Six weeks later, Daryl's return to his recruiting duties with Aaron is not all smooth sailing, while back in the ASZ, during a difficult time, Carol and Michonne find they have more in common than they knew.

Angst alert...

An Undeserved Curse

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow,
an undeserved curse does not come to rest. -Proverbs 26:2

"Are you going to be like this the whole time?" Aaron asked with a sigh.

"Like what?" Daryl said, in his best surly but righteous snarl.

"Like that." Aaron chuckled, tossing down the armful of sticks he had gathered for their fire. "I know you miss her, but you haven't strung together more than two words at a time since we've been out here."

Six weeks after the Wolves' attack, fully recovered from his leg injury, Daryl had left the ASZ with Aaron three days ago on a weeklong recruiting mission.

"Unlike some people I don't feel the need to exercise my jaw for no good reason." Daryl grunted from his position crouched down, building the fire.

"How about just... simple polite conversation? Observations on the beauty of our surroundings?" Aaron asked, gesturing wide with his arms as he turned in a slow circle, looking up at the small swallowtails diving and darting, hunting gnats, midges and other sunset insects in the reddening sky.

"You feel the need to chat? To let every walker or other sorta asshole out here zero in on us?" Daryl snorted, looking away from the aerial acrobatics, flipping open his silver lighter to set the tinder alight.

Aaron's mouth turned down, crestfallen, but he nodded and started pulling provisions from his pack while Daryl rigged up a spit to roast the two grouse he had shot earlier in the day, which hung, plucked and gutted, covered with cheesecloth, in the low branches of the tree sheltering their campsite.

They worked in not so companionable silence, Daryl knowing he was being a bit of a shit, but he was antsy, restless in his skin, the ease he had felt out here before, alone in the woods with Aaron, missing now. He was angry at himself, angry at his inability to just pick the rhythm of this work back up after a month and a half. His rhythm, his heart beat was attuned to another's now.

Daryl looked over at Aaron. Was it different for him? He'd been out twice with Morgan while Daryl had been healing up from his leg injury. He'd had more of a chance to find a safe place to put his thoughts and feelings about missing Eric, more practice at it. Daryl had always cared about Carol; cared if she was safe, cared what happened to her...but now? Now she was everything...

His daddy always said love was a curse. It was the real trick the snake played on Adam there in the garden. Let a woman seduce you into thinking that she was anything more than a place to stick your dick and you were lost. The apple Eve offered was the trap of obligation and regret—why let one woman chase you out of paradise, where every fruit was ripe for the plucking? When you started to think that you could only eat the apples from her one special tree, you might as well hand her your balls, your wings clipped for good.

Good thing he knew everything his daddy ever said was bullshit.

Carol didn't make him feel trapped or clipped; he just knew he was better with her than without her that was all. Wasn't her fault she was in his head and under his skin so deep that waking up without her threw off his whole day.

"Breakfast?" she'd asked softly as they lay in their bed the morning that he'd left with Aaron, starting to roll away to get up.

Daryl answered with a snuffled "Nah." against her neck, his hand closing over her hip to hold her in place. The sparrows under the eaves were tittering, greeting the morning, the lone rooster crowing accompaniment in the distance.

"Should eat something before you go." Carol insisted, smiling as his mouth opened over her throat and he pretended to take a bite out of the tender skin over her carotid. They hadn't bothered to put their sleep clothes back on after making love last night and she felt his lips skim down across her collar bone and over the swell of her breast until they found the rosy tipped peak. She groaned his name.

Well loved already, she felt over sensitive, the answering ache in her core sharp as he suckled and nipped. Her hip hitched under his hand and he slid it over and down, petting through the curls that covered her mound until she let her legs fall open, welcoming the touch of his rough skinned fingers.

"Sore?" he asked, lifting his mouth from her breast to look at her, noting the small crease between her brows deepen as he gently pressed in through her silkened folds, worried he'd been too rough with her last night. She'd met his passion, their impending separation making them more desperate, spurring them both on to faster, harder, less controlled.

They'd left their marks on each other: new scratches on his back and a curved row of fingertip shaped bruises on the pale freckled flesh of her ass where he'd gripped her tightly as she rode him relentlessly to completion.

"A bit." Carol allowed, reaching down to push his hair back off his forehead. He'd let her trim his bangs back a little last night when she'd fretted over it blocking his sight lines, but it was still long and shaggy in the back. She'd teased him about having Eugene as a style icon and he'd threatened her with dire consequences if she mulletized him.

Daryl nodded and let his fingers fall away from her. Her moue of protest was cut short when he slid down her body, planting a wet kiss on her belly, easing her thighs apart.

"Daryl..." Carol sighed as he settled in between them, positioning her the way he needed.

"Said I should eat somethin' before I go." Daryl drawled and then put his soft strong tongue to work.

Carol rolled her eyes at him, and then giggled until he gave her reason to sigh and cry out instead.

"You're smiling—does that mean you're in a better mood with your belly full?" Aaron asked Daryl quietly, looking up from his place across the fire, where he sat writing in his journal.

Daryl frowned back and grunted non-committally, flicking the ashes off his smoke, watching the perimeter for any signs of movement as he sucked in another lung full, his cheeks going hollow.

"You think I don't miss him just as much?" Aaron clicked his pen and his journal closed and put them back in his bag, staring at the archer.

Daryl shifted his weight onto his other hip and blew out a long cloudy diagonal exhalation.

"They're why we're out here." Aaron continued, "So we can protect them and find others who will help us make Alexandria a better place for all of us. For our families."

Daryl's head came around at that.

Sam was as good as theirs now, his and Carol's. He'd stayed with them while he healed up from his injuries so she could nurse him. With Ron in detention along with Carl and Enid spending their days working with the rehab crew, preparing the unfinished houses for new tenants half the day and going to school the rest, with nights in lock down, Sam couldn't stay with his brother.

When Deanna had given him the choice of where he wanted to live, Sam had asked if he could remain with them. After they'd all spoken with Claire, she'd given her approval of the arrangement.

Daryl's own worries about whether he was capable of being anything close to an appropriate guardian somewhat calmed when the therapist said her talks with Sam and also Carl had shown how much his understanding and advice had benefitted the boys.

Somehow, before he'd even fully acknowledged it, he had a woman he loved and a kid who looked up to him. Daddy Daryl...Merle must be laughing his ass off, whichever direction he'd ended up.

"Hey Carol? You okay?"Michonne asked softly, knocking on the bathroom door again. The low flow toilet flushing loudly put an exclamation point on the sound of retching that had drawn the dreadlocked woman to the door in the first place. Water running in the sink, soft splashing and the sink drain opening followed.

There was no response to Michonne's question, but the door came open and a pale shaky looking Carol stood on the other side, the hair framing her forehead and cheeks wet, as if she'd just rinsed off her face. She had one of Daryl's long sleeved plaid flannel shirts on like a bathrobe over her sleepwear of a tank top and shorts.

"How long?" Michonne asked sympathetically.

"It's not that." Carol said dismissively, pushing past her.

"You sure?" Michonne questioned skeptically. "You haven't been using anything from the supply under the sink for the last two months." She'd kept track, unwilling to run out of the jealously hoarded modern feminine conveniences after living without them on the road.

"Ever hear of a little thing called menopause?" Carol said as she continued down the hall to her and Daryl's room, Michonne trailing behind.

"Menopause make you puke your guts out?" Michonne snorted.

"Eating canned goods with iffy expiration dates does." Carol said matter of factly, and pulled a red pullover shirt, bra, panties and cargoes out of the requisite drawers in her bureau and tossed them on the bed. She waited for the other woman to take the hint and leave, but Michonne just leaned against the door frame, making herself comfortable to continue the conversation.

"We all ate that tuna casserole, Carol." Michonne said, not buying the excuse. "And somehow none of the rest of us got sick."

"Must've been something else then." Carol said, turning to face away from the other woman and take off the flannel over shirt, trying to change quickly, but Michonne came into the room and took hold of her arm, stopping her and turning Carol back to face her.

"He'll know." Michonne sighed as she took in the barely perceptible soft swell of Carol's abdomen, noticeable only because of how thin she had become again. "When he gets back—he'll see."

"No." Carol said quietly, "He won't." her eyes sad but resolute.

Michonne took her meaning and released her arm.

"Your body, your choice." she agreed, but then had to ask, knowing she was overstepping, "But...can I ask why? You're in as safe a place as you can get these days, you're with a man who clearly loves you, and we have a real live doctor, plenty of food, a good support system..."

"All of which can vanish in the blink of an eye." Carol said, moving to the bed to continue undressing, pulling her tank to off over her head. Despite her thin frame, her breasts were already fuller as well. She quickly pulled on her bra, wincing from the increased sensitivity.

"And then what?" Carol asked. "Watch the man I love die trying to protect a woman stupid enough to get knocked up in the apocalypse?"

"So you're not even going to tell him." Michonne said, keeping her voice as even as possible.

"You can't miss what you never had." Carol reasoned, her voice neutral, but as she reached down to push off her shorts, her hands brushed over her belly and she faltered back, sitting down hard on the bed, her mouth open, tears filling her eyes. She looked up at Michonne in absolute misery.

"It's all right..." Michonne moved quickly to her side, sitting down next to her on the bed and putting her arm around Carol's shoulders. Carol turned into the embrace and Michonne held her tightly, trying to lend some of her strength.

"I can't do this...I can't lose another...I can't..." Carol whispered against the other woman's shoulder.

"I know." Michonne soothed, "I know."

"What would you do? If it was you?" Carol asked, pulling away so she could look into Michonne's eyes.

"After my little boy was gone, I never thought I could take another child into my heart..." Michonne said quietly.

"But you did." Carol had always wondered if Michonne had a child before the Turn—the way she'd bonded with Carl and cared for Judith after they'd all been reunited after Terminus, when she couldn't use her search for the Governor as an excuse to distance herself from them anymore—spoke of a familiarity with motherhood.

"So did you. Even after...Andrea told me what happened to your daughter...you still took on those girls...and after them, now Sam." Michonne reminded her.

Carol thought about the boy. Sam had been adamant about meeting Sophia and the message that she'd sent, even though he'd had no idea what it had meant to both she and Daryl. Carol supposed he could've heard about her daughter and the others he said he saw from one of their original group, but the significance of the Cherokee Rose was something only she and Daryl ever knew.

"How old was your son?" Carol asked, taking Michonne's hand in hers while wiping at her eyes with the other.

"I was blessed with Andre for three years." Michonne answered; her smile broad and bittersweet with memory.

Carol smiled back and squeezed her hand in empathy.

"How old was your daughter?"

"Twelve." Carol said, "It happened near the start...of all this...if I hadn't had Andrea, Lori...Daryl..."

"I lost myself for awhile." Michonne sighed, "Was alone too long. Andrea saved me too."

Michonne leaned in and they rested the sides of their heads against one another as they thought about their mutual friend and all she had meant to them.

"So is this a blessing or a curse?" Michonne asked, "This baby?"

Carol sat up straighter. She hadn't let herself call it that yet, that tiny fluttering of life inside her...

"Will you come with me? To see the doctor?" Carol asked, realizing she didn't want to face this alone.

"Of course." Michonne answered, her brow knit in concern, reaching out to rub careful circles on Carol's back.

"Thank you." Carol said softly, more grateful than she could say.

AN: Trust me.

As I went back and watched S2, I was struck by how much support Andrea, Lori (& of course Daryl in his lovely awkward way) gave to Carol while Sophia was missing. They were constantly embracing her and offering hopeful words. Michonne has that same empathetic ability.

I want Michonne and Carol to actually talk to one another about important things on the show! After all they have been through together, we have never really seen that a deeper friendship exists between them. It seems to be ignored in order to give us the fan baiting "almost" Richonne & Caryl moments.