Carol didn't understand how she could be so much at peace, after the shocks of the day: finding her home destroyed and her family gone, all of the devastating news she'd gotten since she caught up with them, the desperate uncertainties that lay ahead for all of them... The continued absence of so many, especially Ryan's daughters, whose care and well-being she still considered her personal responsibility. But in the arms of the man she… loved, damn it, admit it, Carol, at least to yourself, you're in love with him… she felt a stillness inside her that she couldn't remember ever feeling before. Like after the horrors of the world scraped away everything else - her stubborn belief in the basic goodness of people, her absurd optimism in the face of daily realities - this was all she had left, and all she needed - herself, and Daryl, and the moment.
"Your poor legs have to be falling asleep, Daryl." She shifted in his lap, trying to move off of him, but his arms tightened and held her in place. She could feel him shaking his head, silently.
"Don't want to move. Don't want you to move. 'm afraid I'm asleep and if I move I'll wake up, and you won't be here." His voice was rough, strained, almost choking. If she wasn't sure such a thing was impossible, she might think Daryl was on the verge of crying.
She grasped his wrists, unclasped his hands from around her, turned and knelt between his legs. Carefully, hesitantly, she caught his chin between thumb and forefinger and turned his face to her. "Look at me, Daryl. I'm right here. Not going anywhere without you." The look of fear and hope in his blue eyes speared her through the heart, and she leaned in and softly pressed her lips to his. A ragged noise tore out of his throat, and as she slid forward to rest her cheek against his face, she thought she felt a hot tear slide against her skin. "Not going anywhere," she repeated.
His fingers dug slightly into her thighs, like he was desperate to keep contact with her body lest she disappear again. She felt him turn his face into hers, nuzzling her cheek and then seeking her lips with his own. His kiss was tentative at first, sweet, questing, investigating the taste of her, growing more intense when she opened her mouth and let her tongue dance over his bottom lip. His tongue met hers, and his hands came up abruptly and clamped over her hips, dragging her forward to straddle his thigh, her own slotting perfectly into the vee of his legs. She found her hands tangled in his hair as she kissed him, hard, needing as much contact as she could get, and instinctively ground herself against the hard thigh between her legs. He was making unconscious little gulping groans, straining to press himself up against her intruding thigh, his arms now wrapped around her back, pulling her tight up against his chest.
"Uh, guys?" Glenn's hesitant voice broke into their not-so-private reunion, and both Carol and Daryl pulled away, staring at each other and struggling to catch their breath before finally turning to Glenn, who wondered exactly how badly fucked he was for having interrupted what was obviously a long-overdue, come-to-Jesus kind of moment. "Sorry. Sorry. I, uh..." He studied the oil-stained floor between his boots. "I really, really wish I didn't have to do this, but the rest of us are feeling like we kind of need to pick back up on things where we left off earlier. Figure out what we're doing next.
"I'm really glad you're here, Carol," he continued. "We've been talking in circles for a couple of days now, and never seem to make any progress. Plus we're all sick of hearing each other's opinions. Maybe you can help us break out of this stalemate." His relief at adding another trusted voice to the discussion was evident in his face.
"It's okay, Glenn. I'm sorry, we just kind of checked out on you for a while there, didn't we? We had - have - some things to sort through." Carol shot a look at Daryl, whose earlier openness with her had already vanished back behind the fringe that hung down in his eyes. "We'll be along in just a little bit." With Glenn diverted and sent to rejoin the rest, she turned her focus back to Daryl. She narrowed her eyes at him, watching him pick at his cuticles, looking like he could not be less engaged with the issues facing their group.
"Where did you just go, Daryl?", she asked quietly. This was not the time to be disconnecting; if they were going to be deciding things that meant their lives, they needed everyone to be present and have their heads in the game..
"I'm fine. Except I'm tired of always havin' to put off what's good for us on account of what's good for the group. Ain't nothin' new, just tired of it, is all." His voice was discouraged and so, so worn out. Carol's heart ached, knowing that the discussions they were about to join would do nothing to ease that weight for him.