What Are You?

The World

They were going over the edge.

They were going to go over the edge.

Daryl screwed his eyes shut, trying to control his breathing as he gripped the dashboard of the work van.

This was it.

After he'd spotted the white van in the office building, he and Carol had gone to check it out - maybe it would give them clues as to where Beth might be - when the bridge was swarmed with walkers. With nowhere else to go, they had climbed into the van and shut the back doors, looking in vain for something they could use to thin them out.

And now they were going to die.

All because of him.

Him and his stupid impulses.

And here they were, sitting in an abandoned vehicle hanging over the edge of a bridge waiting for a herd of damned walkers to push them over to meet their deaths, probably a hair's breadth away from finding Beth.

A hand covered his, and Daryl opened his eyes and turned his head ever so slightly to the right to see Carol smiling fearfully but softly back at him, her chest heaving with anticipation as she tried not to focus on the 200 foot drop beyond the windshield.

It was her way of forgiving him, he supposed, of saying it wasn't his fault they got into this mess and that she was sorry too. For Beth. For herself. For him. For everything.

The van gave a slight jerk as it was pushed forward, the groans of the hungry undead growing louder, and they wordlessly grabbed for their seatbelts and strapped themselves in.

He tried to smile back at her, but given their current predicament and the guilt he was feeling, he ultimately failed.

So he merely gripped her hand tighter, so tight it probably hurt, but neither of them was going to say anything in protest, and neither really cared.

They needed this.

Needed each other.

If they were going to die, he wanted the last person he looked at to be Carol. He wasn't sure whether to feel happy that his dying wish was coming true, or guilty because he was so selfish, but it hardly mattered over the uneasy churning going on in his stomach that drowned out almost everything else. Everything but him, Carol, and the ground that awaited them so far away yet so close.

The van gave another jerk.

He snapped his eyes shut, only to open them a second later. He glanced over at Carol, whose eyes were closed tight, probably praying for a quick death-

The van shoved forward.

They couldn't have much longer.

Daryl quickly ran his eyes over her face, trying to remember every detail of the woman he had come to call his friend, his companion, confidant...

His lips twitched, but didn't open.

He wanted to say something, form some kind of coherent sentence that told her how much he cared about her, how important she was to him, how sorry he was.

But he couldn't; his vocal chords weren't working.

The van gave another jerk, as if reminding him. Telling him that this could be the last time he would ever get to say something to Carol Peletier.

Gathering all of his courage and pushing it down with the rising bile in his throat, he wet his lips and opened his mouth...only to close it a moment later.

No.

Words wouldn't do.

They wouldn't be enough, wouldn't give him enough time before they went over the edge to communicate the tidal wave of feelings he had towards the woman sitting strapped in the passenger seat beside him. How many countless, different, wonderful, strange, odd, imperfect, beautiful things she was to him.

She was a mother.

She was a savior.

A survivor.

A friend. A companion. She was there, she was dead, she was alive. She was broken. She was reborn. Different. Alright. Irritating. Quiet, strong, forgiving, cheeky, sincere. Patient. Funny. Pretty. Tasteless...

She was so many things.

She was everywhere and everything and nothing all at once. She was every fiber and every cell and every particle that made up the space around him, and the only thing holding him together right now. She was all he could ever hope to find and all he would ever want in a person. She was amazing. She was...she was...

The van gave a last, final jerk, and Daryl stared at Carol, whose eyes were still closed, and squeezed her hand as hard as he could.

In that moment, Carol was the world.