AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
She liked her coffee with cream—"no, more than that." Daryl had smiled at her giddy excitement over something so simple as a cup of coffee with cream, made by him, just as she liked it. She had giggled over the fact that, at her urging, he had tipped more cream into the mug. It was a simple, everyday, mundane happening, and yet she'd treated it like something magical.
Of course, maybe a morning coffee when you've been restored to life is magical.
Maybe, the first coffee that your soulmate makes for you is magical.
Whatever it was, Daryl had felt warmed in a way he wouldn't have even tried to explain, to hear her happiness and to witness the spark in her eyes when he placed the coffee in front of her on the table.
"Good?" He asked, watching her taste her creamy coffee.
"Mmmm hmmm," she hummed with genuine satisfaction. She closed her eyes to savor the coffee, and Daryl was struck with the realization that a sensation in his belly meant that he missed her, somehow, from just the smallest, simplest shutting-out. He shook the thought from his mind and did his best to overlook the uneasy feeling. When Carol opened her eyes, she looked around the little kitchen.
"Where's Lenora?" She asked.
"Barnabas is here," Daryl said, lighting a cigarette and finally tasting his own coffee. "She ain't gone too damn far. Took my truck, though, and was gone when I got up."
"She took your…"
"Truck," Daryl said. "Thing we get around in. Vehicle. Probably like a wagon, or buggy, or some shit for you. It's OK, don't worry about it. You gonna start to understand everything soon."
"Something akin to how the pizza arrived, right?" Carol asked.
Daryl laughed to himself. Carol was doing her best, and he had to admit that she was handling everything far better than he would be in her situation. She was already amazed at the idea of phones, pizza, and the modern coffee pot that Daryl had picked up. The night before, she'd peeked out the window when Lenora had accepted the pizza delivery—since the delivery person refused to actually step onto the porch and, given the condition of at least one of the steps, Daryl thought that was really for the best. She'd been fascinated, too, by how the pizza had arrived at their location.
"Yeah," he said. "Like that. You seen the truck, prob'ly last night, in the driveway and just didn't pay it any attention because of all the other…excitement." He offered her a cigarette and she took it. She leaned toward him for him to light it, and Daryl felt a shiver run up his spine simply to have her lean closer to him.
"You aren't worried that she'll steal your truck?" Carol asked. Daryl laughed quietly in response.
"I got her cat," he said. "All things considered—and given how damn much that truck has a tendency to act up—cat's prob'ly worth more to Lenora than the truck is to me, at least at this point."
It wasn't entirely true, maybe, but it was close enough, and it got the point across to Carol. She relaxed a little.
"So—what do we do now?" Carol asked.
"What do you want to do?" Daryl asked. "If you're thinking that I'm gonna say I thought this out, then you're entirely wrong. I was up half the night thinking about it, but I got no damn where."
Carol laughed. She drank from her coffee cup. She took a drag on her cigarette. Daryl studied everything about her—the way her lips crinkled when she pursed them, the way her thin fingers looked holding the cigarette. He made himself look away when he realized he was staring and his pulse had kicked up to an uncomfortably fast rate over nothing more than a woman simply trying to enjoy a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
When he looked back, Carol was staring at him. She caught his eyes and held them with her own. A hint of a smile played at her lips. She said nothing, though. She simply held his gaze a moment before breaking it and returning to her cigarette.
"I was up most of the night, too," Carol admitted. "Mostly because I was afraid to sleep."
"Was it bad where you were?" Daryl asked. "Am I—can I ask that shit?"
Carol laughed quietly. She shrugged her shoulders.
"You're my—soulmate, right? I suppose you're allowed to ask whatever you want of me, really. I don't know how much I can say, though, that's really very accurate. I don't remember it. Not really. Not exactly. It wasn't bad…I don't remember bad. I just don't really remember much at all."
"But you still don't wanna go back," Daryl said.
Carol laughed quietly.
"Well, certainly not right away," she said. "Obviously, I have a reason to be here. Some reason. I have a second chance—a chance to have everything I never had before. I wouldn't want to get that second chance just to lose it again, immediately."
"That shit's fair enough," Daryl said.
They might have continued to chat, casually tossing thoughts back and forth at the little table, except that the sound of the front door opening caught the attention of both of them. Carol looked over her shoulder like she might be able to see who it was, but Daryl could tell immediately that it was Lenora. The sound of her hacking cough as she closed the door loudly gave her away. Daryl thought about oiling the hinges of the front door so that it wouldn't be so ridiculously loud, but decided that, for the time being, it could simply serve as something of an advanced warning system in case anyone should come through it.
Lenora made her way into the kitchen. She came wearing one of her ridiculous outfits—proof that she'd been out in public and trying to remind the world that she was some kind of palm-reading specialist that could predict their future for a price. Daryl didn't know how well she did at predicting the future, but he certainly thought of her as less of a phony now than he had the first time he'd pulled up at her trailer. He was still processing how that made him feel, really.
In Lenora's arms, she carried a large white box. The smell issuing forth from the box made Daryl's stomach rumble and let him know what was in the box before anything else.
"You went to get doughnuts?" He asked. It was rhetorical, and he wasn't sure why he asked it, but there was no taking the words back once they'd come out.
"And to feed Dog," Lenora said. "That big brown dog I got."
"Your dog," Daryl clarified.
"No, but…hell…I guess, yes," Lenora said.
"You guess? You got a damn dog or you don't, Lenora," Daryl said.
Lenora ignored him for a moment. She sat the big white box on the counter, rummaged around like she owned the place, and came up with some paper plates. She served what was presumably a doughnut for herself, and then she looked at Daryl. She didn't have to ask him. He knew what she was asking.
"Can I get that bear claw?" He asked.
She put it on a plate and handed it to him. He thanked her.
"What do you want?" Lenora asked Carol.
"I don't know," Carol said.
"You like chocolate?" Lenora asked. Carol nodded her head and Lenora selected something that appeared to either be an éclair or, at the very least, closely related. She gave Carol her doughnut, made a quick cup of coffee for herself, and joined them at the table with a sigh.
"I didn't mean to have the damn dog," Lenora said. "I noticed it out behind this guy's house where I like to do my walking in the morning, you know? Sometimes you just wanna get out, have a breath of fresh air, and commune with nature. But this asshole—Randall Cranford is his name—he's always turning up with one junkyard dog or another. He ties them up outside his house, forgets to pay an ounce of attention to them, and then they disappear after a while."
"They die or he kills 'em…or…what?" Daryl asked.
Lenora shrugs.
"I don't ask. Try not to talk to the man. I wouldn't ever hex anyone, but if I was going to…well…you get the idea. So—one morning I'm out walking and this ugly brown dog is out there, tied up like all the damned dogs always are. He starts thumping his tail like he's so damned happy to see me. Whole damn body wiggling," she said, laughing. She started to cough, and Daryl waited her out patiently. "Anyway, I don't want a damn dog, but something tells me I can't just leave the asshole. So—I went back to my trailer, found a machete I use for killing the snakes that crawl up out of this creek that runs not far from my place—and I came back and cut the damn thing loose. He followed me home. I just started calling him Dog. I didn't have the energy to come up with anything better, and he doesn't seem to care one way or another what I call him, as long as I call him."
"Man didn't say nothin' to you?" Daryl asked with a laugh.
Lenora shrugged.
"People have a tendency to leave me alone," she said, "and that's even when I'm not carrying a machete."
"Good damn point," Daryl offered. "So—you got a dog."
"I guess," Lenora said. "I feed him, but—I just don't feel like I have a lot to offer him. He and Barnabas don't mind each other, but I don't have the room for him in the trailer. Still, that whole yard is fenced, so it's better than what he had, I guess."
"You could—bring him over here," Daryl offered. "You know—if you want." He shrugged when Lenora looked at him.
"That yard isn't fenced in," she said.
"Not yet, it ain't. But I mean…could be someday. So—we'll let him stay in the house for now. Hell—there's plenty enough room in this house for all of us." Daryl looked at Carol. "You give a shit?"
She looked at him wide-eyed, but he got a feeling it had more to do with the surprise over the taste of her breakfast than the dog. She hummed and shook her head.
"It's your house," she said.
"Your house first," Daryl said.
"You bought it," Carol said.
"You live here," Daryl said.
She smiled at him.
"I might enjoy a dog's presence," she said.
"Settled, then," Daryl said. "We'll go get the dog after breakfast. While we're out—we oughta see about gettin' Carol some decent ass clothes. Somethin' that fits her. She ain't gonna wanna wear my shit forever, and what was in the attic's all damn near turned to dust."
"If we're getting Dog and buying clothes," Lenora said, we might want to do it in the opposite order.
"We'll figure it out," Daryl said.
"You're both…leaving?" Carol asked. She looked slightly panicked.
"You scared to be alone?" Daryl asked. Carol stared at him, hard, and he could practically sense that she was running a million scenarios through her head. She was trying out every answer she could give and imagining how he might respond to each of her offered answers. She didn't respond before he did it for her. "Hell—of course your ass is scared to be alone. It's your first damn day being fucking undead after your dead asshole husband cut your head off with an ax. I'd be shitting myself at the thought of even taking a piss without company."
Carol laughed quietly. There was even a bit of giggle to her laughter. It made Daryl's chest flood with warmth and something like a sensation of pride. He'd made her laugh. And, when she caught his eye, still smiling at him, he felt his face flood with a similar warmth.
"So—you don't think I'm being…unreasonable?" Carol asked.
"We won't leave you alone," Daryl said, shaking his head. "In fact—we'll take you with us."
"Take her with us?" Lenora asked.
"Yeah, Lenora, take her with us," Daryl said.
"How in the hell are we gonna do that, Daryl?" Lenora asked.
"Put her in the truck, same as we'd do to take anybody anywhere," Daryl said. "Besides—she ought to have some say in her clothes and whatever else she needs."
"That's great," Lenora said. "It's an excellent idea. I think you're forgetting a few things, though."
"I'm sure you gonna tell me what they are," Daryl said, getting up long enough to fetch the box of doughnuts. He put them on the table so that everyone could reach them, in case he wasn't the only one who wasn't satisfied, and he burrowed one out of the box that pleased him. When he saw Carol eyeing them, he nudged her. "You go on. Have what'cha want. Whatever you want, it's fine. It's good."
He turned to look back at Lenora who, though she seemed to weigh only about fifteen pounds, was on her second doughnut.
"Well, the first is that she might be recognized," Lenora said.
"She ain't, though," Daryl said. "Everybody that was alive to know her is either dead or so fuckin' senile, they ain't gonna know shit. What I tried to look up—pictures is half-ass at best. Focus more on the husband than anything. Besides—who the fuck cares enough about a murder that happened over a hundred years ago to go around lookin' to see if they mighta come back to life? For all they know, she's just some kinda relative, if the resemblance is too much for someone to stand."
Daryl glanced at Carol. She was watching Lenora, but she made eye contact with him and nodded enthusiastically.
"I can be a relative of mine, or however it would be best to pretend," Carol said. "I'm fairly good at acting."
Daryl raised his eyebrows at Lenora.
"Fine, but you're still forgetting that we don't even know if she can leave the house," Lenora said.
"You said she was bonded to me," Daryl said. "Said she was my soulmate. That we can't leave each other because we'll always be tryin' to get back to each other. Well—then, it only makes sense she can leave the house if I do."
"But she's been here since the murder," Lenora pointed out. "Maybe it was you who had to come here because she can't leave the house. Look—I'm not saying she can or she can't. What I'm saying is that we don't know if she can."
Daryl hummed and looked at Carol.
"Finish your doughnut and get as dressed as you can with what the hell you got. We gonna see if we can't take a walk. Ease further and further away until we're sure…just down the road a piece."
"You're going to take her on a walk?" Lenora asked.
"Why not?" Daryl asked. "Ain't that a soulmate kinda thing to do? Go on a damn walk to make sure one of us don't get snatched into some kind of undead void or something?"
Lenora hummed and looked at Carol.
"You can borrow a pair of my sneakers," she said. "But I want them back, void or no void, just so you know."