Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Spoilers up to the end of season four – after the prison fell. Written for Nine Lives Halloween Challenge and can be considered a prequel to "Parched" which was a Caryl + Carickyl (Carol/Daryl/Rick) vampire!au. If that doesn't turn your crank you don't really have to have read "Parched" for this fic to make sense. This fic can be stand-alone and is purely Caryl in terms of pairing.

Warnings: Contains: sexual content, vampires, vampire turning, questionable consent issues, adult language, blood, blood-drinking, angst, drama. Carol is kind of evil now, okay?

Quenched

Chapter One

He woke up to a cool finger pressed ghost-like against his lips.

There was no sound. No warmth. No sign that Beth had woken up, huddled against a fallen trunk on the other side of the fire. Not even a stick crack to alert him that someone had managed to sneak up on him. Just the pressure of skin against skin and the unnerving suspicion that it had been there for a while. Tracing the cracked split of his lips with gentle, reverent little strokes as he'd slept.

He blinked hazily into the pre-dawn dark. Sleep-stupid and slow before the sudden outline of a looming shape kneeling close made him flinch and jerk away. Fumbling for his knife as the steel point flashed in the low coals before-

"Shhh, Daryl. It's just me."

The action lost its violence immediately. Relaxing into something that on anyone else might have come out like hope rather than disbelief. He'd been burned too many times to believe in happy endings. In that perfect possible scenario. Things like this didn't happen his family – to Dixons – he'd had that hammered into him since he'd been old enough to understand the shit his father tended to spew whenever he had a few shots of Bourbon in him.

"Carol?"

The hand was inching back. Thumb outstretched like something in her was yearning to feel it catch against the dried splits of his lips, when he gently captured it - inhaling reflexively. His nose twitched, breathing in the harsh smell of spilled ochre and scorched earth.

"Carol?"

Then-

"Jesus, you're freezing," he muttered, vision adjusting slowly. Trying to find her eyes in the dark as the ashes of the fire splintered into a bridging smoke. Rubbing her hand between his carefully, trying to muster up some heat as the strange coolness of her skin extended all the way up the taper of her wrist before being masked by her sleeve.

The chuckle that left her throat made him do a double take. Momentarily thrown by the deepness of it as he squinted. Just able to make out the curve of her chin, porcelain-sharp and cut-throat beautiful as her skin shone creamy-cold. Horizon starting to stain light as she cocked her head, watchful – predatory – before turning back and fixing him with a sly smile.

"You would be too if you'd been out all night, stumbling around in the dark," she finally replied, breaking the long silence as she adjusted the strap of her pack. Free hand sinking easily into the dew-damp earth as he snatched up his vest and threw it on.

"How'd you find us?"

"Us?" she purred, strangling the note at its height like amusement as she wavered gracefully to her feet. Looking down at him for a long, drawn out pause before-

"You're alone, Daryl."

He kicked to his feet, heart in his throat. Realizing that the hollow Beth had curled up in the night before was empty. There was no sign of her. She was gone. Just gone. Why? What the fu-

"She left during night, left you alone," Carol explained unconcernedly, one hand resting on the curve of her hip as he fumbled to his feet. Shouldering his crossbow and grabbing his pack. "She thought you were faking, that you weren't really asleep and decided to go off looking for the others, but got lost. That's how I found her – found you."

He almost sagged in relief. Muscles unclenching as he tried to shrug the ache out of his shoulders. "But she's alright?"

"Of course," Carol returned, seemingly unmoved as he stamped the fire out, mindless of the weak, arcing sparks. "That's why I'm here. My car ran out of gas so I have been on foot for days, I heard her shouting for you. Lost. I took her to the house I've been staying in. It's about a mile or two away. If we go now we can make it before dawn. She's lucky I found her before anything else did."

He grunted in agreement. Stupid girl. What the hell had she been thinking, going off like that?

"And she's there?" he asked, eying her through the dark of his fringe as the low light caught her eyes strangely. Making them flash - blank-hollow and bright - like the iris of a predator caught in a lens-flash the second before they lunged forward and went for the kill.

"Yeah, she's there," she replied, teeth flashing white in the orange-red dawn. Tone syrup-slow and deliberate. Like she was oddly amused by the question. "Now c'mon, we need to get moving. I want to be in the house before sun up. It isn't safe around here in the daylight. There are a couple herds in the area. We should wait until they've moved on before we make plans and try to find the others."

He nodded, following close behind as she led the way. Chewing on the inside of his lip as something dark and slow-building churned like sick-up in his gut. Trying to figure out what felt so wrong about the entire thing as her stride turned long and purposeful. Keeping to the shadows as the darkness stretched thin and the feeling like they were racing the sun grew like a cancer in the back of his mind.

He was breathing hard – finding the pace just a titch too fast to keep up with when she broke the silence. Making him grimace at himself when he realized she wasn't an inch out of breath. Fuckin' cigarettes. His lungs were shit.

"Did you know what he was going to do?" she asked quietly, not slowing, but turning her head a fraction as the smooth line of her jaw clenched like a tell. "What he did? Did he tell you? Did you know?"

"No," he grunted, letting the point of his bow drift down towards the ground as she ducked under the shade of some low-lying branches. Leading him deeper into the dark. Only shaking her head when he gestured to where the woods started thinning. Probably leading back towards the road. "He just did it. On his own. Came back and- when I asked where you were-"

He frowned, not quite sure what to make of the stiff line of her back. Finding almost nothing familiar in the posture, the way she held herself, the faint edge of aggression and anger that seemed to be rolling off her in waves. It wasn't her. Wasn't right. Did she think he had something to do with it? That he'd backed Rick? Was that why she was so-

"I was gonna go out for you, bring you back. But the Governor and his assholes attacked before anything else could happen. Rick was going to talk to Tyreese, ask him what he wanted to do. It wasn't right what he did. Rick wasn't right."

"No, he wasn't," she agreed eventually – softly - tone losing some of its bitterness and edging back towards that fond little lilt she seemed to reserve only for him these days. "But in a way, he was. I did it, you know. What he said? Karen and David? I had to."

Hearing it from her own lips wasn't the sucker punch he'd expected it to be. But rather, a relief. Because the moment the words had left Rick's lips, he'd known. The only thing he'd disagreed with was the feeling behind it. Because Carol would do that for them – but she felt it. It wasn't easy. It would never be easy. That was the part Rick was bullshitting. She did feel it. The picture he'd painted in the prison? That wasn't her. It wasn't her and he knew it. Rick knew it.

"They weren't going to make it and I thought- I thought I could stop the spread. Buy us some time, at least until you and the others got back with the medicine Hershel needed. But- he left me out here. Alone," she whispered, walking-wounded for the first time as a flurry of emotions – grief, anger, even pain - flittered across her face before she turned away.

Rick had been projecting.

It was something Hershel had said after Lori died.

Guilt for guilt.

Rick couldn't face his, so he focused on everyone else.

"I know," he returned simply, chin jutting as he jerked out a nod. Watching her through the thick of his fringe as she whirled in place, walking backwards. Facing him but never once slowing her pace. Driven. Focused. Uncompromising. "The others will understand. Even Rick. His head ain't right, that's all."

He caught a glimpse of the house through the trees. Newish with a white picket fence and whole wack of overgrown landscaping. Someone's idea of a private, green gables type of thing that looked more or less decent from the distance. It was far enough away from the road that it was probably defendable. More or less.

"And if the others don't? If they don't understand? When this is all over, will you go with them? Or-" Carol returned, trailing off near the end in a way that was both exciting and damning all at once.

Red flooded across his tongue, making him curse through a swallow when he realized he'd bit down just a smidge too hard on the inside of his cheek. Feeling a whole lot like the cliff they'd been clinging to for the past while had started to give way underneath them. Making him wonder what he was doing to do about it. Cling to what was left because he was in so over his head he couldn't tell his ass from true north or give in and let himself fall?

"They won't."

Her head tilted, nostrils flaring the slightest of bits like she could taste the sudden tension on the air. "But what if they do?"

The question wasn't just loaded, it was smoking in the chamber. Because this wasn't about Rick or the others or even why she was out here. Not really. It was about that thing they'd been dancing around all this time. The thing he hadn't known if they were ever going to broach. If he could ever let himself get that far until the words were suddenly stuttering out of his mouth without him even realizing it.

"Then- well, I'll still be here."

She relaxed in fractions. Like a tangled, atrophied muscle finally cut free of the gristle that snared it. Smile beatific and strangely savage all at once as the morning sun rose a fraction of an inch more in the horizon, leaving them in the fading shadow of the looming house as everything around them blurred into the early morning.

"I know you will."

They went through the backdoor, following her lead as they paused in the kitchen. Watching her as she listened before nodding to herself and beckoned him up the stairs. Shrugging out of her pack and leaning her shotgun in the corner frame of the open bathroom door.

"She's probably still asleep, Glenn too. He was with someone, another girl when I found him. Someone from the Governor's crew maybe. She didn't make it," Carol murmured as they creaked up the stairs.

His eyebrows shot up.

"Glenn!? You never said Glenn was-"

But she just put a finger to her lips, cutting him off, suddenly playful.

"Let me go check on them," she whispered, like she hadn't heard him. Blue eyes gleaming as the reflection of the photographs that lined either side of the hall jockeyed for position at the very corner of his vision. "Glenn is still recovering. You haven't been exposed to whatever this is so let's keep it that way, huh?"

She must have just forgotten, that's all.

She's been out here on her own for days, probably hasn't been sleeping much.

She wouldn't pull that shit on purpose.

Not her.

He nodded stiffly, muscle in his jaw tensing and releasing in frustration and relief as she opened the door and breezed inside. Leaving it half-open so he could see the two of them, sleeping in cots on either side of the room. He frowned. Both were attached to I.V's. Drip-lines that went from metal stands to some taped up gauze and a needle stuck in the pale just above their wrists.

He took a half step into the room, taking in the orange backpack and body armor stacked against the wall of the bedroom. The blinds were all down, making it hard to see after the dawn-glare. But he grunted when he caught sight of Beth's shock of blonde hair streamin' across her pillow. Something in him relaxing the slightest of bits as Glenn protested, doped up and confused as Carol crooned at him soothingly. Pushing the sweaty hair off his forehead, checking his temperature as a small frown creased the skin between her eyes.

"What's wrong with them?" he asked, once Carol had squeezed through and closed the door gently behind her.

"Beth was exhausted and dehydrated," Carol returned easily, ducking under the strap of her rifle as she took the stairs two at a time. Forcing him to rush a bit in order to keep up. "Embarrassed too, I think. The I.V. was mostly a precaution. It's Glenn I'm worried about. He's lost some blood. He said he got out of the tower just before it came down. Something must have grazed his neck a bit. I had to bandage it up and clean it. He should be fine but after what happened at the prison he's weak. He needs time to rest. The both of them do."

"We can't both leave, not with them like that," he pointed out, already thinking about how much ground he could cover before he'd have to circle back. "One of us should go try find the others. Bring them here. We need to regroup. Find Rick and the others."

For a strained half second he could have sworn there was protest in the back of her eyes. Something new and hidden and possessive that didn't really seem like her at all before the moment passed and she nodded slowly.

"I'll stay," she decided, wincing a bit as she snagged the draw string for the blinds above the sink and sent them whizzing down. Leaning up against the kitchen counter, blouse gaping at the neck in an unconscious display. Showing off a swathe of surprisingly clean, porcelain-pink skin he couldn't quite keep his eyes off of before he realized he was staring and furtively looked away. Angry at himself. "Be back before nightfall?"

He nodded, swinging his pack over his shoulder as she moved behind him and shoved a couple of granola bars into the back. Every movement careful – practiced – like she was reigning something in as the soft huff of her breath made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

He hesitated for a long moment, shrugged his shoulders as the weight of his pack settled. Nerves twisting in his belly before he let his hand ghost over the crux of her arm. Taking one hell of a chance as she stilled – cold and questioning. Finally giving voice to the niggling little part of him that was screaming that something wasn't right. That she wasn't-

"You okay?"

She stretched, somehow managing to make even that beautiful. Long limbs canting out. Decidedly on display as her head cocked with lazy interest. Watching him from a safe distance despite the fact that it felt like every inch of her was spiraling out, threatening to pull him in and drown him the longer his feet stayed planted. The 'what's wrong' was silent. Implied. Assumed. Only she breezed right over it.

"I'm not afraid anymore."

His expression must have said it all because she just laughed, a light, mirthless chuckle that went rich and deep as it rolled out. Pinging danger and arousal all at once as she rolled up her sleeves and made to reply.

"I can show you, later, when you come back? I'll explain everything."

He was almost out the door before he paused, something itching underneath his skin as he turned around and caught her looking back at him from the kitchen counter. Hip cocked against the side, sleek, enticing and undeniably different - but somehow still unquestionably his all the same. Like a mirroring reflection of the same damn thing as sapphire sphinx-eyes made a mockery of the stuttered silence.

Stuck down the rabbit hole, are 'ya Darlina? Merle's voice cracked, splinter-sharp grin obvious as the words echoed through his head. A woman, huh? Figures. Never were that good with the ladies, were you little bro? Not like your big brother, no sir. It's all about lettin' 'em know who's boss, see. Gotta-

"I'll bring back dinner?" he offered, letting the words go flippantly even though both of them knew they were anything but. Testing the waters as he tried to navigate through where this left them as she watched him with a closed expression that evolved slowly – like the dawn.

He decided to take it as a good sign when her lip curled up in the first honest smile he'd seen since she'd found him. Eyes warm and dancing, just like they used to as she nodded and made a clear 'shooing' motion. The rusty screen door creaking in protest as he ducked through it and loped off the front porch.

"I'll hold you to it."

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be one more chapter, stay tuned.