February 5, 2011
Carol had somehow become Fun Kingdom's primary trade representative during the trips to Woodbury. Daryl told her it was probably because of her smile. Now, she was nearing the Woodbury bookstore after meeting with Milton and saw Daryl strolling in her direction.
"What you get for the piglet?" he asked when she came to a stop before him outside the bookstore window.
They'd brought one of the females piglets for trade, which Hershel had declared likely to turn out to be infertile. That still left them three females and two males to breed when they became sexually mature. The piglet they'd brought for trade was already fourteen weeks old and a hundred pounds, but Woodbury would let it grow another four months before it was fat for the slaughter.
"One hundred and fifty gallons of gasoline," Carol told him, "a gas-powered generator we can use as emergency backup for the house's heater if we ever lose power this winter, a solar-powered space heater for our greenhouse tent, and six heads of winter cabbage."
"Damn, Miss Murphy! Good work."
"It wasn't challenging. They don't have a lot of sources of meat for a town this big." Woodbury had chickens for eggs, goats for milk, canned meat and MREs, and a small pond for fishing, but they also had over sixty-five people now, and only two decent hunters. "What's Sophia up to?"
He leaned a shoulder against the glass window of the bookstore. "She and Carl are hangin' at Patrick's house. Dropped our stuff at Rick's." Daryl pushed off the window and turned to walk in the direction of Rick's townhouse with her.
His hand brushed against hers, and Carol noticed he was wearing fingerless leather motorcycle gloves. "Did it finally get cold enough for you to make a halfway compromise?" she teased.
"Oscar told me to keep it covered for a couple days."
"Keep what covered?"
Daryl stopped walking outside the stationary store and turned to face her. Using his teeth at his wrist, he yanked the glove off his left hand. He held it backside up to show her the tattoo on his ring finger and then turned it palm up so she could see the black, cursive letters circling all around and spelling out Carol M. It seemed the M had been added for symmetry to allow three letters on each side and better complete the circle.
"You didn't!" she said, taking hold of his hand and looking at the angry red flesh.
"Told you I was gonna."
"How much did it hurt?"
Daryl shrugged.
"Your flesh looks all inflamed."
"It'll go down. Be fine. Oscar rubbed some antibiotic on it. Just gotta put some more on tonight."
She smiled. She hadn't wanted him to do it, but now that he had, she found she rather liked it. There'd be no mistaking whose husband he was. "Does the M stand for Murphy or Mine?"
"Whatever you want it to stand for."
She chuckled, raised his hand up, and gently kissed the flesh above his knuckle. As he put the glove back on, she said, "But we don't even get married for another six weeks. I guess now you can't leave me at the altar."
"Guess not," Daryl said. "Sure as shit don't want to have to cover that tattoo with another one. Hurt like hell!"
Carol laughed and they resumed walking.
"And uh…it's your Valentine's Day gift. If that's all right. Early."
"I wasn't even expecting a Valentine's Day gift," she said. "Thank you, Pookie." She kissed his cheek.
"Oh fuck," Daryl muttered. "Here comes Tom the Head Electrician. Wanna bet he flirts with you again?"
"Better show him your tattoo," Carol quipped.
Tom greeted both and told them that if they ever had any electrical issues with the House of the Future he'd be happy to visit and fix them in exchange for cheese, milk, or butter. "We don't get much here from the goats. I also do HVAC. I can make sure that heater is in tip top shape for the rest of the winter."
"We'll keep it mind," Carol told him, and he walked on.
"Notice how he only looks at you when he talks?" Daryl muttered.
"Because you're intimidating. And it's not like women don't notice you in Woodbury."
"Pffft."
"Tara was checking out your ass today."
"Tara bats for the other team. And she was checkin' out my piece."
"I bet she was," Carol teased.
"The gun I have in my holster."
Carol smiled because although Tara was not checking him out, Carol had noticed the Governor's ex-lover Rowan doing so. And Eileen, even though Eileen was married and she was pushing her baby in a carriage. And Mrs. Richards. But Mrs. Richards was seventy. Daryl had been oblivious to all of it.
Rosita waved to them now as she walked down the sidewalk toward them. Her ponytail was pulled through her gray military cap and Max padded alongside her. She stopped in front of them, and Max, excited to see Carol, barked and jumped up with his paws on her stomach. She scratched behind his ears.
"Ain't ya happy to see me?" Daryl asked him, and Max came over to give him a little love, too, before promptly returning to Carol. "Heard y'all rounded up fifty, eight-pound cannisters of gun powder? And two thousand reloading bullets? And eighteen cases of brass? Forty percent of that is ours."
"Thirty," Rosita told him. "We agreed thirty. Minus five percent for lodging and feeding Max." Daryl glared at her and she smirked. "Thirty," she agreed. "But only if you help Oscar move his dresser into my place while you're here."
"Shackin' up, huh?" Daryl asked.
Rosita shrugged. "I just don't want to hassle getting up to investigate strange noises in the night. That's all."
"How's that baby doing?" Carol asked Rosita. "The one the Army found in the Wolf den?
"Tyreese and Karen adopted him. They're getting married next week. Are you two coming to the show tonight?"
"Show?" Daryl asked. "Ain't it a bit cold for the arena?"
[*]
The show, it turned out, was in Woodbury's old single screen movie theater, which used to show vintage films on reel for $5 a ticket. Tom the Head Electrician had finally gotten electricity flowing to the theater. It had been rather low on the priority list, but now that all the occupied houses, the café, and the clinic had power, the Council had voted to bring it to the theater. Daryl thought that was a waste of electricity, but since they'd done it, he took his girl to see the show.
He had even gotten them a bag of popcorn, which some guy in a wheelchair was in charge of selling behind the concession stand for one round of ammunition each. They were selling bottled water, too, for a round each, but no way in hell he was paying a round for bottled water. He had his canteen, after all.
"Back row? Really?" Carol asked as she followed him to two seats in the middle of the last row. "Are we going to be necking like a couple of teenagers?"
"Depends how borin' the picture is."
The seats creaked as Daryl and Carol sat down in them, side by side. The theater sat one hundred people, and it seemed about thirty-five were here.
Carol extended him the bag of popcorn and he took one piece and tossed it in his mouth. It wasn't as good as the popcorn they had for their twice monthly movie nights on the big screen TV at the House of the Future. "You've never actually seen Citizen Kane?" Carol asked.
"Nah."
"Then I won't tell you Rosebud is the name of the sled," she teased.
"Now what if I hadn't known that?" Daryl grumbled.
"Then I'd have to wonder what rock you crawled out from under."
Daryl growled, but not because of her response. A couple of teenagers had decided to sit at the end of their row. That Jody kid with his annoying knit cap and his skateboard which he'd put underneath his feet on the floor and begun to roll back and forth, tapping the girl's ankles with it like a seven-year-old boy pulling pigtails. The girl, who looked to be about fourteen, bent down and grabbed the skateboard and put it upright in the empty seat in front of herself. Jody wasn't getting any necking tonight, Daryl thought. Not at that rate.
The lights dimmed and the movie began to roll and Jody innocently stretched his arm out across the back of the seat. Then he let it slip down around the girl's shoulders two minutes later. She tolerated it.
"Aren't you going to subtly lower your arm around me, too?" Carol whispered.
"Pfft."
"Fine." She lay her head on his shoulder and put a hand on his thigh. "That's not invitation to a blow job, just so you know," she whispered.
"Stahp. Movie's startin'."
A few minutes later, though, when Carol sat upright again, he did sling an arm around her shoulders, and offered her a drink from his canteen. As the movie wore on, Daryl stole a few glances at Sophia five rows ahead of them, with Carl on her left side and Patrick and Duane on her right.
He bent his head to whisper, "Just me, or does Carl keep brushin' Soph's fingers in that bag of popcorn?"
"It's just you," Carol told him.
"Where'd he get the ammo to buy that?"
"He has his own rations," Carol replied. "Carl can shoot you know."
Daryl watched as Patrick also offered Sophia some popcorn from his bag. "But Patrick can't. Where'd he get the ammo to buy that?"
"Shhh!" Carol scolded him.
Michonne was sitting with Jocelyn and Morgan at the far left of the fourth row back. Lori had declined to attend the movie. She'd been feeling tired lately with the pregnancy, she said, and she'd hinted that maybe Rick should stay behind with her. Maybe he was actually getting some.
"Who's that guy with 'Chonne?" Daryl whispered.
"That's Caleb. Dr. S. He asked her out for the night," Carol whispered back. "Now shhh!"
"Chicks used to like doctors," Daryl observed. "'Cause they used to make a shitton of money. But that ain't true anymore. Guess they still got marketable skills, though."
Bob, who sat in front of them just three rows up, to the right, next to Sasha, turned around and said, "Would you be quiet back there!"
A year ago, Daryl would have started a fight if someone told him to be quiet in a movie theater. Not that he'd gone to movie theaters. But now, he just quieted down. He leaned his head sideways and rested it against Carol's.
An hour later, Carol nudged him awake to tell him the movie was over.
February 6, 2011
"I named her Violet," Carl said as he stood with his arms slung over the top rail of the fence around Woodbury's new pig pen.
"That's a pretty name," Sophia told him. "It's my favorite color."
"I know," Carl said.
"I told him," Patrick let Sophia know.
"I knew before you told me," Carl insisted.
"Shouldn't name something you're gonna eat in a couple months," Daryl warned him.
"Hershel named all the cows," Sophia replied.
"They're for milkin', not eatin'."
"But when they get older," Carl said, "and they stop having calves, and they stop giving milk, you'll eat them. Right?"
"S'pose we will." Daryl nodded to Carol and Michonne who strolled to a stop by the pen with their packs on their shoulders.
"Is Dr. S your boyfriend now?" Sophia asked bluntly.
"Sophia," Carol scolded her, but Michonne only chuckled.
"No," Michonne assured her. "We had a lovely time at the movies and he's a nice man, but he's not my boyfriend now."
"I wish you could stay longer," Patrick told Sophia.
"I wish we could still talk on the CB!" Sophia complained.
Daryl shot her a stern look.
"I'm not going to," she insisted. "I just wish we could."
February 12
As Daryl came in from his evening smoke outside the House of the Future and walked by the fireplace, Hershel was reading in the arm chair, Beth was asleep on the couch, and Sophia and Luke were playing with the freshly-weaned puppies. One nipped playfully at Sophia's finger. "Now Merle! I said stop!" she scolded the puppy, but not without giggling afterward.
Daryl had named that one. Dixon had named another Dixie, in honor of his mother. Luke had named one Flash, in honor of his hero Flash Gordan, while Mika had opted for Piper for another, after her best childhood friend, and Andre had gone with Lightening McQueen due to his obsession with the Disney Cars DVD Michonne permitted him to watch once a week, on a portable DVD player using batteries, so as not to drain energy from the house. Sometimes Andre called the puppy just Lightening, sometimes just McQueen, and when the little rascal was being particularly naughty, he got scolded it by his full name of Lightening McQueen.
Daryl went on into the dining room where he found Glenn, Maggie, Carol, Michonne, Patricia, and T-Dog playing cards and sharing a bottle of wine. "Dixon on watch?"
"Yes," Michonne said. "And Mika's tucking in Andre in the space room and reading to him."
"Can I get in on that bottle?"
"Grab a glass," Maggie said.
Daryl did, and he settled in with them at the table.
"Want dealt in on the next hand?" Glenn asked.
"Nah."
"Since almost everyone's here now," T-Dog said, "I guess we can discuss it?" He glanced at Patricia. She smiled and nodded. "We uh…Patricia and I...we'd like to figure out a way where we can share a room."
"Way to go, man!" Glenn said, and Maggie shook her head at him as Patricia flushed. "What? That's a lot of progress in a few weeks."
"I could take Patricia's bed in Beth's room," Michonne volunteered. "And you two could have my room. And then just Dixon and Luke and Andre would be in the space room."
"That works!" T-Dog said.
"But tomorrow," Michonne told him. "I'm too tired to move tonight."
February 16, 2011
King Ezekiel rolled up the back of the truck while that lumbering jester of his stood by leaning on his two-handed battle axe. His general Richard – our head of the guard – or master knight – or whatever the hell Ezekiel called him - shot the Saviors a sullen look.
"You don't happen to have any puppies do you?" Gavin asked.
"Puppies?" King Ezekiel intoned with a tilt of his gray head. "No."
"I didn't think so. I just promised Negan I would ask." Gavin stepped forward. "One, two, three," he counted the rabbits in the truck. "One, two, three," he counted the pigs. "One, two, three," he counted the bushels of onions, carrots, and radishes.
"We should have asked for six of everything!" Justin grumbled beside him. "The other outposts brought in more on their first two collections!"
"Silence," Gavin told him. The Kingdom couldn't easily breed more pigs and rabbits if the Saviors took too many. They couldn't make enough cuttings or salvage enough seeds to plant better gardens if they took too many of their vegetables. That was something Gary didn't get, which was why the Hilltop's tribute declined instead of grew. Simon didn't get it either, which was why Hallowbrant's greenhouse had produced so little this winter. Gavin counted the heads of winter cabbage. "One, two, three, four, five…six. It's all there."
"Of course it is," Richard said grimly. "We honor our word. Even to thieves."
Jared, who took this as the personal insult it was intended to be, quickly drew his handgun and pointed it sideways and one handed at Ezekiel's man. "Who do you think you are?" Jared yelled, his long, tangled, dirty blonde hair swaying as he bobbed his head.
"Stand back!" Gavin growled, snatching the gun from Jared. "That's not how you hold a gun! This isn't a goddamn gangster film. Back off!" Jared glowered as Gavin put the safety on Jared's handgun and stuck it in the back of his pants. "Everyone just calm down."
"They insulted us!" Jared yelled, stepping angrily toward the king. This caused everyone on both sides to raise their weapons.
Gavin stopped him with a hand to his chest. "Back off right now, or I'll put you on your ass." This route would have been so much easier if Negan hadn't made him take on this hothead.
Jared's eyes simmered. He paced in place a moment and then fell back with the other armed Saviors.
Gavin waved to the Saviors to lower their weapons, and they did, reluctantly. Ezekiel waved to his men, and they did the same, though Richard took considerably longer than Jerry.
"I'm not looking for conflict here," Gavin said levelly. "Just twenty percent. I'm not even asking for the usual fifty. I want this to go smoothly every time."
"That is my hope as well," Ezekiel said in his resonant voice, eyeing Richard coolly.
"Good," Gavin told him. "And we cleared that west road for you on the way here." He knew they were extorting the Kingdom, but he wanted Ezekiel to feel he at least got a little something out of his tribute offering besides protection from the Saviors. "Load up!" Gavin called to his men.
Ezekiel nodded to him. The Saviors took the goods, loaded up their truck, and pulled out of the rendezvous spot.
February 19, 2011
When Carol returned to Woodbury, Violet was 120 pounds. Mika climbed on the rails of the pig pen and oinked. She'd been begging to come meet the kids at Woodbury, so Carol had brought her this time, along with Sophia, Glenn, and Maggie. Michonne and Daryl had agreed to forgo the trip this time so others would get a chance to experience Woodbury. They'd made a rule – no more than three fighting adults could leave Fun Kingdom at a time, so it would always be well defended.
"Come on, Mika!" Sophia insisted. "We need to give Carl his new puppy." Sophia held a squirming Merle in her arms.
"I'll catch up with you!" Carol told them, and as the girls went on to the Grimes family townhouse, she headed to meet with Mayor Mamet about he trades. Tom the Head Electrician stopped her on the way. "Did you think about my offer? To come do some HVAC work with you? I could come back with you."
"Our heating system is working fine. But we'll definitely call on you if we ever have trouble with it."
"Good, good," he said. "Listen…can I take you to the movies tonight? His Girl Friday is showing. Cary Grant. You can't beat Cary Grant."
Carol smiled hesitantly. She hadn't been expecting such an invitation. "You're aware I'm engaged to Daryl Dixon, right?" Carol asked.
Tom looked stunned. "Uh…no. You didn't mention it."
"I'm always with him."
"Yeah…I just…I thought it was because you two lived in the same camp. And he's…like…your bodyguard."
Carol chuckled. "I don't need a bodyguard."
He took a nervous step back from her. "He's not…he doesn't think I've been coming onto you, does he?"
"Have you been?" she asked.
"No! I mean…I didn't know you were with him. Shit."
Carol chuckled. "It's fine. He won't hurt you. But I think I'm going to decline the movie invite." Amused and shaking her head, Carol walked on to negotiate the trades.