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shimmershaewrites · 6 years

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Waltzing's for Dreamers, Chapter 8 (a Walking Dead story, Caryl AU).

Title: Waltzing's for Dreamers

Ratings: G.

Warnings: No real warnings, unless you count fluffiness. Implied angst, I guess.

Characters/Pairings: mild Carol Peletier/Other, Tobin, allusions to Nabila/Jerry, Sophia Peletier, original character, mentions of Daryl, Glenn Rhee, Tara Chambler, mentions of Maggie Greene.

It's 4:30 in the morning and I've been wide awake since about 8 am yesterday so...please forgive any glaring mistakes in this chapter and point me toward them. I'll fix them when I've had some actual sleep, hahaha. Insomnia sucks, yeah?

Waltzing’s for Dreamers

Seven years after Vegas. Less than a week before Valentine’s Day.

“Looks like you have company,” Tobin remarks as he turns onto her street.

“Looks like it,” Carol muses softly. Her fingers tighten reflexively around the strap of the purse resting in her lap and she searches his profile, looks for further signs of the faint disappointment that laces his words but they’re not there. At least not outwardly because that hopeful smile he’s been aiming at her for much of the night remains and guilt almost compels her to blurt out a reluctant invitation when he pulls into her driveway. Almost. Instead, she voices a gentle reminder when he parks the car and lets it idle. “Not for much longer, though. It’s getting late.”

“Walk you to your door?”

“I hardly think the pizza boy’s lying in wait, just waiting to attack,” she deflects with a close-lipped smile.

“Never be too sure about those pizza boys,” he tries again, teasing her and chuckling at his own joke. Gazing at her with simple, unfettered affection.

When his hand leaves the steering wheel and breaches the small distance between them to cup her cheek, Carol ducks her head and his incoming kiss. It grazes her forehead instead and she gives his forearm an apologetic squeeze in response. “Not tonight, okay? It’s getting late and I’m tired. It’s been such a long week with all the preparations for the dance, and I just…not tonight.”

“Not tonight.” He finally nods. Drops another kiss to her hair before giving her back her space. “Say goodnight to the kids for me?”

“Of course,” Carol promises in parting. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“Monday,” Tobin echoes.

She doesn’t actually turn around to head inside, rather watches until his taillights fade into the distance. Stands there, arms wrapped around herself for warmth against the slight bite in the night air. Blue eyes unfocused and teeth worrying her bottom lip until a light goes on in the house across the street and the garage door creaks open, her longtime neighbor emerging and eying her with thinly veiled concern as she approaches, only stopping when she reaches the end of her own driveway.

“Everything okay, Ma’am?”

Carol’s long since stopped trying to correct her politeness, just accepts it’s her way. Has been her manner since they met, back when she and Daryl and Sophia first moved into this neighborhood years ago and found her and her husband on their doorstep bearing the gift of warm, sweet peach cobbler that hadn’t lasted the rest of that day. “I’m fine, Nabila. Really,” she hastens to add when her claim is met with a healthy dose of skepticism. “What about you? The kids have been gushing about the new addition to your family. Especially Sophia.”

Nabila’s face splits into a wide grin and she bends to lift a stubby legged puppy in her arms, dodges the eager little tongue and laughs when her efforts lead the tiny ball of fluff to bark playfully at her. “Meet Honeydew. By Dr. Greene’s best guess, he’s a Corgi, Golden retriever mix.”

“He?” Carol smirks. Her question is met with a shrug of the other woman’s shoulders.

“By the time we figured out she was actually a he, the name had already stuck.”

“Well, He’s every bit as adorable as Sophia claimed.”

Nabila puffs up with pride. “Thank you.”

The opportunistic puppy uses her distraction against her, licking her full on in the mouth and wiggling its furry butt in pleasure and the sight melts the rest of Carol’s heavy thoughts from her burdened shoulders, makes her laugh and startle the puppy into yipping. Quite loudly. When her own kitchen light comes on and she sees a little face pressed up against the window framed by ten small fingers, she says her goodbyes. “I better go. Looks like someone’s up way past their bedtime.”

“Don’t be too hard on him, Ma’am.”

Carol purses her lips. “How long have you known me?”

“Long enough to know not to get on your bad side, Ma’am.”

“Nabila,” she protests.

Not even a second later, the other woman’s mock serious expression cracks and she beams. “Long enough to know that boy of yours is going to charm his way out of trouble. Night, Ma’am.”

Nabila’s words turn out to be prophetic because all it takes is one look into her son’s big blue eyes and Carol’s sighing in resignation and overlooking the chocolate milk stains down the front of his Spiderman pajamas. Leaving her purse on the kitchen table and bending to thumb the pizza sauce from the preschooler’s smooth cheeks. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”

“Make me eat brushy spouts?”

“Maybe,” she says, matching her son’s seriousness even though she wants to laugh. Because her baby boy and Sophia are night and day on the issue of food, and she knows from unfortunate experience that there’s literally nothing the falsely repentant little imp in front of her won’t put into his mouth. In that manner and so many other heart-twisting ways, he reminds her of his father. “Maybe we’ll just skip tomorrow’s bedtime story.”

“Mama,” he grumbles, folding his short arms across his chest.

“I said maybe,” she qualifies with a tiny, helplessly amused smile. Tugging his arms from his chest, she scoops him up and places him on the cluttered kitchen counter in front of her. Lifts the lid of the Gargulio’s Pizza box and frowns at finding it empty. “At least tell me it was good.”

He nods, his dark blond bangs falling into his drooping eyes. “The best.”

“You don’t have to brag about it,” she teases with a tweak of his nose that makes him erupt into giggles that she immediately shushes. “Let’s use those sneaky genes of yours. See what Glenn and Tara and Sis are up to, ‘kay?”

“’kay,” he whispers loudly. Wraps his arms and legs around her like a sleepy monkey around a vine when she plucks him from the counter and perches him on her hip.

He’s warm and sweet and heavy in Carol’s arms when she pads toward the darkened living room in her socked feet. She snuggles him close and breathes his little boy scent in when she reaches the doorway, lingers there and silently surveys the scene unnoticed.

Nestled amidst a sea of pillows and fleece blankets on the bay window seat, Sophia has her nose buried in her latest book of choice. The tiny book light clipped to its corner illuminates the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks and the furrow of intense concentration between her strawberry brows. That said, she’s not as oblivious to their presence or her surroundings as she pretends to be.

She’s ever observant, her sensitive baby girl, and the knowledge makes Carol’s throat tighten for reasons she doesn’t want to dwell on so she doesn’t. She distracts herself with watching the pair with their heads together on her sofa, their faces lit by the glow of the muted television. Lost in a conversation that makes her brows raise.

“I’m just saying, Tara. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“For two fictional people to smash? Dude. Me, too.”

“What? No. I’m talking about me and Maggie.”

“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but there is no you and Maggie. So smashing's kind of out of the question."

“I want there to be a me and Maggie.”

“Duh,” Sophia interjects without looking up, an expression that’s impressively deadpan on her face. “Everybody knows that. Except maybe Maggie.”

There’s something else there, just beneath the surface of that look that makes Carol’s heart sink. Just a little bit. A shimmery shine to the eyes that never leave their page that opens a door to the future for her, gives her a glimpse of girlish heartache she wishes she could help her little girl avoid.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to know,” Tara blurts, not unkindly. “It’s not like you don’t trip all over your feelings every time you see her. And seriously. Everybody knows Gargulio’s doesn’t deliver as far as the Greene farm. Literally everybody. It’s in the middle of freaking nowhere.”

Crestfallen, Glenn runs his hands over the cap on his head. Squeezes the bill and moans. “Everybody?”

Carol announces her presence with a sympathy laden agreement. “Everybody.”

Tara straightens from her slouch. Winces when she sees her littlest charge nodding off in his mama’s arms. “Again?”

“Again.”

“Ninja skills must be hereditary. Jeez. Want me to take him upstairs?” she offers.

“Like that worked so well the first time,” Glenn comes back to himself enough to mutter. “Everybody?” he asks again, his face falling when they all nod in response. “I am such an idiot. I’m stupid to even think she would notice me. To even like me like that.”

“No, you’re not,” Sophia speaks up, immediately hiding her pink cheeks behind her book when she realizes she has their undivided attention. “I just mean…I just meant…you’re nice. Is all.”

“Yeah,” her little man mumbles his drowsy endorsement against her neck, making everybody but Glenn himself smile. “Best pizza.”

“Pizza.” Glenn’s eyes brighten and he jumps up from the couch, barely even waving a goodbye as he pulls on his jacket and heads toward the door. “That’s it! I know what I have to do.”

“Should I stop him?” Tara asks. “I should stop him.” Shrugging on her own jacket, she ruffles both children’s hair before rushing after her friend. “Glenn! Dude, wait up!” Ducking her pigtailed head around the door one more time before yanking it closed behind her, she holds up her phone. “Call me if you need anything.”

Then she’s gone. Both of them are and Sophia huffs, tosses her book aside in disgust. Stands up and tucks herself against Carol’s other side. “Boys are so stupid.”

The heat of her little girl’s would be tears warms her skin beneath the thin, loose sweater she wears, and her heart hurts for her when she struggles to hold her not-so-hidden feelings inside with a sniffle. Mindful of the little boy drifting off to dreamland in her arms, Carol agrees. Somewhat. “Not all of them and not all of the time. But yeah. They are."

#The Walking Dead #Caryl fanfiction #Caryl #Carol x Daryl #stuff that I write #Waltzing's for Dreamers #aka What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas fic #Tobin #Nabila #Jerry #Sophia Peletier #original character #mention of Daryl Dixon #Tara Chambler #Glenn Rhee #mention of Maggie Greene #fluff #and minor angst #mild Carol/Other

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