Chapter 21: Get a Room

It was a storm that pushed them over the edge, in the end.

The rain turned to sleet, and before it turned to snow, the Hyundai skidded off the road. Daryl got in the truck, hooked a chain to the car, and dragged it back onto the road. T-dog siphoned gas from the car into the truck to keep it going when its tank ran low. Once the flakes started to fall, nobody wanted to camp out.

Daryl wouldn't let her back on the bike. Just kept shaking his head and scowling until she got in with Glenn and Maggie and Lori. Once he wasn't looking, she held her hands to the heater vents and shivered herself back warm again, feeling wretched for leaving him out there in it with no gloves. But it would take too much daylight to strap his bike down in the back of the truck and they needed the daylight to find a roof without walkers surrounding it.

They'd circled through this whole area a dozen times. They knew the whole nothing that was out there. When Daryl's motorcycle disappeared off the road with nothing more than a raised hand for them to wait, she could have strangled him. Going out like that, into danger with no backup, no recourse for a popped tire at the wrong moment, was the rawest kind of insanity.

"Tell me about it," Lori grumbled when she saw her expression. "Every time Rick plays hero, I want to play tire iron meets head. Men. They're idiots. Noble idiots, but still."

Carol would have laughed, if she could have torn her eyes off the windshield.

But he came back with chapped, wind-whipped cheeks and a face set in stone that somehow also managed to be smug when he waved for the whole convoy to follow him. Nobody got out to question the call. Engines fired and they all bumped onto a driveway she would have sworn wasn't a road.

White snow was already starting to smooth out the texture of leaves and bones that lay beside the driveway. There were dead walkers out here. More than a few. Maybe whoever owned the driveway had made a bit of a stand.

When they stopped at a gate and Daryl wrestled the un-oiled, creaking iron out of the way, Carol smiled.

"Preppers," Maggie murmured, her eyes following the line of the 6-strand-high barbed wire away into the trees. "You gotta love them."

Carol thought of Ed and shrugged. "They have their uses."

The house was less than she'd expected. All the money sunk into land and gates and fences. The main thing barely three rooms dug deep into the ground, the few windows bare slits above the level of the dirt. It took Daryl and Glenn about forty-five minutes to pick the front lock, because no one wanted to break a door, this far from the road. They couldn't run the cars while they waited, because fuel was almost too low to even make a getaway from this place and all but one of their gas cans were empty. The metal of the car around them got cold before the end. So cold it stung her fingers and seeped into her boots.

She got out of the car to help them clear the house. She didn't know why, except she was cold and needed to move. But it was worth it for the way Daryl looked at her.

Funny how a half-second look of pride from one man was enough to erase two decades of derision from another.

Turned out, it was a good day to get brave, because there wasn't a single walker inside. Just blankets and thick walls and two bedrooms with a big kitchen/living room combo. Wherever the owner had made his stand, it wasn't in here.

Daryl pounded on one of the bedroom doors with his fist, the noise enough to make all of them jump. "Takin' this one," he said. "Tired."

It was enough. He'd done enough, asked for little enough, that not one of them would so much as complain if he wanted a room all to himself for the night. Even though they'd have to use the dining room table like a bunk bed to make enough room for everybody else to sleep out on the floor. But Carol's heart flipped and flopped like he'd asked her to take her clothes off, no matter how many times she told herself that him claiming a room didn't necessarily have a thing to do with her.

They ate dinner the way they usually did, all sprawled in a big group and passing cans around once Carol had spiced them the best she could. Carl had his head on his mom's knee, half-asleep already, and Maggie leaned hard against Glenn. Rick stood propped against the wall next to the other bedroom, waving Lori off when she tried to pass a can to him, gesturing for her to take more.

Halfway through dinner, Daryl returned from outside with a whoosh of cold air, stomping snow off his boots after Maggie gave him a dirty look. Carol kept him in the corner of her eye, aware of his every movement in the room for so many reasons. The air between them was practically humming now. With the memory of her attackers. Whatever vengeance he'd taken to make Rick say, "Never do that in front of my kid." With the plunk of smooth stones into pond water and secrets shared just between them.

With how his face had looked when he claimed a bedroom, his eyes nervous in a way she'd never seen him in a fight.

He stopped near Rick, just a few steps behind her. Close enough she could hear them even over the buzz of conversation in the room.

"Sorry about ya face," Daryl muttered.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather you didn't make a habit of it," Rick said dryly, but with enough warmth to keep her from standing up to referee. She shifted the way she was sitting so she could watch them. "You punch like your big brother," Rick said.

"That good or bad?" The floor creaked as Daryl shifted his weight.

"Well, my face doesn't exactly think it's a compliment."

Carol ducked her head to hide her smile so no one else in the gossipy group would realize they were missing out on good eavesdropping.

"Listen." Rick's voice was low enough now even she almost couldn't hear him. "If I ever lay a hand on my son in anger, I hope you'd hit me twice that hard."

Carol took a bite of food so she wouldn't look like she was listening, but couldn't even swallow.

"There have been times where I haven't been myself," Rick said, "and things in this world being like they are… It helps to know someone else cares enough to look after my family."

"Ain't like I was trying to be his daddy."

"I know."

Daryl's dirty boots scraped against the floor as he fidgeted, and then he said roughly, "I'd keep 'em safe. Something happened. Wouldn't leave 'em."

"I know." Rick reached out and squeezed his shoulder, holding the other man's eyes despite the bruise that swelled Rick's whole cheek down into his mouth.

Carol busied herself with her can of food, emotion squeezing through her until she couldn't be sure she wouldn't have to excuse herself out into the snow just to hide everything the exchange between the two men made her feel.

Shane never would have looked out for Daryl that way. Wouldn't have even known what it would mean to the man to be trusted with someone else's family.

Carol finally swallowed, looking at the group around her. They'd nearly scattered that first night after the farm burned, afraid and so uncertain. Even Rick had been barely hanging on by a thread. But his thread had been enough to keep them all together. And they were all still alive, every one. These days, it was nearly a miracle.

Daryl crossed the room to get his share of food from Lori. Carol peeked behind her and caught Rick's gaze. She smiled at him. She should do more than that. Tell him she appreciated everything he'd done for them, the sacrifices he'd made, the weight he'd taken on. But not tonight, when they were all crammed in like they were living in a subway car.

They might be here a while, if the storm didn't break. Walkers got slower in the cold, and the snow and wind muffled sound so they didn't group up like normal. Hopefully that would be enough to keep them from accumulating here until the weather changed. Then again, snowstorms never lasted long in Georgia. They probably wouldn't get much of a respite.

Carol's eyes settled on Daryl, his shoulders hunched below leather as he wolfed down his dinner, standing by the fireplace. The smoke would dissipate in the snow as well, which would keep them hidden from humans and walkers alike. It was a real treat, finding this place. Enough to make her wonder if this was the moment she'd been waiting for since she took him to skip rocks. If she was brave enough to open herself up to whatever reaction he might have if she asked for more.

Daryl was volatile on his best days, explosive on his worst. Most likely he'd shove her away, say something hurtful, and she wouldn't know his real answer for two or three excruciating days until he calmed down.

She rubbed absently at the center of her chest. It would be up to her to stay steady for him, to be his calm in the storm of his own emotions that he'd never learned how to handle. But she'd felt nothing but rejection from men from so long. And why would he be interested in her? Old as she was, just a knife and a couple of shooting lessons away from being a burden. Maggie and Beth were both prettier, Lori more feminine in so many ways.

But then, he'd claimed that private room tonight. Because he needed space from the group? Or was it something else? Something, maybe, to do with her?

For the rest of the evening, she could hardly breathe, much less make conversation. She kept her eyes on the floor as her thoughts whirled crazily, all the way until it was time to go to bed.

He would want to be alone, she decided. She wouldn't push, wouldn't even think of trying to join him, even though she never got any sleep when he wasn't nearby.

But when he went to his room that night, he glanced at her first. Ticked his chin up a quarter of an inch. Any more was hanging it out there too much, in front of a whole houseful of people who knew their every secret and would be with them until the day they died.

And she followed.

Author's Note: Quick shout-out: Whoever that TVD guest reviewer was who said my old fandom misses me, you are a shining star of a person and I want to buy you a pony. Also, to the folks leaving reviews in French and Spanish, GO FOR IT! I've got Google Translate and I'm loving the hell out of these! Review in any language you're most comfortable with.

Next chapter, I've got a little bit I'm excited about sharing, my personal headcanon for how Carol and Daryl spent that wine-fueled night at the CDC.