AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

Carol had to admit that, especially as the day rolled on toward the evening, she found herself unable to focus too strictly on any one guest—or maybe she simply didn't care to focus too hard on any of them.

Something inside of her was fluttering like a butterfly—as the little internal insects were wont to do—at just the thought that everyone around the fire believed that she and Daryl were married. Furthermore, they believed that because they had been told that out of Daryl's own mouth and, given the chance to take it back, Daryl hadn't wanted to take it back.

She listened to the new people, but only half-heartedly. The other half of her felt strangely giddy and younger than she could ever recall feeling—even when she'd been very young. She caught that giddy half of herself smiling even when the conversation wasn't something, necessarily, to smile about. She tried to swallow it back, but it slipped away from her from time to time. The new arrivals were bound to think she was some kind of grinning idiot who spent most of her life simply smiling.

It was Daryl that gave her that smile, and she caught him smiling at her every now and again. He was watching her, clearly every bit as distracted as she was, and catching his eyes only made it that much harder for her to hold her smile in check.

Discreetly, she hoped, she rubbed her left ring finger with her thumb. The first time, she'd done it absentmindedly, and she'd caught herself. It was a knee-jerk reaction of sorts—followed by an unusual kind of longing to feel something there. She wished, for the first time in her life, that she had a ring—any ring would do as long as Daryl put it there. She ached for it. The bracelet she wore at all times—a symbol of Daryl's love and friendship—was wonderful but, at the moment, she would have given anything for even the simplest of bands.

She had come to resent the band she'd worn when married to Ed. It had been a cold symbol of his power over her—his ownership of her, his cruel and ruthless control. The ring had come to mean misery and, she was sure, death. She'd promised herself, when she took that ring off and tossed it into the quarry, that she would never put another on her finger.

She would never let another man have that kind of control over her.

She had fought Ezekiel about the ring she'd worn with him at first, and when she'd accepted it, she'd accepted it as something different, entirely, than the ring she'd thrown into the rock quarry. She'd accepted it as another piece of the fairy tale—another piece of an imaginary world where she was choosing to live and rest for a while. She had never given Ezekiel control of her in any way, and taking off the ring had been easier than she thought it was polite to admit. It was the same as stripping away a costume that had been torn, dirtied, and no longer fit. The fairy tale was done.

But Daryl—Daryl had his own kind of control over her. And it was one that she'd never granted, and one that he'd never asked for and never taken. It had simply come to be, organically and quietly.

And Carol wasn't sorry for it. Given the chance, she would take back that promise to herself. She would gladly slide his ring into place on her finger, and she would accept all that it meant. She was confident that Daryl would never abuse the power she gave him, and that made her want to test things—to taste what it was like to truly give him the power, to rest in his love and protection, and to know that she was safe there.

But there was no ring, no matter how many times her thumb flicked across the soft skin of her ring finger.

And there were people to get to know, so Carol did her best to put thoughts of rings and fluttering internal butterflies away and to focus on the new people she was meeting.

If the old woman had a proper name, she wasn't sharing it. She'd introduced herself as "Muh," and absolutely nobody seemed to question that or want to call her anything different. She had long, straight hair that she'd braided in a thick braid that hung down her back or over her shoulder, and Carol was pretty sure she had not a single tooth in her mouth—something that seemed to bother her very little even as she ate.

The boy named Beau—for he was almost a man, but clearly not quite—happily cut Muh's meat into small little bites for her, and she seemed to have no problem gumming the boiled potatoes Carol had made from what they'd brought her or the green beans that she'd offered from their own store of food. Immediately upon meeting Beau, Beau had introduced Carol to Muh with a very proud "she's my grandma" that had come with a look of tenderness from the old woman to the boy before she'd offered a somewhat bony hand to Carol in greeting.

Carol had swallowed back her nerves over being reminded of past mistakes that made her feel guilty, and she'd finger-signed her name to the redhead who identified herself as "Sadie" with a great deal of excitement over the fact that Carol and Daryl already knew how to sign. Carol exhausted most of her knowledge pretty quickly, and found that the woman's fingers were very quick when she was overtaken with excitement. Carol had stopped her by gently catching her arm, and had apologized before explaining that, really, she didn't know very much. Luckily, Sadie had seemed just as pleasant, then, as she had before, and she'd explained to Carol, out loud, that she could speak, and she could read lips, and she appreciated what little bit Carol did know.

The greeting had been warm enough that Carol had caught herself promising the woman that she would learn much more sign language, and that she was excited for all that Sadie would have to teach her.

She'd met the blonde and brunette—both doctors, according to Daryl—and she'd quickly found out that the women were a longtime couple. They confirmed that they were doctors—one with a specialty in cardiology, and one with a specialty in psychiatry, but both with enough general knowledge to get by with just about anything they had needed to handle so far.

The most puzzling thing about the group, perhaps, was that there was, as far as Carol could tell, no clear "leader" among them, and nobody who seemed to strive to be so in any way. They all seemed content to simply be something like equals.

Carol immediately got from them the same kind of response that Daryl had felt. The air around the group felt calm and peaceful. Carol got no sense of tension, disagreement, or even nervousness.

Maybe that was why she found it so difficult to focus on the casual conversations that took place over food. She wasn't worried about them. She wasn't on edge around them. She didn't feel like she needed to be on guard to protect herself or her family—her family that they believed was her full, complete, actual family. She couldn't focus on casual conversation when her mind kept drifting back to her thoughts about her family being just that.

And, luckily, nobody seemed to notice. Or, if they did, they didn't seem bothered or offended by her state of distraction.

111

"So?" Daryl asked, tugging Carol along with him by her hand. Her skin was particularly cool to the touch, and he'd felt a little chilled while sitting around eating. It wasn't freezing—far from it, actually—but there was a touch of cold in the air. He was happy that they were making extra good time toward their destination, because he hoped to reach Northern Wyoming in the next week or two and to get settled, somewhere, before Mother Nature slapped them with a hard winter.

For the moment, he'd left Lydia cleaning things up and preparing camp for the night—along with the others—and he'd dragged Carol with him to look at the stock. He had no doubt that the others knew that they were going to have a private conversation. In particular, the blonde had caught his eye and given him something he might have sworn was a knowing nod. Still, they hadn't seemed particularly bothered by the fact that he and Carol needed a moment alone.

"So?" Carol asked.

"It's too late to send them back tonight," Daryl said. "We can take normal rotations to keep an eye on them, if you want. If you're feeling nervous about leaving them up alone with the camp and the stock. But we gotta decide about the morning. We're movin' on after breakfast. Do we tell 'em they can travel with us, or do we tell 'em that we're sorry, but we're movin' on alone?"

Carol looked at him with the slightest hint of a smile on her lips. It was actually a much lesser smile than the one she'd worn throughout the evening. Nearly every time that Daryl had glanced in her direction, he'd caught her with some degree of a smile playing on her lips.

He'd caught a few other sights, too, that he wanted to discuss, but he thought those discussions were better saved for their tent. They were, at least, better for private time together when it had been decided what they would do about the new people. This needed to be discussed first, because it would decide a lot about how they moved on when the sun came up.

Carol shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

"It's—whatever you want to do, Daryl," Carol said.

"No, it ain't," Daryl said. "We're in this fifty fifty, right? We're doin' this together. That means the whole thing. I don't want to make some decision for us on my own and then we get to Wyomin' and I find out you hate me for it."

Carol laughed.

"No matter what you decided about those people, I couldn't hate you," Carol said. "I'd never hate you."

Daryl's heart fluttered in his chest at the reminder of similar words he'd said to her—words that he meant. How could he ever hate her? She was the only woman that he'd ever been certain that he loved beyond his mother. She was the only person—ever—that he'd ever loved in the very particular way in which he loved her. To hate her would be to tear his own heart from his chest.

"Figure of speech," he said.

"I know," Carol said. Her smile grew. She leaned toward him. Silently, she requested a kiss. He obliged her, happy to taste her lips. He didn't mean for the kiss to turn quite as involved as it did, but he couldn't help it. The taste of her lips made him crave more of her, and he pulled her against him, flush against his body, and held her tight. She kissed him back, hard and hungry, until he wondered if he'd have the strength to pull them apart.

"We left Lydia alone with them," he said, when he finally managed to get their lips apart. He felt like he had to say it. He felt like, if he didn't, he might strip her clothes off right out here—and he wasn't sure that she'd appreciate him stripping her down to make love to her some six or seven feet from where their horses were grazing.

She was breathing heavy when the kiss broke. It was dark enough that, though he could make her out, he couldn't see her perfectly clearly. He couldn't read the emotion in her eyes—but he could feel the electricity buzzing between them.

"I think she's safe with them," Carol said.

"That mean—you don't care if they stay?" Daryl asked.

"We'll never find two doctors again," Carol said. "And trying to set up a whole life in Wyoming? We might need them."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"You think they're good people?" He asked.

"I honestly do," Carol said. Daryl hummed his agreement.

"Does it make us the pissy people if we keep 'em around because we're thinkin' where the fuck you gonna find two doctors?" Daryl asked.

Carol laughed quietly. She caught his hands. She squeezed them and leaned forward, nipping at Daryl's lips.

"We'll make it up to them," Carol said. "The brunette said they fight most about being tired of cooking. I'll manage every meal from here out to make it up to them."

"Maybe not every meal," Daryl said. "I don't want them takin' advantage neither."

"Did you get the feeling they would?" Carol asked.

Daryl kissed her back when she kissed him. Everything in his body ached for her. He bit her lip and groaned at her because of the pain he felt trying to hold back from taking her right then and there—without any thought of decorum or being a gentleman. She laughed quietly, as though she could read his thoughts.

"No," he said, forcing himself back to the conversation at hand.

"Good," Carol said. "Let's give them a test."

"A test?" Daryl said.

"Let them—hold down the camp for a while," Carol said. "You—take me right over there. That little clump of bushes ought to hide us from view if anyone comes close."

"What about Lydia?" Daryl asked.

"She'll come looking for us if there's trouble," Carol said. "Otherwise, I think she's getting wise enough to things to know that—a little absence is us giving her some independence, and saving her from anything she might want to avoid."

Daryl bumped his body against her almost instinctively. His hips moved without permission. They moved from an animal drive and lust.

"Out here's good enough for you?" Daryl asked. "I don't wanna—insult you."

Carol hummed at him. She pushed his body backwards as she kissed him—toward the little cluster of bushes she'd identified.

"It's good enough for Skip and Mindy," she teased. "We'll make it work. Besides—I'm horny enough to bite you this time, Daryl."