Chapter 22: That First Night

Carol slipped into Daryl's room while the living room was in noisy chaos, everybody trying to find their spot and get their blankets situated at once. Her heart was in her throat, but as soon as she saw a pillow and his dirty blanket on the floor, not the bed, something in her wilted.

He had his back to a wall, standing with his hands curling and uncurling at his sides. "I kin go," he said immediately. "Sleep out there." He nodded toward the living room. "Got the room cause I thought ya could use a little space for yourself."

Steady, she told herself, and fought the urge to pull her coat farther closed over the disappointing lines of her body.

"Is that what you want?" she asked. "To sleep out there?"

He flicked a look at her, at the floor. The second time he looked to her, it lingered. On her throat, then her mouth. Fell to her hands.

A thousand memories superimposed themselves in the room between them.

A shy hand, reaching just around the corner to set down a beer bottle with a white flower poking out of the top.

His arm across her chest, catching her outside Hershel's barn. Falling with her, all the way to the ground.

The rumble of his motorcycle, carrying her to safety.

His cold feet on her belly, the fear and frustration in his eyes because he couldn't keep everyone fed.

His hands, scared and cold as they shoved blood off her skin, checking for wounds.

An ache started in her chest. She let her coat fall open, and then she shrugged it onto the floor. Like Lori said, they were something. And whatever it was, it felt like the strongest thing she had to hold onto in this world.

And right now, with his eyes clinging to her, it was impossible to feel ugly.

Carol crossed the room, stopped right in front of him. It was two steps closer than he usually let anybody before he started to edge away. But tonight, he didn't move. She lifted her hands and slipped them beneath his vest, moving slowly.

He wore a dark, long-sleeved shirt, the fabric thin enough that it was as warm as his bare chest would have been under her palms. She looked up, but the single candle in the room didn't allow her to read his face.

Carol was suddenly aware that the living room had quieted down. Enough that she could hear the squeak of the floor when somebody rolled over. And Carl's voice when he whispered, "Mom, why did Carol go in Daryl's room? Isn't he going to be mad?"

The spurt of a giggle exploded in the other room—Beth or maybe Maggie, but it was quickly muffled.

"Go to sleep, Carl." Rick's stern voice.

Carol bit her lip to keep from laughing, and she met Daryl's eyes to share the joke. His face spasmed and he pushed away from her. She caught his vest, her fingers tangling with the laces on the sides as she pulled him to a stop. She lifted a finger across her lips and leaned forward to whisper, "Don't you dare say anything. I want them to think I'm doing dirty, gymnastic things in here with you."

His eyes widened. "Why?"

It was the astonishment in his voice that clued her in. He thought she was laughing at him. At the idea that they were in here together, in a romantic sense. All the laughter in her dried up in an instant and she remembered how plain she felt when she first entered the room. They were so alike, her and Daryl. They both needed to learn to stop expecting the worst.

She turned him back toward her, the candlelight flickering on the walls. "It'd only happen after the end of the world, right? An old frumpy lady like me, whose social event of the week used to be bringing cookies to the church social, in here hooking up with the most eligible bachelor in the group."

He looked confused for a second, then seemed to realize she had to be talking about him. But the first thing he said was, "You ain't old." He frowned. "Or…whatever that other thing was."

"I sure feel it sometimes. But regardless, let the group talk. They need something to gossip about." To distract him, she reached up and slid a hand through his hair, running her nails across his scalp. His head immediately drooped forward, giving her free access. "That feel good?"

He grunted one of his affirmative murmurs. She let her thumb stroke across the top of his ear on her next combing pass through his hair. His chin drifted a little closer.

"I'm exhausted," she breathed. "If I lay us down on this bed, are you gonna get all stiff and snappy, or are you going to relax and let me keep playing with your hair?"

His eyes came open again. "Don't mean to."

"I know you don't." Her voice came out a little hoarse. "And I know why. I just…keep waiting on you to trust me."

He caught her hand in one of his hunter-quick movements, holding it hard against his chest. His jaw worked as he chewed on his lip, staring down at their feet.

Carol was getting just as good at understanding his silences as his grunts. And this one felt like it might be breaking her heart.

His apologies always did.

She backed toward the bed. He loosened his grip a little, but still let her tug him along. They sat down next to each other to take off their boots, and then lay down, both of them automatically settling with her on the right, him on the left, because it was the way they always laid around the fire. She had to shift around a little, because the rock she always carried in her pocket—one of the pretty ones Daryl picked out but wouldn't keep for himself—was digging into her hip.

He curled onto his side with his head ducked down at about the level of her chin. It took her a second to realize he was positioning himself so she could run her nails through his hair again. She did, a smile warming her lips when she saw a little shiver wind down his back when she touched him.

He edged a little closer, his knee brushing hers. Carol wet her lips, her pulse picking up. His hand touched her ribs, just barely, then settled into the curve of her waist. Not her ass, or even her hip, but her waist. There was something so innocent in that gesture, but at the same time it felt more intimate than sex ever had, in her former life.

The candle burned low, flickering deep gold shadows onto the wall behind Daryl. She played with his hair quietly, needing to sleep. Not wanting to.

"D'you remember that night at the CDC?" Daryl said, long after she figured everyone else had passed out.

"Yeah?" The moment raced back into her head and her breath caught. So much had happened since then, she'd forgotten: this wasn't actually the first time she'd held Daryl all night.

"Did we do something? Or did I try something…" When she didn't pick up the sentence he dangled, he exhaled sharply. "I'm a dick, sometimes, when I drink. Yell, break stuff."

She craned her head a little, trying to see his downturned face. "I guess I'm not surprised you don't remember."

"I's shitfaced drunk that night."

And he'd probably been feeling guilty ever since about whatever he thought he'd done to her. But of course he'd never say a word.

"You were asleep," she said softly. "When I found you in the game room. Passed out right on the floor." She paused for a long moment. She wanted to set his mind at ease, but she really didn't think he'd be any more comfortable hearing what had actually happened.

"What'd I do?"

"It really doesn't matter, Daryl. It was a long time ago." Only months, really, but it felt like a decade.

He pushed up on an elbow and stared at her. "How bad?" he growled.

She sighed. "You were crying. Dead asleep. Lying on your back so the tears were running into your ears." She traced the path with the back of one bent finger, her knuckle stroking the skin from the corner of his eye back to his ear. "You said your brother's name, once."

He picked at the sheets, stole a look up at her through his sparse lashes. "I didn't try nothin'?"

She wanted to laugh, but held it in because she knew he'd take it the wrong way. Truth was, if he'd have tried something back then, she wasn't sure who would have been more shocked: her or him. But then, if he had and she'd been sticking close to him in the weeks afterward, would Sophia still have died? When the walkers attacked on the freeway, Daryl saved T-dog by hiding him under a walker's body. If she and Sophia had done that instead of hiding under cars with Rick and Lori, the walker never would have found Sophia.

Carol pushed away the thought. She knew the endless pain to be found in what-ifs.

"You didn't try anything," she murmured to Daryl. "I just couldn't watch you cry. I sat down and put your head in my lap." She smiled at him, even though he wasn't quite looking at her. "I was half afraid you'd wake up and yell at me, but I did it anyway. As soon as I did, you curled up into a ball on your side, the way you do when you sleep—not that I knew that, then. Buried your face in my belly and hugged your arms around my waist. Stayed like that all the way until morning."

Sophia had been in the room right across the hall, so Carol would have heard her if she called out. She was glad it hadn't been an issue because she wasn't sure Daryl would have let her up, and he'd been so drunk she didn't think she could have woken him.

"To be honest," she said, "I always thought you were mad at me for touching you when you were asleep, because you took off so fast when you woke up. Wouldn't even look at me for days after that."

He grunted. His fingers stopped plucking at the sheets and moved across the space between them, one finger curling into her belt loop and tugging a little.

"Thought I tried something. When I's drunk. Then passed out on top o' you, maybe, 'fore you could get away." He gave the barest hint of a smile. "Was waiting for weeks for you to yell at me."

She brushed his hair away from his face. "Did you want to try something? Back then?"

The smile grew a little. Became sheepish. "Maybe."

She tugged on his arm, drawing him up until he rested his head on her shoulder, his cheek cushioned on her breast. He was so still he was barely breathing, even after she arranged the blankets around both of them. "Can I tell you a secret?"

He made a little assenting murmur, the rumble of it tickling goosebumps from her skin beneath her clothes.

"I wish you would have," she whispered, and wove her fingers together with his, laid their hands down together atop her ribs. "We both would have been better for it."

Author's Note: Next chapter, the next morning when they wake up together. Because that's not going to be awkward or anything. And a little Daryl/Carl time, because cute.