A/N: I accidentally uploaded this as chapter 18 but quickly deleted it and put the correct Chapter 18 up, so if you saw this for 18, and felt like the story jumped without explanation...that's why.

[*]

As a child, Daryl was never good enough. He could never do anything right. His mother didn't beat him, but she criticized him. His father expressed his disapproval with the lash. Daryl used to try to be better, he strove to please them, until he realized pleasing them was impossible.

So he learned instead to feel defensive at all correction. He learned never to apologize. He never wanted to, until that day at the farm, when Carol asked him not to continue the search for Sophia, and he called her a dumb bitch.

His nerves were pricked like hairs on end when he led Carol to those flowers later, watched her sad eyes studying them, and mustered up the courage to say he was sorry. She forgave him so quickly. She'd forgiven him before he even spoke. She's forgiven him a hundred times since, for a hundred little things. That's how he learned he could be forgiven, that he was good enough, but that he could always become better, that his trying would not be in vain.

He's grateful for the easy way she forgives him now, welcoming him into her arms, into her body. His breath thickens as he moves within her, rocking above her with his palms flat against the mattress so he can watch her when she bites her bottom lip and moans and when her beautiful blue eyes fly open and look into his just before she climaxes, arching her back and digging her nails into his shoulders.

Daryl shuts his eyes fast, lets go of the last thread that binds his restraint, and spills into her with a guttural groan. Her name falls like a liturgy from his lips: Carol, Carol, Carol, my sweet Carol, ohhhhh God.

He's spent and unwound and there's not a thought in his head except love when he collapses to the bed with half his body draped over hers and half off it. Her beating heart echoes his like a natural lullaby, and he drifts.

[*]

Sex puts Daryl to sleep, but it usually gives Carol a second wind. Tonight, it knocked him out much more quickly than usual. His neck is bent, his forehead pressed against her bare shoulder, and his warm, smoky breath falls in even measure on her flesh. She eases out from underneath the weight of the sinewy leg he's draped over hers, and the warmth of his flesh slides from her.

Carol dresses quickly and quietly in a set of flannel pajamas and makes her way out the living room where she pokes the dying fire and feeds it until it flames. Daisy looks up her, whines, and then lowers her head to the bearskin rug. Merle is not with her tonight. He's once again asleep on Hershey's bed, where Daryl has relegated him for as long as Daisy is with them because, Daryl says, "Merle's been stressin' the poor bitch." Daisy needs her rest in pregnancy.

Carol finishes up a few more items of work at her desk, stands, and stretches. That's when she sees John has left his book lying open on the end table, spine cracked, face down, and she goes to close it, because she hates seeing books treated like that. As she closes it, she realizes it's not a gun or hunting manual as she had originally assumed. It's Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, and the text is in French.

She's still puzzling over that when she hears the door open, drops the book to the floor, and, having already stripped off her weapons in the bedroom, seizes the nearest sharp object she can find – the firepoker.

John walks through the door, sees her holding the thing like a spear, and raises his hands. "Sorry. Should I have knocked?"

"Probably."

John, with a light smile, lowers his hands. "Didn't want to wake anyone."

Carol returns the poker to its stand. "I thought that door was locked." Daryl usually takes care of locking up the cabin at night, the way he takes care of a dozen little things, but he was probably distracted by her offer of lovemaking.

John closes the door behind himself and locks it. He hangs the strap of his wooden Winchester rifle on the only empty peg on the cabin wall, and then slides off his worn, black Stetson hat. With his hat in his hands, he takes two steps toward the couch, takes one look at her raised eyebrow, freezes, and steps backward again. He hangs the hat over the same peg with his rifle and then yanks off his muddy boots one by one before leaning them against the cabin wall.

"Things didn't go well with the redhead?" asks Carol, secretly a little pleased that the Oceanside woman apparently shot him down.

"A gentleman does not kiss and tell." John walks into the living room, picks his book up from the floor, and sets it on the end table.

"You speak French?" Carol asks as John slides warily onto the couch.

Daisy, who has been awakened by the commotion, pads over to her owner, sits between his legs, and waits for him to start scratching behind her ears. "As a youth, I had the romantic notion that I should one day join the French Foreign Legion," he replies. "So I took four years of French in high school, and in college I set out to major in French literature."

"Really?" Carol's not just surprised that John majored in French. She's surprised he went to college. He has the air of a good ol' boy who loves hunting and firearms and a woman to sweep up after him. All she knows about his employment in the old world was that at some point, he'd been a range safety officer, a firearms instructor, and a hunting guide. "Where did you go to college?"

"The University of Virginia. I had to drop out for financial reasons after two years. I lost my academic scholarship on account of I was distracted from my studies by a beautiful woman. They'd only started letting in women seven years prior to that point, and in retrospect I begin to see the wisdom of the segregation of the sexes in education."

Carol walks to her desk, saying, "Plenty of people managed to get co-ed college educations, John. They just had to prioritize." She pushes the papers inward on the desk before rolling down the top.

"Let me guess where you went college," John replies. "You're from Georgia, so I'm going to say Emory. But then you went on to Yale for your M.B.A."

Carol snorts. "I didn't go to college." She turns and leans back against the desk.

"Surely you jest."

She shakes her head. "I did well enough in high school, but it was made clear to me by my father that women in our family didn't go to college. We had domestic duties. He was a widower, and I took care of him until I got married, and then I took care of my husband. I suppose it was like that in your family?"

"No, ma'am. Both of my sisters graduated from Mary Baldwin College. They didn't lose their scholarships like their foolish younger brother. But at least I got a good woman out of my attendance. I mean…until I lost her." His voice grows quieter. "Julie was so very much in love with me back then. I suppose I chiseled it all away through slow neglect." He coughs, Carol thinks, to mask his feeling, and it occurs to her that maybe Daryl wasn't having fun with his friend last night. Maybe he was holding John together.

Carol sits down in Daryl's arm chair to indicate she's willing to listen.

"I know I lost it when I found out she was with that man," John continues, "and I'm sorry for the damage I did. I snapped. It's not an excuse, it's just what happened. I shouldn't have, because, truth be told, we were already on the verge of divorce before the Turn." He sighs and scratches the back of Daisy's neck. The dog closes her eyes. "I found a business card for a divorce lawyer in her car's glove compartment when I borrowed it one day. I was going to confront her, but that's when the world started to fall apart. People dying. People turning. She needed me then. Needed me to get her and the boys out of Richmond alive. Protect her, Hunt for her. Feed her. So she never mentioned that lawyer's card. And neither did I."

Carol is reminded of how Rick and Lori never seemed to speak of Shane, and yet Rick had to have known. They just picked up from the last good place they left off and stuck together.

"But then we found the Hilltop," John continues. "We built that cabin. Things grew settled. And I reckon she's finally decided she doesn't need me to protect her anymore."

"I'm sorry things didn't work out for you two," Carol says quietly, because there's really nothing else to say.

Daisy plods away from John, who has stopped scratching her, and flops back down on the bearskin rug. "Mark Twain once wrote that fish and guests start to stink after three days," John says. "I've been here almost twice that long. I'll gather my things tomorrow and move into that trailer."

"The windows aren't fixed."

"They're covered up with cardboard, though. It'll just be dark. But that's fine at night."

"John, if I've made you feel unwelcome, I'm – "

"- Don't apologize, Carol. You haven't been inhospitable, but I can tell my presence has put a strain on your marriage, and I don't want to be responsible for that. You have a beautiful thing, you two. Far be it from me to throw a monkey wrench in those workings."

Daryl's told her that John is one of his best hunters and someone he can trust to have his back in the woods, but other than that, she's never understood why Daryl is friends with him. "I've never really gotten to know you, have I?" she admits.

"I don't suppose there's been much need for you to. We don't work together. And we fought on different fronts in the war."

"I never would have guessed you read Les Miserables for pleasure."

"And I never would have guessed you didn't have a career in management."

"You lost two children before you found the Hilltop?" She hadn't known about that either, until the other night, when he mentioned the triplets.

John nods.

"I lost one," she shares. "A daughter."

"Sophia."

Carol blinks. "Daryl's mentioned her?" she asks with surprise.

"I once asked him if he'd ever lost a child."

Carol covers her mouth with her hand as though to keep in some sad sound.

"Parents are not supposed to survive their children, are they?" John asks.

She shakes her head and uses her thumb to swipe away the stray tear that has fallen from her eye.

"Julie's never really healed from that. I suppose I haven't either. I had to put down my first son myself, that is…if you could call that thing my son. He was eleven years old, like your girl." He grits his teeth. "The second one… he made it to thirteen. But I had to listen to those things tear him apart while I got Julie and Jacob to safety. That was before we found the Hilltop." John watches the flames of the fire dance, and his gray-blue eyes grow solemn.

Carol's not used to silence from the gregarious man, and the silence is too heavy. She fills it by changing the topic. "Listen," she says. "Even though I told him not to, Daryl's probably going to ask you to put in a good word for me with the hunters for my re-election campaign. And I want you to know I don't expect that of you, and I don't want you to feel obligated out of friendship to him to say anything you don't believe. I've made my choices as mayor, and I'll stand or fall according to them."

John smiles and a dimple breaks out beneath the thick, ash-colored stubble on his left cheek. "As if you need me to put in a word for you with the hunters. The hunters are in your pocket, Carol."

"What?"

"Oh, they moan and they groan to show their compassion for my situation, but who do you think they're going to vote for? A farmer? A farmer who didn't even fight in the last war? You kept the Hilltop standing."

"I thought the hunters were angry with me for letting the Council give Julie the cabin."

"We're becoming more agricultural, but you still appreciate the importance of hunting. Roderick doesn't. You know how crucial it is to sustain these forests no matter how many eggs those chickens lay or how many potatoes we plant. You know how important it is to cull the deer to prevent their starvation, to store up smoked and cured meat for the winter and times of drought. You know what things we hunters need to do our jobs well. Ain't no hunter gonna vote for Roderick over you. Certainly not me."

"I didn't know you felt that way," Carol replies in surprise.

"You never asked."

"Daryl didn't tell me the hunters felt that way, either."

"Daryl doesn't talk to the hunters much, unless it's about hunting. And half of the time, he hunts by himself. He is not your best source of political gossip. Or any gossip, really."

Carol smiles. She studies John's handsome but haggard face. "You should come to the Christmas play with us. At the Kingdom. You didn't sign up."

"I'm not much for Dickens, and A Christmas Carol has been played to death."

"There are a lot of widows in the Kingdom." Henry's right – there are very few single women between the age of eighteen and thirty, but there are quite a few between the age of forty and sixty.

"I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should focus on self-improvement before I pursue another relationship," John tells her. "But I do appreciate the offer."

"Then you can hold down the fort for us when we're gone. Babysit Merle. Don't move out tomorrow. Finish up that trailer first, and when it's the way you want it…then worry about moving out."

"Thank you, Carol." He stands. "I will take you up on that offer. But it won't be long now before I move out, I promise you." John bids her goodnight and vanishes into his bedroom, and Carol returns to bed.

Daryl is sleeping on his stomach and spread out over half the bed. She pokes him to get him to roll on his side. He jerks in his sleep and reaches instinctively for a knife that isn't there.

"Shhh," she murmurs. "Just me."

"Just you," he repeats. "Ain't no such thing as just you. Yer the best damn thing in the world." He rolls on his side, drags her back against his chest, and kisses her cheek.

"You're a good friend, Daryl," she tells him.

He doesn't reply. He's already fallen asleep again.