AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. More to come when I get the chance.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Sophia walked around the market just two or three steps behind Carol and Daryl. The two of them, much her liking, walked side by side and almost touching elbows. Once or twice, Daryl had dropped an arm lightly around Carol's shoulder. Sophia liked seeing it. It was, to her, exactly what she thought it should be. She'd read enough books, after all, to know that people in love were supposed to want to be close to one another, touching one another from time to time, and she knew that parents were supposed to be people in love.
Other than that, she had few expectations for them as parents. She was still wrapping her mind around what that meant and what she'd ever really though having parents meant. She assumed that would mean that Carol would cook, which she did, and the food would be good, which it was. Daryl, she thought, would smoke a pipe in the living room wearing a smoking jacket.
Except she wasn't sure what a smoking jacket was and she hadn't seen him wear any sort of jacket just yet beyond something that hung by the door and appeared to be only for keeping the rain off. And he smoked, but it was cigarettes and not a pipe.
Sophia was flexible, though, and she was anxious to learn what it meant to have parents of her own, and how her parents likely differed from those that she'd seen written about.
"Sophia, what do you want?" Carol asked. "To go with your chicken? What do you want?"
Sophia snapped out of her daydream and focused a moment on the question. It was almost as strange to be asked what she wanted for dinner as it was to go to school outside of the place where she'd lived and gone to school with the same people all the time.
"Anything is nice," she said quickly.
"No," Daryl said. "That ain't the right answer."
Sophia might have thought that she was in some kind of trouble, and that she'd honestly upset the man, but he offered her a quick wink of the eye that let her know that he wasn't angry.
"How can it be the wrong answer?" She responded. "It's a perfectly good answer that's really all possible answers at once."
Daryl chuckled.
"That's why it's the wrong answer," he said. "I wanna know what you want, not what's gonna be the most common answer you can give me."
Sophia chewed her lip.
"I beg your pardon," she responded, looking around the produce racks nearest where they were standing, "but I like most anything."
"Brussel sprouts it is," Daryl commented.
Carol laughed in response, but Sophia wasn't sure what the joke was. At her old home they were served meals. She knew there, as did everyone, that what was served was donated by local people. Whatever was served was what they had, plain and simple. You liked it or you didn't like it, that was up to you, but there was "other" option.
And she liked Brussel sprouts.
"I like Brussel sprouts just fine," she ventured.
She got something of a surprised look from both of them.
"There really isn't much I don't like," she added. "I don't care for beets. And I don't particularly like okra. But really there isn't much else that I don't care for."
Carol looked surprised, but Daryl looked amused.
"Looks like we done got ourselves the most agreeable kid in the world," he said. "You want Brussel sprouts, that's what the hell we're havin'."
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Daryl thought more about Ed Peletier Jr. these days than he had since the first days of his courtship of and marriage to Carol. The more that he was around Carol, the more he'd always wondered how a man, regardless of the suggestions and even pressures of his family, could willingly pass up the opportunity to spend his life with her…especially given the chance to know her before so much had happened to her. Now, though, the more that Sophia settled in and Carol seemed to respond to motherhood, either naturally or by some effort of her own, the more Daryl wondered about the man even more.
The man could have potentially had Daryl's life. It might have looked a little different, but it would have essentially been the same life. He could have been married to Carol and he could be calling Sophia his daughter.
In fact, he would have even had the added benefit of not having a wife who suffered from nightmares that gave her chills and made her tremble in the middle of the night. He would have had a wife who hadn't forgotten entire chunks of her life and rediscovered herself, from time to time, with bursts of insight that thrilled her for their appearances, but frightened her too.
And he would have had a daughter that was almost a woman whom he would have had the ability to watch grow from an infant.
Potentially, even, he might have had more children since he clearly had whatever it was that he needed to get Carol pregnant.
And Daryl wondered what kind of life the man led now that it was one that was worth, to him, more than all of that. Even in the case of reputations, Daryl couldn't understand it for himself…but maybe that was simply because he'd never had a reputation, bad or good, that really mattered all that much to him.
He wondered if the man, now, had regrets.
And he recognized, even though it didn't stop him from wondering just the same, that it didn't matter at all. As with everything else, what was done was done and there was nowhere to go now but forward.
"You're awfully quiet tonight," Carol said, coming into the living room. Her voice served to pull Daryl out of the world that he was stumbling around in, musing over every passing thought as it came.
She was dressed for bed. She was wearing one of the nightgowns she made herself out of some soft cotton fabric that she'd found and fallen in love with. There had been a spell when she made herself gowns and dresses from it, but she'd also made Daryl pajamas from it, deciding that he could ignore the soft floral prints for the comfort of the garment.
He'd worn them twice, just to make her smile and be happy about it, and then he'd managed to bury them deep under the piles of other clothes that he had and wore with much more frequency.
But it looked nice on her.
Daryl smiled at her and held a hand out to her, offering for her to join him on the couch. She had forgiven him, whether or not he deserved it, and he was happy beyond measure to be back in her good graces.
When she accepted his hand and started to step around him, he broadened his smile and pulled her down toward him so that she took his lead and rested herself on his lap.
"I was just thinkin'," he commented.
"About?" She asked, furrowing her brow.
He shook his head at her at first, his normal manner of telling her that whatever was on his mind was really of no concern to her, but then he thought better of it. He didn't have to tell her everything he thought…but he should at least offer her something instead of dismissing her questions.
"How lucky I am," Daryl said, rubbing her hand. "How much it means…you an' Sophia. She's settlin' right on in here. Won't be too long it'll be like she weren't never not here."
Carol hummed at him and offered him a soft smile.
"You mean a lot to me, too," she said. "And I'm sure to Sophia. She's settling in, but I imagine that it takes a lot of getting used to on her part. There's so much that's different about her life now and it's sudden to me, so I know it has to be sudden to her."
Daryl moved a hand, rubbing it gently up her back and settling it on her shoulder before he gave the muscles there a squeeze.
"You're already an amazin' Ma," Daryl said.
"Because I cooked her dinner?" Carol asked.
Daryl chuckled to himself and shook his head.
"Can you take a compliment?" He asked.
Carol bit her lip.
"Not very well," she admitted.
Daryl moved and kissed the lip that she bit and she pulled back, away from him, a smile spreading on her lips just before she quickly mimicked the action that he'd done.
She looked a little more serious when she pulled away. She lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned her face next to his, nuzzling his ear lightly before she spoke into it, her breath making him shiver with the first contact.
"I just hope we're doing everything right," she said. "I mean we've got her in school…we're trying to include her, but it's so long."
"We're doin' what we can," Daryl said. "An' we'll do more."
"I wish she would ask for things," Carol offered.
Daryl chuckled to himself.
"Took me at least five good years ta get you ta ask me for nothin'," Daryl commented. "She just got here, she ain't even learned she ain't gotta beg our pardons for thinkin' things."
Daryl thought it was interesting that, though she couldn't see it, Carol's feelings on the subject were slowly starting to transition, even without her knowing it. She was losing her own personal feelings of grief, or if she was retaining them they were hidden somewhere where he couldn't see any manifestations of them at all, and she was worrying not about how it all affected her…but how it all affected Sophia.
Whether or not she realized it, or was ready to realize it, Daryl felt like she was slowly becoming the mother that biology had already made her. And like everything else, it was going to take time, but the seed had clearly taken root.
"Hey," he offered. "How 'bout…how 'bout you ask her, huh? You ask her tomorrow if'n she wants ta take a picnic this weekend? Just the three of us go and spend Sunday together? I gotta do some stuff on Saturday for gettin' stuff ready for me ta finish up my classes…but Sunday?"
Carol smiled and nodded.
"I'd like that," she offered. "I can ask her. Or you can ask her tomorrow…when you're taking her to school."
Daryl hummed at that suggestion.
"Better you, over breakfast," he commented. "Ask her if she's ever gone to a movie," he offered. "Hell…we'll take her shoppin' and get her some toys. Anything she wants, she's gonna have."
Carol considered it and then she laughed.
"Don't you worry that we might spoil her?" Carol asked.
Daryl thought about and shook his head sincerely.
"Fourteen years is a long damn time," he said. "You done said it yaself. I don't reckon we got the ability to spoil her fourteen years' worth, so I think we're safe."
Daryl had another idea too. One that he'd thought about, but he hadn't brought it up to Carol yet.
"I was thinkin' too," he said, "that one a' these days I'ma keep her outta school. I'ma talk ta the school an' talk to 'em at work…see if I can't bring her with me…work for the day."
"Work?" Carol asked.
Daryl nodded his head.
"Why?" She asked.
"Just want her ta…" he stopped.
Finally he shook his head.
"Never mind," he commented.
"No," Carol said, a hint of indignation in her voice at being told she wasn't going to find out what he was thinking. On second thought, though, he wasn't entirely sure it was the proper thing to say to her. "Why?" She repeated.
"Don't take it wrong?" He asked.
She shook her head slightly and then smiled at him, drawing her finger in an "X" across her chest.
"I just want her ta know, ya know? I want her ta…work with you on sewin' ta see if she likes it…wanna let her talk ta Alice an' Melodye…about what they doin'…go with me here an' see what my job's like when I get a new one," Daryl explained.
Carol furrowed her brow and nodded her head slightly for no other reason than ushering him to keep explaining himself.
"I just want her ta know she can do whatever the hell she wants," he said finally. "Want her…ta know that she's got choices. She ain't gotta do what…Andrea does…just 'cause someone like Merle tells her that's what the fuck she's gotta do. Do what she wants…"
Carol bit her lip.
"Let her know," she offered, her voice changing slightly, "that she doesn't have to belong to a man?" She asked. She raised her eyebrows at him. "That she doesn't have to…do what he wants her to do just because…just because he said that's what she has to do."
Daryl felt his stomach churn.
Carol had never been given choices. What's worse was he figured that she'd never been taught that she was allowed to make choices. Like Andrea, she'd been taught that all she should really want out of life, and really all she was going to get, was a husband that would do all the thinking for her and some brats to raise just the damn way he wanted them raised.
And Daryl had thought about it before…and it had bothered him for a long time…but it was a lot different to him now that Sophia had arrived into their home and he saw, first hand, how much havoc one man's asshole decisions could make.
And he saw, too, in Sophia, a girl that was barely older than Carol had been when that asshole's decisions had begun to turn her world upside down.
Carol hadn't known that she had other choices, and maybe she really didn't, but he didn't want the same to be said for Sophia.
"Just want her ta know," Daryl said. "Just know that…she ain't gotta do nothin' she don't wanna do."
He didn't know how she was going to react, and he was almost afraid to consider it, but Carol surprised him by looking at him for a moment and then smiling softly, bringing a hand to rub her knuckles across his cheek.
"I think it's a good thing for her to know," Carol said. "And I think you're just the man to teach it to her."