AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I decided to do the back story in the form of a separate story/collection. It's under "Becoming" for anyone who is interested. I will include some discussion of their past here, as I would in any story, but the more detailed version of their past can be found there.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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The breakfast cakes had been a creation of Daryl's that had been born out of the limited ingredients that they sometimes found and the need to make something that they could easily carry when they needed to eat breakfast while on the move. The breakfast had been born while they were on the road between the farm that they'd temporarily called home and the prison that they now called home. They had wandered for quite some time, and to take some of the burden off of Carol—especially since it seemed that nobody else was going to do such a thing—Daryl had offered to do part of the cooking. It had been Sophia that had dubbed the breakfast "Daddycakes."
Daddycakes were relatively healthy and quite heavy. They were meant to be filling, and they came through on that point if nothing else. They were hearty, made mostly of grains that were easy to come by, and were sweetened with just a little sugar. They could easily be cooled on a griddle or, in a pinch, on any piece of metal that could be heated over a fire. If syrup, honey, or even a little jam was available, Daddycakes had the potential to quickly become a group favorite. Even plain Daddycakes, though, were enjoyed every time that Daryl served them—or every time that Carol made them in his absence.
Daddycakes weren't a daily breakfast. They were mostly made for the days when the group needed to travel and they needed breakfast to go with them. They were also made for special occasions. Daryl had promised Sophia the breakfast of her choice to celebrate helping him with the all-important job of asking her mother to marry him.
Their engagement, though probably of relatively little importance to the rest of the group, felt like a very special occasion to Daryl, so he certainly hadn't refused his daughter when she'd requested Daddycakes as her special breakfast. Daryl had even rummaged through storage to find her a little strawberry jam that would make the breakfast even more special.
Most of the group ate inside the prison at a long table that had probably once been for meetings, or perhaps even for lunches. They used the table as a dinner table. They'd moved it to their common area. None of them dared to go into the cafeteria since they'd first broken in there with the few prisoners that they'd found at the prison—two of which remained as members of their group. The cafeteria had an incredible stench that was impossible to clean at this point, so they'd simply gotten all they could use out of that area, and they'd sealed it up to be forgotten or, if there was some great change in the stat of things, cleaned up later.
Daryl, Carol, and Sophia usually preferred to eat outside when the weather permitted. There was a nice picnic table in the yard, and they ate as many of their meals there as was possible. This particular morning, T-Dog and Hershel had both joined them for breakfast outside to discuss the situation at hand. Daryl wondered if either of the men had noticed the ring on Carol's finger, but it seemed that, at least for the time being, both of them were more focused on the strategy that they would use to find Glen and Maggie.
Daryl hated to inform both of them, but he had very little to offer in the way of true strategy. They knew roughly where the two had gone, and they would go there in search of them. If they couldn't find them in that direct location, they would start looking for any kinds of signs of where they might've gone. Daryl was a tracker, but he hated to try to explain to everybody that that didn't mean that he was a miracle worker. He couldn't track if there were no tracks to follow. They all seemed to expect him to be able to track nearly anything over nearly any surface and under nearly any conditions, but the fact of the matter was that it just didn't work that way. He would only be able to track Maggie and Glenn if the conditions were just right. Otherwise, like everyone else, he was looking for clues and signs, and he was hoping for the best.
Of course, Daryl was the only one in the prison who was not terribly worried about the young couple's whereabouts. He knew that the two of them were sometimes given to finding a quiet place where they could temporarily escape the prying eyes of the group. There was no such thing as a secret in the group. They all lived in close quarters, and they had lived that way since they'd all found one another. They could pretend that they didn't know each other's business, but most of them knew just about everything about the others. Sound traveled, and the prison echoed. Everything about their relationships was pretty much common knowledge to everybody else. Only things spoken in very hushed whispers were kept private, and even then people were aware that you were keeping secrets, even if they weren't sure what the secrets were. Sometimes Maggie and Glenn just want to find a little time alone, and they found that by slipping off during runs and searching out places where they could be safe for short periods of time.
"There really ain't no need in comin' up with some detailed plan," Daryl said. "We'll throw it all out the window when we get there anyway. We'll have to figure out what we're doin' dependin' on what the hell we see when we get there. If we find 'em at the store an' find out they was just sleepin' among the campin' gear, then the plan ends there at any rate. If they're not there, an' say the door was chained up so we knowed they hadn't been there, then we're lookin' to come up with an entirely different plan than anything we mighta come up with sittin' at this table."
"Have we ever even been in that direction?" Carol asked. "Do we know what's out there?"
Across the table from Daryl, she was picking at a Daddycake with her fingertips and eating crumb-sized mouthfuls of it like a bird. Sophia, standing on the bench next to Daryl and supported by his arm around her waist, was eating her jam covered Daddycake with both hands. For the moment, the two women in his life offered a stark contrast to one another.
"We kind of talked about," Daryl responded, "but we never made it that way."
"It was always on our list of places to explore," T-Dog said, "but with the pattern we were following, we hadn't made it there yet."
"Well, it looks like we're going to start exploring it," Hershel intervened.
"Sooner than we thought," Daryl agreed. He glanced at Carol again. "Cake ain't good? Or you wantin' somethin' else?"
Carol shook her head.
"It's good," she assured him. "It's just—I'm taking it slow."
"Little Dixon's doing a number on you," T-Dog mused.
Carol laughed to herself.
"I was sick it seemed like the whole time when I was pregnant with Sophia," she said. "They said it would end around my third or fourth month. But I think I was sick up until the sixth or seventh month. Sometimes even after that. This isn't anything like it was with Sophia. But still, I can't say that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day right now."
"You don't have to eat it all right now," Daryl assured her. "It'll keep if you want to eat it at lunch."
"Or even as a snack in between," Hershel offered. "When food is available, and women are growing little ones, a good rule of thumb is to eat when you're hungry—whenever that may be." He reached his hand across the table and patted Carol's hand. He raised an eyebrow at her. "But don't push it. If you're not hungry, then you can eat later. It's better to wait when you and baby Dixon are both ready."
It seemed that Daryl's lack of concern over Maggie and Glenn turned out to be less a show of his callousness, and more a show of his practicality. Before they could even think of finishing breakfast, the sound of an approaching vehicle caught their attention. Almost immediately, Daryl recognized the SUV that Glenn and Maggie had taken. It pulled up to the gates and stopped. Through the windshield, Daryl could see the two lost group members sitting and waiting patiently to be let inside the fences. It was long trip down to the gates for someone to make, so this was a time when their patience would serve them well.
"Looks like the prodigal sons have returned," Daryl commented. "Glad we didn't send no search party out just yet. I'll get 'em."
As Daryl started to walk down the yard to open the fences and allow the SUV to pass inside, Sophia abandoned her breakfast and trotted after him. Breakfast, after all, would be there when she got back, and she had already eaten enough that she had room for other interests. The trip down to the gate, unlike breakfast, was only available for a limited amount of time. Daryl stopped his steps when Sophia called out to him, and then in a quick motion, he waited for her to catch up to him and he scooped her up. She was sticky—her face and hands covered in a layer of strawberry jam—but he wasn't going to upset her by sending her back to her mother to get cleaned up. Such a move would make her miss the excitement of going with him to open the gates, and she might not forgive him for the better part of the day. There was no law against stickiness, after all. Daryl balanced Sophia on his hip so that she could ride down to the gates. This would allow him to get there quicker, and thus to keep Maggie and Glenn from having to wait quite so long, but he might let Sophia run back after the job was done.
When he reached the lowest level of gates, Daryl did what he always did with Sophia when they were near the outside fences. He chose the spot in the dirt and, dragging his foot quite hard cross the ground, he marked a line that was far enough back that any Walker doing its best to reach through the fence couldn't possibly have touched the line. Then, dragging his foot hard across the dirt again, he drew another line perpendicular to the first. The second line was at a distance where, if a Walker were to slip inside the gates, Daryl could be confident that he could reach the spot before the Walker did. The lines formed something like an invisible cage and Daryl put Sophia down so that she was "behind" the lines.
He pointed his finger at her to get her attention after he showed her the two lines that marked where she was supposed to remain.
"Stay here, Soph. Right here. You see your space? You stay in it. You got me?"
Sophia looked at him and nodded her head.
"Yes, Daddy," she said. "We got this."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"We got this," he repeated. Leaving her in her spot, Daryl walked over and unlocked the gates. He slid the first layer of entrance gates back, stepped through them, and then closed them. He cast a glance in Sophia's direction to make sure that she was following orders, and she was. She was usually pretty good about doing what he asked her to do. At the moment, she had bent down to examine the line that Daryl drew very closely. More than likely, she was looking to see if she might find a creepy crawly friend to take with her back to the prison.
Convinced that the first set of gates was closed, Daryl opened the last ones to allow the SUV to pass inside. Pulling his knife, he took care of two Walkers that had, probably hearing the engine of the vehicle, come to see if they could find something to eat. He dropped them outside of the fences and left them there for cleanup later that day. Once the SUV and passed into the gates, he closed the gates again, locked them back where he'd opened them with the master key that he carried on him at all times, and then he opened the gates to allow the SUV to pass fully inside of the prison fences. From there, Glenn could drive the vehicle all the way up to the prison since Daryl hadn't bothered to close any of the other layers of fences as he'd passed through them.
Once everything was secured again, Daryl released Sophia from her believed captivity, and he pointed toward the prison. He didn't even have to say anything to her. She smiled at him the minute that she saw him point, and she took off running in the same direction as the SUV. She ran as fast as she pleased and Daryl walked behind her. He could remember the joy and the feeling of absolute freedom that running like that had given him as a child. He assumed it was a feeling that everyone could relate to.
Daryl walked behind his daughter instead of launching into running as fast as he could like she had. She looked over her shoulder and called back to him.
"Watch where you're goin', Soph," Daryl called out. "Don't'cha fall an' break your neck!"
Sophia laughed at his warning, but she did turn around and continued to run back toward the prison that they called home.
Daryl, for his part, simply followed behind her, watching her run with absolute joy, and slowly made his way up to the prison to find out what had happened to keep Maggie and Glenn from catching up with him and T-Dog as they had originally planned.
No matter what story they gave, though, Daryl was pretty sure he already knew the truth—and he couldn't blame the two young lovebirds at all for a little private time stolen however it could be.