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Carol waited at the gate with Carl, trying not to count the minutes the others had been gone, trying not to imagine all the horrors that lay out there, human and otherwise, horrors that would have been unimaginable in the old life.
"It's so quiet," Carl said.
It was. Sometimes Carol thought it was nice, really, one of the few good changes. Other times … not so much. Too easy to get lost in dark thoughts with nothing to distract you. "It's easy to forget how loud the world used to be. I used to complain about it all the time. Traffic; construction; car alarms. Noise pollution." The two of them stood there a moment, listening to the lack of sound. "What I wouldn't give for the sweet sound of a jumbo jet."
They laughed together. "It would be even sweeter if we were all on it." Carl turned to look down the road, watching for the return of his surviving parent.
"Your mom was proud of you," Carol told him.
"For what? For being mean to her?"
"No. You can't think about that."
"It's all I think about."
In fairness, Carol had spent a lot of time after Sophia went missing dwelling on the rare moments she'd lost her temper with her girl. Maybe guilt was the only thing she'd had left to give her.
The silence was broken by the sound of a car engine. Both Carol and Carl watched the road tensely, waiting to see if it would be the right car. It was, and they breathed sighs of relief, hurrying to open the gates.
As Rick got out and ran to Carl, Carol looked inside the car. It was missing Oscar … and it was missing Daryl.
Her heart in her throat, Carol turned to Rick. "Where's Daryl?"
Rick came to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. He's alive. We ran into his brother."
Carol remembered Merle. A nasty piece of work. She stared at Rick, who looked away.
"They went off," he said.
"He left? Daryl left? He's gone?" If she kept asking, maybe Rick would have a different answer, she thought, but he just kept looking at her, with the truth in his eyes. "Is he coming back?"
Daryl had gone with Merle. He'd chosen Merle over the rest of them. Over Carol. Over people who loved him and respected him. Carol felt nauseous. How could he do that?
She regretted that her concern for Daryl overrode her grief for the loss of Oscar, but he was Daryl. He was special to her. He always would be, even if he clearly didn't feel the same about her.
They returned to the cell block together, Carol trying not to be stunned by this new loss, this unexpected betrayal, but it was hard to think of anything else. She tried to lose herself in the laundry, in the simple domestic tasks that she had always found so soothing.
She was folding clothes when Beth came up the stairs holding the baby. The girl was a natural. "You've got a knack for that."
"Just trying to do my part."
"Sophia used to wake the neighbors," Carol observed. "3 a.m. Like clockwork. Ed stayed at a friend's most nights until she calmed down." Pat, the friend's name had been. When Carol found out Pat was short for Patricia, she kept silent, but part of her had hoped Ed would leave her for this Patricia—leave her alone with the baby, safe and quiet.
Not knowing what to say, Beth looked down at the baby's sweet face. "I always wanted a child."
Beth was little more than a child herself; Carol wondered if she would ever have the chance to bear or raise one of her own. If any of them would live long enough to see Carl grow up, much less Judith, or children yet unborn.
"She wouldn't have made it if Daryl hadn't been here," Beth added. "He couldn't stand to lose anyone else."
He had managed to lose a whole lot of people, Carol thought bitterly. All for Merle. "Sounds like him," she said, holding the rest of her thoughts inside.
"I don't see why he had to leave. Merle sounds like a jerk."
"Men like Merle get into your head," Carol said slowly, thinking it through. Was Daryl leaving for his brother, the person he'd been taught to be loyal to from the cradle, any different from her going back to Ed out of fear of being alone? "Make you feel like you deserve the abuse."
"Even for Daryl?"
"I'm hardly the woman I was a year ago, but if Ed walked through that door right now, breathing, and told me to go with him, I'd like to think I'd tell him to go to hell." Part of her didn't believe it, though. Part of her believed that, faced with Ed again, she'd become that meek scared little woman who had never said 'stop'.
"You would," Beth said with all the confidence of a young woman who had never been on the wrong side of a bad relationship.
"It doesn't matter," Carol said. Without Daryl, did anything matter? Was there a point to a future, if people you loved and trusted just walked out on you without a second glance?
Beth observed, "We're weak without him."
"We'll get through this, too. Tyreese and his friends seem capable."
"I'm pissed at him for leaving."
"Don't be," Carol said, pretending she wasn't, also. "Daryl has his code. This world needs men like that." She believed that; she really did. She just wished his code hadn't taken him away from the people who needed him, cared about him. His family, just as much as Merle was.
She took the baby and laid her carefully into the plastic post office box Daryl had found for her. On the side, in Sharpie, Carol had written "lil asskicker". She hoped the baby would be, too. The world needed her to be strong, tough. All the things Carol had never learned to be in the world that was.