Hey everyone!

Thank you all for your love :) It means the world to me and the virtual hugs I'm sending you don't even begin to cover it! You just know how to make a girl happy!

To address the concerns I received about who the killer in this fic is. It's Carol. I don't like it, I don't even buy it and I'm nose deep in all sorts of conspiracy theories about her covering up for someone else (I'm looking at you, Carl and Lizzie). However, since this is how the show has rolled so far, I decided to keep that part and write a story where she's guilty. I'm stomping my foot on the ground and declaring flat out that she can come back from what she did (I'm furious at Rick's double standards that everyone gets to come back except Carol *cough*hypocrite*cough*) and her character is totally salvageable in my eyes. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't bother at all. Carol is my favorite character and this story aims at exploring her multi-layered personality, motives, reasons, mindset and give her a man who is worthy of her and can help her heal while healing him at the same time. So, don't expect any twists about the murders, this isn't the idea behind the story. I just thought I had to come clean with you so that you don't harbor false expectations.

I wish I could say more, but it's impossible to do so without spilling my guts about what lurks around the corner for our characters :)

Read on and enjoy!


"They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite"
Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

The day after Carol's banishment - Denial

"What do you think?"

Michonne looked up at him and then her eyes darted back to the ground. "Could be."

"Same tire print. Military type."

Nodding, she scooted up, hands on her waist. "What about the footprints?"

"Four males," Daryl bit out quickly, full-on his poker face, only the rippling hitch of a convulsed breath betraying his welter and restless trepidation.

"Shit," Michonne huffed out before willing her composure back in. Carol had never really stood a chance there, had she? Daryl's jaw was fixed and she averted her gaze on the road ahead of them to give him a minute. "Any of them familiar?" The question was loaded with a heavy subtext, conspicuous enough between the two persons that had hunted down the Governor, Martinez and Shumpert like rabid hounds long after they had lost all three trails.

"No."

"It can't be him," she said stubbornly, voice contorted into a crunch of doubt. "All this time I raked the state. He couldn't be so close."

"Sometimes it's easier hidin' in plain daylight," Daryl shrugged. "Truth is we know jack squat about who these scumbags are. All sorts of nutjobs out there. Whoever they are, they have her now."

Squinting back at him, Michonne chewed on her lower lip and dared the one question she knew he couldn't stomach. "Think she's still alive?"

"She was when they lugged her back in the cars," he muttered, addressing more himself than her. "Else, why bother? Plus no blood, no struggle marks after they caught her. Yeah, she's alive."

Michonne had always had a knack for human behavior. A sixth sense not sharpened due to vocation choice, just a natural trait of her personality. Rare were the occasions that she couldn't read between a person's lines right from the beginning. Daryl and Carol were both two striking exceptions in that golden rule, the former till only a few minutes earlier. What used to loom over as the infamous Daryl riddle, was now a terrified deer under a lion façade, nude and exposed before her, unraveled pathetically like a broken maze.

If the people who abducted Carol wanted supplies, they'd have scavenged the Taurus and kill her on the spot. Instead, they had taken her with them and even though that sounded like good news, Michonne knew better than that. Daryl knew better than that. To track Carol intact or even alive… Slim chances at the very best.

And Daryl was facing facts he wasn't ready to accept. He was grieving a loss and he was only at the get-go of a long journey… Denial. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be happening to him. First, Merle was left behind in Atlanta and Daryl stormed in a walker swamped building, retrieving nothing but a maimed limb from the roof he was shackled to. Shortly after, Sophia went missing and he clung to the pipe dream of locating her and fetching her back to Carol, only for the girl to stumble out of Hershel's barn as a walker a week later. Then it was Carol's turn to disappear in the tombs, presumably munched on by walkers, but that time his luck had miraculously taken a better turn, and he found her very much alive and breathing. Just a day after saving her, things got even better and Merle reintroduced himself in his life, all kicking and braying, good old bravado and potty-mouthed. And then he launched headfirst into the suicidal redemption crusade of taking out the Governor that ultimately claimed his life and the reanimated shell of his brother's corpse launched for Daryl's flesh. After Sophia, after Merle, Carol was the one person left in the world for whom Daryl didn't harbor a tart taste of fiasco. So, no. Carol hadn't vanished; she was missing, but not irrevocably. He would get her back, before something irreversible happened. He wasn't losing and wasn't failing to protect another person dear to him, not from the dead, not from the living. Not again.

Michonne looked back at Daryl who was now transfixed at some vacant point behind the tree line, frantically gnawing on his cuticle. He was silent other than the ragged breaths wriggling out his lips and she could almost hear the buzz of the wheels spinning in his head. "Want us to start right away?" At the end of the day, that was all this world was about; slim chances.

"I am," he replied absently.

"And I'm with you," Michonne smiled. "You and me, just like the old days."

Inhaling sharply, Daryl turned to her. "Just to straighten things out here," he stated expressionlessly, talking business. "This ain't about huntin' down the Governor. It could or couldn't be him."

"I get it. It's a Carol search party," Michonne complied. "Works even better for me if we wind up killing two birds with one stone."

"Ain't no goddamn trail to pick," he cussed, obviously straining himself to tame the direness of Carol's predicament and hone in on the task at hand. "But that crap here? That was an ambush. She was smart enough to stay off road, but drove straight into the lion's den."

"We're less than a day behind," Michonne countered soothingly. "If we're lucky-"

"My best guess is that they have a camp somewhere," he went on in the same blunt drawl, cutting her off mid-sentence. "Or a bunker, some place safe. They have numbers, equipment, man power, time and patience to sit tight and wait. These people ain't no starvin' ramblers."

"Soldiers?"

"Probably," he grunted and then shook his head as if to stave off the sick images slithering inside without permission. A deep wrinkle lacerated his forehead and he swallowed hard the knot bouncing in his throat. "But we'll find her."

Michonne chinned up and gently slapped his arm with the back of her hand. He had turned to her after all; when everything was crumbing around him, Daryl Dixon had done the inconceivable –he had asked for help. A little denial wouldn't hurt any of them. "Come on then, tough guy. We're wasting daylight."

Stalking back to the trunk they were driving in, Michonne positioned herself behind the steering wheel. A few seconds later, the passenger's door slammed close and Daryl stared straight ahead through a slit of his eyes.

xxxxx

Ten days after Carol's banishment – Anger

"Enough," Michonne said firmly, towering over Daryl's slouched form. She wiped the blood-dripping katana off her pants and watched him trudge away heavy-footed and blood-cloaked to retrieve his arrows from rotten skulls sliced in half before she focused back on the victim of his latest rage eruption.

When they had run into the stray flock of dead limping towards them, Michonne and Daryl teamed up, fighting them off back to back, his bolts never missing bull's eye, her katana whizzing in air, cleaving necks. Until they were surrounded by a heap of sapless, dismembered corpses and one last, six foot tall walker in the rearguard of the flock lunged towards them. They could have sidestepped him without much fuss or taken him out with a single blow and Michonne was already halfway through lifting her sword when Daryl clutched her arm. 'He's mine,' he had sputtered and she noticed the switch flipping in his darkened gaze. Michonne stepped back and he weaved his way through the cluttered bodies with the dexterity of a quadruped predator, eyes narrowed and lethal.

He pawed and cracked the insatiable, viscous-drooling maws of the walker and then snagged a hatchet from the trunk of the car. The walker lurched forward, producing mouth-less sounds resembling snarls and growls as Daryl screamed at the creased face and knocked him flat on the ground. He instantly plummeted atop him, one knee plowing into the walker's stomach. The hatchet twirled in the air and chopped off both arms elbow high with two single strikes. Then the berserk slaughter feast started. Grabbing one ochre-tinged limb of the squirming form still swinging in front of his face, Daryl tossed the hatchet and unsheathed his knife with his free hand, every single sinew wobbling heatedly under layers of dirt and skin as his shoulder bobbed up and down, delivering consecutive, right to the hilt stabs in the walker's head. And then in the chest. And then in the bowels. And then everywhere all over again. A squelched face, a mass of blood, gunk, smashed limbs, organs and intestines spewed around were the remnants of a walker that had barely posed even the slightest threat to them. Of a walker mutilated, devoid of the lethal claws weapon, with almost complete mobility impairment. Messy, sloppy, with over the top redundant moves, so unlike Daryl. At the end, simply defying the purpose and saturating to overkill -the semantics behind everything neither obscure nor disregarded on Michonne's behalf.

His aggressive demeanor was gradually deteriorating. A trivial remark or an insignificant event sufficed to ignite one hell of a fit and a shitstorm of novel, colorful swears. He grew restless, muscles and brain working overtime twenty-four seven, toiling himself beyond comprehension, but he couldn't stay busy enough. Dead on his feet as he should be between searching for Carol, hunting their food, monitoring groups of survivors and dispatching walkers, eyes dented and bloodshot, engulfed in dappled-grey rings, he was hyperactive nevertheless. Restful sleep bordered on wishful thinking and he had forgotten the natural technicality of respiration, deep inhalation through the nose, steady expiration through the mouth; he was constantly panting, brewing in sizzling blood pressure.

Michonne knew the signs. He was plunging deeper and deeper into the second stage of grief. Anger. It wasn't fair. He had suffered enough. She had suffered enough. They had both been through enough pain and suffering for ten lifetimes and finally found solace in the end of the world. And then this happened. There was no justice for Carol's alluded fate. But he knew who was to be held responsible. Rick. Daryl grew incensed every time Michonne would mention his name, incensed to the entire universe that this had ultimately really transpired to him and Carol. Again.

A flower seemed to have a soothing effect on him, his frazzled nerves and distraught mindset. He was oddly fascinated by the Cherokee rose bushes they happened to trek by, occasionally standing there zoned out, either gawking at them like they possessed the Holy Grail of knowledge, some hidden omen unfathomable to her, or hover above them, caressing the pliant, pink-tinted petals. Every once in a while, the corner of his lip would even twitch upwards, fluttering in a ghost smile that never lasted longer than a heartbeat. However, in times of extreme frustration, he'd make a full one hundred eighty, trampling the plant under the jagged soles of his boots or crashing the stems between his fingers. Michonne never bothered to ask, although she understood there was a secret meaning beyond her grasp there. Something about his behavior around the roses high-lighted it as too personal; his gaze and stance every time they came across a Cherokee rose screamed that no inquisition would get her an answer.

The jasper he had found during the medication run was another object snaring his unremitting attention. Hours and hours were dedicated to the sole purpose of him inspecting it closely as the stone toyed pinched between his fingers, filtering and radiating off the waltzing flames of a lantern or a fire, night hours when sleep evaded him and nightmares mocked his efforts until the first rays of sun would mount up the eastern ladder and he'd hoist the backpack over his shoulders again, despondent, resolved and furious.

They holed up in a deserted pawn shop in the middle of nowhere that evening and Michonne was keeping first watch. Herds sprouted up out of nowhere lately, active and gory, let alone the uncharted territory random encounters with other survivors constituted. Being just the two of them, they couldn't risk letting their guard down and Michonne stayed vigilant despite her somnolence, meticulously exploring their surroundings.

Not that her alerted state came in handy for Daryl. He was tossing and turning nonstop in his sleep, mumbling Carol's name along with incoherent words and swearing, until he jerked awake and gasped for air, drenched in his own sweat.

"You ok?" she asked without looking at him directly, prying on his reactions through the dim reflection the lantern light cast on the window glass.

Daryl heaved a few stabilizing breaths, vehemently chaffing his eyelids with the heels of his hands. "Yeah."

"Carol?"

His head snapped up. "What?"

"You said her name," Michonne muttered and squinted at him. In lack of any response, she kept talking. "She's strong, you know. She can handle herself until we get there."

"Stop sayin' it like you don't believe it!" he seethed, a lethal gaze stabbing daggers on her face.

"I do believe it," Michonne lied, knowing that any attempt to reason with him would fall on deaf ears. He wasn't ready to abandon the quest, he wouldn't no matter what she said. The truth was vain there and since he was dead set on his mission, he needed all the help and encouragement he could get. "I spent months out there alone."

"She ain't like you," Daryl rasped and unsteadily scrambled up off the floor, plopping down in the chair at the other end of the window. He lightly banged his head on the wooden slats of the frame. "And she ain't alone."

His hands were already groping the denim pockets for cigarettes and Michonne dodged the pungent remark about Carol's 'companions', opting to veer the conversation off to a happier place. "What is she like?" she asked guardedly. "I never got to know her well."

"She's… Um…" Daryl started and then floundered and paused, wrestling with fleeting words and sentiments impossible to be verbalized. A cigarette was midway his mouth, but then his arm soared and the filter wandered back to his knee where it started an indolent, tipping dance. Unruly strands of overgrown hair were veiling his gaze, but a dreamy twinkle flickered through a crevice. "She's Carol."

"Oh, come on, throw me a bone here," Michonne exclaimed urgently, feigning a pout. "I put my neck out there for her every day, might as well know who I'm risking my life for."

Daryl lit the cigarette and took a long drag, pondering on days gone by as smoke flared and dissipated, crowning his face. When he spoke again, the crooked smile of bittersweet memories kicking in droves was lingering across his lips. "Merle liked her," he whispered softly.

"I'll be damned," Michonne laughed whole-heartedly, breaking one of her rarely-viewed toothy grins and Daryl mimicked her, chuckling in amusement. "Merle didn't like his own guts."

"He liked Carol. He said she was a tiger in a mousy costume," Daryl droned on with a slow nod as the smirk spread like a spider web, crinkling the corner of his eyes. "He was impressed. Called her a late bloomer and Merle was never one for compliments."

"That's all he called her?" she fed the banter, positive that this light mood was destined to be short-lived. "I mean the woman has one fine ass. Bet your brother wouldn't miss that!"

"He wouldn't now, would he?" he snorted and rolled his eyes. "You know what he liked the most about her though? At first he thought he'd boss her around like it was nothin', but Carol wouldn't take his shit. The bastard had a soft spot for women who didn't buy his pick-up lines. Maggie and Beth wouldn't go within ten feet of him, but Carol just…" A simple blink and the musing shattered, unuttered words flailed away and the sullen expression was briskly redeemed in his face.

There was an acute sting of heartbreak and pent up ache in the way he could muster no words on his own to describe Carol and channeled the point of view of the person he cherished most in the world. The subtle nuances of a torment piercing so amply that Michonne nearly winced, afraid to peek beneath the surface. She leaned forward and shot him a mischievous look. "I'm calling it now. Next time I see this pixie spitfire, it'll be in a whole new light."

Daryl said nothing in response, drifting back to the mystical Siren lure the jasper was humming to him.

Aware of his turmoil and the noise of grinding teeth as he fell silent, she didn't push any further. She hadn't missed the bond Daryl and Carol shared back in the prison. But she had missed that it was that kind of bond, now wondering if he had missed it himself, if he hadn't been and still wasn't ready to admit feelings more profound than friendship and kinship. During the long months he and Michonne had spent alone tracking down the Governor, they had talked about many group members, except for one. Daryl would bring up Rick, Carl, Hershel, Beth, Maggie, Glenn or anyone else every now and then, but never Carol. Never. And if it was Michonne the one to mention her name, he'd never reiterate it. In the six months preceding her banishment, Michonne had never heard him say Carol's name. Now he did. More and more often.

Surveying him with a scowl of grave concern, she motioned to the stone in his hand. "Thought that was for Mrs. Richards."

"She didn't survive the flu." Daryl shrugged. "Hell, almost no one did."

He started wheezing again, getting all riled up over how Rick kicked out Carol for being a menace to the group among other excuses, when most of the infected died anyway, despite the huckleberry broth or the medication. Of all the things driving him bonkers these days, that topic was the one to push him over the edge.

"Every gem stone has a meaning," Michonne coaxed again to change the subject. "Any chance you know what jasper stands for?"

Daryl spared her one single glance before his eyes skimmed back to stone. "A bunch of things," he muttered huskily. "Mainly, it's a nurturin' stone, for healin' and comfort. It protects the traveler, too, brings beauty in life and… clusterfucks." His voice trailed off and Michonne regarded him sadly. There was no undertone, no innuendo there. Everything was explicit and eerie, the nurture, the healing, the traveler, like scalpels stowed under the whipping, relentless, fluorescent light of a hospital.

"Sleep," he ordered when a sudden shudder zapped through him, nostrils flaring. "We're movin' at dawn."

xxxxx

Twenty-five days after Carol's banishment – Bargaining

"We're gettin' at it all wrong," he rumbled, putting out a cigarette and quickly tucking another one between his lips, eyeing Michonne through a nebula of smoke. "It makes no sense for whoever grabbed her to drive all the way down here. This area was densely populated. Why choose to stay somewhere swamped with walkers? We should've never come here. Tomorrow I say we head back here," his calloused fingers roved over the spread map, "where we were two days ago. Start from there."

Michonne swatted closer and inspected the delineating trajectory with a countenance of startling confusion. "At least let's check out this place before going back," she tried, pointing a spot on the map. "Make sure we have everything covered here."

"No," he growled, glaring at her. "We're wastin' time."

She didn't question him, never raised the parameter that walkers roamed around in herds and never dwelled in a place. He knew it all anyhow and they had already gone over the same argument more times than she could count. Chances were that tomorrow he'd change his mind again. And the day after again. And then again. For as long as their search dragged fruitlessly, he'd go on doubting the yesterday decisions leading them to another dead end, forever bargaining with luck and almighty powers, negotiating the actions that would show him the way to Carol's whereabouts. It was the third stage of grief after all.

Bargaining –maybe it was his fault, really. Maybe he was doing everything wrong. Carol was out there alone, probably suffering, possibly or potentially dead, and he couldn't locate her. So he kept straining them both harder and harder, changing strategies, plans and methods back and forth, moving in circles, reexamining places already thoroughly scrutinized, ranting, raving, steaming and quailing, not heeding to rational advices. He was past sheer anger now, bartering and haggling endlessly for a price, for whatever it took.

Instead of squandering his energy in futile overkills and petty bickerings with her, he boiled in a foreboding, bottled up muteness, immersed in his thoughts. Every night, cigarettes were quenched one after the other in a pile, while Daryl stooped over the tattered map, scowling in absolute concentration, grumbling and swearing indistinctly under a tobacco-stenched breath. He was unstable, something inconspicuous quaking down to his core. And then he'd start babbling out of nowhere about another idea, a cure-all epiphany that would steer them inexorably to Carol. Only most of these ideas were old and doomed, already proven wrong via trial and error, and the panacea never revealed herself. Michonne knew the drill, already been down that path herself. Daryl believed that finding Carol was solely and utterly up to him and all he had to do to succeed was to make one right decision. However, this one right decision kept slipping away and the more he was failing the more all his efforts rounded up to nothing other than dragging himself deeper into the rabbit hole.

At least he never violated the last term of their pact. For every week spent out in the wilderness, as dismayed and wrecked as he might be, he still allowed her to drive them back to the prison for a couple of days. He never honored Rick with a word, even when the sheriff was addressing him directly, but hunted deers and squirrels in the woods to stock the group with a feeble meat supply. He still cared about these people, and these people were the last chain anchoring him to the real life rattling on around them.

With a curt nod, Michonne lied down and snuggled in her sleeping bag. They were in this together, but the final direction was up to him. His quest, his call.

xxxxx

40 days after Carol's banishment – Depression

It started when he stopped telling Carol's name and settled with the aloof she/her. Then he ran out of ideas and plans and the parroted down to a tee map remained folded in his back pocket and so did the jasper. Then he refrained from eating and sleeping altogether until nodding off wherever he sprawled. He seemed older, as if he had fast-tracked decades of hardship, misery and mincing agony over weeks, the thin wrinkles of his face dipped into curved, permanent grooves. He lost weight but was more toned than ever. Where once black rings divulged lassitude and battering insomnia, now two sagging bags enveloped a frozen gaze devoid of life. The light brown hue of his sideburns had rinsed away in a grey tint, matching the same color mops of hair that had lately spread, tangled up with chestnut ones across his scalp.

Depression –sometimes, despite his grim determination, he had to clench his jaw and shore himself off the ground with great exertion, groan to force one foot in front of the other. And then these random days propagated and finally became canon, their daily routine. It was that bitch, hope, kindling inside him that was now sputtering and dying out with every passing hour, every sterile search and barren effort. Stealthily, yet systematically, that wilting hope he was so desperate to snatch and cling to with everything he had even when the light at the end of the tunnel snuffed out, was bringing him down on his knees. Deep down he knew it was pointless, but he still was in no position to make peace with the impasse.

Strewing the meat chunks in his bowl, Daryl was staring blankly at the blazing flames before him, immersed in a gloomy, spaced out disassociation as he normally did these times, day in day out.

"You done there?" Michonne pointed to the intact bowl and he handed it over to her without as much as a single word.

"Everything alright?" she tried again and extracted a half nod from an otherwise statue still frame. Dumping the bowl on the sedge-coated forest blanket, Michonne bit her lip impatiently for a few seconds. "We won't go far like this," she said. "You need to eat and get some rest. You're running on fumes."

"I'm fine," Daryl mumbled, picking on the hairband around his wrist.

"You don't look fine," she bristled. "And you stink like a ferret. No wonder even walkers won't come anywhere close to us."

"What's your problem?" he asked, no speck of fight in the low drone sprinkling defeat.

"I don't want you to get us both killed," she asserted pointedly. "You're no good to Carol like that."

"I ain't no good to her no matter what," he breathed so faintly she almost missed it.

It was driving her nuts this complete shutdown. Never one for idle chit chat and small talk herself, she still couldn't bear this bone deep unresponsiveness to everything happening around them. Granted that he refused her even a crumb to start a conversation, she just spilled it, considering no danger, just anticipating a reaction, any reaction. "Why do you think she did it anyway?"

The forbidden interrogation worked its magic and he finally tilted his chin, peering over the prattling fire at her direction. She was aiming for a glaring contest, something to spark his spirit, but all she received was the hollow look of derisiveness. "Protection is the key word behind her every motive."

Locking eyes with him, two proficient gladiators crossing their swords, vying for dominance, Michonne poked him more. "She killed two innocent people."

"Thinkin' she was protectin' the rest of us," Daryl deadpanned, reciprocating the hard look. "Served her well."

Giving up badgering him in ways she was sure were much more painful than he allowed his glassy gaze to mirror, Michonne bowed her eyes first and ran an exhausted palm across her face. "You should cut Rick some slack, you know. Can't blame him for what she did."

"I don't blame him for what she did. I blame him for what he did," he declared flatly. "If it had somehow worked, stopped the flu, he'd be fine with it, murder or no murder."

"You're too hard with him," she pleaded. "He's struggling, just like everyone does."

"Too hard?" Daryl huffed bitterly and the throbbing emotion behind the barb made Michonne miss the days he used to lash out at her for a dropping leaf or a bird chirping loudly. "Too hard? He's still alive and behind the prison walls, ain't he?"

"We're dog-tired. Tomorrow we're heading back to the prison. Have a shower, get our shit together," she announced conclusively after a few minutes of loaded tension between them, an adamant finality ringing in her tone, no leeway for diplomacy or compromise.

Daryl dismissed her by lowering on the ground and turning his back to her as she smothered the dying embers.

An open wound he was, top to bottom, all bleeding, all raw pain. Avalanche of stabbing lances and viscerally jarring throes. It was fierce this pain, punctuating, springing from his kernel and worming a crawlway into his mind until his senses slacked. Impossible to be localized, it simply hurled blazing flames in every single cell of his body, prevailing inch by inch, rendering him ineffective. No comfort, no consolation, no healing.

Michonne sighed and averted her gaze from his back, scanning their bearings for imminent threats. One day, reality would clobber him and he'd come to terms with the mere fact that Carol had just vanished in shards of smoke and that he had picked up a battle he couldn't possibly win, that this holy war he was clashing against odds and common sense, against gods and demons was fizzling out. Ultimately, that all this –all this, the pain, the despair, the agony, the self-loathing- were like a tuxedo rehearsal for the aftermath, for the day he'd be ready to flip the page to the next and final chapter of grief, i.e. acceptance.

Then he'd withdraw in his ivory tower even more, licking his wounds, clustering and gluing his broken parts one by one. And when the remnants of who he was were all stitched together, recovery would start. That was how things rolled now. If duct tape couldn't fix it, then one hadn't used enough duct tape. Duct tape held the world together nowadays.

Or so she hoped.

xxxxx

Fifty-five days after Carol's banishment

Wrestling to force her scattered ruminations into a meaningful order, Michonne laced her fingers and drew an inward breath, permitting the words to claw out tranquilly, yet sternly. "You know, if you haven't chewed my mind off that that asshole's trail went cold long ago and I'm missing a real life back in prison, I'd probably still be after him. So, I'm only gonna say it because you had the guts to spit it out in my face when I needed to hear it. And nobody needs some kind of intervention more than you do right now."

Squaring his torso and straightening his back, Daryl lit a cigarette, bracing himself for a bill he evidently knew was coming due sooner or later, avoiding her intense stare.

"What are we doing out here, Daryl? There never was a trail to begin with. It's been almost two months and we're stomping around on our feet."

"You know your way back," he grunted, gazing up at her.

"This is not about me," Michonne explained, dropping her cards on the table. "I get it, ok? How hard it is to have people just- just vanish one day. No goodbyes, no nothing."

"You know shit," Daryl bit out. "You chose to walk away from Andrea and she chose to stay behind. You know shit!"

"Fair enough," she acquiesced. "But, unless you have some sort of crystal ball you're hiding we got nothing to locate Carol. And truth is we don't even know if she's alive."

"No body, no funeral," he rasped throatily, voice warped into a sough, airway clogged up. "Ain't visitin' an empty grave again."

"And that's all you got…" she hummed, more like a statement than an actual question.

As he spoke his voice was gruff, maybe sharpened with an inimical razor for her castigation and loss of faith. "Good enough for me."

She was prodding for a sign of the fifth stage of grief, acceptance. She found none. Instead of moving forward, he was receding back to denial. "That's pretty close to what I said about the Governor once," Michonne argued. "And you called me obsessed back then."

"You were out for blood," he retorted evenly, lips pursed in a firm line. "It ain't the same with her."

Narrowing her eyes, she opened her mouth and hesitated for a moment before speaking, contemplating on the question shadowing them, wondering if he could say it out loud for a change. "What is it like with her?"

She watched as his features stretched outlandishly and morphed into a beasty mask, reflexively reaching for her katana. "What?" he barked, stirred and charged with sheer animalistic instinct. "You wanna talk about feelings now? Make it all about-? Screw you!"

And back to anger –his safe house.

"Simmer down, tough guy," Michonne muttered, holding his murderous glare defiantly. "I'm only trying to help here."

As debility eased her lane back in, Daryl dragged himself on the cabin's table and spread the map, propping heavily on splayed arms. "She's out there somewhere," he chanted the mantra. "I try hard enough, I'll find her."

A fast downhill to denial and then clambering up to bargaining. The usual, typically regressive loop, gadding in circles and zigzag courses that eventually scribbled a dispersed, shapeless sketch. Michonne knew. She felt for him. She felt for Carol. She couldn't help either.

"Look, you wanna go back? Knock yourself out," he said without turning to face her. "You've already done enough. Just don't ask me to quit."

And back to depression peppered with a smidge of suppressed anger.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe all wounds couldn't be healed. Maybe time didn't cure everything.

"Nah, I'm in for the long haul, so you just have to grit your teeth and bear with me," Michonne offered. "Guess it's a good thing I've always liked camping in summer despite all those horror movies with dumb chicks baiting themselves to get cleaved. I thought I'd be smarter than that anyhow. Turns out I really am." When her joking attempt educed absolutely no answer, she ambled next to him. "So, what's the plan for tomorrow?


Hope I did a decent job describing Daryl's grief through Michonne's POV. She's a very insightful woman and I do believe she'd help him in his search. Do you hate me already? And where the heck is Carol?

If you liked what you read, drop me an encouraging word. If you didn't, constructive criticism is always welcome.