Chapter Twenty-Eight: Belie Belcan
**Daryl**
"You know that idiot is probably going to be the first dumb ass to have a baby," Daryl growled as they sat on the wall together later that night. Carol had wall duty and he had painfully hauled himself up to sit beside her as she watched the entire east wall up and down for walkers.
Carol smiled at the darkness, lit only by the flashlight she held to shine up and down the wall. "Grace wouldn't have that, trust me."
"There's something there though," Daryl said. "About what Milton said, about babies and building our group up. Walkers are dying off, leaving us with what? People who'll hunt us down for what we have? Chaos, anarchy? We need something. We need to start looking towards something. Survival ain't just fighting anymore, it's thriving."
Carol rubbed her arms to ward of the Georgian night chill.
"Well," she began wistfully, "I do miss taking care of Judith, it'd be nice to have another baby around."
Feeling the need to protect his woman, even if it was from something as innocuous as the cool air, Daryl wrapped his arm around Carol and pulled her in against him. Maybe it was because he somehow knew she wasn't all that cold, but that she was yearning for a child who was no longer there.
It pissed him off that he felt so useless when it came to Carol, to giving her back her baby. It would nearly cripple her to see women having children all around her, he knew it. Carol was one of those women who deep down was just a mother, she had to be a mother to someone and it hurt him that he couldn't help.
But on his side of things, maybe it was a good thing that Carol couldn't have another child, he didn't think he'd make a very good daddy.
To his shock Carol began to shake in his arms and she turned her head as a sob tore through her chest.
Daryl froze, not sure how to handle the situation.
Quickly smudging her tears across her cheeks, Carol offered him a shaky smile.
"Sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered.
Since she was already in his arms, he pulled her in tighter. "Need to get it out?" He asked, hoping it was the right thing to say.
"It's nothing," she said. "I'm just being foolish and so damned emotional."
He blinked at her, wondering if there was a script he was supposed to follow when a woman said something like that. Fuck, if someone ever wrote one, he was sure they'd make a mint off it.
"I sometimes think about her," Carol admitted. "I wonder what she'd make of the convent and Annie, I know she'd love to play with Annie."
Scratching a rough hand over his chin scruff, Daryl continued to remain quiet, hoping he could get away with saying nothing.
"She'd have liked it here, the nuns and the Lieutenant," Carol went on. "She'd have a small little bed in our shack with rainbows on the comforter, she liked rainbows."
Deciding Carol was living in the 'what if's' and the 'if only's' too long, Daryl wet his bottom lip and said, "would you ever want another?"
Carol laughed, it was breathy and light. "It doesn't matter. I can't."
"I know, but…if you could?"
"Maybe, the weird thing was that Sophia and I got along better than just mother and child, she was my best friend for the longest time, the only person in the world who talked to me like I wasn't someone to pity or a stranger, she understood me better than anyone in the world. I think I would like that, to have another baby to love and to love me in return," she said softly, still chasing her tears away with the heel of her hand. "Are you disappointed that I can't give you one?" She asked after a moment.
Daryl shook his head. "I got you, that's all I need."
She smiled broadly at him, before looking away almost shyly, when she looked back her eyes were sparkling with mischief. "We can keep pretending to try," she said with a wry grin.
"Trying's half the fun," he replied. "Hell," he went on, "we can keep 'trying' until the world ends if you want."
"Can't think of anything I'd like more," she stated.
Daryl scoffed. "Sorry I'm all you could find."
"You're all I want." She said, wrapping her arms around him tightly and resting her head on his chest, just under his chin.
He stroked her hair, feeling her natural curls snarling around his fingers. When he was a young man he someone felt like he was always looking for something, beating down people and things that stood in his way, he had always thought it was betterment for himself, to prove he wasn't some dumb hick, but maybe what he was really searching for was one person to hold in the night. Maybe it was Carol he was fighting his entire life to find.
It seemed stupid to think like that, but with her in his arms, he realized he didn't need or want anything else. Just her.
..-~-..
..-~-..
The next morning, after 'trying' twice and then making no attempt at breeding once (but somehow ending with the same result), Daryl was making his way across the convent lawns, when he came across Rick, who was holding Judith in his arms and staring in the direction of the north wall.
Daryl joined him, following his gaze to find the Cajun on the wall, just standing there, both arms dangling.
"He alright?" Daryl asked.
"I don't know, he's been there since sun up," Rick returned.
Clapping the man on the shoulder, telling him wordlessly that he had it handled, Daryl made off, heading for the wall and the soldier on it.
"Where's your sling, dumb ass?" Daryl demanded, pulling his battered body up onto the ledge of the wall beside the Cajun.
"Don't need it, Herschel says my wound healed enough," the tall man replied, still eyeing the road that lead from the convent. "How are you doing?"
"Still feel like shit."
"Well, you nearly died, so that's understandable, cabri."
"So did you."
Turning to him with a quirked brow, the Cajun nodded, shifting on his feet, before he spoke again. "I'm due back in bed today." He said with a grin. "You?"
"Carol will probably try, but you know, hard to sit still," Daryl pointed out.
"Can I ask you something, Daryl?"
Having difficulties recalling if the Cajun ever called him by his God's honest name before, Daryl took a moment before nodding. "Alright."
"What does a man wear when he marries a nun?"
"Fucked if I know, a beard and a white robe?" Daryl returned. "Why?"
"No, don't think I'll get away with the beard," the Cajun said.
Not an idiot by half, Daryl squinted at the Lieutenant. "Getting married, huh?"
"Well, cabri, thinking about the future turns a wise man to thoughts of family."
"So how'd you reach this conclusion then, dumb ass?" Daryl asked.
"I knew a man once, said he never thought he'd ever marry. This man, he lived his entire young life for drinking and gambling and doing everything but settling down," the Lieutenant began.
Knowing his habit of telling stories that could go on and on for hours, Daryl eased down onto the ledge, the Cajun following carefully.
"This man, he never wanted a wife, never went out with the same woman twice, he thought marriage was a prison-like institution. Now, the way I heard it, he was driving one night, it was a cold night on the bayou. I mean, cold, cold, the type of cold that feels like the end of the world to us down on the bayou and this man, driving his beat up old Chevy in the rain on a lonely backroad near Basile, that's in the Acadia Parish of Louisiana, you see. This man, he comes across this nymph wandering the road, blue dress soaked through, broken Mary Jane in her hand. So he pulls over, this is before the days when anyone wandering the road was considered a head case. Now this man, this maverick of bachelors, asks this pretty little nymph, soaked through to the bone and chattering in the cold, if she needed a ride. The way I heard it, she was this tiny, sort of high born type of lady, petite, fine boned and on that night, she was done up, very pretty, like a proper Cajun queen. She looks this man up and down, gauging him before making her decision, bright grey eyes dancing over him and despite the cold and the rain, she refuses the ride.
Deciding to respect her wishes, the man drives on, but as he reaches a bend in the road, where it keeps on down a worn old trail, heading for Bayou Nezpique, the rains began to really come down, almost like a hurricane.
So, he pulls his truck over and thinks about it, not wanting to pester the lady, but not wanting to leave her alone on the lonely stretch of road, he struggles with himself for a bit, before deciding that the secondary road was far too remote to just leave her and she was already drenched and chattering when he pulled up alongside her the first time. So this man, he turns his truck around and he finds her, still making her way, barefoot in the rain.
This time when he pulls up, he decides to introduce himself, hoping to put her at ease, before he repeats his question, whether she needed a ride or not.
And this lady, this small little slip of a girl, she laughs at him and again refuses.
'Whyever for?' the man asks. 'I'm perfectly harmless and the rain is cold and you'll be sick come morning if you keep on walking'.
'Mais,' says she, 'I heard all about you and I think I'm safer in the cold and damp then in that truck at your side'.
'Heard all about me?' The man asks. 'Just what have you heard?'
'About the trail of broken hearts you leave in your wake', she says.
The man, thinking this a great reputation to have, gave a laugh. 'That so?' He asks.
'You can save your laughter and deflate that puffed chest of yours', the lady snaps. 'I'd much rather chance my death than jump into the snake pit with the likes of you'.
Eyeing her broken shoe and the way her teeth clacked, the man suddenly feels like pull of humanity and even though he's a cad, he realizes that he doesn't want the pretty thing to catch ill, so he tries again.
'Would you get in this truck if I promised to be a gentleman?' Says he.
She laughs at him stubbornly. 'I wouldn't get in that truck if my daddy were here saying it was perfectly safe.'
'Then you're a bad girl,' the man says. 'If you wouldn't listen to your daddy.'
'I'm a perfectly good girl,' she argues. 'But there's no way in hell that I'd ride with you.'
Thinking about this, and realizing that perhaps his reputation had gotten a little out of hand, the man finally says. 'Girl, would you climb on in this truck if I promised that I'd fix your shoe and send you home in drier clothes?'
'Bon rien,' she states. 'I wouldn't get into that truck if I were naked and needed the clothes.'
Deciding that it was indeed a serious thing to have a theoretical naked woman refuse a ride from him, the man tried once more.
'Jolie catin," says he in the grand manner of a proper gentleman. 'Would you get in this here truck if I were to promise to marry you?'
To this the woman laughed, her damp hair flying out as she threw her head back in the rain. 'Couyon,' she says. 'I'd rather marry the devil himself then get in that truck with you.'
'So far,' he begins, 'you've proven yourself a bad girl who don't listen to her daddy, who would rather be naked than safe and warm, who'd rather marry the devil instead of me. Mais, what I see,' he goes on, 'is someone far worse than me.'
The girl laughs again. 'Fate Vancoughnett,' she says, 'last week when you had me in that truck cab, you called me 'Jeanne'! Don't be telling me about being a wicked person.'"
Daryl broke in. "That was you?"
"No, my papere, the lady walking was named Grace LaFourche, my mamere."
"So? How'd they end up married then?"
The Cajun beamed. "After negotiating with my mamere for about an hour, my papere found himself driving up the driveway to her home, so she never actually got in the truck with him, but he stayed beside her driving, in case she needed shelter from the rain. Her daddy came out and ran him off with his shotgun, ended the night fairly abruptly.
A few weeks later, my mamere tracks him down, hops into his truck cab and says 'so here I am, you gonna marry me or what?'"
"Why?"
"Hell of a thing, marriage, it's easy as hell to do and a lot of people do it haphazardly, but when you know, you know. And she knew. I tell you this, cabri, to the day he died, my papere had no other on the mind but her and she him."
"Bullshit," Daryl stated. "No offence, Cajun, but your gramps sounded like he wouldn't settle down just because your grams jumped into his truck."
The Lieutenant snorted in amusement. "You ever look at Carol, cabri, and think 'this is all I want'. Her body beside yours? Times being what they are, marriage isn't really necessary, but my girl, she needs it. She needs God to witness it, you see?"
Daryl nodded once. "Yup."
"So what does a man wear when marrying a nun?"
"Whatever it is, can't be any worse than that country and western piece of shit she has you in now," Daryl replied, slipping off the wall.
The Cajun took a quick look at the roses and swirls on the shoulders and at the cuffs of the blue shirt he wore and shrugged. "Couldn't find anything better that fit me."
"Whatever, Wyatt Earp."
"Hey, cabri," the Cajun stopped him, kneeling carefully on the wall to speak with him. "I'm going to need a best man, think you want that position?"
Daryl thought about this. He'd never really been one before. "I guess."
"Course," the Lieutenant began, "in this day and age, that means going back to the tradition of making sure no barbarian horde sweeps in here uninvited and carries off my bride."
"Think I can handle that," Daryl replied. "So, when's the day?"
"Don't know, after we deal with these salauds in our territory, I suppose."
"You got your eyes back outside these walls, Fay?"
"No, not yet. Two days in bed I promised her, but…soon. The sooner we scout out their numbers and where they're hunkered down, the better I'd feel, yeah?"
Daryl nodded. "I got your back when you do."
The Lieutenant smirked. "Carol okay with that?"
"She will be."
..-~-..
The Voodoo Dialect
Belie Belcan - He is considered the loa of justice who defends people against evil and enemies. He is considered very polite, understanding, and protective by his devotees. His Catholic Saint counterpart is Saint Michael the Archangel. He is said to work very well with Anaisa Pye, a female loa whose counterpart is Saint Anne. Therefore, in Dominican households, one will often find images of Saint Michael next to images of Saint Anne.
The Cajun Dialect
Bon rien - Good for nothing man.
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