A/N: Okay so this one just came out of nowhere. I've always wondered what went through Carol's mind that night she spent away, all alone. I hope you enjoy it because it has put me through the wringer! Many thanks to kaoscraze82 for reading it through for me.
The Whalen Law Firm LLP
The white letters on the red brick front of the building she pulled up alongside blurred into her eyes, still sticky and hot from crying. How ironic she should end up here of all places. Where was the justice in this world? What chance did you have when people made and broke their own laws but could still persecute others for doing the same thing? Anger and devastation in equal great measures swirled in her empty stomach, fuelling a nauseous burn. She could've taken whatever Tyreese had deemed a fit punishment, wasn't like she hadn't taken a beating before. But to have Rick, her brother near enough, cast her away? It left her bereft. When she'd pulled on the handle of the car door and looked to him in uncertainty, the stony faced stranger that she met had turned her blood cold. The eventual resignation to the consequences made her feel sick.
I won't have you there.
The rough, monotone drawl of Rick's voice grated in her ears, and she subconsciously shied away from it. It was still hard to get her head around the fact it had actually happened. It had to be a bad dream. Her life before had been a nightmare, one that she couldn't seem to wake up from, slowly fading as the world around her had become its own hell. It was a sad state of affairs that the world had to end for her life to begin, but that nightmare had ended for her. She had found a family, a place where she mattered, and had responsibilities. Now though, she was right back where she started. Alone.
Wiping her sticky face with the heel of her palm, she switched the engine off and after a last cautionary look around, she got out of the car.
The panes of glass in the door glinted back at her in the daylight, giving her an unwelcome glimpse of herself. Her reflection was drawn and gaunt, worn by the day's events. She was tired. Deciding she would get her house in order and get some rest, then figure out what the hell to do, she pushed the door.
The front reception area of the Whalen building had a distinct eerie feel to it. She'd entered buildings before, but knowing she was well and truly by herself now sent a shiver up her spine. There were no signs that anybody had been here recently. She picked up a tin of pencils from the desk and tentatively rattled it. In the moments following, as she listened for that characteristic putrid growling and shuffling, her stomach somersaulted inside her. Whatever she faced now, she would have to face it alone. The monsters that roamed the streets didn't frighten her, not so much as her own company did. She knew that when night came, the monsters in her head wouldn't be silenced by blade or bullet.
She couldn't stop thinking about Lizzie and Mika, how she needed to be there for them, especially Lizzie. Aside from the promise she made to Ryan to look out for them, she was now faced with a more unsettling problem altogether. Lizzie was confused, and the more she thought about it, the harder it got to shake the feeling that it was more than just mere confusion. Something lurked behind the girl's eyes, something dark that, given just enough freedom, might descend into madness. The thought of what could happen in her absence frightened her, but nothing good could come of dwelling on things out of her control, for the time being at least.
She secured the door, pushing the front desk up against it, and worked her way between rooms, rummaging for anything that might be of use. Other than a waste bin full of empty water bottles, a few rolls of toilet paper, and a packet of birthday candles, her luck seemed to be out. There was a half empty water cooler in one of the back rooms which she used to fill a few of the bottles, so at least she wouldn't die of thirst. Yet. Tomorrow she would need to go scouting for supplies. She would stay here for a few days while she scoped the area out, until she could find somewhere better. Somewhere higher up, where she could see but not be seen. With nobody that had her back, it was all on her now to make it.
You're gonna survive out here.
She would survive, she knew that she could. Not only to quiet that resignation inside, but to prove him wrong. He could've killed her, put a bullet in her back and left her to turn out in the middle of god knows where, away from her family, away from hope. She wouldn't have put it past him. Part of her, that quiet part, wished that he had, because nothing was worse than what she'd suffered already.
Laying on her back on the sofa of the small room, with only a small birthday candle to light pages she wasn't really reading, her mind was ticking rapidly like a film reel. Everything from before the turn, every barbed comment and black eye, none of it would leave a mark on her now. The things she'd seen, the things she'd done – had to do – made her life with Ed seem like child's play. Men like him didn't scare her anymore. She had found more terror in a confused child's eyes, and in the cold click of a locked car door, than a man like Ed could give her in a lifetime.
You're not that woman who was too scared to be alone, not anymore.
Sighing in defeat, unable to break the train of thought thundering in her ears, she leaned over and blew out the candle. She closed her eyes and palmed her gun, draping her arm across her belly, breathing in the familiar smell of candle wax, allowing the pleasant scent to fool her into a calm, where everything was okay, and nothing hurt. The turn had never happened. Sophia wasn't gone. There was no Lizzie, or Mika. No monster hiding around every corner driven by sheer animalistic hunger and rage, waiting to end her with the smallest scratch or bite. She was in church with Sophia, both of them lighting a candle in prayer. She could smell the beeswax they used to rub into the shiny woodgrain of the church pews. She could smell the incense. She could smell Sophia next to her, all cookies and dirt. All of it filtered through her nose in the musky wisps from the now spent candle.
Her eyes opened, against her will, to reality. The damp stains on the ceiling above her head chased away any warmth the illusion had created, and suddenly she felt cold. It was all real. Had been real. Now she lay here alone, truly. Sophia was gone. Ed was gone too, but in that moment she could almost have wished him back if it meant she could have Sophia back too. She was better now, she wouldn't screw it up again if God would only just rewrite time and let her try.
S'a waste of time, all this hopin' and prayin'…
Daryl's words rang true in her ears, his gravel toned voice soothing the drama in her veins for a spell. He had been right, in the end. It had been a waste of time. All the while they were holed up at the farm and he'd been out, falling down ravines and half killing himself, there had been a ghost in that barn wearing her daughter's clothes. She would never get over that.
She didn't go hungry… she didn't cry herself to sleep.
Even now to touch on that notion filled her stomach with bile, and she swerved her mind away from it as she tried to settle down to sleep. She was here now, and tomorrow she would wake and have to get through another day. She would work on better securing the doors and windows, scope out the area, see if she could find any stores nearby that hadn't been cleared out completely. This was life now. It may not have been much, but it was all she was left with. What was it they called it? Survival of the fittest? She would survive. She would find others, people who didn't know what she'd done. People who didn't know her.
Was there anybody left who really knew her anyway? She thought she knew Rick. Theirs had always been a volatile relationship, her mistrust of him growing following the disappearance of Sophia in the woods, but they had managed to find a kinship at the prison that had bloomed into familial love. She'd considered him family. Lori's passing had changed him, much like she had changed. He was troubled, she knew that much. She had heard him many a time, turning and rolling restlessly in the night, his distress echoing through the cell block. The raw panic that burbled up from her gut when she'd tried the car door, only to be met with an objectionable click, was exacerbated by the uncertainty his condition filled her with. How far would he go, this man she loved like a brother, her family? It unnerved her, the realisation that there was nobody left in this world you could trust.
S'a Cherokee Rose…
This world painted masks on some, and cracked those well-worn before the turn. Daryl had hid behind his for so long, walking in the shadow of his brother, unsure of where he fitted in. He was already equipped for this world, much in the same way she was, and slowly but surely she'd seen it crack. She liked to think she'd had a small hand in that at least. Every furtive, blushing glance, every accidental brush of fingers as she'd handed over another meagre offering of breakfast, that he'd accepted always gratefully – they'd cracked and splintered away his armour and let her in. There was a softness, and a genuine sincerity in his eyes that somehow gripped her by the heart, and left her in no doubt that she knew him. Daryl was an open book. People always said he was hard to figure out, but she could see right to his soul. When she thought of Rick now, she saw a mask, with dead, doll's eyes smiling back at her. Daryl's eyes filled her with warmth, they comforted her. He couldn't hide himself from her, and it had always made her feel safe, knowing him.
A twinge of sadness pinched at her eyes and throat. Daryl. His gentle eyes, blinking, soft blue pools shining at her from underneath his overgrown hair. The sharp yet pleasant smell of engine oil and leather. The comfortable, swinging gait of his walk, tanned, strong arms, that could be soft when they needed to be. Arms that had held her, but not nearly enough. Arms that would likely never hold her again. The finality of that fact was a ton weight on her chest. Daryl was a born hunter and tracker, but the chances of him finding her now were unlikely, supposing he even chose to come after her.
Not for the first time, she thought about what she'd had to do. She would never be able to erase it from her mind – she could still smell the humid, fevered air of the prison cell, and felt the damp, searing heat of Karen's forehead on her hand. It haunted her every day, that room. The air had felt alive and rampant with disease, and her heart had banged in her ears as the seconds bled away, and the window threatened to close, forcing her hand. She didn't regret making that decision, but she regretted having to make it. She repeated a mantra to herself daily, that any one of them would have done the same thing in her shoes. It felt like she was throwing paint at a wall, trying to get it to stick, only to have it separate like oil and slide off again. The more she tried, the less she found herself believing her own words. Would they have done the same? Would he?
It was something she had tried not to think about, what he would think of what she did. What he would think of her. Her life before the turn had left no room for worrying about what people thought of her. There was only one person whose opinion counted. It changed by the hour, and often left her humiliated at best, broken at worst. An opinion founded solely on burnt bacon or a shirt that just wasn't ironed properly. Oh, to be judged on material things again. But to be judged on who she was, who she'd become... it mattered now. There was still only one person whose opinion she valued, but now he was someone who moved mountains and made her feet feel light on the ground. He swept her up out of darkness and snuffled that gruff, half-laugh across the cell at her. He was someone real, and true. Someone who deserved better.
Maybe it was for the best, Rick sending her away. She could cope with the others gawping at her in disbelief and disgust, but not him. Not Daryl. Better that she remembered him as he was, all quiet nods and blinks and touches. The way he looked at her, the way his eyes seemed to fill her up from the inside, even thinking about it now warmed her. The cold night touching her had less of a grip so long as she held on to his gaze in her mind, a gaze that had recently jumped from comfortable companionship into something different, and tender.
I thought he was right… til you found me.
That fluttering quirk of a smile, and the dip of his head as he chuckled bashfully under the tension of their conversation, had her mouth barely twitching upward at the corners. What she wouldn't give for him to come find her now. Rick was right; she wasn't afraid to be alone anymore. But she'd always known she could go off on her own and come back again, and know Daryl was there. To lose that safety… For the first time in a long time, she was alone, and she was afraid.
She held on to Daryl's soft gaze for as long as she could, tracing every line and contour of his face, willing herself to memorise it, and never forget. The comfort it brought lulled her into a dreamless sleep.
Daylight came around later than usual. The overcast glare of noon clawed her out of her deep sleep. Having given her watch to Rick, she had no way of knowing the exact time of day other than looking out of the window, but it definitely felt late. Her eyes still felt heavy with sleep, and a hazy lethargy lingered in her muscles. Back at the prison, she'd have been up and about for hours already. Preparing breakfast, organising the morning chores, tending Judith some mornings to give Rick a lie in. Keeping busy made short work of the day, but now she didn't have an entire community to look after, the hours were going to pass with agonising sluggishness. Part of her considered giving in and wallowing on her sofa of self-pity all day, but where would it get her in the grand scheme of things? She hadn't come this far, through the turn and everything that came afterwards, to just give up now. She had to get up, and make some sort of a routine to help her get through the day.
Phantom sounds rang in her ears. The reverberating echoing of iron as someone, usually Lizzie or Mika, rattled the door to the cell block as they chased each other like lion cubs through the corridors. The pleasant morning chatter outside as meat sizzled on the makeshift stove in the breakfast area. The clomp of boots on gridiron stairs. The gentle snuff of bashful dismissal as Daryl played down her daily teasing. They all whispered in her ears like she was hearing them right now. She shifted on to her side, sliding her arm under her, knowing it wouldn't be comfortable for long, but needing to take the pressure off her aching back for just a minute.
A minute turned into ten minutes, which turned into twenty. She lay staring at the burnt wick on the candle, adrift in her thoughts. Replaying every thought she'd picked apart last night, like she could sift out something she'd missed, something that would burn away the self-doubt that was starting to spread inside her like mould. But nothing she dredged up made her feel any better.
Her autopilot took over and got her up out of her slump on numb, aching shoulders. She sparingly poured some water to wake herself up and began her day by tidying the room she'd slept in, like she would have tidied her cell back at the prison. Some things changed, but she was determined to hold on to something that at least felt like her. This world changed you, she had no doubt of that; she was proof of it. But she wasn't going to let it take all of her.
She remembered seeing on one of those survivalist shows Ed used to watch, about how you could collect dew using a plastic bag, when drinking water was scarce. There was enough water there for a few days maybe, and with things as uncertain as they were, it would have been foolish not to utilise all of her knowledge, no matter how useless it sounded. Maybe it would rain too, she thought, casting a deductive eye towards the sky.
Between the buildings across the street, a plume of black smoke rose up behind the electricity lines, drifting slightly to the left. It was rising slowly, but with just enough ferocity that she knew it was a big fire. She hadn't driven very far after Rick had sent her away. The horrible possibility took a fraction of a second to drive home and twist into her like a knife, before she was spinning away from the window, driven by one purpose. Rick may have turned his back on her, but that was one part of herself she didn't want to give up just yet. Her family needed her, and no matter what happened next, she would help them, or die trying.
Nobody could make it alone anymore.