It's been a long time since I enjoyed writing a chapter for this story this much. I think it may have something to do with Sunday's episode and the fact that I have my writing buddy back! :) Well, I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as I did writing it!

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dale, worried that the sound of gunfire would attract more walkers, walked over to his RV to take watch, leaving the rest of them to deal with the aftermath of the massacre. No one moved. Except Beth, who was still sobbing as she walked towards the gory scene in front of them. Everyone watched as she picked through the corpses lining the front of the barn and kneeled in front of one of them to turn it over.

From the way she chanted the word 'mom' in between sobs, it didn't take long for them all to figure out whom she was sobbing over. Daryl felt guilty when he saw that it was one of the walkers that he had shot, but there was no wound in its head, which meant...

Beth screamed when the thing that had once been her mother lunged and tried to take a bite out of her daughter's throat. Everyone moved at once. Jimmy tried pulling his girlfriend away, while Maggie pulled at the thing's arms to get it to release her sister, but it was Andrea who had finally put the walker down with a scythe through the brain.

Carol watched with wide eyes and a hand over her mouth, while Daryl cursed under his breath. He understood that the girl was grieving and hadn't been thinking about the dangers as she walked to her mother, but not being on alert at all times was one way to get killed in this world. Beth had been lucky that everyone had leapt into action as quick as they had or she would have been joining her mother.

"Mama," Sophia's quiet voice spoke up from behind the couple. "I want to leave. Can we leave? I don't want to see those things, anymore."

Carol quickly turned to tend to her daughter. "Of course, honey. How does a nap sound? Maybe Dale will let you sleep in his RV."

"Okay." Sophia nodded and reached for Carol's hand. Lori walked up to them, then, with Carl in tow.

"Can Carl join you? I don't think they'll let us back in the house. Especially after..." The dark-haired woman trailed off and turned to watch as they Greene family walked past them. Beth sobbed into Jimmy's shirt, while Maggie clung to Hershel, who seemed to be working on autopilot as they made their way back to the farmhouse.

"Of course, opposite ends of the bed, though." Carol pointed at the two young children with a smile, hoping that it would help ease some of the tension around them.

"Mom!" Sophia complained and stomped a small foot in embarrassment. Her whole face had even turned the color of a tomato and glancing over at Carl, Carol saw that his face was also flaming. Lori, however, hadn't seemed to hear and was off looking in the direction, Carol knew Shane and Rick were. From the sounds of it, they were arguing.

"Shit," Lori muttered and shot off, leaving Carol with Carl. Carol watched where the woman was running off, too, and saw that Shane was making his way up to the farmhouse with Rick desperately trying to stop him. The man was determined, though, and she could see that nothing short of shooting him would stop Shane from his mission.

Carol did not want the children to be witnesses to what was bound to go down in front of the Greene home. They had already witnessed a large number of walkers, who had been former Greene family members, get shot down, they didn't need to see anything else. "Come on, kids." She wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders and started to nudge them in the direction of the RV. Carl kept turning around to watch where his mother and father had run off, too.

A hand fell on her shoulder when she had walked only a few feet and she turned to see Daryl standing there. "Are you all right?" He asked, looking concerned. After all, she had just had a breakdown only a few minutes before.

"Yeah, I'm fine, now." She smiled, hoping that it would help him hear the truth in her words. "Thank you for asking."

He ducked his head bashfully, then looked up at her through the fan of his dark eyelashes. "Ain't nothin'."

Carol gently prodded Sophia and Carl in the backs. "You two go on to the RV. I'll be there in just a second."

The two kids looked at the two adults before starting their trek to the RV, their heads bent together as they started to whisper fiercely. Carol sighed, only imagining what they could be talking about. Hopefully, it wasn't about the gore they had just watched, earlier.

She finally turned to Daryl. "How about you? Are you okay?"

He looked taken aback, like he was shocked that she had asked him that question. "Course I am. Just had to kill a few walkers, ain't no big deal." Carol could see through his false bravado and knew that something was bothering him.

"It was seeing that little boy, wasn't it?" Carol stepped closer and he bowed his head, almost as if he wanted to place it on her shoulder, but they were in too much of a public place to do so. "You weren't expected that, did you?"

"Naw. Its just that kid was no more than nine years old! Since this whole thing started, I've never seen a child walker." He ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up in places. "And I thought that could have easily been Sophia. Hell, even Carl. I knew this world was shit and those things would go after anyone, but seeing that kid come out with half his shoulder missing..." He shuddered. "Shit, I feel like a fuckin' sap. And then, we almost lost another child when she decided to go see her mama." He fidgeted in place.

Carol reached over to cup his cheek and his fidgeting feet stopped. "No one expected that, Daryl, and because of you, my little girl is safe with me. I'm not going to allow anything to happen to her and I know you won't either."

"Wish I could kiss you, right now, but we got some little eyes on us." Daryl tilted his head slightly too the right and Carol looked over to see that Carl and Sophia had not gone into the RV, but instead, had stopped right in front of the door and watched them. When they saw Carol look at them, they quickly scurried back inside.

"Do you think they're on to us?" She asked, with a smile.

"Kids are sneaky. Do you care if they did...know?" Daryl looked unsure as he asked.

"No!" Carol quickly assured. "I want to tell Sophia, though, before she finds out on her own."

"Sounds like a good idea, then. And I know the girl likes me, so I ain't got a problem with lettin' her know." Daryl smirked and his eyes danced. Carol suspected that knowing Sophia liked him made Daryl happier than he'd ever admit.

"So, what are you going to do, now? I'm putting the kids down for a nap. Do you want to go to your tent to take one, too?" Carol's cheeks flamed when she remembered what they had been up to before Shane's angry shouts had them running.

Daryl's face mirrored hers. "Naw, I shouldn't. I think I'm goin' to help them clean up the mess by the barn. I helped make it, after all."

"Okay." Carol nodded in understanding. "I'll make sure Sophia and Carl get some rest and then, I'll come down to help."

"No." Daryl said firmly and grabbed her wrist before she could move. "I don't want you near that, just in case one of them undead bastards decides to not stay dead for a second time."

"I'll be fine. You gave me a knife, remember?" The knife she spoke of was strapped to her hip. She had almost forgotten in it in Daryl's tent in their haste to get dressed.

"Still, I don't want to risk it." Carol could see the fear of losing her in Daryl's eyes and she was nearly overcome with how much he cared for her.

"A-All right. I'll stay back, but I'll help bury some of Hershel's family."

"Okay, I can deal with that." He smiled, then. "Well, I should get to it. Maybe I won't have to deal with Shane and Rick, if I get started on the hard work." He turned to go, but Carol gripped his arm and made him turn around. Before she could chicken out, she went on her tiptoes and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

Daryl smiled a goofy grin and Carol giggled. "I'll see you later, Dixon."

Just as he did at the quarry, Daryl made sure that each walker had an extra hole in their brain before he set them off to be burned or buried. This time, however, Glenn wasn't in his face about who they buried and burned. No the Korean wasn't even their helping out. Instead, he was up at the house with his girlfriend, not that Daryl blamed him. After the events she had to witness, he knew that she probably needed a shoulder to cry on.

"We just need one more hole dug for Shawn," Jimmy called from where he stood overlooking the pile of bodies that still hadn't been moved. "He's the only left out of these guys that was part of the family."

That's when Daryl noticed the little boy still lying out. "Make that two!" He called to T-Dog and Jimmy, who had been in charge of digging the holes. T-Dog's head popped up from the grave he was currently working on.

"Why?" The big man asked.

Daryl pointed to the little boy with the scythe in his hand. "He's goin' to get a grave."

"It's almost dark. We don't know who he is and we won't be able to dig another grave before the sun goes down," Jimmy said. "And we can't leave him out here, so why not take him with the others-"

"No!" Daryl nearly shouted. "He's getting a damn grave." He threw down the scythe and reached for an extra shovel. "I'll dig it myself, then." He glared as he walked past the younger man and made sure, he left room for the grave met for Shawn and stuck his shovel in the ground.

The sun was almost all the way down when Carol ventured out to the graves. T-Dog and Jimmy had finished Shawn's grave about a half hour prior and Daryl had growled at them to get lost when they offered to help with the little boy's. They had just been feeling bad. When he had seen that he would be digging in the dark, he had walked to his tent and grabbed the battery-powered lamp he had there.

"What are you doing?" Carol knelt down beside him.

"What does it look like?" He snapped and instantly, regretted it. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"What's wrong?"

Daryl stopped shoveling and leaned on the shovel to look at her. The grave was about halfway up his shins. "No one wanted to dig that little boy a grave."

Without a word, Carol got up and grabbed one of the discarded shovels.

"What are you doin'?" Daryl asked.

"Helping." She hopped into what he had already dug and got to work. "That little boy deserves to be able to rest peacefully in the ground. In the morning, I'll even make him a headstone."

Daryl stopped Carol's digging to spin her around and smash his lips against hers. "You're amazin'," he said when they separated, slightly out of breath.

"Not as amazing as you, Daryl Dixon." She smiled, softly. "Now, let's finish this, so we can finally put little Sammy down to rest."

"Sammy?"

"We don't know his name and I thought Sammy would fit. He needs something to put on his headstone." Carol bit her bottom lip, suddenly looking very unsure. "Or does that sound too weird."

"Naw, it's perfect. I'm sure wherever little Sammy's parents are, they would be grateful for not lettin' him become an unknown."

A few tears slipped down Carol's cheeks before she could swipe them away. "They'll be grateful to you, Daryl, to care enough to make him a grave. You're such...you're such a wonderful man and I'm so glad we got to find one another, again."

Much later that night, Daryl and Carol trudged slowly to Daryl's tent. Carl and Sophia were in the RV with Andrea. They had obviously been more tired than they had let on, because they had not wakened up from their naps, yet.

"Wish I wasn't so tired," Carol said when they crawled into the tent.

"Why?" Daryl moved about setting up his sleeping bag so that it would accommodate them.

"So we could finish what we started earlier." She shed the thin cardigan she had on and that left her only in a tank top. Daryl tried hard not to look at the cleavage suddenly bared to him.

"We-We could always do it another time." Daryl blushed at his choice of words. He had said do it like a fucking teenager!

"I hope so." Carol settled down on the sleeping bag and looked up at him with a sleepy smile. "Come to bed, already." She patted the empty spot beside her and Daryl quickly shut off the lamp to crawl in beside her. He didn't hesitate to cradle her in his arms and bury his nose in her hair.

Carol patted the hand that had he rested on her abdomen. "Who needs a blanket when I have you?"

"Shut up," Daryl smiled and pulled her even closer before placing a kiss on her earlobe. "Night."

"Goodnight, Daryl."

Within seconds, the pair was sound asleep.

Thanks for reading!