Daryl wasn't sure he'd ever seen so many women in one place before. It was as if they'd stumbled upon a sorority where the members carried rifles and knives. He'd counted two dozen the previous night when they'd gone up to the main house for dinner. Moving in a steady stream from the front door into the kitchen and back out again with whatever food they'd gotten.
Everyone seemed to have somewhere to be. There were no loiters. No sit down dinners around the large table that was set up as a makeshift buffet, holding a pot of stew that someone named Vi was only too happy to watch everyone try.
He'd been requested to help fix the fencing in a far off field by Xander this morning, which was his current destination when Carol and Rick fell in step on either side of him.
"What do ya think so far?"
He shrugged at Rick as they continue on their path along the outer permitter of the property. "Dunno yet. Made it through one night though and we're all still in one piece."
"Don't think it's the people here we have to worry about." Carol had her arms crossed as she matched pace with him and Rick, a smile that didn't even crinkle her cheeks gracing her face as one of the girls passed them.
"Whatdya mean?"
She shook her head, smile gone now that they were alone again. "I can't put my finger on it. They're too…settled? Too relaxed? I don't know. I heard Dawn and Faith bickering about who got the last of the red vines this morning and Xander was making jokes about fixing windows during the apocalypse."
"Maybe they've just adjusted."
She sighed. "Is there such a thing anymore?"
They stopped at the top of a hill, an eight foot section of broken fence in their sights with two other girls already working on it.
"You think they're walker bait? That it?"
Carol nodded and he let himself think about the interactions he'd had so far with the new group. There was an easy pace here but there was also an undercurrent of conflict between the four people who led this small army of teenaged girls.
He'd noticed how Buffy barely had two words for him or anyone from his group the few times they'd had a chance to interact. When they'd arrived he'd expected the so-called leader to be the one who handled them in most respects, but she'd been delegating that burden to others so far. Xander especially got the job of managing the new additions.
"They got you doing anything yet?" He watched as Carol nodded and pulled her top a little closer.
"I offered to help in the kitchen this morning. Vi and Dawn were all for it, Faith looked like she wanted to say something but didn't. I don't know how they feed all these people, they're bottomless pits from what I saw last night."
Rick piped up from his post at Daryl's other side. "Rest of us haven't been tagged yet. Could be they don't trust us, which is understandable. Could be they need time to…figure us out."
Daryl squinted against the sunlight. "Think it's weird there's only a bunch of women here? Feels like I stepped into a nest of black widows."
Rick tilted his head and nodded his agreement. Carol smirked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry. I'll protect you."
He scoffed as they all parted ways and he headed for the line of fencing with his name on it. There was something off here, they all felt it but what it was no one could pin point just yet. As he watched the other two woman fixing the fence next to him, lifting lumber with barely a wince and not a complaint to be heard between them he wondered if this new community would end up surprising them all. In one way or another.
"I thought we talked about this. All of us. We agreed that it wasn't a good idea after…" Buffy trailed off while she and the others cast questioning looks directly at Xander.
They were all gathered around the kitchen island in the main house. Buffy, Xander, Faith and Dawn. Discussing the merits or lack thereof of Xander's decision to bring the new group back to home base.
He sighed. "We did talk about it and I know why that was the plan." He narrowed his focus to Buffy, expression serious. "I know. But It can't be the plan forever."
Buffy crossed her arms, frustration clear on her face. "Why not? You think you did them a favor? You didn't. They're safer out there then they are in here with us."
Faith hopped off the countertop she was perched on, tossing a few peanuts into her mouth before passing the bag to Dawn. "I gotta agree with Xander, B. Look, you know I'm the last one to say we need to be saving everyone, but what the hell are we even doing anymore if we don't try?"
Buffy paused, her voice quiet when she spoke. "How do we make sure the same thing doesn't happen again? Because I can't do that…I can't."
The mood in the room was suddenly somber and all she could hear in the deafening silence were the screams of people they'd tried to save once before. Death coated the walls of this place. Seeped into the pores of every surface and attached to everything it touched. She wondered if she would ever be able to walk into the house again without seeing it play out in her mind like a video on a loop.
They had all been there when it happened. Everyone in this room knew the price that was paid on both sides if something were to go wrong. It hung in the air between them, unspoken.
"We don't tell them. That's how. They can't be afraid of what they don't know."
She regarded Faith. "They have eyeballs, they're gonna see it eventually."
Faith shook her head. "They won't. We tell the girls to go easy on lifting heavy shit. Not to break out the fancy moves unless it's unavoidable. It could work. They won't see it because they're not lookin' for it, B. Who would?"
Buffy sighed and nodded. Maybe she had a point. The average person wouldn't connect the dots if they went out of their way to avoid presenting dots in the first place. That's where they had gone wrong before. They'd gotten comfortable, attached even, to people they thought they could trust with their deepest secret. It was only inevitable that they'd been proven wrong.
Daryl lowered himself onto the sofa of their new home. The water from the bathroom was running hot enough to send puffs of steam under the closed door where Carol was showering. The entire farm ran on well water and they'd been surprised to find solar panels on the main house and generators for the two smaller spaces.
When they'd discovered last night that hot water was a real thing again he'd half expected Carol to shuck all her clothes right then regardless of the fact that he was standing right behind her. She had been so excited for the briefest moment that her smile was genuine and he couldn't help but smile back in return.
Then she'd shoved him out the door and he didn't see her again until she was freshly scrubbed and clean for the first time in forever. Half an hour after that, enough time to let the tank refill and heat up again, she'd told him to do the same or she was going to hose him down in his sleep.
He didn't need to be told twice.
The happiness at their unexpected good fortune was quickly chased away by nightfall when he'd heard her gasping in bed from his spot on the living room sofa. Nightmares were something they'd all endured at one time or another but they seemed to attach themselves to her like a second skin, rarely giving her a night of uninterrupted sleep.
She'd gotten good at hiding it while they were out on the road but he'd always heard. Always knew. Now that it was just the two of them in this little house it was only too clear that she'd never gotten as good a handle on them as she tried to pretend she did.
Daryl shifted on the sofa as the water cut off and he heard her puttering around in there doing whatever women did in bathrooms for extended periods of time. Wondered if he should try to get her to talk to him. His previous attempts, which were inept at best, had all been shut down with a half smile and a brush off.
He was nothing if not observant though. There was rarely something she did that he didn't notice and it was impossible not to see that something was very wrong here. He just wished he knew what the hell to do about it.
She exited the room as he was pondering that thought, a rush of steam bellowing out behind her. "Give it an hour or so and it's all yours."
He grunted in response and she seated herself at the opposite end of the sofa from him, legs curled under, the same clothes she'd worn before back on again. They still didn't have much yet. Maybe that was something they could change soon.
She caught him eyeing her and tilted her head a fraction of an inch. "What?"
"Nothin." He mentally scolded himself for chickening out. He should ask her again if she was ok. One of these times her answer might be different and he was good at being persistent. In this moment she looked somewhat content though and he didn't want to break the spell. He got a curious look from her in response but she didn't press further. Just settled into the corner of the sofa while he did the same.
He spent the rest of the evening wondering how two people could live together and still seem so far apart.
The next morning the farm was alive with activity and Faith pounded on their door with a heavy fist before yelling at them from the other side. "Yo! Up and at 'em love birds. It's adventure time."