1. Waking on the wrong side of the bed
The first thing to penetrate her consciousness was her name, in a gruff, not-quite-whisper, calling to her.
"Carol, wake up. Time's a wastin'."
The second thing was a gentle hand on her shoulder, giving her a too-rough-to-be-a-pat, not-quite-gentle-enough-to-be-a-caress, shake to try and arouse her.
"C'mon," the gravelly voice continued, "Gotta get out there before sun comes up."
"Ahh-mmmghh." Carol stretched her limbs from the cramped sleeping position she was in, curled up between Lori's sleeping bag, and Daryl's camping blanket. "What time is it?"
"Pffft," Daryl snorted, "you forget where we are? Don't exactly have clocks around now, do we? It's early enough."
Carol stood up, glaring at Daryl as she rubbed her arms, willing her circulation to get flowing and warm her cold and aching bones.
"Whose idea was this anyways?" She muttered, reaching down to grab her pack and ensure she had everything she needed before heading out on the hunt with Daryl.
"Don't look at me. You're the one wanted to learn how to track and hunt, so I'm gonna teach you."
"Hummph," Carol grumped, ruffling her hand through her hair, causing it to stick up even more than usual; her bedhead was truly a terror to behold. Or so Lori teased her often enough.
She rubbed her eyes, and yawned, following him out the door. "I could really go for some coffee right now. "God," she moaned. "What I wouldn't give for a steaming cup of joe."
Daryl side-eyed her before taking the lead as they approached the woods.
"Woulda figured you for one of them latte types."
"God, no. Ed would've shit a brick if I'd spent that much on a cup of coffee. Homemade stuff was all he allowed, in my cheap little Mr. Coffee that was on clearance because it was a floor model. And even then, I still paid for it when I got home."
Daryl was silent, and she could see the tension stiffen his shoulders. He hated Ed, hated what he'd done to Carol, and hated how much it reminded him of his old man. They usually tip-toed around the subject; neither one of them needed details to know what the other experienced.
Her mind drifted back to the subject of coffee. She was halfway through the mental mug of rich, dark roasted java that she wanted so bad she could almost taste it, and she didn't see the tree root in front of her. Her boot caught and then she was falling, a stream of curses erupting from her usually prim mouth.
"Fuck, dammit, shit, sonofabitch!"
Daryl had swung around when he heard her trip, and he was right there waiting with his hand outstretched to help her up.
"You okay?"
"Just fine. I'm peachy, swell even," she replied, sarcasm dripping from her words. "Tripping and falling on my ass was on my list of things to do today."
She couldn't help but notice the smirk threatening at the corner of his lips, his jaw clenching to try to hold in laughter.
"What's so funny," she asked, squinting her eyes as she peered up at him, daring him to say it out loud.
Daryl couldn't hold in the chuckle any longer. "Man, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or what this morning?"
"Last time I checked, we don't have beds." Carol answered back, grabbing his hand and letting him help her up.
He nodded his head at her, acknowledging her comment, but at the same time unwilling to bait her further, given her slightly grumpy demeanor.
"See this here," he said, motioning her to look ahead of him at the tree they were standing next to. "Deer." She waited for him to explain, but he seemed to think his statement was explanation enough.
"What do you mean?"
"These marks here? Bucks do that, rubbing their antlers on the bark."
"Oh." Carol looked at him thoughtfully, storing the information in the back of her mind. Daryl was a wealth of knowledge when it came to outdoors, and she knew her survival depended in part on how much she could learn from what he had to teach her.
"Why do they do that?" she asked him, as they trekked deeper into the forest, listening intently to his explanation.
2. Read between the lines
"Right there," he whispered, pointing to the tracks in the mud. She knelt down beside him, crouching in the dirt, fighting to keep her balance and not tip over. One spill was enough for her today.
"What kind of animal?" she whispered back, trying to follow his every move exactly, hoping not to scare away too much of the game from today's hunting trek.
"Buck. Good size, too. You can see from these here," he explained, showing her the grooves and describing the marks and what they meant.
"What does a doe's mark look like?"
"Somewhat smaller, shorter. Like this, only more narrow."
"It's amazing what you can tell just from a footprint, or a hoofprint." Carol exclaimed, slightly awestruck at his capabilities.
"You'd be surprised what you can learn from tracks. Just gotta read between the lines."
"Mmmm, guess it's the same with people, too, huh?"
"Whatcha mean?"
"Just that it's not always what you can see on the outside that matters, or what a person says...it's what you take away from them...what they don't say."
"You're awful deep this morning for someone who just fell on her ass not twenty minutes ago because she was mourning her daily caffeine fix." Daryl chuckled as he nudged her with his shoulder.
"I'm just trying to stay awake," Carol scoffed. "And desperate times call for desperate measures."
Daryl laughed, standing and helping Carol to her feet.
"Armchair psychology? I wouldn't give up your day job if I were you."
3. Quiet before the storm
The sky grew darker the further they traveled, a foreboding feeling permeating the air around them, and she glanced around nervously, eyes darting to trees and bushes.
"Daryl, is it just me or did it get really quiet in here?"
Daryl was busy surveying the ground around them, so he didn't quite look up as he answered her.
"Yep, it's whatcha call the quiet before the storm. Weather's gonna turn, need to be heading back."
He motioned her to turn around, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder, and they started backtracking the way they had traveled.
His voice broke the silence when he spoke again.
"Animals can tell when it's gonna storm, they pick up on all the little changes with their highly attuned senses. Much more sensitive to stuff than people are. They get wind of a storm, and they skedaddle. Find their little hidey-holes, caves and what-have-you, and they knuckle down. Animals are smart. Lot smarter than some people give 'em credit for."
He scanned the path ahead, head always on a swivel, watching, waiting, always ready. In some ways, she thought, he'd just described himself.
4. Easy peasy lemon squeezy
Several days have passed since the weather cooperated to allow them to go out. Daryl had been itching to get out of their makeshift shelter, and she thought if it had just been him, he wouldn't have let rain stand in his way. In some ways he was exactly like the animals they've tracked: skittish, sensitive, smart, attuned to threats, and dangerous when cornered.
"Gonna work on your aim today," he said, as they walked to the fence surrounding the property they were holed up inside, waiting out a herd.
"Probably not the best idea to be firing off shots with walkers so close," she mused, following close behind him.
"Nah, ain't gonna use a gun. Thought we'd try something else." He shrugged off his bow, and her eyes must have bugged out of her head, because the chuckle that erupted from his chest sounded foreign, but welcome at the same time. Any time she could make him laugh, the weight of the world she carried on her shoulders got ten times lighter.
"Daryl, I don't even-"
"Don't worry, I know you ain't got a lot of experience. That's what I'm here for-I'm gonna help ya."
She tried to choke back a laugh and ended up snorting, which of course caught his notice. Her rosy red cheeks, waggling eyebrows, and the teasing sparkle in her eyes caused him to think back over what he'd just said, and all his blood rushed to his face...and elsewhere.
"Stahp. Your mind stuck in the gutter or what?" He grumbled as he turned away, trying to shield from her the not so subtle effect of her flirty look. His back to her, he stealthily adjusted himself, and continued explaining how to fire the bow, ignoring her lingering chuckles.
When he finished all the explanations and instructions, he moved to stand behind her and helped her adjust her stance, her arms, the crossbow against her shoulder-all of the things that might affect her aim when firing the weapon. Laid out all the steps, plain as could be.
He stepped back carefully as she sighted the weapon, following his instructions to the letter.
"Just squeeze the trigger. Easy peasy lemon squeezie."
The bolt flew about fifteen feet left of the target he'd set up.
"More like difficult difficult lemon difficult," Carol said with a huff, blowing a wisp of hair off her forehead.
Daryl laughed, his arms crossed over his chest. "Keep goin'. Practice makes perfect."
5. The pot calling the kettle black
He hadn't blown up on her since the farm, but one scare, one too-close call, was all it took.
"You ain't gonna pay attention, you can stay back at the camp! It's dangerous out here, Carol! What if I hadn't gotten to ya in time? Huh?" Daryl yelled, pacing and waving his arm.
She wasn't afraid of him. Unlike the last time. But fear was what drove him. He tried to mask it, hide it within his bluster, but she could read it in every line of his face, in the tension he held in his body, and in the way his eyes kept roving over her, checking to make sure she was intact and unharmed.
"You can't be out here risking everything like that. What if something happens to you? What's gonna happen to Lori? Did you stop to think about that? About the others?"
He ignored the blood dripping down his elbow, but it was all she could see, dripping down into the dirt, pooling in dark blackish clumps, and splattering across the tree bark every time he flung his arm in angry emphasis.
"Daryl, let me see your arm. You're bleed-"
"I mean, why do you think I've been trying to teach you all this stuff? You gotta watch yourself, every minute, every second, always gotta be thinking, planning-"
"Daryl!"
He stopped, coming up short at the sharpness of her tone.
"You're bleeding. Let me see your arm."
He huffed but relented and offered up the offending limb to her inspection. "'S just a scratch. No big deal. Had worse."
She peered down at the jagged cut, the flesh ripped like a torn garment. She tried to dab away some of the blood with the edge of her sleeve, to clear the field of vision and see just how deep it went.
"It's not just a scratch. This needs stitched up."
"Pfft. Don't need no stitches. Can barely feel it."
"You may not feel it, but you can't see it either. It needs sewn up, unless you fancy getting an infection?"
He scoffed again, and narrowed his eyes at her.
"You tryin' to change the subject? Don't think we're finished talking about that fool chance you took back there." His tone wasn't as harsh as it had been, and she could tell he was over the worst of his fear, adrenaline having ebbed since the scare.
"No by all means, let's keep talking about it. While we're at it, let's talk about how the pot's calling the kettle black," she retorted, lifting his elbow, gesturing to the wound with her other hand. "You talk about me risking my life, but what about you? You think I'm taking foolish chances, but you're out here taking just as many."
He sputtered, starting to argue with her, and she turned, grabbing his hand and pulling him behind her. "C'mon. Let's go get you patched up.
+1 .
After he sat through her disinfecting and sewing up his arm, and then listened to her lecture him about germs and cleanliness and septicemia, because "God forbid he come down with something, it would put the whole group at risk," he wasn't sure who was teaching whom.
"Where'd you learn how to do all this shit?" He asked, gesturing to his arm and the medical supplies on the table between them.
"You're not the only one with skills, you know," she answered with a wink. "I've got some pretty special talents myself."
Thank you for reading!
xoxoxo