A Marriage Chapter 4

In which harsh words are spoken, and plans are made. An attempt at flirting doesn't go very well. At all.

...

"What the fuck does Blake think he's doing?"

Daryl Dixon sat straddling his chair, watching Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh lean over a map of Gamma Settlement and the western border it shared with Beta Settlement. Daryl had already memorized the map, as had Walsh and Grimes, but looking at it made it easier to trace out a plan, as they were now doing.

"He came from this gate," Rick said. "Gate two."

"Slimy prick won't allow other settlements inside his border," Shane said. "It's smart, makes it hard for anybody to know what kind of firepower he's got, but it makes it hard for us to know exactly what we we're dealing with."

"You thinking a recon team?" Daryl asked.

Shane cocked an eyebrow at him.

"You volunteering, Dixon?"

"No, but I'll do it."

"You read my mind," Shane said, flashing an uneven grin at Daryl.

"I don't like it," said Rick. "Two reasons. He's a high ranking officer, third in command of Genesis. Second, he's about to get married. You get killed or captured…"

"The Greene's lose everything," Daryl said, finishing Rick's thought. "Fuck."

"You want him to hang back over a goddamned farm?" asked Shane, eyes wide and steadily heating up.

"Not just any farm, but Hershel's," Rick answered with his lips getting tight.

"Look, I know he was one of our best assets in the early years, feeding the poor, spying on Beta and Blake's predecessor, but Blake's become a real threat, Rick," Shane said. "I need my best men to go in and look around, and nobody is sneakier than Daryl."

"Fine," Rick replied tightly. "Change the laws about women owning land. That way if you get Daryl killed with this mission, Miss Jo won't lose everything she and her husband built up over the past thirty years."

"You know now isn't the time for major legislative changes Rick," Shane came back equally tight.

"You're right," said Rick, holding up his hands in a gesture of Shane surrender. "I should've known not to expect loyalty from you."

Daryl stood from his chair as Rick and Shane info immediately squared off.

"It's been six years," Shane said, his voice so low Daryl could barely hear him.

"I don't care if it was sixty," Rick ground out in a voice like gravel and ice.

"Guys," Daryl said. "You've had this fight before. Too many times."

"Looks like we're due to have it again," Rick said.

"Now's not the time for this," Shane said. "If you really can't move on, maybe I shouldn't have you at my back, especially now."

"That's the difference between us, Shane," Rick replied. "I don't stab somebody until I'm face to face with them."

Daryl pulled Rick back and put himself between his commanding officers. They stood with their fists clenched, their breath coming in hard, and the tension was palpable, like a wave of heat from hot concrete, and both men were equally unyielding as such.

"Come on, enough!" Daryl insisted. "This ain't the time and y'all ain't sixteen years old anymore."

"You best be careful, Daryl," Shane warned. "Friends or not, I'm still your CO."

"You best remember you're supposed to be in charge," Daryl said. "Setting an example, all that. You're not living up to the rank right now."

"You know what? I started this fight, I'm gonna finish it," Rick said, before starting for the door.

"I didn't dismiss you," Shane growled.

"You should get right on that, then, or arrest me for insubordination," Rick shot back, before slamming through the tent flap and letting in a gust of wind only slightly less frigid than the feelings he left in his wake.

Shane started after him, but Daryl put a hand on his chest and and halted him.

"Let him go, Shane," Daryl told him. "Hershel used to stay on my ass about learning to pick my battles, and I did. Don't pick this one."

"That fucking...he won't let it go!"

"Y'all were once best friends, till you hurt him," Daryl reminded him. "I know 'I'm sorry' ain't really in your vocabulary, but you should make an exception. Maybe your friendship is worth more than your pride? Can't you be the one to apologize just once?"

Shane shook his head, making Daryl sigh.

"Pick a team and leave at sunset," Shane said. "If you get captured or killed, I'll order the land to stay in family, as an exception, making Otis the patriarch until one of the girls can produce a male heir with the Greene family name. I'll do it for Hershel."

"Thanks," Daryl said.

"Go get some rest. You'll need it before you set out. Dismissed."

Daryl started for the door but Shane's voice halted him.

"It wasn't like what Rick thinks," Shane said, in a voice so quiet Daryl wasn't sure Shane was actually speaking to him.

"What?"

Shane looked up after he pulled an unlabeled bottle of whiskey from his desk drawer. He tom a deep pull and winced. Outside the canvas tent, Daryl could hear the wind howling, cold and hollow, and the boots of their men stomping over frozen earth.

"They weren't sleeping in the same room anymore," Shane said. "They hated each other, it wasn't just her against him. It was going both ways."

"You think that meant you literally should've slipped into their marriage bed?" queried Daryl.

"Why not?" Shane asked. "He'd left it a whole year before. They were talking divorce already...Never mind. Dismissed."

Daryl nodded and left the tent, heading out into the driving wind that was colder than anything he'd felt in Georgia in awhile, even for winter. He entered the tent he and Rick were sharing and zipped it tightly shut. The sound of the canvas flapping in the frigid gusts made him shiver, despite the heat pouring out of the portable heater in the center of the tent.

Daryl sat down on his cot and accepted the flask Rick passed him.

"You ain't the only one drinking right now," Daryl informed him. "So's he. What the fuck was that, Rick?"

Rick's blue eyes were every bit as cold as the ice they reminded Daryl of.

"I think about it every time I look at him," said Rick. "On one hand, I get it. Lori and I were done. We were roommates, just waiting for a good excuse to divorce. On the other, he was my fucking brother!"

Rick whispered the last with an intensity that rivaled the heat that spilled from the little radiator between them.

"I would never have done that to him," Rick said.

"No, you wouldn't," Daryl agreed. "But he ain't you, and it happened, and hanging onto it ain't gonna do shit for either of you but turn you into enemies. You in love with Lori?"

Rick shook his head.

"It ain't about the love I had for her, Daryl," Rick said, lying back on his cot. "It's about the love I had for him."

"Find a way to move on," Daryl said, following Rick's lead and lying down on the cot, hearing it groan under his weight. "We're probably gonna end up at war with Blake. We need to be able to trust each other. We need to be brothers now, more than ever."

Rick didn't answer, and Daryl didn't push. He contented himself to lay there, pulling the scratchy wool blanket over him and forcing his mind to quiet down so he could rest for that night's mission. Shane had been right. He'd need it. Putting Rick and Shane's old beef behind him was simple enough, but getting Maggie Greene out of his mind wasn't nearly as easy.

…

Maggie's belly was growling by the time she got off her bicycle and trotted up the steps to the house. She was freezing. Snow wasn't unheard of in Georgia, but having it accumulate and stick around for a week was odd. Having the temperatures plunge to fifteen degrees, at maximum, for days at a time, was also unusual, so she was glad the weather forecast called for a warm up soon.

"Mama? We got any leftovers?"

She'd not had anything to take in for lunch and her pride refused to allow her to accept Carol's offer to share her lunch. Now she was hungry enough to eat a raw potato - if they'd had any.

"Sorry, no," Josephine said. "We've had to ration hard this month. You know how lean winter can be. I'm sure there'll be plenty in that food package."

"That's right," Maggie said. "I forgot about that."

The bell rang half an hour later. When Maggie answered a woman stood at the door in a green Security League uniform.

"Margaret Greene?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Identification, please."

Maggie hurried to get her card from her purse. Once she signed the form on the clipboard, the woman went to the long trailer behind the jeep she'd driven up to the house. She, and another woman, hauled a large box up to the house, which they set inside, before bringing up two smaller ones. A ten-pound sack of potatoes, and a bag of onions, garlic cloves, and a sack of oats was brought in separately.

"This is a starter package," said one woman. "You'll need to inform us of what you're running low on each week, and what you have enough of."

Please try not to rip the boxes when you open them, and keep them in a dry place," the other woman said. "We'll switch the them out when we return in seven days. Good day, ma'am."

The large box was heavy. Josephine and Patricia helped her lug it, and the two smaller boxes, into the kitchen. They were plain, no labels on them, nothing written on them to indicate what was contained inside.

"Feels like Christmas," Patricia joked. "All this for us?"

One of the smaller boxes was marked meats. There were pork chops, trout, beef roasts, steaks, sausages, eggs, and bacon inside, all wrapped in heavy, white paper packages that had been properly marked. Nothing was yet frozen. The other small box was labeled vegetables, fruit, and nuts. It was packed with fresh vegetables rather than canned, and a variety of nuts and fruit.

The largest box was stuffed full of packages of lard, sugar, salt, pepper, vinegar, an abundance of spices, a tub of butter, a selection of cheeses, crackers, baking chocolate, cocoa, flour, milk, honey, baking soda, yeast, and, to Patricia's delight, a one-pound sack of ground coffee. Josephine pulled out a slender box with Maggie's name on it. She opened it to find it packed tight with candy canes, caramels, and milk chocolate.

"There's gotta be a year's worth of trading in the meat alone," Patricia pointed out. "Not to mention the rest. This is weekly?"

"This ain't fair," Maggie said, feeling the heat of anger begin to pool in her belly. "We've got neighbors going hungry while we get all this? It's embarrassing."

"It comes with marrying a high-ranking officer," Otis said.

Maggie jumped, not expecting him to be standing behind her. He was on his cane, his right foot swollen almost twice its size. "You'll have to get used to privilege. It ain't fair, but that's how it is."

"Otis!" Patricia said. "Why are you up? Doc Stookey told you to stay off this foot until the swelling came down."

He waved his wife away and motioned at the box of candy, which Maggie offered up. He snagged a candy cane.

"Otis is right about the privilege, you know," Josephine said. "It can't be changed and you know how protests go. You'll only get yourself, and Daryl, in trouble if you cause a ruckus about it."

"My vote is for fried trout," Patricia said hopeful to change the subject, but also to get everyone to agree to a dinner of fried fish.

Maggie put on a smile and agreed. "Fried trout it is."

---

Beth came home in a sour mood and didn't realize they'd received a food delivery. She sat down on the porch beside Maggie to complain about getting in trouble for talking in class when she hadn't opened her mouth.

"It was all Sunny Watson!" Beth groused. "She's such a motor mouth, Maggie. She wouldn't shut up no matter how much I ignored her. I got yelled at even though I wasn't talking. And why are you out here on the porch? It's freezing."

She'd come outside to think. How could Beth know her family's larder would remain stocked while so many good people rationed? Kids were fed well at school but their parents, and teachers, did without. It wasn't fair. Yet she knew her mama was right. She was marrying a man who was well paid and in a position of authority. She was just gonna have to accept that not everybody would have it as easy as they were going to from there out. Besides, it wasn't like they hadn't put in their time. It wasn't like she wasn't sacrificing the chance at a real marriage, and real love, so they didn't lose their farm. Or so she told herself.

"Is that fish I smell being fried up?" Beth said, looking toward the closed front door.

"Patricia's cooking trout," Maggie told her.

"I love trout!" Beth said, delighted. "That order arrived?"

"Yeah," Maggie answered, with a nod.

Beth squeezed her hand, sensing her sister was upset, but not understanding why.

"You don't have to do it," Beth said. "We'll all understand."

"I'm not having second thoughts about the marriage," Maggie told her.

"You worried about him?" asked Beth. "He's been in the SL forever. He's highly decorated for bravery. He'll come home, you'll get married, and the farm will be safe."

Maggie knew her sister meant well, but she didn't feel like talking. Beth wouldn't leave it alone until she felt like she'd helped cheer her up, so Maggie pasted on a false smile.

"What's this, candy?" Beth asked, looking at the box sitting in Maggie's lap. "That's so sweet of him!"

Beth reached for a caramel but Maggie withheld. "Not till after dinner."

"Which is ready in ten, so go wash up," Josephine said from the doorway, where she'd been watching them. Beth rolled her eyes but hurried upstairs to do as told.

---

Maggie hadn't eaten so well since before her father's first heart attack over a year before. Fried trout, baked potatoes with butter, salt, and pepper, fresh greens, and chocolate cake for after. Patricia brewed a pot of coffee and Maggie was enjoying hers when the phone rang.

"It's for you, Maggie," Beth said, holding the receiver to her shoulder, and smiling mischievously. "Daryl."

"I'll take it in Daddy's study," Maggie said. "I don't need your teasing again."

Beth scowled, but the look was ruined by the chocolate frosting on her chin.

"Daryl?"

"You got your package?"

"Yes," Maggie said. "I haven't eaten so well in a long time, thank you."

He was silent a few moments before he hissed.

"Don't seem fair, does it?" he asked. "That a few have so much and so many have so little."

She flicked the lamp to high and toyed with her coffee cup. It's like he'd read her mind. Obviously, he was aware of how unfair the disparity was, and it didn't sit well with him. That somehow eased the guilt for having a belly full of good food.

"No, it ain't right," she agreed. "Do you ever get used to it?"

"I haven't," he said, "but now I got y'all, a family, it ain't so bad."

Maggie listened to the wind howling outside while she thought over Daryl's words. He'd always been alone but she'd never considered this from his perspective. He seemed so eager to claim them, provide for them. She'd thought this marriage would be a sacrifice for Daryl but now she wasn't so sure. After being alone for all her adult life, how would she feel to gain a family, and save their land in the process? It would probably be pretty damn good.

"You okay, Daryl?" She asked, after he made a sound of pain.

"Got cut on a piece of glass and they're out of anesthesia," he said. "I'm getting stitched up the old-fashioned way: no pain killers."

"You've been given antibiotics, though, right?"

"Don't worry, I'll be there for the wedding," he assured her.

Maggie tried not to sound annoyed when she responded. Why did he just assume all she cared about was the wedding, and the land? Why did he think she couldn't care about him, too?

"I ain't asking because of that. I just wanna make sure you'll be okay."

God, she sounded like an idiot. Like some simpering bride-to-be when she wasn't in love with him. She worried about giving him the wrong idea, about making him think she felt something more, when, in fact, she didn't.

"Thanks," he said, a smile in his voice. "That's decent of you, but you ain't gotta pretend to care."

"I ain't!" she said, openly offended now. "What, you think I'm some cold bitch who can't care about another person?"

"No, I just...I've had my tetanus?"

His voice trailed away into awkward silence, and Maggie felt some of her anger cool.

"That's good," she said calmly. "Look, I ain't trying to just use you, Daryl. I mean, I've known you all my life. This arrangement is to save the farm, true, and we're not in love, but we can be friends, and I can care about what happens to you. You know you're welcome in the family, too. You've always been welcome. You're one of us, so if I ask how you are it's because I really do care."

There was some humor in Daryl's voice when he said, "Yes ma'am. Understood. You get the candy?"

"Yes, thank you. I put half back for me. Beth's stealing the caramels while Otis and Mama steal the canes. Mama loves mint."

"What's your favorite?"

"Chocolate is good but I like cinnamon. I'm spicy."

"I'll bet," he said, his voice a little husky.

The innuendo in the conversation led to an awkward silence between them, and Maggie felt her face heat. She didn't know how to respond. Was he flirting, or had it been accidental? Did he expect her to flirt back? Or would that make the situation even more uncomfortable?

"Um, I gotta go, Maggie," he said, after a long, tense pause. "I'll see you soon."

"Be careful," she said. "Call anytime."

She hung up the phone and sagged against the chair, trying to figure out why they couldn't even talk without it getting awkward.

"This is gonna be one hell of a marriage." 

← Previous Chapter || Next Chapter →