Her rage begs to seethe to the surface but now isn't the time. It's only been two days since the van broke down. They're out in the open, wounded, dehydrated, half-starved. A rib on the left side creaks when she moves too quickly, sending spasms of pain up her side and making her breath hitch.
Carol has to conserve her strength.
She shuffles forward with her rifle digging into the skin of her shoulder, her feet chafing in her boots. Sweat amasses on her brow and the sections of clothing around her neck.
They barely take breaks. It's just walking and more walking.
In a way, the beat of the pavement beneath her heels is comforting. She isn't sedentary in her grief as she was with Sofia.
"Smells like salt," Noah says, as they shuffle forward. It's midday and the sun pelts their shoulders, the back of their heads. It settles in a dense haze over the concrete. "Like we're close to the ocean or something. Don't you think?"
Carol rubs her lips together.
She does not know these people. Abraham, Rosita, Tara, Eugene, Noah, Father Gabriel. They feel as alien to her as suddenly not having Tyreese lumbering along the path with her, as foreign as not hearing Beth sing over the firelight.
"I don't think this road veers too close to the ocean," she replies.
He looks down at his shoes, limping along. Looking sad. She wonders if it's grief or exhaustion or maybe something else. Maybe it's the memory of Tyreese and his bloody stump, of the sweat that stuck to his tired body, turning his beautiful skin an ashen grey.
"But," she says, as light sounding as she can manage, "maybe we'll come across a tributary. A river or something."
She keeps looking forward at the road, moving one foot in front of the other. It's all any of them can do right now. They're all hurting for someone.
Carol misses Tyreese in a way she never thought she would. His presence enveloped her in one of the darkest times in her life. It urged her to go. Don't you ever be ashamed of who you are, Carol. Who else would say that to her? Who else would look at her at all and pry back the wall enough to see what she was actually feeling?
"Maybe you're right," Noah says. His gaze has receded, somewhere within himself, and she feels it's her duty to bring him back. It is her duty to bring them all back.
What a heavy burden it is.
"I don't know. I was just thinking it might be nice to see the water."
Carol reaches out and touches his shoulder. The child she almost shot down in an overpass two weeks ago. How different she was then, so lost in her own grief she couldn't find direction. At least right now she knows where she stands. She recognizes her place in the group, even if she doesn't always like it. "That's a great idea," she says finally. "I haven't seen the ocean in years."
She squeezes the muscles in his shoulder and tries not to wince at how scrawny they feel.
Carol aches for Maggie and Sasha. At different points throughout the day, she feels desperate to wrap her arms around them and bring them close to her, as if that could keep them safe from the world, even though it won't.
(She understands that now.)
Seeing Daryl is something different. It hurts her to see him so upset but at the same time, something deep within her festers at his actions. He keeps leaving the group. Flitting into the dense greenery like it can cause some respite like they, the group, are the cause of his pain.
It's the green that's made you like this, she wants to tell him. It's living in this world. You have to temper and sustain.
How ridiculous that she should be thinking this about him and not the other way around.
"Goin' for water," he says one afternoon. It's day three since the van broke down. Storms clouds plague them but so far no moisture has dropped. It's just the lot of them and their sweat and stink. They're all so dehydrated.
"May I come with?"
Daryl catches her gaze, looks away. Then he gives a faint nod in her direction as approval.
Carol immediately shifts her rifle forward, following Daryl into a thicket of lanky sourwood trees, their leaves so light they look white in the midday glare. Undergrowth rises around her once they step off the road and then it's just silent. The smell here is of pungent pine needles and hot earth.
"You heard water nearby?" she asks.
He grunts. "Nah."
Irritation bubbles in her stomach. He's been vague like this since they buried Beth. And while she understands, wants him to heal, she also can't bear to watch him carry on like this much longer. The group needs him. Doesn't he understand? She couldn't grieve Mika and Lizzie because Tyreese and Judith needed her.
He turns to look at her. "Why'd you come?"
"Keep an eye on you."
"Ain't gotta," he grunts. "Can keep an eye on my damn self."
Carol bites her tongue. "Because I care about you, then."
Daryl keeps walking but his shoulders are stiff. He stomps over yellowing grass and clumps of dirt. She waits for him to say something but he doesn't and soon she hears the unmistakable sound of running water. She hurries to catch up with him.
"You hear that?"
He puts his hand on her forearm to slow her, then stops. His eyes scan the area but there's nothing here. It's just the trees and the quiet, the sun falling around them.
His skin is burning up. He's sweating but not like he should be in the midday heat, meaning he's terribly dehydrated. His skin, red, seems swollen over his body. He keeps his hand on her forearm for several seconds before removing it and pushing forward towards the sound.
"Might be salt water," he grunts. "Off the Atlantic or somethin'."
They press forward through a thicket of bushes to find a small stream digging through the center of a sandy lake bed. The water is some of the clearest they've seen in weeks, even though the sand is an aggressive tan-orange color, so unlike the darker grains she's used to.
Carol moves forward with her water bottle and a makeshift filter. There is little salinity in the water, making it good for drinking. It smells clean and fresh in a way the outdoors has not smelled to her in months.
Daryl sits down in the sand next to her but makes no move to fill his own bottle. He just sits, his arms resting over his knees, looking out into nothing.
"Fill up," Carol commands.
He looks at her, looks away.
Fury rises in her chest. She tries to remind herself that he's grieving but sometimes she can't take it. I'm sitting right here, she wants to scream at him. Don't you dare ignore me. "If not for yourself, then for Carl or Judith."
He seems to think on this for a second before leaning forward and starting the process for his own bottle. As he works, she spots a cut on his forearm, long and jagged, that's dried with blood. Not very deep but concerning. She frowns at it. "Barbed wire fence," he says. "Nothin' to worry 'bout."
She fills two bottles and puts them down on the sand. Then she takes his injured arm and starts washing it off in the water. The blood's mixed with the hair on his arm and he grunts, grimacing as she scrubs. Hard. She washes away all the grime and dried blood, then takes out a small tube of eucalyptus oil she pilfered from Grady and starts rubbing the balm on his wound.
"You don't gotta," he says.
"If I don't, who will?"
He licks his lips. "It ain't always on you."
The back of her throat burns. She finishes with the eucalyptus and rinses her hands in the stream, then brings them up to wipe some of the dirt from her own face and neck. It feels good. The water on her skin catches a soft breeze, cooling.
After a moment, she turns and does the same to Daryl. Lines of grime run down his skin. Grit, grey colored and heavy with old sweat, rolls in droplets down his neck and into the collar of his shirt. He doesn't say or do anything. His eyes just focus on her—first her face, then her bust, then shifting off into that nowhere place, and he leans into her, his hands clutching her hips.
Carol gets flashes of the grove in unexpected places. Sometimes, in the moments before sleep, she smells pecans and brown sugar roasting. She dreams of the tea-kettle whistling and the way the blood clung to Mika's shirt so heavy and spreading. She wakes to the smell of smoke and the sound of Lizzie's laughter as her cowboy boots crunched over the frail autumn grass.
Fuck the way it was.
But this is something she can't let go.
One of the storms that's been dogging them finally breaks about fifty miles south of DC. The storm clouds collect in dense plumes and thunder shakes the tips of the trees, riling small cries from baby Judith. Carl can't get her to calm down or stop fussing, and when the fat droplets of rain begin to fall, he does a poor job of keeping her dry, too.
With a sigh, Carol goes over to the boy and removes the baby blanket from his hands. She swaddles the growing child in it so the fabric clings tight, and then brings the girl to her chest, bouncing slightly. Judy's cries soften until she's mewling softly into the skin of Carol's chest.
"'S a barn a ways off," Daryl says, shouting to be heard over the booms.
Rick nods at them and signals for him to lead the way. But before they move off, Daryl stops to look at her. He glances down at the baby, then back to Carol's face. In one swift movement he takes off his leather vest and drapes it around the child, over the blanket. The thick leather completely encases her, keeping the now stinging droplets of storm water from reaching the blanket. Keeping her dry.
Carol's heart swells.
But she's not quick enough to express her gratitude and Daryl goes barreling off again, leading them into the woods.
They move forward at a dizzying pace. Rain pelts the ground, making it hard to see. The water's cold, burns her skin. She's near the end of the line the group's made with no one but Abraham behind her. He stays close, and even though she doesn't know him, it reassures her. His presence is unflinching in a way Daryl's isn't.
Abe is like her—he sees what needs to be done and does it. No time for second thoughts.
She respects him for this.
They stumble over roots and onto an overgrown back road that leads to a small barn. Rick, Daryl, and Maggie clear it and then they're inside. No more rain but it's hard to see. The darkness compounds around her. Judith's blanket is damp and will need to be dried as soon as possible, so she gives the girl back to Carl and starts working on a fire.
Once it's lit, the Atlanta crew plus Michonne gathers around. Daryl's pushed back into the shadows so she can barely see his face. Abraham and his crew are asleep in the rafters along with Maggie and Sasha, where it's safe.
Firelight dances across the wooden floor, littered with dust and dirt and stray tubes of straw, now withered and dry.
"Will you take her?" Carl asks, holding Judith out. The boy's eyes are lidded with sleep. "She's so squirmy. I don't know how to get her to be quiet."
"She's just riled."
Carl gives her a look and it occurs to her then that the boy is riled, too. A baby taking care of a baby. She reaches out and takes the girl, bouncing her on a knee. The child hiccups out a few cries, babbling. Her small lips purse together as she eyes the building around her. Carol rubs the girl's back, humming softly to her.
In time, the wails quiet. Her body stops fidgeting so much. But Carol doesn't feel like holding Judy all night tonight. It's nothing mean spirited but sometimes the innocence in this girl's sweet face is too much. You're either Mika or Lizzie in this world and either way, you're dead.
"Lie down," she tells Carl.
The boy looks up at her, questioning. He is softer now than he was at the prison. More pliant.
"Back a little from the fire," she instructs. And he follows her directions, curling his body up next to his father's so the flames flicker across his pale cheeks. "Here," she says, and tucks Judith into him. His body heat and those small flames will keep the baby warm.
Satisfied, she leans back against the wall. The straw scent lingers thick and for a moment she can almost pretend they are back at Hershel's farm, sleeping in tents with the laundry fluttering on a string and the smell of the horses drifting in the hot Georgia air.
She wakes up in the middle of the night and the doors to the barn are rattling from the wind. The rest of the space is quiet. Glenn's gone off to the rafters to be with Maggie and Michonne's lain next to Carl and Rick. They make a nice looking group.
The fire's out.
White ash flakes the pit. At least Judy's blanket is dry now; Carol takes it down from where it hung and drapes it over the girl and her brother. The kids barely stir, so complete is their exhaustion. She envies them. She'd be hard pressed to sleep through the night like that. Even when she was in Grady, she had flickers of moments where she was painfully conscious, feeling Beth's fingertips on her arm and the soft skin of the girl's palm pressed to her own.
Daryl is not near the fire anymore, instead having moved toward the barn doors. Faint moonlight illuminates his figure. His back is to her and she can see the angel wings illuminated on his vest. His head is bowed. He's got his knees pulled up, his elbows resting over them.
Daryl barely seems to register her as she drops to her knees behind him. She puts her hands on his shoulders and squeezes. There's much more muscle there than in Noah. He's tense, coiled. She lets her hands slip lower until she's hugging his chest, her chin tucked into his shoulder.
He's warm and it helps to dispel some of the cold that's snuck its way into her bones.
"Sleep," she says. "I can keep watch."
He grumbles and vibrations race through his chest. She slips a hand under the vest and shirt so her palm is on his skin. His heat to her cold. "'M fine," he says.
"You haven't slept."
He doesn't reply.
"Daryl."
They just stay there like that and eventually her knees start to hurt. It bothers her. His attitude bothers her. He stays stiff in her arms as his heart spurts, erratic, under her palm. Carol sighs. Then she does something she hasn't done in a long time—she forces herself to stop being mad.
It's not worth it.
She will give him all her anger if that's what he wants. She is too tired to keep holding these bruises and letting them rot inside her.
Carol removes her hands. She's about to leave when he grabs her wrist and pulls. The motion takes her by surprise and she tips forward, stumbling to her knees again, half draped over his lap. Her torso twists and a spark of pain shoots up her ribcage. A faint hiss of air escapes her lips, sounding like a whimper even though she doesn't whimper anymore.
Daryl goes still. He lets go of her wrist and immediately his hands move to her hips, steadying her. "What?" he asks. "You hurt still?"
She presses her palm into the offending rib, reducing the pain, and her breathing evens. "It's okay."
"Yer ribs again?"
He shifts his legs out from beneath her so she's seated on the barn floor, then guides her shoulders back so she's lying flat. The dark expanse of the roof hovers over her. She blinks. A frigid breeze pushes in through the cracks in the wood panels. "Daryl, what are you doing?"
He pulls her shirt up so it's bunched along the bottom of her bra. Cold air springs goosebumps to her skin but he seems not to notice as he spreads his fingers across her ribs. She stiffens. Tries to ignore the sudden flutter in her heart. Daryl moves methodically, pressing on each rib until he finds the one that continues to hurt. There's a notch in it now where it broke and never set correctly. He runs his thumb over the bump, back and forth, and stares down at her. "Healed wrong," he says.
"I know that."
He looks dejected. "Why didn't you say nothin'?"
"Isn't it irritating when people don't take care of themselves?" She smirks up at him but he doesn't smirk back.
His hands still. She stays on the floor until the heat of his flesh against hers is too much and she brushes his hands to the side so she can pull her shirt back down. Then she sits up. They idle, facing each other now.
"I didn't mean…" she begins. "I'm not judging."
"I know." He looks over her body and she shivers beneath the stare. It is so unlike him to look unabashedly when she could notice. He nods to the line on her shoulder where the strap of her rifle's dug into the skin. "You ain't gotta lug that thing around all the time," he says. "I'll take it tomorrow."
She shakes her head. "This isn't about the rifle, Daryl."
Up in the rafters someone yawns. A wood plank above them creaks, then falls silent again. Outside, lightning flashes once but the thunder is slow coming. The storm is moving away now. "How come you ain't cried?" he asks. He's not looking at her anymore.
"I can't."
"Used to."
Carol stares at him. She will need days for her grief. If she were to go off now, it would hinder the group. She knows that when she looks down into that abyss, it will be hard to come back. "It's different. You don't know what happened with the girls."
He arches an eyebrow. "The girls, huh?"
"You weren't there. Tyreese is dead now."
He sighs and reaches up to rub his face with his hands and the actions makes Carol feel exposed suddenly. It's not her place to burden people with her shit. That's not who she is, never has been. She shouldn't have said anything.
"Go get some rest," she tries. "I'm awake."
He stares at her. When he looks at her she truly feels engulfed in fire. Carol rubs her lips together, eyelashes fluttering under the intensity. It's not like her to look away first but she feels like she's at a precipice and that abyss, it has to wait. She can't yet. She won't.
Finally Daryl looks away. He takes off his vest and lines it up on the floor, then stretches out next to it on his side.
"Come on, then," he grunts.
"I need to keep watch."
"'M awake. You rest."
She watches him. A feeling of hope burgeons in her chest. It's not back to normal but he's trying again. That's all she will ever ask of him.
Carol scoots over to where the vest is and lies down, slowly. The leather provides some welcome padding between her ribcage and the cold floor. She's still wiggling in when Daryl drapes his arm around her waist, slipping his hand underneath the poorly healed rib. The pressure helps to release some of the ache there.
She exhales.
"That okay?"
"Better," she smiles. "Thanks."
His body's right up next to hers—her shoulder pressed against his chest. She can feel him watching her like he did that night after Terminus, reading her again.
The smell of the barn dust lingers on the edges of her senses and she closes her eyes.
She will not cry for her girls. Not yet. She will drift to sleep and dream of Mika's open smile, the way Lizzie sat on the train tracks so sure and strong. She will dream of Beth's long hair weaved into a braid and the way Tyreese's shirt smelled when he pulled her tight into his arms.