Carol concentrates on planning for the winter. Whether or not she's re-elected as mayor come January, they'll need a winter survival plan in place, as always. She's working on a plan to propose to the Council tonight at her rolltop desk in the corner of the living room when Daryl goes to tuck-in Herhsey.
John is sitting with his stocking feet up on the coffee table and reading a hardback book that Carol assumes is a gun or hunting manual of some kind. When Daryl returns, as though she's not even in the room, John asks, "Carol makes you put the boy to bed?"
Carol's fingers tense around her pencil, but she says nothing.
"She don't make me do shit," Daryl replies as he slumps into his arm chair. "I just wanna."
It's quiet for maybe three minutes before John starts talking to Daryl as though he's picking up the thread of an earlier conversation they had in the woods. "I see why you appointed her now."
"Cyndie?" Daryl asks.
"I admit I was a bit irked you overlooked your old friend for the position, but you figured you needed to balance it out with a fisherman instead of a hunter. And she does have those younger men wrapped around her pretty little finger. They'll do any old chore now, as long as she's the one asking it. And I bet she writes up all your paperwork in neat cursive."
Carol is gripping her pencil so tightly now that she's afraid it might snap. She wants to say something badly, but she doesn't.
Daryl does. "Yeah, 'n she could drill hole in yer head 'fore ya even saw her comin'."
Her back to the men, Carol smiles slightly.
"You think Cyndie could get the drop on me?" John asks skeptically.
"Hell, I know it."
John laughs. "If you say so. You are a good judge of skill, I will give you that. You know, she shot my boy Jacob down. He came onto her, and Cyndie gave him the cold shoulder faster than you can say Jack Robinson. Of course I can't blame her. Jacob's a scrawny fellow. Julie tried to fatten him up for years, but it just never took. And then the collapse came, and well…"
Carol turns in her chair. "John," she asks. "Would you mind taking off your boots at the door from now on? You tracked mud all the way to the couch again."
John glances at his boots, which stand at the side of the couch. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry. I suppose I didn't think about the dirt lingering. It's just…Julie swept up the whole cabin every evening." He opens the book he's temporarily closed to a dog-eared page. "I suppose that might have made the job harder for her, now that I think about it." He begins reading.
It's a quiet again for another ten minutes, but when John starts talking to Daryl again, Carol puts her work on a clipboard and takes it to the bedroom.
[*]
A day passes. The hunting dogs sleep by the fireplace, and Hershey has passed out there, too, wedged between the two animals, with his little arm slung around Merle. Carol is at her corner desk. She's just written Ezekiel to tell him the number of Hilltop townspeople who will be attending the play, and now she's reviewing the six pages of December rations the Council prepared. She's trying to verify the numbers, but John, who sits on the couch, just keeps prattling on to Daryl, first about rifle scopes and then about deer tracks and then about bait, and she keeps having to recount and rethink.
There have been times when she wished Daryl talked more, but she realizes now she's gotten used to quiet evenings, with nothing but the sound of the fireplace crackling and Daryl whittling arrows, fiddling with his bow, cleaning knives, or even just quietly staring into the flames while she works at her desk.
Carol's amazed John doesn't seem to be grating on Daryl's last nerve, but maybe Daryl was used to Merle talking all the time. She recalls some nights in the quarry camp when the deep murmur of Merle's voice would drift from their tent to hers, punctured only by Daryl's occasional monosyllabic response. That's about what's happening now.
"My bitch will be out of commission as a hunting dog for some time after she gives birth," John says.
"Mhm," Daryl murmurs as he slides a sharpening stone across the blade of one of his knives.
"But it's going to worthwhile if she has a solid litter," John continues. "I'll give you two if there's at least four and three if there's six. I reckon you'll want to give one to Henry and one to Hershey, and if you're lucky enough to have a third, well trade it as you will.. I'm sure there will be a long line of interested hunters."
"Mhm."
"I remember when Julie had our own litter. By that I mean the triplets. Tiny little things. The biggest was four pounds, one ounce. Now John, Jr. got the disease. Died right at the start of the turn. James died the next year – like a man – putting himself between a herd and his mama. Only Jacob made it through, and he was, let me be frank, the most useless of the lot. But at least he can hunt almost half as good as his old man now."
"Mhm."
"Not as good as your boy, though. You've taught Henry well. Now if you could just teach him to know his place."
"Tried."
"Well, the flip side of that arrogance is ambition. He'll go far, I'm sure, if Jessica doesn't get her snares too deep in him and he doesn't get pilfered by the Kingdom."
Carol wonders why John knows about Jessica. Surely he didn't hear it from Daryl? Maybe he heard it from Henry. Or, more likely, he heard it from his son Jacob, who is Henry's roommate and best friend.
"Julie was pissed off at me when those triplets were born. They all came out natural. No C-section a'tall. She screamed that I was never gonna to touch her again. Hell, maybe I shouldn't have. It would have saved me years of misery."
Daryl says nothing at all to that.
"Well, it wasn't all misery," John admits. "We had some great years together. We had our ups and downs. Twenty-one years of ups and downs, and yet she just walks away with another man. Can you believe that?"
"Nah."
"Twenty-one long years. Through thick and thin. Through a goddamn apocalypse! Excuse my French, Carol. And she doesn't even go for a real man like you!"
"What?" Daryl asks.
"I mean you would have at least given me a run for my money when I dragged you out of that trailer. That pansy barely fought back. What is he, twelve years younger than Julie?"
"Dunno."
"He's a child. I wonder if he's ever even been in a fist fight. He crumpled like a rag doll when I hit him."
"John?" Carol asks. She turns slightly in her desk chair. "How are those trailer repairs coming along?"
"I haven't had a chance to start them yet, what with all the winter preparation."
Carol tries not to show her irritation at that revelation. "Well, I'm sure Daryl will be happy to help you start them tomorrow as soon as you get back from the hunt, won't you, dear?"
"Dear?" Daryl asks.
"Would you prefer I use a different endearment?"
Daryl flushes and mutters to John, "Help ya get started tomorruh."
[*]
The next day, the men fix the front door of the trailer that John busted in, replace half of the cabinet doors, and recruit a glazier to cut the correctly sized glass for the windows, which he says he'll have ready in a few days.
That night, Carol awakes at midnight to the sound of masculine laughing and swearing. She wanders with her oil lamp into the kitchen where John and Daryl sit playing poker and drinking the last of the tequila, which hasn't been touched since Michonne's visit.
"Boys," she scolds. "Don't you have to hunt in the morning?"
"Sorry, Carol," John apologizes. "We'll keep it down, and I'll have your man to bed in just a few more minutes."
But they don't keep it down, and it's 2:00 AM when Daryl finally crawls into bed. He smells more like whiskey than tequila and Carol wonders if John pulled out his own bottle when the tequila was gone. Daryl snakes a hand under her shirt and squeezes a breast.
Irritated, she pulls his hand out from under her shirt.
"C'mon," Daryl mutters. "Been awhile."
"It's the middle of the night." She rolls over to face him. "And you're drunk."
He holds up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Juzalittle." He grins. "Damn. Yer mad, ain't ya? Yer cute when yer mad." He slides his hand under her shirt again and squeezes a little more roughly this time.
She slaps his hand away. "You're lucky I don't tell you to go sleep on the couch. But I will if you stick your hand up my shirt again."
"Oh, 's fine if you get buzzed with yer friend, but I do it with mine and it's a goddamn federal case?"
"Shh!" she says, because she doesn't think he realizes how loudly he yelled those last three words. "You'll wake Hershey."
"'S just havin' some fun."
"You need to get some sleep. So do I." Carol rolls away from him again.
She can almost feel Daryl glowering at her back. He rolls over in the other direction, his back an inch away from her, emanating heat. He mutters something under his breath, but she can't make it out.
It's probably a good thing she can't.
[*]
Daryl and John get to the hunt late the next day, and Daryl's back after Herhsey is already in bed. Carol is at work at her desk. "Where's John?" she asks without looking back at him. She's still irritated about last night
"With that redhead from Oceanside. Said he might not be back tonight, if he gets lucky."
"I suppose he could use the ego boost."
Daryl yanks off his boots and plods over to Carol's desk in his stocking feet, with Merle and Daisy both on his heels. Merle joins Daisy on the rug before the fireplace, where the dogs curl up with their backs to each other.
A mason jar clinks on the desk beside her. Carol glances at it. It's filled with creek water and scraggly green growth and a single fall wildflower with a fan of thin white petals and a yellow center. She looks back at the pages before her.
Daryl chews on a toothpick and then points to the jar with its splintered end. "'S called crooked-stem aster."
"I was wondering where that mason jar went," Carol answers without returning her eyes to the flower.
"Look, 'm sorry. How big of an ass was I last night? Honestly don't 'member."
"Big enough," Carol replies. Her eyes are drawn to the flower again. "I didn't think there were any left this close to winter."
"Took me a long time to find one."
She smiles at the thought of him, a man who tracks deer for miles and follows bear signs back to their lairs, searching just as earnestly for a flower. "Daryl, it's not that I mind you having fun with your friend. And I wouldn't mind you drinking. But you know you don't hold your liquor well."
"Don't drink often. Almost never."
"I know. And I guess the truth is…I just miss my time with you. John's always around now."
"Well he ain't 'round at the moment." He jerks his head toward the couch. "So tell me 'bout yer day."
Carol gets up from her desk and follows him over, and they settle side by side. She talks for a while about the various stresses of the day, relates some funny things Hershey said over dinner, and then asks, "How was yours? Did you spend all day looking for that flower, or did you find game, too?"
Daryl stretches an arm out along the back of the couch. "Caught me a live buck for the rabbit farm. Roderick was thrilled. Old one ain't knockin' the does up no more."
"Roderick," she says with a sigh, "the man who will be mayor."
"Nah. Yer gonna kick his ass."
She leans her head against his shoulder. "Do you really believe that? He likely has all but one or two of the farmers locked up, and that's our biggest group of workers. I've got nearly all of defense, thanks to Rosita, and maybe half of energy. But Julie and her friends in education are against me now because we replaced her. The hunters are angry with me because they say I took John's house. Aren't they?"
"They just like to bitch," Daryl says. He lets his arm slide down, and his fingertips alight reassuringly on her shoulder.
She shakes her head. "I'm not winning this thing, am I?" she asks quietly. "I should have listened to Aaron and let him run this time."
"Want me to stump for ya? With the hunters?"
"I can't ask that of you. I know you're not comfortable with that. And, besides, you're my husband. It wouldn't look good."
"Then, hell, I'll make John to do it. Won't come from me."
"John doesn't like me."
"Likes ya just fine." Carol finds that hard to believe, but Daryl sounds sincere. "If I ask 'em – "
"- I won't ask you to do that. I won't ask you to strain your friendship. I'll talk to him myself."
"A'ight. If that's how ya want it."
She smiles. "Thank you, though. Thank you for being willing."
He leans over and kisses her forehead.
She pats his knee. "Let's go to bed. You can help me take my mind off all this."
"Yeah? Ya sure? Ain't still mad?"
"C'mon," she teases, "It's been awhile."
He doesn't get the joke, because he doesn't remember what he said last night. "Hey," he tells her, "'m always available. Anytime ya want."
Carol laughs. She stands and reaches a hand out to him. He slides his hand into hers, and she helps him up and leads him to bed.