AN: Here we go, another chapter here. Much more to come.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl left everything he bought at Hershel's farm except for the horses. He figured it would be easier to unload everything with the light of the morning in his favor. He stopped only long enough at Hershel's to borrow the tack that the old man had offered him to tack out both of the horses that he'd bought. Riding the sorrel and leading the paint, Daryl headed for home.
The ride between the two farms was relatively short. Aware of how late he was, though, Daryl felt like the trip was especially long this time. As the house came into view, Daryl could see the light from the lamps through the windows. He steered the horses directly toward the barn and immediately lit a lamp for himself inside the barn so he could untack them and load them into the stalls. He'd prepared for their arrival and stocked feed, so he brushed them down quickly—promising them a better brushing in the morning—and finally gave them food to welcome them home and pay them back for the travel that they'd done that day.
"Daryl?" He heard behind him. Daryl jumped, surprised to hear something while he was working, and turned to find Carol standing there with one of the small lamps that she carried around any time she went to the outhouse in the middle of the night.
"What'cha doin' out here?" Daryl asked. "Go back in. I ain't gonna be long."
"You're late," Carol said. "I thought—something might've happened."
"Nothin' happened except everything took about ten damn times as long as I thought it would," Daryl said. "Been tryin' to get home all day, but every time I figured we was done? There was another stop we had to make an' another damn soul we had to deal with."
Carol frowned deeply at him and Daryl wondered if his tone was too harsh. He wasn't mad at her. He wasn't even sure if he was mad at all or—if he was—why he was mad. The closest he could figure was that he was a little mad about the fact that he'd expected to have his supper some time ago and he'd expected to maybe be in bed by now.
And he hadn't expected to make Carol worry.
"You shouldn't be out here," Daryl said, consciously softening his tone. "But as long as you is...this here's your horse."
Daryl waved Carol over and she came. She looked at the mare that was busy chewing her food and reached a hand out to brush it across the horse's nose. The mare jerked away from her at first, but then returned her face and accepted her affections.
"What's her name?" Carol asked.
"Whatever the hell you want it to be," Daryl said. "Fair horse. Broke. She oughta be good for work an' the man what sold her to me swears she'll be a good mount for you. If you got a mind to ride somewhere, I mean. Maybe for—goin' back an' forth to the Greene farm."
Carol smiled at the horse and then she looked at Daryl and offered him the smile.
"She's beautiful," Carol said.
"Glad you like her," Daryl said. "Got this gelding too. Good ride over here on him. He don't got a name neither. So if you keen on namin' things, reckon you can pick something out for the both of them."
Carol laughed at him.
"You don't want to name the horses?" Carol asked.
Daryl shrugged.
"If it was up to me? We'd be callin' 'em Paint an' Sorrell," Daryl responded. "I don't care too much about names. They never seem all that important."
"Paint and Sorrell would be just as good as anything else," Carol said. "But proper names might be nice, too. I don't have to name them tonight, do I?"
"You don't gotta name 'em never," Daryl said. "Not if you don't want to. What you doin' out here, anyway? This late? You do better to stay in the house as much as possible. Don't wanna be wanderin' around in the dark. Could be damn near anything out here."
"I heard you ride up," Carol said. "I heard the horses. I didn't know if it was you or...maybe Merle. I was worried that it wasn't you."
"All the damn more reason to stay your ass inside," Daryl said. "You didn't know who the hell was out here an' your solution was to come out? What if somethin' had happened to you?"
"That's why I came out!" Carol declared. "I was worried that something had happened to you. I was worried that Merle was going to come and tell me that something was wrong."
"But if it weren't me? Out here in the barn?" Daryl asked. "You come out here just puttin' yourself in a bad situation."
"Because I was worried about you!" Carol said. Her voice went up and her frustration was clear to Daryl. He swallowed and shook his head at her.
"But it ain't me I'm worried about," Daryl said. "I ain't worried about me. I know I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about—out here when you don't even know who you heard ridin' up in the first place."
Carol put her hand on her hip and then she dropped it with a sigh.
"I'm sorry," Carol said. "But I've been expecting you since the sun went down. I made your supper. I kept it warm as long as I could. Come in when it started to get too dark to stay outside waiting. What was I supposed to think?"
"You were supposed to think I was runnin' late," Daryl said. "You were supposed to think it was safer for you to stay inside."
Daryl felt the impact of Carol's facial expression in his chest. He swallowed down the ache.
Carol was always scared that he was going to simply up and disappear. She seemed to fear that he'd vanish into thin air. As a result, in between tasks that she did here and there, she would come out to wherever he was working to check on him. She'd bring him water. Maybe she'd bring him a leftover biscuit and some of the cold meat that she kept in a bowl on the table—always the leftovers from the last meal that they'd eaten—but Daryl had long since figured out that it was just something she was doing to have a reason to check in on him. The real reason for her random visits was to make sure that Daryl was there.
And whenever he went anywhere without her? Even if it was just as far as the Greene farm? She was always thrilled to see him come back as though she were genuinely surprised to see that he'd chosen to return home.
Daryl shook his head at her.
"I ain't leavin' you," Daryl said. "I'm always comin' right back here. But sometimes, like tonight, I'ma get caught up in things. Things are gonna take longer'n I thought they would. It's gonna take me longer'n I thought it would to get back. But—I'm comin' back. I promised you that. And I meant it."
Carol's expression didn't change entirely, so Daryl held his arms out to her. Like he expected, she came into his arms and wrapped her own tightly around his body. He felt the metal of the lamp handle that she was holding pressing into his back as she tried to manage holding them both at the same time. She buried her face in his chest and Daryl patted her back as he held her.
"I know you're coming back," Carol said. "If you can? I know you're coming back. I just got scared that—something would stop you."
Daryl hummed at her.
"Didn't nothin' stop me," Daryl said. He laughed to himself. "Hell—I don't know too much that can stop me. Not if I got a mind to stop it first."
Carol pulled away from him. Her eyes were red, but she wasn't actively crying.
"You can't always control it," Carol said.
"For now I can," Daryl said. "Come on. Let's get inside. It's late and I'm damn near starvin'."
Carol's frown, temporarily faded, renewed itself.
"Your supper's cold," Carol said. "I couldn't keep it warm any longer. It's probably no good."
Daryl smiled at her.
"You make it?" He asked.
She nodded her head.
"You know I did," Carol responded.
"What'cha make?" Daryl asked.
"Rabbit," Carol said. "Potatoes. Some beans that I got from Miss Jo."
"Biscuits?" Daryl asked.
"Always," Carol said with a sigh. "But they're cold too."
"Sounds just about the way I like it," Daryl said. "Come on, Carol. Let's go inside. Eat that cold supper."
Daryl blew out the lamp that he would leave in the barn and followed Carol out as she carried hers to light their path. He stopped to secure the barn doors and she stood by and held her light out to him to illuminate everything he might need to see. Daryl put a hand on her back to walk with her toward the house and opened the door for her when they got there.
The little house was every bit as clean and organized as it ever was. Carol had spent her day doing all her normal chores and, maybe, she'd even done a few more to keep her concerned mind busy. Supper was laid out on the table, as it always was, and Daryl quickly sat down to it while Carol went about her usual shuffling around of offering him biscuits and pouring fresh water into cups for the both of them. Daryl didn't start eating until Carol finally sat and prepared to tuck into the food that she'd served onto her own plate. Daryl handed her over a couple of the biscuits out of the bowl she'd put down, without her asking for them, and he made something of a show of smelling the food that he'd been served probably hours before.
"Smells damn near like heaven," Daryl said.
"You don't have to say that," Carol said, still looking sullen over the fact that the meal was cold and not up to her self-set standards.
"Don't gotta say nothin'," Daryl said. "But that don't mean I can't. Food smells good. Ever' bit as good as I coulda asked for it to smell."
"It's cold," Carol said. "It isn't right to serve you a cold supper. You haven't had a proper meal all day."
Daryl laughed to himself and started eating. The food tasted every bit as good as it smelled. It was delicious. And given how hungry Daryl felt, it seemed every bit as amazing as the food that Carol usually put in front of him.
"If this ain't a proper meal," Daryl said. "Then I don't know that I ever tasted one."
"You think other husbands sit down to cold food?" Carol asked, still feeling sorry over her own plate.
Daryl wasn't sure what to do because she seemed to be feeling sorry because she figured that he was going to be somehow bothered by the meal. That wasn't the case at all, though, and he didn't know how to get her to understand that he was happy with what he had. He was happy with every single element of the evening—other than her wandering down to the barn in the dark, alone, of course.
"I figure they gotta," Daryl said. "Especially if they said they'd be home at a reasonable hour for food but then they ain't showed up 'til way on after the sun went down. They ain't no way around that." Daryl sighed and sat back from the table, abandoning his food for a moment. "I don't want you sitting there sulking in your food all night, Carol. It's a fine meal. Good as any was ever put in front of nobody. I was late—and I'm sorry for that. But I didn't know what all we had to do today. I didn't know it was gonna take all day."
Carol looked at him like she was surprised. Her mouth formed something of a soft "o" as she considered what she might say to him. She shook her head at him, finally.
"I'm not cross that you were out late," Carol said. "Please don't think I am. I know you were doing what you had to be doing for the farm. For us. I can't be cross about you doing what you have to do."
"But you so damn sorry about the food that it's makin' my gut turn wrong-side out," Daryl said. "I don't think you mad at me, Carol, but I don't want you bein' mad at you neither!"
"A good wife would've had you a hot meal," Carol said.
Daryl shook his head at her.
"A good wife woulda had me a hot meal at the hour that I was s'posed to be here," Daryl said. "And you did, didn't you?" Carol nodded her head. "And a good wife woulda served me what she had when I got home to eat it. And you did, didn't you?" Carol nodded her head. "Then that's the best kinda way a wife could be by my reckoning," Daryl insisted, picking up his fork again. He shook his head at her once more and pointed at her with the end of his fork. "Ain't gonna listen to it no more. Meal's good. Cold sets in the flavor. Why I like what's left over for breakfast so damn much in the mornin'. Eat, Carol. It's way on late and I'm tired. Know you must be too."
Carol picked up her own fork and started eating, finally. She didn't eat with the same enthusiasm that she usually employed at supper, but she ate fine. At the very least, she stopped apologizing for the temperature of the food.
"Sold everything I took to sell," Daryl said. Carol nodded her head. "Got good prices for it all. We ain't rich, but we got enough to plant again. Get some cattle. Bought them horses. Miss Jo's givin' you a few more chicks and—I got you a couple things that I'ma bring over in the mornin' from the Greene farm."
"You take care of me, Daryl. Better than I could ever expect," Carol said softly as her only response. She wasn't much into talking business with Daryl. She'd listen to him, for however long he might want to talk about things, but she never said much of anything one way or another. She seemed content to let Daryl handle everything. She just handled all the daily things that a wife was supposed to handle.
She handled all the things that Daryl felt like he needed to keep him going. She handled everything that made it all worthwhile.
Even if the supper was cold, it was supper that his wife had made him. And it would keep his belly from aching while he slept, just as it should. And he would sleep, as he already knew, better than any man even had a right to sleep. Carol would see to that.
Daryl reached his hand over and gently brushed the backs of his fingers against Carol's cheek. She jerked away from him—clearly surprised by the touch and caught up in her thoughts—but then she leaned into his fingers as something of an apology for pulling away in the first place. Daryl smiled at her when she rolled her eyes in his direction.
"You take care of me, too, Carol," Daryl assured her with a nod of his head. "Better'n I could ever expect."