He sat in the hallway with his back to the wall after finding Carol's knife in the neck of a walker, unable to think about anything but her last moments. Finally he allowed himself to lose control, breaking down in a way he hadn't let himself break down since he was a kid and he had realised that his brother had gone and left him alone with his father. On the rare occasions that he had shed tears since then, including the previous day after he had visited her grave, it had been a single tear that had escaped before he got a grip on himself. Thinking about Carol, he found that he couldn't hold them back.
For what felt like hours he sat alone in the cell block, fighting to control the emotions that surged and seethed in him, making him unstable and too dangerous to be around other people. The rage was bright and blinding, a need for movement and violence that had him burying her knife into the floor and wall over and over. A door moved, across the hall, the door that he had concluded a weakened walker was trapped behind when he, Oscar and Carl had cleared the block of any lingering walkers, its movement drawing his attention. Back and forth. Back and forth. Gentle movement, not even strong enough to push aside the fallen walker that blocked it from opening.
In a coordinated surge Daryl rose to his feet to lash out with a vicious kick at the moving closet door, before pacing back and forth along the narrow walkway, temper driving him, muscles screaming for an outlet of all the pent-up frustration. She should have survived, should have lived longer than the rest of them combined because that woman had suffered more than her share in her lifetime. With his fury still riding him, he watched the door, tracking it's movement, arguing with himself but unable to stop himself from doing what he knew he was working up to. The walker in that room was about the pay the debt for Carol, he knew that once he started stabbing he wouldn't be able to stop.
Gripping Carol's knife between his teeth, he dragged the fallen walker across the hallway and hauled open the door, ready to destroy whatever was behind it with every ounce of savagery that was in him. He felt the rush as the stale, overheated air escaped from the room and he lunged, only to realise that there was no walker. There was no enemy waiting to meet him, just one small figure slumped against the wall. As if in slow motion, her head turned toward him, blue eyes fluttering as she struggled to stay awake. Carol.
Hardly daring to believe his eyes, sure that he had to be dreaming, Daryl crouched down and gently took her chin between his fingers, lifting her face so that he could see her better. Despite being dirty and sweat stained, she was the most beautiful sight his eyes could have conjured up. She put up no resistance when he touched her, eyes fighting against the exhaustion so that she could meet his gaze. He saw wonder and hope in those eyes as they searched his features. Wondering whether she thought she was hallucinating his presence, he murmured soft words to her, swiftly assessing her for injury with his gaze. His anger dissipated in an instant, replaced by a bone deep concern over her condition. Days she had been missing, locked away in a tiny room with the stifling heat and no supplies, she needed medical attention if she was going to survive.
She weighed next to nothing in his arms, fit against him so reassuringly, as he carried her along the hall and towards safety. He didn't talk to her, understanding that she was too weak to form words with which to answer him. There would be time for talking later, there would be time for him to deal with his emotional responses later, right now he needed to get her somewhere comfortable and get some water into her. Even as she drifted in and out of consciousness, he was reassured by the feeling of her arm around his neck and the small sounds she made as she breathed.
It didn't take long for her to perk up when he got her back to their cell block and laid her out on her bunk. After drinking some water, eating a little and taking a nap, she seemed remarkably revived. Unable to believe his good fortune, terrified to let her out of his sight in case she simply disappeared, he had stayed at her side the whole time, watching over her as she slept, taking reassurance from the steady rise and fall of her chest. While he waited for the others to return from wherever they were, he counted his blessings and thought back on the memories that had tormented him so much in recent days but now offered him comfort.
Hours later, after she had rested, he had watched her tearful reunion with the others, witnessing her tears as she counted who was among them and who was not. He hadn't told her about Lori or the baby, hadn't reminded her that T-Dogg was gone or wanted to bring her any more pain in those precious hours while he sat at her side and marvelled that she was still alive. Her movements were slow, painful as though each step was almost more than her weakened body could tolerate, but she forced herself up to hug each of them, to offer condolences to Rick and to greet the newest member of their family.
Daryl watched her take the baby in her arms and he mourned her loss as a mother all over again, seeing the tenderness with which she observed the newborn and the easy way she adjusted her in her arms made him sorry that she would probably never have another child of her own. The pain that appeared so fleetingly in her eyes told him exactly when she thought back to Sophia as an infant and the tender moments she must have shared with her own daughter. He counted her tears and he watched every trace of emotion that flickered in her features, holding the images close, storing them among the bank of memories he had collected of their time together over the last few months. Dammit but he was going to have to do something about the way he felt about her, what he didn't know, but he knew that he was as much her now as he was himself, her life so entwined with his that he no longer knew quite where he ended and she began.
He realised that he was never going to get tired of watching her, the way she moved, the way she smiled, the soft look in her eyes that only seemed to appear when she thought no-one was watching her. Like a voyeur he stole those moments and held them close. She was his miracle, a bright, flaming beacon that gave him something to cling to. That night, when she was once again sleeping, he finally admitted to himself that without her his life was empty and began to wonder what that meant for them both.
