AN: I saw this prompt from jlo1013 on NineLives and I wanted to do it. I think, however, it's not quite what she had in mind. It got away from me a bit. I thought it could be fluffy, but it turned into something else. I hope that it's something along the lines of what was in mind, though.
Spoilers for all episodes up to current apply. I've taken some liberties and changed some events, but there are still spoilers. Please be advised.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol got herself together. She pulled back in all the little pieces that had threatened to unravel and she'd tucked in the ends so they'd stay put for another day—longer than that if she was lucky. She took herself upstairs and she went directly to the shower without speaking to anyone, not that there was anyone to speak to. She turned on the hot water and she let it run while she peeled off the clothes that were sticky and heavy and smelled of lost life and the hardness of the world. She avoided her reflection entirely in the bathroom and she stepped into the shower.
She used more than her allotted amount of shampoo and soap. She washed herself three times over and didn't feel apologetic about what some might see as a waste. There was so much waste here, in Alexandria, that she decided hers didn't matter. Today had been a day of waste—there were so many lives lost because they didn't have the foresight to be prepared for the world that was all around them.
Once she toweled off, Carol slipped into a fresh change of clothes. The bright colors and floral prints were so out of place in this world. They were perfect camouflage. They created an image of her that made the people of Alexandria comfortable, but they did something for her too. In those clothes? It was Halloween. She was playing dress up and, for just a moment, she was someone entirely different than herself.
It helped her to keep it all under control.
She cleaned up the mess and she came downstairs. The casserole she'd made had already been dipped into. Someone had already eaten from it. Even in the chaos around them, people didn't forget their baser instincts. Carol didn't want to taste it, so she wiped down the counters instead and checked Judith's room. The girl was gone, but Carol had no doubt that someone had her in a safe location. Everyone protected the little girl. She was the only one they had.
Carol wandered the streets with everyone else. She gasped and she sighed and she patted shoulders and nodded her head with the concern that the people of Alexandria were suffering from. Most of them, she realized, had never recognized that she was the cloaked figure running among them and ending the attack of the strangers. They hadn't seen her because they didn't want to see her like that. They hadn't seen her because she was invisible. She always had been. She always would be.
Around her, there was talk of what was happening out there—on the road. There was confusion and there was concern. Would they make it back? Had the herd already swallowed up their people? In such a short span of time could they lose so many who had risked their lives to try to save a community full of people who couldn't save their own lives?
Carol couldn't help them. Not now. Not out there. She wasn't a hero. If the herd was too much for all of them, then she didn't stand a chance alone. She wanted to save them—all of them—but even she knew her limits.
She passed most of the rest of the day by keeping herself busy and focused on tasks. It kept her from focusing on other things. She kept her mind on things she had to do. She cleaned and she cooked and she cared for Judith. She listened when they gave her updates about things and she tried to ignore what all of it might mean.
When Rick returned, she welcomed him back with the same open arms as everyone else. She heard his story about being surrounded by Walkers after being attacked by the wolves. They were wolves that somehow escaped her, apparently, though in her gut she knew exactly how they had gotten out.
Morgan was more dangerous, even, than the most inept citizen of Alexandria. They didn't kill. They didn't protect their own, but it was because they didn't know how. Morgan's carelessness was more dangerous because it was a reckless choice that he was making.
Despite their concerns and despite the whispered "what ifs" that had circled around whether or not the group would return, they all did. They straggled in as surely as they always did. A little worse for the wear, perhaps, but that was common these days and almost to be expected. One by one, they went and they washed off the road behind them.
When Daryl came in the house, filthy and a little bloody from a fall that he'd apparently taken on his motorcycle, he immediately went for the food instead of for the bath. Carol cut him off, though, ignoring the fact that they had an audience in the overpopulated house.
"You need to get cleaned up," Carol said. "You don't want to get an infection."
"Hungry," Daryl responded, gesturing somewhat toward the casserole. There was enough there for a good sized meal for him or for two smaller portions to share.
Carol walked over, grabbed one of the dish rags from the drawer, and put it over the casserole. She looked out over the living area of the house where a number of her group was gathered to rest.
"It'll be here when you come down," Carol said. "There's plenty of food to eat in this house."
It was Carol's easy warning that what was left of the hot meal that she'd prepared was out of bounds. It wasn't to be touched. The pantry had offered them enough food to feed them all—especially after they'd all learned to do without so often—and they could scavenge for themselves. What was left of the casserole belonged to Daryl.
Daryl looked at her, against the shower but knowing that she was going to push him there anyway, and finally he nodded at her. He hummed his agreement, even if his displeasure showed through as well, and he turned. Seeing him head toward the stairs, Carol stepped around the kitchen island and followed him.
To keep from raising suspicion in anyone present as to why she might go with him to shower. To keep from letting out their secret—a secret that he seemed to need to keep because he feared something from the people that they called family—Carol offered up something of an explanation for her need to scurry after him.
"I'm going to look at that elbow," she said. "It needs to be cleaned."
And it did need to be cleaned, but she needed a moment, too, just to be quiet with him. She needed a moment just to be near him.
Maybe he wasn't the only one that wanted the secret kept.
Upstairs, hidden away from all of them, Carol cleaned Daryl's arm. She waited, outside the shower, while he scrubbed away the evidence of his day. She leaned in the bathroom and breathed in the steam and enjoyed the simple security of his presence. Finding comfort, these days, wasn't easy and it seemed that she found it in the most obscure places.
When he stepped out, still hiding his eyes from her while he toweled off, still ashamed of his nakedness in her presence despite the time that they'd spent together, Carol got his clothes ready for him. She watched him, peeking out the corner of her eye at him, while he dressed. She wasn't ashamed of his nakedness, but sometimes she was ashamed of how much she still felt like a teenager around him. They were feelings that seemed so absurdly out of place among all the other feelings that fought for dominion inside of her.
She still couldn't believe that the secret was even there to be a secret that they had to keep.
When he was dressed, Daryl threw the towel over the top of the shower bar and Carol cleaned his arm again. She wrapped it carefully in sterile bandages and assured herself that it was the best job that could be done. It wouldn't get infected, not if she kept cleaning it, and it would heal over to leave a barely noticeable scar—and scars they both had aplenty.
When she finished, Carol patted Daryl's shoulder and hummed at him, letting him know that she was through holding him for torture.
"You can go eat," she offered.
He looked at her, chewed his lip, and nodded slightly. His eyes said more, though. She'd learned to listen to them. His eyes said he was glad to see her. His eyes said thanks for tending the wound. His eyes asked if he might have something else before he went and she obliged him. She brought her forehead to his, leaning it there for a moment. She gave him the proximity and she waited for him to meet her the rest of the way. He did, kissing her. She stayed where she was, responding to the kiss, waiting for the "more" and the "more" came in the deepening of the kiss and was followed by the feeling of his arms wrapping around her.
When it was done, they pulled apart and Carol turned to straighten up the bathroom. Once again, she reminded Daryl that there was food waiting for him and he left her, picking up towels and dirty clothes, while he went downstairs to eat a pathetic casserole like it was the best thing he'd tasted in his life.
Before it was fully night, everyone was turning in or stepping out. Those who had to go on watch slinked out the door to take their places. Those who weren't on watch disappeared to their bedrooms. Carol changed Judith once more and tucked the girl in after she hummed her a soft lullaby. Then she set the small camera, even though sleeping ears would hear her if she cried as surely as there would be anyone watching the tiny screen, and she returned to the kitchen to wash up all the plates and dishes that everyone had left piled by the sink for the dish fairy to take care of.
She didn't mind it, though, because it was in the simple repetition of the mundane daily tasks that she found a little bit of an escape from the storm inside her head. The quiet times were the only times when, for just a moment, she could lose herself completely.
"I saw your face," Morgan said, his voice making Carol jump after she'd become accustomed to nothing beyond the sound of the running water. "Out there? You didn't want to do it. You don't like doing it. You don't like killing them."
Carol swallowed. To distract herself, she scratched at an itch she didn't have with soapy fingers. Morgan leaned on the island near her to speak without disturbing any of the sleepers.
"Nobody likes doing it," Carol said. "But we have to do things that we don't like."
"You care about everyone here," Morgan said. "You care—about everything. You believe it too. You believe that life is precious."
Carol hummed.
"I do believe that life is precious," she agreed.
"Then why do you take it when it isn't yours to take?" Morgan asked. "When there are so—few people—left alive as it is?"
Carol glanced at him, quickly, and then she turned back to focus on her dishes.
"Because life is precious," Carol said. "And—people like that? People like the wolves? Morgan, they don't see life as important. They came in here and they killed. And they wouldn't have stopped killing until they'd killed everyone here. Everyone. You too. I did what I had to do stop them. I did what I had to do to save lives. Sometimes? You have to kill because that's what saves lives."
"The needs of the few?" Morgan asked.
"The needs of the many," Carol said. "The needs of the family." She sighed and shook her head. "I did what I had to do. I do what I have to do. I'm not going to—sit back and let things happen. Not anymore. I've lost too much that way. Now? I do what needs to be done. You wanted to ask them questions. I don't ask questions because I don't need to know why they're doing it. I just need to know what they're doing. And I handle it."
"We've all lost, Carol," Morgan said. "But the important thing? It's not to lose yourself."
Carol stopped what she was doing. She reached her hand up and bumped down the knob to turn the water off. She dried her hands carefully on the towel. He wasn't telling her anything that she hadn't thought about a million different ways before. She was confident that there wasn't anything that this man could say to her that she hadn't kept herself up with at night. Carol sighed and turned to face him full on this time. She struggled, for a moment, to find her words, but finally she found them.
"I'm not losing myself," Carol said. "I—lost myself a long time ago. Now? I think I've found—more of myself—than I ever had before. I know who I am. And I know what I'm doing. And I know why I'm doing it. I don't need your stick or your philosophies to know myself. I have my own code."
Morgan let out something of a nervous laugh.
"Is it the same as his?" Morgan asked.
Carol furrowed her brow at him.
"I see you," Morgan said. "I've seen you since I got here. There's a lot there, Carol. A lot. But—I see him too. You're walking around, trying to hide it. But when he got back? The first thing he was concerned about was where he'd find you. Like maybe—you just wouldn't be there. I know that worry. I felt it too, once. But at least you were here."
Carol shook her head at him and did her best to dismiss the comment. Anyone else might have fallen for it. She had a lot of practice pretending that people's assumptions about her weren't true. Morgan simply shook his head back at her.
"Daryl," he said. "I know."
Carol felt her stomach flip. He did know. That was the one unnerving thing about Morgan. He seemed to know a lot for a man who was so willing to ignore the obvious sometimes.
"He has his code," Carol said. "And I have mine."
"And they're the same?" Morgan asked.
Carol stood there. She didn't know to answer that. She'd never really considered, if she broke it down into pieces, how well their codes lined up these days. At the root of it, she supposed, it was all the same, even if it was a little different in the execution.
"It doesn't matter," Carol said.
"Of course it matters," Morgan responded.
Carol shook her head.
"No," she said. "It doesn't matter. Not—the details of it. Because, in the end? What matters to us is doing what we have to do to keep going. To keep the group going. To keep good people from having to die."
"Even if that means killing?" Morgan asked.
"If it means killing the lost people? Those who won't save themselves?" Carol responded. She nodded.
"What's the difference between you and them?" Morgan asked.
Carol swallowed and tried to push down the knot in her throat. That question, too, was one that she'd asked herself a thousand times even in the course of a day.
"I don't always sleep well at night," Carol said. "But it isn't because I'm afraid of the monster under the bed."
"And Daryl knows about it?" Morgan asked. "All of it? And he's OK with it?"
"He's right there, awake with me," Carol said. "Sometimes, he's the only reason I sleep at all."
She abandoned her work entirely, needing to escape for air. She might make what she did look easy to some, but if she did? It was just a testament to the acting ability that she'd perfected over years of living with Ed. She walked around the island, heading for the door. A short walk would ease her mind. She'd wander down toward the wall, down where she knew Daryl was keeping watch, to find out how things were. He'd come down and he'd speak to her. He'd ask her if she was OK. And, just from hearing the concern in his voice, and seeing it in his eyes, she would be. At least, she'd know that eventually she would be.
Carol stopped by where Morgan was standing, though, before she headed out the door. She shook her head at him again.
"I don't understand you," Carol said. "And you don't understand me. And—that's OK. You do what you have to do. And—as long as it doesn't endanger my family? That's OK too. But—just remember—I do what I have to do to protect my family. I don't want to do it, and I don't like doing it, but I'll keep doing it."
Morgan stared at her, something of a smirk on his face. He saw her and it was unnerving—at least a little—but Carol wasn't afraid anymore. Not like she once had been. She swallowed and offered him a soft smile. If she was correct, it would be equally unnerving.
"You see me," she said. "But you won't always see me."
She walked away and stopped just after she'd opened the door to the house. She turned back and saw that Morgan was standing there, quietly watching her leave.
"Goodnight, Morgan," she said with a smile before she stepped out onto the porch and started in the direction of the wall.