AN: Here we are, another piece here.

I hope you enjoy!

Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

Sophia had begged time away from them to go to bed early. At least, that's what she said she was going to do, though Daryl suspected that the full lamp of oil and the stack of books that she'd taken with her from the bookshelf might have meant that she had other plans.

Carol, he was sure, knew the same. Still, she hadn't fought with Sophia.

The girl—nearly a woman, of course, but Daryl couldn't quite get his mind to accept that just yet—had spent most of the entire day in the presence of her mother. While Daryl had attended to some chores outside the cabin, and Carol had cleaned the place until it practically shined so that Sophia would have a nice place to call home, Sophia had stayed close by her mother.

They'd had their meals together, and they'd spent some time sitting at the table with a puzzle between them, all of them putting pieces together to make an image that the puzzle box told them would be a picturesque farmhouse with a sign on the door that said "Home Sweet Home" and an old red truck parked out in front.

With Sophia gone, Carol and Daryl sat in comfortable silence and picked at the puzzle pieces for a while longer.

It was Daryl that broke the silence, finally, with thoughts that had been circling in his head until he could barely rest. He sat back and lit a cigarette for himself. Carol refused the one offered to her.

"Keep thinkin' it's crazy," Daryl said.

"What?" Carol asked. She was resting her chin on her hand. Without much true dedication to the task, she pushed puzzle pieces around with the index finger of her right hand, casually looking to see if any that she shifted from here to there might be obviously one that was missing from an area left yet undone in the puzzle.

"You think you lost something. Think it's really gone for good. Come to accept it, as good as you can, I guess, and then it's back."

Carol smiled softly. The light of the lamp that sat somewhat between them, and off to the side of the small table, flickered across her face. It practically glowed in her eyes. Daryl caught himself and told himself to look away.

She was beautiful, and sometimes, when he wasn't keeping a careful watch over himself, he let himself get a touch carried away with thinking about just how beautiful she was.

"Sophia," Carol said.

"It's a hell of a thing," Daryl said.

He let his eyes drift back to her, feeling a touch more in control of himself and his thoughts since he'd managed to pull his eyes away from her in the first place.

"It is," Carol said, her smile growing.

"I can't imagine it," Daryl said.

"You were looking for her, too," Carol said.

There was something about the way she said it, or maybe it was just the way she looked at him in the dim light between them, that sent something almost like a shiver down Daryl's back. He hummed and nodded. He focused his eyes, for just a moment, on a few puzzle pieces that he picked up with fingers not holding his cigarette. He put the same pieces back down, not really attempting or intending to place them at all.

"I'da give damn near anything to find her, too," Daryl said. He looked back at Carol. "To bring her back to you." He smiled to himself. "Wanted you to have her back. Wanted her to have you back."

He found he had to look away again. He found that his stomach ached. He might have blamed it on dinner, except that the meal had been good, and he knew that it wasn't the food that was to blame for the slightly uneasy feeling in his gut.

"I knew you wanted to bring her back," Carol said. "You were the only one who seemed to really care. You were the only one who realized how special she was—how important she was to me."

"You're her mama," Daryl said.

"And everyone else had their own problems," Carol mused. "I don't know if I ever told you, Daryl, but it meant the world to me. It really did. You were—my hero."

Daryl felt his face grow warm. That something-like-a-shiver that had run through him before came back for another lap. He felt goosebumps raise up on some of his skin. At least the dim light wouldn't give him away—not entirely.

"I'm no hero," Daryl said.

"You were to me," Carol said. "You always were to me."

"I didn't find her," Daryl said.

"But you meant to," Carol said. "You tried. That was enough for me. My daughter was important to you…and that was enough for me."

Daryl hummed.

"I'm glad you got her back," he said again, realizing it was mostly something to say.

"I'm glad we both did," Carol offered.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Yeah," he said, making eye contact with her for the first time in a few minutes. "Me too."

"If…if you could get back things you lost," Carol said, "what would you want back?"

"We just…makin' conversation?" Daryl asked.

Carol laughed quietly. She occupied her fingers with puzzle pieces. Very few of them, at this point in the evening, seemed to be finding a home, but at least they were doing their job of entertaining the two of them.

"We have to be," Carol said. "I don't really have any ability to give you back anything you lost."

"I don't know about that," Daryl said.

As soon as he said it, he wondered what in the world had possessed him. He froze. Every muscle in his body felt as though it tensed. He looked at Carol, sensing the shallowness of his own breathing. She furrowed her brow slightly and quirked her eyebrow just a little in question. Her lip twitched like she meant to ask him, and then he heard her blow out a breath and she visibly relaxed a little—making a clear choice to leave the ball in his proverbial court.

He could, suddenly, breath just a touch easier. At the very least, he had control of the conversation, even if he still lacked some control of his breathing.

"My answer to that question—what I'd want back—it woulda been different dependin' on when you asked me," Daryl said.

Carol left the table. Daryl watched her. Without a word, she headed for the kitchen. He accepted her unannounced exit. She was going to get something to drink, more than likely, or something to eat—not that he could imagine that any of them would be hungry for a while after the way she'd been feeding them.

His first guess was correct. She came back with a jug of the "wine" that they made in the Kingdom and two cups.

"Have a drink with me?" She asked, putting the cups on the table and pouring the wine.

Daryl nodded.

The wine was made from whatever fruit was available and, really, not much good for anything else. It was fermented, to some degree, but it wasn't strong. One could drink a fair amount of it before really becoming anything that might have been identified as "impaired" or "intoxicated." Of course, most of them weren't really operating too much heavy machinery, so that didn't matter so much, but the wine wasn't really a beverage that would ever make you get sloppy drunk before you simply got sick from drinking too much liquid.

It did have certain relaxing benefits, perhaps, but Daryl was pretty sure that he could drink about four cups of it and still fight off a half a dozen Walkers, as long as they weren't too incredibly agile.

"What would you have wanted back?" Carol asked, leaning a little across the table, once she'd taken her seat again. She drank some of her wine. "Merle?"

Daryl hummed.

"Before that," he said. "Before any of this, I would've wanted my mama back, I guess." He drank some of his own wine. He could taste a few types of fruit blending together. It wasn't unpleasant, and after a few swallows, it would become even more pleasant as some of those relaxing qualities started to kick in. Daryl didn't talk much about his feelings, and he didn't talk much about his mother, but he could say things to Carol that he didn't say to others.

Part of him wondered, really, how much he could really say to her—how much he dared to say.

"You loved her," Carol said.

"You thinkin' I shouldn't have?" Daryl asked.

He recognized the bite in his own voice when he saw Carol physically respond. She settled back into her place as soon as her body, conditioned even after all these years to respond to a certain sharpness in tone and tension in stance, relaxed.

"Sorry," Daryl said. "That weren't for you."

"It's OK," Carol said. "I guess—a lot of people might make you feel like you shouldn't have. But—your mother is your mother, and…I would never judge anyone for who they loved. I know that, sometimes we love people, even when they don't deserve it. Mind you, Daryl, that I'm not saying your mother didn't deserve it."

"I know," Daryl said. "I woulda—wanted her back. I woulda wanted shit to be different, you know?"

"I think I can imagine," Carol said.

"Anyway, I was a kid, then," Daryl said. "Wanted her back—but as much as I wanted her back, I wanted everything that went with her. The whole damn thing was gone. Home, you know? Not—the house. I mean, yeah, I wanted the house back and the shit we lost—Merle and me didn't have shit after that. But it was the whole thing. Home. Every time I heard someone say it…it was like it stung me. People had homes. I didn't."

Carol reached her hand across the table and caught the hand that Daryl wasn't using. She squeezed it, and he squeezed hers back. His body responded to the simple affection, and he half-scolded himself for his feelings.

"You can still have a home," Carol offered. "If you want it."

The way she said it. The way she said the words—or maybe it was the wine, though Daryl knew that the weak wine was hardly ever to blame for anything, though it was always willing, as alcohol was, to take the blame for anything—sent a jolt through him. His breath was shallow again. His face nearly felt numb.

"Then—it was Merle," Daryl said, pressing on for the fear of standing still. "Again, though, it was more the idea of what I had hoped he could be, you know? What the hell I wanted him to be."

"He was changing," Carol said. "Maybe, one day, he could have been what you wanted."

"Sophia," Daryl said, after nodding his head.

Carol smiled and squeezed his hand again before pulling her hand back and holding her cup with both hands, even though such a thing wasn't necessary.

"And she's back," Carol said.

Daryl hummed.

"Is it possible to want back somethin' you lost that, really, you never had to begin with?" Daryl asked.

"What do you mean?" Carol asked.

"Somethin' you felt like you had, for maybe a minute, but…you didn't never really have it," Daryl said. "So—you lost it, but really you lost a dream of something. Somethin' you wanted to have."

"I think—you could," Carol said. "At least for the sake of argument. What did you lose, Daryl?"

Carol shifted in her chair. She caught his eyes. She held them. His body responded to her. His heart drummed in his chest like he was standing on the edge of a precipice, looking over it, deciding whether or not to jump.

In a lot of ways, that's how he felt.

She'd always been the one to catch him, he'd felt, before—whether he'd fallen or jumped. He wondered if he could trust her to catch him now. His throat felt dry. The precipice wasn't real. The fear response was. He lubricated his throat with the wine that, now that he was growing accustomed to it, tasted sweeter each time it coated his tongue.

He drew in a breath, and jumped—at least that's what it felt liked.

"You," he said.

"Me?" Carol asked, sitting back slightly.

"For a minute…I felt like I had you, I guess," Daryl said. "At the prison. I thought—there could be something there."

"What?" Carol asked.

He didn't dare to try to read her. He didn't dare to think too much about anything. Forward was the only way to go, now. She would either…well, he didn't want to think about what she might do.

"A life," Daryl said. "A—relationship. A family, maybe. A home."

She looked at him with wide eyes and slightly parted lips.

"You wanted that—with me?" She asked.

"Wanted…dreamed…thought…maybe," Daryl said.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Carol asked.

Daryl shrugged his shoulders.

"I was working up to it," he said. He laughed, though he didn't feel any real humor. "Too damn slow. Sayin' is you snooze, you lose, and I know that shit's right. One thing after another…and I was always just too damn slow." He shook his head. "Shouldn't have said anything now. Would blame the wine, but…"

Carol got up from her chair. Daryl did the same. In his gut, he felt a churning. He felt like she would ask him to leave. He couldn't blame her, of course, and he was prepared to go, if that's what she wanted. He wouldn't stand for her being uncomfortable in her little home, not even if it was him that made her uncomfortable. That wasn't what homes were for.

"Daryl…" Carol said.

"You want me to go," he said. "And—that's OK. I get it. I'ma just go…"

"Daryl…" Carol said. He stopped. He hummed at her. She moved closer to him. She smiled at him. "Stop trying to leave. We've lost a lot of time…stop trying to cost us more."

Daryl's heart felt entirely out of rhythm. He wondered, briefly, if it might be what death felt like. He thought it was terribly unfair if this was the moment that he died.

"You mean…what exactly do you mean?"

"I've lost a lot, too," Carol said. She leaned and kissed him softly. It surprised him so much that he felt entirely unable to respond to it until she was pulling way. She smiled at him again and brushed his hair back with her fingers. "I don't want to lose anymore…Stay?"

Daryl couldn't find his voice for a moment, but he could nod. Carol took that as enough, apparently. She caught his hand in hers and, reaching for the lamp on the table with the other hand, she tugged at him to ask him to follow her.

"Come on," she said softly. Daryl followed after, entirely unable to do otherwise, and entirely without desire to do so, even if he could.

111

AN: I have put this on my stories as I've worked on getting them going again. If you've read it before, please feel free to skip this. The fact that this is just getting here is really a testament at how long I've been somewhat put off of my writing.

So—you wanna hear a story about how I have good intentions but suck at following through with them?

I was informed that people don't review/comment frequently because they don't get responses for their reviews, and that makes them feel unappreciated as readers. I know that there are people who are practically professionals at responding to everything all the time. I certainly don't want people to feel unappreciated.

I meant to answer everyone's reviews forever and ever, but I found out, very, very quickly, that I just can't. My sometimes-scrambled brain can't handle it. I value and love every review I get. The knowledge that you're reading and enjoying keeps me publishing chapters. I even save the best ones in a document titled "Really Nice Reviews" to read and reread when I need a pick-me-up. However, when I try to assign myself the job of answering them, even if there's only a couple, it becomes a job. This is especially true if there's not really a lot there for me to know what to say. Then, I go into a spiral where I was taught that I can't have "fun" until I do "all my work." That means I can't even daydream about future chapters until I figure out a meaningful response to everything.

So—fast forward and I've spent two weeks AVOIDING my Caryl fics because I "can't" allow myself to write them or even think about them. I've now successfully gotten myself stuck on all of them. It's been absolutely horrible.

That being said, I'll be answering reviews, as I used to, if there's something there that I feel like I can answer, etc., but I'm going to have to just say I failed at this endeavor. I do love all of your reviews/comments, and they do help immensely with the motivation to publish new chapters, but I just fail at trying to answer everything and continue to write. If you're someone who needs that response back in order to read and comment/review to let me know that you're reading, then I respect that, and I hope that you find something that you can read where all your needs are fulfilled.

As for me, I have to do what I have to do in order to be able to keep writing, because otherwise I'm just stalling on literally everything. I'm sorry!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please don't forget to let me know what you think! (But, also know that I may or may not get back to you, even though that absolutely doesn't mean that I don't appreciate your words. LOL)