Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead… because if I did, season 6 would be starting the weekend after Easter (breaks for holidays are to be expected).

Author's Note: I'm hoping that Daryl doesn't come off as OOC in this chapter, but in the scene from that the show that it builds off of (you'll recognize it quickly, I'm sure), Daryl is quite understandably traumatized and very emotional, so my thinking was that that wouldn't have just evaporated in an hour or so. I tried not to make it go overboard, though I admit I do take creative license with their emotions from time to time… :) Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

Season 3, episode 15

The Woods, Afternoon

Daryl had come upon Michonne a short while after he'd left the prison, and she had told him that Merle had taken her, which Daryl had known from Rick was with the intention of delivering her to the Governor, but then had let her go. With this information, Daryl had suddenly gotten a bad feeling that he couldn't explain. A feeling of dread had simply washed over him, settling on him like a blanket and refusing to leave. It was the first time he had ever felt truly afraid for his brother, despite the fact that they had always said "the only thing that can kill a Dixon is a Dixon." Even in Atlanta, when they'd discovered Merle's severed hand on the rooftop, he hadn't felt this way.

Daryl wasn't sure why the fact that Merle had let Michonne go, which was a positive thing, made him automatically think that something bad had happened to his brother. The only explanation he could think of for his unease was that letting her go was so completely out of character for him. What else had he done that wasn't like him? And where was he?

Since, to his knowledge, Merle hadn't returned to the prison, Daryl was assuming that he had headed for one of two places: the meeting point where they were supposed to have delivered Michonne to the Governor, or to Woodbury itself. Both of these seemed like foolish places for Merle to go, considering that, though he had once been one of his lieutenants, Merle was now persona non grata with Woodbury's leader, and the Governor wasn't exactly one to forgive and forget. Either way, Merle would have been attempting something alone – most likely some sort of ambush, knowing his brother – that the group hadn't even wanted to attempt with multiple people and careful planning. Dammit, Merle, Daryl thought to himself as he picked his way as quickly and quietly as possible through the trees, attempting to find signs of his brother's trail. Why ya gotta be so fuckin' stubborn?

Finding his brother's trail relatively easily, Daryl had headed for the abandoned feed store where they were supposed to have delivered Michonne. Daryl was relieved that the trail had led there, as it was undoubtedly the less dangerous of the two destinations. At least it wasn't a fortified, walled town, like Woodbury.

It was quiet as he approached the area, but that didn't ease the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Quiet could mean anything. It could mean that no one was there. It could mean that an entire armed group was there, but hiding quietly waiting for just the right moment. Or it could mean that a battle had already taken place, and that the only ones who remained were dead, whether they had become walkers, corpses, or worse… been consumed. It wouldn've have been the first time. The only advantage of the scene being quiet was that it wasn't drawing any more walkers in addition to the ones that might already be nearby.

Daryl approached an abandoned car not far from a run-down shed and larger building, the meeting place. Two walkers were munching on something, or someone, and didn't notice him. There were lots of corpses lying around, and he used his crossbow to shoot another walker munching on one of them. Something had happened here, he could see, and not all that long ago from the looks of it. Bile rose in Daryl's throat quickly as he considered the scene. Had these walkers just accidentally stumbled upon the people that were there waiting for his group to deliver Michonne? Herds did sometimes just happen through a place at the worst possible times. Or had there been some sort of battle here, and the walkers had been the result of casualties? Or had the Woodbury folks brought the walkers here on purpose, as they were known to do in Woodbury, but then lost control of the situation? Or was it something else entirely?

He looked around for clues, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything with the sound of walkers' groans and hungry slurping filling his ears. Panic was quickly beginning to line the pit of his stomach. He knew that something wasn't right.

And then all at once, his fears were confirmed. Daryl saw him. Merle… or rather, the walker who had been Merle.

The realization hit him, hard, all at once, like a speeding train. His brother hadn't survived. Merle, who had survived so many things in his life that would have killed other people multiple times over, had not made it this time. He felt the blow physically, as if the air had been knocked out of his lungs, as if he'd been punched in the stomach by someone much stronger than him.

Tears began running down Daryl's cheeks without his consent. At the same time, Merle got up and staggered toward him, having detected an even fresher meal nearby that the one he'd been enjoying. Daryl watched him advance, dumbfounded. When Merle came within arm's length, Daryl pushed him back. He did this several times in a row, knowing what he was going to have to do, but simply unable to do it immediately. Finally, having mustered all of the strength he could find within himself in his current state, Daryl stabbed Merle first in the chest, then in the head. In his grief, he stabbed far more times than necessary into the head that had been his brother's. After minutes that felt like hours, exhausted, Daryl collapsed on the ground.

It wasn't often that his emotions received permission to show themselves. Daryl had learned in his early years to keep them hidden at all costs, because no matter what emotion he was feeling, showing them in front of his father or brother had only made things worse. He had learned to pretend that they weren't there at all, and because of this, had never really properly learned to deal with them. Now, however, the tidal wave of grief over his brother's death hit him harder than he would have ever expected. He sat on the ground, unable to do anything but heave breaths in and out as he fought to regain control. So many things that had been bottled up within him had been released, and at that moment, he wasn't sure he could go on.

But Daryl Dixon had never been one to give up, and he surely wasn't going to start now. Giving up is for pussies, Merle used to tell him. Dixons don't never quiet. Somehow he managed to haul himself to his feet and push himself forward. Even in the fog that filled his head, he could recognize that he was only working at partial capacity, and that if he was attacked now, he wouldn't stand a very good chance of survival. I need to get back to the prison, was the only thought he could produce. I can't stay out here. He knew that he was probably making a hell of a lot of noise as he moved, which was completely unlike him, and several times he stopped in his tracks, sure that he had heard walkers advancing on him. His instincts didn't fail him, however, and even in his grief, when he paused, he could register the silence around him, and be reassured that he was not in any immediate danger.

Finally, he made it back to the familiar woods around the prison where he'd hunted so often. Peering through the trees at the edge of the clearing around the perimeter of the outer fences, he saw a few walkers at the far end of the fence, but none near the main outer gate. As long as someone was there to open the gate for him, he should have plenty of time to get inside without drawing any walkers in with him.

Their group's practice was to keep someone at that gate as long as one or more of them were outside, in case they needed to get back in in a hurry, so he hoped that today was no different in that regard. With a renewed sense of energy at having nearly made it to safety, he set off, exhausted but pushing himself, over the last stretch of ground between him and the relative safety of the prison.

Glenn had been in the guard tower when Daryl had emerged from the trees, and he had let out a shrill whistle. This got the attention of Maggie, Beth and Carol, who were in the courtyard near the cellblock doors. Beth was holding Judith and the women had been idly chatting while hoping for some news of what was going on.

Carl, who was manning the outer gate, had seen Daryl at the same time as Glenn. He waited until just before Daryl reached the gate, to be sure that nothing unwelcome would be able to come in unexpectedly along with Daryl, then swung the gate open hard to let him in, closing it again as soon as he came through. Daryl, for his part, took a few steps inside the outer gate, stopping short and looking as though he might collapse. Carl, turning around from locking the gate, couldn't help but look shocked at the state of the man in front of him. He hurriedly grabbed the water bottle he'd had nearby, pushing it into Daryl's hands. Daryl swallowed it in one gulp, swiping his dirty arm across his face. He didn't say a word, and Carl still got the distinct impression that Daryl might pass out on the spot.

"You okay, Daryl?" Carl asked nervously.

Meanwhile, as soon as the reason for Glenn's whistle had become apparent – the women had figured out quickly that the tiny figure at the gate in the distance was Daryl, who had made it back – Carol had left the others and had started on her way to him, letting herself through the gate at the edge of the courtyard and walking swiftly down the long hill towards the fences.

Even from a great distance, she could tell that something was wrong. With Daryl, she could always tell. First of all, Daryl had barely dragged himself inside the outer gate. She saw him down the water that Carl had given him, then take a few more steps forward, but she could tell from how he held himself that he wasn't himself. He had only taken a few steps through the inner gate when she saw his knees buckle, and he landed on his hands and knees in the dirt. Carl had locked the inner gate and was kneeling beside him, unsure of how to help.

At that point, Carol broke into a run, concern for Daryl overtaking her. Something was clearly very wrong. It couldn't just be exhaustion. Daryl hadn't even been gone that long, and he was the one person, of everyone she'd ever met, who would stoically push themselves forward rather than collapse if it was humanly possible. It was just one of the ways in which he was stubborn beyond reason. If Daryl had collapsed on the ground, something was very, very wrong. He could be injured, or bit, or… she shuddered at the thoughts, just pushed herself to move faster toward them.

Carol reached the pair as Carl continued to hover over Daryl, completely baffled at what to do. So far, Daryl hadn't uttered a word to him, so he had no information to give Carol as she approached. Carol glanced up the hill towards the prison, and saw Rick and Michonne now standing at the top of the hill with Maggie and Beth, all of them watching her. She glanced down at Daryl, looking him up and down as best she could in the position he was in. Seeing that he at least appeared not to be more than superficially injured, she motioned for Carl to stand up so that she could talk to him. She put her arm around his shoulder, then walked him a few steps away from Daryl.

"Carl," she said in a quiet, gentle voice, "go and tell your dad that Daryl's back, though he can probably see that from where he is. I'm not sure what happened, he's definitely shaken up, but I don't think he's hurt badly. You don't have to run, just walk normally. I'm going to try to talk to Daryl before I get him up. Tell your dad that unless I signal to him, everything is okay. I'll let him know if I need help getting Daryl back up the hill. I just need them to give us a few minutes to talk. Alright?" She knew that Daryl hated accepting help, and that she stood the best chance out of all of them of getting back up to the prison building unless extra physical strength was needed.

Carl nodded solemnly and turned to walk up the hill.

Carol turned back to Daryl. She walked the few steps back towards him, noticing that he was now sitting with his legs crossed. She knelt down in the dirt in front of him. He didn't respond to her presence, just sat, head down to his chest, breathing heavily. "Daryl," she whispered. "Are you alright?" He took a ragged breath, then exhaled slowly.

"Merle," he whispered.

"You found him?" she asked gently. She understood immediately that there were only a few possible scenarios that could have taken place to get him this upset, and her heart ached for him. Despite everything, all of the baggage between the brothers, they were still brothers, and Daryl did love him.

Daryl nodded slightly. There were no tears on his face, but she could see the tracks through the dirt on his face that his earlier tears had left. "Was he…?" she began, trying to assess the situation, hating that she had to make him talk about it, and hating to see him hurting like he was.

"Guessin' someone led a buncha walkers to the meeting place the son of a bitch wanted us to bring Michonne to," Daryl said suddenly, his voice still raspy with emotion. "Either Merle or the Governor. Looked like it'd been an ambush. Everybody still there was dead. Dunno if anyone got out alive, but there was a lotta corpses there. 'N walkers…" He stopped, inhaling sharply, before exhaling slowly again.

Carol sighed heavily and bit her bottom lip, hating that Daryl had had to see his brother that way. It was a harsh reality of the world in which they lived, but that didn't make it any easier when someone had to confront a loved one who had turned, much less when they had to put them down themselves. She knew the feeling first hand, though thankfully she hadn't had to do that for Sophia herself. No matter how tough a person was, it was bound to break them.

She took a deep breath, unsure of how best to handle this, knowing that there was really nothing that she could do besides offer her support. She glanced over her shoulder up the hill, and saw Carl nearing the top, Rick and the others who had gathered outside standing nearby to hear what was going on. She looked back at Daryl, moving around so that she was kneeling on his left side. Slowly, almost as if in slow motion, she reached her right hand up and gingerly set it on his shoulder. He didn't move or flinch, not so much as a muscle.

"I'm so sorry, Daryl," she whispered. He choked out a hoarse breath that may have been intended to have been a word, she wasn't sure. He was completely still for a moment, then, without warning, she felt him lean towards her, not hard enough to knock her over, but with enough force that she had to brace herself with her left hand on the ground to remain upright. Her right hand slipped across his back as he got closer to her, almost touching his right shoulder. Once she stabilized herself, she put her left hand gently on top of his left hand, which had been sitting loosely against his left knee. It was like an awkward partial hug, and he gradually relaxed, exhaling slowly, and then finally letting his head fall against her right shoulder.

There was really nothing to be said or done. She was all too familiar with the feeling that Daryl was experiencing, which may have been why her heart ached so much for him. Of course, she was naturally compassionate, and concerns of others always tended to become her own. Something like this was just so much more, however, to the point where both of them were overwhelmed. They sat there just like that for a while, hot and dusty and oblivious to anything else in the world. Every once in a while she felt him inhale quickly, then immediately try to regain control and most of the time, exhaling more slowly afterwards. Slowly, those gasps became fewer and farther between.

"Daryl," Carol said quietly, "let's get up and go inside. You need some water, a rest." It was the kind of thing that Daryl would have refused any other time, insisting that he was fine. This time, however, he just nodded weakly. He lifted his head off her shoulder, looking at her sheepishly.

"Sorry," he mumbled quietly, suddenly self-conscious.

She smiled at him warmly. "Stop," she told him, in the same familiar tone he always used when he said it to her. He didn't smile, barely changed his expression, but she could see that he'd caught it. No one else probably would have noticed, but she saw it in his eyes.

"Come on," she said, putting the hand that had been on his shoulder on the ground to push herself to her feet, then tugging gently on his left hand, which she was still holding in hers. He groaned slightly as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, and their clasped hands dropped.

Carol wanted to suggest that Daryl give the crossbow to her to carry, but she was pretty sure that he would reject this idea, so she let it go. She stood on his left, winding her right arm gently around his waist and urging him slowly forward. His left arm naturally found her shoulder as well, and he didn't resist the contact, exhausted as he was. On the contrary, he was glad for it, in a way, convinced that he wouldn't have made it up the hill without the momentum of her steps. He was glad that it was Carol who was there, because he probably would have rejected that much contact from anyone else, even in his current state.

The fact that it hadn't been so very long ago that Rick had done exactly the same thing for Carol after having told her, in the exact same spot by the gate, that Daryl had found Merle and the two of them had "gone off" together, that he wasn't coming back, was not lost on her. It was hard to know exactly, but it seemed to her that she may have been nearly as devastated that day as Daryl was at that moment.

They walked slowly up the hill, both of them with their heads down, looking only at the ground in front of them. Daryl took slow, heavy steps and Carol focused on matching his pace, trying to push just enough that they kept moving forward, which wasn't easy when he outweighed her by so much. Eventually they neared the top of the hill and she heard the low, murmured voices of the others. She lifted her head slowly in their direction, attempting a look that would convey "ok" and "not ok" at the same time. It was most easily likened to a grimace. Rick opened the gate at the top of the hill, letting them through before closing it again.

The pair stopped a few feet inside the gate. Rick stepped forward but then stopped, studying them tentatively. "He okay?" he asked in a voice that was barely a whisper, looking at Carol. Daryl was still looking down at the ground, oblivious to their presence and to most of the world.

Carol grimaced again, nodding slowly and closing her eyes for a few seconds. Looking back up at Rick, she mouthed the word, "Merle." Rick nodded. The details could come later.

"We're just going to go inside, get him some water and let him sit down," Carol said to the group. They nodded quietly, knowing that it wasn't the time to ask questions. "Come on, Daryl, we're almost there," she told him soothingly, urging him forward once more.

He knew that they were watching him, all of them, but he found that for once, he didn't care. Usually he hated feeling weak, feeling people watching him the way they were watching him right now. He always hated the idea of not being able to fend for himself, of depending on anyone else for, well, anything really. All he'd done since he was a kid was fend for himself, with the occasional help from Merle. Carol had been slowly breaking that wall down since he'd met her, but the position that he found himself in now – accepting this much help – it would not have happened had he been in a stronger mental state and able to refuse it. Right now, however, it was almost as though he was outside his own body, watching someone else leaning against Carol for support. He focused on the soothing tone of her voice and allowed her to continue steering him, though he wasn't exactly sure where they were going. It didn't matter, really.

Slowly, one step at a time, she got him up the stairs to the cellblock and worked their way upstairs. She helped him sit down on the bottom bunk in the cell beside hers, knowing that he usually preferred his perch, but thinking that this time he might appreciate some privacy.

She crouched down in front of him, trying to put herself in his line of sight, but he was looking at the ground, his eyes practically closed, so it was impossible. "Daryl, I'm going to go get you some water," she told him. "I'll be right back." She knew that he was an adult and didn't want to think of what she was doing as babying him. She just remembered the day that Sophia had come out of the barn, and how completely stunned she'd been. She wasn't going to stay with him if he didn't want her to, but she wouldn't feel right having him feel like she was abandoning him.

You're overthinking it, she told herself, but she couldn't help it.

Right, water. She headed to the kitchen area and grabbed several bottles of water, then worked her way quickly back up to the cell where she'd left Daryl. When she reached the doorway, she stopped and looked at him, shaking her head slightly. In just those few minutes that she'd been gone, he'd managed to shift himself off the bed and was now sitting on the cold, hard floor with his back against the wall opposite the bed, having almost pushed himself into the corner. She set the water bottles down on the floor not far from where Daryl sat, then took a few steps to the bed and grabbed the thin blanket that was folded at one end. She walked the short distance to where Daryl was now sitting on the floor and spread the blanket out, draping it over his legs. It wouldn't do much good, but it was all she had to offer besides the water, and of course, her company. He looked up slowly at her then, unexpectedly, an expression of pleading in his eyes. He didn't say a word, but he didn't have to. She turned so she was leaning her back up against the same wall he was leaning on, then slid down it until she was sitting next to him, her shoulder pressing against his ever so gently. Just enough that he could feel her there beside him.

Then, remembering the water bottles, she reached over and grabbed them from where she'd left them a few feet away, making sure that she sat back up to the same position. She held one out to him, setting the other one down on the floor on the opposite side of her. "Here," she said in a voice that was almost a whisper. Until that second, she hadn't realized the significance of what she was doing, and the reversal that it represented in their relationship. How many times had he brought her water? Back in the early days, when they'd been at the camp by the quarry… After Ed was gone… And then on the interstate… After Sophia had disappeared…

There had simply been so many times when she'd sat, consumed by grief, when he had brought her a bottle of water and sat beside her, and to her it had been the difference between falling into a bottomless abyss of despair and managing to keep her head above water. No, she couldn't remember how many times it had happened, she remembered only that at the time, it had been the kindest thing she could recall anyone ever doing for her, and that it had represented to her that she wasn't completely alone in the world, as she had felt that she was. The water, of course, though necessary for survival, was really only symbolic.

"I guess it's my turn to bring you the water," she remarked softly as she held out the bottle to him. She hadn't expected a response, so she was surprised when she heard him mumbling something as he took the bottle from her. She turned her head towards him and raised her eyebrows questioningly, silently asking him to repeat himself. Daryl tried to clear his throat before attempting to choke out the words again.

" 'Bout time," he mumbled, his face expressionless.

Most other people would've taken that as Daryl acting like his old, anti-social self, since there wasn't a hint of humor in his voice. But Carol knew better. She knew him better.

A smile spread slowly across her face and she pushed her shoulder playfully against his to show she'd gotten his joke. She knew then without a doubt that despite the trauma that he had witnessed that day, Daryl would be okay. After all, they still had each other.

Besides, it had never really been about the water.