AN: This is the last little piece to this one. If you read it, then I thank you for doing so!
Just for the record, if you only follow me on here, you might want to consider following me somewhere like Ao3 (theramblinrose). This site is no longer reliably telling you about updates, and it's no longer reliably telling me about messages that you leave for me. I am much more "present" and "available" on Ao3.
I hope you like the last chapter. If you do, please do let me know!
111
The light danced around Daryl—the light of the flickering flame of the oil lamp that he carried from place to place as he moved and the light of the fire burning in the fireplace. Outside, it was still dark, but he could sense the coming dawn. The soft light of the flames, though, illuminating the space seemed somehow more suiting to the moment.
Her little eyes were new to the world, after all, and Daryl was sure that it had been quite dark in the warm, wet cocoon of her mother's belly, where she'd spent every moment of life that she'd know so far. Or, at the very least, every moment except the last fifty or so.
"Sun ought not to be out right now, ain't that right? Got no business bein' too damned bright for you…but this is just right. That's right, Sweetheart…this is just right for you."
Daryl's throat ached and his eyes prickled. His chest ached, too, but in the best way. His brother might have given him hell for being so overcome with emotion, but he couldn't help it—and he really didn't want to.
She was perfect.
In fact, he was pretty sure that she was the most perfect baby that had ever been born into the world. It seemed ironic, perhaps, that such perfection could be born into a world as broken as this one, but it was also a beautiful sign of hope—something Daryl had nearly let go of entirely.
Eve.
It was simple, but Daryl had always kind of liked the name. It was soft. It was the kind of name that sounded like the breeze blowing through the trees. It was soft, like a whisper. And, yet, arguably, Daryl figured that Eve had to have been a force to be reckoned with all her own.
Eve Dixon, too, would be a force to be reckoned with. Daryl reasoned that she could be little else, growing up between himself and her mother.
"If you got even an ounce of your mama in you," he mused, half-laughing to himself at the thought as it flitted through his mind.
Eve had half her mama in her, and Daryl could see easy evidence of that on the newborn's face, even though Carol had quickly told him that she didn't look like she would, and she'd look much more like him soon…he'd see that.
Daryl had hushed her and done his best to calm her, his throat aching to hear a slight vibration to the timbre of her voice. Caught up in the rush of everything that followed Eve's entrance into the world—the fear, the pain, and the ultimate joy—she'd still been plagued, Daryl was sure, by something that she'd heard before…some criticism, no doubt, from the last time she'd brought a baby girl into the world.
Daryl didn't give two hot damns if Eve never looked a thing like him. He knew she was his daughter. He could feel it inside of him. He could feel it in his chest, and in the ache of his throat.
He already loved her. He had heard, before, that you would love your child from the moment you laid on eyes on them, but he hadn't imagined it could actually be true. For him, however, it felt profoundly true. Even bloody and messy from birth, he had loved her the very moment that he'd freed her from her mother's body. In fact, he'd loved her even before that. He'd loved her the first moment that he'd known and accepted she was real, and he'd been desperate to see her into the world, healthy and whole.
Yet, admittedly, he'd been almost shocked to the point of feeling weak-kneed to realize that she was here, and she was alive, and she seemed very much healthy, and hearty, and strong.
What was more, her mother seemed healthy, and hearty, and strong.
And Daryl, honestly, hadn't expected it.
It wasn't that he liked to consider himself a negative person, really. More than anything, he liked to believe that he was a realistic person. This world hadn't exactly taught him that either he or Carol had the best of luck. In fact, neither of them had had the best of luck in the world even before the shit hit the fan.
Holding the light little bundle in his arms now—because he was pretty sure that Eve didn't even tip the scales at six full pounds—he was willing to forgive the universe every slight it had ever done to him. This—this one, singular, wonderful miracle—made up for every ounce of shit that had been flung in his face for his whole life.
And Carol rested in the bedroom, tired, but healthy.
Carol—his wife, and mother to his daughter—rested in the bedroom, while Daryl held their daughter until she showed some signs of wanting her first meal, so that Carol could get a little much-needed sleep.
Daryl was willing to forgive the whole damn universe everything, because, at this exact moment, he held everything. He had everything.
And the hope that he had for a future—an actual to God future—practically took his breath away.
"I never did a thing right in my life like turning around," he mused, laughing to himself.
Eve seemed to listen to his words—snatches of his thoughts that escaped his mouth because his mind felt so overwhelmed with everything that it couldn't possibly keep all the words inside of him—and she seemed to peacefully take them in. She made little sounds at him, from time to time, but none of them expressed any grand disapproval of the man who was her daddy. In fact, she seemed mostly at peace, and she seemed even more at peace when he rocked her near the fire and hummed at her, breaking up the monotony of his hummed songs only with the snatches of words that half-expressed the thoughts that were crowding his overwhelmed mind.
Daryl liked the way the little girl seemed so entirely calm when he spoke to her. She had no reason to know his voice—he'd been gone most of the time she'd been cooking—and, yet, it was like she did know it, and like she approved of it.
He decided to talk to her, just to pass the time and keep her happy. After all, she didn't care too much about which words he chose, as long as the sentiment was nice and his tone was soft.
She didn't even seem to care that his voice shook slightly when he spoke and his words were sometimes halted by the lump in his throat.
"My little Eve," he mused. "Eve Dixon…you ain't big as a minute…you know that? But—you was givin' your ma' a hard time for a minute there, so I guess it's good you're no bigger'n you are. She's gonna feed you. You'll learn. She likes to feed people, and she's gonna feed you up big and strong. Cookin' you up somethin' real special right now, even while she's restin'. Somethin' only for you."
"Daryl?"
Daryl jumped when he heard Carol's voice, pulling him out of his contemplation. He straightened up from his current position and shushed the baby that whined about the unexpected change. He patted her through the blanket, and then balanced her in one arm to pick up the oil lamp. He made his way back to the bedroom.
Carol was propped against the pillows, just the way he'd left her, with the lamp still burning by the bed. He'd offered to blow it out for her, so that she might sleep a little more soundly, but she'd said that she wasn't ready to sleep in the dark. Even though such a statement might not make a lot of sense in some ways, it had made perfect sense to Daryl.
When he stepped into the doorway, Carol turned her face to him and smiled. She still looked tired, but he imagined that it would take some time to reach the point where she no longer looked at least a little tired.
She had put a great deal of effort, after all, into bringing little Eve into the world. Then, she'd held the baby while Daryl had worked to clean both her and the bedroom from the evidence of Eve's birth, and to get her as comfortable as he could. Eve hadn't been ready to nurse at the moment, and Carol had been desperately tired, so Daryl had offered to spend some quality time with their little one—very close by, to keep Carol's very evident anxiety at bay—while Carol took a little nap.
While it was clear that she hadn't slept long, Daryl thought he could see evidence of just enough rest to take some of the sharpest edges off of her fatigue.
"Is she ready to feed yet?" Carol asked.
"Don't know," Daryl said. "She ain't much for conversation."
Carol laughed quietly.
"She has a lot in common with her daddy, already," she teased.
"Lot in common with her mama, too," Daryl said with a laugh. "I don't figure it'll be long before she's bustin' my balls for somethin'."
Carol laughed quietly in response. She understood when Daryl was teasing her, but he still made it a point to tease her lightly—to be sure that she didn't accidentally confuse his teasing for the kind of criticism she was subjected to when she'd been married to Ed.
He couldn't undo Ed's damage completely, but he could do his best not to continuously bring it back to her. And he could tread easy of the cracks—especially in moments like this when he knew her emotions were running high, quite outside of her ability to really control them or do anything about them.
She held her arms out toward him and he came the rest of the way into the room. He put the lamp down on the bedside table, next to the one that was already there, and he eased Eve into her mother's waiting arms.
Carol breathed out a sigh of satisfaction and, maybe, of awe.
Daryl could tell that she hadn't fully believed that Eve would be real—or, more than that, that she would be allowed to stay. Carol was used to loss and disappointment. She was used to pain and suffering.
Like Daryl, she had simply prepared for more.
But Eve was perfect in every way.
And Carol had cried to realize it. Daryl had dried her tears, his face damp from pressing it next to hers as their tears flowed together, and he had whispered to her to open her eyes and look at their daughter—because she was everything that they could ever hope she would be.
"Oh—hello, my sweet girl," Carol said to the baby. Daryl smiled and forced himself to swallow against the choking feeling that he thought might keep its hold on him for all the days that were left in his life. He couldn't help but think that Carol looked like some kind of professional at the skill, when she offered her breast to Eve and, with what he thought was minimal negotiation with the newborn, soon had her feeding.
Carol sighed deeply, but happily, and closed her eyes, leaning back into the pillow with obvious relief.
"You OK?" Daryl asked, his stomach twisting slightly.
He thought she was. He believed she was. She had reassured him several times, since this whole thing had begun, that she was fine.
But, still, he was overwhelmed by an ice-cold fear that this was too perfect. This was too good. It was everything wonderful that he'd never dared to truly dream could be his.
And he was accustomed to not being able to have good things and, if he did get to touch them, even with his fingertips for a moment, not being able to keep them.
Carol smiled. She didn't open her eyes for a second, but then she did. She turned her face, again, to face him.
"I'm fine," she said. "Promise. I'm better than I can remember being in a very, very long time, Daryl. Maybe…better than I ever have been before. Come. Come here…lie down with me. With us. Hold me and nap with us before morning."
She held an arm out in his direction and waved him around to the other side of the bed. He came without argument or hesitation. He stripped down out of his clothes to save the clean bed as much as he could—he'd washed off with hot soapy water before Eve had been born, because he was afraid to contaminate her or Carol in some way, and after she'd been born, because her arrival into the world hadn't been without its messes. He eased into bed beside Carol, put an arm around her that she leaned her head against, and sighed his own sigh over the comfort of simply being there and holding her, with no expectation for either of them.
He heard her hum with something like a giggle.
"What?" He breathed out.
"I like it," she said. "A lot."
He found that he couldn't help but laugh at the words—a simple declaration of a feeling that he shared, and one that felt much more profound than those words. Still, he decided, they were good enough words.
"I like it, too," he agreed. "A whole damn lot."
"I'm sorry about our honeymoon, Pookie," Carol teased. "I think I ruined it. I think…Eve and I ruined it."
"Stop," Daryl said. He opened his eyes. He watched the baby girl for a moment. He dared to trail a finger across her while she nursed from her mother, seeming to do just about as much sucking as sleeping. He kissed the side of Carol's face—her temple—and breathed in the scent of her. "You didn't ruin anything. This—this is the best thing we could ever have. You. Me. Her. A whole damn future, Carol."
"A whole damn future," she echoed, practically in a whisper. "And a raincheck for a honeymoon."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I'll take it," he said. "Long as we're just stayin' right where we are, with Eve and all."
"Of course," Carol said. "We ought to sleep…before the morning catches us."
"Don't look now," Daryl said with a laugh, "but I believe it's done caught us. Sun's comin' up on Eve's first day. Our first day as a whole family."
"It's only fitting we spend it together, then," Carol said. "Just like this. Except, of course…for the things we have to get up for." She smiled at Daryl and offered him a kiss. He took it. It was soft and delicious, and it made his heart pound in his chest. "The first day of the rest of our lives," she said. "I like the sound of that," she mused, raising her eyebrows at him.
"I do, too," he said. "Sounds wonderful to me. Couldn't have said it better, myself."