A/N: I've been told that some people didn't receive a notification for the previous chapter. So just have a look and make sure you've read it.
Chapter 34 : September
"Did you and Daryl ever talk about having children someday?"
Herschel asked the question to help fill the silence in the cell. To help her relax, while he poked and pressed at her body. It was a simple question and one that she should have been able to answer. But the mere mention of Daryl's name, always managed to make her hands shake and her breath catch.
"I'm sorry Carol, I didn't mean to-"
She quickly shook her head, before the old man could finish his unnecessary apology. "No. No, really it's fine." she promised as she shifted her body slightly.
Herschel stopped the podding of her stomach and took a seat on the stool by the bunk , in her cell.
"Daryl and I-" she started as she readjusted her shirt and sat herself up on the edge of the mattress. "We didn't talk about having children. We were to busy worrying about Sophia to talk about adding to the mix. Besides, we weren't really in a situation to even dream about-…" she stopped then and dropped her eyes from Herschel down to her lap.
She didn't mention that she just assumed her time for more children was over.
Sophia, it had always seemed, was something of a miracle. She had never used contraception while she was with Ed, but Sophia was the only child she had to show for her efforts.
In Ed's eyes, it had been just another failure of Carols. She had accepted his insults as she always did and she had believed him, when he told her that she was broken in some way, that there was something wrong with her and that was why she was never able to give him more children. Or more to the point, she wasn't able to produce the son he was so certain he deserved.
For the first time though, she was considering that the problem was most likely Ed.
In the brief period of time that she and Daryl were having sex, she had fallen pregnant without any effort. She wasn't planning out her ovulation, she wasn't peeing on strips to find the most opportune time. It had just happened and it had happened quickly.
From her best calculations she and Daryl had only been sleeping together for a month…maybe six or seven weeks tops. She wasn't to sure. But it was nothing in comparison to the literal years that she had been sleeping with Ed.
"So how does it look?" she asked, hoping to move this along. As usual, she wanted to be alone. If people didn't have quiet company to offer, then she would rather they just leave.
"From my knowledge, which is limited. I am guessing your around three months, maybe four?"
She nodded. She knew that much. What she didn't know, was if she was going to make it to five months. She wasn't sure if this baby was ever going to live beyond the space it was occupying right now.
"Do you think it's ok?"
"I think you need to eat more. I think you need to rest more and take better care of yourself. But yes. In my opinion, I think it's ok."
Herschel didn't linger to long after the examination, though she knew he would have liked to. A lot of them tried to spend time with her, but she often found herself pushing them away, without even really meaning to.
There was just to much going on in her head and she didn't have the time or energy to deal with anything else.
She worked all day and helped take watch most nights. She did her fair share and then some. But at the end of of the day when there was simply nothing else for her to do, she wanted to be left to dwell on her own misery. Just like she intended to to do tonight.
She laid down on the bed and pulled out his dark denim jacket, from where she kept it under her pillow. She clutched it to her chest, like she did every night and pressed her face into it.
At first she did it because he had found the scent comforting, but over time, the smell had faded.
Now it was just something to hang onto.
Those first few weeks after finding the farm, he guessed that he had been in shock and that maybe it had messed with his head. Maybe it was because it had heightened the shock he had already been in.
In reality, he hadn't been ok since he woke up in that tent in Austin.
The racing thoughts and eagerness to move as much as he possibly could, was wearing off now. He hadn't realized just how manic he had been until he started to crash.
The adrenaline he had unknowingly been running on, had seemingly evaporated from his system. The numbness he had been clinging to, had worn off.
When they left Austin, each passing day, had him feeling one day closer to Carol, but now with each passing day, she felt that much further away from them.
There was no destination, no sure route that would lead them to her. And knowing that, seemed to slow everything down to a normal pace, it eased the racing thoughts and cured the numbness.
Now he was afraid.
He was more afraid then he had been in a very long time.
He didn't voice his concerns to Sophia, but there was a chance, if the group was alive, that they were no longer in Georgia. If that was true, then she really was gone to them. He'd never find her and they would spend forever chasing nothing.
Then there was Sophia. Distant and quiet. Loud and angry. Depressed.
Much like him, she didn't voice anything that was going through her head. She tried to pretend that she was ok and he let her go on like that. He let it pass, because selfishly he didn't know how much more he could handle.
"Ok. I'm, ready" she announced with the kind of determination that he had always wanted to hear from the girl.
He nodded and stepped behind her, getting into the familiar position, to ready himself for what was coming.
He checked the way she held the machete and watched the way she planted her feet into the ground.
She was right, she really was ready.
The walker approached them and he reminded her to breathe.
She had a tendency to hold her breath, which was fine when she was taking down just one of them. But the day would come when there would be a dozen of them and he explained, that if she continued on with the bad habit, she may just pass out while she was trying to fight.
Truthfully he was more worried that she would simply tire herself out to easily, but he knew she'd find the first reason more amusing. He'd say just about anything to keep things light.
She had been the one who decided that she was ready to start trying to take down the walkers. He wanted her to be confident, this was what he had been pushing for. But in the end, he had been so much more nervous then she was. It seemed that over the last few weeks, as Sophia grew more sure of herself, he grew more horrified that something would not only go wrong, but that he would have to live with knowing that he had, once again, put her in danger.
For days she had been trying to kill one and he had always jumped in front of her and taken over. His mind convinced him that something bad was about to happen, so the kid never got the chance to execute her carefully practiced moves.
Today was different though.
He was sure she was not only anticipating the movement of the walker but his as well. He didn't have chance to think about anything that could possibly go wrong, because Sophia stepped forward and plunged the machete under the walkers chin.
He watched as she drove the blade up into its brain, before she pulled it out and jumped back, just in time to get out of it's way.
He'd built it up in his head for so long. He had thought a wave of relief would wash over him. He thought it would give him some confidence and comfort.
But it didn't work out like that.
It didn't work because he knew she shouldn't be out here. Nothing was going to make him feel better about it. She didn't belong here. She was never really going to be safe out here, not ever.
"I did it" Sophia said softly while she looked at the stilled body on the ground.
The sound of her voice echoed his own feelings, maybe she had been hoping for something to shift inside of her. He guessed that she thought that it might make her feel a certain way. But it hadn't.
But even so, when she turned around to face him, he forced a smile and told her that she had done a good job.
"You still hungry?"
Sophia asked, drawing him out of his own head. He looked at her and tried to jump start his brain, so that he could answer the simple question.
He considered her words again and looked at the pot.
Sophia frowned at him and quickly shook her head, ignoring him."There's heaps. You should have more"
He just sat staring at her as she pried his bowl from his hands and began to fill it again. It wasn't until she was passing him back the bowl that he remembered how to form words.
"You should have it. I'm fine." He said lightly pressing the bowl pack into her hand.
Once again the kid frowned at him before she narrowed her eyes. She didn't look angry, just confused. Maybe even a little frustrated.
"I've had seconds…and thirds. I can't eat anymore, Daryl. I'll pop."
He was a bit stunned as he accepted the bowl from her, he wasn't to sure where the time had gone and how long he had been sitting there caught up in his own head.
He had been trying not to think about Carol and then realized how hard it was to simply avoid the idea of her. It seemed to only make him think of her more.
He remembered at the quarry, when he tried to avoid her, but it had only led to him watching her constantly, just to make sure they didn't enter into each others space. Avoiding her was impossible, even now.
It wasn't to long ago that he was able to keep his mind focused on traveling. He was heading somewhere, he could look at a map and plan a route, he could think about what they were going to need and how they were going to get it as quickly as possible.
But he didn't have to plan anything out anymore, because there wasn't a plan anymore. They were simply ticking spots off on a map, aimlessly.
"Can I sleep in the bedroom. This couch is all springs"
His eyes snapped up from his now emptied bowl and looked over at the kid, watching as she pushed her hand down on the couch cushions.
Rather then answer, he got up and started gathering up the few things they carried with them, then followed Sophia into the bedroom.
He dropped everything on the ground by the bed and then made his way over to the window, leaning into the frame as he looked out into the darkness. He could hear her moving around behind him and he didn't even have to look back to know exactly what she was doing, because she did the same thing every night. And so did he.
She knew that he walked around at night and checked for signs of danger, but she had made it more then clear, that she would rather he not go anywhere until she was fast asleep. It was a request he had no problem granting. Because he was fairly certain that Sophia was somewhat scared of the dark. Or at the very least, being alone in it.
Within minutes of her climbing into bed he could hear her breathing even out. He could see the sight of her in his head, because he had seen it a a hundred times. But for some reason, tonight, when he turned to look over at her, curled up in a ball clutching that rag doll, he felt his stomach flip.
It didn't matter that Sophia could hunt and kill animals without so much as flinching and it didn't matter that she had killed her first walker today, she was still just a kid.
For some reason when she slept, she looked younger. He still wasn't actually sure how old the kid was, but she looked less like a kid and closer to something he would describe as a baby.
She looked far to small and entirely too helpless to be in his care. And he knew, with complete certainty that she was far to valuable as well. As that thought passed through his head, for what he was sure, was the hundredth time today, it felt like someone had dug into chest and began squeezing at his heart.
It was then that the weight of everything had finally hit him. Fully and completely.
And he couldn't stop thinking about Carol and what it must be like for her. He couldn't stop thinking about all the things ha had done wrong and all the things he could still do wrong.
He couldn't see an end in sight and he couldn't remember how to breathe normally.
Quickly and quietly he left the bedroom, barely making it down the hallway before he realized he couldn't make it a step further.
His back slid down the wall, until he was on the floor clutching at his chest.
The brief thought, that he was having a heart attack, quickly passed.
He knew what was happening and he knew that eventually it would pass.
The idea that he was having a heart attack was something that always went through his head when the panic and anxiety decided to erupt within him. He had thought the same thing when he was nine and it had happened for the first time.
Another thought that always went through his head during the panic attack was the sound of his Merle's voice and the memory of his brother slapping the back of his back of the head saying "Calm the hell down, you idiot".
At the time he had glared at Merle, but now it was enough to make him laugh, the memory helped calm him down. And the words repeated in his head, over and over again, helping to remind him that his job right now was simple.
He knew, from past experience, that he had most likely only been sitting there for a few minutes. But it didn't mean that he didn't feel like had been there for hours, fighting against his own body, trying to will it to do, what was supposed to do on its own.
Finally he stopped fighting against everything he had been holding back on since this started, knowing that's what had landed him in the position that he was in right now.
He drew his knees into his chest, then dropped his head into his palms and gave in.
"I don't know what to do, Carol"