Carol was propped up against a tree when he found her, that fucking club of a rifle laid out across her legs like a silent promise of retribution for anyone stupid enough to bother her. He didn't speak as he eased down beside her, propping his chin up on the butt of his bow. He chanced a sideways glance at her and then gave himself permission to look when he saw her staring off into the darkness.
"What?" The word was loaded, had a bite, and was launched at him with the force of a bullet. "I said I didn't want to talk about it and I don't. Not yet."
"Ain't gotta talk," Daryl returned quietly. "Maybe you could listen instead. That too much to ask?"
Her head whipped around, red-rimmed blue pinning him in place as surely as one of his arrows. Pain…oceans of it…laced every feature. That brief glimpse was all she allowed because she immediately blanked her expression. It was there and then gone. justthatquick! Her fingers busied themselves by tracing absent circles on the gun. He almost missed the tiny nod she gave by way of reply. She would listen.
"What happened before, that's done. We got past it."
He cut off as she gave a broken laugh. "As easy as that," she mused. "Just let it go."
"Dammit, Carol." The words busted out of him in a torrent of clenched teeth and rasping breath. "We're still here. We survived it, maybe not all in one piece, but we fucking made it. We're here. Together. That's gotta count for something."
And just like that, the fight left her eyes only to be replaced by a different kind of fire. Her lips tilted at the edges before curving into a familiar crooked smile. The pain was still there but it ran a distant second to something too new to put a name to just yet, something warm and bright and as abiding as the sky above. Few things could be counted on in this ever changing world but that look she had just for him….it was finite. It endured.
"It does," she returned fiercely as her hand found his in the dark. "It's everything."