AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

111

"I don't think I can," Carol protested. She was standing at the top of the back steps—concrete steps that, clearly, had not been the original ones to the house. The original ones, Daryl figured, had rotted away possibly ages ago. These looked as though they had been made somewhere else and brought to fit under the door. The drop to the top step was a bit dramatic, and there was something of an odd space between the house and the steps. If it weren't for the handrails—fashioned from several pieces of iron pipe that had been fitted together and painted black to try to give them some sort of ornamental look that might distract a potential buyer from the fact they'd probably just come from the hardware store in town—Daryl might have considered the back steps something he couldn't manage, either, without falling on his ass.

He had figured that the back steps were the best place to start with Carol's journey of a thousand steps. At least, this way, nobody passing through in the street would bear witness to his attempts to get her out of the house and, if they were sucked into some kind of void, nobody would see their disappearance, either, and choose to burn Lenora at the stake.

Lenora was a fan of Daryl's last line of reasoning.

Lenora also stood behind Carol, fully inside the house, with her hands on Carol's waist like she was prepared to help her walk if Carol might forget how to do such a thing.

Standing on the threshold, Carol looked genuinely terrified. Daryl could see her visibly shaking. From the ground, he held his hands up to her.

"Won't let you fall. Hold the rails. You can do it. The steps are concrete. They're a little weird, but they ain't goin' nowhere."

"It's not the steps," Carol protested. "Daryl—I can't do this."

"Like you feel like you're already gettin' sucked in the void or what?" Daryl asked.

"Please don't say void…" Carol responded.

"If you get sucked into the void, we'll just get Lenora to suck your ass back out," Daryl offered.

"I'm sorry—when did you decide that Lenora could suck anything out of any void?" Lenora asked from behind Carol.

"Please don't say void!" Carol said with a little more force behind her words.

"Sorry," Daryl said. He stepped up one step, bringing himself closer to Carol and close enough to touch her with ease. "Sorry. Here," he said, extending both hands toward her. "Take my hands. I got you. You can do this. You can come down with me."

"I don't think I can," Carol said, shaking her head and looking at him with wide eyes—those same eyes that he'd found beautiful as they looked at him from the painting. Her eyes were filled with fear.

Daryl found that he could actually feel her fear. It was an odd sensation. It wasn't like feeling fear in the air or even smelling the cat-piss funk of a serious nervous sweat. Daryl felt like he could genuinely feel her fear. It felt like it occupied a spot inside of him, beside where his own was nestled and barely lifting its head.

"I got you," Daryl said, finding that he truly meant it, as he said it, despite the fact that he had absolutely no way of actually promising that. "You're my soulmate, right?"

Carol's blue eyes practically pierced through him. She looked ready to cry, hyperventilate, or run inside—maybe she was thinking of doing all three, if she could get around Lenora. She nodded, instead, her lips pressed tightly together like she was desperately trying to hold everything back. She hummed.

Daryl found that he had to smile—partially to reassure her, and himself, but also because he simply felt like smiling when he looked at her and thought about the fact that Lenora said they were soulmates.

"Then—you go where I go. And I go where you go. And I got you. That's my job. Gimme your hands. I got you."

Carol hesitated only a moment longer. When Daryl flexed his elbows and waved his hands once more, inviting her to place her hands in his, she finally did what he asked. He smiled, and his pulse kicked up, to feel her hands in his and to realize that it was a silent declaration of absolute trust.

Even if he went into the void with her, she wasn't going alone. He wasn't going to let go.

"Come on," he urged. "Take a step down. Be careful. That first one is really fuckin' steep. But—I won't let you fall, neither."

Carol's grip on Daryl's hands tightened. He was surprised at how strong her hands were, but he was also surprised to truly feel her for the first time. She was real. There was nothing about her that seemed even somehow ephemeral. She existed as surely as he did, and he imagined—because he was certain that it couldn't be real—that he felt something like a current running from her hands to his.

"I got you," he reminded her, after she'd looked down to gauge the distance to the first step, and then she'd looked back at him to ask, one more time and without words, if she was making the right decision. Daryl's heart beat hard and fast. He hoped he was telling her the truth. He held her eyes, filled with question, and nodded.

He steadied her as she stepped, and he accepted the shift in weight as he acted as her handrails. He held his breath, waiting for something to happen, as both of her feet made it to the top step. Entirely outside of the threshold of the door, he heard her release her own breath, and he felt a shift, too, in the energy that seemed to flow between them. He exhaled and laughed to himself.

"Piece of cake," he offered. She furrowed her brow at him, and he shook his head gently. "Nothin', let's go. Come on. First step's the hardest."

He felt the rush of a thrill. He saw the excitement as he felt the jolt. He laughed, amused by Carol's expression and the odd sensation that felt like it ran through his veins.

Carol stepped down the next step with a little more ease and a little more confidence. By the time she stepped off the concrete set of steps entirely, and onto the dirt ground beneath them, she was nearly walking regally in Daryl's sweatpants and flannel and Lenora's sneakers.

Carol smiled at Daryl. She beamed at him, and he felt the warm rush of happiness in his chest. For a moment, he realized that he didn't know what was his happiness, and what was hers. It was a little disconcerting, but not wholly unpleasant. Carol smiled up at Lenora, too, who stood in the doorway.

"I made it this far," she said.

"I'd say you've come pretty a damn good distance over the past day or so," Daryl offered. "All things considered. But—you ready to go a bit further?"

Carol looked at Daryl, and then she looked back at Lenora.

"Can I?" She asked.

Lenora laughed and lit a cigarette.

"Are you asking me if you're going to go into the…place you don't want to talk about…if you keep going?" Lenora asked.

Carol nodded.

"Hell if I know," Lenora said. "I don't think you two are listening. I don't know what the hell is going on anymore than you do. I know about the whole connection, and I know the lore surrounding it, but…what the hell reason did I ever have to think it was real?"

"You're saying we're on our own," Daryl said, swallowing back amusement.

Lenora shrugged.

"I'm saying we're all just seeing what happens, and that includes me, too," she said. "You made it out the door. You made it down the steps. You're touching the ground, and I don't know if that's significant or not, but it seems like it would be—something about ground and all that seems to always come into play."

"Can I ask you somethin'?" Daryl asked, letting go of one of Carol's hands and using just his one free hand to help himself to a cigarette from his pocket—pretending all the while that performing the action one-handed wasn't a bit of an adjustment.

"You're going to anyway," Lenora said. Carol waved away Daryl's offer of a cigarette. He dropped his lighter back into his pocket once his own was lit.

"Well—there's somethin' else going on," Daryl said. "Somethin' kinda weird." There was a distinct and unmistakable snort from the top of the steps. Daryl laughed and shook his head. "You know what, that shit's fair enough…" He mused.

"What could we possibly having going on here that's weird?" Lenora asked.

Daryl looked at Carol. He squeezed her hand in his—the hand he hadn't let go of since she'd placed it in his—and she looked at him. He felt a rush of feeling. She was so beautiful. He never wanted to let go of her hand. He never wanted to be any further from her than he was right now. He pushed that thought out of his mind.

"Do you feel somethin'?" He asked her.

She made a face, eyebrows going up, as she considered the question. She half-shrugged and looked around.

"I think I'm feeling a great number of things," she said.

"I mean—from me," Daryl said. "Do you feel somethin' that feels like—it's comin' from me? Like it ain't comin' from you, but it's inside you. Do you feel that?"

Her eyes went wide with a sort of undeniable realization. Her fingers tensed where he held her hand.

"I thought it was just the whole—being dead situation," Carol said.

"Ix-nay on the ead-day," Lenora said. "Remember, you're alive, and that's all the hell you've ever been, if anyone asks."

"I thought it was the whole—just arriving in town situation," Carol offered.

"So—you feel it, too, which means I'm not crazy…or at least this shit isn't proof that I'm crazy alone," Daryl said. He looked at Lenora. "It's like we're—sharing feelings or something."

"Telepathy?" Lenora asked.

Daryl tried to say something to Carol with his mind. He sent her a quick message to touch her nose with her finger if she could hear him. She blinked at him, and she furrowed her brow at him, but she didn't touch her nose. She could, it seemed, sense him trying to tell her something, but she couldn't hear the words.

Daryl hummed and shook his head.

"Not like that," he said. "Not words. I just told her to touch her nose. She didn't do it…did you hear it?"

Carol shook her head.

"I felt something," she said. "But—not words. I felt like you wanted something. You wanted me to do something, but I didn't know it was that you wanted me to touch my nose. Why do you want me to touch my nose, Daryl?"

"Forget it," Daryl said. "It was just a test to see if you could hear it." He looked back at Lenora. "Ain't that."

"Empathy?" She asked. "Transferring emotions?"

"Something like that," Daryl said. "Is that a thing with this whole soulmate connection thing?" Lenora looked at him like she was bored with his very existence. "You don't fuckin' know," he said, taking her message from her expression alone. She gave him a look that openly communicated that she was sarcastically impressed with his ability to make connections.

Maybe he could sense her thoughts, too, he thought with a bit of amusement.

"What do we do now?" Carol asked.

"It would appear that you do whatever you want to do," Lenora said. "You're testing boundaries. Limits. Test them. Fly free, my little birdies."

"And if we get sucked into the void?" Carol asked.

"Then Lenora's gonna come in after us," Daryl said with a laugh. He winked at Lenora. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Lenora's going to take a shower," she said.

"If we're not back in an hour," Daryl said, "come lookin' for us. And if you don't find us…"

"I know," Lenora said. "I'll start searching the books for a way to fish you out of the void."

Daryl laughed, and Carol did, too. He felt that her amusement was real. Like him, she clearly felt a touch of anxiety about the unknown, but most of the genuine fear was gone. Neither of them truly believed that there was a void into which they were about to plunge hopelessly.

Instead, it seemed that there was a whole new world of experiences into which they were heading together.

Daryl's stomach tightened at the thought. He felt a little nervous to consider the possibilities. He was holding the hand of his soulmate and, if they were right and their luck continued, they would find that she wasn't going to vanish or disappear. Instead, she was going to be here forever.

And forever was a very long time full of innumerable possibilities. Daryl's pulse kicked up just to think that, and he saw something register in Carol's eyes—probably in reaction to his own feelings.

He smiled at her. They didn't have to consider all of forever right now. They didn't have to handle every obstacle that might present itself. They didn't even have to know where it would all go from here.

They simply had to start—and they could figure the rest out together.

"Go for a walk?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled. She stepped closer to him. She was warm. He could feel her warmth. She slipped her arm into his. She leaned against him. She felt so comfortable, and warm, and real. She felt good next to him.

"I'd love to," she said, leaning into Daryl.

"Let's go," he offered, leading her with him.