Daryl wasn't quite sure how he ended up in the poetry section of the prison library. He'd never been much of a poetry reader, unless you counted the Dr. Seuss books his mother used to read him before he lost her to the wine and then the liquor and then the fire. His favorite was Yertle the Turtle, because it was good to see that oppressive turtle bastard end up in the mud, brought down from his mighty throne by a runty thing. Back then, Daryl was so much smaller then than his brother and his father and all his cousins, and he liked the idea of the little guy sticking it to the man.

But, in general, Daryl had little interest in poetry. So, today, when his finger landed on a volume of poems, he didn't think he'd like it. The book was by some guy name Rumi. What a weird name.

Daryl settled into his window seat and flipped somewhere near the middle of the book.

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.

He was instantly intrigued. Maybe it was the arrow metaphor, or maybe it was the fact that he didn't feel in control of his own world. Every plan they'd made so far had come to nothing – they'd abandoned their first camp, the CDC had exploded, and Hershel's farm was overrun. They had the prison now, of course, but for how long? The Governor still appeared to be alive, though where he could possibly be was a mystery. Daryl had just returned to the prison this morning with Michonne after following the man's trail to a dead end, a thought which struck him when he read the next lines:

I ride after a deer,
and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.

The words felt like a warning.

I should be suspicious
of what I want.

"Carol said I might find you here."

Daryl jumped at Michonne's voice. He swung abruptly off the sill into a standing position and left the book on the ledge as she crossed the library floor. "I wonder if we should try going south," she said as she walked between two columns of tables.

"Look, I cain't go with ya next time. Trail ran cold. And I got to hunt. We keep bringin' people in. More mouths to feed every week."

She came to a stop a few feet from him and jutted out her hip in that self-confident way of hers.

"Rick thinks we should give up the chase," Daryl told her.

"Yeah, he told me he'd like to see me stay put for awhile." Michonne pulled out a chair. "What are you doing in here anyway?" She straddled the chair backwards, her lean legs spread wide on either side and her arms crossed over the back. She spied the book on the windowsill "You read Rumi? He's one of my ten favorite poets."

Ten? Who the hell had ten favorite poets? Michonne had earned his respect faster than most people - for her strength, her killing power, and her take-no-shit demeanor - but now she was earning his curiosity. "Ya read a lot of poetry?"

"Why do you sound so surprised? I don't fit your stereotype of the urban black woman?"

They'd spent enough nights tracking the Governor together, relying on each other on the road and in the wilderness, that Daryl sometimes forgot his own brother had once tried to kill her. Or that Merle could act like a racist. But Daryl had never thought he was, not really. Merle had joined an Aryan gang in juvie, of course, and that's where he got his swastika tattoo, but he had to join a gang. That's just how you got by in those places, and the gangs were divided along racial lines. And, yes, Merle sure had said a lot of dumb ass racist shit in his life, but when it came to how he treated people, well, Merle was an egalitarian. He made no racial distinction. He had the same contempt and selfish disregard for everyone.

"Dunno. I fit your stereotype of a white trash redneck?"

"To a T," she said.

His lips pursed into a stern line.

She smiled. "I'm joking. You're different than I expected you to be. You're not like your brother."

"Maybe Merle wasn't like Merle either," Daryl said.

"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting it when he let me go."

Daryl leaned back against the windowsill and crossed his arms over his chest. "Reckon I can see why ya might knee-jerk hate me, what with Merle trying to kill ya and all."

"That was unpleasant," she agreed.

"But you and I get along a'ight." He paused, a little uncertain. "Don't we? 'Spite my brother."

Michonne stopped straddling the chair and stood instead. She leaned back against the table. "I've dealt with racism my entire life," she told him. "It doesn't go away just because you have a luxury apartment in the city, fancy art friends, and a six figure job. A racist like Merle…" She shook her head. "That's the easiest kind to deal with."

"Whatcha mean?"

Michonne walked over to a bookshelf, tilted her head to read the spines, and strolled along the row until she found what she was looking for. She held up The Autobiography of Malcolm X. "Ever read this?"

Daryl shook his head.

She flipped through the pages, back and forth, skimming the words, until she found what she was looking for. "Always," she read, "the black people have advanced further when they have seen they had to rise up against a system that they clearly saw was outright against them. Under the steady lullabies sung by foxy liberals, the Northern Negro became a beggar. But the Southern Negro, facing the honestly snarling white man, rose up to battle that white man for his freedom - long before it happened in the North." She snapped the book shut and left it on a nearby table.

"That how ya see me? As a snarlin' white man?"

"Well, to be fair, you don't exactly smile often. Though I've sometimes seen Carol bring a smile out of you."

Daryl looked down because his cheeks felt a bit hot. When he'd gotten control of himself, he looked up again. "I ain't no racist. Far as I'm concerned, there's two kinds of people in this world. The ones that got my back, and the ones that don't."

"And which one am I?" Michonne asked.

"When we's on the road, and you's behind me, ya ever see me checkin' over my shoulder?"

Lips closed, she smiled and shook her head. "So will you have my back, then? Go out there with me, Dixon. Let's go south. Try to pick up the Governor's trail. Just one more time."

Daryl sighed. "Once more? Then ya'll stop?"

"I'm not promising I'll stop, but I promise I'll stop asking you to come with me."

Daryl nodded. "A'ight then. But give me a couple of days. Want to do some more huntin' first." He also wanted to make sure Carol was doing all right, that she was sleeping again and not crying herslef to sleep. "Make sure we leave all these people with some food."

"Speaking of food," Michonne said, "Shall we?" She jerked her head toward the library door. It was dinner time. "Carol's like a magician with that squirrel, isn't she?"

"Damn good cook," Daryl agreed. He trailed behind her, snatching up The Autobiography of Malcolm X in his hand as he passed the table. He shoved it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. As he followed her down the hall and out toward the cantina, she didn't look back over her shoulder once.

[*]

Daryl had claimed an empty cell near Carol's. That way he could go to her quickly if she ever asked for him. It was more comfortable here than on his perch, anyway, but no way in hell was he ever shutting that iron door.

Tonight, he left his large lantern flashlight glowing on the end table so he could read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He was on page 234 when Michonne said, "Knock, knock."

Daryl looked up from the book.

"You're actually reading it," she said. "You like it so far?"

"Guess." Daryl wasn't sure why he hadn't just said yes. He was used to pretending he didn't like what he read, but there was no reason to do that here. "Can relate."

"Relate? To Malcolm X?"

Daryl shurgged. "Man said, the main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle. Hell, sounds like somethin' Merle would of said."

Michonne chuckled.

Another line in particular had also leaped out at him, though he didn't share it with Michonne: "Once he is motivated, no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom." Daryl felt like he had changed, that he was changing, and he knew that Carol's faith in him was part of the reason for that. But he wasn't sure where it would all end up, and part of him was afraid of the change.

Michonne wrapped a hand around an iron bar at the opening to his cell. "Rick's been trying to talk me out of going again."

"Yeah, well, Rick likes ya...likes ya to stay put." He turned a page. "Feels responsible for everyone's life, ya know."

"What do you think of him?" Michonne asked.

"Rick? Good man."

"He was going to turn me over to the Governor."

"Well," Daryl said, putting a finger in the book to hold his page, "ya weren't one of us then." He'd never much liked Rick's tendency to make unilateral decisions without consulting those it would effect, but he wasn't sure he would have made a different decision if he'd been in Rick's place. Daryl wouldn't want the responsibility that had rested so heavily on Rick's shoulders for so long. Even being part of the Prison Council now made him a little uneasy. He was glad Rick had given up sole power, but Daryl had never been responsible for anyone but himself before, and he'd never been a leader. He'd always followed Merle. He never felt fully confident that he belonged at that table. "Had to think of his own people."

"But I am now? One of you?"

"Yer here, ain't ya?"

Michonne smiled, nodded her goodbye, and walked on.

Daryl went back to reading. He had made it another forty pages when he heard Carol's familiar voice, that soft tone that always made him feel like he actually mattered: "Goodnight."

He looked up to see her leaning against the open door of his cell. Her soft blue eyes were on the book, and they were beautiful in the hazy mist from the lantern flashlight on is end table. He lowered the book flat against his lap. "'Nite," he said. "Good squirrel stew tonight."

"Thank you."

"Nah. Thank you."

"You caught the squirrel."

"Ya cooked it."

She smiled. She put her foot back out in the hallway but then she lingered. He waited for her to say whatever it was she was going to say. Maybe she'd ask him to sleep on the bottom bunk in her cell again tonight. He would, if she'd just ask.

"Goodnight," she said agian.

"Nite."

And then her lithe frame vanished from his doorway.

He stayed up late reading, partly because he was interested in the book, and partly because he wanted to know if Carol was going to cry tonight. But she didn't cry.

He fell asleep somewhere beyond page 350. Sometime in the night, the bulb in his lantern burned out.