Scars: Part Two/Request from BulletTimeScully.

I don't own the walking dead

It had been such a long time since anyone had pointed them out to her, and even longer since she had really noticed them, so when someone would comment on her scars, Carol would always be caught off guard.

Those scars had become such a part of her body, and pretending they weren't there had become so natural, that it would take her a minute to process what they were talking about.

It had happened a few times over the last few months. The sleeve of her sweater would slip and Lori would notice the old burn mark on her upper arm; The hem of her shirt would lift and Maggie would notice the small white lines that had once been wounds from shards of glass, broken beer bottles probably.

At first they would ask, and Carol would deny it. "I don't remember", or "Oh, that's nothing," had become such natural lies to her that eventually they just stopped asking, and she stopped caring if they saw. Gradually the sleeves of her shirts got shorter, and the sweater was worn less often.

Those scars didn't mean anything to her anymore, and they didn't mean anything to the people she was traveling with, because, by then, they all had their fair share of scars. Hers weren't anything special.

Daryl hated being stuck in such confined spaces with so many people. It was a necessity, he knew, to stay together, within each others sight range, but sometimes it was damn uncomfortable. Especially when Rick had them all stuck in one room, and a change of clothes was needed.

He would stare at his feet, at the ceiling, at the fledgings on his arrows, anything to keep him from seeing the bodies of his companions. It was out of respect for them all, but also because, every now and then, he would catch a glimpse of Carol's pale skin, and his breath would catch in his throat and he would be distracted for the rest of the night.

Tonight, his eyes were roaming, searching for a distraction from the people he was surrounded by. He made it his goal to stare out the window until the others were done changing, but when his eyes found the stained glass, he saw only the reflection of the one human body he didn't want to lay eyes on.

His eyes flickered from the window to Carol's naked back, because he had seen the reflection already, and for whatever reason, that particular night, he couldn't give two shits less if he saw her.

Her shoulder blades were prominent and every couple of inches down her back, the knots of her spinal column could be seen, but it wasn't her bones that captured his attention. Her back was dotted with scars, some old, faded, and some newer. He had scars all over his body, so seeing them on someone else shouldn't have been an issue. He had more scars then some people could count, but that didn't lessen the sudden rush of anger he felt seeing those scars scattered across her body.

He wasn't surprised that they were there. She had lived in hell, he knew, long before hell had come to live with them on earth; It made him angry anyway.

Daryl stood watch out on the front porch of the house they were in, leaning on the rail. Everything was quiet, and he was relaxed. No sign of walkers around.

He heard the silent patter of feet against the ground, and didn't need to turn to know that Carol was joining him. If anyone hated the confinement as much as he did, it could only be Carol.

"Still claustrophobic?" He gruffed, watching her hop up on the rail beside him. She laughed.

"Well Yea, its not something that just goes away." They fell into a comfortable silence. Idle chitchat was a waste as far as he was concerned, and she enjoyed the silence to much to break it.

Every now and then, he would glance in her direction, to check if she was awake, or just to gauge her expression. She was staring off into the night, and he found himself checking the visible parts of her skin for scars that he had missed before.

He had mostly ignored the ones he saw before. They were small, easily brushed off, nothing to make a fuss over, but after seeing the ones on her back, he had realized that those scars probably ran a lot deeper then he had previously imagined.

He had to fight off the rush of images that bombarded his mind just then. How had she gotten those scars? How long had they been there? What was the reasoning behind the little scratches on her collarbone or the small white dash just below her hair line? If what he knew about her, and his own scars were any inclination of the truth, those scars were hard won, and probably still kept her up at night. With his mind running in the direction it was, he was caught off guard when a question formed in his lips, even though he didn't want it too.

"What happened?" Upon seeing her confusion, he pointed to the thin white line on her collar bone, his finger tips barely brushing across her skin.

The look of pain in her eyes at that moment made him wish Ed were alive, if only so he could be the one to tear him apart.

"I don't really remember. I have a lot of them like that. The ones that show up one morning, and you can't exactly pinpoint the event from the night before that caused it…." Her voice trailed off, and he knew that she wasn't lying. I don't remember was an overused lie, but in that context, he couldn't argue, he had a ton of those scars too.

"What about that one?" He pointed to the one on her head, his thumb brushing gently against it. She shook her head, and from the way she drew in her shoulders, he could tell that, in her mind, she was flinching away from the memory.

She couldn't talk about it, and he didn't know why he had asked in the first place. A person's scars were the only secrets in the world that they could ever keep. Those were the stories that you didn't want to tell, because the images in your mind were just to horrific. He knew that, so why was he asking? He decided he would drop the questions, but he still had some kind of point to make.

"I guess its not all that important anymore though, right? Just a reminder of what you been through…best left behind." He saw her nod in agreement, and he hoped the conversation would end with that, but of course, it didn't.

"You're right. Its best the scars are left behind, or at least the memory of them. Some of us just have to many to dwell on." Her thumb lightly traced a scar she found on his jaw line, mimicking his earlier movements. He didn't move his eyes from hers, and for a minute, it seemed as if entire conversations were passing between them. Her hand never left his face, she was still tracing scars. They were telling each other the same thing. Scars were scars, and things were different now, so they both needed to leave it in the past.

Best left behind, he'd said, and with her hand on his face, and her eyes trained on his, Carol couldn't see those scars, and she knew that it would be a lot easier to let them go then she had previously thought.

I'm not to satisfied with this, but a friend read it before I posted it, and said I should give it a shot, so here it is. Thoughts?