AN: Y'all are great! Thanks for all the reviews. I'm glad to see that you're enjoying our little story! Y'all were so nice that I decided to update this story for you before I went about updating any of the rest!
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
When Daryl woke up he had the feeling that he'd slept longer than he intended. He'd had a terrible time trying to fall asleep the night before, and once he'd gone to sleep he'd spent most of his night fighting every variety of monster, human and otherwise, that his subconscious mind could possibly dredge up.
He woke up slowly, sitting up. Carol was gone. He was alone in the bed. Slowly the night before came washing back over him. He was still confused and had no idea what he had done to Carol. He searched his memory, but he couldn't come up with a single thing besides bringing his things to the cell, but she'd been the one that had suggested that he do it.
Daryl got out of the bed and pulled his clothes on, determined to find Carol. He didn't know what he wanted to say to her, but something had to be said. He needed to understand what was going on. He needed to know what he could do to fix it, if it could be fixed.
He made his way to the dining area, but he quickly discovered that he'd missed breakfast since there was no one in there. He wandered through the prison, finding Rick and Tyreese working on a project to get the showers working in the prison. They wouldn't be of any help to him. Finally he stumbled upon Hershel tending Judith.
"You know where Carol is?" Daryl asked. He felt like finding the woman was normally an easy feat to accomplish, but right now it wasn't.
"I haven't seen her since breakfast. I'm sorry, Daryl. Is something wrong?" Hershel asked.
Daryl started to walk off, but paused a minute. He chewed at a piece of his cuticle. He wanted to ask Hershel what could make women get crazy and randomly start crying, but he decided that he didn't dare to do that.
"Nah, I'm just tryin' ta find her," Daryl said.
"She might be doing dishes, or laundry, outside with Bethie," Hershel offered.
Daryl grunted his thanks and started out to the area of the yard where they did most of the cleaning. He found Beth there, and Maggie, but that was it. No sign of Carol.
"Y'all know where Carol is?" Daryl asked, walking up to the sisters.
The two girls looked back and forth between themselves for a moment. Daryl didn't understand women, but he wasn't stupid and he could easily catch that it was an uneasy look.
"What? What's goin' on?" He asked.
"Carol left," Beth said. "She went to get water."
Daryl stood there a moment. He had the feeling that he didn't have all the information here.
"She went alone?" Daryl asked.
"Michonne's missing too," Beth offered.
Daryl huffed. He was frustrated and not sure what he should do. Carol went with the others often for water, and if she was with Michonne she should be safe, they didn't have far to go. He thought maybe he should just wait there, wait for her to come back.
"The thing is…" Beth said timidly, pulling Daryl out of his thoughts.
"What?! What is it?" Daryl barked. He saw the young girl jump. "What ain't ya tellin' me?" He asked, trying to lower his voice so that she wouldn't be too scared to continue.
"Well," she stuttered, "they've been gone a long time," she finished.
"What the hell ya mean they been gone a long time? And ain't nobody thought ta go after 'em? The fuckin' Governor's out there roamin' around and he wants Michonne's head an' the two 'a y'all know Carol's out there with her an' you don't think it's a good damn idea to say nothin' 'bout the fact they just disappeared?!" Daryl didn't care that he was yelling now. He was instantly worried.
Beth stood up and came close to him. He backed up a little, feeling like she was invading his space.
"Daryl, I think that Carol's upset," Beth said. She looked like she was hesitating to talk to him, but he wanted her to keep talking. Maybe Maggie had some solution as to why Carol was acting the way she was acting, and right now he'd take any help that he could get, even if it did come from the farmer's daughter.
"You know what the hell is wrong with her?" Daryl asked.
"I don't know for sure," Maggie said, lowering her voice, "but I think it might be Karen."
Daryl was thoroughly confused now. He didn't pay the woman from Woodbury any more attention than he had to. He found her annoying at best. Rick seemed to like her OK, and that was his business, but Daryl hadn't bothered to find out much about her. Now he couldn't imagine what she'd done to upset Carol.
"What the hell'd she do ta Carol?" He asked, aware that they were losing time and there was still no sign of Carol or Michonne.
"Yesterday," Maggie said, "she…well…she might have told Carol that you didn't…care about her, and that you were just using her, until something better came along. I think it upset Carol," Maggie said.
Daryl felt himself blushing.
"Why would she say somethin' like that ta Carol?" He asked. He couldn't understand what would motivate a woman he didn't even like being around to say something to Carol about something she had no way of knowing anything about. He didn't know her, and she certainly didn't know him, and she didn't know anything about what he felt for Carol.
"I don't know that, Daryl, but I guess it might be because she likes you," Maggie said. "I could be wrong, but Carol seemed pretty shook up yesterday after Karen did that, and she hasn't been talking to anyone today, and then she just took off."
Daryl didn't say anything, but he rushed back into the prison and grabbed his crossbow from the cell. If Carol was out there, he was going to find her, and he was going to find out if she'd just up and disappeared because of something that bitch Karen had said.
He didn't say anything to anyone, he just made his way down to the gates and let himself out, immediately looking for tracks from the two women that he was following.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"I know you're behind me," Carol snapped. "You're not as quiet as you think you are." She saw a Walker heading toward her and she pulled her knife out of her belt, waiting for it to approach. She never got to stab the Walker, though, because it crumpled to the ground with its head severed in half a few seconds later.
"Wasn't trying to be quiet," she heard Michonne say behind her.
Carol didn't want to turn around and look at the woman. She hadn't asked her to follow her. All she'd asked from her was that she help her clear the gates so that she could go and get water. She hadn't expected her to fall in step behind her a few minutes later.
"Water's back there," Michonne said.
"I'm going to get it somewhere else," Carol snapped.
She just wanted to be outside the prison. She wanted to be away from the prying eyes of everyone there. There was no such thing as privacy inside those walls and what Carol really wanted right now was to be alone with her thoughts, with her disappointment. She'd woken up with the intention of speaking to Daryl, of asking him what he felt and if there was any truth in what Karen had alleged, but she'd lost her nerve and gone to make breakfast, a breakfast that she couldn't even eat. She'd hoped he wouldn't come eat, and when he didn't show up she'd been relieved.
Now she thought she found the only way that she could be alone. She could go for water and disappear into the woods until she was calm enough to go back, until she knew what she wanted to say, until she felt like she was prepared for whatever Daryl might say.
But now she had a shadow following a few feet behind her. Granted the woman was quiet, but she was still there, and that wasn't what Carol wanted.
"Why don't you just go back?" Carol asked, shouting louder than she meant to. She realized suddenly that she needed to keep her voice down. She needed to avoid drawing the attention of Walkers, and of people.
Michonne didn't answer her.
"Go back to the prison, I don't need you here, and I didn't ask you to come!" Carol said.
The woman had stopped walking, but she didn't respond to Carol in any way. Carol became aware of an approaching Walker, but just as she reached to pull her knife, Michonne's katana shot out and dropped the Walker. The woman didn't break eye contact with her.
"I could have killed that one," Carol said.
"Didn't say you couldn't," Michonne answered quietly.
"You can leave now, I don't need you following me. I can take care of myself," Carol said.
"I'm just out for a walk," Michonne said. "It just so happens we were going in the same direction."
Carol realized then that the woman was not going to leave her alone, so she resigned herself to the woman's company. At least she was quiet, and she wasn't the prying type. Carol wandered a few steps farther, flipped over the bucket that she was carrying, and sat on it. She tried not to think about MIchonne's presence. She tried, instead, to just think about what was going on. She had to sort out what she felt for Daryl, and she had to come to terms with the fact that he probably would never feel the same for her. She had to figure out how she would deal with seeing Daryl and Karen together, if it came to that, without losing her mind.
She'd come this far, she refused to lose her mind over a man.
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Tracking the two women wasn't difficult by any means. Daryl had quickly found Carol's tracks in the dirt. Michonne was apparently walking lighter than Carol at this moment, however the scattered Walker bodies slashed up like paper dolls that littered the trail more than marked the direction that they'd gone in.
Daryl was brooding. He had no idea what he was going to do or what he was going to say, and he hoped that he could find something right to say whenever he finally found the women. He had long since passed where they stopped to get water, but he hadn't seen any signs of problems, so he assumed that everything was fine. He'd only encountered one or two Walkers, so that also was promising. At least there wasn't any sign of them having gotten overpowered. He kept an eye out for other tracks, but it appeared that the women were wandering alone.
When Daryl finally found them, what drew his attention most was the sound that he knew to be Carol's sobbing. It was a sound that haunted him. He remembered it from all the time that Sophia was lost and they were looking for her. It was a sound that tore through him. It made him want to do something. It made him want to do anything that would make it stop.
He stepped a little farther into a grove and found Carol there, sobbing on a bucket. Michonne was sitting a few feet away from her, leaning against a tree, her katana laid across her lap. Daryl looked nervously at the woman on the ground.
"You can go now," he grunted.
Michonne lazily looked up at him. She remained still for a few minutes. Then she finally got up, took her sword, and walked away, barely making any sound to indicate that she was leaving, or even that she had ever been there at all.
"Carol," Daryl said, walking toward her hunched figure. "Carol, ya OK?"
Carol stopped sobbing, and went to wiping at her eyes. She didn't respond though.
"Ya wanna tell me what's wrong?" Daryl asked. "Ya want me ta move my stuff outta your cell?"
Carol turned and looked at him for a minute and he felt struck. He didn't like seeing her there, looking so sad, just sitting on a bucket in the woods.
"I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do," Carol said, her voice shaking.
"Ya wanna tell me why you're cryin' out here?" Daryl asked.
Carol shrugged.
"It seemed as good a place as any, I guess," she said.
"Might be safer ta do it inside the prison, I mean if ya aim ta do it," Daryl said. "Or ya could tell me what's ailin' ya an' maybe ya wouldn't have ta cry no more."
Daryl watched Carol, but she didn't make any show that she was going to explain what was wrong with her.
"Maggie told me what that Karen bitch said, Carol. Said she was tellin' ya that I didn't care none for ya, is that why ya cryin'?" Daryl asked.
"It's OK, Daryl, you don't have to explain," Carol said. "I understand it, I really do. She's young and she's attractive. I wouldn't blame you at all if you…" her voice broke off then and Daryl closed the space between them.
"What the hell ya talkin' 'bout, Carol? I ain't lookin' at Karen, I ain't never looked at her, she'd hooked up with Rick, I don't even know why she would say nothin' like that no way," Daryl said. He wanted Carol to understand that whatever the woman had said it was ridiculous.
"I know what I look like, Daryl, and I know what I have to offer you," Carol said. "I understand if you want something better."
Daryl walked over to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her gently to her feet in front of him. He swallowed hard. He wasn't any good at this shit, and he didn't know what he was supposed to do, but he was desperate to wipe that look off her face.
"Carol…" he said, "I ain't good at this, but I gotta try ta tell ya what I'm thinkin'…"
Carol looked up at him, tears still puddling in her eyes. He leaned his face in, kissing her gently on the lips.
"I know what'cha look like too, Carol, an' I think ya look real pretty, an' I know what'cha got to offer me, an' it's exactly what I want. I don't want nothin' ta do with that Karen woman, but I ain't no good at tellin' ya what I'm thinkin' 'cause I don't even know what I'm thinkin'," Daryl said. "I told ya before I ain't like that. I can't be like Glenn an' make all kindsa shows for ya, 'cause I ain't never done that before."
Carol stood there in front of him for a minute. The tears silently started spilling over her lower eyelids again and Daryl thought that he'd said something wrong. He didn't know how to fix this. He didn't like the way that he felt right now. He felt out of control of the situation, and he didn't like being out of control. He'd never been like this before, and he didn't know how to handle it.
He was surprised when Carol leaned up and caught him behind the neck, pulling him to her, kissing him hard. Her other hand wrapping around his back. He shivered and tried to ignore the fact that just the kiss had been enough to make him aroused.
"Are you sure, Daryl?" Carol asked when she'd broken away from him.
"Sure of what?" He asked, swallowing and breathing hard, overcome by the passion behind the kiss.
"Are you sure that you want me, Daryl? You could do a lot better…" Carol started. Daryl interrupted her by kissing her.
"You're all I want woman," Daryl said. "I could ask ya the same damn thing, ya know, I ain't nothin' ta write home about."
Carol smiled at Daryl.
"I think you're perfect," she said.
Daryl smiled. Finally Carol was smiling at him. After all the worry from the night before, it was the most beautiful thing he'd seen. He dropped his crossbow to the side and reached for the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head in one quick movement. He glanced at her bra, sure that he couldn't get it off, and he ran his hands under it, grasping her breasts.
"You're pretty damn perfect yourself, woman," Daryl said.
Carol reached around and unhooked her bra, her hands going immediately to his belt as they exchanged kisses in between movements to rid each other of their clothes.
"Do you want to do this out here?" Carol asked, panting.
"Ain't gonna stop now," Daryl said. "Can't stop now."
Carol gave herself over to Daryl. When they'd finally rid themselves of their clothes, aware that they needed to stay close by their weapons in case of the interruption of a Walker, Daryl gathered Carol up, lifting her off the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck, wrapped her legs around his waist. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and gently sucked at the skin there.
Daryl backed her against a tree. He worried that the bark would be too rough, but Carol didn't protest. He shifted her around, finally able to lower her onto him.
"You alright," he grunted.
"Perfect," she whispered into his ear. He shivered. "Are you going to be able to do this? I'm not too heavy?"
"You're light as a feather woman," Daryl said. "Now be quiet, you don't wanta get us no attention out here."
Daryl thrust into her, supporting her weight with his hands. He thought the feeling of her wrapped around him was delicious, and he appreciated the cool nip of the air, a slight indication of the fall setting in. Carol seemed to move with him in perfect harmony and when she finally clamped around him she buried her face in his chest, her arms tightening around his neck. Her cries were muffled by his skin and he finally continued to thrust until he'd found his own release, trying to hold back from crying out.
When he finally lowered her to the ground to stand on her feet, he realized this was the first time that he'd ever seen her completely naked in the light of day. She was even more beautiful than he'd realized.
Carol wrapped her arms around him and kissed his chest.
"Daryl," she said after a minute."
"Yeah," he grunted.
"I think I love you," Carol said. "Is that OK?"
Daryl snickered. He hadn't thought about it before. He wasn't sure that he really knew what it meant to love anyone. He wasn't sure that he'd ever loved anyone or anything before. What he did know, though was that he felt differently for Carol than he'd ever felt for anyone.
"Yeah, I think that's OK," Daryl said.
"Do you love me?" Carol asked, looking up at him.
"I don't know," Daryl said. He saw hurt fill her eyes, and he wanted to correct the situation as quickly as possible. "I mean I don't know what it means to love someone, Carol. So I don't know if that's what this is."
Carol looked at him, still not entirely convinced, so Daryl tried to explain himself.
"This group, everyone, they're like my family," he said, suddenly realizing how ridiculous this was going to sound, especially given the fact that they were standing completely naked in the woods. "And even though they're all like a family that I weren't never lucky enough to have, if the Governor told me today that I could only save on of 'em, I wouldn't even have ta think about it, 'cause I'd give him everyone else, just ta make sure ya was safe, is that love?"
Carol smiled at him and pressed herself against him again.
"I think that's as close as you can get," Carol said.
"Then I reckon I love ya too, woman, but I still ain't no good at this stuff," Daryl said.
Carol laughed.
"I think you're great at it, Daryl. You're doing it just right. Come on, let's get dressed, the others will be wondering where we are. Michonne had to get back some time ago," Carol said. She went to dressing herself and Daryl watched her out of the corner of his eye while he put his own clothes back on. When she turned her back to him he saw that it was scratched up and bleeding.
"Carol, you're hurt," he said. "Ya didn't tell me ya back was gettin' all chewed up."
He was suddenly sorry that they'd done what they'd done. He should have known that dragging her up and down that tree wasn't good for her skin.
"It's fine, Daryl, nothing that won't heal," Carol said. "I needed that, and I think you needed that. The scratches will heal."
Daryl walked over and gently ran his fingertips over one of the scratches.
"They might heal, Carol, but they gon' scar," he said.
Carol looked at him, pulling on the light jacket that she'd been wearing.
"Then they'll be the first scars that I don't mind having," she said.
Daryl touched her cheek and kissed her again. He waited for her to get the bucket and he shouldered his crossbow.
He put his arm around her and started walking through the woods toward the prison. For a moment he was surprised that they'd been out there all this time without having encountered a single Walker. Then he nearly tripped over Michonne, who was leaned against a tree, apparently waiting on them.
"Ya been there the whole time," Daryl asked, looking down at the woman. She started to get up.
"Figured they'd start asking questions if I came back alone," Michonne said. "And somebody had to keep them out of your nest," she said, pointing her katana in the direction of a few Walkers that were piled up.
Daryl felt a little embarrassed, but Michonne didn't say anything else. She just started toward the prison a few steps in front of them. He squeezed Carol closer to him and they continued along the path the two women had created earlier.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 1
AN: I don't know if any of you are multishippers, but if you are, you may want to check out my other stories. I have one that's Dixonne (Michonne/Daryl) called "What Future is There?" that's turned into quite the long saga. Then I also have a Michandrea fic called "Stay Close" that looks at the time that Michonne and Andrea were off together. It's a little slower coming.
