Carol woke the next morning with flashes of the night before swirling in her mind. She swatted at the alarm and groaned. They had stayed up too late and she'd drank too much wine. She fumbled her way to the shower, trying to push the thoughts away and focus on the importance of the day ahead. They had rehearsed earlier parts of the scene multiple times, with breaks in between to drink. Carol refused another take of the final part and Daryl agreed because she had "faked it so well." Oh if you only knew, she thought, feeling a stirring inside followed by wave of guilt.

Was it really fair that she'd got off, with his help, and he didn't even know? It would have to be, she decided because the implications of telling him the truth were mortifying. She stepped into the shower, still thinking about it. He would tease the fuck out of her, for starters. But would he think it meant something? Would he wonder if she felt something for him? Would he want… payback? She let her mind wander to what payback could involve… a handjob?

Instantly Carol was disgusted with her train of thought. She tipped her face up into the hot water and groaned. Daryl was a cocky pervert these days - so far from the shy bad boy he'd been when he first started out. The business they were in, the place they had carved out for themselves in this world - it changed you. Not always in a bad way. She loved the old Daryl and she loved the man he'd become. And that man would absolutely love the fact that she was thinking about him that way. Which made it even worse.

She forced herself to think about her friends back home and her puppy, and how much she missed them in a valiant attempt to get all things Dixon out of her mind. It worked. She felt a longing to see her girls and her baby and the sadness was very effective at controlling her hormones.

By the time she got out of the shower, toweled off and started to get dressed the butterflies over her first day on set had firmly planted themselves in her stomach. Practicing the scene had definitely made her feel more comfortable with what she needed to do while filming - minus one part that would not be ending up the same way as it had the night before. But there was no way it was going to completely get rid of the nerves.

When she was ready she avoided a look in the mirror, she didn't want to see her eyes because she knew actually seeing how nervous she was would only make it worse. Carol glanced at her watch and realized she better get going. She still had to get down to the street and find a cab.

She crept quietly out of the bathroom and headed towards the door in the dark. They started filming fairly early and she wasn't sure how long it would take to get there in traffic, so she was headed out before the sun came up. When she got to the foyer a voice startled her and Carol screamed. "What the hell Daryl?" she said, her heart hammering in her chest. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm gonna drive you to work," he said, holding up the keys.

"Why are you even up?" she sighed.

"I'm gonna drive you to work," he repeated.

"I'm taking a cab," Carol said stubbornly. She was still mad at him for scaring her, even though she knew it wasn't exactly his fault.

"Oh come on, I'll just be bored… and you know what they say about idle hands." Daryl pleaded, with a little grin.

"Ha," Carol snorted, feeling the anger slip away. "I hardly think you need idle hands to do the devil's handiwork." She shook her head, "You're a bad boy, even when you're busy."

"I've discovered that ladies really, really love bad boys," he said. "Don't even try to deny it Peletier."

"Mmm, I suppose you have a certain amount of charm," she admitted, flirtatiously. "But I'm just a shy, quiet girl…"

"Yeah, okay," he interrupted. "That might be what you want the world to see, but I know you."

"I have secrets Daryl," she replied with a sexy smile. It was more truth than ever after the night before and she had to fight off the blush that was threatening her cheeks.

"Don't we all," he said, passing over her coat. "Let's go. Don't want you to be late for your first day Pumpkin."

When they were in the car, sitting in traffic Carol looked over at him. "Seriously, why were you up so early?" she asked. She was genuinely curious.

"I knew you'd still be nervous and I thought having company on the way would help," he replied. She couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses he'd put on when the sun started to rise.

"Awww," Carol gushed. "That's so sweet."

"Yeah, yeah, let's keep it between us though," Daryl replied, giving her a sly smile. "I don't want to ruin my rep."

Carol laughed, "You ruin your rep every time a cute kid comes up to your table at a con." If people didn't know what a softie Daryl was all they had to do was see him interact with a child and it became obvious.

"Guess I'm just a complex guy," he shrugged. "Ohhh, love this song," he added, as something on the radio caught his attention. "And the archer split the tree. There was a fanfare blowing to the sun that was floating on the breeze," he sang, completely off key. Daryl was a great actor but he was never going to star in a musical, that was for sure.

But it didn't matter how awful his singing voice was, when the man sang he was absolutely adorable and quite captivating. Carol listened to him sing along with the melancholy song, not missing a word, and for a few minutes she forgot all about what was coming up and the butterflies took a rest.

"Mother fucker," Daryl yelled suddenly, slamming his breaks. "Learn to drive asshole," he hissed as Carol watched a little sports car just miss their front bumper. Then it was right back to the song. It was actually absolutely hilarious to see him go from singing to road rage and right back into the song like nothing had happened.

When they pulled up to the building where Carol would be working for the next two months she checked her watch. 37 minutes. She was going to be extremely early, but luckily she spotted a Starbucks on the corner. "Don't forget the food delivery," she reminded him, gathering her purse and unbuckling the belt.

"Oh right… thanks. I guess I'll wait until after that to sit around in my underwear, eat cheesies and watch porn all day," he said with a grin. "Wait, did you order Cheesies? Or do I gotta stop and buy some somewhere?"

"Just promise me the marathon of Girls Gone Wild will be over before I get home," she sighed.

Daryl ignored her, "Carol, I'm serious… Cheesies?"

"Of course I didn't order Cheesies. Processed corn puff things with neon orange cheese flavoured powder… yuck," she wrinkled her nose.

"Don't worry, there won't be any left for you anyway," he replied, giving her a harmless glare.

"Uh, Daryl… if you're getting Cheesies can you grab me a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos?" Carol asked with a sheepish look. "I might need comfort food after this."

"You're gonna do great," he said softly, reaching out and putting a hand on her knee. He squeezed gently, in a gesture of comfort. "Good luck."

She gasped. "Nooooo you didn't just say that. Daryllllllllllll," she squealed.

"Oh shit. Fuck. I mean, break a leg," he corrected himself quickly.

"No, no, no… it's too late now," Carol said, sighing very dramatically. "It's gonna go horribly and it's gonna be all you and your 'good luck's' fault."

"I'm sorry," he said, looking genuinely upset. "Here, take this…" he reached in his pocket and pulled out a coin. "I take it to every audition. Brings me luck."

Carol took it, touched by the offer, but still annoyed with his slip up. "Not sure where in my gstring I'm supposed to put this…" she muttered.

Daryl started to laugh and as hard as she tried to stay mad she couldn't and soon she was laughing right along with him. "I really hate you. And by hate you I mean I love you. Like I love hate you. Or I hate love you… something like that," she teased him.

He leaned over and placed a kiss on her cheek. "Seriously, break a leg Carol, you got this."

She took a deep breath and reached for his hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. With that she hopped out and waved goodbye, watching him rejoin the traffic before heading to the Starbucks. She flipped the coin over and over between her fingers and then slipped it in her pants pocket with a flutter of gratitude in her heart.

Just over an hour later Carol was in wardrobe, which sounded ridiculous given her wardrobe was next to nothing. She was wearing a black lacy push up bra, which was the least of her problems, and a nude colored thong with next to no material, under a short silk robe. The humiliation began when she had to bare her ass to the wardrobe lady so she could find the shade that best matched her skin. It was meant to appear on camera like she was wearing nothing, so between matching the material to her skin color and a bit of editing she would look nude in the nether region.

When they called her to set it was almost 2 hours later and her co-star Kyle was waiting. He was a sweet guy and seemed like a decent actor. They read together for her audition and clicked. But they didn't audition with an intense love scene. "You ready for this?" he asked with a smile.

"Not a chance," she admitted honestly.

"Good, me neither," he replied. It gave her some comfort to know he was nervous too. "I've only done one before and it wasn't even close to this…"

The director, Dave, came over and they chatted a bit about the scene before they got started. He wanted to do a couple run throughs to be sure they were hitting all their marks and what not, before they called in the camera crew to start filming the scene.

It was a completely different ballgame than what she'd experienced with Daryl, just as she expected it would be. The practice helped her with what she needed to do, but Kyle was so different from Daryl and the way the director was changing things was a bit overwhelming at times. The only good thing was, at least during the rehearsals, she forgot about the nudity because there was simply too much going on.

But after lunch, when they actually started to film… it was a different story yet again. Carol panicked. And completely froze. It was like everything she'd practiced with Daryl and all the rehearsing that morning flew right out the window.

"Cut," the director yelled. They hadn't even made it to the kiss and Carol completely botched it up. Her heart was pounding as he approached. "What's going on?" he whispered, looking completely confused.

"I don't know…" she said, looking at him with wild eyes. "I'm freaking out. I can't do this. I can't." She wanted to run, but instead she kept talking as a few others came over to join them. "I practiced this last night. We went over it several times and it was great. I was great," she said. When Carol stopped talking for a second she looked around and saw the smirks of amusement on their faces.

"Practiced it, huh?" Kyle teased.

"No, no," she insisted. "It wasn't like that. I have a friend here…" By that point her cheeks were burning as she tried to explain. "He's a good friend - a great actor - we worked together years ago. He's done scenes like this before. He was trying to help."

"You could have asked me to rehearse with you," one of the crew guys piped up, giving her a wink. They were having a blast at her expense and even though she was mortified it was still amusing. Carol had always been able to laugh at herself.

"You guys are all a bunch of assholes," she muttered.

Dave had a thoughtful expression. "So I'm assuming you rehearsed with Daryl Dixon, hmm?" It shouldn't have come as such a shock. Daryl was a huge star. People knew he lived in New York and people knew they were friends. She nodded slowly. "And he doesn't head back to Atlanta until May, right?" Carol nodded again, wondering where the hell he was going with this line of questioning. "And you were comfortable doing the scene with him? Everything went smoothly?" This time she didn't nod because she was pretty sure she didn't like where it was leading. "So what's the chances he'll come down here tomorrow?"

"Uhhh," Carol stammered. "For what?"

"I know this is really unorthodox," he started. "But I like to try strange things sometimes and they often work well." He looked over a Kyle. "Do you two trust me?"

"Of course," Kyle replied. Carol nodded a third time because she couldn't find her voice through the terror of what she knew he was about to suggest.

"I'd like to bring Daryl down and have him do a runthrough with her," he said to Kyle. "Have you watch and see what he does that makes her feel more at ease. I've met Dixon a few times. He's a great guy and a terrific actor."

Carol watched the conversation going on before her in stunned silence. "Yeah, I'm totally cool with that," Kyle replied enthusiastically. "I'm sure I can learn a lot from him."

"He's busy," Carol blurted out, needing the planning to stop. "He, uh… he has a thing tomorrow," she lied. A thing? What kind of stupid excuse was that?

"No worries, we can rearrange the shooting schedule a bit and find a couple hours on a day that works best for him," he replied. "Let's wrap for today," he added, dismissing the crew.

Once most were gone Carol spoke up. "I don't know if this is a good idea. I mean, it's not fair to Kyle…"

"Oh no, I'm totally fine with it," Kyle jumped in. "It would be an honor to learn from Daryl Dixon." An honor? Seriously? She thought. She sometimes forgot how popular Daryl had become lately because to her, he was just Daryl - her friend.

"See, no problem," Dave said. "Just talk to him and let me know if there's a day this week that works best."

With that he was gone. Everyone was gone and Carol was standing alone on set wondering what the fuck just happened. "Oh this is gonna suck," she whispered, walking slowly back to her dressing room.

When she arrived back at the apartment she could smell something delicious. She curiously wandered into the kitchen and found Daryl at the stove. "What's going on?" she asked with a smile.

"Hey, wait until you try this," he said excitedly. "I was watching this cooking show and he was making this pasta and I was like, oh my God, I have all the ingredients to make that. So I tivo'd it and watched it a couple more times and then I brought my ass into the kitchen and BAM… I'm a fucking master chef."

She walked over to the stove and took the spoon from his hand. Carol dipped it in the sauce, waited for it to cool and took a taste. "Oh," she said in surprise. "This really is good."

She looked around and noticed he had the table set, wine on ice, and candles ready to light. "Pretty romantic," Carol teased.

"I got my moments," Daryl replied back, giving her a smirk

They sat down to an amazing dinner. Carol couldn't believe all the trouble he'd gone to, for her. It actually made her feel a bit teary eyed to know what an amazing friend she had. "So tell me about work. How did it go?" She looked at him and frowned. "Oh… was it bad?" She nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Oh no, it gets even worse…" she said sucking in a breath. "They want me to ask you to come to the set and do the scene with me."

"Come again?" he looked confused.

"Well… I might have mentioned that we practiced last night… and that it went really well…" She gave him an apologetic look. "Then Dave, my director, came up with this idea… that we could have you come down and you can keep me from freaking the fuck out and show Kyle how we did the scene here." By the time she was finished Daryl had a huge smile on his face. "Oh God, this is totally feeding your oversized ego, isn't it?"

"Yup," Daryl agreed. "And I'll totally do it, but…" Carol didn't like the sound of the 'but.' "It's definitely gonna cost you."