AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Merle couldn't say that everyone in the prison was hard to find—because there certainly a few that he felt like barely moved from one spot where they were practically planted—but Daryl's chosen woman wasn't one of the people who could be counted on to sit still. She scurried here and there, always seeming to be on the move from one task to another.
Merle finally cornered her when she was folding things from a line where she hung their clothes and such to dry in the sun.
"Can I talk to you, Mouse?" Merle called out as he approached her. He remembered how skittish she'd been back at the rock quarry—and with good reason from what he recalled—so he didn't want to startle her too badly by walking up behind her without any kind of announcement of his presence.
She didn't jump at all, though. She simply paused for a moment in her work to look at him and smile. Then she returned to what she was doing—the small gesture being all that she intended to offer him as a proof that she was listening to him.
"What do you need, Merle?" Carol asked.
"Need to talk to you," Merle said. "Man to man or—man to mouse, as the situation calls for it."
Carol laughed quietly to herself.
"I'm listening," she said. "But I want to get these folded. So this is the most attention I have to give you right now. I've got a toddler, though, so I'm pretty good at multitasking."
"I don't need no more of your attention than I got," Merle assured her. He helped himself to one of his cigarettes. He'd learned how to use the lighter left-handed—though it had been no small feat to learn that—so he was quick to light it and return the lighter to his pocket, along with the cigarettes. Carol glanced at him to watch what he was doing. "I'd offer you one," Merle said. "But if you set to have a kid—they say that shit's bad for 'em."
Carol laughed to herself again. She glanced over her shoulder at Merle again, stealing her attention away, once more, from the laundry.
"I'll pass this time," she said.
"So you really set to have a kid?" Merle asked. "You don't look knocked up."
Carol hummed to herself.
"I guess I will," she said. "In time. Still—I feel like I can tell it. Maybe it's just what I'm wearing."
Merle hummed to himself.
"You look hungry to me—not pregnant," Merle mused. "Bony. Don't you eat? You s'posed to be eatin' a good bit."
"I'm eating more than I used to," Carol offered. "Did you come all the way over here to watch me fold laundry and lecture me about my diet, Merle, or was there something I could help you with?"
Merle laughed to himself. He scratched at his face.
"You ain't the same as you was—back at the rock quarry," Merle mused.
"I'd be a little afraid to ask how you thought I was," Carol said.
"Well—like a mouse, Mouse," Merle said. "Scurryin' around. Jumpin' every time you so much as heard someone cough. Actin' like you scared of your shadow."
"It wasn't my shadow I was afraid of, Merle," Carol said.
"You kill him?" Merle asked.
"What?" Carol asked.
"Your old man," Merle said. "You kill him? Back in Atlanta? You can tell me, Mouse. Ain't like I'ma turn you in. One killer to the next."
"I didn't kill him," Carol said. "I thought about it. I wanted to. Some days I've regretted that I didn't. But I didn't kill my husband."
Merle nodded.
"Did Daryl kill him?" Merle asked. "You put a bug in his ear about...how if he'd kill him you'd make it—make it worth his while? Give him a lil' somethin' if he'd do what'cha couldn't—or didn't wanna do?"
A bubble of laugher slipped out of Carol's throat.
"I didn't do that either," she said. "Although...maybe I should have. Daryl didn't kill my husband. If you have to know what happened—Ed hit me."
"Forgive me for sayin' it," Merle said. "'Cause I know you gonna call me an asshole, but from where I was standin' he done that a lot."
Carol's smile fell. She didn't look angry, though, as much as she simply looked introspective.
"He did hit me a lot," she said. "An awful lot. Nearly every day. But that day—he hit me in front of Shane and Shane was...I guess he was upset. Probably not at Ed, but Ed gave him a target."
"Was Shane that killed your husband?" Merle asked.
"I'm certain that you weren't ever a detective in a past life, Merle," Carol said. "Shane didn't kill my husband. He beat him up. Terribly. Ed went to the tent. He stayed there all night. I was away from the tent having supper and—the Walkers hit the camp. It was the Walkers that killed my husband. Daryl dragged his body out when we were cleaning the camp—what was left of it—and I put him down. I don't know who threw him in the hole. I didn't go."
"Kinda cold, Mouse," Merle said. "Not payin' your last respects when your husband gets throwed in the ground."
"Ed got the last of the respect that I had for him when he hit me in the mouth the day that I brought home our newborn daughter," Carol said. "I didn't have much left then, but anything I had left..."
Merle felt his stomach twist. He'd seen it. He'd seen what their mother had gone through. He'd seen her do her best to hold it together for them. She wanted to appear like she was made of stone. Like he couldn't hurt her. She fought for them more than she fought for herself.
In the end, though, the old man was too strong for her. The alcohol she used to numb the pain was too strong for her.
In the end, the bad always seemed to win out over the good.
Merle forced himself to think about other things and he swallowed.
"He ain't had no right, Mouse," Merle said. "Just—want'cha to know that. He ain't had no right."
"Are we talking about—my ex-husband?" Carol asked.
"Anybody," Merle said. "Really. There's other ways to be mad."
Carol laughed again. She stopped her folding. She ran her hands through her hair. It was longer than it had been at the rock quarry. It didn't take much, really, for it to be longer than it had been back then. She'd almost had herself shaved bald when Merle first met her. Now her hair was still short, but it was long enough that it was starting to curl. It was starting to turn out in this direction and the next. The little bit of length to her hair softened her features.
She wasn't bad looking at all. He could see how she got the attention of his brother.
Thanking about Daryl reminded him of why it was that he'd gone all around the prison trying to catch the woman in a place where he could talk to her. There were people around them—milling back and forth occasionally with one task or another—but Merle felt like nobody was really paying them any attention.
He'd wanted just a little privacy to talk with her.
"You married to my little brother?" Merle asked.
"As married as we can be," Carol said. "I suppose. He'd like a ceremony and we're going to do that as soon as Glenn and Maggie have had theirs."
"You don't want no ceremony?" Merle asked.
Carol continued to work at the laundry, but soon she'd come to the end of it. Soon she'd be giving Merle her undivided attention simply because she'd run out of clothes to occupy her hands. For a moment she paused in her work before returning to it. She shrugged her shoulders at him.
"It doesn't matter to me," Carol said. "I've had the ceremony. The veil. The white dress. The diamond and the wedding band. And I've had the emergency room visits and the apology roses. I've had the—busted lips and the black eyes and the fractures. I know that it's the—it's the devotion that matters. It's the love that matters. Not the vows said in front of people. Not the ceremony. I'm happy with Daryl as things are. The ceremony doesn't matter to me. But if that's what he wants—then that's what I want him to have."
"Noble of ya," Merle said. "Let him have somethin' even though you don't believe in it."
Carol raised her eyebrows at him.
"I love Daryl, Merle," Carol said. "I believe in marriage. I believe in commitment. I believe that—it's important for two people who pledge to love each other forever to do that. But I don't believe that a ceremony is what makes that happen. I believe that people are either going to keep the promises they make to one another, or they aren't. But I love Daryl—and he's never had the ceremony. So I want him to have it if it will make him happy. Because I also believe that marriage is about doing what you can to make the person you love as happy as you can possibly make them."
"He make you happy?" Merle asked.
Carol smiled sincerely. She nodded her head.
"He does," she said. "Very happy. The happiest I've ever been before."
"You happy you havin' a kid?" Merle asked.
"I am," Carol said. "I'm a little bit nervous because—well just because I think that's normal. But I'm happy. I honestly thought Sophia would be the only child I ever had. But—now that I'm expecting this baby, I'm happy for it."
"Weren't planned," Merle said.
"Is that a question or a statement, Merle?" Carol asked.
"Whatever you want it to be," Merle responded.
"It wasn't planned," Carol said. "No. Not in the—I guess not in the traditional sense of the word. We weren't doing anything to prevent it, but we didn't exactly plan it."
"I'ma ask you somethin' straight out," Merle said, "and I want a straight answer from you, Mouse."
"I haven't given you anything else, Merle," Carol said.
Merle almost laughed to himself. He wasn't exactly trying to intimidate her, but he expected her to be at least a little intimidated. After all, the woman he'd met at the rock quarry had been intimidated by everything.
"That my brother's kid?" Merle asked.
"Well it's certainly not yours, Merle," Carol said.
Merle snorted. The laughter escaped him before he could get it under control, but he kept anything else from getting out.
"I'll give you that, but it ain't what I asked. Handful of men around here. I'm sure this ain't all y'all crossed paths with. I know how people come an' they go these days. I'm just askin' you for a straight answer—you sure that's my brother's kid you got in your gut?"
"I haven't been with another man since my husband died," Carol said. "And it would be an awful long time for—for this to be something left behind that's just showing up."
"I said I wanted a straight answer," Merle said.
"I can't get any straighter, Merle," Carol said. "This baby is Daryl's."
"I know how women can be," Merle said.
"Do you?" Carol asked.
"Woman finds herself in trouble. Starts lookin' for someone to help her out. Help carry the burden of what she done. Finds herself some poor sucker. Some asshole real quick that she can lay down with. Yeah—then she says the kid she's carryin' is his. Even though it ain't. I don't believe that shit. Wouldn't let no woman trap my ass with a kid. But Daryl? You already knowed it. He's the sweet one. He'd fall for anything like that. Find himself wrapped up in somethin' that ain't got shit to do with him. Find himself raisin' somebody else's kid."
As soon as he said it, Merle regretted the words. He'd thought them out. He'd turned them over in his head. He'd worked through what he wanted to say more than once. He didn't want anyone taking advantage of Daryl. He didn't want anyone using Daryl. He didn't want this woman to use Daryl—wring him out like a wet rag—to take care of her and her kids and then, when she didn't need him anymore, to leave him balled up and discarded on the floor.
That was what he meant, but that wasn't how it had come out at all and it was too late to take it back. Besides, Merle wasn't that good at taking things back. It wasn't a practice he commonly had.
Carol made a face. Merle couldn't quite say it was a smile. It was something else.
"He doesn't seem to mind that, either, Merle," Carol said. Her voice was different. It was softer. "It doesn't seem to matter to Daryl. But I can see it matters to you. So—I'll tell you that I'm not trying to trap your brother. I've never tried to trap him. I've—welcomed him into my heart. My arms. My life, Merle. That has meant that—he's raising somebody else's kid. But that was his choice. I never forced him into it, Merle. And—he's never held that against me or her. I feel like if, somehow, this baby belonged to somebody else? It wouldn't stop him from—from asking me every morning if I can feel it moving yet because he's so—so—so excited that it's—that it's just growing. But—I can see it matters to you. So I'll tell you. This is, biologically, Daryl's child. Created in the only way that I know how to have babies with anyone and—before you ask, because I know it matters to you, too—he enjoyed it." She smiled to herself. "I did too, if that matters to you at all."
"I didn't mean it like it come out, Mouse," Merle said.
"I accept your apology, Merle," Carol said.
"I don't want nobody hurtin' my brother," Merle said.
"Then you and I have something in common," Carol said. "And that's why I don't want you trying to plant ideas in his head that this might not be his baby or that Sophia is any less important to him because Ed was her father. He's happy, Merle. With everything just the way it is. He's happy. And if you..."
She broke off.
"What?" Merle pressed.
"If you do anything to fuck with Daryl?" Carol said, lowering her voice and stepping closer to Merle. "If you do anything to take that happiness away, on purpose, because you've got some kind of insecurity? I'll cut your throat in your sleep, Merle."
Merle laughed to himself, but his gut twisted up. She was smiling at him, but he could see in her eyes that this was no laughing matter to her.
She was absolutely serious.
"You ain't the same woman you was at the rock quarry," Merle said.
"You have no idea," Carol said.
"All 'cause you got you a new man?" Merle asked.
"All because I've got a family," Carol said. "A happy family. And part of that—is that I've got a man who loves me. And I love him. He does whatever he can to keep me happy and—I'll do the same for him."
"Even if it means killin' a man?" Merle asked.
"If that's what it takes to protect him," Carol said.
Merle laughed to himself.
"Then we got an understandin', Mouse. A mutual concern. And you got my respect. See that'cha don't lose it," Merle said.
Carol smiled at him.
"See that you don't lose mine either, Merle," Carol said. "Grab that basket, would you? Andrea was supposed to be coming to get it—but she hasn't come back yet."
"I look like I do laundry?" Merle asked. He didn't fight her, though. Instead, he simply heaved up the basket and followed behind her back to the prison.