The newlyweds had disappeared behind the closed door of their new bedroom thirty minutes ago for a "before dinner nap." As Carol whipped up dinner, Daryl brought in a three-liter box of wine.
"Left the rest down there," he told her as he set it on the counter where she was working. "Good temp for storage. But since this one was open…" He shrugged. "Thought we'd have it with dinner."
While the Woodbury Army was camping in the Royal Banquet, Bob Stookey had discovered an underground cellar. The trap door to the cellar, which was located in the kitchen, and been covered by empty carboard boxes, so the group hadn't noticed it earlier.
"How much is left?" Carol asked.
"'Bout half."
"He drank nine glasses?"
"If that's half."
Bob Stookey had intentionally gone looking for alcohol when the rest of the soldiers were asleep. Abraham had discovered him in the morning, still passed out in the cellar, the open box of wine beside him. He'd roused the drunken soldier, cursed him out, and made Bob run off his hangover, after dipping him face first in the dirty pond where park guests used to race remote-controlled ships.
"I suppose he'll kick his habit with Abraham riding his heels," Carol observed.
"Maybe. Still don't think we should of given Woodbury fifteen boxes."
"They found it." Carol began chopping up the fresh broccoli she'd taken from the refrigerator, the last from the farm that was now smoldering ashes. "We wouldn't have known it was there."
"Would of found it eventually," Daryl insisted.
"Well, we kept fifteen boxes ourselves, and we already had plenty of wine." They'd also kept three-fourths of the canned and bagged food Bob had discovered down there – likely for the not-so-fresh Royal Banquet salad bar - peas, baby corn, beets, pineapple chunks, sesame seeds, dried cranberries, and croutons.
"Should of kept all the boxes and charged Bob for stealing half this one." He slapped the box of wine which read Pinot Noir and showed a glass being filled with red wine. "Drunk ass thief."
"You know he lost his entire group? When the governor's soldiers found him, he was the only surviving member. He must have some pretty terrible PTSD."
"Yeah, well, we've all lost people. We don't all drink half of someone else's box of wine."
"You're not in a very charitable mood today." Carol turned toward the stovetop and brushed the broccoli into a pot of boiling water to soften it before placing it in her casserole. She set another head of broccoli on the cutting board and began chopping that.
"'Cause my woman almost got killed yesterday. And the farm got burned to the ground."
"And your woman survived," she reminded him, smiling, "and everyone on the farm and four cows and six pigs and five chickens got out. Do you always see the cloud instead of the silver lining?"
"Didn't say I wasn't grateful. But I ain't got Bob to thank for none of that." Daryl put both hands down on the counter and watched her chop.
"He did stitch me up," Carol reminded him.
His eyes followed her knife. "Damn quick with that thing."
"I've had a lot of practice."
"Remind me not to get in your way."
She chuckled as she turned and slid the broccoli into the pot.
"Smells good. When's dinner?"
"The usual time."
"A'right then. Gonna go count our unopened boxes of cigars."
"I thought you were only going to smoke the cigars as a last resort. Why do you care how many there are? You're nowhere near out of cigarettes are you?"
"Nah. Wanna know how much I have to trade to Abraham. Rosita told me it's his kryptonite."
"You like her," Carol said as she added a dash of salt to the boiling water.
"What?" he asked.
Carol turned to face him. "You've taken a liking to her."
"Ain't taken a likin' to 'er."
"Don't worry. I'm not jealous. I don't mean like that. I just mean…you see her as someone you can work with."
"Seems more competent than that jughead she's runnin' round with anyway. 'Least, she's got her head on more straight."
"And she's very attractive," Carol observed.
"Didn't notice that."
Carol laughed. "Mhmhm. Because you don't have two eyes."
Daryl glanced at the knife still in her hand. "Gonna go count those cigars."
She smiled as he walked away, preheated the oven, and then got out two cans of Campbell's condensed cream of broccoli soup.
Hershel came in the house and said, "Smells wonderful in here."
"Quail rice-casserole in about forty minutes." Daryl had bagged the quail a few days ago, and she'd taken it out to thaw yesterday morning, before Maggie had thundered to their gates.
"Well, I'll go wash up and then change for dinner," he told her and began heading through the living room.
"We're not that formal here," she quipped. "No black tie required."
"I've been checking on the animals. Trust me. You want me to change."
"Would you teach me?" Carol asked. "Some of your medical knowledge? I think it would be good to learn as many skills as I can."
"I'd love an apprentice," he agreed before continuing onto the hall bathroom.
Beth and Dixon were the next ones through the front door. Carol had no idea what they'd been up to. They asked if they could help with dinner. "You could set the table," Carol told them. "We need a tablecloth and napkins. Plates, forks, knives, and glasses for the wine."
Dixon looked down at his crutches. "You can direct," Beth told him. "For starters, I don't know where the table lines are."
"In the pantry," Dixon replied.
They walked behind Carol and into the pantry. She could hear them in there, talking.
"Top shelf," Dixon said. "There's a stool somewhere."
"Do you really think Jimmy told that governor where you were?" Beth asked. There was a long silence. "Tell me. Honestly."
"I don't think you want honesty."
"I want to know what you really think."
"Beth, it's not a matter of what I think. Jimmy was there. With the Governor. Not as a prisoner. He was armed himself. I told you. You didn't want to believe it."
"But I don't understand." Beth's voice shook. "That's the same as being an accessory to attempted murder. Jimmy was always gentle. He never pushed me to do anything I didn't want to do. He never hurt a fly that I can remember."
"Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought you did. Or maybe…maybe he changed. He saw the way this world is…power to the strong, and he thought - "
"- Because I broke up with him, you mean?" Beth interrupted. "Because I went and chased the stronger guy? He wanted to show how strong he was?"
"No. That's not what I meant, exactly. I just…none of this is your fault. You can't be responsible for his choices. Neither of us can be. People break up. It happens. You get hurt. I know I did when my girlfriend dumped me last summer. You get mad, sure. Upset. But you get over it."
"It's just so hard to believe that Jimmy would do such a thing. Dixon, I've known him since I was twelve. I mean, we weren't together until after the sickness, but I knew him. If he can have that much darkness inside of him…then couldn't anybody?"
"Yeah. Anybody could, I suppose," Dixon replied. "We just have to keep choosing the light. Look, I know it's got to be hard…shocking…what he did. But he did it."
"Then why did you and everyone else let me bury him in that graveyard this morning?" Beth asked.
"Because you seemed to need it."
Carol put the casserole in the pre-heated oven.
"He was family at one time," Dixon continued. "To you, to your father, to your sister. To Patricia. I know that can't all be erased by what he did. So you burry the bad memory. And you keep the good."
"And why are you so good?" Beth asked.
"I'm not. I'm still showing you my best side. Wait until we've been dating a couple months. I'll probably forget your birthday."
"It's April 14th, by the way," Beth teased him. "I'll be seventeen then. Just like you."
"Well, I'll be eighteen three months later."
"Top shelf? Beth asked.
"Yeah, in that cardboard box. The silver ones. And the tablecloth."
"What's with all the silver around here?"
Carol could hear the stool moving and the sound of Beth's feet going up and then down.
"What if T-Dog and Patricia hook up?" Dixon asked. "Where would they…you know?"
Beth laughed. "I guess I'd have to move into the space room, then. But if I do, I get the top bunk."
"So…you like being on top?" Dixon asked.
"Dixon!" Beth scolded.
Dixon chuckled. "Pretty sure your father would feed my balls to the pigs before he let that happen."
"Don't say balls. It's crude."
"Sorry. I forget sometimes what a Sunday School girl…" Dixon's words faded as they disappeared through the pantry into the dining room.
[*]
After dinner, the kids gathered around the CB radio and Carol tuned it to the station Woodbury said they'd be using to communicate. They'd put the radio on the kitchen counter desk, in just the spot where the hotel's landline telephone had once rested. T-Dog had fiddled with it for a while in order to hook it up to a power source. He'd once been a truck driver for six years and seemed to know what he was doing.
Carol and Dixon stood behind the eager kids while, Glenn, T-Dog, Daryl, and Michonne sat around the nearby kitchen table. The Greene family were in the living room.
Sophia looked at the hands of the rocket-ship shaped clock on the wall over the refrigerator. "They said they'd call at 7:00 p.m.!"
"Well, it's only been seven for thirty seconds," Carol reassured her. "Give it – "
"- This is Midnight Dingo coming right at you!" came Carl's voice so loudly through the speaker that Luke covered his ears and Andre actually stumbled backwards a few steps. Mika laughed when Andre fell into her, and she pushed the little boy back into an upright standing position.
"Quiet down," came Rick's voice. "The microphone amplifies you. You don't have to yell."
"Sorry," Carl whispered. "This is Midnight Dingo coming right at you. Over."
Sophia pushed the talk button on the microphone. "Midnight Dingo? What are you talking about? Over."
"It's my call sign! What's yours? Over."
"What's a Dingo?" Luke asked Dixon.
"It's a…dog kind of thing. In Australia."
"Is it nocturnal?" Mika asked.
"Thus the midnight," Dixon told her.
"Ummm…." Sophia mused into the microphone. "Warrior Princess Wakizashi. Over."
"That's too long!" Carl complained. "And too hard to say. You're just going to be Warrior Princess."
"Tell them we made it safely," came Lori's voice behind him.
"We made it safely," Carl said. "And we got a townhouse. I guess eight of the soldiers that were killed used to live here. Andrea called it a total bachelor's pad. They've been cleaning all evening. And my mom freaked out over all the magazines I found in my room. She made me go outside while she put them all in a trash bag. Over."
"You have your own room now?" Sophia asked. "Over."
"Yeah!" Carl replied. "And Andrea has a bedroom, and mom and dad have one, and then the fourth one will be a nursery after the babies are bigger. And, hey, Soph – "
"No names," came Rick's voice behind him.
"Oh, it doesn't matter, Rick." Andrea's voice drifted to the microphone. "We're not secret special agents."
"No one's going to track us down by our names," Lori agreed. "Just relax, honey. It's not as if you weren't calling for Morgan to come in every night for weeks."
"Poor fuckin' henpecked Rick," Daryl muttered to Glenn at the kitchen table. "Only man in that house."
"At least he's got Carl," Glenn said. "But watch those twins both be girls."
Daryl snickered.
"No locations," Rick warned his son.
"Anyway," Carl said, "the house is okay. But I have to go to school tomorrow. Over."
Sophia told Carl a little about her day, and Andre, Mika, Luke, and Dixon each took a turn to say hello to him.
Next, Carol took over the CB and asked to talk to Rick. Carl put him on, and when he did, Carol inquired, "How did the camp react to the…situation?"
"Some people already had uneasy feelings about the governor, and this news just confirmed them," Rick told her. "Others had trouble accepting it, but I think they'll come around. I think the fact that no one in the army is trying to establish martial law has put them at ease. They'll have elections next week for a town mayor. They decided to go with mayor instead of governor. In the meantime, things are kind of running according to the old systems in place, which were efficient. The Governor did manage to give a decent home to a lot of people. Over."
"Well, Mussolini made the trains run on time," Dixon muttered from behind the kids.
Sophia and Carl talked a little more until Carl said, "My dad says I can't tie up the CB all night. I'll call again when it says so on the schedule." Rick had drawn up a call schedule for the months before leaving, so Fun Kingdom would know when to be by the CB. They'd also drawn up a code for talking about trade dates and times and roadways, so no potential bandits listening in on the airwaves would get a notion to go roaming on the roads looking to ambush travelers at specific times. "Over and out."
The CB went silent, and Sophia frowned. Dixon put a comforting hand on her drooped shoulder. "Come on, let's get that D&D game going. Uncle Daryl? You coming?"
Carol caught Daryl's eye and saw the surprised look on his face. It was the first time Dixon had called him uncle. "Yeah." Daryl stood from the kitchen table. "Yeah, let's kick some troll ass."