"Do as I say. Understood?"

Your voice is harsher than you meant it to be, but it has the desired effect. He nods, takes the bottle from you. Unscrews the cap. You can see his hands shaking, and the feeling of worry in the pit of your stomach intensifies. He was done in before the storm hit, now he's much, much worse.

Trying to save them all again single-handedly hasn't helped, and neither has that injury. The cut is deep enough to require stitches, you're pretty sure. But really, even if you had any equipment nobody could do it. Or maybe Daryl could, but not on himself, not right now. Moot point, with no needle or thread. The other thought, of infection, of the dirt covering you all getting into the wound, also plays heavily on your mind.

You look at his pale face as he drinks a few sips of water, and suddenly all you want to do is put your arms around him, soothe away the worry lines on his forehead and hold him until you both drift off to sleep.

Instead you watch as he shrugs off his vest, winces as it catches on the makeshift bandage. He curls up on his side, back to the rest of the group. He glances at you once, expression on his face unreadable, gaze feverish, exhausted. Then he closes his eyes and relaxes into sleep within seconds. At least that worked as planned.

You sigh, get up and rejoin Carl near the fire. As you stretch out next to your kids your mind returns to the incident by this very fire earlier. He'd gotten upset at what you said, about all of you being the walking dead. You wonder why, exactly. All you meant was that everyone has to find a way to deal with this situation, be realistic to get through it.

But he took it differently. You're not sure how, exactly, but it upset him, a lot. Maybe thinking of walking dead made him remember again all those who died. Maybe he just can't reconcile himself to the fact that neither he nor anybody will be able to save every single one of you. He's struggling with that a lot, you know. And there's not much you can do to help. In fact, for now you're all out of ideas on how to help him.

Judith starts to fuss in Carl's arms. You take the baby and rock both of you gently until she quietens down again. You're reluctant to sleep, you want to keep an eye on them all. But you know you have to get some rest, too, or you'll be the next one to drop. With a sigh you close your eyes.