Sorry this took so long. It was difficult to write, which annoys me, lol! HUGE thanks to ChooseJoy for the help/beta job. LOVES YOU!

Princess-of-thieves6, I hope this works for you.

MollyMayhem84, thanks for putting up with my oddness during playoffs.

Looping a muscular arm under her knees, Daryl pulled Sera down into his lap as he sank to the ground, astonished to suddenly find himself lying flat on his back with her held protectively against his heart. He could feel the warm wetness of her blood seeping through his shirt and pants, paying no attention to the sounds of the others around them. Her quiet sobs hanging, crystalline, in the air before shattering into a million blades through his chest.

She's okay. She's okay. She's okay. Daryl clutched her closer, pressing desperate, firm kisses to her temple and curls. He began humming quietly, a song his grandmother used to sing when his father had left more of a mark than usual on his young body.

The feeling of Sera sobbing against him was a relief and condemnation. She was alive, her wounds rather superficial though still bleeding profusely. That she had been hurt at all was a dark spot on his heart, an abhorrent, black, pulsating cancerous mass that beat at him with every sob his tiny wife choked out against his shirt.

Fuckin' piece of shit. Good fer nothin'. Dixon. You let this happen to her, you asshole. Daryl wanted to push her away, to keep her from being harmed. Relief, horror, and sadness roiled within him, churning up a lifetime of inadequacy and shame. Women had never fared well with the Dixon men. Don't know why I thought she'd be any better; that I'd be any better.

"Daryl?" Sera's tear-choked voice shook him from his thoughts, her sobs moving into more gentle, fluttering gasps for breath.

He had to cough to clear the lump in his throat. "Yeah, Catchfly. 'M here."

"I killed 'em, didn't I."

Daryl hugged her close and grunted quietly with the effort of sitting up. "Some people just need killin', baby. Ain't nothin' to be done 'bout that."

Sera nodded against him and whimpered slightly. The adrenaline had leeched from her body, leaving her shaking and aware of everything. While the deep cuts barely ached, every scrape and scratch felt like a lemon-bathed paper cut. There were bruises forming on her arms and legs, and she knew she had pulled more than one muscle.

"Is she okay?" Carol and Sophia reached them at the same time, stepping close and looking around. "Are we sure that's all of them?"

Daryl grunted. "Got some bleeding, but she'll be okay. They'd of shown themselves if there were more."

A towel clutched in a thin hand appeared a moment before Lori stepped slowly around the couple. "Here, for that leg."

"Thanks." He let her hold it to the wound while he looked over the chunk missing from Sera's arm. It was still bleeding freely, but didn't appear to be too devastating.

"There was a – a gun at – at my boy's head," Lori's chestnut waves fluttered as she shook her head and regained some composure. "I don't know what I'd do if –"

"I know," Sera patted the other woman's shoulder and winced at the scratchy sound of her own voice. "Keep it together in front of them, though, okay?"

Lori gave a choking laugh and nodded, wiping the tears from her face with her free hand and straightening her shoulders. "You're right. Carl hates when I cry."

"What about Rick?" Sera felt a bit guilty about using Lori to distract herself from both Daryl's evaluations of her injuries, and the pounding headache taking up residency at the base of her skull.

Lori shrugged and looked at her from the corner of her eye. "He's like most men. No clue what to do with a crying woman."

Sera's giggle came out dry and rattling, her hand moving to rub at the shadows of Andy's hands around her throat. "Ow."

"Hey, Doc!" Daryl's bark made Sera jump and drew the attention of the now freed group. "Little help?"

Hershel eased away from his sniffling daughters, casting a grateful look with his uninjured eye at Glenn as the younger man wrapped his arms around Beth and held her tight while Maggie petted her white blonde hair. "Patricia will have to do the stitches this time, but I can see well enough with one eye to look her over."

Carl stepped around Daryl and retrieved his guns. "Should I put these in the RV?"

"I think I may be re-evaluating my stand on firearms on my farm." Hershel shook his head. "Need to be prepared for anything, I suppose."

Rick looked over the camp. "Dale's gone for the duffle. Shane and I will clear the house. T-Dog, and Jimmy; you do a search of the farm, make sure it's secured. Find their keys, get their car, and bring it back here.

"Glenn, I want you and Dale on watch. Slow circles around the camp and house until we can come up with something better later on."

Sophia chewed at her bottom lip and then squared her shoulders. "I'm takin' watch, too."

Rick rubbed at his forehead and frowned, his right hand resting on his hip. He knew she had been working with Daryl and Sera, but was obviously reluctant to okay a young girl walking around with the possibility of armed rapists on the farm.

"Me, too!" Carl checked his pistols and stood as tall as he could beside Sophia's diminutive form.

"They can go with me," Andrea had retrieved a shotgun and checked it for ammo. "We'll move between the house and camp, so we're close if Carol and Lori need any help with dinner, or if someone pops out of the woods."

"That okay with you?" Rick looked to Carol and Lori, his eyes resting on his wife's hands securing the towel to Sera's calf.

Carol nodded at her daughter. "You stay with Andrea or come to me at the fire. Nowhere else."

"Same for you," Lori cast a shaky smile to the antsy boy. "Don't make me regret this."

"I won't, mom," Carl's eyes rolled dramatically as he sighed, causing the adults to chuckle quietly. "I can do this."

"I know you can, baby," Lori gave a watery smile. "It's just hard on a mom sometimes."

Carl nodded and pressed a hasty kiss to her cheek before walking away with Sophia and Andrea, the brown deputy hat bobbing along with his foot falls.

O:O:O:O:O:

Rick and Shane cleared the house quickly. When Daryl was certain that it was secure, he moved Sera into the now familiar guest room. Hershel looked her over, deeming antibiotics and painkillers necessary before Patricia moved into the room carrying the needed items to sew Sera's wounds. Seeing the bottles of medications, Sera frowned up at Daryl.

"Do I have to take the painkillers?"

Daryl frowned and looked to Patricia. "She gotta?"

"Well," the older woman frowned lightly in thought. "You don't have to, but from the sound of your throat and the look of those bruises and cuts, you should take some for at least the first day."

"I get sick on Demerol." Sera remembered vividly the time she was given the drug after being kicked by her neighbor's horse. The vomiting had lasted for nearly four hours after taking a single, low dose, and had only made recovery worse.

Patricia nodded and continued readying the sutures. "This is Dilaudid, so we'll just have to see what happens."

"Here," Daryl shook out what she should take right away and handed them to her along with some water. "Don't want you bein' in pain if you don't have to be. Shouldn't have been hurt at all."

There was pain in his voice; a recrimination and upheaval that revealed an uncertainty and self-hatred left behind by years of being inadequate in the eyes of his father and society. While Sera longed to pull him into the safety and comfort of her arms, she knew that he would not appreciate such actions while in the company of others. The pain meds would only act to fog her mind completely and make meaningful communication an impossibility.

"I don't do well with any painkillers I've ever taken. These'll put me out for a while."

Daryl sat down next to her on the bed, keeping himself out of the nurse's way. "Not goin' anywhere 'til I know you're okay."

Sera swallowed the pills and settled on her stomach, hating that she had to be stitched again. The antiseptic was cool on her inflamed skin, and she jumped a bit in surprise. Daryl's hand was her anchor, and she clasped it tightly once again. The answering squeeze let her know he was there with her, but his eyes were troubled and shadowed with the ghosts of his past.

Taking a chance, Sera waited until his cobalt gaze met hers. "This isn't your fault, you know."

He grunted in response, staring as her skin was rid of the first set of now useless stitches before being wiped clean in preparation for the new threads. The scar would be longer now, more angry than before. He would never be able to gaze upon that part of her body, or the skin of her upper arm, without knowing that he had failed her.

Sera opened her mouth to further make her point, but was suddenly unable to remember what she was going to say. The bed on which she lay was suddenly to most soft surface she had ever felt. Daryl's form was shrouded in an indistinct, light fog, so that he was all soft edges and muted colors. The ceiling light, just visible from the corner of her eye, was now a haloed and misty streetlight on a rainy evening. Her hand clung to her husband's, though it applied less pressure than a falling leaf.

As she watched, Daryl's head moved slowly to the right, as if he had heard something behind him. Rick appeared over his shoulder, as if melting out of the creamy paint of the wall, and Sera couldn't contain her soft giggle. Their soft words were indistinct, muddled together and stretched apart until they reminded her of Charlie Brown's parents.

Daryl's troubled eyes were the last thing she saw as the drugs finished their job and sent her into the arms of Morpheus.

O:O:O:O:O:

Daryl stormed through the underbrush, headless of the animals scurrying out of his way and uncaring of any attention he may draw to himself. T-Dog and Jimmy had not been able to locate the attackers' car by doing a quick search of the highway, and Daryl had turned to the woods instead. If the two men had followed them to the cabin and then lay in wait until they left for the farm, they could have taken note of the location and then come through the forest. Now, he thundered through the bracken and brambles, intent on finding the evidence of their presence and removing it.

May not have been able to keep her safe before, but no one tracks like a Dixon. Daryl had started at the shed where they had kept Randall and easily found their trail. Following their clumsy steps easily, the hunter kept his eyes open and ears alert for trouble.

A few miles from the farm, through the woods and past a meandering creek, a station wagon sat abandoned on the side of a quiet country road. The tracks ended there, the doors locked and windows raised. With a quick glance around, Daryl pounded on the window behind the driver's seat with a rock until it shattered. Clearing the glass with the butt stock of his crossbow, he gained entry and reached forward to open the front door.

Merle had taught him how to hotwire a car for his tenth birthday, and Daryl quickly ripped open the steering column below the wheel. The mass of wires came into view easily, and Daryl glanced around, taking note of three walkers shuffling in his direction from behind the car. Finding the two red wires, he stripped them quickly and twisted them together, nodding as the engine sputtered and caught. Adjusting the seat quickly, he turned the car and aimed directly at the dead things moving along the road, absent of their usual moans and all the more frightening because of it.

"Fuckin' walker pieces of shit." His foot pressed harder on the gas pedal, the first set of thumps doing little to assuage the seething anger and self-loathing.

Braking hard, he parked hastily and stepped out of the car. Two jogging strides brought him close to the first walker, a man with a beer belly and teeth that had been rotting well before he died. Daryl's mind supplied the olive skin and dark hair of Randall to the corpse as the stock of the crossbow made contact with its softening skull again and again. The second walker, a woman with her dyed hair cut in a long bob and dangling, gold bracelets on her wrists gave the now familiar gurgling moan as she reached for Daryl's arm.

"Get the hell offa me!" Putting all the power he could into the movement, his right fist connected with her chin. When she was forced back, Daryl grinned menacingly and slid the strap of his crossbow over his shoulder before drawing his knife. "Yeah, let's go, bitch."

O:O:O:O:O:

Pale grey light suffused the room as Sera's eyes blinked against the lure of the medications. Things were still a little vague, but not as dreamlike as they had been before she succumbed hours earlier. Daryl slumped in the chair by the window, the skin of his left thumb held firmly in his teeth as he stared out the window, seeing nothing. As she watched, his head shook slightly and focused on a spot of carpet three inches in front of his dirty, fraying boots.

"Dare?" Her voice was still raw and scratchy, but his eyes snapped up to her face. He was moving to pour her some water from the pitcher before the sound had died from the room.

"Drink this." He helped her take a drink and then sank down on the bed next to her hip.

Sera cleared her throat, wincing at the stabbing pains. "This sucks."

"I'll have my shit out by the time you're out of here, an' I'll stay away from ya." Daryl worried the tip of his tongue with his teeth, swimming eyes focused somewhere in the corner of the room. "Won't bother ya none."

The meds were wearing off, and Sera clenched her teeth against the pain. "The hell 're ya talkin' about?"

"You don't need a good fer nothin' like me." Daryl shook his head and let his eyes skate over her. "Ya need someone who can take care of you."

"You take care of me just fine!" Sera latched on to his left wrist, holding on tightly to the skin above her braid of hair. "Sometimes, I'm going to have to look out for you, too. That's what a relationship is."

"I SHOULD BE THE ONE IN THAT BED!" He lurched away from her and too his feet, the drywall giving way under his fist as he punched the wall.

"Okay," Sera nodded and eased her back up off the pillows. "So, you're saying Sophia should be dead."

Daryl blinked at her through his scowl. "What?"

"They had a gun to the girl's head, right?" Sera began to inch her way across the bed.

"Yeah." Daryl was distracted by her movement. "What the hell are you doing?"

Sera didn't stop moving as she looked up at him through eyes darkened with pain. "I'm your wife. I go where you go.

"If you had tried to fight when you weren't tied up, Sophia would be dead, and probably Carl, too." Sera nodded dramatically when he tried to shake his head in denial. "Yes they would, and you know it. Do I wish that hadn't happened? Yes. Would I do it again if I had to? Hell yeah. Life isn't perfect, baby, and we just have to do our best with what we've got."

"But,"

"No."

Daryl growled low in his throat, leaning over to scoop the small redhead up into his arms and placing her in the center of the bed. "Lay the fuck down, woman!"

"Why? Shouldn't I ignore any added circumstances and just do what I think a woman should do?"

"Ain't the same," his eyes were a deep, restless blue as he leaned over her on the bed.

"Yes, it is." Sera's tapered fingers reached to play with a lock of his hair, tucking it behind his ear. "I love you and want to make sure you're safe and well. That's the way it works."

"But, I should've –"

"No," Sera rested her fingers on his lips, surprising him into silence. "You aren't allowed to blame yourself for any of this. I don't, and no one else does, so you aren't allowed to even think about it."

Daryl studied the determined glint of her big green eyes and the pinched, irritated set of her lips before heaving a sigh. "How do I not?"

Sera drew him down against her chest, sighing contentedly as his weight settled against her. "You just need to realize that you are my man, and that I know you will always do all you can to protect me. It's just that sometimes, there's nothing you can do."

"Don't like it." He felt himself relaxing as she drew lazy patterns over his neck and shoulder.

"You don't have to like it, but it's still life." Sera shifted her legs and grunted quietly.

Shifting to sit up, Daryl grinned. "Know something I can do."

"What's that?"

"Make you take your damn pills." Reaching for the cup of water and two pills resting on the nightstand, he handed them to her and watched closely as she carefully took both easily.

Sera frowned. "Going to sleep a lot."

"I'll be here when you wake up, Catchfly." Daryl settled into the bed and drew her up against his side so that her throbbing arm was cradled safely on his chest and the aching warmth of her calf rested across his shins. "Get some rest."

"Okay, baby." Sera fought a smile at his soft scoff at the endearment. "Love you."

"Yeah, yeah." Daryl smirked. "Love you, too."