AN: I'm really happily surprised by the reaction to the first chapter. I thank you all for your support. I really appreciate it. I hope that I can do Carick justice. I guess we'll see what happens, LOL.

So this chapter is just another "intro" chapter that gets us into Carol's headspace a little.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Carol often sat alone these nights and thought about her options. She still wasn't entirely sold on whether or not she should stay with the group. This group had been her family. It had been, and really was, all that she had left in this world. She really did hate to be alone.

But it didn't feel the same as it once had.

The group had changed, but Carol had changed too. There were days that she didn't even feel like herself. And there were days that she laughed at that thought because it was difficult to know what "herself" even meant anymore.

What had happened with Mikka and Lizzie weighed heavy on her mind most nights. She almost felt that she'd feel better if she could tell someone about it. She almost felt like simply spitting out the horrors of that experience to someone else would make her feel lighter. It would get it out from inside of her.

But Tyreese didn't want to tell anyone.

Carol knew that part of his reluctance to tell a soul what had happened was that he didn't want to relive it. He simply wanted to forget it, as if that were even possible—Carol could see in his face that it weighed on him as much as it did on her. The other part, though, was the cold fear that no one would understand.

No one would understand that it was the hardest decision that the two of them had ever made. No one would understand that neither of them wanted what happened, but that they truly believed it was the best option…it was the only option. There was the fear that no one would ever look at either of them again. It was easy to pass judgment on someone when you'd never walked in their shoes. It was easy to say how you would have done it or what they should have done when you were sure you had no chance of ever actually having to put into practice your great and powerful words of wisdom.

Carol wasn't sure she cared any longer if anyone understood or not. She was almost certain that she was tired of explaining herself. She didn't want to justify for others what she'd already had to justify for herself.

She was the one that had to carry the burden. She was the one that had to lie awake at night with the nightmares. And she was the one that feared that, if the final judgment she'd grown up believing in were real, she was going to have to carry this with her on that day.

She didn't feel like she needed to explain it any longer.

They already knew about Karen and David. Rick had told some. Those had told others. It was no secret anymore.

She was the murderer in their midst.

If they hated her for it, and if they held it against her, though? They were keeping quiet about it. Sometimes, on nights like this, when all was quiet and they were gathered in some small and tight space they were temporarily calling home, she would look around at everyone there and she would almost laugh to herself at their silence on the matter.

Maybe they feared she'd kill them if they said anything about it. After all, Rick had promised her that they wouldn't want her there.

He'd let her know that he wouldn't want her there.

And if everyone in the room was silent on the matter of what had happened to Karen and David, maybe it was because they feared her. Or maybe it was because they understood her—and if that was the case, maybe they'd understand about Lizzie and Mikka too. Or…maybe it was simply that they were thankful to her for what happened in Terminus and considered that some sort of making up for what she'd been clearly taught was a lapse in judgment on her part.

Rick had never explained himself.

And Carol hadn't pressed him to say anything on the matter. She felt like everything that needed to be said had been said—and that was nothing at all.

He'd thanked her for saving them at Terminus. He'd thanked her for helping to bring Judith back to him. And then, he'd asked her if they could join her—as if she had anything to join at all.

She'd intended to go to Terminus, figuring some of the group might have made their way there if they were alive. If no one was there, at least she figured it would be a safe place, at least before she learned what it really was, and she could leave Tyreese and Judith there.

That's what she'd intended to do. She'd intended to leave Tyreese and Judith and anyone else at Terminus. She'd intended to set out on her own, alone, with nothing to keep her company besides her memories and her guilt—the two blending together more than she was comfortable with at times.

And she would have made it, too, if it hadn't been for Daryl.

But he'd found her when she'd tried to make a clean get away from the group, after Terminus had forced them all together once more. She'd meant to slip away quietly and leave unnoticed. She'd figured that she could be gone for days before anyone noticed her absence, and even then, she figured that no one would bother looking for her.

They wouldn't want her there at any rate. And she was tired of explaining herself. She didn't wish to justify anything any longer.

But Daryl had found her and he hadn't let her leave.

In a whirlwind, they'd ended up searching for Beth before either of them had a chance to even talk about what they were doing. From there, she'd ended up in a hospital and things had happened even more chaotic way.

Just another bad and horrifying memory to add to the others. It was just more fuel for the nightmares.

Because she'd woken up, disoriented and confused, with Beth standing over her.

And in the moment? All she could think, with some poorly placed amusement, was that she'd found Beth. She had no idea where the hell she was or what was happening. She had no idea how they were going to get out of whatever hell they were in. But she'd found Beth.

And now she was going to have to find a safe place for Beth before she could slip off, quietly and unnoticed, to go on about her business—because no one wanted her around.

But then, as they always seemed to do, things had spiraled out of control once more. She'd stood, as dumbfounded and horrified as anyone and everyone else there, and she'd watched as Beth had lost her life in yet another senseless event.

And she was injured.

Even now? Even with maybe two weeks under their belts since they'd left Grady Memorial? She was still healing and she knew it. Her shoulder wasn't quite right yet. Her ribs still ached, especially if she moved a certain way. She got headaches, suddenly and inexplicably, that left her feeling like she wanted to vomit. She wasn't done healing yet.

She could keep going, and she did. And she could keep her pain to herself and not dare to burden anyone else with her problems—it was an old hat to her at any rate, but she knew that she needed the extra protection that the numbers of the group offered because, left out there alone, she probably wouldn't have the physical strength and stamina to hold her own if the Walker numbers got to be too large—and she wasn't even thinking about the other horrors she might encounter.

But when she was done healing? Before they reached Virginia and this heaven that they spoke of?

She'd slip off, quietly and unnoticed. She'd be healed enough to go it alone. She'd find something else. Like Rick had said, she'd find another group.

Because she always remembered that nobody really wanted her around.

Rick didn't want her around.

And she figured that Daryl or Tyreese, or anyone else for that matter, who might notice her absence would get over it in no time. They were all used to losing people. These days that's what they did until they almost spent their time looking each other to try to figure out who was the one who had the closest expiration date stamped on their foreheads.

It was tragic losing someone, but after a while you simply started to go numb to the whole thing. You felt the pain, but you felt it differently. You stuffed it into some kind of pocket, deep inside yourself, to worry about later. There simply wasn't time to feel it now like you'd felt it once, in a world so long gone it belonged to the land of fairy tales and make believe, when people would allow you your grieving time.

Now there wasn't time to grieve.

They couldn't grieve their dead and they couldn't even grieve the pieces of themselves that they'd all gone losing along the way.

At least, Carol told herself as a way of comforting her anxiety about what she knew was to come, when you were alone there was no one to lose and no one to grieve for. Separating yourself meant losing it all at once. It meant grieving everything at once. And then it meant having nothing left to lose but yourself—and you wouldn't be around to grieve for yourself. No one would grieve for you.

But being alone also meant that the guilt would stop piling on. It would stop building up. Each time someone died? Each time someone was lost and you were left standing? It added more guilt to the pile. You didn't feel triumphant. You didn't feel like you'd cheated death. You didn't even feel like it meant that you were meant for this world when the other person, for whatever reason, simply wasn't. It felt like you had let them down. It felt like you hadn't done enough or given enough. It simply left you feeling guilty that they had lost their life and you were left standing, holding onto whatever you had left to call a life, because you had, somehow—logic didn't matter when it came to grief—let them down.

But if you were alone?

The guilt would stop because there would be no more loved ones to lose that you could feel guilty for. You would no longer stand over cold bodies and wonder if there was something you could have done differently.

Carol hated being alone. The very thought of it made her stomach churn and made her palms sweaty, but at least if she were alone, she'd know that she wasn't letting anyone down. She wasn't doing anything to harm someone else or to bring harm to them. She was simply out there, surviving.

Or she was out there waiting to die.

It was starting to feel like, in the end, that's really all surviving was. It was simply waiting for the sand to run out in the hourglass. It was just living until you died.

And she could do that alone just as well as she could do it with others.

Because even if she missed everyone here? It wouldn't matter. She missed them now and she could see their faces and hear their voices. At least if she slipped away and missed them while she was out there, on her own, it would feel more valid than missing them when she could stretch out a hand and touch them.

"Everyone should get some sleep," Rick said, his voice breaking the almost dead silence of the room they were all crowded into. It was the living room of a small house that they would leave at sun up. "Need everyone rested, alert, tomorrow."

And upon the command? People started stirring and moving toward the beds they'd made for themselves. She hummed at Daryl when he, moving with the rest of them, asked if she was coming. But she didn't move immediately, she sat there, on the floor, staring at Rick and acting out her own little moment of ignored rebellion that would leave her waiting to go to bed until she decided it was time—even if it was only moments after everyone else.

Everyone took Rick's words as gospel. He was, after all, their just and fearless leader.

Carol's heart ached at her own bitterness. It ached because of the stone casing that she'd carefully constructed to try to fit around it. It ached because even she knew that if she pretended not to care, it was nothing more than act.

She cared very much.

And her anger toward Rick? Her anger toward everything that had happened?

It was really hurt more than anything else. Most days she lacked the ability to be truly angry.

She'd had her moments of doubt with Rick, but she'd trusted him too. She'd believed in him. He wasn't perfect, but none of them were. He was in a difficult position, even as something of a self-appointed leader, and he needed their support more than he needed their judgment. She'd always believed, if nothing else, that he wanted to do the right thing, even if he fell short of the mark at times like any other human being.

And she'd loved him and counted him as a good friend. She'd counted him as someone who would love her and care for her. She'd counted on him as someone she could depend on, at least to be there if truly for nothing else—after all, even the mighty Caesar fell eventually. She'd believed Rick when he'd said he and Lori would never go anywhere without her and Sophia. And even though they'd lost Lori and Sophia? She'd believed that the sentiment still held true.

So the anger that she felt? It wasn't really anger, and she knew that. It was hurt.

Because, after all of this? He didn't want her there.