Wednesday, November 18

Dixon seemed more at home the next morning. He joked around with Carl and Sophia at breakfast, helped Andre put together a puzzle, and thanked Carol for the pancakes she had made them.

"Did you have a big family before the Change?" Dixon asked Carl.

"No. Just me and my parents."

"How about you?" Dixon asked Sophia.

"It was just me and my parents, too," Sophia said.

"And you Andre, my man?" Dixon asked the little boy who was on his knees in an eggshell chair at the table in the breakfast nook so he could reach it better. "Did you have any big brothers or sisters before the Change?"

Andre pointed at himself. "Andre An-tony! I do the puzzle again." He flipped the puzzle over onto the breakfast table next to his now empty plate, and the pieces tumbled out with a clatter.

"He didn't," Sophia told Dixon. "He just had a dad and an…uncle or something. And his mom."

"Luke had a brother who died at the onset, and Mika had a sister she...lost," Dixon told them, and Mika's brow furrowed while the seven-year-old Luke continued eating his pancakes and humming as he ate. "And now we're all only children."

"Not me for long," Carl said. "My mom's pregnant."

"I thought so," Mika said, her brow unfurrowing, "but I didn't want to mention it in case she was just fat." .

Sophia snorted loudly. Then she looked at Dixon and flushed and covered her nose. "That wasn't me," she insisted, and Dixon smiled.

The teenager stood and volunteered to take the kitchen trash out to the burn pit if Carl would show him where it was.

"I'll show you!" exclaimed Sophia, leaping up from the table.

After the trash was disposed of, Dixon showed off his motorbike tricks for Carl and Sophia and a few of the adults who had gathered to watch. He sped up handicap ramps and leapt over stairs, hopping onto and driving down the brick ledges of tree beds, and even riding down one of the slides at the smaller playground structure in Kid's Kingdom.

"I can do that all that with a skateboard," Glenn told him. "Well, I used to be able to. When I was younger. I can still do the flower beds, though. Sometimes. Right, Carl?"

Glenn got no respect. "Can I ride your bike, Dixon?" Carl begged "Can I? Pleeease?"

Dixon took Carl for a short ride on the back of his bike ("No tricks!" Lori insisted). It was a tight fit for two on that thing, but he managed. Lori was nervous, so Dixon let Carl have his racing helmet, which was a shade too big for his head.

Sophia shyly asked Dixon for a ride next, and he said, "Sure, kid, hop on." Sophia frowned a little at the word kid but took the helmet, slid on the bike behind him, and tentatively wrapped her arms around him. She squealed when he shot off.

[*]

Around eleven in the morning, Daryl and Dixon headed off in the monster pick-up truck for the Greene family farm to drop off Glenn, get Daryl's motorcycle, and head on to Dixon's cabin to get his books.

"You can just leave me there," Glenn assured Daryl from the backseat in the extended cab as they picked up the road. "I'm sure Maggie will bring me back in the morning."

"Make sure you get them chickens," Daryl insisted.

"I'll try."

"Need a cow," Daryl told him. "Talk her into givin' us a cow."

"I'm not that good in bed," Glenn quipped.

"You three chickens good at least?" Daryl shot back.

Dixon turned in his seat and looked at Glenn in shock. "You're trading sex for food and supplies?"

"No, we're joking!" Glenn told him. "Maggie's my girlfriend."

"Oh. That makes more sense." Dixon turned forward again. "I mean, considering."

Daryl chuckled.

"Considering what?" Glenn asked defensively.

"You just don't really seem like gigolo material."

"Well, I'm boyfriend material," Glenn muttered.

"I can't believe I never ran into these people," Dixon told them. "And just twelve miles through the woods the whole time?"

"They don't venture out much," Daryl said. Though Otis had, two miles into the woods in the direction of Fun Kingdom. But if Daryl hadn't tracked so far, their paths might never have crossed.

When they got to the gate, Glenn got out to ring the bell. Maggie approached the gate cautiously, armed, and looking into the truck with curiosity as Glenn explained Dixon's presence. "You vouch for him?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"All right then." She let in the truck and Daryl drove it up near the farmhouse, where they parked.

The three each took a cardboard box of stuff from Fun Kingdom – trade offerings of junk food and games and books and other odds and ends – and began carrying them to the house. Jimmy opened the screen door and stepped out on the porch to hold it open while Glenn walked through.

While Dixon was walking up the stairs in front of Daryl with a box, Beth rode a horse past the farmhouse toward the stables. Dixon turned to look at her as she flew past, and not paying attention to his steps, ran straight into the pillar of the porch with a smack and tumbled back. Daryl had to brace him against the box he was holding and push him up straight again.

A little dazed, Dixon continued onto the porch and asked Daryl, "Who's that girl?"

"That's Beth," Jimmy told him. "My girlfriend. Who are you?"

"This is Dixon," Maggie told him. "He's in Glenn's camp now. Glenn vouches for him. And when did you and Beth get back together?"

"We never really broke up. She was just upset."

Once they'd put the boxes down inside the house on the living room floor, Jimmy shut the screen door and headed toward the stables to get Beth for lunch, which Patricia was busy preparing in the kitchen. Hershel emerged from the upstairs. He was momentarily stunned by the presence of Dixon, but relaxed when he came down to the living room and all was explained by Maggie and Glenn. Patricia listened in on the story from the kitchen.

Hershel looked over the offerings in the boxes. "I don't think we need all this junk, Glenn."

"Well, I mean, I thought – "

Hershel held up a hand to silence him. "Stop bringing all this junk. You've got more children in your camp now. Five children and a teenage boy and a pregnant woman. You can take as much milk home as you want tomorrow as long as you do the milking yourself in the morning. The cows can give more than we milk them. We go easy on them because we don't need that much for the five of us."

The old man seemed softened. Daryl was expecting the cold shoulder after what they'd done with the walkers in the barn, but Glenn had made some kind of breakthrough in that tavern, apparently. Hershel was even talking as though he expected Glenn to spend the night and didn't much mind if he did.

"How about…chickens?" Glenn asked. "Just three – four maybe - for our hen house in the petting zoo?"

"Y'all can have three chickens," Hershel agreed, "in exchange for the firearms lessons for Patricia, Beth, and Jimmy."

"You're…you're okay with those lessons?" asked Glenn.

"The world is not as I would like it to be," Hershel replied. "I suppose it's best they be prepared for the world as it is."

Seeing Otis bit and watching him die must have had some effect on the man, Daryl thought.

Beth and Jimmy came inside the living room now. Dixon looked at the coffee table, snuck a peek at Beth, and then looked back down at the coffee table.

"Daryl," Hershel asked, "are you and your nephew joining us for lunch?"

"Nah. Had a big breakfast, and we got to drive round and load – "

"- Let's stay," interrupted Dixon. He'd raised his head again. His eyes flitted quickly to Beth and then back to Daryl.

Daryl sighed. This could be bad news. They needed to stay on Hershel's good side for trading purposes and that probably wasn't going to happen if Dixon kept sneaking peeks at his pretty, sixteen-year-old daughter.

"I'm near starved," Dixon insisted.

There was no way on earth that kid was near starved after all those pancakes this morning. Carol had really gone to town making their welcome breakfast. But Daryl relented. "Reckon we could stay."

Jimmy did not seem happy about the interloper at the dining room table, but Patricia said, "I think I've seen you before, Dixon, at the farmer's market."

Dixon looked confused, and then recognition shone in his eyes. "Oh, yes, ma'am. Back in July! I bought strawberries from you and your husband!"

Patricia jawline twitched as she suppressed her emotions. "Yes, but Otis is no longer with us unfortunately."

Dixon glanced at Beth. "I didn't see you there." He smiled. "I'd have remembered."

Beth smiled slightly and looked down at her plate. Jimmy's eyes simmered and his mouth was a stern line, and now Hershel was appearing uncomfortable with the guest he had invited to stay. The veterinarian cleared his throat.

Dixon looked directly at him. "I didn't know your farm was here, sir." The sir seemed to soften Hershel's expression somewhat. "This whole time…" The teenager shook his head. "I thought all the farmers were dead. I went to a couple farms back in August, and the animals were all torn up by the uglies, or they'd fled."

"I never saw you in high school," Jimmy said suspiciously. "And there's only one high school within thirty miles of here."

"We'd just moved here in July. From North Carolina. And I didn't go to school anyway."

"Drop out?" Jimmy asked. "You don't look old enough to have graduated. How old are you? Sixteen?"

Dixon looked offended. "No! Seventeen and two months! But I was homeschooled anyway."

"A month older than you, Jimmy," Beth observed, and Jimmy glowered. Beth turned her attention elsewhere: "Sorry, Daryl, for yelling at you yesterday. I was in a foul mood. It was really hard, burying my mama and brother."

"They died recently?" Dixon asked.

"Not…recently," Beth admitted. "But we buried their walkers on Sunday."

Daryl didn't fail to note that Beth was using the term walker. The Greene family had accepted those things weren't human now, even Beth. Possibly even Hershel.

"I buried my mother, too," Dixon told her. "Back in July. Alone though. It's nice you had your family with you for the funeral."

"You poor thing," Patricia said. "Alone that long in this world. I'm glad you saved those two kids and that your uncle found you."

"You saved two kids?" Beth asked. She'd been walking back from the stables when Glenn and Maggie explained things.

"I didn't save them," Dixon clarified. "I just found them. And looked out for them, you know."

Maggie was the first to excuse herself from the table, asking Glenn to come help her with some chores, which he so eagerly rose to do that Daryl suspected that at least one of the chores probably involved fucking in the hayloft.

When everyone was done eating, Beth started clearing the dishes, and Dixon volunteered to help, which prompted Jimmy to leap up form the table and say, "No, I got it. I got it. Our guests should stay seated."

[*]

Carol took the boiling kettle off the outdoor firepit and walked over to pour it into the barrel with the cold water from the lake. She was washing whites today and needed to warm the water or they wouldn't get clean. Sophia poured in the detergent and then used the wooden paddle to stir the cold and boiling water together as Carol filled another kettle from the lake.

"Why don't we just plug in that industrial washing machine in the park offices?" Sophia asked after Carol put the kettle over the fire. "The one they used to do the linens for the House of the Future?"

"Because it's a huge power drain," Carol said. "And we don't have washing machine hookups in the house."

"We could plug it into a power pack where it is."

"There would be no water. The water in the House of the Future doesn't come from the same source as the rest of the park. It comes from its own well. Besides," Carol told her, "this is fun! Aren't you having fun?"

Sophia rolled her eyes. "Hardly!"

"We get to spend time together."

"I'd rather we spend time together playing games."

Carol added another boiling kettle to the barrel and Sophia stirred the clothes for a while longer before saying, "Dixon's really cute."

"Cute?" Carol asked.

"He's got beautiful eyes."

"Is that so?"

"What? It's not like he's my cousin. Daryl's your boyfriend, but he's not my biological father."

Carol smiled affectionately at her little girl's first crush. The first one she'd ever heard about from Sophia anyway. "No, but it is like Dixon's five years older than you."

"He's not always going to be, though," Sophia insisted.

"Umm…yes, yes he is. He's always going to be five years older than you. Unless you and Carl are keeping the fountain of youth secret from me. Or an aging pill."

Sophia stopped stirring the laundry and sighed. "That's not what I meant to say. Yeah, he's always going to be five years older than me. But it's not always going to matter. Isn't Andrea five years older than T-Dog?"

"I don't think so, no."

"You're five years older than Daryl."

"I am not! Two years at most." Carol was a little peeved by the assumption. Not that Sophia would know Daryl's age. "You're right, a five-year age difference doesn't always matter. But it certainly matters when you're twelve."

"Not that much," Sophia insisted.

"You want to take Luke on a date? He's adorable."

"Ewww! Mom! Gross!"

"That's a five year age difference, too."

Sophia seemed to think about that for a moment. Her face fell. "Is that how Dixon probably thinks of me? Like a little kid?"

Carol wished she hadn't said anything at all now and had just let Sophia's crush slide without comment. "Not quite like that, but…just don't get your heart broken, sweetheart."

Sophia glowered and stirred the clothes a little harder.

[*]

Daryl turned the massive pick-up onto the main roadway off the dirt road that wound its way to the farm. His motorcycle was now strapped to the bed. "Tread carefully with Beth," he warned Dixon. "We got a sweet trade deal goin' on with these people. Don't want to fuck it up."

"What do you mean, tread carefully?"

"Don't piss off her daddy, and don't get in a fight with her boyfriend. And keep it in your pants."

"You're not my father." It was a throwaway line, the kind of thing a teenage boy might say to any adult male who tried to correct him, but after he said it, Dixon winced. "So…what was my father like? I'm wondering now if everything my mother ever told me about him was a lie."

"Did fight in the First Gulf War," Daryl said. "She didn't lie 'bout that."

"Was he a hero? In the war?"

"Good soldier," Daryl said. It was an evasive answer. Merle had been dishonorably discharged when he was caught using drugs. His commanding officer let it slide the first time and pretended not to have made the discovery, because Merle was a good solider, but he couldn't let it slide the second time.

"Is that really how he lost his hand?" Dixon asked. "In the war?"

It would be easy to lie and say yes. Dixon probably shouldn't know that Rick had handcuffed his father to a roof, or that T-Dog had dropped the keys down the drain, or that Andrea and T-Dog and Rick and Glenn had all just left him there. Daryl couldn't lie to the kid, though, not after he was lied to so long by his mother. But that didn't mean he had to tell the kid everything. "Nah. He lost it the way the Woodbury rumors said he did. He was handcuffed to a pipe on a roof, and he sawed it off to get away."

"Why? Who cuffed him there?"

"Uh…we got separated," Daryl said. "Me and him. And when I went looking for him, found his hand. Found the burner he'd used to cauterize the wound. That's how come I knew it had happened and what he'd done to survive. I tracked him as far as I could, but I lost the trail. Couldn't find him."

"Why didn't he just come back to Fun Kingdom?"

"We weren't at Fun Kingdom then. At a different camp."

"Why didn't he just come back to that camp, then?"

"'Cause…" Why hadn't he? Why hadn't he come back to camp looking for Daryl? "Maybe he did. After we'd already moved on. Camp got overrun. We left." Daryl slowed the truck to the stop because there was an abandoned yellow school bus rolled over on its side in a ditch by the shoulder of the road. "Seen this before?"

"I passed it once, but I didn't stop."

"Should of. Buses hold a shitton of gas. See what we can get."

Dixon grabbed his AR-10 – the one he'd taken from Merle – and checked that there was one in the chamber. "Let's rock and roll," he said.