What Are You?

Pretty

He wasn't sure how, or why, but things continued to go well after their reunion.

The group was back together (for the most part) and they even had a few new additions to fill the roles that the lost ones left behind. Judith, Rick's baby, was still alive. Seeing the happiness and hope on his friend's face had been worth the trouble it took to get out of there, out of Terminus, and he was glad that he hadn't died at the hands of those sick people. If he had, he never would have gotten to see any of the beautiful moments that happened afterward.

And they even found a place to stay, too. They'd been walking through the woods when they heard a scream, and they rushed towards the source to find a young Preacher (or Pastor or Father; he wasn't good with that stuff) cowering atop a rock while several walkers tried to get a bite out of him. They saved the pitiful man, and after a hostile discussion and even greater suspicion towards him, they were led to his hideout.

They hadn't expected anything that was any more count than Terminus had been. How could they? When all the previous 'sanctuaries' they'd followed after like stray dogs had either been burned to the ground or turned out to be a place of horrors? No, they didn't believe the Preacher man for a second. Even when he lead them to a church, with safe walls and boarded doors, they didn't believe him. But they needed a place to stay, and they were tired and worn and they couldn't go on any longer.

And so they stayed, let themselves indulge in a happy night of laughter and good food, not unlike the time they'd spent at the CDC. Except that Sophia and T-Dog and Dale and Shane and...and hell, even Lori weren't there like they should have been. But that was all in the past, and they had to focus on the present. He had to focus on the present. There was no sense in mourning the loss of those long passed, not when there was joy and laughter and happiness echoing off the walls. And so he didn't.

As it turned out, the church ended up being a nice little place. He wasn't sure how the guy could have stayed there so long; even with the boarded doors and mountains of canned food, he couldn't fathom how he didn't get looted or overrun or shot during the entire time this infection thing happened. Apparently Rick couldn't either, and it would only be a matter of time before they uncovered God-boy's dirty secret. Until then, however, he planned to make the most of it while he still could.

The next morning, he and Carol went out to collect some water in the spare jugs they had at the church, and he had hoped to use the spare time to catch up with her.

But she didn't do much talking, and she always kept the topic on the task at hand. He tried to ignore it, to push past whatever barrier she had come up with over the time they'd been apart, but she wasn't taking the bait. And it was on the way back from the river, with their full, dripping water jugs in hand, that he decided to just cut past the bullshit and get straight to the point.

"You know, we get to start over," Daryl said, not looking at her as they walked side by side along the empty gravel road. "Wipe the slate clean and all that."

He was trying to get her to talk, to say something to him other than 'we'd better head back' or 'this river looks clean enough', but so far his efforts were in vain. He wasn't about to quit, though. He would get her talking, no matter how long it took.

"You saved us," he said sincerely. "All by yourself."

That got her attention.

"I got lucky. We should all be dead right now."

Daryl stared at her, shocked at the contempt in her voice, but she wasn't looking at him.

She was looking at a car on the side of the road - in pretty good condition, too - just a few hundred feet away.

"...Let's check it," she said, ignoring the look he was giving her.

They hurriedly crossed the distance to the abandoned car, and Carol set down her water jugs to open the trunk. There was some kind of generator inside, and it looked like it may have been hooked up to the car itself, but he was standing some feet away so he couldn't be sure. The vehicle was the least of his worries. Carol was the most of them.

Oh, man, he thought, groaning to himself. This was Merle all over again.

They'd been close. Good friends who finished each other's sentences and knew what the other was thinking. And then they got separated for a while, and now that they were back, things were awkward and weird and foreign and nothing felt like the way it used to be. And what was worse, Carol didn't even seem to mind it. If anything, she preferred the silence to the laughter and easy conversation they shared before, and he didn't know why. It confused the hell out of him, but that didn't mean he was giving up on her.

"We ain't dead," he said, trying yet again to get back into the grooves of their old friendship. "Whatever happened while you were out there...happened. Let's start over."

Carol looked at him then, a sad yet hopeful shine in her eyes, and said, "I want to...I just don't know how."

She closed the trunk of the car and opened her mouth again before he could reply. "We should leave this here for backup in case things go south at the church."

And just like that, she was all business again.

Carol picked up her two water jugs and waited for him to move so they could continue their trek back to the church, and in a moment of either stupidity or genius - he wasn't sure which - he decided to offer a friendly gesture that didn't require any forced conversation.

Daryl looked briefly to the heavy water jugs in her hands before shifting his eyes back to her. "Want me to carry one of those?"

He lifted the water jug he was holding to gesture to the heavy ones in hers, only to have it slip from his fingers and thud to the ground in a dented heap as Carol moved out of the way to dodge the object he'd practically thrown in her direction - it was a miracle the thing didn't spring any leaks from the fall.

Carol looked from the jug to him, lips playfully pursed, and Daryl's face went from pale to redder than a tomato in record time.

He stood there, frozen, waiting for the longest time for her to finally say something so they could move past what was possibly the most embarrassing moment of his life, but she was having none of it. Carol left him hanging a little longer, a mischevious light in her eyes, before finally gracing him with a long and drawn out reply.

"Mmmm...no."

She made it a point to grip the water jugs a little tighter in her hands, and moved confidently past him with a barely contained smile on her face. It took him a minute to finally regain his bearings and pick up the jug he'd dropped and follow after her, but as they walked the rest of the way back to the group he realized something about Carol that had flown right by him in the past.

Smiles really lit up her face.

He'd never noticed before, but now he wasn't sure how he could have missed it. He supposed it was just because he'd never had a reason to - Carol had always just been Carol to him, an invaluable friend and close companion who he had to remind himself from to time to time was a girl - but he sure was noticing now.

She looked good when she smiled.

Pretty.