AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl had sent Merle after Alice. If he was going to strip down half naked for someone to fix a hole in his side, he just preferred that someone to be Alice. Andrea had butted her ass into things, though, and declared that Alice needed to sleep and that Hershel could do just as good a job patching up some minor injury.
And now Daryl was waiting while Hershel did just that.
The whole thing was painful. Daryl pretended, and he was good at pretending it, that nothing hurt him. He pretended that he didn't wish to pass out when Hershel pulled through the arrow through, offering him nothing more than something to bite to manage the pain, and he pretended that the bite and pull of the needle piercing his skin repeatedly and closing up things he never should have been clumsy enough to open in the first place didn't hurt him either.
He had learned, and it was a lesson he'd learned pretty well, though maybe not as good as his brother, to pretend that things didn't hurt him.
Dixons didn't get hurt. They didn't get hurt and they didn't have feelings.
Except, of course, when they did.
But just because it was there, didn't mean you had to flaunt it. Merle had always said that having feelings was like having to shit…you might know about it, and it might weigh pretty damn heavy on your mind, but that didn't mean the whole damn world had to be aware of your business.
Merle had always been, of course, the poet in the family.
All of the thoughts, though, were at least doing something to distract Daryl from what Hershel was doing. Before he knew it, the torture was over and Hershel was smoothing a bandage over the wound that he'd rip off before morning.
"You'll stay in here tonight," Hershel said. "Keep that wound clean. It would probably do you good to rest a few days. Take it easy. I'll tell Maggie or Beth to bring you a plate for supper."
"Carol'll bring me somethin'," Daryl commented. "Thank ya just the same."
Hershel hummed at him.
"At least take it easy," he said. "You did some pretty significant muscle damage with that arrow. You're lucky it didn't puncture anything important."
Daryl simply grunted at the man, assuming that would be the end of that and he would leave the room. Then Daryl could eat whatever Carol brought him, sleep it off for a few hours, and they could hit the trail at first light to pick up where he'd been dumb enough to stop them. If they got there while the trail was still warm, they'd have a much better chance of catching up with the girl that seemed to be taunting them with her ability to handle this better than the two Dixon brothers combined.
Hershel didn't leave, though. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed like he and Daryl were about to have a heart to heart. Daryl didn't know how to tell him that he really wasn't one for heart to heart conversations, especially not with old men that he didn't know.
"Is that girl yours?" Hershel asked. "The girl that's gone missing? She yours?"
Daryl didn't want to answer the question. Sophia wasn't his. Not at all. He certainly couldn't say that he'd been the one to make her, but the man who had made her…Daryl didn't figure he deserved her. He'd never deserved Carol either.
"Mine enough," Daryl offered finally.
Hershel stared at him a moment. Then he laughed to himself.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean? May I ask?" Hershel asked.
"You just did," Daryl commented. "Means she ain't mine…not by blood…but she's mine."
"Is her mother your wife?" Hershel asked.
"Ain't you just full a' questions?" Daryl responded.
Hershel laughed again.
"I don't mean to offend, son," Hershel said. "But if you're all going to be staying on my farm, I think I have a right to know what's happening around me and my children. Your sister in law, I talked to her earlier and I know your brother's situation, but I was curious about yours."
His sister in law?
Fucking Andrea had gone and told this "God fearing" man that would probably throw them all out on their asses for not being married that she was married. But married to Merle?
Daryl had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing at the shit storm that was bound to blow up when Merle Dixon, allergic to commitment until he'd met that damn blonde, was now a happily married man. And if this guy was going to be bugged by the fact that they weren't married, they better stage an accident or two to keep Alice's ass so busy and so damn tired that she didn't endeavor to open her mouth to say anything that wasn't related to the medical field.
"We're married," Daryl offered quietly. He could beg forgiveness for it later. "Girl's mine, but she ain't mine. Carol was…widowed."
Hershel looked solemn…sorry for Ed's death. Daryl figured he'd let him have it for now. He might be the only person left in the world who could muster up any sympathy for Ed. Might as well let that simmer a bit.
"You should wait a day, two maybe," Hershel said, getting up from his seat. "You need to rest. And, if your little girl is still out there? She'll be fine."
"She's out there," Daryl assured him. "And…arrow or not. I'm goin' ta get her tomorrow."
Hershel looked like he might argue with him, but finally he stopped and nodded his head.
"I've got daughters myself," he commented quietly. "I'll send your wife."
Daryl watched as Hershel let himself out of the room and closed the door behind him with a click.
Daryl didn't lie there long, in silence and in contemplation about everything the conversation with Hershel had contained, before Carol opened the door and came in carrying a tray. She put it on the bedside table and stood there, a little awkwardly perhaps, and Daryl patted the bed beside him. She hesitated, but finally climbed into the bed to sit beside him like the next thing he could expect was a good natured pillow fight while they told each other about their periods…or whatever the hell it was that girls did at sleepovers.
Carol looked tired. She looked drained. She wore something of a smile on her face, but it was just as fake as if it were painted on. Her eyes told the real story.
"Can you sit up?" She asked. "Eat something?"
"Might be better if you feed me," Daryl commented. He did sit up, though, and he accepted the plate of food to start eating greedily. It wasn't until the smell really hit his nostrils that he realized he was almost starving to death…he'd been forgetting, as he knew Merle and Carol had too, that food was important even when other things seemed more important. "I don't want'cha ta be mad, but I told that man we was married."
Carol just sat there, looking like she could have fallen asleep in less than a moment if given the opportunity. She had the glazed appearance to her eyes that made him wonder if she was even truly aware of her senses anymore. It happened sometimes, and he knew this well, that there was a point of exhaustion that you could cross where you started to even doubt your own existence. It looked like she might have crossed that line at least a day or so ago.
"I told him Sophia was mine," he said. "Well…that she weren't mine, 'cause you was widowed, but that she was mine. And we were married. Didn't want him losin' his mind or nothin'."
He almost wanted to ask if she could hear him from the expression on her face. It had only changed ever so slightly. He offered her a piece of the chicken he had, breaking it off and holding it to her lips in his fingers. She seemed to snap out of something when she smelled it under her nose and she backed up slightly, shaking her head.
"I already ate," she said. "This is for you."
"So you are alive," Daryl said. "We gonna find her, Carol. We already did. Just a matter…a matter a' goin' to get her. Tomorrow."
"Every day has been tomorrow," Carol commented. "And not a single tomorrow has come."
Daryl felt his stomach churn against the food he was offering it at the comment.
"If you wanted to be," Carol said, "you could be Sophia's Daddy. You've done more for her than Ed ever did…more than he ever would."
He nodded his head at her, not sure how to respond, not wanting to say that's exactly what he wanted, if it could ever really be true.
"And…if you wanted to be my husband?" Carol offered quietly. "I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather be married to."
Daryl was struck for a moment. He stopped chewing his food even. Carol would be his wife? If he wanted her to be his wife? And she couldn't think of anyone she'd rather be married to?
The entire thing seemed foreign to him. He'd suspected that, probably, she would be bothered by the fact that he'd been so bold as to tell Hershel that they were married and it was going to be some kind of thing that she had to act out for however long they remained on the farm.
But now she was telling him that she'd be happy to be married to him?
"Can you do that?" He asked, the words falling out before they'd even properly "baked" in his mind.
"Do what?" Carol asked.
"Get married? I mean…I don't know what I mean," Daryl said, laughing a little to himself as soon as he realized that he was just thinking out loud at this point. "I mean Ed…"
"Is dead," Carol said. She shrugged. "Ed is dead. And…for a long time? I felt dead too. Before he died."
She sighed.
"I don't feel dead anymore. I feel tired and I feel…worried. And I feel sad. And I miss my baby so much that I…I can't even breathe," Carol said.
Daryl swallowed back the way that the statement made him feel.
"But…I don't feel dead anymore," Carol said. "I feel…and that's…a big change for me."
Daryl could only manage to nod at her, slightly, to indicate that he understood her. She'd probably take it, like most any head nod, that he understood the words that were coming out of her mouth, he understood what she was trying to say to him. But really, what he meant and what was keeping him from actually being able to say anything in the moment, was that he understood her.
And Dixons didn't have feelings, that much had been true for most of his life, except when they did.
"I'd marry you," Daryl offered after a moment. "If I could, I'd marry you. But the old man, he thinks we're already married…we gotta figure out how to get outta that one."
Carol smiled slightly.
"You want to marry me?" She asked.
"You wanna marry me?" He responded.
And neither said yay or nay to the other's question, but the response wasn't really necessary.
"Let's find Sophia?" Carol asked. "Then…we'll tell him the truth? We'll…talk to Soph? Make some kind of announcement? I don't know how it works these days."
Daryl nodded again. He'd eaten, in the time since she'd entered the room, almost all of the food on his plate, and what was left he didn't want. He offered her the plate and she put it on the bedside table again, accepting his water glass when he offered that, drained, to her as well.
"Tomorrow," he offered, finally swallowing down everything that had filled his mouth after her statement. "We'll find her tomorrow."
"I'm going with you," Carol said, assertively.
Daryl shook his head.
"There's Walkers and…you see what happened ta me, you better just stay here," Daryl said.
Carol shook her head at him.
"No," she said. "And…if I'm going to be married to you? That's the first rule. You don't go anywhere…and I don't go anywhere…unless we're together."
"This is just rambling 'round in the woods," Daryl protested.
Carol shook her head at him again.
"I'm going with you," she said. "We're going to get Sophia, and I need to go."
Daryl wanted to argue with her. He wanted to demand that she stay there on the farm, surrounded by the miles of protective fencing that blocked the place off, or so it seemed, from Walkers, but he could tell that she was resolved to go.
"You're hurt," she said. "And I'm going."
Daryl sighed and gnawed at his lip.
"Fine," he said. "Fine…you wanna go? You go. I ain't tellin' you that'cha can't."
Carol smiled.
"We're going to get her," she said, almost with the same quality of disbelief that a child might whisper about some great wonder of Christmas morning to come.
"We are," Daryl said.
Carol leaned toward him to kiss him, and he brought his lips to her, capturing hers for a moment. And it felt strange and it felt wonderful because he realized, all at once and with more excitement than he would have thought would be there, that if what they'd said was true, it was the first time that he was ever kissing, with the full knowledge of it, the woman that would be the last woman he'd ever kiss…the woman that would be his wife.
And he laughed to himself, and she looked at him in a confused manner when she pulled away, making him shake his head to excuse having to explain himself.
Because even if Dixons did get married, they didn't love their wives. Until they did.
When Carol moved to get off the bed, Daryl caught her hand. She looked back at him, furrowing her brows once more in question.
"Stay with me," he said. "Sleep here?"
She looked like she might shake her head. She might be concerned about decorum, since they were around people here on the farm that hadn't known about their nights in the truck, but Daryl interrupted her before she could manage a real protest.
"They already know we're married," Daryl said. "So stay the night with me. Get some real sleep. You need rest for if you goin'."
Carol considered it a moment and got up. He thought she was going to refuse him. He thought that maybe she'd rethought the whole thing, hearing it said like that. But she simply took off her shoes and kicked off the excess clothing she had, switching off the lamp by the bed.
She eased into the bed and Daryl found her, realizing she was afraid to come too close for the fear of hurting him. But even if she brushed a stitch or two without meaning it, he realized that he'd rather be close to her when he slept.
"Goodnight," she said softly. "We have a big day tomorrow."
Daryl chuckled to himself again and closed his eyes, breathing in the clean smell of soap that surrounded her and him both after being given the chance to be clean on the farm. It was a nice smell that complimented the bed and the smell of laundry detergent well.
It was a smell that he hoped Sophia would enjoy, when she would undoubtedly get some kind of place of honor in one of the "in house" beds upon her return.
Tomorrow.