It was dark in the cells. Quarantined, Daryl thought, staring at the ceiling above him. Even worse, in Death Row. Half the people in the little Podunk town he was born and raised in would have bet their last dollar that both Dixon boys would end up here. At least they were half-right.
Carol was in the bunk above him, just like always. Though, he'd give anything for her to be safe in Block C with Hershel, Carl, and the women. She was just worried about all the kids who had been exposed to whatever sickness killed Patrick. He pulled his hand up in the dark, staring at it in the dim moonlight. He had shaken his hand, not twelve hours before he was taken over by whatever virus had entered his body. Daryl was the brightest when it came to all that science stuff, but even kindergartners knew that you had to wash your hands to keep from getting sick. He remembered back, a few years before the turn, when they were handing out hand sanitizer and masks out like the world was going to end if they didn't. If only they had known, Daryl thought with a smirk.
"What you laughing about?" Carol asked him, and he could hear the smile on her voice. Shame on the both of them, he scolded himself. This was not the time. But, he couldn't help himself. She brought it out in him.
"After all we've been through, we're going to be taken out by the flu?" he scoffed.
"Well, we knew it had to happen one way or the other, right? I just hope, Lizzie and Mika-"
"I know," he stopped her. "I know."
He really did understand. They were as far away from the coughers, the ones with visible symptoms, as they could possibly be. Carol had pulled him aside after he got back from helping Rick.
"I'm pretty sure Carl's going to tell Rick about the defense lessons," she had said first, her voice frantic.
"Let 'im," Daryl had assured her with a shrug. "You knew you couldn't keep it a secret forever. 'Sides, Rick ain't like he was. He's changing. He's got to, he sees that."
Carol took this in, thinking it over.
"You think he's turning for the worst again?"
Daryl had shrugged.
"Guess we'll see." He looked at her then, how she was hugging herself, her face still wrought with worry. "What else is bothering you?"
"Daryl, I promised I'd look after those girls like they were my own."
"No one better suited for it than you."
"How can you say that?! After what happened to Sophia? I had a daughter of my own, I couldn't even protect her! How am I going to protect two little girls, Daryl?" She had begun to cry. He felt every muscle in him tense with apprehension. He wasn't good when she cried. He liked her flirty little looks and comments, or when she was pissed. Hell, even when she was scared, he could handle that. He knew what to do. He was useless with tears. But, he took her in his arms, anyway. One hand quickly cradling her head as she left tear stains on his old shirt. It was about the most they had ever touched, and it felt foreign and comforting at the same time.
"This ain't like before," he assured her. "You learned from your mistakes, we both did." He pulled her off of him so he could look her in the eye. "Carol, we ain't going to let anything happen to those girls."
Just like that, Mika and Lizzie were as much his problem as they were Carol's. He had watched from the doorway as she got them settled in the cell next to theirs. She had read them from Tom Sawyer, for real this time. Daryl stood there, letting the melodic sound of her voice wash over him. When Rick stepped down, when the council took over, everyone said it was because Rick was losing perspective. Either he was going to put his family first, and risk the group, or vice versa. He had too much invested in the safety of Carl and Judith to think about the greater good. Same with Glen and Hershel and their little family. Sasha would always think of Tyrese first, there was just no way around it. So, they had constructed the council. Many voices ruling, not just one. Took away the bias.
That was the truth, Daryl had figured, on why everyone turned to him and Michonne in their bleakest hours. Their loyalty was the group that was their family. But, now, watch Carol with the two orphaned sisters, he wasn't too sure. He was losing his perspective, just as Rick had. He had his own family to fret over, now.
So, he lay there in the dark, and he thought about how he could possibly protect them from illness. From something they had been exposed to unknowingly, something that worked so fast. They could already be infected. They could be dead tomorrow. He didn't know what was worse, Carol or the girls dying that way, or him, leaving them alone.
"You're thinking pretty loudly," Carol remarked then. "What about?"
"Sorry. Just worrying."
She put her hand over the side of her bunk, grasping for him in the dark. He clasped her hand in his.
"Don't," she said. "We'll figure this out. Just like Hershel said."
He decided it best not to remark that Hershel had been wrong before.
"Yeah," he said, squeezing her hand in the dark. "We will. I ain't going to let anything happen to you, or those kids."
She squeezed back.
"Ditto."