Beth crept into Carol's cell, her blue eye's round and wide as a startled doe's, her mouth partly agape. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I heard a crash or something." She looked at the DVD player on the ground. The screen was half snapped off and dangled by a wire thread.

"I'm fine," Carol insisted. "I got up to get something, and I just...silly me...I stumbled against the table the DVD player was on and knocked it over. It must have been cheaply made, it broke so easily." She smiled. "But I'm just fine. Thanks for checking up on me."

Beth looked from the DVD player to Carol and back to the DVD player. "Well, I'm sorry it broke."

"My fault for being so clumsy," Carol said and kept smiling until Beth had disappeared.

Her fake smile faded into a grimace, and she was suddenly disgusted with herself. How easily and completely she had slipped back into the abused wife routine, lying to cover up what had really happened. When she'd suggested Daryl was a virgin, he'd growled, low and angry, "Yer nosy as hell, ya know that?" Then he'd stood straight up and violently swept his arm against the portable DVD player, so that it went soaring across the cell, where it smashed into the bars, slammed on the ground, and fell apart. Then he'd simply walked out.

How dare he.

How dare he smash her player in anger, and leave her trembling in this cell. How dare he put her back in that tense place she'd escaped when she'd escaped Ed's unpredictable rages.

And how dare she.

How dare she act like nothing had happened. How dare she lie to cover for him. She wasn't that woman anymore. She wasn't weak. She would never be weak again.

Carol stormed toward Daryl's cell. He wasn't there, but Hershel, who had been reading a medical book in his open cell, said, "If you're looking for Daryl, I saw him head toward the mess hall."

[*]

Daryl paced the length of the mess hall, trying to gain control of himself. There were lots of windows in this room, even if covered on the outside by bars, so enough moonlight and starlight filtered in to light his way as his bare feet padded against the cool cement floor. He'd left his boots on Carol's floor. And his gun and knife and flashlight. And her shattered DVD player.

Fuck. Why had he done that? What the hell was wrong with him? He wasn't a man. He was a tantrum-throwing child. He wasn't a man at all...and now she knew.

He swiveled when he reached the end of the mess hall and began pacing back, which was when he saw Carol. She was coming at him full speed, more livid than he'd ever seen her. Hands open and palms flat, she shoved him hard against his brick of a chest. Shocked, he stumbled backwards three steps and rammed his upper leg against a table.

"You don't get to treat me like that!" Her voice cracked, breaking in an instant from anger to sorrow. "No one gets to treat me like that anymore! No one!" And now she was sobbing, in a way he hadn't seen her sob since Sophia lurched out of that barn.

The same surprising instinct overtook him that had overtaken him back then. He put his arms around her. This time, he didn't need to hold her back. He held her in.

Carol bent her head against his chest and wept into his shirt. Daryl held her until she'd stopped crying, and then he reached into his back pocket to offer her his red bandanna.

"Sorry I shoved you," she said as she dabbed her eyes.

"'S a'right. I deserve it."

"Don't say that." She handed him back his bandanna, which he returned to his pocket. "That's what I used to tell myself. No one deserves it."

"Didn't hurt none," he insisted, even though hitting the table had hurt.

"I shouldn't have done it. I lost control. I..." Carol sighed shakily. She put a hand on the table to steady herself, and then she turned and sat on it. He sat down beside her, careful not to touch her. Carol told him about how she had lied to Beth, about how she had despised herself for slipping back into the habit of covering up for Ed's rages.

"I ain't Ed," he whispered, terrified that she might think of him as no different than that piece of shit. "I'd never hurt ya, Carol. Never."

"Well, you did hurt me. Not physically, but you scared me. And you broke my DVD player. I'll never be able to finish that movie now."

"Get ya another one," he said softly. When she didn't reply, he said, "I'm sorry."

"That's what Ed always said, every time."

"I ain't Ed!"

"No, you're not Ed," she agreed. "But I'm not Carol Peletier anymore either. You can't treat me like that, Daryl. You can't just smash my things because I ask you a question you don't like. Even if it was a rude and thoughtless question."

She hadn't reacted like this when he'd thrown that saddle in Hershel's barn, or when he'd gotten up right in her face by his tent and said those nasty things to her. She'd been so...calm. So forgiving. But she expected more of him now. He didn't have infinite chances with her.

"I..." He was going to say he hadn't meant to do it, but Ed had probably said that to her a thousand times. He put a hand down on either side of himself and gripped the wood of the table tightly. Maybe his only chance with her was honesty. "I think I did that 'cause I's embarrassed. I didn't want ya to know. I didn't want ya to guess. Please don't tell no one."

"Of course not."

"Promise."

"Daryl, why would I tell anyone that? Why - "

"Promise."

"I promise." She put her hand on top of his and said, "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

He slid his hand out from underneath hers. "Like hell it ain't. I'm a grown man." He shook his head. "Merle used to ride me so damn hard 'bout it - ya gotta bust that cherry, Daryl, yer a goddamn embarrassment to the Dixon name, what the hell are ya waitin' for? When I's nineteen, he finally just took me to a whorehouse." Shit. Why had he told her that? "Didn't go through with it!"

"Why not?" she asked.

"It just felt...weird. They lined 'em all up, like they was horses at auction or somethin', and I was supposed to look 'em over and...it didn't feel right. So I just picked one, quick as I could. And she took me back to some room. Room smelled strange. Kind of made my stomach churn. I just stood there...didn't know where I's s'posed to start. So I told her she didn't have to do nothin', and I'd pay her extra, on top of whatever Merle was payin' her, if she told him I's the best damn ride of her life."

Carol smiled faintly. "Did Merle believe it?"

"Think so, 'cause after that, he mostly left me alone 'bout it. When we was roamin', if he picked up a woman at a bar and went home with her, next mornin'...I'd make up some story, tell him I'd done the same thing, even though I'd just camped out somewhere alone." Daryl couldn't believe he'd told her all this. "I ain't gay or nothin', if that's what ya think."

"I've never thought that."

"I just...I never knew what to do. Merle always seemed to know."

"Merle was in juvenile detention," Carol told him, "and in the military. As feral as he was...he moved in social groups more than you ever did. Your mother didn't die until he was a teenager, but you were just a boy. You were practically alone, especially with all that time you spent hiding out in the woods from your father. You aren't used to a loving touch. You had to raise yourself, and you never stayed in one place for long. You just never had the chance to - "

"- Don't make excuses for me."

"Daryl, it's not shameful."

He looked down at the mess hall floor. Carol slid off the table and turned to face him. She took a step closer, so that she was standing between his legs, her body flush against the edge of the table he was sitting on. She bent her neck and pressed her forehead to his. It was an unexpected relief to have her so physically close after exposing himself like that, as if she were a cover to his nakedness.

"I'm sorry we fought," she said softly.

"Me too," he whispered, and put a hand on each of her hips, because it seemed to make sense, somehow, to do that.

They remained together for a long time in that position, Daryl sitting on the table, her standing between his legs, hands on each other's hips, foreheads pressed together, lips inches apart. In the silence of the mess hall, Daryl could hear her breathing. He could almost hear his own heart beating. He shifted his head just a little and kissed her. It was so natural…so seamless…the way his lips fell on hers. She closed her eyes. The kiss that began on her lips trailed to her cheek, her nose, her forehead, and back to her lips. She opened her mouth against his. He accepted the invitation and slipped his tongue hesitantly inside, but she responded, and he wasn't hesitant for long.

When Carol finally pulled away, they were both breathing heavily. She held onto the sides of his shirt, the fabric now balled in each of her fists.

He'd been afraid of losing her friendship when she barged in screaming at him, but he was even more afraid of losing it now. If they kept going down this road, he was sure he would disappoint her. "Don't want to ruin it," he said. "Yer the best damn friend I ever had in my life. No one ever gave a shit 'bout me the way ya do."

Carol moved back one step, though she didn't let go of the shirt at his waist. She studied his eyes, her bottom lip sucked in, her own eyes lit by a bitter-sweet smile. "I know," she whispered. "I understand." She unclenched her fists. The fabric of his shirt slipped from her fingers.

She let him go.

Stepped away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and left him there, sitting alone in the moonlight.

[*]

Daryl walked under the shaded tarp of the canteen the next morning, sayin', "What's up Dr. S?" There was a chorus of greetings. He still hadn't gotten used to this – to people greeting him like he was just an established part of their world, and not one they feared or disliked.

Carol was cooking something up for brunch. "Smells good," he told her, trying to appear as though he wasn't thinking about that kiss they'd shared last night.

"Just so you know," she said, "I liked you first."

He didn't know how to respond to that, so he just said his expected line: "Stop." He glanced at her, eyes flitting up and down, realizing that even though she was joking, she wasn't only joking – she was telling him she sincerely did think highly of him. The thought flattered and embarrassed him. "You know, Rick brought in a lot of them, too."

"Not recently. Give the strangers sanctuary, keeping people fed…you're going to have to learn to live with the love."

"Right." He had to look away.

His eyes were drawn back when she said, "I need you to see something."

He took a final sample taste of the food she was preparing, but before they could get away, Patrick thanked him for the deer he'd brought back yesterday. The kid said he was honored to shake Daryl's hand. Honored. Daryl pretended not to be surprised, licked his fingers clean, and shook the boy's hand. He strode casually away with Carol, feeling like he belonged here in this camp, like he was somebody special, maybe even someone who might dare to kiss Carol again one day. Not today. But one day.

Carol showed him the walkers pressing against the fence and told him they couldn't spare many people for the supply run. He was disappointed she wouldn't be joining him, but also a bit relieved, given that her presence would distract him with foreign feelings.

"Sorry, Pookie," she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

He chuckled and bumped her affectionately with his elbow, and she smiled. Only after he'd done it did he realize he'd been the one to touch her first.

As Daryl was packing up for the run later, he saw Zach trying to needle an affectionate goodbye out of Beth. "It's like a dang romance novel," he muttered, but secretly he smiled.

And the day just kept getting better. As he was leaving, Daryl saw Michonne had returned. He sputtered his motorcycle to a stop to tell her he was glad to see her back in one piece. Soon enough, he was headed off, the caravan of supply runners behind him.

As he roared down the road, he felt more content and more alive than he'd felt since…he couldn't remember when. This morning, he'd seen Beth turn over her little workplace sign to thirty days. Thirty days in a row they'd made it, without so much as a finger lost. Michonne was alive and well and - at least for now - back where she belonged. He'd kissed Carol last night, and it hadn't made things weird between them. They were still friends - maybe even better friends than they'd been before. Patrick was honored to shake his hand. He and the other supply runners were about to score some serious shit at the big place.

Life was good.

The future was bright.