AN: This is in response to a Tumblr prompt/request for a Cyreese story.

I own nothing from The Walking Dead.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"You didn't have to keep bidding once someone else had already bid," Carol said. "I didn't mean you had to win; I just didn't want to be—humiliated."

Tyreese listened to her attentively, as he always did when she spoke. There was that little crease of concern on his forehead, just between his brows, and there was the slightest hint of a smile on his lips as if he was tasting something pleasant, but trying not to break the seriousness of the moment.

"You were far from humiliated, Carol," Tyreese said. "You brought in more money for charity than most of the ladies did tonight."

"Only because you kept bidding up," Carol said with a laugh. "And it turned into a competition."

Tyreese laughed, then.

"I thought that was the whole point of the charity auction," Tyreese said. "We raised a lot of money tonight for the organization. A lot of women are going to be helped to—to get back on their feet, Carol, after some pretty bad situations. You know how important that is."

Carol's face felt warm.

She did know how important that was. That was why she signed up for the auction in the first place. The funds from the charity auction went to help abused women escape their abusers and establish a life for themselves when many of them were forced to literally start from scratch.

Carol had been a woman who had to start from scratch. She'd had to start from scratch with her daughter, Sophia, in tow.

She'd given everything to Ed just to convince him to sign over the rights to her daughter—the only thing mattered, really, anyway.

If the charity auction hadn't been for such a good cause, Carol might not have thought it was worth the risk of humiliating herself by allowing herself to be auctioned off for a date.

She hadn't figured that she'd earn too much money for the charity, but she at least wanted to do something. Tyreese was her friend. Carol had met him not long after she'd split from Ed. He devoted his time and money to various charities around the area. One weekend, he'd taken the embarrassing job of being, essentially, Carol's bodyguard. He'd gone with her to get the last of her personal belongings and Sophia's belongings from the home they'd shared with Ed. His job had been to give her emotional strength, support, and comfort, more than anything, and he'd done it very well.

They'd instantly become friends and, really, Tyreese had been offering Carol strength, support, and comfort since then. He had become, also, a truly wonderful adopted uncle to Sophia, and Carol was grateful that he was showing the young girl that there was such things as positive experiences with a man since, really, she'd never known any of those with her father.

When Tyreese said he was going to the auction, and intended to buy a date for himself, Carol had asked him to at least save her from utter humiliation. She'd asked if he would bid on her, just so she had at least one bid and wasn't left standing there like an idiot. She'd told him that, of course, he could bid on anyone else he liked—she had no expectations of him beyond saving her from complete and total embarrassment—but she really hoped he'd at least do her the favor of raising his little paddle once for her. He'd assured her that he would bid on her, but he'd egged her on, insisting that there would probably be a great many men who were willing to dig deep into their pockets for a night with her.

Tyreese was always good at making her feel better.

She hadn't expected Tyreese to enter into a bidding war with two other men at the auction, each man clearly caught up in the competitive drive to win, so that her auction ended as one of the most expensive ones of the night.

Now, she was standing with Tyreese—meant to be getting to know him and exchanging information for the date that he'd won—while all the other women met the men who had won the right to have a date with them.

"I just—hate that you didn't bid on anyone else," Carol said, looking around at all the women as they chatted with their future dates.

Tyreese laughed quietly.

"Who would you have had me bid on?" Tyreese asked. He glanced around, but it was half-hearted. He was already staring at Carol again with half a smile on his face.

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know," she said. "Someone. You said you were coming to bid, Ty."

"I did. And I won."

"And I feel bad," Carol said. "You spent all the money you were going to donate on me, and…you don't have a date now."

Tyreese laughed.

"For what I paid? I most certainly do have a date, Carol Ann. I can't believe you'd stand me up after that."

Carol laughed at his teasing.

"You don't have to take me out, Ty. You've done enough already. Really."

"Just a date—just like the charity brochure says," Tyreese said. "But you owe me my date, Carol."

Carol sighed. He was just teasing with her, and he was trying to make her feel better, but she really did hate that she'd cost him the opportunity to have a nice date with one of the truly beautiful women that had volunteered to help the organization earn money.

"Fine," Carol said. "I appreciate everything. All of it. But—you don't have to spend a lot of money, OK? I'm not expecting that."

"I'm glad to know what you're expecting," Tyreese said, nodding his head. "I'll keep that in mind. Now—do I get to have expectations?"

Carol smiled at him.

"Of course, Ty. What do you want?"

"Find a sitter for Sophia this time. Ask Andrea if she can keep her. Sophia will like that. Be ready at four tomorrow," Tyreese said.

"We're hitting an early bird special?" Carol teased. Since their friendship had developed, they'd done all kinds of silly things together—very often with Sophia in tow. Tyreese never seemed to mind the little girl's presence, and he even picked out activities, sometimes, that Carol knew were mostly for Sophia. They went antiquing. They'd been to several farmers' markets. They jokingly hit early bird specials and ate dinner at ridiculous hours with octogenarians for the entertainment of it. They'd taken Sophia to the zoo and the aquarium. They'd also gone paddle boating once, and Tyreese had taken them both to the fair and had ridden the rides with Sophia that Carol thought wouldn't be too pleasant.

"Just be ready at four," Tyreese said. "And wear something pretty. A dress, maybe."

"You want me to wear a dress?" Carol asked.

"It is a date."

"Fine," Carol said. "Any particular style or color?"

Tyreese smiled, clearly pleased that she was going to wear what he requested.

"Comfortable," Tyreese said. "I want you to open your closet, and I want you to pull out your favorite dress. Put that on. Whatever one it is, it'll be perfect."

"What are we going to do?"

"Does it matter? Do you have some preference?"

Carol thought about it. Tyreese was her one of her best friends in the world. He'd been her friend since that day that he'd helped her carry her things out of the house, assuring her that Ed wouldn't be there but, if he showed up, he'd get more than he bargained for—whether or not that was actually part of Tyreese's job description.

Tyreese was handsome, and funny, and gentle. He liked cooking, dancing, singing, and simply making every hour of every day joyful.

Carol would be happy, honestly, to spend time with him doing absolutely anything that he could possibly suggest. That was, really, how it was that they'd come to do so many random activities. Tyreese would call her up, suggest something he was thinking of trying or doing, and she'd tell him that she was game for it because she simply enjoyed being in his company—and Sophia did too.

The woman who finally won his heart was, in all sincerity, going to be the luckiest woman in the world. And Carol would be happy for Tyreese, as long as he was happy, when he found the woman that made his heart beat a special sort of way. Even though she knew, honestly, that it would hurt her to finally have to accept what she already knew was true—she just wasn't the right woman for him. She just wasn't good enough—not for that.

Carol pushed that feeling out of her mind when it came, suddenly, and made her stomach ache. She renewed her smile as best she could.

"Anything you want will be perfect," she assured him. He smiled broadly.

"Great," he said. "Four it is, then. Come on—I need to pay, and then I'll drive you home."

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"We're ready for you to put in our order for dessert, please," Tyreese told the waitress. "And coffee—but do you have decaf?"

"Absolutely," the waitress said with a smile. She took their plates and walked away. Carol took a sip from the remaining wine in her glass.

"I should have asked if you wanted more wine," Tyreese said.

"I've already had two glasses," Carol said. "I really shouldn't have more than that."

"I'll make sure you get home safely," Tyreese said with a laugh.

"I'm sure you will," Carol said. Her eyes trailed off in the direction where the young, spunky waitress had gone. "You know—she's been flirting with you all night, Ty. If you left your number, I bet she'd call."

Tyreese laughed across the table.

"She wants the tip that she's pretty sure I'm going to leave her," Tyreese said. "That's all, Carol."

"No," Carol disagreed, shaking her head. "She wants—more than that. Face it, Ty. You're—handsome. You're polite. A gentleman. She's been flirting." Carol swallowed a bit more of her wine. It was going to her head now. She could feel it. Still, she felt like finishing it. She almost felt like she needed it for fortification. "This has been…a wonderful evening."

Tyreese had picked her up and, instead of traditional flowers that would wilt and die, he'd brought her a red honeysuckle vine for the trellis in her yard that she kept saying needed a climbing plant and some color. He'd taken her on a relaxing walk around the lake at the park, and he'd asked her to hold his hand as part of the traditional date expectation. Then, when the evening had worn on a bit, he'd brought her here for a three-course meal.

It wasn't the nicest restaurant in the Atlanta area, maybe, but it was one of the nicest near their little town, especially since Tyreese knew that Carol hated getting too close to the city proper.

He'd chosen her favorite kind of wine, even though she knew it wasn't his favorite. Across the table, he tasted his—he was only halfway through with his first glass, and he wasn't likely to finish it tonight. The wine had been more for her than it had been for him.

"I thought it's been a very nice evening," Tyreese said. "So—why do you look so morose?"

"Do I?" Carol asked. Tyreese nodded his head gently. "I guess—it's just that I feel bad."

"Why, Carol?"

"If you had bid on someone else? Tyreese—you would have had a very nice date. Maybe you'd even…have someone to go home with or, at the very least, another date to look forward to. Now you don't. You deserve—everything good, Ty. Everything you want."

"I'm glad you think that," Tyreese said.

"I do."

"It's just that—I can't have that, right?" Tyreese asked.

"I think you could have anything you wanted," Carol said.

Tyreese nodded his head thoughtfully. Carol was surprised when his hand came across the table and picked up her hand. He worked her hand between his fingers, massaging it.

"Except—what I want most?"

Carol's pulse picked up. She was, suddenly, a great deal more lightheaded than she had been as her quickened pulse raced the wine to her brain—or at least that's how it felt. Her stomach grabbed, and the voice in her head asked her if she dared to think things that couldn't be true.

"What are you talking about?" Carol asked.

"For years I've heard you talk about how all men are assholes, 'except you, Ty, of course,'" Tyreese said, still holding her hand. "I've heard you say that you were done with men. You needed time to recover from Ed. You needed time to find yourself, again, when you weren't with him. I agreed with that. You needed to find who you were without Ed. You needed to fully become Carol Ann McAlister, and you did. But I've heard you say that you still want a family, Carol. That you still dream of the same things that you used to dream of having. That you'd like for Sophia to have a father and, maybe, a sibling or two. You'd like to grow old with somebody."

"I do want those things," Carol said.

"Just—not with me?" Tyreese asked.

"You deserve—better than me."

"It's hard to have better than the best, Carol," Tyreese said. "It's hard to have more than what I want the most."

Carol's heart was drumming wildly in her chest. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that Tyreese was still holding her hand.

"I'm broken…" Carol said.

"Maybe we all are," Tyreese said. "At least a little. Carol—I told you that I was going to that auction to win a nice date for myself because I was ready to…to start dating again." He shook his head at her. "This wasn't charity, Carol. You never had to ask me to bid on you. I knew when I got in the car that every penny I'd saved to donate was going toward winning this opportunity, right here." He leaned, lifting Carol's hand, and touched his lips to her and in a quick gesture. "I'm not asking you to marry me. Not tonight, at least. I've been your best friend—at least your best guy friend—for years. I'm just asking you for the opportunity to be a bit more."

Carol considered it. She had waited, it seemed, forever to hear Tyreese say something like this—and she'd never let herself believe that he actually would; not outside of her daydreams, at least.

"We could go back to your place—or mine—after dessert. Sophia is spending the night at Andrea's tonight…" Carol said.

Tyreese's hand tightened around Carol's a bit more.

"If you're not ready for…whatever? That's fine. I'm not trying to push you. I never would. Just—a promise for another date would make me happy. I've been waiting years for anything. Just another date would be everything."

"I've been waiting for years, too," Carol said. "Thinking I'd never be good enough."

"You're already good enough. You always have been. I just—wanted to give you time."

"Maybe we've both had enough time?" Carol asked.

"It's up to you," Tyreese said.

"This evening has been amazing," Carol said. She smiled at him, hoping that he'd excuse the fact that her face was burning hot. "I can't wait to see what you've got planned for breakfast."