Glenn and Maggie return just as the group is finishing up a communal dinner on shore. Jackson jogs to unlock the gate and then jumps up on the tail of the truck to ride back toward the group. When he jumps off the tail, he's tossing an apple in the air. The bed of the pickup is jammed pack with bushels and crates and a few loose, plump, orange pumpkins.
Glenn exits the passenger's side grinning. "Fresh apples for dessert! They're only rotten in a few spots. We can dig around."
Carol fixes the newcomers each a camp plate, and when she sits back down across from Daryl at one of the picnic tables with an apple in her hand, he says, "You can make us pumpkin pie tomorrow."
"Oh, can I?" She draws her knife to cut away at the bad spots in the apple.
"Please?" T-Dog asks. "I bet no one makes a meaner pumpkin pie than you."
She smiles. "We don't have eggs or condensed milk - but we have flour, sugar, cornstarch, and powdered milk. I can probably figure something out."
Glenn grins. "Can't wait for some of Aunt Carol's pumpkin pie."
"I was an only child," Carol tells him. "I'm nobody's aunt."
"Mama Carol's pumpkin pie then," Glenn says, and when Carol looks abruptly down at the slice of apple she's just cut off, Daryl shoots Glenn daggers with his eyes. The young man shifts uncomfortably, clears his throat, and says, "We got fertilizer and insecticide and some seed packets, too. All sorts of seeds. They had a garden by the orchard owner's house."
"And three bottles of wine," Maggie adds. "And a shotgun and two boxes of shells."
"Good work," Rick tells them from the next picnic table over.
"And we found something else," Glenn says. He reaches into the pocket of his jean jacket and takes out a small ring box. He opens it to reveal two gold rings. "Maggie and I are getting married."
"And you didn't go ask Hershel for his blessing first?" T-Dog tsks.
"He did," Hershel tells him from the next table over, where he sits beside Beth. "And it's a good thing, too, given the timing."
"The timing?" T-Dog asks.
Maggie sighs. "Daddy, I told you we weren't telling anyone until the second trimester."
Lori smiles. "You mean I've got company in my pregnancy?"
Rick puts a hand on her protruding belly and smiles. "Not for long. That little Grimes should be popping out come January."
Congratulations are meted out, apples consumed, and then Addison begins to collect the camp plates for washing. Carl jumps up to help her. They'll have to take them on one of the boats to do it, though T-Dog's been talking of constructing some kind of irrigation channel from the lake to the shore and making a hand water pump that pumps water into a trough through a filter, below which they can put fire or coal to boil the water. It sure will make "doing the water" easier if he can rig it up. Carol asks how the project is coming along.
"I have the plans drawn and start digging tomorrow," T-Dog tells her. "I guess all that time volunteering for Habitat for Humanity came in handy, even if all the people I helped build houses and ran plumbing for are all walkers now."
"See," Jackson calls over to Daryl from the end of the table. "Maximizing positive emotions and minimizing negative ones."
Daryl grunts and T-Dog tilts his head with curiosity.
[*]
Carol takes both mugs of tea by the handles, pads to the living room, and sets Daryl's mug down on his end table.
"Thanks," he murmurs and turns the page of the book he's reading, the one Jackson gave him earlier.
She sets her cup next to the lamp on the end table of her side of the couch. They have sides of the couch, like lovers have sides of the bed, and neither ever tries to usurp the other's side. She sits down and curls her legs up on the empty cushion between them before opening her own book.
She hears the rasp of the page as Daryl turns another. This is rare, Daryl with a book. Usually he's fiddling with his bow before bed, or his handgun or a rifle – he cleans his weapons far more often than he cleans himself. Occasionally he will read a magazine in the evening, though. They found piles of Guns & Ammo, American Rifleman, and Outdoor Life on one of the gas boats they don't occupy. They also found about a dozen Garden & Gun magazines, but Daryl won't read those. "That one's for the ladies," he said, and Rick replied, "I've found them very useful," to which Daryl replied, "my point exactly."
Daryl doesn't garden. He's the only one who never takes a turn in those plots, but no one nags him about it, because he's the only one who has ever brought home a deer. Most of them manage to catch fish now, and Carol's trapped some small game, but half the time her catch is infested with worms. They did get one edible possum out of her efforts, though it was greasy and certainly didn't garner the applause of Daryl's deer.
They both read in silence for a while, until Daryl closes his book, tosses it on the coffee table, stretches his arms behind his head, and then puts his bare feet up on the book.
"Finished already?" she asks.
"Wasn't long."
She puts a finger in her place in the book she's reading and turns her head to him. "Did you enjoy it?"
He shrugs. "Guess it had some good stuff mixed in with the Hallmark greeting card bullshit. "
Carol chuckles. "I think The Tao predates Hallmark by quite a few years."
"You think? Well, he who knows does not speak. And he who speaks does not know. That's what the Tao says."
"Guess I'll keep quiet then."
His tongue snakes out between his lips. That's one of her favorite smiles of his, where he's trying not to smile, but his tongue belies him.
She smiles too. "Any other memorable lines?"
"What is firmly rooted cannot be pulled out."
"I like that. I hope it's true. We're planting roots here, aren't we? Digging in for the cross winter."
"Reckon," he murmurs. His eyes sweep her face and flit away. "The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
"Why do you like that one?"
"'Cause…" He falls silent, reaches for his teacup, and slurps the last sip remaining in it.
"Because why?" she asks, curious than teasing now.
"'Cause…Dunno." He sets the teacup aside. "Think it means something ain't got to be loud or obvious to be real. Flame that burns quiet and slow… gonna last a long time. Ain't gonna burn out anytime soon." He glances at her, and her heart catches. "Ain't going nowhere." He turns his eyes to his hands and picks at something underneath his thumbnail.
Daryl's not much for subtlety, usually, but if she's reading him right, he's talking about them. About their friendship. Or about whatever it is this relationship is. Neither of them have attempted to define it yet.
Carol's attracted to him, though she's not sure if he's figured that out, all her teasing aside. Of course, she hasn't given him much of a reason to take her teasing seriously. She's been a bit afraid to. She still feels like one long bruise at times, and although she knows Daryl would never deliberately hurt her…she likes so much the peace of these nights just as they are that she doesn't want to risk rocking the boat - literally or figuratively.
She thinks, also, that he might be attracted to her. This morning was not the first time she felt his eyes on her ass or chest, and the way he flushes sometimes when she teases him – he wouldn't do that if he was only irritated. But if he is attracted to her, he doesn't seem inclined to act on that attraction, at least not yet. She suspects he's never had a girlfriend, someone he took on an actual date, someone who is more than backroom fuck at the feed store.
"I like that saying, too," she tells him. "There's something to be said for the slow burn." She could have said that teasingly, sexually, and wiggled an eyebrow. But she didn't. She said it quietly, honestly.
Daryl continues to pick at his nail. "Tao says you got to wait until the mud settles and the water is clear."
"What if the mud never settles, though?" she asks. "Can a person just wait until its clear enough?"
"Reckon."
He looks like he wants to bolt, so Carol changes the subject. "Speaking of waiting until the water is clear – how did that go today? Doing the water with Jackson?"
"A'right."
"Just all right?"
He finally looks up from his nail and stops picking and looks directly at her. "What are you expecting there, Carol?"
"I'm not expecting anything."
"That he's going to think of me as his daddy? 'Cause that ain't ever gonna happen."
"I think he could use a mentor. And I think you could use a mentee. That's what I think."
"Mentee," Daryl murmurs. "Thought you was my mentee."
Carol snorts.
"What? taught you to shoot. Well, me and Rick. Taught you to knife walkers. Taught you to trap."
"And I taught you to sew patches on your favorite pants. And how to play nice with others. So maybe you're my mentee."
He smiles. "Maybe. Glad you made me take him out."
"No one can make you do anything."
"Yeah, but, you can be pretty damn persuasive."
"How so?"
He chews on his thumbnail for a moment, lowers it, and says, "I don't like to disappoint you."
"Daryl…" She's not quite sure what to say to that, but her heart feels like a wash rag being rung out.
"Wanna be this…this man you seem to think I am. Wanna be a good man."
"You are a good man." She slides across the couch toward him, puts a hand on his cheek, and kisses his forehead. "You are."
He swallows and presses his forehead against hers, not otherwise touching her. They sit like that for a moment. He's the first to pull back, and her hand slips from his cheek. "Should both get some shut eye," he says, "Stop wasting the boat's batteries on 'lectricity."
Carol nods and stands. She thinks of saying something teasing, something about saving batteries by finding some non-mechanical assistance for he evening relaxation…but then thinks better of it. Instead, she offers him a gentle goodnight and leaves the cups for the morning.