AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
"It looks just perfect to me, Daryl," Carol assured Daryl. She snuggled in against him, slipping her way under his arm. As soon as he realized what she was doing, he gratefully took her into his arms, and she hugged him until she felt him relaxing and she felt some of the tension leaving his muscles.
The plot of land they were laying claim to was sprawling. It would be plenty big enough for everything he'd mumbled about, here and there, while he'd been settling himself entirely on the idea that he could build her a home and she could feather the proverbial nest to take it from the structure he could build with his hands to the home that he dreamed it could be. Daryl had mumbled about farming—at least about the growing of enough food for the two of them—and he'd talked about ranching cattle, which was something he'd heard about in nearly every town as being a good way to make a living for those that would wish to live out on a plot of land instead of constantly moving.
"You sure you like it?" Daryl asked.
"You don't?" Carol asked.
"It's just—mighty open," Daryl said.
"That's good, though," Carol said. "That's good for the cows and—we'll have a barn, Daryl. And something for storing up extra food, so we don't never go hungry. And a garden. I'll grow you everything you could ever want to eat, Daryl…and it's not all open. The woods are just there."
Daryl hummed at her. They'd gotten here, to this particular plot, by way of a run-off stream from the river. The stream that ran right through their property was hard-running water, and Carol didn't know what kept it from being a river all by itself unless, of course, it was simply size. She didn't know what size a river had to be in order to be called a river. Of course, since their little stream had no name to speak of, she figured that it might someday be a river—the Dixon River, even—if someone who went about naming those kinds of things were to come on their property and see it.
"Is it gonna be big enough, you think?" Daryl asked.
"There's nobody else around for a long while," Carol said. "How much more room are you thinking we're gonna need?"
Daryl hummed again.
Carol recognized that he liked to talk things out with her, especially now that he'd accepted that part of mating was that he could do just that, and she was happy to stand and let him say all that he needed. She snuggled a little tighter against him, closing her eyes for a moment as he wrapped his arms around her. He held her with just the one arm for a moment and raised the other, again, to block the sun from his eyes as he surveyed the whole of the land available to them.
"I just don't know where you gonna sleep," Daryl said.
"I'ma sleep in our house, Daryl," Carol said. "Unless—you were thinkin' that we'd have a house and you were gonna make me sleep in the barn."
Carol laughed, and Daryl echoed it. She was pleased to hear him laugh—not that she'd thought, for even a moment, that he'd make her sleep in the barn. Daryl liked her sleeping close to him, and she knew that. Sometimes, in his sleep, he'd curl all around her and draw her in tight against him. She didn't mind it. It felt safe to be half-buried under him. There was nothing in the world—not man or beast—that could touch her, not as long as she was sleeping half-buried under Daryl.
"You got a smart mouth," Daryl informed her. There was no bite to his tone, and Carol sensed no real disapproval. "I mean until I get the walls up an' the roof on. I wanna build it right. I don't wanna rush nothin'. It ain't gonna be done in no day's time."
"Where would you sleep?" Carol asked. She pulled away from Daryl enough to stand in front of him. He shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette for himself.
"Suits me fine to sleep out," he said. "I'd just pick a place for a fire. Put my blanket down and sleep."
Carol smiled.
"Then, that's where I'll sleep, too, Daryl," she said.
"I don't want you sleepin' out," Daryl said. "You're a woman."
"So?" Carol challenged. "You think I can't sleep the same place you can? You think I haven't slept in worse places than this?"
"I know you can sleep any damn where you put your ass down to sleep," Daryl said. "But—you oughta not have to. As your mate, I oughta be givin' you a decent place to sleep. That's just how it oughta be, and I don't see no way I can do that out here."
Carol sensed a hint of desperation to his tone. The problem was one that he was currently seeing as too great to overcome. She closed the distance between them, again, and this time she kissed the side of his face. She held her hand against his cheek, nuzzling her face against his, until she sensed that he was calming—nuzzling her back and breathing in the scent of her. She smiled in response to his nuzzling.
"Anywhere we sleep together is the best place I ever slept," Carol said, backing up to give him some space when she felt that he was ready for it. "Daryl—every night I slept with Ed, I slept afraid. I slept half-sure that I wasn't gonna wake up in the morning. He'd have some kinda dream about something he thought I did, and he'd kill me while I slept. I don't feel afraid when I sleep with you. I just—go on off to sleep, and I don't worry about anything because I know that I'm gonna sleep safe. I'll wake up safe, too." She raised her eyebrows at Daryl. "You've killed a bear," she pointed out.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I've killed more'n one bear, Carol," Daryl said.
"So—you see? I can sleep wherever you're sleeping," Carol said.
"I could make you a spot to sleep in one of them last little rock caves we come by," Daryl said.
"Are you gonna sleep there?" Carol asked.
"I think you're supposed to stay with your land," Daryl said. "Once you claim it, and all, until you get it built and you get some fences up—or somethin' markin' what you expect to be yours. I'll have to make a trip into town to see exactly how I go about makin' it known that this here is our land."
"Well—then I'll stay here on the land with you," Carol said. "I'd rather sleep out in the middle of our land, together, than sleep in a cave by myself. I don't want to sleep somewhere you aren't, Daryl, and that's the last I intend to say about that."
"It might get cold before I can get a roof over our heads," Daryl said.
"Then—you'll just have to keep me warm," Carol said.
"You could get rained on," Daryl said.
"Then—we'll just get us a slicker from town, Daryl. We can put it over both of us. Over our blanket. And we'll stay dry together up under it."
Daryl chewed on his thumb while he also chewed on her response.
"You won't think less of me as a mate, if I don't have no roof over your head?" Daryl asked.
"Daryl—you're the best mate for me. The only one. And a roof you mean to build is as good to me as one that's already built."
Daryl smiled, clearly pleased with that.
"Alright," he said. "Then—let's get us some stobs so we can start markin' off what ideas you got for a home."
111
Carol stayed close enough that she could keep an eye on Daryl at all times. He didn't feel comfortable leaving her anywhere alone, and she didn't feel comfortable being left alone. As a result, she had little choice but to practically follow at his heels, like a pup, as he went about his business. The town was growing, but it wasn't growing too quickly. A few more shells of buildings were going up here and there, but most of the place was marked off with people's intentions more than their actual accomplishments. Through the window, she watched as Daryl finished some business with the town official—they were calling him a mayor—who was getting him to sign off to say that he'd laid claim to a plot outside of town where they would make their home.
Sweet Springs was what they were calling this particular town, and Carol turned the name over and over in her mind while she waited on Daryl. His name was Daryl Dixon—not that he'd ever had much need to use it, really—and that would mean that she would be Carol Dixon, if they were ever to officially marry. Carol wasn't certain, really, if her marriage to Ed had ever been written down anywhere, but she wondered if the mayor might scratch some official declaration of her marriage to Daryl in some book like the one where he wrote down that Daryl owned the piece of land where he meant to build their home.
Married or not, though, it didn't really matter to Daryl. He wasn't so worried about being her husband as he was about being her mate—and Carol didn't know if he really knew the difference or had ever studied on it. Carol was content to be his mate, as long as he wanted to be mated to her for life, like he said he did.
"You took care of it?" Carol asked, when Daryl emerged from the building tucking something into his pocket.
"He wrote down in his little book that it's my land," Daryl said. "That I'm to settle it. Build a home and a ranch."
"If we're gonna have a ranch," Carol said, "then we're gonna need cows. Otherwise, it really isn't much of a ranch, Daryl."
"We'll find somebody with some cows," Daryl said. "For now, though, what we need to do is find us everything we need to get the house up. The rest'll come later. I got to talk to people. Get some tools, and nails, and a body to cut and haul us some straight lumber out there for the best house we can build. Come on—step careful. You don't wanna turn an ankle wrong. And mind the horses."
Carol let Daryl catch her arm and walk her across the muddy street—the mud of which smelled pungently of piss. Dressed as she was—as Daryl's younger brother—it was probably odd to others that Daryl might walk with her arm in arm. However, she was just as content to pretend that she was incapable of handling her own affairs, and getting across the street on her own, as she was to pretend that her manhood didn't quite live up to its expected duties.
The place that offered rooms and whiskey was better built than it had been the last time they'd been there. Though it had been one of the few places with a roof and walls the last time they'd been in town, it looked sturdier now, and Carol could see that some effort had been put into making both the first and second stories of the building look much more dependable. The lean-to sign outside that had promised rooms and whiskey now promised women, as well.
"Go ahead and sit, if you want," Daryl said, as soon as they were inside. "This could take a minute. Remember—don't'cha never put your back to the door."
Carol nodded at him and left him at the bar to talk to the bartender. He was, without a doubt, gathering information about the things he wanted or needed to start building their home. To keep good feelings with the owner of the establishment, who also tended the bar, he would buy a whiskey or two—probably even a bottle to take back with them. He might grab a paper, too, so that they could look it over while they talked and tasted the whiskey.
Carol sat down at the table she chose near a window. She'd only been sitting there a moment, daydreaming out the window, when a whore walked up. The blonde kicked the chair back with her foot, and she sat near Carol.
"What's your pleasure, handsome?" She drawled, leaning on the table so that her breasts nearly spilled out of the somewhat ill-fitting dress she was wearing. "I do anything you want for the right price."
Carol made eye contact with the woman, though she hadn't quite meant to look at her so directly. The woman smiled. She winked her eye at Carol.
"You're no more a man than I am," she said, laughing.
"Keep your voice down," Carol hissed at her—not that her voice had actually been much more than a whisper.
"Hey—that's fine. I do that, too, honey, for the right price."
"I don't want nothing to do with whores," Carol said.
"Me neither," the woman said, laughing quietly. She shifted, clearly getting far too comfortable in her chair for Carol's tastes. "But what's a body gonna do?" She pulled a cigarette case from inside her dress, and she lit a cigarette for herself. She offered one to Carol, but Carol refused. "A body's gotta eat," the blonde mused, blowing out smoke and tucking her case back where she'd had it before.
Recognizing that the blonde wasn't leaving, Carol relaxed a little.
"How'd you end up here?" Carol asked.
"Just what I said. Body's gotta eat. Why? You lookin' for a job?"
"I don't want any part of this life," Carol said.
"Nobody does, honey," the blonde said. "I heard someone say once that—there's fates worse than death. Somethin' not too far off from that, at least. They weren't all wrong. Still—I don't have the guts to send myself to meet my maker, and I don't much like the idea of starving to death."
"You could marry," Carol offered.
"There's fates worse than death," the woman said with a laugh. Carol didn't ask her what she meant, exactly, but she could guess. If Carol was being honest, she'd felt much that way while being married to Ed. "You married?"
"I'm—spoken for," Carol offered, not sure the best way to answer.
"He—or she—know you a woman?" The woman asked with a laugh. "And not a hairless lil' cowpoke?"
"He knows," Carol said, nodding her head in the direction of Daryl. "But—I'd appreciate you keeping a confidence."
"That one in the buckskins that looks like he could be part grizzly?" The blonde asked, looking at Daryl. Daryl glanced over in their direction and sipped from a whiskey glass. It was clear that he was engaged in a conversation with the owner of the establishment. More than that, he was listening to the owner while the owner told him about something.
Carol didn't know if Daryl looked like he was part grizzly or not. She assumed that, maybe, she would have thought the same thing when she'd first met him, but she tended to him now. His hair was cut shorter, and she kept him mostly shaved up. Now, she only saw him as the sweetest, kindest man that ever was put on the earth to walk it, so she couldn't be too critical of his appearance.
"Don't you call him that," she growled at the blonde. The blonde looked amused.
"Alright, honey," she said. "Settle down. Don't you get too stirred up over it."
"Stop calling me honey," Carol hissed.
"It would be a lot easier if I knew your name," the blonde said.
"Carol," Carol said. "But—I'd still just rather you kept my confidence."
The blonde smiled at her. She looked toward the bar and made a gesture with her hand on her face. The gesture was clearly in response to a gesture that the owner had made, but Carol didn't know what they were signaling to each other. Daryl laughed, and he lit a cigarette before swallowing down a drink of water and picking up the whiskey glass again.
"I'll keep your confidence," the woman said. "Especially if you got anything on you to—seal the deal, so to speak. A keepsake among new friends who are the confidence keepin' kinds, and all."
Carol took her meaning, and she pulled a small rock from her pocket that she'd gotten from Daryl. She always carried a few of the rocks in case she should find herself in need of something while Daryl wasn't nearby—not that that had ever been the case before. The small nugget wasn't worth too much, she figured, as far as the rocks went. Still, she slid it across the table to the blonde and the blonde took it like someone who was grabbing for the first meal they'd eaten in days. The rock disappeared into the dress, and Carol assumed there was a pocket sewn in there somewhere that she couldn't see.
"Thanks," the woman said. "Name's Andrea…and…my boss tells me that Griz, there, just got you an hour of my time."
