It almost felt absurd feel so happy in the world that they lived in. In fact, it felt so foreign that Rick had Judith fed and dressed had washed his own face and changed his clothes before he even really figured out what the sensation was that was coursing through his body and making him, without reason and for the first time in more time than he cared to admit, smile to himself with nothing to prompt it.
And breakfast, though "the same old thing" and served "the same old way," tasted far better than it normally did while Rick worked his way through his allotment of it.
It didn't hurt, of course, that at the moment he was stealing glances at Carol and enjoying the view as she worked and talked with Michonne, and he was feeling like he was allowed to do just that.
He was allowed to look at her.
And more than once? He caught her looking at him. And once? He caught the corners of her mouth, ever so quickly, turning up into a smile.
A smile, for him, from her—it felt so strange. It felt as out of place as all the other feelings he was having. And it was beautiful.
"Rick…Rick…Did you hear me?" Tyreese asked.
Rick turned quickly toward him. Nope. He hadn't heard him. He'd missed most of what everyone had been saying. Their voices had been turned into little more than a buzz, and that wasn't the best thing for right now either.
"What?" Rick asked.
"I was asking about tonight," Tyreese said. "Seems a shame to just leave all this food. We could use the break. We could use a chance to just—breathe."
Rick nodded his head.
Breathe. They could all use a chance to breathe. Their location seemed pretty safe. Everyone was comfortable. It wasn't a long term solution, but there really wasn't much lost if they lost another day in their progress toward the unknown.
Just one more day.
"Yeah," Rick said. "Yeah…we…uh…we'll stay the night. We'll eat out of the extra stock and save ours. Everyone gets hot water today if we can manage. Extra baths. Restock water and everyone spends the day resting."
Tyreese looked somewhat pleased with the suggestion and nodded his head along with Rick's words.
"I'll see what we can do to get the water going," Tyreese responded.
Rick nodded his acceptance of that and then watched as Tyreese walked toward the woman that he'd been looking at all day to discuss with her the fires they were burning in the empty pool fenced in behind the hotel.
And Rick caught her throw him a quick glance and another of the half smiles before she got to work organizing a plan of attack for gathering more things to burn and gathering the water that was needed, immediately in her element—directing people to get things done.
He felt, in the moment, that it was confirmed—if he hadn't been sure of it before. She was the kind of woman that Rick knew he could lead with.
She was the kind of woman that he wanted by his side.
In more ways than one.
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Breaking up extra furniture was easier than going out to gather wood if they were looking to stay in the hotel, but since they had to go out to gather water at any rate, water that they'd need to bathe, boil to carry with them, and use to wash their clothes so that they might feel at least a little clean, Carol figured it was better just to send people out in "shifts" to bring back both water and wood.
That way, the furniture they would have burned stayed in the hotel.
It wasn't, of course, that she had any particular fondness for the furnishings, but she knew that, at the rate they were planning on burning through things, they'd make it through most of what they had available just to take care of these regular tasks and prepare food. Then, if something happened and they were trapped, if they needed it for any reason, they'd be without anything to start fires.
It was better to gather wood while they could and save that surrounding them as something of a "backup" plan.
So she'd organized the shifts of people who would go out and she'd put some of the others, like Eugene and Noah, that weren't that great at "going outside" doing laundry and helping keep the fires burning to heat the water that was coming back. They were being helped, in intervals, by anyone who needed a break and didn't want to continue the trailing back and forth.
When Daryl brought a load of wood in, having unloaded it, no doubt, from the wagon outside, he dropped it hard enough that it echoed in the space. It was given to echoing, at any rate, simply because it was the bottom of a dried out pool, but there was a good deal of force behind the drop.
"Good Lord, Daryl," Carol muttered.
For a moment he almost looked amused at the noise that he'd managed to make. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out cigarette, straightening it from where it had gotten bent, and placed it between his lips.
Carol could tell, just from the slight glimmer of something in his eyes, that he was put in a better mood just by having the break, the same as all of them, but she could also tell that there might be something else there—he wanted to talk to her.
He always had a certain expression, whether he was aware of it or not, that said he wanted to talk to her. It was a look that he always got before he found a "reason" to lead her away from others.
So this time, rather than wait for him to come up with something, Carol waved her arm and signaled that she was interested in going outside of the pool area. He followed her lead and walked with her as she mounted the steps and crossed over to the little area that was something like a patio apart.
"What's up?" He asked, drawing on his cigarette.
"You tell me," Carol said. She tipped her head to the side. She wondered if he knew about last night. She wondered if he was amused by that. She could see him being in a good mood for the break, simply because of the fact that everyone needed some rest, but she felt there was something more there.
His face changed. The smile from before was gone and he looked out of the patio area, surveying the landscape that was just beyond them for a moment—two or three Walkers stumbling in the distance to ruin what might have, otherwise, been a very nice view—and then he looked back at her.
"You pulled me over here and you don't got nothin' for me to do?" He asked.
Carol nodded her head slightly.
"So you're not going to tell me what's up?" Carol asked.
He hummed, rocked on his feet—all the actions that he normally did when he was trying to stall talking to her. Carol was struck because these actions, along with a few others that hadn't made their appearance as of yet but were, undoubtedly, coming, were the types of things that had made her sure that he wasn't ever going to be prepared to take their relationship beyond what it was right now.
These were things that made her sure it was so much better to simply be his friend. And to let him be her friend.
A friend was a wonderful thing, after all, and they were precious commodities in this world.
"I'm going to—check on the laundry," Carol said, making up one of the many tasks she could involve herself in if she wanted to. Really? She was just looking for a reason to break this up before he grew any more uncomfortable with her undivided attention.
"You look happy," Daryl said. "That's all. You—look so damn happy. And over dirty ass drawers."
He chuckled to himself and looked at her, his lip curling up. There was a twitch at his eyebrow.
Carol couldn't help but smile in response.
"And you look happy too," she said. "I'm happy for that."
She started to walk off after a moment and only turned back when she heard him bark her name. She turned back to find him standing there, staring at her. But he never said anything. He was waiting for her to say something else. She knew it. He was waiting for her to tease him. He expected, because the moment was light hearted and everyone was feeling good for a split second—a snapshot of happiness—for things to be like they used to be, back when they were different people.
But it wasn't in her right now. So when she knew he wasn't going to say anything, and she knew what he expected, she simply offered him a smile—the best that she could—and she turned and headed back down into the pool area to check on things and help where she could to make a good evening for them all.
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Rick wasn't even trying to spoil the feelings he had by trying to remember the last time he felt this way. He wasn't trying to make sense of it or rationalize it. He didn't want to work through it or think about it.
All he wanted, in this moment, was to enjoy it.
And that was something that he hadn't wanted, for himself, in a very long time. Judith, washed and offered a warm bottle, in lieu of the room temperature one she was used to, along with some baby food that they'd found on their run, was the easiest to get to sleep that she'd ever been before.
Carl, however, didn't seem as keen on going to sleep as Rick might have wanted, and ignored entirely Rick's protest that he would need his rest since they'd be walking again just after sun up.
So Rick had done what any responsible father, dying to be relieve of his responsibilities for just a while, would have done and he'd offered Carl the lamp and a small reserve of comic books that he'd been carrying around—as something of a special surprise for the boy—in exchange for the simple promise that he'd read them and then go to sleep.
And consequently, that he wouldn't be bothered by Rick's absence.
"Where are you going?" Carl asked when Rick started out of the room.
"I've got a few things to take care of," Rick said. "Some—nothing serious. Just some talk about—future plans. Read those and go to sleep. I'll be back."
Carl seemed to accept the explanation easily enough and Rick wondered if it wasn't simply because he wanted some time alone himself. After all, they were always piled up under one another and Rick was under no impression that the joy that most people were finding in the hotel was that they had a chance to be alone—even if he was letting himself believe that Carl, and everyone else for that matter, only desired to be alone with their thoughts.
He—and Carol by default—were clearly the only two that wanted their "alone time" for different reasons. And that was how he'd keep from thinking anything that he simply didn't want to think at the moment.
He made his way through the hallway, fully prepared to make up some story about going for more water or for some kind of snack for Judith, if need be, but he wasn't interrupted by anyone. They were all either tucked away in their rooms or on watch, and those on watch were at a great enough distance from the main hallway that they were paying little attention to the coming and going of others.
He tapped at Carol's door, but barely had his knuckle made contact twice before she pulled it open and very nearly dragged him inside so that he closed the door after him.
Rick almost lunged at Carol, and catching her, he pulled her against him, kissing her quickly and finding the side of her mouth first before he repeated the action twice to work his way to her lips. She kissed him back and he pulled her tighter into his body, bringing his hands down to catch her and lift her body.
She responded the only way that she really could respond, at the moment, by wrapping her arms around his neck and letting her legs wrap around his body, helping him to support her. He carried her directly to the bed and rested her there, letting go of her but not removing his hands from her body, choosing instead to rub them over her form and catch the bottom of her shirt to pull it up.
But she stopped him.
And the moment she stopped him, he backed up slightly.
"What?" He asked, his breath already slightly ragged.
She shook her head gently at him.
"Not yet," she said. "We—I need to talk to you. We need to talk about this—about what this is."
Rick felt his stomach drop.
Because those were the kinds of conversations that didn't always end well. And they were the kinds of conversations that didn't end quickly—certainly not quickly enough for this to happen before their time was up and Rick would be forced to return to his room to comfort Judith.
And Rick hadn't exactly thought about this enough to feel confident trying to answer anything she might ask. He hadn't prepared for this—he'd been too wrapped up in the heat of the moment.
As reckless as it was, he'd been too wrapped up in feeling almost like a teenager. He'd kept, intact, his concerns about the group moving on, but he had lost all sense of responsibility or concern for the moment when it came to Carol and what was happening between them—whatever it actually was.
He shook his head slightly at her.
"What do you want it to be?" He asked.
"I don't know," she said, the same uncertainty that she'd expressed the night before over what she wanted in bed apparent in her voice. "What do you want?"
Rick stood there, unable to answer that question any better than she had.
If she was asking in the long term? If she was asking about what he wanted—as far down the road as the road stretched? Rick didn't know. At least, not with certainty. And he certainly didn't express, in that moment, the words that would be necessary to tell her everything that he was thinking in any way that would make sense.
He hadn't prepared for this. He needed to prepare. He needed the time that it would take to really consider it from all angles and to figure out exactly how he wanted to present things to her.
He shook his head at her.
"Right now?" He asked. "You. I just…want you. I don't have any answer beyond that. I haven't thought about anything beyond that."
He felt almost sheepish admitting it to her, but he felt like he might as well be honest with her instead of making up some kind of lie simply to appease her. After all, they weren't exactly in a world where he could just "escape" her to avoid being called out about anything he said. If that were the case, it wouldn't feel like, despite his many apologies, he still had to live with the ever-present and gnawing guilt of what had happened between them—what he'd done to her—when he'd left her alone in the cul de sac.
He didn't try to interpret the expression on her face. All that he needed to know was that she didn't look entirely displeased with what he'd said.
"Is that enough?" He asked. "I know…it isn't much. I know that…it's probably not enough. But, right now? I only know that I want you…"
Carol looked at him, glanced away, and he was sure that he'd lost her. He'd lost whatever this was, even if it didn't have a name. Even if he couldn't explain it. It was lost. It didn't need more explanation because it wouldn't matter at any rate.
She brought her eyes back to him, a hint of something slightly pained on her face. And then she nodded at him.
"It's enough," she said. "Right now? Tonight? It's enough."
Rick thought, though he could never be sure, that he understood what she was trying to say. Right now? At this moment? It was enough.
But she would be expecting more. And he was going to be sure, when next she asked it of him, that he had an answer for her. The kind of answer that he was already beginning to formulate in his mind. The kind of answer that he became even just a bit more sure of when she reached for him and pulled his face toward her for the next connection between their lips. The kind of answer that she deserved from him.
When next she asked for it?
Rick would have an answer for her.