AN: sorry for the delay! Let me know what you think :)

I do not own or profit from The Walking Dead

Chapter 10

"Carol...this isn't what it sounds like" Daryl started then stopped as she put her hand up and pushed herself up to a sitting position.

"You mean you're not part of the saviours, you don't intend to give me to Neagan?" She asked quietly. He swallowed staring at those eyes. Those eyes were what had lost him in the first place. He drowned in those eyes and the memory of them the past two years.

She bowed her head, composing herself, then looked back up. "Why?" She spoke so softly he could barely hear her. Her face looked so broken and alone, it broke his heart.

"Just tell me why? This isn't you." Carol said more forcefully. "This isn't any of you..." She looked around the group "You're better than this...you all are."

The tension in the room seemed to permeate the air. It was choking him. He wanted to vomit. He could speak, he barely knew her but somehow her approval meant everything.

Perez stood up. "Merle and Daryl met up with me, my cousin Ceasar and my sister, a year ago. For a long time it was the five of us. My sister Tara is seventeen. We were doing okay. But I was always on the look out for a group. I just wanted her to be safe. " he coughed into his hand his voice breaking. "I was the one who convinced them to join the Saviours. We didn't know what they were. If I had known I would have never put my sister in that situation. When we realized how bad it was it was too late. Neagan kept Tara close to him. Never let her out of his sight. She's seventeen." Perez whispered staring at Carol. " I don't know what we were thinking. That if we brought you to him it would earn us points, I don't know. I just wanted to save my sister."

Daryl watched her as she nodded, her face intently watching Perez's story. She looked down at her feet as if she was contemplating life, as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. He almost didn't hear her when she spoke.

"Ok, I'll do it...trade me for her safety."

Xxxxxxxxxzxxz

She was sitting on the side of the bed, staring out the window, watching the sun set. The sun played off her face, she was beautiful. He was so far gone, fuck he was in trouble.

"Carol..." He started to say.

"Don't" she kept her back to him. "Do you know someone named Paula?" She asked queitly.

"Yeah..." Paula was a massive bitch, one of Neagan's lieutenants. It wasn't often that Neagan found women ruthless enough to carry out his orders to the t. But Paula, he'd often thought had let go of the last part of her soul along time ago.

"I killed her."

Daryl say gaping at her. Paula had seemed like an unyealding wall of sheer will.

"Tell him that, when you give me to him. It will make me more valuable." She whispered her eyes still staring out the window.

"Carol..."

She put her hand up again, her hand going to the buttons of her shirt. All the air seemed to seep out of his lungs, as he watched her slowly get undressed with her back to him.

"Paula, told me, a little about how things work, I know what's ahead of me. Rape, torture, death" Her shirt dropped to the bed her back still facing him. "I've only ever been with Ed." She looked over her shoulder nodding at the myriad of scars he saw on her shoulder that he recognized as cigarette burns. "That was his idea of treating a girl right..." She chuckled sarcastically shaking her head, as her fingers went to her belt working the buckle of her pants. "I've never been with someone who made it about me." She said sadly.

Her voice was so broken, so sad that Daryl felt his eyes get suspiciously misty.

"I want you Daryl." She whispered and then turned so she was facing him naked.

"Show me how it's supposed to be."