Author's Note: Missing moment from episode 6x09, "No Way Out". Spoilers up to that episode. This is after Daryl saved the town from a herd of walkers using a grenade launcher, and goes off canon while he's getting his cut stitched from when he got stabbed by one of Negan's gang trying to steal the fuel tanker.
Lying with the Truth
Carol leaned gingerly against the wall of Alexandria's infirmary. Her head weighed about as much as a church, and held just as much throbbing, silent pain as was contained in any house of God.
She kept her eyes slitted open, no matter how much they wanted to be otherwise, because this was the time when it happened. When everyone was sagging exhaustedly on the porch, waiting for their turn with the doctor or for news about Carl's eye. The breach in the wall was guarded, but there were plenty of casualties who might have been overlooked and turned by now. Now would be the time for a walker to slip up behind one of her friends and have their teeth locked in before anybody could so much as scream.
She slid her fingers into the smooth metal circles of her knife handle and fought to stay on her feet. If she was standing, she couldn't sleep. She wasn't here to see the doctor. Carol knew what a concussion felt like, knew how little could be done. She was here to guard the wounded, and because this was where Daryl would turn up, sooner or later.
She'd seen him last night. Up on top of a tanker truck with his legs spread wide, bloody wings on his back, the grenade launcher over his shoulder and fire leaping across the pond in front of him. Maybe he was the only kind of angel that could live in this world: the kind who could turn water into fire.
Just like Atlanta. She swallowed, prying her eyes back open, and let herself delve into dangerous memories because it was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
When they'd gone to rescue Beth in Atlanta, Carol had woken to flames flickering through the window and Daryl gone. She'd found him carrying the sheet-wrapped bodies of child walkers out of that shelter, so gently placing them in the fire. That moment was the only time she'd felt the touch of God's mercy since Sophia died.
The old peace she used to get in church, the ease of having her burdens lifted. What he'd done felt right in a way that nothing had for a long time. She knew if she'd have finished off those children-turned-walkers, she would have been stained by it. And yet he was made cleaner for having done the same thing.
A thought tugged at the back of her mind, but then she saw black leather and sweat-damp hair, and she brushed it aside.
Laughter and boisterous greetings met Daryl. He ducked his head against it, responding to none of it, though he let Aaron clasp his hand. When Eric squeezed his arm, though, he shook him off and shrugged twitchily.
"Thank you," Olivia whispered exhaustedly from her place on the porch. A man with a bloody baseball bat saluted and Daryl moved faster toward the door.
When Daryl tried to bypass Tara, she stepped right into his path. "Trust a redneck to show up with the toys with the biggest bang," she drawled.
He smirked, just a little. "Abraham found it. Ain't gonna lie, that thing's a shitload o' fun."
Carol sagged against the building, letting the others have their moment with him, forcing her eyes away to watch the edges of the yard. Spencer was out there with a gun, which just meant he'd probably shoot somebody by accident when the first walker bit him.
"Abraham's got a nose for the biggest firepower in the area. He's like a bloodhound for C4," Rosita says. "Remind me to tell you about the landmines sometime."
"It is one of the finer and more illustrious in my long list of talents," Abraham said, his back leaned protectively against the front door, which Carol appreciated since Morgan and his traitorous staff were right next to him.
"That was a Grade A use of explosive material," Eugene said.
Daryl grunted, twitching under all the unaccustomed attention. He shot a Save Me look at Carol. "This the line for the doc?"
"No line for you," Sasha said, pushing Abraham out of the way and opening the door. "I don't want you dragging walker bodies around with an open wound. God knows you've probably got seven kinds of filth in it already."
"Is it from the motorcycle crash?" Carol asked. She hated all the people around them, because she'd barely get two syllables out of him in a crowd like this.
He looked up sharply. "Who told ya 'bout that?"
"Motorcycle's not here and your pants lost one hell of a fight, all up one side." She gestured. "Plus the road rash on your elbow."
Tara laughed. "Moms see everything, Buddy. Get used to it."
Carol flinched, her head throbbing a little harder.
"Your jacket saved my ass," Daryl said quickly, and she looked up, surprised he was volunteering information with so many people listening. Or admitting weakness in front of them. He was like a wolf, she thought sometimes. Never wanting to expose his wounds, always trying to hide his limps and bandages like he expected everyone to take advantage of his injuries instead of protecting him while he healed. "Leather sleeves you sewed on that old shirt." He made a gesture up toward his shoulder. "Wouldn't have much of an arm now, weren't for them."
"Guess not, if the motorcycle didn't make it. The fuel truck was a nice upgrade, though."
"Bunch of assholes were shootin' at me. Laid it over to get away from 'em." He shrugged. "Different bunch o' assholes stole the bike."
"That be the ones you torched with the RPG?" Rosita grinned. "I'll trade you the full story on that for the landmine story."
Daryl scratched the back of his neck. "Nah. That was a third bunch o' assholes."
"You've had a day, haven't you?" Carol checked the yard once more, then touched his good elbow, steering him toward the door. "Come on. Let's go claim your hero's place in the medical line."
He held back. "Nah. Didn't know there was so many people still waiting. No big deal."
Sasha raised her eyebrow at him, still holding the door. "You can get that cut stitched up or I can give you a fresh one to match. Your pick."
"Yes, ma'am." He moved reluctantly toward the door.
"You're going to have to teach me how to get him to do that," Carol said to Sasha. "I wouldn't mind having that one in my back pocket." She glanced out at the yard, passing off the watch silently to Sasha, who nodded.
Inside, the infirmary was even more crowded, with bleeding people sitting, leaning, and laying in every direction. At this point, most of them were at least bleeding into bandages instead of onto the floor, though, so that was a good thing. Denise's eyes widened as she took him in. "Bite?"
"Just a few stitches," Carol corrected.
Denise relaxed, patting a stretcher. "Right up here, would you? It's a good eye level for me."
Daryl planted his good hand and swung up to sit on the stretcher.
"You need help getting that shirt off?" Denise grabbed a fresh set of gloves.
Daryl stiffened, and Carol could suddenly feel every person in the room behind her. "Ain't that bad. I'll come back when you ain't so busy."
He went to shove off the table, but Carol already knew how this would go. After an attack like this, the infirmary would be packed for weeks, and he'd let the wound go until it got horribly infected. She made a decision, and spoke before she could change her mind.
"What, are you afraid they'll see your scars?"
Daryl froze, and as long as she lived, she'd never forget the betrayal in his eyes.
Carol absorbed the impact like a punch she deserved, and kept going.
"Which scar are you embarrassed of, Daryl?" she said, her voice low. Not that it mattered, because the room was so silent it was like all fifteen people stopped breathing at once. "The ones from the bullet and the arrow you took trying to save my daughter? The ones from where the Governor beat and tortured you when you went to save Maggie and Glenn?"
Once she started, memories of injuries flooded into her mind and her voice got louder with every one she listed.
"The marks from your brother's boot when they set you two to fight to the death and you wouldn't raise a fist to him? Or how about when you took on all the guns in Atlanta to save a teenage girl, with nothing more than a knife and a lighter to your name? Or the helicopter that came down on your head when you were trying to feed the group? The walkers you fought to get formula for that baby when its own father was too paralyzed by grief to provide for it? The crooked cop you subdued with a walker's head for a weapon?"
Everyone was staring and she thought she heard the porch out front creak, the door opening as she listed his wounds one after another after another. She couldn't even remember them all, and there'd been so many bruises, rips to his clothes, and cracked ribs that he'd never explained to her. He never told his own stories, and she knew there were dozens of acts of heroism that would go to his grave with him.
"How about the scars from the beating you took when you traded your life to those claimers in exchange for Carl and Michonne and Rick? Are you ashamed of that?"
She was nearly shouting now, her eyes locked on his despite the stringy curtain of his hair he always used to keep people from seeing his face. Denise edged away, like she was nervous to be caught in the middle.
"Which one of your hundreds of stitches are you ashamed of?" she asked him, tears trembling in her eyes now, and she couldn't have even said why. Maybe because he still looked hurt, lost. Like hearing every good thing he'd done out loud was harder for him to endure than the wounds themselves. "I wish I could say that you had just one scar for every one of us, but you've got dozens behind the name of every person who walked in that gate with us. And now," she said, touching his bloody shoulder, "this one is for every person alive in this town because you brought back that fuel truck and knew just how to use it."
Her tears crested and rolled free, and she ignored them, shoving the last words she had to say past the lump in her throat.
"Every scar on your body," she said clearly, "is there because you defended yourself against evil, or because you protected someone who couldn't protect themselves. You have nothing to be ashamed of."
Daryl's cheek twitched as he bit at the inside, his knee jumping against the edge of the stretcher. He shifted like he was going to move, but then he caught sight of all the people stacked up against the open door, the people arrayed throughout the room. Ducked his head.
Denise finished setting up her tray of instruments and dodged a timid look at Carol.
"Go ahead," Carol said, taking a step back so she wasn't shielding him from the rest of the room anymore. "Show them what you've endured for all of us."
He glared at her with that cornered animal gleam in his eye she would have been terrified of a couple of years ago.
Denise reached to help him pull his vest off his wounded shoulder. He threw her a look so black she jumped back and nearly knocked over her instrument tray.
"Not gonna hit ya," he growled at her, but then he glanced at the rest of the room. "The hell ya lookin' at?"
Noise came into the room all at once as everyone got very busy doing other things. He laid his vest on his lap and flicked open buttons on his shirt. The third button was as low as he ever went in public, even on the hottest day. When he passed that one and kept on going, Carol's stomach dropped, like she was headed into a dark basement with no flashlight.
This had been her idea, but seeing him actually strip in front of the eyes of strangers made her ache, panic seething at all her edges in a way she couldn't explain.
He moved stiffly as he tried to shrug his shirt off. She wanted to help him, but there was no way he'd let her, not now. Instead, she cringed a little as he ripped the fabric off his clotted blood and dropped the shirt on the floor, glaring murderously at the room in general. Even harder at the nipped off gasps of people who weren't smart enough to hide their reactions.
His scars stood out like unfurled flags. They weren't small white lines but huge splashes and knots of scarred tissue. Burns and cuts and then divots where the tissue had been torn out and never grown back. They were worse on his back, she knew, because there'd been no one to protect that part of him for so long.
She clenched her teeth that she hadn't volunteered to lead the walkers out with him. That he was bleeding fresh because she hadn't.
Her back was turned, so she didn't hear where the clapping started. But it caught on fast, swelling across the infirmary and the porch, the sound growing.
Daryl's head jerked up. "What the hell, people? Whole damn street's full up with walker bodies. Get off your lazy asses and do somethin'. You ain't at a fucking circus."
The clapping wilted to a stop and in the pause after his outburst, Denise stepped forward with a brave smile and a wad of antiseptic soaked gauze.
No one broke the silence the entire time he was being stitched up, and despite his orders, nobody left. Instead, the entire town held the vigil for their new hero.
In the quiet, Carol could hear a hundred stories forming that would be told about this moment. And she smiled.
Author's Note: *Interpretation note* Darylsdiva1 wrote a great story about Carol sewing the leather sleeves on Daryl's jacket, and that's also been my head canon since the first time I saw the jacket.
It's been a hard year. And for the last couple of months, fanfic has been infusing me with all the joy that seems sucked out of everything else. Thank you, to all of you, for sharing that joy with me, for leaving reviews that make me remember what it feels like to grin hard enough to make my face hurt. For reminding me why I started loving writing in the first place, way back when. Christmas is about generosity, and fanfiction is all about generosity and a shared love. So Merry Christmas to all of you. May this story bring you joy.
This fic will have one more chapter, so we can see Daryl and Carol's more private reunion, and Daryl's reaction to the stunt she just pulled.