Note: Likely the end of the road for this fic. Thanks for reading and coming along with me.

Part X

You'll Be All Right

They decided to make the journey from Terminus back to the Prison over the roads. As they walked along, they eventually came to a station wagon parked outside an abandoned home.

"Hmm…" Daryl grunted as he peered through the window. "Looks good. See if she starts. Ima go see if there's keys in the house."

Carol opened the door to the van and climbed into the driver's seat. She felt along the edge of the visor, under the seat, and finally peeked into the glove box. The standard Owner's Manual, registration papers and maps greeted her as well as a couple of nice surprises. Bag of M&Ms. Pepper spray. Glock, fully loaded. Sweet.

Daryl reemerged from the house.

"No keys," he said as he opened the passenger door, "but I found this. Check it out."

"Jolt Cola?"

"All the sugar, twice the caffeine," he grinned. "This shit was hard to find before the Turn."

Carol pointed to the gun in the glovebox.

"I win."

"Hey, them M&Ms are mine!"

It felt so good to both of them to be able to play again. It was as if the weight of the world had been lifted from them, even if only for moment.

"Want me to get this tin can started?" Daryl asked.

"No," she answered. "Let me. I need the practice."

Over the years she'd witnessed Shane, Rick, Daryl, Rosita, Michonne, and well, everyone hot wire cars, but she hadn't done it herself since she'd done one under Rick's tutelage. She exposed the wires and followed the steps Rick taught her. How ironic to learn from a cop how to steal a car. The engine fired right up.

"Here's your reward," Daryl teased. He tossed the bag of candy onto her lap.

( )

Finally arriving back at the prison, they pulled up next to the car they'd brought before. Carol began loading the gear.

"Hold up," Daryl called out. "Let's take the van."

"The van? Why? We'll get better gas mileage out of this one."

Daryl rolled over with Merle's motorcycle, abandoned when he'd been forced to flee the prison.

"So I can get this bad boy home."

Carol nodded. Before long, the bike and all of the other belongings were loaded into the cargo van.

"What happens when we get closer to Savior territory and we have to take to the woods again?"

"You can ride it back to the Kingdom for me."

"Me? Ride? By myself? Do you have a fever? And what makes you think I'm going back to the Kingdom?"

She wasn't planning to return to her self-imposed exile? Daryl had never heard happier words.

"We'll figure somethin' out," he muttered.

"It's getting late," she said. "Let's stay here for tonight."

"Mm hmm."

The mattresses lay on the floor where they'd left them. They settled in for the night, this time opening a few of the upper windows so they could have a small fire for cooking.

Dinner was quiet, too quiet Daryl thought as he noticed a subtle shift in his companion's mood. After the meal, Carol sat stoking the fire.

"I need to know what happened. Will you tell me? Please?"

She didn't need to elaborate; he knew exactly what information she sought.

"All of it?"

"All of it. Start to finish."

Daryl exhaled. He wasn't sure he'd be able to do this without losing his composure. But she needed to know—she had a right to know—so he would tell her.

"The day it happened, it was the same day you left. I didn't know that. I was up and out early in the morning before…" He couldn't bring himself to say the name of the man he knew she was sleeping with. "…before he found your note."

"I was goin' huntin'…huntin' for Dwight. I needed to find him, to make him pay for Denise. Glenn and Michonne and Rosita, they followed me into the woods. They tried to talk me into goin' back home. Rosita decided to go with me, the others turned around and went back. We tracked Dwight for a time, but the trail went cold, so we turned back. That's when we saw Glenn and Michonne, tied up and gagged. I was gonna be the hero and help 'em. Turns out they was just bait. And we fell for it. Next thing we knew we were surrounded. I heard the click of the gun behind me, and Dwight's voice, so I lowered my weapon, turned around…and the son of a bitch shot me." His hand went to the wound on his upper right chest. "I still don't know why. It wasn't a kill shot, an' he knew it. 'You'll be all right', he said."

"Maybe it was meant to disable you, to make you easier to control."

"Maybe. They threw all four of us into the back of a van and kept us there for hours. Michonne tried to stop the bleedin', Glenn, he gave me his jacket when I was getting' chills from the blood loss."

A new wave of grief and guilt washed over him remembering how the younger man had comforted him just hours before Daryl's mistake cost him his life.

"Sometime in the afternoon, back at home, Maggie, uh, she started havin' pains. Rick decided to take her to the doctor at Hilltop. Loaded a whole crew into the RV in case they run into trouble on the road. They did. The Saviors set up roadblocks. Every route they tried to take, there was a roadblock. Just after dark, they finally got ambushed. So then they had eleven of us. They made us get on our knees in a line, kinda a half-circle." He closed his eyes in an effort to be certain of the exact order of the lineup.

"It was Glenn, Rosita, me, Michonne, Abraham, Maggie, Rick, Sasha, Aaron, Carl and Eugene. This guy, Negan, he steps outta the RV swingin' a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. Even named the damn thing. Starts lecturing us all how bad we screwed up. We work for him now. All our shit is his. He can take anything or anyone he wants. This is the new way of life, get used to it. I was still bleedin' and it hurt like hell, so I wasn't takin' too well to any of it. Maggie looked like hell, too. Can you imagine what musta been goin' through Glenn's head? She was fine when he left home, now she's looking awful. He musta been so worried…"

Carol studied his face carefully, wincing with each twist and contortion of the muscles. She knew it was going to get much, much worse, so she braced herself.

"That smug bastard said we had to pay for killin' his people at the outpost. He was gonna have to beat one of us to death with the bat. Made a big show outta choosin' which one. Felt like it took hours. He finally chose Abraham. I was hopin' until the last second that it was all just for show, but no, he did it. And there wasn't nothin' we could do but watch." His voice broke at the end, much like it had on her doorstep several days ago.

"I can't imagine what you all went through…" Her eyes welled up. Rage surged in her, threatening to take her very sanity.

"Ain't the half of it." He ran his hand through his beard while he gathered himself. "Negan must be real good at readin' people. We was all upset, but he could tell from Rosita's reaction that she was in love with Abraham. Started taunting her. 'Were you together? Aw, man, that sucks.' Then he stuck the bat in her face and it's covered in his blood, and he's screaming at her to look at it. But she couldn't. She was bawlin', shaking….he wouldn't let up. I couldn't take it no more. So I jumped up and took a swing at him. Yep. Surrounded by a hundred guys with guns, and I think I'm gonna take out Negan."

He ran the back of his hand across his face to wipe the tears and continued. "I wasn't thinkin', that's the problem. I was so stupid."

"You were trying to help Rosita."

"All I did was make it worse. Negan laughed. Said he warned us that he would shut that kinda shit down, and now he had to prove he was a man of his word. I thought he would kill me. I woulda been ok with that right then. But he didn't. He took that bat and he killed Glenn. And I broke into a million pieces. I don't close my eyes without seeing Glenn's head, and hearing every thud of that bat and Maggie cryin' and Negan laughin'…and knowin' it was my fault."

Carol felt compelled to interrupt. "It wasn't your fault!" she said, more forcefully than she'd intended.

"It was. If I just stayed in line and kept quiet, Glenn would be alive right now."

"You don't know that. He might have done it anyway. Sounds like he had it all pretty well planned out. Only Negan is responsible for Negan's actions."

He shook his head. "There's more."

More? How can there possibly be more? She sniffed and wiped her tears. "Okay."

"Eight days later, when the Saviors came to Alexandria, Negan gutted Spencer. Rosita snapped, took a shot at him and missed. They shot Olivia in retaliation, and took Eugene. I wasn't there, and Rick wasn't neither, but apparently Negan stayed at Rick's house for hours. Cooked dinner, played with Judith, freaked the hell outta everyone. I think that's what made Rick finally decide to fight back. Oh yeah, and in between, Negan decided he wanted Maggie for his harem. They had to fake her death to protect her. I got to spend a few days thinkin' Maggie was dead, too. So now she's at Hilltop because she can't go home."

"Okay," Carol seethed, "I'm glad we're several hundred miles away when you tell me that man put his hands on Judith." She took some deep breaths to calm herself. "When you guys got home that night, after Glenn and Abe were killed, they did tell you it wasn't your fault, right?" If Rick dropped the ball on this, he's gonna be wearing his testicles in a sling. He knows Daryl automatically blames himself, Carol thought. She now understood his criticism of Tyreese. It resonated with her how each of them was so fiercely protective of the other.

"I didn't go back that night. I talked to Maggie. She's the only one."

"Why didn't you go back?"

"'Cause they took me."

Off Carol's puzzled expression, he elaborated.

"It was daylight by the time he was through with us. He let the others go and they threw me in the back of a truck and took me to the Sanctuary. I was there for eight days before someone helped me escape."

Oh my God! What had he suffered? "What did they do to you there?" She was almost afraid to ask.

"They wanted to break me, to turn me into one a them. They didn't want me to die, 'cause they had their doctor fix up the gunshot, but they kept me in a dark cell, and played this stupid song around the clock so I could sleep or nothin'. Took my clothes, gave me dog food, worked me over a little. I didn't have nothin' to do but sit there and think about what happened and what I done. Then they showed me a picture of Glenn's body, and I lost my shit for a while. They almost broke me, but if I gave in I'd be betraying everyone—you, Rick, Maggie, but especially Glenn."

Carol's head was spinning. So while Rick and the rest of the family were home hugging it out and comforting one another, Daryl was alone, isolated in a cold, dark cell with no solace from any direction. No, just more pain. Her heart broke for him.

Yet still he had stayed strong, remaining loyal to the people he loved. Daryl would give his life before he would betray them. She was so proud of him in that moment.

"Someone helped you escape?"

"Yeah. I think I know who, but I can't say for sure. I couldn't go to Alexandria, that's the first place they'd look. But I ran into Jesus, and he said I could go to Hilltop. I got there just a few minutes before Rick and the others. Gregory refused to help us, so Jesus took us to the Kingdom to try to convince Ezekiel. I mean, we're outnumbered ten to one at least. We need an army if we're gonna take down the Saviors. But Ezekiel said no, too. Rick wanted me to stay there, to try to sway him, like there's anything diplomatic about me. It really sucked. I just got out of the cell, found out you left, then Rick dumps me someplace surrounded by strangers. I know he was tryin' to protect me, he wasn't tryin' to ditch me, but that's how it felt."

"Damnit, I should've been there," she lamented. I would've nipped it in the bud, made damn sure right away that you knew you weren't to blame.

"No. I'm glad you weren't there. You woulda been in that RV, tryin to get Maggie to Hilltop. It mighta been you he killed. There wasn't nothin' you coulda done. The Saviors don't know about you, you ain't even on their radar. That's good, keeps ya safer."

Like a thunderbolt, thought occurred to her.

"Wait, Maggie was having pains? Is everything okay with the baby?" That baby was all they had left of Glenn.

"Yeah, sonogram says perfect. She's fine now."

Another sobering thought crossed her mind. "So Morgan and I were the only people you knew at the Kingdom, and you couldn't get any comfort from me because you couldn't tell me what was going on without hurting me." The selflessness of his lie shone with total clarity.

"Morgan….I ain't never been able to relate to him. And I'm a shitty liar, so if I stayed, I wouldnta been able to keep the secret. That's why I went back to Hilltop."

"So…how are you doing?"

"I'm okay. It's healing," he said as he patted the bandage on his chest.

"No. That's not what I mean. How are you doing?"

Understanding her meaning, he dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Been better," he rasped.

"Talk to me."

"I screwed up, and I have to live with it. But I can't."

"You can."

"I can't. It's eatin' me alive from the inside out. I don't know how to live inside my own head."

"You're not going to do anything drastic are you? No suicide missions into the Sanctuary, right?"

"No. That would hurt the people I care about, and there's been too much hurt already. Besides, I owe it to Glenn and Abe and Maggie to help win this thing." He paused. "I can't live and I can't die. Where does that leave me?"

"Stuck in the middle with me," she answered softly. "But maybe, maybe we can help each other get unstuck."

"You know no matter what, I always have your back, right?"

"You always have," she nodded. "And I trust completely that you always will."

"So how are you doin' with things?"

"Better."

"You seem better."

"I'm going to fight the Saviors," she said resolutely.

"You sure? You okay with that? 'Cause I don't want you to do it if it's gonna cost you yourself."

"I'm good. I promise."

"I can't lose you."

"You won't. You'll play hell getting rid of me."

She closed the gap between them, closer and closer until she could feel his breath.

"I've loved you for a long time, but it's seemed like we were too busy wrestling our own demons to be together. But that's what we've been doing wrong. We should fight the demons together."

"I love you," he said simply before her lips closed on his.