AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

111

"You don't get to keep what you don't take care of," Daryl said. "And you don't get to be mad, neither, if you don't get to keep it. If you liked it enough to wanna hold onto it, then you oughta had the respect for it to care for it."

The pretty woman's name was Carol. Daryl knew it now. It was a piece of information that he could keep—just the same as he'd kept all the other things that he'd learned and held onto in his life. Even when he turned her loose, he could hold onto it—the knowledge that her name was Carol, and her eyes were blue, and she was the prettiest woman he'd ever seen, especially when she didn't look so scared of him.

Carol sat close to Daryl, on her bottom, with her legs drawn up against her body, under her skirts, and her arms wrapped tightly around them. Still, despite the somewhat uneasy stance, Daryl sensed that she was actually comfortable and relaxed. The position she'd chosen hadn't been chosen to indicate anything—it was simply what she seemed to find agreeable at the moment.

Daryl kept his spot, as well, but now he'd turned his body just enough to support his back against the rock. He'd moved slowly, so she wouldn't find it threatening, and she hadn't spooked when he'd turned slightly to angle his body so that he was facing hers.

Carol didn't seem to understand how anything worked, really, and Daryl was glad that he'd gotten her away from her savage mate when he did. Nobody, it seemed, had been around to teach her half the things that Daryl had learned from Merle, Jim, and the Doctor's wife—when each had their chance to teach him—and what he'd learned from the simple act of observing life around him as he'd trapped and traded his way into the life that he enjoyed now.

There was a line between her brow as she listened to him, head half-cocked to the side, and a hint of a smile was tugging at the corners of her lips.

"So—you can just…take what you want?" Carol asked. "When you see it and you want it?"

Daryl frowned.

"No," he said. "Not exactly. I mean—you don't just make it a practice to take what the hell you want. That ain't a real good way to be about things. You oughta always think about how you would feel about things and how you'd want someone else to treat you. So—you don't just make it a practice to take whatever you want."

"But you can?" Carol asked.

"I don't wanna say yes," Daryl said.

"But you don't want to say no, either," Carol supplied.

"I don't thieve," Daryl said.

Carol looked around.

"I wouldn't imagine you did," she offered. "You—live here?"

"For now," Daryl said. "I move when it suits me."

"When does it suit you?" Carol asked.

Daryl squirmed a little, his back scrubbing against the hard rock behind him. It hurt, a little, and he welcomed it. It was nice to focus on something beyond the questions and the pretty woman who was asking them.

"I got no use for towns," Daryl said. "For people neither, for that matter. Not except when it comes to tradin', and I'm content with that bein' temporary."

"What do you trade?" Carol asked.

"Pelts, mostly," Daryl said. "Meat. Scratch out some of the yellow. Sort it out in the creeks, sometimes, when I'm runnin' traps. They'll give you anything you want for that. I keep a deerskin pouch of the yellow on me just about all the time for when there ain't nobody that wants the pelts and the meat."

"Gold," Carol said.

"What?" Daryl asked.

"Gold," Carol said. She pointed to him and he drew into himself for a moment, before he realized that she was pointing over his head at the rock behind him. The vein of yellow ran through it, and she had noticed it. He followed her gesture, looked at the rock, and then looked back at her.

"They think it's valuable," Daryl said.

"You don't?" Carol responded.

Daryl shrugged.

"For gettin' what you got a mind to have," he said. "But you can't eat it. Can't drink it or wear it. It ain't no good for makin' things, really. You see the smith in town, and he don't got much use for that in makin' you what'cha want. Seems to me that it ain't no good for much except—gettin' what you want. It's good for trade, but that's about as far as its good goes."

"That's what money's for," Carol said. "That's all. It's for having all the things you need."

Daryl shrugged again.

"I don't need much."

"I can tell," Carol said. "What—do you need, exactly?"

Daryl felt his stomach tighten. It wasn't the question, really, that made him feel the way that he felt. It was, more than anything, the way that Carol asked. There was a hesitancy in her voice. Her position changed slightly. He caught the tightening of her muscles and the slight drawing-in of her arms and legs. He had made no move to threaten her. He'd done nothing that should have caused her to tense at all, but she'd very clearly drawn into herself a little before she seemed to purposefully relax again.

Daryl felt like the answer was some kind of challenge or a trick. Sometimes, he'd heard the old men that Jim knew—men he knew, himself, when he came into contact with them in his wanderings—with their trick questions. They would laugh about them, bring them up around the fires, and stew over them for some time. Usually there was some prize for someone who could untangle their words and give the right answer to whatever they were asked.

Daryl wasn't always very good at figuring out the answers, but he liked chewing on them. He liked the feeling of anxiousness—chosen anxiousness—that built in his gut when he was trying to win something he wanted. He'd gotten a pretty nice knife off one of the old men one night for one of those hard questions—though, later, Daryl had suspected that, maybe, the others had let him win the knife. He'd been in need of a decent one, and the old man had one to spare that he'd told Daryl he could have if he solved the question before anyone else. Later, Daryl realized that he had no real recollection of any of the others really trying for the knife.

This felt like one of those challenging questions, and Daryl felt that anxiousness in his gut, but he hadn't chosen to participate in this particular challenge. And the prize, should he win it, was only to see Carol as relaxed as she'd been before she'd asked the question.

Daryl brought is finger to his mouth and gnawed at the part of it where a little piece of skin had grown dry and hard. He worked it with his teeth, keeping his mouth busy as he got it loose.

"I don't need much of nothin'," Daryl said. "Food. Water. Shelter and a fire for cookin' and keepin' off the cold. Clothes for the winter, especially. I got a taste for flour to make biscuits, and I like tobacco and coffee. That's most of what I buy in town. Besides that—I got a few things I like that I picked up over the years."

"From other people?"

"Some of it," Daryl said.

"Like what?" Carol asked.

Daryl shrugged.

"I got a bit of glass," he said. "Shows you what you point it at. Good for startin' fires, too, when the sun's just right. Wrapped up in a bit of cloth. And—I got some little scissors that someone give me. I got—a tin cup I like and that coffee pot. A good, heavy pot for makin' my biscuits and cookin' my stew, with a top on it, too, that hooks so it don't fall when I tie it to my pack. Then, there's my weapons, that pick I got, and some trappin' gear. My blanket and a few clothes in that sack. I don't like to travel too much heavier'n that. It's already a might too much, sometimes, when I decide I'm movin' a decent ways before the sun goes down on me."

"You took those things from people who didn't care for what they had?" Carol asked.

"Most of it was given to me," Daryl said. "Or I bought it in town with what I earned honest from trappin' and huntin'. A few things was taken from camps where people was careless with their goods. Didn't think enough of 'em to put 'em outta the way."

"You stole them," Carol said.

"I ain't a thief," Daryl said. "But you leave it layin' about so it ain't clear you mean to keep it—and somebody's liable to take it if they got a need for it and a desire to care for it more'n you do."

"And women?" Carol asked.

"Women…?"

"You—need them?" Carol asked.

Daryl tensed, himself, at the question.

He wasn't sure how to answer it. Jim had made it clear that all animals were driven to mate. They had a natural instinct to do so for the proliferating of the species. Daryl, too, had the drive to mate. He'd felt it, himself, looking on at Carol when he'd found her at the shanty. It was only natural that the drive was there and, he supposed, that it made itself known in the presence of such a pretty mate as Carol. Men like him took mates; he knew. Usually, they took temporary mates, if they had no mind to settle. They mated with the painted ladies in town or some they seemed to find in passing that didn't mind the mating with them and knowing they weren't set on putting down no kind of roots. Some, Daryl knew, mated with the native ladies from tribes in the area. Some of them women were happy to mate with trappers, and some even called themselves "wives" of these men, meaning they were long-term mates. Others could be bought the same as goods, and some men would acquire things the natives might particularly want to trade for and get themselves a pretty mate to keep. That meant, of course, that some of them travelled with the men, but many others just stayed where they had a mind to camp, and the men made it back to their places throughout the year as the weather and work allowed.

Some men, Daryl knew, gave up trapping altogether. They mated for life with a little woman that wanted to settle down somewhere, and they did—though Daryl didn't really know what became of them since he never heard from most of them again.

Like anybody else, Daryl had felt the desire to mate—but he'd made the choice not to answer it. He had never found anyone who wanted to mate with him and with whom he wanted to mate. And Jim had made it very clear that both of those things were required for mating. Otherwise, it wasn't proper—and it could be handled by anybody that knew it wasn't proper and saw fit to make sure things followed in their natural order.

"I mean—I don't need 'em," Daryl said.

"Do you—take them?" Carol asked.

"Women?" Daryl asked. Carol nodded. "No. I never took no woman."

"Until me?"

Daryl felt a little struck. Still, it settled around him and dawned on him what she was trying to say and what she was thinking.

"I didn't take you," Daryl said.

"You did," Carol said. "Didn't you? You took me away from Ed."

"Ed was your mate?" Daryl asked. Carol nodded. "I ain't took you. I just—turned you loose."

"Turned me loose?" Carol asked.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Turned you loose. You know. Let'cha loose from him. So he don't mark you up no more like that. He don't take care of you. Not like he ought to, so I just—figured you might oughta be turned loose."

"Turned loose," Carol mused. Daryl frowned. He wondered if she could even understand most of what he was trying to say to her. It seemed to him that she hadn't been very well taught about the ways of things like he had.

"You know," Daryl said. "So as you can—pick again."

"Pick again?"

Daryl shook his head.

"We ain't gonna get no damn where if I gotta repeat everything to you every time I say it," Daryl said. "And—if I'ma get somethin' for us to eat, I can't sit here in the dirt all day and explain things to you."

"I'm sorry," Carol said, looking a little taken aback. Daryl wondered if he shouldn't have said what he'd said to her.

"I can explain things to you," he said, amending what he'd said. "I just—can't explain it all at once. Not if I gotta get us somethin' to eat, too. And you're bound to be hungry, ain't you? Them birds I took you last was kinda thin, and it don't look like he'da done much more than let'cha suck the bones clean when he was done."

Carol furrowed her brow at him. She looked to be sulking, slightly, from her spot. Her face lightened a little, though.

"You brought me the birds?" She asked. Daryl inclined his head enough to indicate that he had. "You brought me the other things, too?"

"I could tell he weren't no good at providin' for you," Daryl said. "Thin as a twig. You'll get sickly if you don't eat up some. Figured least I could do was feed you 'til I figured out when it was best to turn you loose."

"Turn me loose," Carol said. Daryl couldn't tell, at all, if it was a question or a statement, and he felt a little twitchy hearing it again.

"You need me to explain it to you again?" He asked.

"No," Carol said quickly. "No—not right now. You're right. I am hungry."

"Figured you was," Daryl said. "I'm a bit peckish, myself. And I got traps to check, so I can get us somethin' to eat for supper, even if there ain't no beavers to handle today." Daryl glanced out the little opening to his shelter. He ran through a quick calculation of how long it would take him to check his traps, set any that needed to be set, clean what needed to be cleaned, and cook supper besides. It would eat up what was left of the sun. He hummed to himself. "It ain't no good. This day's done pretty much gone when it's all said and done. I was gonna take you down to town where there's some settin' up of homesteads for them that's come lookin' for a life in the town that'll make soon enough. It ain't no good for you turnin' you loose in the dark, though. Do you think?"

Carol stared at him. He had no idea what her expression meant, but her brow was furrowed.

"No," she said, dragging the word out. "No—I don't think…it would be good to turn me loose in the dark."

"You don't sound so sure," Daryl said.

"I'm not sure of much, to be honest," Carol confessed. Daryl frowned at her. He couldn't let her loose in the dark. Not as she was. She didn't seem to understand hardly anything, and that might not do well for her if he were to turn her loose in the homesteads without the light and without having the chance to see that she was going to have good mates to choose from.

Daryl simply nodded at her.

"I'll explain it to you," he assured her. "All of it that'cha ain't learned yet. Just—I got to see to the traps and to supper now."

"I understand," Carol said. "I guess…I still have a lot to learn. What—what should I do? While you're gone?"

"You can start a fire?" Daryl asked.

Carol nodded enthusiastically.

"Creek ain't but just thirty paces or so in that direction," Daryl said, pointing out of the little cave and off away from anywhere she might have known. You see them little scrub bushes ain't about knee high? Damn near on the bank. You can't miss it from there or you'll fall in. It's good water. Cold and clear. Get what you want of it, but if you ain't got nothin' else to occupy your time, you might see about fillin' my bottles there where you got the water before."

"I will," Carol assured him.

"I ain't seen too many bear signs in this area," Daryl said, "but that don't mean they ain't here. Be careful, but you ought to be fine if you don't go strayin' too far just yet. There's plenty of wood just in this area."

Carol nodded enthusiastically, again.

"I'll start a fire," she assured him. "And—I can get you more water."

"You got a mind to go," Daryl said, "then—you're free to go. I meant what I said. I ain't holdin' you here. If you're here when I get back, though, then I'll bring supper. I don't know what it'll be, but it'll eat good enough, and you'll eat your fill. I promise you that."

Carol smiled at him softly.

"I'll be here," she said.

Something about the way she said it made Daryl's heart flutter and his stomach flip. He went about gathering up what he needed—all the while aware of the pretty woman who was wandering near his camp and gathering up wood for his fire.

Tomorrow, he'd turn her loose. Tomorrow.