AN: Sorry about the delay. I've been sitting on this chapter half-done for about two weeks. I finally got it out, though.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"No, I mean it's going good," Daryl said, leaning against the side of the car, Alice standing with her arms crossed a few feet in front of him. "It is. They're getting along just fine. But about a week ago I found 'em sleeping in the bed together…coulda been there almost all night…and then I found 'em like that not two days ago. I just wanna know..."
He stopped and glanced back over in the distance. Carol and Sophia were spreading out the picnic blanket that they were going to dine on. He and Alice were being gracious enough to bring the food and entertainment from the car.
They just hadn't gotten around to getting everything out yet.
"I just wanna know if that's OK," Daryl said. "I mean…is it normal that I found 'em sleepin' together twice?"
Alice scratched her head and then shifted the weight on her feet before she waved him out of the way and opened the door of the car. He watched as she pushed herself into the seat, and without explanation, shimmied her way as delicately as possible out of her pantyhose, leaving both them and her shoes in the foot of the car.
She talked to him the entire time she did it, acting as if it were the most normal thing in the world that a woman could do at the parking area just outside the park.
"This is really a little more of Mel's area of study," Alice said. "But does it bother you?"
Daryl chewed on the question a moment and finally shrugged.
"I mean it ain't hurting me none," Daryl said. "Carol always leaves after I've gone to bed, I don't even know she's got up until morning when she ain't there."
Alice shrugged.
"So? So what's wrong with it?" She asked.
"I'm not saying there's a thing wrong with it, Al," Daryl protested. "I'm asking if there's anything wrong with it. We've never had kids before. This is kinda new to both of us."
Alice sat still in the seat of the car, bare feet hanging out now, and carefully considered the whole thing.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with it," she said definitively. "I mean…Sophia is Carol's daughter. If things had worked out like she would have wanted them to, then she probably would have spent a lot of time just nurturing her. She would have held her. She would have…hugged her and cuddled her. But she never got to cuddle her. Likewise, Sophia probably didn't cuddled a lot as a kid. She probably got sort of put to the side and left to her own devices. Like Andrea's kids."
Daryl snorted and shook his head.
"Andrea don't got time to cuddle kids," he commented. "She's too damn busy trying to keep 'em from breaking their necks."
"My point is," Alice said, climbing back out of the car and showing clear evidence that she intended to wear neither the stockings nor the shoes, "that maybe they're just catching up on some of the affection that they missed. I wouldn't let it worry me unless it becomes something that actually disrupts your life."
"Yeah," Daryl commented.
He glanced back over in the direction of Carol and Sophia. They seemed to have found enough rocks to secure the blanket, because both of them were sitting now and staring in his direction as though they were trying to figure out what was taking so long for him and Alice to deliver the items they'd gone after. He supposed they could blame it on Alice's sudden need to strip down to the bare legs that Merle would have said was inappropriate attire.
Daryl made his move then, waving at Carol as reassurance and seeing her wave back, to get everything out. He passed, first, the small cake to Alice that he wanted her to carry, making sure that it didn't get tossed about or turned in the process.
"Don't drop this," Daryl commented. "It's Sophia's second birthday cake."
"Awww," Alice crooned. "It seems like just yesterday she was having her first birthday party…they grow up so quickly."
Daryl rolled his eyes at her and she laughed at him.
"I mean it," he said. "Don't'cha drop that cake."
"Now I'm guaranteed to not only drop it, but to fall face first into it," Alice responded, turning to walk slowly toward Sophia and Carol, not waiting for Daryl to come with the other things. "You've cursed me and the cake. We're both goners."
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Carol cupped her hands around the birthday candles for Daryl to try and light them again. She was afraid that if they didn't get the flickering flame to hold this time, they weren't going to be able to light them. Every time he got them lit and moved to let Sophia make her wish and blow them out, they went out before Sophia could even get close to the cake.
As a result, Sophia, at least laughing at the even instead of being bothered by it, was on her knees, close to the cake, ready to blow on the candles the very moment that Carol moved her hands.
"OK, ready?" Daryl asked, stifling his own laughter. "Gotta get ready 'cause they ain't gonna last long."
"Go!" Sophia commanded.
Daryl flicked the lighter and dropped the flame toward the half charred wicks. Carol spat because, though the lighter seemed to do a poor job of lighting the flame, it had no problem being hot enough to burn the flesh on her hand.
She snatched her hand back as quickly as she saw the flames barely dance on the wicks, but still the moment she moved her hands the flame was burned out…Sophia never got to release the breath that she was holding.
"Damn it!" Daryl growled. "Sorry Soph," he commented. "Don't know why they won't burn. Reckon I got faulty candles."
"It's OK," Sophia said with a shrug. "Those things don't work anyway. The birthday wishes?"
She crawled slightly around the blanket and took Carol's hand.
"Are you OK?" Sophia asked, turning Carol's hand over in hers and trailing her fingertip lightly on the red spot that was the only evidence of the slight burn.
"Fine," Carol said. "Just got too hot, I don't think it really even burned me."
Before she could say anything, Daryl reached across and grabbed her hand spitting on the spot and rubbing it in with his thumb.
"Make it burn less," he commented.
"That is single handedly the most unhygienic thing I think I've ever seen," Alice commented. "You should know better than to spit on a burn. Jesus! Have you even been paying attention? They're going to give you license for crying out loud?"
Daryl made a face at Alice and let go of Carol's hand, so she took the opportunity to dry it off with a napkin.
"I wouldn't spit on a patient," Daryl said. "But Carol's my wife."
"That doesn't make her immune to your germs," Alice replied.
Daryl shrugged slightly.
"Means that ain't the first a' my germs she ever come in contact with," Daryl said. He raised his eyebrows then and directed his attention to Carol and Sophia. "Who wants cake? I do."
Carol laughed to herself and went through the basket to get everything out so that she could serve the cake and pass pieces of it around.
She didn't know why the candles hadn't burned. It was a little breezy, but it hadn't been bad enough to even give Daryl or Alice too much struggle in lighting cigarettes.
Candles or not, though, it was a nice day for Sophia's second birthday party and it was nice to lounge out in the almost empty park and lazily watch the few people that were out enjoying the weather like they were.
"So kiddo," Alice commented, once she'd procured her piece of cake, "what do you want? I mean that the candles aren't giving you."
"You're not supposed to tell, or it won't come true," Carol responded.
Alice gave her a bored expression.
"She says they're not coming true anyway," Alice said. "Might have a better chance of them coming true if you get it out there into the atmosphere. I'm pretty good at making wishes come true, myself."
"Yeah?" Sophia asked.
Alice nodded and Carol snorted to herself because she could see something mischievous on Sophia's face. She wasn't being sincere in the moment with her interest in Alice's comment.
"Are you some kind of fairy? Or an elf? Maybe you're like Santa?" Sophia teased.
Alice stuttered a moment, knowing now that Sophia was teasing her.
"Here's somethin' you don't know about your aunt Alice," Daryl commented. "We was waiting to tell you…but I think you might be ready to handle it. Your aunt Alice…well…she thinks she's some kinda god…"
"Oh!" Sophia said, her smile spreading. "I thought that was Uncle Merle!"
Carol nearly dropped her cake into her lap and Alice barked out a laugh that was loud enough that she immediately shouted an apology at a nearby walking couple for having made their dog bark at her loud explosion.
Even Daryl seemed to think it was pretty hilarious.
"This kid," Alice commented, getting her laughter under control, "is gonna do alright around here. I might not be a fairy, but you tell me what you want, and I'll find a way to get it."
Sophia shrugged and shook her head, picking at the cake like she was trying to make the slice of it last forever, as though Carol wouldn't have simply cut her another and given it to her had she finished that one and wanted more.
Carol, seeing the manner in which Sophia was picking at the cake, cut another slice without asking if she wanted it, put it on her own plate, and passed it to Sophia.
"Here," Carol offered. "Seconds…we don't want to take all of this home."
She reached for Daryl's plate, and when he looked confused, nodded at him so that he would pass it over. He glanced at Sophia, who was looking around like she didn't know if she should accept the second helping of cake, and passed his plate over to take more as a show of solidarity. Carol served him the cake and Alice offered her plate over without being asked.
"What about you?" Sophia asked. She quickly consolidated the cake that she had into a messy mountain on one plate and passed the empty one back to Carol.
Carol didn't really want more cake, but if everyone eating more was going to make Sophia feel better about accepting something she wanted, then Carol would make herself eat it and simply regret her choices later and in private.
"So, first birthday," Daryl asked, licking his fork clean before diving into the second slice of cake. "Better or worse?"
Sophia hummed.
"This is better," she said.
"Anything special you want for the third?" Carol asked. "Different…" Carol stopped and felt her stomach turn even at the thought of her question in just this moment. Too much cake in one sitting could make her never want dessert again. She didn't continue until she'd swallowed down the growing piece in her mouth. "Cake?" She finished.
Sophia shrugged.
"The cake is great," she said. "The food is good. You don't have to do anything special."
She looked around at the movement stirred up by a few people passing near them as they went off to do some other activity.
"Really," she said. "Nothing special. Everything's great…"
"We did get you a present," Daryl offered. "Only I don't know if you gonna like it too much."
Sophia perked up at the information and Carol pushed the basket toward Daryl where he'd put the present he'd insisted on wrapping in the bottom. It was lumpy and poorly wrapped. The bow that he'd tried to make out of ribbon was probably the ugliest bow that she'd ever seen in her life.
Still, she hadn't said anything about it because the gift had been his idea and the wrapping had been all on him as well. She decided, though, she wasn't going to let him take full credit for it until she knew how Sophia would react. If Sophia liked it, it was all Daryl's doing. If Sophia didn't, they'd share the burden of the disappointment fifty-fifty.
Daryl passed Sophia the lumpy package and Sophia examined it before she tore it open. The glove stayed in her hand, but the ball dropped into her lap and rolled out. She looked at it, brow furrowed, and then the smile spread across her face that let Carol know they'd found a winner in the gift.
"It's all your Daddy's doing," Carol offered. "He picked it out."
Sophia grinned at Daryl.
"It's mine?" She asked.
He chuckled.
"Yeah, it's yours," he said.
"Can we play?" Sophia asked.
He shrugged.
"Of course we can play," he said. "You know how to wear the glove?"
She looked at it and shook her head and Daryl got to his feet, offering a hand out to Sophia who abandoned what was left of her cake and let him pull her up to her feet with her prizes. She shot a quick grin back in Carol's direction and Carol couldn't help but smile at her excitement over the idea of a first game of catch in the park with Daryl.
"You don't need a glove?" Carol heard Sophia ask Daryl as he led her off a short distance so that stray balls wouldn't bombard her and Alice as they lounged on the blanket and kept an eye out for ants.
"Not yet," Daryl commented. "My hands are tough enough…at least until you build you up some good strength in your throwin' arm…then I'll get me one too."