A/N at the end of part 5.
In which there is something of a mutiny.
The farm burned in September. Or October. Carol flung herself onto the back of Daryl's bike and held on as they rode for hours, until the darkness and the roar of the engine and the ache in her back was all one misery. When they finally stopped and the group huddled around a fire, making a silent inventory of their loses – Shane, Andrea, Patricia, Jimmy, safety, food, a home, trust in each other - Carol just shrank down, folding herself over and over again, like a scrap of paper around a set of backless earrings. Insubstantial, impossible to expect the wrapping to hold – but she had nothing else for binding. She even wished for Sophia to be alive, just to not be alone and abandoned among these quarrelsome, shattered, grey-faced strangers.
The days flowed together like rain into a gutter – filthy, rushing, and forced into a sterile channel, bound only for a deeper darkness. Carol made an occasional effort to rise above the flood – learn to shoot a rifle, take a turn driving, pull her weight – only to be dragged down again by the miserable buffeting from the trash of day to day. So she let the surge pull her along, downstream.
Then one day, at dawn, Carol found herself crouched beside Lori as the younger woman puked up the rest of an empty stomach into a ditch. Beth knelt on Lori's other side, rubbing her back and murmuring wordless encouragement.
Lori lifted her head finally, staring at the sky, her nose pink from the exertion and a tear running down from the corner of her eye. She waved away the cloth that Carol offered. "No, not done yet." Across the road, most of the rest of the group stood arguing over a map spread on the grimy lime-green hood of the Hyundai. Rick's back sat squarely against them. Carl bounced from foot to foot, trying to peer around the grown up elbows.
After a moment, Lori sniffed again and said, "Carol, would you go see what my husband is planning? Please?"
"I've got her," Beth said, and held out her hand for the damp cloth. Carol pushed herself to her feet and crossed the road to the cars.
It was the storage yard at Carlton, of course – T-Dog and Rick had been having a version of this disagreement on and off for the last two days. The group had found the storage yard back before the season actually turned, but it was nothing more than gravel, fence, and metal, so they passed it by in favor of the greener pastures that – Rick insisted – were just over the hill. "Too much work," Rick had said, "for a pit like that. We can find a house, with supplies, if we just keep looking." T had looked at Glenn, Glenn had shrugged, and they had all piled back in the vehicles. Easier than arguing.
T made a note on the map margins, though, in his cramped and nearly unreadable print, and now, seven weeks later, when they swung though Carlton again, T had enlisted Glenn, Maggie, and Hershel to help him convince Rick it was worth a second look.
The single defection from this diplomatic effort was Daryl, who had parked the Triumph at the head of the convoy and was slouched over the handlebars, picking at his hangnails with the same knife he used on walkers. Carol gave it five minutes before he stomped over, called them all idiots for wasting time, and then insisting they fall in with whatever Rick said was the right idea.
By the time Carol crossed the road to the map-side huddle, Daryl had appeared at her elbow, scowling and hunching his ears into the tattered flannels under his jacket. Maybe not even five minutes.
"Okay, fine. But why do ya'll think this is worth the time?" Rick said as they joined the group clustered over the map.
"The last five houses we've check have been stripped clean," Hershel said, patiently. "If a place does not have locks, then it is likely that someone else would have made use of whatever was there. We might fare better if we concentrated on places that can be secured."
Rick frowned with that disgruntled look he'd been wearing more often lately, the one that said Ah am the leader of this group why are you questioning mah authority? "We're short on fuel. We can't be wasting gas on a boondoggle that would just be another wasted trip. Someone else could have gutted them. They could be full of walkers."
"I'll go," Daryl volunteered. "Bike's fast, sips gas, I can roll by, get an eyeful, come right back."
Glenn blinked at this unexpected support, but didn't hesitate to make use of it. "We can fill up on water here, then go back to this intersection here –" he jabbed a finger at the map, "Check those cars for any gas. I don't think that we finished with them, last time we came through." He looked up at Daryl, then back at Rick. "That restaurant there – we could hold up there for a while, if we had to. Daryl can meet us there."
Rick leaned over the map, his jaw clenching and relaxing. Finally he straightened and looked at Daryl. "You don't go alone. And you take something other than the bow."
Daryl's eyes flicked at him, then away again. "Guns are noisy, draw walkers. Don't need help."
Glenn and T rolled their eyes. Even Hershel sighed. Maggie folded her arms. "Really? You roll around on that noisy thing and then complain about gunshots? You have selective hearing loss or something, there, Lone Ranger? Dropped on your head as a child?"
"Shut it, girl," Daryl snarled. "Don't need your mouth."
"Now hold on –" Hershel started, only to be cut off by Daryl snapping back, "Not you, either, old man."
Glenn held out a hand in supplication. "Guys, we can't -" T-Dog just folded his elbows on the hood and buried his face in his arms.
Carol said, "I'll go."
When the abrupt silence dragged, she shrugged, lifted her chin. "I'm the lightest, so we won't burn much more gas than if Daryl went alone. And you said –" she turned to Rick –" you said I was okay with the rifle." She squared her shoulders, gestured back at the map, at the places they'd been, the options they had left. "It's half an hour at the most, one way. If Daryl will take me, I'll go."
Carol kept her eyes on the map, aware of five other people turning to look at Daryl. When the quiet went on, she dared to lift her eyes to his. After a moment, he gave a half nod, half shrug. "Git a jacket. Gonna be moving, there and back again."
Five minutes later, Beth was helping Lori into T-Dog's two-toned red and white Suburban, everyone else had filled water jugs from the near side of the road, and Carol was clinging to Daryl's waist again, this time with Maggie's 30-06 Savage slung along her back. He kicked the Triumph to life and turned the bike east.