AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
There will be some follow up on this, but this is part of it.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Before Carol had disappeared with Andrea to do whatever it was that she needed to do, she'd given Daryl the somewhat drastic haircut he requested—a haircut that would remind her of the days when she'd first met him at a rock quarry outside of Atlanta. He hadn't let her see any of the rest of the transformation, though, and he'd let Merle do the back and forth between them when Sophia wasn't satisfied being firmly in one "camp" or another.
Sophia approved of Daryl's transformation, but only after a thirty-minute breakdown, during which time she'd practically had to taste Daryl to be calmed down because she'd insisted that her daddy was gone forever and there was nothing in the world that could offer her solace in the face of the stranger that had, somehow, come to occupy her daddy's space and to steal his voice. She had taken some convincing that her daddy had actually been hidden behind the hair that she'd grown accustomed to, and her breakdown had convinced Daryl that he needed to pay a little more attention to how often he trimmed away the months of hair.
When Beth had come down to retrieve Sophia for the last time, she'd given Daryl the warning that he was expected to come outside in somewhere around a half an hour—and her next warning for time would be a five-minute warning.
Daryl didn't have any fine clothes to wear for his wedding. It wasn't as though they snagged those kinds of things on runs because they weren't practical. What he did have was a decent-looking, blue button-down shirt and the least worn pair of jeans that he owned. He was standing in the bathroom and looking at himself in the mirror—since that was all that their bathroom was good for until the group from Woodbury got there in two days' time to start working on their plumbing—when his brother came in.
Merle cleaned up fine when he wanted to. He hadn't turned down a trim when Carol was handing out haircuts and he'd shaved, too. He had fewer clothes, since he'd left Woodbury with only the clothes on his back and a few things Andrea had grabbed for him, but Hershel had found him a gray shirt that was fairly clean.
"You got the rings?" Daryl asked.
"What rings?" Merle asked.
Daryl's heart tightened.
"Outta that drawer. Like I told you."
"Weren't nothin' in that drawer but'cha damn nasty boxer shorts an' some smokes. I got the smokes, though."
"Don't'cha fuck with me, Merle," Daryl warned.
Merle laughed to himself. He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out the chain. Carol's engagement ring hung on it—a ring she couldn't wear because her fingers were swollen—but also there were two bands. She wouldn't be able to wear the band for a while, since Daryl had gotten it to fit her finger before the baby had caused her fingers to swell, but she'd keep the chain after Daryl had picked off the band that would fit around his finger.
"Don't lose them rings," Daryl warned.
"Calm down, Darylina," Merle teased. "Your lil' woman's gonna marry you—rings or no rings." He shoved the ring back in his pocket. "Speakin' a' women, Andrea give me these. Told me to put 'em in button holes."
Merle burrowed in his shirt pocket and came up with two relatively uncrushed Cherokee roses. Each of them had just enough stem left on them to thread them through a button hole. He offered them out to Daryl and Daryl helped him get one through his button hole before he put one through his own.
"She meant it for like suits," Daryl said.
"Well—you do what the hell you can," Merle said. "I don't think I seen you this cleaned up since—well—since her funeral."
Daryl swallowed. He knew which funeral Merle was talking about. It hadn't been much of a funeral at all, really. It had been a memorial service, with very few people in attendance, but they'd called it a funeral.
"Don't wanna talk about bad things, Merle," Daryl said sincerely. "I ain't gonna get married but once. This here's the most important day of my life."
Merle laughed to himself.
"Ain't the most important s'posed to be like the days when your kids get borned or somethin'?" Merle asked.
"Thought about it," Daryl said. "But if it weren't for their ma, then there wouldn't be no kids. So—this? Celebratin' her an' the fact that…well…that she was crazy enough to hitch herself to a Dixon? That's the most important thing. All the rest—it comes from that."
Merle stood there, fidgeting with his shirt. It was clear that he was uncomfortable with any kind of feeling that they might talk about right now. He was doing his best, but Merle, like Daryl, hadn't exactly been raised to know how to express a wide range of emotions. And, since he'd known more of Rooster Dixon's glory days as a young and robust asshole, Daryl could admit—even though he seldom did to Merle—that maybe Merle knew even less than Daryl did.
"Come on," Daryl offered. "We might as well—head on out there before Beth comes lookin'."
Merle laughed to himself.
"You expectin' me to—give you away or somethin', lil' brother?" Merle asked.
Daryl shook his head.
"Just to stand beside me, Merle," Daryl said.
"Always have," Merle said. "Even—hell—even when you woulda said I weren't there…"
Daryl felt a tightness in his throat. A part of him wanted to argue that Merle hadn't always been there like Daryl had wanted him to be. Another part of him, though, knew that Merle had always been there as much as Merle could be.
And maybe it didn't matter anymore.
"Just be there today, brother," Daryl offered. "That's all that matters."
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"Relax, son," Hershel said quietly with a wink to Daryl. Normally, having someone tell him to relax wouldn't make Daryl relax at all. At that moment, though, it did a pretty decent job of it. "I don't think she's making a run for it and those fences are pretty secure—both for getting in and out."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Where are they?" Daryl asked.
Everyone had gathered around. They were all waiting.
"Maybe someone had to go to the bathroom," Hershel offered. "Women—women always have to go to the bathroom. And Carol's expecting. She has to go twice as much."
"Sophia's always gotta pee," Daryl agreed.
Hershel laughed to himself.
"So, we've solved the case of the missing bride," he said. "Is there anything else I can help you with while we wait?"
"You got the vows?" Daryl asked.
Hershel nodded.
"I heard what you want," Hershel assured him.
"None of that—stuff, right? I don't want her thinkin' I own her," Daryl said. "Or even that I wanna own her."
"I heard you, son," Hershel assured him again.
"Here they come!" Beth called out. She was every bit as excited to watch the wedding as anyone. Maybe she was more excited than most of the people gathered there. Still, they all showed up and that was about as much as Daryl really expected.
Daryl's heart thundered wildly in his chest. He'd seen Carol maybe a million times and she'd never once disappointed him. Even covered in mud and Walker muck, she was beautiful. As she came into sight, coming from the prison, with one arm looped through Andrea's and her other hand holding onto Sophia's she was even more beautiful than he'd ever seen her before.
In the absence of anything even resembling a structure designated for marriage, they were marrying in the prison yard. To have something that resembled an aisle, they'd marked off the space with the standing members of their family. When Carol and Andrea reached that point, Carol let go of Sophia's hand.
Sophia was supposed to be the flower girl for their wedding. She didn't have any flowers, though, because Sophia couldn't really be expected to hold onto something like that for any length of time. She was wearing a simple little pastel blue dress that had a yellow flower on the skirt of it—something Daryl had found for her and she'd liked flouncing around in because of the way the skirt fell—and her auburn hair was gathered up into pigtails. The pigtails held down a little flower crown that was clearly made out of some kind of vine—probably the stripped kudzu that grew in abundance around the prison—and was threaded with Cherokee roses.
Andrea, it seemed, had come through for him, after all, because Carol wore a similar type crown on her head and Andrea wore some of the roses tangled up in in her hair.
That was all that Daryl had asked her for, and she'd come through.
Sophia didn't march down the aisle created for her. She didn't drop flowers or do any of the things that movies might have suggested she would. Instead, as soon as Carol dropped her hand, Sophia had grinned at Daryl, loudly declared "Daddy" for everyone to hear, and she'd run down the makeshift aisle as fast as her little legs could carry her before she'd slammed into Daryl's legs and waited for him to pick her up.
Behind Daryl, Merle laughed.
"Like her style," Merle said. "Let's get this over an' done with so we can all get on with it."
Carol was wearing a pastel yellow dress. It had a white band that rested just above the slightest proof that their upcoming arrival existed. She'd given Andrea a dress, too, that was a soft green, probably to make up for the fact that Andrea, like Merle, had come with little more than the clothes on her back.
Andrea walked with Carol down the makeshift aisle, arm in arm, until they reached Daryl.
"I think I'm supposed to offer you her hand or something," Andrea said. "It's the first time I've ever—given anyone away."
"You did fine," Hershel assured her. "Carol? Daryl? Are you ready?"
"Ready," Carol told him.
"Soph? Go see Andrea?" Daryl asked. Sophia agreed and Daryl made the transfer. "Ready," he said to Hershel as Carol slipped her hands into his.
"Dearly beloved," Hershel said, unfolding a few pieces of notebook paper that he pulled from his shirt pocket, "we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony. And that's—all I'm going to say from that speech that you've probably heard before. I hope you'll indulge me a moment as I tell you a story." He laughed to himself. "And I know you will because I'm an old man and you've all got nothing else to do—and everyone loves stories. I sat with Daryl for a long time last night and I asked him what marriage meant to him. And I listened. Daryl told me how—he wasn't good with words. He didn't know how to say the things he wanted to say. And then he spent about an hour telling me about the love that he had for a woman that—if I didn't know her—I might not have believed that she was real. Daryl might say he's not good with words, but there's something of a poet in Daryl—as long as the subject of his poetry is Carol."
Daryl's chest seized up with a type of unexpected anxiety and he felt a tremble run through his body. Carol must have felt it, too, because she squeezed his hand in hers and offered him a smile. There were tears on her lower lashes, but none of them had blinked out just yet.
When he glanced at Hershel, the old man was smiling at both of them, neither of his eyes sure where they wanted to land before they fell back on the paper.
"He said he couldn't write vows himself, and Carol hadn't prepared any either. He knew that they wanted me to handle the vows. He wanted to talk to me because—though for Carol the most important thing was simply being married to the man that she loves, he wanted to talk about the vows. He was sure that he didn't want the traditional vows, at least not as they were written, because there were some things there that he didn't like. You see—Daryl liked to have and to hold. He liked to love and to cherish. He especially liked the part about—all of this being for all the days of their lives. But he just didn't like the part where the vows said 'to obey' because, for Daryl, love wasn't about obligation or obedience. Love was something different. So I found what I hope will speak to both Daryl and Carol a little better. Daryl? Carol? Are you ready to take your vows?"
Daryl swallowed and nodded. Carol nodded, too. She pulled one hand back from Daryl just long enough to wipe her eye with her fingertip and Daryl pulled his handkerchief from his pocket to offer it to her. She laughed to herself, but she quietly thanked him as she accepted it.
Hershel cleared his throat.
"There's much more to love than just the wedding vows," Hershel said. "Even the Bible would agree. The Bible, actually, has a lot to say about love. It says that love is patient and kind. It doesn't envy or boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It's not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil, but it rejoices with truth. Love always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It always perseveres. It never fails." Hershel folded up the paper and tucked it back into his pocket. "Those are the characteristics of true love. Do you, Daryl, vow to love Carol—truly and completely, just as those vows suggest—forever?"
Daryl rolled the words around in his mind. He listened to them again, ticked them off in his brain, and smiled to himself. They were good. They were really good. He liked them. He nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "I do. All of that. I do."
Hershel laughed quietly and gestured to Merle.
"You have the rings, son?" He asked.
Merle pulled the rings out and offered them to Hershel.
"On a chain," he said. He cleared his throat and held up the arm that was covered with a metal stump. "I can't—get it open."
Hershel accepted and carefully took the bands off the chain. Daryl watched him as he tucked the chain into his pocket with Carol's engagement ring still on it. With his hands free to manipulate the bands, he offered them out to Daryl. Daryl took the smallest one and Carol offered him his finger.
"It won't fit," Daryl said.
"Just as far as you can," Hershel said. "It's the thought that counts. It's really just a symbol anyway."
Daryl slipped the ring onto Carol's finger and she smiled at it, even though it didn't fit just right.
"Do you, Carol, vow to love Daryl—truly and completely, just as those vows suggest—forever?" Hershel asked.
Carol hummed.
"Can I hear them again?" She asked. Immediately she laughed and she wasn't alone. "I'm just kidding," she offered to Daryl. "I do. Of course, I do. Forever and always."
Hershel offered her the larger ring and Daryl let her slip it on his finger. He marveled at the way it felt there. It was different. It was strange. But it felt good.
"If anyone here has any reason to object to this marriage," Hershel said, "speak now or forever hold your peace."
Daryl glanced around, but nobody had any objections. He didn't expect them to, though. There was precious little that anyone there who was in a relationship could say, in good faith, about anyone else.
"Then with the power invested in me by—this family—I now pronounce you man and wife," Hershel said. "Daryl—you may kiss your bride."
"It's about damn time," Merle offered.
There was a rumble of laughter in response.
"This time, Merle," Carol said, "I agree with you."
Daryl kissed her and she kissed him back—no holds barred. She continued kissing him even after some of the others accepted the end of the wedding and started to break away to talk to one another.
When the kiss broke, Hershel offered out the chain to Daryl.
"You might want this," Hershel said.
"I hate that—my fingers are too big to wear the rings," Carol lamented.
"Your body's busy doing other work right now," Hershel said as Daryl slipped her ring on the chain for her and fastened it around her neck. "Important work. The chain will do for now."
"It'll do just fine," Daryl promised her. "Come here, Soph. Tell me what'cha think. Your daddy's like actually your daddy now. As much as he can be. You know that?"
Sophia came to him, happily abandoning Andrea's arms for Daryl's but she furrowed her brow at his statement.
"Daryl!" Carol said. "Don't confuse her!"
Daryl laughed and kissed Sophia's face. The kiss soothed over some of the confusion.
"Don't worry, Soph," Daryl assured. "I'm your daddy. And just like I'ma love your ma, I'ma love you forever. How's that sound?"
Sophia smiled at him and cuddled his face with her own. It didn't take him long to figure out she was enjoying the feeling of his cheeks without stubble.
"I am love you too, Daddy," Sophia said, still rubbing her face against Daryl's with a great deal of enthusiasm. Daryl laughed quietly at her garbled declaration of love.
"And I love you both," Carol offered. "Forever and always."