A/N: Good day lovely readers! Hope you're having a wonderful weekend:)

So I got the impression that most of you were moderately appeased with my last chapter…oh hell, who am I kidding? YOU LOVED IT RIGHT? Thought so! I think even Melissa and Norman would have been impressed by the amount of fan support Caryl received. I'm going to be completely honest with you guys…I did something with chapter 11 I have never done before…

An hour before I posted it, I re-wrote half the chapter...(gasps from the crowd)

Weeeellll that's only partially true…I definitely added a lot more dialogue to the story. It was very wham, bam, thank you ma'am before but I thought maybe Daryl needed more time to hash out his feelings. Plus, if the chapters are too short, then they're over too quickly. Nothing like waiting for something major to happen and then having it be over in two seconds…I HATE that!

Anyway, onto chapter 12. There were no re-writes in this chapter at all. In fact, this is my absolutely favorite thing I have EVER written. No joke. This is probably the best you guys will ever get out of me.

Actually, this was the most fun I've ever had writing a chapter. The scene with Glenn and Daryl is an absolute hoot. I recommend putting down any food or drink you may be consuming before reading because I can't guarantee that you won't end up doing a spit-take by the end. Then again, if you've always wanted to try a spit-take, but never had the chance before now...GO FOR IT! Who am I to spoil the fun?

Either way, hope you all enjoy it as much as I did when I was writing it! Live long and Caryl on!

Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead…blah blah blah…

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Ch12.

Daryl was in deep shit. It had been a week since he'd taken Carol up to the tower to finally work out their aggressions, but he'd been avoiding her for nearly as long. It wasn't easy to do with a bum ankle, but he'd been pretty creative about it. At least it'd stopped hurting him now, so he was able to get around better now.

He wished he could say the same about his other predicament.

The night in the tower had been pretty damn amazing. Maybe a little too amazing though, because by the time they'd left to go back into the prison, Daryl's flag was nearly flying at full mast. It was a hell of a way to end the night. Carol had tried to convince him to stay with her until the heat died down, but he knew he wouldn't sleep a wink if he did. He'd barely made it back down to his tent in one piece. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off, so he figured he'd better stay outside just in case. They said cold showers worked the best, but that wasn't exactly an option. He'd just had to take his chances with the heat and hoped that it would keep his mind occupied.

It worked for a while, but then the dreams started again. They were a far cry from PG-13. He couldn't believe how much it was affecting him. Sometime, he could actually feel her doing things to him. At one point, he'd really thought that she'd come back down from the prison to surprise him, but the only surprise he'd found was that he'd pitched a damn tent in his pants.

One thing was for sure-he hadn't been getting much sleep since then.

He knew he couldn't avoid her forever, but every time he imagined the situation in his head, all he could see was her laughing at him. As much as he wanted to be with her, he couldn't handle it if she laughed. So he just hid instead. It was fucking crazy. What the hell had he thought that he could contribute to a grown-up relationship with a woman?

A lot of awkward moments for one thing.

It wouldn't have been so bad if he had any damn idea what he was doing. If he didn't talk to her soon, he was gonna have an irate woman on his hands to deal with. She was with her class right now. He'd made sure of it before he even attempted to come back inside the prison. It was his turn to take watch duty too, so he should be free and clear for a while. He spotted Glenn up on the catwalk and made his way around the entrance. The guy looked like he'd seen better days.

"I'm here to take your shift like I promised."

Glenn turned to look at him. "You don't have to. I need to keep myself occupied anyway."

"I'm lookin' to do the same thing." Daryl realized. "Mind if I stay up here with ya?"

"If you want."

Daryl looked over at him. "So what are you avoiding?"

Glenn scoffed. "I didn't say I was avoiding anything."

Daryl wasn't an idiot. "Pretty obvious you are."

"I'm just…" He paused, looking for the right words. "I'm confused."

"'Bout what?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

Daryl relented; knowing couldn't say anything against him. If he didn't want to talk, then they wouldn't talk. But as he turned to look out over the other side of the prison, Glenn caved.

"It's Maggie." He sighed. "She wants to have a baby."

Daryl chuckled. If he'd been looking for advice, he'd barked up the wrong tree.

"Guessin' you don't want that?"

"It's not that I don't want it. I just don't think it's safe."

"Cause of what happened to Lori?"

Glenn made a face. "It's more that I'm worried we wouldn't be able to protect it. We've been lucky to stay here as long as we have, but I don't expect it to last forever. I'm already worried about what will happen to Maggie out there. I can't add a baby to that mix."

Daryl didn't have to be a father to understand where he was coming from. "I get it. I worry about Asskicker too. Lil' babies out in the wild wouldn't last long."

"She thinks I'm being an ass about it, but I just don't want to lose anyone else."

"I'm sure she'll come 'round."

"I guess." Glenn shrugged before looking back at him. "So what are you avoiding?"

Daryl threw him a look. "What d'ya think?"

"Carol? Why?"

"It's a long story."

He chuckled. "Did she try to give you a bath again?"

Daryl scoffed. "I wish. More like she wants something I can't give her."

"Let me guess. A commitment."

"Pretty much."

Glenn glanced awkwardly in his direction. "We all know you care about her. It's not a big deal."

"That's not it."

"I'll be happy to try and help you if you can give me a clue."

Daryl looked back at him. There weren't many people in the world that he could really talk to about this kinda stuff. He could probably go to Rick for some sympathy, but he'd had more than his share of burdens lately. While he and Glenn had never gotten real personal before, he knew Glenn definitely had his share of women's troubles. Maybe he could work it out.

"You have to swear to me that you won't laugh, or so help me, I will fucking shoot your ass."

Glenn put his arms up in mock surrender. "I swear."

Daryl took a deep breath. "I get…excited when I'm around her."

Glenn's eyes got wide for a moment, like he was picturing the whole damn scene in his head. A smiled crept up on his face and Daryl knew what was coming next. He lifted his crossbow and pointed it straight at Glenn's backside.

"WHOA!" He jumped back, getting very serious. "I'm sorry! I wasn't laughing at you! I get it. Hell, I've been there myself."

"Don't mess with me boy."

"I'm not! I swear." He relaxed once Daryl pointed the bow away from him. "The first time Maggie and I went on a run together for supplies; Lori had asked me to get her a pregnancy test. I didn't want to announce it, so when Maggie came up from behind me, I panicked and picked up a box of condoms to cover. I thought she'd just laugh at me, but she took off her shirt and said that she wanted to have sex." Glenn chuckled at the memory. "I nearly fell over. It was amazing. But then every time I looked at her after that…"

"You were always at attention?"

"Majorly."

Daryl squinted, looking off into the distance. "How long'd it take to get things to…calm down?"

"Honestly? Weeks." He replied. "But she understood. It's kinda how guys are. It just sucks that it's so completely obvious."

"Tell me about it."

"You can't avoid her forever."

"Yeah I know."

Glenn gave him a sympathetic smile. "At least you know everything's…in working order."

"Yeah, and then some."

"Trust me. You're better off talking to her. It will just get worse the longer you wait."

Daryl chuckled. "That's easy for you to say. You already got a woman."

Glenn chuckled back. "Yeah, but now I'm the one holding out on sex."

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Carol knew that Daryl had been avoiding her. Every time she went to talk to him, he had something he had to be doing. He'd even gone so far as to figure out her daily schedule and only immerge in the prison when she was either surrounded by other people or just too busy to question him. She was trying to give him some space, but she had a sinking feeling that he was regretting his actions. Either that or he'd reverted right back into his old way of thinking. If that was the case, then she might as well have just thrown in the towel.

It was making her crazy trying to figure out what had happened. Had he just been putting on a show with her, letting her think that he'd been invested, when he really had no interest beyond fooling around? That didn't seem feasible to her. Daryl wasn't the 'love em and leave em' type. At least, she'd never gotten that impression before. Maybe he'd just had a bad experience that made him hesitant around women. Suddenly, something occurred to her that she hadn't even considered before. He'd been treated horribly all his life, but what if it went beyond that?

What if he'd been sexually abused too?

Carol had no idea how to go about approaching such a heavy subject with him. She'd be lucky if she could get anything reasonable out of him to begin with. As much as she hoped that it wasn't something as serious as this, she couldn't think of another rational excuse as to why he'd be all over her one minute, and then vanish into thin air the next.

She knew she had to take action, and she had to do it fast. Sasha had agreed to switch schedules with her for the day, and she immediately headed out to the storage area. When Daryl wasn't on guard duty or out hunting, he was generally in there moving supplies around for Rick. She was relieved to see that he was alone.

"Daryl, I need to talk to you."

He froze like a deer in headlights. "I'm busy."

"Yeah, you seem to be busy a lot these days."

He grunted, trying to move boxes around. "We all got jobs to do now. Why ain't you with the kids?"

"I got Sasha to cover for me." She sighed. "I've been trying to talk to you for a week, and you've done everything in your power to avoid me."

"I ain't avoidin' ya."

"Really?" She stood directly in his path. "Then stop and talk to me."

"Ain't got nothin' to say."

"Well I have plenty to say."

"God woman!" Daryl dropped the boxes. "What do you want from me?"

Now he was asking for it. "I want the man back that I had in the guard tower!"

He shrugged her off. "Yeah, well he's long gone. Get over it."

"NO!" She pushed him. "You tell me what's going on right now! I'm tired of sitting around worrying that I did something to make you hate me! If you don't want to be with me, then just say so dammit!"

Daryl looked more than surprised by her outburst, but he didn't try to run. Instead, he growled and kicked one of the wooden crates.

"I don't hate you!"

"Then what is it?!" She was defeated. "Daryl, please…just tell me."

"I can't."

"Why?"

He was turning red. "It's embarrassing."

Carol immediately went from angry to concerned. "Does it have to do with something you're trying to forget?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"And does it involve someone else touching you in a certain way?"

"Maybe."

Carol moved closer, but she was very careful to make sure that she didn't get too close. If he was reliving something traumatic from his childhood, then trying to embrace him would just make matters worse.

"Daryl, we need to talk about this. If we don't, you'll never be able to get past it and move on."

"Get past what?" He looked lost. "What the hell'd you think I was talking about?"

Now Carol was confused. "About the abuse."

"What abuse?"

"The sexual abuse you suffered."

"WHAT?!" He backed away from her in disbelief. "I wasn't fuckin' molested!"

"You weren't?" She really thought she'd figured it out. "But you said it had to do with people touching you."

"Yeah, you touching me." He sputtered. "I got….excited."

The minute the words came out of his mouth, Carol realized just how wrong she'd been. Daryl looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin at the very idea of her knowing this. He'd probably assumed that she'd make fun of him for it.

"Oh…." Carol put her hand up to her mouth to cover her shock. "God Daryl, why didn't you just tell me? The way you've been acting, I thought you'd decided that you weren't interested."

He scoffed. "If you had a body part with a mind of its own, would you wanna announce it for the whole goddamn world to see?"

She moved closer now, her head bent a little. "Believe it or not, I get that way too. You just can't see it."

"Ain't you lucky."

"Daryl." She placed a hand on his arm. "It's a natural reaction. In fact…it's kinda sexy."

He stared at her like she'd just told him that pigs were sexy. She continued. "I told you that I thought guys never checked me out. The fact that I you got excited thinking about me? About us? I can't think of any better form of flattery."

"You mean you don't…think I'm a perv?"

She made a face, trying to think of how to approach the question. "Have you been thinking about other women at the same time you've been thinking about me?"

"No."

"Then you're definitely not a perv."

He looked down at her. "So you ain't pissed at me no more?"

Carol wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. It was brief but intense. "You tell me."

A/N: I think even I surprised myself with the amount of sexual euphemisms I used in this chapter. It scares me how much I think like a guy sometimes…maybe I was a guy in another lifetime! Anyway, back to the writing cave! (swishes away wearing a cape around her neck like Batman)