Carol Peletier has seen many things in her life, both before and after the dead came back to roam the Earth. She thought there weren't many news things this world could offer her, that was at least until she got to know what Daryl Dixon was like when he was full of painkillers and other kinds of happy little pills...

The accident happened when they were raiding a pharmacy store in a small, long abandoned town. It was a relatively easy task for the group to clear the building, a few walkers and lurkers here and there, but nothing they couldn't handle. The shelves were surprisingly full with medicine and they started stuffing them into their packs and pockets, knowing that sometimes they are more useful and important than any kind of weapon, they also didn't want to risk another virus spreading amongst them, either. They were almost done when they heard a loud thud coming from the back of the store. For a moment they all thought it was a walker they somehow managed to miss, but it was Daryl. He slipped on a puddle of spilled coughing syrup and knocked his head against the shelf. They would have found it comical if his injury was less serious. A 2 inch-long cut run across his forehead and his face was barely visible under the flood of blood. He was blinking rapidly, trying to make out the forms of the others as they gathered around him. They tried to stop the bleeding, but his vision slowly faded and it was all dark at once.

When he came around, the first thing he felt was the striking pain in his head, but then he heard the voices shouting among cuss words "stay still," and "don't move so much," at him, that didn't really work as he tried to lift himself up only to realize that somebody was holding him in place. It was all clear then, they were stitching him up, and with that, he was out again.

He would wake from time to time and someone from the group would immediately appear beside him to try to force some shit-tasting liquid down his throat. "Daryl, you have to drink this," came to the not so convincing reasoning from someone he couldn't identify. He eventually obliged just to get them to shut up, he wanted to curse at them but only muffled sounds left his mouth, and even those few sounds seemed to be exhausting as his consciousness gave up on him once again.

It was hours later when he opened his eyes again, and he had to admit that he was feeling a little… much better, until he tried to move his head, and then his vision blurred and the world started to spin around him. But he still felt good, almost like he was drunk. He didn't know what they gave him but it's definitely kicked in by now. He saw the others gathering around the campfire and he slowly started to stand to make his way to them.

"You have to rest…" Carol moved to support him, his walk was kind of wobbly and she felt like he could fall any minute.

"Sure," he curled up beside her and laid his head in her lap. She watched his movements with a surprised look on her face, and she glanced up to the others, they seemed to be just as confused as she was.

"Daryl, are you okay?"

"Jus' feelin' a little dizzy s'all," he turned around until he was lying on his back, facing her. "Will ya play with my hair?" Carol chuckled at his request, realizing that he was clearly affected by the medication they gave him hours ago, but her hands immediately smoothed his disheveled and dirty hair, she gently brushed away few locks from his face, unveiling the grisly scar on his forehead. She was indeed more than aware of the group's burning looks but she couldn't care less. Daryl Dixon let her touch him, Daryl Dixon asked to be touched, and even though he wasn't thinking straight, that was still an offer she couldn't say no to.

"S'nice," he grumbled.

A few minutes passed and the group was getting ready to eat the day's catch which was roasting in a pan over the fire.

"Is that… squirrels?"

"Yeah, you want some? It's not much… but it's something." Their dinner was scant that night, as Daryl was out of the picture, Glenn and Rick tried to hunt down something they could eat but the two of them together came up with fewer critters than Daryl himself usually caught alone. Glenn always stepped on branches and crunchy leaves, scaring the squirrels away before he could get close enough to stab them. Rick borrowed Daryl's crossbow for the hunt and earned himself a black-eye thanks to its kickback, and he was pretty sure his other eye would suffer the same fate once Daryl woke up… he lost two or three bolts to the treetops.

"Sorry I couldn't go huntin' today. Ya know, when I was a kid, I got lost in the woods for some time, and I was so alone I started talking to them squirrels, maybe that's why I'm good at catchin' 'em. I speak squirrel," he smiled and she started laughing, both at his story and how he was unable to pronounce 'squirrel' correctly in his drugged state.

"So you're the squirrel whisperer?"

"Yeah," he snorted.

"I want whatever he's having," Michonne said as she walked over to them and handed Carol two plates of the squirrel-stew. It was a nice change for the group to eat from plates, Sasha found them in a convenience store they raided a few days ago. Some of them argued that they were taking up too much space in their packs, but eventually the women of the group convinced the malcontents.

Carol fed him bits and pieces of the squirrel meat and he would grumble, although she couldn't always tell if it was coming from his mouth or it was his stomach growling. She was glad he was finally eating, they couldn't force down a bite in him since his accident.

"Any more childhood stories you want to share?" She was feeling a bit guilty taking advantage of his state like this, but she couldn't miss this opportunity to get to know his past better.

"My uncle, Jess, he was a handyman, sometimes he'd take me and Merle on his jobs but we always pranked his ass, so he just stopped brining us after a while."

"Pranked?"

"Yeah, one time we took this tube thing out of a toilet he repaired while he was gettin' paid, so when the guy flushed, the water went all over him. I guess it worked since I could hear him shoutin' over the phone later." He smiled at the memory and she smiled with him, too. It was nice knowing that besides all the horrible things he went through, he had some joy in his childhood as well, even if it meant booby-trapping strangers' toilets. "Then there was this other time when we put a rubber band around a sprayer he fixed and when the dude turned on the tap… boom." He gestured with his hands

"That's quite obvious, how did you pull it off?"

"Dunno, but he called my uncle to fix it again, he just couldn't see the problem."

"Damn, I can't see shit," he mumbled as he tried to reach for his pack to retrieve something.

"Daryl, it's getting dark."

"No, Jesus, I mean my damn hair. Fuck it, will ya cut it for me?" The air froze around their makeshift camp as everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at him. It was a long time coming, they all thought, he finally admitted that it was getting in his way.

"Sure," she replied, at first she wanted ask him if he was sure but yet again, she took advantage of his sudden change of behavior, deciding that it's for his own good, too, even if he couldn't admit that when he was 'sober'. Plus, she liked his short hair more, she liked seeing his face, look into his baby blue eyes and those locks were making that hard in the past few months. Although she often imagined what it would feel like to grab his hair during a certain situation, she blushed even at the thought of that, it was time for his majestic hairstyle to go.

They didn't have any scissors around, she made a mental note to grab some on their next run, so she asked for a more radical tool, "Rick, could you pass me your machete?"

"Ya wanna cut my hair with that?"

"Do you have a problem with it, Pookie?" she smiled as she tugged him closer to get a better grip on his hair.

"Naw…"

Rick lended her the machete with the red handle with a slight hesitation, bad memories were attached to that weapon, but maybe seeing Carol cut his mess of a hair with it will sure change that. She moved her hands steadily and soon his dark strands were falling onto the ground. He was getting more and more worried by the amount of hair that gathered around his feet. He was about to make a comment on that when she stopped. She tousled his hair with her fingers making it stick up in all directions. She let out a small chuckle, she was clearly pleased with her work.

"S'not funny," he folded his arms and pouted.

"You asked for it and don't worry, I still like you."

He woke up with a terrible thumping in his head the next morning, his limbs were sore but he could feel something soft underneath his right arm, and that something was slowly rising and falling. He glanced up and saw Carol was still sound asleep under his arms and as he looked around he realized that somehow he ended up curled up against her side. He moved his hand to brush his hair away from his face, as he always did, to see the situation more clearly, but his fingers made contact with nothing except for skin and the scar on his forehead. His eyes grew big and he supported himself on his left elbow as his other hand furiously wandered over his head, feeling nothing but short spikes of hair.

"The fuck did I do last night?"