AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

Of course, there will be jumps in this story, but I wanted to establish a little of what their typical morning would look like breaking camp.

I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Daryl opened his eyes a crack. He could tell that the sun was shining outside the tent, though it wasn't high and bright just yet. It hadn't been the light that had woken him. It had been the subtle smell of wood smoke that he breathed in the air around him.

Daryl was warm—warmer than even his blanket and the air outside would make him—and he rolled his head to the side. Carol was sleeping, rather deeply, it seemed.

Daryl had taken first watch the night before. Sure that the tents were well put up, the animals were satisfied, and the plan was made for the night, he'd settled down in front of the tents to keep watch and to keep an ear out for anything that might cause them trouble.

They saw fewer Walkers, these days, than they had in the beginning—except, of course, when sick people herded them and kept them as destructive pets. Of course, maybe some of the lesser roaming population was owing to that. Daryl didn't think about it much. All he knew was that he saw relatively few Walkers these days in comparison to what they'd seen years before. He put two down during his watch—really not many at all, all things considered—and he dragged their bodies off far enough that they wouldn't spook any of the animals or smell so badly that it would make it impossible to sleep.

Daryl woke Carol for the second watch when his eyes were burning badly enough that he started to fear his own ability to stay awake. For a little while, he could sit outside and talk to himself, when he was that tired, to stay awake and alert for a bit longer, but eventually he had to admit that he was no good to anyone and close his eyes. Carol, thankfully, woke without any trouble or complaints. As she'd stepped out the tent, he'd made her promise to wake Lydia when it was her turn to keep an ear out—knowing full well that Carol had a tendency to take more than her share of any duty—and then he'd slipped inside and fallen asleep immediately.

Daryl was glad that Carol was sleeping. It meant that, at least at some point in the morning, she'd traded places with Lydia. It also meant, more likely than not, that Lydia was the culprit behind the wood smoke.

For just a moment, Daryl laid there and enjoyed, simply, the feeling of Carol sleeping beside him. She'd slept close beside him since the very first time they'd pitched tents after leaving Hershel's farm. She'd slept against him in cars, stores, and other assorted abandoned buildings. Every single time he woke up beside her, he enjoyed the peacefulness that simply seemed to settle over him from just having her there—that close.

Daryl eased out of his blankets. He hadn't stripped out of the clean clothes he'd put on the night before, so there was no need to change—though he did have pajamas if he ever bothered to change into them.

Outside, Daryl lit a cigarette as soon as he emerged from the tent and stretched his back out entirely. Lydia and Dog were outside together. Lydia had started a small fire, and it was clear that it was just getting going.

"Glad you ain't done that while it was dark," Daryl said. "Woulda called up every Walker in the area like moths."

"I'm not dumb, Daryl," she offered.

"Where'd you get the wood?"

"Right over there. You know—where there are trees?"

"Too damn early for you to be a smart ass," Daryl said. "Thought I made it clear that no damn body was to go beyond this area while it was dark."

"You mean like when you dragged those Walkers over there?"

Daryl narrowed his eyes at her. She smirked.

"Or did you just mean nobody—as in me and Carol?"

"Don't go wanderin' around alone at night. That clear enough?"

"It wasn't night," Lydia said. "Carol didn't go to bed until the sun was coming up already. It wasn't dark."

She was already burrowing around in what she'd clearly pulled from the wagon. A coffee pot, coffee, smoked meat, and some of the biscuits that Carol was always able to make out of a few basic ingredients, all cooked over a fire, would be a good breakfast. Lydia was also wrestling out the other things Carol liked—her cooking "utensils" for making cooking over an open fire easier and more desirable.

"I'll get the water," Daryl offered.

"I'll start the breakfast," Carol said. Daryl and Lydia both turned to find her emerging from the tent. She was fastening her belt—and that likely meant that she'd taken the time strip down out of at least some of her clothes before settling in for the night. She almost always did, but every time Daryl was reminded of that simple fact, it always stirred something up inside of him. She smiled at him like she knew. "Something wrong, Daryl?" She asked.

"Thought you was asleep," he said as quickly as he could, sure that his hot face was giving him away.

"Hard to sleep with everything we need to do," Carol said. "Wyoming won't wait forever," she teased.

"Wyoming?" Lydia asked.

"It's where the hell we goin'," Daryl said. "You got some complaint against it?"

Lydia smiled and shook her head.

"None at all," she said.

"I'll start breakfast," Carol said, stepping in to take over for Lydia. "Lydia—can you walk with Daryl and…wash out the buckets?"

It was a dirty job to wash out the buckets they kept in each tent at night, but Lydia didn't seem to care. It was, sometimes, a literal shit job and always a pissy job, but Lydia was, honestly, content to simply have people for which she could do those kinds of jobs—and Daryl could understand it. As a kid—and even as a teenager like Lydia—he would have been happy to do anything like that just to have the love and approval of people who would care about him and see to it that he had at least some of the basic things that he craved from the humans around him. It was what had kept him forgiving Merle, and taking care of him as best he could, no matter what.

Daryl and Lydia didn't talk as he walked carrying the empty buckets and Lydia walked carrying the buckets she would empty and wash out. It wasn't until they reached the creek, and Daryl used his buckets to pour clean water into hers so that she could wash them out nearby, that Lydia spoke at all.

"Why Wyoming?" She asked. "Not that I care, just…"

"Don't you know shit about Wyoming?" Daryl asked.

"No," Lydia said. "Do you?"

"Of course," Daryl said. "I mean—I know what I've heard about it and all."

"So—what do you know about Wyoming?"

"Big, romantic place," Daryl said, filling his buckets with clean water while, over to the side, Lydia finished rinsing hers to store in the back of the wagons. "Lots of real good land for growin' things and raisin' animals. Just what the hell we need to build a real ass home and be self-sufficient. Set for life. That satisfy your ass?"

Lydia finished her work and smiled at him.

"Sounds good to me, Daryl," Lydia said. She started following him back as he took up his full buckets and she took up her now empty ones. "Does—Carol know that Wyoming's romantic, Daryl?"

Daryl felt his face run hot again like he'd been working in the sun all day. He hadn't meant to let that part slip. It had played over and over in his head, though, the night before as he'd thought about their trip.

"Shut up," Daryl tossed behind him. Behind him, Lydia giggled, but she didn't say another word.

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Carol couldn't have explained the way she felt in any way that would have made sense to anyone. Daryl had studied the map over breakfast. He'd eaten heartily, and Carol had been happy to sacrifice just a little of her own food to see him eat so happily and so well, praising her food as he traced their path with a pencil. He'd been so focused on plotting their course that he hadn't noticed she'd taken food from her own plate, or he would have never swallowed it down, no matter how much he wanted it.

She liked taking care of Daryl—however she could. As soon as he'd finished eating, Carol and Lydia had packed up the camp while he'd handled the animals. Lydia's little wagon—lightweight and quick—was pulled by two of the lighter weight horses they'd bred back at the community. Daryl had bargained for them before he'd known that Lydia would catch up with them. He'd wanted her to have them so that she could set out on her own whenever she was ready. Or, maybe, he'd simply always known that she would follow. Skip and Mindy were a potential breeding pair, and they were well-trained to pull a wagon and to stay put when tethered. When they were given some freedom, though, Skip was a clown and Mindy was a moody mare to the core. Still, together they were happy to pull the little wagon—which was little more than a cart in comparison to Carol and Daryl's large and lumbering wagon—so that Lydia had to keep a good hold on them to keep them from overtaking the larger wagon.

As soon as they'd taken the first turn off that Daryl had marked on the map—Carol reading it and holding tight to it as it fluttered in the breeze caused by the movement of the wagon and the beautiful weather of the day—Carol had felt like she'd dropped ten pounds. She felt like she went shedding pounds now. She felt like they were blowing behind her in the breeze.

She was leaving behind anything and everything she wanted to leave behind—at least she dreamed it could be that way. She could choose who she wanted to be, moving forward. She didn't have to be who she had been—not entirely—and Daryl and Lydia, both, would support her in leaving behind her the things that she no longer wanted to carry. That was how she felt as she sat in the wagon seat beside Daryl and mentally counted the miles rolling out behind them and in front of them.

Carol had never been to Wyoming. She'd read about it in more than a handful of cowboy romances—sex books, as Daryl had called them—but she didn't really know how much of all that was true. Still, the thought of any of it made her heart beat fast in her chest.

That was especially true when she let her imagination run away from her and she imagined herself, as she often had, as one of those heroines in the novels—being romantically ravaged by the cowboy who found her irresistible and wanted to build his whole life around her because she took such good care of him and loved him just the way he needed to be loved. She'd been reading those books since before she'd married Ed. There had been times that reading those books had given her a much-needed escape from Ed, and had provided her with the promise that things could be better.

Back then, the cowboys in Carol's imagination had been faceless—or they'd been some face she'd seen on television or, perhaps, in passing somewhere.

Now, Carol was sometimes shamed to admit that she'd been imaging the cowboys—and any other leading man in any of those novels she happened to find anywhere—as Daryl since the very first time she'd picked one up after he'd worked so hard to find Sophia when she'd been lost. Daryl, of course, would probably die to know that he'd starred in so many of her fantasies—always maintaining his role as her go-to fantasy even when she'd allowed other men to bring her some physical relief or pleasure from her pent-up sexual frustrations—but what he didn't know, she supposed, couldn't very well hurt him.

The thought of riding shotgun, though, with Daryl, all the way to Wyoming?

It had been a long time since Carol had had to scold herself for acting, even internally, like a teenager. Still, she definitely had to do so now.

She almost jumped when she felt Daryl nudge her. Immediately, she busied herself with folding up the map that they wouldn't need for quite some time.

"What?" Carol asked.

"Was gonna ask you the same thing," Daryl said.

"What do you mean?" Carol asked, tucking the map away for safe keeping.

"You're grinnin' like a mule eatin' briars," Daryl offered with a laugh.

Carol knew she was. He wasn't lying. She didn't feel like she could hold it back, though, and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

"So? Is there some law against smiling out here?"

"There ain't no laws against jack shit nowhere out here," Daryl offered. "Just—wonderin' what you were thinkin', that's all."

Carol felt the smile renew. If she told him that she was thinking about the sensation that her imagination stirred up inside of her to imagine going to Wyoming, riding shotgun on their wagon, with her fantasy cowboy, Daryl might turn the wagon around and head back to the community—leaving her to go on alone. He might think she'd well and truly lost her mind.

She didn't tell him what she was really thinking—at least not in detail. Instead, she scooched over just a little on the seat, bringing them a touch closer together. The closeness didn't bother Daryl. It never did. He liked touch. He drank in affection like he'd been thirsting to death for it since he'd been a child—likely he had. As his best friend, Carol had permission to touch him—at least like this, in the ways he determined suitable for best friends.

"Just happy," Carol offered.

"Yeah?" Daryl asked.

"Yeah," Carol confirmed.

"Really happy?"

Carol laughed at his expression as he glanced at her, and at the tone of his voice.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "Actually—really happy."

"Good," Daryl said definitively, snapping the reins just enough to remind the heavy drafts to pick up their feet when they started to get lazy and slow down more and more, hoping Daryl wouldn't notice. "Because that makes me happy, too."