AN: This was just a one shot that I felt like I needed to write this morning. That's really all there is to say about it.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy. If you do, please do let me know.
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"I love you."
Even now, the words made Carol's throat ache and her eyes prickle. The worst part, perhaps, were that the words came back to her often and without warning.
"Damn you," she muttered, as they rose up within her and swirled about her mind like leaves caught in a whirlwind.
She sighed loudly, threw back the quilt that covered her body and sat up on the side of the bed. She rubbed at her eyes—ignored the fact that they were damp, as were her cheeks—and drank down what was left of the glass of water she'd left beside the bed the night before. She sat, for a long moment, and stretched her legs, arms, and back. She wiggled her toes, holding her feet somewhat out in front of her.
She smiled to herself. She couldn't help it.
It might have scared anyone else to death—and it certainly terrified her when she thought about it too much—but it made her smile in moments like this.
She was seeing less and less of her toes these days.
And it was his fault.
She had waited years to hear those words from him, but she'd finally accepted that she never would. She would hear other things, yes—she would hear them breathed into her ear when they made love, though they would never dare to call it that. She would hear them whispered in the dark when he thought she was sleeping. She would hear them muttered when dreams and nightmares collided, and words were spoken without intention behind them.
But she had accepted that Daryl would never be able to find it within himself to simply tell her that he loved her.
And he had things he needed to do. He had a sense of justice and a thirst for truth—he had so many feelings that drove him. While he might not always understand the things that drove her, Carol understood the things that drove Daryl.
She always had.
And she had always accepted him for the things that drove him—bad and good, depending on who you might ask about them—and she always would.
She couldn't hold him back when there were things he needed to do in the world. She couldn't, and she wouldn't, clip his wings. She wouldn't insist that he stay with her and spend the rest of his life wondering and asking "what if" until it drove him crazy.
She wouldn't do that to him—not even after he finally found the strength, somewhere inside of him, to say those words to her that she'd so longed to hear.
She would keep those words with her, she'd thought, forever. She'd keep them to remember him by. She'd keep them to keep her warm at night. She'd treasure them, always.
But she would not clip his wings.
And if he came back to her—well—there was a saying about that, wasn't there?
She wouldn't go with him, either. She couldn't.
At least, that's what she'd told herself. She couldn't go with him, because this was his journey. It wasn't hers. She didn't have the same drive that he had to go and seek justice, or answers, or anything else of the sort.
She had, perhaps, found all the justice that she expected to find in the world, and at the time that he'd kissed her and said those words to her, she'd been feeling something entirely different. For the first time, in a very long time, Carol had started to feel a sensation of peace. She'd started to feel like she'd found all the justice that she could expect to find—even if it would never be enough. She'd started to feel tired and almost aching for something else.
What she had ached for, though, Daryl hadn't wanted. He wasn't ready for that, and so she didn't put words to her feelings—not exactly. She'd told him that she loved him, but not what she truly wanted from him, if she were willing to make such requests.
She'd let him go, because that's what he'd needed, and she'd stayed, because that's what she'd needed. She'd held onto his words, and she'd let her heart believe that she could find rest—because she was so incredibly tired—and she could find the peace for which she thirsted.
It had only been two weeks after she'd watched him leave that Carol had realized—and a handful of outdated tests had somewhat confirmed her gut feeling—that some of her new feelings and needs might be attributed to the fact that she'd kept more than words to remember Daryl by as he travelled the world in search of the truth that would, she hoped, relieve his mind.
She had left the community without explaining herself to anyone, and in something of a knee-jerk reaction to the knowledge that she was secreting a young Dixon away from the place, and she'd set off thinking that she might find him, somehow.
She wasn't sure what she would say when she did, but she was sure she'd somehow find the words.
It had taken her about two weeks of travelling alone—or as alone as she would be, now—to realize that she didn't know where he'd gone. She didn't know how to find him. She'd accepted that she may never see him again—at least, not beyond the features, perhaps, of their son or daughter—and she'd decided to do the next best thing she could.
She'd found a house with a fenced in yard. She'd cleared it, cleaned it up, and made herself a home. She'd begun finding what supplies she could—food to eat and things to plant the yard for a future garden, when the weather cooperated.
After she'd been sure that her instinct and the few half-way functioning and expired tests that had agreed with her were right, she'd let herself search for supplies for the little one. She'd found a crib and other necessary items. She'd dedicated days to chopping wood for the winter, stockpiling and storing supplies, and preparing her little nest. She'd spent nights sewing diapers and crocheting blankets.
Her final act of making the little house feel like what she wanted it to be had been the somewhat foolish act of finding some salvageable black paint and painting "Dixon" on the doorframe and the wooden mailbox post that would never be used for more than decoration.
She had no claim to the name, exactly, beyond the little one who grew in her womb and those final words that Daryl had said to her as he'd left, but she'd claimed it all the same. If he didn't want her to use it, she welcomed him to come back and tell her, himself, that he wanted her to paint over the doorframe.
It was just a word, of course, like any other word, but some words simply brought Carol comfort.
And, at the same time, some words drove her from her bed.
Carol sighed and got up from the bed. She stood still a moment, steadying herself in case the shift from lying to standing made her feel dizzy or, even, cost her consciousness for a moment. When she was sure all was well, she pressed her hand to her belly where she could feel her little one nudging her. She had only just recently started being able to feel the little thing from both inside and out.
The sensation made her throat ache as much as remembering Daryl's words did. She closed her eyes and felt the little one waking—or, at least, she imagined that's what she felt.
"We might as well get up," Carol said. "We're doing nothing here but making my back hurt."
If the baby disagreed, there was no indication. Carol started a fire and she heated water for herself—enough for a cup of tea. She'd picked the flowers and herbs, herself, that she kept for her tea. She made blends that pleased her and made her feel comfortable. When her tea was ready, she took it, the heel of a loaf of bread that she'd baked and saved for this morning, and some jam that she'd made, and she settled at the little table on her front porch.
The morning was cool, but not too cold for the robe she'd shrugged on over her pajamas. It was cloudy and damp. It wasn't raining, but it was wet enough that it seemed like the rain had been falling and, somehow, the droplets had simply hung suspended in the air instead of ever making their way to the ground. The world around her was gray and gloomy, and beyond that, there was the smallest hint of color that suggested that it was autumn.
The year was ending. The world around Carol was going to sleep. Everything was dying or, at the very least, going dormant.
And Carol couldn't quite recall the last time that she'd felt so entirely alive. She was, in many ways, practically overflowing with life.
Her throat ached, again, to simply think of how much she wished that he were there and that she could share this with him. She wished he could taste the jam she'd made, and the bread she'd baked. It tasted especially good, she thought, since she'd prepared it while thinking of the little one that it would feed and nourish—and help to grow big and strong. She wished that she could press his hand to the place where she felt an elbow or a heel nudging her. She wished that she could see his eyes as he realized that his son or daughter would someday—and not so very far in the future, really—come into the world.
She wished she could share a damp, cool morning with him, watching as the world slipped into a long and, hopefully, peaceful slumber.
"Damn you," she muttered again, wiping her eyes with her palm. She laughed to herself at the fact that she felt, very often, entirely out of control of the dampness. It came when she was happy. It came when she was sad. It came, sometimes, with no particular emotion at all.
Carol glanced back toward the doorframe where the word "Dixon" declared some memory she had of the past, some daydream she had of the present, and some hope she had for the future, perhaps.
She glanced toward the road that ran by the house—the long road that stretched on toward the highway and marked the moment that she'd realized he was too far ahead of her. It drew out long and black—an extension of darkness far beyond the cool, damp gray of the morning.
She strained her ears and listened for the sound of a motorcycle.
She didn't hear one, but something in her heart told her that, somehow and someday, she would.
"He'll be back," she said to the little one who kept her company these days. She smiled to herself. "And when he does—boy, is he going to have something to say about you."