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Daryl hadn't been at dinner. Neither had Lori. Or Glenn or Rick or Hershel. Carol was worried about the continued diminishment of the group. If there was strength in numbers, at the moment they were decidedly weak. And without Rick or Hershel or Daryl, Shane was taking on more and more leadership, which Carol didn't like in the least.
Outside the house, with everyone scattered hunting for Lori, Carol wondered what to do. Had Daryl and Lori both gone to town after the others? No one had seen either of them. But far off in the distance, she saw a fire. Lori wouldn't have made a fire instead of joining the rest of them, and as far as Carol knew, no one else was around here.
She took off running toward the fire, not entirely sure why but knowing that she would feel safer if Daryl was with them. "We can't find Lori," she said breathlessly as she came up to him. "And the others aren't back yet, either."
"Yeah. That dumb bitch must've gone off looking for 'em."
"What?"
"Yeah, she asked me to go. Told her I was done being an errand boy."
"And you didn't say anything?"
Daryl was silent, staring into the fire. Carol watched him, waiting for a response, but it was clear he wasn't going to give her one. Turning, she marched off, leaving him there alone, the way he wanted. But only a few steps away she found his tent, set up and ready for the night. He was withdrawing from them, leaving them. And Carol didn't want to let that happen.
She went back to the fire, to Daryl's back firmly turned to her. "Don't do this. Please. I've already lost my girl."
That got a response. He stood up and faced her, his eyes blazing. "That wasn't my problem neither." Daryl pushed past her and ducked into his tent, pulling the flaps closed behind him.
She wasn't going to get through to him, not tonight. So she returned to the others to let them know where Lori had gone.
He was glad to be alone. He didn't care about any of them. They were all idiots who were going to get themselves killed. If he stayed with them, he'd just get killed, too, and for what? For people who didn't give a damn about him.
Daryl told himself that, over and over, alone there in the clearing. Being alone was best. It was safest.
Which didn't explain why he was relieved when Carol came back.
"What are you doing?" The relief made his tone sharper than it would have been otherwise. He didn't want her to know he was glad she was there.
"Keeping an eye on you."
"Ain't you a peach," he snapped.
"I'm not gonna let you pull away. You've earned your place."
It felt good, to be accepted. To be wanted. That kind of good feeling, in Daryl's experience, was dangerous. You got to expect it, to crave it, and then you were screwed. So he attacked her where he knew she was most vulnerable. "If you spent half your time minding your daughter's business instead of sticking your nose in everybody else's, she'd still be alive."
He'd expected Carol to step back as he got in her face, to cry, to get angry, but she did none of those things. She just stood there, a tightening of her lips the only sign that he had gotten to her. "Go ahead," she said, her voice even.
"Go ahead and what?"
She waited, silently, waiting for his abuse. So he gave it to her.
"I mean, just go! I don't want you here." When she didn't respond, he pointed his finger in her face. "You're a real piece of work, lady. What, are you gonna make this about my daddy or some crap like that? Pfft. Man, you don't know jack."
She still didn't speak, just watched him with those blue eyes that usually said so much but right now were closed off, barred to him.
"You're afraid. You're afraid 'cause you're all alone. You got no husband, no daughter. You don't know what to do with yourself. You ain't my problem!" he shouted, pointing at her again. "Sophia wasn't mine! All you had to do was keep an eye on her!"
That sweet, pretty little girl, who was too afraid to speak, too afraid to sit still, and too afraid to come back. It wasn't Carol's fault she grew up so afraid—Carol had been afraid, too. But it was Carol's fault. And, deep down, Daryl thought it might just be his fault, too, for not finding her sooner, not taking more initiative to help keep the most vulnerable members of the group safe. This was why it was best to be alone—because then you couldn't feel bad if you failed other people.
He got in Carol's face again, and she reacted for the first time, flinching back away from him like she thought he was going to hit her. The last thing Daryl ever wanted to be was a man who hit women, or made them think he was going to hit them, and the faint sheen of tears in Carol's eyes was because he had put them there. But she didn't leave, didn't run, didn't turn away from him. She stood there, watching him, not moving. And Daryl had run out of words. He walked off into the darkness, leaving her there.
Once Daryl was gone, Carol let out the breath she'd been holding. It had taken all her strength to stand here and take those words from him. She deserved them—deserved them from him—which had made it all the harder. But he wasn't saying those things because she deserved them. He was saying those things to push her away, to make her leave him alone. And she wasn't going to do that.
He would never admit it, but Daryl Dixon needed the rest of them as much as they needed him. Deep down where he tried to hide it was a man with a good heart, and a man like that needed people.
Carol wasn't sure why she cared so much. Daryl had tried his best to save Sophia, that was true, but that wasn't it. He had treated Carol like a person in a way none of the others had since they left the quarry. Maybe that was it. Maybe she was so used to depending on someone else to define who she was that she had transferred that dependence to Daryl. Probably she should let him go and learn to stand on her own two feet.
But she didn't want to. She wanted him to stay. And she wasn't going to give up on him, no matter how much anger he hurled at her.