A drabble (loosely) based on a prompt from The Reader's Muse. AU: Daryl is on his own when the ZA hits, show his integration and arrival into the quarry camp without bro's influence. Caryl (naturally!)

He's alone as he's always been, tracking a buck through the silent woods when he stumbles upon them – a doe and her fawn.

She takes one look at the blood coursing down his briar-ravaged arms and beckons him back to their campsite. He follows her without really knowing why.

The little one fears him; he can see it in her eyes. Her mother is just as skittish but she solemnly brings him a plate.

He tells himself he'll eat their food and steal away while they're asleep but during the night he hears sobbing from her tent. The next morning she emerges with a black eye and he stays, just to see how things play out.

No one invites him to stick around. No one comes near him. He sees the way they look at him with contempt, with fear. He looks back with anger, a fire stoked high by a lifetime of never being good enough.

But she goes to bat for him in her quiet way and no one ever asks him to leave.

Even so, she's just a grey shadow, a faceless little slip of a thing, until the day she buries the business end of a pickaxe in her husband's skull and sets herself free. He looks at her with new eyes. The sun is finally shining down on her and he stays just to watch her bloom.

The days roll on and life gets harder. They bury her fawn and move on to tougher times and harsher winters. She grows weary and then she grows strong. The grey shadow turns into polished steel and he stays, just to watch her shine.

They find sanctuary and build a life. They share a cell and then they share a bed, finding comfort in one another's arms. He can barely recall the shadow she once was when she's crashing into him, looking up at him with big blue eyes that hold all the secrets of the universe.

He stops telling himself that he's going anywhere but where she is. Home is where the heart is and his is firmly in her hands.