The prison was essentially a large empty space enclosed by thick walls. Little rooms, chokingly small with entrances covered in thick steel bars, carved into the left side of Cell Block that once acted as punishment for convicts now seemed like luxuries. Even the little cell beds with the lumpy, creaky mattresses felt like bliss to the group members' sore backs. Everybody had been sleeping on thin sheets spread over whatever surface was under their feet, be it grass, compacted soil or moldy wood. But with showers scarce and filth abundant, the group quickly accumulated a thick layer of dirt on their skin and clothing and thus the blankets became equally as grimy in a very short amount of time.

Carol had found a big wicker basket in a supply closet—inhabited, of course, by a walker whose existence she ended promptly with a knife to the skull—and decided to do a laundry run. There was a ditch filled with water—stagnant water, but water nonetheless—right outside the fence, and Carol figured she'd provide everyone with good clean clothes and blankets. She began stripping the beds one by one and picking up piles of dirty clothing thrown carelessly to the ground. Cleaning in the middle of the apocalypse might seem silly, but it really comforted her. If she tried really, really hard she almost felt like things were normal.

When she'd rummaged through all the occupied cells she headed towards the perch. Daryl was sitting there cross-legged, his poncho tossed in a corner, his eyes fixated on the sturdy stick he was whittling. Making new arrows for his crossbow, Carol figured. "Ain't never hurt anyone to have a few extra," he'd told her once in an almost-grumble.

Daryl didn't look up as Carol collected the few shirts and pairs of pants he'd flung into a nook. She left the poncho alone. She knew he wouldn't like her washing it, because doing so might screw with the fabric. Carol didn't say a word as she left. Daryl felt a pang of guilt. If only he'd just left Merle behind, Carol might not hate him. But he couldn't leave Merle. Merle was his brother! And no matter how much Merle pissed everyone off—Daryl included—he just couldn't bring himself to abandon his own blood so easily.

Speaking of Merle, Carol still had one final stop to make. It was the last cell, closest to the side door, furthest from the perch, as Daryl requested. He was holding a bit of a grudge against Merle at that moment. Not that anyone blamed him.

Carol stood, arms curled over the basket full of laundry, at the locked entrance of Merle's appointed cell. Nobody in the group wanted to bring him in—besides Daryl, of course—but Rick couldn't afford to lose Daryl, so he reluctantly barred Merle into a cell. Merle obviously put up quite a fight: he kicked and yelled curses. At one point he even spat. And then when Rick bolted him up in that cell, he went berserk. His rage echoed off every surface, and if it weren't hectic enough, Judith began to cry after being rudely jostled from her nap.

Eventually Merle shut up, but only when Daryl forced him to. He wasn't happy about his baby brother bossing him around, but he begrudgingly listened. Now he was slumped over against the wall, head leaning to one side, and Carol wondered if he were actually sleeping or just feigning.

"Merle," she whispered harshly, rattling a bit on the bars. He promptly lifted his big head to face her with spite burning in his eyes. He did look a bit like Daryl, but there was some softness missing from his rough face. Merle Dixon was a shadow of the man his brother was.

"I'm doin' a laundry run. You got anything you want me to wash?"

Merle snorted with loathe as if Carol were the most useless person to ever tread planet earth. Carol took that as a 'no' and headed to the ditch with a bottle of soap in her hand. It was electric blue and for dishes. Pickings were slim. But just as Carol thought her encounter with Merle was over, he called her over again. She turned swiftly on her heel.

"Hey peaches," he mocked and Carol remembered when Daryl had sarcastically called her 'peach' that night shortly after they'd found Sophia before completely exploding. He apologized later on, but Carol knew not to take Daryl's little fits personally. Merle glared at her and Carol glared back. "You stay away from my lil' brother, you hear me?"

.:|:.

That evening, Carol was peeling carrots for dinner. Daryl had gone out hunting earlier and he'd brought back two rabbits and a sack of carrots. He claimed he'd found them at some farm that was recently abandoned. The homeowners had been surviving on their own garden before their property was overrun, much the same way the Greene farm had been. Most of the vegetables had been ravaged by wild animals, but the carrots survived. The leafy tops were gnawed to stubs, but otherwise they were perfectly edible. Carol figured she'd make a stew.

Daryl was back to whittling arrows, only this time he was sitting at the table across from her. Neither said a word, but every once a while she could feel his eyes on her. Everyone was tense and silent as they watched the two ignore each other.

"I don't get it." Beth admitted under her breath to Carl, making sure nobody else could hear. "They were best friends."

Finally, the stillness was broken when the knife grazed over the soft flesh on Carol's finger. She gasped, dropping the knife and it went clanging onto the table. She sucked the cut digit. It stung a bit, but it wasn't anything horrible. She'd gone through worse.

"You okay?" Daryl asked, standing up abruptly. Carol turned away, whipping her hand back and forth rapidly to air it out. A steady stream of crimson blood flowed down her wrist. Carol grabbed a random piece of off-white cloth and wrapped it around the cut.

"Lemme see," Daryl insisted, but Carol just went back to peeling carrots like nothing ever happened. The rest of the group pretended nothing had happened, too. They didn't want to be a part of it. It wasn't their place.

"I don' believe it. You ignorin' me?"

Carol said nothing in response. Daryl was getting real sick and tired of her taunting. They weren't two five-year-olds playing the "quiet game". They were grown adults, and if they had problems, they needed to work them out, not avoid them like the plague.

The truth was that Carol didn't really know why she wasn't speaking to Daryl. She was pissed off at him, yes, but she'd been pissed at plenty of people before. She didn't shun them. No, there was something else at play that was bothering Carol a good deal. There was something she needed to figure out concerning Daryl and she needed to figure it out without his influence.

Carol began chopping the carrots into coins and separating the skins into a pile. Daryl's mouth was slightly open as he sat back down, narrowing his eyes at her as he did so. For most of his life, he'd been told by a certain someone—who happened to be quietly chuckling at the other end of the prison, just loud enough so it was audible to the others—that he was disliked and he always would be.

"Mos' people don' like people like us," Merle had told him once when he was a teenager and Daryl was slightly younger. Daryl remembered the way Merle was reclined on his bed, smoking a cigarette and flipping through one of those magazines of his with the naked girls on the cover. "But tha's okay, 'cause all you need is me, lil' brother. Me 'n' you are the only ones tha' matter."

But over the past nine months, Daryl had grown to like his group. And they mattered too. And even though he always tried to tell himself he wouldn't care a bit if they turned their backs on him and left him, he would care. And there was something about Carol's refusal to acknowledge him that really struck home. He deeply cared about her. Daryl Dixon didn't know anything about love, but if he did, he might say he loved her. But the definition of 'love' was still unclear to him, and he certainly didn't know how to tell when you're in it. It was one of those little things that puzzled him late at night.

.:|:.

It was a day later and Daryl and Carol still hadn't spoken. He did, however, catch her glancing at him a few times. She would quickly pull her head away, but she was definitely watching him. When he attempted to patch a hole in his poncho, he could have sworn he heard her snicker when he pricked his finger with the needle, and then again when he got the brown thread wrapped around his hand. That made him smile, but only a tiny bit.

That was the day when Merle suckered Rick into 'relocating' him a few cells over.

"Please," he had begged, dropping to his knees and folding his hands as if to pray. He scrunched his eyebrows together, giving Rick his best 'puppy-dog' look. Merle didn't look very sweet or puppy-like but Rick couldn't deny a man his rights to be closer to the one person in the world he truly cared for. So Rick tentatively led Merle to the next empty cell—which just happened to be the one right next to Carol's.

"Why can't he stay next to you?" Carol approached Rick a little later, crossing her arms and trying to reason with him. "That way you can keep a closer eye on him."

Rick sighed. "We can't treat him like an animal, Carol. He's a human being."

"But he's dangerous and I don't want him sleeping next to me!" she objected.

"He's locked in there an' I got the key. He's not gonna bust out."

"He'll harass me." Carol stated very quietly. Rick shot her another one of his famous pleading looks. Carol shifted her feet, knowing she'd lost the battle. Rick rested a hand on her shoulder like he had a few days before. Then he wandered off, leaving Carol to accept that she'd likely find herself awake in the middle of the night, straining her vision in the darkness only to make out the figure of Merle Dixon watching her closely while she slept. She could almost feel his stare boring holes in her consciousness.

Only then when Carol turned to see Daryl seated on a step finishing up the last arrow for his crossbow did she allow herself to finally make eye contact. He lifted his head. When she didn't sharply turn away, he smiled and raised a hand meekly. It was a tiny, feeble wave. Carol couldn't help but smile back, even though her eyes were filling with tears at what she'd just realized. At Carol's tiny grin, Daryl's smile grew wider, even to the point where a tiny sliver of white teeth were exposed until he finally dropped his head, almost embarrassedly. Even then, the corners his lips subtly remained upturned.

Carol breathed in deeply. It had taken her a long time to become aware of it and even longer to accept it, but she was finally ready to believe it, inconvenient as it was. Yes, the reason she found it so hard to face Daryl Dixon was because she loved him, and she knew with Merle around she would probably never get a chance to let him know.