Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead, wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: This is a 'fix-it-what-Carol-was-up-to' sort of fic, meant to fit in after 4x04 to whenever Carol comes back to grace our screens. This is written in response to an anon prompt in my askbox on tumblr. Honestly, I just couldn't resist.

Warnings: Contains spoilers for all four seasons of the Walking Dead, strong language, probably very much AU, angst and more.

In Transit

Chapter Three

She'd always admired Daryl's ability to meld – to fit in and acclimatize no matter the situation. He was versatile and willing to compartmentalize, to think big rather than small. He was the very definition of the jack-of-all-trades in a way she both admired and envied.

He was adaptable, capable. In many ways, he'd been made for the way the world was now. He hadn't fit in before; like a puzzle piece lost in the wrong box, he'd never quite found his niche. Together, she figured they'd gained more than they'd lost since the world had ended.

Ironic, how things tend to work out.

She still remembered the first few weeks up at the quarry camp, after Atlanta had been overrun. Things had gotten bad after Ed's MREs had run out, after everything had run out - tempers had been short, people's patience, shorter. Half the camp had been in favor of sending out groups to scavenge, the other deemed it too dangerous. In the end, it'd come down to an all-out shouting match in the middle of camp.

In truth, no one had wanted to listen. Not to logic. Not to reason. They just wanted to yell. To be heard. To try and make their mark in a place, a situation where they found themselves ill-prepared. They wanted answers, help, resolution, solace, comfort, normalcy, revenge and a hundred thousand things that this damn disease had taken away from them.

They were scared, they all were.

"It's too big a risk! You know that, Dale. We've already talked about this, man," Shane argued. "What if they follow one of you back here, huh?" he asked, tone broaching no argument as Lori and Carl stood behind him, listening, front and center of a good half dozen people who'd gathered to weigh in on the situation.

"At the time yes, but we are running out of options," Dale returned, voice surprisingly level despite the fact that he'd been arguing the same point for nearly a quarter of an hour. "We have almost no food, no supplies and we're low on gas. The risk, if it is that, is necessary. Rationing what we have left is a short term fix, not a solution."

"It wouldn't be long, in and out, no problem," Glenn butted in, using the pause to get a word in, gesturing to the backpack already slung over his shoulder. "I know most of the city like the back of my hand anyway. I'll take the long way back, make sure I don't bring back any company," he assured.

She'd said nothing, keeping a hand on Sophia's shoulder. She watched Ed watch the others as tension vibrated down her spine. She hadn't said much back then.

"Y'all remember Phil and Samantha?" Shane asked, hands expressive as they flung out, gesturing towards the road. "They made it up here with us after Atlanta was overrun. But they left the next morning. What was it they said? 'Gonna bring back the Calvary?' – go looking for supplies? Enough to get us by until help came?" Shane returned, running a hand through his hair as he snorted in derision.

"Look how that turned out. They never came back. God knows what the hell they found down there. And now you guys wanna bring all that up here?!" he replied, tone incredulous as half the crowd nodded, murmuring quietly to themselves as Dale shook his head.

"I don't care how quick or careful you are, we don't have the ammo to waste. We don't have the man power or resources to pull something like that off or even defend camp if everything goes south."

"Shane?" Lori tried, speaking up for the first time since the argument had started, Carl close at her hip as he watched the proceedings tiredly. Nightmares.

"I understand what you're saying. And honestly, you aren't wrong. But the kids are hungry. We're hungry. We can only go on so long like this. Sooner or later we're going to have to take the risk," she cautioned, talking to Shane – no, arguing right back at him like it was the easiest thing in the world. The woman was fearless, even now.

She remembered glancing over at Ed. She remembered the sudden tremor that had started up in her right hand and the dull ache that resonated in her shoulder. She remembered looking away quickly, eyes downcast.

Shane was just about to reply when something suddenly whooshed through the air just off to left of the main group. Daryl's crossbow. The bolt bit into the soft wood of a pine on the other side of the clearing with a crackle and a dull thud, piercing through the bark like a hot knife gliding through butter, pinning a squirrel no one had even so much as noticed, mid-trunk.

Half the group startled, some even going so far as to hit the dirt, uncertain of what was happening or who was shooting while the other half whirled around, expecting a threat. She could honestly say that no one really knew how to react when they caught sight of Daryl leaning up against T-dog's van, crossbow braced against his shoulder as he glared at the crowd at large.

The bolt was still quivering, sunk deep into the trunk of a skinny little pine clear across the yard as people began picking themselves up off the ground. Shane's hand tightened around his Mossberg when Merle had the gall to laugh.

No one said a word when Daryl straightened, stalking right into the middle of the crowd, not even seeming to notice as they parted around him like the Red Sea. He pried his bolt out of the tree unconcernedly, acting like he had all the time in the world as he tucked the dead squirrel into his belt, easing a rag out of his back pocket and wiping the bolt clean.

"You don't need no fancy shit to eat," the man commented, head still bowed, eyes on the task at hand as inspected the bolt closely. To anyone else he might have simply been talking to himself. But she knew better. "None of that pre-cooked, cellophane bullshit they were serving in the camps."

"I'll go out, get us some pheasant, maybe a deer if we're lucky," Daryl continued, looking up, face a mask of hard lines and a flippant sort of expression she figured he put on to show the world that he couldn't care less. That he'd leave them all to starve at a moment's notice if something better came along.

Pity he wasn't a better liar.

"Go on your supply run," Daryl grunted, looking over at Glenn with a shallow little nod before he turned his attention back to Shane. "Now is as good a time as any, when we still got options. You can't wait till we got nothing. Going out there weak on an empty stomach is just asking for trouble. We all gotta eat and I think it's pretty clear by now that no one's comin' – not the government or FEMA, not even the god damned marines," he imparted with a snort, unaware he had everyone's undivided attention as the words started to sink in – permeating through the layer of denial people had been building up around them like a wall ever since Atlanta had fallen.

"Stick to the outskirts," he advised, eeing Glenn down as he nodded eagerly, almost jumping from one foot to another as Shane made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "Stay on foot. No noise no problem."

"We'll go huntin'," Daryl added, acting like it was already decided as he gestured over to Merle - the older man just flicked a bit of ash off the end of his cigarette, watching the proceedings with a mocking sort of interest from his seat by the fire.

The silence that followed was discomforting. Even Daryl seemed to be waiting for some sort of argument. But if he was looking for a confrontation, he didn't get it.

"Whatever man," Shane finally sighed, mashing his cap back on his head as he met Glenn's anxious stare. "It's your funeral."

Glenn's expression turned queasy. Firm, but a bit green around the edges. Brave little thing.

"Here, might as well make 'yerself useful," Daryl grunted, surprising them both when he crossed over to where her and Ed were standing, smacking the dead squirrel right into the center of Ed's chest, dripping blood and all.

"Skin it, gut it. It'll hold 'yer daughter up for a little while. Think you can handle that?" Daryl retorted, an edge, different from the one he'd used before, coloring his tone. It seemed sharper somehow, harder – vicious.

He hadn't even looked at her.

And for the first time since he and his brother had chased the dusk all the way up the long winding road that led to the Quarry, pulling in with a rumblin' motor and twin suspicious glares, recognition flashed.

What was it they said about birds of a feather?

Ed's spine arched like a wet cat, affronted and angry. But before he could say even so much as a word, Daryl was already moving, loading the bolt back into the bow as he yelled for his brother.

"Now, if 'yer all done flapping your gums, you're scarin' the game," he growled, eyes flicking from Shane to Dale respectively, dark and glittering under long lashes before he dipped his head and, without another word, slouched off in the direction of the tree line.

Ed had just muttered under his breath, grumbling about 'rednecks' and 'stringy-ass meat' as he stared at the squirrel clutched in his fist - held up by the tail, with clear disgust.

"Try not to kill each other while we're gone!" Merle added after a beat, tone sing-songing and mocking as he pocketed his flint and slid his buck knife – now freshly sharpened – back into its sheath. The older Dixon had shouldered both packs as he'd sent Shane a half-assed salute, following his brother into the forest with a bow-legged sort of flourish she'd come to attribute to spending too much time nursing a bottle of tequila rather than doing something constructive.

In the end, she wasn't sure who had been more surprised, Dale or Shane.

Personally, all she remembered in the moments after, in between the smell of cooking meat and Sophia's eager face, was marvelling that she'd finally heard the younger man string together more than a few words at a time. In fact, it'd felt like a perverse sort of treat to have gotten as much as they had. As strange as it was to even consider.

She smiled at the memory, unsheathing her knife and squinting into the early morning glare as she advanced on the back fence. She'd spent the last two days in a townhouse on the edge of the suburbs, it was about forty miles from the farm house and untouched – with the musty smell of long rotted food and mildew having been the only things that had greeted her when she'd slipped through the basement window.

The cold steel of her knife gradually warmed in her palm as she kept her eyes on the target. Easy now. Slow. Don't startle it. Breathe.

Daryl had been more cautious back then, bottled up and wary. Like a feral dog that had more ribs showing than you figured it outta, but wouldn't let you come near enough to feed it.

She breathed in through her nose, aiming. The knife felt light in her grip – right. She knew this. She cocked her head, breathing low, willing herself to relax as she corrected her stance. Careful now.

The blade flirted with the vulnerable curve of her palm, a hair's breath from breaking skin as she drew it back. She could practically feel his warm weight against her back, correcting her posture, her aim, with those rough but unbelievably gentle movements. Even when he'd carried her out of the tombs all those months ago, finding her weak and alone in that lonely little cell, he'd always held her like that.

He held her like he was afraid of breaking her, like he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he did.

Her knife clattered off the edge of the fence with a dull clang. The squirrel she'd been aiming at, a fat black-haired little thing, chittered in alarm, launching itself into the low hanging branches the next house over, chirping a litany of angry sounds in her general direction before it skittered off across the bark, exit covered by a thin veil of leaves.

She gave it a dirty look, cursing under her breath. So much for breakfast.

Daryl had always made this sort of stuff look easy.


A/N #1: Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – There will be more chapters to come, stay tuned!