Standing in the dark hallway leading away from his apartment, Daryl explored the information he was receiving through his link. He found Hershel more or less instantly because they were concerned over the same thing right now, but he didn't go near him. While he normally enjoyed the swirling, vibrant colors which represented the world to him in this state, today he felt that they were only a distraction. He filtered out everything but the yellow of people and soon found himself surrounded by lines and light swirls and floating and drifting galaxies made up only of yellow light, suspended in darkness, all the other colors canceled out.

He let himself drift about aimlessly, hoping that maybe the intensity of their meld would draw him to Carol intuitively even though she was actively closing herself off. As he was looking about himself, he detected a swirl that instantly seemed familiar to him - and threw him back in time, to his last active mission. His mind flashed back to his dream a few nights back, to the Feina looming over him as he lay on the ground at its feet, helpless, bruised and bleeding. Chest tightening, he steered clear of that mind, that person, fighting against his rising panic. What were the chances of running into him among millions of people?

He managed to control his mounting anxiety once he had gotten far enough away from that innocent-looking swirl of light, and opened his eyes again. Although he was still having trouble breathing, his chest was easing up by now and his heartbeat was slowing down again. How was this still affecting him so badly after such a long time? Then again, the guy had run without a single word to him, and had never apologized to him later, either. He had just abandoned him to die.

Almost like he himself had abandoned Carol.

He felt sick again, but now he'd have to go through with this. However, he certainly wasn't going out there again before he'd met up with Hershel.

.-.

They met at one of the restaurants near the train station, where Hershel was already waiting for him. He had ordered a glass of water for Daryl, hoping that the younger man had overcome his self-destructive streak since their last meeting. Daryl nodded his thanks as he slipped into the chair facing the room. Hershel thought he looked slightly worn around the edges, and sure enough, Daryl started biting his lip as soon as he was seated. „What is it?" Hershel asked gently.

„'s nothin'", Daryl tried to brush him off, avoiding Hershel's eyes. „Just saw something that upset me on the way here, but it's okay." Grabbing his glass as if it were a lifeline, he started playing with it, turning it this way and that, wiping the condensate off its sides to paint on the table with his wet fingertips, and finally taking a sip from it before leaning back. „You tried contacting her again?" he asked in a husky voice, attempting to appear nonchalant.

Hershel shook his head. „Don't you think I would have told you if I had found her, with you looking like hell?" He raised one questioning eyebrow and Daryl looked down at his right hand - he was painting on the table again. There were pronounced dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, and his cheeks looked hollow. Clearly, he hadn't slept or eaten over the past two days. While Hershel still couldn't forgive him for what he had done - especially since he had been there himself as an agent - he was at least convinced, now that he was looking at him, that Daryl himself wasn't taking this lightly. He was aware of the magnitude of his mistake and seemed prepared to own up to it.

As he knew Daryl well, Hershel would have bet that he wasn't taking a shot in the dark when he asked his next question. „Have you found her?"

Daryl briefly glanced up as if he'd slapped him, his eyes wide and panicked. He knew that, after a transgression such as his, he was not supposed to actively contact Carol or even seek her out. However, this was hardly a standard situation - and Hershel's question when contacting him earlier had all but prompted him to look for her. Taking a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, he shook his head. „No, I haven't. I tried to find her as I was leaving home, but she is completely locked down. I couldn't find a trace of her. She hasn't spoken to you at all since we parted at the bus stop?"

Hershel just sighed. If even Daryl, one of the most sensitive guides he had ever worked with, if not the most sensitive, was unable to find her, it would be very hard to get hold of her. „Did you try to link up, or did you just look for her?" he asked.

Daryl looked positively worn by now. He started picking away at the skin of his right thumb, still avoiding Hershel's eyes, and kept gnawing at his lip. Hershel waited patiently, knowing that putting him under pressure would get him nowhere. Daryl had known pressure that would have broken most people for life and had stood up to it. The gnawing and picking told him that something had happened to upset him, and that he needed to prepare himself before he could talk about it - he just had to wait. In the end, Daryl would talk.

When Daryl picked up his glass of water to drink, his hands were trembling. He took another shaky breath and then met Hershel's eyes for the first time since entering the restaurant. „I was out looking for her, but I ran into Rick", he said quietly. „He was in a meld, I don't think he noticed me, but it fucked me up good and proper. I couldn't look any more after that."

Feeling as if he had been dealt a physical blow, Hershel closed his eyes. This day just kept getting better. „I'm so sorry", he said softly. „That must have been hard for you."

Daryl quickly shook his head. „I stayed away. Didn't get any closer as soon as I'd recognized him", he assured Hershel. „Don't want anything to do with him ever again in my life. I just pity the guy he was working with. Do -„ He hesitated and glanced down at his hands which he had folded on the table to keep them from trembling. „Do the agents who get to work with such a guide … after … get a warning?"

Hershel realized that he was talking about himself as much as Rick right now, so he tried to be gentle with him when he answered. „I'm sorry, but I really don't know. I've never had to deal with this before, you know?" Daryl seemed crushed by the realization that he was the first one to have failed Hershel so badly and be kept on his team, but there was nothing he could do about it - it was done. „If you want, I can ask his supervisor - the one who took him on afterward. Rick is still on his team, and he'd be able to tell me. He's a friend of mine."

„You'd do that?" Daryl asked softly. „I'd just … really like to know, because … you'd have to warn my future agents about me, right?" And then, even more softy, „If they don't just kick me out."

Unable to speak, Hershel just gave him a wordless nod. It seemed as if the full extent of the tragedy that had happened to Carol and Daryl was only just hitting him now, and he found it hard to deal with. „I'll try to keep you", he all but whispered, barely able to control his grief. „They kept him after he left you behind, and you were …" The agony in Daryl's eyes stilled him for a moment before he went on. „But I can't promise … There are people I answer to, and you yourself know best how hard … You've been there yourself, after all …" He trailed off.

Memories assaulted him, of severing first Rick's link with Daryl while Daryl was still fighting for his life in surgery, and then telling Rick that he never wanted to talk to him or see him ever again before severing his own link with him. This one was surely coming back to bite him now. There had never been a moment's doubt for him that he would keep Daryl on his team after Rick had abandoned him to die - but strangely, it was the same now that Daryl had abandoned his own agent. He realized that he was being too soft toward Daryl because he knew him too well - years later, he saw that he should have parted ways with Daryl, too, so he wouldn't be biased in his favor in the situation they were in now.

No attachment.

Daryl fought to breathe, remembering, then managed to speak. „I won't even ask her to forgive me - I know what I did is unforgiveable." His chest was heaving, and Hershel knew that nobody, not even Carol herself, would ever be as hard on Daryl about what he had done to her as Daryl himself would be. The younger man continued once he had himself under control again. „I just wanna tell her how sorry I am for leaving her there", he whispered. „And I'm not going to give her any excuses either", he added as an afterthought. „It's none of her concern that I freak out when I'm faced with them, even after all this time."

„Well", Hershel pointed out thoughtfully, „it was a pretty traumatic encounter for you, so I do think she'd understand you if you mentioned it -„

„No!" came Daryl's vehement reply. „I don't want her to know about … that. I -„ He faltered, his left hand slipping off the table and onto his left thigh, rubbing the scars on it. „No!" he repeated forcefully after another few moments.

Hershel nodded his acceptance. „That's your decision, and I'll back it. I will also mention this to whoever will question me about this … incident", he assured Daryl. „Maybe they will count that on the plus side - if there is a plus side to this." He watched quietly as Daryl's hand came up again to grab his right wrist, steadying both his hands. „So … You didn't go out again after running into Rick because you didn't want to risk actually getting into contact with him and losing it while you were alone?" he asked. Daryl gave a single nod. „Would you try again with me there for company?" Daryl nodded again. „So … let's give it a try."

Daryl closed his eyes.

.-.

She had spent the past two days in fear. Not knowing if he had followed her home already, without her noticing him, she hadn't dared to leave her apartment once she had reached it after leaving Daryl behind. Lonely and afraid, she had kept sneaking glances out of her single window which looked out on the street leading to the front door of her apartment block, constantly checking if Ed was walking up to it.

Of course, not seeing him didn't reassure her in the least. After all, he might have crept past while she was blinking, or getting a cup of caf, or using the bathroom. Or maybe during the grand total of four hours that she had actually slept during these two days, waking up wide-eyed and terrified because she had dreamed that someone was at her door, banging against it and calling her name. Fortunately, once she'd found the courage to tiptoe to her door, a look through her spyhole had shown her an empty hallway, but she hadn't slept since.

Carol was a nervous wreck after not talking to anyone about all that had happened over the past two days.

She kept reliving the moment when she ran into Esnik and recognized him, looking up against the rain pelting her face. The entire encounter had been terrifying, but during those first few moments she had expected him to recognize her immediately and had thought her heart would jump out of her chest.

But the memory of Ed's cold, soulless eyes finding and following her through the window of the bus was even worse, making her feel sullied even though they had been separated by the width of the sidewalk and the glass pane of the bus's window. What little sleep she'd had had been plagued by dreams in which both Esnik and Ed were looking for her - and one of a terrible beating Ed had given her a year before she had left him. She had no doubt that being arrested by the Feina would ultimately be more merciful than being found by Ed.

She wished so badly that Daryl had not abandoned her, that she could talk about this to him now, that he could reassure her that nothing bad was going to come of this. But he was partially responsible for her fear and panic right now, so this option was off the table.

Wistfully, she thought back to their meld sessions, the practise ones at the start as well as the serious ones at the end. She knew that, however long she was going to continue this, she would never enjoy working with anyone else the way she had enjoyed working with Daryl. Whenever he hadn't kept himself strictly to the background to allow her to act independently when the situation called for it, it had been hard to pinpoint the line where his consciousness and control began and hers ended. They had truly known each others' minds, and she was going to miss this tremendously.

She was missing it already.

No attachment.

But how could she not grow attached to him? Her heart ached as she kept counting her losses - her mother and Sophia, the last remaining members of her family, lost to the distance between them for the time being. And now Daryl, whom she was going to miss almost as much as them. They hadn't just been partners in crime. They had been one mind, one soul, they had felt each others' thoughts and fears, they had shared a dream, which she had never done with any of her guides before -

Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered the terror that had seized her - him - while scrabbling away backward and on all fours from a Feina towering over her - well, him. What if this image was not a random, isolated memory - but connected to the ones following it? To the ones of him getting picked up by an ambulance and taken to the hospital? Had he encountered a Feina face to face and been attacked and injured by him, maybe during his time as an agent? Was this Feina he had dreamed of responsible for his … she wouldn't go so far as to call it a disability, but his leg had certainly not healed enough for him to be called healthy either.

If so, then this would certainly explain why he had completely lost it when she had run into Esnik and been forced to face him without any time for Daryl to prepare for it, unlike when she had met him in his office.

But why had he never told her -?

Of course. He had adamantly stuck to the „no contact" rule to keep her from finding out about him because for some reason he believed she'd think less of him for this, when in reality he couldn't have been further from the truth. For him to still go up against them every day in spite of what had happened to him, he had to be incredibly brave. She could almost feel her anger with him dissipating like fog in the sun, and it left her feeling bereaved and lonely.

Hugging herself, she closed her eyes, rocking back and forth on her couch, imagining him approaching her, gently all but whispering to her mind that he was there so she could open up to his mental touch. She needed so badly to talk to someone about what had happened, and knowing that he hadn't left her two days ago out of sheer selfishness made the pain of not being able to talk to him hurt even more. At the same time, she felt relieved because she was no longer feeling betrayed by him. A sob escaped her and she barely kept herself from collapsing under the weight of her grief and fear.

And then, just as she was about to open her eyes to check on the front door again, she felt it.

At first, it was no more than a whisper, a breath of air just beyond her consciousness, an infinitely gentle, apologetic touch, as light as a feather.

She couldn't believe it.

.-.

He could hardly believe his good fortune. Knowing that Hershel was right next to him, and knowing also that he could trust him with his life, he had more or less let himself fall into the yellow current, not holding back, allowing his mind to drift along with it, instead of skimming over it as he usually did. After what Hershel later told him was not quite five minutes, he noticed what he would have described as a „black hole" in the current of minds carrying him along, and upon approaching it, curious to find out what it was, he realized that it was the mind of a person blocking all mental contact.

Brushing by it, ever so gently, he had recognized her immediately - and been assaulted by her pain, and loneliness, and a fear so vast it seemed to overpower her entire being - all of it caused by him. She felt him approaching right away, however, and opened up to him so readily that he had to tightly control himself to not just mentally fling himself at her.

„Carol", he managed, and felt her acknowledging his presence, but not much else. He could sense that she was still frightened and devastated, and his guilt over abandoning her almost crushed him. „Carol, I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for leaving you like that", he began, his voice barely above a whisper in her mind, rough with emotion. He could feel that she was listening and forced himself to keep going. „I really have no excuse for what I did to you, and I'm not askin' you to forgive me -„

As soon as she heard this, even as she felt him radiating sorrow and guilt and shame, she knew that he was not going to open up about what had happened to him. Apparently it had been so traumatic that he wasn't even going to bring it up to explain what he had done to her - even though they both knew that leaving her in a critical situation during their mission might cost him his membership in TE. „It's okay", she breathed, torn between the relief over being in a link with him again and regret over him not being able to trust her with his past. „There wasn't any real danger. They haven't come for me."

Daryl was stunned - this was not the answer he'd expected. He had no idea what was going on here, but he was far too relieved at finding her, and finding her well, to argue with her. „Will we talk about this, later?" he asked, curious to learn how she had been able to let go of the anger he'd felt in her when they'd parted at the bus stop.

„Will there be a later?" she asked, surprised. She had expected to be severed from him the next time they managed to contact her.

„Well …", he mumbled, „if you'll wait and remain open, I'll get Hershel, too. We need to talk."

Sensing her consent, he returned to himself, to the restaurant where Hershel was keeping a careful vigil over his nearly unconscious body, and briefly opened his eyes. „I found her", he whispered in a strained voice. „Just follow my lead, I'll take you to her."

.-.

She was still sitting on the floor, curled up under a blanket, leaning back against the sofa - the same position she'd been in when he'd contacted her again to initiate a full three-way meld. Her mind was reeling. The idea of doing this together with a second agent sounded appealing, and Daryl didn't seem opposed to it either, from what she had picked up. He'd been subdued throughout their discussion and had left the decision entirely up to her, making it her call - not Hershel's, not his own, just hers. He had strictly controlled his output, just like he had at the start, not letting anything of himself get out to her, but she had felt his overwhelming guilt and anxiety nevertheless, along with his unwillingness to pressure her into anything she didn't want to do.

But she was willing to continue the mission with a second team taking over from time to time, and generally just being close by in case of emergencies like the one two days ago. She carefully reached out toward Daryl, subtly cutting Hershel out of this meld, to find out if he was on board with it. Sensing her question, he allowed a wave of support to flood their meld. He would do anything she wanted, including sharing and going through all of his data with the other guide if she wanted him cut off for the rest of the mission. But just sensing his feelings on this as clearly and with as much nuance as if they were her own drove home to her once more how beautifully comprehensive their melds had become, and that not having him in her life any longer would hurt her as badly as it would hurt him.

She opened up to Hershel again, feeling Daryl's support and Hershel's worry for both of them, and she thought her heart might break. Focusing on the task at hand again, she radiated consent and felt the same from Daryl just moments later. „So, how do we go about this?" she asked.

Only after they had arranged their next meeting for the actual briefing and she was alone in her mind again did she realize that she hadn't told the two men about Ed.