Carol learns what Daryl needs from her and questions whether or not she can give it.

In sewing you have a pattern, a plan that allows you to create a garment that not only fits but conceals your body, hopefully camouflaging the bumpy not so perfect parts and flattering whatever you have. Carol's been a seamstress for a long time now.

A Stitch in Time

Daryl lay stretched out on his back in the rumpled bed, one leg tangled in the sheets, arms above his head which was thrown back, baring his throat, looking vulnerable yet relaxed in his sleep.

After his declaration to her earlier in the evening, something had let loose in him, something that before this had either chased him from their bed before she woke or had him curl more tightly inward, wrapping himself protectively around her from behind, or perhaps anchoring her to him, guaranteeing she'd still be there when he awoke.

His preference was for them both to sleep in the all-together, when they were alone seeming to crave skin to skin contact with her as much and as often as he could get it now. As if having been deprived of it for his whole life he wanted to immerse himself in the sensation of touch.

Carol watched him, the moonlight slanting in through the open window carving shadows and highlights on his supple form like some Dada Renaissance nude cut from marble and then elaborated with a graffiti of tattoos.

She'd had to put two stitches in his thumb to close the damage he'd done to himself with the knife. It wouldn't stop bleeding—he'd cut the small slice too deep—and she looked at the white gauze wrapped around it; marking the contrast with the dark bronze of his hand and arms.

He never went shirtless and wouldn't be caught dead in anything other than his worn Carharts, faded patched jeans or khakis, so the skin on the rest of his body was pale in comparison...except for the scars...those bloomed in purple reds and paler pinks on his back, chest and sides. There were even livid stripes marring the dimpled small of his back as it curved into the soft flesh of his ass, which brought tears to her eyes, imagining the agonies he'd endured as a young child to earn them.

That was the one place he still had a hard time letting her touch; it was a guaranteed flinch unless they were well into it and his desire overruled his fears and then he would suffer the caress of her hands, soft, careful there as he moved within her, his muscles taut as the speed of his thrusts increased, her fingers soothing over the differences in the cream soft skin and tight thick scars.

The through and through mark left by a bolt on his left side, low, nearer his hip, was almost white, more a ghost of a wound than the ones from his childhood. That one he'd suffered for her...for Sophia...back when they'd barely known one another. When he had shown her what kind of a man he really was.

Daryl was more complicated than most gave him credit for...

She'd asked him why; back then by the pond on the farm, why had he spent his time, risked his life to find her daughter, a girl he'd hardly ever said two words to and had last spoken to in anger.

"This whole time I just...I wanted to ask you..."

"'Cause I think she's still out there...truth is, what else I got to do?"

He'd thrown his lot in with hers. With the group he'd found a reason to go on after losing his brother; then he had given her reason to do the same after losing Sophia. He had kept her from leaving at the church after Terminus just as she'd pulled him back after Grady. That what was they were to each other, yin and yang, two parts of a whole.

All the things that had been ripped and torn from her, all the people, all the parts of herself that she'd lost or denied? The time they were alone together was what kept her stitched together.

Daryl was the one person she knew she could always be herself around, the only one she truly let down her guard with here in the ASZ. Even with Rick she held back, never letting him see how close she was to the edge, never telling about how she'd threatened Pete, never telling the others she'd stolen the guns...

Carol reached out her hand to touch the scar on Daryl's side where Hershel had sewn him back together, wishing she could have seen the kind giving man one last time, tell him how grateful she had been for what he had done for all of them.

At her touch Daryl stirred, opening his eyes, sleepy and content. His mouth curved into a questioning slow half smile and he took a deep breath, stretching out his arms and grunting a little at the pull that drew on his chest and abs. He was in the best shape of his life, but between his forays on the bike battling walkers with Aaron and the intensely passionate turn his relationship with Carol had taken, he was just plain worn out at the moment.

"Hey." Daryl murmured, hooking a hand around her elbow to pull her close. He fitted her to him, in close to his side and threw one long lean leg over both of hers to keep her there. His hands ghosted over her back lightly and then settled about midway, silently encouraging her to rest her head on his chest by tugging her closer.

"Hey." Carol replied, settling in, his strong steady heartbeat against her ear.

"H'come you're not asleep?" Daryl asked, slowly trailing his hand up and down her spine in a gentle brushing motion, like you would test the softness of velvet against your cheek.

Carol gave a half hearted shrug of one shoulder, knowing it would just embarrass him if she told him she'd been thinking about how much he meant to her, how much she loved him...

"Worryin'?" he asked and she shook her head no, making him snort a little. As long as he'd known her she was always worrying about something or someone. That was just who she was: she planned; she cared.

"'Bout me?" Daryl pressed.

Again she gave him a silent no.

"Ain't gonna take it back." he said softly.

Carol raised her head to look up into his eyes. She saw sincerity and also a little fear that maybe he'd overstepped.

"So don't you be thinkin' 'bout –worryin' bout nothin' or nobody else." Daryl grumbled stubbornly, his hand pausing its motion at the small of her back.

Carol felt the muscles in his chest tightening and she thought he actually sounded a little jealous.So shesmiled up at him, a warm eye crinkling indulgent smile.

"What?" Daryl stared back at her, his eyes narrowing.

"I'm naked and alone with naked you in a bed—not really thinking about anything or anyone else at the moment." Carol finally said, raising an eyebrow at him. It was their little pocket universe, this alone time in the night, when none of the day's worries had to bother them.

Daryl's hand ventured lower, curling over her hip to round the curve of her ass.

"Don' like yer fussy clothes." He said, a bit smug, changing the subject.

"I know."

"Like you naked."

"I know." Carol sighed as his hand grew bolder, giving her cheek a squeeze before returning to trace delicate circles there.

"Well—maybe some things you wear are passable." Daryl mused.

"Such as?"

"Them boots..."

"You gave me those boots—told me they were practical and sturdy."Carol reminded him.

The gift was one of several thoughtful things he'd quietly done for her at the prison, bringing little somethings back from his travels with Michonne or runs with Glenn and the others, always brushing off her thanks.

"Are you saying you had an ulterior motive?" she asked.

"Imagining you in just those boots got me to a veryhappy 'ulterior' more times n' I can count..." Daryl admitted, his cheeks reddening.

Admitting to someone you used to jerk off to fantasies of them wasn't exactly in his comfort zone.

"Poncho." Carol said with a sigh. "You'd lay me down on it in a meadow blissfully free of noisy nosy people and walkers."

"Damn. A poncho fetish?" Daryl chuckled wryly, "Really?"

"More times than I can count..."Carol sighed dramatically, making him grin. "Too bad you lost it."

Daryl nodded. Last he'd seen it; it had been on some woman in Terminus. It was one of the ways they'd figured out the place was wrong, unfortunately, a bit too late.

"You still got them boots though..." Daryl murmured, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe some night when I'm not so tuckered..." he gave an exaggerated yawn. "Or maybe you'll start wearin' them again ...every day? Knowin' what I'm thinkin' the whole time?"

"Is this your way of trying to get me drummed out of the Junior League?" Carol asked, teasingly accusing him of sexual blackmail, but Daryl gave her a measured look.

"Maybe you don't gotta pretend no more." Daryl ventured carefully. "Deanna's listening to us, doing what she needs to get the place ready. You can maybe let go a little—be you again...who you are with me... all the time."

Carol knew his preference was for her to end her deception, let the people here know just how capable she really was. He'd done it, shown them his value to them as a hunter and scout, going out on his missions with Aaron. She sighed again at the irony that the one most people always considered the outsider because of his rough exterior was actually the one who wanted most to fit in, to be a part of something.

They'd both had that, at the prison.

But it had all unraveled. Pull out one little thread and the tensions bursting at the seams had poured forth in nightmare fashion. She'd been holding it together: making Rick's desire to step back and raise his children possible by forming the Council, giving the kids the chance to survive that Sophia hadn't had by training them to defend themselves, letting Daryl and Michonne seek their revenge for Merle and Andrea by roaming the region questing for the one-eyed monster until Daryl's need to belong and contribute (and maybe because he missed her) brought him home to stay.

Then the dead did what they always do. They haunted the living, this time physically carrying with them a virus, an old pathogen from before the Turn that had devastated the prison in a matter of hours.

Carol knew how fast it could all fall apart if the wrong stitch let loose. How even the people you trusted most could betray you.

"I still don't trust them enough, Daryl." Carol told him, lowering her chin and resting her cheek against his chest again so she didn't have to see the entreaty in his eyes.

"Aaron's been straight with you...n' Eric." Daryl said with quiet insistence, brushing a reassuring kiss to the top of her head.

"That's two people out of a whole town." She replied.

"Deanna's –" Daryl began to protest, but Carol interrupted him forcefully.

"Deanna's a politician—she only shows people what she wants them to see."

"Yeah, well, maybe she ain't the only one." Daryl muttered, huffing out a sigh.

At that Carol pulled away from him and sat up, her face that bland mask he hated again.

She hadn't said it back. She knew he'd put himself on the line and she hadn't done the same. He knew how she felt, his phrasing, "I love you too," said as much, but she still hadn't actually said the words.

Right at that moment she knew that omission had hurt him. She saw it in his eyes, their clear blue stormy and troubled.

She also knew that if it came down to it, she'd say or do anything to keep him and hated that he had that power over her. She wanted him to stay in his little zipped up pocket, not burst out into the rest of her carefully pressed and patched together life.

"I'm doing what I have to do to keep us safe." Carol said carefully.

"You ain't invisible any more. You ain't." Daryl told her. "Or are you plannin' on sheddin' me like them boots? Keep me hid away in a closet somewhere so no one knows I'm yours?" he asked, squinting at her assessingly, waves of hurt and shame flowing off of him.

Carol's eyes suddenly filled with tears and her mouth trembled as she fought not to show him how perfectly he knew her. He was right. Every time they had shown any indication of their connection in public it had been because he'd initiated it. He made her visible.

"Ah, shit...didn't mean it–don't—c'mere—" Daryl reached for her when he saw her tears, but she took his hands in hers and made him look at her instead of just going into his arms.

"You know it isn't because I'm not proud to be with you." Carol told him, willing him to remember how she had always shown him, right from the start, what a good man she believed him to be.

Daryl frowned, lowered his eyes and then looked back up at her from under his long bangs, slowly nodding in agreement even while chewing on the inside of his lower lip. He stared at her, trying to suss out what was going through her head.

"You're afraid." He finally said, shaking his head at her with a ghost of a sad smile.

"Aren't you?" she sniffed; her nose wrinkling from the effort at holding back her tears.

"Naw." He drawled, the corner of his mouth turning up as his eyes grew warm.

"Why?" Carol asked him, wanting to know his secret; how he could be so sanguine about this place with all the possibilities of danger and death lurking in every corner.

"All we been through—everythin' that's happened to us—we're still here, you n' me." Daryl said, echoing what he'd told her during their water run at the church and while they searched for Beth in Atlanta. "Long as I got that...I meant what I said... I'm yours, Carol... and notjust when we're naked and alone." and he said it so gently and honestly that it hurt, ripped right through her chest.

Carol pulled her hands from his and wrapped her arms around herself, staring at him, her head slowly tilting to the side, the tears finally escaping to overflow and trail down her nose and cheek.

Daryl waited, patient now that he'd said his piece.

Carol thought back over all of her carefully worked out strategies, all of the ways she'd created the smoke screen from the moment she'd clumsily taken off that rifle and smiled her way through the lies she'd told Deanna. Every casserole and batch of cookies, every cardigan and pair of mom jeans hanging in her closet, all the ugly sensible shoes...

Could Daryl fit? A hot romance with the resident bad boy that would scandalize the Junior League?

People gossiping about her sex life might be less likely to notice other things...and it would give Daryl what he wanted; a public acknowledgement of their relationship, keep him happy, let her stay in control, keep things between them from going bad... a stitch in time saves nine...

Carol looked up at his expectant face, wiped at her eyes with both hands and then leaned towards him, tentatively using her tear dampened fingers to close over his strong forearms, pulling him to her. When her lips brushed his ear, she whispered,

"I'm yours."

I know. She does love him, but she's still afraid to say it and she's contemplating using him as cover. Sigh. Damaged.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts if you have time.