AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I am so excited; I can see all my fellow J/C lovers gearing up for the third planet of seven in a system with a yellow dwarf star. LOL

And I'm excited, too, because all of my Carylers know that we're headed toward a just the right kind of place for Carol and Daryl to really make themselves useful to our Captain and First Officer.

More than anything, I'm super excited that I can share both my favorite OTPs with everyone!

I hope you enjoy the chapter. I'm hoping for another one (or two) this weekend. We'll have beamed down in the next chapter! Let me know what you think!

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The door to their quarters had barely hissed closed behind them before Daryl came toward Carol to steal another kiss. She smiled to herself—smiled against his kisses and earned a smile from him—as he walked her toward their bedroom, stealing kisses as they went.

Carol had dreamed about being with Daryl for so long that it seemed like second nature. She'd imagined a thousand times what kind of lover he might be. She'd imagined him as being just about every possible kind of lover that there was.

She'd thought he might be tentative and nervous. From what she could tell, he kept a certain amount of distance from most people. He wasn't unfriendly at all, but he only allowed people to get to a certain level of depth with him. It was clear that he carefully picked and chose what he would share with others, and he gauged how much more you would get from him, in the future, based on how you reacted to what he chose to tell you. It could take some time to really get to know Daryl. Carol had never seen him show any interest in any female—even when she'd tried to push him into it because she knew a woman might be willing. She expected, then, that he might have little or no experience.

She still suspected that Daryl had little experience with women—if he had any beyond the enthusiastic night they'd spent together—but he wasn't tentative. He was eager.

Maybe the fever was still driving him, but he was absolutely driven.

Carol had never had a man make her feel so desirable before.

Still, she stopped him as he started to tug at her clothes in a clear attempt to work her out of them.

"Somethin' wrong?" He asked, panting a little from having spent much of his breath kissing her and trying to speed things along.

"The doctor said the fever's still there," Carol said.

"Said a touch," Daryl said. He backed up a little, hands going to her shoulders, and examined her as his eyes did a quick scan of her body from her face to the floor. "Why? You feel bad or something?"

She smiled at him. She smiled at his soft concern.

"I was only wondering if—if the fever makes us feel some way, do you think you'll still feel that way when it's gone?" Carol asked.

Carol was immensely glad for what Daryl did next.

Rather than simply dismissing her words with an enthusiastic nod of his head or another hungry lunge for her lips, he squeezed her shoulders, furrowed his brow, and slowly nodded his head, more in consideration of her question than in response to it. He dropped his hands, then, and walked over to where he left his ashtray every time that he cleaned it. He lit a cigarette, and took both the cigarette and the ashtray with him as he went into their little living room area. Carol followed him and sat beside him, without his asking, when he sat down on the couch.

She let him have his silence to consider what she'd said—to really consider it—and she appreciated that he was taking both the silence and the time.

She wasn't interested in simply hearing what she wanted to hear. She was only interested in hearing the truth. This was serious to her, and she needed him to take it seriously.

After a moment, he scratched the side of his mouth with the thumb of the hand that held his cigarette, and he hummed in his throat.

"I weren't lyin' when I said I'd been waitin' forever to—to be with you," Daryl said. "Never knew what to say or how to say it. Never knew if you…felt the same way."

"You should've asked," Carol said. "I…" She dropped off and didn't finish.

"You never said anything neither," Daryl offered. "And first it was like…how long do I wait after Ed, you know? What's right in that situation? Nobody ever taught me that. That weren't how Merle went about things. Besides—I didn't wanna fuck it up for good. You know? He only ever give a shit about right then. Not—not like I was thinking."

"I don't think Ed deserved my mourning," Carol offered.

Daryl laughed nervously.

"Didn't know what to do," he said. "And then—Sophia. How the hell was I gonna say what I was hopin' when you were dealin' with…with losin' her?"

"I needed it more then than…" Carol said, but she couldn't finish that either. Daryl's shoulders slumped a little and Carol reached and rested her hand on his back. She rubbed his back.

"I didn't know what to do," Daryl said. "And there was always somethin' goin' on. Every time I was just about ready to say somethin', there was somethin' else that come up. You'd be gone. Figuratively or literally, Carol, you were always gone when I got to that point. And then Tobin."

"Please don't remind me," Carol offered.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"And then the great king," Daryl said.

"I thought you weren't going to bring that up again," Carol said.

"You the one brought this up," Daryl said. "I was just—tellin' you what all happened. What got in the way."

"I thought you weren't interested," Carol said. "You didn't want me. But I couldn't figure out what you did want. I mean—there were other women."

"Not that I cared about like that," Daryl offered.

"They could have been," Carol said.

"No," Daryl said. "They couldn't have been."

He didn't elaborate, and Carol didn't push him to elaborate. She let him fall quiet for a moment. She let him think about the ten years they'd known one another. She gave him time to cover whatever mental ground he needed to cover. She saw his jaw relax when he'd run the full stretch of things and, dropping his spent and forgotten cigarette into his ashtray, he lit another with a much more relaxed air.

"Noticed you asked if I'd still feel the same way when it's gone," Daryl said. "You didn't say nothin' about if you would still feel the same."

"Because I know I will," Carol offered.

"Did you know that when—you were with them?" Daryl asked.

"I was with them to fill something inside of me," Carol said. "Something that was missing. You weren't there."

"So, you don't think that you're gonna find that somethin' missin' again?" Daryl asked.

"Not if you're not going anywhere," Carol offered. "I think—I believe—you were what's missing."

"So, you think—you're gonna feel the same even when the touch of fever's gone. Like me."

"I know I will," Carol repeated, happy to give him as much reassurance as he might need, as often as he might need it. "I have. It almost feels like forever."

Daryl laughed to himself and Carol hummed at him.

"Feels like forever," he said. Carol didn't know if he was quoting with her, agreeing with her, or both. She decided he might be doing a bit of both. "Craziest damn thing is that you wake up three hundred fuckin' years from everything—all of that. And you don't know if that life was a dream or this life is a dream…"

"I can't believe either one is a dream," Carol offered quickly.

"And it doesn't even matter," Daryl agreed. "But we find out—we got a whole fuckin' life here, Carol. Like—a whole ass life to live. It's like wakin' up an' findin' out you're a kid again. You got all that laid out before you. Could be like seventy, eighty years."

He finished what he wanted of the cigarette that he remembered, this time, that he was smoking, snubbed it out, and dropped the ashtray off on the coffee table on his way to pour himself a glass of water from the pitcher that Carol had filled earlier in the sink. She'd replicated a pitcher and a few glasses for them so that they weren't always needing to beg water from the machine—and because Daryl preferred to drink the water from the sink because he still worried that there was something not quite right about the machine that they called a replicator.

Carol stood up and walked over to where he was standing, drinking the water.

"You could be stuck with me for seventy or eighty years," she said.

He smiled to himself, the corners of his mouth barely turning up. He drained what was left in his glass and put the glass down.

"I was startin' to count on it," he said.

He reached for her, and she came to him. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of him pulling her closer. She enjoyed the feeling of his lips finding the corner of her mouth and then her lips. She kissed him back, and she enjoyed the feeling of his hand as it snaked around her and slipped under her shirt to rub the skin on her back.

She broke the kiss again.

He stared at her, hard, for just a moment. Then he smiled, laughing low in his throat.

"Still ain't changed my mind," he offered. "And I don't feel feverish—no matter what the holograph said."

"Hologram," Carol said.

Daryl only laughed to himself again.

"Like I give a shit," he said. "Point is—I'ma stop because you pullin' away from me makes me think that's what you want me to do. And I'ma do what you want me to do, but—I ain't changed my mind."

Carol nodded her understanding.

"We need to go to the briefing," she said. "Chakotay said Kathryn needed half an hour or so. That's it."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"You see it as—we should start that way," Daryl said. "I see it as—we're wastin' time. I don't know about for you, especially without the fever drivin' things, but half an hour's a long time if we're makin' the best of it."

Carol laughed to herself. She couldn't help it.

"I hear what you're saying," she offered. "But—there's something else on my mind."

Daryl nodded.

"I'm not pushing," Daryl said. "I'm not—and if you say no, then no is what the hell we go with. But—do you think we could possibly get your mind cleared off by, just say, before we're leavin' for that job?"

Carol laughed again and nodded. She kissed him—because she needed it, and maybe he needed it, too—but she pulled away before he could get too wrapped up in it. He groaned at her, but offered no other complaint. There was a hint of pout to his features that she'd never seen him wear before.

"This morning—I put my pajamas on while you were in the shower," Carol said. "And I dressed while I was in the bathroom."

"I know," Daryl said.

"You didn't see me entirely—naked," Carol said.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"You forget how the hell we spent the whole damned night?" Daryl asked. "I saw you naked. Up close and pretty damned personal. And—I'd like to see it again, but we're gonna have to go to that meeting first because we done spent most of our time, and our badges are gonna start goin' off in a minute. You know Kathryn—the captain—don't like to wait."

Carol nodded at him the whole time that he spoke, wrapping his complaint up in the form of information.

"You didn't see me without the fever," Carol said. "That's all I'm saying. And the doctor was right. The scars? They're everywhere, Daryl. And they're ugly. Scars from Ed and everything else, and wrinkles, and stretchmarks and…"

"I got shit, too," Daryl said. "You know."

"It's different," Carol said.

"How the hell is it different?" Daryl asked. "Scars are scars. Some of 'em you got from Ed. OK. I know how that shit works. Shitty reminders of a shitty fuckin' person. But you're still here, and he ain't. And that's the way it ought to be. Everything else? From out there? Everything you done and everything that was done to you? Don't matter. You're still here." He laughed to himself, clearly truly pleased with his next thought. "And we got seventy or eighty years."

"You might not think they're so attractive without the fever," Carol said.

"I might not give a shit either way," Daryl offered with a shrug. "Hell—I don't give a shit. I mean…I hate you got 'em 'cause I know none of that shit comes without something happening, but I don't give a shit about some scar, Carol. Not the way you actin' like I'ma care."

"The doctor could remove them," Carol said. "The scars. The wrinkles. Everything."

"That what you want?" Daryl asked.

"I'm asking what you want," Carol said. "If we're—really talking about this. If we're really thinking about seventy or eighty years together. What do you want to—look at?"

"Whatever makes you feel OK when you look in the mirror," Daryl said. "Because I weren't bothered either way. But we just missed out on what coulda been a good fifteen or twenty minutes together of unmakin' that bed in there because you're worried. Uncomfortable. That's what I don't want. I don't want you uncomfortable. Not with me. Not ever. So, if there's somethin' you need him to do to help you with that? I'll—hold your hand or whatever you need me to do while he handles it."

"What about your scars?" Carol asked. "Do you want to get rid of them?"

"They bother you?" Daryl asked.

"They bother you," Carol responded. "You always try to hide them from people."

Daryl shook his head.

"Try to hide them because I don't like the pity," Daryl said. "Pity ain't never done a thing for me. Never changed nothin'. You know what it looks like. In someone's eyes when they see it. But—erasin' the scars don't erase that it happened. Erasin' them scars won't erase my old man no more than erasin' what you got's gonna make it so Ed didn't happen." He shook his head. "I didn't have to hide 'em from you. Not since you saw 'em on the farm. You don't gotta hide yours from me. Unless—you wanted me to get rid of mine?"

"Daryl…" Carol said, her heart pounding suddenly in her chest.

"Hmmm?" He hummed.

"I love you," Carol said. "Just like you are. Scars and all."

She almost felt lightheaded from her rapid heartbeat. If the doctor hadn't only cleared her half an hour earlier as a remarkably healthy woman, she might have worried about her cardiac health. She searched his face for some evidence that he might run from words that she knew carried a lot of weight. It was probably too soon, if it was ever the right time.

Instead of running, his features softened.

"I love you, too," Daryl said. He smiled to himself like he hadn't really known how the words would sound. "Keep the scars. All of 'em. Unless they gonna keep your mind cluttered up—'cause I really wouldn't mind if it was to be cleared up after the meetin'."

Carol smiled to herself.

"I think it'll be very clear before we have to leave for the planet," she assured him.