A Pretty Big Build Up
"We got a pretty big build up overnight." Carol told him as he walked over to the fence to join her, using his fingers to eat the breakfast she'd prepared. "Dozens more towards tower three...they don't spread out anymore." Daryl licked the remnants of his breakfast off of his fingers. "It's manageable, but unless we get ahead of it not for very long." Carol looked down at his empty bowl. "You need something more?" she asked him. Daryl looked over at her, so serious this morning as she surveyed the prison precinct, wondering at her dark mood.
"How 'bout some sugar?" he drawled, smiling and putting his free arm around her shoulders. It had only been an hour or so since she'd left their bed to go start the community breakfast in the predawn light. It was still new to them, this facet of their relationship, and he'd been surprised that he was the one more than she who needed a public display of their connection, as if he had to claim her.
He was always taking her hand as they walked, sitting close enough that their knees touched under the table, putting his arm around her every evening as they went to the cell they shared. He was proud of her, what she contributed to the group, and proud of the fact that she had chosen him, not Rick or Hershel or Ty or any of the other new men she could have had. He was happier than he'd ever been in his life.
He looked at her beautiful serious face staring out at the walkers, let his thumb brush the soft freckled skin over her collar bone in a light caress and she startled slightly and looked up at him.
"Where'd you go?" he asked softly.
"This isn't going to last, is it?" she asked him and he frowned at her.
"This?" not sure what she meant.
"No one's allowed to feel safe this long...being happy is just tempting fate...that's not how it works...not anymore." She said pensively. "We're just fooling ourselves."
"Hey." He said, dropping his bowl and grasping her upper arms, "I didn't wait my whole life to find you to just give up over some piddly lil' problem like the damn walker apocalypse." She frowned up at him. "C'mon." he said, turning and taking her hand in his.
"Where are you taking me? I have to help clean up from breakfast!" she protested, and from the tent behind them several people's heads came up in interest.
"Takin' you back to bed." He growled as he marched her back through the yard in front of the gathered diners under the canopy.
"Daryl!" she blushed, stopping in her tracks and pulling back on his hand. His response was to pull her up tight against him and kiss her, hard, his mouth moving over hers sensuously, his hands fisting in her dark jacket until she melted against him, her arms twining around his neck. She vaguely heard Glenn's wolf whistle and someone else's admonishment to 'get a room.'
'So you gonna come peaceable like?" he asked her, his eyebrows arching up as he looked down at her slightly dazed smiling face.
"Probably not..." she murmured with a sly grin, queen of the double entendre, taking his hand and leading him back into the cell block.