Carol opened her mouth, and what came out was not what she'd really meant to say. "It's so strange - so much has happened in the few days since I've seen you last, and I feel so out of touch. I keep thinking I need to see about getting dinner ready for all of you." A wave of chuckles rolled through the bus. She hadn't intended it to be funny, it was truly how she felt, but she realized that it might have been the best start she could have made. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.
"I know you all have been talking about what comes next - what we decide to do from here out - and I'm sorry to have missed all of that. I'm sure you've all made your preferences known by now. But at this point, I think you need to leave it up to the council - what's left of it, that is - to hash out the details and make a plan for going forward." As a babble of voices arose from the seats she looked to Glenn, Maggie, and Sasha, and found them nodding agreement. She felt a rush of relief; she hadn't consulted with anyone in advance, hadn't really even known for sure what she was going to say before she began, and even as she spoke she hadn't been confident of her right to speak so boldly.
"Of course, anyone who doesn't like whatever plans we come up with is perfectly within their rights to go on their way; we'll provide whatever we can in the way of supplies for your journey, although from what I've seen there's very little to go around." She looked around the bus again and found mostly resigned acceptance, mixed with a little uncertainty - about what she would expect after what they'd been through. No one wanted to think much about facing the world alone.
"I think that's it, for now." Carol was beginning to feel a little light-headed, and realized she hadn't had anything to eat since… sometime the previous day, probably. She felt her knees begin to shake, but before she could say another word, Daryl's hand was under her elbow, guiding her to sit on the nearest seat, and someone was saying something to her that she just couldn't focus on. She let herself sag against the seat back and closed her eyes.
"Carol." She could feel Daryl's arm around her, and his voice close by her ear. "Wake up, sweetheart." Sweetheart. Hah. That was something she thought she could get used to. "Carol, you need to eat somethin'. Ain't much, but we can't have you passin' out." She opened her eyes to see him holding out a power bar, and she was instantly, intensely hungry. She grabbed it and stuffed half of it in her mouth, oblivious to any niceties like taking small, ladylike bites.
"Whoa, slow down. It ain't going away, take your time or you'll make yourself sick." She smiled at him around her mouthful and forced herself to chew it thoroughly before swallowing. He held out a bottle of water and watched her down a third of it before taking it back.
He dropped his voice so only she could hear. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, Carol. I know I said we'd need to step up, but…"
She bent her head and squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm sorry, I know I should have talked with you first. I'm not sure what got into me, I just didn't think I could take listening to the endless arguments, everyone having to have their say, and in the end it would fall to us to make the hard decisions anyway."
"Well, don't look now, darlin', but I think you just elected yourself mayor of this little tribe."