AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol had been barking out commands that didn't even need to be given in the effort to keep people from asking her questions or suggesting anything about a relationship with Rick.
She was giving him the chance to tell Carl first. Even though he was currently back there—in the room where Carl was sleeping—supposedly sharing this information with his son, she wasn't risking saying anything to anyone else.
Rick wasn't exactly known for always sticking to what he said. He wasn't exactly known for always following through. He was, however, very well known for changing his mind.
Carol didn't want to assume that promises made in some sort of afterglow moment wouldn't be quickly backed out of when Rick faced his teenage son—a boy who had so many things to be angry about but still seemed to invent a few more every now and again. If he backed out of telling Carl? She didn't want Carl to step into the main part of the house only to find out from someone there what his father hadn't been able to bring himself to say.
So whenever anyone had a approached her, while she'd worked to get a pit for the fire dug in the yard of the farmhouse so that the flames might be hidden from the sight of any Walkers—and anyone else who might have an interest in them—so that they could have hot food for breakfast, she'd simply barked out another order of something that needed to be done without waiting to hear the reason of their approach.
The only two that watched her, really, with knowing eyes were Daryl and Michonne. There was something else there—in Daryl's expression—when he watched her out of the side of his eyes, but Michonne simply smirked every now again, her lips quivering with her effort not to make any expression at all and failing at it to some lesser degree.
When Carl and Rick came out of the farmhouse, though, as though they were coming to check the progress of the breakfast that was being prepared, Carol felt a tapping at her shoulder. She turned, expecting it to be Rick and expecting him to offer her nothing more than a shake of his head, to find that Carl was standing directly behind her. His expression wasn't a smile, but it was soft.
Carol got up from the crouching position she'd taken, tending the baby flames she was nurturing into something more, and wiped her hands on her pants to wait for some reaction from him.
Maybe she hadn't expected it, but when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a strong—although quick—hug, she returned it and understood the gesture for what it was. She didn't press him for the words that he didn't seem quite ready to offer—and that he might never really be ready to give.
Rick smiled at the sight from where he was standing, a few feet off with Judith in his arms, and then he stepped forward to take Carl's place when Carl moved quickly away and "busied" himself with the first task that he could find to keep his hands busy.
Rick slipped an arm around Carol's shoulder and then got the attention of everyone there. Carol pretended, for her part, that she didn't hear the nerves shaking his voice ever so slightly when he requested something of an audience with everyone.
Michonne smiled then, giving away that she'd been waiting for it, and Carol thought—though she might've imagined—that a number of other people had somewhat knowing expressions on their faces.
"Maybe there is a need for formal announcements," Rick said, "and maybe there isn't. Either way—I'm making one. Carol and I are..."
He stopped, suddenly, like the words got caught in his throat and Carol waited as patiently as she could—just like everyone else—for him to finish.
He cleared his throat, moving the hung words out of the way, and then he continued.
"We don't know what to call it," Rick said, his tone of voice different. "I don't know—if any of the old rules apply and it was a long time—a very long time—since I've done anything like this. So—I don't know what I would've said even back then. We're trying this. We're trying us. And we're—not trying to hide it anymore from any of you."
Everyone looked at them, most of them almost frozen and blinking, until it seemed that no one had the ability to move or to speak at all.
Really, just as she and Rick didn't know what to call it—or how to tell others about it—it seemed that no one else really knew how to respond to it. It was as if they were waiting, now that the "news" had been announced, to be dismissed.
Of course, Carol hadn't really expected any kind of fanfare about the whole thing.
"Well," she said, "if we're going to have breakfast—and get on the road? Someone needs to bring me a box of supplies."
Tyreese, immediately, moved to do just that. Her words and his movement served to break whatever trance had fallen over everyone else and they began to go back to what they'd been doing before.
"We're not leaving tonight," Rick said quickly. "We're staying another day at least. The fences here will hold, and we could all use the break."
"You mean you could use the honeymoon," Glenn called out, his words stirring everyone to laugh. Carol, too, found them amusing.
Rick chuckled quietly.
"All right," he said. "You earned that."
"Everyone's known forever," Michonne muttered. "It's about time we could start talking about it in more than a whisper."
Carol went back to her cooking, immediately, and thanked Tyreese when he came with the box that she'd asked for, putting it near her on the ground.
"OK," Rick commented, walking around with Judith in tow, "we've had our fun. I was thinking, though, that we could go out today—check houses that are close by. Gather up food, water—necessities we always need? If we're staying the night, we might as well make good use of the day."
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Carol didn't think that Glenn was too far off with what he'd said. It did feel like something of a honeymoon.
They'd left dinner together, said goodnight, and gone to their room together—all in open view of everyone else. There was no secret sneaking about at night. There was no "night guest" showing up outside the room.
They went to their room together. They went to bed together.
It was hardly a honeymoon, but in some ways it felt like one. And in those same ways? It also made Carol just a little uncomfortable. It made her feel like there was something new and strange about the night, even if her brain understood that the unusual feeling of unease in her stomach was entirely irrational.
Rick must have noticed it, though, because when he entered into the room—the very one they'd shared the night before under the cloak of secrecy—he immediately started to strip out of his clothes in front of the table that held the two pots of clean water they'd brought in for bathing, but he stopped before he'd fully gotten out of his pants and looked at her with a puzzled expression.
"Something—something wrong?" He asked.
Maybe her uneasy stomach was putting expressions on her face that she didn't mean to make.
Carol shook her head and laughed to herself now that he'd brought attention to it. She swallowed.
"What Glenn said this morning," Carol said. "About it being a honeymoon for us? It's silly, but—it kind of feels like one, doesn't it?"
Rick seemed to consider it a moment. He smiled, a soft laugh barely escaping his lips.
"I guess it does," he said. "Though—I have to admit that I felt more out of place talking about it today than I feel now. This? It just feels—right—to me."
He finished coming out of his pants so that they were no longer a hobble about his ankles and then he walked over to her, running his finger just in the elastic band of his underwear like he was stretching them for the relief of having come out of the slightly more restrictive jeans.
"You alright?" He asked. "You're not uncomfortable?"
Carol laughed to herself again, this time at her own ridiculousness.
"I'm fine," she said. "Just—as strange as it sounds? Just a little nervous."
Rick smiled and reached a hand up, touching the side of her face. He cupped her jaw in his hand and leaned forward, kissing her softly. The kiss was enough to help with erasing much of the nerves that she'd been feeling.
Overthinking things, maybe, made her feel uncomfortable. But he was right, at least when it came to the kiss. Something just felt right. And now? It was right and out in the open.
She smiled at him when he broke the kiss and he almost looked shy about it, ducking his head a second before he turned back and returned to his spot in front of the pots. He dipped a finger in each of them and then waved her over.
"Come on," he said. "This is the warmest. You take it—but it won't wait for long."
Carol accepted the gesture and came over, stripping out of her own clothes now with the same comfortable nature that he'd shown.
She dipped her washcloth into the water, thanked Rick for the cake of soap that he offered her, and started to scrub off the grime of the day. It always seemed that, as she washed away the dirt, dust, and whatever else had coated her skin during the day, she also washed into herself the fatigue that she should feel at night. It didn't always mean that she would sleep—sometimes her mind wouldn't allow it and she couldn't wash it clean—but it meant that she would almost always feel like she should sleep.
And, at the moment? Her mind wasn't plaguing her like it normally did. At the moment? The voices that reminded her of everything that kept her awake at night were still and quiet.
There was nothing, just for a moment, except what was right in front of her.
She watched as Rick washed himself—she wondered if he felt the same way. She wondered if the voices plagued him too. And, for once, she really wondered what they said to him—if all the voices were the same or not.
She laughed quietly to herself at the thought.
"What?" Rick asked, a quick smile flitting across his lips because of her amusement.
"It's stupid," she said. "Just—a stupid thought."
Rick hummed.
"It just so happens," he said, "that I don't mind stupid thoughts too much. What is it?"
Carol swallowed.
"Do you have—voices in your head?" Carol asked.
He furrowed his brow at her and she realized how the question sounded. She shook her head quickly.
"I don't mean like—I hear voices, voices," Carol corrected. "Just—when you're trying to sleep? Do you hear this—this voice? That just—it just reminds you of everything that you don't want to think about?"
Rick stared at her. She worried, then, that he was going to think she was absolutely insane. Maybe he was going to think that he'd done right by leaving her on the side of the road to save them all from witnessing the moment she began to fashion hats for herself out of aluminum foil. His features softened, though, and he nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah—I think—I think everybody does."
Carol smiled with the relief that he hadn't thought her absolutely mad.
"I was just thinking that—right now? I'm really tired. And that's usually when they start—when I'm tired and want to sleep the most. But tonight? Right now? They aren't there. They're just—quiet," Carol said.
Rick hummed.
"Funny," he said.
Carol hummed in her throat to push him on into explaining his comment.
He smirked at her.
"Mine won't shut up," he said. "Right now? They just keep..."
He broke off, laughed to himself, and then continued again. Carol thought she might have seen him blush ever so slightly.
"They just keep telling me that—a beautiful woman is standing in front of me, naked and ready to go to bed—and I'm just wasting my time, standing here and listening to them," Rick said.
Carol gave him her best suggestive look, raising her eyebrows at him, even though she wasn't sure how suggestive it really was. She'd never really had practice with that sort of thing—she'd seldom issued any invitation to Ed and there really hadn't been any other opportunity for her to practice such a thing beyond a few failed attempts with Daryl.
"I guess you need to make them be quiet, then," Carol said. "What—what do you think might—quieten them down?"
Rick smiled. Either her powers of suggestion were functioning well—or he was simply accepting them for what they were.
He moved, pressing his body against hers even as he pulled her into him—the cool dampness of their skin contrasted by the heat of their naked bodies touching—and he dipped his head to kiss her neck, trailing his tongue there enough to send a shiver through her that was far more violent than even those brought about by the cold water and cool air.
"I've got some ideas," Rick said, whispering in her ear and sealing the statement with a nip of her earlobe that made the shiver repeat itself. "But—if you're too tired?"
Carol swallowed and was hyper aware of the sound of it in her ears, next to her fast and pounding pulse, until she was sure that he could hear both.
"Suddenly—I'm not as tired anymore," she said. "Strange how that happens."
Rick chuckled.
"Strange," he repeated. "But—tomorrow's an early morning. On the road just at sunrise."
"I think," Carol said, "that we've got a little time. After all—it wouldn't be fair for me to leave you awake with your voices while mine are sleeping."