Chapter 11

They fell into their new routine like an exhale. One night he would take the first watch. The next night she would take the first watch. And every third night they would sleep next to each other, breathing in the warmth of another person as they whispered back and forth in the dark.

Those conversations were different. Late at night, knowing that they would never talk about it in the harsh daylight, they said things that they would regret sharing if the other ever so much as hinted at what was said.

Carol talked about Sophia. How she still dreamed that she ran into the woods after her daughter. Sometimes the dreams were good. She would kill the Walkers herself, and Sophia would look at her with big shocked eyes and then run into her arms, safe and whole and amazed at what her mama had done. The worst parts of those nights was waking to find them dreams. Other times, she would throw herself between the teeth and her little girl and wake with phantom pain and a deep satisfaction that she saved her. The worst nights, Sophia screamed for her, but no matter how far she ran her little girl was always just out of sight, in danger, calling out for a mother that never came.

When she talked about Sophia, Daryl would just listen. Part of him still felt like apologizing, but when he thought about it, something just felt wrong. It was just too close to asking her to comfort him, to say his failure was okay, when it was her little girl that was gone.

Sophia wasn't his. He didn't think that Carol needed him to say he wished that she was. He figured that was pretty damned obvious.

On the nights when Daryl woke her with his tossing and turning, he was always running from somebody. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he let himself say things before he was fully awake that clued Carol in to the monsters that haunted his dreams. Sometimes it was his father, sometimes it was his mother, and every so often it was Merle.

Slowly, the distance between them on the nights they both slept dwindled down to nothing, and they would wake tangled up in each other as often as not. They both tried to avoid it, because neither of them was fond of waking with any kind of weight on top of them, for reasons that were more similar than either would ever state outright. Daryl was terrified that he would feel her against his back as he was coming awake and hit her before he knew who she was. But Carol seemed to have some kind of knack for waking up in time to move out of the way, and he often woke to see her staring at him, waiting for it to be okay to lay on his arm and squeeze, or to pat his shoulder real soft like before they rolled over an went back to sleep.

The first time Daryl's woke up with his hand under the hem of her shirt, he thought for sure he'd be sleeping across the room on the lumpy couch from there on out.

But without thinking about it long enough to change his mind, he whispered, "This okay?"

She didn't say anything at first, even though he knew that she was awake, so he started to move away.

Carol's fingers closed over his wrist and she said, "It's fine. Don't…I like that."

And so that's where they stayed, dancing on the line between friends and companions and something that neither of them wanted to name.

By the time they were comfortable moving in and out of one another's space both awake and asleep, spring was in the air. Merle hadn't shown up the way he usually did when Daryl stayed still for a while, and they were both getting cabin fever, anyway. There was no choice, really, but to make a run. Neither of them wanted to be gone long. There was too much work to do, and the chance that someone would come along while they were gone hovered unspoken between them. Eventually, it was decided to take two trips. The first would be to check and see what Rick and the others might be lacking or want to trade and to check a couple of places nearby that Daryl thought Merle might be. They would take the bike, which was more maneuverable and faster, and scout for places that may hold things they needed. They would leave early in the morning and be back before the sun went down. The plan was to take what information they gathered to better plan a trip using the truck, in the hopes that two short trips would leave their place unguarded for less time than one long one.

They'd pulled the bike into the trees and were just finishing up with covering it with the tarp they carried and arranging limbs and leaves from the ground over it. From a distance, eyes should glide right over it without noticing. They were taking the last little distance on foot, just in case the noise would cause them a problem. He'd decided to approach from the south, and to skirt everything else to get to what had been the public areas, in the hopes that any dead still wandering wouldn't be inside the gates. They'd never properly opened because of the sickness, but the timing of the outbreak made Daryl hope that most folks would have been ready for opening day, and there would be knives and supplies and at the very least some good sturdy boots for Carol.

Carol. His partner in crime and the annoying woman who hadn't stopped messing with him since she saw the sign pointing the way to the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and figured things out. She hadn't said a word, yet, but the smirk never seemed to leave her face, and every time she looked at him she would waggle her eyebrows.

"One," he said.

"One what?" She made a face at him that was so innocent that even a month ago he may have bought her act.

"One of those things going through your head. Go on. Take your best shot."

"I'll take three questions in return for one comment."

He shook his head, but took a deep breath and said, "Fine. Three. Go ahead."

"Did you wear tights? Because I'm picturing you in tights, carrying a sword."

Her eyes swept over him, slow-like and suggestive, and he could feel his face turning red. Of course that's the kind of question she had.

"I taught archery to little kids and collected a shitload of tips. It was a few weekends a year. It weren't a lifestyle." He didn't mention the occasional picked pocket, or the way Merle supplied a high-quality product that wasn't tobacco to the pipe shop. More pot went out the back via Merle than tobacco went out the front, with either no one the wiser or no one caring enough to put a stop to it.

"That wasn't my question. When you taught these youngsters, were you wearing tights?"

He was utterly and completely incapable of saying the words, so he just nodded and started walking. They were still a good half-mile away.

The laughter he expected didn't come, though, so he snuck a peak at her from under the fringe of his hair. It had grown long past the point where Merle would have held him down and took the clippers to it. He liked it. He liked the idea of just letting it grow, never cutting it again.

She was still staring at him, with her mouth slightly open and her head tilted. He could feel the heat coming off his face. "You got somethin' to say? Because you say it, you lose two questions and you owe me one."

She shook her head, swallowed, and said softly, "We should get moving. We don't have all day." She slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and walked by him, looking everywhere except at him.

Daryl snorted, and moved up alongside her. Under his breath, he said, "Focus". It was as much a reminder for himself as for her. The short trip north had been without major incident, but who knew how many people had stayed in their campers, tents, and RV's even though opening day had never happened. There was a reason he figured that Merle might come to look for him here. Hell, a great big part of him hoped that at least enough of the vendors had left wares behind that he'd be able to find a good knife for Carol. Most of what was on display was decorative, artsy shit, but he'd traded for several good ones from one of the smiths. He could maybe get some more bolts for the crossbow and pick up a bow to start teachin' Carol on.

If there was nothing here, they would have to start risking sporting goods stores, and what wasn't picked over would likely be over-run and hard to get to.

But they'd been out dozens of times since they left the group, and they'd gotten good at working together. They could have nearly a whole conversation using nothing but their expressions and their hands. They worked well together. They would be fine. Hell, if the place was overrun they would just turn around and head on back.

It had been a long, hard winter, with sometimes whole days when they couldn't do anything but sit under piles of blankets and listen to the hail hitting the sides of the house. Daryl kept reminding himself that the house they were in had stood for over a hundred years, it wasn't the kind of house his family had squatted in when he was a kid. It wasn't going to fall down on top of him. They'd spent those days learning things from each other. Not pansy-ass things like favorite colors and what about the old world they missed the most (Carol's favorite color was red, and he didn't have to ask her to know that because her hands always drifted toward red things first when they were raiding shops.). Naw, after they went through all his old hunting signals, they talked about what they might need to communicate out in the world, and between them came up with ways to do that.

In this world, the more invisible you were the safer you were. And if they had one thing in common, it's that they both had plenty of practice trying to make themselves invisible.

They had arrived. And damn, the fence had been expanded.

Daryl had been aiming for a spot where they'd used the natural barrier of the forest to hide the goings on of the workers, far away from where anyone would have been camped and close to a couple of the shops he wanted to check.

Carol tilted her head at him, and he whistled for her to hide herself. He wished, now, that he'd cared enough at the start to check around, so he could know if this was done before or after the outbreak. Small changes happened year to year, after all.

There was nothing for it. He found a support and started to climb.

The other side of the fence was nothing but empty. No people, no Walkers, and he could see from here that about half of the shops had at least something still inside them. He dropped off the top of the fence on the inside and immediately felt hemmed in. But he knew Carol would be behind him, signal or no signal, in a couple of minutes. She would only give him so long to check things out before she either left or followed, and while leaving was the official plan he'd come to accept that it wasn't something she was going to do.

Better to have her at his back than following behind him at such a distance that they both may as well be alone. He gave the all clear and waited.

And waited.

He was just starting to get nervous when she came up behind him, breathing hard, rubbing her hands on her thighs.

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she glared.

He was half into imagining Carol's Battle With The Fence before he realized it and forced himself to file the impulse away for later.

It was almost eerie, the way there wasn't a single Walker to be seen. They moved slowly, starting at the booth nearest them and following the path. Most of it was useless, but he hid a smile when Carol slipped a pair a of silver and onyx earrings into her pocket.

Carol whistled a short tune, and he answered it by moving closer to her side.

It did feel like they were being watched. But he couldn't see or hear a damned thing, so there was a chance it was just the feel of abandoned festival. There should be drums, and belly dancers, and – it just felt off in a way that made his teeth itch.

When they got to the blacksmith shop that he was heading for, his chest got tight. Daryl didn't have friends who weren't Merle. Well, not before. But he did have people who were more like regular features in his life that he didn't hate. And trading stuff and telling tall tales with the man who sold his stuff here, that was always kinda fun. Unlike Daryl, who was just in it for the tips a few weeks a year, Jerry loved the theater of it all. For him, it was a lifestyle. Daryl had always walked the fence between thinking the big guy was crazy insane, and kind of admiring the way he lived like he wanted to no matter what other people thought. Even after spending a hundred nights by a campfire laughing with the man, Daryl still hadn't expected that seeing his work just sitting out would hurt so much. It wasn't like they were close.

He cleared his throat and tilted his head toward the back. Where the good stuff was.

He looked at several, had even shoved one sheathed knife in his bag, before he found it.

He reached out, palm up, and Carol came over and put her hand in his without hesitation. The oddly warm feeling that spread through him at her action wasn't getting any less uncomfortable just because it was familiar. He squirmed a little before he started putting knives in her hand, measuring. His eye was still on the one he'd seen, the perfect one, but if she liked the feel of any of the others they could take them too.

He knew the instant she had it in her grip, that it was her knife. And from the way her face seemed to light up, so did she. She immediately put his old hunting knife away and kept the new in hand. He grabbed a couple more things, tossing them in his bag and then led her back out.

In the end, they'd been inside for nearly an hour and had picked up a few pieces of clothing, a couple more knives, some bolts, and the bow, arrows and quiver he'd wanted for Carol. The boots took the longest, but when he they found some that fit her just right he grabbed another pair just like them for later. He declared them finished at that point. As they were approaching the area that had been the front gate, however, Daryl decided he wanted to raid the first aid supplies that were usually kept at the paramedic post. That's when it happened. Five feet away from the building, an arrow flew past him and lodged itself in the door.

He was between Carol the direction the arrow had come from in a heartbeat.

A booming voice somewhere behind them said, "We have need of those! You're welcome to what you have, just follow the path and go out the gate."

Carol moved until they were back to back, her knife up and her eyes scanning the area. Her free hand brushed the small of his back in question and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He sent her a whistle while he was still looking for the source of the voice.

"Sir Daryl?"

Well, shit. That was something he could have gone his whole life without her hearing. He was never living that one down.

"Come on out!" Daryl shouted, and there he was.

The Blacksmith wasn't gone after all, though his weight was down by a third.

"Jerry?"

The big man beamed. "I thought that it looked like you! But it was hard to be sure from a distance. You can put that down."

Daryl shook his head. "Your bowman nearly shot my ass!"

"Dude, no. David and his family are still here. If he'd wanted to hurt you, he would have. But Doc Ben would kill us if someone got into the supply building."

"But everything else you just let folks steal."

Jerry smiled and nodded. "It isn't stealing if we don't mind them having it. If they're the types to get greedy, it doesn't end well for them. If they do like you were? Just what they need, with maybe a trinket or three? We meet them outside the gates and talk, see if they have need of a community. If you'd come to the campsite first, we would have made a list and sent a runner! It is a fine thing, indeed, to see your face again Sir Daryl. Lord Merle has been beside himself with worry that you had not yet arrived, and he had intent to set out after the upcoming equinox to free you from some foul situation."

His crossbow dipped before he caught himself. "Merle's here, then? Reckon I ain't seen him. How about one of them runners of yours goes and gets him, and then I'll decide what I want to put down and what I don't."

A quick whistle and Carol had planted her feet, standing ready to fight, but her answering signal told him she hadn't caught sight of that David person, either.

Jerry's face fell. The big man looked like his feelings were hurt. "Really, Daryl? You think I'd lie about your brother?"

He didn't think that, not really. Daryl was almost certain that Merle was on his way. As much as he'd wanted to be sure his brother was okay, and as much as he wanted to see his face, for some reason his insides had twisted themselves into a knot.

"Don't think it. But last time I figured I had an idea on what a man would and wouldn't do, he went and proved me wrong, so I'm just gonna have to take a few minutes this time and be sure. Ain't personal."

He'd grown used to it being just him and Carol. Sure, they were looking for Merle, but he still wasn't lookin' forward to Merle finding out that he'd gotten used to making his own choices.

Jerry always acted like he'd had just a little pot. Laid back, affable, and fine with whatever somebody else planned to do that night. The end of the world didn't seem to have changed that any. He just nodded and smiled and they all stood around like idiots. Waiting.

It wasn't long.

Merle was stalking toward him, grinning in that way that seemed like a good-natured threat.

Behind him, Carol made a half shocked, half amused sound and said, "Is that a kilt?"

"Where in the nine hells have you been?" Merle said.

Daryl's throat closed up, and all of his words left him.