Takes place sometime after Ed's death, before Sophia goes MIA. I'm in love with the evolution of Daryl and Carol's relationship, so this is just a bit of literary fodder, for my sake, really. Rated T for language. Enjoy!
The quarry water doesn't even approach hot, but it still feels like it's burning her skin. This balance is tenuous, where she rubs the bruises with cold water and a rough cloth, until it feels like her cells are on fire, but it's almost better this way, like she can name the reason this happens, instead of trying to puzzle out why his fists flew at her body the way they did. Her body twists, but she's too stiff, can't see exactly what's happened to her. So instead, she sighs into the night and is glad for the alone time, for the moment of quiet against so much tragedy, for the release of tears she usually holds on to, for the sensation in her side, rather than her usual numbness. This world takes so much from you, she thinks, and closes her eyes tightly as if this won't make the image of her pickaxe colliding with her husbands face that much clearer. If only they'd known a year ago this is how the world would be now. Reanimated dead, zombies, Walkers. Different names for the same thing: death. There's a rustling behind her that brings her back and she's distressed to remember she's brought only a gun for protection, a gun that she doesn't know how to fire at that.
There's quiet, her body is stiff, and she's not sure that she's going to be able to run if she needs to, until there's a familiar twang, a string of swears (not loud, barely more than a whisper, but her keen sense of hearing has saved her more than once). She feels relieved, because it's not him and it's not one of them.
He comes out of the bushes, his string of swears now being sent in her direction, something about how it's not safe and she could've been killed, but she doesn't hear this because she's busy trying to find her shirt. All of a sudden, she's acutely aware that she's got nothing more on than a loose fitting bra and he's walking toward her slowly, because he doesn't trust, she knows this, she recognizes in him the same patterns that exist in her, but she doesn't want him to see, doesn't want him to know. Even if it's common knowledge, even if she's the only one who doesn't seem to say aloud that Ed hurts her. Or he did, at least. Daryl is mid-rant, (I swear to god, I'm through risking my neck for you assholes), but he stops when he realizes that it's her, and then he takes in a sharp breath. Her eyes close again and she knows she's been found out. She knows she's exposed, even in the darkness of the quarry. His flashlight flicks back and forth over her, but hesitates over her side.
"Jesus, Carol," he mumbles, but she hears it as if he's yelled it to her and then he's standing next to her. Her arms instinctively cross over her chest, but he looks her dead in the eyes and manouevres her hands away so he can really see what's happened to her.
"Daryl…," she starts, but isn't sure what else to say that doesn't sound trite and over exaggerated: it doesn't hurt or it's looks worse than it feels or I fell. Ed's dead now, why should she keep lying for him? She goes with being mute, looks at the ground, and waits for him to say something.
The skin on her side, her ribcage and the concave just above her hip, is black and blue, "Boot shaped," he notes aloud. She shrugs, just bends down to get her shirt, which has somehow ended up at her feet and thinks she's acting like this is an every day occurrence, which isn't all that far from the truth for her. This is not something that, no matter how much they have suffered together, anyone from the group can understand and she's never felt more alone than when this truth settles into her brain. Carol straightens, turning her body away from him, fidgets with the fabric of her shirt, trying to find the opening and the tag and for fucks sake when did this become so complicated? In the interim, without thinking, his fingers touch the very edges of her bruise, its color akin to burning paper, which feels almost fitting in a sense that would only put itself in order in Daryl's head. Something about how thin she looks, how she looks sad all of the time, how her skin feels like actual paper beneath his skin, taught, stretched over her bones. He wonders when he started having thoughts like this about her.
She jerks away from him entirely and finally works out the mechanics of her shirt. "Sorry," she mutters, but she doesn't know why she says it and neither does he. He makes a face that's visible only by the light of the moon, thinking that he knows, he knows what that feels like and what the weight of those scars feel like. Her back is littered in them, but he says nothing about the way they stand out on her alabaster skin. Instead, he comes to the conclusion that her husband was a son of a bitch and deserved everything he got and then some. Before he can say this, before he can work out how, he hears a noise and is sure they're not alone. He looks at her helplessly in the dark, before turning off his flashlight while they're so exposed.
"Come on," he says and he guides her back the way he came from. They're silent while they walk, awkwardly catching each other's gaze every so often, which elicits a smile, a forced laugh. He turns on the flashlight every so often, to make sure they're going the right way, but doesn't leave it on for fear of drawing Walkers close. He goes against his gut, which says to yell about what the hell she was thinking, wandering away from everyone like that. She didn't go quietly enough. He saw her. And he felt this innate, insane need to protect her. Is it so insane? He shakes his head and keeps walking. Yes, of course it's insane, the fucking world is ending.
When they cross the threshold into the edges of their camp, Daryl turns around abruptly. He regrets this when he sees the way she flinches in his shadow. There's more light now and he can see how she cowers, how skittish she is, like a colt, the way her head falls in an attempt to hide ...well, everything. "Sorry," he says, only this time they both know why he's saying it, except it's here that he fails, the what-to-say-after. Does this apology also cover the part where he thinks no man should ever and his back burns because he knows exactly how those bruises burn and also the part where he's not sorry her husband is dead?
She shrugs again. Her eyes are tired, so tired. "He had a temper," she says, as if this explains away the years and years of hurt she's got coveted away, both in the space beneath her sternum and in the bruises on her body. She smiles at him, though, allowing her hand to rest on his shoulder, and he nods his head. He's not much with words, but he understands. He knows the feeling in his stomach is hate and he knows that he hates her life was like that. And he knows it's not anymore. He wants to say so, to point out that he'll protect her now, because he thinks she needs it and he's not really the best man, not even a good man, but she's a good woman and she deserves better. "Thanks for the help getting back," she says and then her hand is gone like it was never there and she's walking away.
"Yeah," his voice is gravelly, like boots against rocks, his vocal chords rubbing together in a way that's almost offensive sounding. Boots. That bruise is boot shaped, he wants to say, he wants to know how, but instead grumbles, "No problem. Just don't expect me to save your ass next time, too."
Even if they both know he will.