AN… My apologies this has taken so long. I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment with other commitments. This chapter is not only unbetaed, but unread by eyes other than mine, which means it could be a whole heap of crap, so I will wait to hear from you all if it's okay or not.
Part Four
Carol wakes with a jolt, her foot slashing through the air and connecting with something, her knife in her hand before her eyes even adjust fully to the dark.
"Whoa, it's just me," Michonne hisses through the night and Carol's breathing struggles to return back to normal. "But hell, girl, that was an excellent response. You're really getting it."
Carol flushes with pride, glad no one can see her pink skin tone in the lack of light, but then fatigue hits her as she lowers the knife and she wonders what's going on.
"I just did watch. Why're you wakin' me now?" She hears a soft rustling in the corner of the room and becomes instantly more alert, locating Andrea now as she swiftly tosses their few things back into a pack and readies herself to move.
"There's walkers coming up front. We need to get out before we're surrounded. Be silent." And then Michonne is gone, Carol quickly rising, glad she's now used to sleeping in her boots and sleeps on her already packed pack except for her blanket. She's ready to go in about twenty seconds, and the three of them touch hands briefly before they gather at the back door of the shack and as quietly as they can, slink like wraiths back into the night.
It's the same scene the next night, and then every night for two weeks until Carol realises she's almost run ragged. None of them get much sleep, but at least they've shaken up their watch schedule so a different one of them is the one waking the others and so they can manage a few hours per night like that. Michonne's pets aren't acting quite the deterrent they need them to be, and not for the first time Carol wonders why she drags their animated corpses around with them.
Each place they find seems emptier than the last, and as Carol's belly shrinks, she doesn't think she's ever been as hungry as she is now. Michonne is fast with her sword, but even then they've not had much success hunting live food and it's at night, when they're sitting around a small, almost useless campfire sharing a single tin of food, that Carol misses Daryl the most. Feels like kicking herself for never making the effort to learn something useful from any of the members of her old group that would aid in their survival now.
They've been wandering around the woods now for months, never venturing too far into civilization, knowing that the more built up areas means more walkers to wade through, and while Michonne's craft was beautiful to behold and Carol's skills were improving, with Andrea learning to rely more on her knife than her gun, they still wouldn't stand much of a chance if a herd found them.
"I never thought I'd say this, but God I miss burgers and fries," Andrea dreams wistfully, and Carol's belly grumbles loudly in agreement.
"Steak," Michonne adds thoughtfully around the mouthful she's just scooped from the tin.
They both turn to Carol and she wonders what it is she'd eat if she could choose anything in the world. She feels frozen to the bone, greasy and dirty and so weary that she thinks she could well fall over the next time she tries to stand. She isn't so sure she can choose: Chinese food, a roast, tomatoes, ice cream, the thought of it all and how hungry she is swells up inside and she bursts into tears.
"Cheese," she says around a sniffle and Andrea leans over and gives her a quick hug.
"I miss dick," Michonne says straight-faced, promptly cracking the widest grin she's ever shown them as Andrea snorts and Carol stares at her, eyes wide.
"Yeah, have to admit, vibrators will do in a pinch but they just don't replace the sensation of heavy set shoulders and a willing mouth, and a hard, long—"
"Andrea!" Carol interjects, not sure if she's scandalised or titillated. "So…did you and Shane ever…?"
Andrea's shit-eating grin answers that question and Carol giggles.
"I thought so. How was he?" She looks on eagerly, suddenly fine with living precariously through someone else's activities. It's been so long since Carol has been with a man—even when she was with Ed it had been a while, something she'd been ever grateful for. But now, the girls talking about it stirs up something inside her that Carol thought was long dead.
"Thick." Andrea winks and the three of them laugh, releasing some tension that had been building up through the long days and nights of their nomadic life.
"Shane was that cop you mentioned?" Michonne knows everything about them now, and Carol speculates at her eagerness to learn all she can about them when she shares so very little about herself, but instead of making her leery, it just makes her care more. There is hurt down deep inside of Michonne and as Carol steals a glance at the pets chained to a tree nearby, she can't help but wonder if they have anything to do with it.
Michonne rarely talks of anything personal, her voice always low and close to the heart. Andrea had asked about her pets around the fire one night, all of them sitting there, freezing and trying to eat crudely warmed stew from a tin. Carol watched closely as Michonne betrayed with watery eyes that she'd known those two when they were still men, and at first Carol suspected they were loved ones the warrior-like girl couldn't bear to part with, until the rough confirmation spilled from their saviour's lips, that these men had never been men, more like imposters in animal's clothes that had got exactly what they deserved. Carol knew the type of course, and it forged a new bond with Michonne. It had shocked Carol, though, that the woman would drag a reminder of an unhappy life behind her, but who was she to judge? Everyone dealt with their pain differently—she knew this better than anyone. And even while she was slightly disturbed by the sight and the knowledge, she couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to smash Ed's jaw, decapitate his arms and drag him around on a chain, using him to keep the monsters away instead of being the monster that she'd feared helplessly for years. The image hadn't horrified her quite like she'd thought it would—didn't make her feel ill. She'd ended that daydream with a smile.
"Yeah, that man was all hard," Andrea shares, drawing attention back to the physical attributes of Shane and Carol sighs, more than a little envious. It wasn't like any of the men in camp had ever looked at her—not when someone young and beautiful like Andrea was around, and it was just stupid of her to be bothered about it now. She was still the old grey mare surrounded by beauty, and while out in the woods it hardly mattered, it still stung.
"What about you?" Andrea stares at her, her eyes wide as she waits for some confession that Carol has no clue about, and she can't push back the finger of resentment that springs up within her that Andrea would ask her something she so obviously has no experience with.
"What about me?" She feels nervous suddenly, like there is something just under the surface that she's missing but which everyone else seems to know.
"You and Daryl seemed kind of close," Andrea implies and Carol just sits there on the damp ground, stunned. There had been times when she'd felt close to Daryl, felt a connection built on more than just his devotion to searching for Sophia, but the other times she felt she'd never been so distant from a person in her life. Daryl was not a man to get close to women. She'd known that on some level, and yet occasionally he'd tried to be her friend, but she doesn't think she was ever successful in making that work.
"What do you mean?" She still hasn't quite made the connection Andrea is digging at, but when she does she feels shock so sudden it leaves an empty hole in her chest. "You mean, did I have sex with Daryl?"
Andrea is nodding enthusiastically, like she's about to hear the best kept secret of all time, but Carol feels slightly nauseated. "Andrea, he was searching for my daughter. I wasn't even thinking like that, and even if I was, I think I'd be the last woman Daryl Dixon would have ever wanted to get naked with."
"Why do you say that?" Michonne asks abruptly, weighing into the conversation with a heavy awareness that makes Carol jump.
She blinks stupidly, wondering if both of them are blind. "Well, ignoring the fact that that man has trust issues, can't stand to be touched, and is scarred a mile deep, I'm hardly the kind of woman men want to throw down and have wild, naked sex with."
She hates that Andrea is contemplating her like she's just crawled out from under some rock naked and that Michonne is staring at her hard, like she's a puzzle that Carol herself is the only one that hasn't cracked yet.
"Why not?" Michonne looks her up and down and Carol feels an uneasy burn start in her belly. "I'd fuck you, if I liked girls. You think because your hair is grey that you're unattractive?"
"No," Carol splutters, face flaming and her senses suddenly on alert from disbelief. "I know I'm old and past my use by date as far as being a sexual object goes." She feels even more uncomfortable as Michonne drops the can by the fire and comes to kneel before her.
"Did some asshole tell you that?" she asks, her face scrunched up and furious. "He was wrong. You have elegance about you many would kill for, regal almost. Lady, you are far from unattractive, and the first man we find that isn't a psychotic killer, you are going to fuck them stupid."
Carol chokes on a hysterical laugh, coughing and spluttering as she shifts nervously back from Michonne. Her hands are fisting dirt and leaves from beside her ass on the ground and she can't help but feel a little scared at the intense look Michonne is aiming at her, but looking to Andrea is no help at all as the blonde sits there nodding in agreement.
"She's right, Carol. Ed was an ass and you know that anything he ever said to you was complete shit. You're what? Forty two? Three? That's only a couple of years older than me, and now your hair is getting longer…you just don't even know yourself how beautiful you are, do you?"
She's had enough, she decides, standing so that she's not feeling quite so intimidated by Michonne anymore.
"What I know," she says, avoiding them as she goes to fiddle with her pack and pull out an extra sweater. It's thin and grey and ugly but they really can't be choosy anymore. Most of the places they've managed to find refuge in haven't had much of a woman's touch. "What I know is, we can't keep wandering like this. It's getting harder and harder to find food and if we want to survive, we need to find somewhere to stay longer than a day. It's cold, might even snow soon." She paused, her cheeks burning as she turns away from them and stares into the endless blanket of trees. "We haven't even seen a man for months."
Michonne has received the message, loud and clear, and she's backed off, nodding her head thoughtfully. "I think it's time we check out houses in the suburbs. We'll find better clothes, the pantries should have more food, and there might be vegetable gardens."
"We won't find anywhere safe to stay in there," Andrea protests, and Carol can already sense the ripple of fear as the three of them contemplate how on earth they can do this without ending up dead.
"No, it will have to be quick. In and out, get what we can and leave," Michonne confirmes, but there's determination in her expression and Carol admires it, and respects it. She wants to emulate it and wonders how she got to be so old without having this kind of a backbone and strength to stand up for her own convictions.
No one disagrees and instead they prepare their small camp for a sudden departure should it come to that in the night, with Carol sitting back down and lifting her knife. It's sharp and heavy, but she knows how to use it now with a veracity that devastates and she's proud of that. She wishes she could show Sophia how well she can protect herself now, but as soon as thoughts of her little girl come into play, the tears come. If only she'd picked up a knife at the quarry, learned then how to wield the weapon, it could have been her that ran after her daughter into the woods, not Rick, and she'd have been prepared. She'd have been able to kill those two walkers, not leave her little girl behind and on her own while she ran off looking for a weapon.
"I'll take first watch," Andrea says quietly, her voice almost disappearing into the eerie silence of the night. Carol nods, curling up beside Michonne so they can at least share some body heat, and her lids grow heavy as tortured images of an alternate story for Sophia plays on rewind in her head.
A quiet whimper from Michonne through the night tells her the other woman has her own nightmares to deal with. She sleepily catches Andrea's eye and they share a sad smile. There was no one that didn't have nightmares anymore.
The good houses—the ones made of brick with pretty rooms and nice furniture, framed photos on the walls, plentiful clothing, cans in the pantry—are all located in the suburbs. They are tastefully decorated—the ones that have not been burned or destroyed by others. Carol isn't sure if those others are looters or someone smarter trying to make sure other survivors don't get what they need to make it in this world. Carol knows there are people out there—cruel, heartless people that want to see the weak surrender to the earth. People like the group Randall had been moving along with. She doesn't feel afraid of them anymore, her own conviction in her growing skills at survival enough to push it away. The line between what she was and what she is now has been drawn darker than any other part of her life so far, and Carol can't keep the bitterness back at how weak she'd been in the past. How much of a failure she'd been to her child. How useless she'd been to the group.
Not anymore. She's strong now, as strong as one can be when half starved, and as the three of them carefully navigate around pockets of lazy, aimless walkers, stranded cars and overturned garbage bins in the streets, they start to make their way into people's homes, and the guilt she might once have felt vanishes completely in this resolute determination to do what it takes to live.
There is so little fear now, the emotion punctuated only in short gasps when they run into trouble, but so far they've been lucky, their deadly and precise moves honed so well that they've managed to eradicate any threat within minutes of contact. They've been careful, though, keeping to the outskirts where only sporadic walkers amble around, getting quickly away if it looks like there will be too many gathered together for the three of them to handle.
Sneaking into the first house isn't so difficult, the majority of walkers in this area seemingly concentrated further into the centre of the development, but they still take care as they quietly and swiftly examine each house, searching for food in the kitchens and clothes in the cupboards. There is no time for them to be patient, empty pantries showing them that they need to go deeper as others have had the same idea as them. Michonne takes them into a back lane, and somehow they twist and turn until they find themselves in the centre, the houses more uniform and closer together.
In every house there is at least one walker, in most of them the family has never left, though some are just dead outright. Carol's eye roams over the tragedies with a distant envy, telling them all quietly that they are the lucky ones that they don't get to see what their world has become, but when they find food at last, the tears flow from not just her eyes, their relief staggering, and they search for bags to stow as much of it as they can. In the same house, Andrea wanders off to the bedrooms, then quickly comes back and drags Carol away.
"Try on these boots," she whispers, handing Carol a pair of calf high black leather boots with a mid-heel and a zipper up the side. They look fashionable, but as soon as Carol slips them on her feet the comfort resonates right through her legs and into her gut. She turns to thank Andrea but finds her friend has found other treasures, a thick and long, heavy leather jacket with numerous pockets and another, plum corduroy coat. There are jeans and shirts and without asking, Andrea finds a holdall in the closet and shoves as much in as she can before diving for the underwear drawer. She throws the bag to Carol, fills her own with a few more things and then they are running from the place, Michonne carrying one of the bags of tins and Carol and Andrea taking the other between them.
The weight of their find makes them slower, noisier, and trying to escape draws attention. They stay silent, each attacking whenever the need arises, behaving in a tandem they've perfected in the months they've banded together. They are almost away when Carol feels a jerk on the back of her pack and the bag of cans slips from her grasp and her new holdall falls with a thunk to the road. With a grunt she twists, ducking before any teeth can sink into her shoulder and she comes up swinging, her knife buried sideways through the walker's head. As soon as it drops there is another, and Carol finishes it off fast, but then another and another heads toward her and the adrenaline is pumping viciously through her veins when Michonne is there, too, her sword slicing through two heads before she's running back, pushing Carol into picking up her bag and following Andrea who has already escaped with the rest.
It's dark before they stop running, stop looking over their shoulders every second step, and Carol is so tired she can barely stand upright. They are out in the open, lost like the abandoned cars they've passed to get there. Michonne extracts her torch from her pack and the light is flickering weakly, but it's enough for them to move toward a lonely car on the side of the road. They have no choice but to hole up there for the night, and with relief, Carol sags against the seat in the back and closes her eyes. She's almost asleep when Michonne bumps her arm. Carol blinks wearily, barely propping her eyelids open but her lassitude doesn't quite blank out the smell of corn in the tin Michonne is trying to hand her.
Carol takes it gratefully, pulling out her blanket with stiff fingers as she tries to hold the fork that Michonne is passing to her next. It isn't so easy while her hands feel numb, but she does, groaning at the exquisite taste of the kernels as they crunch between her teeth.
When she's finished, she curls up within her blanket, says good night to the girls and immediately falls asleep.
She only wakes later, as the sky begins to lighten, when a tiny cough tickles at her throat.