The prison library had a hell of a lot of Bibles.
Daryl's thoughtful eyes scanned the mismatched spines - black, brown, white, and orange - lined with a cryptic array of letters - RSV, NASB, NKJ, NIV, ESV. He took hold of the King James Version, because that was the translation he'd always seen in church, all four times he'd gone.
The first time, he was six, and his mother, who was perhaps a little buzzed at the time, had been struck with a sudden notion that he and Merle needed to get saved. She dragged them down to the revival at Second Baptist Church and urged them to go up during the altar call. Daryl had little idea what was happening, but he said the words his mother told him to say to the preacher, who made him repeat a prayer, phrase by phrase, and then put him in a line of other people who were sorry for their sins. Daryl watched in horror as each person before him was shoved under that strangely blue water and then pulled back up again. He awaited his turn with a growing dread. Merle went before him and winked in Daryl's direction just before he went under.
Daryl walked cautiously into the baptismal font. The waters had come up only to Merle's waist, but they rose three-quarters of the way up Daryl's chest. The pastor lay one hand on Daryl's back and, with the other, painfully pinched his nostrils shut. A sudden panic seized him when he couldn't breathe, until it occurred to him that he just had to open his mouth. He did open it, about the same time that man ducked him under the cool water, and it felt like he swallowed an ocean full. Daryl came up sputtering and coughing, but to a chorus of applause. It was the last time anyone would ever clap for him again.
The baptism scared him, but Daryl had liked the clapping, and he'd liked the little, curly blonde neighbor girl who had leaned over the back of his pew when he returned to it. She'd smiled and said, "Congratulations." Most of all, he'd like all those white and brown powdered donuts lining the fake silver trays in the foyer, next to pitchers and pitchers of bright orange juice. So, two months later, when they still hadn't gone back to that church, Daryl asked his mother why. She ruffled his then light blonde hair and said, "Daryl, honey, once saved always saved!" Then she'd gone an opened a box of wine.
So he hung out by the curly blonde girls's cabin one Sunday morning, which was about half a mile from his own. He put on his least ripped pair of pants and his one and only button-down shirt - which was just a little stained - and he waited at the bottom of their front porch stairs. The family came out in their Sunday best - no rips, no stains - and found him standing there. "You're Will Dixon's boy, ain't ya?" the father asked cautiously, as if being Will Dixon's boy might not be a good thing.
"Yes, sir," Daryl answered.
"What can I do you for?"
"Y'all goin' to church?" he asked shyly.
They took him along. The service was more boring than he expected, and he kept waiting for it to be over so he could hit those trays of donuts. Mama had forgotten to fix dinner last night, Daddy was out who knew where, and Merle had stayed at a girlfriend's. There'd been no cereal in the pantry that morning for breakfast, and no milk or juice in the fridge. He was so very hungry.
So when it was time for communion - which he had never seen before - and that silver tray with the loaf of bread on it came around - instead of pulling off a single pinch of a piece, he picked up the entire loaf and bit right into it, tearing off a large chunk with his teeth, chewing, and then swallowing it in one hungry gulp. Shocked, the curly-haired girl's mother ripped the bread from his hand.
The neighbors never took him to church again. Daryl didn't set foot in one for two years, when he had to attend his mother's closed-casket funeral. He just kept imagining her burned, charred body in that casket while trying to ignore the half-high girlfriend his father had brought to the occasion.
Eight months later, Daryl's grandmother died, and he went to church again. Will Dixon forced him to go up and plant a kiss on MawMaw's forehead in the open casket, under the threat of a "solid ass kickin'" if he didn't "pay his goddamn respects." Daryl walked up to the casket, sandwiched between Merle, who had just gotten out of juvie, and his father. He watch Merle bend and kiss her forehead, like it was nothing to him, and then walk back to the pew. Daryl followed his example.
MawMaw's flesh reeked of some baby-powder-like scent, and it felt strangely cool and rubbery beneath his lips. He couldn't stop thinking that he'd just kissed a dead woman. When he got back to the pew and sat down, he vomited all over the red plush carpet. His stomach, still seizing from the sudden eruption, clinched in on itself when his father turned from the casket, took the five steps to the pew, and looked down at the rancid chunks on the floor.
"It was me," Merle said, and later that night he took the beating that should have been Daryl's.
That was the last time Daryl set foot in a church. He didn't go to his father's funeral ten years later.
Now, the black, leather-bound Bible strangely light in his hands, Daryl settled onto the window seat. The pages rustled loudly when he turned them.
He wandered aimlessly through the pages, stopping here and there when a header caught his interest. He read about Jacob working seven years for Rachel, the service made light by his love for her, and how he'd gotten tricked by his father-in-law and ended up married to Leah instead. Daryl didn't feel bad for Jacob for getting tricked. He felt bad for Leah, and wondered what that night was like for her, being made to marry a man who didn't love her or want her. He wondered if that was what Carol had felt like her entire marriage to Ed.
Daryl skipped several books and read the story of King David, a tale of adultery, murder, betrayal, war, and friendship. It was the story of a man who had done things as bloody and as morally questionable as any one of them had ever done, and yet he was declared "a man after God's own heart." Daryl read, too, of Jonathan, the prince who had grown up with an erratic, violent father but who became David's best friend and right hand man. "And his soul was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." Daryl wondered what it would be like to have a friend like that, a friend who was closer than a brother.
Daryl looked up from the Bible when he heard the door to the library click shut. Rick strolled inside. Daryl didn't try to abruptly hide the fact that he'd been reading this time, but he did stand up and leave the Bible face down on the windowsill.
"Hey, man," Rick said. "I'm looking for some books on gardening."
Daryl nodded to a bookcase in the corner. "Over there."
Rick made his way to the case, and Daryl began to make his way out of the library, though he paused near Rick when he asked, "You know this library pretty well, huh?"
Daryl shrugged. "Guess."
Rick pulled out one of the books. "What were you reading over there?"
"Bible."
Rick took another book and then turned to face Daryl. "I never pegged you for a religious man."
"Ain't. Just readin'. I's bored."
"Well, if you're bored, you can help me and Carl with the planting."
"I ain't much for gardenin'," Daryl said. "More a hunter than a farmer."
"Well, it takes all kinds to make a world." Rick tucked the books under his arm. "I think we're building something here. Building for the future."
Daryl glanced at Rick's hands, the hands he'd seen red with blood many times. They were black with dirt. "Ya really think there's a future to build for?"
"I've got to think there is. Otherwise, what's the point?"
Daryl nodded.
"Michonne keeps wanting to chase the Governor," Rick told him, "keeps putting herself at risk out there, but I think it's time to put down roots."
"Not sure it's time to be beatin' our swords into plowshares just yet."
"It can't be all about killing all the time," Rick told him. "That's what I'm trying to teach Carl. I know he's growing up in a harsh world, but maybe, one day …" Rick took in a deep breath, as if he wasn't even quite sure what to hope for.
"Maybe he'll be the one to build the temple."
"What?" Rick asked.
"Nothin'," Daryl muttered. "Just…thinkin' out loud."
"I don't think temples are a priority right now."
"Nah. 'Course not," Daryl agreed. "Just...King David's boy Solomon built the temple, 'stead of David. 'Cause David had too much blood on his hands."
"I do want Carl to be a man of peace. That's why I took his gun away."
That was a terrible idea, Daryl thought. No one should be unarmed in this world. Ever. At any time. Even in the shower. "Ya sure that's such a good idea?"
"Hershel thought Carl didn't need to shoot that boy."
"Yeah?" Daryl asked. "Hershel also thought it was a good idea to keep them walkers alive in the barn."
"I'm doing what I feel like I have to do," Rick said, "as a father."
"Well I don't know nothin' 'bout bein' a father." Daryl had never wanted children, not after the way he'd grown up. He was sure he'd be a shitty parent, and he was never going to risk turning into his own father. But when he'd been searching for Sophia, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have a daughter of his own, to feel what Carol was feeling then - like your heart was walking around outside your chest somewhere. "So long as ya don't expect none of the rest of us to lay down our arms, way Hershel did."
"I'm just being a dad," Rick assured him. "You aren't my son."
"Damn right. Ain't nobody's son."
"Well, we're all somebody's son."
Instinctively, Daryl clenched his teeth. "I never let my own dumb ass father tell me what to do neither."
"I guess he didn't earn your respect then. But I'm hoping to earn Carl's."
Daryl wondered what he'd be like today, if he'd had a father more like Rick Grimes than one like Will Dixon. A man who wasn't ashamed to say he loved him, who taught him to garden, who kept an eye on him, who knew where he was most of the time. "Ya ain't doin' a bad job."
Daryl was heading for the door when Rick stopped him by calling his name. He turned.
"Listen," Rick said. "I've been wanting to thank you."
"For?"
"You really stepped up when I was...you know, having my problems." That was one way to put his trip to crazy town, Daryl thought. "Not just by leading as part of the Council, but...I owe a lot to you. You made sure Judith didn't go hungry."
"Weren't nothin'. Ain't gonna let a baby starve."
Rick smiled. "Beth said you were really good with her, that there were a couple days there when she'd only take the bottle from you."
Daryl shrugged.
Rick stepped toward him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Well, thank you."
Daryl looked down at the man's hand against his leather jacket. He wasn't used to being thanked. Or appreciated. "Sure," he muttered, and made his getaway through the library door.
[*]
"'S yer favorite book in the Bible?" Daryl asked Carol as he shoveled a spoonful of venison stew into his mouth. They'd had venison steak last night. Stew today. That deer he'd bagged was gone now.
Carol wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Interesting question coming from you."
"Then don't answer," he snapped.
"It wasn't an insult," she said, her tone half-soothing and half-annoyed. "I'm just not used to you making small talk. I didn't say I didn't like it."
Daryl stared into his bowl. "Just thought ya read it is all. Said somethin' once, 'bout yer faith gettin' ya through."
"I guess Ruth. You know..." she shrugged. "Because it's a nice love story. And because Ruth's strong. She survives all sorts of loss. She has to leave her world behind and becomes a stranger in a strange land. But she works hard, and she's smart, too. She has the sense to pick an honorable man. And she's also ballsy."
"Ballsy?" Daryl asked. He didn't know this story.
"At night, she sneaks onto the threshing floor and lies down at Boaz's feet and says - throw your cloak over me."
"Is that like askin' him to - "
"- Marry her."
"Oh. That ain't what I was gonna say."
"It's symbolic," Carol explained. "The cloak. It means taking her under his protection."
"Mhmhm. So she goes in late at night, sneaky like, and lies down next to him, and tells him to take off his clothes. And that's symbolic?"
Carol seemed to consider this. She chuckled to herself a little.
"Sound like a preacher tryin' to 'splain away a good fu - " He stopped himself. "Fun." He blushed.
"Well, Boaz did marry her."
Beth came around, clearing the bowls. Carol got sidetracked into a conversation with Maggie, and Daryl slipped off to his cell where he replaced the strings on his bow with some he'd found on a recent run. Then he cleaned his gun. Then he thought about going to bed because there was nothing better to do. He was yanking off his boots when he sensed a familiar presence in the doorway of his cell, and his heart paused a beat. He looked up at Carol, who was dressed for bed. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said, that teasing lilt to her voice, "want to come lie at my feet?"
Daryl took off his other boot. He stood in his stocking feet and grabbed his crossbow. "Sure."
When he was sitting on the bottom bed of the bunk, and Carol had a hand on the ladder leading to the top, she bent quickly and kissed his cheek. The breath went out of him, and his hands curled around the metal bar below his mattress. "Goodnight, Daryl," she said, and climbed up and lay down.
Daryl swallowed and swung his legs into the bunk, lay his head on the pillow, and stared up at the coils, which lingered as a faint shadow when she clicked off the light.