1.
Chewing his thumb nail slowly, he looks across the camp for what must be the millionth time this evening. The fire is dancing across her face and neck, leaving some of it encased in shadows, but not those eyes of hers. They're brighter than ever and crinkling ever so slightly as she laughs at something Sophia has whispered to her. Her smile splits across her face, and she pulls her little girl closer to her while staring into the orange flicks of the fire. She looks happy. And that makes him happy.
He's not really sure when it happened, but he can hardly remember a time when he wasn't watching Carol. When him and his brother first met her, she was with a man, if you could call him that. Good-f'nothing, low life who seemed to take great pride in beating her and making her feel small. Merle had told him to mind his business, and that he had no right interfering with a man and his wife. Although it didn't feel right to him, he did what he was told and over time learned that it was better to simply stay away from the camp when it happened, or to go on a long hunt to make sure one of his arrows didn't end up in that man's eye socket.
At first Daryl used to think she was weak sitting there and taking the beatings that they all heard no matter how little she cried out. But over time he came to realise that it wasn't cause she didn't care, it was cause she didn't know no better. He saw it in the way she carried herself whenever he daughter wasn't around, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding herself together.
Hell, he could relate to that. After all, his daddy was the same as him. Mean. A drunk and a bully. While he wasn't walking around with bruises every other day, there was certainly a time when he was. To this day, his back was still a smorgasbord of scars, from one weapon or another –usually a belt or a cigarette, but on one occasion a knife. He still hates people looking at it, looking at him really. Don't need no pity, it was what it was. Life. Didn't make it right though.
So from the start you could say, Daryl had noticed Carol. Yeah he'd noticed her. But he did the one thing that everyone else hadn't thought to do. He didn't underestimate her. Sure he'd hung back, knowing that there's only so long before she'd make a move. After all, you can only be burned so many times before you rise from the ashes. As it happened, he didn't have to wait too long to see it.