A/N: At the end.
1. Red Roses
When they stop west of Charlotte – an overnight that turned into just a week that turned into a fifteen mile trip up into the hills and three months camped out in a decrepit farmstead when Glenn fell off the truck and broke his leg, and then somehow eased into eighteen months of living relatively secure behind five strands of barbwire and a fifteen degree slope up the only access road – Daryl gets tired of watching Carol work.
She washes clothes, she sorts foodstuffs, she crawls up on the roof and ties down the flapping tarp in the middle of a fucking thunderstorm. She watches Judith and Shawnie grow, she teaches Noah how to put a razor's edge on every knife they own, she gives Tara lessons on how to find dandelions hiding in the grass before the greens get long and bitter. She argues with Michonne about diaper rash for Shawnie and with Rick about most of everything.
She crawls into bed with Daryl late and rises early, and while the hours between are a riot, Daryl knows she's not getting anywhere near enough sleep.
The third month, he starts making her take an afternoon off, every week or so.
By then, he's scouted out every patch of jasmine and spray of wisteria within a hour's walk. He knows where the dandelions hide, east side of the big oaks, and where a clump of wild salmon-colored primroses has overgrown the ruins of a homestead that predates the end of the world. And it's worth it, to climb up three hundred feet to sit with her on the ridgeline and trace the wild plum blossoms that line the creek-bed below, knees bumping each other and sighting along each other's pointing finger at the white flowers peeking through bare grey limbs.
She won't rest, not really, but he shows her the blooms and totes the shovel there and the bundled plants back, and stands a ready guard as she scowls at the hapless plants, selecting the next victim.
They won't last, she says, patting down the dirt around the newest bit of landscaping as the sun slips below the edge of the world. Not without someone to care for them. He shrugs, not arguing. She looks over her shoulder at him, wrinkling her nose. What ever will they think, when they find this after we're gone? He looks around the homestead – the boards nailed over the shutters, the alarm cans hung on the wire, the old truck that Abraham is still fighting with – and has nothing to answer her with.
That someone was here, he says, finally, because she's still waiting on him. Here, trying.
The next week he brings her to a field of goldenrod, and spreads a quilt on the ground, and sits watch as she stretches out and naps for an hour in the bee-crowded field.
2. Love letters
His handwriting is horrible, and his spelling is worse. Michonne sketches out all the notes on their maps. Rick makes the lists of things they need on runs. Sasha keeps the travel journal.
Everything he ever needed to say, he could never find the breath to say, anyway.
Instead he brings her books – Persuasion, Moonraker's Bride, Much Ado about Nothing, A Civil Campaign, Outlander, Devil's Cub, Cherokee Station. He brings her books and beeswax candles and flex-neck flashlights that clip on the book cover and bookmarks of pressed leaves and braided cords and blackbird feathers.
At night, when she sits up reading, he curls against her side, eyes shuttered and one hand clasped in hers, listening to the rasp of turning pages and the catch in her breath as the hero sweeps up his beloved in his arms.
3. Wine
The tape player hiccupped, clicked, and then started blasting out a nasal Nashville twang Don't tell my heart, my achy-breaky heart… Carl whooped and lurched to his feet, immediately snatching up Judith to rock his sister in his arms as he swayed to the music and stomped on the floor.
Cause I just don't think it understands
"Jesus," Carol gasped out. "This is awful." She waved a hand at the building dance party. "Not the music. The whiskey. Shine. Whatever."
Daryl shrugged, poured himself another slug of the rotgut booze. "Better than the last batch."
She took another sip, made a face. "I'll take your word for it. What did Bob and Abe call this?"
"Blue Ruin," Daryl said. "Want more hot water?" He held out the little steaming pot.
Carol held out her mug, then raised her other hand. "No, let me put it down." She wedged the mug into the shag carpet before nodding. Daryl topped up her mug and set the pot back on the wire grill before leaning back against the stone wall and Carol's shoulder. She tilted her head against him, let him snuggle the blankets closer. Across the fire, Eugene sat with his head tilted back, slack hands cradling an empty mug in his lap. In the larger space that was the cabin's great room, Tara was attempting to teach Maggie and Carl the boot-scoot-boogy at the same time that Michonne and Sasha were demonstrating the electric slide.
"Sure you don't wanna help?" Daryl murmured, as Michonne zigged left into Tara, zigging right, and all four of the women dissolved into laughter while Carl stared, befuddled.
"Nope," Carol said, drawing out the word into a 'pop' at the end. She took another sip of the horrible drink. It was better hot, but not much. She tilted her head, looked at Daryl, who was – just barely – nodding along with the music on the battery-powered tape player they'd unearthed in the basement. "You could, you know. Help show Carl how it's done."
Daryl snorted and shook his head. "Naw. Line-dancing," he said, gesturing to the four women, now lined up and linked arm-in-arm, tapping out left-right-hip-hip-left as they faced the far wall. "Line-dancing's a spectator sport."
4. Silky sexy clothes
Twenty minutes, Rick said, no more. And stay within earshot. Then he folded his arms against his bruised ribs and propped his swollen ankle against the truck door and scowled at the courthouse, as if the triple-gabled old building had done something deliberately wrong over the course of its lifespan, instead of just having the misfortune of outlasting the inhabitants of the town.
The group scattered in four directions from the parking lot in pairs and threes, leaving Rick, Eugene and a distinctly put-out Rosita to watch Judith and Shawnie. "Tampons!" She called after Maggie and Carol. "And more underwear!" She sat back down on the roof of the cab with a huff. "This is bullshit."
"Drawing straws is a time honored method of dividing undesirable tasks," Eugene said, not looking up from the three-sided game of pattycake he was playing with Judith and Shawnie. "Your opportunity to select the task-specif-"
"Eugene, shut the fuck up."
"You owe two sticks of gum to the swear jar."
Rosita groaned and lay back against the roof, extending a middle finger at Eugene.
"And a can of tuna," Rick said, from inside the truck. Rosita groaned again.
Less than fifteen minutes later, people began trickling back in – Abraham and Glenn huffing under backpacks bulging with canned goods from a restaurant locker while Father Gab staggered after clutching a five gallon water bottle. Sasha, Michonne and Noah came back empty handed but for three boxes of 30-0 ammo and an ancient derringer, and Maggie and Carol on their heels with the gleaming of the pharmacy. Rosita scrambled down and grabbed at the proffered blue and green box, barely waiting on Maggie before heading for the marginal cover of a derelict bus.
Carol stowed the rest of their scavenged goods in the back seat before joining Rick at the driver's side door, staring east down Main. "How long?" she asked, hands idly hooking on her belt.
"Three more minutes," Rick said, gesturing with the delicate gold watch in his hand. Then he let his breath out, and the tension eased out of his shoulders.
Two blocks down, Daryl and Carl had emerged onto the street, arms full, and jogging briskly towards town center.
"Good," Rick began, "might even have time to eat if –"
Daryl – throwing glances over his shoulder and shaking his head as if to flip the hair from his eyes – stumbled and went to one knee. He was up again, bouncing a little on that leg, but not even pausing long enough to shake it off. Carl made as if to stop, then kept going. Then the reason for the two's haste lurched out into the road after them.
"Or not," Rick finished. "Load up!" He rapped on the rear door of the truck. "Get everyone, we got company." Walkers were pouring on the road. Carl and Daryl kept moving, keeping well ahead of the walkers. By the time they reached the truck, Maggie was boosting Rosita into the truck bed and Glenn was leaning over the cab, rifle trained on the walker mass.
"Move your ass!" Abraham snarled, reaching to jerk Carl in as the young man tossed his burden – a mixed lot of towels and blankets – into the bed and threw himself over the sidewall. Daryl did much the same, grasping at Carol's hand and letting her pull him in over the tail gate. Sasha had the truck moving away before Daryl hit the floor of the truck bed.
"See, told yah," Daryl panted. He exchanged grins with Carl before collapsing against the cab on top of their looted linens. "Plenty of time." He shifted his leg and groaned. Carol bent over him, pressing at his knee with both hands before attacking the bindings on Daryl's pant legs. "Leave off, woman, m'fine."
She ignored him and jerked harder on his boot, snorting when he yelped.
Carl snorted, wiggled his way upright and swatting away Tara's hands. "Yeah, well, we would have had even more time if you hadn't gone back."
Daryl grinned again, dug into the pile of blankets, grunting as the truck bounced over a railline on the way out of town. "Here," he said, tossing a sea-green overcoat at Carol. "Don't say I never got you nothing."
She rocked back on her heels, clutching the coat. The truck's speed increased. "You went back for a coat, in front of walkers? Daryl."
He leaned back, grinning. "It better fit, 'sall I'm saying."
5. Jewelry
He pulled the handful of steel chains out of his pack somewhere over the North Carolina border – well out of the low country, but not so far that all the skeeter bites had healed. Half of their clothes still stank of black tidewater mud.
Carol had nearly lost her knife in the fracas – smooth metal gone slick and slippery with mud and gore, so that when the walker went down sprawling, it jerked the knife out of her hand, leaving her defenseless against the next one. Even now, three days later, Daryl had to clench his jaw tight around the tightness in his throat, the sick feeling in his gut, when he'd been out of bolts and too far away to reach her in time.
Glenn had been there, swing batta batta swing, and then Carol had pulled out her backup blade, the one in her boot, and they'd nearly been out of walkers, anyway.
But it only took one.
So Daryl patiently sorted out the fine strands of iron links he'd collected from the hobby store in Savannah, and squinted through the little magnifying lens at the free ends. Wrap after wrap he wound the chain over the knife hilt, smoothing each one down with his thumb, using narrow gauge electrical wire for the splicing. He covered the whole hilt, then went back over it again, wrapping the chain in the opposite direction.
A hour later, he handed the knife back to Carol. She took it, frowning at the change in heft, the shift in balance.
"Hilt's thicker – too thick?" He took her wrist, turned her hand over. Her fingers still met on the other side of the hilt, closing all the way around. She flexed her fingers, shifted the blade in her grip. Under his thumb, her pulse beat steady and strong.
"Thank you," she said, running her fingers over the rough texture of the chain-wrapt hilt, as he traced the bones of her knuckles with his hand.
1. Heart
She rolls over in the grey light before morning and finds his half of the blankets empty and cool. She buries her nose in the rough wool briefly, breathing in the musky smell of Daryl and sweaty sex and five days on the trail. Two breaths, then a third, then Carol resolutely pushes herself upright and gropes for her boots and jacket.
She tiptoes out past the sleeping bodies crowding the workshop floor and slips through the door with her belt still slung over her shoulder, knife bumping against her ribs. Outside, the sky is light, but darkness still hugs the earth, blanketing the ground in grey mist. Daryl is building up a fire on the gravel. He feeds the hesitant flame with strips of old cardboard and splinters of lighter pile. A mass of squirrels lie heaped beside him, already stripped of their hides and split like dropped oranges.
He looks up as she shuts the door, and the smile on his face is enough to out-warm the flames.
Carol drops to her heels beside him, hugging her arms about her ribs, leaning her shoulder against his. He nudges her with one elbow as he builds the fire, eyes on the flickering flame, adding fuel in careful, precise motions. When he pauses, she leans her head against his shoulder, feels him rub his cheek against her hair.
In an hour, they'll be up and moving down the road. In forty minutes, the squirrels will be done and everyone will be jostling for a dry and bony quarter. In twenty minutes, everyone except Eugene will be awake and gathering up their sleeping bags.
In seven minutes, the squirrel hearts strung on a wire skewer will be done, and Daryl will feed them to her barehanded, licking his fingers clean between each one, and kissing away the bits of grease in time to scandalize Glenn.
Right now, all of that is in the future, and there is only her crouched here against him, his body warm and firm beside her, and all their days before them. Carol sighs and lets her eyes slide closed, holding tight to the moment.
end
A/N: Rated T for Dixon language. Warning for smoop, reckless endangerment, and emotional constipation. Written for the USS Caryl 'Bloody Valentine' challenge. Feed back and con-crit of all sorts appreciated. Thank you for reading!