This started out as a role play between myself (gunslingerdixon) and my Carol rp partner untapdtreasure (nolongeraxburden), and it was mutually decided upon to share with the rest of FF as a fanfiction. So here it is! Enjoy!

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Also: we own nothing in regards to The Walking Dead. All rights belong to the copyright holder.

Daryl:

Her voice broke the silence. It didn't draw him back as she likely thought it would. He was too angry… Bothered by it to allow himself respite. Sure— he had found her alive, but at what cost now that he had reasoned out why it was she had been exiled if what he truly came to believe was in all sense the correct thought process?

He didn't know. Daryl would likely never understand. And he was glad he wouldn't.

Her touch was a surprise to even himself as he was unbridled anger at this point, poised to strike— lash out at her. He didn't though. He wanted to. How he wanted to shout. Bark at her. Tell her to get her hands off him. Tell her to stop bothering with his worthless hide. That his bleeding weren't nothing more than just flesh wounds. More than anything else… He wanted to be left alone, but she wouldn't let him be. She wouldn't.

The sting of the shredded skin at the side of his hand and the soft patter of blood dribbling from the cuts made him instantly realize the extent of his actions. He winced at the tug at his arm where she had caught him in the dark wanting to assess what he'd managed to do to himself this time. She pulled him along towards a sliver of light filtered through the vents doing her best to examine how badly he had hurt himself. He didn't know the depth in which he'd cut himself until she touched the tender flesh, fingers brushing lightly at the serrated skin dancing along the rough of his knuckles. His hand was still curled into a loose fist— no broken bones he reckoned if he could manage that.

Again Carol spoke, pulling him back just a bit from his endless cycle of unrelinquished anger and doubts about the situation had he not come across her when he did. Daryl was sure things would have likely turned out worse had he not left. Murderers. Rapists. Hunters. He knew what was out there beyond just the walkers that milled about. She could have easily been killed and he would never have known. He wrinkled his brow at the thought that men like that existed still in this world. Took what they wanted. Leaving nothing in their wake. The silence was stilling and his ragged breathing from the sudden burst from his stall-kicking and mirror-smashing made it all the more knowing that there was more than what he was letting on. After several staccato pauses, Daryl squared his shoulders tilting his head up to meet her gaze.

"You weren't goin' t'survive out here. This was a death sentence." He growled flatly pulling his hand away from her own not caring that he was bleeding all over himself. The pain didn't matter nor did the clawing at their door.

Daryl was very much upset that a decision like this had come to light without the consent of council. That a life could simply be tossed aside as it was. The gravity of her actions were in fact serious, but just removing such stability as he saw her was all the more detrimental.

He grit his teeth, lip curling into a scowl as the more he thought about it the more it bothered him. "Yer no hunter." He stated matter-of-factly as he continued running through his thoughts. "You weren't meant t'survive on yer own. No one can."

Carol:

Carol's body tensed up. She'd known Rick was angry, but callous had never crossed her mind. She lowered her eyes a bit, looking down at her now empty hands were his had just been. They were sure to be covered in his blood now. She swallowed back the lump in her throat and shook her head. "I wouldn't have given up, Daryl," she promised him, not trying to push aside his fears and anger, but to show him that she wasn't the same woman that he'd befriended at the farm. She was stronger now. She didn't possess his skills, but she had several of her own. She liked to think she was strong. But maybe she wasn't. She shook her head then, shrugging a bit.

She knew she was no match for the people out there. The other groups that belonged to this undead world that would rape, maim, murder… She swallowed then. She wasn't any better than some of them, and yet, at the same time, she didn't feel that her crimes should be judged through the same lens as those that had committed their crimes out of spite and rage and hatred. She'd done it so that the others might have had a better chance to survive and so that Karen and David hadn't had to suffer anymore. She felt the tears that were hot as they pricked her eyes. She blinked rapidly, knowing he wouldn't see them in the dark.

Once they were gone, she sucked in a deep breath, pulling it into her lungs so deep that she grew lightheaded from the simple task of it. She slowly let it out and reached for the hem of her shirt to find the tear that she'd ripped in it earlier at the prison and began to rip off the bottom of it. He needed a bandage and this was all they had.

"Rick made a choice, Daryl. One he has to live with. I can't be angry at him. I guess, I talked him into it with all my talk of making decisions and owning them." She shrugged a bit then. "He was scared for his children." She knew men like Rick Grimes back before the world had gone to shit. You couldn't call them selfish, even if that word seemed to fit best. All they were doing was looking out for the best interest of their family. And she got that. She'd be the same way now if Sophia had survived. Lizzie and Mika and this new responsibility was just that. New. She wasn't ready for it. She hadn't wanted it. But it was hers now.

"Come on. Let me bandage that up so the bleeding stops." She reached for his hand again. The difference being that this time she requested that he give her his hand of his own free will and not be forced. "Promise it won't hurt." She stood more in the sliver of light than he did, and it made her feel exposed and not just because part of her stomach was bare, but because all of these emotions that were inside her, and she didn't know what to do with them or where to place them.

"Besides, I've got you now." And she didn't pose it as a question, but merely a fact. She had him all along, but during her brief lonely exile, she'd had no one. And hadn't he come to fetch her and take her home? Or had that not been his intentions all along? She shook her head slightly, not wanting to go there. "We'll always have each other…" In some way. Even after one of them was no longer living.

Unable to stop herself and the surge of emotions that ran through her, she stepped forward, bringing her palm up to lay flat against the side of his face. She closed her eyes. "Got to stop fighting it and others around us. Got to just let it be what it is."

Please review and let us know what you thought! Cheers!

*Note: This is also not 100% written by myself. I owe a lot of credit to my wonderful partner as she is Carol and does a phenomenal job. Send her some love too at untapdtreasure here at FF!