That Question, by MissMishka

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.

Ed was the one to ask it of the Dixon brothers their first night in the camp, much to Carol's embarrassment. It had been awkward enough that the newcomers had chosen to join the smaller group around the Peletier's fire and she so hated when the topic was introduced.

The older one answered first, with obvious relish that had had her husband leaning forward to take in every bloody bit.

Her hands had been too slow to cover Sophia's ears, but she supposed it was no worse than all the other things her baby had seen and heard in life. Still, Carol belatedly tried to shield the child from some of the redneck's laughing recount of the first Walker he'd taken down.

If only someone had been there to cover her own ears.

When Merle had gone quiet, they'd all turned to the younger one in wait of his response. Ed clearly anticipated an even gorier kill and Carol braced herself to hear one as well.

Instead, she'd been surprised to hear and see him deflect the question much as she had always done when someone asked it of her. As he told them all about his supposed encounter with a Chupacabra, Carol had allowed her hands to drop so Sophia could hear it too.

She hadn't really listened to his words, but something about the way he spoke told her he wasn't used to having attention centered on him. He handled it better than she did, not trying to pretend like he hadn't heard the question and leaving them all to wonder why they hadn't gotten any answer from her. Instead, he distracted them with a different kind of story so they forgot he'd even been asked the question.

No one seemed interested in his first encounter after that, given how readily and well he dispatched any Walkers that threatened the camp. But Carol hadn't really forgotten that moment and, for once, she had actually been interested in knowing the answer to the detested query.

It wasn't until another campfire; a smaller, quieter gathering after the events at the CDC, that the topic arose again.

Somehow, she found herself alone with him after the others had gone to bed. He was taking watch, so it was only natural for him to be outside still, but Carol had no reason for not being in her tent. She was just lingering.

"What was your first kill like?"

His speaking in the darkness was more of a surprise than the question. Her eyes rose to meet his only to find him staring into the low light of the flames rather than back at her. No longer certain he was actually talking to her, she kept quiet, but her mind began to replay the scene his question evoked.

She expected he would only laugh at her answer anyway. Ed certainly had.

"Had to have been at least one," he spoke again and this time she felt his gaze on her. "No one coulda made it this far alive without taking out one of the dead and you can't tell me that husband of yours kept 'em all from ya."

"It was nothing," she answers with a shake of her heard.

"So there was one?"

Their eyes meet and she almost smiles at the surprise she sees in his eyes after his bluster about everyone having had to have killed at least one Walker. For some reason, that makes it easier to tell the story. That, and the knowledge that her telling him hers meant he would have to tell her his.

"She was a substitute teacher at Sophia's school," Carol began. "It was just as the craziness really started, but still before we knew something was happening. We'd sent Sophia to school in the morning and just an hour later, I knew it'd had been a mistake. Ed was sleeping off another bender, so I got in the Cherokee and headed over to the middle school. I don't know how it got there, but bodies were already all over the place. I don't remember everything," she said quietly into the flames, the hypnotic dance of fire drawing the words forth. "It was horrible. The screams and blood and things running everywhere. You couldn't really tell which children were running for their lives and which were things chasing food. All I could see was that she wasn't one of them. They didn't seem interested in me, by whatever miracle, so I just ran inside. Sophia's smart, so I knew she'd be hiding."

Her baby always knew to hide when screaming started.

"I don't know if I'd have found her if there hadn't been a parent teacher night just the week before in her home room. She was trapped in a closet in the back with one of the kids trying to get in after her. I could hear her screaming and just remember thinking I had to get her out. The kid was small and I managed to knock him away with a chair. He started coming at me so quick. I got the door open and Sophia just flew into my arms and that knocked me backward and somehow I kicked the boy into the closet and slammed the door shut as I fell."

She pauses for the scoff she knows will come at this point, because even she still cannot believe this chain of events, but it doesn't come. Surprised again, her eyes dart over to meet his and he's watching intently, waiting silently for the end of her story.

"The noise brought others."

Her voice caught a moment as she slowly picked up the threads of that nightmare.

"Sophia began to scream and scramble to get away from me and I didn't even have time to make sure she hadn't been bit. I couldn't even tell her it'd be ok, I just got to my feet, grabbed her up and ran. She wouldn't be shushed and I just needed her to be quiet so badly," Carol flinched at the memory of the moment and how close she'd come to hurting her child to get silence. "It was habit that had me putting her in the passenger seat then going around rather than doing the smart thing of just getting right in after her and climbing over to the driver's side. Your body just kind of takes over, though, and it was so used to putting her in then going around that that's what it did. The keys were clenched in my right hand, another habit to always take them from the ignition when I got out of the car and it was just luck again. I whirled around and the woman was so close that the key went into the base of her skull from the way my hand had flung out and I hadn't even known any of them were that close. Part of me wanted to let them go and just run away, but I tripped over someone's arm and started falling backward and the keys just came with me. The zombie kind of came down with me and I twisted so she went down under me and there was still some spark left in her so I kind of just slammed her head on the pavement as hard as I could and I heard that squelch they make when the head splits and just kept moving. I had to crawl under the Jeep because there were more of them coming towards the commotion and Sophia had the door open screaming for me, so I just got in. I remember wiping her blood off the key before I put it in the ignition and then we were gone. Driving for home and crying like the world was ending and it did."

Tears still ran from her eyes for minutes after she finished and only her sniffles broke the silence. It felt like forever for the memory to fade again and she waited once more for him to mock her for it. Ed had said it hadn't counted, since it was more accident than deliberate.

"The results what matters," Daryl's soft words made her realize she had spoke that thought aloud. "It's all about survival and that's what you did. That was a solid kill."

The tears stopped instantly at that faint praise and she looks at him with more than a little wonder dawning in her eyes.

"So…," she couldn't let that look linger and forced the moment away, "what was yours?"

She knew he'd known it was coming. It was expected that the stories be exchanged, but there was a hesitance in him that almost made her think he wasn't going to obey that unwritten rule of the new world. He found and lit a cigarette, settling back from the fire and turning to stare off into the dark. Feeling dismissed and beginning to think she should have just gone on to bed hours ago with Sophia, she rose and brushed the bits of woodland from the seat of her pants.

"It was my dad," he whispers just as she bends to unzip her tent.

Not knowing how to possibly react to that, she yanks the flap open with a shaky hand and climbs inside, both of them happy to pretend that she hadn't heard the barely audible confession shared in the darkness. That question was nothing but salt in gaping wounds in this world and neither of them would ask it of another again.