Author's Note: There have been a few questions about this fic being canon/not canon. My idea is to take them from the end of Season 2 to the beginning of Season 3, and match the development of their characters and personality to what happened on the show—but also to add a little romance as it matches with their character development at the time. That sounds contradictory, but I swear, it makes perfect sense in my head. I think in this case, the canon and non canon will mesh more naturally than you think.

Warning for some verbal discussion of sexual assault in this chapter. Nothing too terrible or explicit.

Chapter 16: Lucky

The gunfire only lasted twenty minutes. After forty, a plume of flame erupted far away in the trees, as if from a huge bonfire. Even from camp, it smelled like burning bodies. Carol watched it and told herself bad guys didn't bother to burn corpses. She told herself the people that were burning were already dead, but she still listened for screams.

None came.

Maggie spent most of the time cursing out an argument about patriarchy and antiquated methods of proving manhood. Hershel cleaned his shotgun. Carl was grouchy and kept getting himself in trouble for messing with things. Lori tried to get Carol to talk, but she wasn't in the mood.

After an hour and twenty-two minutes, Carol's head came up. "I hear cars," she said. "Everybody get into the woods." Her heart pounded so hard in her throat she felt sick. She'd almost convinced herself their men had won. Even at 2.5 to 1 odds. But when they left for the other campsite, they hadn't taken vehicles.

Safe in the shadow of the trees, she leaned her gun against a trunk and waited. The cars pulled in, not even hesitating at the mostly-hidden gap in the bushes that was the entrance to this campsite. The engines shut off.

"Should we run?" Lori whispered.

"Yes," Carol said, sighting down the barrel of her gun. "I'll be right behind you."

"Let's watch for one more minute," Hershel insisted.

A man got out of the passenger side of the car and stalked around, right into the face of the man who got out of the driver's seat. "Don't you ever pull something like when my son can see you, you hear me?" It was Rick's voice.

The other man didn't respond, but now she could see the outline of the crossbow on his back.

She lowered her gun. Out of the second car, two shapes got out.

"Glenn!" Maggie bolted from the trees.

Daryl grabbed a bucket of water from one of the trucks and headed off toward the trees.

Carol holstered her gun and closed her eyes, tremors raking over her whole body. This day…it had been too much. Too much of everything. From Daryl's confession that seemed to hint at a crush that had lasted longer than she ever expected, to the attack and everything that might have happened. To killing two live men. But mostly from listening to every gunshot and knowing if Daryl died tonight, it would be her fault.

She stumbled back into camp, suddenly exhausted.

Rick caught her the arm, stopping her when she got to their newly stolen cars. She looked past him to Daryl. He'd stripped all the way to his boxers and was sluicing frozen water over himself. He never took off his clothes in front of the group unless he needed stitches. Not even in the dark.

"Give him some space tonight," Rick said. "You didn't see him out there. I don't think he's in his right mind just now."

"I'm safe as a kitten with that man," Carol said. "I don't care who he killed or how he did it. I killed today, too, Rick. And I'm not sorry, either."

"I understand," he said solemnly. "I just—"

She waved him off. "I know. How was it?"

"Too easy. They were drunk and we picked most of them off from the trees before they even figured out we were found that girl, but she was already dead. After that, Daryl got a little carried away with the last few guys that were only wounded."

Her jaw clenched. Annie. Daryl wouldn't be better, then. He'd be worse.

"Give us some privacy, would you?" she asked Rick.

"Happy to."

"Thanks for backing him up," she said. "I know you didn't want to."

"It was the right thing to do. Bunch of guys like that. I just wasn't sure if he was going to go off half-cocked."

"I know." She gathered up their blankets from the motorcycle saddlebags, and a little food, giving Daryl plenty of time to get his clean clothes on. But once he did, she was waiting just behind him. He slicked water out of his hair and she handed him his crossbow.

"Sit with me?"

He nodded, wild energy still rolling off him along with the scent of smoke. Used to be, he'd yell when he got like this, or break something. But he wouldn't now and she knew it.

She sat down facing him, knee to knee. She took his hands and folded them over the back of her neck, pulling him in so she could lay her head on his shoulder. His trembling shook both their bodies. It was closer than they normally were with each other, but he let her. She didn't think there was much he'd deny her, tonight. He laid his head in her neck, breathing in big, unsteady gulps. It wasn't quite sobbing, but the only thing missing were tears.

She held him, and let him think he was the one holding her. And little by little, it tore her apart. Feeling his helplessness, his horror.

"You know what I realized tonight?" she whispered.

His head moved a little against her neck, and his calloused hand tightened on her shoulder. Not moving an inch past where she'd put it, but he wasn't letting her go either.

"You've been there for all the worst moments of my life. Ed dying—I mean, he wasn't husband of the year, but it was terrifying to lose him, all the same. I spent my whole adult life with that man, and then to be alone, in a world like this, with no one to protect me or Sophia?" She let out a breath. "God. And then you were there with me when Sophia came out of the barn. The night the farm burned and I screamed, thinking everyone was long gone, you came out of the night like a prayer. And then tonight. You were there every time."

"What the hell's that say?" he rasped, sitting back.

She locked eyes with him. "It says I'm lucky."

He dropped his arms over his knees, sagging like he was tired. After a minute, he shook his head. "Worst thing that happened in my whole life, I don't even know if it happened. Think about it all the time. Shouldn't."

She frowned. "What do you mean, you don't know if it happened?"

"What Shane said, 'bout me lookin' like a meth head with a buck knife. That all those times I called for Sophia…What if she saw me? Saw what I looked like. There was all those times I was acting rough, 'round camp with Merle. Yellin'. What if she didn't answer cause she was scared o' me? What if she didn't know I wouldn't hurt her?" His face cracked, and he dropped his head, his shoulders heaving beneath the cries he wouldn't let himself voice earlier.

Carol felt sick. She gripped his arms. He jerked away, dragging her halfway to her feet, but she wouldn't let go. "Daryl. Daryl, don't. Listen to me." She pulled him back down to sitting, held onto him. "Hershel told me he didn't know Sophia was in that barn. Otis put her there. So she probably did stay at that house where you found the oyster cans and the blanket, but she died in the first couple of days when we were still looking for her as a group. She never saw you. She never heard you call. She wasn't afraid of you."

He was holding his breath now, using all his strength not to make a sound, and she curled into his taut body, laying her head into the curve of his neck.

"I know," she whispered, "that if she'd been alive, you would have found her. I'll go to my grave believing that."

A small, ragged exhale escaped him and she pulled back.

"Daryl. Look at me. It didn't happen. She never ran away from you. And tonight, with those men. That didn't happen, either. Even if I wouldn't have killed them, you were coming after me sooner or later and I knew it. I knew I was safe."

"Even a few minutes," he said. "That's all it'd take for them to hurt you. I's trying to cut the ropes with that rock you gave me but it was too slow. And they coulda been touching you, that whole time. So I just ripped my hands out of the ropes and ran."

"Listen." She cupped the back of his neck and pressed her cheek to his, so no one else in camp could hear. "They couldn't hurt me. Not really. When you get rid of the self loathing, the feeling that you're tainted, that your body isn't yours…when you take all that away, it's just sex. When you put that knife in my hand, Daryl…" She stopped, emotion welling up so strong she could barely contain it. "My body's mine. My life is mine now. A hundred men could have sex with me, but no one will ever rape me again."

She took a breath, her cheek resting against his, feeling the quaking in his muscles beneath her palm.

"You think you failed me tonight. But you've already protected me against everything that could ever happen. What Ed did to me, when he made me so small? No one can do that to me anymore. I don't have it left in me to be a victim."

He took a breath, then another, and his hands touched her arms. Settled there, just for a second before he fidgeted away, and she felt the loss immediately.

He lifted his head finally, but just to shove at his watering eyes. Tears stung hers in response, and her heart squeezed in her chest.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't."

He jerked at the ferocity of her tone.

"Don't you ever apologize, Daryl Dixon. Not for that. No one in my whole life has cared enough to hurt for me." She shook her head, lost at the depth of his response. "Most people just look right on past me. I never could figure out why you didn't."

He looked at her then, and he didn't say anything. Not for a long time. She couldn't see his face in the dark, but she could feel him growing calmer, the chaotic energy in him starting to quiet for the first time tonight.

"Lucky?" he asked gruffly.

She took his hand. "Very lucky."

Author's Note: Carol's views on rape are not meant to be universal, or applicable to every case, or anything other than her specific thoughts about it at this very specific moment in time. I don't think that in general, feeling more empowered means that rape wouldn't be a negative experience. I do, however, think Carol is growing more resilient to the psychological backlash of abuse thanks to developing a more positive opinion of her self-worth and to having the emotional support of her new family.