AN: Here we are, a little one shot for dixonscarol on Tumblr who wanted it to be Carol's birthday.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol had been scratching dates into the paint on the prison's stone wall since they'd arrived there. At first, everyone had teased her that the relic of bygone days reminded them of the stereotypical representation of prisoners scratching the time they'd done in prison onto the wall. Now, everyone mostly ignored Carol's calendar.
It was imperfect, and she knew it.
Andrea had kept up with the date until Amy died. The date had frozen in place for her, that day, and Dale had kept up with it, following Amy's death, until his own passing on the farm. Carol had latched onto the date—something to keep her grounded, and to keep her mind occupied—after Dale's death. Here or there, she knew that she lost a day. She forgot which months had thirty days or thirty-one…she'd never really known such things before, and she knew them even less now.
The calendar was useless. It was frivolous. Hershel pretended that it was a good idea for keeping up with their planting seasons, but really it was easy enough to keep up with a rough idea of those things based on the world around them. Hershel said it would be good for keeping up with any future arrivals that might come into the world, but Carol knew that nature would keep track of such things. Nature, now, would dictate how most of them saw the passing of time.
Still, Carol scratched dates onto the wall because it gave her a sense of normalcy, perhaps.
For as much as dates and days had gone by the wayside, the importance of those dates had really been lost, with very few exceptions. Within the prison, they celebrated what they called Thanksgiving—a holiday which, for them, took place as the weather started to cool. It was nothing more, though, than a day that was dedicated to verbally giving thanks, to each other, for everything that they brought to the group. They enjoyed food together, and Hershel gave something of a sermon about how lucky they were for everything they'd found, everything they'd built, and everything that they would have for a future they all believed in.
They celebrated Christmas when the nights were cold and everyone was starting to feel the strange melancholy that simply seemed to settle over them like a heavy blanket. The celebration for Christmas was nothing more than a good meal, some shared hot beverages, and the happy gathering together while Hershel recited "The Night Before Christmas" and everyone retired to bed. The following morning, they gave each other trinkets that were symbolic of gifts, more than anything. Carol still had the thimble that Daryl had given her with a tiny blue and white tile fixed into it that said "Sweden." He'd picked it up somewhere and, enamored of the blue and white details on the tile, he'd decided she would think it was as beautiful as he did. It had a place of honor on Carol's dresser.
What they had dubbed "May Day" would be coming soon. They planned to celebrate spring together. There would be food and happy, outdoor celebrations to welcome in a time that, for all of them at the prison, would mean the hopeful arrival of more livestock, better hunting in the area, and the planting of a larger variety of food. It was a celebration of growth, life, and hope for the future.
But just before May Day, right there on the calendar, was a date which nobody remembered and nobody cared about.
It was ridiculous to think that anyone would remember the one or two times that Carol had mentioned her birthday when they had all shared dates or days that were significant to them. Nobody remembered birthdays, these days, unless there was some significance to the remembering.
Rick and Lori, of course, remembered each other's birthdays. They remembered their children's birthdays. The Greenes remembered their family birthdays to celebrate them together with some small token of affection. Glenn remembered Maggie's birthday and Maggie recalled his. Carol knew that Daryl's would come in the summer.
But it was foolish to expect for people to remember birthdays when they only marked the passing of time by occasionally staring at Carol's scratches on the wall while swallowing down food or drinking hot, weak coffee.
And it was especially foolish to believe that anyone might remember her birthday—not when it didn't matter to a soul. Nobody had really bothered to remember her birthday, anyway—not since she'd been a child and her mother had last marked one of her birthdays with a special cake and her favorite dinner. Of course, she could tell everyone it was her birthday. She could demand that they acknowledge it. But it really wasn't the same that way, and she'd rather nobody mention it than feel she'd forced someone to care about something they simply found unimportant.
There was nothing special about birthdays. It was just another day, after all, especially when it was Carol's birthday.
Carol dressed that morning, like she normally would, and she went to work. She cooked, cleaned up after the meal, and began getting ready to cook the next meal. As she suspected, nobody had remembered her birthday. They thanked her for the food she prepared, but they had no other words to say to her beyond their normal chatter—she listened to Lori's woes as a mother, when the woman never seemed to realize how much Carol ached to have even the smallest chance at motherhood again, and she listened to Maggie's half-hearted complaints about her relationship with Glenn.
Around the time she was washing everything up for dinner and working on laundry, Carol hauled water up to her area and took some cooled, clean water down to Daryl to drink in the corner of the yard where he cleaned the meat that he had hunted for their dinner.
He accepted the large cup, drank down half the contents without stopping, and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve while he focused on getting his breath.
"Thanks," he said.
"You should come up and get some more," Carol said. "Something leftover from lunch? You haven't eaten."
"I'll eat double tonight," Daryl offered.
"You know that's not true," Carol said. "If I didn't hold food back for you, you wouldn't eat at all."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"There's some greedy assholes around here," he mused. "Selfish. But people always been that way."
"I can bring something to you," Carol offered.
"Fine for now. Thanks," Daryl said. He lifted the large cup like he was toasting her. "This is the best thing I could have right now." Carol smiled at him and nodded her understanding.
"I'll bring you some more, soon," she offered. She started to walk off, and he called her back. She turned and came back. He chewed his lip. Whatever he meant to say, he had to work it up to the top of his throat, it seemed. "Did you need something?"
"That color—suits you," Daryl offered. "It—brings out your eyes."
Carol was struck by the compliment. She was flattered. It wasn't much, perhaps, in the way of compliments, and it wasn't poetry, but she couldn't recall the last time that anyone had, in any way, complimented anything about her appearance. The blue-green color of the shirt she was wearing was a pretty color, and she'd loved it the moment she'd seen it in one of the boxes of clothes they'd found and added to the ever-growing collection where they all selected their clothing, their rags, and their material for other projects.
Carol had put the shirt on, this morning, because it was her birthday and, whether or not the day meant a thing, she wanted to feel pretty on her birthday—as pretty as someone like her had any right feeling.
The compliment, maybe, wasn't much to those who were used to poetry, but it meant a lot to Carol. That was especially true since it came from Daryl. The words, alone, made her heart flutter nervously in her chest like this was her sixteenth birthday instead of her forty-fifth.
"Thank you," she said sincerely. Daryl's face ran red. The compliment had been hard enough. He couldn't be asked to withstand any thanks for it. Carol granted him a reprieve. "I'll—bring you some more water, soon."
She turned and headed back to the area of the prison yard that she practically considered her own. She headed back to her work. Each step she took though, was lighter than the one before. Each step she took had her practically feeling like she was skipping toward the prison.
Part of her felt silly, but the other part of her simply felt nice, and fluttery, and she wanted to enjoy it. It was her birthday, after all, and she was allowed to enjoy the simple pleasures of repeating a compliment over to herself a thousand times. She was allowed to feel like her shirt was pretty, and her eyes were pretty, and the man she'd quietly loved for years had noticed such a thing.
The compliment carried her through the rest of an otherwise unremarkable day.
That night, sitting in her bed with a ridiculous romance novel she'd found, and sipping a cup of tea she'd brewed for herself from a tea bag she'd squirreled away for such a special occasion—and one she'd admittedly dry and use at least a half a dozen other times—she thought that the day hadn't been so bad. It was just another day, after all, and it was nothing special, but there had been some moments that she would latch onto and remember when the coming year got hard to handle.
Carol's reading was interrupted by the sound of Daryl clearing his throat outside her cell. She couldn't see him, thanks to the privacy blanket that hung over her cell bars, but she could see the shadow of his boots beyond the door.
It was quiet. The prison was mostly asleep. Daryl wouldn't be standing outside her cell if he didn't need something. Still, he seemed to simply linger there like he wasn't sure if he would enter or not.
"Daryl?" Carol asked quietly.
"It's me," Daryl identified. Carol smiled to herself.
"Do you—need something?" Carol asked. "You can come in…if you like."
There was some hesitation. Carol watched the shadow on the floor, beyond the blanket. It was the only indication that Daryl hadn't left. Then, after a long, long moment, the blanket fluttered and Daryl's boots scuffed on the concrete floor to indicate he was moving—and he was moving toward her.
He pushed into the blanket like he was unsure that the entrance he'd been granted was still valid. Slowly, he emerged entirely inside Carol's private space. She furrowed her brow at him, and her heart picked up in her chest. It was the first organ, it seemed, to realize everything that was taking place in the scene in front of her.
Daryl looked positively worried. In his right hand, he held a bowl. In his left, he held a bottle. From the top of the bottle, a flower peeked out. He held both out in Carol's direction, and she shifted around, sitting up and moving her book to the side. Daryl stepped forward, practically moving like he was sleep walking, and placed both items in Carol's hands—a beer bottle with a single yellow flower in it, and a bowl of sliced peaches.
Carol furrowed her brow at Daryl.
"It's your birthday," he said simply.
Carol smiled to herself. Everything inside her responded to the three simple words. She felt her eyes prickling with tears.
"That was the only flower I could find today," Daryl said. "Kinda crushed. I was tryin' to keep it where you didn't see it."
"It's beautiful," Carol offered. She put the bottle by the bed. The crushed yellow flower was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.
"I know it ain't no cake, but…you said you liked peaches," Daryl said. "I squirreled that can away, behind my dresser, since the last time we found a grocery store that weren't picked over." He hesitated. "I know it ain't much but…don't cry about it."
Carol laughed to herself and reached for the handkerchief she'd put by her bed in case her book prompted her to need it.
"I'm crying because—it's the nicest thing anyone's done for my birthday in…decades."
"Last year you made me spaghetti," Daryl offered, as though it were a perfectly plausible explanation for his kindness. Carol moved over and patted the blanket next to her. She didn't know if he would, and for a moment it looked like he didn't know if he would, either, but Daryl sat on the quilt next to her legs. She tasted a slice of the peach and hummed her approval. "Good?"
"The best," Carol said. She didn't point out to him that there was something about care and concern—she wouldn't dare to even think love—sprinkled over food that just made it taste better.
Daryl cleared his throat. He studied her blanket. There was something he was chewing on. She could practically feel it wrapping around the both of them. She offered him some of the peach slices.
"Want some?" She asked.
"You eat it," Daryl said. "But—I did want…"
"Yes, Daryl? What do you want?" She pressed when it was clear that, partway through his sentence, he'd lost his nerve to finish what he meant to say.
"I know it's—not really a big thing," Daryl said. "And I know that—it ain't like…I mean, nobody's gonna know or whatever…so—it probably ain't really worth worryin' about…"
"Daryl?" Carol said, catching his attention as he struggled through whatever he was feeling. He looked at her. There was something akin to pleading in his eyes. Her chest flooded with emotion for the man that had brought her peaches and a wildflower, the man that had tried to save her daughter, and the man that had captured her heart and her attention. "Whatever it is, I'm going to say yes, so…just ask it."
He faintly smiled to himself.
"You don't know that," he offered.
"I do know that," Carol assured him.
He nodded his head, more to himself than to her.
"Will you be my date to May Day?" He asked.
Carol smiled. She didn't try to hide it. She weighed her options—whether or not it was safe to tease him.
"Of course, I'll be your date to May Day," Carol offered. Daryl smiled to himself. He looked relieved. Pleased. It fortified Carol a little, and she reached the hand not holding the bowl out to pat him on the leg—the only piece of him she could reach for the moment. He allowed the affection. She teased him, often, to slowly relax him. Each time she teased him, he seemed warmer toward her, more accepting, and more inviting. She raised her eyebrows at him, daring to tease him once more. "And if you play your cards right, I'll be your date that night, too."
Daryl's face blushed pink. He stood up quickly. He stared at her, though, and chewed at his cuticle for a moment. He didn't tell her to stop. He didn't protest her teasing. He expressed no dislike with the offer. He simply chewed his cuticle a moment, while he stared at her, and then quickly retreated for the privacy blanket that separated this private world from the world beyond.
"Thank you for asking me to—be your date on May Day, Daryl," Carol said. "I'm looking forward to it."
Daryl hummed. Nodded his head.
"Me too," he offered. "Enjoy your peaches. I hope you—you had a happy birthday."
Carol smiled to herself. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. She felt every bit as affected, by the small gestures that Daryl had made that evening, as any heroine in any of her romance novels had ever felt over some grand show of love.
"I really did," Carol responded, sincerely this time. "Thanks to you."