Author's Note: For anybody who loved the moment in 7x09 as much as me and Jessums did, I retroactively wrote the heel-toe thing into Ch 11 of this fic. Because clearly Carol learned how to walk quietly in the forest from Daryl, and this fic is a prime place for her to do that. So feel free to peek back at that moment if you like!

Chapter 30: What If

Carol was half asleep on Daryl's back when they pulled in. Wasn't the first time. The warmth of his back through his poncho and the rumble of the motorcycle just put her head in that deep quiet place she used to find, skipping rocks as a child. When she started to doze, he felt it in her arms loosening around his waist and he'd squeeze her thigh to wake her, make her ride in one of the cars if he thought she was too tired. But she never felt safe enough to sleep when she was in the cars.

The house they found was a new one, out on the edge of the circles they'd been circumscribing all winter. They should have already been at the prison Daryl had told her about but they'd been cut off by a real herd instead of the fake ones they'd been telling Rick about to nudge him toward where they wanted to go. Still, even with taking the long way around they should be there soon.

Daryl put the kickstand down as she unsnapped her pistol's holster, keeping an eye on the woods. She got of the bike, her numb feet making her stumble a little. Daryl caught her, his chest warming her shoulder as he scanned the edge of the woods, too. Studied the burnt-up chicken coop and boarded over windows of the house. The tree that had fallen on the woodshed and the soaked wood under the ruined roof.

Carol grimaced. "So much for a fire tonight." She shivered, and then tried to hide it. Spring was getting closer and it was warm enough during the day now that she could strip out of her coat. But at night, the damp cold still seeped into her bones like after all these months of winter, her skin was too thin to keep it out.

Daryl scuffed his hands down her arms, but it didn't do much to cut the chill.

"Hey," he grunted, and Rick turned around. "Y'all handle clearing this'n? Gonna go up the way a bit, get some wood."

"We just sayin' that straight out now?" Maggie dusted her hands on her pants as she hopped out of the truck. "Personal maintenance breaks?"

Daryl stared at her for half a second. "Wh—I ain't—"

"Is that what happened to the batteries out of my flashlight?" Carol interrupted. "Maggie, I told you, batteries are sacred."

"I'll tell you what's sacred is my private time with—" Maggie began, and Rick waved a hand.

"No arguing until after we clear the house." He turned to Daryl. "Might as well stay and help us clear. That axe we've got is too dull from walkers to cut down a night's worth of wood in forty-five minutes."

"Ain't gonna cut it down. Gonna take it offa that house next door."

Rick was already stuffing more bullets in his pockets. "It's Georgia. What are the chances two houses'll have a fireplace? No, Daryl. It isn't worth the time to check or you having to clear the house yourself to check."

"Man, you think I'm fuckin' blind or what?" His chest went out, and the red in his ears from Maggie's dirty joke transferred straight into his cheeks.

"That house had three chimneys," Carol said, checking to make sure the clip of her gun was full and the fastening on her knife sheath was open. "They've got to have a big stockpile of wood for that and it would be outside, so we won't have to clear the house."

Rick and Daryl both looked at her.

Daryl said, "I thought you was nappin'."

She smiled at him. "I'm a woman. We have perpetually cold hands, and a sixth sense when it comes to fireplaces."

"Okay," Rick relented. "Can't be that many walkers inside this one or we would have heard them already. Hurry before you lose the light, but at least take somebody to watch your back."

Daryl looked at her, tipped his chin toward the neighboring house.

Her brow creased. "Me?"

"You've cleared a house or two. Why not?" Hershel said, his shotgun leaned back against his shoulder. "Besides, if he manages to rip open some new part of his body fetching firewood, you can stitch it up and save me an evening's labor."

Lori snickered, leaning against the truck and rubbing her belly. It seemed to grow an inch a day at this point even though they'd run out of canned food yet again. She couldn't believe how much canned food it took to feed a group of ten for even a week. The stockpile Ed had at the turn hadn't been a drop in the ocean against what a person really needed to survive.

"Ha ha, old man," Daryl said sardonically. "Coulda cleared that house twice, the time we've spent jawing out here." He raised a hand and grunted at T-dog, who threw him the truck keys so they'd have a way to bring the wood back.

Carol caught up with him as he got to the truck. "You invite me along just to give me an excuse to get away from Lori and Maggie's bickering?" she asked.

Daryl's head swiveled as he shot a glance at her, frowning. "Nah."

She blinked, processing that as she climbed into the passenger side. She'd started to help fight off walkers when needed, and she'd taken care of that robber and her two would-be kidnappers, but even Carl was clearing more houses and going on more runs than her. It's not like she was A-team material. Though maybe Daryl thought she could be, if he was trusting her to watch his back.

She pulled on the seatbelt out of long habit, even though they were only going half a mile. She'd always thought of herself as being part of the caretaking part of the group: making their food half-edible, making sure people had clean clothes and dry feet and keeping up with the hours of water boiling to make drinking water every day. But Hershel had been training her more about medicine and first aid, and Daryl had been inviting her on some runs and house clearings. Soon she wouldn't have time to do all the different jobs and she'd have to pick one.

It was an unsettling feeling, because Carol had never had many choices. She'd always just made the best of what she was given.

Carol sighed and tried to focus on the forest outside the window, trying to gauge the walker concentration in this area. She was too tired to think about all that tonight. Too hungry to concentrate for long anyway.

The truck was still warm from driving all day. She rubbed her hands against her thighs, not aware of how cold they'd gotten on the motorcycle until just now. The forest outside was quiet, just lengthening, tree-latticed shadows. With a CD playing softly from the radio, it felt a little like she and Daryl were just driving home from a friend's house, back in the old world when they'd return to rooms golden with electricity and heat, refrigerators full of fresh food.

She stole a glance at him. His wrist was propped over the steering wheel, faint squint lines expanding from the edges of his eyes as he focused on the road. His mouth was soft, though, relaxed and unaware of her scrutiny.

He was handsome.

A bolt of warmth hit her from deep inside her chest and she blinked once, twice. She was so used to seeing him; his face was just part of her daily landscape. For as much as something in her seemed to orient to him like a weathervane, it had been a long time since she'd seen him with the objective eyes of a stranger. His hair was getting a little longer and it just drew even more attention to his sharp, arresting features, those quick eyes.

For just a second, she let herself imagine that he was her husband. That his ring circled her finger and this truck belonged to them. That he was driving them home to their safe, warm life and a bed they shared every night.

Longing took her so hard her head whirled, and Daryl chose that moment to duck a glance at her, looking twice when he realized she'd been staring. He swiped at his cheek. "Got something on m' face?"

She popped her seatbelt and scooted across the bench seat, then pressed a kiss into his cheek. Her throat ached so the pain almost overshadowed the brush of pleasure in her lips where they touched his cheekbone.

He hit the brakes too hard, spinning the wheel as he nearly missed the turn. The wheels bounced as they hit the dirt driveway of the house. He coughed, shooting a glance at her as she settled back into her seat. " 'S wrong?"

She concentrated on breathing, trying to get that fist of longing to turn loose of her throat so she could be ready to fight walkers in a second. "Nothing. Just…sometimes I can't help but wish that things were different."

His fingers twitched on the steering wheel. "With you 'n me?"

"Not with us." She pulled another breath and let it out slowly. "Just with everything else."

He parked and turned off the engine, his fingers playing through the keys for a moment after the music was gone. The soft jangle of brass keys filled the cab of the truck as she stared out the front windshield at the empty house. One window was broken, and soggy curtains striped with brown stains caught raggedly in the glass shards. There was a laundry basket tipped onto its side on the front porch.

Carol did not want to go out there. Didn't want to leave this warm bubble of the old world to face the cold and try to steal wood chopped by people who were probably dead and still haunting these woods somewhere nearby.

"Hey."

She turned her head and he was watching her intently, like he wanted to say something.

"Be a'right."

She nodded, because she wanted him to feel better, even though she didn't know if he was right. And even though she could tell that hadn't been what he really wanted to say.

"Burnin' daylight." He grabbed his crossbow and hopped out of the truck.

She took an extra second, but it did nothing to brace her so she just opened the door. Daryl had already made it up onto the porch and peered in the front window. He came down again just as fast, the red rag swinging from his back pocket as he flashed her a quick hand signal and swung around the side of the house.

The thing about Daryl's hand signals was that they were never the same twice. But you could always just sort of tell what he wanted. Like his will was a shift in the air around you.

She followed him around the house, her knife gripped loosely in her hand. She tried to listen to the forest the way he'd taught her but she kept hearing that CD from the truck. Creedence Clearwater Revival.

It'd been weeks since she heard music, felt warmth from anything but Daryl's body or a fire she'd lit herself. She didn't know how the people in the cars stood it, popping in and out of the civilized world every day. At least on the motorcycle, there was no lying to yourself about the way things were. Out there, the walkers were close enough to touch as she roared on by.

They rounded the backyard, the light turning pink from the sunset now. The yard was overgrown with shin-height grass and scattered with lumps of useful objects that made it look like somebody had had to escape fast. She spotted an overturned milk crate full of bottled water and made a note to grab that when they left.

"There," she said, pointing to the tarped woodpile between two trees. "Maybe we can fill that milk crate with wood to carry it back and forth."

"Fuck that. Just drive the truck back here. Don't move!"

Her limbs jerked to a halt as the familiar whoosh of an arrow sung by her, close enough to ruffle a breeze through her short hair. She whirled with her knife up to see one walker slumping to the ground and a huge one behind it: maybe three hundred pounds and a head taller than Daryl. Moaning registered somewhere from the trees out to her right.

Daryl grabbed her arm and spun her, trading places. "You get the little un's," he said, shouldering his crossbow because he couldn't reload it in time, and reaching for his knife.

She caught her balance and tried to orient her back to him so nothing could sneak up between them. Two walkers headed her way: a teen girl in a bullseye red swimming suit, and a gray-haired man whose sagging jowls matched the polyester bagginess of his McDonald's uniform. Carol darted to the side of the teenager, all that grayed skin exposed to the cold making her shiver in sympathy. She stabbed up under the ear of the teen walker before she could spin and bite. The moment when the knife hit its deepest point seemed to stretch and sink into Carol's bones.

That wasn't a beach swimming suit the walker wore: that was a competition one. Like even at her young age that girl had once had goals. Carol hoped she'd gotten to achieve some of them, that maybe there was a trophy or a medal back home in her room to mark the years before.

Then again, what did it matter, now?

Carol ripped the knife out, forcing herself to calculate her angle on McDonald's Uniform. She supposed he wouldn't mind the blood that would ruin that ugly uniform. He probably hadn't cared for it anyway. She shook off the morbid thoughts, deliberately keeping her gaze away from his nametag and on the dark drops of rusty-stained drool smearing his lips as he reached for her.

Away from the arms. Daryl had always said to attack from the side or the back.

A choked grunt came from behind her. She dodged and sprinted a few steps away from McDonald so she could take a second to look, because that sound had not come from a walker.

A huge lump lay in the waving grass, and Daryl was nowhere in sight. She dodged the reaching hands of McDonald's Uniform again, darting closer to where the grass thrashed around next to the giant, fallen walker.

At first, when she saw a cell phone in Daryl's hands, her brain glitched and she lurched with dizziness like she couldn't quite remember where she was. Then she saw the empty cell phone clip on the walker's belt and the blood that ran down the glass screen, and realized Daryl was cramming it into the eye of the walker that pinned him to the ground. Its teeth gnashed inches from his face. Daryl's right arm and knife were stuck somewhere beneath the massive body and when the cell phone proved too wide to fit into the eye socket, Daryl ripped it out and stuffed it into the walker's mouth, using the electronic device to shove those dangerous teeth away from his face.

A hand dug into Carol's arm, the fingers bruisingly hard. Ed.

She turned and stabbed, furious at the part of her mind that kept getting mired in nostalgia. Her knife went through the saggy cheek of the walker. Metal scraped off its teeth with an awful sound, and she shoved it away, annoyed beyond measure that it was butting in when Daryl needed her help.

With the extra second that bought her, she bent and slammed her knife up beneath the ear of the walker pinning Daryl. The metal rings of the hilt bruised her fingers but kept her grip firm despite the awkward angle.

The McDonald's walker pounced on her when she was still on the ground and she used one of the moves Daryl had showed her to shove the off-balance body to the side. McDonald's stumbled and fell like a drunk, and she crammed the knife into its temple.

The sounds didn't match up though: she kept hearing moaning even as the walker went still. Daryl's cursing got louder and more breathless as he struggled with the dead weight atop him. Carol shifted her grip on her knife and grabbed the walker by the back of his shirt, which tore away as soon as she lifted.

Daryl shouted at her but she didn't quite catch the words amidst the croaking moans of more walkers. The female in front wore knee-high heeled boots. It fell every time it took a step, then dragged itself up again, its miniskirt so twisted the original cut of the skirt was entirely lost. The next one was a child, barely nine with a scraped knee like it had just fallen off a bicycle. The tallest wore a plaid shirt, an identical blue tweed to one Rick had and for an instant, she wondered if this trio had been a family. If they'd lived here in this house and they'd never wandered far.

They'd bite Daryl. He was still pinned and she didn't think she was strong enough to get him free in time, plus with all his yelling they were headed straight for him. She jumped over the big fallen walker and went to work, dodging grasping hands to stab the tall plaid-shirted male. Blood poured out onto the collar of that familiar shirt and she bit back bile. If there were this many walkers here, was Rick okay? Would he shield Lori in time? The quicker his wife's belly grew, the more it set her off-balance and she fell more and more often when she tried to run.

The child snatched at the hem of her shirt, the way Sophia always had when she wanted attention. Carol jumped back with a little cry, catching movement out of the corner of their eye. Were there more coming?

"Stab it, goddamn it Carol! Ain't a kid ain't nothin' kill it now!" Daryl had dragged half his torso from under the walker but his right arm was still stuck and his unloaded crossbow lay just out of reach.

She turned on the smallest walker, her stomach clawing up into her throat. Something caught at her ankle and she looked down to see the high heeled walker with both hands wrapped around her calf. Chipped, purple-painted nails gleamed with tiny rhinestones in the sunset light as the thing pulled her leg toward its mouth with a guttural, hungry grumbling.

Fear slammed through her veins and the little walker took hold of her arm. She grabbed it by the hair and slammed it down toward the walker on the ground. Their heads collided with a surprisingly loud crack of bone but didn't break.

"Look out!" Daryl hollered but they were both still alive and she couldn't look away for a second with their teeth this close. She jammed the knife into the child's forehead and as soon as she felt the resistance of fresh bone, her heart fumbled.

This wasn't a child who had died in that first wave of the turn. He was a survivor. He had stuck it out through the hunger and cold just like her. Maybe with these people, or maybe with his family miles away from here. Maybe his family was still alive.

She tried to pull her knife out, Daryl's voice spurring her on, but it was stuck fast. As much as she didn't want to, she yanked out her gun. Her thumb went to the safety without even thinking about it, her finger already pulling back on the trigger.

She didn't see if her bullet struck the high-heeled walker because weight smashed into her back and she fell forward. Cold, rotten breath touched the back of her neck and the smell of decay was all around her as she landed on the bodies of the walkers she'd just killed. She squirmed to turn over but then she realized how pointless that was. Instead, she bent her elbow and thrust her gun back over her shoulder, the distinctive click of teeth against metal ringing out in the instant before she pulled the trigger.

"Get up get up!" Daryl shouted.

She shoved, every part of her cringing as her bare hands touched dead flesh.

A staggering form reeled toward her. She fumbled to get her gun up, but then a crossbow bolt punched through its face. Her eyes stuck on the black fletching she'd watched Daryl put on last week, and then the walker crumpled.

She spun in a circle, knees bent and pistol ready, most of a clip still left to burn. The sound would draw more. She could detect movement out in the growing darkness, but nothing within five paces. She shoved the pistol into her holster and grabbed the arm of the walker on top of Daryl's legs. Daryl pushed his recovered crossbow up under its armpit, giving her extra leverage to roll it off him, though its shoulder joint popped and cracked out of place at the last second and she let it go with a grimace.

Daryl rocketed to his feet, rammed back his bowstring and threw another bolt in before grabbing her arm. "C'mon!"

"My knife!"

"Later." He drew her toward the garden shed next to the tarped wood, and bashed the padlock off its weak hasp with the butt of the crossbow.

With the moans of walkers echoing from the forest all around them, he hauled her inside the shed and slammed the door behind them.