A.N: Feels like ages since I've updated this one but I found myself feeling inspired this week and this one pulled at my attention. I figured it was finally time to have them take the plunge ... I'd love to know what you think!


Daryl knew what he wanted, his body was alive, every fibre, every cell buzzing, and yet he had no idea how he was going to get himself and Carol from where they were now to where they needed to be. He'd never been gifted in the art of seduction, or the art of conversation for that matter, he'd never really cared enough about any of the women who had passed through his life for the idea to really cross his mind, but Carol wasn't them. She was as different as could be from the women he had experienced in the past and he wanted to make things special, just once he wanted to go about everything in just the right way.

Despite his moment of bravery that afternoon, he was a wreck. Restless and distracted, he paced the perimeter fence during his guard shift, chewing the skin of his thumb. He hadn't helped himself by prolonging the inevitable. With each hour that passed him by, he became more concerned, less able to focus on the ever-present threat of a walker attack. She was under his skin; he could feel her running through him like the blood in his veins.

It was a relief to see Michonne heading out of the cell block to relieve him of watch duty but that didn't mean that he was ready to head inside. It was still early and he knew that Carol would be occupied with making sure that all the children and the newer members of their community had eaten so he took the opportunity to walk the perimeter. Usually movement was the key to clearing his head, the only outlet he had for the churning of thought or emotions. "Come on Dixon," he scolded, slapping himself in the face when he couldn't settle his nerves, "stop being such a pussy."

It was unfortunate that they hadn't made their move toward physical intimacy when they'd had the benefit of space in the second cell block. Block C was crowded and the thought of the others knowing what was unfolding between them made him uneasy, but other areas that might once have provided them with privacy were now occupied by the former residents of Woodbury. It wasn't that he wanted to hide how he felt about her but he thought they deserved a little privacy while they figured out how to be together, it wasn't too much to ask was it? Back and forth he paced like a caged animal, chewing his thumbnail, searching for a solution to the conundrum.

The sky was darkening when he finally returned to their cell. She was waiting for him, her hands twisting in the hem of her shirt and eyes dancing around the space that they had come to consider home. They hadn't been so uneasy around one another in months. He hadn't done either of them any favours, he realised, by prolonging the encounter, it would have been easier if he had just followed the cues of his body and closed the deal between them that afternoon while he was feeling brave. Now, face to face with one another once again, it was like a chasm had opened up between them, one that he wasn't sure how to bridge.

"You're back," she murmured, standing to face him and moving to rehang the sheet that covered the door of the cell to protect them from prying eyes. He could read the tension in her as she moved around the small room; he could feel its echo in his bones and blood. Idly he wondered if she had paced the way that he had while she waited for him.

He offered her a tight smile, "you think I wasn't coming back or somethin'?"

She chuckled and shook her head slightly but he knew her too well. She had indeed been worrying that he wouldn't return to her that night. In some ways she was so close to him that she could have been an extension of himself and yet in others she remained a complete mystery, she astounded him. "I knew that if you didn't come back you'd have good reason," she replied quietly. Daryl couldn't think of a single reason good enough to keep him from her. The humility she showed him, the absolute acceptance of all the flaws and quirks that made the man he was, was a large part of the reason that he had fallen in love with her. When nothing else could pull him out of his own head, Carol could and she did then.

She came to him sweetly when he opened his arms to her, stepping in close so that they warmed each other with their body heat. He felt the tension ease from his muscles, the warmth and comfort of her spreading through him like a balm. Her proximity chased away his doubts and gave him the courage to say what was on his mind. "Gotta tell you woman, I don't know how to do this right..." he admitted.

With a smile like that of the Mona Lisa, she reached up and placed her palms on either side of his face, bringing his gaze to her own. "I don't care about the right way," she told him, "we just make our own way until we find what works for us."

He hesitated, awed by the trust that he saw in her eyes. She always knew exactly the right thing to say, the right words to make him feel like he could one day be the man she already thought he was. "Come here," she murmured, pulling him down so that his lips met her own. Daryl had known strength in his lifetime, he had been strong in ways that most people could never understand, but he had rarely been completely overpowered by another. Carol overpowered him in that moment, with the gentle warmth of her touch and the smell of her skin in his nose, in the silent crackling of energy that transferred between her body and his, she overcame him completely.

All thought of privacy, all concern for what anyone else in the block might think, was washed away in the reality of having her close to him. Daryl enfolded her in his arms, savouring the brush of her lips against his own as he coaxed her into opening up for him and then enjoying the way that she melted into him as their tongues brushed against one another. It wasn't difficult to remember how to do this, not when she was so close, not when his ears were filled with the beating of his pulse, a drum that called him ever closer to the dance they were about to share. With careful hands he climbed the soft skin of her back with his fingers, letting his fingertips follow the bones of her spine and trace the ladder of her rib cage.

As his hunger for her grew, he forced himself to pull back from her mouth and look at her. The slightly glazed look in her eye and the way that she swayed in his embrace brought him a fierce satisfaction. He wanted to steal her breath and replace it with his own, wind his body around his own until not even the air could get between them. "Can't take this back once it's done," he told her, giving her one last chance to back away. "Just wanted to give you one last chance to change your mind ..."

She shivered as his fingertips traced the edge of a scar that stretched across her lower back, catching her lip between her teeth, caught somewhere between desire and the fear of being exposed before him. Daryl understood her worry, he was conscious always of the scars that marred his own skin, routinely keeping them covered so that he didn't have to explain where they came from and how he had earned them. "Can't say that I'm not nervous," she admitted quietly, "it's just that there are scars that ..."

He cut her off, lifting her chin with gentle fingers so that his eyes blazed down into her own. "Don't ever apologise to me for what wasn't yours to control," he told her. "Don't matter to me that you got a few scars, hell I got more than a few of my own. There ain't nothin' that can make me think less of you woman, far as I'm concerned you're damn close to perfect."

Trading kisses they slowly stripped away the layers that stood between them, Daryl tracing every inch of creamy pale flesh that was bared to his gaze with gentle fingers, mapping the freckles that trailed across the skin of her shoulders like a star burst. He explored her, learning every dip and curve of her body while she did the same to him, stoking the fire between them until they landed in a tangle of limbs atop the mattress of their bunk, him staring at her in wonder as he absorbed the fact that she was real and not the essence of a hundred fevered dreams, and her basking in his adoration.

Daryl paid special attention to her scars, knowing that she was self-conscious about them. It would have been hard to miss the marks and it would have been harder still to miss the shame in her eyes as he exposed them, so he set about showing her that they didn't matter to him, kissing each of the marks that he discovered. As she explored his scars with a tenderness that would have brought him to his knees if he had been standing, he shuddered beneath her touch. He had never laid himself bare with anyone, never gave any woman the power over him that he gave her in that moment. They were the same, he and Carol Peletier, battle hardened by experiences, survivors of the kind of war that he wouldn't wish on anyone else, the stories of all that they had lived through written into their skin. Where he couldn't place his trust in others, he could place it in her.

It wasn't as awkward as he had feared, in the end it came down to instinct and he figured it out the way that an animal would, learning the touch and the taste of her as he went along. Driven by desperation, need and love, he learned the rhythms of her body, allowing the hitch of her breath and the soft sounds that she made for him to guide his actions. He rolled her over so that his back was against the mattress and he could pull her on top of him. As she settled over his hips, they both sighed, skin sensitive to every little sensation, all inhibitions forgotten beneath one another's touch.

Physically he gave her the level of control over him that she had always had, placing her on top of him and guiding her body over his until she could take him inside of her at a time of her choosing. Fighting back a curse as she sank onto him, he wondered if he might be about to come right there and then. It had been a long time since he'd been with a woman and she was up against him in all the right places, her scent burned into his nose. She was hot and tight around him, perfection that he hadn't allowed himself to imagine and he had to fight back a groan of satisfaction at the way that she gripped him, fight back the urge to move for fear that he would lose control and hurt her. A soft moan of pleasure escaped her as she adjusted to his presence, eyelids fluttering closed as he bucked his hips gently against her own. He'd never been one for putting his back to the ground and letting a woman take control but he'd never trusted and known a woman the way he did her. He wanted this first time to be about her, for her to realise that he was giving her far more than his body.

She was resplendent on top of him, the slight weight of her body as she moved over and around him a revelation that chipped away at the chains of his past until all that he knew was the present and the bond that they shared. Over and over he pulled her to him, keeping his touch light and letting her take the lead, losing himself to the rhythm that they found instinctively. He knew when she was getting close, he could feel it in the desperate way she kissed him, in the way she gripped and released him. Bodies surging in time with one another, they drew out the sensations, muscles straining toward the inevitable.

He watched her as she came, hands braced on his chest, head falling back and eyes falling closed. It was a crying shame that she bit down on her lip to stifle her cries, but the sounds that she did make were music to his ears, the finest symphony ever produced and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was probably the only one to hear them.

The squeeze of her internal muscles brought him over the edge, entire body tightening as he gave himself over to pleasure . He came hard, head kicking back on the pillow as his spine bowed up off the bed, hitting the end of her with every thrust and finally collapsing to the mattress. Slumping on top of him, she placed a palm at the side of his face and brought her lips to his for the briefest of moments. "Talk about making me glad you came back," she murmured with a smile.

Daryl laughed as he drew her down into his arms and kissed her deeply, hoping that his kiss would say all the things he couldn't find the words for. That moment, with his woman alive and breathing in his arms, her skin warmed by his own, was what he lived for. She owned him, whether she realised it or not; the breath in his lungs and the heart in his chest. He was surprisingly at ease with that thought, a rubiks cube solved when she was at his side and in his bed. "Might never let you out of this bed again," he chuckled, tucking the ends of her hair behind her ear and flexing his hips against hers. The sigh that she gave him was all the acceptance he needed. "'Specially if keeping you here means we get to do this again."

Carol shifted on top him so that she could look down at him more easily, her smile was mischievous. Her eyes filled with promises of what was still to unfold between them. "I've waited years to get you into my bed Dixon so I'm game for a repeat performance," she told him.

Daryl's heart stuttered and then found its rhythm again. Lips quirking into a smile, he traced his fingertip down her throat, over her collarbone and down the middle of her stomach, finally sliding his palm over the soft skin of her hip so that he could pull her body even tighter into him. "So we gonna do this again?"

"Oh I can do this just as often as you can," she told him, shocking the hell out of him with her suggestive smile, "probably more."