Chapter 4: My Knife

Carol staggered to her feet, hands braced against her knees as she gulped in air. The knife in her hand shook wildly, drops of blood falling from it to the leaves below. "How do you…do this…all the time?" she gasped. "Feel like I just sprinted a 10K."

She gestured at the dead walkers laying around the clearing, her cheeks flushing with pride.

Daryl looked up from where he was sitting back against a tree, tying his broken boot laces together. "Do it day in and day out, you stop noticin', I guess."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be so humble." She put her hand to her forehead, striking a mocking falsetto. "Killing walkers all day every day, whoa is me. Too tough to even bother break a sweat."

He snorted, but she thought he looked a little amused.

She reeled a step, still trying to get her wobbly legs to keep their balance, and pointed her knife at him. "You didn't even get up."

He examined the boot laces, started threading them back into his boot. "You didn't need me to. I could have gone off huntin' and we could have had some actual meat for dinner tonight, 'stead of wasting my time here."

She scoffed, wiping grit-thick sweat off her forehead. "Right, except for when I dropped my knife during the fourth walker. Without you, I would have been the only meat on the grill tonight."

He didn't laugh at that, just frowned a little harder. "You'd have figured it out."

She walked over and yanked his arrow out of the temple of the walker in question, wiping it clean on the grass before she walked it back over to him. "You're not off tutoring duty yet, Drill Sergeant Dixon."

He took the arrow, rolling to his feet in one of those graceful moments that made him look like he'd never sat in a chair a day in his life.

"When you're fighting," he said, and she stopped joking and listened. "Relax."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When you stop breathing, you tense up. Freak out, start panickin'."

"Grip the knife too hard and drop it," she said.

"Exactly." His face warmed. "You relax, take a little rest between walkers when you got the time, it gets like mowing down the grass. Gets easier. You waste less energy."

"Right. Fighting for my life. It's just as relaxing as mowing the grass on a sunny Sunday." She rolled her eyes.

"Must be," he said, shrugging into his crossbow. "You always get more relaxed after you kill you some walkers. Get funnier."

"Yeah, well, you actually laugh at my jokes. Or at least smile a little. That's more than my husband ever did." She checked the knife, thinking it over. She'd been the funny one, back in high school. When had that gone away?

"Yeah well…" Daryl nodded toward the dead walkers. "Given the competition these days, you're pretty damn funny."

"Ha ha," she said sourly, and a little smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, like he was pleased his joke hit home.

She couldn't help a smile, but she looked away so she wouldn't make him uncomfortable with too much attention. Instead, she sighed down at her knife hilt. "It gets so slippery with blood after a while."

"Sweat, too," Daryl said. "In a long fight."

"I didn't expect that."

"Yeah, it's a bitch." He grabbed the knife from her, looked it over, handed it back. "I might be able to wrap the handle in leather for you or something. I'll keep an eye out, see what I can find."

"I better let you go before it's dark," she said. "You could probably try for a hunt if you're quick."

He was already shifting his weight, eager to be off, but he looked at her. "You okay walking yourself back to camp?"

She looked up at him with a smile, warmed that he was back to watching out for her. "Why, you gonna walk me home so you can try for a kiss on the porch?"

A deep ruddy hue touched his dusty neck. He huffed. "Oughta leave you for the walkers, mouth on you."

She winked, pleased. "Try for rabbit, would you? It's the perfect mix of tender and savory."

"You mean greasy."

"I mean good. Why didn't they serve it at restaurants, before? I mean, who knew rabbit was so good? "

Daryl looked pleased, but he just scuffed his boot along the ground. "Anybody with a bow who couldn't afford beef, that's who."

"Well, nobody on earth can afford beef now that cows are so slow and walkers are so fast. So go 'can't afford' us some rabbit, hmm?"

He bobbed a nod, as close to light-hearted as Daryl ever got. "See what I can do." He took off with almost a strut to his step and she hugged herself, smiling after him.

Daryl liked being needed. Which was good, because these days, there weren't too many minutes of the day when the group wasn't looking to him for something. Scouting through a snarl of dead cars on the road, clearing a house before they slept, finding water or dinner or once, wild onions Carol used to spice up that night's beans and squirrel.

He'd gotten quieter after Merle left, but Rick asked his opinion on a lot of things, now that he wasn't shouting it to the whole world like a challenge. When he had an opinion, he gave it. Usually something straightforward but about three steps ahead of where the rest of them were considering. And when he didn't care one way or another, he just shrugged and told Rick to make a play and he'd back it.

She wasn't used to that. To a man not having to be in charge or pretending to know everything. She wasn't used to a man checking her expression with quick, sidelong looks because he cared what she was feeling. Or the way he paid attention when she talked, as if she might be saying something interesting.

Abruptly, Carol realized she couldn't make out his shoulders against the trees anymore. She'd waited too long and now she'd have to walk the ten minutes back to camp truly alone. Her breath caught for a just a second and then she remembered what he'd said about breathing. She relaxed her shoulders, dried the hilt of her knife, and set out through the forest.

#

Three days later, she finished up dishes in the soot-smeared sink of a burned out police station. It wasn't much for shelter, but the walls made it more defensible, and that was nice. She stretched and made her way back to where they'd made a fire in an old trash can lid. Daryl was already asleep, his blankets next to hers alongside the fire and one denim-clad arm slung over his eyes to block the light.

She paused before lying down, because there was a little package on top of her pack, wrapped in some kind of old booking form. She glanced at Daryl, suddenly not so sure he was asleep. She sat down and unwrapped the paper, the glint of metal peeking through. It was a silver set of brass knuckles…no a knife! Long, and sharp, the handle made to be gripped with each finger through a loop of metal.

"Daryl," she breathed out, astonished.

"Won't drop it," he said. When she looked over, he was on his side, head propped on his pack and not pretending to sleep anymore. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Make you pack a hell of a punch, if you want to hit somethin', too." He smirked, like there was some joke she wasn't in on. "Saw it in the evidence room in back, thought it looked like you."

She slipped her fingers in, and to her surprise, it fit her hand just right. And as she gripped the metal, its strength seemed to seep up her arm. It was the tool of someone who defended themselves often enough to have a preference about their choice of weapons.

Which was right, wasn't it? She hadn't killed just one walker. Sometime last week, she'd lost count. They went through whole training sessions when Daryl never had to intervene, and the last time walkers had attacked in the night, she'd dispatched one of her own, even managing to knock him to the side so he wouldn't die on top of Carl's blankets.

This was her knife.

"Thank you," she whispered, looking up at him. Daryl's blue eyes were dark and steady in the firelight, but he just shrugged.

"It fit you. I just brought it to ya, that's all."

That was right, she realized. He hadn't stabbed the walkers for her. He'd just put the knife in her hand, and kept putting it back there until she started to believe she could use it.

"Like I said." Carol smiled. "Thank you."

Author's Note: And next up, a cold night forces our favorite couple a little closer together. No Season 2.5 fic would be complete without a scene like that, but I promise I put my own little spin on it.