Daryl was waiting downstairs when Michonne pulled into the apartment parking lot to pick him up. He tossed what was left of his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with his shoe before making his way to her car and crawling in the passenger seat.

Michonne looked tired, but Daryl decided not to say anything. It had been a long night and no one needed you calling attention to their physical appearance after a night like they'd all had.

"Well," Michonne said as he buckled his seatbelt and she pulled out of the parking lot, "they caught Ed. Some boys from a neighboring police force helped out and they ran him off the road in a field somewhere before Bakersville. He's locked up at county now and their pushing not to allow him bail."

Daryl grunted in response.

"I hope the fucker gets the shit beat out of him in there…every fuckin' day," he growled.

Michonne chuckled a little.

"Apparently he got the shit beat out of him last night. The four of you really roughed him up from the description I was given. They're filing the injuries under self-defense, though, and I imagine a few of the officers had their fun and decided not to report the extra injuries as officer inflicted," Michonne said.

Daryl chuckled.

"Good. I hope ta hell they gave it ta him good. Whatever he got weren't enough, I can tell ya that," Daryl said.

"Jaw fracture, cheek fracture, broken nose…" Michonne said. "The list was impressive. Which one of you decided you're giving the cannibal lifestyle a try? Apparently someone bit a sizeable hunk out of his left shoulder and came close to puncturing some important areas."

Daryl snorted.

"That'd be Andrea," he said. "She's been bitchin' all mornin' 'bout her jaw achin' an' her teeth bein' sore. Reckon she weren't accustomed ta tryin' ta eat people."

Michonne chuckled a little.

"Now, when we get there, I'll go in first," Michonne said. "I've got to talk to a couple of people while we're there, so I'll let Carol know you're there and you can sit with her while I take care of business, that fine with you?"

"However we gotta do it," Daryl said. He wiped his palms on his jeans, aware that he was already nervous. He didn't know what to expect exactly, and he didn't know what he was going to say, but he knew that he wanted to see her, so that's what he was going to do.

"Daryl," Michonne said after a second, "I don't know what she's going to look like today, but try…well just try not to…you know…make her feel uncomfortable."

Daryl knew what people looked like after they'd gotten the shit beat out of them. He'd seen it so many times in his life, in varying degrees, that he thought he was damn well prepared for anything. Hell, he'd even seen his own reflection this morning and he'd seen Merle and Andrea too. They weren't winning any awards for most attractive household today, and not likely for quite some time.

"Wouldn't do that," Daryl said.

"I didn't think you would," Michonne said, "but I wanted to make sure. She needs to just focus on the fact that the wounds will heal."

"Yeah…" Daryl said. "The ones on her face might, but that asshole's done a lotta motherfuckin' damage, ya can bet ya damn tits on that."

Michonne didn't respond, but she cleared her throat and they drove along in silence. Daryl hadn't realized he was correct the night before, but they were leaving Sweet Junction to get to the hospital.

Daryl thought about it and the more he thought about the whole situation the more he felt his insides churning into what felt to be a hot ball. He'd seen abuse his whole life, but just because you were accustomed to it didn't mean that it made it any easier to swallow or any easier to understand. What he did know, though, was that of all the people he'd known who had suffered at the hands of others, it wasn't their external scars that showed so much. He knew that Merle had issues, and he knew that he had issues, whether or not he had words to describe either of them. There was something you could see in the face of a person who had been treated badly like that, and no matter how hard they tried to hide it, it was there sometimes. Daryl had seen that look last night in Andrea's face, and he'd seen it before in Carol's. He just hated knowing that today he'd see it again, but it would be even worse than it had been before.

When they finally got to the hospital, Daryl followed Michonne inside. He was hit with the same smell as he had been overwhelmed with the night before, but somehow the light of day and the fact that he was walking a few steps behind the lawyer who smelled like coconut and perfume, made the smell attack his senses a little less.

Michonne stopped and spoke to a lady at the desk who had replaced the woman with the red lipstick from the night before. Daryl lingered near a potted plant and watched her, reaching his hand out and breaking the tip off the plant to see if it was real or not.

"Daryl?" Michonne said, getting his attention. He looked at her. She handed him a sticker and stuck one to her own shirt, so he followed suit.

They didn't speak, but he followed her through the hospital and onto the elevators, waiting quietly as she steered them in the direction of the room. He was growing more and more nervous as they went, though he wasn't really sure why. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to breathe by the time they'd actually found the door that the hospital hid Carol behind.

When they got to the room, Michonne whispered at him to wait and she'd tell him when to come in. She passed into the room and Daryl lingered outside, peeking around the door jamb. He could clearly see Michonne as she circled around and sat in a little chair by the bed, but he could only barely see one side of Carol's face since she was obviously asleep and her head had lolled in the direction where Michonne was now sitting.

Daryl watched the two women and almost immediately he realized something that he'd never really paid attention to before. Michonne was Carol's lawyer, yes, but there was something else there. There was a tenderness there that he hadn't noticed before when she saw and carefully picked up Carol's hand. He almost felt guilty, for some reason, for watching them.

"Carol, sweetheart, can you wake up?" Michonne asked. Daryl watched and even though he couldn't see Carol, he assumed she must have woken up because Michonne smiled at her. "How you feeling?"

Carol mumbled something, but Daryl couldn't hear her words as clearly as he could the lawyers. She said something about hurting and he felt his heart clench a little and he felt the returning anger at Ed that he tried to swallow down, attempting to convince himself that even as they were sitting there Ed was getting pounded on by some asshole in the clink named Bubba who thought it was a shitty thing to land there for beating a woman. Daryl sent his silent support to Bubba and wished he knew where to mail the fucker cigarettes for all the beatings he was going to imagine him giving Ed.

"When's the last time you had something?" Michonne asked. "You've got a button, see?" Daryl watched as she moved some things around. "You just keep pushing it and it'll give you the pain medicine when you need it."

Daryl watched as Michonne pushed the button and sat there a moment, petting Carol's hand. Carol said something and Michonne smiled and nodded. Carol mumbled again and Daryl couldn't make it out, but Michonne shook her head.

"I didn't bring it with me, but it doesn't matter," Michonne said. "Listen, Carol, there's someone here to see you, OK? Daryl's here and he's going to sit with you because I've got to talk to your doctors and make some phone calls. Can you let him sit with you?"

Daryl held his breath a minute. His turn was coming up and he wasn't any more prepared for it than he had been when he got in the car. Michonne seemed to know what she was doing. She knew how to talk to Carol. He wasn't sure he did.

"Daryl?" Michonne called. He took another deep breath and stepped into the room. Carol turned to look at him a little and he tried not to focus too much on the multicolored injuries on her face. He wasn't going to make her feel self-conscious about them, somehow. Michonne got up and put her hand on Daryl's shoulder, leaning in to speak to him so that her breath tickled his ear.

"She's on some very heavy meds right now, so just know that," she said. Daryl nodded his head a little and took his place in the chair that Michonne had been sitting in while the lawyer let herself out of the room.

Daryl sat there, swallowing and trying to figure out what to do with himself. Carol looked at him, silent for the moment.

"He hurt you," Carol said. Daryl's head snapped up, though he was still trying to figure out how to respond to anything. He remembered, all of a sudden, that he had a black eye and there was a bruise on his chin that Andrea had teased him about, saying it made him look like he was growing a purple beard. He couldn't believe, though, that she was going to ask him about that when he was just sitting there realizing that the reason the lawyer had only been touching her hand was because it was one of the few places that you would think you could touch without hurting her.

"I'm good," Daryl said. "Nothin' big. How you feeling?"

He didn't know if it was the right question or not, but he didn't have anything else to go with. Carol sighed and tried to smile at him a little.

"I've had better days, honestly," she said.

Daryl nodded his head.

"They got him, though, an' apparently the four a' us, we like some kinda street fightin' dream team," Daryl said, hoping to lighten the mood a little. Carol did smile a little, so he thought he wasn't doing too bad. "We damn near killed him…woulda but he had a car."

"Andrea? Is she OK?" Carol asked.

"She's just fine," Daryl said. "They give her somethin' that I think she was allergic to or somethin' like that so she started seein' shit last night an' it was pretty funny. Merle was outta his skull so I moved her ta my room and she barfed on me an' felt better after that. Even made pancakes this mornin' ta say she was sorry for ralphin' on me."

Carol snickered.

"You and your pancakes," she said. "Don't you ever get tired of them?"

Daryl picked up the little button thing that Michonne had held when she was sitting there. He ran his fingers around and pushed the button again. He didn't really know how it worked, but he figured he'd keep hitting it to make sure she felt as good as they were going to let her feel. He was still nervous about touching her, but finally he slid his hand under hers, careful not to squeeze it since he could see they had an I.V. in that one.

"No," he said. "I like 'em." He shrugged a little not knowing what else to say. "I like 'em an' she don't mind makin' 'em, so I don't get tired of eatin' 'em…"

Carol moaned a little and Daryl looked at her. She looked like she was getting tired, but she didn't look like she was in too much pain, so he didn't say anything.

"What else do you like Daryl?" She asked.

Daryl assumed they were still talking about breakfast. He shrugged a little more, bringing his free hand up to trace along the fingers of her hand that was resting on top of his.

"I like them little sausages too," he said. "The skinny, long one, not the ones that look like lil' bitty hamburgers."

Carol sighed.

"But what else do you like?" Carol asked. "You like pancakes…and sausage links…" She stopped a minute to yawn lightly, grimacing a little at the action. "And you like fixing cars…and smoking...but what else?"

Daryl thought about it, letting his finger trail up the inside of her arm over the soft skin there, drawing little patterns while he searched for something to say. He didn't really know if he liked a lot of things…or maybe he liked nearly everything and that's why nothing was coming to him. He didn't really know how to answer the question though. He could think of a lot of things he liked, but nothing seemed really special or important. There was nothing worth mentioning.

"Don't know," Daryl said finally. "I reckon I like a lotta things. Lotta things I don't know I like 'til they right there an' then I just kinda know that I like 'em."

He continued to trace patterns on the inside of arm, letting his finger trail almost to the crook of her arm and then back down to her palm.

"I like you," he said.

Carol snickered again and he noticed her eyes were closed.

"I'm serious," she said.

"I'm serious too," he responded.

Carol sighed and he figured she was going to sleep. He stopped drawing the patterns then and pushed the little button again.

"Don't stop," Carol said. Daryl looked at her. Her eyes were still closed, but she had more of concerned look on her face than she had before. He wasn't sure what he wasn't supposed to stop doing.

"What?" He asked.

"Don't stop," she mumbled.

"Stop what?" He asked.

"The thing you were doing on my arm," she said. "Don't stop…I like it…"

Daryl chuckled to himself and returned to running his fingertip up and down the inside of her arm. He sat there quietly, unsure if he should speak or not. Eventually her breathing evened out, and he knew she was asleep, but he continued rubbing just in case, pausing only every once in a while to push the button again and see if he could coax it to give out more of the medicine.

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 1

Michonne knew that she'd been gone longer than she originally intended, but sometimes it took forever to get calls through. She'd ended up on hold so many times, pacing back and forth outside the front of the hospital for so long, that she was sure half the people working there thought she was an expectant father or something.

She saw Carol's doctor again and pulled the man aside to see if he had any more information for her, but it was limited to just a slight update from what she'd already heard. At this point they'd reached the land of hurry up and wait. Everything was technically being done, but nothing offered the instant gratification that she would have appreciated.

As she made her way back to Carol's room, she hoped that she hadn't left Carol and Daryl alone for too long. She didn't know how he would hold up in a room with nothing to do, especially since Carol was likely to be out of it more than she was with him, and she hadn't exactly told him how long they'd be visiting for.

When she rounded the corner and stepped into the doorway, though, she stopped herself for a moment. Carol was obviously asleep, and Daryl didn't look to be too terribly far behind. The poor guy was obviously bored out of his mind and at the moment was mashing Carol's pain medication button like it was some kind of joystick for a video game.

Michonne chuckled a little as she stepped into the room.

"It's set on a timer," she said. "It doesn't matter how many times you hit it, it won't give her anymore unless it's time. It's to keep people from overdosing themselves in the quest for sweet release."

Daryl turned and half smiled at her.

"Yeah, well, I figured it was prob'ly somethin' like that, but it didn't seem ta hurt nothin' so I figured I'd catch it when it decided ta spit some more out," Daryl said.

"How has she been?" Michonne asked. "I'm sorry it took me so long. People don't want to answer their phones when they know you're actually calling about something."

"She's been OK, I reckon," Daryl said. "She's slept most the time. A doctor come in here an' done some kinda tests with her, but he ain't really said nothin'."

Michonne nodded.

"They were worried about brain injury," Michonne said. "It appears, though, that everything is fine. Thank God for the little things. They're going to release her tomorrow. She's not going to be able to stay on her own at first because she'll be on some pretty good medication, but I'll take her home with me."

Michonne wasn't expecting Daryl's face to change quite like it did. He looked very concerned for the moment.

"She can stay at her place," he said. "I could stay with her."

Michonne sighed.

"Daryl, she needs to take it easy for a bit…she just needs to relax and focus on feeling better," Michonne said.

"So?" Daryl asked. "I could watch out for her."

"You have to work, Daryl," MIchonne said. "I know the kinds of conditions you and your brother and Andrea live in. I know you need the money from all of your jobs."

"I could take a lil' bit a' time off," Daryl said. "I bet Hershel would understand."

Michonne wondered why he was arguing about this. She thought about it for a few minutes and decided to take a chance that her suspicions might be right.

"I'm not holding her hostage, Daryl," Michonne said finally. "You could come and visit her at my house when you get off work if that would make you feel better. I can work from home. You can't do that exactly. It's going to be much easier for me to be there for her than it would be for anyone who has to go into work."

Daryl finally nodded and Michonne could see that he was rubbing Carol's hand.

"Fine," he said. "I'll come an' visit her then."

"It won't be for long," Michonne said. "Probably a week and she'll be good enough to stay on her own. She'll still have to take it easy, but she'll want to go home as soon as she can. They're going to start weaning her to other medications soon, and then tomorrow you can ride with me up here to pick her up if you want to and you don't have to work."

Daryl nodded again.

"Are you ready to go?" Michonne asked. She figured he'd be anxious to go and glancing at her watch she could see that it wouldn't be too long before she'd either have to pick the girls up from daycare or call the neighbor to do it. Carol was sleeping and she'd probably stay that way for the most part. Daryl looked at her, though, like she'd just asked him if he was ready to face a firing squad.

"Ya mean ya just gon' leave her?" Daryl asked.

Michonne raised her eyebrows at him.

"Daryl, we've been here for a while. How long did you intend to stay?" She asked, looking at her watch.

"I don't know," Daryl said. "She wanted ta go home earlier."

"Daryl, they've got her loaded up on enough morphine that I don't even know if she actually knows what she wants right now," Michonne said, "but they're not letting her go until tomorrow morning at the earliest…whenever the doctor can get in here to release her."

"So she's just gonna be here alone?" Daryl asked. "She don't like it here an' I can't blame her. Hospitals ain't no fun, an' it's even worse if ya ain't got no one with ya."

Michonne shook her head. She could understand that, and she could somewhat sympathize with it. She'd been lucky enough that the only time she'd been in the hospital was when her girls were born, and those had been short visits. Dean had been with her almost the whole time with Anjelica, but if it hadn't been for the nice nurses she'd have been alone the whole time with Celine.

She supposed, though, that those experiences and what Carol was going through were very different. At least then, for as miserable as she'd been, she did have her new arrivals to keep her company and make up for the bad parts.

Still, she couldn't just stay at the hospital. As much as she might have liked to do so, she did have the girls and she was all they had to really rely on.

"Daryl, I've got to pick up my girls," Michonne said. "I can't just leave them with people all day and all night. Carol's going to be fine and she's going to be here tomorrow morning when we pick her up."

Daryl shook his head.

"Ya just pull out'cha phone there an' ya get someone ta go an' tell Andrea an' Merle I'm not comin' home right now," Daryl said.

"Daryl, they're going to run you out of here at nine anyway," Michonne said.

Daryl shrugged.

"Then when ya talk ta 'em ya tell one of 'em ta be waitin' outside ta pick me up at nine an' I'll come out an' meet 'em," Daryl said. "Ain't neither one of 'em workin' today so they won't care."

Michonne sighed. She walked over to the bed and ran her hand across Carol's right hand, the one that Daryl wasn't holding. She didn't stir. She was out for all intents and purposes.

"OK, Daryl, I'll get in touch with them," Michonne said.

Daryl smiled and went back to playing with the joystick.

"Would you like me to bring you something from the gift shop, Daryl? A magazine? A comic book? Some snacks or something?" Michonne asked.

Daryl shook his head.

"I'm good," he said.

"Alright then," Michonne said. She turned and started out the door, surprised at how dedicated Daryl was to this mission. She turned just before she stepped out. "What are your feelings about green shutters on houses?" She asked.

Daryl looked at her, his eyes off the button he was clicking for just a moment.

"Huh?" He asked.

Michonne snickered.

"Nothing, Daryl. Take care of her. Someone will be here at nine and I'll see you in the morning," Michonne said.

Daryl nodded.

"Night," she heard him call just as she started down the hallway.