When the laundry truck gets through the gates and pulls to a stop near the check-in barn, Daryl is already dismounted and talking frantically to Clipboard Man, while the pick-up truck holding Cody careens up the dirt road toward the big house. As Carol and Sophia slide off the tail of the laundry truck, Bonnie comes running across the dirt road from a nearby garden plot where she'd been working.
Her white sunshade hat flies off her blonde-haired head as she closes the distance between herself and Daryl. "That was Cody!" she cries. "What happened to my brother, Daryl? What happened to him?"
"He's been shot," Daryl says. "He – "
"Fuck you!" Bonnie starts hysterically slapping Daryl's chest and shoulders. "Fuck you for dragging him into this! Fuck you, Daryl Dixon! Fuck you! Fuck you!" Each curse is now accompanied by a furious closed fist as she beats on him to a chorus of thump, thump, thump.
Daryl just stands there and takes it, rocking back on his heels from the blows, until Ryan and the laundry truck driver drag Bonnie off of him and take her aside to calm her down. Then Daryl turns to Clipboard Man. "Get it. Now!"
Clipboard Man drops his clipboard and runs into the barn and emerges with some kind of small white suitcase with a red cross on it. He hands it to Daryl, who hops on his motorcycle and roars up the road toward the big house after the vanished truck.
[*]
Carol and Sophia, after hanging the laundry on the laundry line stretched between the cottage and a small crabapple tree, walk to the big house to ask after Cody. The butler tells them, "Only medical staff and immediate family is permitted in the infirmary." He assures them that the outcome of Cody's treatment "will be published to the entirety of the camp" as soon as any such news is "forthcoming." He concludes, "But I assure you, with Dr. Subramanian, Cody is in the best of all possible hands."
He won't let them inside the big house, but he does hand Carol back the now fully charged battery pack. While he does, Carol hears a door slam open and sees Daryl cross the marble floor behind the butler and then thunder up the spiral staircase to the penthouse suite on the partial third floor. Daryl bangs furiously with his fist, and the door rattles, but before Carol can see who opens it, the butler is already closing the door.
Sophia tries not to cry as they head back to the cottage. Carol puts an arm across her shoulders.
"It's just…Cody was the first person who was nice to us here," Sophia says.
"I know, sweetheart. I know." She squeezes Sophia into a hug.
On the way back, she sees Nadia returning to her cottage from somewhere. The woman strolls to a stop by Carol and says, "I hear Cody got shot raiding that camp."
Carol nods solemnly. "Do you know if DeShawn is all right?"
"Garrison says he's fine. He and the other five men are still back there, tying up loose ends and loading up the loot. But Cody's about the sweetest man in this camp. Tell Daryl I hope it was worth it." She glowers and strides to her door.
[*]
Not knowing what else to do, Carol prepares a dinner for three. She goes down to the root cellar to get some potatoes and the rest of the milk and uses the spices to make her best mashed potato recipe, only without the butter. They do make butter here, Ryan told her, but that comes only once a week, and it never lasts anyone for long. With the mashed potatoes she serves canned green beans that she's also carefully seasoned and some Spam that was in the cabinet.
When Sophia says grace, she says a prayer for Cody. Mother and daughter eat tensely and quietly at the table, with Daryl's plate wrapped in tin foil to keep it warm in case he comes back from the big house hungry. He does come back, when they're down to their last bite, bursting through the door, which he leaves open.
Daryl paces to the kitchen counter, picks up three brown eggs from the bowl, and roars, "Where's the fourth? Left two, should of gotten two today!"
Her nerves tensing, Carol admits, "Sophia and I ate one with dinner last night. You said to just make what we wanted."
"Oh," he says, no longer sounding angry, but merely disappointed. "Well, three's good, right?"
She thinks he means he's hungry, so she says, "I made dinner already. If you want - "
"- Bonnie likes eggs." He interrupts. "Gonna bring her these eggs."
"Okay," Carol tells him.
"Gonna bring her these eggs and then go back to the big house." Daryl's voice is unsteady. "Cody's…he's…he's holding on." He nods. "But Bonnie really likes eggs." And then, looking a little dazed, he leaves through the door. He doesn't close it, so Carol does.
"Who's Bonnie?" Sophia asks when Carol sits back down.
"Cody's sister. The one who was hitting Mr. Dixon and screaming at him earlier. I think the eggs are his way of telling her he's sorry for what happened to her brother."
"How was that Mr. Dixon's fault? He didn't shoot Cody, did he?"
"No, honey, those bad men did. But not everyone thinks it was a good idea to raid their camp."
"I hope Cody's okay."
"I hope so, too," Carol tells her.
When they're done cleaning their plates, there's a knock at the door. It's Ivan, and he asks if Sophia wants to come over to his cottage to play chess with him. She admits she doesn't know how to, and he says, "I'll teach you. You can learn. You're smart. And I need someone to play with. DeShawn's not back yet, and my mom's too impatient."
"I don't know if I can concentrate on a game. I'm so worried about Cody."
"Maybe this could take your mind off it?" Ivan suggests.
Sophia looks back at her mother, who says, "Go on," and Sophia follows Ivan out the door.
Carol needs something to take her mind off of Cody, too, so she gets busy cleaning the kitchen. She's sweeping up the floor and wondering if she should put Daryl's dinner in the cooler in the root cellar when he walks in. He goes to his bedroom to put away his crossbow, comes back out to the kitchen, opens a cabinet, and pulls down a can of kidney beans.
"I made you dinner," Carol reminds him. She points to the plate on the table, next to a fork and knife atop a cloth napkin. She found the cloth napkins in the drawer in hutch. "It's still a little bit warm, maybe."
"Oh. Thanks. Ain't eaten since breakfast." He puts the kidney beans back in the cabinet, sits down at the table, and whips the tin foil off the plate.
Carol fills him a glass of water from the faucet and sets it on the table before him. He guzzles that down before he even picks up his fork, so she takes it and refills it. When she turns around, he's shoveling the mashed potatoes into his mouth without hardly stopping to breathe. He takes the offered glass of water, washes his potatoes down, and sets the glass on the table. "These are fucking fantastic. How'd you make them?"
"Secret family recipe, modified for current limitations."
He scrapes the last bit of potato from the plate and says, again, "Fucking fantastic."
She pours herself a glass of water, too, and sits down at the table with him.
He points with his fork to the green beans. "These are fucking fantastic, too. Where'd you get 'em? I ain't got any in the cellar. Thought the June harvest was all ate up."
"They're from a can."
"A can?" he practically shouts. "These are from a can?"
She smiles. Ed always found something wrong with her cooking. Always. "I just seasoned them and you can crisp them up a little if you drain them well and then—"
"-Fucking fantastic." He shakes his head and takes another bite.
Still smiling, Carol takes a sip of her water. "How's Cody?" she asks.
Daryl stops chewing. Then he starts again, chews slowly, and swallows hard. "They got the bullets out. He's been in and out of consciousness. But he's alive. Jefe agreed to authorize some kind of powerful antibiotics to prevent infection if Cody makes it through the night. Can't waste 'em if he's just gonna die from the blood loss anyway. We blew through too many back in March with that damn e Coli outbreak. But Cody'll get 'em, for sure, if he's still around in the morning…" Daryl winces.
"Well, I'll pray he is."
"'Cause your Catholic?"
He remembered that? "Because I like Cody."
Daryl picks up his knife and cuts into the Spam. "I know what this is," he says. "Ain't much you can do with this." But after he takes a bite he hums, closes his eyes, chews, swallows humming, opens his eyes – they're a lovely shade of blue she thinks, now that he's looking directly at her – and says, "Holy shit woman, what did you do to this?"
"I probably shouldn't divulge my secrets, or you'll just steal my recipes and won't need to sponsor me."
"Think I could cook this? Even with a recipe?" He looks around. "Where's your girl?"
"Playing chess with Ivan."
"Better watch that kid around her."
"Why's that?" Carol asks cautiously.
He shrugs, says, "Boys," cuts off another piece of Spam, and mutters, "Fucking fantastic" again before swallowing.
"Well, Ivan's mother is home to supervise them."
"If she ain't passed out."
"Do you think she might be?" Carol asks uneasily.
"Pfft. Don't worry. She ain't passed out. I was just joking. Hell, that woman could drink Merle under the table. If Merle weren't under the ground."
He winces at his own mention of his brother, and Carol thinks it's best to change the subject. "Did Bonnie like the eggs?"
"She threw one at me."
"Explains your shirt."
He looks down at his black shirt, which is streaked with raw egg that has clearly been rubbed in while being wiped up. "Waste of a damn good egg. But I guess it made 'er feel better."
"Is she with Cody?"
"Yeah. There's an extra bed in the infirmary. She'll stay the night with 'em. So he's got family in case…" He grits his teeth and looks at his nearly empty plate. "In case he don't make it through the night."
"The butler said Dr. Sub-ha…Sub-ma – "
"- That's why I just call him Dr. S."
"He said Cody was in good hands."
"Dr. S is the best. Says he was just a resident before all this, but he's the chief of surgery here now. And the GP. And pediatrician. Lady doctor." He eats the last bite on his plate, sets down his fork, and pushes the plate forward with a "Whoo!"
Carol takes his empty plate to the sink and begins to wash it. The hot kettle water she's left in there from earlier is still lukewarm.
"I could get used to this sponsorship thing," he says, and she has the feeling he's studying her ass, but when she looks behind herself, he's just lighting up a cigarette.
He stops before the tip catches. "Oh, yeah, sorry. Forgot. You're sensitive." He pushes his chair back and is about to head to the door, but there's an announcing rap-rap on it before it swings open and DeShawn steps in. He sweeps his cowboy hat off his head and pops the rim nervously. "How's Cody?"
"Alive," Daryl answers around his unlit cigarette. "For now. Was 'bout to have a smoke outside. Can talk out there."
"Since when do you smoke outside?" DeShawn asks as he follows Daryl onto the porch.