Daryl nudges Carol awake around four in the morning, when the rain has softened to a gentle patter. He sleeps until the sun streams through the hole in the roof. Carol has lit a fire and is making coffee. "I'm nearing the last of my beans," she tells him as he pulls himself up. "We'll have to use your instant stuff in a couple of days."

He rises and checks if the wet clothes they draped over one of the stall doors are dry. His eyes fall on Carol's black bra hanging over her pants. A lacy trim lines the cups, and his first thought is – who the hell is she wearing that for? And then with a sudden tingling of his nerves, he wonders if it was for him.

Then he sees the plain white cotton panties that don't match, and he realizes it was probably just a bra she found that fit. Besides, she doesn't want sex. Not yet. Just eventually. He wonders when eventually will be. He hopes it's soon. Or maybe not. He needs to work up some endurance with this kissing. Maybe if he can get used to staying hard without satisfaction, he won't cum like a jack rabbit the first time they do it.

"They're still very wet," she says. "But you can wear the pair of pants I patched yesterday morning. Do you have a spare long-sleeve shirt?"

"Gotta dry undershirt." He gets a muscle shirt out of his backpack. It's mostly white, except for some permanent, light black stains.

"You could keep wearing that sweatshirt."

"Nah." He yanks the sweatshirt over his head. "Be fine." He slides the worn muscle shirt on. "Get hot when I ride anyhow."

He turns to see her looking him over, her eyes running from his half-bare shoulders and down his arms. Has she ever done that before? Looked at him like that? Like he's some kind of candy she wants to lick up? If she has, he sure as hell hasn't noticed.

She doesn't do it for long. Her eyes are back on the French press now as she pushes down the top. "You should have woken me up sooner. You only got three hours of sleep to my five."

"'M fine." He crouches down to draw his pants out of his backpack. Carol's already dressed, with a long-sleeve checkered flannel shirt open over her white tank top and a pair of tan cargo pants he hasn't seen her wear yet. How does she fit all those clothes in her pack?

He turns his back to her and drops his sweat pants.

"You really do go commando," she says.

He flushes. "Stahp." He wants to look over his shoulder to see if she's checking him out, but he knows that will just make him turn more red. God knows he'd be looking at her ass, if he had a chance.

As he yanks on his Wranglers, she asks, "Isn't that uncomfortable, no boxers, in rough pants like that?"

"Nah."

"I'd hate it."

He yanks his zipper up and turns around as he finishes buttoning. By the time he's put on his belt and knives and holster with handgun, she's pouring the coffee.

He sits beside her on her rolled-up sleeping bag before a campfire. She has a map spread open at her feet. "Gotta route planned?" he asks as she hands him a tin cup of coffee.

"We went out of the way to see that grave. I originally thought we'd backtrack and then continue south east through Richmond to Jamestown, but I'm not sure we should head back toward that herd in Staunton. It may be growing." She draws her finger down on the map. "We could go straight south from here down to Lynchburg and then east over to Jamestown. But that would add an extra day or two to our trip."

'S do it."

"Yeah? You don't mind spending the extra time with me, huh?" His lips are twitching into a bashful smile when her next words freeze them. "Don't mind stretching this a couple of days?"

Stretching this a couple days? This "more than friends" thing, is it just for this trip?

When they go back…and she goes back to ruling her Kingdom, and he goes back to hunting for the Hilltop…do they go back to just being friends?

"Something wrong?" she asks.

He sips slowly, lowers the tin cup between his hands, and lets the heat sear his palms. He's not sure he wants to know the answer to his question. "Nah. Coffee's just too hot."

"Well blow on it, silly."

[*]

They ride up hilly, windy, two-lane mountain roads through acres and acres of forest where the live oak trees are draped in vibrant green leaves. The Dogwoods have just begun to bud. In a month they'll flower and coat the hills with pollen, but for now the air is fresh, without even the stench of walkers. The breeze is sweet with the scent of early spring, of after-rain, and the birds sing mating songs from tree to tree, filling the air with a symphony of chirping.

"I bet this is gorgeous in the fall," Carol says as she steers her horse a little closer to his.

"Mhmhm."

She says something else, but Daryl's not really listening. He's wondering if this thing they're doing is like one of those summer camp flings the kids at his junior high school used to talk about.

He had to ride the bus five miles to that school, but those middle-class boys lived in the neighborhood. They would go to summer camp and sleep in cabins with no air conditioning or electricity, fish and swim and hike like it was some kind of adventure vacation. They'd earn badges for learning archery, or whittling, for shooting BB guns or tying knots. At night, or so they claimed, they would sneak out and meet up with girls from the girls' camp and make out in the woods. To Daryl, all that was simply everyday life, except for the making out with girls part. And there were no counselors for him to answer to. The one man he did have to answer to gave him bruises instead of badges.

"…you think?" Carol asks.

"Hmmm?"

"Should we?"

"Should we what?"

She points to the road sign that indicates the direction of a ski resort. "Make camp?"

"We ain't gone that far today. Barely thirty miles."

"But it's a resort." She smiles teasingly. "It could be romantic."

"Pfft." But if Carol does think it's romantic, then it might be a place she wants to make out for a long time. Besides, they should rest the horses. They rode the things hard yesterday. "A'ight."

He steers his horse toward the dirt road winding up toward the resort, and Carol follows.

[*]

"This is gorgeous." Carol stands on the deck of the lodge overlooking the mountains. The rusted swings of the distant ski lift seem frozen in place, while a few stray walkers roam the overgrown, snowless slopes. The horses are stabled downstairs in the basement game room, where there's a sliding glass door they blocked with furniture, in case any walkers wend their way to it. But then they came up to the lobby, cleared the rest of the lodge, dumped their gear, and then came out on this deck.

Daryl lowers his binoculars. He doesn't see more than eight walkers out there, and they're a long ways off. He can pick them off if they get too close to the lodge, but the creatures can't smell them from there.

"I always wanted to go skiing as a little girl," Carol says. "I begged my mother to take us for winter break, but she always said we couldn't afford it."

"Ain't no slopes in Georgia."

"I wanted to go to Gatlinburg. Tennessee. It was only a four-hour drive. But we never even drove out of Georgia. Of course, our car never could go more than a hundred miles straight without the engine smoking." She turns from the rail. "I'm hungry."

Daryl takes the hint and goes hunting. He kills three walkers while he's out there, and his boots get wet in a creek, but he comes back with a sizable rabbit. He leaves his boots and socks to dry by the fire, where Carol sets a pot of rabbit stew boiling, and he follows her barefoot back out onto the deck to watch the sun set over the mountains. The wooden planks are still slightly warm from the afternoon sun, though the air has cooled to about fifty degrees, and the tops of his bare toes are cold.

"I see why they call it the Blue Ridge now," Carol says.

The caps of the hills have grown a purple-blue beneath the red-orange glow of the sinking sun. Carol snakes her arm around his waist and rests her head on his shoulder until the last of the light slips below the horizon.

Daryl's stomach growls, and she laughs and takes his hand and draws him inside.

They sit at a wooden table in the rustic lobby of the lodge, not too far from the fireplace, and eat by the flickering light of the flames.

"I found some wild onions outside while you were gone," Carol says. "Put them in here along with that basil from the café and a few other spices. Do you like it?"

"Mhmh. Good."

"We can sleep on that bearskin rug tonight, in front of the fireplace. It looks comfy."

"Mhmh."

"We might want to put a sleeping bag down over it, though. It's a bit dusty."

"Mhmhm."

"Penny for your thoughts? You've been quiet all day."

"'M always quiet." He lifts his bowl, tilts it to his mouth, and drinks the last of the broth down.

"True enough."

Daryl sets his bowl on the table and looks at the line of broth still clinging to the rim. He runs a finger around it and then sucks the residue off his fingertip. When he looks up, she's watching him.

"You seem worried about something, though," she says, "Care to share?"

His eyes flit back into his bowl. Maybe it's better he knows, even if he doesn't want to know. "Just wonderin' somethin'."

"What's that?"

"How long's this s'posed to last?"

"Well, about nine or ten more days I suppose."

His gut sinks. "Oh."

"Why? Do you want it to last longer?"

He looks up from the bowl. "Well….yeah. Mean. Wouldn't mind."

"You're not worried about having time to hunt before the winter?"

He draws his canteen toward himself. "Wouldn't really take up that much more time than bein' friends, would it? Mean, we'd just be doin' diff'rn stuff, right?"

Carol's looking at him like he's speaking Greek. "I'm talking about how many more days this trip will take. What are you talking about?"

He flushes.

"Daryl?"

He stands and pads over in his bare feet, picks up the poker, and stokes the fire.

"Daryl? What were you talking about?"

"How much longer ya wanna be more 'n friends," he mutters.

She laughs that laugh she laughs when he's done something stupid and he doesn't know what the stupid thing is. Her voice is happy and affectionate. "Pookie, there's no expiration date on it. Did you think I wanted a short fling?"

"Dunno." He slides the fire poker back in its stand, turns to look at her, and sees her face has grown suddenly worried.

"Is that what you want?" she asks.

"Hell no. Less'n 's what you want. Mean…still aint' what I want. But I'll take it."

"I don't want a fling, Daryl. I don't know exactly where we're going to go from here, or how we're going to get there, or how long it's going to take, but I know I don't want to go backward."

Daryl sighs in relief. Carol stands, comes over to him by the fire, and puts her hands on his hips. She presses her forehead to his. "If I just wanted a fling, we'd be moving faster. But I want us to take our time."

"A'ight."

She tilts her chin up to kiss his forehead. He leans into the feel of her lips. Of all her little kisses, he thinks he loves this one most, maybe because it was the first way she ever kissed him.

Carol steps back. "Is it? All right? If we take things slowly?"

"Yeah. 'Course." He chews on his bottom lip and hopes it's not a bad move to ask for clarification. "Does that mean we ain't havin' sex?"

She smiles. "We're going to have sex. Eventually. Just…maybe not right away."

He wants to know when eventually is, a ballpark time frame at least, but he doesn't ask. He just nods. "A'ight. But…uh…we gonna make out tonight?"

Her eyes smile, and she nods.

"Want me to open some wine?" he offers. That might loosen her up a little, like it did last night.

"I don't need wine, Pookie." She turns and walks over to her backpack, which she lifts up onto an armchair near the fireplace. "Why don't we brush teeth, get in our sweats, and make up our bed? And then we'll see where the night takes us?"

Excitement and anxiety fire his nerves. "Mhmhm." He lifts his pack into another chair to unzip it and begins to prepare for bed.