The extended Grimes household gets a new addition and Carol comes home to find Daryl waiting in their room after his session with Claire.

Trigger warning: Frank discussion of rape and sexual abuse.

Just the Way You Are

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I'll take you just the way you are

-Writer(s): Kesleah Hall, Billy Joel
Copyright: Impulsive Music, Word Music LLC

"What's this?" Rick asked as he saw Ron and Carl carrying a twin sized mattress down the stairs. They were followed by Sam, Enid and Riley, who was carrying giggling Judith. The blonde girl shied back behind Enid when she saw Rick.

"Daryl said we could have it." Carl said. "Enid and Riley are gonna share our old room and Ron and Sam and me are moving down to the basement with Gray."

"Riley?" Rick frowned, "Something happen over at Claire and Felicia's place?" Brianna and Riley had moved in with the two women after they'd been released from the Infirmary. The idea was for Claire to be better able to monitor their mental states, but after the baby had been born he'd kept them so busy it hadn't been the most practical arrangement.

Brianna and Daryl's run in today had escalated things in a couple of different ways. It had sent Daryl to see Claire, but it had also led to Brianna accusing Riley of betraying her by siding with Carol and keeping Brianna and Daryl apart.

Carl set down his end of the mattress and came close to his father, speaking softly.

"Her sister doesn't want her there, dad. She was real mean about it too."

"I want her here, Mr. Grimes, she's my friend." Enid told him, putting her arm around the other girl.

"She's all our friend." Ron said, looking shyly at Riley.

"Daryl was okay with this?" Rick asked, remembering how upset he'd been when the first three had arrived.

"He gave us the mattress." Sam piped up, patting the side of the aforementioned object.

"Claire said it was a good idea for Riley to live here." Carl said, adding, "And Judith likes her."

Rick ran his hand back through his hair and sighed at them all.

"Well, if Judith approves, who am I to argue?" he finally shrugged, briefly wondering if Grayson was aware he was about to be invaded.

The young man had proven himself in the months since he'd joined them. He'd been an auto mechanic before the Turn, a fact that had made him as valuable to them as to the Wolves. He helped keep the vehicles, such as they were, running, and had set up a repair shop of sorts in the garage of this house, where people could bring their broken appliances.

Gray's dark good looks had turned a few heads, but he spent his free time with his long lost sister and her friends, playing board games, reading and debating over comics and video games and generally just being the kid that he hadn't been allowed to be since the Turn. His basement room was a sort of club house for the teenagers, so having them sleep there as well probably wasn't that much of a stretch. Everyone had to squeeze tighter the more people who arrived. At least this way it wasn't a group of potentially dangerous strangers invading.

"I don't want to be coming around telling you all to be quiet and to go to sleep all the time." Rick warned, "This isn't a big ol'slumber party. You got jobs and school and there are adults who need their sleep livin' here too."

"Yes sir." Enid said solemnly, but couldn't stop the big smile that broke over her usually dead pan face.

Riley came out from behind her friends and cautiously inched towards Rick, returning his daughter to him. Calling on every last shred of bravery she had, she raised her eyes to his as he took Judith from her.

"Thank you." the girl said softly and quickly leaned up to kiss his cheek and then shrunk back, looking back to the floor, frozen in place until Enid moved up beside her and took her hand.

"You're welcome, honey." Rick said gently, his throat closing up at the sudden remembrance of another girl thanking him the same way for bringing her sister back.

As the mattress parade made its way down to the basement, Rick looked to the upstairs steps. He hoped that whatever had happened with Riley's sister's accusations today had been resolved between his friends. They'd both been through enough hell without someone trying to come between them.

The sound of the front door locks being opened sent him back across the room to the foyer, where he met a very tired looking Carol and Michonne.

"Everyone settled?" Rick asked. He'd expected them home earlier, but there had been another group of arrivals at the gate soon after the Council meeting. Michonne had gone to help with intake while Carol substituted for her shift at the Armory. Until newcomers had seen the doctor and given a clean bill of health, Carol wasn't allowed around them.

"Two women and a little boy in fairly good shape; they'll be in quarantine a few days." Michonne said, pulling off her leather gloves and stuffing them in her pockets. "Boy's a little younger than Sam; women are mother and daughter, say they walked from Bethesda."

"Everybody else in for the night?" Carol asked, seeing no sign of the kids or Daryl, pulling her gloves, scarf, hat and coat off and hanging them on the hooks by the door. Judith reached for her and Carol smiled, taking the little girl, who cuddled into her neck sleepily.

"Kids are all downstairs—doing a little rearranging—we have a new member of the tribe." Rick told them. Both women raised a questioning brow at that news.

"Who?" Michonne asked, pulling her katana over her head and propping it against the wall while she removed her jacket and hung it next to Carol's.

"Riley. Seems her sister didn't take kindly to her spilling the beans about..." Rick looked to Carol, wincing uncomfortably "...to Daryl today..."

"I didn't like how he man-handled Brianna when he confronted her." Michonne said, looking at Carol as well, with concern. "She had bruises on her arms from it...I know what she said made him angry, but with what she's already been through..."

"What they've both been through." Rick observed. "She's trying to cope with it in her way and so is he."

"She created her own reality... and he shuts down and lashes out—that's what he does—you know that's what he does." Carol said, rocking Judith in a slight sway as she spoke.

"Carol—do you feel safe with him after this?" Rick asked. He meant what he'd said to Daryl after the meeting today. They'd had their differences in the past but Carol was family.

"I asked him to go see Claire. I had concerns before what happened today." Carol said. A few well-meaning or perhaps malicious people had dropped hints to her that Daryl was being unfaithful. She'd actually been worried that he was acting out sexually. She had read that sometimes rape victims devalued themselves so much that they became promiscuous as a way of self harm. Learning today the rumors had been deliberately and obviously falsely generated by Brianna had been a relief.

Since he'd left the Infirmary and come home he'd flinched away from even the gentlest touches. What they'd shared when she told him about the baby had been the last time he had voluntarily touched her except to make sure she kept her footing going down the stairs or crossing the street in a crowd, when he'd place a guiding hand oh so briefly on her arm or back.

She missed the relationship they had been building before all of this happened. Claire and she had discussed what to expect as he worked through what had happened to him and she knew they had a long way to go, but she was also fighting her own desires. Pregnancy hormones were trying to hijack her brain. Looking at him, breathing in his scent, sleeping in the same room but never being allowed to just slip into his bed, to touch him the way she craved, was making her slowly lose her mind. Claire had told her what she was feeling was natural and she shouldn't be ashamed of wanting the man she loved. It would take time, but with love and understanding they could recapture that passion.

Carol wasn't so sure. As far as she could tell, he seemed to have no sexual feelings what so ever, towards her or anyone else. That part of him was completely shut down, much as it had been when they first met.

His intense anger when faced with Brianna's lies had seemed to overcome his inability to touch, but the idea of having to provoke him to that level of emotion to get him to touch her sounded about as smart as letting the pilot light on a stove go out and then lighting a match to check it.

Carol thought about Rick's question again—did she feel safe with him?

"Daryl got back from there awhile ago. He's upstairs." Rick told them.

"How did he seem?" Michonne asked.

"Calmer; actually talked to the kids, helped them with the room switching around," Rick said. "Girls will be in Carl's old room, all the boys downstairs with Grayson."

"Does Gray know that?" Carol smiled. She liked the young man who worked with Daryl on the Zone's vehicles.

"I'm told he has been informed." Rick grinned back and they all smiled. They stood for a minute more before Carol's eyes drifted to the stairs.

"I'd better go up." Carol said, handing Judith to Michonne. The little girl briefly fussed until she saw who she was being passed to and then stuck her thumb in her mouth and settled against the swordswoman's chest.

"We're here if you need us." Michonne said, putting her hand on Carol's forearm.

Carol smiled at her gratefully.

"Com'ere." Rick said gently and held out his arms to her. He wrapped her in a comforting hug; it was like having her batteries recharged. She needed to be held; her friends seemed to understand that. Every day Sam greeted her with a big hug, as did Claire and Felicia, Glenn and Maggie, Rosita and Tara whenever they saw her. It wasn't the same as Daryl, but it helped.

The first thing Carol noticed when he opened the door to their room was that his bed was missing; the expanse of empty floor between the door and the four poster where she slept seemed to stretch out for acres. The second was that Daryl was sitting on the side of the bed, still fully dressed and looking as nervous as hell.

"Kids needed it." Daryl blurted and gestured at the floor, "The mattress."

"Rick told me Riley's moving in." Carol said, nodding, remaining in the doorway.

"I didn't...I didn't do nothin' with her sister." Daryl said, his voice low and fast, his chin dropping. "I didn't..."

"I know that." Carol said evenly. "But you did hurt her."

Daryl's head came up at that and then he nodded, remorseful, looking back down at his hands in his lap.

"I didn't mean to. I just...saw red—you know? She was lying and you were there and she was hurting you...and I wanted her to stop..." he took a deep shaky breath, "I don't want to you to be hurt."

"Do you still love me, Daryl?" Carol asked.

Daryl nodded, too overcome to speak or even look at her.

"Then you won't hurt me." Carol said simply.

"I want to be with you...I want to want you...Claire said...she said that we could, I know we should..." Daryl was growing agitated, shifting from one hip to the other as he talked and then he suddenly jumped up and was across the room, stopping right in front of her, breathing hard, but not with passion, with fear.

"Is that why you let them take away your bed?" Carol asked, holding her ground. "You thought you had to sleep with me?"

"Ain't fair to you—I treat you like you're some distant relation I got stuck takin' care of—Claire said sister, but most people aren't afraid to let their sister even touch 'em. Afraid of what they'd do that might hurt the child you're carrying if they let go..."

"What are you afraid you'd do?" Carol asked him then. She'd asked him the same question before in one of their joint therapy sessions with Claire and he hadn't been able to respond. He hadn't been ready to share what had happened to him in any detail.

"You said...when we were doing the book...you said you have flashbacks..." Daryl said haltingly. "...to what he did to you?"

"If we're going to talk; can—can we sit?" Carol asked, suddenly feeling light headed.

Daryl was torn between just giving up and fleeing and the need to make her understand. Seeing her sway a little as she took a step forward made him forget himself and he put one hand under her elbow and one at her back to support her. He helped her to the bed and then gingerly sat down beside her. She didn't comment on his carefully impersonal touch, but he could see the tears in her eyes when he dropped his hands back to his lap.

"You told me once. It wasn't enough for him...for Ed...to just use you." Daryl said, "He had to break you down."

"That's what they did to you?' Carol asked quietly. "Broke you down?"

"They tried to take everything from me." Daryl said, his voice turning so cold and dead that it made Carol ache with sadness. He took a deep breath and continued without pause, forcing the account of what they had done to him out like draining an infected wound.

"They didn't just fuck me 'til I bled. They made me come while they did it—one of them would jerk me off or blow me while another one was...in me... in my ass or in my mouth or both. They made me hate the thought of feeling that way, wanting it, getting hard, feeling anything meant they won. And I couldn't stop them. When I fought back they hurt me, punched or twisted my dick and balls until they were black and blue; threatened to cut them off; beat me until the tiniest touch was agonizing."

Daryl stopped, staring off at the door, stalled then.

Carol was horrified to hear the whole truth of what he had suffered. To force him to sexual release while enduring such sick sadistic agony? Had they taken away his ability to ever feel desire? She wanted to gather him in her arms and weep with him, but his lifeless voice kept her hands clutched in fists at her side. Even saying she was sorry felt useless. She gulped back her tears, stifling a sob and the sound spurred him to finish.

"When they took me back to the cell, back to Aaron, it didn't feel real because he didn't hurt me. He helped me without wanting anything. When I came back here, when Erin took care of me, that wasn't real either... then there was you, the baby... it was like a perfect dream...how could that be real?"

"So you tried to go with the dream." Carol said, wiping at her face, understanding the need to just make everything be 'normal' even when you were dying inside.

Daryl nodded.

"While I was healing, while the baby was getting' settled in there? That became the normal for us. I just put what happened away with what happened when I was a kid. Pulled back. Reset."

"Reset to...before Alexandria us." Carol said slowly. "Before we were together."

"I thought it was safer for you." Daryl said, nodding yes, "If we touched and I wanted you, what if it got all mixed up with what they did? What if I have a flashback and lash out at you? Hurt you or the baby because I think you're one of them? Look what I did today—I just went off on her."

"But you're here, now—you gave away your bed—what changed?" Carol asked him again.

"That look—that hurt look when you thought I'd been with someone else—that I wasn't in your bed because I didn't love you anymore." Daryl said, his shoulders falling forward as he put his head in his hands and said quietly. "That killed me."

"And then I told you to go see Claire..." Carol nodded. "In your sessions alone with her, have you ever told her what you just told me? About...the exact details of what happened to you?"

"No." Daryl said. He hadn't planned to ever tell anyone, but he had to make Carol understand that he wasn't rejecting her in favor of someone else. He loved her and didn't want to lose her...and he'd realized that as always she'd understand if he could just get it out and say it.

"Whatever Claire told you to do, Daryl, she didn't have all the information she needed." Carol said. "We didn't."

Daryl raised his head and looked at her, narrowing his eyes assessingly.

"I'm sorry if I made you feel as though the only touch I want from you is sexual. There are other kinds of intimacy—we had that even before we became lovers, didn't we?" Carol asked.

Daryl frowned at her, unsure of what she meant.

"Before I came upstairs Rick gave me a hug and as good as it felt I wished it could've been your arms around me that simply, just comforting me, letting me know you cared about me. I miss you. I miss my friend." Carol said and then added carefully. "I want you to stay with me—just like that-just to sleep. And I'll understand if you need to go grab the cushions off of the couch downstairs and make your floor nest back up."

"I...I...I miss...I miss you too..." Daryl said, tentatively reaching out one hand and brushing the back of her small hand with the tips of his fingers. "I want to stay. Here with you." And then he closed his hand over top of hers, bending his fingers around to touch her palm, enclosing it in his.

Carol gave him a peaceful little smile and slowly lay back on the bed, her feet still on the floor, still holding his hand, still fully dressed but for her boots.

Daryl looked down at her, noticing everything about her, the diamond and cable patterns in her thick hand knit sweater, the way it stretched slightly over her baby bulge, the way the silver in her hair was matched by the small silver hoop earrings with blue beads in her ears, and how all the blue she was wearing made her smiling warm eyes spark up at him.

He lay down beside her, remembering another time, when she'd been the one broken by what horrors had happened to her, keeping secrets, running away; lying together in another bed in a shelter for the abused. He'd been so afraid of losing her, afraid he'd wake up and she'd be gone, afraid to even take her hand and tell her so.

They hadn't given up on each other then.

Damned if they would now.

AN: Some rough going for our Caryl, but they are working on it together now, they still aren't ashes...

I keep forgetting to say, Grayson in my head is Kit Harrington, aka Jon Snow from Game of Thrones.

Thanks for reading!