AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"I'd feel better if you were to eat this," Hershel said, putting the bowl in front of Carol. "I doctored it myself. It's not the best oatmeal that you've probably ever had, but it's not bad. I know you don't like it sweet—so I just kept it savory and flavored it with a little salt and pepper and some of that roasted rabbit."
Carol offered the old man the best smile that she could. He sat down across from her at the picnic table and she reached across it and patted him on the arm.
"I appreciate the gesture, Hershel," Carol said. "But—I'm not on a hunger strike. My stomach's just feeling really unsettled. I think I'll stick with just the warm milk for now."
"I'm not trying to push," Hershel said. "I just want you to remember that your little one needs to eat and he—or she—is relying on you to make sure that happens."
Carol smiled and nodded.
"I promise," she said, patting his arm again, "that I'm not on a hunger strike. This is my second mug of milk. But just the thought of trying to eat that oatmeal is making me more than a little queasy."
She crinkled her nose at the bowl and Hershel moved it away from her, keeping the smell of it away from her face for the time being. The milk was nice. It was soothing. She'd stashed away a little honey and she'd treated herself to a little of it dissolved in each mug of milk that she'd had. She could drink the milk and, for the time being, that was simply going to be good enough. Neither she nor the baby would benefit, anyway, from her simply being ill and practically renting her food for the limited amount of time that she'd keep it in her stomach.
From where she was sitting in the prison yard, at one of the picnic tables, Carol could see the gates. She could see the driveway that led up to the gates. She could also see Sophia—some few feet away—as she played in the dirt with a dump truck and a shovel. With careful dedication, Sophia loaded the dirt into the dump truck at one location and "drove" the truck over to another designated area where she dumped her load of dirt before beginning the process over again. Carol had only had to tell her twice to stop eating the dirt.
Carol also hadn't missed that her daughter was attempting to keep—in one of the holes created by her handiwork—a small earthworm collection. Carol decided she would deal with that later. For now, Sophia was quite busy and distracted, and that was what Carol wanted most.
"I never knew Daryl's brother," Hershel mused. "But I know Daryl. I believe he's coming back."
They'd returned from their trip to Woodbury just as the sun was coming up. Carol never slept well if Daryl wasn't with her. On top of that, the baby she was carrying was not a fan of letting her sleep, and Sophia wasn't much of a late riser either, so Carol had been outside preparing to start a fire for breakfast when they'd arrived. Axel had taken night watch, and he'd been outside when Carol had emerged from the prison with Sophia, so he'd gone down to let them in at the gates.
They'd found Glenn and Maggie. The two of them came telling a story about how they'd been abducted from the little strip mall where they'd been loading a vehicle. Merle and some other men had snatched them up and taken them and their supplies to Woodbury. Maggie had, apparently, been questioned—and she'd been humiliated by the man who called himself the Governor—while Glenn had been questioned and tortured by Merle himself.
They had found Merle, but it seemed that Merle had walked away from them—and Daryl had gone after him. Glenn said that Daryl told them he'd return to the prison as soon as he could, but nobody had any definitive answer about when that might be.
And the Governor might be coming, at some point, to try and lay some sort of claim over their home.
Carol wasn't going to pretend that she wasn't anxious. The thought of anyone trying to come and take their home was disturbing to everyone. The thought of a possible fight was nerve wracking. It was difficult to simply carry the knowledge of what Glenn and Maggie had suffered. Even coming to terms with what Michonne—a woman that was still a mystery to all of them—had experienced was horrifying.
Seeing them return, without Daryl, had taken Carol to her knees.
But her initial reaction was born from misunderstanding. His absence immediately made her fear that something had taken his life. She'd feared that he was lost to her forever. She'd reacted the only way she knew how to react when she was seized with the coldest and blackest fear that she could imagine.
Rick had been the first, once they were safely inside the gates, to tell her that Daryl wasn't dead. Glenn—despite his evident injuries—had been the second to comfort her and to offer her the information that he'd gone off chasing his brother, but he'd said that he intended to return.
Daryl wasn't dead, and fear had released some of the strong hold that it had on Carol's heart.
Still, Hershel worried about her and, she imagined, some of the others might as well.
"I know he's coming back," Carol said. "Daryl and I made a promise—a long time ago. After we left the farm. We made a promise. We'll never leave one another. We always come back if we can."
"You say that like you're not worried," Hershel said. "Maybe you really have skipped breakfast because you aren't feeling well."
Carol laughed to herself.
"I'm really not feeling well," she assured him. "I mean—I feel fine. I'm just..."
"Nauseous," he supplied. Carol nodded and hummed in the affirmative. Hershel gestured toward the abandoned bowl of food. "Do you mind if I?" He asked, letting it trail off. Carol shook her head. "Better than letting it go to waste. So—you're not feeling anxious. There's nothing you wanted to talk about?"
"I don't know that there's anything to talk about," Carol said, "but I also wouldn't say that I'm not feeling anxious. I'm not afraid that Daryl won't' come back—not at all. But that doesn't mean that I'm not terrified of what might happen with this Governor."
"I think we're all at least a little concerned about that," Hershel said. "It would be difficult to go on the road again. But if we have to, I suppose we'll make do just as we did before. We'll find something else. I didn't think I'd survive if I lost my farm, but here I am."
Carol laughed to herself.
"Showing us all up," she teased. Hershel smiled to himself and continued to eat his oatmeal.
"Daryl loves you," Hershel said. "You and Sophia—you're his whole world. He doesn't know this baby yet. Not really. But when he does, I have no doubt that he'll feel the same way about it. He would probably face down this Governor, and everyone he has working for him, alone, just to keep you from even feeling anxious."
Carol laughed to herself.
"You may be right," she said with a sigh. "I never imagined—that I'd know what it was to feel like that. Like someone cared that much. That's why I'm not worried. Not about Daryl. I know that Daryl will be back."
"What do you know about Merle?" Hershel asked.
"I know that Merle is Daryl's brother," Carol said. "And—if he comes here with Daryl, then we'll just have to start with that."
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Daryl stayed in the woods just where his brother told him to wait. If anyone were to look for him, even if they were on top of the wall in Woodbury, they'd never see him. The underbrush was thick enough that he probably could have hidden there with half a dozen people without being noticed.
They had travelled a little further than Daryl had wanted to travel, but it was so that they could make it around to the farthest reach of the walls of Woodbury. Apparently, and according to Merle, there was seldom any need for anyone to be back there unless they were patrolling or moving things around in storage. Since he was often allowed his pick of inventory, he'd spent enough time back there to know where stuff was and what the basic schedules were of those who guarded the area. He also knew how to get from there to his apartment without being noticed.
Daryl waited in the underbrush until he started to get antsy. There was no way to know how long Merle had been gone, and there was no way to communicate with him to find out if everything was going according to plan. Daryl wasn't sure how long he should allow his brother to return with the woman that he'd gone to seek and, if he decided that too much time had passed, what course of action he should take.
Merle had been so confident that he'd return that he hadn't even wanted to discuss an alternate plan of action. Now Daryl wasn't sure if he should try to help his brother or if it was too dangerous and he should return to the prison to try to find someone who could help him.
Daryl was just beginning to sweat the whole situation when he saw the first stirrings of movement that he'd seen since he'd settled into his spot.
Hands came over the wall, grasping the side. Then, slowly, a head appeared. The woman was blonde. She heaved herself up over the wall, remained only half a second with a leg over it, and then dropped down to the ground. From where she landed, she couldn't see Daryl and he could only somewhat see her.
But what he saw made his blood nearly freeze in his veins. He sincerely felt as though he'd seen an actual ghost. He stayed where he was, not trusting his eyes and not trusting anyone that came out of Woodbury, until his brother threw down a bag and then came over the wall and dropped down beside the blonde.
As soon as Merle had his feet, he rushed the blonde toward the heavily covered area where Daryl was waiting.
Daryl stood up as they reached him. Staring straight at her, he still didn't believe what he saw. He was still frozen for a moment.
"I thought you were dead," Daryl said. It wasn't the most appropriate greeting, he knew, but it was all that his brain offered him at the moment.
"Well," Merle mused. "Don't that just seem to be a common misconception about ever-damn-body that Officer Friendly an' the gang unloads? I know y'all lookin' forward to this lil' family reunion, but we gotta get a move on. Don't wanna get seen—or heard."
Daryl didn't argue with his brother's reasoning, and Andrea clearly wasn't going to argue either. Daryl didn't know how much she knew, or what Merle had told her, but she seemed content to go along with his plan to get out of there and to do it quickly. They walked through the woods, as quickly as they could, in the direction that Merle indicated. None of them said a word, for fear that their voices might carry and alert someone of their presence, until Merle finally stopped them somewhere to catch their breath.
"Shouldn't be too far from here to the prison," Merle said. "Half a mile. Maybe a mile."
When it was safe to speak, Daryl turned and stared at the blonde. He reached for her, and she met him for a hug without discussing that it was his intention to hug her.
"We thought you died," Daryl said when he pulled away. "Lori said you went down. Carol said she seen you, too."
"I did," Andrea said. "But—I got up. You were all leaving. I tried to catch up but—everyone left."
Daryl's stomach twisted. They'd had to leave in a hurry. They'd never expected to be suddenly overrun, but the massive herd had seemed to just materialize out of nowhere. There had been no hope of fighting against it. The sheer number of Walkers was staggering and they'd plowed through everything in their path and destroyed anything they could. They'd lost some people from their group that night, and they'd always believed that Andrea had been among those that they'd lost.
Now Daryl knew that they'd lost her, but it had been a different kind of loss.
"If we'da known," Daryl stammered out.
"Yeah—you mighta," Merle offered, not letting Daryl finish his sentence and seeming not to need to hear the end of it, "but there's a good chance you'da been goin' alone."
"I don't understand," Daryl said. "How'd you...?"
"Michonne," Andrea said. "I ran into her. We were together a long time out there."
"Scooped 'em up outta the woods when Andrea here was half-dead," Merle said. "I got her healed up an' she—she uh—got me cleaned up."
Daryl laughed to himself as it all sunk in for him.
"You two?" He asked. "How the hell does that even happen?"
"Familiarity," Andrea offered. "Comfort?"
Merle narrowed his eyes at him.
"You think she's too damn good for me?" Merle asked.
Daryl laughed.
"Yeah, I do," Daryl said. "But—I mean—hell—I just weren't expectin' this shit. I mean—fuck...congratulations? To both of you, I guess. I mean—hell, I don't know what I mean."
"It doesn't matter," Andrea said. "Congratulations or—whatever. It doesn't matter. The group—how are they? How's Carol? Sophia? Are they—OK?"
"Doin' good," Daryl assured her. "Doin' real good." He glanced at Merle, but nothing flickered across his brother's features. It was pretty clear to Daryl that, though he knew who Merle's lady friend was, Merle didn't have a clue about Daryl's. It seemed that Andrea hadn't told him. Daryl would tell him, of course, because there was time for that surprise when they were safely back at the prison and it would be easier to tell him there than to randomly share that information in the woods. "Hell—if y'all ready, let's head on back. I can guaran-damn-tee you that everybody's gonna be surprised to see you. Happy as shit an'—real damn surprised."
Daryl laughed to himself. He marveled, as he watched Andrea and Merle walk side by side, over the fact that it didn't appear to be any kind of joke or trick. They were legitimately together, even if he wasn't sure exactly what the nature of their relationship was.
Everyone at the prison had been surprised to find out Merle was alive. They were going to be surprised, too, to find out Andrea was alive. They would be even more surprised to find out that they were together.
And Merle still didn't know exactly how it was that Daryl's little family had first taken shape.
Today, Daryl was pretty sure, was going to be a day full of surprises for everyone.