As Carol heads back to the cottage, it seems her buzz actually grows as she walks. She weaves a smiling, occasionally zig-zagging path down the dirt road, beneath the clear country glow of the stars. She can't remember the last time she got drunk. Ed had pounded back his beers, but he didn't want her "wasting money" on wine, and she would never have dared getting drunk around him. She might say or do something that set him off worse than usual. She wasn't safe around him sober, let alone drunk.
As she reaches the walnut tree that divides the cottages, she doesn't notice the gray tentacle of smoke floating in the night air. She's just passed the tree when an arm sweeps out and wraps around her waist from behind. She yelps, fumbles, and draws her knife from its sheath.
"Whoa! Whoa!" Daryl releases her and steps back.
Carol lets out a sigh of relief.
"Teach me to be affectionate," he mutters around his cigarette.
"I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. You were lurking behind the tree."
"Wasn't lurking behind it. Was leaning on it."
Carol returns her knife to her sheath now. It requires a bit of concentration, because of the buzz in her head, and she misses the sheath the first time and slides the knife outside it before sliding it in.
Daryl takes his cigarette out from between his lips and smiles. "Are you drunk?"
"No! Just…maybe slightly buzzed."
He chuckles. "More 'n slightly. Good meeting, I take it?"
Carol smiles. She steps closer, kisses his cheek, and then takes the cigarette from his hand. She takes a deliberately sultry pull on it, sucking in slowly, and then turns her head to blow out the smoke.
"Jesus," he murmurs. "Look like you know how to use that mouth."
"Maybe I do," she says, turning her eyes back to him.
Daryl lets out a laugh—awkward and happy. He bites his bottom lip, and then lets it slide out from under his teeth before he leans in—without prodding this time—to kiss her.
Carol closes her eyes as his tongue tangles with hers. She reaches for his face, to press her hands against it and hold him into the kiss, forgetting that one of her hands still holds the cigarette, and he jerks back with a hiss as the hot tip grazes his cheek.
"Sorry, sorry!" she tells him. "I forgot I was – "
He takes the cigarette from her hand, draws on it, and then turns his face from her to blow out the smoke. "Remind me not to get you drunk," he tells her when he turns back. "First you try to stab me, and then you burn me."
Carol frowns. "I'm sorry, Pookie." She hooks a finger through his belt loop. "How can I make it up to you?"
"Can start by not calling me Pookie."
"When have I ever called you Pookie?" she demands.
"Just now," he tells her.
"What's a Pookie anyway?"
He chuckles. "Figured you knew."
"Pookie, pookie, pookie," she muses. Then she gasps and looks him straight on. "Wasn't that Garfield's teddy bear's name?"
"Hell if I know. That's a girl's comic."
"I don't think comic strips have genders. What's Peanuts?"
"Unisex comic." He takes another drag.
"Hmmm," she muses. "Who's the hottest comic strip character? Did your book tell you that? Popeye maybe? Eww, no. There's Blondie and Betty Boop – why are there so many sexy female comic strip characters but noooo sexy male characters? What is with that?"
"How much did you drink?"
"Not that much. Two and a shaft glasses."
"A shaft glasses?" he asks with a smirk. "Two and a shaft glasses in, what, an hour? Was it the wine Jefe keeps in the decanter in the drawing room hutch?"
"Yeah…why?"
"She must of been trying to get in your pants. That's the fortified stuff. 'S like you downed four regular glasses."
"I don't think I'm her type. She might have been trying to get in my brain, but I doubt she was trying to get in my pants. I think she ashshually likes me, though."
"Course she likes you. Why the fuck wouldn't she? What's not to like?" He drops the dwindling butt of his cigarette in a patch of dirt among the grass near the roots of the tree and stomps it out beneath his heel. "Sophia's coming. Better act sober." He turns in the direction of Ivan's cottage, where Sophia has no doubt been playing speed chess. "Hey, Soph!"
Daryl slides an arm around Carol's waist as they all three walk back to the cottage. Carol's not sure if he's doing it to be affectionate or to make sure she walks straight. Either way, she likes it.
After that, things get a little fuzzy. Carol remembers going into the cottage, but she doesn't remember getting into her bed. She remembers opening her eyes with a start as she felt her left leg yanked on, and then seeing Daryl holding one of her boots in his hands. She recalls the murmur of voices, Sophia asking, "What's wrong with her?" and Daryl replying, "Your mama's drunk" and Sophia replying, in disbelief, "My mother?"
She recollects snoring herself momentarily awake as Daryl set a glass of water on her nightstand, Sophia asking, "Is she going to snore like that all night?", Daryl replying, "Probably. You can sleep in my bed tonight. I'll take the recliner."
[*]
When Carol draws her eyes open, the sun is streaming through the window, and she has a throbbing red-wine headache. She's still in her clothes, except for her boots, and lying on top of the comforter but beneath a spare, light blanket. She glances at her watch, the one Ed gave her for their first anniversary. It's a wind-up, and it still keeps time, but she has no idea why she still keeps it. It's 9:05. She hopes Sophia made it off to school. Groaning, she sits up and takes hold of the water glass on her nightstand. Someone left two pills beside it. They look like ibuprofen. She swallows them down and drains the glass of water.
When she comes out of her bedroom, Daryl is sitting on his side of the reclining loveseat, holding the display remote control that came in the side pocket, and staring above the fireplace. She turns to follow his gaze, almost expecting to see a TV up there, but it's just the antlers he's staring at. She stumbles into the recliner beside his, half turns on her side, curls up her knees into it, and laces an arm around his before resting her aching head on his shoulder. "What are you watching?" she murmurs.
He looks down at her curled against him and smirks. "Girls Gone Wild."
"I did not go wild. I just had a little too much to drink. Did Sophia make it off to school on time?"
"Mhmhm."
"I need to pull myself together. I have warehouse duty from 10:30 to 12:30. Then I need to catch the laundry truck at two."
He says, "Want breakfast?" but she hears, "Want breakfast."
She sighs, "Fine, I'll make you some," and begins to uncurl her legs to rise.
"Nah. Was a question, not a command! Do you want me to make you breakfast? I ain't one tenth the cook you are, but I do know how to make a hangover scramble."
"Oh." She pulls her leg back up into the recliner and scolds herself for the obedient reflex. Even if she'd had the flu, she would get up and make breakfast for Ed. He'd expect it, too. "Yes, please."
The "hangover scramble" Daryl serves her is made with one of yesterday's two eggs, cut up chunks of Spam (he has three cans of that in the cupboard), and a little bit of cheese. It's heavily salty, and there's not a vegetable to be found, but it does the trick. Carol's headache is subsiding. It could be the scramble, or it could be the second glass of water she hydrates with while she eats it, or it could be the ibuprofen she took earlier kicking in.
Daryl sets a cup of instant coffee before her and sits down with one of his own.
"What kind of cheese is in this?" Carol points with her fork to the plate.
"Goat cheese. Tabbitha had a kid last month." Copper Creek had one billy goat it was considering killing and eating when Dr. Eastman showed up with Tabbitha. A day later, and they might not have been able to breed. "Came with the milk delivery this morning. Got some butter too."
"Did you and Sophia have breakfast?" she asks after swallowing her last bite.
"Soph made us grits and butter."
"I'm surprise you haven't already left to check your traps," she tells him as she sips from her coffee.
"Giving it a rest today. Gonna go see Dr. S in a bit. Think I might of popped a stitch skinning those coons yesterday."
She sighs. "I warned you."
[*]
In another seven days, Daryl gets his stitches removed. Carol reminds him that doesn't mean he can go back to normal, that he still has weeks to finish healing. He agrees to only hunt small game so as not to end up hauling heavy animals. That Sunday after the stitches come out, Sophia goes on her first hunting expedition with him, though she reports to Carol that it's more like a hike with a lesson.
Daryl shows her various animal tracks-whatever he can find-and talks to her about signs and prints. He signs out a .22 rifle for her, one with a youth stock on it, but warns her it's only for small game, not for killing deer or other large animals – the caliber isn't high enough, and the kill wouldn't be clean or merciful. She does use it to kill a walker, though. There's not much concern for clean kills there, and she reports the fact proudly to Carol that evening at dinner. "That's my fourth!" she tells her mother.
"It's grim," Carol tells Daryl that same night after Sophia goes to play chess at Ivan's. "She's keeping count."
"Hell, Soph's been dealing with thrashers over a tenth of her life. What do you expect?"
When he puts it in those mathematical terms, Carol's struck by the realization of how different the perspective of the next generation might be. When Sophia's Carol's age, she'll have spent two-thirds of her entire life in this world.
[*]
The next day, Oscar comes to trade, with Glenn and Carl accompanying him. Glenn and Carl stay in their cottage (Daryl gives up his bed for them to share and sleeps in his recliner), but Oscar stays overnight in the mansion.
"I see why he insisted on being the trade representative now," Glenn observes at dinner.
Sophia is happy to see Carl and to introduce him to her friends, but she grows sullen when Carl, like Ivan, seems to develop a crush on Carina. "Why do boys never crush on me?" she mutters at dinner the night after Carl is gone.
"'Cause boys are dumbasses," Daryl tells her. "Hell you want one crushing on you for anyhow?"
"It's because I'm not pretty like Carina."
"You are too pretty!" Daryl barks.
"I'm not! I'm covered in freckles."
"Your freckles are fucking adorable. Them boys are just dumbasses. Find you a smarter one when you're older."
"Where?" Sophia asks, and Daryl doesn't have an answer for that one.
[*]
The next day, Jefe summons Carol to the mansion again—this time for morning coffee before Carol's pike cleaning shift. They enjoy it on the balcony of Jefe's penthouse suite, which Carol lays eyes on for the first time. There's an area that, in the 1970s, used to be referred to as a "conversation pit," where three stairs go down to a set of couches surrounding a coffee table. There's a large entertainment center and television as well. The main room contains an office area, which is not the office Jefe has used to meet with Carol, but she clearly uses it to work, based on everything that's strewn on the oak desk. Off the main room is a large private master bedroom with a deep, giant standalone jacuzzi bathtub in the bedroom and a bathroom with toilet and shower. There's also another much smaller bedroom (Carina's) and a half hall bathroom.
"You could sleep an entire family in that conversation pit," Carol observes.
"It's a bit ostentatious, I know," Jefe tells her. "But leadership does have some perks. And all of the more modest bedrooms are full. And Monty used to sleep there, in the conversation pit. Until he moved into Lupe's bedroom with her." Lupe is the mansion's maid. Like Arthur, she lived at Copper Creek before the collapse.
The balcony has a wire metal table and chairs and affords them a view of much of the ranch. They sip their coffee and talk about their girls, the visit from the prison camp, and the harvest party that has been set for the last week of October, after Daryl and DeShawn will have returned from their scouting trip to Terminus. "Oscar's agreed that he and one other scout – either Sasha or Maggie, probably – will join the mission. I figure Daryl and DeShawn can bring Oscar back with them, so we can discuss next steps with his input, too. And then he might as well stay for the harvest party while he's here."
Carol smiles lightly. "I'm sure he'll make you an excellent dance partner."
"Has it been that obvious?" she asks.
Carol shrugs.
Jefe sets her cup down in its saucer and asks Carol if she'd be willing to accompany the scouts to Terminus when the time comes. "Sophia can sleepover while you and Daryl are gone. Carrina will love it. It would be an advantage to have you among the scouts. You know those people. You'll have a better idea if something seems off, if there's been a positive or negative change in the leadership, if we should approach or avoid. And I want your informed advice on the matter."
Carol doesn't think Jefe has ever sent a woman on a scouting mission before. She takes it as a sign of respect, and though she's reluctant to return to Terminus after abandoning it, she considers that this first step is a purely observational mission, and so she agrees to go.
