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Daryl wiped her knife off on the filthy clothes of the Walker it had been stuck in, violently. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to have to put Carol down. He wanted to remember her the way she had been, not see her, empty-eyed and hungry, like a nightmare.

Carol was still down here. Or what had once been Carol. Daryl was sure of it. But where? Wandering the pathways of the lower prison?

Or trapped in a small room, pushing at the door, again and again? He remembered closing that door a couple of times, thinking he'd come back and finish off the Walker behind it.

He stared at the knife. The knife he'd given her, the one he'd have to use to finish her off. "You two go on back."

"You sure?" Carl was staring at the knife over Daryl's shoulder.

"Yeah. I have to—I have to do this."

"Okay." The kid turned to Oscar and nodded and they walked off together. Poor kid, he'd had to grow up mighty damn fast. Then again, so had Daryl, once upon a time, and with a hell of a lot less excuse. And now look at him, tough as nails. Or so he let everyone think.

What there was of him that wasn't tough he kept buried deep. Deeper since they'd found Sophia in that barn, or what was left of her. Maybe he should have let Carol go to her girl that day, let Sophia feed on her, let them go together, the way they should have.

Instead, he'd brought her here and tried to train her and failed, completely and utterly, letting her come to her end in the basement of a filthy prison, alone and scared.

Taking the knife, he made his way back through the hallways, remembering where the room had been.

A dead body had fallen in front of the door, which was the only thing keeping what lay behind it trapped. Daryl reached for the door, but something stopped him. Tears stung his eyes and he wanted to cry out in grief and denial, but he swallowed it back. A Dixon didn't cry out loud, not if he didn't want to get beat, at least. He'd learned to choke back his tears—all his feelings, really—a long, long time ago in another world.

But no amount of choking was going to make him open that door. He tried again, and failed again, and then he slid down the wall facing the door, sitting there and looking at it as the Walker inside, the Walker he couldn't bring himself to give Carol's face, pushed at it again and again and again.

Daryl pounded the tip of the knife into the floor, trying to drown out the sound of the banging door. He was dulling the blade, he knew that, which would make it harder to do what had to be done when he could finally manage to open the door … but he couldn't seem to stop.

At last, in an explosion of anger—always easier to deal with than grief—he slammed the blade of the knife into the concrete wall behind him, half-hoping it would snap off. It didn't, but the movement got him to his feet.

The Walker inside was still pushing at the door, and Daryl kicked out with his foot, planting his boot in the middle of the door and jamming it shut once and for all. He started to walk away. He could. He could just leave what lay behind the door there, let it stay there forever.

But he couldn't. He owed Carol more than that.

Pacing back and forth in front of the door, he wrestled with what he should do and what he wanted to do, what was real and what he wished for. The only kindness, the only softness, left in his world, had been in Carol's blue eyes, in her laughter and her jokes and her trust and her caring. Whatever else was true, it was true that he was all she had, just as she had been all he had. Yes, the others, but the two of them had been special. Separate. Each other's in a way that meant something.

Before he could think better of it, he grasped the clothes of the dead body in front of the door and hauled it away. The door popped open again immediately, just a little, and he yanked it all the way open, taking the knife out from between his teeth and holding it in readiness. He would stab without stopping to feel anything. He would get it over with.

Only there was nothing to stab. No Walker standing behind the door.

Just Carol, slumped against the wall. Breathing. Alive.

Slowly she turned her head, looking up at him as if it was the last bit of energy she had left.

Daryl nearly wept aloud at the sight of her. But she needed more than that from him. Bending down, he touched her face, telling himself it was to make sure she was still warm, but really because he needed the reassurance, needed to be certain he wasn't imagining this because he wanted her alive so much.

Quickly, he retrieved his crossbow from the floor and went back to Carol, lifting her in his arms. She felt like nothing, so thin and light. But there was no evidence she'd been bitten. She was just dehydrated and exhausted and starving, from being trapped down here, alone in the dark.

Feebly she lifted her arms, lacing them lightly around his shoulders. Her tongue came out to moisten her lips, and she cleared her throat, trying to speak. Daryl stopped moving to hear her, and even at that her voice was barely a sound in the silence down here.

"I knew you'd come."

He wanted to cry at her simple trust, at the faith and the acknowledgement of their bond in those four words. Instead, he cleared his own throat. "Cut that shit out," he said, the words still coming out weaker than he'd intended. "Next time, you'll save yourself. That's what you've got to do from now on."

But her blue eyes were fixed on his face. She knew better. She knew that whatever happened, he would come for her. There were a lot of things that he could never be, but from now on, come whatever may, he was her family and she was his, and he would come for her. Safe at last, she closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.