December 12
The cock crowed in the petting zoo, and the scent of after-rain filled the air as droplets of water still dripped from the trees and dewed the ground. From the castle tower slides, it appeared the fire had stopped in the far distance. To appease Beth, the Woodbury Army dug a grave behind the Haunted Castle for Jimmy – or what they assumed to be Jimmy from among the piled, burnt remains –and laid his corpse inside. Hershel read from Hebrews - "I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more" - as the dirt filled the grave. Beth looked at him strangely but accepted his selection of verse.
The Woodbury Army spent the rest of the morning doing a perimeter check and killing walkers that had been drawn from the woods by yesterday's gunfire. They also changed the tires on the armored vehicle they were leaving behind. Then they conducted training exercises in the Fun Kingdom parking lot under the drilling commands of Sergeant Ford. The army was waiting for the four new Woodbury residents to tie up loose ends and pack up.
One of those loose ends was attending Glenn and Maggie's shotgun wedding. The couple had originally planned to have a better-planned wedding on the farm in late December, but they wanted their departing friends to witness the ceremony. There was also the matter of housing arrangements – Hershel would frown on Glenn and Maggie sharing a room if they weren't officially married. And perhaps yesterday's battle had convinced the couple how preciously short life could be.
Now, in the tiny chapel in the model village in Medieval Kingdom, Daryl shifted nervously from one foot to the other at the crude stone altar and felt for the rings in his pocket – silver rings that had been taken from behind the counter of one of the gift shops. Daryl had been stunned by the request to be Glenn's best man. Why not Rick? Why not T-Dog? Why not anyone but him?
Andre was the unconventional flower boy. He ran down the aisle giggling and scattering and tossing fake rose petals (from one of the gift shops, of course) everywhere, until Michonne, who was sitting in the front row, snagged him and pulled him to sit beside her. Sophia played the wedding march on the flute Daryl had looted for her from the school bus, and Beth served as Maggie's bridesmaid – having moved from funeral to wedding in a single hour.
With the roof of the tiny chapel looming just three inches above his head, Hershel performed the wedding ceremony, reading first from the Bible in his slow, melodious voice that "love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud…it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Daryl glanced at Carol who sat on the second of only three wooden pews. She shot him a soft smile, and he felt a sudden rush of affection that made his white dress shirt feel even more uncomfortably tight across his chest. He kept his eyes on her as Hershel shifted into his short homily.
"The rings?" Hershel was saying now, and probably not for the first time. Daryl murmured his apology and reached again in his pocket.
Glenn nervously slid the silver ring onto Maggie's finger as he said his vows. Soon enough, it was time to kiss his bride.
After the couple and guests exited the little, drafty chapel, Maggie tossed a bouquet of dry winter wildflowers – mostly thistle. Sophia caught it, and Lori laughed. "You know what that means?" she asked the girl.
"She's a good catcher," Carl replied.
"No, Carl. It means she's going to be the next one to get married."
Sophia got a gloomy look on her face. She glanced at Dixon. He was leaning on his crutches beside Beth, almost shoulder to shoulder with her. "There's no one to marry," she muttered.
"Maybe there is," Carl told her. "In Woodbury. So, you better come visit me there!"
"Where's the honeymoon going to be T-Dog?" quipped.
"We might run off to the Tunnel of Courtly Love after we help Rick and Lori pack," Maggie joked.
As they all walked back to the House of the Future, Carol fell in step beside Daryl. He slowed his pace so she could keep stride with him. The stitches in her leg allowed for light walking, but if she walked too fast, she'd be hurting.
"You look very handsome," she observed.
Glenn had asked him to "dress up a little" for the wedding and had given him a pair of black khakis and a button-down white dress shirt. The shirt came from Fun Kingdom – the name was stitched in black cursive subtly above the pocket, but Daryl had no idea where he had obtained pants, which Carol hemmed quickly this morning. "Collar's too damn tight." He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt. "Sleeves pinch."
"Well, most men don't have such muscular arms," she teased as she bumped his shoulder.
"Stahp."
"I suppose that's why you're always cutting your sleeves off. Those bulging biceps." She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
"Said stahp." He glanced at Maggie and Glenn, who were walking ahead of them. "Least he didn't try to get me to wear a damn tie."
"I bet you'd look great in a tie." She patted the lapel of his shirt. "A nice black tie with a gray castle on it. I bet we could find you one in the gift shop."
"Pfft."
Carol laced an arm through his. "Well, I think you clean up very nicely."
Behind them, T-Dog and Patricia were talking. "I told you, it's going to be slow healing for me," Patricia said. "I'm not over Otis. We were together a long time."
"I really didn't break up with Andrea for you," T-Dog told her. "I know we've been friendly with each other, but I also know this isn't anything…yet."
"Yet?" Patricia asked with a slight laugh to her voice.
"Who can predict the future?" T-Dog said, and Carol could almost hear his smile in his tone.
Andrea couldn't hear them. She was walking up far ahead of them beside Rick and Lori, talking about what Woodbury might hold.
[*]
Daryl dropped a box into the back of the monster pick-up truck, which was parked near the storehouse next to the House of the Future. He gave the box a push to slide it back against the others. It was full of diapers and formula. Rick set down another box and then rotated his shoulder.
They were letting the Grimes family and Andrea take Dixon's giant pick-up truck since it had the most room to pack their things. That would still leave Fun Kingdom Daryl's pick-up, T-Dog's van, the SUV, two motorcycles, and the new armored vehicle.
"I think that's the last one," Rick said.
"Ain't bringin' the crib?"
"Woodbury has three, they said, and only one baby coming. Some woman named Eileen. She's due before Lori, so I guess we won't make history by having the first child born after the collapse. Besides, Glenn and Maggie might need that crib one day."
"Damn. Think they'll do that?" Daryl asked.
"I think it's inevitable. Eventually. Condoms and pills will all be expired within three years."
"Huh." Daryl hadn't thought that far ahead. He just knew he had about five more months of those pills Carol had pilfered, and then two boxes of condoms.
Rick clicked the tailgate in place. He glanced at his son several yards away, playing with Sophia and the dogs and laughing.
Daryl rested a hand on the tailgate. "Regrettin' yer decision?"
Rick sighed and ran a hand over his mouth before speaking. "Carol was right. We can't put all our eggs in one basket. If the whole group stays here, that's basically what we're doing. But if I go to Woodbury, and I make my way into the inner circle?"
Daryl smirked. "Plannin' on runnin' for governor after your first twelve hours there?"
"I was thinking town sheriff." Rick smirked, but he only seemed to be half joking. "Listen, once I'm there, once I'm part of the community? I'll make damn sure that truce is never rescinded upon. The rest of the town still has to approve what the army agreed to. Who knows how smoothly that will go, or if they'll really follow through months from now if push comes to shove. But they're a lot more likely to when they see a handsome fellow like me," Rick smiled and waved a hand over himself, "with a very pregnant wife and an adorable twelve-year-old boy. I'll sniff that place out from the inside, make sure it stays sane, and make sure Fun Kingdom is guaranteed a place if anything goes wrong here. I'll also keep y'all informed of what's going on in that part of Georgia. I'll relay any intelligence the Woodbury army gathers to you. And I'll make sure the trade deals are fair."
"Damn," Daryl muttered. He felt guilty for his assessment of Rick last night. "Honestly didn't occur to me you were thinkin' that way, man. Just thought you were whipped."
"Well," Rick leaned back against the tail of the truck and crossed his arms over his chest, "I do like to keep Lori happy. After all, she is amazing in the sack. And those late second trimester hormones? Man, they're intense. She's constantly horny now."
Daryl could not possibly imagine that uptight Lori Grimes was amazing in the sack. Then again…that would explain Rick's unusual degree of tolerance. And Shane's almost psychotic attachment to her. Still, Daryl couldn't believe it. No way. He looked over the truck toward Lori now as she stood outside the House of the Future talking to Carol "Hell you even got to compare it to? Wasn't she your high school sweetheart?"
Rick chuckled. "Have you ever had a real girlfriend before Carol?"
"Had sex," he muttered defensively.
"But not a serious girlfriend?"
"Nah," Daryl admitted.
"So, what have you go to compare your relationship with her to?"
"Don't need to compare it to nothin' to know - " Daryl stopped talking. "Fine. Glad you finally been gettin' some."
Rick chuckled, pushed off the pick-up, and patted Daryl on the back in a halfway hug. "Take care, man. I'm really gonna miss you."
"You, too," Daryl told him.
They made their way over to the others, where Rosita and Abraham were asking if the group was ready to head off. Lori glanced at Rick, who nodded. "All packed up."
Sophia hugged Carl for a long time before he finally squirmed out from under her embrace. He fished in his pocket and handed her a twelve-sided die. "It's my lucky one," he told her.
"I'll keep it close," she told him and slipped it in the front pocket of her hoodie sweatshirt. "But I can't use it anymore. Mika hates Dungeons and Dragons, and Luke's not old enough to play it well. It's just me and Daryl now, unless I can get Dixon to play."
"I'll play," Dixon assured her.
"We can play when you're in Woodbury," Carl told her.
"Call!" Sophia insisted. "At least twice a week on that CB!"
"I will," he promised her. "You're so lucky you get to stay here!"
Lori wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "It's for the best, Carl. Think of the twins."
"Twins?" asked Abraham, glancing at her pregnant belly. "Can I ask you something, Rick?"
"I suppose."
"When you were pouring the Bisquick…were you trying to make pancakes?"
"What?" Rick asked sharply.
Abraham shrugged. "It just seems a strange world to be bringing kids into."
"That's for damn sure," Rosita said. "But I've got plenty of time to make sure the world is settled first. I'm only twenty-three."
"You're only twenty-three?" Dixon asked in surprise.
"How old did you think I was?" Rosita replied.
"I don't know. More than five years older than me." Dixon looked at Abraham in confusion. "How old is he?"
Abraham gave the teenager a cool look, took two steps back, and said, "All right. Let's pull on out!" He smirked at Rosita. "Just like I intend to keep doing with you."
[*]
Carol took a blouse from the pile on the bed, put it on a hanger, and hung it in the closet of Andrea's old room. As she snagged another hanger, Daryl came in and set a large cardboard box down on the king-sized bed. "How come we got to move?" he complained. "Why can't 'Tricia and Beth sleep in this room?"
"Because they don't want to share the same bed." Carol hung a sweatshirt on the rod now. "And you don't mind sharing a bed with me, do you, Pookie?"
"Like sharin' a bed with you," he said. "Just don't like this room. Like our old room." He took the wood-mounted antlers out of the box and set them on the bed.
"You're more settled than I would have guessed." Carol hung a pair of pants next, the black khakis Daryl had changed out of the moment the wedding was over. "After all the roaming and wandering you did your whole life, I'm surprised it's such a big deal to move from one room to another in the same house."
"Canopy's weird," muttered Daryl, looking up at the silver canopy over the bed. "Don't wanna look up at it at night."
"Then we'll take it down," Carol assured him.
The whole house was busy moving. Beth, Patricia, Maggie, and Hershel had already shopped for new clothes in Fun Kingdom's gift stores. Now Beth and Patricia were each making up a bed in Daryl and Carol's old room. Glenn and Maggie were settling themselves in Rick and Lori's old room. T-Dog, meanwhile, was moving into the space room with Luke and Dixon so that Hershel could have his old, downstairs bedroom with the queen-size bed.
Michonne was staying put, but Andre wanted in on all the moving action, and he wanted to join "the big boys in the cool room." Michonne, happy to be getting her bed all to herself, did not protest, and she was now making up the bottom bunk underneath Luke in the space room for the little boy.
"I get the top three drawers in that dresser," Carol told Daryl as she put another hanger on the closet rod. "Just so you know. I don't want to bend over." Daryl's arms encircle her suddenly from behind.
"Want ya to bend over," he murmured in her ear. He nipped at her neck, at a spot unmarred by scratches, and she squirmed out of his arms.
"After we unpack," she told him, smiling. "Tonight. And I probably shouldn't be bending over with these stitches. But we can make love tonight. Gently." She wanted to, very much, especially after their near-death experiences yesterday. They'd been in separate rooms last night and hadn't had the opportunity.
Daryl grabbed the antlers from the bed. "Look at that big ass floorboard on that bed. Could put these antlers right on it. Right in the center. Facin' us."
"Ummm…why don't we put them on the wall above the writing desk, just like in the old room?"
"A'ight," he said to her relief and walked over to set them on the writing desk for now. "What are we gonna do with the other set?"
"What other set?" she asked warily. "I thought Dixon took those antlers."
"Meant the next set."
"Well, let's worry about that when you get the next set," Carol suggested. Maybe she could persuade him to use them to make a nice coat rack in the living room instead of hanging them on the wall of their bedroom. But she would cross that bridge when they came to it.