We pick up immediately after Carol and Daryl found something unexpected under the sod over Sophia's grave and some familiar faces show up at the cemetery.

Slight smut warning.


Demons

"At the curtain's call
It's the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you've made"
-
by Imagine Dragons

"I—I don't understand—what's happening? Ed-Daryl- Ed?" Carol swayed, holding herself up with both hands clutching at the pink granite stele carved deep with the name of her dead child. She looked in disbelieving horror at the staring bulging bloodshot eyes of her husband, cold opaque blue, seeming to be crying fresh tears as the condensation from the plastic over his face dripped down on to his forehead and ran down onto his cheeks.

She felt Daryl's strong arms come around her then and she leaned back against him, letting him be her support.

Daryl's mind was racing—what the fuck were they supposed to do now? Here in the middle of the night, covered with the same cemetery dirt as the corpse... What right minded person wouldn't believe that his wife and her lover were here disposing of his body in the fresh grave of the child whose murder they suspected him of covering up?

"We have to see—make sure he's dead—" Carol said, her instinct to help, to make sense of this coming to the fore. "Maybe he's just—" she moved forward, but Daryl held her back.

"Carol—sweetheart, I'm sorry—but it's just...it's just his head." Daryl explained with his mouth at her ear. He felt her startle back, her knees giving out and caught her before she fell again.

"Oh God—oh my God!" Carol turned away from the sight of the thing; now facing Daryl and he hugged her close, his hand holding her head to his shoulder, smoothing her hair gently.

"We need to get out of here." Daryl said quietly, "You know how this looks."

"We can't just...leave it...him... there..." she said, struggling with the pronouns, "Daryl we can't just cover it back up and go."

"Well, what the fuck do you suggest? Hang around until someone comes and arrests us for murder?" Daryl said in a harsh whisper, clearly starting to freak out a little, moving his grip to her shoulders, holding her in place while he stared back over her shoulder at the big bald head of that scumbag of a husband of hers encased in what looked like a big Ziploc bag staring up at them from under the chunk of turf he'd dug up.

"But we didn't do anything wrong!" Carol said, trying to keep from panicking. She took Daryl's face in her hands and forced him to look at her. "We need help, Daryl."

"Help?" Daryl frowned down at her like she was crazy. What they needed to do was run far and fast as if demons from hell were chasing them.

"Who do you trust?" she asked him, looking deep into his eyes, "Who can we trust?"


"This better be good, Dixon—I was on a date." Glenn Rhee said with a snarl, joining Carol and Daryl at the booth in the back of an all night diner on the outskirts of Peachtree City at just past 2 a.m. Glenn was dressed a bit more formally than his usual baseball jerseys and jeans with a ball cap, this early morning in a pair of Converse kicks, dark tweed dress slacks, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black vest and skinny tie—hipster chic.

"With Maggie?" Carol asked, "Or Amy?" trying to lighten the mood until the other person whom they'd called arrived.

"Miss Greene was the recipient of my attentions this evening, if you must know." Glenn said with a smile that quickly faded when he saw the muddy clothes both of them were wearing, though they were partially concealed by the table top.

"You two been mud wrestling?" Glenn asked with a raised eyebrow. Daryl he was used to seeing dirty, but it didn't fit his image of Carol one bit.

"Som'thin like that." Daryl said, giving his standard evasive answer.

"You need to tell me what's going on, is it—" Glenn began, but was forestalled by the arrival of the waitress, a seasoned night shift pro in a peach colored uniform who didn't blink an eye when the muddy couple had come in and commandeered a booth about an hour ago.

"What can I getcha, sugar?" the petite middle aged woman with pretty curling blonde hair that fell to her shoulders asked with a wink, clearly flirting, though she had about fifteen years and a whole lot more miles on her than the young P.I.

Glenn looked at her name tag which read "Patricia" in fancy script and smiled up at her. He'd been around waiters and waitresses his whole life in his parents' restaurants and knew the look of a veteran when he saw one.

"Java saves, Patty." Glenn said with a soulful grin and she laughed and tucked her pencil beside her ear and her pad back in her white apron pocket.

"All around—and pie I'd say—got some nice peach out fresh." Patricia said, canting her head at him and raising both brows in entreaty.

"Warm it up n' add a scoop and you gotta deal." Glenn said happily; even though it was as cliché as hell to be eating peach pie in Peachtree City, it was his favorite.

"Expectin' one more, right?" Patricia asked, looking back over her shoulder at the harried looking blonde in jeans, black sweater, great looking suede boots and a leather jacket striding towards them and Carol nodded.

Andrea stopped briefly when the waitress asked her if she wanted anything and then joined them, sliding in beside Glenn and tossing her clutch purse on the table.

"What the fuck do the two of you not understand about keeping away from each other out in public?" she said in a low angry voice, looking back and forth between Daryl and Carol, but then she focused on the female half of the couple, "And what the hell are we doing here? In your home town?"

Carol looked at Daryl before she spoke and he looked over at Glenn and then Andrea and sighed, but shook his head up and down, making a go ahead gesture with his hand, telling Carol to speak first.

"We came up here to visit my daughter's grave...after today with Michonne I needed to do something for Sophia...I hoped it would help me remember more..." Carol told Andrea.

The session with the psychiatrist had started out well, Carol under hypnosis able to recall the day's events up until she saw Sophia run out of the house, but then it was as if her brain had shut down, refusing to let her relive those moments, still too traumatic to process.

Michonne had suggested perhaps she hadn't properly been able to mourn the girl because she'd been forced to flee so suddenly after Ed's brutal treatment; asked if there was anything she had left undone or regretted. Carol thought of planting the flowers, even just returning to the grave, which she'd been unable to do since she'd left home.

"We thought if we came at night there would be no chance of running in to Ed..." Carol swallowed hard, trying to get past the lump in her throat, tears filling her eyes. Daryl took her hand and continued when he saw that she couldn't, leaning forward in closer to Andrea and Glenn.

"Brought a rose bush to plant at the grave side—little girl's favorite...but somebody else'd already planted somthin' there first." Daryl said in a low voice, glancing up and sitting back straight as Patricia approached carrying two new cup set ups and a carafe of coffee.

"Be right back with the pie." she said to Glenn, looking at the other three in turn. "Y'all sure you don't want some? Damn fine pie."

Carol looked like she was going to vomit and held her free hand to her mouth and shook her head no.

"No thanks, Patty. Just me. Some water too, please?" Glenn answered for everyone and the waitress nodded obligingly and bustled off.

"What?" Andrea bit out. Getting called out of her comfy bed in the middle of the night was bad enough, but having to explain to her lover that she couldn't say where or why she'd been going was a pain in the ass and she knew she'd pay for it later. She was not in a patient mood.

"A body—well—part of one." Daryl said in a whisper, leaning close again. "One that didn't belong there."

"Fuck me..." Glenn murmured, looking at Carol and shaking his head. Trouble followed that woman around like a jilted stalker.

"Shit." Andrea intoned, gritting her teeth and leaning forward over the table and looking Daryl right in the eye. "But you had nothing to do with putting it there."

"I swear on my mother's grave." Daryl said tightly.

"I'll swear on my daughter's." Carol said, with her face a study in fierce controlled righteous indignation.

"Considering that's where we're heading next, I'll hold you to it." Andrea said dryly.

"And do we have an I.D. on this 'part'?" Glenn asked, wondering what exactly they had found, but everyone suddenly sat up straight and put on fake shiny happy looks as Patricia delivered his pie and glass of water.

"Thanks, darlin'." Glenn smiled wide at the pleasant woman. It looked like she'd given him at least a third of a pie and a scoop of ice cream as big as a baby's head. He dug in and took a big bite while she waited to see if he liked it. It was excellent, just as she'd promised and he nodded his approval with his mouth still full of pie.

"Secret's in the crust—baker uses good old fashioned lard, ice cold." Patricia told them. "Doin' ok on coffee?" she asked and when they all said no she hurried off again.

"It's his head." Carol blurted. Andrea's eyes went wide and Glenn swallowed the big bite of pie with an audible gulp, coughing until Andrea whacked him on the back and Patricia started back towards him with concern, but he waved her off, taking a drink of his water to clear his throat.

"Whose head, Carol?" Andrea asked, dreading the reply.

"Who the fuck do you think?" Daryl asked, quietly seething now, "Same sum'bitch that's been screwin' with our lives." Glenn and Andrea exchanged an 'Oh shit' look.

"We need to go—now." Andrea said, standing. "Take us there."

Glenn wolfed down two more bites of the luscious pie and then regretfully stood as well.

"What're you going to do?" Carol asked, standing now as well, drawing Daryl up with her.

"Save your asses." Glenn said with a wry grin, leaving two twenties, about twice the tab, on the table.


"And so your client came all the way up here to visit her daughter's grave in the middle of the night?" the intense Peachtree City Detective asked Andrea, a skeptical look on his bearded face. The medium height African American man spoke with clipped precision with only a light southern accent softening a few words. Detective Morgan Jones had an air of quiet dignity and perhaps sadness, as if something haunted him, giving him gravitas.

"She didn't want to take the chance of running into her estranged husband Mr. Peletier, Detective Jones, who as you know was up on charges of spousal abuse. We have a filed protection order as you can see." Andrea said evenly, indicating the folder she had already given him.

"And her 'friend' Mr. Dixon?" the detective asked, looking at the mud covered muscular man leaning on the side of the Jeep Cherokee next to the pale red eyed equally muddy wife of the dead man.

"As I said, she was afraid of her husband and Mr. Dixon was kind enough to accompany her here as a sort of bodyguard." Andrea replied.

"He a private eye or somthin' in Senoy?" Jones drawled.

"Actually Mr. Dixon is a plumber." Andrea said and the detective snorted out a chuckle and shook his head.

"He her boyfriend?" Jones asked, noting the subtleties of body language between the two. Though not embracing overtly or holding hands, the plumber stood so that the point of his hip touched her waist, pushing in to the curve of her body like it belonged there.

"I'm not sure that is relevant at this juncture, Detective." Andrea said stiffly, cursing inwardly at the two of them, standing too close together even after she'd warned them...

"It's all relevant, counselor." Jones drawled.

"Detective Jones—are you ready for me yet?" asked a pale bespectacled man with sandy brown hair wearing Medical Examiners white coveralls and booties, standing impatiently behind the police tape, holding his kit box in his left hand.

"You got Miguel with you for pictures?" Det. Morgan Jones asked the M.E., Milton Mamet, a man great at his job but a little eccentric, like most people who made a living looking into the faces of the dead for clues as to how they got that way.

His intern, Miguel, was somewhat of a work in progress. He'd come down from Atlanta about three months ago on a special program geared to getting deserving talented kids out of the gangs. The Vatos that he'd been mixed up with had included his cousin Felipe who'd already gotten himself out and gone to nursing school. He'd reached out to Miguel and after two years in a tech college the former gang member was working on a degree in graphic design, but his first love was photography. Looking for an internship, he'd landed in Peachtree under the guidance of Mamet, doing crime scene photos.

Mamet nodded and Jones motioned him forward, introducing Andrea.

"It makes no difference to me if she's here, Morgan, but for chain of evidence purposes it's best she wait outside the taped area for now." Mamet told the detective and Andrea nodded, stepping back as the other two techs came forward to gather evidence, both men coming under the tape with their equipment. Lights had already been set up around the scene and Miguel had done the overhead shots needed while standing on top of the ten foot ladder they carried with them in the truck.

"Freaky—someone just planted him there?" Miguel said, looking at the plastic encased head, sounding awed. When he'd started working in the ME's office, he'd thought he'd be weirded out by being around bodies all of the time, but like Mamet he found them fascinating. He moved around the scene taking video and still color shots of everything, careful to place a ruler beside each item, finally signaling that he was done so the techs could come forward to start collecting and bagging evidence.

"That's gonna screw with my T.O.D." Mamet said, pursing his lips at the plastic bag. "When we're done here make sure you take all of the turf and soil for a three foot perimeter around the remains," he ordered the techs. The taller one groaned a little at the demand.

"Basta, vatos! El Jéfe has spoken." Miguel chided. The Boss might be a little odd, but he was still the boss and didn't need belly aching from anyone. The taller tech stoically went to the perimeter and got out a large evidence box and a shovel.

"Excellent." Milton said, unfolding a white drape sheet and spreading it out on the sod covered ground between the grave where the head rested and the next one. Leaning over it he very carefully lifted the partial remains of Ed Peletier in his vinyl gloved hands and placed it in the center of the sheet. Miguel filmed all of the actions.

"Don't look." A hoarse male voice said from somewhere behind them and both Mamet and Miguel turned to see who had spoken. Standing next to one of the cars parked on the access road to this section of the cemetery was a couple. The man was embracing the woman, keeping her body and face turned away from the grave while he stared at the M.E. and his workers.

"Wife." Said Detective Jones as he joined them, squatting to look down at the head. Miguel nodded, but Mamet was too busy examining the remains, which he left encased in the make-shift Ziploc shroud.

"Male, Caucasian, late thirties, early forties, head recently shaved." Milton intoned for the benefit of the recording device. At Jones' questioning grunt, the M.E. pointed to the tan lines versus the pale scalp. "Cuts and scrapes on scalp would seem to indicate he fought it, some bruising at the temples and jaw, chin. Petechiae in right eye might indicate strangulation." He rolled the head so that the place where it had been severed from the neck was visible. "Defenestration…dismemberment of head at third vertebrae."

"Damn that looks clean…what kind of a blade would do that?" Miguel asked.

"Something extremely sharp." Mamet said slowly, contemplating the wound site. "Won't know more until I get this back to the lab." He motioned to the shorter tech, who brought him a large square cardboard box.

"No evidence of any additional limbs or organs?" Jones asked, squinting at the sight of the M.E. lifting up the head, carefully placing it in the container and then sealing it with an inventory label.

"So far no, we'll excavate the grave and any nearby that have newer sod just to be sure." Mamet told him.

The tech lifted the box and nudged Milton with his elbow, saying under his breath, "What's in the baahx?" and grinning.

Mamet looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Brad Pitt, man! Seven?" the tech said in disbelief. "You know-the film?"

"I don't like to sit in chairs where other people have already sat." Mamet said with a shrug and taking out a plastic cup from his kit went back to the grave site to look for any maggots or other insect activity on the grave.

The tech looked at the Detective and Miguel, shaking his head.

"But he'll stick his hand up a dead dude's ass…" the tech muttered, heading back to the truck.

"No glove, no love, man." Miguel said, snapping his blue vinyl protective gloves loudly and grinning.

"A little decorum, Miguel." Milton said in a no nonsense tone, "This is a graveyard."

"Yes sir." Miguel immediately sobered.

"We need photos of everyone's shoes that have been on the scene—start with the cowboy over there; most of these seem to have been made by his boots." The M.E. said, indicating Daryl.

"Just that one and not the other ones?" Miguel said, pointing in the opposite direction, at the two very angry looking King County Sheriff's deputies who were just getting out of their squad car.

"Oh shit..." Daryl said softly.


"Daryl, you need to get some sleep... your hearing is in four hours." Carol said from the bed, watching Daryl as he paced back and forth across the bedroom like a caged wolf. Rick had read him the riot act—again—about his reckless actions as far as Carol was concerned, and ever since they had returned to the farm Daryl had been like a grenade after the pin had been pulled; it was only a matter of time until he blew.

They'd been held for questioning and then remanded into Rick and Shane's custody. Andrea had done some fast talking to make it happen, pointing out that since the last time Ed Peletier had been seen alive was by his office employees leaving work on Friday, the fact was that Daryl had been either in prison or at the farm with the Grimes and numerous other witnesses during the interval between then and when the head had been discovered. Likewise, Carol had never been alone during that time, so either of them committing the murder was extremely unlikely.

What had set Daryl on edge was the idea that Blake would use this against him in court, but even more of a concern was the way that Rick was acting when it came to his relationship with Carol.

When she was being questioned, Andrea with her in the interrogation room as her advocate, Shane observing from the other side of the one way mirror, Rick had button holed Daryl in another room, with Glenn looking on stoically, standing leaning against the wall as Rick sat, half his ass on the table, perched sideways.

"Daryl, this has got to stop." Rick told him. "Someone's dead now as a result of this."

"What do you mean? Don't got nothin' to do with Carol n'me, that asshole turnin' up dead." Daryl said belligerently from his seat at the table. "Fucker was into somethin' wrong; we all smelled it from what Glenn found out. Just need to get in there and find proof."

"He's right Rick—the deeper I try to dig into Blake's business and personal life the weirder it gets." Glenn volunteered. "He took his daughter out of school when his wife died and has apparently been home schooling her, but she's rarely been seen in public since. Keeping a kid locked up like that—it's all kinds of wrong."

"Doesn't change the fact that Daryl needs to keep his nose clean so we can get the arson charges dropped." Rick told Glenn, squinting hard at Daryl and then addressing him directly.

"What were you thinking running off in the middle of the night with her—not tellin' me where you were going?" Rick asked heatedly. He'd been shocked to find Daryl and Carol gone from the guest room when the room next door had been silent in the night, and then saw that her Cherokee was missing as well.

For a heart stopping second or two he'd wondered if they'd just left, run for the border, escaped before their respective days in court, like some later day Romeo and Juliet. Then frankly he'd worried that Peletier had threatened or hurt Carol again and Daryl had gone after him. Andrea's phone call brought him the truth, and he didn't like it much better than the other scenarios he'd imagined.

"You ain't my daddy—and even if you were I stopped tellin' him my every move a long time ago." Daryl bit out, crossing his arms in front of his chest and thrusting his stubborn chin out, angry and hurt that Rick didn't sound much like he trusted either him or Carol. "And you got no right to tell me who I can be with. Told you how it is, ain't gonna tell you again."

"You love her, right, heard you...but the hell of it is, Daryl—do you even know who she really is? What demons she carries? You've known her less than a week..." Rick asked, leaning on the table in front of Daryl. "You've known me most of your life—who do you think deserves your trust and loyalty more?

"Don't make me choose, Rick." Daryl said, his eyes sad and disappointed.


"Daryl? Honey?" Carol said softly, sounding worried. She'd gone from mourning mother to widow in the space of a few hours, even while being the happiest she could ever remember just by being with the man pacing in front of her. She needed him with her now, to feel his strong arms around her, holding her tightly, telling her that everything would be ok; even if it was a lie...he made her demons run...

Daryl stopped pacing and looked over at her, all soft and safe in his bed. After they'd returned to the house he'd been surprised to find T-Dog standing watch at the front gate with a hunting rifle and Hershel sitting on the porch swing with a pump action shot gun. Rick was obviously taking the threat posed by Blake seriously and hadn't been about to leave Lori and Carl unprotected while he and Shane had made the trip to Peachtree City.

"Never called me that before," Daryl said with a tiny smile turning up the corner of his mouth.

"Honey?" she asked. He walked over to the bed and she looked up at him uncertainly.

"I like it." he told her, tilting his head to the side and putting his hands on his hips. He was wearing only the low slung sweats he'd pulled on to keep from shocking Lori if he'd run into her in the hall when he'd come from the bathroom after a quick shower to wash of the cemetery mud.

He'd been tempted to join Carol for her's, but had instead gone for a walk around the yard, greeting Hershel, stopping at the barn to check on the colt, smiling when he saw the printed new name written in Carl's childish hand, taped to the carved wooden name plate for Flame; Falcon, as in Millennium.

"Come to bed." Carol said, but Daryl took both a step back and a deep breath.

"You should know. I could've killed him. If he'd hurt you again. I have that violence in me." Daryl said quietly, needing her to understand that. He knew that's part of what Rick feared for him, that his feelings for Carol could fuel that protective rage.

"But you didn't." Carol said softly, drawing the covers back and rising from the bed, coming to him. "We all have our demons, Daryl." she said reaching up and turning his arm to expose the small devil he had tattooed on his right inner bicep, "Ed was one of mine," she said, pressing a kiss there, "and what happened to Sophia..." she lifted her hand to his shoulder, turning him to she could see the two other demons climbing there, brushing her fingertips lightly over first one and then the other as she spoke. "And you have your father...what happened to your mother...but that doesn't mean we have to let them destroy us." Putting her arms around his waist, her head sideways against his shoulder blade, Carol could feel the heat of his body through the Grateful Dead t-shirt that had become her go-to night gown.

Daryl sighed, wondering what it was about her very presence that gave him the feeling that no matter what, everything would be fine. He wanted to be that for her; her knight in shining armor, her St. Michael throwing Lucifer down to hell, forever banishing the forces arrayed against her. If Blake thought he could destroy them, he was dead wrong.

"Come to bed, Dixon." Carol said again, but this time her hand drifted lower, to his abs, following the curve of his hip around to push under the elastic waist of his sweats at the front.

"Are you angling to have your way with me, woman?" Daryl said with a small smile, inhaling sharply when her small cool hand closed over him.

"Come to bed."


"Don't close 'em." Daryl said as he leaned above her, stroking slowly up and back in her luscious wet softness. He loved how she took all of him deep into her body, welcoming him home, digging her fingers into his ass, urging him on. He could tell she was close from the way she shook and how her breathing became erratic, her mouth open, gasping and moaning and giving uncontrolled high pitched little cries as he moved within her. The pleasure was so overwhelming that she'd closed her eyes against it, trying to will herself not to slip over the edge yet, waiting for him to fall with her.

Carol opened her eyes and locked them with his, burning blue, felt the scratch rub of his chest and belly against hers as he moved, felt the way he filled her, how his hips slid in their mingled sweat.

"Never saw that same blue before." Daryl marveled at her crystalline gaze, "like...like the purest summer sky...wanna see you come with me...see the light burn there...for me..."

Carol felt herself tip over the precipice, free falling...saw the same in his gas flame blue eyes, burning for her.

"I love you." Daryl gasped, kissing her with more passion than he'd ever felt before.

God help anyone who tried to hurt her.

"Your eyes, they shine so bright
I wanna save that light
I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide"


More character's from TWD will continue to make appearances as the story unfolds, I hope you enjoyed Patricia, Morgan, Milton and Miguel here; )

I kept hearing the Imagine Dragons' song "Demons" on the radio throughout Christmas Break and the sections I've used of it in this chapter really fit well with where the story was taking me.

Thanks for all of the encouraging notes in your reviews, I really appreciate the feedback!

Hello to all of the followers and favorites-don't be shy about leaving a review, I'd love to hear what you think.

DD1