There was a knock on his door, waking him from his doze, and then he heard Hershel's quiet, soothing voice. "Can I come in?"

A slow, painful exhale.

Closing his eyes.

Trying to relax – this was Hershel. Hershel, who had saved his life three years ago. Hershel, whom he trusted implicitly. Hershel, who had seen him in his boxer shorts and guessed the origin of his old scars and had been there for him getting new ones. Hershel, who would never judge him, based on what he was going to see in here - quite apart from the fact that Hershel had already seen him when he had still been drugged up to his eyebrows on the shit they had been injecting into him until he had made them stop.

A long, shuddering inhale.

His throat and chest constricting with panic.

Opening his eyes. Looking at the i.v. bags and lines, listening to the beeping machines monitoring his post-surgery vital signs, catching a glance at his left arm, immobilized by a padded plaster splint reaching from his upper arm down to his fingers and firmly held in place by a bandage.

His fingers were still stained from the antiseptic with which his arm had been sprayed for surgery. It was going to be in a cast from just above his elbow down to his palm and thumb at least for a month. Between this and his damaged leg he was going to be completely helpless once again for weeks. Dependent on help for every little thing. Shame flooded him.

"Yeah, come in." His voice barely loud enough to be heard outside because his broken ribs and the bruises in his face were still making breathing and speaking painful, even days after he had set the Feina base on fire.

There were no words for how much he appreciated that Hershel had not even started depressing the oversized, flat door handle before he called him in – it only started to move downward when Daryl called out. Biting his lower lip, Daryl watched as the door opened, slowly, giving him time to adjust to being on display. Giving him time to find his zen.

Giving him time to stop this if he needed to.

His Adam's apple bobbed painfully as Hershel stepped into the room and nodded at him without visibly reacting to how Daryl looked, without contempt, and, most importantly, without pity.

Maybe it would be okay.

.-.

"You remember Carol getting on the first ambulance? And that Sandra helped you get out of the building safely?" Daryl made an attempt at nodding that apparently satisfied Hershel. He went on. „You remember me telling you two days ago that Glenn and Andrea, the blonde guard who let you pass the gate, got out as well, and that they will all be okay?" Hershel had pulled a chair up to Daryl's bed and was sitting next to him, careful to keep looking out the window.

Daryl's room was on the second floor so he'd have a view of the trees and of the rooftops of New Atlanta – and nobody would be able to look into his room from outside the building. Hershel had pulled strings and had taken the time to carefully inspect all possible rooms – all the rooms equipped with the technology Daryl was going to need – and select the most suitable one - the most isolated one - while Daryl had been undergoing surgery that night.

Daryl nodded slowly and carefully, moving his head only minimally. He had developed severe headaches and dizzy spells in the wake of the attack on the Feina. Only when he opened his mouth to speak did he notice how parched he was feeling. Being on a fluid drip didn't help with his dry mouth and lips. Moving slowly, always conscious of the deep bruising all over his body, he raised his good arm, careful not to get entangled in the i.v. lines running into the veins on the back of his hand and the inside of his elbow, and got the paper cup with the flexible straw from his nightstand. Once he had taken a few sips he set the cup down on his stomach, still holding it, and licked his lips. "Yeah, I remember that. How is –" He stopped just short of saying her name. He felt that he was exposed enough right now as it was - but he was still dreaming about her, intense dreams, vivid dreams, dreams that had him jerk awake in terror, and he just had to know.

Hershel, however, didn't need to hear him say Carol's name to know who he was talking about. "Carol's doing very well. She has lots of cuts, and a long one down her back, and of course bruises from falling and from getting hit by debris, but she's healing nicely." He briefly glanced at Daryl with a slight smile that went unnoticed because Daryl's eyes were closed again. "But the people you met were not the only ones who got out that night."

This statement had Daryl reacting instantly. His eyes flew open, the whites still speckled with tiny spots of clotted blood, and he turned his head as best he could to stare at Hershel, clearly agitated. Hershel saw the veins in his temples pulsing against the light from the window, and his even, regular breathing turned into gasps. "How many?" he panted. His eyes were full of fear and darkness.

Ever since he'd woken up in here with Merle by his bedside, he'd been afraid that the door would burst open and a group of either humans or Feina would storm the room to arrest his brother for collaborating with the enemy – or maybe execute him on the spot. He couldn't imagine that too many humans had been in those buildings that night, so it had to be a handful of Feina that had gotten away, and while no Feina still alive today had seen him, Merle had served as a policeman for years. They knew his brother, and to them, he would have failed at stopping this disaster. He'd make a perfect scapegoat.

The older man seemed to be reading his mind even though they weren't linked. His answer, when it came, was calm and collected. "No Feina", Hershel answered softly. "Merle is safe, and all of you agents are safe." Daryl felt his cheeks growing warm at being called an agent again. „But … Glenn and Carol found someone by pure accident whom we had believed lost long ago – and they found him alive and took him to safety just before they found you." In view of both Daryl's and Jim's condition, Hershel tried not to smile too widely, but it was a strain. "Daryl - they found Jim."

.-.

Carol was on the com with her mother, making arrangements for her and Sophia to come to New Atlanta, when a sudden blast of emotion rocked her, leaving her unable to speak. "Mom … I'll …" She could almost feel her mother's confusion, but she simply couldn't complete her sentence, even her thought. She found herself panting wildly for no reason, her eyes wide and unfocused, her hands trembling with shock as she shut down their connection, leaving her sentence unfinished.

These were not her own emotions going on a rampage and flooding her, that much was clear.

And with this fact established, she also knew beyond a doubt whose emotions they were.

Consciously opening her link, she reached out, but she never had to look for him – he was all around her, and she had never known him to lose control like this. Venturing out to touch his mind felt like stepping into a raging storm, into winds buffeting her mind as if she were merely a leaf on the wind, getting whipped this way and that by the frenzy of his … What was it that he was experiencing?

She approached him carefully, very aware again of his power. Touching his mind felt like getting close to a live high-voltage wire - he was brimming with tension, high-strung, caught in a vortex of heady emotions that were threatening to devour him. She „saw" flashes of color racing around and past her in velvety darkness streaked with orange and purple, and realized that melding always became highly visual around him. This was what he always saw when doing it?

It was beautiful.

But right now, it was out of control.

.-.

„Daryl!"

It sounded like her voice. But it couldn't be. They hadn't linked again since that night, and he had no idea if his implant had been damaged by the debris raining down on him, so he hadn't even tried. Also, why would she want to link with him? Their mission was over. They had completed it and there was no need for them to contact each other again. So why would she reach out for him now through their link - if that was even possible any longer?

„Daryl, can you hear me?"

She sounded worried, too. He had to be hallucinating this. Why would anyone be worried for him now, when he was safe here, and being taken care of? When the mission was complete? When he was expendable? When the last thing she needed was another asshole in her life? His skin crawled as he remembered Ed, and what he had done to her. His throat constricted at the memory of her bloody footprints on tiles as she fled from her kitchen, from his fists, and the threat of his feet.

Even if she was not aware that he knew about that from her dreams - how could he face her again, knowing what she had suffered? Knowing that, after suffering so much, after protecting her girl the way she had, after running from Ed to save herself, she had still found it in her to care about him, even after that night he had withdrawn from her when she had run into Esnik by accident? After he had failed her so badly, without giving her any reasons? Daryl fought to breathe.

While he had failed both Jim and Carol, still they were both going to be okay. They were both going to be reunited with their families and pick up the pieces of their lives now to try and make it work. He would always carry the guilt of failing them, but their blood was not on his hands - or rather, their deaths. He was certain that Jim's blood stained his hands after months in a Feina cell, but he was still alive - they had kept him alive as a toy, as a guinea pig, of that he was sure. He had to have suffered beyond Daryl's wildest imagination - but they hadn't killed Jim. In this, at least, he was being spared.

So, why …?

And suddenly she was there, touching his mind, as gently as she had cradled it while getting him to accept that they'd be teaming up with Rick, and he was simply blown away by how much she cared, and worried, and …what? Once again he sensed this unfamiliar emotion in her that he had never encountered in anyone else he had linked with and couldn't have named for the life of him. It made something hard and painful inside him unclench so the pain became a little less for just a heartbeat.

Daryl couldn't help himself. Faced with her limitless empathy, he could only surrender.

He opened up.

.-.

Seeing Daryl overcome with emotion at his words, Hershel had left him alone to give him some privacy so he could regain his composure. Outside, he had met Glenn who had come to see Jim and Carol - he had given up on Daryl allowing him into his room. Now the two of them looked at each other wordlessly. They were both being flooded with an intense mix of emotions so far out of control that they didn't even have a way of telling what they were experiencing. This was everything at once - joy, pain, fear, shame, caring, longing - and full-fledged panic and an overwhelming sense of being pushed back.

Carol and Daryl were melding, and to those witnessing it from the sidelines it felt like galaxies spinning into each other in space - right now, to each other, they were the only people alive on this planet.

.-.

„How are you?"

This was the one overriding concern for each of them - the other's well-being - and therefore it was their first question, asked simultaneously by both of them.

They were barely holding back any longer - their minds became one consciousness, and hiding anything became virtually impossible after that. They sensed each other's pain, and loneliness, and an overwhelming joy at being linked again after four days spent in isolation.

The sheer relief that the other had survived.

That they were both still here, when the odds against them had been overwhelming.

No need to answer questions, when you could sense the answers. No need to even ask anything, when you were faced with an open landscape that contained all you needed to know.

„I need to see you. I need to see with my own eyes that you're safe."

„I can't. 'm sorry, but I can't. I'm … You wouldn't …" Having her see him, helpless, defenseless, broken, was something he could never allow. The rules established by TE to protect their agents had served him just fine as a screen to hide behind. Now that screen was gone, and he was desperately reaching for reasons, excuses, justifications. He found none, only his own sense of shame and inadequacy.

She didn't deserve a piece of trash like him. She'd had her share of trash, and he'd been grateful to hear from Merle that Ed had been in the basement of the admin building when the charges had blown. He had probably died without even realizing what was happening. Without suffering. A merciful death, compared to what he deserved.

She deserved someone who was worthy of her and her fierce protectiveness. He had deserted her, that night in the rain, and she had come to save his life in return, risking her own in the process. She deserved someone better.

Someone who deserved to be loved.

Not him.