AN: Here you go, a little something!
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol hadn't told Daryl immediately what had happened at the A and P. She'd wanted the holiday to go well and she thought, and now she knew that she was correct, that he might get a little stirred up about the whole situation when she finally did tell him.
So she hadn't told him before their party. The party had gone well, though Carol had actually fallen asleep on the couch and missed most of it, only waking around midnight when Daryl woke her to watch the ball drop with them and to snag a New Year's Eve kiss before sending her off to bed while he stayed up with everyone that didn't leave until the wee hours of the morning.
On the actual day of New Year's, Carol hadn't brought it up because it didn't seem important, and she was helping Andrea unpack and decide where all the stuff that she and Merle had acquired should go in their little house.
So it was only the next morning that Carol had mentioned in passing that she'd seen Ed at the A and P and that she'd requested they call Rick but instead she'd gotten Shane out of the grab bag of law enforcement. And then, over breakfast with Daryl, she'd recounted her conversation with Shane.
And she'd been right. Daryl was a little stirred up.
"Shane Walsh is a fuckin' asshole," Daryl spat, clunking his coffee mug noisily down on the table and causing Carol to jump a little in spite of herself. He turned his attention to violently massacring the ham and pancakes he was eating, now with a heavy scowl on his face.
"It doesn't really matter," Carol said. "It's over now…and he is an asshole, but he's always been that."
"How the fuck would he a' felt if ya'd have gone out there without callin' an' Ed woulda done some shit ta ya? Ya did the right fuckin' thing. Don't'cha never get'cha ass caught somewhere alone with fuckin' Ed Peletier if ya can help it," Daryl said, pointing his fork at Carol.
Carol almost snickered at the facial expression he was making. She knew he was mad, but she wasn't mad anymore. It had worn off for her. Now when she thought back on the incident she wasn't even shocked that Shane had acted like he did.
"He's always been like that," Carol offered. She thoughtfully chewed a bite of her own breakfast before continuing. "Even in high school…if a girl ever turned Shane Walsh down, you knew about it. I spent my Junior and Senior years in high school being called the ice princess because of him."
Daryl glanced at her, obviously trying to hold back a smirk.
"What?" He asked. "The ice princess?"
Carol snickered. The old nickname wasn't funny when it was used to hurt…but she supposed that things like that seldom were funny when they were used to hurt. That was the funny thing about words. They took on completely different meanings depending on how they were used.
For instance, they could hear, almost any given day, Merle calling Andrea a bitch and her calling him an asshole, but it was the tone of voice behind it that let them know that most of the time, this had become simply a set of pet names that worked for them.
Now, sitting at the table with Daryl and eating breakfast before she had to get ready to go for a doctor's appointment, the old nickname was kind of funny…but it hadn't been when Shane Walsh had convinced all of Sweet Junction High to call her that because she'd turned him down for a trip out to the lake.
Carol nodded.
"Shane used to take all the girls he could up to the lake," Carol explained. "He used to take them parking. And really, for most girls it was like a rite of passage or something. You weren't anything until you'd gone to the lake with Shane Walsh."
"Ya serious?" Daryl asked, still smirking.
Carol smiled and nodded.
"I'm serious!" She said. "So Shane asked me to go up there with him and I…" She broke off for a moment reliving in her head her high school days. She remembered, for just a second, how she'd been raised and how she'd spent so much time hearing her parents' voices in her head telling her how to act and what to be to keep Sweet Junction from talking about her…to make sure she didn't turn into the kind of woman that Andrea Duff was going to be when she grew up. "I just wasn't that type," Carol finished. "So I told him that I wasn't going to go with him. I told him that I wasn't interested in him. He got pissed off. Told everyone in school to call me the ice princess, and they did."
"Just 'cause ya wouldn't fuck him?" Daryl asked.
Carol nodded.
It appeared that Daryl had cooled down for the moment. Maybe it had passed. What's done was done. Ed was still around, but there wasn't a single thing that any of them could do about it except hope that he left her alone. She wasn't going to stop calling the police because she needed them, or because she thought she needed them, and Shane Walsh was and would always be the same asshole he'd been when he was a broody teenager that didn't get laid when he wanted to get laid.
It was really kind of funny to think about now that Carol put it all into perspective.
"What about you?" Carol asked. "Did you ever have any nicknames?"
Daryl didn't talk much about his life. Carol knew a few little snippets here and there…a few nuggets of information, but for the most part their group didn't talk too much about their lives.
Daryl shrugged, slopping ham around his plate in the ocean of syrup and pancake bits that he'd created.
"None that I really know was nicknames," he said. "Didn't 'xactly finish high school…if ya know what I mean."
Carol nodded quietly and turned her attention back to her breakfast. His tone of voice was the same one that she got from Andrea when she asked for details from her life…it was the tone of voice that indicated that it was best for everyone involved if this conversation was over before it began.
Sometimes the past really was just better left there.
Carol distracted herself a moment by turning in her chair and craning to see any of the possible clocks around. The one on the microwave was the most visible.
"Don't have too much longer and we've got to get ready," Carol said.
Daryl looked at her.
"What'cha gotta do ta get ready?" He asked.
Carol frowned at him. She was in her pajamas, her hair was a mess, she hadn't brushed her teeth or even washed her face or anything. She had everything to do to get ready and Daryl was looking at her like she was fit for going into some kind of beauty pageant.
"Everything," she said. "But at least put on clothes and do something with my hair."
Daryl shrugged a little.
"I can do the dishes," he offered. "I ain't gotta do nothin' but put on a shirt an' figure out where the hell Lincoln drug my damn right shoe off to."
Carol chuckled a little and shook her head.
"You knew better than to drop them on the floor by the bed," she said. "Check Andrea's old room. Lincoln's been dragging everything in there since she left."
Daryl glanced over the side of the table where Lincoln was sitting, his sad eyes fixated on the two of them, hoping for some kind of breakfast treat.
"Why the fuck ya reckon he's doin' that?" Daryl asked.
Carol shrugged.
"I guess he misses her," Carol said. "I miss her too."
Daryl chuckled.
"I come in here this mornin' ta find her fuckin' ass stickin' outta our fridge, don't reckon ya can miss her too damn much," Daryl said.
Carol shrugged.
"It's different than having her here…and Lincoln probably feels the same way," Carol said.
Daryl rolled his eyes and made a noise at her.
"Go get'cha ass ready," he demanded. "I'm wash the damn plates an' go an' get my fuckin' shoe from the damn shrine the dog's buildin' for Andrea's sorry ass."
Carol chuckled at him and got up, stopping to kiss him on the forehead before passing back toward the bedroom to get ready.
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Daryl was smart enough to take his own entertainment to the doctor's office. He'd brought the latest batch of pamphlets that he had to read and he alternated in the waiting room between reading them, glancing around at the other people who were waiting, and looking back over his shoulder for the nice nurse that seemed to be the one that always came to get him when they were ready for him to go back with Carol.
More than really focusing on the pamphlets in his hand, though, he was staring at the brightly colored paper and stewing over what had happened with Carol.
He didn't like the fact that Ed Peletier was even in Sweet Junction. In his honest opinion, he'd felt like it wouldn't have been too much to expect the entire town to gather round with torches and sharpened pitchforks when the man had dared to return there from prison.
It seemd, though, that he was going about his business…or whatever people like him did…without a care in the world while Carol was looking over her shoulder all the damn time lest she be attacked in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. Meanwhile Andrea had also picked up a nice little boost to her bad reputation thanks to the man, while no one batted an eye that anything she'd been guilty of doing with Ed Peletier ought to look just as damn bad on her as it did on him.
The man was a pain in the ass at the very least and plausible threat to his family's well-being at the worst. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, though. He couldn't shoot him and end the whole damn thing because the law enforcement frowned on that shit.
Though they didn't seem to frown so hard on Ed and that was eating Daryl up. Shane Walsh was an asshole, and he might have always been that way, but it didn't excuse him in Daryl's opinion. Carol had said the shit that the man had said didn't bother her and she was entirely over the whole event, but Daryl wasn't over it. He mostly hoped, though, that Shane's piss poor attitude hadn't been enough to deter Carol from calling the police any time she so much as saw Ed's shadow.
The police might protect Ed from Daryl, and he could be fine with that, so long as they were working just as damn hard to protect Carol from Ed.
Even though he was stewing over it, though, Daryl was trying to put things out of his mind. He'd promised Carol that he'd let it go. He'd promised that he wasn't going to make a fuss over it and that he wasn't going to be "in a mood" about it all day.
By the time the nurse he'd been waiting on, Constance, showed up, Daryl thought he'd done a pretty good job of tucking down his feelings on the matter.
He followed the happy woman back through the labyrinth that by now was becoming less of a maze to him, and entered into the exam room that she directed him too, noticing that they were already getting started with the ultrasound that he'd come to watch.
Daryl came quickly to Carol's side and took her hand, but she hardly seemed to notice him. The doctor didn't speak either, because she was focused on what she was doing.
"'S goin' on?" Daryl whispered to Carol.
She turned then, her hand in his, looking at him like she'd only just noticed his presence. She smiled.
"Taking measurements," she said. "Making sure she's growing right."
Daryl watched the screen, only able to make something out every now and again. The doctor spoke from time to time, mostly to say something he didn't understand, and then she finally finished whatever it was she was doing.
"Everything is looking great," she said, smiling at both of them. She moved her wand around and the view appeared on the screen where Daryl could actually kind of tell what they were looking at and he could make out the baby. The doctor smiled. "Carol told me you were excited to see her again," the doctor said. "So there she is…though she's not moving around much right now."
"That bad?" Daryl asked.
The doctor smiled again and shook her head.
"No…she was moving earlier. Babies have their own rhythms too. Right now is just a little down time for her. It's nothing to be concerned about."
"So she's all good?" Daryl asked.
The doctor nodded.
"She's great," she said. She switched off the machine after a moment and Daryl was a little disappointed. He'd kind of hoped for a little more action or something to happen, but he supposed that his daughter was hard headed…she certainly came by it honest enough from him and Carol both…and didn't want to perform on command. "I'd say," the doctor said, going about wiping off Carol's stomach, "that the pregnancy is really an ideal pregnancy so far. Everything's great. Blood work is good, Carol's body is doing exactly what we want it to, the baby's measurements are all normal. It's textbook."
Daryl couldn't help but grin at the news. They hadn't suspected any problems, and they had no reason to think that things might not go perfectly, but his stomach had still been in knots while he'd been waiting and that was just the news that he wanted to hear.
"And she's most definitely a girl," the doctor said. "Today confirms it. Do you have a name yet?"
Daryl glanced at Carol and she chewed her lip a little. They'd agreed to keep the name to themselves.
"We uh…been callin' her Lil' Bit," Daryl answered. "Just 'til we sure 'bout the name," he lied. Really it was more that the name was something between them…it was strange, but they liked having the name be something that only the two of them knew for the time being. It was just something that belonged solely to them, and he wasn't ready to give it up, not even to the doctor.
The doctor smiled and nodded then.
"Well, she's still Baby Dixon in the file, so that's fine too," the doctor said. She directed her attention to Carol for the moment and Daryl wandered off, glancing around him at the decorations in the office. He only really zoned back in when he heard the word "tests" and he didn't like the sound of it.
"What kinda tests?" He asked suddenly.
The look on Carol's face and on the doctor's face told him that he'd just given himself away as being the space cadet that he was. He got the feeling that they'd probably already covered the topic, but he'd missed it and now he'd already asked the question, so he expected an answer.
"They're standard," Carol said, squeezing his hand.
"Nothing to worry about," the doctor said, smiling at him reassuringly. "We were just discussing a glucose test that we're going to be doing and some other possible tests…nothing unusual and nothing to be concerned about. I do them across the board. She'll need to come back next week for the glucose test. It'll take a little over an hour, but there's nothing that you need to worry about."
Daryl nodded.
"I can bring ya back next week," he said, looking at Carol.
She smiled at him and nodded.
"Or I could come alone…or Andrea could come…it's not a big deal, Daryl," Carol said.
Daryl didn't respond. He was coming. He'd already make up his mind about it and they could discuss this when the friendly doctor wasn't looking at them with the poster smile pasted on her face and her fat folder in her arms, obviously hoping to take her leave of the Dixons as soon as possible.
The doctor cleared her throat just as Daryl turned back toward her and nodded. He realized as soon as he'd done it that it might be rude to dismiss a doctor in such a manner, but he couldn't take that back more than he could have taken back his question earlier.
"OK, then," the doctor said through the pasted on smile. "I'll let them know to set you up for test next week. You won't need to see me for that, so I'll see you again in about four weeks unless you need to come in for something."
Daryl didn't know if he was going to regret this shit or not, but he was going to ask it anyway. He'd probably already made an ass out of himself, the transformation might as well be complete.
"Don't we get a picture?" He asked.
The doctor, who had already begun to walk toward the door, turned back a moment. She smiled again and Daryl wondered if medical people practiced those broad grins in the mirror in the morning or if that was something they taught in medical school. He could just imagine the whole lot of them sitting around and taking "Smiling Like A Mule Eatin' Briars 101" or some shit like that.
"Up front," the doctor said. "When she picks up her information."
Daryl nodded at the woman again and she surprised him by returning the nod with one of her own before letting out a soft giggle and stepping through the door. As it closed behind her, Daryl noticed Carol getting up and he helped her the rest of the way up, squeezing his shoulders in his hands before he released her to start putting herself back together.
Carol was smiling and almost laughing. Daryl could tell she was fighting it.
"Ya grinnin' like that 'cause the baby's OK or ya laughin' at me?" Daryl asked, nibbling at his thumb.
Carol walked over and pulled his thumb down, as she often would if she caught him chewing at it, and kissed him. He returned the kiss, laughing when she playfully caught his tongue between her teeth a second before releasing him.
"You were worried that you weren't getting your picture, weren't you?" Carol asked.
Daryl chuckled and shrugged, feeling his face get hot.
"You get her rollin' 'round inside ya all damn day long," Daryl said. "All I ever get is a picture…so I want my fuckin' picture."
Carol giggled.
"I'll trade you," she said. "You can have all the fun stuff I get and I'll take just having the pictures and the occasional kick against my hand."
Daryl smirked.
"Nah…I couldn't do half as good a damn job at this shit as you," Daryl said. "It's best ya the one that's responsible for her. But I'll still take my picture."
Carol sighed and wrestled into her coat, flipping her hair up and picking up her purse.
"Let's go get your picture," she said.
Daryl reached out, catching her hand and tugging at it as he led her back through the labyrinth and toward the front desk.
"Reckon if ya both was good today," Daryl teased as they walked through the hall, smiling and nodding at the various people they found there, "ya can have a treat…so what the hell'll it be?"
"I know what I want," Carol said, "but I don't want to say it here…"
Daryl glanced over his shoulder and smirked at her.
"Damn girl," he whispered. "An' I thought'cha was gonna say ice cream."
"Well, there's two of us," Carol said. "What about more than one treat?"
Daryl smirked and turned back to watch where he was going so he didn't accidentally take anyone off their feet.
"Two damn girls…" he said. "Gonna be the end a' me."
"And you're going to love every minute of it," Carol replied, turning to squeeze him gently before going to wait in line at the desk while Daryl stood to the side and watched her.
"Already fuckin' do," he said to himself.