AN: Here we go, another little chapter on this one.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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The birthday party that had been planned didn't take place the next day as Daryl had thought it would. Instead, it took place two nights later, the night before Sophia was to begin school, and Carol and Daryl both took the time allowed to them to prepare.
One thing they had in common at the moment was the desire that everything be right for the girl and that it be exciting. She deserved that, and it was really the only thing that they could give to her.
Carol had spent her time, and even some she stole from hours she should have been sleeping, making one of the dresses from the complicated patterns that Sophia had picked out. The girl didn't know about the party, but she did know about the sewing and she protested, though her protests fell on deaf ears, that Carol was putting so much time and effort into the garment.
Carol wanted Sophia to have something beautiful, or at least something she felt was beautiful, to wear to her birthday party and to school the next day. It was the first thing that she was able to make for her daughter and it was the first thing that she felt she was really able to give to her. There wasn't any amount of work that was too great for something that important.
Daryl had informed every one of the party and asked them all to come prepared. It was a birthday party, the first of many, even if it wasn't Sophia's real birthday. They were to bring gifts, but he assured them that they didn't have to be elaborate. They needed only to consider what might be some small trinket of affection for the girl. He was going to handle what he hoped would be the nicest of the gifts.
And finally the day of the party had come and everything was really ready except for the meal. Daryl had gone to work and was picking up Sophia's gift on his way home and Carol was preparing dinner while Sophia watched her, beginning to grow suspicious of something going on.
"You're making an awful lot of food," Sophia finally declared, rocking on her feet first on one side of Carol and then on the other.
"We're feeding an awful lot of people tonight," Carol responded.
"Why?" Sophia asked.
Carol chuckled at the concern on Sophia's face. She shook her head slightly.
"Nothing special," she responded. "We just thought you might like to have dinner with your family. You haven't met everyone yet. So your Uncle Merle and Aunt Andrea are coming. You have five cousins from them. And then…there's your Aunt Melodye who's coming. Your Aunt Alice would have come, but she had some things that couldn't be put off, so you're going to meet her another time."
"Five cousins?" Sophia asked.
Carol hummed.
"All boys," Carol said. "All under eight. There's Merle Jr. and…Charlie…Jamie…Hank…Allen…and then there's another one that Andrea's expecting."
Carol looked at the expression on Sophia's face and didn't know whether to laugh at her reaction to the news or to feel sorry for the girl because it was a lot to walk into. The whole thing had to be overwhelming.
For Sophia, it was like she'd woken up one morning and found a whole new life. Who she thought she was wasn't who she was now. Her life before had been almost erased even.
Carol thought maybe that's the one thing that she and Sophia really did have in common, though their circumstances were different. Both of them had two lives that belonged to them, even if Carol couldn't or wouldn't recall the one that was lost from her and trapped in the past.
"I know it sounds like a lot," Carol offered with a sympathetic smile to the girl, "but you're going to have a good time. They'll stay for dinner and they'll leave whenever you're ready for them to go home."
Sophia screwed up her nose at Carol in an odd manner.
"Is Andrea your sister?" Sophia asked.
Carol shook her head.
"Sister in law," Carol said. "Merle is Daryl's brother. I…don't have any family. It was just me when Daryl met me."
Sophia frowned and Carol reached and gently touched the girl's chin.
"Why don't you go get dressed?" Carol asked. "Put on your new dress for everyone to see? Dinner will be ready soon and people will start getting here."
Sophia nodded her head slightly, the expression on her face not having changed entirely, and then she added a quick and quiet "Yes ma'am" before she turned and obediently went to her room to change her clothes in anticipation of the dinner that she didn't know was going to be more about her than she already imagined.
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Daryl didn't know how Sophia was holding up at the meal. It was difficult to tell because all he could hear besides the mouths of the other children at the table, almost constantly being quietly hushed by Andrea…who was then loudly hushed by Merle with the declaration that "boys would be boys" and they needed to "express themselves" was Merle's mouth as he talked about anything and everything.
Everything except Sophia, of course.
It was her party and she and Carol both were like elephants at the table. Everyone could clearly see them, but in a way they were pretending that they couldn't. It was uncomfortable for Daryl so he could only imagine what it was like for them, and he wasn't really sure how to draw attention to it without making them more uncomfortable.
And some of it was understandable. It wasn't every day that you were introduced to a teenage girl and told to accept her as a member of your family, your brother's son, or someone's biological daughter who never managed to know anything about her beforehand. Even though they'd known that Carol possibly had a child somewhere, it didn't make it any easier that now she was sitting in front of them, half grown and expecting introductions that would lead to warm and familial relationships.
They were all looking at Carol differently too now. Now there was physical evidence of all the rumors that they'd heard about and all the stories that had been told about her. Now the child they'd always been able to dismiss as "maybe part of someone's fantasy" was right there…and it stirred up old questions about who Carol had been before she became the woman she was now.
No one was being directly rude, otherwise Daryl would have known how to respond to them…but they were simply awkward and it was palpable in the room.
Really Daryl shouldn't say that no one was being rude. In a lot of ways he felt that his brother was doing his absolute best at the moment and it wasn't really fair to short change him on all that he was trying to accomplish. It was almost crystal clear to Daryl that Merle didn't accept Sophia as Daryl's child in the slightest…and that even if he did, being a girl made her far inferior to his army of boys.
So when Merle launched into yet another hearty speech about one of the boys, Daryl didn't feel too badly about clearing his throat loudly and speaking right over his older sibling.
"Carol? Why don't you go an' get that nice cake from Melodye and Alice? Serve it up for everyone? Coffee all around?" Daryl asked, raising an eyebrow at Carol.
She looked relieved for the invitation to leave the table and got up suddenly. Melodye got up with no less enthusiasm and rushed after Carol, declaring that she'd be happy to help her serve.
Daryl got up when he saw Melodye coming with the cake that someone had to have helped her load in the car. He brought it to the table so that it didn't accidentally get destroyed in transit and put it closest to Sophia who seemed almost afraid of it at the moment. He offered the evil eye to two of the boys that moved closer and seemed to be considering sticking a finger in the icing of her very first birthday cake.
Melodye went back into the kitchen and silence fell over the table while they waited for the coffee to come. Merle was giving Daryl a disapproving look, clearly not liking that whatever boring story he'd been about to tell was interrupted.
And Daryl didn't care too much about it at the moment.
When the coffee was brought and passed around and Melodye made a return trip for cream and sugar to be passed around, everyone finally sat again and Daryl lit the one candle that he'd put in the cake to represent that this was the first of Sophia's birthdays…the first of fourteen that they owed her and planned to make right on before her fifteenth was due with all the pomp and circumstance that it merited.
"Blow out ya candle," Daryl said. "Make you a good wish."
Sophia looked at him and furrowed her brow like she wasn't sure about this practice and he nodded at her to seal the deal and convince her to do it. She sat for a moment, perhaps musing over the idea of the birthdays or maybe over her wish, and then finally she stood and blew out the candle.
Daryl applauded her and slowly everyone else followed suit. Sophia sat with a deep blush taking over her cheeks for the moment.
"What'd you wish for?" Merle asked.
"She's not going to tell you," Andrea said quickly. "She can't tell if she wants it to come true."
"Unless it's to her old man," Daryl offered with a wink at the obviously embarrassed girl. "Then it'll come true I bet."
Sophia smiled at that, at least.
While Carol served cake to accompany the coffee that everyone was preparing, Sophia was given the opportunity to open her gifts. Melodye explained that the gift that she and Alice had given the girl, the first in a set of Encyclopedias that would be arriving to her one at a time for the next two years, didn't look like much but was a gift that she'd appreciate as she came to need them for schooling.
Sophia had thanked her politely for the gift, not looking nearly as disappointed as it sounded like Melodye had thought she would.
Merle and Andrea's gift left a little something to desire in Daryl's opinion. It wasn't so much that it wasn't something big, he hadn't expected that, but it was a beginner's sewing kit and he couldn't help but feel that there was less thought put behind the present than behind what they'd worn to the dinner.
But Daryl didn't say anything about it. He was determined not to cause a scene and Sophia appeared pleased with the gift, despite the fact that Carol could have provided her with much nicer any day of the week, and declared that she could learn to sew with Carol.
Daryl offered, then, the gift that he had picked up for the girl.
"This is from me and ya Ma both," Daryl said.
Sophia took the little box and tore the brown paper off of it with the same precision she had used with the others. She piled the paper up on the table like she meant to keep it and then turned the box over in her hand a moment before glancing back at him like she wanted reassurance. He nodded at her to open it and she did.
She pulled the silver locket out of the box and held it in her hand, staring at it.
It was heart shaped and in tiny letters on the very front of it, it had the engraving: "And Our Hearts Were Full".
"It's a locket," Carol offered softly. She'd been the one that had decided on the engraving from the ones that the jewelry store offered them. She reached and showed Sophia how to open the little heart with her thumb nail, revealing to the girl the small photo of Carol and Daryl that he'd had cut and placed there for her.
"We get some pictures a' you," he offered, "and one of 'em goes in the other side."
Sophia held the locket in her hand, open like it was, and thanked both of them without looking at them, her eyes stuck on the locket.
"Would you like me to put it on for you?" Carol asked her.
Sophia nodded and Carol took the necklace, closing the heart back and holding it in her hand so that she could get up and slip behind the girl, fastening the dainty chain and letting the heart fall around her neck. Sophia fingered it and thanked them again, her voice a little louder this time than it had been the first.
Merle chuckled from where he was sitting.
"Locket's a fine gift for a girl," he commented. "Should be passed down, though…like a pocket watch. Something nice that goes ta the oldest. Like Merle Jr. here, he'll get my pocket watch, just like it was always planned."
Sophia fingered the locket and looked at Merle.
"You couldn't always know you were having Merle Jr," she offered at the same level voice that she'd used to offer the hushed thanks.
Merle looked amused for a moment.
"I did," he stated. "Always. Dixon men have boys…several if they're lucky. I knew Merle Jr. would come."
"That's silly," Sophia said, furrowing her brow. "No one knows what a baby will be…and you might not have even had any children…maybe you couldn't have them."
"Don't you sass me!" Merle declared quickly. Daryl got to his feet.
"I think it's time to go," Daryl said, making his voice as stern as possible.
"You bring that girl into your house and then allow her ta sass everyone she ain't even been here a full week?" Merle asked.
He was heated, but Daryl was pretty sure that he could give his brother a run for his money at the moment.
"I believe dinner's over," Daryl commented again, ignoring what his brother had said. Andrea, was already getting the boys together and Melodye had her hand on the door to let herself outside. "We do appreciate y'all comin' by, but tomorrow's the first day a' school for Sophia an' she's gotta rest tonight."
Daryl saw the women out that were trying to leave, tossing their goodbyes and closing words over their shoulders, and held the door for his brother to pass through, following Merle out onto the porch.
"You let that girl sass you like that an' you won't never have control a' your household," Merle commented, lighting a cigarette and watching as his wife took their kids to the car and said goodnight to Melodye.
"You don't treat her like she ain't my kid," Daryl said. "Not no more. You don't treat her like she's no less. I treat your boys good."
"They my boys," Merle commented. "This girl ain't your blood…you don't even know her. Even Carol don't know her. I can treat her like I would any girl, but she ain't yours."
Daryl sucked his teeth.
"She will be," he commented. "It'll be legal an' she'll be both of ours. I'ma forgive ya tonight, but you damn well better watch it next time."
Merle stared hard at him and then he hummed, apparently realizing Daryl was serious about this if he hadn't been serious about nothing else.
"I'll treat her like you want her treated," Merle said. "But I ain't toleratin' no sass. I don't let Andrea back talk me and I don't expect no kid to neither. I don't give a damn who her parents are."
Daryl didn't respond with anything but a "goodnight, Merle" and he let himself back inside the house, hoping that what he found there wasn't any worse for the wear.