In which more things are found.

She woke early the next morning to pale light and a pressing bladder. Smoke rose from the fireplace –fresh wood over glowing embers, sure to catch soon. Against the far wall, T and Hershel's snores rolled on. Carl murmured something in his sleep, under the blanket that Lori had pulled over both their heads. Rising, Carol found her jacket, boots, and a hat before picking her way to the edge of the tarp. By the entrance, Rick still slept. Daryl's blankets were empty, already shoved to one side.

Outside the container, she made a freezing trip to the pit. When she came out, the orange cat was sitting beside the wall, tail curled over his toes. As she watched, he turned his head, scratched behind one ear, and then sauntered back to the gap under the shed. Carol tilted her head back to consider the sky. Pale, light grey over a soft blue, and not quite yet sunrise. The temperature wasn't nearly as bad as she had thought. The string of empty water containers still hung on the fence. She stared at the water jugs, the still quiet yard, and the path to the creek. Then, resolutely, she slung the strings over her shoulders before quietly undoing the chain to the small gate. Her fingers were aching from the cold metal by the time she finished, and she stuffed them in her pockets with relief.

The frost crunched under her feet as she went, stepping carefully over the fallen log in the path, her heels knocking small hollow thunks against the plastic gallons. The drop to the creekside was less than she remembered. She perched precariously on the sandbar, reaching past the rime of frost to dip the water jugs in the slow moving water. Despite her care, she dropped two bottles and soaked the cuff of her sleeve retrieving them.

The woods were still, quiet, beautiful.

"Thought Rick said for people to not go out alone."

Startled, Carol jerked upright, flinging the water jug at the figure who materialized at her shoulder. For his part, Daryl jumped back as well, but not fast enough to avoid the water that splashed up when the full jug hit the ground and burst open .

"What the hell!" He danced backwards, his pants soaked from the thigh down.

Sprawled on her rump, her elbow digging into the mud, Carol drew a breath to apologize. Instead, what came out was, "You idiot! Quit sneaking up on people!"

"I was not! I just come down to make sure you – you ain't supposed to be out alone!" He stomped towards her, kicking the now deflated jug out of his way.

She scrambled backwards, away from the splash of water and nearly into the creek. "Well, I'm not alone now!"

"And we're gonna have a hell of a lot of company if you keep on hollering! Jesus, woman, I thought you were quiet!"

"I AM QU-" Carol stopped halfway to her feet and sank down again, mud oozing under her feet, her muddy hands over her mouth, fingertips pressing her eyelids shut. After a moment, hands still in front of her face, she said,"I am quiet. Except when someone scares the shit out of me, I am quiet."

Daryl let out a huff. Another moment, and he said, "Well, I guess so." Shuffling his feet a bit in the mud, Daryl eased closer. "C'mon."

She looked up and stared a moment at the hand he offered before taking it and letting him pull her to her feet. As soon as she was upright, he released her hand, wiping the mud away on his pants. She shook her head and bent to collect the remaining water bottles. He held out a hand again and she passed him one string of bottles, nodding her thanks before tackling the slope up out of the creekbed. Daryl looked around at the creek once more before following.

Up on the trail, he dogged her heels. When the trees opened up, he stretched his legs and drew abreast of her. Carol shot him a glance, but when she saw he was staring out across the field, she put her eyes back on the path and kept her mouth shut.

Halfway back, he said, "You know a lot of songs."

So much for an apology. "Some, yes. Not near as many as Beth or Maggie."

He flicked a glance at her, then back away again. "One of the songs I know, we didn't sing it last night."

Now this was interesting. "Oh?" She didn't say, I didn't hear you singing much at all, although he deserved it, for that snit-fit with T. On the other hand…she frowned. The argument had shifted attention off the Grimes, fast enough…

They were at the fallen log, and instead of stepping over it, she let her feet come to a halt. Her boots were muddy but not as soaked as she had thought they would be. Daryl straggled to a stop beside her. "Which one?"

"The one about the guys with the camels, the, uh…the Chinese ones."

Chinese? Camels?

Oh. And she had thought the school district where they'd enrolled Sophia was bad. "The Wise Men? Do you mean We Three Kings?"

Daryl nodded, his face open, pleased. "Yeah, that one. You know it?"

She set the water bottles down. Hm hm hmm hm and he started nodding vigorously. She opened her mouth, then fell silent and held up a hand. Shucking her jacket, she folded it over the log and sat down.

Before her, Daryl sank down on his heels. Straightening her back, she began again.

We three kings of Orient are

Bearing gifts we traverse afar.

Field and fountain, moor and mountain,

Following yonder star.

She sang the verses of all three kings, and Daryl joined in, a husky tenor, for Balthazar.

Myrrh is mine: its bitter perfume

Breaths a life of gathering gloom.

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying,

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Eyes crinkling in a smile she did not let reach her mouth, Carol thought, it would be that one, that Daryl remembered. She finished the last chorus alone.

O star of wonder, star of night,

Star with royal beauty bright,

Westward leading, still proceeding,

Guide us to thy perfect Light.

The last of the song faded away, over the frosted woods, the silver-touched grasses and the pale mist in the trees. She drew in a breath, let the cold sink down into her chest, easing away the ache that had suddenly wrapt her heart with heat. "Guide us, oh Lord," she sighed.

Daryl's eyes shifted past her, back up to the container yard, and he abruptly stood.

Someone watching, Carol thought, gathering up all the water jugs as she rose. It was only Carl, watching them under shaded hands, before raising a hand and darting away back to the sleeping container.

"Breakfast time," Carol said with resignation. She stepped over the log, gathering her coat as she went. Inside the fence, Rick strode purposefully to the gate, buttoning his coat as he went. He lifted a hand to Daryl before walking up the road to the Suburban.

Vaguely, Carol recalled the plan for a scouting run.

Daryl fell in beside her again. When they were nearly at the gate, he said, "It's a good song. Nice." Complimenting her singing if he'd had no hand in it at all.

"It's an Epiphany song," she said. "Not really a Christmas carol."

"Epiphany? Like, uh, realizing something all of a sudden?"

She smiled, careful of teasing him, suspicious of his mockery. "Yes, like that. They call the day the wise men came to Bethlehem, Epiphany."

"They didn't come on Christmas?"

Now she narrowed her eyes, unsure if he was serious. "No, not – well, I don't suppose that anyone knows. But Epiphany is celebrated a week after Christmas."

He put a hand on the gate. Rick had already gone to the vehicles, leaving the gate shut behind him. Daryl unwrapt the chain. "Exactly a week?" he asked, "Seven days?"

"I –actually, I don't remember. Maybe a week. Maybe it's the seventh of January. Thank you," she said, as he swung the gate open for her. "A week, ten days, something like that."

He nodded, frowning. "So, until it was Epiphany, you could sing that song."

Right, Lori and her truncation of the Christmas season, for Carl. I don't think her rules apply to you, Carol thought, but stopped. She didn't want to argue about the Grimes.

"Sure," she said instead, while he closed the gate between them and slung the chain about both uprights. Rick waited by the Suburban, engine already running. "If I remembered when Epiphany was. Then I would know when to stop."

He stared at her through the fence. The corners of his mouth shifted. "Damn shame none of ya'll know what day it is."

She burst out laughing then, and Carl came over, demanding to be let in on the joke, and got handed two strings of water to carry to his mother, for his pains. When Carol looked up, Daryl was walking away, to Rick and the run ahead, the red rag in his pocket swaying jauntily to his stride.

end

A/N: PG-13 for language. Smutless. Songfic. Not made entirely of joy. Chapter headings from the carol "Good King Wenceslas". With mongo thanks to FS for beta and song-smithing.

Endnotes: It has always bugged the heck out of me that supposedly in the ZA no one knows what day it is. As if all of humanity hasn't been able to manage this for millennia, in pre-literate societies, with bandits, wars, wolves, bandits, and all sorts of things. Eventually, I'd like to address this further. For now – in this story, Wildfire erupts sometime in the summer of 2011, which puts the S2/S3 interval over the winter of 2011/2012.

Hershel is not entirely correct – the author of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" (Randy Brooks) was not a veterinarian, but one of the first couple to record the song was. Elmo Shropshire graduated from Auburn and was an east coast racetrack vet before moving to San Francisco with his then-wife and singing partner. Gene Autry was not the first to record Rudolph, but his recording bumped the previous recording off the charts less than a month later.

Epiphany is traditionally celebrated 12 days after Christmas, and the eve of Epiphany is known as Twelfth Night. The exact date of celebration varies among different Christian denominations. Many Protestant traditions do not put much (if any emphasis) on Epiphany. However, in the Catholic Church, and prior to the division of the Latin church, and especially prior to the invention of moveable type and widespread literacy, it was traditional to announce the date of that year's Easter celebration, so that the whole community's calendars could be unified. (Easter is calculated through a complex process, but is roughly a lunar observation.)