A/N: 04/14/2015 WELL! It's been a while since I've updated THIS fic. Sorry for being gone for so long. The days really got away from me :/

colorful565: Next time is right now! Lol sorry for taking so long. I'm really glad you like this story, and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

itsi3: Thanks, Crystal! Hope you enjoy the new chapter :)

Prettyprincess45: Aww! I'm sorry to keep you waiting again. I'm glad you liked the last chapter (assuming you still remember it, of course. Lol) and that I added Michonne. I hope you enjoy this update!

moogirl: I'm sorry I made you wait so long :( Glad you think I have something great going here, and I hope that (if you're still reading) you enjoy this chapter. Thanks! :)

wildcow258: Holy crap, it's been a really long time! January 13th?! Shoot, I can't believe I let this thing get away from me like that! Sheesh :/ But anyway, I'm glad you've enjoyed the story thus far, even if you don't remember it XD Yes, Daryl is getting very fed up with Merle, and though I don't want to spoil anything, he WILL end up exploding on him in the future. And it's gonna be bad O.O Yep, it is quite the amazing coincidence that Daryl and Merle ended up in the same car as Carol. We'll just have to see where *that* goes, won't we? ;)

gibbymom: Thank you! I'm so sorry to keep you waiting :( Enjoy the chapter!

Reading time: I figure you guys have waited long enough without me bothering to see how long it takes to read this thing :P

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead.

Chapter thirteen: Back Door Agreements and Admitting Truths~

"You can sleep here," Carol said, tossing her jacket onto the couch beside them and switching on the light.

Daryl and Merle hesitantly walked in behind her, cautiously scanning their surroundings as they sized up the woman's home.

After stumbling upon Carol thanks to their ill-fated stick-up, she had been so kind as to share her living space with them and give them a place to crash for the night - after Merle stuck a gun in her face, that is. Daryl wasn't sure if she'd seen his face or not (she'd kept her eyes set firmly on the road while they were in the car) and Merle had all but scrapped his mask, but he kept his on anyway, just in case things went south. Better to have the cops only looking for one of them than both.

And now, here they were, not twenty minutes from their own apartment. It was almost comical, how they could be so close yet so far, had been able to avoid each other for this long. It must have been absolute fate that they were reunited now.

"Well, well," Merle said cheerily, twirling his gun - Daryl's gun - around his finger. "Quite a nice little setup you got yerself, here. Why, who'da thought the little Mouse here would've been so well off? Haha!"

"Believe me, I've got my fair share of problems," Carol replied, acting as though she couldn't give two cents that a pair of potentially dangerous men were in her home. "You being one of them."

Merle only grinned, cocking his head in that annoying manner of his as he leaned against the wall and effectively (though unintentionally) blocked Daryl from view.

"You can sleep on the couch," she said, ignoring Merle's salacious stares. "I'd say help yourselves to the kitchen or tv, but you're not exactly guests."

"Woah, now," Merle said, holstering his gun and holding up his hands. "Ain't nobody bein' hostile here! We just got off on the wrong foot. Now, how's about you give us some blankets and a nice hot bowl o' soup an' we'll be outta yer hair for the rest o' the night. Sound good to you?"

Carol crossed her arms, looking over the older man's shoulder at Daryl before silently sighing and returning her gaze to his brother. "The blankets I can do, but if you want soup you're gonna have to make it yourself."

Merle smirked. "Can do."

She drew the corner of her mouth down in an unsure half-frown, staring pointedly at them before turning and walking away to get the blankets. She came back a moment later, two bundles of flannel sheets in her arms.

"On second thought," she said, eyeing him suspiciously as she handed him the blankets. "I don't trust you in my kitchen."

"Far as I'm concerned, you can cook for me any time," Merle replied, running his eyes over her.

"I never said I would cook it for you." She said pointedly.

"You never said you wouldn't," he shot back, giving her a smart-ass grin.

"...Don't push it." She said, giving him a half-hearted glare before smiling at Daryl.

She turned once more and walked away, this time just beyond the living room to the kitchen to make them some soup.

Once she was out of sight, Merle launched himself off the wall he was leaning against and nudged Daryl in the ribs.

"Am I good or what, little brother?" He whispered, chuckling.

Daryl shoved his brother's arm away, his anger no longer on pause now that Carol was gone.

"Man, what the hell's wrong with you?" He whispered, breath hot under his mask as he glared at him. "We're lucky she's even doin' this for us! And yer gonna go screw it up with yer dumb mouth? We're lucky she ain't called the cops yet!"

"Aww, cry me a river," Merle said, rolling his eyes and waving him away. "If she was gonna call the cops, she'da done it the second she left our place. 'Sides, I think we both know the real reason she brought us here."

"Because you stuck a gun in her face?" He asked sarcastically.

Merle slapped him upside the head. "No! It's because she's sweet on us, ya lovesick dummy."

Daryl quieted then, unsure if he should really believe his brother's words, and Merle took that as an invitation to further explain his theory.

"She sees us as a pair of lost souls, see, and in her head we're just a couple o' rebel hearts that need tamin'. We're not bad people, she just needs ta 'show us the way'. And with a mentality like that, we could get anything we wanted outta her. Get it now?"

Daryl looked from his brother to the floor, unsure.

"I don't know..." He said hesitantly, shaking his head. "What if yer wrong? What if she's jus' settin' us up fer a big fall or somethin'?"

Merle shook his head, smirking. "Trust me, brother, women don't plan that far ahead. And if they do, it's for their $500,000 wedding. Now, it's our job to just play it natural. Chances are, she don't even know what she's doin' with us at her house, so just follow my lead an' we'll have 'er eatin' outta the palms of our hands. Comprende?"

Daryl looked up at his big brother, still skeptical about the whole situation.

On the one hand it made sense, but the other hand, it made sense. Merle never made sense! Sense was the farthest word he could ever possibly use to describe his brother! It was damned absurd! So the fact that he was making sense now, however deep down in the very back of his mind, was - to say the least - scary. Still, he was his brother. And what kind of brother would he be if he didn't stick with him through thick and thin?

Sighing and rolling his eyes, he nodded his head and replied, "...Yeah, okay. Whatever, man."

Merle's mouth spread into a wide grin, and he reached over to pat him on the shoulder.

"Yer damn right. Now come on; let's see if we're on tv."

Daryl's eyes snapped open, heart racing as he frantically swept his gaze over the darkness in search of his brother.

His vision was marred with black and blue spots as he looked over his surroundings, momentarily panicking himself into a sitting position when he didn't recognize the room he was in, and it was only when he spotted Merle and the memories of the night before came flooding back into his mind that he even thought of calming down. The older Dixon brother slept peacefully on a recliner at the other end of the room, silent except for his light snoring, and Daryl let his shoulders sag as he sighed in relief and ran a hand over his face.

"So you're finally awake."

It was just a whisper, but it was enough to cause him to jump like a startled rabbit on the run from wolves. Daryl snapped his head towards the sound, so quickly he created a rather unpleasant kink in his neck, and he nearly leapt off the couch entirely when his eyes landed on the stone-like figure sitting at the other end of his makeshift bed.

Carol sat there, curled up with her feet tucked beneath her and her arm resting on the back of the couch as she watched the lights from the outside traffic stream in through the only open window, still as a photograph and eerie as a ghost. She reminded him of one of those angel statues that decorated churches and graveyards, pretty yet at the same time devoid of life, and he began to wonder what it was that was occupying her grim thoughts. He thought about reaching for his mask, but resisted on account of it being so dark. Instead, he decided to play it cool and talk about the first thing that came to mind.

"What time is it?" He mumbled quietly, tiredly rubbing his eyes as he fought the urge to yawn.

"Twelve a.m," Carol replied automatically, still not looking at him.

Daryl looked down at...well, what he assumed to be the floor - his vision was still adjusting – feeling an embarrassing heat flood into his face at being dealt with so...mechanically; he hadn't thought Carol was capable of interacting so unfeelingly with a person, as though she were just a machine and he were nothing but a mere human to deal with. And it kind of freaked him out. But then again she was probably dead-tired, and he didn't know her nearly as well as he would like to have claimed. He looked over at Merle once again, unsure if he should stay up or go back to sleep and leave her be, when Carol spoke again.

"I was going to wake you," she said suddenly, and he looked curiously up at her. "But, I figured if you didn't wake up from them before then they must not be that bad."

"Before?" He asked, pinching his eyebrows in confusion.

She nodded, and it nearly knocked the breath out of him when she turned her head to look him in the eyes. "Mhmm. You tossed and turned in your sleep a lot at your apartment. I can't say it didn't keep me up, but, it wasn't like I wouldn't have stayed up anyways, what with my circumstances."

He was glad that it was so dark, because his face was on fire. A million things raced through Daryl's mind at that point; He had nightmares that often?! How much did she know? Did he talk in his sleep? What did he say? What did she hear? What did she think?!

"Haha, relax," Carol comforted, chuckling softly. "You didn't freak out calling 'help! help!' in your sleep or anything. If you did, I definitely would have said something about it."

Daryl wasn't sure whether to relax because it wasn't as bad as he'd thought or to coil tighter than a bed spring because she was laughing at his vulnerability. In the end he decided to let it slide. After all, Carol wasn't ill-hearted or cruel by any means, and so it only made sense for him to honor the kindness she'd previously shown him by keeping his cool and not blowing up over something that probably shouldn't even be on his radar of things to watch out for. And so he merely settled for an uneasy sigh, letting his shoulders droop and releasing the defensive tension he felt in his body.

He had just begun to fully relax, leaning his back against his pillow and settling beneath his covers, when Carol suddenly said, "Do you want to talk about it?"

He froze, swallowing nervously as he carefully answered, "...About what?"

"Your nightmare," she said simply. "Do you want to tell me what it was about?"

When the seconds ticked by and he didn't answer, she turned her head back to look out the window and sighed, "It's okay. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

If it had been anyone else – anyone else – Daryl would have left it at that and happily gone back to sleep with the last sliver of his mental privacy intact. But it wasn't just anyone else; it was Carol. And Carol was sweet and nice and loving and sincere, and he with his limited experience in life and the ways of women could find no reason – no logical reason – not to trust her. And so, he decided, then and there, amidst the stressed silence and distant police sirens and Merle's snoring, to come clean.

"...I was runnin'."

Her head turned to him, surprised that he'd even spoken at all, and immediately he wanted to take the words and stuff them back in his mouth now that her attention was refocused on him, but he knew that he'd already gotten the hard part over with, so it would be ridiculous for him to back down now.

"Somethin' was chasin' me. Dunno what. But it was...big. And black. And it wanted to rip my face off." He paused to clear his throat, trying not to notice how engrossed Carol was becoming in his confession. "Anyway, I was runnin' through the woods tryin' to get away from it when I came across my brother. He had 'is back to me so I couldn't see 'im, but he turned around an' then I saw-"

He stopped abruptly, trying to will away the knot forming in his throat from the vivid memory. "He had a buncha blood drippin' from 'is mouth. And then I looked down at 'is feet an' I saw a...person, lyin' there dead an' mangled like a rag doll." Feeling his voice beginning to slip, he decided to skip ahead and end the terrible nightmare. "...Anyway, I woke up an'...now I'm here. With you."

He tried fighting the urge to fidget under Carol's thoughtful gaze, but was unable to keep his hands from fingering the loose threads on the edge of the blanket she'd given him.

It was a leap of faith, he knew, telling her about one of his worst recurring nightmares since the age of seven, but also a necessary one if he ever hoped to form even a semblance of a relationship with her in the future...and it felt good to get it off his chest. He was just glad Merle wasn't awake to beat the shit out of him for being a pansy and sharing something so personal.

Seconds turned to minutes as Daryl waited for Carol to say something. But she didn't. She stayed quiet and turned back to the dead traffic and street lights outside, not giving a sigh or anything to indicate that she'd even acknowledged his confession. He wanted to feel angry or pissed that she wouldn't at least offer some form of comfort to him – a sympathetic look, a hug, a few kind words – but he realized that her silence was meant to be a comfort in itself; she knew that he didn't like talking about his 'feelings' (though really, what man did?) and that it was hard enough to even tell her in the first place, so she probably felt no need to console or coddle him. And in the end, he decided that he was grateful for that. At least she was letting him keep some of his dignity.

They sat in silence for some time after that, and thankfully it was more comfortable than awkward - though that may have just been because he was so lost in his thoughts – and it lasted so long that it nearly scared the living crap out of him when she broke the quiet.

"...I never told you why I moved," Carol said suddenly, still staring out the window.

Recovering from his shock, he made sure to keep his voice low in the midst of Merle's snoring as he replied, "...'S cuz I never asked."

"Yeah...but I wouldn't have told you even if you did," she replied easily, watching a car drive down the street.

"Well...would you tell me if I asked now?" He asked quietly, looking down at the barely visible blanket covering his legs.

She silently sighed, turned her head, and smiled at him. "No. I'd tell you whether you asked or not."

He looked up to meet her gaze, surprised and curious to the point of fidgeting with impatience, but held back any such urges as he waited for Carol to begin her story. To say he hadn't been wondering about this on and off for the past couple of weeks would be an absolute lie, and he owed it to her to pay attention and listen intently. Besides, after what she'd done for them – letting them stay in her house even after everything they'd put her through – she deserved that much from him.

Carol softly cleared her throat, and Daryl unconsciously leaned closer across the couch as she prepared to speak.

"Back in...back home," she began, and already he was interested. "I was very good friends with a man named Tyreese. He was a big man, very intimidating, but oh, he had a heart of gold." She smiled at the fond memories of her friend. "...Anyway, he found himself a woman by the name of Karen - nice girl, lovely face - and the two were planning to get married. I couldn't have been happier for him, of course; I thought he'd never get married!"

She let out a little laugh as she let herself get lost in happier memories, and Daryl couldn't help but smile too. He couldn't remember the last time she'd genuinely smiled – let alone laughed – in front of him.

"Umm...anyway, they got engaged and things were going great. I honestly couldn't have pictured anything going wrong at that point. Until a month before the wedding."

Her voice had dipped into a sad and melancholy tone, and he tried to quell the borderline morbid curiosity swirling in his stomach at what was coming next. "I, uh...I was out driving. At night. I was coming back from the grocery store. It was raining pretty hard, so I couldn't see that well. I remember I was coming up on a yellow light and I thought I could hurry up and beat it. I..."

She stopped abruptly, letting out a shuddering breath as she tried to level her breathing and stop her building tears, and Daryl waited with bated breath for her to continue.

"I hit someone. They were crossing at the same time I was trying to run the light. I slammed my brakes, but it was too late. I looked to see who it was, and...and it was Karen."

Daryl widened his eyes. Of all the horrible things he had speculated Carol might have done, murder had never been one of them. Sure, it was unintentional (didn't they have another name for murder when it was an accident? He could have sworn they did) but she had done it all the same. And though Merle was no stranger to the occasional killing, he himself had never taken another human being's life, and he could only imagine what it felt like to know that you were the cause of a broken family, a heavy heart, a shortened lifespan. He was about to try and fumble out some words of comfort, but Carol spoke again.

"I didn't go to the funeral. I couldn't. I was...afraid. Of what he'd think of me. What he'd say. So I moved. Packed up and left that same morning. And now I'm here. With you."

She smiled softly at him, mirroring the words he'd said to her earlier, and he couldn't help it as his face flooded with heat at the quiet intensity of her gaze, and he wondered how much stronger it would be if it were daylight and he didn't have to make assumptions on the dim light illuminating her face from outside. They sat there for a few moments, each in quiet contemplation of what had been said, and Daryl had only just started to come to his own conclusions when Carol shifted on her end of the couch.

"Well," she said, clearing her throat and getting up from her spot. "It's late. Or early. Whichever you prefer. And I think that after today – or yesterday – we both need some rest...good night."

He wasn't sure what it was exactly, but something inside of him urged hurried words out of his mouth before he could even really comprehend what he was saying. "Thanks for...um...you know. Listenin'."

Maybe it was courtesy.

Maybe he just didn't want her to leave yet.

But it hardly mattered.

Carol stopped, smiled the nicest smile he'd ever seen (the kind that would have surely blinded him in the daylight), and said in the nicest voice he'd ever heard, "You're welcome."

Without warning, she stepped past the small coffee table resting in front of the couch and leaned down to him, and he instinctively leaned away in response. She must have expected this, because she brought her hand around to the back of his head and pushed him towards her, fingers weaving between his brown locks as she did so. The contact alone would have been enough to send him spiraling into a euphoric state of shock, but then she pushed it even further by tilting her head down and placing a soft kiss on the top of his forehead.

They say that when you kiss someone you have a strong connection with, you feel fireworks inside your chest.

This was nowhere near that mild.

It felt like the freakin' fourth of July was going off in his stomach, with sparks spiraling up into his chest and shit, and a strong but not entirely unpleasant 'zing' shot through his nerves; it felt like he'd stuck his finger inside an electrical socket when her lips came into contact with his skin. Unfortunately, however, it ended too soon - she pulled away a split-second later, and he was so frazzled from the sudden contact and loss of contact that he didn't even have time to understand why he felt the way he felt towards a woman he barely even knew.

"Thanks for listening to me too," she smiled. "Now get some sleep."

She pulled the covers up to his chest, tucking him in like a mother would a child, then turned around and walked out of the living room, disappearing around the corner.

Daryl reluctantly laid back down, trying to gather his thoughts as he rested his head on the pillow. It felt...strange, to have shared such sensitive information with someone that wasn't his brother. Though then again, they never really shared much in the way of 'feelings' to begin with. And to have his fears positively reciprocated, to not be shot down for what he felt and thought - things that were hardly under his control - and the fact that she had shared such an intimate part of her life with him in return, was (he had to admit) a good feeling.

Oddly enough, he found it rather easy to get back to sleep that night.

He closed his eyes, and, after letting himself get comfortable, fell into a peaceful sleep with a chest filled with dying fireworks and feet that were kept nice and warm from the spot Carol had made on the other side of the couch.

"Little brother! Little brother! Wake up!"

Daryl groggily lifted his eyelids to meet the blurry face of his brother shaking him awake.

"C'mon, we gotta go," he whispered, turning around once he was fully awake.

"What time is it?" Daryl groaned, stretching his arms above his head and tiredly looking around. It was lighter outside than before.

"Two thirty," Merle said, slipping on his shoes and tossing Daryl's own to him. "If we leave now, we got plenty o' time to get back home without raisin' suspicion from neighbors. Let's go."

Daryl slung his legs over the side of the couch, tightly shutting his eyes to blink himself awake.

So he had only gotten about two hours of sleep? Damn.

"Aww, come on, man," he argued, trying to fight the urge to yawn. "It's too early to go anywhere. You really think the neighbors are gonna suspect anything? She prob'ly don't even know nobody 'round here. Let's go back to sleep."

"Maybe the pretty face and hospitality have gotten to yer head, so I'm gonna go easy on you, little brother," Merle said, voice growing tight with that no-nonsense tone he'd become all too familiar with. "We ain't welcome here. The only reason we got any sleep at all is 'cause o' her soft heart. Now come mornin' she might not be feelin' quite so generous and decide to wisen up an' call the cops on us. You want that?"

Daryl was at a loss for words. "Well...I- I mean...I don't-"

"Good. Didn't think so. Now get yer mask, we gotta go."

Daryl grumpily rubbed his eyes. "Jeez, what happened to the we-don't-gotta-worry-'bout-nothin' theory?" He mumbled angrily, reaching down to grab the shoes that had been haplessly thrown to him.

"Still applies," Merle said. "But facts is facts, and fact is that if she don't do us in, somebody else will. Now let's go."

He turned around to face him as he tucked something into the waistband of his pants, and Daryl saw that it wasn't his gun, which was lying on the coffee table, but his brother's. The one that Carol had stolen when she'd escaped their apartment.

"Where'd you get that?"

He had meant for it to be a simple question, but it came out as more of an accusation.

Merle turned to grin at him. "Found it upstairs in the ol' Mouse's room. Now we got everythin' we need to get outta here without worryin' about any fingerprints or direct leads to us. Ain't it great?"

"Man, you went through her stuff?!" Daryl whispered harshly, leaping to his feet.

"Chill out, man, it's not like I went snoopin' in her underwear drawer or nothin'!" Merle defended, lowering his eyebrows in confusion at his younger brother. "Though jus' between you an' me, the woman has quite the taste in black lace."

Daryl moved forward as though to punch him, and Merle jumped away with his hands up in defense. "Haha hey, man, cool out now, I was jus' kiddin'! It wasn't even that hard to find the thing, it was right there in her nightstand drawer. Woman's not that original at hidin' stuff." At seeing that Daryl had calmed down he added, "Now can we go? Are yer panties unwadded now?"

Daryl fixed him with a hard glare before shaking his head and turning to sit back down on the couch and put his shoes on.

Merle visibly relaxed as well, slouching his back and rotating his shoulders. "Phew. If I'da known you'd be so damned sensitive about it I wouldn'ta said nothin'."

Daryl paused at the word 'sensitive', but said nothing as he continued to tie his shoes. When he was done, he stood up and grabbed his bandana off the end table by the couch.

"Okay let's go," Merle said, turning and stalking towards the front door.

"But what about Carol?" He asked, not quite sure why he was so worried about leaving her alone.

"She'll be fine!" Merle assured him. "Been doin' jus' fine without us this far, she can do just fine again. Prob'ly end up a millionaire without us in 'er hair. Now come on, let's go!"

And so they left.

A/N: Well, there's that. I estimate there'll be about...oh...4-5 more chapters before this is finished. We'll see.

Anyway, please don't hesitate to tell me what you think. I'm getting really big into PMs now, so if you leave a review I'll be sure to reply rather than wait for another chapter :D

'Til next time! (which is hopefully much sooner than the last)