AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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Daryl woke up slowly. Gently. He drifted into his reality and stretched his back even as he came into consciousness.

It took him a moment to become fully aware.

The ceiling was the first thing he noticed—different. Quickly, his brain reminded him where he was. He'd spent the night at Carol's house. He'd spent the night in her bed. She'd offered him the choice of sleeping on the couch, if he wanted, but that hadn't been what he'd wanted at all—he wasn't sure what she thought might drive him to choose that option.

The second thing he realized was that he was not alone. Carol was there, in her bed, with him. And she was stirring. She was peppering his skin with soft kisses. She was nuzzling him awake, and it was delicious.

It was something he had rarely experienced before—and never had he experienced it when it felt so pleasant and so wanted. He stretched his back again, the stretch lengthening through his arms and legs, and he shivered at the full recognition of Carol's attentions to his body. Something else lengthened in response, surging harder than it already was for its natural response to the morning.

Carol laughed quietly. It was music to Daryl's ears.

"Good morning," she said.

Daryl smiled at her. His heart pounded. Those two words shouldn't be so equally wonderful and terrifying.

"Good mornin'," he offered, his voice thick with sleep. She'd been awake for a while now. That much was obvious.

"I didn't want to take advantage or be—presumptuous," Carol said.

"What do you mean?" Daryl asked.

She crawled toward him, kissing his lips. She hovered over him and held her hand up. Pinched casually between her index and middle fingers was the familiar foil package of the extra condom that Daryl had flicked onto the nightstand. He smiled to himself, involuntarily really, when he recognized it. He heard her laugh low in her throat.

"You always do it, don't you?"

"Do what?" Daryl asked, wanting nothing more than to tread as delicately as was humanly possible. The last thing he wanted was to do anything that might disrupt the delicate balance of what was taking place.

"Plan ahead. The next time," Carol said. "Always setting up the next date. The next coffee." She waved the condom. "The next…time."

Daryl's stomach responded to her words. He touched her face, then, almost feeling like she might just disappear if he touched her again. He might wake up and find out that this wasn't real. She leaned into his hand as though it wasn't enough affection, and his heart thumped harder in response. He licked his lips. His mouth was dry, and there was only so much of it that he could blame on morning.

"I'm gonna ask for the next time until you tell me there ain't no next time," Daryl said.

Carol's expression went serious. Maybe she even looked a little sad for a moment. She sat up and offered him the foil package.

"If you want," she said.

Daryl took it and nodded. Her expression lightened again. While he rolled the condom on, Carol fumbled around in her nightstand. She came up with a tube, and Daryl watched her as she squeezed a large glob into her palm.

"Lube?" Daryl asked.

Carol's face ran red.

"As—my friends would say, my flower is bitching," Carol offered.

"What?" Daryl asked with a laugh. Carol laughed to herself.

"My pussy hurts, Daryl," she said frankly, her humor coming through in her tone and on her face. Daryl couldn't help but drop back to the pillow when she wrapped her hand around him and stroked him generously. She picked his hand up and placed it on her breast. He understood what she wanted. Her nipples were already hard in anticipation of his touch. She'd been confident that he would want this. She seemed to have been fully prepared for him to wake so this could begin. He licked his fingers and toyed with her nipples while she stroked him. He kissed her when she came requesting kisses. When she straddled him and began to ease herself onto him, he caught her.

"If you don't feel good," Daryl said, "if it don't feel good, then I don't want'cha to do it."

She smiled at him.

"It feels good."

"You said you was hurtin'," Daryl said.

"It hurts and it feels good," Carol said. "And I can't explain it anymore than that. I just needed a little help to make things extra good, OK?"

To demonstrate her thoughts on the matter, apparently, Carol slid all the way down him and seated herself on him.

"Sweet—fuckin' shit!" Daryl spat, not expecting the wave of sensation that rolled through his body—the pure satisfaction that he felt at her wrapping around him, already squeezing him, with the promise of what he knew would be incredible.

Carol responded with a breathy laugh.

"I'm going to be bad at this," she said. "I've never done it. I don't know what I'm doing."

"What the hell you're doin' right there is damn near good enough," Daryl managed to get out. She moved, clearly knowing what she wanted to do but either feeling unable to do it or unsure about her ability. Daryl recognized her struggle, insecurity and, above everything else, her bravery at attempting to do this with him when she was unsure about it.

He dropped his hands to her hips, offering her support, and he did his best to guide her. He moved his own hips, helping her find a rhythm that seemed good to both of them.

It didn't take long before he realized that his erection was lasting, honestly, longer than he could ever recall one lasting in his entire life. It was mostly because he was stimulated, and he found the experience pleasurable and exhilarating, but he was only partially focused on his own experience. More important, at the moment, was Carol's experience. Even more so than that, Daryl felt that building her confidence was the most important thing.

When she dropped her hand between them, helping herself to get what she needed, and Daryl felt her muscles begin to tighten, he focused on his own movements and on helping her the rest of the way—helping both of them the rest of the way, since the pulsing of her muscles made it hard for him to think at all, and he knew she'd pull him over the edge with her as she came.

Daryl fought against closing his eyes until he couldn't stand it anymore. He wanted to see that look on her face. He wanted to see her when she saw that she could do what she doubted she could. He wanted her to see him come, and he let himself go, not trying to hold any of his pleasure back at all—not caring if he embarrassed himself by enjoying this more than, maybe, he should.

When it was done, he lauded the sex as the best he'd ever had. The best he'd ever imagined. He nibbled her skin, finally giving into the strange desire to feel his teeth sinking into her, careful not to truly hurt her. He burrowed as close to her as their bodies would allow, and he drank up the last few desperate moments of magnetic connection that seemed to linger between their bodies following sex.

He let her go and get cleaned up first, and then he took his turn in her bathroom.

Daryl rid himself of the used and knotted condom. He washed his hands, used some water to smooth down his hair, and borrowed some of Carol's toothpaste and mouthwash. His finger wasn't the greatest substitution for a toothbrush, but it would do for the time being. She hadn't complained, though, about his morning breath so far.

Daryl put on his underwear and pants. He left his shirt off. He was acutely aware, as he left it where it lay, of the choice he was making. Daryl sometimes went without his shirt around Merle. What reason did he have to hide his scars from a brother who wore the same kinds of scars on his body, arguably in larger number than Daryl? Daryl was not a man, though, that went without his shirt elsewhere. Even in previous relationships—or the quick burning, and even quicker ending, flings that he'd tried to fashion into relationships—he'd very often argued for the right to keep his shirt, and he'd left, on more than one occasion, when someone tried to suggest he couldn't.

But he left the shirt off because Carol had seen the scars, and she hadn't shuddered. She hadn't shied away from them any more than he'd shied away from the obvious scars that decorated her body, here and there, like reminders of shrapnel picked up on the battlefield of a bloody marriage.

Daryl padded on bare feet into the kitchen.

Carol had lit the candle from the night before. She was wearing a peach colored nightgown that appeared to be little more than a long shirt. It hung loosely and landed somewhere around her mid-thigh. It was anyone's guess whether she'd bothered with more than that. Her hair stuck out in numerous directions, and she turned quickly when she heard Daryl coming into the kitchen.

She smiled at him and he couldn't help but smile in return.

"You OK?" Daryl asked. "You ain't—hurt or…?"

"I'm fine," Carol assured him. "You OK?"

"Never been better in my fuckin' life," Daryl said. "I'ma—step out on your porch. Smoke a cigarette. Don't want you to wonder where the hell I'm goin'."

"If you went out there, you wouldn't be going anywhere. You'd just be wandering around the backyard," Carol said with a laugh. "I locked the gate last night, remember? Unless—you want to jump the fence."

Daryl's stomach tightened. The statement and the question could be taken on more than one level. Daryl only wished he could be sure that she meant it on a figurative level and not a literal one.

Did she mean that she had no intention of running away from this—away from him?

Was it too early to even consider that she might be making that decision?

Daryl forced a quiet laugh.

"I won't jump the fence," he said, hoping she'd hear it however it was that she needed to hear it—however it was that wouldn't make her nervous and more skittish than he already knew she was.

"Coffee? I'll come with you."

Daryl nodded his head.

"Just black today," Daryl said. Carol nodded her understanding, poured two cups of coffee from the pot, and handed a mug to Daryl. He waved her to lead the way, and he followed her out to the back porch. The fence provided privacy from the neighbors, and they both settled down in the same chairs that they'd used the night before. Daryl sipped his coffee before he lit his cigarette. "You always make good coffee."

"Can I have one of those?" Carol asked.

Daryl offered her a cigarette and lit it for her.

"You can have anything you want," Daryl said. Immediately his face ran warm and he wondered if he should have said that—if he should have felt it, even.

"So—what's next?" Carol asked after a moment of silence had passed between them.

"What'cha mean?" Daryl asked.

"You always seem to have something that's next," Carol said. "Something on the back burner. So—what's next?"

Daryl considered it.

"Why don't you tell me?" He asked.

Carol made a noise.

"I don't like to choose," she protested.

Daryl swallowed back his amusement.

"I'd say you did some choosin' this morning," he offered. "And—I don't recall protestin' or hatin' your choices."

"I didn't choose, did I?" Carol asked.

"I think you did," Daryl said. "I was asleep an' you'd already made up your mind. Chose last night, too, and I didn't disapprove then, neither."

"You brought the condoms," Carol said.

"Woulda took 'em back home, too."

Daryl glanced at her. She almost looked ill. Suddenly he was sorry for suggesting that she'd made any kind of choice at all—or that he'd been letting her be the proverbial driver for longer than she'd realized.

"Maybe I—kinda hoped," Daryl said. "Maybe—I sorta suggested it. Didn't necessarily choose, but…had already let myself get my hopes up."

Carol relaxed a little.

"You wanted to," Carol said.

"I absolutely wanted to," Daryl said. She relaxed even a bit more into her chair. She sipped her coffee and rocked her chair with her foot. Daryl could tell there was something there. He didn't need some kind of sixth sense to know it was Ed. More than likely, he'd made her believe that she couldn't or shouldn't make decisions—that whatever she decided was bad.

Daryl wasn't going to ask, though, and he wasn't going to press the subject—not this morning. This morning, all he wanted was for her to relax. To enjoy her coffee. To not feel stressed or skittish. To not feel like running away.

He relaxed as he saw her visibly relaxing. Finally, she smiled to herself.

"Mr. Plans-Ahead," she said, a sing-songy quality entering her voice, "your planning skills fell short, you know?"

"Did they?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled at him and raised her eyebrows.

"You only brought two condoms," she said. "So—either you didn't plan too far ahead or…"

Daryl's stomach tightened. His brain raced.

"That ain't no problem," he said. "I mean—if it is a problem? I can run to the store. Be back 'fore you can scramble some eggs. You got my word on that."

Carol smiled to herself and tasted her coffee. The smiled didn't fade as she swallowed down the warm liquid.

"Is that your way of saying—you want breakfast?" She asked.

Daryl smiled to himself.

"Always one more thing," he offered. "As long as you let me."

His stomach gnawed on itself and he pretended it was hunger. He knew, though, that it was only the uncertainty that surged up every time he waited to see if this would be the one time that she drew a hard line in the sand. Would breakfast be the thing that made her simply say enough was enough and the game was over?

She sucked in a breath, held it for a moment, and let it out. The smile was still on her lips—softer this time than the smirk she'd been wearing before.

"I've got some eggs," she said. "I think—bacon…and I could make some biscuits."

Daryl's heart leaped. He didn't know what came after breakfast, but he'd have breakfast to think about it.

He lit himself another cigarette and put the pack where she could reach it without feeling she had to request one if she desired another with her coffee.

"The hell do you know?" He mused. "That's just about my favorite breakfast."