AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Now—I got the list," Daryl said. He walked around the vehicle, glancing in all the windows, and did a quick check of the supplies that had been loaded. They didn't need much to make it a couple of towns away. They had extra gas, a few extra weapons in case they found they needed them, some tools for any number of things that might arise, and just enough food to keep everyone from getting hungry if they were gone most of the day. "But was there anything else you thought of that'cha forgot to add?"
"I'm not worried about the list, Daryl," Carol offered.
She was standing near the back of the car with her arms crossed across her chest. Up the driveway a piece, and beyond the next layer of the fences, Glenn was still saying his slow goodbyes to Maggie while she was supposed to be passing him her own list. Rick was supposed to be bringing a list from Lori, or at least passing it to someone, as well, but he wouldn't be going with them. He'd stay there to hold down the fort. T-Dog would bring the list from Hershel. The smaller the group, the easier they were able to get in and out. The three of them wouldn't have any trouble. And if they should see something wonderful that they couldn't get back to the prison on their own, they'd go back later with a larger group to retrieve it.
Carol clearly didn't want Daryl to go, though. She wore her sadness on her face, and this time she didn't try to hide it.
Daryl bit the inside of his cheek at the thought that she was seldom so sullen over him leaving for something as simple as a supply run. It might very well be the hidden presence of their newest addition that was causing this extra rise in emotion.
He shifted Sophia's weight, hoisting her higher on his hip, and walked quickly over to where Carol was. He touched her cheek tentatively before he slipped his hand behind her head and held her. She barely crooked her lip at him in a smile before he covered her lips with his own and she teased him with the tip of her tongue to request that he deepen the kiss.
He normally would refuse, given the public nature of the kiss, but he didn't feel himself able to refuse her anything right now. He welcomed the kiss, instead, and only broke it when Sophia made him laugh because she placed a hand on his cheek—and presumably one on Carol's cheek—and proceeded to declare, very loudly, something along the lines of "Smooshy" in her most confident voice.
The serious nature of the kiss was broken when both of them dissolved into laughter over the word that neither of them could interpret.
"You better come back to me, Dixon," Carol said as soon as her laughter had faded. There was some forced teasing in her tone, but it was only for Sophia's benefit and, perhaps, for Daryl's. He could hear the strain in her voice. He knew that she was fighting an emotion that might very well bring her to tears.
"I'll be back," he said. "Smooshy," he added with a laugh. Carol's laughter renewed and he was almost certain that her cheeks blushed a little pink. "Hey," he declared, "I mighta finally found me somethin' to go with your damned Pookie name."
She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Pookie is cute and affectionate," Carol said.
"And our very own daughter—our daughter, Carol—chose Smooshy for you," Daryl responded.
"How do you know it wasn't for you?" Carol asked.
"Got me a gut feelin'," Daryl said. "Ain't that right, Soph?"
Sophia grinned at him and nodded her head. She would have agreed with him about just about anything if he made sure to ask her in the correct tone of voice and if he made just the right facial expression when he asked her.
"Is that right?" He asked, pressing her.
"Right!" Sophia declared. "That's right! It's right, Daddy!"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Don't tell me, Soph," he said. "Tell your Mama."
"It's right, Mama," Sophia offered, this time with less enthusiasm. She leaned her head against Daryl. She would stay with him until it was time for them to leave. This was her practice every time they were getting ready to go on a run. Daryl would hold her up until the moment that he was ready to get into the car.
Usually Sophia handled runs fairly well if Daryl was the one that left. According to Carol's reports, her full-blown upset only lingered about ten or fifteen minutes and she was usually easy to appease with some sort of "get ready for Daddy to come back" activity. Daryl preferred for Carol to stay with Sophia while he went on runs for a number of reasons—most of which he would never admit to anyone.
The greatest reason, perhaps, was that Daryl thought that Sophia—if she were to have to face the world with only one of them—most needed Carol. On the most basic level, Carol could feed Sophia in situations when Daryl couldn't. Beyond that, though, Carol was capable of nurturing and caring for Sophia in a way that Daryl simply wasn't able to match. She was also skilled enough, in just about every other necessary survival skill at this point, that she could teach Sophia almost everything she needed to know without a problem.
Daryl felt like every kid needed a mother. And every kid that had a good mother—the kind that they ought to have—deserved to have that mother for as long as possible. More than most things that he could give her, Daryl wanted to give Sophia the best chance he could to have her mother for as long as possible.
Another reason that Daryl preferred to go on the runs instead of letting Carol go on them, at this particular moment, was that he knew that she was carrying their child. He couldn't see the baby on her just yet, but it was there. Somewhere, hidden deep inside her where it could be kept safe and warm to grow, their son or daughter was turning into someone. Perhaps, even as he stood there waiting for his travel companions to be ready to leave, the baby was developing some necessary organ or growing fingers for the first time. Daryl didn't know much about the development of the child, but he knew that it was happening. Every day and every hour, the child was growing. If he could stop it, Daryl wasn't going to let anything interfere with that process, so he certainly wasn't going to let Carol go out of the prison gates and into a potentially dangerous situation when there was absolutely no need for her to do so.
The silliest reason, perhaps, why Daryl didn't want Carol to go, though, was that he didn't like to be left behind with Sophia when Carol was gone. Sophia's upset might have lasted ten or even twenty minutes when he left, but it had lasted a great deal longer when Carol had left her the few times that she'd gone on runs. The little girl had not handled well that her mother was missing and it had broken Daryl's heart that he couldn't solve the hurt that she so clearly felt over her mother's absence.
Daryl preferred to let Carol deal with the upset while he went on the run. She was better equipped, he told himself, to handle those emotions. After all, he was pretty certain that was part of what a mother was simply expected to know how to do.
Sophia understood runs. She learned more and more about them each time that they had to leave the prison for supplies. She understood that runs took people away, that they often worried people, and that people eventually came back from runs.
Luckily, Sophia had yet to suffer the hard blow of someone she cared about never coming back. Daryl hoped it was never a feeling that she had to experience, even if he knew that such a hope was naïve.
"Let's go, Dixon," T-Dog called, coming through the gate. "Rhee's coming. He's just got to get the last of his instructions."
"You got the list from Hershel?" Daryl asked.
"It's the same as always," T-Dog said. "Everything we can find and make sure we hit up every pet shop and veterinarian hospital we see. The clinics might be picked over, but not too many people know the dosage per weight of popular animal medications."
Daryl laughed to himself because T-Dog sounded like a commercial. Of course, he sounded like that because they often heard the same speech from Hershel when they were preparing for a run. The area surrounding the prison was surprisingly picked over. They had explored a little, but mostly they'd explored in the direction of towns whose names they recognized on the map. They would continue out to a point, and then they'd expand their search. They were starting to believe, though, that there had been some other big groups in the area before them. That would be the only possible way to explain the fact that there was a lot of supplies missing—from the most obvious items to the least.
There were some things they'd be willing to travel the furthest for. Medical supplies was at the top of that list.
This trip wasn't wholly for medical supplies, though. While they were out, they'd also look for some baby things. They knew of a few warehouses where they were hoping to find a few things, and they'd search out baby and children's stores as well. Whatever they brought back could be stored if Carol and Lori couldn't use it. After all, there was plenty of reason to believe that there would be other babies at the prison someday.
"You sure you don't want nothin' else?" Daryl asked, directing his question at Carol. "This list is pretty paltry."
"You know as well as I do what we need," Carol said. "But I can use anything that Lori doesn't need."
Daryl hummed to himself.
"Just the same, you won't mind when I do a lil' shoppin' of my own," he said.
Carol smiled to herself.
"I expected you would," she said. "That's why my list was nothing more than a guide. Daryl—I mean what I said. The only thing I really want is you to get back here. We'll make do with everything else."
Daryl glanced at T-Dog. He wasn't even pretending not to watch them. Leaning on the car, the only thing that he was missing to make the scene complete was a bowl of popcorn and, perhaps, a large gulp soda.
Daryl didn't let him deter him, though, he caught Carol's lips once more and promised her the best he could with the kiss that he'd be back. He held her eyes after the kiss.
"I promise you that I'm comin' back," Daryl said. "Got—got all this to come back to, woman. There ain't nothin' that's gonna stop me from gettin' back here."
"Promise?" Carol asked.
"Promise," Daryl assured her. He turned around and looked over his shoulder. T-Dog laughed to himself even before Daryl spoke. "Enjoyin' the show, asshole?" Daryl asked.
"Best one I've seen today," T-Dog offered. He pointed. "Glenn's comin'."
Daryl turned to find Glenn coming up to the fences nearest them.
"Go on ahead," he said. "Change of plans."
"Change of plans?" Daryl asked.
"There's a store that Lori found in a phone book," Glenn said. "Maggie says we've been in that area before, but Lori wants us to check it out to be sure since it's closer. It's a baby store. We're going to run by there and then we'll catch up with you two. Get on the road that we marked out."
"You got a map?" Daryl asked.
Glenn nodded.
"We know where we're going," Glenn said. "Maggie's been there before. Before the turn. We'll catch up with you two within an hour."
Daryl nodded.
"You heard the man," Daryl said, addressing Sophia. "Time to go. Give Daddy a kiss."
"No," Sophia said calmly.
"Soph—gimme a kiss," Daryl said. "Daddy's gotta go now."
"No," she said, this time with a little more passion behind her refusal. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tightened her hold. She could become almost like Daryl imagined a starfish, or some other suction-cupped animal, might be. She could stick to him like they were fused together. Daryl was sometimes surprised at her strength. Just the same, he pried her loose and forced her over to Carol. Although she wanted to fight, she knew better than to fight too hard. She would only lose and then there would be some kind of punishment doled out for a fit that was too over-the-top.
So, instead of fighting, Sophia simply launched into a pathetic wail during which she sobbed out choked versions of "Daddy" and grabbed for Daryl as she clung to Carol's neck with one arm.
During the madness, Daryl swallowed down his own sadness over leaving his family, stole a kiss from his tear-soaked daughter, and stole a kiss from Carol.
Rather than look back, because he couldn't quite stand to see, directly, Sophia crying pathetically and clinging to Carol, he looked in the rearview mirror once he was inside the car and waiting for Rick and Carl to open the gates so that they could leave.
Carol, despite her own feelings and Sophia's tantrum, was wearing a smile for him because she knew that he would need it. She was wearing a smile for him because he'd once told her that he wished she'd smile like that for him whenever he left—just in case it was his last trip out the gates—because he wanted his last memory of her to be her smiling like that.
She'd never forgotten, and she wore that smile—no matter how hard it was for her.
Daryl smiled to himself and swallowed against the lump in his throat before he held a hand up in a wave that she could see and pulled the car through the gates.
"You alright, Dixon?" T-Dog asked, settling in for the ride with the map.
"No," Daryl admitted. "But I will be. Since it'll be an hour before Glenn catches up with us—let's make some decent time and make a quick stop somewhere else. I got somethin' I wanna pick up. Just between us."
"You got it," T-Dog said. "Make a left up here. Then it's a pretty straight shot after you hit the highway."