Author's Note: This takes off from canon after episode 4x15 "Us". Daryl's lost Beth and temporarily joined up with the group of bad guys for lack of anything better to do. Carol has been traveling with Tyreese and Mika and Lizzie are dead. Though I'm going to say Baby Judith was with someone else, not Carol and Tyreese, just for simplicity's sake. This fic is all about fluff and romance and getting Carol and Daryl together, because I'm starting to doubt the show is ever going to get around to that.

Disclaimer: In the Daryl POV scenes, the language and a lot of the content is very course, as reflects his upbringing. Trigger warning to brief discussion of sexual assault for just this chapter, nothing graphic. Fic rated M for language and later sexual content.

Chapter 1

Town was quiet, leaves sullenly motionless in the street, like corpses of summers past. Only broken windows and urgent graffiti messages left for somebody probably long since dead marked it as real and not a movie set. Or one of those dreams Daryl had where he woke up and his group was gone and he was the last one left alive, anywhere.

"I'm telling you, there's a woman around here. In that same house where the guy was hiding, there was a freshly washed shirt. A girl's shirt."

"Hell, it was probably just yours, Jimmy. You did wear that girl's hat last winter."

"It was cold. Now shut up about the fucking hat and keep your eyes peeled. You want a woman or you want me to knock your teeth all the way down into your liver?"

Daryl tuned them out. This group of guys was always jabbering, dick measuring, never had anything to say. He was starting to think he'd rather take his chances on the walkers alone than keep listening to them.

After he lost Beth, he needed a group. And this one looked like the butt-ugly face of fate itself, because that was exactly what he needed: A few days with guys like himself to straighten him out. Remind him who he was, where he came from. Wash the memory of hopeful blue eyes out of his brain, and all the times he proved her wrong. Besides, he couldn't stand his own thoughts rattling so loud around his mind anymore.

Only thing was, he wasn't keen on the idea of finding the woman they were always talking about. He didn't want to see what they'd do with one, and there were too many of them for him to start a fight he could win.

Merle always said a rough ride didn't do a girl no harm. No more than a little beat down ever harmed him. Mop up the blood, bruises disappeared after a few days. Why would girls be any different?

He never could say why they were different, but it made him feel a little sick, thinking about it.

Why would you want to fuck a girl who didn't want you, anyway? He couldn't imagine anything that'd make you feel less like a man. Like trying to be friends with somebody who thought you were dumb, or something. Make you feel worse than having no friends a'tall.

"Look, just one more lap through the streets and if we don't find her, then—"

They turned a corner and because Daryl was up front, he saw her first. It was a woman, all right. It was Carol.

The second he recognized her, some kind of white-hot frenzy blazed up from his gut. The word punched out of him like it had been there all along.

"Claim."

He'd been refusing to say that word for days but there was no hesitation in him now. Maybe he was really part of the group now, as lawless and rough as he'd always been, underneath. Beth wouldn't recognize him now, dirt black with blood under his fingernails, claiming a woman like she was half a rabbit carcass.

But even while the word still rang in the air, he realized there was an echo to it. One of the other guys said it at the same time, maybe more.

Two men stepped forward and one dropped his pack. The ugly one with the blood red speck in his right brown eye.

"Well," Joe drawled, the roses on his black shirt catching Daryl's eye as he stepped forward. "When three men lay claim at the same time, they got—"

The fire in his gut flamed up. He knew what had to be done when three men laid claim at the same time. He whipped his bow off his back, and the sturdy butt of it crashed into Ugly's windpipe. Blood sprayed and when he hit the familiar resistance of unrotted bone, he knew he'd hit hard enough. He kicked out the guy's kneecap with a disgusting snap and took him to the ground, the crossbow squashing his cheekbone, teeth spraying out across the dirt.

Daryl threw down the crossbow and took out the other cheekbone with his fist, his knuckles solid and throbbing for something more to hit. Then his brain clicked over and he remembered not to get winded because he had more of a fight still ahead of him. He bounced to his feet, keeping his back to Carol and Tyreese but not one of those shitbags had a gun raised. The rules held firm.

Daryl wiped a chunk of something wet away from his eye, staring at the other guy who'd yelled claim. That one was the tallest in the group, but he took one step back, then two, shaking his head.

"I'm going." Daryl snatched his crossbow up, his bag. Ugly was a corpse. Not just beaten, but dead, and his head messed up bad enough he wouldn't need killing twice.

He stalked toward the forest behind Carol. She had her left hand on a big, worn knife at her hip, right on a cocked gun held down at her side, but she didn't turn to go with him.

"Wait," she said.

His chin jerked up and he flipped sweaty hair back from his eyes. Didn't she know he meant for her and Tyreese to come, too? They were from the prison. From the quarry camp. She think because he was running around with these shitbags, he was their people, not hers?

Then again, he'd thought that for a minute himself.

But she was staring at him, steady like she always was, but her eyes a little wide, a little shocky. Suddenly, he could feel the grit and sweat between his palm and the trash bag he was carrying with almost nothing in it. The layers of gore painting the crossbow slung across his back with his three puny arrows in it. Maybe she didn't want to go into the forest with a dirty redneck who only had three arrows to his name.

Maybe she didn't like being claimed by the likes of him.

He almost left. Fuck, he didn't need nobody. He damn sure wasn't gonna beg a woman to camp with him. If the group behind him had been any other group of humans left in this godforsaken world, he woulda gone. But not these assholes.

He spit, because he could taste blood in his mouth and he knew it wasn't his. "Come on," he growled. She'd heard that tone from him a hundred times. She oughta know when he wasn't messing around.

"We dodged a herd, a couple hours back," she said in a low tone, just for him and Tyreese to hear. "Maybe we'd be safer traveling together, just for a little while."

His eyes bulged and he ducked his head against the shoulder of his vest. Something was dripping into his eyes. Moisture slid slimy between his face and the leather, something squishier, too. Brains. Fresher than the usual kind he had on him, too.

"You see what just happened?" he bit off. He beat a man to death in less than a minute. She think he did that for no good reason?

He started walking and she still didn't follow.

Electricity was bolting through him so fast his hair all but stood up. Tyreese took a step to go with him, then glanced at Carol and subsided, like he was her puppy or something. He didn't even have a gun, just a long-ass hammer. What were they to each other, now? How long'd they been alone in the woods together? Not only that, how'd pussy ass Tyreese find her when Daryl hadn't so much as cut her path? He'd been looking.

He'd been ready to throw down and leave the prison to haul her back, force her down Rick's throat just like he forced Merle. But then the governor came and it all went to shit.

But as soon as him and Beth had stopped running, he'd been looking. He knew how Carol walked, knew how her stride had lengthened out a few months after her husband died in that first camp. Knew how she had narrow feet and a deep, confident heel strike now. Always lifted her feet up high so she didn't ruffle the leaves and make too much noise.

And yet fucking Tyreese found her first, and now she wanted to stay with the dirtiest bunch of sons of bitches he'd seen since the end of the world.

"Fine," he spat out and kept on going.

"If you're not going to take your claim," Joe commented, "then it goes to the second in line."

He whipped around and went back for her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Carol said, and her gun started to come up.

Shit, if she even pointed that, they'd shoot her. In an arm or a leg, so they could still have their fun. He grabbed her gun arm and shook her. Hard enough to make her head snap back on her neck, the way he'd seen her husband do a dozen times.

She gasped and her eyes dilated. Just for a second, she froze up.

Daryl hadn't seen her hesitate for a long time. But he was off before she recovered, dragging her so she stumbled along behind him, that crisp heel strike lost as she struggled to keep up with his longer legs.

"Hey!" Tyreese bit out. "The fuck you think you're doing, man?" He came after him with the hammer half-raised and Daryl didn't even look up. Twenty more strides to the trees. Every inch of his back felt tender, waiting for a bullet to strike it. He didn't know how far rules applied when you left the merry little group. But he also knew how guys like this worked, and if you acted like your ass could be kicked, sure as shit it would be. So he didn't look back.

The leader shouted something after him. He shoved Carol in front of him, and adrenaline pumped so hot through his ears that he couldn't hear a thing but his own death bearing down on him, panting like a hungry mouth with breath like rotting meat and piss.

They passed the first trunk of a tree, the second. Every inch of woods closing around them another bit that could catch a bullet before their bodies did. Carol started to turn to confront him and he pushed her harder, knocking her off balance and then hauling her back up to her feet to keep her going.

"Carol?" Tyreese sounded confused now, like a kid playing a new game he didn't get.

"Move your ass," Daryl hissed, and now that he didn't have to play alpha dog, he started watching their backs. The group was still there, still out in the open. He headed toward a little drop in the hillside, and as soon as they were low enough in the streambed to be out of sight, he broke into a jog.

"Run," he said.

Carol ripped her arm out of his hand with a glare, holstered her gun, and with a quick glance at the forest, took off in the direction that gave them the most cover.

He damn near smiled. Instead, he grabbed her elbow and guided her onto the rocks of a dry stream. Up the rocks with Tyreese puffing along behind, then across a fallen log. Two logs, three, careful not to scuff the bark.

"There." He could see the tower of a town in the distance. Towns meant walkers, but they also meant asphalt. Harder to leave a trail on pavement.

"Which way was that herd?"

"South," she said.

"Moving?"

"East."

He corrected their coarse and kept running. When Carol started to lag, he went back, ripped her bag off her arms and shouldered it, pulling his crossbow around to one side.

He pushed them faster. Through the town, on the rails of a railroad track and then—yes!—a stream. He vaulted right off the bridge and into the water.

"What the hell you doing?" Tyreese burst out. "It's cold! And why we running from these guys, if you were traveling with them?"

Carol jumped down off the bridge but when he started to move, she grabbed his arm. "Claim. That's the word you said, wasn't it?" Her eyes narrowed on his face.

"Doesn't mean nothin'." He scooped some water out of the stream, splashed it over his face, his hair. Droplets ran gray and pink off his hand, so he did it again.

"The hell it doesn't." She shoved him with both fists, her knuckles planting hard into his chest. "Don't you ever lay hands on me like that again, you hear me? What's gotten into you?"

He palmed his hair out of his eyes, still smelling blood. "You wanna see who's worse, me or them? Be my guest."

She hadn't been moving and in another second, Joe would have jumped in, nullifying the claim and playing the gentleman saving the lady from a man she didn't want to go with. He liked that kind of shit. And when he was done playing the gentleman, he would have tossed her to his buddies.

Daryl's stomach clenched and the trees whirled in his vision. He hadn't ate in a long time. He should find them some food, but they needed to get hell and gone from here. That rose-shirted fucker could track and Daryl had the one thing for a hundred miles he wanted: a woman.

"You knew exactly what you were doing." She shoved him again. "Bad enough that you'd do that to a woman, Daryl Dixon, but you did it on purpose because you knew how to scare me." She planted her feet amongst the rocks of the stream. "I decide who I travel with, not you."

He took off her backpack and shoved it at her. It was heavy enough to make his arms shake, that's how weak he was. He pushed it into her chest so she wouldn't see. There were cans of food in there, he could feel 'em rolling around. His stomach cramped and he glared at her through the wet strands of hair dripping pink water into his eyes. "Decide then. Do it fast, because they've got trackers."

She stared at him. Mad, concerned, a little confused. But then she softened, like she could see something about him he was pretty sure was only in her imagination. He looked away, and slung the backpack onto his shoulder.

"Fine then. We been dicking around long enough. Let's go."

"Are they all gone, then?" she said. "Rick? Carl? Everyone from the prison?"

"I found Mika's shoe. That's all that was left of her." He stared at the water that was taking all the burn out of his sore feet and making them numb. He wanted to say he was sorry, but it wouldn't come out. Would have sounded stupid anyway.

"She didn't die by the tracks." Carol's voice went blank, and he looked up without thinking and wished he hadn't when her face twisted. "Lizzie killed her."

"Shit," he whispered. "After she turned?"

"No. Before." And Carol started to cry.

He flinched. Way down deep in his chest.

"Wasn't nothing we could have done," Tyreese said and started to climb down from the bridge. Daryl wanted to punch him just for knowing so much better what to do for a woman in a moment like this.

He reached out and patted Carol's shoulder. It was both smaller and harder than he thought it would be. He didn't know why he did it, except maybe that Tyreese was probably about to and he didn't want to see the other man touching her.

But that just made her cry harder. He snatched his hand away, but it was too late. Her shoulders crumbled and she started to shake, her sobs growing audible. A walker moving through the trees veered their way. Maybe he should go take care of that, give Carol a moment to pull herself together.

Wasn't right, her losing those kids. Not after Sophia.

She lurched forward and he caught her in one arm, not realizing until she started to squeeze that she was hugging him. He tightened his grip a little, swallowing. He was bad at hugs. Always felt too bony and his arm ended up in the wrong place, usually. But she buried her face in the leather of his vest.

"I shot her," she gasped. "I told her to look at the goddamn flowers and I shot her in the goddamn back of the head. A child. A child just like Sophia."

He put his other arm around her, his hand clasping the back of her head. "All right," he said, acknowledging it. "You did what had to be done." He remembered Merle's milky eyes, teeth opened wide as he came for his last living kin.

Tyreese moved off, hammer raised, to take care of that lone walker. And Carol didn't let go, so neither did Daryl, even though his bow was digging into his ribs and his stomach wouldn't stop growling and he'd dropped his garbage bag in the water.

He held her and she cried, and the stream swirled around both their legs until they were numb to the knees. It was the most alive he'd felt in weeks.

Author's Note: I have no idea how long this fic is going to be. I usually don't post until everything's all written, but I really want to share this one, and I've never left a fanfic unfinished in my life, so use that follow button without fear, folks. I just keep thinking of more cute moments I want to include, so I keep adding chapters.

But stick around, because Carol's big move is coming up in the next chapter, and I promise Caryl fans are going to love it.

Also, please be aware that I'm in my first watch through of the series, so I won't be aware of any details revealed after 5x01 or anything gleaned from cast interviews, as I've been avoiding those for spoiler reasons. Please don't spoiler me in your reviews on what comes later!