Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to Goldnox, because sometimes A Modest Proposal gets you the best friend you've ever had. Though to be fair, our proposal wasn't about rodents or hair removal products.

Chapter 29: A Modest Proposal

"Ham."

"Mashed potatoes. 'N butter."

"Yes, with meatloaf and a big glass of milk." Carol groaned. "Milk. There's probably not a cow left in the world, is there? Too slow."

"Yogurt."

She snorted. "You're kidding me. Of all the foods you miss, you pick something college girls diet with?"

"It was creamy like nothin' else. And not cold like ice cream, so it don't hurt your teeth."

Daryl sat back against his side of the truck bed, cleaning one gun while a loaded one waited on his right side. They'd all learned from Andrea's little experience in the RV, when she had to take out a walker with a screwdriver. Nobody took all the guns apart at once to clean them anymore.

They'd also learned the best place to clean them was sitting in the bed of the truck. On the ground, things always rolled into the dirt, and doing it in the cars, pieces got lost under the seats. Plus, this way if they needed to take off in a hurry, they wouldn't leave a single weapon behind.

Carol propped her feet on the wheel well next to him. "Seriously, though, are there any foods you actually miss? I mean, I've got so many food fantasies I feel like I'm losing my mind, but you never seem to notice what you're eating one way or another."

"That's 'cause everything you make's good as hell. Specially when we got time for you to actually stew somethin' up over the fire." He lifted a rifle and squinted down the barrel to see if it was clean. She noticed he never pointed it her way, even when it was unloaded. "My mama died when I's young, none o' the rest of us could cook worth a shit. I ain't never got picky 'bout food."

"Good thing, now days."

"How do you do that, though?" He laid the gun into his lap and added a bit more oil to a rag. "I musta cooked squirrel stew twice a week after I got my bow when I's a teenager. Never tasted nothin' like you make it."

Warmth curled through her, and she told herself she had no business getting aroused over a compliment to her squirrel stew.

"I've got a little stash of flour for thickener, and I tenderize the meat. Boil everything first and pick the bones out before I serve it, for extra flavor." She shrugged. "Mostly it's spices, though. Every house we stay at has spices and I've taken them all. Most of that stuff doesn't grow in the States, so it's the last of it we'll ever see." She concentrated on placing the spring back in an automatic pistol just right. She felt a little guilty at how many of the spices she'd used up on the nights when they could cook and not just open cans. But the group had so little to look forward to these days and even the canned food was better with a bit of spicing.

He fell quiet, the gun parts in his hands coming back together so quickly it looked like magic. When she was first learning, she'd had to slow his movements down so much that he kept making little aggravated grunts while he waited for her to catch up.

The memory drew her attention to the quality of his silence now, because it wasn't one of his easy ones. Not an angry one, though. Heavier than that. She could scent it on the air now, like a shift in the weather. Too much time together, not enough hobbies, she thought dryly.

"You gonna tell me what's wrong or do I need to prod you a while first?" She slammed a full clip into the gun, put on the safety, and set it aside with the others she'd already finished.

He flicked an uneasy look across at her and she caught his gaze before he could pretend he hadn't been doing it. She raised her eyebrows. He winced a little and she let her face soften. He sighed. Tipped his chin up to call her closer.

She flipped around, moving to sit on his side of the truck bed.

"Don't tell nobody else."

She narrowed her eyes. "You trying to piss me off, Dixon?"

His lip twitched. Almost a smile, but his eyes were still solemn. Worried. She hated how often he and Rick looked worried these days.

"Tryin' to figure out how to cook mice." His shoulders tensed.

"Seems like we should go for rats first, if it comes to that. They're bigger and there are plenty of them running around the bushes near town."

Daryl started paying a lot of attention to how he was wiping down the gun in his hand.

"What." She said it flatly, not even bothering to make it a question.

He scowled.

She watched him for a second, turning it over in her head, then winced. "The squirrels. You bring them home skinned and cleaned sometimes, and sometimes just cleaned."

"Don't tell Lori."

"If the hunting's that bad, you think I'm going to tell Lori?"

"Not Rick neither."

She sighed. "Why that man thinks we can still afford pride, I'll never know."

He kept cleaning the gun and after a second she reached over, stilling his fingers with hers until he looked up.

"You think it'll get that bad?" she whispered, very quiet. "Mice bad?"

The crow's feet at the edges of his eyes were very deep tonight, his eyes troubled. "Damn near that bad now. We've cleaned out mosta the houses we can get to. Animals hole up for winter. One's that stay out get skinny by the end, like we're gettin'. And walkers get damn near everything out there. Ain't the coldest part of winter that kills ya. It's that long damn bit right before spring when you keep thinkin' it's just about over, but it ain't."

"Is that why you keep running off right before dinner?" She frowned at him. Once she'd noticed what he was doing, she was careful to save his share and bring it to him, making a fuss over it so he knew she'd be offended if he didn't eat.

He shrugged. "I'm better at being hungry than mosta these people. Used to how it makes your head feel funny. Merle used to say, it's a drug like any other. Cheaper 'n most."

She blew out a breath, letting her thumb stroke over the back of his hand just one slow sweep before she took it away.

"We can stew them," she said. "Lots of tiny bones, not much meat, but we can boil what meat there is off, then pick out the skeleton. Just like a fish, it'll come out easier once they're cooked." Her stomach pitched at the thought but she was very careful to keep it off her face.

Daryl took food more seriously than almost anything. Not being able to find food for even a single day got dangerously close to the difference between life and death. It was such a different world now, how it mattered in such a visible way if a man could provide for his people or not. And Daryl was very much a man.

Daryl's shoulder relaxed against hers. "I can catch 'em easy enough, but cleanin' 'em's a pain. They're so tiny. Not much meat, like ya said. Mostly, I can't figure how to skin 'em. So small."

"And too much work," she said. "It would take a lot of time every night and the more time we spend in camp, the more the walkers group up."

"Think the hair would come off if we boiled 'em, like feathers offa chicken?"

She shook her head, thinking. Picking up Lori's revolver, she unloaded it, caging the bullets in one of the grooves of the truck bed before running the ramrod through the barrel. "Nair," she said. "We need Nair."

Daryl squinted at her. "What the hell's Na-yr?"

"It's this stuff you put on your legs if you don't want to shave. Hair falls right off."

"You're fuckin' with me."

"You get me four walls and two hours, cowboy, and we can talk." She winked.

He scowled, fidgeting with his rag. "About the Nair. I meant about—the hair really falls offa your legs?" He looked suspicious. "That safe to eat?"

"No idea. But if we use it to get the hair off the mice, then rinse them thoroughly, then we can probably stew them up like anything else."

She finished with the revolver and held her hand out for Daryl's oiled rag so she could wipe down the outside.

He handed it to her, but instead of letting go, he gripped her hand and pulled her in close, planting a kiss on her cheek so quick she wasn't sure at first if he'd just lost his balance and bumped her with his face. Her mouth fell open.

His ears flamed red and he ducked his head, starting to growl some excuse about helping Rick as he scooted toward the tailgate.

"I love you." The words tumbled out of her on an exhale, and she thought them so often that until she saw his reaction she wasn't sure she said them out loud.

He froze dead in place. She grabbed the back of his vest and tugged him back over. She hadn't meant to say it but sometimes it swelled up so big in her chest, it was only a matter of time until it spilled out. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, patting his thigh and handing him another gun to clean.

"For practicing cleaning mice in secret to keep us all alive," she said, matter-of-fact and conversational as anything, because it was the easiest way for him to hear very emotional things. And maybe, just a little bit, because it might keep her from crying and making a total idiot of herself. "And for stealing kisses and making me feel like a pretty teenager again. For a lot of things." She shrugged, and started to smile. "I just like you, that's all."

She plucked the gun oil from where he'd propped it against the wheel well.

He just stared at her, parts of his face twitching as he nearly went into one expression, then a different one. He cleared his throat. Cleared it again.

"I know," she said. "You don't have to say it." She reloaded the revolver and looked pointedly at the pile of dirty guns still sitting beside him. "You're falling behind, Dixon. You really want to tell everybody a girl could clean guns faster than you?"

"Ain't behind." He started taking apart the pistol she'd given him while she worked on the rifles.

"Uh-huh." She smiled at him, letting the expression warm her whole body. "You just keep telling yourself that."

He had the pistol apart before she even tore her gaze off his high, surprisingly sophisticated cheekbones. "There's a prison," he said gruffly. "Off that side road, the one with the Honda hatchback and the branches 'cross it."

He said it so fast it took an extra second or two to sink in. "What? Why didn't you say so, back when Rick asked you if there was one near here?"

He chewed on his lip. "Didn't want to. Not with everybody lookin' at me like I'd be the one to know."

"Okay." She understood that, though honestly, for the possibility of a safe haven, couldn't he get past that sometime sooner than now? It had been weeks, maybe months, since their conversation about already-fortified places they could hole up.

"I never was in it," he said quickly. "Merle was, though. Time or two."

She bumped him with her shoulder. Not gently. "Did I say you were?"

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize, either." She frowned at him. "What on earth have I ever said to make you think I'd assume you were a criminal, Daryl?"

"Said I's sorry!"

She passed him the gun oil when he started to look around for it. "Rick needs to think it's his idea. Especially after the argument you guys had about fortified places. Since Shane, he's been so nervous about anybody questioning his leadership."

"Might not be able to clear a prison. Lotta people in there."

"But if they didn't get out of their cells before the turn, it will be easy as shooting fish in a barrel." She fell silent as the reality of that analogy sank in. Nothing about the idea of killing convicts who'd died and turned in cells sounded appealing. "Maybe they weren't infected. At the beginning, maybe we weren't all infected, and if you died, you wouldn't turn."

"Maybe."

She sighed.

"Worth a try," Daryl said. "I'll scout up ahead next couple days, tell Rick we're blocked off by a herd we gotta go 'round. Funnel him right by the prison so he gets a nice, long look at it. Might be overrun or burnt down, might not be. If it ain't smart, we won't do it. He can make the call."

"It's worth a try." She met his eyes, anxiety pricking her at the possibility of mouse stew. But even with everything they had to fear, it was easier to smile when she was looking at Daryl. "If anybody can clear out a whole prison, it's us." She was surprised at how certain she sounded.

She was even more surprised to realize she really believed it.

Author's Note: Remember how I said the I love you for this fic was really weird? Mouse stew and Nair, baby. We got romance with a capital R up in here.