AN… I have been warned that this chapter kind of goes nowhere. Hopefully that won't disappoint anyone too much. Originally I'd thought to skip over this whole bit and jump the whole Randall thing, but when it came to writing it, after four attempts I gave up and just went back. Anyway, it's a Caryl chapter, so maybe you won't all be too upset with me ;)

Guest: Thank you! By the time I am through I think Merle and Sophia will be a unit no one can break apart. Tragic characters are so much easier to work with! Not too much depth with this one, but hope you like it anyway!

Remember, reviews are love! They make me want to keep writing!

Part Twenty-One

Daryl sometimes thought in these days to end all days, that no matter how often he washed, he was never going to get the feel of sweat off his flesh. He was never going to get rid of the stench of death from his hair and he wasn't ever going to get the pain of losing people out of his heart. He wasn't ashamed that he'd been sick with fear while waiting for Carol's little girl to stumble out of that barn. He'd held his gun aloft, knowing he'd have to blow her face away if no one else had the guts to do it, but when she'd not come out of there, all dead and rotting away, and Daryl had let down his guard, the whimper he'd heard from Carol as she flew at him and held onto him tight made him feel shame like he'd never known it before. Known it because no matter how far Carol had come to take comfort from him, it was his fault she needed it in the first place.

And then he felt ashamed for being angry with her, coming out to see the massacre when he'd left her at the RV, thinking she'd understand what it would do to him to have her see her daughter have to die a second time at the hands of one of the group. It didn't matter that it hadn't happened, that Sophia was nowhere in sight. It didn't matter that Carol had had to see for herself—had to know whether it was time to grieve finally or to continue tearing her own heart apart with the not knowing. What mattered was that he was angry and fearful and every other fucked up emotion that could possibly tear him apart, and that she was at the centre of all of it.

Night had fallen a while back and he was settling on his own around the camp after having taken a dip in the lake to wash the horror of the day from his skin. His clothes were fresh, his face the cleanest it had probably been all day, and his hands felt odd without the layer of dirt that usually covered them and the first thought that came to his mind was that this would be the time to kiss Carol—the time to really give her something maybe not quite what she was worth, but close enough if she valued him half as much as she said she did. He wanted to kick his own ass for being so soft, for craving her touch when he'd spent the majority of his life fighting against anything like it.

He was ready to think he was daydreaming when he saw her walking from the house to the camp in the dark. Everyone was up at the house and his belly was growling from the lack of dinner being made and consumed in the camp. Dale had called down earlier to say that Hershel was missing and that Rick and Glenn had gone looking for him because the man's youngest daughter had collapsed. Daryl had spit in the dirt, disgusted with them all. Stupid old man was probably off drowning his sorrows—it's what he'd have done if his own wife and step-son had been taken out right in front of him. It wasn't Rick's place to go tearing off after him, though. If the idiot wanted to get killed—if he'd still not learned his lesson about the danger that surrounded them—then what did that have to do with the rest of them?

Carol finally arrived, placing a plate in his hand before deserting him to take one to Dale who was still on watch. She spoke quietly with the older man, allowing Daryl to almost inhale the food down in a rush before she came back. He still felt his irritation aimed at her roil around in his gut and he wasn't so sure he could trust himself if they had to talk, but with timing that made him curse, she was back as soon as he'd stepped away from his plate and he was caught before he could enter his tent and try to banish the image of kissing her from his head.

"Lori wants to know if you could go and find Rick and bring him back. Beth's not doing so well—we think she's in shock. She needs her father."

Daryl wasn't sure why the thought of Lori sending him out after Rick made him feel as sour as it did, but Carol saw it and before he could tell her to go tell Lori she could go to hell or go find her boy all on her own, Carol's hand settled against his bare arm and he froze.

"I brought a map and Maggie said we can take her car." She smiled at him and almost instantly Daryl felt better. Not absolved, but better than he had before. Then he processed her words and that anger was back and scratching at the back of his throat.

"The hell you mean, 'we'? I'll go on my own." He shrugged her hand off and made toward his bike, but before he reached it she was back in front of him, waving the map in her hand.

"He's gone a few towns over, to some place he used to go when he was young. You won't know the way without reading the map and it will be faster if I just go with you. I promise, I'm really good with maps. I can read them upside down and everything."

She made it too damn easy to want to be around her, he realised. He should hate her for it—and did a little—but it didn't stop him from giving in. With a roll of his shoulders, he swept up his crossbow and slung it across his back, then made his way to the elder daughter's car. Maggie. Hell, the girl must be beside herself with worry to be loaning out her car for the rescue effort. He paused when he realised Carol wasn't beside him, looking back to find her still standing in camp while he'd stretched the distance between them half way to the house. "Well, you comin' or what?" He hid a grin as she ran to catch up and then stifled a groan when her finger dug into his ribs and she bumped her shoulder against his.

"You want me to drive or read the map?"

Daryl had never been driven around by a woman in his life, and he wasn't about to break with that tradition any time soon. "You read the map," he said while giving her a dirty look and then got in the car. Carol dangled the keys out to him as she got into the passenger seat and then started unfolding the map. Daryl handed her his crossbow and she put it on her lap, smoothing the map out over the top of it.

The ride was quiet, Daryl barely grunting whenever Carol tried to start a conversation. He couldn't explain to himself why he felt so mad at the world, why he wanted to go out and kick the world's ass and take no prisoners. He knew Carol had thought she was getting through to him earlier in the day, as he'd relaxed with her body pressed into his at their training session and as he thought about her mouth against his throat, he raised a hand to rub against the hickey she'd given him. Shuddering at the startling flash of desire that hit him, he turned to look at the map in her lap.

"You worked out where we're goin' yet?" he asked harshly, one hand on the steering wheel as his other made to grab at the map and turn it so he could get a better look at it. "Thought you said you could read a map while standin' on your head?"

Carol laughed, amused at him and his attempted reversion back to the gruff, angry man he'd first come to their camp as. She wasn't sure if he realised it at all, but Carol knew there was no way he could go back to being that person. He'd shown her too much how he cared and even if he tried, kicking and screaming, Carol wasn't letting him go.

"I said I could read a map upside down, not while standin' on my head." She successfully wrestled the map away from him then looked up the same time as he returned his attention to the road. "Watch out," she screamed, then felt herself sliding as Daryl reacted to her rather than the walker in the road, slamming the brakes on and swerving before common sense kicked in and he hit the accelerator and ploughed straight through the body, hoping it was more dead once he'd run over it than it was before it stupidly wandered in front of the car.

Carol lurched forward, her head slamming into the windshield before Daryl had righted the car and taken the walker out. She bounced back into the seat as he'd accelerated, but now her head was bleeding and she could swear she saw stars. The car shuddered to a stop and Daryl was reaching across her, tossing the map out of the way and forcing his crossbow to the floor as he rushed to look at the damage, panic vibrating off of him as Carol's eyes dropped closed and blood dripped down her face.

"Carol? Carol, open your eyes," he ordered, voice hoarse and hands shaking as he strained to look at her properly. Another walker started banging against the side of the car, its feral features pressed against her window and Daryl was gripped within a powerful wave of fury. Ripping his door open, he ran around the car while unsheathing his knife and slammed it into the back of the walker's skull, wrenching it away from the car so he could open the door to get better access to Carol.

"Carol?"

She cracked open an eye and then groaned, closing it back up to shut out the pain. His voice sounded thick and distant and nausea rose up and pushed at her throat. With a superhuman effort, Carol lurched forward and shoved Daryl out of the way before she vomited in the road, blood slowly dripping from her face into the puddle. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and then stumbled to her knees away from the car, forcing herself to take some deep breaths and try to stop her uncontrollable shivering.

Daryl dragged her up off the road and held her tight against his body and she didn't know if it was him shaking now or her.

"I guess that's why they put seat belts in those things, huh?" she said miserably against the pounding staccato rhythm in her head.

He held her away from his chest, his thumb swiping at the cracked wound on her forehead and doing little more than making her flinch and smearing her blood across her skin.

"I'm sorry."

Carol moaned, hating the self-accusation and blame that was completely transparent in the way he spoke and how he held her like she was about to break down the middle. She pulled herself out of his arms, her fingers clasped around his forearms, and she pushed her eyelids open so she could really see him. He looked more shit than her, she figured, and she grinned against the pain.

"I'm not goin' to blame you for walkers in the middle of the road, Daryl." She arched a brow, like she couldn't believe he'd even go there and then went back into the comfort of his embrace when the muscles of his face relaxed.

"You feelin' all right? Not seeing two of me or anythin'?" She went to shake her head but winced as a sharp pain stabbed viciously between her eyes.

"Other than the fact that my head hurts, I feel fine," Carol said truthfully. She'd get over a little pain in her head. She'd suffered broken bones in silence, in her previous life. A crack to the head wasn't about to upset her too much.

"Guess we really do need to find Hershel now, and get him to check out your head properly."

He wasn't looking at her, Carol noticed. His gaze was caught at her shoes and then he was taking her hand and gently directing her back to the car, this time dragging out the seatbelt and bending across her to snap it into place.

They were back on the road in minutes.

Carol reclaimed the crossbow off the floor at the first walker she spied as Daryl slowed before driving into town. He pulled over, turned off the headlights and looked up and down the main street, trying to decide what to do. It seemed quiet enough, until an unfamiliar truck came flying around a corner and sped past them with a sizeable number of walkers following the sound of the retreat. He waited, unwilling to take Carol into the midst of a possible herd—especially with the scent of her blood tainting the air around them—but now more than a little concerned about whether Rick, Glenn and Hershel were caught in the middle of it. He looked at the group of walkers as they ambled closer, biting his thumbnail as his elbow rested against the window. Just as he'd decided to risk it, Rick flew past in the Cherokee, going in a different direction from the one they'd just arrived, and he breathed in a deep sigh of relief. He watched the walkers for a few more minutes, surprised when another car screamed around the corner, knocking walkers out of the way with vicious abandon, slowed slightly at the intersection before turning up the way the truck had gone. Daryl decided to leave the headlights off, reversing up and following the two unfamiliar cars as fast as he thought safe.

He didn't dare look sideways this time, but when Carol moaned he smacked his hand on the steering wheel.

"Hell, I shoulda followed Rick."

Carol's hand curled around his arm and he quickly adjusted himself so he could steer with one hand and hang onto hers with the other, squeezing her fingers gently to reassure them both while squinting to keep the lights of the car up front in his sight.

"You made the right choice," Carol said, quieting his doubts. "We need to know where they're going. We can't let them find the farm."

Daryl drove on, finally slowing once he recognised they'd passed the turnoff to the farm, and watched the other car continue on out of sight.

"You think I should keep after 'em?" Daryl turned to look at her and could barely see her in the pitch black.

"It's not safe to go after them now. You'd need to use the lights. Let's just go back to the farm and let everyone know what's happened. At least we know Rick made it away from those walkers." Her speech started to slur toward the end and Daryl frowned, his concern about her head injury renewed.

"Need to get you back, anyway. Keep an eye on that head of yours."

She drifted off before he'd driven them through the two gates leading to the property and he left her in the car while he ran in to inform Lori and Shane that Rick narrowly escaped a small herd of walkers, driving off in another direction and would probably take some time to double back and make it back to the farm. Shane followed him back to the car where Daryl returned to collect Carol, and as they walked he filled the ex-cop in about the other two cars that had driven by too close to the turn off.

"Not sure she should be sleepin' with a head wound," Shane told him, nodding toward where Carol sat and Daryl bit his lip to stop an irritated outburst. He had no idea why Shane was suddenly so concerned about members of the group that weren't Lori and Carl, but it was all Daryl had in him to not yell at him to back off—that he had Carol covered.

"No shit," he said instead, his lip curling against saying more as he opened the door, removed the seatbelt and lifting a groaning Carol out of the car. "I'll sit with her until the others get back. I'll try an' keep her awake as much as I can."

Ignoring the lewd, knowing laughter that followed him, Daryl took her back to camp, then sat beside her on the bed in the RV and watched nervously, wondering how the hell he was going to keep her awake when he wanted to close his own eyes and drift off to sleep.