AN: OK, so it's very late, but I did get a second chapter out. I may update this tomorrow, but there are no promises. I'd like to try to update my other fics too tomorrow. I'm planning on spending a significant amount of the day in my pajamas simply writing fanfic.
I hope you like it! As always, thank you for your reviews and your support of the story. It means a lot to know that you're reading and enjoying what you read!
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Daryl didn't have to work on the weekend and he was glad of it. Hershel was a man that believed in making the most of a day, that was sure, and Daryl was glad for the vacation he got. When he got out of bed he made his way into the kitchen expecting to find Andrea in there making breakfast, but she wasn't. He checked Merle's room and found it empty. They'd gone somewhere, though he didn't know if they were together or not. Daryl dressed and slipped back into the kitchen. He noticed the truck keys were gone and simply hoped that Merle wasn't getting into any trouble.
He considered cereal, but then he remembered that Lula's Diner boasted to have some pretty good omelets, so he decided on that instead. He slipped down the rickety staircase and out the door. It wasn't late, but already the sun was hot and Daryl decided this wasn't a day for doing much, though he didn't exactly relish the idea of staying in their apartment. The place smelled funny and it wasn't like there was anything to offer entertainment there. That was most likely why Andrea and Merle were nowhere to be found.
Daryl made his way down the street toward the diner. As usual the town looked pretty much deserted. It appeared that most people here didn't go out much, but then again many of them probably didn't live in small apartments that were pretty much empty and smelled like goat piss.
Daryl's first thought when he pulled open the door to Lula's Diner and stepped inside was that the clientele for the morning looked like the residents of an old folk's home. Daryl glanced around quickly and decided he was the only person there under the age of sixty, and it appeared that those that probably fell around the sixties mark were the "whippersnappers" of the bunch.
Daryl slid into one of the booths and saw Jacqui heading toward him. He wasn't quite sure why, but he had hoped that Carol might be working that morning. Still, if she hadn't left the Water Ho until Andrea left she wasn't likely to even be awake at this hour, so he could see why she might not be working.
"Mornin', hon'!" Jacqui said, walking up to the table. Daryl offered her a smile. "How's Sweet Junction treating you so far?"
Daryl shrugged.
"Alright, I guess," he said.
"Daryl, right? Lula told me what your name was since you didn't drop it the last time you were in here. I heard you were working for Hershel Greene," Jacqui said. Daryl nodded in response. "The Greene's are good people."
"Yeah, they are," Daryl responded. He really wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. He felt like everyone and everything around here was scripted. It was as if, somewhere along the line, everyone got some kind of guide that told them everything they were supposed to know about Sweet Junction. It apparently contained the names and complete histories of everyone who lived there along with exactly what to say in any given situation and even what to order when you wanted food. Daryl couldn't feel more out of place at times.
"What can I get for ya this morning? Coffee?" Jacqui asked, still smiling.
"Yeah," Daryl said. He looked around as though he were searching for a menu of some sort, but none had been offered to him, and he didn't see any around. "What kinda omelet is the best?" He asked.
"That would be the omelet all the way," Jacqui said. "It's got everything you could ever want on an omelet. Really sticks to your ribs."
"Gimme that," Daryl said. "An' some hash browns, but I don't want no onions on nothin'."
Jacqui smiled again.
"Got it, no onions," she said. "Anything else?"
Daryl thought about it, but off the top of his head he couldn't come up with any other breakfast food that he felt would be appropriate with an omelet that obviously contained everything imaginable and potatoes that very likely were the same way. Finally he just shook his head and watched as Jacqui headed off to the back of the diner.
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"Can we at least talk about this?" Michonne asked, following Carol around the apartment. Shane Walsh had brought Carol home very late the night before and Michonne hadn't expected her up before lunch time, yet she'd been up bright and early with the request that Michonne take her to look at an apartment that she was hoping to rent, and maybe that she help her move her things there should she decide to take the place.
Now they were standing in the living room of one of the apartments of Sweet Junction Apartments, and Michonne was afraid to touch anything. She was even a little concerned that her shoes had to touch the floor. Honestly this was the kind of place that you would have preferred to have the ability to hover in.
"It's not that bad," Carol said, looking around.
"Are you feeling alright?" Michonne asked.
"They're cheap," Carol said.
"And rightly so," Michonne responded. "Carol, right now I'm wondering why this building hasn't been condemned. Why don't you just stay with me for a while longer? Ed's getting the divorce papers soon, and then we'll go to court. You're going to get money out of this, Carol. You don't have to live in a place like this. There are some real nice houses being built in that new development. You could get a place there. You'd be close to me, you'd be in the nice part of town."
"Michonne, we don't know that I'm going to get anything at all from Ed, and if I don't, I'll be OK," Carol said, her hands going to her hips. "You're real sweet, and I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I don't feel right taking advantage of you."
"I don't consider it taking advantage, Carol, not when I'm offering it," Michonne said. "And I don't feel comfortable with you living over here. I don't even feel comfortable with you working over there at that roadhouse down the street unless Rick or Shane or one of their boys can be there. Ed's dangerous, and he's unpredictable. Who's to say he won't pay you a visit here?"
Carol smiled.
"Who's to say he won't pay me a visit at your house?" She asked. "And there you could get hurt, or your girls. I wouldn't want that on my conscience."
"And I don't want you living here on mine," Michonne argued.
"You said yourself that I've got my whole life ahead of me," Carol said. "You said this was a new start for me, and it is. I spent my life depending on my parents, and when I was old enough, I married Ed. Now that I've left Ed I can't just spend my life living up under you."
"But Carol, here? Have you even been vaccinated for all the kinds of hepatitis you could probably catch here?" Michonne asked. Carol smiled again.
"You can't be my mother," Carol said. "I've got to grow up sometime."
Michonne wrinkled her eyebrows and looked around. On the one hand, she understood that Carol was on some kind of high from being free from Ed. She had some newfound freedom that she'd never enjoyed before and she wanted to spread her wings. Michonne could only imagine what that felt like. Her experience with spreading her wings had been different. She'd left Sweet Junction right after high school to go to college and only returned years later with a degree in hand and the respect of the townspeople. Carol's story was different. She was that girl who never left the small town. She stayed to take care of her parents, neither of which was in the best health for what seemed like a very long time, and then she stayed because she married Ed. Her legacy since then had been to be the woman that everyone whispered about at the A and P and avoided making eye contact with whenever possible. Now she wanted independence. On the other hand, however, Michonne couldn't bear to think of someone she now regarded as a friend, and a good person, living in the filth that she saw around her.
"Carol, this place is disgusting, and don't tell me you don't see it. I'm not saying you stay with me forever, I'm just saying that you stay with me until you can afford the down payment on a place that you can stay in without collecting rent from the roaches," Michonne said.
"So I'll clean it up," Carol said. "I have to have something to do with my weekend. I don't work at Lula's again until Monday and I'm off from the Water Ho until Wednesday," Carol said.
"What about the girls?" Michonne asked. She was hoping, suddenly, that she could use Carol's soft spot for the babies as a way to lure her away from her plan to live in the dump.
"What about them?" Carol asked.
"You said you were going to watch them when you didn't have to work and they weren't with Dean," Michonne said.
"So I can still watch them," Carol said.
"And how do you think you're going to get to my house?" Michonne asked.
"I'll walk, Michonne. People have been doing it for ages," Carol responded. She walked over to one of the chairs at the so called kitchen table and sat down. Michonne cringed at the very thought of even sitting in one of them.
"Carol, that's almost five miles," Michonne said. "You can't walk five miles in one direction on a regular basis. Besides, that's not safe at all. Suppose Ed were to spot you just walking down the road alone?"
"What am I supposed to do, Michonne?" Carol asked. "Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life cowering up under you or Rick or Shane? I can't do that either. I'll get a car as soon as I can find one that I can afford. Until then a little exercise never hurt anyone."
"Fine," Michonne said, deciding to change her strategy a little, "what about me, then?"
"What about you?" Carol asked.
"I've grown somewhat fond of having you as a roommate during the past days that you've been with me," Michonne said. "I'm really not ready for you to leave. I'd rather you stay with me while you're saving up for a decent place. You're good company, it's convenient having an in-home nanny when I'm at work, and if you leave now and you're staying somewhere like this I'm going to be distracted because I'm going to be worried about you. You're just being selfish if you decide to go through with this ridiculous idea."
"I think you'll be just fine," Carol said, smiling, "and so will I. I can still watch the girls and it's not like I'm moving to the moon. I'm going to be right here, just barely across town. I'm not trying to be selfish, I'm trying to be self-sufficient."
Michonne sighed. It was fairly clear that she wasn't going to win this battle. She was proud that Carol wanted to be on her own. It meant she wasn't going to fall into that age old cycle where the victim never really gets over being a victim and simply relies on others to care for their wounds for the rest of their lives, but Michonne had to admit that she'd really rather this not be the place that Carol picked to live on her own for the first time. Still, she knew that Carol wasn't going to accept any more monetary help from her.
"Fine, if you're determined to do this then let's at least go back to my house. I want to change clothes, and we can get your things while we're there," Michonne said.
"Change clothes?" Carol asked.
"Well I certainly hope you don't think I'm letting you move in here until we've cleaned this place up," Michonne said, looking around again. Carol grinned at her and for a moment she thought she might squeal with excitement. Michonne had no idea how someone could be so happy about moving into a garbage heap like this, but at least if she was going to do it Michonne wanted to feel like they'd done their best to make it livable.
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After Daryl finished breakfast he strolled around town for a little, checking out the side roads and the shops and businesses available. For the size of the town there were a variety of stores, but many of them were the kinds of places that he would never go. He did discover that there was a movie theater. It was tiny, and it was the kind of place where Daryl assumed your feet would stick to the floor as you walked, but it did advertise that movies were only a dollar. He looked at the sign that advertised the two movies that were showing. He hadn't ever heard of either of them, but that wasn't really surprising since he wasn't one to watch much television. There had been one in his house when he was a kid, but he never got to choose what was they watched, so he never paid it much attention. Since he'd grown up, though, he and Merle had never opted to own one of the things. It was an expense that wasn't necessary, and living as they often did there wasn't room for much that wasn't necessary.
Still, Daryl thought the movies was surely a way to pass some time every now and again in the sleepy little town. There was also a bowling alley. When Daryl passed by it, looking briefly into the windows, he could see more than a handful of teenagers inside and what looked to be a few small families. It was adjoined with a skating rink, so Daryl assumed that this was probably the most happening place if you wanted to have a real wild time in Sweet Junction.
Beyond that, as Daryl strolled he saw a few more restaurants and even a little café for anyone that was interested in that kind of place, but really nothing more in the way of entertainment. He found a nice park and he started across it. There were families there, some of them had children that were playing a nice little playground area set up for them. Daryl found a spot under a tree where a stone bench was in place and sat down, taking out one of his cigarettes.
He felt like he'd drawn a lot of attention. There had been several people that he'd encountered on his stroll that had stared at him, some even suspiciously, and he had no idea why. He didn't know if they were just generally distrustful of anyone they didn't know, or if he was correct in assuming that the Dixon reputation always got ahead of them, or at the very least, always caught up with them. They seldom made what anyone would call "friends" in the places they lived. That was somewhat owing to the fact that they never spent any real significant time in one place, but it was also owing to the fact that it seemed like people were always looking at him and Merle as though they were dangerous or at the very least untrustworthy.
The truth was they were relatively harmless. They had a few rough patches in their life, and finances had never really been in their favor, and it could be said that Merle liked his substances and was sometimes prone to violence against those who would start it, but neither of them were half as much the trouble makers as it seemed they were doomed to be viewed as. Even sitting in the park Daryl felt as though some of the eyes of the people there were on him. Two mothers who were watching their kids swing nearby watched him as though he were going to spring up suddenly and run off with their snotty nosed kids. How were you ever expected to make friends anywhere when you couldn't get past those stares that came at you unwarranted?
Daryl ignored the women and focused on his cigarette, looking out over the park. He hadn't seen the truck anywhere on his stroll through town and he could only assume that Merle had gone off somewhere else. Maybe he was sightseeing with Andrea, or maybe they were just parking off some back road. Whatever the case, at least Merle wasn't in town starting any kind of ruckus that might get them drummed out of Sweet Junction before they'd even gotten remotely settled in.
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Michonne convinced Carol to at least let her get the apartment set up with the basics. She'd reluctantly accepted Michonne's offer to get her some towels, sheets, and dishes. Michonne had also convinced her to let her purchase a new mattress for her, arguing that she wasn't going to let her back in her house to care for the girls otherwise because she'd be bringing the entire flea population of the old mattress with her. Michonne had finally gotten her to stop worrying about her ever growing debt when she convinced her that she could pay her back for all of it as soon as they drained Ed of every red penny that she possibly could squeeze out of him.
They'd scrubbed every square inch of the apartment by the time that Michonne was satisfied that Carol could at least live there without contracting any serious and incurable diseases. Both of them were exhausted, that much was true, but the place did look a lot better with the few homey touches that they introduced to it, and it was clean at the very least. The smell that had been overpowering was now replaced with the lemony-pine scent of the numerous cleaners they'd employed.
Michonne waited around for the landlord to meet them and Carol signed the papers and paid the fees. She was officially a tenant of the cleanest apartment in Sweet Junction Apartments. Michonne watched her as a smile spread across her face after the landlord bid her farewell.
"We're getting you a phone immediately," Michonne said. She'd purchased a phone for the apartment, but besides water and electricity there was nothing else hooked up.
"I'm sure they can hook it up first thing on Monday," Carol said.
Michonne shook her head.
"No, if you're going to stay here even a night you're not staying without a phone. You couldn't even call the police if Ed were to show up," Michonne said. "I'm going to make a few calls. They'll have one hooked up today. I'll tell them it's a court order. You can't be under protection and not have a phone."
"Fine," Carol said. "You stay here, make the calls. I'll go bring the rest of my things up."
Michonne had intended to help Carol unload her things from the car, but she wanted to make the calls and Carol didn't seem deterred by the labor, so she sat down on the chair in the kitchen, which they had disinfected thoroughly, and thumbed through the contacts in her cell phone to make sure that Carol could be as safe as possible since she insisted on staying there.
Carol watched her a moment and then disappeared out the door to bring up the few bags and other belongings that she had, along with the groceries that Michonne had made her purchase so that her cabinets and refrigerator wouldn't be completely bare.
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When Daryl got back to the apartment building he noticed that the truck was still gone. At this point he gave up any hope that his brother would be back at all during the day. Wherever they'd run off to they were likely to stay for what remained of this fine Saturday, and then of course they would both most likely waste away the hours of the evening and night down at the Water Ho.
Daryl trotted up the stairs without paying much attention and very nearly ran into the person that was just in front of him. He stopped suddenly, surprised by the simple fact that there was someone there. He knew he had upstairs neighbors because they could hear them stomping about so much that he figured they were housing a miniature horse in their apartment. He'd never actually seen any of his neighbors though. They were like noisy ghosts. They could hear them, but they never seemed to actually emerge from their hiding places.
"I'm sorry," Daryl apologized to the woman. It was only after apologizing to her, though, that he really looked at her. He was immediately shocked to realize that it was Carol. She was making her way up the stairs, attempting to drag two suitcases. She stopped when Daryl apologized and looked at him.
"No, I'm sorry," she said. Then she took a double take and silently regarded him for a moment. "Oh," she said, "hi again."
"Hi," Daryl said. They remained frozen for a moment, her standing in the position of making a step, and him standing firmly two steps below her. "Uh, ya movin' in?" He asked finally.
"Yeah," she said. Daryl thought a hint of a smile crossed her face and he couldn't imagine anyone smiling about moving into the shithole apartments here.
Daryl got himself together and stepped up the few steps, closing the gap between them. He reached and grabbed the handle of the suitcase nearest him.
"Lemme help ya," he said. She didn't immediately let go of the handle or move in any way.
"No," she said, "I've got it, I'm fine. I'm just on the second floor."
"Lemme help ya," Daryl repeated. He tugged at the suitcase and she reluctantly let go of the handle. "I'm on the second floor too," Daryl said.
"Thank you," Carol said.
"Ain't no problem," Daryl responded. He heaved up the suitcase, marveling for a moment at the weight of it for such a seemingly small bag. "I can get the other one for ya if ya like," he offered.
"No, really," she said. "It's not that heavy."
Daryl took up the bag he had and finished carrying it up the stairs. Carol followed behind him carrying the other suitcase.
"I'm just there," Carol said when they were on the second floor. "I'm thirteen," she said. "Lucky number thirteen."
Daryl snickered.
"I'm just across the hall," he said.
"Really?" Carol asked. She looked like she didn't believe him at first and Daryl wondered if people made it a habit to like about which rodent infested apartment they called home.
"Really," he assured. He followed Carol into her apartment so that he could put the bag down. As soon as they stepped inside he was struck by a few things. The very first thing that struck him was the smell. Her apartment smelled nice, and that was something that couldn't be said for his. The second thing that struck him when he glanced around was that the apartment looked nice, at least a lot nicer than his own. It looked clean and there were decorations here and there. He assumed that's what happened when women lived in apartments, especially if those women weren't Andrea. The final thing that struck him was the fact that Merle's lawyer was sitting at the small table in the kitchen. She was talking on the phone, but when they walked in she glanced up. She froze for a moment and then resumed her conversation.
Daryl followed Carol through the apartment and put the suitcase in the bedroom where she directed him to put it. Her bedroom was the one that matched his own in his apartment, assuming that you flipped his apartment around as though you were looking in a mirror. Her entire place was backwards from the one that he and Merle shared. He glanced around the room momentarily after he put the bag down. The bed was made with sheets and blankets and pillows. Much more inviting than the bare mattress that he was currently sleeping on.
"Ya place looks real nice," Daryl said, starting back through the apartment behind Carol.
"Thank you," she said. "We've been working on it all day long."
When they got back into the kitchen, the lawyer had stood up.
"Michonne," Carol said, "this is…"
"Daryl Dixon," Michonne said, interrupting Carol. "How are you, Daryl?"
"Fine," Daryl said.
"Daryl lives across the hall," Carol said. "He was nice enough to help me carry my bags up."
"Ya got anythin' else?" Daryl asked, suddenly wishing he could escape the apartment and the two women.
Carol shook her head.
"Nope, that's it," she said. "I brought everything else up earlier. There really wasn't all that much."
"Then I reckon I'ma get outta your hair," Daryl said. He nodded at Michonne and stopped just before stepping out the open door of the apartment. "Uh, if ya need anythin', just remember that we're right across the hall," he said. He wasn't really sure why he said it. It wasn't an offer he'd normally make to a person who was essentially a complete stranger to him, but it had felt like the right thing to say.
"Thank you, Daryl," Carol said.
"No problem," he responded. "See ya," he said to both of them. Then he stepped out of the apartment and crossed the hall. Opening the door to his own apartment he lamented momentarily that it wasn't of the same quality as the one he'd just left. He stepped inside and closed the door. He'd gone to the diner this morning not knowing quite why he hoped to see the redhead waitressing there, and he'd come home to find that she was moving in just across the hall from the shitty apartment he now resided in. Daryl wasn't sure why, but he was nervous to think of her there, and to think about the fact that he'd very likely be seeing more of her now, even more than he'd simply have seen at the diner or on random nights down at the Water Ho.