HGRHfan35 - You're right, there is a distinct lack of kissing in this fic...needs more...lots more. I'm working on fixing the broken Caryl machine! I'm working! But my spanner is all wrong and there's a part that's on back order...
Dianaxoxo - I would love to do it! I think it would be a great idea too!
A True Dreamer - No one will ever be over that tragedy, my friend. No one. *still bummed out too*
zerogravityganja - Soon...*rubs hands together* soooooon...
AFishNamedSushi - Half of the outtake scenes from this story are just the men and women sitting around chatting...I should post all the outtake scenes at the end of this, there's so many and half of them are crack-y little things I wrote late at night with too much caffeine and sugar in me.
Brazen Hussy - You and me both. I'm so weepy right now...dammit.
Laura - Yeah, no kidding. Stubborn people are just...frustrating.
GG - I think Merle is a lot smarter than people give him credit for.
LuthielEarfalas - Well, thank you! I'm happy you think this one is your favourite, it's awfully sweet of you to say! Have a great day!
skittletitz - Hey, that cat had a lovely Mexican themed colouring scheme to it and you can't deny it had it's charm! All in all I've seen worse art pieces (believe me, I worked at an art gallery).
Surplus Imagination - Uh, unless I removed the scene, Grace said she joined the order to help out the missions in Africa, to really get among the people and help them, but nuns don't get to choose where they're placed, so she was stuck in Georgia...and yes, that girl is getting flirty. The only way to talk to the Lt. it seems...
Axelrocks - Oh God, it is Easter, isn't it? Daymn...where's my chocolate rabbit...? You have a lovely holiday as well! Enjoy your time off (if you get any).
Chapter Fifty-Seven: Babiller
**Daryl**
Helping Rick lower Maggie into the ground, Daryl stepped back as Father O'Rourke took over, his bible in hand.
Herschel had asked the priest to attend, despite the fact that he wasn't Catholic, he had still wanted Maggie to have some semblance of normalcy in her death.
The priest had sworn to keep the Catholic parables on death to a minimal.
Not interested in the religious service so much as the walkers that were hanging around the fence nearby, Daryl sniffed and shifted on his feet, eyeing the things as they pounded pathetically at the fence.
Glancing back at the crowd huddled around Maggie's grave he noticed Carol off by herself. She wasn't crying from what he could see, but she looked like she was taking the whole mess hard. It could have been from Beth's sobs or the situation in general.
Daryl squinted at her. Rick had Grace and Carl at his side, Herschel and Glenn had Beth, but Carol was on her own.
"You going to go and stand with her?" The Lieutenant whispered from his side where the sniper had crept up silent as the stars.
The man had been circling the group, patrolling a protective ring around them, eyes outwards while everyone's attention was on the funeral, but he seemed to have taken inward interest enough to pause by Daryl.
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"Because that's your woman and she looks like she needs comforting right now," he replied.
"She ain't mine. Why don't you stop poking your nose into my business and go stand with her your damned self."
"Stubborn assed couyon," the man spat a little feverishly, moving off again, circling the ceremony with his rifle in hand.
Glaring at the sky overhead, Daryl tried hard to shut out the funeral. He didn't care much for them, too much pomp and sobriety for something as useless as death. Someone died and suddenly you were expected to celebrate the life they left behind? Like some morbid reminder that they had a good one and that they'd never have a chance to do the things they did ever again.
Useless things, funerals.
Turning back to the proceedings, he found the Cajun had moved around the group and was standing behind Carol, hand on her shoulder, leaning down to whisper something in her ear.
She reached up and touched the hand, whispering back, before returning her gaze to the priest.
The Lieutenant stood behind Carol, hand on her shoulder, held by hers, eyes darting about cautiously, still keeping watch.
At some point during the funeral when Beth began singing a heartfelt (and tearstained) rendition of The Minstrel Boy Carol began to weep silently, tears falling from her eyes.
Daryl realized that the Cajun wasn't aware of the fact Carol was crying, she was often a silent weeper, never sobbed or shook and from behind her there was no sign to the Lieutenant that she was crying.
Gripping the strap of his crossbow tight, Daryl shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Hug her, dumb ass, he silently urged the Lieutenant.
Watching Carol's blue eyes fill with tears, Daryl began to realize that he was uncomfortable with the fact that her crying was going unnoticed. It reflected too much on what he surmised her earlier life with Ed must have been.
It reminded him too much of those soft sobs he could remember her emoting in the bunk of the RV that first night Sophia was missing. When she didn't think anyone could hear her.
Fuck.
Glaring at the sky again, he tried to shut out all thoughts of Carol, but couldn't help taking quick peeks at her.
Finally he tried to get the Cajun's attention, holding his eyes on the man until the Lieutenant's wandering, cautious glances came his way.
Daryl tilted his chin down ever so, gesturing to Carol.
The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes, but seemed to get the hint, leaning over her to peer down at Carol's damp face as the woman quickly tried to brush the tears away at being found out, but it was too late, the Cajun spied the tears and quickly pulled the woman into his arms.
Relieved, Daryl gave the man a little nod and it was returned.
Watching the two, he couldn't help notice the way the Cajun ran his hand up and down Carol's back and flinched. The Lieutenant wasn't a proven ladies' man, but Daryl knew the asshole could be slick when he wanted to be and the idea unsettled him.
The man's hand travelled up her back and dangerously low. At least to Daryl it seemed dangerously low and by dangerous he meant for the Cajun, because Daryl's free hand was already curling into a fist at his side.
Glenn's sobbing broke over him, snapping Daryl out of his moment of silent jealous rage and he relaxed his hand, realizing how stupid he was being. The Lieutenant was just being kind to Carol that was all.
It had better be all.
..-~-..
..-~-..
After the service, Rick gave them the typical 'we survive to thrive' speech and set them loose.
Glenn and the Greene's wanted a few moments alone with Maggie's grave, so the others spread out across the yard, giving them space to mourn.
Hanging about by the gate, Daryl kept an eye on the others. It was just the yard and there was a fence all around, but after the incident at Logistics, he didn't want to risk anything.
He could see the Lieutenant felt the same way as the soldier trailed behind Grace quietly, keeping a close tab on her as well. The former nun for her part seemed to be doing everything she could to keep the Cajun on his toes, wandering about, darting here and there to chat with people and generally moving almost erratically.
As an outsider peering in at the scene, Daryl realized that she may have been doing much of it just to torture the Lieutenant as every now and then she'd cast him quick, furtive glances, before moving on to another location. Still, naturally, the woman was a social butterfly.
Daryl's attention was on them completely as she stilled at the sight of a particular walker on the fence, the Cajun tensing up behind her as Grace began to slowly approach the fence.
The woman seemed interested in the thing hanging on the chain link and behind her the Lieutenant seemed interested in her reaction to it.
Grace stood about a foot from the fence, eyeing the walker with a mixed look of horror and fascination.
Daryl too tensed up at her approach to the thing, hand gripping the strap of his crossbow tightly, ready to tug it down and off at any indication that the woman needed assistance.
Behind Grace the Lieutenant raised his rifle, keeping it trained on what Daryl knew would be the kill shot zone of a man's head.
Without taking her eyes off the thing, Grace said something to the Lieutenant which was lost in the distance between them and Daryl, her hand moving back, palm out and waiting for something from him.
Lafayette shifted on his feet, rifle still trained on the walker at the fence, before he lowered it enough to reach for the new combat knife he had strapped to his side.
Carefully he handed it over to her, handle first, setting it in her palm.
Grace hefted the weapon, feeling the weight of it, eyes still on the undead thing that was gnashing and snapping like a rabid dog.
Daryl squinted into the morning sun as the Lieutenant shifted his rifle onto his back and moved to stand behind the woman, instructing her on how to hold the knife. As he moved in a little too close, the woman elbowed him gently, nudging him back off her and he stepped back, hands held up.
Grace said something to him, before turning her attention back on the walker, knife held.
It wasn't until that moment that Daryl realized she intended to put the walker down, that she was making an effort to learn something about the things that the Cajun kept her so carefully shielded from.
Raising his crossbow, he kept it trained on the walker, eyeing down his scope. If anything went wrong, Daryl didn't want the Lieutenant's woman to be uncovered, especially with the Cajun now nervously waiting just behind her to step in, rifle on his back.
Grace held the knife for the longest time, eyeing the creature, before she took a faltered step towards it. She seemed to pause only momentarily, before jabbing the thing in the eye through the holes in the fence. It didn't put the thing down, but she hit her mark.
Leaping back in shock that the hit didn't put it to rest, she pushed the Lieutenant away when he moved in to finish the job for her.
The walker wriggled madly at the fence, blade stuck in its eye socket. It reminded Daryl of a fish flopping around in the bottom of a boat.
Grace eyed the wriggling knife, before using the heel of her hand to push the knife in deeper, taking hold of it, she twisted it and pulled it out as the walker fell to the ground.
She stood for a moment, holding the bloody knife, free hand going to the base of her throat, before she stepped back from the fence, not once turning her back on the thing lying on the ground on the other side of the chain link.
Kneeling she wiped the knife off on the grass and held it back out to the Lieutenant.
Daryl lowered his crossbow, slinging it on his back again as the Cajun beamed almost proudly at his girl.
Grace offered him a little head tilt and said something, hand still at her throat.
Father O'Rourke joined them, moving to give last rites to the fallen walker.
Fucking madhouse of a group they had now, he mused, leaning against the side of a nearby guard tower in the cool shady northern side.
Nuns, priests and Cajuns, he scoffed, that's what was going to make up half their people now?
Turning his gaze on Glenn at Maggie's grave, Daryl winced at the younger man, before searching out the yard for the whereabouts of Carol.
He found her heading straight for him, that pretty sweater of hers wrapped tightly around her thin frame as though she were trying to protect herself from the world with just an eighth of an inch of polyester and wool blend.
Daryl watched her approach warily.
The thing was he was no longer as mad as he was yesterday, that maybe he regretted being so impulsive. But the thing was he couldn't properly function as a hunter and provider for the group if he had to worry about Carol.
She stopped about two feet from him, quietly eyeing him with eyes reddened by tears, her arms wrapped around her midsection.
He recalled telling her in a fairly cold way to 'stop bawling' just the day before and it hit him like a slap in the face. That may have been a bit of an asshole thing to say, he supposed, but sometimes when he was angry things just sort of came out in all kinds of hurtful ways.
"Okay," she began softly, "what's going on?"
"Nothing," he grumbled.
"Do you hate me or the world right now?"
He shrugged, looking everywhere but at her. All he could think of was Glenn's sobbing in the armory of the Marine base and how he didn't want it to be him some day.
She nodded. "Well, when you're ready to tell me what the hell is going on with you, I'll be around."
As she turned around to head back towards the group, Daryl kicked himself in the ass and called after her, "I can't," he paused unsure if saying it out loud would make things better or worse.
Carol turned back to let him finish properly.
Finding himself unable to finish that line of thought, he glanced towards Glenn, her eyes following his gaze.
Rounding her beautiful blue eyes on him, Carol drew her mouth in a grim line. "You might someday," she said. "That's what happens now."
He swallowed thickly, glad she knew what he was driving at without him having to say it. Talk wasn't really his thing. But what really hit him was how calm she was about that fact. How accepting she was of becoming walker bait someday.
Hell if he ever let that happen while there was a breath of air left in his body.
"But by my calculations I have about five lives left," she added with a small, wry grin.
He wasn't sure if humour at the moment was called for, but he was still grateful she was attempting it.
"The thing is, I can't make proper assumptions on how you feel about me," she went on. "So assuming you actually care about me, all I can say is that pushing me away won't make it hurt any less the day I run out of lives. Our time on earth is very short these days," she stated. "If you love me, be with me, but don't treat me like this. Now you think on that for today and I'll ask you at the end of the day if you want to come back to me, but I won't ask again after that. I can't be playing this yo-yo game with you for the rest of what could be a very short life. You want to throw tantrums and kick holes in the wall, you feel free, but you need to learn to control this pent up rage and frustration you have, because I already lived with one dangerous, ticking time bomb and I don't need to deal with another and I will not have you exploding on me every time you can't find a proper way to channel your feelings." She pinned him with a very serious look, the one she often wore when addressing issues of food shortage or medical injuries. "You have something that's bothering you, you talk about it, you don't grab your things and just abandon the people you care about because you're scared or angry." She toed the ground with her scuffed black boot, eyeing it quietly for a moment, gathering her thoughts, before looking back up at him. "You figure out what you want, you come find me, I won't be far. But don't stew on it too long."
Having had her say, Carol turned and quietly walked off, leaving Daryl to glare a little at the ground stubbornly.
The Cajun Dialect
Babiller – To scold (usually a child).