Hey, everyone!

I'm really happy you laughed with little Hope, because now we're back to good, old angst.

This story is based on a request by eieball326. She kind of granted me with a blank check on how to handle it *sigh* and you know me… It had to be so much more complicated! I'm sorry, honey, if this is far from what you had in mind, but I lost it again mid-story. As always, though, I tried my best… Problem is that these damn stories write themselves no matter how much I try to maintain control!

Send me your love and wishes this week :) I'm turning my whole life upside down, moving back to my country etc. and I'm trying to be brave! Hey, what's the purpose of having dreams at all if not going after them, right?

Peta2 is my guardian angel and I'm so reckless I keep her up at nights! Thank you, best beta ever!

The Walking Dead belong to Robert Kirkman and AMC. No copyright infringement intended.

Enjoy!

It had nothing to do with wanting another man. She didn't want any other man. She wanted him. She loved him. Really loved him and was absolutely sure she'd never cease to. What weighed an insufferable encumbrance was loneliness. Sometimes it felt like a gravestone above her chest, only she wasn't in a tomb yet. There might have been one dug for her outside the fence, but she didn't lie beneath the shoveled dirt. She was alive. Very much alive and breathing. And she was young. Maybe not in her twenties, but, damn she was young. Nowhere near giving up on her life again; she had done that once when she married Ed. She was ready to live, really live, with her losses and her wounds and her weaknesses.

She needed a man. Not even sexually, even though she found herself fiercely aroused from Daryl's unpretentious charm. Emotionally. It was sheer necessity for someone to be present for her, emotionally. Not Rick, not Maggie, not any other member of their rag tag family. There was always, always, an embrace open for her from any of them, whenever she needed to. But this just couldn't suffice anymore. Everyone else had somebody to care and look after before her. Maybe it was petty and selfish and a little shabby, but every blood cell springing inside her shrieked for the urge to be someone's special person on earth. Not that she wasn't important or even maybe a little special for Daryl. She was and she knew it, no doubt about that. She just wanted that other kind of special; like a woman, a mate.

She didn't need a sibling, a brother, or a sister. Never had one and Rick was more of a brother to her. She didn't even need to pretend she was Carl's or Jude's substitute mother. Her child had died, leaving a hole that couldn't be replaced. She needed a man. That was something she never had, a real man of honor to her side. Someone to lean over without him bolting in the woods for a week. Someone to carry her weight. Share. Not just silence and scars. Life. Prospect. Future. She needed Daryl. And Daryl she couldn't have.

Spending her leisure time watching Maggie and Glenn playfully tittering and teasing each other, she daydreamed and smiled absently with the devotion and mere adoration that radiated off them knowing that they'd willfully leap into a flaming fire for each other with no intention to survive if the one was perished. She wanted a Glenn, she had a Glenn. No, she had Daryl. He and she could never be another version of Glenn and Maggie. Too much history. Too many years, decades of abuse loomed their shadow over them. They had past that couldn't be annihilated, maybe not even subdued. No such grant as clean slates and blank checks was in store for either of them. But Daryl was her Glenn nevertheless. Imagining her life without him was next to inconceivable, dying for him was a blissful fantasy. And, lately, her urge to be someone's Maggie was towering deep in her chest day after day. Yeah, she wanted to be his Maggie.

She would have waited for Daryl. Forever probably; she would. But he had made it crystal clear that there was no chance in hell for them to get together. He needed no woman next to him, he had said, the exact words still mincing her heart. But she did. She needed a man and she resented him just a little bit for shattering every hope lurking inside her so decisively. She resented him even more for the guilt blistering menacingly in her core, as if giving in to somebody else's flirtatious advances constituted some kind of betrayal to Daryl, as is she was the treacherous one here, playing with his feelings. She resented him vehemently that he didn't need her the same way she did. Because if she didn't resent him she'd lose the driving force to get off her bunk every morning.

The four stages of grief were past her. Denial; she refused to believe it was happening to her, that she was in love with somebody who just couldn't or wouldn't reciprocate her feelings. Again.

Anger; it wasn't fair. It appeared she had lived a long, loveless life, always falling for the wrong guy, the emotionally unavailable person. Not that Daryl bore any resemblance to Ed. But neither of them ever wanted her. Why was it happening to her again? Why was she desperate for somebody who didn't long for her? Why couldn't life just smile at her for once?

Bargaining; maybe it was her fault. Maybe she was doing everything wrong. So she had endeavored to take more care of her physical appearance, not that she was much to look at anyway. But she tried, be it a tank top that delineated her figure or some mascara every now and then that Maggie would pass her, she really tried her best to make her femininity explicit, mutely screaming to him that she was there and she was a woman and she yearned for him as a man and strived to look beautiful for him. It hadn't proved fruitful of course, not with Daryl.

Depression; sometimes, even now that she had grown stronger and valuable for the group, she found it difficult to keep forcing one foot in front of the other. Sometimes she just wished to reunite with Sophia sooner rather than later, just give up, especially under the foreboding veil of eternal loneliness. Sadness, regret, fear and uncertainty had become permanent tenants in her soul. It was that bitch, loneliness, she dreaded, not the walkers roaming around, not death. But whenever a beam of light cracked through her darkness, she'd stare at her reflection in the mirror with dim determination and inwardly chant that all these, all these, were like a dress rehearsal for the aftermath, for the day she'd be ready to flip the page to the next chapter.

Acceptance; one day she'd be fine, she had reiterated loudly. Just fine. Daryl would always be her friend and, since nothing seemed enough to fight it, she might as well deal with it, cherish it and move on. That was not enough for her, though. Still not enough and in moments of gloomy self-consciousness and wrenching clarity she avowed herself that she was nowhere near acceptance. Simply aimlessly oscillating back and forth between depression and acceptance, all she did was grit her teeth to claw her way towards there.

Learning how to pick her fights was no walk in the park. She had deciphered it eventually, though. The hard way, as everything in her life seemed to be. The skirmish with Daryl couldn't be won. Over and over she had banged on his walls, never contriving to demolish his entrenched ivory tower. He couldn't be hers, didn't want to. But the battle with loneliness was far from done and dusted, she droned to herself. The equilibrium still hadn't tipped to the victorious side, it could still be her rejoicing jubilantly against the dim lady clinching her heart.

Her path was the craggy one. Blatant honesty. The moment Tyreese opened his cards and made his intentions plain, six months after the Woodbury survivors joined the prison group, she had told him everything about Daryl. That she was in love with him, probably irreversibly so. That she'd never consider another man's advances if she could have him. And she had cried. Listening to herself uttering these words of ultimate self-condemnation she had wept bitter tears of desperation. Because there was just a ruthless, pungent, final truth inside them.

Tyreese wasn't without luggage either. Having lost his wife and daughter from them and being the one to put them down, it had taken only a few conversations to discern the thinly veiled sorrow under the façade of his friendly nature and broad smiles. He was still mourning them and Carol realized pretty fast that she would be to him exactly what he was meant to be to her. A surrogate. Both unable to conquer or maintain the grasp of their first option partner, they had reached rock bottom, contemplating on settling with the next best thing, the one available, in reach.

They had both taken their time to consider their options after that. Next time they talked, it was Carol that went to his cell, telling him she was willing to try. None of them knew exactly what that meant. It was vague and sometimes seemed plain stupid. But Tyreese replied that he was willing to try too. No strings attached from the beginning, just getting to know each other better, test the waters, fathom whether something more could blossom between them.

It had been a month since then and they hadn't done pretty much anything other than kissing a few times. Tyreese had initiated it, rather reluctantly, and she had barely kissed him back. They were bonding, though. Over their mutual pain, bereavement of beloved ones and solitude, they were growing together day after day. But he failed to make her heart jolt, failed to clamor her mind, failed to haunt her dreams, failed to mold butterflies in her stomach, failed to send her appetite for vacation, failed to make her shrivel with desire. Just failed. And she was perfectly aware of her corresponding fiasco to scrub off the memory of his wife. It was because the throne of their beloved ones wasn't in auction, seeking for an heir, it was already dwelled. She had her Glenn. And Tyreese had his Maggie, buried miles away. Not every spot could be superseded. Yet, they could cling to each other nevertheless.

The supply run was as good as any. Tyreese was driving and Carol occupied the passenger's seat with Carl behind them. The kid had tagged along despite Rick's protests and they were all a pinch extra nervous in case anything happened to him. Glenn's truck was following with Daryl adamantly settled behind the steering wheel, the Asian man and Maggie were the rest of the crew.

When Tyreese killed the engine, he and Carol shared a long look, fingers interlaced in a momentary squeeze as Carl muzzled his gun with the silencer. Their relationship had reached its pivotal point the night before and, for the first time in a while, they both knew exactly where they stood and what they shared. And it was a good, heartfelt emotion. Carol smiled up at him and he kissed the back of her hand, both of them receiving a murderous glare from Daryl who accessed their vehicle and went over their original plan with Tyreese.

Carol knew she was supposed to follow his lead when they split in two groups, but when Carl strayed away from them and snuck into a three store building she just couldn't leave him unsupervised. Waving to Tyreese, she followed hot on his heels, reassured that the black man would maintain the entrance clear from walkers so they wouldn't get trapped.

Once inside Carl frowned at her unsolicited presence behind him, only to receive a shooshing finger to his mouth and a nonchalant nod to keep going. They moved scrupulously, conveying hushed messages and directions, vigilant not to disturb whatever might lurk in the penumbra of the old paint store. Beams of the exterior daylight percolated inside the space through the crannies of the metallic shutters guiding their way, corpuscles of dust waltzing indolently between the illuminated spectrum, impervious to the invaders. Carol knew that all Carl wanted was to get a pink coloring material for one of the walls he shared with Judith and simply couldn't deny him this much. An occasional crick on the wooden boards beneath their meager steps was the only sound to wriggle the dead silence of ground floor.

What happened next was her fault, really. She only whipped her head for a split second to double check that Tyreese was still close enough in case they needed him, vaguely wondering where the others were, where Daryl was and if he had noticed they were stalled behind. It was inadvertent, but even after a month of permanent pairing with Tyreese in every excursion or watch duty and minimum, almost inexistent, interaction with Daryl apart from typicalities, it was still his proximity that managed to ignite a warming sense of security in her belly. The boy meandered away again and her fingers barely grazed his tee shirt, fumbling to snatch him back when he swiveled the basement's knob. Everything unraveled in fast forward after that. The door banged open and walkers gushed through the opening.

Carol instantly shoved Carl behind her, towering in front of him with the machete and gun in each hand as the boy stomped on his feet, landing hard on his back, her frame blocking his clear shot to the walkers rapidly spurting out.

"Carl, run!" she gasped at the sight of gory figures propagating in a quick pace.

He hardly procrastinated at all to scramble up and launch to the door but it was enough for Carol to get surrounded, forced in a haphazard retreat towards the staircase. Tyreese was inside by then, hustling Carl out of the store, in the comparative safety of the road, his hatchet proficiently bobbing up and down, decapitating as many walkers as possible.

It had swiftly escalated into a hand to hand combat as she kept backing up, despite their best efforts to unite and face the walkers together. Holstering the empty gun, Carol unsheathed her pocketknife and buried it in milky eye of a six foot walker snarling in her face, running the blade in right to the hilt, decaying blood splattering all over her face and neck and her stomach jolted with revulsion. Her knees buckled under his sapless weight, before she plucked the pocketknife and blundered shakily away from the collapsing form only to register a jaw gnarling mere inches from her left shoulder. The wheezing whistle of an arrow perforated the suffocating atmosphere, effectively squelching the disfigured skull to obliterate the imminent threat.

Carol puffed with relief, just the knowledge of Daryl being there was enough to sooth her. His shrieks joined Tyreese's but she found herself unable to respond to either of them, too preoccupied fighting for her life. It was getting clear that no matter how hard both of them strangled to reach her in time it would be of no avail. She heard Daryl screaming at her to run to the staircase and get to the rooftop and she complied immediately, sparing no more than a moment to cast a sidelong glance at him, her heart clenching at his distorted facial features and the intense gaze transfixed on her, before she scurried behind the corridor. As she mounted the stairs two at a time, Daryl's frantic lash out at Tyreese for letting her inside there alone covered the groans that followed her.

She sprinted to the third floor, muscles cramped and stiff from the abrupt exercise, only for her simmering blood to convert into ice when she realized that the narrow exit to the rooftop was barricaded with chains. Recalling the empty chamber of the handgun, she stormed in a tiny room next to her and slammed the door behind her to eschew the first clawing hands that emerged from the staircase. She sucked a few stabilizing breaths, flipped the lock and dragged a drawer to bolt it as securely as possible, before hurrying to the open window. Not that everything she did would buy her more than a couple of minutes at best, anyway. She was trapped, but the others had to leave her, they had to survive.

The gunshots had obviously attracted more walkers who were now zeroing in around the building. Maggie and Tyreese were still fighting them off, almost completely encircled, the girl calling out for Daryl who was nowhere to be seen.

Carol leaned over the window. "Go," she yelled. "Walkers are gathering."

"You have to jump." Tyreese's wary gaze met hers.

Contemplating his suggestion for a moment, Carol bit her lip. It was just too high. If she was lucky enough she'd die instantly. If not, she'd break most of her bones, probably crippling herself forever even if they miraculously succeeded to flee the place. But being a burden wasn't a state she was willing to get back to. "I'll get us all killed," she shook her head, shrugging.

"Where's Daryl?" Maggie croaked, desperately squinting at Carol.

"Daryl!" Carol's howl echoed through the walker-filled road. No response. Her heart sank.

Glenn's truck rounded the corner, wheels churning on the asphalt as he drove over walkers, maneuvering a bee orbit to barrel over as many as possible.

"Go," she pleaded. "You have to go. I'll be fine!"

Nobody believed her and she could hear the sobs in Maggie's voice as she kept calling for Daryl.

The door behind her vaulted, but Carol ignored it, her eyes scanning thoroughly for any sign of the hunter. "God," she gasped. "Did you find him?"

"We have to move," Glenn urged them, truck coming to a temporary halt next to Tyreese and Maggie.

"I'm sorry, Carol." Tyreese's broken apology shattered her heart.

"Don't be," she told him bravely. "Find Daryl."

"I love you," he said huskily.

"I love you, too," Carol offered back, swallowing the lump blistering in her throat. "All of you."

As Tyreese and Maggie jumped in the back of the truck, she registered Carl's tear-stained face staring at her, nose plastered against the elevated window of the back seat. "This wasn't your fault, honey," she shouted firmly, giving the boy an encouraging smile, eyes instantly skimming around. "Where's Daryl?"

Glenn locked gazes with her, terror and panic engraved all over his face. "We're coming back for you," he yelped determinedly, not a single doubt weakening his declaration as he jammed on the throttle. "Just hang in there!"

Carol shook her head, lips forming a mute no.

Maggie covered her mouth, tears rolling freely down her cheeks as the woman on the window waved at them. Her husband's loud swearing made her gut twist and she shuffled closer to Tyreese who snuggled her against his broad chest, barely withholding his own tears. As the truck accelerated, shoveling distance between them and the two members of their group abandoned behind, Carl's soft sniffles was the only thing jiggling the bleak silence among the maimed team who'd make it back to the solid walls of the prison.

And then they were gone. And she was alone. Completely alone. Probably the only living soul in miles. The silence was deafening, her only company the greedy groans behind the banging door.

Daryl. Where was Daryl? What had happened to him? What if he was lying somewhere, hurt and helpless and alone? Surely something terrible had occurred, otherwise he'd have never deserted them like that. Carol kicked the drawer against the door and slouched heavily on the floor, crying helplessly as powerlessness took the better of her. Tyreese and the others were safe, but Daryl wasn't. The one time he might have needed her help she was snared in the confined space of a filthy room, waiting to die. He was her Glenn and she wasn't at his side.

"Carol!"

The sound of her name shattered the encompassing haze. The voice was gruff and familiar, the voice she thought she'd never hear again, the voice that never failed to make her heart flutter.

"Daryl?"

That's exactly what was happening right now, once again. It was frantically pounding against her chest as she rushed to the window. Her head swirled upwards when she detected absolutely no sign of him on the street beneath and a real smile blossomed in her lips when she saw him bent over the edge of the rooftop.

"You're alive!" she exclaimed unable to conceal her ebullience and received a crooked smirk. It was feigned, but still…

He was out of breath, sweaty and scared, brow creased in grave concern. But he was there. He was always there, whenever she needed him, a deus ex machina, always present to reverse the impending disaster, to trigger an alternative outcome due to sheer desire.

"How long do you have?" He did his best to sound calm and in control, like he was the master of the situation, but he knew by the sound of the banging door that she didn't have much. Neither of them did. Walkers would burst in the room any moment now.

Carol glanced up at him, biting her lip. "Seconds," she admitted.

"Fuck," he cussed under his breath. If only they had a few more minutes for him to conjure up with something better, to make sure she got out of there unscathed and unimpaired. Every time, every single fuckin' time Carol was in danger time rapped surreally rapidly just to mock him.

He adjusted himself the best he could, hovering over outside the edge as much as humanly possible. "Step on the ledge," he ordered dryly. "I'll pull you up."

Her eyes went wide, gawking at him incredulously like he had lost his mind. "I'm not Lara Croft, Daryl. You can't-"

"Sure I can," he cut her off mid-sentenced, jaw set and voice harsh. "You weigh nothing. Now, get your ass moving."

Carol grabbed a chair and started climbing her way up. "Did I ever mention my acrophobia?" she muttered half-jokingly half seriously, one foot already on the sill as she tested the window frames to steady her posture.

"Your acrophobia, your claustrophobia, your arachnophobia…" He snorted a humorless laugh, but kept the banter going anyway, not having a clue how the fuck he'd get her out of there and desperate to distract her from the fifteen feet of vacuum over which she was about to vacillate. "You're a fuckin' apocalyptic catch, ain't you?"

"I don't have arachnophobia," Carol mumbled, both feet on the sill now. "They are just disgusting." She swallowed hard; next step was to twist her body and face the room behind her full front. "The-the door was chained and I was out of bullets."

"Don't worry about it now," he said with ostensible composure, painfully gnashing at the inside of his cheek until the metallic taste of blood inundated his mouth. No fuckin' way he was losing her today, not like this. "You can do that."

She turned around slowly, ignoring the queasiness and the spinning surroundings. Her hands left the windows, palpating the inner side of the frame. Holding her breath, she stooped a few inches and leaned backwards carefully, calculating her moves, the grip on the frame almost painful. When she opened her eyes again, a chill breeze caressed her, hurling sparks down her spine and her skin crawled. Suddenly exposed, she felt rather than registered the height.

"Daryl-" A whimper, a need for reassurance as her gaze flicked on the walkers in the street beneath and her knees vibrated.

He hadn't breathed the entire time she was perfecting her posture, too afraid of startling her. "Don't look down, goddammit," he hissed, a wave of relief whooshing over his raving mind when she squinted up at him again. "Here, see?" The pads of his fingers could almost brush against her forehead now. Almost. He was too damn close for her to die. "We're close. I'll get you."

There was panic in his eyes, unnerving panic, but there was also obstinacy, grim determination twinkling inside them. Every muscle in his face was tensed, biceps flexing as he stretched to reach her. She felt the urge to tell him she loved him, just in case that was her last chance, but Daryl wasn't fond of camouflaged goodbyes. He hadn't left her, he had stayed behind for her, he was fighting tooth and nail to save her. So she had to push forward, try her damnedest to make his efforts worthwhile. "I trust you," she said matter-of-factly and watched his nostrils flare.

Daryl blinked. Blinked away his fears and insecurities, blinked away her chalky white color. One shot. Failure wasn't an option. There was no safety net beneath her. No room for uncertain movements. And he could swear a hinge had just dismantled under the ferocity of the walker siege. Fresh beads of sweat formed on his forehead and he tucked a few unruly strands of his greasy hair behind his ear. No leeway for debate. He couldn't afford letting her down, not this time.

"You ain't falling," he stated confidently. "Gimme your hand."

She nodded, face pressed against the bricks. Loosening her right hand, she felt her arm float momentarily before she jerked it up. He snagged it instantly, just below the elbow and felt dainty fingers curl around his in response.

It was a stark contrast, their skin. Brownish tan against freckled paleness, scorching lava against frigid ice, coarseness against delicacy. But as their nails dug inside each other there was also harmony. Blind faith. Ultimate sacrifice. Absolute fit, like parts of the same jigsaw. Tilting her head to lock eyes with him, she felt safe despite her dire predicament. They were clutching together like a lifeline. And when she smirked shyly, a twitching smile ghosted his parched lips.

"See? I got you," he grunted, breathing raggedly.

Carol yelped when the hinges were ripped off with a resounding boom under their assailants' brunt and the door bounced on the drawer before thudding onto the floor, but she didn't even cast a glance towards them, peering persistently over her, straight into the blue, turbulent ocean of his gaze.

They were inside, he knew. "Ready?" he rasped, receiving a sharp nod. "Now!"

She squealed when her feet flew off the solid ledge, just a split second before his hand grappled around her other arm like a hook. Hanging over nothing, engulfed by mere airy void, all she could see were walkers. Walkers galloping their way to her, walkers crowding in the street, gory claws, gluttonous teeth drooling rotten slime. Walkers everywhere. Walkers and void twirling around override as she swung aimlessly, light-headed and disconcerted. She was hyperventilating, suddenly heavy-lidded, legs flailing laxly over what resembled to a sinister abyss.

"Look at me!" The stern command pierced through her dizziness.

And Daryl. And Daryl, of course. There wasn't just walkers and void. Daryl was there as well. Always there.

Her head snapped, enchanted by a darkened gaze pleading her to focus, willing her to live. Mustering all her mettle to utter an encouraging word, her voice clogged in her throat, morphing into an astounded scream as a shriveled limb pawed her boot and frazzled nails scrapped the leather. Her body squirmed and she was brutally stretched, figure elongated painfully, fleshes ripe to tear apart, as if she was ensnared in a procrustean iron bed. Groans. She howled, oblivious to the tears streaming down her face when she arched between the two different contenders staking a claim on her.

"Look at me," he roared, knuckles turning white. "I got you."

His thunderous outcries reached her again, probing her back to action. Her jaw clenched and her free leg thrust with unbeknownst execration and violence smacking the walker's head, effectively releasing herself from its grasp. But she ricocheted too fiercely, Daryl's unyielding hold faltering as salty droplets wormed under his left hand.

So many countervailing forces vying for dominance over her. Her weight, plummeting her to a brutal collision with the ground, surrendered to gravity. The wrinkled hands, crammed in the narrow window, lunging to pull her back inside, in a demise that dictated her being devoured alive. And then Daryl. Always Daryl. Fighting against the odds, fighting with everything he had to keep her alive, face crimson from otherworldly exertion to drag her away from the gaping window and haul her up simultaneously.

Carol met his eyes again, despair and denial flooding them like tidal waves. But her hand kept slipping, gliding off his sweaty arm, heedless to his verbal commands to stay put. She had lost sensation of her arms a while ago, her right shoulder could have dislocated for all she knew as she slanted to the left. Shaking her head, she offered a weak smile.

He glowered down on her, steeling the clutch that hadn't inched around her right forearm. "Don't you dare," he maundered, two slender veins throbbing erratically across his temples.

"Just let me go," she breathed.

He seethed, shuddering head to toe, unleashed tears dripping. "Ain't no way in hell."

"Daryl-" she gasped, chin trembling, only the fingertips clasping together now.

"I got you," he drawled.

She never broke eye contact as their grip swayed and her left arm dropped numb by her side. "I lov-"

A primal screech soared in the air, cloaking her voice. "No!"

To be continued…

"There is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock" ― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell

I'm ashamed to admit that I desperately need your help and feedback to finish this one :( Totally suffering from writer's block. Please don't hate, I'm not being sadistic.

Thank you all for reading :) A review would make me happy.