Author notes: This fic was originally posted eight (gasp) years ago which is wild to me. Life has been busy but I have kept up with all the drama in TWDU and with the CARYL fandom. I decided, on a whim that I should revisit, maybe revise and refine this fic a little. So I will be updating chapter by chapter leading up to Christmas. There is a sequel to this story in the works. When I first wrote this little fic (that I also enjoy reading at least once a year during the holidays) I was deep in my somber Christmas feelings. Originally this fic was titled "In the Bleak Midwinter." It has been updated to reflect the new title which is "Let All Acquaintance Be Forgot." There is a corresponding Spotify playlist with the same title as the fic if you're so inclined to follow along with the vibe of each chapter musically.
With that, I will leave you to enjoy chapter one again. I do not own these characters or TWD.
Sister Winter
A fine white dusting of snow had settled festively over the few blades of green grass edging the road. Carol Peletier stood on that edge, holding her scarf firmly against her chapped lips to cut the bite of the cold from stinging her face. She lingered, looking left and right out of sheer habit; a quiet giggle tumbled from her lips at her nonsense. A silly holdover from the "before" times.
She had found her way north and west months after her departure from the Kingdom. Carol had realized that she was too broken to stay in Virginia. Morgan and King Ezekial had offered her so much more, but right as the doctor declared her fit to work in the community, the itch to run returned, as had the ache in heart for Daryl. So, she had decided it was best to remove herself from the equation, first, by insisting she live alone in the house away from the settlement. It was Daryl's visit, however, that pushed her past the point of no return. She watched him disappear into the night, knowing in her gut this was their last time together. She couldn't bear to see him hurt or, worse, see him dead on her account. And so, she found herself quickly packing her few essentials and made her escape. She headed west.
At first, she had been weary but on high alert to threats of any part of her past following her. But the further she walked and the seasons changed, so did the landscape and her worry. Mountain roads in June gave way to rolling hills in August and September until finally; she met the flat farmland of the Midwest with the first few flakes of winter in late October. The roads were overgrown with dry brush and debris but remained wondrously empty. Even with the trees laid bare, she was well aware of the dangers that could still lay hidden: people, feral animals, and the dead. Still, she remained self-assured that she was totally and utterly alone next to the dead, which, even in the hard freeze of winter, had become rare. If she were to stumble across any such corpse now, it lay frozen in time with only its milky, unfocused gaze, staring back at her. The dead were still a threat, yes, but nothing was more antagonizing to her than the ghosts that followed in whispers on the freezing winds.
She often felt the worst of it at night as she slept fitfully. The first hours of sleep found her in and out of nightmares about the ones she'd left behind or murdered. Their faces decayed and disintegrated into nothing before her eyes. And every morning she awoke alive she felt the same dread, regret, and devastation. She'd wake during the blue hour, shivering, covered in sweat, breathing heavily, and trying to convince herself she had made the right decision. This self-imposed exile, she reasoned, was better than being witness to the death of everyone she'd loved, especially him.
A shiver and a bead of sweat ran down her spine simultaneously as the last of the wind whipped around her on the road. She turned her body away from the gust and took in a thickening row of evergreens lining the road up ahead, a crooked mailbox peaking out from the foliage. On a long exhale, she dropped the scarf protecting her face and wiped the sheen of sweat that had been building on her brow for the last hour of walking. The mailbox was her first sign of any structure nearby.
Two days prior, she'd passed a sign for "The Good Life." She'd never visited Nebraska, and to be fair, she had rarely been anywhere outside of Georgia before the turn. Ed, may he continue to rot in hell, had hated family travel of any sort, and her travel since the turn and his death had been much more about survival than stopping to smell any metaphorical roses. Not that her current journey bore any resemblance to luxury or pleasure. Far beyond that, but with every step toward the mailbox, she felt a weight being lifted from her shoulders.
She looked up to the sky as the sun beamed from its high position in the afternoon, clearing away the remaining clouds of morning. She recognized this as a common weather pattern out here on the plains. Morning clouds, flurries or ice, or even heavy snowfall often gave way to clear skies by afternoon where, even in the cold, the heat seemed to build under her many layers. Like clockwork, she dispatched her gloves and shoved them into her coat pockets to relieve the pent-up heat pooling in her palms. She adjusted her pack and unzipped her coat to relieve her feelings of being over-warm.
She inhaled deeply and watched as her breath before she became a whispering ghost of the breeze gently caressing her cheek. A small shiver down her spine again, not from the cold but from a flash of memory. "What do you want?" she remembers asking him by that fire. "I want a man of honor."
She laughed loudly at herself this time. He had just stared at her. Unsure, longing, immature to the idea that maybe he could change. What neither of them had counted on was how much she would change while she waited for him to figure out if he wanted to be that man. Hindsight was twenty/twenty. If she had let him in when he asked, and if he had let her in when she had asked, this all might have ended differently for the two of them. Sometimes, if she squinted into the distance, she could still see the glimpses of that future with him, now gone and dead, like everything else around her. Her punishment for change, her remaining life lived as penance for those she'd killed, she reckoned. She thought back to those first days alone. All she had wanted was to die. But, like all the times before, the longer she walked, the harder she fought; something in her began to burn away. She began to rebuild herself, imagining that maybe staying alive was all it would take to make him proud. She smirked. Just thinking about it brought her heart a glimmer of peace.
Early on, she had hoped he would come after her, find her in some abandoned shack or house, and bring her back. She daydreamed that maybe he would confess his undying love with a few awkward words, an affectionate touch, even just a hug. She shook her head at the naivety. Wistful daydreaming, no different than when she had thought Sophia to be alive so long ago. She had pondered these things daily and had scolded herself for such things. She shook her head, tightened the scarf around her face again, and continued walking along the edge of the road toward the mailbox. She'd seen signs a few miles back of farmhouses, some field access roads, and a toppled mailbox here and there. Few structures remained unscathed from the dead herds roaming without preamble through the empty fields.
This particular mailbox is the first she's seen, crooked but still standing upright. She rubbed her hands together vigorously to ward off more chill and marched onward, determined this would be her place to rest for the night. When she reached the mailbox, she opened it in curiosity and rolled her eyes when it turned up nothing but ice. "Figures," she mumbled to herself. She turned and looked up the long driveway, hugged slightly, hidden by the thick underbrush and surrounding evergreens. She stood in the middle of the drive and gave herself a moment to take it in. For the first time in three weeks, she may have the chance to devour a can of beans, sleep under a warm blanket, and if she was extremely lucky a wood stove to warm herself with.
With nothing to lose, she made her way up the drive. As she neared the end of it, a small, humble, pale blue house with navy blue shutters stood before her. On closer inspection, she found it built into the side of a hill, not just a house but a small cozy cottage, hidden back far enough from the road she could imagine staying a night or two or maybe forever if luck prevailed. To the south, hidden behind the main structure, was a barn much like the one on Hershel's property, and positioned just off the west side of the cottage, there looked to be a water pump. She sped up her pace to reach the pump and prayed it was far enough underground that the water wasn't frozen or dried up or drained by some other guest in the past.
She took a deep breath, bracing herself for disappointment as she pulled the handle on the pump. It was stuck. She pulled with both hands; it began to budge, and slowly, it unstuck. When she pushed down, she frowned. Nothing came of it. She pumped again, and again, and again until finally, she heard the telltale gurgle of water coming up the pipe. When it released, and water poured all over the ground, she yelped with joy. Steeling her excitement, she quickly got to work, scrounging the property for supplies and hoping to God the dead hadn't heard her squeal of delight.
The barn was sparse but held a few treasures of scrap metal she figured she could put to us,e along with a few buckets to be set aside of water and a latrine. Out of the corner of her eye, she looked up to the old rafters and spotted a ladder and loft. Her curiosity got the best of her, and she decided she could spare a few minutes to climb up and take a look. The first rung of the ladder splintered, "you'd think I'd gained weight." she laughed and continued up each rung carefully. She peered over the ledge at the top and took in the sight of storage containers labeled plainly: summer, winter, garden... and one labeled Christmas. Now, there was a holiday she hadn't had much time to think about for a long time since the turn. It was too impractical now. She felt an odd sensation in her chest, a pang of regret, a longing for what was and what could've been had she stayed at the Kingdom and worked out something with Daryl rather than sending him away. But it was better this way. She lowered herself back to the ground, brushed off her jacket and pants heading back with her buckets and scrap toward the front of the house.
Upon inspection, the door and windows were all intact. And at that moment, it reminded her of when they'd found the grove. The small refuge seemed virtually untouched. She made quick work of breaking the glass on the door, wincing at the sound of it clattering loudly to the floor inside. Every action from this point forward could lead to her death if she wasn't careful. She paused, waiting for the telltale sounds of either the dead or the living. When she heard nothing, she took it as her sign to enter.
She stopped for a moment in the entryway and rolled back her shoulders. It was rare to feel hope these days, rare to feel peace or safety. She felt at least two of those with the promise that, eventually, peace would follow after she'd settled in. Turning her head to the right, she took note of the different doorways leading to other areas of the house. The air hung around her, musty from disuse. She stepped further inside and closed the door behind her. She leaned, peering into the hallway, making a mental note that there were at least four more rooms that needed to be checked. On a deep exhale, she settled herself against the wall and slid down to the carpet. Five minutes later, she had vetted every room, every nook and cranny, and with relief, had wept quietly at just how lucky she had gotten with this find. He would be proud, She imagined him beaming at her with his relief.
Her spoils were ten cans of mixed fruit, kidney beans, and assorted veggies. There was plenty of dry wood stocked in the shed outside, so she took a moment to throw another log into the wood and waited for its radiant heat to spread to the corners of the room. The kettle that she filled at the pump was now squealing from atop the stove. Pleased, she set it aside to cool before drinking greedily.
Hours later, she had cuddled up into the couch with five different blankets piled around her. Months of on-the-road stress had been creeping up on her in the shape of exhaustion. Her body made her aware any time it expressed a yawn. Laying on her side and bundled in blankets, she stared at the glow of the fire across the room and then turned her gaze longingly to the empty chair by the bay window. She smiled softly at Sophia, all soft strawberry blond hair and quiet blue eyes, curled up with a book in the chair as the sound of a chair scraping across the floor came from the kitchen across the room. There he sat, his bow on the table as he whittled away at a fresh bolt in his hands. Sophia glanced up at her, "You can sleep now, mama. It's safe." She felt a tear slide down her cheek.
In another world. In another time.
She wiped her cheek and glanced one last time at the empty kitchen and empty chair. She turned her gaze to the bay window and drifted to sleep on the sounds of the snow being carried across the plains by the wind.
