AN: Here we go, another little chapter here!
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl let Sophia follow along behind him down the corridors. The place was, or at least he felt like it was, almost a ghost town of sorts. He'd escape there with a new degree, and hopefully moving immediately into a new job, just in the nick of time. The government was shutting Sunny Meadows down. They would turn the building into something else, a rehab center or something…Daryl wasn't really sure what and it didn't matter to him, but it would cease to be the home that it had been for all these years.
He wasn't sure why exactly, but he was driven to bring Sophia to the place. He had her for the full day. He'd gotten her excused from school for some "practical" education and she'd spent most of her morning helping him. She'd spent a little of her time talking to a few of the people that worked there, people he was comfortable with, about their jobs too. The rest of the day was really theirs and it was his time to show her what he wanted to show her, even if he wasn't entirely sure why it was important to show her anything of what she would see there.
Sometimes, even though he hadn't been back there in a while, he ventured down the corridors that he was walking with her now, to a part of the building that more or less remained unused now that there were quite a few less people in the establishment. Going down the hallways, sometimes, did something to remind him…it reminded him of how far they'd come, and it reminded him of the fact that they could end up just about anywhere. Life as it looked right now, didn't necessarily hold any indication of what would come.
"This place is kind of scary," Sophia muttered from behind Daryl, the hard soles of her shoes clicking a little louder than he would have expected on the floors that hadn't been waxed in some time.
He chuckled to himself.
"It ain't scary no more," he said. "Now? Now it's just…dark. Don't turn all the lights on in this part a' the institution since they don't use it. Saves on money, keeps the budget from goin' over 'til they shut it down. Now it ain't scary…not like it used ta be."
"Why did it used to be scary?" Sophia asked.
Once upon a time, Daryl would have felt nervous about speaking about these things in the open hallways and in a regular voice. Once upon a time opinions about Sunny Meadows had to be given in whispers and through voiceless communication by those talented enough to read each other's expressions. Now, though? Now he didn't fear losing his job there and everyone knew, more or less, about the questionable practices of the place. That was one of the main reasons that there were so few residents left there. The ones that were left now? They would go on to some other kind of institution, no doubt, because they were the ones left without anybody to care for them.
And Daryl never forgot that, if things hadn't gone as they had, Carol would have likely been one of them among the last remaining hollow faces of the place.
"Lotta stuff used ta happen here," Daryl admitted. "Don't know about all of it, but it weren't all on the up an' up, ya know? Basically…the idea that they crazy or they don't know no better…don't gotta treat 'em even as good as ya treat dogs you don't know. Lotta shit…closin' the place down now. Too many people got wind that they weren't good practices goin' on here. Lotta people took they people right on outta here. Now the government's closin' it down."
Daryl neared the room that he was directing them toward in the part of the building that currently only the two of them occupied, and he found that, as it always did, a strange feeling overtook him just before he stepped into the room and led Sophia into the space.
"This here," he said. "This was her room."
He'd told Sophia some of the information about what had happened to Carol. He'd given her, perhaps, the most condensed and simplified version that he could. He'd left out the details of things that they suspected or things that they speculated about. He'd stuck to the bare bones facts for the most part.
Sophia stepped into the space and looked around.
"She was in here with all these people?" Sophia asked, eyeing the beds that were set up as something like "stations" for the people who had once inhabited the room.
"They was others in here," Daryl said. "She…uh…she was in here a lot alone when I'd come in to take care a' things. I come in during their recesses. They were supposed to be, ya know, goin' out in the yard with each other. Socializin' an' stuff, but'cha Ma didn't socialize with no one. I got her ta go out with me, once I got to knowin' her better, but she weren't into spendin' time with other people."
Sophia looked around a little more.
"Which was hers?" Sophia asked.
Daryl walked to the bed that had once been Carol's bed. It was bare now, nothing but the furniture in place, but he could still see her there, sitting sad and alone, surrounded by things that she didn't even seem to be aware of or understand. Sophia walked over to the bed, looked at it, and sat on it, striking Daryl for the moment at how much she really did look like a younger version of her mother.
He sat on the bed next to it so that he could face her.
"Was this where I was born?" Sophia asked.
Daryl bit his lip and shook his head.
"Nah," he said. "Not from what I know. You was born at a different place. We knew you was born, at this other place, but we don't know exactly how ya Ma ended up here. They say…she went nuts after you was born. I don't know…"
Daryl stopped and hesitated a moment. He didn't know much about what he should or shouldn't say, but at this point he'd been pretty much honest with Sophia. It was hard, sometimes, to remember that she was a kid. She didn't act like he thought of kids acting, though mostly his experience had him basing children off of his brother's brood of tiny Merles, and she seemed to appreciate being told things bluntly. If she wanted sugar coating, she wasn't asking for it.
And he figured, at this point, he might as well not sugar coat it.
"I don't know if ya Ma went crazy 'cause they took you or if she went crazy 'cause there weren't nothin' left for her," Daryl explained. "She was alone, Sophia…like real alone. Like nobody said nothin' about me takin' her to live with me 'cause there weren't nobody cared where she lived or, hell, even if she lived at all. So she was here, an' they said she was nuts. Give her enough drugs that I was weanin' her off them things for…seems like forever. That weren't even countin' what else they prob'ly done while she was here, called it treatment."
Sophia sat there, brow furrowed, and chewed on the words that Daryl had strung together into sentences, or at least into what he hoped were sentences. He sat with her, not rushing her. They had time and he knew that he had very little expectation for the day. He had, more or less, taken the day off to cater to her entirely during his time at work. What he did while he was there, what she'd helped him with earlier, was almost charity work, just something extra that he was doing.
He would give her as long as she wanted or needed to think about things.
"This room looks a little bit like my room did," Sophia said. "Except…well…mine was nicer. At my old home? My last room was the nicest."
Daryl nodded slightly, giving her the go-ahead to say what she wanted, letting her know that he was listening to whatever it might be.
"My room now is the nicest," Sophia said.
"We want it to be nice for ya," Daryl said. She nodded her understanding at the comment.
"Can I…ask you something?" Sophia asked, squeezing the side of the mattress and rocking slightly with the thoughts in her mind.
"You can ask me whatever you want," Daryl said. "I don't got a thing to hide."
And it was pretty much true. There wasn't much about Daryl's life that he had any reservations about sharing with anyone at this point. The only thing he'd guarded very carefully had been the fact that he'd known that Carol had, and he thought lost, a child. Now that the cat was out of the bag on that, and now that he'd learned how detrimental keeping what he thought was an innocent secret to keep could be, he'd pretty much made up his mind that he didn't care if it was all out there. It was better to face it than it was to keep it to himself and risk it turning into something that was so much more than it had to be or even might be.
If he'd told her, after all…if he'd been upfront about it with her and everyone else, they might have felt the need to investigate further into what had happened to the baby. They might have had Sophia back as young as four or five and they might have had very nearly ten years more with her than they would ever have with her now.
Things might have gone quite differently, if it hadn't been for a secret.
"If Mama wanted me," Sophia offered, "then why didn't she get to keep me?"
Daryl shook his head.
"Weren't how it works," he said. "Your…uh…ya old man? Didn't want you. Ya Ma? Couldn't keep ya. She didn't have no kinda way. So she was gonna give you up…s'posed ta give you to someone who could. You see? She couldn't keep ya."
"But…when he didn't want her anymore," Sophia offered, "she couldn't get me back?"
"Brought her here, I think," Daryl offered. "Sophia…when I met'cha Ma you woulda been…near on four years old, I reckon. She weren't in no kinda condition to have no child. She didn't even know she'd had one. Wanted one. Wanted you, but she didn't know it was you she was wanting. Just knew…she wanted to be a Ma."
Sophia nodded her head.
"Yeah," she said softly. "But why didn't he want me?"
Daryl shrugged.
"I can't tell you that," he said. "I can't. I don't got no kinda answer. Maybe 'cause he didn't want people knowin' that you was borned when they weren't married?"
She nodded her head slightly, drinking in the information.
"Daddy," Sophia said, her voice coming out very blunt and matter-of-factly, "I know…I think I know enough about babies to know how they get born."
Daryl chuckled to himself and shook his head. Never, never, did he imagine that he would be sitting here and hearing these words come out of Sophia's mouth…or hearing them come out of the mouth of any girl that he was now the father of, and he didn't know if he was quite comfortable with them, but he was going to listen and he'd think about what he was willing to offer her if her questions got any more complicated than they were at the moment.
Sophia seemed undeterred by his embarrassment over the turn of the conversation, though, and continued with what she had to say.
"I know how babies get born," Sophia said. "I know that when a man and a woman love each other…and they want to have a family…they have babies to have that family. I know that. I've read about it."
Daryl was slightly relieved. If that's what they were working with then he could work with it.
"But…if he didn't want me and she couldn't keep me? I don't think I really understand that. Why was I born then?" Sophia asked. "Why did it happen that way?"
Daryl hummed and could almost feel the gears in his mind racing to try to cover far more ground than she could cover in half the time. He had little hope that he'd be successful, but he had to try. The expectation on her face for an answer was too strong for him to simply leave her without anything at all.
"Sophia…there's a little more to it than that," Daryl said. "And some of it…you just ain't old enough to understand and I ain't the person that's gonna…explain it all to ya. Ya Ma prob'ly's gonna do that. But…sometimes it happens like ya said. Sometimes it happens like a man and a woman love each other an' they have a kid. They start their family. That's how…me an' ya Ma wanted it to happen. That's how I think it's s'posed ta happen, but that ain't always how it happens. Sometimes…different things happen. Sometimes the baby gets there 'fore the family's ready ta be made. Baby's ready, but the parents ain't, instead a' the other way around."
Sophia looked a little confused and Daryl kicked himself for his failure to explain things. But then, it was difficult to explain something that you really didn't understand yourself. Sure, he understood the mechanics of how it was that Sophia had come into existence, but he really understood very little surrounding the rest of the situation, so he could only explain what he was capable of understanding. He didn't think, though, that he'd ever understand where Ed Jr. had come from. If it had been him? To hell with what people might have said. He'd have had his baby and his wife…to hell with the order they came in.
"So some babies aren't born from love?" Sophia asked.
Daryl shook his head. That wasn't a statement he was comfortable with and it wasn't one he was going to sign his name to, even if it might be true for some. It wasn't, and he believed this, true for Sophia.
"You was borned from love," Daryl said. "Your Ma loved you. That's all that matters. That's all it took for you to be borned from love. Don't you worry about that none."
Sophia's features softened slightly at his words and carefully considered them before she nodded.
"Why…" she started and he almost cringed. He couldn't imagine from here where the conversation might go, but he knew that he was in uncharted waters and he was in way over his head. He was, however, too far in to get out now. "Why do some people who don't want babies have them, but people who do don't have them?" She shook her head at him. "It doesn't seem quite right, does it?"
Daryl chuckled at the question and then shook his head at her to reassure her that he wasn't really laughing at her as much as he was laughing at what she was actually asking. He was laughing because it was a question that he'd asked, himself, more than once.
"I can't answer that," Daryl said. "Wish I could. But I can't, Sophia. I don't know it neither. But…you right. Don't seem quite right. Just the way things happen sometimes."
"That's not a very good answer," Sophia said bluntly and Daryl chuckled again. He sighed.
"I know it ain't," he said. "But…you gotta understand. I'm just one man, I don't got all the answers."