Notes: Melissa McBride speculated in an interview that maybe Daryl and Carol had already tried something romantic or sexual and it didn't quite work. Hmm. Well, what then?
Disclaimer: Copyright for The Walking Dead belongs to AMC, et al. My writing belongs to me, as do errors.
Title: "Bands"
Chapter: "Prologue"
"What's this?" Carl looked past Carol and Michonne to the line of old women, men and children that Tyreese was helping to descend from the tricked out school bus. If it was what it looked to be, his father had some serious shit to explain.
"They're gonna be joinin' us."
Carl's face hardened. He squinted up at his father, then sent a harsh assessing gaze toward the ever-growing line of the needy, the sick, and the weak. His body went rigid, and he seemed to grow an inch. He didn't raise his eyes to his father's again. As he was preparing to turn and march away, he noticed something that ratcheted up his temper from simmering to volcanic.
Rick's left ring finger, where the band that had rested declaring his commitment to Carl's mother, was bare.
The golden symbol of their family was gone. All that remained was a sickly, pale strip of untanned skin. When had he stopped wearing it? When had this weak-willed, self-doubting, bleeding-heart, pathetic, broken excuse of a fool removed the one thing that tethered Carl's respect to him?
Carl stalked away, his seething rage escaping as hissing breaths. His last thought was a vow that as soon as he was big enough to come near-even to the older man's reach and greater muscle mass, he would beat Rick to a bloody pulp.
