A/N: I decided to continue this one-shot and make it into a longer story, though I may be a lot slower to update than usual. For background, this story is cannon until Rick disappears, then AU. In this version of the world, there are no Whisperers. Maggie is dead, and her son Hershey is five. Ezekiel died a year ago. The communities are at peace. Carol runs the Kingdom, and Daryl lives and helps at the Hilltop.
Daryl sleeps like a baby in Carol's arms and awakes with a sudden panic thudding his heart against its bodily cage. The memory of his lips on hers explodes in his brain. A wave of childish shame washes over him and then breaks and fades like sea foam on the shore when he remembers she didn't rebuff him. As a young child, he was pushed away enough times by his parents that he gave up reaching out for them. But the muscle memory of his rejection is still there, powerful enough that every time he touches Carol, some part of him expects her to shrug him off, even though she never has.
But he's never kissed her before. And now as he drags himself groggily into a sitting position, rubs his eyes, and feels the emptiness of the bed beside him, he wonders what it means that he did, and what it means that she didn't push him away.
He goes looking for her, as the spring birds sing from the young fruit trees in the Kingdom. It's not looking, not really, because he knows where she'll be at this hour, where she's been every morning he's visited.
He stops at the outhouse on his way, and then in the outdoor washing trough, he rubs his hands with hard soap and splashes chilly water on his face. The sounds of the Kingdom waking rise all around him – children laughing or whining on their way to school, the gardeners working among the greens. He gets a few odd looks, some from people who recognize him and nod or wave, and others who don't, look suspicious, but ultimately assume he must be welcome here if he made it through the gates.
He takes his time wending his way down the rocky path beyond the basketball courts, towards the woody patch inside the outer fence, and to the graveyard. He hovers on the outskirts of those graves, waiting quietly.
Carol crouches before Ezekiel's cross, which she wipes down with a rag. Daryl thinks how much better he likes her hair short. She chopped off the long locks in mourning, and then shaved her head completely. For a while, she looked like a cancer patient, but her hair grew quickly. It's just a tiny bit longer than when he first met her, just long enough to make a light, feminine curl behind her ear. She looks so good with her hair like that, so…classic. He doesn't know why, exactly, but something about it emphasizes the soft beauty of her face, the subtle turn of her lips, the boldness of her blue eyes. Not that he would ever tell her. She grew it long because she could, because she felt safe with Ezekiel, because the man treated her well.
Daryl never saw much chemistry between the two, but he supposes Carol wasn't looking for passion after so many years on the wrong side of an angry and jealous man. Ezekiel's even keel, so unlike Daryl's own hot flares of feeling, was probably exactly what she needed to root herself and build up the world around her.
But maybe what she needs now is him. Maybe he was wrong to think she wants to be rid of the last ghost of her past. Maybe she needs to keep one root there still, in that old quarry camp at the beginning of the end, to remember who she was, and why she became who she became.
Carol rises slowly to a standing position and tucks the rag into the back pocket of her jeans. It hangs over the top, and when she turns, he wants to look at his boots, but instead he freezes, and it's all too clear he's been watching her. A bittersweet smile tugs the corners of her lips as she stroll past the other graves toward him.
Daryl wonders if she visits Ezekiel's grave every morning, or just on the mornings after he visits – a subtle reminder that she doesn't belong to Daryl in that way, even if their roots are old and tangled and knotted together, even if she welcomes him into her room.
"Hey," he mutters, not knowing how to explain his spying presence.
But he doesn't have to. "Hey yourself," she says softly. She jerks her head back toward the king's grave. "I just like to keep it clean."
"Mhmhm." Would she do that for him, if he died? Would she visit his grave and wipe his cross clean? Daryl looks down at his hands, at the dirt and oil deep beneath his fingernails, like a permanent stain, despite all his scrubbing in the trough earlier. It's a ridiculous thought, he thinks, that she would tidy his grave, when she could never tidy him.
"Breakfast?" she asks.
"Could eat."
She begins walking, and he falls in step beside her. He wants to know what that kiss meant, if it bothered her, or if she liked it - if she was just taking pity on him, or if it might happen again someday. He wants to know, but he doesn't dare ask. So instead he asks, "Hell's Henry? Ain't seen 'em since I got here."
"He's at Oceanside. He wants to spend the spring and summer there learning to fish, he says, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with a girl. I doubt he'll be coming back."
Daryl studies her face for lines of sadness or concern, but she just seems resigned to the fact.
"I guess I'm an empty nester." There's such an aching tone in her voice that it strikes him like a slap across the face that she might be just as lonely as he is – surrounded by community, burdened and privileged with service to their people – and yet still alone.
He stops walking. "Ya a'ight?" he asks.
She's a few steps ahead of him now, so she stops and turns. Her smile is familiar, sad, but not unhappy. It's a distinction Daryl never could have made before this world mingled so much sweet with the bitter. "Gotta be," she says.
"Do ya?"
She sighs and glances around the Kingdom she helped build, this peaceful, vibrant place that has remained free from war for eleven months. "I know I'm in charge. But sometimes, I think…I just want to get away. Get away from it…all. Do you know what I mean?"
"Ya askin' me?"
She chuckles, and so does he. If anyone should know what that urge feels like, it's him. Daryl stays at the Hilltop most of the time these days, but there are still probably a hundred nights a year he spends alone in the woods, camping while on a hunt.
Carol hugs herself. "Just…leave it all behind for a while. Not forever. Just for a while."
"Hell, then do it. Ya got people who can handle shit. Come to the Hilltop for a bit."
"That's not getting away from it all. Our communities are knit so much more closely together now. And there are too many memories at the Hilltop. Too many graves."
Daryl's eyes flit away from her. He digs in the dirt with his toe. "Road trip?" The words are out before he realizes how ridiculous they sound.
She snorts.
"Yeah. 'S stupid."
Except she stops laughing and he can feel her eyes on him. "Maybe not," she says quietly. "You're right. There are people who can run things here. And there's so much of Virginia we haven't explored. There could still be supplies out there somewhere. Maybe I should just take a horse and cart and…roam."
He looks up from a weed clawing its desperate way through a spot in the earth. "Nah, no ya ain't, not like some kind of Lone Ranger."
She smirks. "Well, unless you're volunteering to be my sidekick – "
"-Just say when, Kemosabe."
