DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Walking Dead or any of the characters. I'm also not a professional writer. Your feedback is my only payment.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Chapter 1

They found her battered body inside the trailer, coiled loosely on the floor. If it wasn't for the unique short style of her hair and her bag sitting on the table, she would not have been recognizable. Carol. Her face was swollen and covered in bruises. Her bottom lip was busted open, and the blood had pooled and dried on her chin. She was naked, caked in mud, and blood was smeared down her legs and over her emaciated body. Her hands and feet were bound, the chicken wire cutting into her wrists and ankles. No, no, no! Not this. Daryl took off his jacket immediately and covered her, fighting the disgust that was seething in his stomach. White hot anger lit his fists on fire. He wanted to kill something. He settled for kicking in one of the paneled cabinet doors, splintering the wooden door in half. He ripped another off its hinges with his bare hands and smashed it to smithereens against the countertop. It didn't stop the agony from slicing through his chest. This couldn't be happening.

Michonne knelt beside Carol and gingerly touched the woman's wrist to feel for her pulse. "She's alive, but barely. I think she has some broken ribs. Probably a concussion."

She's alive. He let out the breath he was holding. Pushing the anger aside, he sprung into action, pulling the multi-tool from his pocket and kneeling down on the other side of her. He cut the wire around her ankles first, wincing as his fingers lightly grazed her purple, inflamed skin. He felt the painful echoes of her bruises on his own skin like a sensory memory. Some things were never forgotten. Gently, he unwound the wire, pulling it away from her delicate skin, the wounds bleeding as he did so. He did the same to her wrists, but when he pulled the wire away, he held onto one of her hands and tenderly rubbed the wound with his thumb. The fragility of her skin betrayed the strength he knew she had.

"Carol!" he exclaimed trying to rouse her. Tears swelled in his eyes and threatened to spill over. Please, he begged silently. He ran his fingers over her hair, the only place he thought it looked like it might not hurt. "Carol, wake up." The words were piercing and frantic.

She didn't stir.

He swallowed the tears, leaving a lump in his throat. "You think it's safe to move her?" he squeaked doubtfully. He looked at Michonne with an urgent hope.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," Michonne replied, taking notice of how the apprehension made Daryl suddenly appear much younger. "From the looks of the camp out there, the assholes who did this could likely come back."

"Let 'em," he growled quickly. "They'll be wishin' they were dead." He slammed his fist onto the floor, stamping his guarantee.

"Believe me, I want them to pay just as much as you do for what they've done to her, but she can't wait for vengeance." She had no doubt he'd seek it. "We have to get her out of here."

He knew she was right. He focused on the sting of the impact vibrating up his arm. Flexing his hand, he redirected the anger pumping through his veins. "I can't…I'm gonna carry her, but not…not like this. We gotta…she needs…fuck!" Desperately, he looked around the empty trailer for something to cover her with. He grabbed her bag and searched through it finding nothing useful. It had been plundered, and anything of value had already been taken.

He started unbuttoning his shirt, narrowing his eyes at Michonne, daring her to say a word as he slowly removed it. She said nothing. "Will you…cover her?" he asked hesitantly, handing it to her.

Michonne took it and nodded. She knew what he meant. He wanted to protect Carol's modesty. When he turned himself away, Michonne saw the scars on his back, but said nothing to him to indicate she'd noticed them. Her respect for him only deepened. She wrapped his shirt around the lower half of Carol's body like a skirt. She fastened several of the buttons up the front and tied the sleeves around her waist. Then she sat behind Carol's head and grabbed her gently under the arms to pull her up into a sitting position. She guided her arms into the sleeves of Daryl's jacket and zipped it up.

Daryl turned around when he heard the zipper. Carol looked so tiny to him, laying there against Michonne, wrapped in his clothing. Her wounds were still weeping. He cut the sleeves off the shirt and tore the material into strips, wrapping the material around the wounds on her wrists and ankles to stop the bleeding. When he was finished, he put his bag on his back and slid the strap of his crossbow across his shoulder.

He picked her up carefully, remembering the last time he had her in his arms in this way, when he carried her from the tombs. Comparatively, she was so much lighter now, nearly brittle. He thought he was going to crush her in his arms. Cautiously, he followed Michonne out of the trailer and back into the woods.

He wasn't sure how far away from the prison they were, but they were about two days from a housing development where he knew they could find a car. He had been searching for Carol for the past month after Rick had told him he'd banished her for killing Karen and David. He'd tried to insinuate that Carol had killed them in cold-blood, but Daryl had known better.

Rick had been slipping since Lori died. He had been slowly losing contact with reality. He was hallucinating, seeing visions of his dead wife and talking to ghosts, not accepting the truth. Hershel thought it was some type of grief-induced psychotic break. Everyone thought Rick had been getting better since he had stepped away from the leadership role and took up farming.

"Working the earth is very good for the soul," Hershel had proclaimed to the council when they had finally started the garden. "It can heal a broken heart."

It seemed like it was working until a new crisis erupted at the prison a few months later. A deadly flu had broken out causing people to hemorrhage out of their eyes and slowly choke on their own bodily fluids. After dying in the night shortly after showing symptoms of the sickness, Patrick had turned and started feeding on people in their sleep. Chaos had broken out in Cellblock D as people panicked over this new threat. Karen and David were next to show symptoms and they were quickly isolated from the rest of the group. After Karen and David's bodies were found burnt to a crisp, more people became infected and the virus had spread like wildfire to half the population. Tyreese had been angry and looking for someone to blame for Karen's death. They had tried to calm him, but Rick had lost the remnants of his mental stability on Tyreese, beating him senseless before Daryl could get him off the man. Shortly afterwards, Daryl had left with Michonne, Tyreese, and Bob to fetch medicine from a veterinary school a few days away.

They had returned to complete chaos at the prison. People were dying left and right from the virus and the outer fence, weakened by the Governor's attack, had finally collapsed allowing walkers inside the inner prison yard. In the end, they only managed to save Glenn, Sasha, and Lizzie with the medicine. Daryl had expected to see Carol by Lizzie's side since she had gotten sick right before he left. But he couldn't find her anywhere. When Rick had told him he'd made the decision to exile Carol on his own, without consulting the council, Daryl was furious. Rick's grasp on reality was tenuous at best and he had been removed from any leadership position. He had no authority to make such a decision. Daryl discussed his concerns about Rick's sanity with the other council members and they agreed to keep an eye on him while Daryl left to find Carol and bring her home.

When Michonne had found out what happened, she volunteered to come with him. She knew he would need assistance. Daryl had helped her track down the Governor so she could avenge Andrea's death. They had become good friends in the process, and she felt she owed it to him, even though she knew Daryl had been seeking his own revenge for his brother Merle.

Within a week, they had found the car Carol had taken. It was abandoned, Daryl had gathered, for engine problems. The keys were in the ignition, and there was half a can of gas in the trunk. He had been hopeful when he'd picked up her trail on the moist soil in the woods, grateful that she'd done the smart thing and stayed off the road. They'd found a few of the camps she'd set up and a few slain walker corpses along the trail that suggested she was still alive. It had given him hope. Her tracks were a week old and covered with dead leaves, so reading them was a laborious process and slowed them down.

Soon, however, Daryl picked up additional human foot prints. There were at least two sets of male tracks. His stomach clenched when he realized they were also tracking her. He could barely sleep and kept insisting they push forward. He knew they were still too far behind her to intervene. A few days later, he found evidence of a struggle. Her tracks disappeared. They never found a body so he hoped she was still alive. They continued to track the men's prints, and eventually hers resurfaced again. However, she had been injured and was limping. The realization had made his blood boil.

He became distraught as he relentlessly pursued her. He was barely sleeping and eating. He knew what some men were capable of, and at night, he dreamed of every horror he could imagine. The agony of not knowing what was happening to her was driving him mad. Michonne kept at him, reminding him to sleep and eat.

"Anger makes you stupid. Stupid gets you killed. You'll be no good to her a dead man," she warned him. "You need to keep your strength up."

Yes, Michonne had kept him sane.

After traveling for a couple of hours, they stopped to rest by a stream. Daryl laid Carol on a flat rock at the water's edge. He took the red rag from his back pocket and wet it in the cool water. He gently wiped away the dirt and blood from her face and then let it rest against the bruise on her eye and the swelling of her cheek. After a while, he rinsed the rag again in the water, attempting to keep it cool against her skin.

Michonne passed him an expired energy bar. He tried to refuse it, but she gave him a long, hard stare. "You need it for her," was all she said. Reluctantly, he ate it. She was right; he was going to need all the strength he could muster if he planned to continue to carry Carol to safety. Now that he'd found her, there was no way he was going to leave her side to go off and hunt, especially considering her condition.

He refreshed the rag again and again while they rested. He hoped it was helping. When they left the stream, he thought some of the swelling had gone down. It gave him a little relief.

He was exhausted, but fueled by his sheer determination to return her to the prison and to the family that loved her. He wasn't sure how Tyreese would respond, but Daryl knew the man had no malice in his heart. When they had returned to the prison after the medicine run, Sasha, had been knocking on death's door. He had to know then that Karen's death was inevitable. Carol likely kept her from suffering and turning.

Daryl's arms ached from the weight of her, but his heart ached more from the weight of the sorrow and guilt he carried for the state she was in. If he had only gotten to her sooner, maybe he could have done something about it. The load grew with each heavy step he took as he worried for her well-being. Every time they stopped, he ran the wet rag over her lips, concerned that she was dehydrated.

When they finally stopped for the night, Daryl set some snares up around their camp, hoping to catch something for breakfast. The sweat was dripping off him from his efforts. The night air was cold, but he took no notice of his own discomfort.

Exhausted, he lay down next to Carol and noticed the swelling was still grotesquely warping her features. He longed to see the smile that used to linger there. The memories of one of the last times he'd seen her with a smile on her face flickered into his mind. It was a smile he had put there. He had been so bold, so unconcerned about his blatant flirtation that day. She made him feel that anything was possible. She had given him hope. She had given him her faith. It had been wholly unconditional. She'd made him feel he was worth the effort of dealing with his moods and his doubts about himself and everyone else. It had been something close to a miracle that he had grown to feel like a man of worth, a man who could be worthy of her. Somehow, he had allowed her behind the wall, and it made him stronger. Her love had made him a better man.

They had been eating breakfast and she had been recalling something amusing that Judith had done. Her face had been animated as she told the story, and the light filtering through the prison windows had only accentuated her beauty. She had been so caught up in the telling of the tale that she had become careless with the oatmeal she had been eating. The spoon had left an errant morsel on the outside of her lip. He couldn't take his eyes off it. She looked adorable, so much younger than her years. He couldn't help but feel youthful himself around her.

"Are you even listening to me?" she had inquired lightly.

"Always," he assured her, looking straight into the deep blue pools of her eyes, drinking her in, and then allowing his eyes to wander slowly back to her lips. They were so soft and inviting. He wondered if they tasted warm. He had licked his own lips in anticipation. He hadn't meant to. It was simply an automatic response to his hidden desire. He had been so obvious about it, he was sure the gesture clearly betrayed his thoughts. He wondered if she had noticed.

"Something on your mind, Daryl?" she smirked.

"Always," he had repeated. She was always on his mind. It was in this moment he'd realized he was done hiding his feelings for her. Something had told him she wouldn't mind them. He didn't care what anyone else thought. So, he'd leaned across the table then, reaching for her cheek with his hand. His fingers had stopped to smooth the unruly curls behind her ear before settling against her delicate jaw line. His thumb brushed slowly against her soft lips before encountering the spot of oatmeal that lingered near the corner. Even when he had wiped it away, his thumb remained tracing the warm contours of her lips. He finally pulled his hand away and stuck his thumb into his mouth, sucking the tiny piece of oatmeal away that only moments ago had been touching her lips. The brilliance of her smile at his reaction had only made the moment sweeter. He had felt it light him from within.

The memory felt bittersweet and heavy in his chest as he looked at the gash on her lip. He wondered if it would scar her perfect smile. Certain she would only become more beautiful to him if that were the case, he curled around her body protectively before falling asleep.

Seeing this, Michonne sat down behind his back to help him stay warm and kept watch. He didn't ask her to. He wouldn't. She knew Daryl would have let himself freeze to death before he allowed Carol to suffer a moment more.

He loved her. It had been obvious to Michonne from the moment she'd arrived at the prison. Clinging fast to the steel bars, she had watched their family reunion from the other side of the cellblock door. Even teeming with anger for being held against her will, she had seen the love they shared for one another, and it made her remember a part of herself that she had locked away after Mike's betrayal. And Andrea's. Daryl was a good man, a hothead, but he was honorable. Over time, she came to learn he was deeply loyal, and she respected him for that.

She let him sleep a long time, knowing he'd need it. Waking him close to daybreak, when she could no longer keep her eyes open, she took his place beside Carol when he got up to take a piss. The earth was warm where he had lain, and Michonne had fallen asleep quickly.

Shortly after dawn, Daryl checked the snares and found a rabbit that had been trapped. He skinned and prepared it for roasting over the small fire he built. By the time Michonne arose, it had been fully cooked. Hungry, he handed her a sizable portion and consumed the rest.

After he licked his fingers clean, he knelt down beside Carol's limp body. The swelling of her face was noticeably decreased, allowing him to see the outline of her delicate cheekbones. With a heavy heart, he lightly traced the backs of his fingers along the fine ridges he saw barely protruding and sorrowfully recalled the beauty that lay beneath her wounds.

He'd failed to protect her. He never anticipated that the threat would come from within the prison, from someone he'd considered family. How could he have known?

"It wasn't your fault," Michonne said, reading his mind. They had spent a lot of time together chasing down the Governor, and she had come to understand his moods. She knew they were both prone to brooding. "There was nothing you could have done."

He knew she was right, he just hated the way he felt, and he was used to blaming himself for everything that went wrong. Some patterns were hard to break.

"She was worried about the girls, felt like she was gettin' in over her head takin' them on after Ryan died. Didn't think she was ready. But she wanted to do right by them to make up for–" he felt her name like a stone in his gut, "for Sophia."

"After the outbreak, I knew somethin' was eatin' at her," Daryl agonized. "So I just lied an' told her I was fine. Had to be. Couldn't tell her the truth. Didn't wanna add to her worry. Maybe if I had, she wouldn'ta had to feel so alone. Maybe we coulda figured it out together. I shoulda known! Damn woman hated to feel like a burden. I knew that! I shoulda stuck around and listened instead of runnin' away from my own feelin's about it."

Like a fuckin' coward.

"She thought she was alone. I made her feel that way. Me! I coulda stopped it all if I'da listened. If I'da just been there for her the way she'd always been for me." The regret burned in his eyes.

"You can't play that game. You can't possibly know that. It will eat you up inside if you keep thinking that way. Then what? All that matters is that you're there for her now. Trust me, she's gonna need you to be. So be there for her. Don't cover yourself in that shit and hide away. It ain't about you no more."

Michonne was right. He couldn't selfishly wallow in self-doubt. When Carol recovered, she would need him to be strong for her. He had to step up and quit burying himself in his feelings. It would do nothing to help Carol.

He removed the rag that was resting on Carol's cheek and ran his fingers over her head. Releasing a faint moan, she began to stir slightly.

"Carol?" His voice was tender. "Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?"

Carol's eyes barely fluttered open before closing again. "Please," she whimpered softly.

The single plea was a knife in his chest. "S'gonna be okay. You're safe now," he told her with wet eyes as he stroked her head.

Her eyes opened again, rolling back as they tried to focus. "Daryl?"

"Yeah, it's me," he reassured her. "I'm here now."

Her eyes closed once more as she moaned. "Please," she begged again. The words were barely audible before she passed out. "Just kill me."