryl swallowed. "Just…got pissed off that she made Sophia feel bad. My dad was always sayin' shit to bring me down when I thought I'd done somethin' good. But it was never good enough, whatever'd I done. There was always somethin' wrong with it. Always. But then I think I fucked it up and went and made Sophia feel even worse."
"You didn't fuck it up," Carol said quietly. "I think she was glad to have you stand up for her. She was just uncomfortable with the raised voices. In our house, a raised voice often preceded something more violent. Ed never hit her. But I can't say she never saw him hit me."
"Sorry," he murmured.
"You made it right," she said. "You apologized to Lori, which I'm sure wasn't easy for you. I appreciate that. And then you suffered through an entire hour of D&D with Sophia. She was pretty thrilled about that."
"Ain't got much else to do." He nodded to the gauze on his shoulder. He'd had to do all his dice rolling with his right hand. He was right-handed, but sometimes he liked to shake those dice hard in two hands.
"I'm so happy to have you home alive."
"Yeah?" he asked hopefully. "Your uh…your visitor still in town?"
"Packed its bags and left last night," she said with a smile.
"That so?"
"That is so."
He smiled. "That mean you're game for foolin' round?"
"Hershel said – "
"- Screw Hershel. For a hippie, he sure ain't very sex positive."
Carol laughed. "Where'd you hear that term?"
"Oprah."
"Yeah right. Butthead."
"Figured that was comin' after you guessed Beavis. But no."
"Braxton Hicks."
"What?" Daryl grunted. "Hell kind of name is that?"
"Lori's pregnant, so I thought of it. It's what they call a false contraction."
"Yeah, not, ain't that."
"Badass!"
He chuckled. "No, but it oughtta be, though."
There was a knock on the frame of the open door. Rick ventured in with an 8-ounce water glass and a one-third full bottle of whiskey. "Thought this might help you sleep. Shane brought it back from that tavern." Rick walked over and set the glass down on the nightstand but held onto the bottle.
"Listen, man, sorry 'bout what I said 'bout Lori," Daryl told him.
"I know she can rub people the wrong way sometimes," Rick said. "But she's my wife, Daryl. I can't and won't stand by and see her disrespected."
"Hear you. Loud n' clear. Hell, I'd of punched me. Right in the shoulder." Daryl jerked his head toward his wound.
Rick chuckled. "Well, be glad I'm not you then." He opened the bottle and poured about two ounces into the glass and set the bottle down. "And Sophia's Carol's daughter." He half turned and nodded to Carol on the other bed. "And Carol's your…" Rick didn't seem to know quite what to call her and just trailed off. "So maybe you felt the same sort of defensiveness I did when you thought Sophia was being criticized. It wasn't Lori's intention to hurt the girl's feelings, I assure you. So let's just put it behind us." He picked up the glass and handed it to Daryl. "Glad you're back alive."
Daryl raised the glass to him as if in a toast and then sipped.
Rick headed out of the room, and at the door, asked, "You want me to close this?"
"Yes," Carol told him. When the door shut, she warned Daryl, "Don't drink too much of that. You aren't supposed to drink with Tylenol. Something about the liver."
"Just this one," he promised her. He took another sip and then held out the glass toward her. "Want some? Ain't half bad."
She leaned forward, reached out, took the glass from him, and then sat back again. She swirled it and looked at the rippling brown liquid. "I've never had hard liquor."
"Seriously? Never?"
"Just beer and wine. And wine coolers. My first drink was a Strawberry wine cooler. Bartles and Jaymes. At Mary Ellen Mitchell's 7th grade boy-girl birthday party. My first boy-girl party. I thought I was drunk. But I think I was just sugar high. Or maybe I just wanted to use it as an excuse to kiss Mary Ellen's twin brother."
"Lucky Mary Ellen's twin brother."
"I don't remember his name," she admitted. She took a small sip of the whiskey and winced. "Ow! It burns going down!"
He chuckled.
She handed the glass back to him. "But he was a pretty good kisser, Mary Ellen's brother. Not that I had anything to compare it to at the time. He was my first kiss on the lips. And your first?"
"No brand. Just back porch moonshine in a mason jar."
"Not your first drink, Butthead," she told him. "Your first kiss."
Daryl took a big sip of the whiskey and hissed. "Don't 'member."
"How can you not remember your first kiss?"
"Probably drunk or high."
"Did you get high often in middle school?" she teased, because that was when most people had their first kiss.
"Couple times."
"Oh. I was joking. In middle school?"
"Hey, Ms. Bartles and Jaymes over there, I wouldn't get too judgy."
She laughed. "It was like drinking a liquid jolly rancher. Hardly like pot."
"Never much liked it. Gettin' high. Made me feel…weak."
"Weak?" she asked. "Or vulnerable?"
"Same difference."
"Not exactly."
He took another sip. "Then I saw what the meth addiction did to Merle. First time I saw him go through withdraw, that was last time I ever so much as touched a joint." He sighed, drained the last of the glass and slammed it down on the nightstand.
Carol came over and stood beside the bed in front of Daryl and gently ran the backs of her fingers down his left arm, below the patch of gauze on his shoulder. "I really missed you," she said. "And I really liked seeing you in that bath. Ever since, all day, I've been thinking about you touching me until I cum."
"Yeah?"
"But I don't want to hurt you."
"Well, you like it gentle anyhow, dontchya?"
She smiled. "I do. But I don't know how gentle I can be once I start rocking on you."
"Figure it out."
With his right hand, he tugged on the tail of her pajama shirt. "Warm in here, ain't it? Since you turned up the thermostat."
It wasn't at all warm. She'd turned it up from 61 to 65. But Daryl rarely asked for much directly. Carol didn't know if he was shy to, or if he was afraid of scarring her off. Sometimes, she thought, he crept up on her like a hunter careful not to startle the prey. "Are you saying you want me to take it off?"
He ducked his head, smiled, and then raised his eyes shyly to hers.
"I suppose it is a little warm." She undid the first button of her pajama top and then the second. "I'd ask you to take yours off, too…" She slid free the third and fourth buttons. "But I think it's probably best you not have to raise your arms. His eyes were intent on her unbuttoning as she slid the last two free. Carol arched her back and let the top slide free and pool on the carpet. So far, this was the most exposed she'd been before him – top off only. He'd had his hand down her pants plenty of times now, but not her pants down. "I'm still a little warm," she ventured.
He half laughed. "Yeah?" he asked excitedly.
"A little. But I want to leave something on," she clarified, so he wouldn't be expecting her to get completely naked.
She stepped out of her pajama bottoms so that she was standing only in a silky, red pair of underwear. Carol may have put some thought into choosing the pair for tonight. Her efforts paid off. His eyes widened and he swallowed hard. She could feel her own skin growing pink with her blush as his eyes raked over her silky underwear, across her abdomen, up to her bare breasts, and back down again. "I'm going to leave these on, though," she said again, almost nervously, a little afraid of – but also excited by - her own boldness in taking off the pants. It wouldn't be considered boldness in most relationships – certainly not at this point - but to her it was. She felt like someone who had once almost drowned venturing to dip a toe in the water again.
"A'ight."
Very carefully, she climbed into his bed and straddled him where he sat.
He was already rock hard. "Missed ya," he said.
"I can see that. I missed you, too." She took his right hand and pressed it between her legs against her panties, which were already slightly wet. "Think I can finally earn that extra credit, Professor?" she teased.
Her heart thudded at the sudden flash of fiery desire in his blue eyes. "Yeah," he told her, his voice like smoke, "if you're a real good girl."
"And here I thought you wanted me to be naughty." She put her palms flat against the headboard to brace herself and make sure she didn't accidentally press again his wound. This position lifted her slightly off the erection that was tenting his sweatpants and pressing between her legs, but it also tilted her chest right in his face.
He let out an excited breath. Soon his right hand was cupping one of her breasts and the other breast was in his mouth. She moaned as he squeezed one breast gently and flicked his tongue around the hardening nipple of the other. It was too much after too much time apart and too much fear of losing him and the dirty thoughts she'd been having ever since bathing him. "Touch me!" she begged. "Please!"
He slid his right hand from her breast down and inside the band of her silky panties. She slid her hands up to the top of the headboard, gripped it, and got higher on her knees to keep her weight off of him while she bucked against his touch. He sat back against the headboard and watched her breasts heave as she jerked her hips in desperate circles and he moved his fingers in the rhythmic way she'd taught him. "You really want that grade, don'tchya, you naughty girl?"
"Yes!"
She jerked faster, and he sat forward to kiss her hard on the mouth as he worked his fingers against her.
She tore her mouth from his. "Soon," she breathed. "Soon."
"Soon?" he murmured. "You want the thing?"
"Yes! Soon!"
He had to use his left hand to do it, but he cupped one of her breasts and squeezed gently.
Her panting grew harder than her rocking and when she cried out "Now!" he pinched her nipple hard just as the orgasm ripped through her, and the light pain mingled with the burning pleasure seemed to double the force of her climax. She cried out his name and collapsed on him, forgetting his wound.
She jerked back again when he grunted in pain. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said as she practically crawled off of him.
"It's a'right. Ain't what really hurts." He nodded to the erection straining against the soft black felt. He smiled lecherously. "Could earn an awful lot of extra credit, Miss Murphy, if you'd just put your sweet mouth on me for a little bit. Just a little bit. Can finish with your hand."
Carol slid out of bed, grabbed a pillow from the second bed, and dropped it on the floor. Daryl laughed excitedly. He stood with the back of his legs pressed and braced against the bed as she kneeled down before him and pulled his sweatpants to his knees. He toyed gently with her breasts as she teasingly swirled her tongue around the tip of him. "Of, fuck yes. That's my girl. That's a good…" she moved further up him… "naughty…oh fuck…" He began to pump. "That's right…that's good work, Miss Murphy…so good you naughty girl…so fucking good."
She made his knees buckle again, so badly he had to take one hand off her breast and slap it down on the nightstand for support. When he started pushing into her mouth a little too deeply, she yanked back instinctively and then took him expertly in her hand. It wasn't five seconds before he let out a strangled cry and exploded. He dropped down in a hard sit on the bed, fell backward on his back across it, and flung his arms up roughly – too roughly - above his head with his feet still on the floor.
"Think I didn't really survive that gunshot, Miss Murphy," he said. "Think I died back in those woods. Think I died and went to heaven."
Carol stood and leaned over him. He smiled, but she wasn't smiling. "Daryl," she said, "you popped one."
"I know." He laughed. "Good and hard, too."
"I mean a stitch. You're bleeding again."