AN: So here we go…there may be another update or two today since I'm just taking it easy for the day. Tomorrow it's back to work so the updates will be less frequent. I'll shoot for one a day, but we'll see what happens. I hope you are still enjoying it!

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Watch had been pretty much a silent experience. Michonne was uncomfortable. She never should have been so forward, and now she couldn't take it back. Maggie and Glenn had relieved Michonne and Daryl, letting them know that dinner was ready, and making idle chitchat about how Michonne felt and how she was healing up.

As they exited the tower, Michonne noticed Daryl heading for the kitchen, silent. She didn't really care about dinner. From what she had seen from the tower it just looked like soup and she wasn't too hungry. It would be more humiliating than it was worth to sit around the table with everyone and know they were probably mocking her…and it would be even worse to sit there across from Daryl and enjoy even more of the awkward silence she'd been subjected to in the watch tower. She decided to head back to her cell and call it an early night. She didn't want the solitude of the cell, but she didn't want the comradery of the dinner table either.

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Daryl felt tired and confused. He felt more tired after watch than he'd felt in a while. Michonne was brooding, and he knew it was because of the kiss. Here they were at the end of the world and he still didn't know how to respond to a woman like Michonne kissing him. She had said she wanted to repay him. He'd saved her ass and she'd kissed him, like her knight in shining armor, and that was it. That's what he was, just a knight in shining armor that had saved her ass a few times.

Daryl accepted his bowl of soup from Carol gratefully. Carol, sipping soup from a coffee mug, leaned back against the counter and watched him. Rick was talking about supplies and what else they needed to get to be stocked for the winter, but Daryl didn't seem to be listening to him. He glanced at him occasionally, but his main focus seemed to be the soup. It wasn't anything special, just chicken noodle, but he seemed like that was the only thing important to him. Carol wondered if something was wrong. He hadn't been the same since Michonne's accident a few days before.

It's only natural. Carol thought. Every time the group lost someone it was the same. It was a nagging reminder that this was only temporary. As hard as they had tried, this prison wasn't really a home. It was just temporary. They were essentially all just waiting to see who would be next. Everyone dealt with that reality in their own way. Maggie and Glenn dealt with it by banding together and trying to paint a picture of some beautiful life they were going to have together, trying their best to ignore that at any moment one of them could just disappear. Rick kept his mind off of things by worrying. He worried about everything but what he was actually worried about. He worried about the fences. He worried about the Governor. He worried about the supplies. He worried about anything except the end. Carol could understand that. Since she had lost Sophia, nothing had been the same for her either. That had been her wakeup call. The life they had known was gone and there wasn't really any hope of getting it back. Her entire focus now was taking care of her family. This family. This makeshift bunch of people who would probably have never fit together before all of this. And then there was Daryl…Carol liked taking care of Daryl more than anyone else around there. He was so grateful for everything. He acted like any kindness that you offered him was the greatest kindness in the world. Carol liked that appreciation. If there was a future in all this, she could see it being one that she spent with Daryl. At night sometimes she imagined what it would be like to return to a normal life, and her new life always looked the same. It was a happy suburban life, like something she'd seen on television, and it always included Daryl.

"Where's Michonne?" Hershel asked. Everyone looked at each other like no one had noticed until now that she wasn't eating dinner.

"Maybe she wasn't feeling well?" Beth offered. "It was her first day up."

"I hope I didn't push her to get up too soon." Hershel said. "She seemed to be doing well, though, and she was eager to get out. Who was on watch with her?"

"Daryl was." Beth said. Daryl looked at her and then looked at Hershel, barely raising his head from staring at the soup he was eating.

"Did she seem OK on watch?" Hershel asked.

"Yeah." Daryl said quickly. "Probably just tired."

"I'll take her some soup in a little bit." Carol said.

"I can take her some." Daryl offered. He put his spoon down. "I'm done anyway, and I'm tired so I'm going to head to bed."

Daryl got up and accepted a mug of soup from Carol.

"Have a good night." Carol said, putting her hand gently on Daryl's arm. Daryl mumbled a goodnight to her, assured Rick that he would help him tomorrow with whatever it was he was asking him about, and left the kitchen.

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Daryl felt like his heart was going to explode. It was difficult to breathe, and he wished he hadn't eaten so much of that soup. Why had he volunteered to bring the soup to Michonne? It had been bad enough trying to get through watch without knowing what to say or do. Now he was walking right into the lion's den.

He got to her cell and took a deep breath. "Michonne?" He said, looking inside. She was lying on her bed, and he couldn't tell if she was asleep or not. "You awake?"

"Yeah." She grunted. She struggled to sit up.

"Can I come in? I brought you some soup." Daryl said.

"Come on." She said. Daryl timidly walked into her cell and offered her the soup. She took it like the peace offering he obviously intended it to be and put it on the table next to her bed. She looked at the table a little ashamed. Her entire living space had pretty much been reduced to a 6 by 8 box and she realized she hadn't even kept it very tidy.

It was dark in the cell, but it was light enough for Daryl to tell that Michonne was scowling at him. The wrinkle between her eyes gave it away. Daryl sat gently on the bed next to her.

"You need to eat." He said. She didn't respond or make any move toward the soup she had put on the dresser. Daryl's stomach churned. "Listen, uh…I umm…about what happened in the tower…" He lowered his voice. Everything echoed here and he didn't want to risk embarrassing Michonne if she didn't want anyone to know what had happened.

"Forget about it." Michonne said. "I shouldn't have…"

Daryl interrupted her. "No, I mean it was good. I mean, I liked it. It's just that…" He didn't really know what to say.

"Just what?" Michonne asked. Here it was, the "it's not you, it's me speech" which almost always translates into "it's all about you." Michonne waited for it, a little sad that she had ever let herself get her hopes up. If she hadn't let the wall down, this wouldn't have mattered at all. Instead she was going to spend the rest of the night with her feelings hurt.

"Well, I…I'm just out of practice at this kind of thing." Daryl said quickly. He winced a little, not knowing what she was going to say or do. To his surprise the wrinkle on her forehead deepened for a moment, and then vanished. She was smiling at him. He smiled back.

A little out of practice! She'd been creating all these detailed speeches that Daryl was going to give her about how he wasn't into her. She'd mulled over about a half a dozen scenarios since she had planted the kiss on his lips. None of which had even involved in the slightest that he would sheepishly offer her watery soup and then declare that he was "out of practice" with things like kissing. He wasn't rejecting her at all.

"Hey, there's my smile." Daryl said. Michonne wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. She hadn't felt like this since she was in high school. She leaned in to kiss him again and found, happily, that he returned the kiss entirely. They separated for a moment and Daryl watched as Michonne chewed her bottom lip, looking up at him with her doe eyes. He smiled again, this time he kissed her. He didn't want the kiss to end. Part of him was afraid that once it ended it would never happen again. The other part didn't know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, but he didn't know if they were ready for that, or even if that's where this was going.

When they finally broke apart from the kiss, they looked at each other a little awkwardly.

This isn't the first time you've kissed someone. Michonne thought to herself. But it was the first time she'd kissed someone like Daryl. The men in her life had pretty much always been forceful, sometimes excessively so, with what they wanted. They were the kind of men that when they kissed you, you knew exactly what their next move was. Michonne wasn't even sure if Daryl had a next move. It was obvious that the kiss had been about all that he could handle for the night.

Daryl cleared his throat and stood up. "Well, goodnight." He said.

"Goodnight, Daryl." Michonne said. Daryl turned and started out of the cell, stopping just as he got to the door and turning back.

"And, uh…eat your soup." He added, just as he stepped out of the cell.

He didn't see Michonne smiling at him that time, but she was.