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As winter closed in, they fell into a pattern: They would invade a house, clear it of any Walkers, scrounge the cupboards for whatever food there might be left, and then Rick and Lori and Carl would take a bedroom, Glenn and Maggie would take a bedroom, Hershel and Beth would take a bedroom. T-Dog was growing more and more withdrawn as the winter went on—as the largest of them, Carol imagined the lack of food affected him more than it did the others—and he would usually find a couch somewhere off by himself.
This left Carol and Daryl on their own most nights. As the weather grew colder, and the amount of things they could carry with them grew fewer, they ended up sharing their blankets more and more often. The first few times, Carol held herself very still, far from Daryl, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. Not wanting to think whether it was the right idea for fear that it would send him back into his shell again and leave her alone in the cold.
A particularly cold night in November ended that. They were on a three-season porch, lying on a makeshift bed of cushions pulled off the couch, and it was bitterly cold. They should have gone back into the main house, but T-Dog was snoring loudly enough to bring Walkers down on all of them, so they had closed the sliding door between them and the house and were trying to block out the sound themselves.
Terribly cold, Carol inched closer to Daryl's back, trying to avoid touching him as much as she could. He didn't particularly like being touched, she had learned, although he'd put up with it when necessary.
Suddenly he rolled over, and she shrank back, afraid she had made him angry. Instead, he reached for her blanket, untucking it from around her.
"This don't make no sense," he said quietly. "We're wasting heat not sharing the blankets." Quickly, he rearranged the blankets to cover them both. "Now, tuck your hands in. Got to protect your extremities." Both of them crossed their arms over their chest and wriggled closer to each other, lying nose to nose. "Best thing would be to get naked," Daryl said into the darkness, "but we can't take that risk with Walkers around."
"Naked?" Carol echoed.
"Generates more heat. Clothes trap the body heat."
"Oh."
"I ain't gonna make a pass at you, if that's what you're thinking."
It had been. Carol was simultaneously relieved and disappointed. But she was also exhausted, so she moved a little closer, rested her head against Daryl's shoulder, and closed her eyes.
At first, he held himself stiffly, but gradually he relaxed, and morning found them snuggled together.
After that, they slept that way every night, and neither of them said anything about it.
Daryl sat outside, in a rare moment of sunny skies and Walker-free surroundings, whittling new arrows. Never could get enough of them, not with as many Walkers as they kept running into.
After a while, Carol came and sat down on the step next to him. "Can I help?"
"You know how to whittle?"
"No, but I could learn."
It was the thing he liked best about her—she was always willing to try something new and learn a new skill. Maggie was the same way. Daryl frowned at Carol now, though. "Thought you were helping with supper."
They'd found a house with a propane stove and a cache of supplies. Looked like someone else had tried to hole up there for a while and got bit, or something. Lori and Carol had been excited to make something hot to eat for a change.
Carol shook her head. "Lori said she had it under control."
"Seems like you two used to be friends." Lori had been noticeably more distant with all of them since the farm fell, though. Daryl put it down to her pregnancy, but occasionally he wondered if it had to do with Rick killing Shane.
"That was before," Carol said, drawing her knees up and lacing her arms around them. "When …"
She didn't finish, but Daryl knew what she wasn't saying. When she and Lori had both been moms, and had kids to raise.
Before he could say anything, Carol added, "It's a lot of work, raising a child in this world. It always was, but now—it's harder." She turned to look at him. "Is it terrible that sometimes I feel … free?"
It was probably terrible. Daryl imagined pretty much anyone else in the group would have been shocked and horrified to hear her say such a thing. He was a little shocked himself. But … "I feel the same about Merle," he confessed. "He was my brother, and I loved him, but … he was always getting himself in trouble. And me with him. With him gone, I don't have to worry about what he's going to do next."
Carol nodded. "They're not the only monsters this world has created." She gestured toward two Walkers dragging themselves along the road in front of them.
"No," he agreed. "And they ain't the worst of them, either. We're lucky to have people we can trust." He meant the group in general, which had learned to work together efficiently over the time they'd been on the run. But then he looked at Carol, and realized he'd meant more than that, too.
"We are. Very lucky."