"How bad is it?" Daryl asked, having not looked at his wound yet. It hurt and it seemed like he was bleeding a lot.
"Hopefully, not as bad as it seems." Carol answered, helping him lay down on the bed, "Let me look at it."
Thanks to all the new people at the prison, they had been running low on supplies. Daryl, wanting to take a break from all the people, had volunteered to go get more. Needing at least two people to carry back what they needed, Carol decided to go along.
They'd gone into a store in some town to get the supplies. Unfortunately, there had been a lot of walkers. Soon, Daryl and Carol had found themselves trapped on opposite ends of the store.
Daryl had been at the back, shooting walkers with his crossbow, when one of them crawled out from under a table and grabbed his ankle. He had lost his balance and dropped his crossbow, falling onto a large steak knife inconveniently placed facing up in the knife block on the table in front of him.
Daryl had then gotten up, pulled the knife out of his stomach, stabbed the walker in the head, then found Carol and nearly fallen over. She saw that he was injured and he could barely stand.
Carol had helped him to a nearby house, checked inside for walkers, found none, and taken him upstairs into one of the bedrooms to treat his wound.
Carol took off his vest and grabbed medical supplies out of her bag, setting them on the nightstand.
"It ain't a good idea to stay here." Daryl told her, "Too many walkers around."
"Well, we don't have any other choice right now." Carol pointed out, examining his wound, "You can't travel with that injury. It's safer in here than outside."
"It ain't my fault there were so many walkers back there." he said, "I didn't see one of them and tripped me. I fell on a steak knife."
"It isn't anyone's fault." she poured a third of what was left in the bottle of alcohol onto a cloth and pressed it into the bloody wound on his stomach.
"Ahhh! D*** it, Carol!" Daryl yelled as the alcohol burned.
"That knife was probably covered in dirt and germs." Carol flinched, but didn't let it show. She ignored his protest and continued cleaning the wound, "Do you want it to get infected?"
"No, but you didn't have to use that much alcohol." he argued.
"Better safe than sorry." she told him, wiping the blood away and putting gauze over it.
"Safe than sorry my a**." Daryl commented as she finished bandaging his wound.
Carol got up and started leaving the room, "Just rest and don't move. I'll be back later, Daryl."
She left and searched the house, finding all the supplies they needed in the basement. The owners of the place must have been some kind of survivalists. Why they'd left instead of locking themselves in was a mystery. They'd probably turned somehow.
Carol returned half an hour later with food.
She decided to be polite and knocked, "I'm back, Daryl."
"Come in then." he told her.
Carol came in and walked around the bed, over to where Daryl was laying on his right side with half his face buried in the pillow.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Terrible." he mumbled, "What about you?"
"I've had better days." Carol replied.
"Everybody's had better days than these. Mine are about the same." Daryl stated.
She pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down, "I brought you some food."
"Not hungry right now." he told her flatly.
"Alright. Can you turn over onto your back for a minute?" Carol questioned.
Daryl did so and she told him, "It's bleeding again."
"I guess it is." Daryl said disinterested.
"You were moving around and trying to get up weren't you?" she already knew the answer.
He responded with, "Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Doesn't matter anyway. Falling on a steak knife; Merle would've laughed."
Carol took off the bandage and tried to stop the bleeding again, "It doesn't matter what Merle would think. You're hurt and that's a bad thing."
"He wasn't as bad as he seemed." Daryl told her, starting to get a far off look in his eyes, thinking about what had happened to his older brother.
Carol hated it when he got that look. Whenever Daryl started thinking of Merle, he stopped talking to them and went into what they interpreted as depression. Carol couldn't stand it when that happened.
"I know…He had good in him, deep down. He tried to save us." she put a new bandage over his wound and changed the subject, "You shouldn't try to get up again. I wouldn't want you to bleed out."
"I'm bored." he said, "What do you expect me to do, just lay here for the next couple of days?"
"I'll get you a book or something later." she told him, "Don't make me sit here all day to make sure you stay put, 'cause I will if I have to."
"Fine. You can go, Carol. I'll stay here." Daryl decided to give in.
"Good." Carol was satisfied, "Now, shut your mouth and go to sleep."
Daryl laughed at her demanding tone and turned onto his side again, "Yes, ma'am."
Carol bent down and kissed him, walking out before he could react.
She left him with a shocked expression on his face and laughed. He'd sure stay put now. Daryl never could handle flirting.
