AN: This takes place after the premiere of S5, but segways into the second and third EPs.
Disclaimer: I do not own or write for TWD or AMC.
-/-/-/-
Things were different now. Very, very different.
How could her family have changed so much?
The way Michonne giggled at Judith.
Sasha's grin, bumping alongside Bob as they walked.
How Daryl had engulfed her in the woods, slamming into her with such strength and gentleness and joy, choked sobs reverberating into her throat as his face collided with her flesh, lifting her off the ground as her hands scrambled for purchase in his hair.
She'd been gone not even two weeks, but in that moment nothing had mattered.
But there were other signs, signs of hardship and fear and trauma that had laced their way into the group like poison.
How Carl flinched away from Abraham when the older man had tried to lay an encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder.
How Glenn's eyes held a permanent squint of anxiety, and how he started to fidget anytime Maggie moved more than a couple feet ahead or behind him.
And how Daryl couldn't look at Maggie, or Carl, or even her without pain and guilt that rivaled how he had been after Sophia and Merle.
And that… That was more than she could rightly bear.
What had he been forced to face alone?
Her heart ached as they walked along the tracks and into the woods, at how everyone seemed so happy and together, and here, aside from that first second he had seen her, Daryl walked with a slump to his shoulders, teeth threatening to worry a hole through his lip. Sad and alone.
But he wasn't alone. Not anymore, and for as long as she could help it, never again.
She wrapped her free arm around his waist as they walked, avoiding his eyes as he first stiffened, and then gradually relaxed as he draped his own across her shoulders.
He sighed, and she smiled up at him as he smirked.
She would carry his weight as long as he would let her.
-/-/-/-
Her grief and anguish were painted across her face like tribal markings, screaming at him in their need for explanation, begging him to ask of their stories.
And yet he didn't know.
He didn't know her secrets, and he wasn't sure he ever would.
This Carol… He wasn't sure this Carol was his Carol. He couldn't pick her apart, couldn't quite understand what she was feeling and why, and sure as hell didn't know how to ask.
And maybe that was part of the reason he was feeling so damn helpless. He had her back, finally, but it wasn't the same, and he didn't have the social skills to make it the same.
And then her arm was around him, gentle and firm, just like always, and his found its usual resting spot on her shoulders with a sigh.
She grinned cheekily at him, and he couldn't stop the half-smile from quirking his lips at seeing her alive, slowly but surely coming back to him.
And he couldn't help but wonder if she would do all the heavy lifting for him.
-/-/-/-
He didn't say much unless she provoked him to, but then, neither did she.
That first night, she had watched from afar awkwardly as he laid his bedroll out, a good ten feet from anyone else. Abraham and Rosita took up stance on watch, but aside from them, nearly everyone was stuck in their little families.
Stuck together like a litter of puppies, pairing together with their favorites around the glowing fire.
Carl, Judith, Rick, and Michonne. Eugene, then Tara, then Glenn and Maggie. Bob, Sasha, Tyreese.
And Daryl.
The lone wolf.
She felt her lips purse of their own accord and shuffled her pack off one shoulder, walking towards him with purpose and choice words taunting her better judgment.
He was curled in on his side, arm splayed out towards his crossbow as he kept his eyes facing away from their family.
She'd be damned if he was going to sleep cold.
And so she dropped her pack none-too-quietly, withdrew her sleeping bag, and bedded down right by his face, using his arm as her pillow as she burrowed into his chest. No questions, no permission.
She just did, and dared him in her mind to push her away.
But, of course, he didn't. Just grunted and wrapped a wayward hand over her to hold her closer.
And she swore she felt warmer there, in his arms, face tucked next to his heart, than she ever did in her whole life, no matter any fluffy comforters and trusted alarm systems.
-/-/-/-
There was no way in hell he was sleeping tonight.
He was thinking too much, couldn't shut it all down, could see a bleary-eyed day in his future as he felt her worm as close as humanly possible into him.
She would have never done this before.
Her leg slid in-between his easily, her boot looping over his knee and tugging that closer, too.
Things have changed.
She breathed deep, and he wondered if she was smelling him like he smelled her. Wondered if she smelled the lingering sick-sweet of the knock-out gas they had been drugged with. Wondered if he smelled like smoke, too, or if that had been solely from her bottle-rocket stunt.
She's changed.
Everyone else was sleeping, so why couldn't he?
'Cause you got questions to ask, dumbass.
Secrets to air.
-/-/-/-
She wanted nothing more than to stay there for the rest of her life.
Isolated. Warm.
Safe.
This place was good, this place of comfort and quiet and rest and sweet smells. No decisions needed to be made, there were no dangers whose offensive action rested solely on her shoulders.
The children weren't hers, not right here. Not now.
Not in this twilight era between sleep and wakefulness, not when Daryl's strong heart pounded into her ear, a beat heavy and thrumming and alive.
She had made sure that heart would still have blood to pump.
She didn't want to talk, didn't want to think, didn't want to do anything but stay.
-/-/-/-
Since when was he ever the man to demand answers?
Since when was he ever the one to wriggle out secrets?
Never, that's when.
Why hadn't she told him?
But that didn't mean he couldn't start now.
Her cold hands wrapped around him sleepily, winding between his jacket and his shirt as she sighed contentedly.
Just let it lay.
Ain't no sense in trying when she's already half dead.
Good lord, he'd never needed to know something more in his entire life.
-/-/-/-
She could feel him fidgeting, his heart rate as high as it was when she first settled down.
He couldn't sleep.
Was this making him uncomfortable? Had she misinterpreted things, yet again?
As if in answer, he breathed deep and tightened his hold on her, hand coming up the bottom of her shirt, cold fingers resting at the small of her back.
She felt his touch down to her toes, and suddenly she wasn't so tired, wasn't so sure she knew the reason he couldn't sleep, after all.
She lifted her head, just barely, just enough to try and see him in the bare light of the fire.
His eyes were dark, and she swallowed hard. Felt his fingers strum against her spine, sending goosebumps cascading across her flesh.
He swallowed, opened his mouth to speak.
-/-/-/-
"'S okay, if you wanna talk," he rumbled lowly, trying hard to ask her without really asking her.
She stiffened against him, and he knew immediately that he should have let it lie. Should have let her have her one moment of peace, should have let her sleep and heal after what she had done today.
But no, his impatient, ADD ass had to jump the gun.
She pulled her head back, and his sternum immediately chilled in the absence.
-/-/-/-
How could she tell him no? How could she tell him that?
No, no thanks. I'd rather sit here and wallow in misery and guilt and pain than share with you.
But it was true. Good God, was it true.
Daryl had been through everything with her, from the death of Ed onward. He had taken each headshot to his heart, sometimes more heavily than even she.
She couldn't lay that burden on him. She couldn't.
Secrets were secrets.
But, oh. To be free of just one ounce of this burden would be such a blessing.
-/-/-/-
She didn't pull away, hadn't yet, and in that silent sign of allowance, he found his courage.
"I know," he muttered, trying hard to catch her eyes as she squeezed them shut against him, trying so hard to close that door and throw away the key.
But closing it off did nothing. The monster was still there, waiting, biding time.
One little slip, and it'd be free.
"At the prison." He continued slowly. "Rick told me what you had to do."
She clenched up at that, made to remove her arms, but he had made it this far and he wasn't letting go.
His foot was in that door.
"Had to do," he whispered fiercely, wrapping his arms around her until she stopped moving and looked back at him. "He told me what you had to do, Carol."
Her lip quivered, and his heart sank like Icarus into the sea.
-/-/-/-
She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't break.
She had shut that door, had locked it and left it to rest in the deepest recesses of her mind… And here he was, waving the key at her.
Taunting her.
Let it loose.
She swallowed. Shook her head. Tried to tamp down her grief and focus on this man before her, this man who could not possibly love her if he knew the other half of her crimes.
The third member of their family she had murdered in cold blood.
She couldn't look at him as she spoke. Couldn't see the love and compassion drain from them as she had seen in Rick's, Tyreese's.
Almost afraid she'd see the life drain, too, as she had from the other three.
-/-/-/-
Her eyes squeezed shut again, and he was sure she was going to start fighting. Hell, for a second he thought she might headbutt him.
But instead she just breathed, quick and deep, and erupted.
"Karen and David were choking to death," she started quickly. "Bleeding out of every orifice on their bodies. Couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
"I did the humane thing, but it was the wrong thing."
He knew what she was going to say, knew it down deep in his core, but the words that came out of her mouth struck him mute.
He pulled her head into the spot it had inhabited before, let it rest there, and breathed deep with her.
But her body still coiled with tension, and he knew. She had more to tell.
-/-/-/-
Tucked up against him, it was so easy to pretend that that had been the extent of her date with darkness, that the euthanasia of two of her friends had been the low point in the last two weeks.
But, oh, that wasn't true.
The monotony of his heartbeat was thudded like the executioner's drum, and she was flying too high to the sun to stop herself, she couldn't stop the words from exploding from her, couldn't control herself and wasn't even sure she wanted to.
"Lizzie. Mika," she choked, their names too obscene and precious and holy to be used aloud by her lips.
She couldn't blaspheme these two beautiful girls. She couldn't do it. She couldn't say it, wouldn't.
She had to.
She needed to.
Her feathers were shedding, and she was falling, but the words still soared.
She could feel his ropy scars beneath his shirt, knew how uncomfortable that made him, and so tucked them out to touch his outer layer.
Angel's wings.
-/-/-/-
His heart thundered in her chest at the names of the other little girls he should have looked out for.
How many times had he even spared a thought to the Samuels girls? The girls that became his in her banishment?
Not once. Not after they saw the other little kids, dead and eaten.
Not once.
Her breaths were stuttering, and as she re-positioned her arms outside his vest, he felt a light warmth seeping onto his chest.
Tears.
Jesus.
He took it back. He didn't want to know. Couldn't bear to think of more little girls lost…
"I did it to save Judith," she gasped out. "I had to. It had to be me."
Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ.
"She…she killed her, Daryl," Carol sobbed.
He held her as tight as he could, clutched her face to him in the barest of hopes that maybe, in that way, some of her grief would flow to him.
"She killed her own sister."
He hushed her, breathed deep through his nose.
There are worse things than death.
"I caught her before she could…before Judith…"
Her breath hitched, and her voice cracked, and he loved her more than anything, but he wasn't sure he could do this, either.
"I told her I loved her…"
He needed her to stop. He needed her to end it, to keep that little secret, just for now.
But she needed to speak. She needed to tell.
He would sail behind her into the depths.
-/-/-/-
Her heart was stuttering, her brain was screaming, and all she wanted, all she needed was to be quiet and to tuck herself close and forget forget forget.
But she was already here. The end of her story.
Half a dozen more words. Just a few more.
She breathed deep through her tears, choked on the very air her lungs seemed so deprived of.
Closed her eyes, as tight as possible, tried to find the words within her. Tried so hard to suck them back in, banish them.
Tried to make her mouth work, tried to clamp her teeth shut.
"I… I took her out, to pick some flowers for Mika…"
She hiccupped, and he gripped her tighter, lips resting on the crown of her head as the crackle of the fire and the hoot of a wayward owl reminded her of where she was.
Safe.
Her voice was hardly a breath, barely a whisper. "I shot her, Daryl. I put my daughter down like a rabid dog."
And then the tears were coming too heavy for her to even try and talk around, choking her and pricking the back of her throat and her nose.
"Ya gave her peace, Carol," he answered softly. He pulled his face down to meet hers and laid lips against her brow.
Peace. That holy place where Hershel rested, Lori. Andrea and Amy and T and Dale and Jacqui and Jim and Merle…
Karen and David.
Mika and Sophia.
Safe.
She swallowed against her tears, held him tighter and tried to quiet herself, tried to drown out her sorrow with the steady beat of his heart.
And as she found she couldn't stop the flood of tears and pain, she thought to herself that maybe it was her body's way of purging the secrets and the evil that were rotting her soul.
-/-/-/-
He wasn't sure how long he held her, how long he clamped his teeth on his tongue to draw out just enough pain to shock his tears away.
Not now. Ain't about you.
She seemed so…small, tucked into him like this. Not much bigger than Beth, and sure as hell lighter.
The quiet mewl of pain as the trap clamped down on her ankle.
Stupid luck, that a walker hadn't set it off yet.
Or had it been?
Mika and Lizzie… They had their peace. He had to remember that, had to recite it until he believed it, because Carol needed that more than anything.
She needed to believe in something good for once.
"Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith."
But it may very well have killed you, lil girl.
He couldn't bring himself to say her name, not out loud. Couldn't add to her burden.
"I know you look at me and see another dead girl."
Ain't seein' nothin' anymore, lil thing.
-/-/-/-
Her tears staunched themselves all at once, in one fell swoop, and she couldn't help but breathe a long, shuddering breath of relief.
She fisted her hands in the flaps of his shirt, bunching up the worn, thin fabric, wanting so bad to feel the warm skin beneath.
Wanted to breathe him in, become part of him, wanted to forget for just a moment, a second, a thought.
Wanted to unfold his secrets beneath her eyes, lay able eyes on the scars he hid beneath clothes and flesh and bone.
She couldn't be selfish.
But the way he watched her, his eyes dark and aching and reminiscent and not quite here, left her thinking, hoping, that maybe he needed a moment, too.
Don't.
She swallowed hard, and his eyes steadied, his hands running up the back of her shirt, bumping along the vertebrae in her spine, and she knew he was counting. Knew he was trying to be here. Trying to bring himself back.
She put her hands on his face, swallowed the little hitch that came from crying too hard.
And almost without thinking, distracted in a good way for the first time in weeks, she started to hum, the words playing in her mind as the tune flowed from the back of her throat.
And pine for summer
And we'll buy beer to shotgun
And we'll lay in the lawn
And we'll be good
She didn't know where the song had originated from, had never heard it before in the old life, but it was a favorite of Beth's, and, so, by extension, a favorite of Judith's.
He stiffened against her, and without another word, she knew what had become of the youngest Greene after the prison fell.
-/-/-/-
His heart seized, his head spun, and all he could think or remember was that dropped bag on a dark, cold night.
Aching legs. Burning chest.
Can't stop. Can't stop.
She pulled away quickly, stopped humming, sat up just a little to put her hands on his cheeks and try and speak to him.
He couldn't hear her. Too far away.
Too far ahead.
Too far gone.
Her eyes were starting to get frantic. The whites glowed pink in the firelight, the cornflower blue reflecting over painfully.
I don't cry anymore, Daryl.
He shook his head. He couldn't remember. He couldn't do this.
He had to be strong.
He had to.
Ankle twisted. Couldn't'a gotten far.
No way to run. No way to fight.
Lost.
-/-/-/-
He was fighting.
Fighting her, fighting this flashback he was trying to suppress, fighting the girl she now knew he had lost.
"Daryl," she whispered. "Daryl, sweetheart, come back. It's okay, baby."
Her voice cracked but she commanded it not to, swallowed it into submission.
His eyes were wide and scared, and he shook his head at her.
Her eyes watered again, burning at the corners, and then his eyes were closed and she wasn't sure how she could get through to him.
"Daryl," she tried one last time.
He was shaking all over, eyes closed and ears blocked.
She brought her lips to his and breathed all that she had into him.
-/-/-/-
Gone.
Gone.
It was gone.
All gone.
Quiet, empty, blank.
Safe.
-/-/-/-
It was okay.
This was okay.
They would be okay.
-/-/-/-
He felt his hands reach up tentatively to her face, felt himself turn his head as she went the other way.
What was he doing?
His skin tingled, the storm calmed and only the residual static electricity played over the waves.
This was good.
-/-/-/-
His hands reached up higher in her shirt, brushing over her bra strap. Her fingers combed through his hair and reached below his collar and over those strong, weighted shoulders.
Her fingers brushed against a scar, and when she hesitated only to have him dive in deeper, she withdrew her hands, knew that this wasn't going to go the way she wanted it to if they kept up.
Could see the signs.
He wasn't ready, because he didn't care.
-/-/-/-
Her hands withdrew, and he immediately missed her touch.
What the hell are you doing?
It didn't matter. They didn't have to think.
They didn't have to remember.
But then she was pulling back, reaching up to keep him from chasing after her, and he was shocked when he didn't feel hurt.
When he didn't quite feel anything.
She smiled sadly at him, swiped at her eyes, then turned to run gentle thumbs under his, coming back salty and damp.
Damn.
"You lost her."
-/-/-/-
His face almost hardened, almost walled her off, but she kept her hands where they were and shook her head.
"Isn't your fault, Daryl," she breathed, watched as her breath dried a silvery trail that had gone forgotten in the hollow of his cheek.
He blinked hard, kept them shut as he spoke. "'S just the thing. 'S all my fault," he growled.
She kissed the dip of his throat, felt the erratic pulse there and let out a breath as she thought of all the things she shouldn't say.
"Tell me."
He shook his head, breathed in a hitching, choking sob. "Ain't nothin' to tell. I lost her. She's gone, someone stole her, and she ain't never coming back."
-/-/-/-
I'm not Maggie.
I'm not Michonne.
I'm not Carol.
I survived.
Funny thing, girl, 'cause you're the only one who ain't here.
-/-/-/-
She didn't leave his side that night, and neither the next night, not when they were holed up in a car chasing after the little girl they would save.
The blonde haired, blue eyed girl who missed her daddy but had her family waiting for her.
And she could tell, this is what he needed. In the way he actually smiled through a snarl from the driver's seat, growling out all the things he was going to do to those sons of bitches.
In the way he reached over when they ran out of gas just inside Atlanta, planting a large, gentle palm on her thigh as he leaned over her, brought his lips to hers as she brought her arms around him.
In the way he leveled his bow – God, she loved that thing – to line up with the driver's head as the front bumper collided with her kneecaps, missing wildly as the man ducked and leaped out of the car.
In the way he screamed at the top of his lungs as she heard her bones shatter beneath her, felt unbelievable pain radiate up into her hips and spine, but still reached down to try and shimmy her bowie knife free.
In the way he fired bolt after bolt as walkers swarmed him, how he aimed for the man coming for her and not the things coming for him.
In the words he bellowed at her as she lost consciousness, hands that weren't his coming up beneath her arms and dragging her, leaving a blood trail from what she knew was at least a nicked artery, a fuzzy image of her boots facing the wrong ways.
Hell, maybe she'd been hallucinating.
His screams echoed through her chest, and where she should have felt pain and horror and fear, she couldn't help but know he was coming back, would come back with her family and bring her and Beth home.
He'd make sure they were safe.
She'd never had more faith in her life.
-/-/-/-
I love you!
Be strong.
I´ll come back.
Be safe.
Driving back at 135 miles per hour down the freeway, hands swiping at tears he was trying not to shed, he knew he'd be back by nightfall, army and guns in tow.
That goddamn hospital would be blown to hell by noon, his girl in his arms and Beth in front of him.
They'd be safe, in just a few hours more.
She'd be safe.
"I love you."
His words went unanswered, quiet and broken.
-/-/-/-
AN: I tried something very different with this one-shot, so let me know if you liked it or not! : )