Saturday, November 5

The rays of the rising sun filtered through the curtain lace. Daryl thought he was dreaming when he felt Carol's tongue swirling around the tip of his cock, but when he opened his eyes, he saw he wasn't dreaming. The covers were off, and she was bent over him, stark beautifully naked, her knees on either side of his legs.

Still teasing him with her tongue, she raised her eyes to his.

"Good mornin'," he growled.

She smiled and took him deeper in her mouth.

"Oh, fuck yes." He closed his eyes and enjoyed her work as words of pleasure tumbled out of him until he didn't even know what he was saying and his words dissolved into grunts and moans. She didn't pull back her mouth this time until the very last second, and when she took him in her hand for a final stroke, he was already exploding.

He lay there stunned while she walked naked to the master bathroom, took some of the baby wipes they'd found to clean her hand, grabbed a clean towel, and came back to clean him up to.

He still felt like he couldn't breathe.

"You okay, Pookie?" she asked.

"Uh-huh."

She smiled, crawled into bed beside him, and settled a chin on her shoulder. "Good morning."

"Best. Damn. Mornin'. Ever."

She smiled against his bare flesh.

When he was breathing almost normally again, she said, "I think maybe…I think maybe I'd like you to do that to me now. The kissing. Down there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think I'd like to try it at least. That's something Ed never did, so I don't have any bad associations with it, really. It's just I haven't been able to climax that way before. But we could try. I want to try."

He hadn't brought that up since the first time when she'd seemed uncomfortable with the notion. It wasn't something he'd ever particularly wanted to do before to a woman, but with her…the idea excited him. "A'ight. Can stop if you don't like it. Just say the word."

She rolled onto her back for him. She seemed shy about opening her legs wide for him, especially in the sunlight, but she did it. There was an adorable pink flush to her inner thighs as he helped her wrap her legs over his back. The gasp she let out at his first tentative lick was all the encouragement he needed.

Sometimes she redirected him with a "slower" or a "gentler" or with a light push to his head, but he must have done well enough, judging by the way she moaned and whimpered through it all, and then, toward the end, curled her fingers around the strands of his hair and almost pulled them straight out. When she bucked off the bed and screamed his name, he felt the same rush of victory he got after a successful hunt.

She was still shivering from the orgasm when he kissed his way up her body, over her abdomen, once on each beautiful breast, and then on her chin and lips before settling beside her. "Okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she breathed. "A little bit better than okay." After her breathing had leveled, she asked, "How can you be that good at it when you've never done it before?"

"Just tried to do with my tongue what you taught me to do with my fingers. Hell, maybe all that practice paid off."

She laughed. "Are you saying it's good I acted like a virginal teenager for the first few weeks?"

"Could be," he murmurred.

"I think it must be all that time you spend sucking food off your fingers."

He snorted. Then he closed his eyes contentedly and drifted off to sleep again.

[*]

If Daryl hadn't fallen asleep, Carol would have asked for him to do it again.

She'd been willing to try, despite her past less than stellar experiences with that, but she hadn't actually expected to get off in the end. She'd given up on the idea before she ever met Ed. But something had changed. It was easier being vulnerable with Daryl after last night's assurance of his love for her.

As for the penatrative sex…well, that would happen when it happened. And Daryl would be there until it did. She felt like a great weight had been lifted from her heart.

She was humming when she plugged the electric kettle into the outlet on the now charged solar power pack they'd snagged from one of the garages, and she was still humming when she poured the boiling water over the coffee grounds in the French press. She noted the time on her wristwatch so she would know when to press the grounds down. Carol opened the pantry to select something for breakfast, and that was she heard a dog bark.

A dog, alive, in this world? Not consumed by walkers?

Dressed in only her jeans, a tank top, and an unbuttoned, long sleeve shirt, she walked barefoot to the window by the front door that overlooked the driveway, which was where the bark had come from. She parted the curtains slightly to peer out.

There was a dog.

It was wagging its tail and jumping excitedly at the heels of a man – or teenager? - who was rummaging through the bed of Daryl's pick-up. The man lifted a crate full of canned goods from the truck, walked off, out of her line of sight, and then reappeared to take something else, the dog trailing after him the entire time.

Carol seized her rifle from the study, where she had leaned it in a corner last night, and ran out the front door barefoot. "That's ours!" she yelled, running down the stone path in the front yard and then stopping to level her rifle at the thief.

The young man, who up close looked to be sixteen or seventeen, dropped the box he was lifting, stepped away from Daryl's truck, and turned to face her with his hands up at about the height of his shoulders. It appeared he'd already taken most of the things from the bed – only two boxes remained.

Carol could see now where he'd put the boxes and crates he'd stolen – in the bed of that giant pick-up truck they'd decided not to take. The truck was standing in the street, running, with the driver's side door open. Daryl must have left the keys inside it. They'd drained the gas from it, so this boy must have had some gas of his own or siphoned some out of cars in the neighborhood.

As far as Carol could tell, there was no one inside on the passenger's side or in the extended cab. There was a bright red, small sports motorbike in the bed of the truck, however, tied in place with bungie cords, with a dog carrier basket attached to the back of it. She deduced that the boy had ridden into the neighborhood on that and then put it in the truck when he'd discovered the larger ride.

The teenager was thin, but sinewy, like someone who had grown muscular from hard, physical work but hadn't eaten a lot. He had piercing blue-green eyes, unruly, auburn hair that looked like it had been hacked-off jaggedly around his ears, and wispy sideburns that stretched down his cheeks and curled toward his mouth.

The dog – a black and brown Belgian shepherd - let out a low, angry growl and pointed itself fiercely at her. "Hold!" the boy told the dog. The dog stayed in place but continued to growl and bare its fangs.

The teenager lowered his left hand slightly toward the handgun in a holster on his waist.

"Don't reach for that!" Carol warned him.

His hand froze just above the holster. "Nobody has to get hurt here."

"Exactly," she agreed. "So, don't reach for that. And don't steal our things."

"We're all just trying to survive." His voice was surprisingly deep for such a young man. "Now you can shoot me, but while you're doing that, my dog will rip your throat out. Or you can shoot my dog, but while you're doing that, I'll draw this pistol and shoot you. You've only got time to kill one of us, so how about you kill neither and you just let me walk away and drive off, and we both live today."

He began to walk slowly backwards. Carol kept her rifle leveled at him, not because she had any intention of shooting a teenage boy, but in case he drew and tried to fire. If he did, she would quickly throw her scruples out the door.

The fiercely growling dog stayed in place until the teenager had rounded the tail of the truck, at which point he shouted, "Come, girl!" and the dog barked once, loudly, and ran off, tearing around the tail.

Daryl, in nothing but his pants, came bursting out the front door with his crossbow in his hand.

Carol didn't see which leapt in the cab first, the boy or his dog, but the truck peeled off with the driver's side door still open. The door closed with a thud halfway down the street.

Daryl tore past Carol, ran into the street, and aimed his bow at a back tire.

"Don't shoot!" Carol cried. "Let him go!"

Daryl lowered his bow and watched the truck disappear. He looked back at Carol in confusion.

She walked to him, her bare feet now feeling cold on the stone driveway.

"Hell happened?" Daryl asked. "He stole our shit!"

"I know. But only most of what was in the bed. He didn't touch anything inside the vehicles or in the U-haul."

"'Cause they were locked up and you stopped him!"

"He's gone now and no one got hurt."

Daryl shook his head.

"He was just a boy, Daryl." She sighed. "Just a boy and his dog. He might be all alone out there."

"Well, in case he's not, we better load up the booze and shit in the pantry and get the hell outta here."

As they packed up the nonperishables from the pantry into boxes, he said, "Least we locked the guns and most of the ammo in the U-haul. Had about five hundred rounds of 9 mm in one of those boxes, though. And he got fifteen gallons of gas."

"We still have thirty-five gallons in the U-haul. Plus full tanks in both vehicles."

"Kid took two boxes of canned food. And half the wine."

"Well, we still have ninety bottles of wine then," Carol said.

"Did all his foot work for him," Daryl muttered. "Bet he went in all the houses we cleared and unlocked."

"That one house had a lot of dog food," Carol observed. The dogs had been gnawed-over by the walker-turned family, though. "So at least the dog will be well fed."

"Fuck!" Daryl muttered. "That solar power pack was in the bed."

"No, it's right here." Carol pointed to the counter where she'd plugged in the electric kettle to the pack. "I brought it in yesterday. And there's coffee if you still want it."

They poured themselves the coffee to-go in travel mugs, though by the time they finished loading up the bed of Daryl's pickup with loot from the house, the coffee was lukewarm. The bed was about half full now, though. This house had been a score with regard to dry and canned food.

"Guess we ain't the only ones who had the idea to loot this neighborhood," Daryl muttered as he snapped closed the tailgate of his truck.

"Daryl! Get over it. We still got a very respectable haul," Carol reassured him.

"Just worried 'bout where he came from."

"There was no one else with him – no one else in that truck. Just the dog."

"He's got to have a camp. Might be from that gang Shane ran into. Or with those men 'Chonne killed."

"He didn't seem violent. He just seemed like he needed some things and he wanted to live. He had a dog."

"Hitler had a dog," Daryl muttered.

"Did he?" Carol asked.

"Blondi."

"Hitler had a dog named Blondi? How do you know this stuff?"

"I can read."

"Daryl Baby Boy Dixon." She smirked. "King of Trivia."

"Get in the SUV, Miss Murphy. We need to haul ass outta here. 'Fore that boy and his dog comes back with a band of murderin' rapists."

[*]

Daryl was tense. His eyes flitted from sideview to rearview to sideview and ahead constantly, wary about the possibility they'd be stopped in the middle of the road by a gang of bandits or shot at from the distant trees.

That boy had come from somewhere. No one survived this world alone, not at sixteen or seventeen or however old he was. And Daryl was especially tense because Carol wasn't in the truck with him but was driving behind him in that SUV. He must have glanced in the rearview mirror once every twenty seconds just to make sure she was okay.

But no one stopped them, and no one shot at them from the trees. The worst that happened was that they ran into a pack of walkers on the highway and had to make a U-turn, with Daryl plowing a couple over in the process, and speed off to navigate some side roads.

[*]

Daryl whizzed by a strip mall on one of the side roads they were detouring through to get back to the highway. Carol tapped her horn once to alert him she wanted to turn in, and then she pulled into the parking lot, where there was only one solitary walker lurching about. Daryl began to make a U-turn in the middle of the street to back track to the lot's entrance.

Carol turned off the SUV, drew her throwing knife with the rose on the handle, and threw open the front door. With a flick of her wrist she had the knife open. She strode around the open door and then hurled her knife toward the walker's skull. The blade turned once in the air and then sunk into the walker's forehead. The creature let out one last reflexive hiss before dropping. She strolled toward it with a sense of satisfaction.

As she was pulling out her knife, Daryl was stepping out of the pick-up truck he'd just parked. "Well done, Miss Murphy," he said as he strutted over, "But why are we stopped here?"

"Bandana please?" she asked. "I know you must keep fifty in that left back pocket."

"Down to two," he muttered as he snapped a blue one out and handed it to her.

She cleaned her knife, closed it, and returned it to its sheath. Then she folded up the bandana, blood on the inside, and handed it back to him. "Should be good for two more uses."

He grunted and slid it back in his pocket, asking, "You need to take a piss or something?"

"Thought we'd loot this strip mall." She turned her lips down in a teasing pout. "Poor, Baby Boy. You were so upset about not having a full pick-up."

"Should of never told you my middle name."

"It was sweet that you did. And I promise, that's not getting out in public like Pookie."

"Damn well better not, or I'll have to bend you over my knee, Miss Murphy."

She wiggled and eyebrow. "I might like that."

"Pfft."

She wouldn't like it, but she did like teasing him. He liked it, too, she knew, even if he pretended not to. She looked over the strip mall and frowned. "This may not have been my best call."

It wasn't exactly a loot-worthy selection. There was a laundromat, a cheap hair cut place, a donut shop, a convenience store, a payday loan office, a bail bondsman's office, and a pawn shop. They clearly weren't in Richie Rich land anymore.

"Convenience store might have somethin'," he reassured her.

It wasn't likely to have much of use, she thought. The glass of the front door had been busted in with a brick, probably to unlatch the door. The donut shop had also been broken into, though the other establishments were untouched, including the pawn shop, which was protected by black metal grates pulled down over the windows and door. There might be guns in the pawn shop, but there was no way they were getting those gates off.

The convenience store was small enough that they could see most of it from the windows. There were two dead walkers lying in the aisles, and a pair of walker legs extending out from underneath an overturned shelf. Carol flung open the door and Daryl swept inside with his crossbow. It didn't take long, and he circled back with an all clear. They ignored the walker trapped and growling beneath the shelf and began their explorations.

The stop was not entirely unproductive. The beer and wine was long gone, as was the bottled water, soda, and non-perishable food, but Carol emptied a cardboard box and filled it with allergy, pain, and cough and cold medicines, antibiotic ointment, cortisone, and everything else in the short medical aisle. While she was doing that, she saw Daryl an aisle over, slipping four boxes of condoms into the inside pockets of his leather vest. He was willing to wait for it to happen when it happens, but he apparently wanted to be well stocked when it did. She hadn't mentioned the birth control pills she'd found.

They gathered baby wipes, diapers, and six more cans of formula. "Wonder what this shit tastes like?" Daryl asked as Carol slid a can into a box.

"Awful," Carol told him. "I tried a little once, just to see." Then she instinctively defended her formula feeding: "I could only breast feed Sophia for the first three months. I got mastitis and tried to feed through it, but it was just too painful. Especially since she was a biter."

Daryl didn't care, of course, but Carol couldn't help the old instinct of guilt. She'd felt like a total failure, not being able to force herself to breastfeed through it. There had been so much pressure to be a good mother from every corner of society. Breast is best! echoed in her mind even now when she thought of it. Back then, she'd been terrified Sophia wouldn't bond properly because of her failure. Ed had mostly been irritated at the great expense of formula, and had made her feel like even more of a failure, saying, "If you weren't so defective, she'd have milk for free."

"Mastwhosit?"

"It's when your milk ducts get clogged and you get an infection and your breast tissue is inflamed. I should have just pushed through it and fed her anyway."

Daryl winced. "Why?"

"Because…breast is best. And because when I stopped feeding her, she got too used to the bottle and my milk started to dry up and…" She sighed. Then she laughed. "You're not judging me."

"For what?"

She motioned to the formula. "We'd have to be pretty desperate to resort to that, is all I'm saying."

"How come babies like it?"

"Got me. I never tasted my own breastmilk. Maybe it tastes similar."

Daryl grinned lecherously while his eyes dropped to her breasts.

"Stop," she told him.

"Think you could reach it?" he asked. "Your own nipple? And suck it?"

"I don't know. Do you think you could reach your own dick and suck it?"

He grimaced.

She chuckled and shook her head and moved on to collect some more things. They gathered toilet paper, toothbrushes, and toothpaste, and Daryl grabbed six boxes, each contiaining twelve packs of Morley cigarettes. "We have an entire tobacco shop back home," Carol reminded him.

"Yeah, but they don't have my brand." He tossed them in the cardboard box she'd set on the counter and then threw in a bunch of little bottles of Five Hour Energy.

"Need some energy?" she asked.

"Might. To keep up with you one of these nights."

She chuckled and picked up the box and headed for the front door. She turned to push the door open with her shoulder, and just as she was doing so, she heard a dog let out a sharp bark of warning.

She pushed the rest of the way through the door, dropped the box to the ground, and reached for her handgun. The monster pick-up truck was there. And the boy. And his dog. The truck was running with the door open again, and the dog was in the bed of the pick-up, its paws up on the rim to lift its head over the high walls of the bed, barking in her direction. The boy tossed a crate in the already cluttered bed, leapt in the pick-up, and tore off. The dog disappeared below the rim as the pick-up jerked forward. The boy shut the door as he thudded over the curb of the parking lot and onto the street.

Daryl was at her side now watching the truck disappear. "Fuck! What he get this time?"

"I don't know." They walked to the truck to see and found it to be down one crate of canned food and one box of liquor.

"Fuckin' drunk," Daryl muttered.

"We still have half the contents of that bar. And the loot from the convenience store."

"Think he was followin' us?" Daryl asked.

"I seriously doubt it. I was checking my rearview mirror the whole time, and I didn't see him. And that truck's not exactly subtle. I think it was just a coincidence that we both ended up here."

"If it was a coincidence, can only be 'cause he happens to have a camp nearby," Daryl reasoned. "And we ain't but nine miles from Fun Kingdom now. So we better do some weaving and wanderin' on our way home and make damn sure we ain't followed."

"Agreed. Let's finish loading it up."

"I'll load," Daryl told her, "and you stand guard over our shit. Ain't losin' one more box."