driftfleet | [Closed] I mean, breakfast cobbler?

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[Closed] I mean, breakfast cobbler?

Who: Team Fam Mingle
Broadcast: None
Action: Iskaulit Community Gardens
When: Day after Glenn gets shuffled

[ It's been a rough few weeks. Glenn's unexpected arrival after such a brutal reminder of what waits for all of them after death has Carol feeling out of sorts, to say the least. She wants to celebrate them being all together, and alive, no matter how unlikely it may be. And once a southern housewife, always a southern housewife. The way she decides to celebrate is with food.

She does her best with what she has. The various gels and pastes and other processed foods along with whatever she can scavenge from the gardens and the stores of what they picked up on the last few planets. With all that, she's managed to put together a decent enough picnic. Not as good as what she wants, but nothing ever will be. The menu is: cold fried chicken, pasta salad, fruit salad, peach pie, and sweet tea.

She's set up a folding table and chairs with a sheet for a tablecloth. Brought place settings from the Heron. It's the closest she can get to actually being outside while still in the relative safety of the fleet.

Time to reconnect and recover. She sends a text invitation the morning of. ]

Come to the Iskaulit Community Gardens at lunchtime. Bring your appetite.

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[ Visiting the planet has two big advantages: it means not being stuck indoors if he doesn't want to be, and it gives him something to do to keep busy. Glenn being here is-- they don't make words for it. It's the best thing, and it's impossible, and it makes him feel terrible about himself for not stopping what happened but he's so glad he can mostly ignore it. The waystation still weighs on him-- so all in all, it's hard to be happy, but he can't be miserable, either.

It's a lot to feel at once, and digging crops for aliens on their weird-ass floating rock planet is a good distraction.

But he's not gonna turn down an invitation. It's a little fancier than he expects from the text, maybe, but that's not a bad thing-- and he's always happy to have all of them in the same spot. ]

Didn't realize it was a party.

I think we've earned it, don't you?

[She's all smiles for once, a nice change of pace to usual. Glenn is here and things finally felt like they could be normal - maybe even good - again. There were no wars to fight, no Negan to try and be one step ahead of. It was just them, as it was when they first arrived in Alexandria.]

C'mon, I brought more food.

[Maggie had made more food, despite Carol probably already bringing a ton. What was there to worry about when they could have left overs? It all just felt so homey and nice that she didn't care if there was too much. Glenn was here. They were all here to enjoy themselves and just be together.]

I think we have enough food to feed a small army - even if it's just us.

[Carl could probably plow through most of it, honestly.]

[ Being on a spaceship, and then another spaceship, had been one thing. For whatever reason, being on a whole other planet is somehow more alarming.

That barely registers, though, once they're here, the little band of his family he's somehow found his way to in another dimension, another galaxy, another reality. He'd have to get Chekov back on the line to figure out what the proper term is, honestly, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that he's here. That they're here, and evidently this is all real, or at least real enough.

As soon as he can get Daryl aside, he does. He knows there's a strange, awful, nebulous thing hanging over them, and he needs to do everything to start making that dissipate, to try to stop Daryl from carrying a weight he never should have been. ]

Daryl?

[ With the questioning tone comes a small smile, weak but hopefully reassuring. ]

[ She's earned it, for sure. She deserves it, and Glenn, and the rest of them. Whether he does himself is something he's not going to weigh in on. This is nice, it doesn't need to get spoiled by his guilt.

And it's good, really good, to see them all. ]

When's the last time we were so well fed?

[ He's had a little time to adjust to the idea. Hasn't gone running over, not because he doesn't want to but because he wanted to give them some space. Maggie's been here a long while, and Glenn... well, the two of them deserve some time.

And he needed a while to get used to the idea, but he knows immediately-- the second he sees Glenn, he's not ready.

But maybe he's never gonna be ready. How could anyone be?

So fuck trying to stay cool. He doesn't answer, just takes the couple of steps to close the space between them and pull his friend into a hug. ]

[ Carol glances down, flushing a little. She didn't think it was all that big of a production. ]

I just wanted to cover all the bases with the food. And, you know, make it look kinda nice? As best as I could. You hungry? The chicken turned out alright.

Hey.

[ Carol smiles warmly and takes some of the food, helping Maggie set it out on the table. ]

Don't worry about it. We got a lot of missed meals to make up, right? Oh, is that potato salad?

[ She grabs a clean spoon and totally sneaks a bite. Because who's going to tell her no? ]

Hey-

[Maggie is cut off with a laugh as Carol takes the food and starts helping herself.]

Somethin' like it. We got a lot of supplies on that planet with the deserted town. I think there's enough food on my shift to last us months if we get stranded somewhere. Always a possibility.

[She smiles, crossing her arms and looking around at their little gathering. It wasn't anything fancy - just their little family piling food onto a table and chowing down. It was perfect.]

I'm sorry I missed that place. Sounds like it must have been pretty useful for filling pantries.

[ She looks at the gathering too. Everybody seems so relaxed. More than she's ever seen them. A tightness in her chest loosens. ]

It's real nice to have Glen here.

[ She says quietly. ]

Just the chicken?

[ Everything looks good, and everything Maggie's brought does, too. It's just a lot to take in-- hard to believe they've got this much for just the handful of them.

Not that he's complaining. ]

You first.

[ He has no problem with that, letting himself be pulled (which is good, because he probably couldn't have stopped it), and returning that hug.

For a long moment, that's it, he just hangs on, steady as he can manage. Every one of these is going to be heavy, far heavier than talking over broadcast, but this one - all that weight, it goes a long way to lifting it in one instant.

Finally, just above a whisper, he breaks the silence, though not the embrace. ]

Hey.

[ This moment is held in a strange, tense balance. On the one hand, Daryl knows he absolutely doesn't deserve this warm welcome, the implicit forgiveness in... well, in Glenn not immediately beating the shit out of him. On the other hand, he's got even less right to tell the other man how he should feel.

That feels like a cowardly move, shrugging out of the responsibility he ought to bear. Really it just means he's going to do his best to bear it quietly and not put it on anybody else.

Either way-- he's glad. Inexpressibly glad, though he's doing his damnedest to at least illuminate the edges of it. ]

Hey, [ he echoes, a little choked, partly by an impulse to laugh hysterically at the fact that they haven't got anything better to say. ]

The rest is alright, I guess.

[ She tilts her head, eying him suspiciously. Mostly. Also teasing. ]

You scared it's poisoned or something? Need me to taste test for you?

Wanna make sure you get some before I eat it all.

[ He's only half-joking. Really, he wants to make sure she doesn't get so wrapped up taking care of everyone else that she forgets to take care of herself, too. Besides, she's earned the first plate. This is a lot of work laid out in front of them. ]

[ The truth is, if he feels like Daryl doesn't let go of that - and he knows, that he hasn't quite managed it just yet - he'll just call him out on it. That's not something he wants to have to do, to broach it head-on like that, but he would, to make sure there was no room for doubt.

And then he thinks about what he can say, what can lighten the tension a bit, how he can press forward into some semblance of normalcy that they can hang onto until things fall back the way they belong.

And then he finds it. He pulls back, leaving a hand on Daryl's shoulder for a moment while he takes a breath, pushing the emotions down to ensure his tone is light enough this shouldn't sound ominous - ]

So you never actually told me, you know.

[ If you go back to hanging out with a friend who died violently in front of you, sooner or later, the topic's probably got to come up. It feels inevitable. But ideally it's the sort of inevitability they can push back, for now at least.

He manages mostly to pull himself together and not look utterly stricken, by the time they draw apart, and thank god Glenn knows better than to dwell on any of this sappy shit because it'd be too much, far too much, for the little thread of composure he's got hanging on.

Instead he just looks a little puzzled. ]

Huh?

Oh yeah, loads of food and stuff - clothes and medical supplies too. It just restocked on it's own. It was a bit weird.

[Maggie sucks in a breath, nodding mutely with the faintest bit of a smile.]

Yeah, it is.

[There's a bit of a downward turn in her smile, something more somber and sad to it.]

I can't help but feel worried 'why now'. It was me and Carl for so long and then one by one everyone just showed up. I left, came back, and the same thing. I can't help but think the Atroma are just... toying with us, I guess.

[A beat.]

Does Carl seem like he's doing better to you? Since - [She gestures wordlessly. She's so glad Glenn hadn't been here for that. She wouldn't have been able to take the double whammy of fucked up emotions.]

Oh, I don't know. When we first got to Alexandria and Deana threw that party? Somethin' like that.

[Maggie smiles a bit, reminded fondly of those early days when all of them were just trying to heal from their losses and remember what it was like to not be 'out there' for so long.]

[ Of course he turns up, eager and anxious and disbelieving all at once. This is his family, and however it's possible for him to be here, he is. Whether or not it's real, whether he's real... he can't answer those questions, and in the moment, they hardly matter. This is what he has, and it's more than he would have expected.

So with a small, subdued but undeniably grateful smile, he takes it all in. Drawing a deep, steadying breath, he speaks. ]

You know, this is already starting to feel like a home.

Skipped it.

[ But she's not wrong, he pretty much ate himself sick on Aaron and Eric's pasta. It'd been the first time in goddamn ages, at least it felt that way, that he wasn't half starved.

But he huffs, still in a good mood. ]

Think I like this better.

Oh, there's plenty.

[ She sets to making him a plate, heaping it with everything until it's hard to carry, and hands it off before making one for herself with more reasonable portions.

(Don't worry, she's not going hungry.) ]

It's not pot roast, but it'll have to do.

[ Carol shrugs, feeling more or less resigned to her fate. ]

Pretty sure the Atroma are toying with everybody. What their goal is, I don't know. Good T.V. might actually be the point of it. People used to do stuff just as bad as this for the same reason.

[ Carol glances over to Carl, who is eating happily, laughing around a mouthful of chicken at something Daryl said. ]

I don't know. He always plays his cards so close to his chest. I guess it's better than the alternative.

[ She sighs. ]

Would have been better if it never happened, though.

[ Carol smiles warmly and hugs him. ]

Hey, stranger. Hope you brought your appetite.

[ She doesn't quite let go of him, keeping a hand on his arm as she leads him to the food. ]

You settling in ok? How's your shipmates?

Sounds like a challenge.

[ There's no chance he's gonna back down from that!

He takes the plate, watches her fix her own. There's plenty, she's not wrong, and he knows it's good without having to try it because... well, it always is. ]

This is nice, [ he murmurs, a sideways thank you. ]

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[Closed] I mean, breakfast cobbler?

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100 years late \o/

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100 years and a few more hours late <3

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I'm not late, I'm just a time traveler

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