Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Eight Days and Counting…

As Daryl walked down the ramp at 9:00 in the morning, puzzled again by his own late sleeping, he was counting down the days to when these stitches came out and he could hunt again, and, more importantly, he and Carol could fool around again, since she seemed determined not to risk popping another stitch.

"I prayed for a sunny day," Lori said when he stepped into the living room. "And behold." She waved her hand toward the living room windows where the sun was streaming in. Andre was sitting on the couch snuggling with a teddy bear and 'reading' a board book. "Coffee, Pookie?" Lori asked.

"That joke's gettin' old. And I said no appliances."

"Oh, I don't think that joke will ever grow old. And we didn't run the coffee pot. Carol put a kettle on the fire pit out front. It's still lukewarm."

The park had several fire pits scattered throughout it meant for building wood fires for roasting marshmallows during the Christmas season, when the park was open for a display of lights and just a few rides. They had one in the pathway just outside the House of the Future.

"Sure."

Lori brought him a cup and he took it with a murmured thanks. He could get used to this, he thought, pretty women bringing him things every morning. And all the women in this house were pretty. All of them. And the prettiest one of all was his girlfriend. His. Maybe he had died – but not back in those woods. Back before the quarry?

Lori said, "Keep an eye on Andre, would you? This pregnancy has me wiped out. I'm going back to sleep for a bit."

"'Chonne and Glenn left already? For the farm?"

"Yep."

As Lori disappeared up the ramp, Daryl looked hesitantly at Andre. "Guess it's just you and me, buddy."

Andre pointed to himself with his thumb. "Andre An-ton-ee!"

"'S a good name," Daryl agreed and sat down on the far end of the couch from him. The little boy crawled over and Daryl raised his coffee up and then switched it to his other hand so he wouldn't spill it on the kid.

Andre leaned against his side and held up the book. "Read!"

Daryl set the coffee cup down on the end table and took the book from the kid. The book was about people's jobs and just had pictures with words. The fireman, policeman, doctor, construction worker, and scientist were all women, while the preschool teacher, nurse, secretary, and maid pictured in the book were all men. When he'd gone through naming all the jobs, Daryl flipped the book back to the first page. "A woman can do anything," he told the little boy. "Should see how fast Carol learned to use a gun. And your mama with that katana. Damn."

"Damn," Andre repeated.

"But this book's a little obvious 'bout it. Little like they're hittin' you over the head with a two-by-four."

Andre pointed to the picture on the first page. "Fireman! Wooh-wheee."

"Firefighter. Got to be gender neutral."

The little boy turned the page and pointed to the doctor. "Doc!"

"Yeah, but I still bet she makes her husband kill spiders for 'er. That's what you got to work on. Your bug killin' skills. Also, get handy with tools. Merle said flowers don't mean shit if you can't fix 'er plumbin'."

Andre gave him a puzzled look, like he was trying to make sense of all these words.

"Aw, hell," Daryl said. "Fix 'er plumbin'. I just realize that had a double meaning. Sounds like a Carol joke almost. And she didn't even like Merle."

"Merle?" Andre asked.

"He's my brother. He's somewhere else now. Maybe he found himself an amusement park or a farm or something to live on."

"Turn page!"

Daryl turned the page. Andre pointed to the picture of the black male preschool teacher. "He like Daddy."

"He looks like your daddy, you mean?" Daryl asked.

"Where's Daddy?"

"Uh…" Did the kid not remember seeing his father eaten alive by walkers? Did he not understand what had happened? "He's in…uh…better place now."

"Daddy all gone."

"Yeah." Daryl swallowed. "Yeah, he's all gone."

Andre turned his lip downward. But then he just lay his head against Daryl's side and turned one of the pages of the book.

Little kids were weird, he thought. They bounced back from things in the way adults couldn't. And they didn't make judgments the way adults did. Andre barely knew him, and yet the kid was snuggling up to him. Any new adult Daryl met was instantly wary of him. But to this kid, Daryl was just the guy who had snatched him off a counter in a diner overrun by walkers, just a guy who was a part of the group that had taken him in. As far as Andre was concerned, Daryl had no past at all.

"Turn page," Andre ordered, and Daryl did.

[*]

That evening, Glenn and Michonne returned with a dozen more eggs, another two gallons of milk, a half-pound of cheese, and fifteen pounds of beef. "I told you we'd score with those antibiotics!" Glenn exclaimed over dinner.

"And did you score with them?" Shane smirked.

"I don't see you with a girlfriend," Michonne observed.

Shane gritted his teeth and returned to his meal.

"All that for four bottles!" Glenn exclaimed.

"Yeah, well, they still owe me hundred pounds of deer," Daryl muttered.

"I think that may be why they gave us so much beef for just a few bottles of antibiotic," Carol suggested.

"You mean it wasn't Glenn's ability to seduce the farmer's daughter?" T-Dog asked with a smile.

"Would y'all leave poor Glenn alone?" Lori said. "He has a little crush. I think it's cute, even if he doesn't have a snowball's chance in a very hot place."

"She means hell," Carl told Sophia.

[*]

"Bold," Carol guessed.

"Nah," Daryl replied.

"Bald."

"Nah. But I was when I was born."

"Beautiful."

"No, but you are."

"Smooth line."

"Yeah?" Daryl asked. "Wanna fool around?"

"Yes," Carol replied. "But we're not going too. You're not popping another stitch." There were a few soft kisses where they sat side by side on his bed, and then, "Goodnight, Daryl."

"Goodnight, Miss Murphy."

Thursday, October 28, 2010
Seven days and counting…

Daryl passed Sophia and Michonne practicing katana and waved. The girl was getting good. She'd have to practice killing a walker at some point, supervised and protected, of course. He wondered if Carol would allow it.

Next he passed Carl and Rick gardening and nodded. Then he passed Andrea fishing and shouted, "Don't overfish that lake!"

"I couldn't if I tried!" she called back. "It's getting cooler. They aren't biting as much. Just two so far today."

Damn these people needed him. He couldn't wait seven days to hunt.

Well, Glenn had managed to trade for those fifteen pounds of beef, not to mention the milk and cheese. Which would be enough protein for three days for all of them, on top of the over nine days' worth they already had.

Still, winter was only two months away. They had to store up. Yeah, these people needed him to get back out there.

[*]

"Brazier."

"Like for holding tits?" Daryl asked. He sat with his unwounded arm draped around Carol's shoulders and her head leaned against him, their backs to the headboard of his bed, the candelabra aglow on the nightstand. The solar back-up battery was three-quarters recharged now, with their limited use of power.

"Yes." Carol chuckled. "Like for holding tits."

"Nah, but I do like holding tits."

"Not tonight. You do that and that will lead to something else and that will lead to a stitch popping."

"Not if we're careful," Daryl insisted.

"Belligerent."

"Wasn't being belligerent. Just sayin'."

"No, for your middle name," Carol explained.

"Oh. Nah."

"Bam Bam! Like in the Flinstones!"

"Loved that cartoon. Wilma was hot."

"Got a thing for red heads?" she asked.

"Prefer a silver fox."

She laughed. "I think I've actually taught you to flirt. Not well, but…"

"Pffft."

"So is it Bam Bam?"

"No, ain't Bam Bam. Less you want it to be?" He raised an eyebrow. "Could be."

She laughed. "Not tonight, Pookie."

His eyebrow fell and he glowered. "Hell you have to say that name in front of everyone for?"

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to."

"How would you like it if I came up with an embarassin' name for you and said it in front of everyone? If I started callin' you…dunno. Honey bear."

Carol snickered. "Go right on ahead," she told him. "I bet it would embarrass you more to call me it than it would for me to be called it."

"Damnit," he muttered because she was right.

Carol slipped out of the bed and walked around the foot of it to come kiss him goodnight. His lips lingered, and he parted hers with his tongue. They savored each other for a moment, until she pulled away. "Goodnight, Daryl."

He sighed. "Nite, Miss Murphy."

Friday, October 29, 2010
Six days and counting…

In the afternoon, Daryl found Carol practicing her knife throwing at the balloon game. "Thought you was out of balloons," he told her.

"I found more."

"Wanna learn to trap?"

"Trap?"

"Small game. Since I can't hunt proper. We'll build traps out in them little woods by the train tracks."

"Won't building traps strain your arm?"

"Not if you do most of it for me. Talk you through it."

"Well, I'd love to learn a new skill," Carol said.

They spent the next two hours building traps. Daryl's wound ached by the end of it, but he pretended it didn't because Carol wanted to sit in the train and have lunch together.

They slid onto a wooden bench sheet in the caboose of the train and drank soda and had a lunch of roasted peanuts, raisins, and fresh apples. "You know you're getting old when your favorite ride at the amusement park is the train," Carol said.

"That your favorite?"

"Especially when there's a train robbery show. They had one here. Halfway through, just after you come out of the tunnel."

"I ain't never been to a 'musement park. 'Til now."

She held her apple core by the stem and let it twist. "You think we can plant these seeds and grow an apple tree?"

"Rick's already tryin'," Daryl told her. "He's got some bag in the fridge in moss or some shit, tyin' to germinate 'em. Then he says he'll put 'em in a pot."

"You've got a little something on your lips," she said, and kissed it off. The kissing didn't stop there. It went on for a long while, and while they kissed, Daryl fondled her breasts through her sweater. She let him this time, without warnings of what it might lead to.

Eventually, however, she pulled away and glanced down at the bulge in his pants. "Sorry."

"Can't go five more days like this."

"Didn't you say you went over two years before?"

"Yeah, but then I met you."

She smiled. Then she slid her hand down his chest over the buttons of his shirt and began to unbuckle his belt. "I always wanted to get naughty on a train." She popped the button on his pants. "Don't throw that arm up."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Stay still," she ordered as she pulled down his zipper.

"Uh-huh," he breathed as she took him in her hand. "Still as I can." He didn't throw his arm back, but he did throw his head back.

She took her turn next, careful to stay off his wound this time, her knees on the cool wood of the train seat, and her hands on the back on either side of his shoulder. She tasted his smoky, sweet tongue while he unbuttoned and unzipped her and slid his hand inside.

No stitches were popped, but they both were. They walked back from the train depot to the House of the Future, all smiles.

But Daryl took three Tylenol the moment he was alone.

Saturday, October 30, 2010
Five days and counting…

When they checked the traps today, one had snared rabbit. Daryl drew his knife, but Carol insisted on finishing it off. "Ain't gonna pop a stitch doin' it," he assured her.

"But I need to learn."

"A'ight."

She winced while she did it, and then almost threw up afterward.

Daryl was puzzled. "Killed plenty of walkers."

"It's not a walker. It's a bunny!"

"Ain't a bunny. 'S big ass rabbit. Taste good in a stew. I'll skin it."

"I'll skin it," she insisted. "You can talk me through it."

They began walking back to the butcher's table outside of the House of the Future, Carol holding the rabbit by one foot. They were almost there when they heard the sound of shotgun blast in the distance, near the front gate.

Carol dropped the rabbit and drew her handgun. Daryl wasn't carrying his crossbow – it took too much effort to load and worked the muscles in his arms and shoulders when he did so - so he drew his handgun, too. They heard another blast of the shotgun, and they ran toward the sound. By the time they reached the front gate, Rick was there, too, rifle in hand, flinging the gate open, and crying, "Shane! Shane! Are you all right?"

[*]

The solar backup battery was fully recharged, but Daryl still had that candelabra lit in his bedroom. That was okay. Carol liked it. It lent a romantic glow to his room at night. They sat side by side on his bed, shoulder to unwounded shoulder, holding hands. "Just be grateful for the meat," she told him.

"I track for an entire damn day. Follow sign for three miles. Get my shot in. Sleep through the cold night. Blood track for another two hours, and get myself shot! And then Shane just goes out to the fuckin' parkin' lot and gets lucky!"

The shotgun blasts turned out to be Shane shooting a deer. He'd gone outside the gates to bring in an extra grill from the picnic area near the parking lot. Standing between the trees in the picnic area was a deer, head bent, munching on something. Shane swung his already pumped and loaded shotgun off his shoulder and fired. He ran after the deer when it took off. It tried to leap over the low fence around the picnic area but, being wounded, ended up smacking one of its leg against the upper rail. The deer took a tumble, which gave Shane a chance for his second, finishing shot.

"It wasn't that big of a deer," Carol reassured him. "Yours was bigger, wasn't it, the one you were tracking?"

"Still! Almost forty pounds of venison, and all he did was fuckin' show up."

"Daryl, it's a good thing. Now you don't have to be in such a hurry to get back out there. Between that and the beef and the fish and the rabbit and what we already had left, we're set for a good long while now."

"But huntin's my job. It's all I do for this group. It's all I'm fuckin' good at."

"That's ridiculous," she told him. "It's not all you're good at it. It's because of you we have as much security as we do. Perimeter check was your idea. Night watch was your idea. It's because of you we got our power back and hopefully won't lose it again. You can hunt, skin, fish, gut, kill walkers, fix things around the house, go on supply runs – you're the most useful person here!"

"Really think so?"

"Of course I think so."

He sighed. "Ain't been lately."

"You got shot, Pookie. Cut yourself some slack." Carol put a hand gently on his cheek and kissed him.

When she pulled away, he bent his neck and pressed his forehead against hers. "Like you," he murmured. "You're good to me."

"I like you, too."

"Think…think maybe I more than like you," he murmured.

Carol smiled.

Sunday, October 31, 2010
Four days and counting…

In the afternoon, Carl and Sophia dressed Andre up in a knight's costume from Kid Kingdom Clothing and took him "trick or treating" to the candy store, where they all three each filled a Fun Kingdom canvas bag full of treats to bring home, much to Lori's chagrin. Lori cut Carl off after he'd eaten a bunch. "But it's Halloween!" Carl lamented.

"We haven't had dinner yet!" Lori scolded.

"Fine. I'll have more for dessert later."

"No you will not, young man. You've had your dessert already. More than enough."

After dinner, Carol was drying the dishes one by one while she listened to the going ons in the living room, where Andre was standing and dancing in place with a bounce and a shake to Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" before the faux fireplace. Michonne sat in one of the chairs drawing on a sketch pad with a pencil. The solar battery was still nine-tenths full, so fireplace music was allowed. When it dropped to eight-tenths, not frivolities. When it dropped to one-half, no electric lights.

Sophia sat on the floor with a cardboard blinder up before whatever secret information she had written down, and Carl and Daryl were side by side on the couch. T-Dog and Andrea had "turned in early" while, Rick was reorganizing the refrigerator to try to put more in. He'd left Shane and Lori alone talking at the dining room table, which Carol found odd. She supposed Glenn was in there, too, though. The ex-lovers weren't alone together.

"You enter the dragon's lair," Sophia intoned, "and discover the great creature slumbering atop a horde of gold. If you attack, and fail, the creature will awaken and do great damage, but if you do not attack, you will slowly starve to death."

"Why?" Daryl asked. "I got a shitton of bread and mead at the tavern."

"Because you cannot turn back. The dragon's sleeping breath creates a force field that prevents you from leaving the room. You can only pass your days here for eternity, unless you slay the dragon."

"So eventually we're going to run out of food," Carl explained.

"Yeah. Got that," Daryl told him.

"Which probably means we should just go ahead and attack," the boy added.

"Figured that out, Einstein, but thanks for the tip." Daryl scooped up the dice. "So what I got to roll?"

Carol didn't hear Sophia's answer. She only heard Daryl exclaim, "Oh c'mon now!" He jiggled the dice in his hand and then held them out to Sophia across the table. "Well blow on 'em."

"What?" Sophia asked.

"For luck."

Sophia shrugged, leaned forward and blew on the dice. Carol smiled, finished drying the plate, and saw Michonne tear a page from her sketch book. She turned to put the plate away in the cupboard, and when she turned back around again, Michonne was there. "I thought you might like this," Michonne told her and handed her the page she had torn out.

Rick stood from his crouched position before the fridge, closed the door, and wandered over to see what Michonne had drawn. Carol put down the dish towel and took the sketch, and Rick looked at it over her shoulder. It was a drawing of Daryl and Sophia, across the coffee table from one another, playing the game. "Wow," she said. "This is amazing. You drew that in that short amount of time?"

Michonne shrugged.

"I thought you were a contract lawyer," Rick said.

"But I wanted to be an artist," Michonne replied. "I majored in art as an undergraduate." She sighed. "But I had the weight of the expectation of the entire family on my shoulders, and I had to succeed by the old world's standards."

"I thought your parents were the ones to name you after an artist," Rick observed.

"Oh, they were. You see, they wanted me to be posh and educated. They wanted me to be able to afford to buy art. Not to be the one who made it. I was the first person in my family to go to college. So, there were expectations."

"I was supposed to be," Rick told her. "The first in my family to go to college. You can imagine how disappointed they were I became a cop. I was going to get a degree eventually. I was always my plan. Otherwise I never could have made detective."

Michonne smiled. "Well, detective, would you mind getting me a beer from that newly organized fridge of yours?"

Rick smiled. "Yeah, sure."

Carol left the pair chatting, picked up some sewing she'd left on a shelf on the bookcase in corner of the living room, and sat down in the chair Michonne had vacated. She listened to Daryl fight the dragon as she hemmed a pair of athletic pants for Sophia.

Wednesday, November 2, 2010
Countdown Complete

"This one looks different," Hershel told Daryl as he used his tweezer-like tool to pull the fourth stitch out of Daryl's shoulder. They were sitting on the couch in the living room as Hershel did his work. Glenn had gone to give Maggie a tour of the warehouse and to haggle over trades, and probably they'd snuck off to screw and use the last of Maggie's three condoms. Rick and Shane had finally relented to allow Glenn to be in charge of trades since he seemed to know the family best, or at least know Maggie.

"Yeah, popped one. Carol patched me up."

"Well, if Carol knows how to sew stitches, she probably could have removed them and saved me a trip."

But then Maggie wouldn't have come and Glenn would have moped around all day. "Thought ya wanted to check up on me. Seein' as your man shot me."

"I do regret that," Hershel told him as he pulled out the last stitch and examined the closed wound. "Looking good. Don't start discus throwing right away, though. And I wouldn't run out hunting tomorrow. Get used to the feel of your shoulder again, strengthen it, do some exercises."

Daryl suppressed his smile. He was planning to exercise all right, plenty, with Carol.

[*]

After some vigorous, stitch-free fooling around, Carol curled around Daryl in bed, resting her head on his bare shoulder. He was in nothing but his sweatpants, and she was in nothing but a pair of panties having become considerably more comfortable being mostly naked with him for longer periods of time, though when the heat of their activities began to fade, she'd want to pull her sweatshirt back on. For now, though, she was enjoying the lazy patterns he was tracing on her bare back with a single fingertip beneath the covers he'd pulled up to her shoulders to keep her warm.

"Baldwin," she said.

"Ain't Baldwin," he told her.

"Brownie. Like Brownie McGee. The blues singer."

"Ain't Brownie."

"Buttwipe."

Daryl snorted. "Ain't Buttwipe."

"Well, I'm running out of ideas."

Daryl dozed off, and when he did, he rolled in such a way that his leg was over both of hers and his body half on top of hers, and she felt suddenly trapped. She eased out from under him, trying not to wake him. Her back to him where she stood between the beds, she slipped out of her panties, which were wet from their play, left them on his floor, and stepped into her sweatpants. Then she slid on her sweatshirt.

"Nice ass," came his gravely voice from behind her, and she startled and turned to see him awake, propped up on an elbow, watching her dress.

She flushed. As often as he'd had his hand down her pants, she had not yet actually had her underwear off in front of him. She had so many bad associations with sex with Ed, that she'd been taking a lot of baby steps back into the pool…too many, maybe, but he'd been patient so far and hadn't tried to drag her in the deep end. So patient that she wondered if maybe he had his own hang ups of a different kind.

"I was just leaving," she said. "You were already asleep, and I should probably get back to Sophia." She bent down and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, Daryl."

"Nite, Miss Murphy."

But when she had her hand on the door knob, he said Carol. Not Miss Murphy. Carol. The last time he'd called her Carol was when he'd asked if she was his girlfriend, so she thought he might be about to ask something serious, intimate. She felt a nervous flutter in her stomach at the idea. She wanted to draw closer and was afraid of drawing closer at the same time.

When she turned around, he was sitting up, feet on the floor, rubbing his eyes.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Thinkin' we need to start storin' shit up here, you know? For the winter and beyond. Need to do more huntin', but also more lootin'."

It wasn't something intimate, after all. She felt a vague sense of relief mingled with a sharper disappointment.

"Forest will be hoppin' with deer in mid- November. I'll hunt then, since we got Shane's deer to tide us over. But 'fore then, need to hit this rich-ass gated community. Found an advertisement in the park office. It's east of Athens. Near a private lake. Community like that – they're bound to have lots of pills. Them rich-ass folk always got problems to make up for the problems they ain't got. So they'll have the good shit. Pain killers, Xanax, antibiotics, allergy meds, blood pressure meds, you name it. Be great for trade with the Greenes. Gonna have extra gas in their garages, too, for their boats, you know."

"Well, it sounds like a good idea." Carol wasn't sure why it was so pressing for him to share the idea now, however, after calling her by name.

"Was thinking I'd go the day after tomorrow, since the stitches are out. I'll get re-used to loadin' and shootin' m'bow for a day first." He cleared his throat and rested his elbows on his knees. He studied his hands as he continued, "Thing is, it's a big job. Take some time drivin' there and then loadin' up. So it'd be an overnight supply run. Have to stay in one of those houses for the night." He chewed on his bottom lip. It slid out, a little raw. He continued to study his hands. "Wanna go? On that supply run? With me? Oughtta be just two people. Gotta save room in the truck."

"Oh." It was an intimate request after all. Her heart beat a little faster. This was the "go away for the weekend and spend the night together" stage of the relationship he was tiptoeing into. He'd bring those condoms with him, she supposed. They'd have sex, real sex, and then they'd spend all night together in the same bed. "Well, I…you know I'd have to make sure somebody was fine to watch Sophia for a couple days."

"Oh," he said with disappointment. "Yeah, I get it. Just an idea. Could bring T-Dog I guess."

"But I think that shouldn't be a problem. To get someone to watch her. Lori would do it, I'm sure."

He jerked his head up. "Yeah?" he asked excitedly. "So you do wanna go?"

She was afraid to have sex with him, but she also very much wanted to. She was afraid bad memories would make her seize up, that it wouldn't go as well as all the other fooling around had. But she also didn't know how long they could go on like this, playing with each other like teenagers trying to maintain their virginity. And having sex might be easier without her daughter just down the hallway and without the knowledge of a house full of people. "Yes," she agreed, smiling hesitantly. "I want to go."

"Yeah?"

She smiled more fully now. "Yeah."

He smiled back and then ducked his head, still smiling.