AN: Here we go, another chapter here. More to come.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol couldn't fall asleep. Daryl had fallen asleep quickly after they'd made love, and now he was asleep with his arm across her and his face against the back of her neck, the warmth of his breath blowing gently there and making her shiver if she concentrated too long on the sensation. When she felt she wasn't going to get to sleep from simply lying there, she eased his arm up and slid out from under it as carefully as she could before she dressed again in her underwear and nightgown and slipped to the bathroom.
When she was washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror.
It was an odd sensation to feel like you didn't know yourself. It was an odd sensation to feel like you'd only just met the person that looked back at you from the reflective glass…yet this was the person you were and inside the body that stared back at you, you held everything that had ever happened to you.
She'd discussed it once with Alice, when she was having the strange dreams that came and went and were more intense at times than at others. Alice had told her that everyone, no matter their situation, had moments of catching their reflection and feeling like they didn't know the person that was standing there.
But Carol felt like she didn't know herself on a level that many people hadn't experienced. And, in some ways, she wondered if the person she believed herself to be was the person that she was at all.
Because she couldn't remember things about herself and it was possible, very possible, that the person she thought she was, wasn't who she was at all. Maybe it was all something fake and constructed. Maybe she wasn't the Carol that she'd come to believe herself to be.
But Daryl had told her that it didn't matter anyway. Whoever she had been, if she couldn't remember that person at all, didn't matter. What mattered, he ventured, was exactly who she was and exactly who she believed herself to be.
The past didn't matter, the present was what was important.
And maybe that was true, but it didn't stop her from wondering about it.
Especially now that Sophia was here and she was part of her life. Carol wanted to remember the life she had before because she wanted to remember what it was like when she knew that she was expecting the child. She wanted to be able to tell Sophia exactly what she felt…and she hoped that she had felt good things, even if she'd obviously felt some sort of fear and obligation to give her away.
But she didn't remember it. She could only suspect that some of it was part of the dreams that she had, part of the good ones and the bad ones, but she couldn't be sure.
In some ways, though, Carol thought maybe it was better that she couldn't remember. She was aware, because the evidence was there, that she'd missed fourteen years of her only child's life, but it might be that much more horrifying to her if she were able to remember it all and had spent those fourteen years, not wishing to be a mother, but knowing that she was a mother.
Knowing that she'd been a mother without a child.
That thought, every time it crossed her mind, and it had crossed it several times since Sophia's arrival, made Carol's chest ache. Because Sophia, unlike herself, could remember much of her life and she had spent the whole of it being a child without a mother.
It was Carol's first failure to the girl, and one that she knew she had to live with because there was simply no way to go back undo what had been done by the woman that she couldn't even recall.
Carol slipped out of the bathroom and stopped by Sophia's room. The door was ajar. Sometimes, before they went to bed, Daryl or Carol would close the door, but it always seemed to magically "open" again.
Now Carol wondered if it possibly made Sophia feel more "connected" to them. She wondered if it made a difference to her to have it open, leaving her "open", in a sense, to the rest of the house.
Carol pushed the door open just a crack more and stuck her head into the room. She could hear Sophia's soft and rhythmic breathing. She was sleeping peacefully, just as Daryl was doing in the other room, but still Carol couldn't feel more than the desire to sleep in her own body. The ability seemed to be eluding her.
She went into the kitchen and poured milk into a pot that she set to warm on the stove. She leaned against her kitchen counters and watched the flames of the gas stovetop flicker and lick at the edges of the pot.
While she was standing there, she heard the floor boards near her settle and squeak. The house settled a good bit, and at times it could almost sound haunted, but there was something specific about the sound of an actual person's weighted steps on the boards.
Carol turned, a little surprised because she believed herself to be the only one awake. She found Sophia approaching her, barefoot and clad in the white cotton nightgown that Carol had made her…one of three that she'd quickly put together for the girl.
"Sophia, you're supposed to be sleeping," Carol offered.
"I'm sorry," Sophia offered quietly. "I heard you."
Carol took the pot off the stove to keep the milk from boiling. She looked at it and then back at Sophia.
"I guess, since you're up, do you want some warm milk?" Carol asked.
Sophia nodded slightly and Carol fixed the milk into two mugs instead of the one that she had planned. For an added touch, she got the honey she'd intended to sweeten her own with and sweetened both mugs slightly. She picked them up and gestured toward the table with her head and Sophia obediently went to sit there.
Carol placed the mug in front of the girl before she sat beside her at the table.
"You should be sleeping," Carol said. "I don't want you to be too tired at school."
"Shouldn't you be sleeping too?" Sophia asked.
Carol chuckled to herself.
"I should," she said. "But I couldn't."
"Once I heard you up," Sophia responded, "I couldn't either."
"It's nothing for you to worry about," Carol said. "Honestly…if you hear me up, just go back to sleep. Sometimes…I just don't sleep well."
"Why not?" Sophia asked.
Carol shrugged.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Just…sometimes I don't sleep well. Sometimes it's dreams and they wake me, and other times it's just that I can't seem to sleep. I can't seem to get my mind to stop or something."
Sophia sipped at the milk that she was drinking and shifted around in her chair, bringing one of her legs up to fold it under the other.
"Sometimes I don't sleep well either," Sophia admitted.
"Do you have bad dreams?" Carol asked.
Sophia seemed to consider the question carefully, turning her mug slightly on the table as something of a nervous twitch, perhaps.
"I don't know," Sophia said. "I mean…sometimes I have bad dreams I guess."
Carol almost laughed to herself.
"You don't know if you have bad dreams?" Carol asked.
Sophia seemed amused, and Carol didn't know if it was genuine amusement or simply something in response to her own stifled laughter.
"No ma'am," Sophia responded. "I don't know if they're bad dreams really. Some of the girls that I used to live with…well…they said that they had nightmares. They said they had these bad dreams with things…chasing them or…there were things that tried to…I don't know…kill them or something. They're not bad dreams like that."
Carol hummed to herself.
"Sometimes those are bad dreams," Carol said. "But sometimes, I have bad dreams that don't have any monsters in them. At least, they don't have any monsters that I can see, but they're bad dreams just the same."
"How do you know?" Sophia asked. "How do you know they're bad?"
Carol shrugged and drank from the cooling mug in front of her.
"I guess because, when I wake up, I feel bad," Carol said. "I feel, sometimes, like I can't breathe or like…like my heart's beating really quickly. I feel sometimes like I want to scream or like I want to cry. Sometimes I'm even afraid, even if I don't know what I'm afraid of."
Sophia stared at her, nodded her head slightly at the words, and drank more of her own milk before she traced her fingertip lightly over the patterns of the tablecloth.
"I think that's it," Sophia said. "Sometimes when I wake up from them, I feel sad."
"Then they're just as bad as anyone else's dreams," Carol offered. "But I hope that's not why you're up tonight."
Sophia shook her head slightly and chewed at her lip.
"You don't have to worry about me," Carol offered. She reached over and rubbed at Sophia's shoulder and the girl leaned slightly into the touch.
Carol had assumed that Sophia might not like for her to touch her, since even though she was technically her mother, she was a stranger to Sophia for the most part, but the girl always seemed to savor the touch. She seemed to not only accept it, but to seek it out, like a cat looking to be petted "just a little more" by leaning into the hand that offered it affection.
And, at the moment, Carol felt like she almost craved the same affection that Sophia seemed to seek out in the light touch.
So Carol slipped her arm around Sophia's shoulder and slid her chair closer to the girl, putting them as close as the pieces of furniture allowed them to be. When Sophia shifted, edging her body closer to Carol's, Carol slid her hand up and gently pushed the girl's head toward her shoulder.
And Sophia rested her head there.
Carol closed her eyes a moment, against the feeling of Sophia's head resting on her shoulder, and sighed at the sensation of it.
"You don't have to worry about me," Carol repeated. "That's not your job. It's my job to worry about you."
Sophia only hummed at her and Carol wondered if the girl was already considering going back to sleep. Maybe she'd only genuinely woken up because she'd heard her up. Maybe Carol had disturbed her, even though she hadn't meant to, by checking to see if she was sleeping.
Carol moved then, picked up the mugs, and took them to the kitchen. She drank the last of her milk and put the mugs in the sink before she left the kitchen and switched the light off.
"You need to go back to bed," Carol said. "You need to sleep."
Sophia nodded at her. She looked tired. She looked like she really needed the sleep she was denying herself at the moment. She wasn't awake, like Carol, because she couldn't sleep. She was awake because she was forcing herself not to sleep.
Sophia got up from her chair and started back toward her bedroom, but then she stopped and lingered somewhat awkwardly in the living room.
Carol stopped her own steps and stood waiting, but Sophia didn't address her.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Carol asked finally.
"Are you going to bed?" Sophia asked with some hesitation. "Are you going to sleep?"
"I'm going back to bed," Carol offered. "You should go to sleep."
Sophia chewed her lip.
"Would you…?" She stopped and never finished the request.
"What do you want?" Carol asked. "What do you need, Sophia?"
"Can you…put me to bed? Like you did my first night?" Sophia asked.
Carol smiled to herself and then she nodded.
"I think I could do that," Carol said. "If you're sure you're not too old for it. I didn't want you to feel like I was making you do it and you were too old for it."
Sophia shook her head.
"I'm quite sure that I'm not too old for it," Sophia offered.
Carol followed the girl, then, into her room. The small lamp that was in the space was still lit, probably from when Sophia had gotten up, and Carol straightened Sophia's blankets, smoothed them out, and then folded them back, freshening the bed for her. Then she moved and allowed Sophia to get into bed so that she could bring the cover up over her.
Carol sat on the edge of the bed, settling Sophia in with the bear that she'd given her, the bear that Daryl had given her many years before, and then she reached and rubbed gently at Sophia's hair. The girl already looked like her eyelids were growing heavy, but she didn't close them. She kept her eyes trained on Carol.
It was like she was trying to look inside her. She was looking at her with the same intensity that Carol had looked at herself in the mirror earlier.
Carol was struck with an idea and she turned it over in her mind once or twice before she offered it to the girl.
"Would you like me to," she offered, hesitating a second before finishing it. "Would you like me to lie with you? For a few minutes? While you fall asleep?"
Sophia smiled slightly and nodded her head.
"Very much," Sophia said.
Carol nodded and got up to switch the lamp off. Then she returned.
"Move over," Carol offered.
And Sophia did, so Carol slipped into the bed and adjusted the blankets, curling her body against Sophia's back, resting her arm over the girl in much the same manner that Daryl had rested his over her body when he'd fallen asleep earlier.
And Carol sighed, because all at once she felt as overwhelmed with the desire to sleep as Sophia had looked like she felt earlier. The girl rooted back into her slightly, fitting herself even tighter to Carol's body, and Carol closed her eyes against it all.
She'd never meant to be comforted, herself, into falling asleep. She'd only meant to stay there long enough to lull Sophia into sleep. She'd never meant to spend the night there, curled up against her daughter's body, lulled herself by the sounds of the girl's light and rhythmic breathing.