Thank you for reading!
The house they slept in tonight was miserable, nothing but bare boards and junk. Daryl and Carol wrapped themselves in their blankets in the front room, lying face to face on the hard floor, trying to get comfortable.
"Something has to change," Carol said softly. She didn't want her voice to carry to the other rooms. "We can't go on like this."
"Not with Lori in her condition. We need to find a place we can stay, that's safe."
"Where is that? We've been looking all winter."
"Got to be somewhere." Daryl wriggled a little bit. One of his hands brushed Carol's breast, and she caught her breath. They had never discussed their increasing closeness or what it could mean or whether it could go anywhere, and suddenly, she wanted to know.
"I miss riding the bike with you," she began. She'd given up the bike so she could ride in the same car as Lori, keep an eye on her physical condition. Too many things could go wrong with an advancing pregnancy. Hershel was good, but sometimes a woman needed another woman.
"Yeah. Me, too," he admitted after a long pause, in which he had hastily tucked his hand back against his own chest. While nothing physical had happened between them, Daryl had gotten used to Carol's warmth against his back, her arms around his waist. He had never much liked being touched—too many touches had turned wrong in the course of his life—but he was learning to be okay with it, with her.
"Maybe once Lori has the baby."
"I know how women get when there's a baby around. We won't be able to tear you all away from it."
Carol chuckled. "Probably not." She shifted a little to relieve the pressure on her hip. "I suppose we won't need to sleep like this much longer, either. It's getting so warm."
"Summer's gonna be miserable."
They lay together in silence for some time before Daryl sighed and spoke her name.
"Yeah?"
"You know this can't be … anything, right?"
"This?"
"You and me."
"Oh." She was surprised he was the first one to speak. "I guess I didn't really think it could."
"I just wanted you to know."
"It's all right. After Ed … I don't know if I'll ever want that kind of thing again, anyway." She imagined Daryl had stories of his own to explain his reluctance to get physically involved, but she didn't want to pry. If he ever needed her to know, he'd tell her. "Too complicated now, anyway," Carol added more practically.
"Wouldn't want you to end up like Lori."
"No." Carol couldn't imagine being pregnant in this world. "Or constantly scrounging for condoms, like Glenn and Maggie."
Daryl chuckled. "They've cleaned out every drugstore in thirty miles."
"And half the houses." Carol started laughing, too, and they lay there, amused, for a little while. "You know," she said at last, thoughtfully, staring over his shoulder into the dark shadows of the house, "if you'd asked me last summer, I'd have thought I'd be one of the first to get killed. I mean, what can I do other than cook, or clean? Not a lot of call for those skills these days."
"You can do a lot more than that now. Skinning, hunting, scavenging—you're comin' along. Don't sell yourself short. You'll make it—if any of us do." She was a lot more of a survivor than she gave herself credit for, Daryl thought. Everything she'd put up with from that worthless husband of hers, the loss of her little girl, and she just kept getting back up and trying harder, learning more. She had a lot of strength. "If you'd asked me last summer, I'd've said I'd get shed of the whole lot of you, go off on my own, get some peace and quiet."
"Who's selling themself short now?" Carol asked, hitting him lightly on the back of his hands with her own. "We couldn't do without you. Rick relies on you."
"I'm a better shot than he is."
"Yes, but it's more than that. He trusts your opinion, too. The others, they look to you to lead when he's not around. You bring in most of the fresh food."
"And you figure out how to make it taste good."
"Mostly I broil things over an open flame." She sighed. "I miss my stove. And my spices. Especially if you're not going to spice things up for me." Carol grinned at him in the darkness.
"Stop it." But he kind of liked her flirting with him, now that they had established nothing was going to happen.
She chuckled.
"You ever think about just … heading off?"
"You mean by myself? Or with you?"
"Either one."
Carol thought that over. She had recommended it a long while back, when some of the things Rick had been keeping from the group came out, but they'd been on the run for so long there hadn't been a lot of time to think. It sounded nice not to have such a big group to worry about—no child, no pregnant woman, no old man ... But it also sounded lonely. Carol had spent enough of her life alone, she wasn't ready to go back to that. "Not anymore, I don't think. Do you think about it?"
"Not as much as I used to."
"You'll let me know if you decide to go? I'd miss you."
"You'd be the first," he promised. She'd probably be the only person he told if he took off. She might be the only one he'd miss, right now. "But I ain't going anywhere. Except maybe to sleep."
"Good." Carol snuggled closer, closing her eyes. He might not be her man, but he was her friend, and right now, that was much more important.