A/N: My mother got me addicted to this show and my love for Daryl and Carol has done nothing but grow since day one. I've seen so many lovely Caryl fics on here, so I'm gonna take a crack at it! I'm not sure how long this piece will end up being; I was running on the treadmill one day and had a vision of two lovely girls who wanted to help bring these crazy kids together. I'm just along for the ride.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. While there are a few OCs thrown into the mix, here's a good rule of thumb: if you recognize the name, the character probably doesn't belong to me.

Chapter 1

The sun was just beginning to rise over the hills and fields, but Daryl had been wandering the forest for hours. It was a part of his routine these days: a few hours of restless sleep followed by an early-morning hunt. Then he would isolate himself from the rest of the group and find some monotonous task to keep himself busy for the rest of the day, like cleaning his crossbow or fashioning arrows from the sticks he had collected during his hunt.

It wasn't as if he didn't try to sleep; it was just that every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Dale, face white, eyes wide, bloody and terrified.

"Sorry, brother."

Gun shot. Silence.

Daryl dug the butt of his palms into his eyes and shook his head, willing the image out of his mind.

"You act like you don't care."

"Yeah, cause I don't."

Daryl almost let out a bitter laugh at the irony of it all. He used to not care. He tried not to care. Hell, he remembered when he and Merle first found the group and they didn't give two shits about anyone but each other. But then he lost Merle and Sophia went missing and suddenly Daryl Dixon had a purpose. He wasn't just some crazy hillbilly; he could hunt, he could track, he could protect the group, he could take an arrow and a bullet and come back swinging. And the way Carol looked at him-

Carol.

A crow cawed overhead and snapped Daryl out of his thoughts. He had been standing in front of the same tree for 10 minutes, letting his mind wander while the squirrel he had just pinned with an arrow hung limp. For the second time, Daryl shook his head.

"S'the matter, Darlena? You gone soft?" Daryl growled and stalked towards the tree, ripping the arrow out of the bark with more force than was necessary. "I ain't gone soft," he growled under his breath, trying to silence the cruel echo of Merle's voice in the back of his head.

"Then what do you care about some dumb bitch anyhow?" Merle taunted. "She ain't looking at you nothin. She don't give a rat's ass. No one does. Well, 'cept for me." Grabbing the dead squirrel off the forest floor, Daryl couldn't bring himself to deny that fact. It would be stupid of him to think that the group thought any more of him than what he really was: muscle. Force. Someone who could rough a kid up and not feel a damn thing about it. A cold-hearted killer, isn't that what he was? He wasn't caring like Rick. He wasn't thoughtful like Dale or Glenn. Hell, he wasn't even a tough skin with a good heart like everyone thought Shane was.

But then a new voice broke through his thoughts: soft, warm, inviting:

"You're every bit as good as them. Every bit."

There was Carol again, always seeming to pop up when his mind wandered. She thought he was good. She trusted him for some reason that he couldn't quite figure out for himself, and she looked at him with those sad, blue eyes and he felt like he actually meant something. That day in the quarry, when he saw her pull all the strength she had into destroying the remains of her bastard husband, she had looked at him with tears in her eyes and dammit, she had gotten under his skin somehow.

Once again, Merle's cruel voice shattered Daryl's image of Carol. "Little brother, you don't think that old cow actually cares about you, do you? Jesus, isn't that rich!" Merle's laughter was short and cold and the hunter felt his blood boil as the voice ripped into him. "You're a replacement, Darlena. She's got no husband, no daughter, and she just don't know what to do with herself. You went soft like the little bitch you are and she got bored. She couldn't care about you if she tried."

Merle was right. Merle was always right. Carol was good and Daryl was shit, black and white, clear as fucking day. She latched on to him because he was the only one who cared to go looking for Sophia, and now that Sophia was gone, there was no reason for her to stick around. Daryl let out a colorful stream of curses as he reeled back and threw the squirrel carcass as far as he could, as if it held all the stupid feelings he had let himself develop for the woman.

After all, where had feelings ever gotten him?

It took him only a few seconds to regret what he did, whether it was because of the small ache in his shoulder from the abrupt movement or the fact that he had thrown away a perfectly good squirrel or both. At least the voices were gone, as if they had been satisfied with his furry offering. The sound of a cracking twig made him whip around, crossbow at the ready, and he cursed again when he realized that he had allowed himself to be a sitting duck during the whole of his internal struggle.

There was movement in the bushes beside Daryl. He had his finger on the trigger and was ready to shoot when Rick stepped onto the path, hands raised to his shoulders.

Daryl grunted and dropped his weapon. "The hell are you thinking, sneakin' around like that?" he growled. "You tryin to get yourself shot?"

Rick lowered his arms slowly. "Sorry, I should've called out. Didn't mean to startle you."

Daryl scoffed. "Couldn't 'startle' me if ya tried. Now mind tellin me what you're doin out here?"

Rick looked down at the ground and sighed before looking back at him. "Couldn't sleep. Saw you sneakin out here early, so I thought…" he wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "Thought I'd come thank you. For Dale. You know. Doin what I couldn't."

Daryl couldn't quite meet Rick's gaze as he thought about that night once again: Rick held the gun in his hand as he stared down at Dale and Daryl saw him freeze. He knew in an instant what he had to do. Taking the gun from Rick, Daryl looked down at Dale's pale face. He thought of how Rick had stepped forward towards Sophia that day she came stumbling out of the barn. Daryl could have used the excuse of holding Carol back as why he didn't end her suffering himself, but he would never admit that there was a moment he realized that he couldn't bring himself to do it. There was a moment where he held on to Carol because he needed her just as much as she needed him. He couldn't bring himself to raise his gun to Carol's little girl, the one he had almost killed himself trying to save. He had failed and he couldn't handle it.

That's why he took the gun from Rick that night. That's why he ended Dale's life for Rick, because Rick had ended Sophia's for him. Daryl just didn't expect pulling that trigger to hurt so damn much. It seemed like everything was starting to hurt much more and he was still trying to get used to the fact that he could feel things at all.

What happened to the cold-hearted killer?

Daryl could have said all those things to Rick. He could have told him the whole story, told him how he felt, and thanked him for killing Sophia, but he didn't. That's not how Daryl Dixon operated, and he he'd be damned if it ever was. So he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "No reason you should have to do all the heavy lifting."

Rick seemed satisfied with his response and he nodded his head as he lifted his hands to his hips. Daryl was trying to figure out how they would proceed from the awkward silence when he heard it: the ear-splitting sound of crashing metal and crunching glass. It was like an explosion in comparison to how silent the forest had been, and Daryl and Rick both whipped around toward the direction of the noise. Another crashing sound followed the first a few seconds later, then a third, then a fourth before silence finally settled once again.

Rick and Daryl made eye contact for only a second before the former turned and went running towards the noise. Daryl didn't know if Rick expected him to follow or not, but he knew that it was stupid to let him go off by himself. Especially because it was only a matter of time before every walker in the area gathered at the site of the noise, like moths drawn towards a flame. The hunter let out another colorful stream of curses for Rick, himself, and whatever the hell had caused that noise as he held his crossbow ready at his chest and raced after Rick.