I had a dream last night that I must share with you because it was pretty fun. Me, my friend Alisa and Norman Reedus all went to the movies to watch Night at the Museum 3 (which doesn't even exist) and while we were watching the previews there was a trailer for Jurassic Park 4 (also, not in existence) and right before the movie starts, Norman and I go to get popcorn and while we're in the lobby all the big dinosaur statues came to life and started eating people and so we ran to a closet and hid in there until everyone was eaten and then we escaped out the back of the theater because we're awesome like that :)
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"What a haul!" T-Dog exclaimed when he saw the baskets full of greens, mushrooms and wild berries. "Are those strawberries?"
Sophia took one of the small, slightly orange tinged berry and handed it to T-Dog with a smile. "Carl found them! They're kind of sour because Mr. Daryl says they're goin' out of season, but they're still yummy!"
T-Dog's face twitched with ecstacy as he chewed the berry and Carol smiled. It sure was nice to be able to bring something special back and lift the spirits of the survivors. They all started gathering around the baskets and looking over the bounty.
"Look at all this!" Lori said happily, "Rick, do you think Herschel will let us use the kitchen tonight?"
"I'm sure he will," Maggie spoke up, "I'll talk him into it."
Maggie took Glenn by the arm and practically dragged him to the house with her. They emerged shortly and they looked triumphant.
"Daddy says you all are welcome to use the kitchen tonight," Maggie announced.
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Carol was normally right at home in a kitchen considering she spent most of her adult life in one. Cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, all of these were things she was use to and she had a certain amount of comfort in her familiar chores. This is whay she volunteered to cook tonight's dinner from all the foraged food they had brought back...but right now she felt anything but comfortable. And her discomfort was due to Daryl Dixon.
"Can you, uh, hand me that potato peeler?" she asked, pointing vaguely at the utensil drawer. Daryl nodded and opened the drawer, his face became confused immediately.
"The hell you want again?" he muttered, shifting through the drawer. Obviously he had no clue what he was looking for and Carol rolled her eyes as she walked over to get it herself.
"Right there," she stated, pulling out the peeler and letting him get a good look at it. He furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head slightly. He grabbed a pearing knife out of the drawer and went to work cutting the ends off of the wild onions that he had laid out on the table.
Carol sighed lightly and sat down across the table from him and started peeling the cattail roots and placing them in a pot. Every once in a while she would glance up at him, hoping to catch his eye but he remained focused on his task and seemed to be immune to her presence.
When he had come into the kitchen earlier that evening she had wondered what in the world he was doing there and asked him as much. He had claimed that cooking these things required special knowledge and he supposed he should be there to make sure she knew how to do it. But apparently she was doing a pretty good job because all he had told her so far was that cattail roots had to be peeled. In fact, he had barely even looked at her since their misunderstanding in the woods.
Tossing the last of the roots into the pot, Carol stood and place it on the stove so that it would be ready to start cooking once she got the meat cooking. She had plans to cook the rabbits that Daryl had shot that afternoon with the wild onions he was now trimming.
"Daryl," she asked when he tossed the last of the onions into a bowl. He looked up at her with a bored expression. "Can you cut the rabbit into pieces about this big?" She demonstrated the size with her hands.
"Sure," Daryl stood and grabbed the butcher knife out of the rack and started hacking the rabbit into smaller chunks. Carol watched for a second or two and then shook her head as she started sorting through the greens she had soaking in the sink. She drained them off and started trimming off the brown or yellowing parts of the dandelion leaves, sorrel, and watercress and tossing them into a salad bowl. She diced a few small tomatoes Maggie had offered her and added them to the mix and tossed it until everything was well mixed together. She hadn't seen anything look so appetizing since...she couldn't remember when.
"There ya go," Daryl's voice shook her from her thoughts and she smiled at him.
"Thank you," she said, "What can we do with the mushrooms?"
"Fry 'em," Daryl suggested with a shrug.
"Good idea," Carol nodded. She scurried about the kitchen in search of spices that would compliment the rabbit and onions and mad a very satifying rub out of everything she gathered. "Hey, can you grab me a casserole dish? They're under that cupboard."
Surprisingly, Daryl handed one to her moments later without even asking what it looked like. She rubbed the spices firmly into the rabbit and then placed it in the dish piece by piece then added the onions and some water in the bottom to keep the meat moist then she turned on the oven and stuck it in to cook.
"There," she sighed, rubbing the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. Daryl was just stading there as silent as ever, but at least he was looking at her now. "When the meat's closer to being done we'll get the cattail started and fry the mushrooms."
Daryl nodded and left without another word, but she knew he'd be back to help her finish dinner...he always came back.
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Dinner that night was a very happy and delightful affair. The rabbit had turned out perfectly, moist and gamey but full of flavor and Carol was proud of her out of the blue recipe she had made up in her head. The salad was crisp and refreshing, a huge change from the canned food and instant boxed crap they'd been eating of late. The mushrooms were a big hit with Herschel, Shane and Sophia but the others only ate a few, but Carol decided if someday she had nothing else to eat those mushrooms would be like Heaven. The cattail roots were met with some odd looks of apprehension but Daryl broke the ice by taking one out of the bowl with his fingers and popping it in his mouth, grinning as he chewed it. Of course then everyone had to try it.
But the best part of the whole night was when Maggie disappeared onto the back porch and returned with a large wooden bucket...a bucket full of homemade vanilla ice cream.
There was a humongous uproar of delight, especially from Sophia, Carl and Beth as Maggie scooped the treat into bowls.
"Wait, don't eat it yet!" she scolded Andrea, who had started eating as soon as she was given her bowl. "Glenn, can you go get that bowl of berries out of the fridge? Nothing like fresh berries and vanilla ice cream, right?"
Carol couldn't remember the last time she'd felt the way she did when that spoonfull of ice cream with the blackberry on top touched her tongue. The blissful taste of the smooth, sweet treat made her eyes flutter closed and a loud moan escape from deep in her throat.
"Foodgasm, Carol?" Lori asked, nudging her with her elbow and smiling impishly.
Carol was too delighted to blush or be taken by surprise so she simply nodded, her eyes opening slowly. The first thing she saw was the unreadable face of Daryl as he stared right at her. Normally, when she would catch his eye he would look away but this time his blue eyes stared straight back at her, his expression looked almost angry. A few second later he pushed his chair back and stood.
"Well it's been real peachy, but I've had about all the touchy-feely family style meal setting I can stomach for the night," he announced in his regularly surly way. "I'll take watch tonight. See ya'll tomorrow."
There were several "night Daryl"s and "see ya"s that followed him out the door as he left, but Carol was unable to say anything because her breath was still caught in her throat as she thought about the look he had just given her.
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The walk to the RV was the longest and most nerve wracking walk Carol had ever taken before. Her mind was screaming at her to turn back and go into the house to get some decent sleep but inside she knew she was going the right way. She took a deep breath when she saw Daryl's eyes shift from the distant field down to where she was approaching the RV's ladder. She pulled herself up anyway.
"Hi," was all she said as she sat next to him on the roof.
"Hey," was his equally uninteresting reply. The silence fell on them once again but Carol didn't really know what to say anyway so she just sat and listened to the sound of the cicadas, crickets, tree frogs and the distant, low croak of a bull frog somewhere off in the direction of the creek.
"You want somethin'?" Daryl's voice finally broke the silence, making Carol jerk at the sudden sound.
"Well...not really," Carol admitted, "I'm just confused is all."
"About what?"
"You."
She could feel Daryl's gaze burning the side of her face but she didn't look at him just yet, she wasn't done.
"What are we, Daryl?" she asked.
"Last time I checked I'm pretty sure we were human beings..."Daryl stated, sarcasm thick in his tone.
"You know what I mean," Carol wasn't amused. "After all this with Sophia and everything...I don't know, I just assumed we had grown pretty close. But I never know what is going to set you off. Like today...I never meant to make you think I was worried you would leave us in the woods. I don't know why I said that in the first place, I wasn't even thinking of that."
"Well what were you thinkin'?" he muttered.
Carol finally turned her head to meet his eyes. She almost couldn't speak her next words because his gaze was so intense and darkened by the night shadows and the glow of the moon.
"Honestly? I was thinking about...you. How good of a tracker you are. How smart you are. How much you've changed since Atlanta. How important you are to the group."
Daryl's eyes took on a guarded look and she could tell he was mulling this over in his mind before he said anything so she continued:
"Then I started thinking...you're very physically strong and agile. And so...truth be told, I was loking back to do just that: look."
Daryl clearly wasn't expecting that answer and she saw his eyes widen slightly before he was back behind that nonchalant mask.
"You were lookin', huh?" he asked with a teasing tone.
"Yes."
The bluntness of her reply made Daryl look away and she noticed him tense up.
"But when you caught my eye I was afraid you'd caught me staring."
Daryl remained quiet for a long time after that statement and she noticed he started to chew on his thumb like her did when he was nervous or deep in thought.
"So..." he finally broke the silence, "Ya come out here just to tell me that you think I'm a stud?"
Carol took a deep breath, her nerves running haywire as she turned to face him.
"No, that's not the only reason," she replied, slowly and cautiously moving to where she was on her knees beside him. "I also wanted to give you something."
"What?"
"This."
Carol knew that what she was about to do would either make or break this connection she had with this man, but she was tired of pretending. Tired of hiding the appreciative rakes of her eyes over his body. Tired of the questions that ran through her mind every time she saw him that were "what would it be like?". Tired of not knowing how he felt about them. And tired of being afraid of the feelings she was carrying around. So she gathered her courage and leaned forward, placing a hand on his cheek, and pressed her lips softly to his. She heard and felt him take a quick, shocked breath through his nose when the connection was made and, at first, he didn't move a muscle.
But then, to Carol's relief, he let out a little sigh and he started to kiss her back slowly, his hand sliding behind her head to steady them. His kisses were a delightful mix of gentle yet purposeful and then they started to heat up and raise in intensity. Carol gasped slightly when she felt his teeth nip at her bottom lip and she opened her mouth slightly to allow his tongue entrance and that was a whole new sensation for Carol.
Ed had never kissed her like this, never with this much gusto. Kisses were rough and crude and few and far between with Ed...but Daryl wasn't Ed and Carol suddenly forgot that sh had ever had anyone else besides Daryl's lips on hers and Daryl's tongue drawing circles on the roof of her mouth or Daryl's hands pressing into her short hair and sliding up and down her right arm.
But it was over far too soon for her liking because Daryl pulled back, but his hand remained on the back of her neck as he looked her in the eyes. Carol felt a stirring deep down inside her that she had forgotten existed and she squirmed slightly, Daryl's darkened and intense gaze was doing nothing to relieve it either!
"Wasn't expectin' tha'," Daryl sounded a little out of breath.
"It's been a long time coming," Carol admitted quietly.
Daryl's expression went back to being unreadable and he released his hand from her neck as he leaned back against the rail of the RV and looked at her from a slight distance, like he was studying her in a whole new light. Then, he made a slight motion that made Carol's heart squeeze happily. He nodded for her to come closer and so she did, and found herself laid out next to him, her head laid on his chest.
"You gonna stay and keep watch with me?" he asked softly as Carol felt herself starting to drift off.
"I doubt I'll be much help on watch if I'm asleep," she yawned, fading into sleep fast.
She was on the very last edge of awakeness when she heard him reply: "Just as long as you're here."
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Awww, yay! Just in time for me to go to bed too! The next chapter is going to take a little research so...it may be a day or two but I'll try to be as fast as possible. Daryl has a little present for Carol, but I need to know exactly how to put it in this story so I'll get on that right away. Reviews are delightful!