A/N - Hey! So this is my very first foray into Caryl fanfic, so please be nice!

This will be a two parter: part 1 (Seven Days) from Daryl's perspective, and part 2 (Seven Nights) from Carol's.

This takes place after the season 6 finale, so... yeah, heed the warning for a major character death. I hope I'm wrong. I really do.

Anyway, thank you all for reading, thank you all for your never ending patience as I begin yet another WIP, and please do hit that review button. Cheers all!

Day 1

A fluorescent strip light hung over head, burning his eyes with its bright glare, but even with the discomfort of staring at something so dazzlingly intense, Daryl could still make out the bodies of several flies that had crawled inside the casing and not found a way out. It was their tomb. This place would be his too.

Several unknown people were crowded around him, but he was barely able to keep his eyes open. How long had it been since that bullet had pierced him? How long did it take to die?

A male voice, oddly familiar although he could not quite place who it belonged to, said, "Daryl?"

The pain in his shoulder reached an unbearable peak, and everything turned to blackness.

Day 2

He slowly opened his eyes, groaning and closing them again in protest against the bright sunlight that blinded him. There was a merciless throbbing in his shoulder, but for why, he couldn't remember.

He rolled onto his side, away from the mysterious pain. Opening his eyes once more, he was struck by a terrifying realisation. Wherever he was, this was not Alexandria. In an instant everything came flooding back to him. That fucking asshole—Dwight— shooting him at point blank range. Being locked up. Michonne, Rosita, and Glenn doing everything they could to stop the bleeding. For a moment his heart seemed to stop beating as the world came crashing down around him. Glenn… He could see as clear as day that maniac, Negan, parading in front of them all, playing his little game to choose which one of them would die. And he had finally come to rest in front of Glenn. Daryl could remember Maggie's dreadful, blood-curdling scream, together with the first sickening crunch from Negan's bat. And then nothing else. Waking up here… wherever 'here' was….

There wasn't much to see in the small room he found himself in. What looked like an old gym mat had been serving him as a bed, while a couple of plastic chairs sat in one corner. A small wooden writing desk was placed next to his makeshift bed, and a small window, through which the dazzling sunlight was streaming, was cracked and barred.

He wasn't at home. He knew that much. There could only be one explanation. He must have been taken back to Negan's camp. He had to get out, immediately, before they knew that he was awake.

Steeling himself with several deep breaths, he forced himself up off the ground and to his feet. A rush of blood to his head coupled with a severe stabbing pain in his shoulder, and his legs gave way underneath him. The resultant crash into the writing desk was enough to alert the whole compound, and he cursed silently as he tried to clamber his way back to standing.

Outside in the hallway, he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching. He was in no state to fight anyone by hand—especially unarmed—but he'd be damned if he was just going to stand there and not at least try to take some of them down with him.

Adrenaline coursed through his veins as the door opened, and he got the first swing in straight away, knocking a burly guy with neatly trimmed grey hair onto his ass. He drew back again as two more men entered the room; these two were both lanky and wiry, barely older than about 20. The first fell from a hook to the jaw, the second doubled up after a swift kick to the stomach.

"Daryl, stop this!" said a woman's voice, and he looked up to see a blond woman with glasses standing before him. For a split second he thought it was Denise, and he paused in his attack, but the memory of her death came back to him as well. With a guttural growl, he launched himself at her. "Someone restrain him!" she cried, as a pair of strong arms caught him from behind and pinned his arms to his side. "Careful," she said, raising a syringe. "We don't want that wound to open up again."

It briefly occurred to him as the needle pricked the crook of his arm that there was no animosity in her tone. Moments later, sleep took him once more.

Day 3

It was a dull, overcast day when he next awoke, and his head was swimming. The pain in his shoulder seemed muted somehow; more like the memory of an injury, or perhaps the promise of a recovery.

He slowly blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and tried to shake his drug-addled body awake, when he became aware of another presence in the room. Merle was squatting beside him on the end of his gym-mat bed, a gaping bullet wound in his stomach.

Daryl stared at the injury, wondering if he should bother telling Merle about it. A shot like that would kill him if he didn't get it seen to by a doctor, after all… But, Daryl reasoned, it was a big enough injury that Merle would surely have already noticed it himself. He didn't want to piss his older brother off by stating the obvious.

"What do you want?" mumbled Daryl, tearing his eyes away from the bloody mass at his brother's stomach, and looking him defiantly in the face instead.

"Just checkin' in on my baby brother," smirked Merle, leaning over and mockingly patting him on his wounded shoulder. Strangely, the added pressure didn't seem to affect him at all. "Makin' sure you're doin' as shit as ever."

Daryl shrugged his brother away, and felt a vague stab of annoyance at the trail of blood that Merle left on the bed. Fucking dick. He'd probably make Daryl clean it up, as well.

"Get lost."

"Lost? Well, now, it seems to me that I aint the one that's lost. That falls on you, brother."

"I aint lost."

"No? Well aint that funny, 'cause it sure as shit looks that way to me. You alone. You got no one. All a them friends a yours left you to these pricks. I'd place damn good money that you gonna end up like him next."

"What're you talkin' about?" Daryl asked.

Merle nodded over his shoulder and shifted to one side, giving Daryl a clear view of the waking nightmare that was sat in one of the plastic chairs. Glenn was watching him, his face covered in blood. The top of his skull was smashed in, gore falling from the exposed hole.

"You did this to me," he spat, standing suddenly and taking a step closer. A gentle drip sounded as blood ran from the terrible wound, down his arms, and fell from his finger tips to pool on the floor around his feet.

"No…"

"Yeah you did. We told you to go back. We needed a plan. You kept going. We were caught because of you."

"I didn't—"

"I'll tell what you didn't do. You didn't think. You were so desperate for revenge that you run out after these psychos without any idea of what you were getting into. What you were getting us into. And look where it's landed us."

The burden of guilt weighed heavily on his chest, a dreadful leaden pressure that threatened to suffocate him. "It's not my fault," he eventually choked out. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault?" repeated Glenn. "You're sorry? Sure, because you being sorry is exactly what's going to solve this, isn't it?" He pointed savagely at the terrible and gory wound. "Saying 'sorry' won't mean that my kid grows up with both a mom and a dad. You should have run away with your brother and not come back. We were better off without you."

It was a huge blow to his stomach, but Glenn was right. None of them needed him. Not like he needed them. Not like he needed one of them in particular…

As though he could hear Daryl's deepest insecurities, Glenn started to laugh; it was a vicious, humorless sound, something he had never heard coming from the kid before. "You need to stop deluding yourself. You think a woman like her is ever going to want someone like you? She'll fall for someone nice, someone normal, someone at Alexandria who actually deserves her. Tobin's been paying her a lot of attention lately. Maybe him?"

A large chunk of broken bone and brain slid onto the floor, and Daryl couldn't help but stare at it, as he realised that what Glenn was saying was right. She deserved someone whole. She deserved someone who could give her a happy, ordinary life. That person wasn't him, no matter how much it hurt to admit it.

But the more he stared at the dreadful gore, the more something about the whole conversation seemed wrong to him, but it was impossible to work out precisely what. His head was foggy and his limbs heavy, but with a creeping horror it dawned on him that he was still unarmed. Merle and Glenn had both suffered grave injuries; they'd surely die without medical attention, and he had nothing to stop them turning…

But then again… Glenn's head was already smashed in. This in itself was strange. How was he walking around if his head was smashed in?

"You aint real," he said with a huge sigh of relief, as the realisation that this was some drug-induced hallucination finally hit him, and he turned away and rested his head back down on his pillow.

Merle was still perched on the bed, and now there was a knife wound in his brother's forehead as well. "I dunno, baby brother. He seems pretty real to me."

"You aint real," he repeated more forcefully, as he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the constant drip drip of blood coming from his former friend lurking in the shadows.

Day 4

Merle was gone. Glenn was gone. The blonde woman he had assumed to be Denise— a doctor by the name of Sarah— had checked in on him a couple of times. Told him he had been brought to a place called Kingdom to recuperate. That they were on his side. That Negan had taken from them too. And they told him that while he was full of a cocktail of antibiotics and painkillers, it'd be best not to attempt any more sudden breakouts.

'Kingdom,' he had thought savagely. 'Buncha fuckin' idiots.' They were all the same. Kingdoms, Saviors, Governors… Just a bunch of self-righteous assholes giving themselves more power than they deserved.

The burly guy he had punched came in sporting a black eye, and leant into Sarah's ear. Daryl heard him whispering something that sounded like, 'the woman from Alexandria is awake.'

"Who?" demanded Daryl.

Instead of answering, Sarah raised an eyebrow and said to the other guy, "She lost a lot of blood, but she's clearly a fighter, that one."

"Who is it?" he demanded once again, but they left his bedside. He wanted to follow but his head swam mercilessly and as soon as he tried to sit up straight, he felt at risk of fainting, and so lay back against his pillow.

What had happened after he had blacked out? Where were the others? Who else had been brought here and with what injuries? Whoever it was had lost a lot of blood… Maggie, perhaps? Had the stress of losing Glenn caused her to lose the baby?

Another innocent dead, and more blood on his hands…

He rolled over onto his side, wanting to forget the world in a deep sleep but knowing that it would elude him. Worrying that if he did manage to sleep, he'd probably get another visit from Glenn, telling him he wasn't good enough to be part of this family.

A memory of being gravely injured and lying in a warm, comfortable bed, while Carol stayed near him came back to him. She had told him then that he was every bit as good as any of the others, but how could he be? When his poor judgment had gotten people killed, and put his people in danger?

He wondered what she would say to him if she were here now. Would she still say that he was good enough? Would she even care? They'd drifted so far apart from each other since arriving in Alexandria, since she was finally able to live the life of comfort she deserved. The vision he'd had of Glenn was right. What good was some redneck piece of trash to a woman like that?

When sleep finally took hold of him, it was troubled and restless, and he spent the whole night chasing Carol through the woods as she ran from him, always in sight, but never quite able to reach her.

Day 5

The grey dawn sky was visible through his window, and heavy clouds rolled in over the horizon. He thought he could hear the distant rumble of thunder, a sound that vaguely echoed in the throbbing pain in his shoulder.

There had been a nagging feeling in his stomach that had woken him up before the sun had even begun to rise. He needed to know who from Alexandria had ended up here alongside him, and as soon as he heard the sound of low conversation and people walking past outside his room, he had forced himself up and out of bed.

After leaving his room, he walked down a corridor, with several doors going off to either side. Wherever this place, this Kingdom was, it looked like a school, and it made him strangely uncomfortable. Thankfully it didn't take him long to see a familiar face; Morgan was talking to the doctor. Daryl shook his head slightly. Were the pain killers still having that much of an effect on his mind? He had no recollection of Morgan being held captive by Negan. None whatsoever. So what was he doing here?

As Daryl approached, Morgan looked up and excused himself from the blonde doctor's company. "It's good to see you awake," he said, as he walked towards Daryl. "It was touch and go for a while, but—"

"What the hell's goin' on?" interrupted Daryl.

"Haven't they told you anything?" asked Morgan.

"Nothin'"

Morgan ran a hand over his chin and nodded slowly. "Ok," he said at last. "You want to sit down?"

"Just tell me what's goin' on."

"I only know part of it. I arrived here about five days ago, and not long after, you turned up, unconscious, with a group of men who were armed to the teeth. They dumped you at the gates with instructions to fix you."

"Who else was with me?"

"None of our people. The people here at Kingdom thought you were one of Negan's men until I told them otherwise. They said you were lucky to be alive if that was the case; apparently killing someone in a group is their standard form of greeting."

The horrifying image of Glenn swam in his vision for a moment, and Daryl put an arm out to the wall to steady himself. "Why are you here? And who else is here? I heard them sayin' somethin' about a woman from Alexandria."

Morgan swallowed apprehensively, and Daryl felt a dreadful sinking feeling at the look on his face. "Carol was brought here," he said. "She's fine," he quickly added, holding his hands up placatingly at the sight of Daryl's obvious panic. "She'll be fine. And now you're both awake, I plan to head back home. Let them know you're ok. The people here told me about Negan, about what he does. I'll help them out at Alexandria and as soon as we're able, I'll send a car here to collect you both. Bring you home."

"Where is she?" he demanded. "We're comin' with you."

Morgan shook his head. "You're not strong enough for the journey yet. Neither of you are. The people here are good people. You'll be ok here for now."

Daryl took a step closer towards him, as anger and fear bubbled up inside him. "Where is she?" he repeated in a low, dangerous voice.

"End of the corridor. Last door on the right."

He didn't need to be told twice, and barged directly past Morgan, not bothering to apologize for nearly knocking the other man to the ground.

The room was a little larger than his own, with a similar set up. An old gym mat in the corner for a bed. Three or four plastic chairs stacked in an opposite corner. A wooden writing desk. But by far the most eye-catching part of the room was its sole occupant. She was sat on the windowsill, gazing outdoors, one finger tracing the contours of her bottom lip, while she lightly held the crucifix about her neck with her other hand. She was entirely lost in thought and did not notice Daryl stood in the doorway.

No one in his life had ever had such a profound effect on him. She took his breath away, and he felt that he would be happy to just drink in the sight of her safe and sound for the rest of his life. Typical that it had taken the end of the world for him to make a connection with another human being.

But the mere sight of her, while it was enough to somehow simultaneously elevate his heart rate, and leave him feeling calm and at peace, did not answer the question of how she too had come to be so far away from home. For a brief moment he wondered if he was hallucinating again. There was no way, absolutely no way at all, that she should be here.

"Hey," he said, taking a tentative step inside the room.

She turned suddenly as if spooked, and as soon as she met his gaze a plethora of raw emotions crossed her face, each one matching something inside him. But after just a second's pause, her blue eyes turned cold and hard, and she turned back to face the window. "Go home, Daryl," she said in a dead voice.

"What is this shit?" he responded, taking another step closer.

"I said go home," she repeated in a firmer tone. "I don't want you here. Leave me."

"I aint goin' nowhere without you."

A look of absolute inner pain crossed her face, and Daryl took a large stride towards her, no longer caring why or how she came to be in this place. It only mattered that she was hurting, and that he could put a stop to it.

"Don't you dare come any closer to me, Daryl Dixon," she spat, the pain on her face turning angrier. "I don't know how you found me, but you shouldn't have come. I don't want you here."

A wave of furious hurt welled up in his chest, and powerless to cope with the emotion he turned on his heels, wanting at that moment to be anywhere else in the world. It didn't matter where; just as long as he could pretend that she hadn't just spoken to him that way. As he left Carol's room, his anger exploded out from him and he hit the doorway to release some of the pent up fury.

Big mistake. The movement and impact sent a spike of pain directly to his wounded shoulder, and he grunted at the sudden agonizing pang. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Carol make a movement as if she were about to approach him, and he could hear her sharp intake of breath. He flashed her a look as if to challenge her to come to him, and the sadness and worry in her eyes drained away, to be replaced once again by cold indifference. She returned to her silent vigil at the window, as he took his wounded pride and aching heart and stalked back to his own room.

He lay back on the makeshift bed, staring at the ceiling, and stayed completely still until he lost track of time. Long shadows began to creep their way across the room, reaching out like skeletal fingers, covering everything with a layer of darkness until there was no light left. Turmoil raged in his heart and mind over the altercation he and Carol had had. He still had no idea how she and Morgan had come to be so far away from the safe haven of their home. Morgan had left, Carol refused to speak to him, and he refused to speak to the self-righteous pricks roaming around Kingdom. As such, there was no one to ask. But whatever had brought her here, he seemed to be the last person that she had wanted to see.

What had he done to drive her away? Only a couple of months ago, he had dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, she might have feelings for him that echoed the ones he secretly harbored for her. He would never, ever admit how he felt. It had taken him nearly two years to admit it to himself, and the fear of the humiliation of rejection… He felt that he'd rather face a room of a hundred walkers than the possibility of having her know and turn him away.

So for her to speak to him like that, for her to tell him that she didn't want him here, to shout at him not to come any closer when all he had wanted was to hold her, to have her hold him…it was too much.

From outside his room, he heard the sound of raised voices, and could swear he heard someone say, "King Ezekiel's returned!" He rolled onto his good side, his patience with these people diminishing even further. A fucking self-proclaimed king, no less. Just one more idiot to avoid until he could convince Carol to return to Alexandria with him.

Day 6

The man who had declared himself king tried to introduce himself to Daryl the following day. However, the bullet wound in Daryl's shoulder was giving him far more grief than the doctors had hoped, and he was once again dosed up to his eyeballs on painkillers. He had never been more grateful to have been shot, and the strange, exuberant man did not stick around for long.

While the strange mix of drugs prevented one unwanted visitor from talking to him, it opened the door for another. Even with his eyes closed, Daryl could see Glenn staring at him accusingly. Sometimes as the fresh-faced young kid he'd first met at the quarry in Atlanta. Sometimes as the man he'd grown into. More and more often as the bloodied corpse he'd ended up as. Over and over, Daryl had been reliving the terrible events of the past week that all began with Denise being killed by his own crossbow bolt. She was dead because of him, because he'd spared that son of bitch, Dwight. And Glenn was dead because he couldn't finish what he'd started. Their blood was on his hands. And Tara's grief, and Maggie's tears, and her baby growing up without a father… His fault. All of it.

"They told me you'd been shot."

The sound of her voice jolted him from his melancholy. His eyes flew open, and he sat up on the gym mat, immediately leaning his back against the cold, hard wall in order to look up at her. Tears streaked her pale face, and her eyes were red rimmed, but it was an enormous relief to see that she was no longer looking on him with anger.

In place of a 'yes' he gave a brief jerk of his head.

"You ok?" she asked him, to which he replied with a non-committal grunt. She nodded and began to walk back down the hall, and Daryl couldn't help but notice that she was limping very slightly.

"What happened to you?" he called out after her.

"Also shot," she replied, with half a glance back over her shoulder.

"You ok?"

She turned to face him fully, a tight, sad smile on her face, and her eyes were shining once again. "No," she said.

The sight of her pain and sadness caused his heart to shatter, and he clambered shakily to his feet, determined to do something—anything—to ease it for her.

"Don't," she said, before he could get any closer. "Please, just… don't. If I let you get closer I'll— "

She stopped herself from talking and looked away, wiping the tears that fell on the back of her sleeve.

A thousand words ran through his mind as he fought to find the right thing to say. A tiny voice in his mind wanted to confess everything to her, and for a split second he allowed himself the fantasy that she would open her arms to him. He pushed the image away.

"I don' know what's goin' on with ya," he began, "but you aint alone."

"I have to be, Daryl."

"So what you sayin'? You leaving?"

"Not right now," she said. "But when I'm well enough, yes."

"Why?"

She paused for a moment, then stood before him and placed a feather-light kiss on his cheek. "Don't make me say why," she said, before she wiped her eyes once more. The darkness under her eyes betrayed her exhaustion, and she swayed slightly on the spot. He put a hand out to steady her, but she shrugged him away. "Don't," she repeated, and her exhaustion seemed to increase tenfold. "I need to rest, and I'm telling you now, please, don't follow me." Without looking back, she walked away from him, leaving him stricken.

Day 7

Sleep had entirely eluded him. That he had allowed her to walk away without any explanation yet again of why she had come to be so far away from home, how she had gotten injured and ended up here, left him feeling hollow. But she had told him not to follow her and no matter what her request, he couldn't say no to her.

Rain spattered against the window in a never ending, syncopated rhythm; huge droplets hammered hard against the pain, only to be replaced seconds later by a faint drizzle as light as a whisper. Moments later the wind picked up, and the rain got heavier once again. It was hypnotic, and helped Daryl clear his mind enough to for his resolve to form. He would talk to her today, and he would not let her push him away again.

Very slowly, the sun crept across the sky in its never ending arc, staying hidden behind the clouds, but as it did so the grey light in his room turned brighter, until he could no longer wait.

She was alone in her room, sat on the edge of her makeshift bed, her arms around her knees. In silence, he sat down beside her and waited for her to speak first.

The minutes dragged on, but for her Daryl was nothing if not patient. Eventually she lifted her head and said, "Why are you here?"

"I could ask the same thing of you."

"I asked first."

Daryl shrugged. "I didn't have no say in it."

"Likewise," she answered.

He glanced sideways at her—at the pain she was masking—and waited another few minutes. "You gonna tell me what's really happenin'?"

Her head fell forward onto her knees once more. "I can't do this anymore."

"Do what?"

She lifted her head once more but still refused to look at him. "I've done so many terrible things. And I didn't do them for me. It wasn't out of any sense of self-preservation. I did them for you. For all of you. And I won't. I won't do it anymore. And if I stay, I'll continue hurting people. So I'm going, Daryl. You can't stop me."

"Like hell, I can't!" he said.

"As soon as I'm well enough, I'm going to leave."

"So what?" he spat. "So you can get shot again?"

"If it happens, so be it," she shrugged, her eyes shining.

"You can't leave us! You can't leave…" he paused. He had been on the brink of saying 'me.'

She looked at him almost expectantly, and for a moment he wondered if she had hoped for him to say that one word, the word that would confirm his feelings. But he was a coward, and very soon the moment passed. She was slipping through his fingers, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

"We gotta stick together," he said. "There's bad people out there, and we—"

"How do you know it's not us that's bad? I've lost count of how many people I've killed. And… I've said and done things that…." Her breath hitched in her throat, and she fell forward once again.

He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. "We aint bad," he said.

"You're wrong," she said, shrugging him away. "I know we are."

A terrible fury rose in his chest at her words; it had been bubbling under the surface of his emotions for a week but now it erupted with full force.

"You don't know shit! You think we're the bad ones, huh? You wanna know what I seen? What I been keepin' from ya? Glenn's dead. That group of fuckin' maniacs out there, the ones that kidnapped you and Maggie? They shot me, and they killed Glenn. No, fuck that. That didn't kill him. They fuckin' destroyed him. I had ta watch as that kid had his fuckin' head smashed to nothin' in front of us all, and you think you had it hard because you were killin' people like that to protect us? I shoulda done more. If I'd'a killed more of them, Glenn'd still be alive. That shit's on me, and on me alone."

Carol stared at him in disbelief. Several silent tears rolled down her cheeks. "Glenn?" she said quietly.

He nodded, and her shaking hands covered her mouth as if she was fighting to hold in the terrible grief.

"I… I'm sorry," she said eventually, and she opened her arms to him. His head fell against her shoulder as she wrapped him in the safety of her arms, and a tidal wave of grief poured from him.

Each racking breath was a catharsis; each stinging tear lessened the terrible, burning pain in his heart. Nothing mattered anymore. All that mattered was that against all odds, against every last piece of shit stacked against them, he had found her again. And this time, he wasn't going to let her go. No matter what.

By the time his breathing returned to normal, he had lost all track of time. He sat up and dried his eyes on the back of his hands.

"So," he said, as soon as he trusted his own voice not to crack. "You're comin' back with me, right?"

"No, Daryl," she said after the briefest of pauses. "This doesn't change anything."

"Yeah, it does."

"I won't go back," she said.

The words cut him deeper than any knife. But after everything he'd been through, he wasn't about to give up now. "Fine," he said, settling back on the gym mat. "Then it looks like I'm stayin' here too."

"You can't do this, Daryl," she said.

"Well, get used to it. I aint goin' nowhere."