Author's Note: A few time jumps here, but lots of cuddling and lots of messiness too, so hang on ;)

Picking up a few days after we left.

This Time And This Place

Carol's watery eyes popped open as she let out a gasp.

For a moment she just lay there trying to catch her lost breath, until finally she felt her horrible dream start to fade. That's when she blinked the moisture from her eyes, and let her hand slide up from Daryl's chest, so she could lightly brush her fingers along his cheek instead.

Fortunately he didn't stir at the touch because she didn't actually want to wake him, but still . . . her eyes started to fill again . . . she'd just needed to feel his skin. To reassure herself, yet again, that he was okay. Because he'd almost died that afternoon on a supply run. In fact, he'd come so close to being torn apart by a pack of walkers, that she still hadn't shaken off that initial panic she'd felt when she'd first heard the story. That was precisely why she'd just woken up from her second nightmare of the evening where her brain had spun a terrible tale of things going the other way . . . the way where he hadn't made it back to camp at all. And she was not prepared to lose him. She bit her lip.

Not right when they'd just found each other out here in this hell.

It had been twelve days since she and Daryl had first met, and four days since they'd gotten together. So that was four days since he and Merle had freed her and Sophia from Ed. Today though, this had been the first day that Daryl had left the camp for any length of time. Not that he hadn't still been going out looking for game each day, but he'd changed his approach there. First he'd taken to setting up snares just outside the tree line with the hope of catching the occasional rabbit or squirrel wandering through. Then for his daily hunts, rather than tracking for miles like he'd been doing since he and Merle had arrived, instead he'd been working in small circles, going out in a different direction of the forest each morning. Then again in the afternoon.

He said that way he could keep covering new ground, but still only be gone for no more than an hour or so each time he left.

And that wasn't something that she'd asked him to do . . . it wasn't something that she ever would have asked him to do . . . it was something he'd decided all on his own. It was the morning after Ed's beat down, while Daryl was getting the knife sheath hooked onto her belt that he'd told her how he wouldn't be taking any long trips out of camp until he was sure she was one hundred percent on the mend. He'd said that was because he was worried about another walker stumbling out of the woods like the one she'd killed the night before, when she didn't have the strength yet to be playing Wonder Woman on a daily basis. Then he'd shot her a little half grin as he'd added on a whisper, that Wonder Woman would come later. Of course him saying that had made her tear up even while she was giving him a happy smile. Because it was yet another sign of how much she could grow with him. Daryl was a man who believed in her.

And nobody had ever believed in her before.

It had actually already made a difference too, not only in her physical recovery the last few days, but in her mental health as well, just knowing that he thought she could be strong like that. It also helped to know that he already cared enough to want to stay close by even if he obviously couldn't spend all of his time with her and Sophia. Because of course there was still so much for everyone to do with the chores.

And Daryl had definitely been doing more than his share.

Like when he wasn't out in the forest tracking game, he was chopping firewood, or hauling water, and yesterday he'd spent most of the morning digging out a new latrine. That was right before he'd spent another full hour filling in their old one. But he'd said that in this kind of heat, it was important to do that once a week to keep the animals away. The fact that he even knew basic survival things like that, things that nobody else seemed to know . . . except probably Merle who seemed less inclined to share that knowledge . . . showed just how important Daryl's presence was to the group, whether the others really appreciated that yet or not. And Carol knew that the group were probably split sixty/forty on him right now. She sniffled.

He'd definitely been pushing the odds in his favor though.

Because beyond just the 'grunt' labor he'd been doing, two days earlier he'd also taken it upon himself to do an assembly line spit and polish of all the guns in camp. He'd said he wanted to make sure they were all in good working order for the next time they got unwanted visitors. And that offer of his was something that people had genuinely appreciated, because most of the group, (prior to the last few weeks), had minimal firearms experience. So Daryl had told everybody to drop their guns off in shifts.

The only rule was they had to bring their own oil.

The great thing about that was, he'd actually let Sophia help him that day. Not that he'd let her touch any of the fully assembled guns of course, they'd both agreed it was much too soon for that, but as he sat out under the awning in that sweltering heat and took those weapons apart one by one, he'd shown her daughter the pieces, what each one of them were called, how to wipe them down, oil them up . . . and then put the whole gun, or rifle, back together again. By the end of the afternoon Carol had been so proud when she came out of the trailer to see that when Daryl took the last handgun apart, Andrea's . . . he'd let her stay and watch too . . . and he'd asked Sophia to name the pieces on the cloth, she'd gotten every one of them right. Andrea had clapped.

Daryl had grinned from ear to ear.

Truly, in the four days that man had been spending regular time with her daughter, he'd already taught that girl more than her daddy had over the entirety of her young life. And Sophia wasn't the only one who had benefited from Daryl's lessons that past week. With her and Lori's permission, he'd also shown both Sophia and Carl (plus the two of them) how to start a fire without matches. Even though that only took maybe twenty minutes of his time, him doing that seemed to irk Shane quite a bit. Like he thought that Daryl was stepping on his turf with Carl or something. But Lori had told her in private later on that Shane didn't know how to start a fire that way, and she thought it was a good skill for her son to have, and she was the boy's mother so Shane was just going to have to deal with it. Obviously Lori did have final say, but even so, that tiny bit of tension over such a ridiculously small issue had set things back between the two men. At the time, neither she nor Lori had realized how much it had set them back. It had just seemed to be unfortunate that their small peace hadn't held longer. In the end though, Carol knew that all they'd ever had in common was just a brief common cause, in their hatred of Ed. And now that he'd been removed from the group (though infuriatingly, he was still hanging on there, half dead out in the field) the two of them had almost immediately started falling back into their old patterns again. Really, it was Shane that had fallen back into the old patterns, Daryl had just gotten pulled into his crap. But now after what had happened that morning . . . Carol's jaw started to tighten as she thought back . . . the tension was even worse than it had been when she'd first arrived in camp. And she hated it.

She was actually starting to hate Shane.

Because God knew that they had real, common issues to overcome as a group, things that should be bringing everyone together, but here this man was walking around carrying on with this crazy, petty, nonsense. She didn't understand his ways at all. The one thing she knew for sure though, was that pettiness of his had contributed to Daryl almost dying that afternoon.

Because Daryl wasn't supposed to be out on that run AT ALL today!

Again, he had rotated himself back to camp until she was well. Then this morning over breakfast, while the guys were going over their plans for the day, Daryl had stepped back into the trailer to get her sweater because there'd been a chill in the air. Shane had taken those few seconds to make a dig about Daryl being "too busy now with domestic life" (meaning her) to take his turn on the food runs anymore. Of course he did it with a smile, like it was a big joke or something.

Nobody thought it was a joke.

That was obvious from the immediate, tension filled silence that settled over the rest of the group sitting around the fire. And Carol had wanted to call Shane out as the spineless jerk that he was for not only waiting until Daryl had gone inside to take his shot at him, but also just for taking the shot at all(!) when he damn well KNEW how much Daryl had been helping out that week with literally EVERYTHING around the camp! But she hadn't had the courage to speak up for him, and she was ashamed of that. So instead she'd just sat there with her stomach churning and her face getting hot with all of the anger and resentment . . . and yes embarrassment(!) . . . she'd been feeling for not only herself, but for Daryl too.

That was right before Daryl had stepped back out of the trailer door.

It turned out that her new man had really good ears, so he'd heard EXACTLY what Shane had said about him after he'd stepped away. And as he was walking back down the hill with her sweater over his arm, he'd hollered out that if Shane had something to share with him, maybe he could try not being a little pussy ass bitch about it and maybe say it to his face instead. Of course Shane had not taken well to being called a pussy ass bitch in front of the entire camp . . . Merle's cackled, "you get him little brother!" clearly hadn't helped anything either . . . because then Shane was up on his feet, eyes blazing like a crazy person. Truly, for just a second he'd looked as insane as Ed always had, right before he'd start to kick in her ribs. It was that blackness that had frightened her the most. Even worse than that though, was how Shane's hand had actually gone straight to his hip. It had looked like he was about to pull his gun.

All because Daryl had embarrassed him.

Thank God he hadn't actually pulled the weapon, but that might have only been because that's when Lori had jumped up and grabbed that same arm. Even then Shane had tried to shake her off, but from where she was on the other side of the fire (with Sophia cowering in her lap, and Daryl then standing behind her), Carol had seen Lori's nails actually gouging into Shane's bicep.

There'd been a small trickle of blood running down his arm.

Then she was up on the toes of her boots, hissing something . . . clearly furious . . . directly into his ear. Whatever it was had made him freeze just before he shot a look over his shoulder at Carl. And Carl had been looking up at him the same way that pretty much everyone else (besides the Dixon brothers) had been looking up at him.

With genuine fear.

Because Shane's behavior at that moment had been ALARMING, to say the least! Not only had he instigated the entire ridiculous incident in question, but then when Daryl had (rightly) responded that it'd been cowardly to wait until he'd stepped away to say anything at all, he'd immediately reached for his GUN! Before that moment, the only person Carol had ever met who would pick a fight out of nowhere, and then attempt to escalate that fight into a full out of act of violence in less than two minutes flat . . . was Ed. The whole thing had really shaken her up. Everyone actually had seemed shaken up. The only one who'd said anything openly though about that was Dale. While Lori was still hissing whatever she'd been saying into Shane's ear, that's when Dale had stood up to point out how nobody needed this kind of stupid bickering to start up again.

That it was scaring people.

Daryl had been leaning over to put the sweater on her shoulders then, so all he'd grunted out was a "mind your business, old man." There wasn't any fire in it though because Carol knew that he wasn't really angry with Dale. He was angry with Shane. That had been the whole reason he'd ended up going out on that run.

Just to spite that son of a bitch.

Even though Shane had stalked off from the group and had then ended up disappearing for most of the day after Lori had pulled away from him, Daryl had still felt like he'd needed to prove himself or something. It was just silly macho pride. Of course she'd tried to talk him out of it, because he hadn't had anything to prove to anyone, but he hadn't been in the mood to listen to her. "He's just a jerk, bear," is what she'd whispered to him in the trailer, "and I think everybody could finally see that today. It's not you with the problem, it's him. People are starting to come to you for things, and I think he's jealous that you're taking away some of his influence, and this is him acting out like a child would." All she'd gotten back to that was a somewhat dismissive grunt as Daryl had continued to pace angrily back and forth, biting his thumb nail. A second later though he'd turned around and let out a heavy sigh, right before he'd leaned down to kiss her cheek, so she was pretty sure that what she'd said had at least meant something to him.

Even if it hadn't actually stopped him from leaving.

The run itself had been vital though. Over the few days that she'd been out of commission, their food pantry had dwindled down to a half a bag of mealy rice, (Daryl had shared the unpopular opinion that they were extra protein, and they should just leave the little worms in), one unopened jar of pickles, four packets of oatmeal, and (not counting the one Daryl told her to keep hidden in her own bag), the last three cans of her emergency Spam. Of course when you were feeding upwards of twenty plus people, three times a day, even on ration, the supplies went quickly. That was even with Daryl (and sometimes Merle) still bringing in two or three squirrels and rabbits each day too, but again, two dozen people needed a lot of calories just to stay alive.

Every trip out into the world was so dangerous now though.

One of the first members of the camp to have been killed, Lamar, he'd died on literally the first food run that any of them had made. But even worse than the physical danger they always faced, was the hard reality that they were actually running out of places to scavenge. The reason for that was simple though, nobody in their group was from that area, so nobody knew where anything was! Which meant that short of stores or restaurants someone might have seen from the highway, finding new locations to pilfer food from was all a matter of luck. And once everyone had realized how dire things were getting, yesterday there had been some 'sitting around the fire' talk of actually going into the city with the hopes of maybe making a really big score that would tide them all over long enough to start making other plans to find a more permanent camp. But Atlanta had just scores of walkers everywhere . . . Glenn, T-Dog and Jacqui had all said the same thing, that they'd barely gotten out of there alive . . . so a trip into the city was the option of last resort. So what the others had decided on instead . . . another tear spilled down Carol's cheek as she thought back to earlier in the day . . . was that it was time to go on what they'd called a, "house to house." And that was just what it had sounded like, the group selected for the run would drive down from the quarry, pick a town relatively close by that didn't seem to be overly infested with walkers, and then they would just go from one (theoretically) abandoned house to the next, to see what they could find in the kitchens and pantries. Scavenging like that wasn't as risky as going into Atlanta, but it was still incredibly unsafe because there was no way of knowing from one house to another, what a person would find on the other side of a door. The place could be abandoned, or there could be living survivors in there still willing to kill to protect their loved ones and supplies, or there could be a whole (literal) family of walkers wandering around inside any, or EVERY, one of those houses.

There was just SO much that could wrong.

It was a sign of how desperate they were though, that when Lori pointed that fact out yet again when they were loading up . . . that somebody could literally die today . . . most everyone else just shrugged. So at a little after nine am, a four man team had headed out in T-Dog's church van with a map, one spare tire, and one spare canister of gasoline. The group had consisted of Glenn because Glenn always volunteered for the supply runs, (that was his thing), then T-Dog and Morales just because it was their turn again, and the last person was supposed to be Jacqui.

Daryl took her place.

And by what the men told everyone when they got back to camp late that afternoon, the first part of the trip went okay. Because their plans were so loose, they'd just headed for the closest town they could go to and get back from with only two turns off the main road. Daryl had said that going in a straight line would've been dangerous if they'd picked up any stragglers. So then once they'd found a neighborhood with decent sized houses and minimal walkers in the street, they'd parked in the middle of the block, had thrown their empty duffel bags up on their shoulders . . . and had headed out. T-Dog said later that the first two homes had been clear of live walkers, but that was because they'd already been raided by somebody else. That was obvious by the empty cabinets, and the number of dead walkers that they'd found scattered throughout the houses. So they'd gone on further down the street, and then around the block, slowly picking up a few boxes and cans here or there, and killing only four walkers over eleven houses, which they'd thought wasn't bad at all. Finally though, at the twelfth house, they'd hit a gold mine. Not of food . . . once again this had been a place where all of the cabinet doors in the kitchen had been hanging open, and the shelves were bare . . . but of almost everything BUT food. They'd found a stash of supplies all in an upstairs bedroom.

Apparently nobody who had come through before them, had thought to do a search up there before.

Their loss though, was what Glenn said had been the group's initial thought, because in what had seemed to them to have been the master bedroom, they'd found six huge cases of toilet paper, the kind with thirty plus rolls each, two cases of paper towel, four boxes of personal wipes, a case of tissues, jumbo bottles of Tylenol and vitamins, two first aid kids, bottles of antacid, bottles of shampoo, packs of razors, boxes of bulk count tampons, and ten whole, six pack bars of Lever soap in Pure Rain scent.

Every one of them had still been in their cellophane wrapping.

It had been obvious to the guys, that this family of five . . . who'd they'd found twice dead scattered throughout the downstairs . . . had made a run to one of those warehouse stores not too long before everything had been shut down. Then it seemed like they must of died almost immediately afterwards. And likely they'd bought just as much bulk food as they had those other supplies, but clearly that would have been the first thing taken by anybody else who had broken in earlier. Still, what they'd found in that one room had been just what they'd needed to raise their spirits that day.

Then a choice was made that changed everything.

Because they'd found so much, and with most of it being bulk items that were impossible to fit into their small carry bags, they'd needed to start bringing some stuff back to the van to begin loading up. Daryl and Glenn had volunteered to handle that step, while the other two kept digging around the house just to make sure they hadn't missed any of that bulk food hidden away in another room.

Unfortunately that was when things had started to go wrong.

Because while Daryl and Glenn were heading down the sidewalk with their arms full of toilet paper and paper towel, and the bags on their shoulders packed with the tampons and pads (the women begged for those on every trip) on the next block over . . . a car alarm had started going off. That still happened sometimes even after the world ended, because some of those alarms were so sensitive that a walker just bumping into the car, could set one off. No matter what the trigger had been though, the sound alone had been enough for Daryl and Glenn to take off at a run. Because as they'd already known would . . . and did . . . happen, that bleating sound had woken up ALL of the walkers in the area. They hadn't even been able to reach the end of the street, let alone the van, before they were being swarmed.

At least that was how Glenn had put it when he was telling everyone back at camp what had happened.

Daryl hadn't put things any way, at all. In fact he had not hung around for "story time," as he'd called it, while walking away. However their tale was told though, the others had learned how more than a dozen walkers had begun to stumble out from behind the houses and trees immediately surrounding them on that block. Glenn had said that all he and Daryl had had time to do was just toss their supplies off into the grass, and climb under one of the parked cars in the street to try and hide. They hadn't been fast enough though, because while they were under there, one of the walkers limping by had gotten a whiff of them. The next thing Glenn knew, there were rotted fingers scratching at him from the side. And there was no room to maneuver under that little car, so he'd rolled into Daryl . . . and Daryl had rolled out into the street. They'd barely had time to get to their feet again before two more walkers were lumbering straight at them. The first one Daryl had taken out with a knife to the eye.

The second one Glenn took down with his baseball bat.

Still, they kept coming though. One, stumbling, undead body at a time. In the end, they'd ended up killing at least a dozen or so walkers right there all by themselves in the street. And for their troubles, they'd both come back covered with guck. The real concern though, was how in the middle of that melee, before T-Dog and Morales had shown up to help them get enough cover to run for the van, Daryl's shirt had been ripped near to shreds in the back.

Those dead people always had very long fingernails.

And when Carol had seen Daryl climbing out of the front passenger seat with his clothes torn, and dried blood and guts literally ALL over him, she'd immediately burst into tears as she'd rushed over, sobbing, "oh my God, what happened?!" But of course Daryl had just waved her off with a weary, "ain't nothing, Peach. Just need to clean up is all." So with the others still piling out of the van, pulling out what was left of their haul . . . all the toilet paper had been ruined with gore and a most of the other stuff had been dropped fighting through the walkers that had kept rolling in for that car alarm . . . Daryl had headed off alone with just his bow, and one single bar of the soap that Carol had found out afterwards, they'd pulled out of that house and had luckily been zipped up in T-Dog's bagpack. And while Daryl was down in their makeshift shower by the trees scrubbing himself clean, Glenn . . . who had been just as much of a mess as her man, and still shaking while he'd stood there by the bumper of T-Dog's van . . . had told everyone the story of what had happened to them. By the time he was done, Carol had been ready to fall to her knees. Because that was as close to dying from a walker attack, that any of them had come in some time. Even the other night when that one had come out of the woods, it was just the one, and Daryl'd still had it pinned off of him before she'd stabbed it.

And he was strong enough that even alone, he probably could have handled things without any help from her.

But getting caught in a continuing swarm of them like that . . . she started to sniffle again . . . the odds were against anyone making it out alive. That was something they'd learned time and again, first in footage on the Internet coming out of India when the whispers of the outbreak had started, then later on with the twenty-four hour TV coverage of all the major global cities falling, and then finally it was happening in the streets right outside their own homes. And even if a person did by some miracle survive that kind of attack, usually they'd still have taken a bite or two in the process of getting away. Which was of course Carol's real concern when she'd heard that story . . . the stray bites. Her fears there had been what had given her the strength to huff and puff (her shirt seriously had been soaked through with sweat), while she'd dragged her stiff, aching body all the way across the field to go check on Daryl.

She'd also brought him a towel and a set of clean clothes.

And though he'd grunted something at her under his breath . . . it had sounded like, "you ain't supposed to be out walking by yourself" . . . it had been clear that he was not looking for her to stay and keep him company. Probably because he'd still been quite the mess, with bloody suds in his hair and on his face, and more still dripping down his legs behind the small divider. So she'd just hung his clean things over the brush, blown him a kiss, and had started limping back the way she'd come. Andrea had already been running over to help her before she'd even reached the halfway point of the field. And to her credit, as the younger woman had slipped her arm around her waist and had pulled her sweaty, stumbling body against her side, she didn't chastise her for being so stupid trying to walk so far all alone.

That was even though Carol still hadn't caught her breath by the time they'd got back to the main fire pit.

Of course that was where she'd had to take the worried looks from everyone else. But she'd just ignored them all because she was tired of those looks of pity, even though she knew nobody really meant them unkindly.

She just wanted to be healed up again and not have to be getting looks from anyone at all.

So after Andrea had finally let her go, she'd collected Sophia from Amy while assuring her young friend that Daryl was fine (a point that Carol wasn't then sure of herself, but knew she'd needed to lie about anyway because she'd remembered that being in a "real" relationship meant that you backed each other up to outsiders no matter what) she and her very agitated daughter (she'd seen what Daryl and Glenn had looked like getting out of the van) had gone into the trailer to wait for Daryl.

It had been another fifteen minutes or so before he'd shown up.

The second that outside step had creaked though, and he'd put his bare foot through the doorway, Sophia had bolted off the bench seat to slam into his chest. It wasn't until he'd tipped his head down, and hugged her daughter close while whispering in her ear that he was okay, and how he was always going to be okay because he wasn't going to leave them alone, well, that was when Carol's tears had returned.

She'd been fighting them off ever since.

Part of her felt kind of justified in how emotional she'd been feeling though, because of what had happened after Daryl had had some water and all three of them had gone to sit down in the back of the RV where they could have some privacy. And Carol had really tried to be good and just let him decompress with her cuddled against one side of him, and Sophia the other. He'd had an arm around each of them. But not five minutes had passed of total silence between the three of them, before she couldn't help herself from asking him if she could just double check and make sure he hadn't gotten any bites or scratches anywhere.

She just hadn't been able to stop picturing those bloody soap suds.

At first she'd felt Daryl tense up at the question, and as she'd lifted her head, he'd shot a look down to Sophia snuggled in on his other side. It was clear he didn't want her around for whatever he was going to say next, so Carol had sat up, and leaned over to dig a crossword out from her bag on the end of the bunk. The puzzle book was passed along to Sophia with the instruction to go sit up on the roof with Dale, until she and Daryl were done talking. Any other day of course Carol would have sent her daughter out to Lori, but she didn't want Sophia anywhere around Shane with him acting so crazy earlier, and with his whereabouts still having been unknown at that time, she'd been afraid of him suddenly popping up.

The roof was the one place he couldn't be.

So once Sophia had reluctantly shuffled out, Daryl had again started his pacing back and forth. It was just like before he'd left on the food run, with his brow scrunching as he'd chewed on his thumbnail. But this time he was also muttering. Saying that he was fine, that there weren't no bites or scratches nowhere.

He was sure of it.

The more insistent he'd been that there was nothing to see, the more worried she'd started to get that maybe there really WAS something to see, and he'd been trying to spare her from having to worry until the end. It wasn't until she'd said that, with a crack in her voice, that he'd finally stopped pacing, and had turned to give her a look. Whatever he saw on her face, made his own expression soften for just a moment. The moment passed quickly though, because then he'd taken a deep breath and had given her a hard look right before he'd brought his finger up and shook it at her as he'd said with a real bite in his tone. "All right, you can check, Peach. But you ain't to say nothing about nothing, unless you see fresh blood, you got it?"

At that point she'd been so confused and frightened that she'd just given him a sharp, nervous nod of her head, because she'd probably would have agreed to anything just then so long as she was allowed to look. So he'd taken another deep breath, bit his lip . . . and started to undo his belt. It had only taken a moment for him to drop his pants, and for her to do a quick check around his legs. All that was there were a few pink'ish marks that were obviously bug bites, so she'd given him a nod and a nervous smile and he'd yanked his pants back up, got the zipper and refastened the belt. That's when his hands had gone to his shirt buttons . . . and that's where they'd stilled.

Finally he'd let out a heavy breath and had started slowly sliding each little plastic circle out from its tiny hole. Given how the shirt he'd been wearing earlier had been torn half off him, Carol had assumed (at that moment) his reluctance to strip the clean one off had to do with his worries about possible having a scratch or a bite under there.

It turned out that she couldn't have been more wrong.

Because when he'd finally slipped the flannel off his shoulders and had turned around, that's when she'd seen the marks there. Not new ones . . . thank God there'd been no new ones . . . but all of the old ones. The white and silvery scars cutting back and forth, that matched so many of the ones that she had on her own body. And even though Daryl had already told her himself that he'd grown up with a daddy like Sophia's, seeing those scars he'd still had ALL those decades later, they'd just made her heart break. When she'd started crying though and had brought her hand to her mouth, Daryl had immediately snatched his shirt up from the bunk, and had started shoving his arms back into his sleeves.

It had been clear that he was upset.

But what she hadn't been sure at first was if the upset was anger about her reaction, or anger about the marks being there at all. Before she could even begin to stammer out an apology, she'd seen the pink in his cheeks as he'd begun to fumble to redo his buttons. That's when she'd realized what was really happening.

He'd been embarrassed.

Because it was one thing to admit in passing that he'd a shitty father, but it was another thing to have to expose himself, and let someone else see the evidence of what had been done to him. Luckily she'd come to understand the difference all too well between admitting something as a fact, and having other people's pitying looks at the physical damage that had been done to your body. That's what she'd been dealing with for years, and even worse still the last few days.

That was why she was so sick of it.

So before Daryl had been able to close himself off completely, she'd pushed herself up with a wince, and had gently nudged his fingers away so she could finish buttoning his shirt herself. And by the time she was done, and had patted his chest, she could feel his eyes on her.

She'd looked up to see that they were wide and watery.

But she'd also seen how frantically he'd been trying to blink those tears away. So to save him that embarrassment too, she'd quickly tipped her head down and tucked her head under his chin. A moment later he'd wrapped her up in his arms.

"You don't tell nobody, okay?" He'd whispered then with a crackle in his voice.

"Of course," she'd sniffled back against his chest, "never."

That moment with him had been feeding her tears for all the hours since then. Because every time she looked at him now, she would remember yet again that not only had she almost lost him that day, but she'd also be reminded of how much he'd had to suffer just to become the man who had saved her, five days earlier. And he was a wonderful man, truly, the kind she'd long given up the hope of ever having. For some reason though, there they were.

Meant to be.

Maybe.

But her worries about him were why, earlier that night, she'd been waiting for him when he'd climbed down off the roof after his walker shift. But tonight, unlike the other evening when she'd just asked if they could go over and sit by the fire for a bit, she'd opted to tug him straight into the trailer. That had happened under his whispered protest in the dark of, "Peach, come on now, Dale said you and Sophia could stay here, not me." She'd ignored that though because it had been a non-protest, protest, which basically meant that Daryl hadn't said he didn't want to sleep there, he'd just said that he didn't think he was welcome to sleep there. And that was nonsense. Because Dale had told her more than once now, his trailer was her trailer. And it was her bed in that trailer that she'd been offering up to share. Daryl wasn't taking up any extra space. Besides that, having him there was good physical protection for not only her and Sophia, but Dale too.

And with the things that could stumble out of the woods these days, it would be ridiculous for anyone to scoff at having someone like Daryl around to keep you safe.

So since eleven pm, and it was probably close to the middle of the night now, she'd been curled up on this twin sized bunk, with Daryl's hard body wrapped all the way around hers just so she could make sure he was okay. And even though she felt safer being there with him than she had ever felt anywhere before, apocalypse be damned, again this was still the second time that night where she'd woken up from a nightmare. The fears though were feeding these horrible dreams she was having about losing him, she knew that she HAD to shake them, and fast. Because this was no longer a world where a person had time for any kind of phobia nonsense.

Not to mention, she had enough real 'Ed related' crap that she was working through already!

But even though she kept repeating over and over to herself in her head that she needed to just get it together, she couldn't stop the tears that kept welling up. Hell maybe there was PMS feeding them or something.

Otherwise she was just losing her damn mind!

It was just then, when she was scrubbing at her face for the third time in the last ten plus minutes, that she felt Daryl let out a soft exhale, right before he gave a sleepy mumble of, "you okay, Peach?"

Her eyes popped open wide then, because the last thing she'd meant to do with her squirming was to wake him up. And she especially didn't want him to wake up and find her crying.

It would just upset him.

So she quickly swallowed and blinked twice, trying to clear the tears from both her voice and her eyes as she nuzzled her cheek against the curve of his throat . . . tonight he smelled like Lever soap and campfire.

"I'm sorry," she whispered back with more crackle in her words than she would have liked, "I just had a cramp is all and shifted a bit. Probably should have had some water before bed."

Though it was true that she was feeling a bit crampy in general beyond just her generally achy body . . . which actually did give some weight to her PMS theory because periods were something it was easy to lose track of these days . . . it wasn't until she'd actually said what she'd said out loud, that she realized it was the exact wrong thing to say to this man. Because as she felt Daryl now begin to shift around, she realized he was about to get up and go get her a drink of water.

Crap.

"No, no," she whispered with a light pat to his chest, "it's okay, Pookie. I don't need anything."

"Actually," he yawned back, "it sounds to me like you need the canteen."

And with that, she felt him put one hand on her hip, as he put one leg over her side, so he could step down onto the narrow strip of linoleum floor separating their bunk from Sophia's. Even in the dark, there was still enough muted moonlight coming in from the cracks in the blinds to see the outline of where you were going inside the trailer. So once he was upright, it only took a second for Daryl to go over and dig out his canteen from the top of her small pile of bags before he turned back and walked over to the top end of her bunk again.

He stooped down.

"Here," he whispered, while reaching out to take her hand . . . he pushed the smooth metal into it, "take a drink, and I'll get you some of the new Tylenol."

"No, no," she started on a quiet protest, "we should save those, there are only . . . "

Then she trailed off, because she'd just remembered that Glenn had managed to salvage two of the unopened bottles from that house, and each bottle had five hundred pills in them. And a thousand pills, even if they divvied them up and let every family have a share for their own private supplies . . . which is what they'd been talking about doing that night around the fire . . . were still a heck of a lot of pills. Also though, early yesterday, she'd run out of the good pills Daryl had swiped for her from Merle's magic bag, and with basically almost her whole upper body a fresh shade of purple or black, and only baby aspirin to cut that edge, she'd just been sucking up a lot of hurt ever since.

Thank god really she'd already had so much practice in that department, or she probably would've been screaming.

Because as she saw Daryl pushing the divider aside to step out to the front part of the shadowy trailer, all she could think was that some Tylenol really did sound amazing right then. Keeping that point in mind, it was possible that the constant pain she'd been living in the last few days was also likely contributing to her lack of emotional control. And if she folded in the likelihood of her period coming up soon . . . thinking back, she hadn't had one since before Washington fell . . . that would at least explain away her weepiness for physical reasons rather than mental ones. So when Daryl came back in with three of the Tylenol ("I almost died for this shit, I'll take as many as I damn well please," was his reasoning), she was able to give him a real (not weepy) bright smile, right before she sat up and tossed the pills back with one more small sip from the canteen.

Then Daryl made her take another full swig just because he didn't want her getting dehydrated.

But once she was RE-hydrated to his satisfaction, ("those kind of muscle cramps ain't nothing to mess with, baby,") he took the canteen away and tucked it into the outer pocket of her hobo bag. A few seconds later his body was ghosting over hers as he climbed back onto the far side of the small bunk. So she let her lashes flutter shut and tried to will away the last of the moisture she could feel in her eyes. It wasn't until she felt the protection of Daryl's arm around her waist, while he nuzzled her shoulder, that she felt like maybe she was going to be okay again. So she took a deep breath, and then she let it out very slowly. Because she'd just realized that if part of the reason she was crying was from the physical stress of everything, that maybe it would be a good idea to get a little of that stress off her mind. And the best way to do that generally was to share your worries with someone who actually cared that you were having them.

And she finally had a person who cared.

So she took another breath . . . and then, "I keep having nightmares where you got bit today."

Her words were barely a whisper, and she knew that if Daryl had already started to drift off, that he wouldn't have heard them at all. But then she felt the hand on her stomach, slide over until he'd snagged her fingers.

He covered them over with his.

"They're just dreams, Peach," he whispered, "I'm right here," he squeezed her fingers, "and I'm just fine. And I know I was just saying a couple days ago we gotta plan for stuff to go wrong when I'm out but," he took a breath, "I realized today that I am gettin' real good at killing these things, so maybe you don't have to worry too much about me leaving you alone. Course I can't promise nothin' will ever happen, but I do believe I got better odds to go the distance than a lot of the other folks here. Besides that, I got things I need to show you how to do," he let out a heavy breath, "and that's just one more reason to not get dead anytime soon."

Feeling her eyes start to burn again, though at least now they were with happy tears, Carol shifted around so she could bury her face against Daryl's chest.

His hand immediately fell to her back.

"You're going to stay alive," she sniffled into his throat, "so you can teach me how to defend myself?"

"Not only for that," he answered with a murmur, and a brush of his fingertips down her spine, "but it is a part of it. Because when our town got overrun, and Merle and me got pushed out on the road, I started wonderin' what was the point of carrying on into all this darkness. But then," his voice started to thicken, "I met you that day in the woods, and I started to realize pretty quick after that, how finding you had been the point. The world hasn't sucked so much since then. So I just need to teach you and Sophia what I know, so that ya'll can stay safe," his voice faded off, "'cuz I don't wanna go back to being by myself."

Feeling a sob rising up in her throat, Carol quickly sucked in a breath and swallowed that sob back down again. Because the last thing they needed right then was for her to turn into a big blubbery mess over what Daryl had just said. Even if what he'd just said had probably touched her more than anything else anybody had ever said to her before. Really, she couldn't think of any response back to him that would mean even half as much. So instead of words, she just kissed his throat, and rubbed his chest as she pressed herself hard against him. Hard enough that she knew he could feel her whole body, just as well as she could feel his.

It was much too soon for sex, they hadn't even kissed yet, but she wanted to at least give him something.

And after she gave him what she did, she could feel Daryl freeze for just a second right before he let out a slow, tight, breath. Then he let the hand on her back, slide down until it was resting on the curve of her bottom.

He gave her butt a gentle pat.

After that he tipped his head down and brushed his lips against her skin.

"You do that again, you're gonna drive me crazy, baby," he whispered with a kiss to her temple, "so you best go back to sleep now, before I gotta get up and take a jog around the camp."

And she couldn't help letting out a little giggle then as she kissed his throat one more time.

"Good night Pookie."

"Yeah, yeah," he let out on a grunt as he gave her ass one more pat.

"Night."

/*/*/*/*/

The next day, after breakfast was done and Daryl had left to go on his morning hunt, Carol figured it was a good time to talk to Dale. Because even though last night she'd felt completely justified in asking Daryl to sleep in the trailer on a regular basis, with a clearer, less weepy, brain, she realized it would probably be polite to at least double check that point with Dale to make sure he didn't have any reservations about one of the Dixon brothers sharing his space. After all, he and Daryl had exchanged a few cross words on occasion. She rolled her eyes.

Like yesterday at breakfast, for instance.

So with the other ladies having gone down to the quarry to do the morning wash . . . Lori had banned her from helping out with any of the chores besides school teaching, until she could stand up without assistance and/or bracing herself on the chair . . . Carol set Sophia up at the kitchen table with that day's spelling sheet, and told her she wasn't to leave the trailer until she came back in to get her. Again, Carol wanted her daughter to stay well clear of Shane (Daryl wanted HER to stay well clear of Shane too), and at the moment Shane was out, alone, chopping wood over by the other fire pit. That axe was slamming down hard though, so it seemed like he was in a real mood. But that was likely because it had been pretty obvious that Lori had been giving him a cold shoulder since, "the incident," yesterday morning. Whatever she'd said to him when he'd had his hand on his gun, had driven him out of camp until just before sundown last night. Then even after he'd returned it seemed like he'd been told to still keep his distance, because for the last two group meals, Lori and Carl had sat between the Harrison sisters, and Shane had sat off by himself, brooding. And as far as Carol had seen, neither Lori nor her son had given that man the time of day either. But really nobody had been talking to Shane much about anything.

That man had really burned a lot of bridges in just a blink of an eye.

Most everybody, herself included, was just really wary of him now, because if someone loses it once like that, for NO reason at all, they'll lose it again. Guaranteed. And part of Carol wanted to ask Lori how she was feeling, and what she was going to do, but given how all of this had been triggered by Shane's dislike of Daryl, it seemed like she and Lori were on opposite sides here, even though Lori herself had clearly been more upset about what had happened than anyone else. Her anger with Shane couldn't last though, Carol would bet money on that, if money was still a thing. Because for all intents, Shane was family to Lori and Carl, plus Lori just didn't have the skills to keep her and her son alive all on her own. Without Shane's protection, the two of them alone out in this new world would hardly be in much better shape than Carol and Sophia would be under the same circumstances. That was exactly why she'd stayed with Ed even after she knew he was trying to kill her. He'd been the devil she knew.

And she'd needed the devil's protection.

Probably the one thing in Shane's general favor though, was that even if he had been hiding a WICKED temper under there, unlike Ed, the former sheriff's deputy had never come across as the type to raise a hand against a woman or a child. Quite the opposite really. The thing was though, as she carefully stepped down from the trailer, and started slowly heading down the small hill to talk to Dale filling his cup with what she knew was the acorn tea Daryl had taught the ladies how to brew, Carol already understood that you just never could tell what someone would do if they were really pushed to the limit.

And they were all living on a razor's edge these days.

For now though, she just tried to push all those worries to the side as she came up on Dale's left. And when he turned to give her a wide smile, and hold out the pot of tea, saying this one had come out pretty good, she felt that ball of tension in her belly start to unwind. Because this was not the behavior of a man who was annoyed with her for inviting another companion into their sleeping quarters. Still, the conversation she'd planned to have, needed to be had anyway just so she could be sure there was no resentment hidden there that might bubble up later on.

If they were all together later on, that is.

So she while she took the cooling pot from his hand, and held it kind of protectively against her stomach . . . the warmth felt good with those cramps she was getting off and on . . . she just asked Dale flat out if he minded that Daryl had slept in the RV last night, and if hadn't minded, then would it be okay if Daryl slept there on a regular to semi-regular basis.

To his credit, Dale's smile only dimmed slightly at the question before he asked her if they could sit and talk for a minute. Of course she said yes, even though that ball in her stomach was starting to tighten up again, because to her mind that should have been two simple Yes's or No's.

Not a point for discussion.

Which was why she was surprised when it turned out that Dale's first question after they sat down in the lawn chairs, was to ask her where she'd grown up. And then it was to see if she had any idea about what had happened to her family after the turn. Her answers were simple and honest, that she'd been raised in Louisville, and that both her parents and her sister had all passed on many years ago. What she didn't add to that, was how her daddy had drank himself to death two years after her mama had died of a lingering breast cancer, and that her daddy had ALSO continued to slap her mama around, all the way up to the day she died.

She'd even had a black eye in the coffin.

And Carol had made sure that the mortician didn't cover it up just so everyone could see what a bastard her daddy was. And her Uncle Joe, mama's brother, had ended up knocking her daddy flat out the parking lot after the services, so she'd felt like that had been a little bit of justice for her mama there at the end.

That was one part of the family drama. Then eight years ago this past June, her younger sister had slashed her wrists in the bathtub at the age of twenty-six, on the morning of her second wedding anniversary.

She'd married a bad man too.

So Carol told Dale the skimmed over versions of these personal tragedies in part because she knew that the questions were leading somewhere, but mostly she told him just because he was kind and she knew he actually did care. And when she finished telling him about Mary Jane's death . . . "unexpectedly," was how she'd put that one . . . he reached over and squeezed her hand as he whispered how sorry he was. For a moment after that he was quiet, and then he said that even though Daryl and he didn't always see eye to eye, that with the way he'd stepped up and dealt with Ed when nobody else had the guts to put a stop to him, that he'd demonstrated himself to be a good and decent man at heart. And that it was obvious how much he cared for her and Sophia. Of course Carol wanted to speak up then and say that she was actually happier with Daryl than she'd ever been in her life(!) . . . but that seemed like a little too much to share.

Especially since she hadn't even told Daryl himself that yet!

So instead she just nodded slowly, waiting for Dale to finish saying whatever he wanted to say. And what that turned out to be, was that (just between the two of them), he thought Daryl had a lot of potential, and that she'd definitely already shown herself to be a good influence on him. Then Dale snorted a bit and said he'd noticed how Daryl had stopped cleaning his teeth with his knife, and he was pretty sure that was all her. That was when she couldn't help but chuckle as she admitted that she had told him it made her a little nervous when he did that.

One slip and he was going to cut his lips off.

Dale laughed hard at that one. It was after he'd sobered up that he reached over and squeezed her hand and told her that Daryl could move into the back with them if he wanted to.

It wouldn't bother him at all.

Carol had been so happy then that everything was falling together like she'd hoped, that she leaned over to give Dale an impulsive kiss on the cheek. As she pulled away she whispered, "thank you, thank you so much."

Then with Dale giving her a little push, and a, "oh, it's nothing Carol, really," she got back to her feet, and started up to the trailer again.

She was already halfway up the hill before she realized that she was still carrying the pot of acorn tea. But she didn't feel like hiking back down again . . . and they had two pots for hot drinks, the other one had the coffee . . . so she just took the tea with her into the trailer, and let herself fall onto the bench seat with a happy sigh.

The scuffed blue pot she set down on the table.

"Daryl's going to move in here with us, baby girl," she told Sophia then with a big smile, "Dale said it was okay."

Her daughter's whole face lit up then, in a way that Carol couldn't even remember it doing before. But she didn't say anything. She just let out a giggle, and clapped her hands over her head.

That made Carol laugh.

The rest of the day, that went pretty well too. The morning was quiet, which was how you wanted it when "noisy" meant "trouble." Then around eleven Daryl came back from his hunt with two rabbits, a squirrel, a handful of dandelions he said would be good in the rabbit stew, a few more bundles of fennel for her cramps . . . "the way you've been rubbing your belly I'm guessing you're about to get your woman time," was his adorable way of handing them over to her . . . and then lastly, he'd pulled out about three cups worth of wild mushrooms from his satchel. After he'd dumped them out on the plate, he had to hold his right hand up for Amy, and swear before God that he knew for a fact they weren't packed full of poison. Then he'd rolled his eyes, reached over to the pile of them on the white plastic plate, and threw one into his mouth.

"See," he grunted while he was chewing it up, "I ain't dead."

All of the other women had laughed then as Amy gave him a big grin and a light punch to his arm. He shot her back an amused eye roll, right before he sealed up his bag, and walked over to take Carol's hand for the trek up the hill.

Sophia raced on ahead with the pink speckled salamander he'd caught for her out in the forest.

It wasn't until they'd gotten into the RV, and Daryl had made Sophia's new (temporary) pet, "Samantha" she was calling her, set up in a little playpen made out of the empty potato chip box all the snack sized Lays had come in, that Carol had pulled him down back to tell him the good news about Dale saying he could move in with them.

For a second Daryl didn't seem too pleased to hear that, but then she realized that was because he thought she'd pushed the issue when he hadn't wanted the issue pushed. Once she'd assured him though that she hadn't been a nuisance about it, that all she'd done was just ask once, nicely, if it would be okay, and that then Dale and she had had a nice talk, before he'd told her at the end of it that it would be fine with him.

That was the whole exchange.

It still took another minute after that of Daryl biting his thumbnail as he stared down at her, before finally his eyes started to crinkle.

"Okay then," he whispered while reaching over to pull her up to her feet, "guess I'll get my bag."

Then he tipped his head down to nuzzle her cheek as he gave her a nice, warm, cuddly hug. Her own eyes crinkled then.

Because today he just smelled Daryl again.

And she let him hold her for a good couple minutes before she huffed out against his chest, "oh, you still need to clean the game, huh?"

"Ah shit yeah," he grumbled in response right before he lifted his head.

"I'll do that then I'll get my stuff. Though," his lip quirked up, "I'm guessing you probably don't want me bringing my dirty bedroll in here, is that right?"

She laughed.

"Please no," she chuckled, "if you leave that there in the tent for now, I'll wash it when I'm feeling better, then we can roll it up with mine."

"Hmm," Daryl hummed, as he slowly stepped back, "k, sounds good. And oh hey," he tipped his head towards the front, "would you remind the little one please that Samantha is only visiting for a couple days before we gotta let her loose? I'm thinking that part went right over that child's head when I handed it to her."

The look on her face though when he'd told her to cup her hands together, how totally thrilled she'd been when he'd unbuttoned his shirt pocket and slipped that little critter out into her palms, that was something that was gonna stick with him.

A little thing like that just made her month.

And when Carol reached out to squeeze his fingers, as she promised him she'd drove that point home all evening, he gave her a quick wink.

Then he headed out to go gut their dinner.

/*/*/*/*/

The first night of Carol and Daryl officially cohabitating, was very, VERY nice. Because she waited up for him to get off from his shift, and when he came in through the dark and pulled off his boots and his weapons, they got to snuggle up just like the night before. This time though she wasn't crying like a mental person. And Daryl, he'd taken to rubbing her back for her, really gentle, because she'd said that made the stiff and achy bits feel better. He actually sat up and put her legs in his lap so he could massage them for her too. But then his hands moved a little too far up her thighs, and when he suddenly he froze as she started to giggle, they both realized that maybe the rubbing was going to have to have some restriction points for the time being. Carol joked that she'd make a list in the morning of where he could put his hands and when.

Even in the semi-dark she could tell Daryl's whole face turned bright red at that.

So she just cuddled him over to her chest, until finally he let out a heavy breath and pressed two feather soft kisses to her throat. The joke was definitely over then. And as he lifted his head, and their eyes caught in the slats of moonlight, she see in the way that his were glittering, exactly what he was thinking. That he wanted to kiss her again.

That time for real.

Instead of doing that though, he just reached over and gently brushed his thumb along the corner of her lip.

"Still got too many bruises here," he whispered, "so we'll wait until I know it won't hurt ya."

Of course her eyes started to fill again then because he was just so ridiculously sweet it made her chest ache. But instead of giving in to the tears like the night before, she just blinked them back as Daryl got them shifted around on the bunk again. Once they were settled . . . for now they were sticking with him against the wall as a regular sleeping position . . . he rested his chin on her shoulder, and kissed her ear.

"Night, Peach."

Her eyes crinkled as she reached up over her shoulder to touch his cheek.

"Night, Pookie."

It didn't take long for Carol to drift off. But then sometime later she was shocked awake by the sound of someone yelling, "DARYL! DARYL! WAKE UP!" along with feet stomping all across the overhead roof.

As her eyes snapped open, she could tell it was still dark outside, but before she could even begin to process what was happening, Daryl was already bolting over her body.

"Get your knife out!" He yelled half over his shoulder as he started bouncing on one foot to yank his boot on, "and get Sophia in the bathroom!" He reached for his other boot, "you keep a close watch on the door," he started hopping again, "keep it locked unless it's one of us trying to get in! If it's anybody else, or anybody that ain't breathing, you get in the bathroom with her and stay there 'til I get back!"

And with that he snatched up his knives from under the pillow, snagged his bow from the floor . . . and smashed through the divider.

Before he'd even cleared it he was already yelling at Dale to move his ass out the way.

Then she heard the door snapping back, and Dale was yelling to her that he was going with Daryl, but he was leaving the lantern on the table.

The door slammed shut.

So with her heart pounding in her chest, and now even more yelling now from the outside . . . "WALKERS!" was being screamed in a panic over and over now like she had to imagine they'd once screamed "INDIANS!" back on those wagon trains a hundred plus years ago . . . Carol snatched up her own knife from where she'd tucked it under her pillow hours before. And as she pulled herself up from the bed, using the divider handle as a lever, she was already reaching out to snag her crying daughter's fingers. Then she pulled her off the other bunk.

She started pulling her along the shadowy hall.

"Come on honey," she hissed half over her shoulder, even as she was ducking her head down, trying to see out the front windows, "like Daryl said, in the bathroom! You get in and hide in the shower!"

"But Mama," Sophia cried back while she stumbled along, barefoot in her shortie pajamas, "what are you gonna do?!"

"I'll be right here," she turned then stopping in front of the bathroom door, and whispering with a tight, slightly crazed smile that she knew probably looked crazier still in the bouncing light from the lantern in the front, "I'm just going to lock up and get my shoes on, then I'm going to keep an eye on the door to make sure our people can get in if they need to. But I need you to stay hidden like Daryl and I said, okay? Because I can't focus on keeping us safe if I'm worrying about you."

It was hard trying to sound like she wasn't terrified herself, but somehow she seemed to manage a little bit of calm in her voice. It was faked of course, but it seemed to help her daughter.

And that was all that mattered.

So she leaned down and smacked a hard kiss on Sophia's forehead, before she gave her a shove into the bathroom.

"Lock it," she whispered as the door was falling shut. And from the rattle of the latch, she knew that her daughter immediately did as she was told. So Carol ran down to do the same for the front door before something tried to get in that shouldn't be there.

Once they were sealed up tight again, before she went back for her shoes, Carol yanked the curtain back to try to see what was happening, and where everyone was.

What she saw literally made her gasp.

There were walkers, at least a half dozen of them, stumbling out of the trees just down the hill by the pit. The only reason she could see them at all was from the bounce of the flashlights of the others running up.

Daryl had just stabbed a lady walker in the eye.

Then she saw the head of another rotting corpse explode a few feet further away. That had been a shot off the roof. From the voice yelling up there, warning Dale there was one coming up on his left, it sounded like T-Dog was on watch.

Which meant it had to have been after four, but still sometime before sun up.

Carol winced while she let the curtain fall down, as she thanked God that at least they hadn't been all sitting around the fire at breakfast when this had happened. The walkers would have been on top of them before they'd been able to scatter. Really it would have been just like the other night with her and Daryl.

Except ten times worse.

Still, as she turned and ran back to grab up her shoes, she knew that just because the group had some small element of control over the current situation . . . meaning they were running at the walkers, as opposed to the walkers just running straight at them . . . it didn't mean that this night couldn't still end in tragedy. All it took was one bite, and the number of walkers, to the number of group members able to kill a walker, were pretty evenly matched right now.

Actually, when she started out to the front of the RV again, feeling a fine sweat begin to break out on the back of her neck, she realized that if anymore walkers came out of the woods, her people could easily be overrun.

And as she stopped and dropped down to the end of the bench to shove her left foot into her left Ked, suddenly there was a rattling of the door handle and then a pounding on the door itself.

She jumped up and raced over to check out the window, only to see what was clearly the outline of Lori and Carl there in the shadows under the awning.

Lori was yelling, "IT'S US, OPEN UP!"

Even as Carol was yelling for them to step back, she was scrambling to get the door unlocked. It was just as she gave it a hard shove, that out of the corner of her eye, behind the quickly moving door, she a walker stumbling right up on Lori.

Carol screamed.

A/N 2: I did say that events of this story, in terms of the safety of other characters, was going to be thrown onto its head, so an earlier walker attack on the group, MIGHT leave the group a little smaller than when we opened in canon :)

Writing the beginning here, I was thinking about how they're really only been seen regularly hitting up private homes when they were truly desperate. I think it was pretty well implied that was the main method they used to survive most of the gap between seasons 2 and 3. Then again everyone was scavenging like that in season 4 when they were driven off the prison. I understand it's dangerous to hit up a house for all the reasons Carol covered here, and it's hit or miss on whether you'd find anything, but it still just seems like neighborhoods could be goldmines in these early days, with homes across the country having pantries full of cans and boxes as most everyone (who can afford to own a home) usually has. So basically I might have our AU version of them shown to be working this method more often than we saw otherwise.

To that point, that's why I had them discover all of those non-food items in that one house, because I just refuse to believe that NOBODY out there in all of America, had run off to the damn Costco when they realized the shit was hitting the fan. That's why over in This Is Now, I have people stocking up. I just refuse to accept that EVERYONE everywhere was a complete moron and made no effort to hunker in, when FearTWD established a canon timeline of a solid two weeks of weird stuff escalating on the news, before society fell apart. Beyond that though, I obviously couldn't just let them walk off with a king's ransom and expect to be able to keep it all. They got some tampons and Tylenol and soap. Maybe a few other things. And they didn't die, so we'll call that a win :)

Anyway beyond that, Carol is NOT pregnant. Just clearing that up :) because I know that sometimes hormonal behavior is indicative to be a hint of babies on the horizon, but also sometimes hormonal behavior is just your hormones doing their thing. Occasionally they're annoying. We deal with it. I just didn't want anyone worrying she was carrying an Ed baby. I also could see Daryl kind of being matter of fact about her period rather than being all stereotypically squeamish. Because he's a nature guy and he's observant and knows that's how stuff works. So he'd just consider that to be her 'woman times' and he got her some fennel because he thought that might help with the cramps :)

Shane! You can see I am letting a little of Crazy Shane slip out already. Because Crazy Shane was RIGHT there popping the SECOND that Rick showed up! It was like, "oh shit, you're alive! I love you, man, now I'm struggling not to point my rifle at your head!" Because it really was pretty much the next day after Rick got settled that Shane started battling for control of what was going to happen next. He just could not take any push against his authority, or his perceived 'dibs' with Lori and Carl because he felt that he'd kept them alive that long so he kind of 'owned them' from that point. So I think, pre Rick showing up, if Daryl (who in canon Shane considered a meth head) had started to get a little respect, and have some genuine influence with the group, not to mention him actually spending time bonding with Carl, that would be enough for Crazy Shane to start peeking out. And he was always a passive aggressive ass with that grin going on with the comments, so I could just see him doing it here as a way to take a shot at Daryl, hoping HE would be the one to lose his shit and make an ass out of himself in front of the group. That way he'd be put back in where Shane felt his place should be…on the bottom of the totem pole. Instead it backfired and Daryl was the one that said just the right thing to get under Shane's skin to make him flip. And now the group, plus most importantly Lori and Carl, got a peak at Crazy Shane, so we'll see how that affects everything else playing out in their little step family and Shane's general influence.

If you noticed I let Daryl show Andrea how to clean her gun. That's because I thought it was pretty ridiculous that the demonstration Shane was giving her in the RV, in season TWO, 'appeared' to be the first time anyone had shown her how to take her gun apart and put it back together. The group had been together a solid two to three weeks at that point, and nobody had bothered to show her how to do that yet? At that point nobody outside of the Dixon brothers really knew how to take down a walker with a knife, so the guns were the ONLY means they had to stay alive, which meant that it would have been in everyone's best interest for all of those guns to be kept clean and in good working order. And with Shane being a defacto camp leader, and a freaking firearms INSTRUCTOR(!), that should have been like point one for him of, "okay, this is what you all need to be doing." Again, just a lot of basic logic stuff from the early days of the show falls apart when you think about it for even a second. Not trying to totally rag on those days because the first two seasons did do most of their character development a MILLION times better than some of the later 'character bloated' seasons. Well, of course from our previously covered 'underlying thread of misogyny in the majority of the women being written with a slant of bitchy/whiny/whorey' that is :)

Beyond that, I know we had a lot of flashback narrative but I really wanted to move the story forward timeline wise, and I needed some kind of narrative for that to happen and the idea of Carol talking herself back from a nightmare worked out well to go through her recap of those days and how Daryl had ended up in her bed that night. Because I wanted those to be intimacy steps for them, but not ones that we had to drag waaaaaay out :) I also wanted Carol's body to have healed up enough that she could hobble herself around, but the type of injuries were not realistic (except on a TV show) to be ones that your body would just heal up from with a day's rest. Ed kicked the shit out of her with the intent of causing damage to her internal organs. She nearly collapsed dragging herself across the field, because she would still be in a hospital right now if there were any left. So even if she's pushing herself, I am going to have her fully heal up at something approximating the appropriate rate, which is exactly why Time Jumps were invented!

Speaking back to the intimacy, the first time she saw his scars. I thought this was a different way to work that moment in for them, and for them to have to deal with it, before Daryl was expecting her to see him exposed that way. So that became another moment to bond them at a more accelerated rate than a couple would necessarily be after only knowing each other for a couple weeks.

Lastly, this chapter, as long as it is, didn't cover everything I'd planned, and had actually already drafted. Such as Rick's arrival and the aftermath. I'm going to bounce back to my other stories because I'm trying not to let anything languish too long (yes I know too late! :)), but with so much of the next draft here really already done down to the detail bits, I think with another chunk of narrative, we can keep our fingers crossed that it will be weeks as opposed to months, before we're back here again.

And as always, thanks all for your support in sticking with me through these gaps!