Okay friends. I needed all the help I could get with this Chapter. I set my Pandora to some old school soul. I channeled the likes of Al Green, Bill Withers, Otis Redding and a little Percy Sledge. Hahaha! So this chapter has got the love, people. I know that this may not seem very Darylesk. But as we all know, a man is a complicated creature, and I figured given the right setting and the right mood, even the lovely Daryl could open up a bit. I tried to deliver it the way I thought he would. There is a lot of inner conflict. I, for some reason, really love this chapter but I wont lie, I have trouble with lovey dovey stuff. I spent hours agonizing over every damn word. Six hours for this one chapter actually. And I'm sure after you read it you will think me crazy. But that's fine. I honestly don't have much of a sweet romantic bone in my body so I struggle at times ;) But I worked hard damn it! So I hope I've done you proud ;) Thanks, as always for the reviews!

Oh yeah, and just in case make sure you pay attention to what chapter you last read in case you weren't notified!

Chapter Twenty Two

Daryl sat straight up in bed. The dream was already fading and he let it go. Actually he tried to force it out of his head. It wasn't something that he wanted to remember. The only thing he remembered about it was that it involved Carol and Shane and him stepping through a doorway and seeing them together and it had about made him sick. Shane's hands running over her body. Shane's mouth all over her. Neither of them wearing many clothes. He put a hand to his stomach and almost groaned. He felt her stir and then she sat up next to him.

"What's wrong?" She whispered. He felt her hand on his back and he had to remember that it had been a dream. Nothing that she would ever do in real life. He relaxed slightly.

"Nothin'. I think it's time to get up. We gotta get out of here." He didn't mean to sound as harsh as he had and he knew she heard it in his voice because her hand went still on his back.

"Okay." She pulled her hand away and he could hear the hurt in that one whispered word.

He reached out and ran a hand up her calve and then moved, pushing her back down gently. He settled himself between her legs and put his face next to her ear. "Sorry." He whispered.

She brushed her hand down his chest. "It's alright."

"Is it?" He growled and then ran his mouth along her jaw.

"Yeah." She breathed.

He knew he needed to move but he really didn't want to. After that dream he felt like he needed to know that she was there. And she was with him and that was where she wanted to be. He knew it was stupid. He knew he didn't have anything to worry about when it came to her. If he wanted to walk out right now and leave the others in the dust he knew she would go right with him. But that really was one fucked up dream and he really just wanted to feel her there.

"Daryl?"

He didn't answer her. He found her mouth and then she didn't have anymore questions. She just settled in and kissed him back. And that was what he needed. He didn't like feeling like he wasn't in control. He didn't like feeling like his whole world was balanced on this one small woman. Didn't like the fact that if she said the wrong thing it could undo him.

He was the one to finally pull away. "You ready to get out of here?" He whispered.

"No. But if we don't want to blow up I think we need to." She ran her finger along his bottom lip and he could hear the smile in her voice.

Instead of moving he kissed her again and she wrapped her legs around him, causing him to groan. She laughed softly against his lips.

"Don't forget that Sophia is asleep about ten feet away." Carol said before he could kiss her again.

"I didn't forget." He whispered as he kissed her throat. In his minds eye he could see the bruises that still marred her skin under his lips.

"Okay. But are you regretting turning me down in the R.V.?"

"Nope."

She was the one that groaned now. "I'm starting to think that you like this part of it but aren't all that interested in the rest."

"Oh, I'm interested in the rest. But I..." He didn't finish the sentence. He caught himself before he said the rest. He didn't even know where it had come from.

"But you what?" She pressed.

"Nothin'." he grumbled and tried to pull away but she locked her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and he stopped trying to move.

"Not nothin'." She said as she craned her neck to reach his lips.

He kissed her again, this time longer than before and he didn't lift his head until she was moving under him, driving him crazy.

"You're trying to distract me." She accused quietly. "You were going to say something bad, weren't you?" She asked worriedly.

"No I wasn't. You're the one grindin' against me like a harlot." He growled.

"You being there for me to grind against to begin with just proves that you're trying to distract me. If you were going to say something bad then just say it. I'm tougher than I look, you know?" Her tone was joking but he could hear something else there too. Worry?

"Carol, you're crazy. There isn't one bad thing I could say about you. Or this."

"Daryl." She groaned.

"I love you." he said into her neck. "I was gonna say that I love you and I wasn't gonna do it in the camper because I didn't think it was right too. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

He was almost angry. He had never said that to another person. Not his parents and not his brother. Just her. And it was the scariest thing he had ever done in his life because this was that moment he had been dreading since the very beginning. This was the moment that she was going to tell him that she couldn't love somebody like him back. That they were too different. That he was too much like his brother. That he wasn't the type of person that another person could love. And he already knew all of that. He knew it and he had said it to her anyway. He knew he meant it with everything in him but he never thought he would tell her.

She went still under him. He braced himself for what she had to say. She would let him down easy. She wouldn't be mean about it. She was probably trying to think of some way to tell him to ease the sting a little. She was still Carol. She was still the nicest person that he knew so she would try not to hurt him too much.

The silence was going on for too long. It almost made him wish that the damn building would go ahead and blow up before he had to listen to her. Or worse. What if she just pushed him away and then got up. Took Sophia and left the room and avoided him forever because he was so fucking stupid for thinking, for just a split second, that he was good enough for...

"You do?" She interrupted his thoughts.

Why did she have to ask a question like that? Did she want him to take it back and say he was kidding or something? He couldn't do that. It was there. Hanging over them like a black cloud. He tried to pull away from her again but it worked about as good as it had before. She clung to him so he couldn't move and then he felt her hands threading through his hair. And he went ahead and answered her, even though he didn't want to. "I do." He wished he was still drunk. Then he would have that as an excuse.

"Daryl?" She whispered so low he almost didn't hear her over the pounding of his heart.

Here it was. She was about to say that she didn't feel the same way. That he was fun to mess around with but wasn't the kind of man she could have anything real with. And he wasn't ready to deal with what it all meant.

"Just hurry up and say what you have to say, Carol. I can take it." He whispered but he was lying. He couldn't take it at all.

"I love you."

~H~

She felt him freeze. Like everything in his body turned to stone above her. She had a hand on his chest and the other in his hair and it felt like he literally stopped breathing.

"What?" He almost barked and the loud sound in the room nearly scared her to death.

"Shhh!"

"Sorry." he said, much quieter.

She couldn't believe he had said it. It wasn't something that she had ever expected to hear come out of the mouth of Daryl Dixon. And she knew he meant it. If he hadn't then he never would have said it. That wasn't the kind of person he was. He had said last night that he cared about her and that was shocking enough. She had hidden it well but she was so happy that he'd said he cared that she could have cried. And now this? This was much much more than she ever thought she would get from him. Whatever he offered her she would take, but this wasn't something she ever imagined he could offer.

Ed had told her that he loved her what felt like a million years ago. She recalled him saying it twice. Once before they got married and then once again during their wedding. Never after that. Sophia told her that she loved her all the time and she knew that it was true. But to hear those words from a man, a real man, this man, was actually not something she would have thought she would ever hear.

"Carol?" She heard her name in his breath and she realized that she had grown just as still as he had. "Don't just say it because I did, okay. Cause ain't nobody ever bothered sayin' it before and if you don't mean I don't want to hear it."

She didn't think she had ever heard so much raw emotion in her life. Those whispered words held so much uncertainty and so much hurt that she felt tears slip from the corners of her eyes. What could his life had been like for him to be in so much torment over someone telling him that they loved him? It made her angry. He had his faults, just like the rest of the world, but despite them, he was the best person she had ever known. She realized, too late that his face was in the direct path of those traitorous tears. He lifted his head up slowly

"Don't do that." He whispered as his thumbs wiped the moisture away. She felt, in just that brief contact, that his hands were shaking. "It's alright. Really."

He was still doubting her and she realized that she hadn't responded yet and he was probably sure that she hadn't meant it when she had told him. "Daryl, I wouldn't ever say that to you if it wasn't true."

She still had one hand in his hair and she pulled his face down before he could spend anymore time thinking that she wasn't being honest. He finally relaxed, laying his head on her chest as she ran her fingers through his hair. She hoped he believed her. Hoped that he knew that she loved him. She could have laughed at the irony of it all. How she had to wait until the end of the world to finally find herself and to finally find him. To find love in a place where monsters were real and they weren't guaranteed tomorrow. When everything was balanced on the head of a pin. Leave it up to her.

All to soon she felt him moving away until he was sitting up on his knees. He found her hands and pulled her up until she was sitting. His lips brushed against hers briefly and then she heard him sigh.

"Time to get the fuck outta this place woman. Hit the showers if you want. It might be the last hot one you ever get."

"That's one of the things I love about you, Daryl. All you're undying optimism." She groaned before she turned on the light and was finally able to see his face. She had messed up his hair and his eyes were still sleepy looking.

And, of course, he was smirking at her. And he was absolutely gorgeous. And he was all hers.