(Hello all. This short prologue is my response to the beautiful ending of S3, E05. I cried so much watching that, that I needed to get my feels out, a review would be lovely if you like it, if not tell me why. The next Chapter will be out in a day or two. Thanks. :] As always, I own nothing.)

Chapter One; Daryl's Lament

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose

~ Bette Midler

His heart was throbbing drearily. He knelt beside her coarse wooden cross with a sensation of numbness in his soul and mind. The unoccupied, churned mound of earth was icy in the bitter cold morning and he considered flatly how unsuitable a tomb it was for her. The slowly withering white rose reminded him like a contemptuous smack in the face how much he missed her already. It reminded him how many memories the fleeting time they spent together had brought, and how many they would now never make together. With both rough, calloused hands he caressed the stone circlet he had placed as a tribute atop her grave back into order, stirring the tiny pebbles diligently back into formation.

Once done, he hauled his weight to the ground beside her and laid himself so his entire head was cushioned in a patch of soft, new spring grass which tickled his ears and comforted him. A few daisies had begun to shoot out of the fresh earth, carrying with them a unique light which echoed the blissful quiet of spring. With a whistle the calm, musty wind blew a few icy specks of dew onto his face and his dark skin sparkled with the dampness. She would often ask him to lay with her, to just lay beside her and let her soak in the heat of his body. In life he would often deny her such a humble wish. He never assumed that in death his soul would pine for one last chance to lay beside her and hold her.

He flipped himself over onto his stomach and drew a utility knife from his back pocket. With a simple swish of his wrist he flicked the blade out and began to paw at it's dull edge, turning the tiny makeshift weapon over in his fingers. He fidgeted a little further towards his lover's headstone and began to carve crude letters into the fragile wood, a haunted smile on his once confident face. He knew what he wanted to write but suddenly found himself wordless. She would've known what to say in these situations. She was always good at capturing the disposition of one's heart.

What he wanted to write was a lament. The things he always wished he had the nerve and terminology to say to her face but never brought himself to. He wanted to convey how it felt to love her; because it was the greatest and equally the most terrifying experience of his life. To love Carol was, for Daryl, to be struck by lightning.

At first that meagre face, the way she squinted and bobbed when she felt nervous was calming, soothing. Then she began to know him, find his weaknesses, support him like a crutch when he needed her. Slowly, her heart opened to him. She fell so easily for him, but in her own way she fell for everyone, always fighting to love and be loved by everyone, such a lonely existence only brightened by the affection of another.

And then, like a blinding streak of lightning between dark clouds he noticed her in a new light. Her bright, glistening blue eyes were no longer meagre and frightened but as terrible and beautiful a sight for him to comprehend as the fiercest storm at sea. Like a flash her motherly body which once seemed plain and ordinary radiated light from every inch of skin and her form became, to him, comparable to that of a goddess. Rather than timidly walking in the shadows of the others she rippled like thunder over a mountainside, as glorious and powerful as a force of nature. The stony, fixed face of a woman haunted by a terrible past and the frightfulness of their apocalypse unexpectedly became that of a child, as fresh and new and inquisitive as though she was seeing everything for the first time, which drew Daryl in and excited him in a way he never felt before; with hopeful notions of a spectacular world they could build together.

The way she bit her lip, batted her eyelids and always seemed to sit in a position so that the light shone in from behind her and illuminated each delicate feature drove Daryl's mind ablaze, each tiny gesture powerfully, unassumingly erotic. When they were alone together and he had a chance to peel each item of clothing off her dark, playfully freckled skin, he felt like he was discovering a new world, untouched and unspoilt as fresh snow and he savoured each inch of her, devouring her with his eyes. Her love, as wounded and scarred as she was, remained encompassing, covering him and drinking him in so that he failed to put his guard up and he surrendered his entirety to her. He felt like a child in her company, so naive and insignificant when everywhere she went was showered in the radiance of her very being like she was nothing more than an illusion conjured for him from a shaft of golden light.

He twitched in pain and found himself driven out of his thoughts as he caught himself with the tip of his knife and drew the tiniest speck of blood. The tingling sensation as a trickle of the thin red fluid dripped onto his palm reminded him what he was doing and he suddenly realised he had carved a word into her headstone. Evidently the only word he could think of to use to describe her and how he felt about her. One simple, single word sat alone on it's wooden surface like a beacon which brought a single regretful tear to his eye.

'Beautiful.'