AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Daryl and Merle had developed a lot of different, and somewhat shared, coping mechanisms throughout their years together—even if those weren't the words that they would have used to discuss what they were doing. After a Friday night that left them both with a great deal of questions, both brothers had stayed in on Saturday. They'd ordered a pizza—the kind with the cheese in the crust, since Merle found that pizza naturally superior to any other pizza—and they'd decided to watch a movie. Daryl had let Merle pick the movie while he'd run out to the store to pick up beer and ice cream, and when he'd gotten back, Merle told him there was nothing on except one of the sappy ass movies that, as Daryl had noted a long time ago, seemed to be the only movies that were on when they watched something late at night.

Daryl didn't know what the hell Merle had thought about, exactly, while they'd eaten and watched the movie. He knew his brother had been damn near wearing thin the paper on which that woman—his "better than Farrah Fawcett" woman—had scribbled her phone number. Daryl assumed, knowing Merle, that he was thinking if he didn't call her, she couldn't turn out to be some bitch that hurt him. If he didn't call her, he'd really be able to show her—he'd hurt himself, long before she ever got the chance. He could shoot himself in the foot to keep her from doing it.

Daryl didn't know for sure, though, what it was that Merle thought while he sat, brow furrowed and mouth drawn up in concentration, stewing heavily over the movie about a woman who moved back to her home town, after seeing the world or some shit, to open a little coffee shop and fall in love with the carpenter that she'd known back in high school but had never given a second glance. At the end of the movie, they'd gotten their happily ever after—like everyone in those movies did after they fought what was surely coming for a little while.

Daryl hadn't paid much attention to the movie because, from the moment the woman had opened her little coffee shop, he hadn't really stopped thinking of Carol. And every time he glanced at his brother, troubled over whether or not he ought to give that woman and call and risk getting his heart—which was an organ he'd protected with everything in him since he'd been practically a kid—chewed up to pieces, he thought about the fact that maybe it was worth risking your heart getting chewed up just to finally find what the hell was at the end of all these cheesy ass movies. Maybe it was worth it, if that was what it took to get the happily ever after.

Maybe it was worth it just to not spend your whole life wondering if you'd been so damned close to it and just turned away from it, simply because you were scared of what you couldn't see.

Carol was scared. Daryl knew that. He'd seen it. He'd seen nothing but pure fear in her eyes in Charlie's parking lot—almost like a cornered animal. Like Merle, maybe, she didn't want to get hurt. She was afraid of the hurt. Maybe, like Merle, she was afraid that you didn't survive the hurt.

The only difference, maybe, was that Merle had been told from the time he was wearing diapers that there wasn't a soul in the world that was going to care about him if they didn't have to—if blood didn't obligate them to tolerate him. Therefore, he'd simply come to believe that, in the absence of being able to care for him, the only thing left was for people to hurt him. Carol had been taught by someone—probably that ex-husband—that she was going to be hurt. She should simply expect it to happen because she'd been shown that it would.

Maybe Daryl was different than the both of them. He'd been hurt before, and he knew he wasn't a blue-ribbon prize, but he'd always at least wanted to believe in something—foolish as that may be. He'd wanted better, perhaps, and dreamed he could have it. He wanted the happily ever after at the end of the sappy ass movies and at least one part of him believed that it wasn't all make believe.

It wasn't impossible, it just wasn't possible with just anyone. It took finding the right person.

Like the people in the movie, if he had no intention of hurting the woman just minding her business and opening up her coffee shop, then why couldn't he be the one that, someday, she saw as the man she'd just never paid attention to before, but was somehow always meant to love?

Daryl didn't call Carol all weekend. He gave her space to sort out whatever she needed to sort out. He gave her room to breathe. He allowed her to feel whatever she needed to feel without having him breathing down her neck, demanding that she be called to action.

He didn't bug Merle too much, either, though he did finally tell him Sunday evening that he wished he'd just call the woman so it might cut down on the snapping and brooding that was taking place while Merle was trying to work out his feelings over the woman that, if he didn't call her, would never have the chance to act in any of the ways that Merle was imagining she might.

On Monday morning, rather than call Carol, Daryl left for work particularly early. He parked his truck a block and a half from her café, and he walked down to the little produce stand where an old man and woman were selling their garden grown goods out of their little popup shop. He bought a few apples to pass around at lunch, and he got the woman's suggestion on the other thing that had caught his attention—the thing that had made him park that far from the café and stop by to be their customer in the first place.

Daryl found the café unofficially "open". The sign on the door proclaimed it to be closed, still, if the hours posted had indicated actual working hours, but there were "regulars" going in and out that made their own hours. Daryl slipped in with the rest of them.

Daryl scanned the café quickly. It wasn't that big, but the set-up made it difficult to scan the whole place at a glance, particularly with the way the counter was situated like a peninsula in the middle of the café. In one corner, Daryl immediately recognized the blonde woman that had watched his coffee date with Carol. She was sitting, though, with another woman, and she hadn't noticed his entrance into the café.

Daryl didn't see Carol for a moment, and his heart sunk as he realized that maybe she didn't work on Monday. Then he saw her, coming from the kitchen and stepping up to the counter to pass over a plate with a pastry on it to a waiting customer. She gave the customer a warm and genuine smile and waved the woman on toward her business partner—Jacqui, Daryl had learned was the woman's name—so that she could pay her money.

Carol scanned the café quickly, looking for anyone who might need anything, and Daryl saw the moment that her eyes found him. She almost looked like she'd been splashed with iced water, but he forgave her the shock. She hadn't expected to see him. She hadn't prepared. Maybe, even, she'd forgotten to put on her invisible armor and shield because she hadn't realized he'd be there.

But even the coffee shop owner in the sappy movie had been somewhat standoffish at first.

Daryl walked up to the counter and, for just a moment, he wished he was as smooth as Merle. Merle might not trust them to be worth keeping once he got them in the boat, but he knew how to get them to swallow a hook.

Daryl wasn't as smooth as Merle, though. It had never been his superpower. So instead of having some great line to fall back on, he simply smiled at Carol and offered her the flower that he'd bought off the old woman at the popup.

Carol's surprised face relaxed a little, and a smile played at the corners of her lips.

"For me?" She asked.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"You think I bring flowers to every woman on a Monday morning?" Daryl asked. Carol's smile grew slightly and she accepted the flower.

"I don't know," she said. "You might. A tulip?"

"Woman at the flower place said it was the best kind of flower to say—good morning and I hope that you have a good day," Daryl said. "Without bein' half as damn scary or committal as a rose."

Carol laughed.

"I didn't know there was such a thing as scary flowers," Carol offered.

"Bet you would have if I'da walked in here with roses," Daryl challenged.

Carol sighed and nodded her head.

"You're probably right about that," she said. "Listen, Daryl—I meant to call you this weekend…"

Daryl held his hand up.

"Please," he said, "if what you're about to say is…you got too busy an' you're so glad I stopped by so we could have some coffee and talk about things, then keep right on talkin'. If what you're about to say is some way to nicely tell me to go to hell? Just skip the extra and tell me to go to hell."

Carol blanched slightly.

"Can we talk?" Carol asked.

"So you can tell me to go to hell, or so we can really talk?" Daryl asked.

Carol shook her head.

"I don't want to tell you to go to hell," she said.

Daryl's stomach had knotted to the point that he might have diagnosed himself with having wrongside-outward-stomach if such a thing existed. The tangled-up muscle started to right itself, though, with Carol's words and the soft sincerity of her voice. He nodded his head at her.

"I'll get us some coffee," he said.

Carol glanced back toward the table where the woman who'd watched them before was sitting. She was with another woman—a brunette who had her feet up in the chair with her—and they were both watching intently, now that they'd noticed that Carol and Daryl were talking.

"Can we sit outside?" Carol asked.

"We can sit on the roof if it makes you happy," Daryl offered. "You lead the way."

Carol poured them coffee, and Daryl picked up both cups. She refused to let him pay, and he noticed that she held tight to the tulip that he'd brought her. Outside, she chose one of the small tables—the one in the most shade. She put the tulip on the table in front of her when she sat.

"Nobody's ever brought me flowers before," she mused.

"You do like 'em, though?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled to herself.

"Who doesn't like flowers?" She asked.

"Then you oughta get flowers," Daryl said. He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. "You were just about to tell me in there why you didn't call this weekend."

"You stopped me from lying to you," Carol admitted.

"You were gonna tell me to go to hell?" Daryl asked.

"It sounded nicer in my head," Carol said. "But when you said that, I realized—it's all the same thing, isn't it? Even if I use nicer words."

"Why?" Daryl asked. "What'd I do wrong?"

"Not a thing," Carol said. "You didn't do anything wrong…"

"Then why tell me to go to hell?" Daryl asked. "Did you have a good time on Friday?"

"I had a great time," Carol said.

"So…why? You had a good time. I had a good time. I thought that's when you—have a good time again. Not when you decide you don't never wanna see each other again."

"I told you I was married before," Carol said. Daryl hummed and nodded. "He was abusive, Daryl. In every possible way that you can imagine."

Daryl's stomach twisted and he nodded and hummed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But—I can't undo that no more than you can undo shit that's happened in my life."

"I'm not asking you to," Carol said. "Maybe I'm just—telling you."

"I'm listening," Daryl said, tasting his coffee and sneaking a quick glimpse at his phone. He had plenty of time, and if he was a few minutes late, Tyreese would understand.

"I promised myself, when I got away from him, that I'd never let anyone hurt me again," Carol said.

"I can respect that," Daryl said.

Carol looked up from where she'd been staring, hard, at her coffee cup.

"Can you?" She asked.

"Sure," Daryl said. "Nobody wants to get hurt in the first place. I guess it's only rational that they surely don't wanna get hurt again if they've been hurt before."

Carol looked a little relieved.

"So, you understand—why I didn't call?" Carol asked.

"Sure," Daryl said. "But—I think it's important that you understand that I don't have any intentions of hurtin' you. No way, shape, or form."

Carol laughed to herself.

"Wouldn't you say that, no matter what?" She asked.

"If I was paranoid, I might agree with you," Daryl said.

"Am I being paranoid?" Carol asked. Daryl nodded his head. Her face fell.

"It's OK, though," Daryl said. "We all got our shit. I got more'n enough of my own to fill a wheelbarrow. Listen, Carol—I'm probably the most patient person you ever gonna meet as long as I feel like somethin' good is gonna come from the wait."

"What is it you want?" Carol asked.

Daryl smiled to himself.

"Right now, it's nothin' but—to know you," he said.

"You already know me," Carol said. "In more than one sense of the word, if we're being honest."

"Then it's to get to know you a little bit more," Daryl said. "And a little bit more."

"Until?" Carol asked.

Daryl shrugged.

"Until—maybe you don't feel the need to worry about it," Daryl offered. He raised his eyebrows at her. "I gotta go to work soon. But—you got any more questions about me? Anything else that's—keepin' you from usin' that number in your phone like I hope you will?"

Carol smiled to herself. Her cheeks blushed pink. She nodded her head.

"Just one more," Carol said. "I think."

"Go ahead," Daryl pressed.

"Why?" Carol asked. "Why me?" She shook her head. "I'm not worth the—the hassle."

Daryl felt his chest tighten, oddly, at the words. He didn't like them in the most primal way.

He could tell her that there was something about her that made her almost feel magnetic to him. He could tell her that he felt drawn to her. He could say that, when he saw her, he got goosebumps and his hair stood up, but he didn't hate the sensation like he did when he was cold and it happened. He could tell her that, rather than being cold, the sight of her made him feel warm with a heat that radiated out from his belly. He could tell her that her eyes were beautiful, like he might want to swim in them. He could tell her that the good time he'd had with her on Friday night had made him that much more confident that he liked her—more than he'd ever liked any woman before. He could tell her that conversation with her was easy, and he wanted to talk to her—to tell her things—like he'd never wanted to sit and talk to any one person before. He could tell her that he spent all of Saturday night imaging that he was the asshole in the sappy ass movie that got some happily every after with the coffee-shop lady.

But to tell her all of those things, would have been to scare her, and Daryl didn't want to scare her. Slow and easy was hard sometimes, but there were very few times in life that it didn't pay off.

"Maybe—because I like you," Daryl said. "Maybe—because I think you are worth it. The real damn question, though, ends up bein' if—you think I'm worth the chance."

Carol hesitated. Daryl could tell that she was breathing shallow and fast. She was near an actual panic attack, and Daryl didn't want to push her into that first thing on a Monday morning. She didn't deserve to start her week that way. His chest tightened again. The bastard she was thinking about—because she was sure it was him that she was thinking about—had really dragged her ass up and down a lot of miles of bad road.

It made Daryl that much more certain that, if she needed it, he could be however patient she required.

"I think you are," Carol said, somewhat hesitantly.

"But you're still scared," Daryl offered. Her face flushed red. It was answer enough. "It's OK," Daryl said. "I ain't gonna bite. Tell you what—you're serious? You prove it to me."

"How?" Carol asked.

"You text me," Daryl said. "Today. Tonight. Sometime."

"Text you what?" Carol asked.

Daryl stood up, instinctively knowing that he had to leave to make it to work on time. Carol started to stand, and he waved her to sit.

"It don't matter," Daryl said. "Anything. Your middle name. Your favorite color. What you decide to eat for dinner. As long as you start the conversation? I'll understand. And—I wish you weren't scared, but I'm not scared of scared, Carol. What I mean is—I meant what I said. If all you need is a little patience? I got it in spades."