For notes and disclaimer, please see part one. Have to work late tonight, so posting early... so I won't be posting horrendously late. ~K

Previously, on the Walking Dead: Carol and Daryl are in search of dinner and a water source. When Carol recognizes the scenery from her dream, she drives them deeper into the woods, farther from the safety of camp.

Maybe

Next time Daryl went hunting, he wasn't going to take anybody with him, Rick's orders be damned. They were expelling precious energy… and for what? As far as he could tell, it was for absolutely nothing. He understood that everyone struggled with the stress of their reality in different ways, but following pixie dust trails into the forest was simply unacceptable.

Had she not listened to anything that he'd said? That they needed to be smarter about what they did, and where they did things? That recklessness was stupid? That, as much as he hated alliances, they were stronger, better together? Running into the wilderness with no direction, loud enough for any predator to hear them did not fall into his master plan at all.

He was starting to get mad at himself, for his inability to catch up to her. He'd never figured she could be quite that crafty, to get away from him in the first place, but her speed through the trees was impressive as she stayed just beyond his reach.

His stomach twisted at the familiar sense of hunting a Peletier through the woods.

Carol couldn't stop. She knew it was just ahead, right around the bend. She could almost feel Sophia's presence urging her forward, needing her to see what the child desperately wanted to show. No thought was given to the dangers from the dream. It seemed like an incongruous detail, some foreign matter that didn't belong in Sophia's Meadow or the babbling brook that had to be only a few more feet in front of her.

"For the last time, it ain't real!"

She stopped dead in her tracks at his words, balancing precariously on the creek's soggy bank, her tennis shoes sinking slightly into the mud. The water was clear and beautiful, bubbling as it churned downstream. Carol laughed, feeling a genuine lightness in her whole body at the relief. She lowered the backpack from her shoulders, letting it fall from her hand onto the grassy tuft beside her.

Daryl nearly barreled into her. He could've easily toppled her into the water had he not been able to steady both himself and throw an arm around her to keep her upright. He looked over her shoulder, in mild shock, at what lay before them. "I'll be damned…" he breathed.

"I told you," she murmured. "Sophia knew."

It took a moment before he realized he was holding her protectively against him, his hand flat on her side, just above her hip. Clearing his throat, he quickly took a step back and released her.

She glanced at him. Her color had returned to normal, and she looked more lifelike and animated than perhaps he'd ever seen since Sophia had vanished. If his proximity had bothered her, it wasn't evident on her face at all.

He exhaled. "You'd best get to it, then," he said, as though he hadn't just had to chase her, or that he hadn't just failed miserably to get her to see his perspective. The fact of the matter was they were now at some stream in the middle of nowhere, and they would have to return to camp before dark. Looking at where they had come, he trusted that their impatient steps would be easy to track back.

Without questioning or hesitation, Carol knelt by the water, digging the washboard they'd scavenged from a roadside antique shop a few days back from the backpack to begin her task.

While Daryl caught his breath, he strung a quick clothesline between two trees near where she worked. The laundry could be at least mostly dry before hiking back, if they were lucky. With that accomplished, he began a quiet patrol of their surroundings, looking for both something to hunt and anything out of the ordinary. He made mental notes of the area, taking in the curvature of the mountains in the distance, the kinds of trees that surrounded them, even the outcropping of rocks that dotted the creek further upstream.

As he paced, he wondered how Carol really could have known. He had vague recollections of experiencing déjà vu before the walkers rose, but he hadn't since. Whether he'd actually dreamed something or if he'd just thought it was familiar, he'd never been sure. But, she had been so certain and, startlingly, she'd been so accurate.

Trying to shake off whether it was fate or divine intervention or whatever, he paced further and further out, keeping her within earshot. He was able to kill several squirrels and even a crow before deciding he had all the meat they could handle for a day or two. As he returned to the stream, Carol was pinning a pair of his worn, torn blue jeans to the line.

They were still sopping wet. She'd done her best to wring them out but hadn't been able to get enough torque.

With the crossbow secured, he silently crossed to the line and squeezed out the excess water with ease. It was oddly domestic, maybe even serene. It was like nothing bad was out there, like they had all the time in the world.

Her eyes met his briefly over the line before she immediately set to hanging the rest of the freshly washed clothes with her icy, frozen fingers from their repeated dunking in the creek. While it wasn't much, a clean pair of jeans or a fresh shirt would do wonders for morale, she knew. She could easily push past the numbness for the others. "Did you find anything out there?"

"Other than dinner?" He held up his string of kills. "No." It still gave him pause, as they hadn't seen anything since leaving the farm.

"Maybe things are turnin' around then?" she asked.

He took the khaki pants she was preparing to hang, twisting them tightly before offering them back to her. "Maybe." As she unfurled them again, shaking them out before clipping them to the line, a movement across the creek caught his attention.

The change in his demeanor was instant and nearly frightening to Carol. The killer look returned to his eyes, the tension in his body was ratcheted up. He looked like a cat, ready to pounce, a beast ready to strike.

"Maybe not," he muttered under his breath as he drew the crossbow, securing the walker in his sights.

Stay tuned…