Four days pass, and Carol doesn't offer sex again. Daryl's starting to wonder if it was just a one-off, if she decided he wasn't disciplined enough, if she doesn't want to do it with him again.
Or does he have to arrange another date before he gets laid? Is that how this works?
Maybe she's just tired. She's been going to bed early. They've all been working hard to store up wood and water and meat and supplies for the winter, before the first freeze coats the lake in a thin sheet of ice and the barren trees make it harder to hunt.
"I think Lori has postpartum depression," Carol says at breakfast this morning over her bowl of grits. "Rick's been doing everything except breastfeeding and pumping." Judith did latch on yesterday, finally. "He gets up with the baby, changes her, dresses, her, bathes her, brings her to Lori, puts her back to sleep, brings the pump, cleans the pump, cooks their dinner, does the dishes …And Carl walks around with Judith in that sling all day."
"'Cause she's chick bait." The Grimes boy gets lots of attention from Beth and Addison whenever he has Judith slung across his chest.
"My point is, Lori won't get out of bed. I know she's still recovering from the surgery, but Rick says she's only gotten up to go to the bathroom. And he says she won't even look at the baby. I think she's seriously depressed."
"Hell's she got to be depressed about? She's alive. Judith's alive. And that baby is fucking adorable."
"It's not about circumstances, Daryl. It's biological. And pushing through…it's like swimming in slow motion through a sea of jello." She laughs. "Sorry, that's a terrible metaphor."
"Simile."
"Wait until I tell Andrea I got schooled in literary terminology by Daryl Dixon." She stands and takes his empty bowl and hers to the sink. When she does, she kisses him on the top of the head. She's been doing that sort of thing the last few days, a kiss on the cheek here, a kiss on the head there, a trail of her hand across his shoulders, but that's as far as it's gone.
"Listen…uh…been thinking." He nervously rubs his hands on his knees where he sits, looking at her back at the sink. Afraid she'll say no, he quickly takes the plunge: "Wanna have another date? With me? Tonight?"
She turns from the sink and, smiling, says, "I'd love another date. I thought you were never going to ask." All the tension winds out of him. But then he tenses again when she asks, "What did you have in mind?"
"Uh…" Sex. He had sex in mind. He's had sex pop into his mind every hour of the day for the past four days.
"How about dinner and a movie?" Carol suggests. "It's a bit cliché, but I like it. And the last movie we watched together had a pretty good climax at the end, wouldn't you say?"
Grinning, he ducks his head. "Yeah. Pretty damn good." So she did enjoy herself. Daryl looks up. "Thing is… I got that supply run with Jackson today." The camp sends out supply runners regularly now, making a point to gather as much as they can before it spoils or is looted. They also do it to scout the surrounding area, to make sure there are no threats out there—or survivors who need a camp. "Won't be back 'til evening. So…I can't hunt you anything special. And I'd have to cook up leftovers when I get back." He hopes that's good enough. He doesn't want to have to wait another entire day for a date.
"I'll cook this time," Carol volunteers. "You just find us a good movie on this run. I'm getting really tired of the same eleven DVDs. And see if you can find some antidepressants for Lori while you're out."
[*]
"You dropped one." Michonne picks a folded map up from the shore and brings it to Jackson, who is just about to get in the passenger's side of the pick-up truck next to Daryl.
"Oh, thanks." He takes it from her hand and adds it to his stack. Jackson has a collection of Alabama maps he's acquired here and there, some with tourist attractions listed, some with restaurants, some with shopping, some with wine trails. They're great for finding spots to loot.
Michonne smirks. "I didn't know your generation could read a map. I thought it was all GPS with you."
"My generation?" Jackson frowns. "You and I are both Millennials. Just on different tail ends of the generation."
Michonne chuckles. "I was born in '79," she tells Jackson. "I'm squarely in Generation X."
"Not squarely," Jackson insists. "Gen X ends in 1980."
Daryl starts the engine, to hint it's time to go.
"Have a safe trip," Michonne tells them.
"You want to join us?" Jackson asks hopefully.
"No. I'll just take up space you can use for loot. And I promised to help do the water today."
Jackson nods and gets in the truck. When he pulls the door shut, Daryl takes off through the gate T-Dog has swung open and says, "Check those maps of yours for the nearest video store."
"Video store?" Jackson asks. "What do we want with a video store?"
"Need to get some DVDs for Carol."
"Well, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy right before the world went to hell. We'll have better luck finding a library than a video store. They usually have a few shelves of DVDs. Besides, I could use some new books." He unfolds a map on the dash. "Head south on the main road out here."
Daryl makes the turn. "Also got to find some antidepressants for Lori. Ain't sure where, though. Pharmacies have all been picked over."
Jackson trails a finger along his map. "There's an upscale neighborhood about three miles from the library. Rich women are always popping psych meds."
"Good thinking. But how you know it's upscale?"
"It's called Highland Village Acres."
Daryl snorts. "Damn. A triple whammy."
Jackson smiles. "The only way it could be richer is if it were called Oak Canyon Hills."
"Or Island Park Estates," Daryl quips.
"And country club," Jackson ads.
Jackson adjusts his seat, rolling it back slightly for more leg room. Glenn was on the passenger's side last. Then he points right as they near a fork in the road.
Daryl makes the turn. "So how'd your hot date go with Michonne yesterday?" Jackson finally got to have his picnic, on a warm December evening on the heels of two cold ones.
"Uh…not precisely as I hoped."
"Nah?" Daryl maneuvers the truck around an exploded tire in the road and then past an abandoned car with its doors flung open and the trunk popped. He can see there's nothing worth looting inside.
"She made it clear I'm too young for her to date."
Daryl makes a sympathetic murmur.
"And then she said we could be friends."
"Aw, shit. Sorry, son."
"I don't really understand how someone can be old enough to be your friend, but not old enough to date you."
It's what Daryl expected, but he does feel badly for the kid. "You gave it a go at least. Got some balls on you, I'll give you that."
Jackson sighs. "We had so much fun, too, I thought. She's smart. Educated. Funny. In a sarcastic kind of way. I like talking to her. And looking at her."
"Well, don't be too damn obvious when you do that last part," Daryl warns.
"Fatherly advice noted."
[*]
Carol has joined Beth at the water trough on shore to do laundry today. Carol's doing hers, Daryl's, and, to help Rick out, some of the Grimes' family's. Beth is doing her wash, Hershel's, Maggie's, and Glenn's. They usually do this in the lake, but it's gotten too cold to sit on stools shin deep in the water.
Carol told Daryl that dinner would be served at 6 pm. She's planning to make a form of Georgia Brunswick stew using some pulled shreds of wild boar, a can of corn, a can of stewed tomatoes, and some bone broth she made from one of Daryl's kills and froze to save. She also plans to bake some cornbread, from a box of Jiffy mix. She doesn't have eggs, but she does still have applesauce made from all those apples Glenn and Maggie brought back from the untended orchard.
She was beginning to wonder if Daryl was ever going to make a move again. She's given him all sorts of hints she'd like him to – little kisses here and there, little touches. But he never initiates anything. She doesn't want to have to be as painfully blunt as she was last time. She supposes, in a way, she's been trying to train him, but for a while there, she wasn't sure he was going to catch on.
She suspects physical affection doesn't come easily to him. His parents certainly didn't show it to him, or his brother. Daryl's enveloped her in his arms before, but it's always at some difficult moment when she needs comfort, like when Sophia lurched out of that barn, or she'd just gone through the horror of pulling a bloody, not-yet-breathing Judith out of Lori. When everything is going swimmingly, it doesn't occur to him to draw her into an embrace.
"Did you know Jackson took Michonne on a picnic yesterday?" Beth asks.
"I was vaguely aware."
"Like, as a date." Beth rubs a bar of soap roughly, almost angrily, over the shirt on her washing board. "I can't believe she would agree to that! Isn't it kind of creepy? She's old enough to be his mother."
"If she had him when she was thirteen, maybe."
Beth's blonde hair bounces with the shake of her head. "Daryl had Jackson when he was sixteen!"
"Seventeen, technically, by the time Jackson was born." Carol wrings out a pair of Daryl's boxers. "And I thought they were first cousins when I met Jackson. Daryl didn't seem old enough to be his father."
"The point is, she's way too old for Jackson! I mean, isn't there some half plus seven rule? So she shouldn't be dating anyone under 23. Jackson doesn't even turn 20 for another month!"
Carol looks at Beth warily. The girl has clearly developed a serious crush on Jackson. Not that Carol blames her. He's as good-looking as his father, skilled in shooting and increasingly in hunting, willing to help out wherever asked, and generally just nice to everyone. "They're both grown adults," Carol tells her gently.
"Well so am I then! If Jackson is."
Carol gives her a tightly closed lip nod. She's certainly not going to debate the point with Beth, but the girl is not nearly as mature as Jackson. She was leaning a great deal on her father and Maggie all those months at the start, while Jackson was essentially acting in loco parentis for Addison. Beth's a hard worker, and she has a number of domestic skills. She's reliable. But she also has a strangely innocent air about her for someone who has survived this long in this world. Beth can be overly sensitive, isn't yet good at defending herself against walkers, and can be incredibly childlike at times. Which is, perhaps, as it should be. She's only seventeen, after all.
"I miss Jimmy," Beth says suddenly. "I didn't want to be stuck with him. We'd just started dating, and then the world ended, and it was like…I had to be with him. Forever. And I felt so…trapped. But now that he's gone…I miss him." She turns and walks off to hang a shirt on the clothesline, and Carol thinks of all the people they've lost and wonders how long this camp of theirs can endure.