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When the burying was over, Daryl went away, into the woods, by himself. This was the way things probably should be, he thought. Sophia was gone; Shane was doing his best to split the group apart. And why were they together anyway? Bunch of people left over when the world died, sticking together because they were too afraid to be apart. They didn't need him; he sure as hell didn't need them.
He should just get his bike and go away, leave them all here. They were only going to slow him down, get themselves killed one by one. Probably get him killed while they were at it.
Maybe he would have done it, too, just pack up and go, figure they'd never notice, if it wasn't for Carol. When her little girl was lost, she was lost, too—he'd seen it. But she didn't stay lost. She pitched in. She helped out. She learned to be stronger. She'd been nicer to Daryl than anyone since his brother. No, she'd been nicer than Merle ever was.
If he left, Carol would die. No one was looking out for her, and no matter how far she'd come, she was still vulnerable to what this world had become. Daryl didn't doubt that, not for a minute. And he found he cared. He didn't want her to die.
"Ah, damn it all," he growled to himself, turning back toward the farm. He'd stay. A while longer, at least. Until he was sure Carol was ready to live.
Carol came out of the woods feeling drained, empty. Maybe this was what it felt like to be a Walker, she imagined. No thought, no feeling, just … one foot in front of the other, no other purpose or meaning to existing.
Shane stopped her, even as she tried to walk right by him, not yet ready to interact again, to wake and become human. Concerned, he took her hand and tugged her to the water pump, using the water to try to clean the caked-on dirt and sweat off her hands and arms. She wished him luck. She wasn't sure she remembered what it had been like to be clean.
"Hey," he said as he spread water over her skin, "I want you to know that I'm real sorry for your girl."
It would have meant more if she didn't know he'd been advocating all along to abandon the search and assume Sophia was dead, Carol thought sharply. Aloud she just said "Thank you," not particularly caring what Shane might think.
"When I opened that barn, I had no idea. If I did …" He stopped, since they both know he'd have done the same thing no matter what. Then he started again. "Everybody thinks that I'm a …" He couldn't finish that sentence either. "I was just trying to keep everybody safe. I had no idea she was in there."
He held Carol's gaze as though he was expecting something from her, but she had nothing to give him.
Walking away, her hands and arms dripping and muddy now, she couldn't help but think about Shane and Daryl. Both men to whom acting came more easily than planning, but Shane wanted to be everything to everyone—the one they all turned to for comfort and safety, the one they all trusted. Everything he did was for show. Even his show of concern and appearance of feeling guilty today. Tomorrow he'd have forgotten all about Sophia.
But Daryl wasn't like that. Daryl did what needed to be done, whether anyone was watching him do it or not.
Of the two, Carol had no doubt which one to trust here in this new world.
Daryl may have decided not to run off and leave them all to their fate, but he wasn't about to go back to being part of them, either. He found himself a shady spot by a tree and started making arrows. You couldn't have too many, these days. For food or survival, arrows were going to matter more and more every day going forward.
He wasn't happy when Lori showed up out of nowhere. Daryl had some respect for Rick, who seemed to have the best interests of the whole group at heart most of the time, but Lori seemed to spend a lot of time giving orders and not a lot of time doing much else, as far as Daryl could tell.
She wanted him to go to town and get Hershel because one of his daughters was sick. Seemed like she had already sent Rick after him—did she need everyone on this farm to jump just because she didn't want to do anything herself? Daryl told her to go herself, if she wanted Hershel back so bad. This world was no place for someone who couldn't see what needed to be done and do it themselves instead of expecting someone else to do it.
"What's the matter with you?" Lori demanded. "Why would you be so selfish?"
"Selfish? Listen to me, Olive Oyl, I was out there looking for that little girl every single day. I took a bullet and an arrow in the process. Don't you tell me about me getting my hands dirty!" She stared at him, shocked into silence, and Daryl sat down and kept working on the arrow. "I'm done looking for people."
All that time, all that pain, and that little girl had been dead in the barn. Daryl wasn't going through that again, not for two grown men gone off gallivanting.