Work Text:
Maybe it's not out there
Maybe this leads nowhere
Home will always be right here
Blackberry Smoke, “Azalea”
Fog lay over the pond and the space where the precious gardens had stood, coating everything in a soft blanket of gray. In harsh daylight the true state of affairs was much worse. Everything that had been lush and green and proudly, inventively functional, their home… stripped, trampled, wrecked, flattened.
From Carol’s bedroom window at dawn the mill’s empty sail frames looked like the skeleton of some alien construction. The Whisperers must have put themselves at terrifying risk, to climb the tower and tear the fabric down like that. Purely vandalism for its own sake, just like the water wheels and the solar panels. All of that effort, all of the people Alexandria had lost in the years while they were building it up: the work of a decade, gone in no time at all.
Her people hadn’t known what they were doing when they started to build the mill, not really, even with the diagrams from Georgie’s book. Before that, they’d never even considered a project on such a scale, but the idea had caught fire and every able-bodied member of the community had lent a hand. It had felt like a celebration, a bold move forward.
She wasn’t sure how or where they’d even found the necessary yards and yards of cloth to make the sails. She’d left Alexandria before construction had reached that point. There hadn’t been enough here to anchor her, and she’d believed the Kingdom needed her more. At least at the Kingdom she hadn’t been reminded daily of the absence of the one person who most kept her centered.
They needed to resurrect the mill if they were ever going to bring the community back to something like it had been. Add one more seemingly insurmountable task to the endless list of essential repairs already in front of them.
In the meantime, reduced rations were slowing everyone down. The crews kept going; past dark sometimes, when they were looking at the end of a project, or at least a good stopping point. Being able to tick one more item off the list was a kind of fuel in itself. Small accomplishments. Keep your eyes on the goal in front of you, because if you stepped back and looked at the whole picture it was overwhelming.
They’d done it before. This time the goal seemed impossibly far away. But eventually they had to reach some equilibrium—didn’t they?
She wasn’t sure if she could do it all over again. And again. And again. But it wasn’t like there was a choice. First, the walls, and feeding their people. Everything else was secondary.
Her low back ached like she’d taken a blow from a two-by-four by the time Aaron stepped back from their section of the wall and said, “That’ll have to do until they finish resetting the footer on the next panel down. Break for lunch, everybody, and check back in an hour to see if we’re ready to move on.”
Carol grabbed a bowl of whatever was offered at the communal kitchen--some kind of tough grain, boiled to something approaching softness and flavored with shreds of meat and a sprinkling of the remaining herbs they’d pulled from people’s kitchens. With stores so tight, they’d taken to cooking for everyone rather than try to dole out ingredients to individual households. How they’d done it back at the prison, once upon a time. Back when she’d still believed in something more than simply getting through another day.
Time was, Carol would have been right in the center of that effort, but these days the petty complaints, still, after all this time—not enough vegetables, why isn’t there meat anymore, I don’t like this, I don’t like that, as if there were options they were withholding—it was better that she was out of doors, lending her hands and her back to the repairs.
So many had died to give them the luxury of criticism. Best that she wasn’t put in a position where she’d be unable to stop herself from telling them the unvarnished truth. Better for them, better for the community. Maybe even better for her peace of mind, although it was refreshing just to let it all out on occasion. What were they going to do, fire her?
In the thin sunshine, Rosita was nursing Coco on a bench in front of the community hall, lovely and peaceful, her dark hair hanging around them both like a lace mantilla. Carol veered away from her original path and her uncharitable thoughts and stopped before them. “Madonna and child,” Carol said. “Like a Renaissance painting.”
“If this is supposed to be our messiah we’re in trouble,” Rosita said. “Ease up, you little piranha.” She tucked a pinkie finger into the corner of Coco’s mouth to break the baby’s suction on her breast.
“Could be teething,” Carol said as she took a seat next to them. Coco fussed, clumsily rubbing at her face with one hand and grasping for her mother with the other.
“So soon?” Rosita settled the baby against her shoulder, patting her back. “I didn’t think that would start until she’s a little older, but damn, she’s gotten me good a couple of times this week.”
“Could be. I don’t think Sophia was much older than Coco is now when it started.” Carol set down the remains of her lunch and put her hands out. “Give her here. I haven’t had nearly enough baby time with this one.” She nodded down to the bowl beside her. “You can finish the rest of that mess for me. It actually tastes pretty good; just keep your eyes closed while you eat.”
“You should eat it yourself,” Rosita told her. “You’ve been putting in a lot of hours on the walls.”
“Yeah, but I’m not feeding another person. I had my share, you’re just keeping me from wasting it.”
“Right.” Rosita rolled her eyes, but she handed over Coco anyway and picked up the bowl. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’d forgotten you had a child before all this.”
The unexpected sympathy caught Carol off guard, bringing a lump into her throat. “It’s okay,” she said. “You never knew her. Too many other losses since then to expect anyone but me to remember.” These days it barely hurt to think of her baby, as long as she didn’t spend too much time dwelling on it. “She would have been...twenty-one, now? Twenty-two?” The years all blurred together. Sophia at eleven had shown signs that she would grow tall, like Ed’s people. Carol liked to think her daughter would have been more like her, though. Resilient. Maybe even more than her mother.
“All the same, I should have remembered. If for no other reason than I could use any advice you can spare.”
“I’m just glad we’ve got a safer place for you these days. Judith was teething before we lost the prison, and on the road here? It makes me nervous all over again, just thinking about it.” Coco, propped against Carol’s shoulder, grabbed a handful of Carol’s hair and pulled to try and bring it to her mouth. “Ow, baby. ” She shifted Coco around and set her in her lap, jiggling a leg to distract her. “You should ask Aaron if he still has any of those teething rings from when Gracie was a baby. I don’t think the man ever throws anything away. Tricky part might be figuring out where he’s put them.”
Rosita set the now-empty bowl between them. “So what’s got you in such a funk this morning, besides the obvious?”
Carol thought she'd hidden her mood better than that. “Just totting up too many projects and not enough hands, not to mention the food. Is that the obvious you were thinking of?”
“That, and Daryl. You know, it gets everybody antsy, with the two of you on the outs. It’s like when we were kids and Mom was fighting with whatever boyfriend she had living with us. Sometimes the yelling was easier to take than the silence.”
She hadn't expected things to turn in that direction. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about," Carol lied. "Daryl and I are fine.”
Rosita snorted. “Sure you are. And I’m six feet tall and blonde.”
“I’m serious.” They would be fine. She was pretty sure of that. She just needed to find time to talk to him. Once he got back from wherever it was he'd gone without even telling her.
“So am I. The two of you have been walking on eggshells with each other for days. That is, when you’re not avoiding each other entirely.”
“We had a little disagreement, that’s all. Friends have those. It’s no big deal.” A little disagreement that, if she was inclined to be morbid, might have finally rung the death knell on whatever she and Daryl had been to each other. She dug around in her mind, looking for a way to move Rosita off the topic before she lost her composure.
“‘Friends’,” Rosita scoffed, and blew a derisive raspberry. “‘Friends’ don’t look at each other the way you two do. Not that I have any objection to it, mind you. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t have had all these years of fun playing the 'Who’s First?' game.”
The woman's smirk bordered on irritating. “The what now?”
“The ‘Who’s First’ game!” Rosita said, laughing. “The one where we bet on who in a new group of people is going to be the first to ask about the two of you. Eugene’s surprisingly good at it. Tara—” She smiled sadly. “Tara was the champ, but Glenn was the instigator.”
“I don’t even—” Carol began.
“It wasn’t Glenn that started it,” Maggie said, appearing from around the corner of the community hall, Hershel in tow. She plopped cross-legged in the dirt in front of them, unscrewing the lid of her canteen to down a long draught. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand with a sigh. “We’re taking a break while they shift another load of materials over to the wall. Not a moment too soon, either. My back feels like it’s about to give out.”
“Moo-ommm,” Hershel whined, casting a longing look across the yard to where Judith and Gracie were playing hopscotch.
“Fine,” Maggie said, “go play with the girls. Just stay back from the walls, and keep the noise to a dull roar.”
Hershel grinned and exploded into motion, stopping only to run back and retrieve his fallen hat.
“And keep away from the work crews, I don’t want to have to come scrape you up from under a section of the wall!” Maggie yelled. She watched her son go, her eyes sparkling.
“He reminded me so much of Glenn just now,” Carol said. “That smile.”
“Every day I see it a little bit more,” Maggie agreed. “He’s fearless, just like his daddy. It scares the shit out of me.”
“You’ve done a great job with him,” Carol told her. She'd tried to teach the children at the prison how to protect themselves, but Hershel? He was on another level. Going out into the world with only his mother had taught him hard lessons firsthand, not simply the theory she'd been limited to back then.
“So, wait: if it wasn’t Glenn who started that game,” Rosita interrupted, “who was? Tara told me Glenn was her sensei. Back when we first ended up at Gabriel’s church, I said something to her, and she was like, ‘ask Glenn.’”
Maggie gave her a lopsided smile. “Oh, he joined right in, especially when you and Abraham and Tara got an eyeful of that business right after Terminus, but it started with Bethie, at the prison, when we took in the people from Woodbury.”
Carol was downright dumbfounded. “How did I not know about this? All this time?”
“Self-preservation, mostly, I think," Maggie replied. "I mean, can you imagine if Daryl had heard about it? He would have been impossible. ‘Damn nosy-ass vultures, can’t keep a thing private.’” Her impression of Daryl was so spot on Rosita nearly choked.
“Warn a girl next time!” Rosita spluttered. “You’re right, though. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that mood.”
She'd answered a few questions herself over the years, about other people, so it didn't surprise Carol to hear that new people were curious about relationships among the community they'd joined. It was a natural part of the process of learning who the people were that surrounded them. What stopped her in her tracks was finding out that it was common enough for her family to have crafted some kind of—tradition? entertainment?—out of one relationship in particular.
Coco began to fuss again and reached for her mother. "C'm'ere, baby girl," Rosita said. "It's history lesson time." She took the baby back from Carol and settled her in her lap. "Tara told me to talk to Glenn. So I did. And then after we’d been here awhile, Olivia—” She fell silent again. “Olivia was the first one to ask me. She was sharp, because you were, like, in full Stepford mode. She said that Deanna wanted to know, too, so I don't know who really counted as 'first'. Good thing I didn't have anything riding on that one.”
"Jesus asked me one time," Maggie chimed in. "I'm not even sure he'd ever met you at that point, just heard bits and pieces from other people and put things together. He played things close to the vest himself, so he respected other people's privacy; after a while, though, he just got too curious."
"I don't know if I'm comfortable with this," Carol started to say, but the next second a cold, wet something pressed against the back of her neck. She smothered a shriek as she vaulted up out of her seat, only to realize it was just Dog, checking in with her as he always did when he got home from a trip with Daryl.
"Oh, geez," Maggie said, and jumped to her feet. "I forgot to tell you," she said to Rosita, "they need us over at the kitchen." She gave Rosita a hand up and the two of them vanished around the corner with Coco, on what Carol was certain had to be a completely made-up errand.
Beyond their sunny bench, Daryl was leaning against the corner of the building, as casually as if he hadn't disappeared the previous day without a word. "Hey," she said. "When did you get back?" There was something different in his expression—thoughtful, rather than aggravated, which is what she would have expected if he'd been listening in on that conversation.
"Just now," he said. He came around the bench and dropped his pack beside it before he sat, while Carol remained on her feet. "You got somewhere else to be, too, or can you sit back down?"
She settled on the edge of the bench, unsure whether she wanted to hash things out with Daryl right that second. She knew that last conversation between them was something they needed to get past, but with him being gone she thought she'd have at least another day or two before she had to face it. "Did you hear any of that, what Rosita and Maggie were talking about?" It was a delaying tactic at best. She wasn't even sure she wanted to explore that topic with him, either.
"A little," he admitted, but no more than that.
The lack of reaction puzzled her. "Did you know that was going on?"
"I guess. Nobody came out and asked me direct, so it didn't matter much. You and me, we knew what was what. That's all that counted."
It was nice to hear that he thought they both understood how things stood between them; as far as she was concerned it was as clear as mud.
However he felt about being an object of community speculation, Daryl wasn't about to be distracted from what had brought him over to her in the first place. "What I said the other day," he began. "I shouldn't have."
"You were just being honest," Carol told him. "You've never held back before; why would you start now?"
"'Cause it wasn't right." He dug into his vest pocket and pulled out the double-capper acorn she'd given him back before the smoldering war with the Whisperers ramped up again. For a split second she had the awful thought that he was going to pull them apart in some kind of symbolic gesture, but it seemed he only wanted something to do with his hands, like a worry stone. "What did it matter if you wanted to get out of here and go do something besides work on rebuilding things? Wasn't no different than what I was doing. There's always plenty of work to be doing here; and yeah, sometimes you need a break. Anybody asked, I could always say I was just going hunting. Nobody ever told me I was running away." He looked over at her with a question in his eyes; was he on the right track?
"Thanks," she told him. "But you weren't wrong, either."
"Maybe not, but I shouldn't have said it. It was that place," he said. "Messed with my head."
Dog reappeared, carrying a well-rotted apple he'd dug up from somewhere. He dropped it on the path and came to lay his head in Daryl's lap, knowing instinctively that he was needed.
"You said I hadn't told you everything," he went on, scratching Dog behind the ears. "You were right."
"You didn't have to," Carol said. "It's not really my business."
"It is, though," he said. "All of it."
Carol scooted back on the bench. If he was inclined to tell her the whole story, it deserved her full attention.
"The part I didn't tell you before was how, that last time you came to my camp, I was thinking about coming home. And then you said you were moving to the Kingdom. So, I was happy for you, I guess. But then I started thinking, if you could have that—start over with a new family—maybe I could, too. So I went back to the cabin."
"And she was gone," Carol said. He'd told her that much, not long afterward. But it had been obvious even then that there was more.
"Yeah. She told me to pick. Her or you." He clamped his mouth shut, frowning. "I mean, her or Alexandria. Thought I knew which one I should pick."
"I confused it for you, didn't I," Carol murmured.
"Maybe," he said. "But it always should have been you over her."
"You mean 'You' as in Alexandria, right?" she said.
"I mean you." He reached over and took her hand. "Just you."
A year later, the windmill and the solar panels were back in operation; Alexandria's walls had been painted inside and out, covering all of the evidence of the Commonwealth's occupation. Ezekiel and Mercer were leading the city's people forward out of the misguided culture the Miltons had built; Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside were independent again, with robust trading partnerships with each other and the Commonwealth.
Maggie, Rachel, and Gabriel kept in close contact and collaborated on governance and policy issues, including reviving the idea of reaching outside their immediate surroundings to see what lay beyond. It was a reasonable consideration, now that they were back on solid footing, but it would have to be someone else's project.
Carol had taken on Hornsby's role, in many ways; minding behind-the-scenes details like trade agreements and overseeing everything from housing and schools to the immigration structure. But she'd also been training Max Mercer-Porter to take over for her, so she could make her escape. Back home, to Alexandria. Back home to Daryl.
"It's time somebody went out there and took a look around," Maggie said. They were gathered in the living room of what had been Rick and Michonne's place—and would be again, if the report they'd gotten was right.
"Couple more weeks," Daryl said. "Ain't going nowhere until I see the two of them with my own eyes." He had resisted any thought of leaving Judith and RJ, no matter how tempting the idea of a road trip had been. Now that the kids would have their parents back, Carol had woken alone in their bed on several nights and found him sitting on the porch with a pile of maps and a notepad, making plans.
And so it was that, not quite a month later, Carol helped Daryl put on his black suede poncho and watched him mount his motorcycle. She had done her best not to cry when he told her he was going, but there had been many nights that she'd lain awake, thinking about how lonely it was going to be without him.
"You know I'm coming back," he said.
"You always do," she replied. She wished she could be as confident in her heart as she sounded.
He started the bike and leaned over to her for a kiss. If anyone else had been around, maybe she wouldn't have gotten even that. It was just his way.
"I love you," he told her.
"And I love you." It wasn't a joke anymore.
As he pulled away, she climbed the stairs to the overlook so she could watch until he was out of sight. Maybe for the last time.
He cruised down the lane, past a few straggling walkers, but as he reached the turn that would take him beyond where she could see, he slowed to a stop. She could see him look back, searching for a glimpse of her, and she waved madly, hoping he could make her out in the distance.
As he came roaring back, Carol ran down the stairs to meet him. "What did you forget?" They'd made list upon list, trying to find a balance between what was essential and the bike's capacity; it had become almost a ritual, teasing each other about leaving something off that meant he would have to turn around and come back.
"My copilot," Daryl said. "What do you say? Wanna come with?"
She'd considered it briefly, at the beginning, but it had seemed impractical. And he hadn't asked. Not until now.
"Do you think it's safe? We'd have to cut back on supplies for me to have a place to ride."
"So we'd have to work a little harder, find stuff as we go. I don't want to go without you."
Her heart soared. "It means putting things off a little longer; we'd have to go back home so I can pack my own things. But if you're okay with that, then yes. One hundred percent yes."
On the road again, but this time they'd be together, and together they could do anything.