Chapter 12

"I told her to stay inside," Carol murmured over a cup of coffee in the morning.

"What?"

"I told her over and over again to stay inside. Keep the doors locked. To…"

"Hey," Daryl said softly, putting his cup of coffee down and reaching across the table for her hand. She let him stroke his thumb over her knuckles briefly before she pulled her hand away. With a sigh, Daryl ran his fingers through his hair. "You can't blame yourself, a'right? You didn't do nothin' wrong."

"If she stayed in that house, Daryl, that means she was…oh God, she just…it's not fair. I can't think of her like that."

"Don't think of her like that," he murmured. "We're gonna go look. When the smoke clears. We'll look."

"She had to be in the house, Daryl," Carol whispered. "She promised she'd stay, and…and that's on me."

"No," he said quickly "That ain't on you. You were protectin' her. Sophia would have gotten out. There's that high window in the bathroom. The one that shuts on its own when you take out the stop? Yeah, she coulda got out."

"Please stop," Carol murmured. Daryl sighed heavily.

"Come on."

"What?" she asked, flinching in surprise as Daryl pushed his chair back abruptly and stood.

"We're goin' back."

"I can't."

"Yeah, you can. That's your girl. We gotta know. You ain't never gonna be able to forgive yourself if we don't know exactly what happened."

"There's no way. You don't…she's just gone, Daryl." She choked back the sob that rose in her throat, but to no avail. She sniffled and got up quickly, rushing to the room she'd slept in the night before. Daryl stood a there for a few moments listening to her sobs echo through the house before finally deciding he wasn't going to just let her go through this alone.

He walked quietly down the hallway, finding her standing at the bedroom window, her hands firm against the wall as she leaned in to look out.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. She turned quickly to look at him and wiped at her eyes.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I didn't…I didn't want her to go on that run with us."

"You were protecting her. I get that," Carol said gently.

"It wasn't just that. I…I wanted you to go." When the tops of his ears reddened, she realized that he'd just wanted to spend time with her alone. "If she came with us, she…"

"Daryl, stop," Carol murmured. "You couldn't have known. That's not on you." She sighed heavily and wrapped her arms around herself. Daryl noticed she seemed to do that when she wanted to close herself off. He moved toward her, and he gently put his hands on her waist before she sighed and pulled her arms around him, resting her head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat against her cheek and feeling safe in his arms.

"I need to know," he said quietly, stroking her back. "And I know you do." Carol sighed softly and nodded her head, inhaling deeply, letting herself feel safe for a few moments more.

"I thought you were dead too. I thought I lost you." She sniffled as he hugged her close. "And then you were saving me, and…I didn't tell you I'm glad you're ok."

"Hey," he murmured, his hand stalling at her lower back, pulling her closer. "We take care of each other, right?"

"We're a family. You, me and Sophia," Carol whispered softly, nodding. "We take care of each other." When she finally pulled back, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Okay. Let's get this over with."

Daryl worked through the ashes with a shovel. Some of the spots were still relatively hot, but a gentle morning rain had cooled it considerably. Carol had found a pair of binoculars at the house that morning and used them to peer into the woods, looking for any sign of her little girl.

As the light rain misted down over the smoky, foggy clearing, Carol felt a chill run through her, thinking about what had become of her daughter. She wasn't certain there was any good news to be had. Even if Sophia had made it out of the cabin, that would have meant she'd have run to the woods, and in the woods were walkers and wild animals, and there was a good possibility that even if she had survived the fire, she hadn't survived any number of the other threats out there.

She felt cold and hollow. As the sound of Daryl digging through the rubble of their home filled the air, she walked over to the well and opened the lid to the tackle box that was there. Inside, she saw the note from Daryl to Sophia, and she placed her hand on her chest, the tears burning her eyes again, and she began to cry. She closed it and moved away, moved into the trees, winding around twisted, gnarled limbs. She groaned softly when her elbow knocked against a tree, and any sense of control and sanity briefly snapped, her hands clawing at the bark, her anger at everything that had happened spilling out as she kicked and punched and cried and wished that she could wake up and see Sophia's smiling face one more time.

She collapsed, panting and sobbing against the ground, leaning back against the tree, staring up into the lofts and wondering how the God she used to pray to nightly could have let the world turn into what it was. She thought about the first few nights after she'd met Daryl, how she'd thanked God for sending a guardian angel in the form of Daryl to her and her daughter, but now, she thought bitterly, she hated God for taking her daughter, for making her feel so helpless, so hopeless, so useless.

"Carol!" She could hear his voice frantic just beyond the trees, and she wanted to call out to him, tell him she was there, but for a brief moment, she thought what's the point and wished the earth would swallow her up.

She sighed softly and looked down at her hands, bleeding and beginning to bruise already. She whimpered and closed her eyes to the sting of tears.

"Carol!" His voice was closer now, and she gripped the earth between her fingers, pushing herself against it to stand, and when she straightened, her eyes fixed on something a few feet away hanging from a low branch.

"What….?" She murmured, her voice choking and cracking in her throat. She moved closer. She reached out and grabbed the item into her hand, blinking away the tears as she attempted to focus on what she held. It was a pink headband with beaded flowers sewn delicately into it. It could only be Sophia's, because Carol recalled the painstaking hours it had taken her to make it for her daughter's sixth grade photos. "Oh God. Oh…" She held it delicately between her fingers, another sob coming forth as she realized her daughter hadn't been in the cabin. Then the realization hit that Sophia had been out in the woods, and where she was now, if she was even still alive, could be anybody's guess.

"Carol!" Daryl's voice was very close now, and she wiped her nose and looked around frantically.

"Sophia!" she shouted. "Sophia!" She heard the leaves crunch nearby. "Sophia!"

"Hey!" he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders as he nearly bowled her over. "Goddammit! The hell you doin' out here? You tryin' to die on me?"

"She was here," Carol gasped, holding the headband up, watching the recognition fill Daryl's eyes. "She was here." Her lungs burned as Daryl took the item in his hand and looked around quickly.

"She ain't here now," he panted, "but they are." He nodded toward a few walkers coming their way out of the deeper part of the woods. "We gotta go. Now!"

"She…we have to find her. We have to…" A renewed hope had somehow risen within her, and as Daryl grabbed her hand and they started to run, he began to worry if maybe Carol had been right. Maybe Sophia was gone. But he couldn't break this fragile, tentative hope that she seemed to be clinging to now. It was a start. It was something. It was keeping her going, and that's the only thing either of them needed. She just had to keep going.

Once they reached the old cabin again, they had more freedom to move about, and as soon as the walkers started coming, they put them down one at a time. Now, Carol and Daryl sat on the tailgate of the truck, and Daryl was cleaning Carol's cut up hands.

"What were you thinkin' 'bout?"

"I wasn't," she murmured, eyes down, anywhere but on his.

"You can't die on me. You can't quit."

"I won't," she whispered hoarsely. "She could still be out there, couldn't she?"

"She could. She's a smart girl. She can hide."

"She can't climb trees," Carol sniffled. "I always wanted to teach her, because I did as a kid, but Ed didn't think it was right. And by the time we got divorced, she didn't have any interest in climbing."

"Plenty of places to hide in the woods. We'll look. If she's out there, we'll find her, a'right?"

"Thank you," Carol murmured. "I really thought she was in the cabin."

"Now we know." Carol winced as Daryl dabbed some peroxide on her bloodied knuckles. "You're not goin' with me. Not today."

"What?"

"I ain't riskin' ya. I can track. I can hunt. I can look for her. But you ain't goin'. Not today." His words were firm, and he gently wrapped her hands with gauze bandages before tearing off some tape and securing them around her hands. His hand moved up to her cheek, and he lifted her head so she was looking him in the eye. "You hear me?"

"I hear you," she whispered softly, another tear trickling down her cheek. Daryl's shoulders shook as he licked his lips, and Carol put her hand over his against her cheek.

"When I saw you was gone, I thought…"

"I'm sorry," she murmured, choking back another sob. "I'm sorry." She rested her forehead against his.

"Ya can't disappear."

"I won't," she promised. A soft growl of a noise came out of the back of his throat as his hand moved to the back of her head, clutching her hair between his fingers, tugging her back just a little to look in her eyes again. "I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here." And then his mouth was on hers, and she clung to him as if her next breath depended on it.