The moment the word had left his lips he saw everything at once: the way the marauders looked at him like he had spoiled their fun, the way some of them were looking to Joe for a ruling on that one, and the way the woman looked at him like she was seeing a ghost.

He saw it all. He knew what had been about to happen. There would have been no claiming, just sharing of their catch. They would have raped her and left her for dead, or maybe even killed her. It was clear as day and he found himself hoping that Joe wouldn't overrule his claim. He couldn't take them all on by himself, but he couldn't let them abuse a woman he knew had already known so many shades of black and blue.

He remembered her from the quarry, her and her little girl. He remembered that fat assed husband of hers, too, an abusive coward who Daryl had wanted to beat repeatedly but didn't. Once you got involved, things got complicated. If he was honest, one of the reasons why he had left with Merle so fast was because he couldn't stand to stay near people who got beat up and not be able to do anything, while knowing anything he would do would make things worse.

But she was alone now, or he prayed she was. If her girl was with her, then Daryl could only hope she would remain hidden. Everybody knew that Dan liked them young, preferably boys, but he wasn't so fussy at these end of days.

"Well, that's a new one," Joe said, looking at Daryl, wide-eyed with surprise. "We don't usually claim people."

"New or not, I'm claiming her."

Daryl was keeping his face straight as if he was playing poker. Joe had not become the leader at random, he picked up things. However Daryl was good at keeping his tells in check, years of living with Merle and Daddy dearest and all that. There was no way he could let Joe see that he knew the woman. He could tell the leader had probably noticed the way she looked at him, and it was up to him to make it seem like she was just surprised at being "claimed".

As expected, Joe took a long hard look at him, trying to figure him out, something he hadn't been able to do so far. Many thoughts crossed Joe's face but Daryl couldn't pick up on the dominant one. He just knew this was not an easy sell, yet Daryl was selling as hard as he could.

"Why?"

Daryl looked at the leader, like he owed him no answer, but the truth was, he couldn't really explain where this had been coming from, and why it became much more important as time went by, for her to be safe under his care and away from the brutes he was travelling with. He couldn't tell Joe that, and gave him a look. It was a tricky look but when played well the person looking at you would read whatever they wanted to read on your face. It had been useful in the Dixon household to be able to pull that off. Jos had a smirk and Daryl was certain Joe had concluded that he was claiming her for purely sexual reasons. That was okay with him, he could live with that. He just wanted her safe, and what a funny feeling that was.

They had never been friends, and human charity might have been a thing before, but this was the end of the world and he barely knew her. She had been this mousy person who didn't dare speak to him at the quarry but when he would look at her, he would see something, kindred spirits recognizing one another. It stuck with him, even though he never knew it did.

Carol, he remembered in a flash. That was her name.

The Carol he had known had been shy and helpful, afraid to be in anybody's way. He was willing to bet she'd never held a gun to protect her own, and she had been what Merle would have derisively called "dead weight".

The woman before him now was a world away from that version of her. Gone were the pastel-looking clothes that made her invisible, and so was the mousy attitude of the woman who was too used of being yelled at, who would cower in the shadow of the threat of violence. The most impressive, and unsettling change about her were her eyes. He could still see the old her somewhere in there but there were shadows and she looked like she was hunted by what had happened to make her so. She used to be soft, like a doe, but today she looked like the hunter who had nothing to lose she seemed to have become. She was a warrior now and she was showing it by fighting her aggressors, even though they had gotten her good. She was wearing cargo pants and leather as well as a belt which had to have held a knife and a gun at least before the marauders searched her. Daryl noticed an AK-47 on the side they seemed to have pried from her grip. The transformation was amazing yet it didn't stop there. Her skin, which had looked so fragile and had marked so easily before at the quarry, now radiated with strength and determination. Daryl was sure she would still bleed and bruise and more, but there was something about her. Everything that used to be soft and vulnerable about her was gone. He didn't know if it was the will to live that made her so or perhaps the feeling that there was nothing left to lose. He was too familiar with the latter.

Her eyes met his and he wondered what had happened, and what she had gone through to have morphed into a completely different person since he had last seen her. For a second, he wondered what she thought of him, and what was going through her head. He was not proud of the company he was keeping but pragmatically he stood by his choice. He hoped she didn't believe he had done a 180 and become like them but then again she had not known him at all, back at the quarry. He hated the thought that she could believe he had found his pack of wolves. The marauders were a pack but he was just using them for a while or so he told himself. He hoped she could see that, or sense that. Kindred spirits and all that, he thought as he wondered why those words kept on coming back to him to describe their almost nonexistent relationship from before.

She was still on the floor, and he noticed that Harley and Matthew had managed to tie her hands behind her back. They lifted her up roughly and got her back on her feet, as Len actually fucking wept about his ankle. The fact that some people had survived this far never ceased to surprise Daryl.

"Claiming her gear, too," Daryl added.

"Now that's going too far!" Dan exclaimed.

"It is indeed," Joe said.

"No it ain't. I get her and her gear, 'cause I'll need to keep an eye on her. She's my responsibility and I have to make sure she doesn't kill us all."

"I suppose that make sense," Joe conceded, thoughtfully. "She is your responsibility indeed then, Daryl. If anything happens to one of us because of her, you'll pay the price. She will, too."

Daryl didn't like the gleam in Joe's eyes as if he was counting on Carol trying something so that they could reverse his claim. He told himself he wouldn't let it happen.

"You'll need to feed her, she doesn't get a share of our rations."

Carol was glaring daggers at everybody, but Daryl had a feeling she was also looking for a way out. This would only get her killed. He went to her, and grabbed her by the arm.

"Which house are we settling in?" he asked Joe.

"You and the lady can have the one they found her in, we'll reconvene at first light to go on."

Harley and Matthew picked Len up, and Daryl moved toward the house they had just found Carol in.

He made her sit on a chair in the living room, away from anything she could use to get herself free, and he went to the kitchen. He needed a minute. He had claimed her. Now what?

He couldn't let her go, that was for sure. But to keep her captive? Even he was not that much of an asshole.

He went back to the living room and sat in front of her. They were strangers, yet they had a connection, a life lived at one point.

"Can't untie you", he said.

It felt like the most pressing matter, because it was true.

"You can, but you won't," she corrected him, and he was hit by flashbacks of the quarry and the little time he had spent there. "You claimed me?" She said and he could see the rebellion brewing in her eyes.

He nodded, and could see she wanted more of an explanation, but he was suddenly very ashamed of the way he had lived lately.

"It's how this thing work. We claim things, call dibs, whatever. I claimed you so that you couldn't be claimed by another one of those assholes."

She didn't look too convinced, then again, what did he know? She was a new woman, and he had no intel on who she was.

"So I'm staying tied? And I suppose it's for my own safety?"

"It is."

If any of the others came in and saw her walking around, assuming she stayed, they would freak out. If she left, it would be even worse.

"Where's your daughter?" he asked.

He needed to know, if he was to protect her.

There was a look in her eyes, brief, that she tried to conceal and it annoyed him. He was trying to help, couldn't she tell?

"Why do you care?" she asked.

"Dan likes 'em young—mostly boys but he won't say no to a girl. "

Words were harsh, perhaps too harsh, but there was no playing around with the truth when it was so ugly.

"She's buried somewhere in Georgia, on a farm that used to be lovely. That filthy pig won't be able to tarnish her," she said, swallowing heavily like it was bile she was fighting to keep down.

He didn't think he'd noticed the girl that much, only had known she existed, but in a flash, he saw her playing with the boy, what was his name again? He saw her picking daisies, and staying away from her father whenever she could. He remembered the way she would sometime shake in anticipation of her father's disapproval.

Oh, there had been a Turn, alright, but horror had existed long before that.

"Your husband?" he pushed.

"Dead. So dead. Dead as you can be."

"Are you alone?"

She gave him a look that made him feel stupid, but he fought it. There could be people with her, hiding somewhere.

"Are you alone?" she echoed and there was a glint in her eyes like she couldn't believe it, yet she didn't want to let him know and get the upper hand in this confrontation of theirs.

The answer was no, or it should have been, but the look in her eyes, he knew what it meant. She was asking about his brother. He had hit her where it hurt, unknowingly, and she was fighting back.

"Lost, somewhere else, can't vouch for nice or decent," was all he said.

It was all he could say. Merle had been a shit brother, and a barely decent person according to the world's standards, but he'd been all he had. Merle didn't deserve his memory to be tainted. When he had been alive, he had already carried many scars, flesh and else, from their family, from his time in the army, from his time in the system. He had paid his pound of flesh. Daryl didn't want another pound to be collected when his brother was supposed to not be in pain anymore. How he wished Merle was still around, but the way they had been ambushed forced him to think of him as dead.

Daryl didn't believe in Heaven, oh Hell no. However, thinking of her little girl, and his brother, he hoped there was a place, for abused children, for people who had suffered, so that they could lay down their burden and do whatever you did when you were dead. Funny, huh? He didn't believe in the afterlife. Once you were dead, you were food for worms, that was what he had always said and believed. Yet, he hoped for a place for a girl he had barely known, and a brother he hadn't known much better either.

Carol looked grieved, and he didn't know what to make of it. He didn't need her pity, he only needed her to play along.

He wondered what had gone through his head when he had claimed her. Yes, he knew what would have happened, but still. Why? Who was he? Who was she? Things had happened so fast, he felt like he was only catching up to what he had done and his brain was barely computing what he had done.

His life was supposed to be simple, hanging out with the marauders until it was time to go.

"What happens next?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

And he wondered the same.