AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
We're catching up to where I've gotten to, so I'll be posting as I'm able. (Real life is hectic, as usual.)
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Daryl lit the lamps that didn't have a difficult time illuminating the small space of the cabin and led Carol inside. He returned with Carol's bag and, after, he saw his brother off. Merle left, as he was intended to do, after gathering up the reins of both Nessie and Runt and offering Daryl some words about his wedding night that Daryl knew better than to give much heed to.
When Daryl stepped back into the cabin, closing the door behind him, he came with a pitcher of water he'd pumped and put it on the table next to the porcelain washbowl that was already waiting there. Putting it down, he looked at Carol standing in the middle of the floor with her hands clasped in front of her. She looked as unsure about touching anything as he'd felt standing in the rooms at her old house. He cleared his throat.
"That dresser there is mostly empty," Daryl said. "So you can put your...you can put whatever you got in there. Put it anywhere you want. The bed? It come from somewhere else. The mattress did, I mean. I made the bed. But the mattress come from somewhere and it's the finest mattress they had. Pillows too. They soft. Softest they had, they said. You—uh—you can do whatever you want with what's here. I didn't really know all about what I should do with it. Just brung it in, but I figured you might know what to do with it all."
Carol looked at him and offered him a smile that was barely more than the turning up of the corners of her mouth. She nodded her head gently at him.
"It's very nice," she said.
Daryl smiled at her.
"All of it's for you," Daryl said. "And if—it ain't what you want? If you need somethin' else, well, you just let me know. We'll build a bigger house. A better one. However you want it. But—it's gonna take a lil' time. Let a harvest come in an' I'ma see what we got. What I can...what I can do."
Carol shook her head at him.
"No," Carol said. "No, I mean...I don't need anything, Daryl. It's very nice. It's really—it's all very nice. You did all of this?"
Daryl shrugged his shoulders. The cabin, he thought, really wasn't that much to look at. It wasn't impressive at all in comparison to some of the houses that he'd seen.
"Merle helped me," Daryl said. "Joey. Hershel—he give me some ideas. But—yeah. I done it."
"For me?" Carol asked.
"That was the idea," Daryl said.
Carol nodded her head and looked around the space again.
"Can I sit?" She asked, pointing to the bed. "Or do you prefer I use a chair?"
"They both yours," Daryl said. "You can do what'cha want."
Carol sat on the bed. She ran her hands over the blankets in a dramatic sweep and drew large circles with them on the blankets.
"Soft," she said.
"And clean," Daryl assured her. "Miss Jo washed everything."
"She's not your mother," Carol observed, her words coming out almost like a question. Daryl supposed she might have some questions for him. He supposed, too, that as time went on he might have some questions for her too.
Daryl shook his head.
"My Ma's dead," Daryl said.
"Mine too," Carol responded.
"Died when I was—'bout this high," Daryl said, demonstrating with his hand about how tall he imagined he was when his mother had passed. "Don't know how old I was. Don't keep track of them things. Merle—he kinda keeps up with it."
Carol shook her head.
"It never mattered to me, either," she admitted. "What was going to happen? It was going to happen whenever it did. No need in worrying about—about what year it was."
Daryl laughed to himself. She'd been tense, but she seemed to be loosening up a little. Daryl picked her bag up and moved it over beside the dresser so that she could unpack it whenever she wanted. Then he picked up the bundle she'd put on the table and offered it to her.
"You know what Miss Jo give you?" Daryl asked. "Or you wanna open this?"
Carol smiled softly at the bundle and reached for it. Daryl passed it to her and she put it to the side. She untied it and offered him a smaller bundle that was inside—something tied up in a bit of ripped cloth that might have come from an old sheet.
"Biscuits and ham for your breakfast," Carol said. "She didn't know what kind of food we'd have here."
"Ain't much," Daryl admitted, putting the biscuits-and-ham bundle on the table. "Not yet. Gonna gather that up tomorrow. Didn't wanna bring it all here in case..." He dropped off and Carol looked at him, wide-eyed and questioning.
"In case?" She asked.
"In case you weren't gonna marry me," Daryl said. "Like everybody said you might'nt do."
She nodded her head gently and returned to her bundle without a word. From the bundle she pulled out all that was left. It looked like nothing more than a mass of folded cloth until she began to unfold it. On the bottom of her small stack was a dress that she unfolded on the bed beside her. It was every bit as simple as the one she was wearing except that it didn't have the floral pattern of the one that she had on. It was just plain white. The second garment she unfolded was another dress, as far as Daryl could tell.
"She gave me a dress," Carol said. "A work dress, she said. Something I didn't have to worry about dirtying. And a nightgown. It's soft."
Daryl smiled to himself. They were thoughtful gifts. He might not have thought of them himself, but he could tell that they were thoughtful from the look on Carol's face.
"I'm glad she give you somethin' you like," Daryl said. "An' a soft nightgown—reckon it's a good thing to have. For sleepin' an' such."
Carol laughed quietly.
"I didn't hardly sleep in anything at Andrea's," Carol admitted. "Sometimes—when it was cold? She had these warm gowns that she liked to sleep in. They were made from—made from something thick and soft. A cloth that was thick and soft. When it would get really cold, she'd pass them out to all of us so that we weren't cold. But most of the time, I hardly slept in anything."
"You don't like to sleep in it," Daryl offered, "then you don't gotta. Can just wear it—wear it whenever you like. Or don't wear it. Miss Jo don't gotta know one way or the other what'cha do when you sleep."
"I think I'll wear it," Carol said, running her hand over the nightgown in question. "If it suits you."
Daryl shrugged his shoulders.
"Suits me fine," Daryl said. "I ain't the one wearin' it."
Carol laughed quietly again.
"No," she said. "But—you're my husband, so you'll be the one looking at it."
Daryl felt his cheeks run warm.
He was still having a hard time truly realizing that it was all real. It was true. He was her husband. She was his wife. This was their first night together, in their home, but it would be the first night of however many nights they might see in this life.
He had dreamed about it, but it felt different when it was really happening. It felt like he was waiting to find out it was all still, somehow, a dream.
"I like lookin' at you," Daryl said. "No matter what you're wearing."
Carol's own cheeks ran a little pink and she quickly looked away from Daryl and rubbed her hands over the fabric of the garments again. Then she got up from the bed and walked over to the dresser. She opened the drawer, folded the dress, and placed it inside. Then she folded the nightgown and put it on top of the dresser.
From around her neck, she took the chain that she was wearing. The ring had fit her finger well enough, so she'd kept it there after Daryl had put it there while they were saying their vows in front of Hershel. The chain, though, she'd kept to wear around her neck. Now she placed it on top of the dresser.
Carol cleared her throat and looked at Daryl. She offered him another of the soft smiles.
"I have to ask you, Daryl...and it's a hard thing to ask so I don't imagine it's an easy thing to answer but...I have to ask it..."
Daryl felt his blood run cold. He worried that whatever she might have to ask would be something that he hadn't anticipated—something he couldn't handle or couldn't answer. Still, he nodded his head at her.
"Go ahead," he urged.
"Well..." Carol said, drawing the word out as she looked over the small cabin once more. "Why me, Daryl? Why was it me that you wanted to marry? Because—you're handsome. And you're young. And—it's clear you got a way of gettin' whatever you want. So why—why was it me you wanted?"
Daryl shrugged his shoulders. He took his own seat on the bed this time, right where she'd risen from, and Carol turned to face him, crossing her arms across her chest to stand and wait for him to offer an answer that he wasn't even sure he actually had.
"I don't know," Daryl said. "I don't know. You ain't the first to ask me that and I just don't got no better answer now than I had the first night that I was thinkin' about it. Was—the day that I was first there. The first time I was there in Eden. I just—I didn't wanna leave you there. I didn't wanna go. Wanted to stay with you, but I couldn't. Got to thinkin' how nice it would be to be with you all the time. How nice it'd be to...be married to ya."
"Was it the sex?" Carol asked, her brows furrowed.
Daryl swallowed and shook his head.
"Was it the sex?" Carol repeated. "You wanted—to have sex with me more? A lot more? And so you thought it would be nice if I was—with you? All the time for that?"
Daryl shook his head again.
"I liked bein' with you like that," he admitted. "I did. I liked it a lot. Woulda wanted to do that with you more but...that's what you s'posed to do with a wife. Your own wife. And—I liked doin' it just fine, but I figured I'd like it a lot more if we was doin' it as husband and wife. But..."
"But?" Carol urged.
"But most of all? I reckon it was because—I couldn't stop thinkin' of you. When I was trying to sleep, it was you I was thinkin' about. When I was workin'? I kept—doin' stupid things because I was thinking of you. Weren't payin' attention to things I knew I needed to be payin' attention to. I just couldn't stop," Daryl said.
Carol clearly sucked in a breath, her chest rising, and Daryl wasn't sure how to read her expression. She looked a little upset—like she was fretting over something—but he wasn't sure what she was fretting over or how to fix it.
"That enough?" Daryl asked. "Or is you sorry now that you married me?"
Carol looked at him intensely. Her blue eyes shone in the lamplight like they were at least a little damp. Daryl swallowed down the lump that had magically risen up in his throat.
"I'm not sorry I married you," Carol said softly. "But—do you love me?"
Daryl considered it and finally nodded his head.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Don't know that much about it. But—I think I do."
Carol nodded her head at him.
"Do you love me?" Daryl ventured, almost fearing the answer.
Carol sighed.
"I don't know," she said. "But—if I don't? I think I will."
Daryl nodded his understanding. Love was a complicated thing. And since nobody had ever exactly told him what it was supposed to feel like, he could easily imagine that Carol might not know any better than him if she felt it or not.
"That's OK, then," Daryl said. "I think that's OK. You think it is?"
Carol laughed to herself. She looked around, turning her face away from him for a second, and then she shook her head like she was telling the oil lamp not to do whatever it was doing—like the flickering flame was disobeying her. She looked back at Daryl and offered him the soft smile that she had given him earlier.
"I think it's better than a lotta people get married for," Carol said. "I think it's better—it's better than a lotta people are doing. But—I don't want you to change your mind."
Now it was Daryl's turn to laugh. It was a laugh that caught in his chest because he felt the sensation that came with it so sincerely. He shook his head at her.
"There ain't been nothin' in my whole life I wanted more'n I wanted you to marry me," Daryl said. "Even—even when we was half-starved comin' out here and I thought sometimes I'd give all I had to have something to eat? Even then I didn't want that food half as much as I wanted you to marry me. I don't change my mind too much. Once I get good an' set on somethin'? I'm just set on it. Hard and fast. Always been that way." Carol looked a little lighter. There was a change in how she held herself. She readjusted her whole body as she stood there, arms crossed across her chest, right in the middle of their floor. "You gonna change your mind?" Daryl asked.
Carol shook her head.
"No," Carol said. "I'm not going to change my mind. If I even thought of changing it? I wouldn't have made it all the way to saying vows with you. I woulda changed it on the road." She sucked in a breath and let it out. "But I didn't. And I won't."
"That's good then," Daryl said. "I like that."
Carol's smile widened a little. She cocked her head at him and the smile she gave him, different from the one before, curled up more on one side than the other. She reached her hands up and burrowed around in the mess of red curls she wore piled on her head and, one by one, she pulled out a number of black pins that she rested on the dresser with the rest of the items she'd gone storing there. As she freed the pins, her hair fell down, cascading over her shoulders in a nest of curls that was no less unruly than it had been before it gained its freedom. Carol ran her fingers through her hair, shaking out the curls, before she faced Daryl square on.
"I'm your wife now," Carol said. Daryl nodded his head. "And you're my husband." He nodded his head in agreement again. "And—as my husband, I got some things I hope...some things I want from you."
Daryl swallowed and nodded his head.
"Whatever you want," Daryl said. "I can get it for you. Build it. Do it. You just—just gotta tell me what'cha want. 'Cause what you see here? It's about all I could come up with on my own. And I ain't gonna lie. I had more...more'n a lil' help gettin' all this together or I wouldn'ta thought of the half of it."
Carol laughed quietly and shook her head.
"No," she said. "Not things I want you to buy me, Daryl. Or—not even things you can give me. Not things you can see. There's things I want you to do. What I want you to be. You wanna hear them?"
Daryl nodded his head.
He absolutely wanted to hear them. He knew some basic things about being a husband—things he'd picked up here and there from watching men that were already husbands and from hearing them talk about that profession, but he knew there were always things that he needed to learn because he hadn't learned them all.
"I want you to...love me," Carol said. "As much as you can." Daryl nodded his head.
"OK," he agreed.
"For as long as you can," Carol said.
"Hershel said for all our days," Daryl said. "So—I reckon I'ma love you for all of the days I got."
Carol nodded her head.
"And I don't want you to leave me," Carol said. "Never. You can go where you need to go. To town. To the farm we were at. To do—to wherever you need to go. But you can't never leave me behind. Not here. Not anywhere. Not for good."
Daryl shook his head, surprised that she would request that he agree to this when he remembered agreeing to it already.
"Ain't leavin' you," Daryl said. "Not for all them same days that I'm lovin' you."
"I don't want you to hit me," Carol said. She frowned at him and shook her head at him. "Never. I don't want—I don't want you to hit me."
Daryl swallowed hard, the lump in his throat growing bigger because of the look in her eyes.
"No," he said. "I ain't gonna hit'cha."
"Not even when you're angry," Carol said. "Or if I should do somethin' wrong. Somethin' that you don't like. Not even then."
Daryl shook his head again.
"Not even then," he said. "Not never." Carol nodded her head, her expression making it look like she was still chewing on something. "Somethin' else?" Daryl asked.
She hesitated a moment, but finally she spoke.
"I don't want'cha to love anybody else, Daryl," Carol said. "Not—not the same as you love me. Not as your wife. I don't want you loving some other woman like she was your wife."
Daryl shook his head.
"You only get one wife," Daryl said. "As I understand it. Just the one for all the days that you live. Weren't that the whole—forsaking others thing?"
"Some men forget that part," Carol offered.
"I 'member it," Daryl said.
Carol sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She nodded her head.
"That's all," she said. "That's all that I know that I want. All that I know to expect."
"And if I do that, I'm a good husband?" Daryl asked.
"To me, you are," Carol offered.
"I guess you the only wife I gotta be a good husband to," Daryl observed.
Carol walked over to the bed and sat down next to Daryl. She leaned her head against his shoulder and Daryl's pulse picked up at the mere touch of her.
"What about me?" Carol asked.
"What about you?" Daryl asked.
"What do you want from me?" Carol asked. "What's—what'll make me a good wife for you? What'll make me what you want me to be? Make it easier for you to be the good husband that I'm asking you to be?"
Daryl turned his hands, palm up, on his legs.
"I told you," Daryl said. "I don't got too much idea of what I want you to do. You gonna—make us a home. Make food for us to eat. Be here. Stay right here with me. Guess—I want'cha to love me too. If you can. Be sweet to me. Soft like you is. Sleep with me at night. Keep warm with me right here—'specially when the winter comes."
Carol reached a hand over and placed her hand on top of his. It was small and dainty next to his. Her skin was white and soft next to the rough skin on his palms. She entwined her fingers with his.
"I don't know if I can make the kind of home that you want," Carol said. "Or that you'll like the food that I cook. But I promise you—I'll do the best I can. And Daryl?"
Daryl hummed at her.
"I can love you," Carol said. "For now and for—for all the days that we both live? I can love you."
Daryl's chest tightened like it might close up and he forced himself to cough to try to loosen the sensation.
"I already knowed you were gonna be the best kinda wife for me," Daryl offered.
Carol moved her head from his shoulder and she touched his face. With her fingertips against his jaw, she turned his face toward her. Daryl looked at her, since that was what she seemed to want him to do, and he watched her lips as they curled up in a smile again. Warm and sincere. He watched her lips until she moved to touch them to his. As soon as her lips made contact with his, Daryl felt the warm heat flood his body that came from every one of her kisses and he responded, angling himself to wrap his arms around her.
She pulled away after a moment and stood. She worked the tiny white buttons on the front of her dress until she stepped out of the garment. She folded it a little more carelessly than she'd folded the dress and nightgown before and she placed it on top of the dresser where all her possessions were slowly building up and then she slipped her fingers in the top of the undergarment she was wearing, beginning to unhook it from what looked like a series of tiny metal hooks that ran the full length of it.
Daryl cleared his throat.
"That—uh...is that a corset?" Daryl asked.
Carol stopped unsnapping it. She looked at it like she'd never seen it before. Then she looked back at Daryl.
"I know it's not a nice one," she said. "Andrea had much nicer ones but—it's the best I've got."
Daryl shook his head.
"Weren't what I asked," he said. "Just asked—is that what a corset is?"
Carol laughed quietly and Daryl felt his cheeks burn warm with the reminder of his earlier embarrassment. Perhaps he was the only man in the world who didn't know what a corset was.
"It is," Carol said softly. "You like it?"
Daryl shook his head.
"No," he said. "I don't. Don't—don't want'cha to wear it. Not no more."
Carol frowned and the frown, like her smile earlier in the evening, carried all the way to her eyes and turned her eyebrows down to the point that they very nearly knitted together.
"You don't like it?" Carol asked.
Daryl shook his head.
"It ain't that it looks bad or nothin'," Daryl offered. "But Hershel says—well, he says that it's tight. Bindin'. That it makes it hard to move an' to breathe and they things you just gotta do. Things you'll be doin' here on the farm. And—I mean—if we was to have children? You don't need to be wearin' it no way. Smashin' 'em while they ain't even growed."
"I thought you would like it," Carol said.
Daryl was sorry that he said anything because she looked almost crushed by the suggestion that she was wearing something he might have a problem with. He searched for a way out of what he'd said, but he couldn't find it.
"If you like it, you can wear it," Daryl said. "But—I like you as you was. As you is. Without it." He fought back against the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach—a feeling like the worms that had been living in his brain had up and moved to make a new home in his gut. "But if you like it..."
"I don't like it," Carol said. "But—Andrea said it makes a woman look good. Makes us shaped—how you like it. As a man."
"Look alright to me," Daryl said. "Just as you is. You look—look like you put together how you s'posed to be."
Carol nodded her head and came the rest of the way out of the garment. When she was free from it, she slipped out of her underwear and put both on top of her bag instead of on top of the dresser. Maybe she felt the piece of furniture, at this point, was simply too overflowing. She stood there, bare skinned, in the same way that she had in Eden—just like she was offering him the chance to approve of her.
Daryl shifted around on the bed because his body seemed to naturally approve of her.
Carol gestured toward the water pitcher that Daryl had placed beside the bowl on the table.
"I can wash you," Carol said. "Or—you could wash yourself. However you like."
Daryl swallowed and nodded his head. He didn't give her any words to tell her which he would like, but she moved away from him at any rate. It didn't take her long to find a cloth—all on her own—to dip into the water. Twisting it, she sucked her teeth.
"Tomorrow night I'll know more about everything," Carol said. "Tomrrow night? The water will be warm. Tonight, though, I'm afraid it's cold. It won't take long, though, and I'll warm you plenty afterwards."
Daryl laughed to himself and stood up. He shucked his clothes as quickly as he could and left them a little more haphazardly on the floor than Carol had done with her garments. He stared at them, not sure what he should do with them since he and Merle weren't exactly tidy with their attic room, and Carol shook her head when she saw him looking at them.
"Don't worry about them," Carol said softly. "I'll take care of it. Come here. I'll wash you."
Daryl stepped forward, careful not to fall over the mess that he'd made himself, and Carol did exactly what she'd declared she'd do. She washed him gently and methodically. While she washed him, she trailed her fingertips across his skin after each pass of the cloth until he felt like all the parts of his body were more awake than they'd ever been before. He felt like he might, as he'd done the first time they were together, simply make a mess of her before anything had come from what they were doing.
But he didn't.
Daryl watched as Carol wiped herself down when she'd finished with him. He watched the small bumps raise up on her skin to say that she thought the water was cold. He saw her nipples wake up and stand at attention, appearing just as hard and awake as parts of his body felt.
And when she was done, Carol took him by the hand and led him to their bed where she pulled the blankets back and invited him to lie down. Daryl had never been in the bed before. He'd been saving it, like a gift, for the first night that Carol would join him. It was soft and comfortable and it was just like a dream when she slipped in beside him and pressed her body against his. She kissed his chest and ran her fingers gently over his skin and Daryl tugged at her, suggesting that she should come over on top of him.
She listened to him. Without him even saying a word, Carol listened to him.
She straddled him and, much like the first time that they were together, she rubbed herself against him—wet and warm. Daryl brought his hands to her hips and sunk his fingers into the soft skin that he found there. She responded to his hold by moving forward and backward over him until he couldn't properly draw breath and started to think that he'd suffocate.
But just before he suffocated, Carol kissed him sweetly and she raised herself to guide him into her, lowering herself against him once more.
Daryl saw her eyes close just before he closed his own. He moved with her—up into her—and she met him with each thrust. He didn't open his eyes again until he felt himself drawing near the point where he knew it would all end. Carol was staring at him, intently, her mouth slightly open. Seeing his eyes open, she closed hers and reached her hand between them to rub herself, her fingers causing friction on his skin as well for the closeness between their bodies.
She made a sound at him that was something like a soft hiccup—a sharp intake of air. Like she'd been as close to suffocating as he had, she drew in a breath that didn't seem to end and she sped up her movements.
Daryl lost all control of himself, still driving his hips upward and into her to milk out the last bit of pleasure that he could from the encounter, when she rolled her neck backward and dug the nails of her unoccupied hand hard into his side.
Panting, just as he was, Carol leaned forward and rested her body against Daryl's. In the moment he slipped free from her, Daryl felt the familiar sadness that he'd felt in Eden when it had all ended—when he'd been forced to dress again and go.
Carol kissed the side of his face repeatedly and she rubbed her face against his, her hands pressing into his cheek and pushing it against her.
"What did I do wrong?" She asked, whispering in his ear.
Daryl was surprised by the question.
"Nothin'," he answered back, his voice a little hoarse from the sudden dryness of his throat. "You never do nothin' wrong."
"Why are you sad?" Carol asked, still whispering with her lips almost touching Daryl's ear.
"Because it's over," Daryl said. "Because—it's when you tell me...I gotta dress. I gotta go. It's really done."
Carol laughed quietly in his ear and the vibration tickled enough that Daryl accidentally jerked his head away from her.
"You don't have to go," Carol said, sliding to the side of him and putting her face directly in his line of vision. "You don't have to go nowhere. There's nowhere else to go. This is where you go now. It's home."
The words made Daryl's chest tighten again, but the flooding feeling that ran through him was entirely different than the one of fear that had come before.
He smiled at Carol.
"Don't go nowhere," he said.
Carol shook her head.
"No," she said, biting her lip.
"Stay right here," Daryl said.
Carol nodded her head.
"Yeah," she said softly.
Daryl sighed and sunk back into the pillow that was behind him. He moved his arm to slide it under her and she lifted her body to make it easier for him. He pulled her against him and she came easily, resting her body tightly next to his.
"Home," Daryl said. Carol hummed at him. Daryl closed his eyes and, for just a moment, he enjoyed how such a thing as home felt.
"Daryl?" Carol asked, catching Daryl's attention. He opened his eyes again and looked at her. Her brows were furrowed, but there was also a hint of a smile playing at her lips. He hummed at her to suggest that she continue speaking. "Are you sorry you married me?" Carol asked, echoing the question that Daryl had asked her before.
"No," Daryl assured her. "And I ain't never gonna be."
The smile that Carol gave him, too, said that she felt the same. And the feeling it gave Daryl, when he saw that smile on her face, was the warmest feeling that ever he'd felt before.