The bed is bouncing.
Why is the bed bouncing?
The hell is that at the foot of his bed?
Is that a fuckin' Chupacabra?
Daryl jolts upright and slams his hand down on top of his holstered gun on the nightstand. His hand freezes there as he claws his way out of his dream and into the present reality. "Jesus," he mutters as Hershey, who is on all fours at the bottom of the bed, comes into view. The boy is practically jumping up and down like puppy. "Knock next time."
Carol stirs groggily beside him, pulls herself half into a sitting position, and blinks. "Hershey, the sun isn't even up. What time is it?"
"I don't know."
"Give us thirty more minutes," Carol tells him.
Hershey frowns but backs off the bed. "Fine. But it's Christmas."
He pads out of the room in his flannel, camouflage pajamas and his fuzzy, winter socks and shuts the door behind him.
Daryl flops back down and Carol rolls against him, settling her head with a sigh on his chest. He drapes an arm across her back, and she groans when the dogs start barking from the living room. "You know he's just going to walk right back in here in ten minutes," Carol mutters.
Daryl peers down at her. "Still, means we got at least five minutes." He rolls on his side and kisses her.
She laughs and pulls away. "That's not long enough. And you got it good last night."
"Mhmhm…" He titls his head back and forth like he's considering whether or not to agree. "Pretty good."
"Damn good," she corrects him, and he smirks. She leans forward to kiss his smirking lips. "Merry Christmas," she whispers. "Will you do me a favor?"
"Fuck ya?"
"No. Go start the coffee, keep Hershey out of the stockings, and give me thirty minutes more sleep."
"Yes'm." He kisses her, reaches around, squeezes her ass, and then pats it before rolling out of bed. "Cold, cold, cold," he mutters when his bare feet hit the floor. He pulls open a drawer in the night stand and yanks on his socks.
[*]
Henry is yawning and scratching his stomach when Hershey leads him from his bedroom. "What time is it?" he asks Carol.
"Early," she says as Daryl hands her a hot mug of coffee and then slumps down into his beat-up armchair.
Henry settles down on the couch next to her as the steam rises from her cup. "Is there more of that?"
"Half a cup," Daryl mutters. "In the French press."
"Hershey, go get me that last bit off coffee," Henry insists.
"Then can we open the stockings?"
Carol agrees they can, and the boy rushes to get the coffee. "What's that long one under the tree?" she asks. It's been sloppily wrapped in brown packing paper.
Daryl shrugs. "Just somethin' I got for Hershey."
They're all for Hershey. Carol and Daryl just get each other stocking stuffers, and Henry is too cool for any of it, anymore, though Carol couldn't help but put a few things in his stocking, too.
They all watch Hershey tear through his stocking first. Henry yanks out a wooden pop gun, which scares the puppies when he fires it, and their mother licks them back to calmness. He tosses the gun on the floor and draws up two rolled up comic books Henry found him, some rock candy Carol made, a pair of mittens, and several match box cars. "What's this?" Hershey asks, holding up an ambulance.
"They used to take people to the hospital in those," Henry tells him.
"Did you ever ride in one?"
"Once, when I was five, and I fell out of a tree and broke my arm."
"Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!" Hershey says as he pushes it across the stone hearth.
"They made a siren noise," Henry tells him. "You know, whooh-wee, whooh-wee, whooh-wee."
"Like firetrucks did?"
"Yep."
Hershey promptly abandons the car and goes and gets Henry's stocking. "You're next."
Henry sets his now empty mug down on the coffee table and pulls a plastic baggie of deer jerky out of his stocking.
"I thought you could use some snacks," Carol says.
Next he slides out the homemade rock candy, then a scarf. "Did you knit this?"
"Do I look like I have time to knit?" Carol replies.
Daryl chuckles.
"I checked it out of storage," Carol explains. "It matches your favorite jacket."
"Yeah. It does. Thanks." Next Henry slides out a wooden backscratcher.
"Since you don't have me to ask anymore," Carol tells him. Henry always has this one spot on his back he would ask Hershey or Carol to get for him.
He smiles. "Thanks, Mom. Merry Christmas. I didn't really know what to get you two, since I'm not exactly at the ornament making age anymore, but I thought I'd cook the Christmas brunch for everyone and clean up after."
Since they eat a big dinner on Christmas Eve, they tend to just eat a hearty brunch on Christmas and otherwise graze on leftovers throughout the day. "That's about the best gift you could give me," she replies.
"Merle next," Hershey insists, and drops the stocking in front of the dog, who growls at it suspiciously, probes inside with his nose, and then yelps and drags out the bone, which he gnaws, tosses, and gnaws again before dropping it too the floor and fishing in the stocking yet again. He grabs it by its toe with his teeth and shakes it, and a tennis ball rolls out and across the wooden floor. Merle barks and bounds after it.
"Sorry, Huck," Herhsey tells his puppy. "You don't have a stocking this year, but Mommy will make you one for next year."
Carol's heart seizes. She glances at Daryl, who smiles lightly. Granted, Hershey's not calling her his mommy. He's calling her Huck's mommy, but it's a start.
When Hershey brings Carol her stocking, she goes through it like a giddy school girl. There's a Cooking Light magazine which Daryl must have picked up in a house somewhere, rolled up and shoved inside, and Carol's sure the recipes will be largely useless in this world, but she doesn't say so. She just thanks her husband. There are two little bottles of booze, like the kind you used to get on airplanes – peach vodka and Jack Daniels. "Oooh! Where'd you get these?"
"Riflin' through a lady's purse."
There's an ornament Hershey made in school, and the green and red glitter flecks off on her fingertips as she hangs it proudly on the tree. Next she pulls our a pair of silver chopsticks and laughs.
"Said ya used to wish ya was more cultured," Daryl explains. "'N ya got to travel more."
"I can't wait to use them."
Next she discovers a small, unopened, sealed jar of thyme, which might actually still be good. (She doesn't bother with opened spices these days.) There are three bullion cubes, a can opener (their old one is getting difficult to turn), a package of pencils, and, from deep in the toe of the stocking, she pulls out a felt-covered ring box. She snaps it open and gasps in surprise. Inside rests a gold wedding band.
"Figured since we made it official 'n all," Daryl says.
"Did you get a matching one for yourself?" she asks, still half in shock.
"Can't wear no ring," he says. "It'd get in the way."
"Of what?" she teases with a raised eyebrow. "Picking up the ladies?"
"Pffft. Stahp. Huntin'."
"I guess I'll just have to tatoo my name on your forehead then." She slips the ring out of the box and slides it on her finger. It's loose. "I'll get the blacksmith to size it. Where'd you find it?"
"In a drawer in a bedroom in one of them cabins in the east huntin' grounds. Check out the 'scription."
She slides it off and looks at the engraving on the inside of the ring, tiny letters that wrap almost all the way around – Carl and Darlene forever.
"Fig'rd it was close enough. Merle used to make fun of me 'n call me Darlene."
She laughs. "That's an amazing coincidence."
"Good sign, yeah?"
"I love it." Carol comes over and kisses him and whispers thank you. She'd love to straddle him right there in his chair and show her appreciation, but the boys are there. So instead she goes to get his stocking. His eyes twinkle when she hands it to him.
Carol loves the part of Christmas most of all, because Daryl is like an absolute kid when he goes through his stocking. It doesn't matter what she puts in there, he always reacts with genuine excitement and litany of hell yeahs.
Daryl pulls out a package of strings for his bow – "Hell yeah!"
Deformed rock candy – "Sugar me up!"
A silver harmonica – "Oh yeah!" He blows on it and Merle howls, so he sets it aside and digs out a pack of playing cards. "Oh hell yes! Gonna play us some strip poker tonight, babe."
Carol also loves when he calls her babe, which isn't often.
"Please," Henry says. "I'm sitting right here."
"What's strip poker?" Hershey asks.
"Not a game for little kids," Henry assures him.
Daryl pulls out a half-full box of 9mm ammunition for his handgun. "Hells to the yes!"
Carol chuckles.
The toy motorcycle elicits a "Fuck yes!"
Carol long ago stopped trying to get him to stop swearing around the kids. Henry and Hershey just know they aren't allowed to swear around her.
Daryl laughs. "It's a Harley! Look!" he points to it and sets it on it's tiny wheels on the end table, pushes it forward a little and then tells Merle, "Down! Mine!" when the dog tries to bite it.
But it's the bundle of six hand-rolled cigarettes that get the "Hell, hell yes! Merry Christmas to me!" especially since Carol usually lectures him about smoking.
Hershey goes for the presents under the tree next and shreds through the wrapping paper. He has books, board games, a jig saw puzzle, and a skateboard. The Hilltop doesn't have sidewalks, but some of the kids do skate back and forth on the mansion's cement porch. Daryl's gift to the boy turns out to be a .22 rifle. "My own gun!" he cries.
"Daryl," Carol says. "He's seven."
"This comin' from the woman who taught the kids to knife at story time?"
"But I didn't give them their own knives."
"Got my first rifle when I's nine, and we didn't even have walkers to worry 'bout."
Carol frowns.
"C'mon! 'S a rifle! Ain't like 's a handgun. His size. N' you already been takin' him shootin'."
"Yes. Supervised. But I don't want him running around with it." She looks at Hershey. "The gun stays in our closet. No shooting it without supervision."
"Yes'm," Hershey says, in almost perfect imitation of Daryl.
Carol asks Henry to clean up the shredded paper while Hershey preoocupies himself by examining the contents of one of his new board games.
Carol pats the empty cushion next to herself, and Daryl takes his cue, comes over, and sits beside her. He drapes and arm over her shoulders. Carol kisses his cheek, whispers, "Merry Christmas," and then announces, "I think Daryl and I are going back to bed to take a nice long nap until brunch is ready."
Daryl nuzzles her ear and whispers, "Like the sound of that."
"Then a boargame marathon?" Hershey aks.
"Then a boargame marathon," Carol agrees. "And I'm staying in my PJ's all day."
"Well," Daryl whispers close to her ear. "Not all day."