Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Direct spoilers for "Consumed" as this fic draws on key scenes from this episode in terms of character development and allusion. My take on what happened after Carol went back to their room and let Daryl handle the mother and two children in the battered woman's shelter.

Warnings: *Contains: adult language, adult content, references to past childhood trauma/abuse/neglect, as well as domestic violence. Also expect angst, season five spoilers, reference to the usual emotional/physical trauma that comes with Daryl's upbringing, as well as hurt and comfort.

When you're stalled on step one (or at least an inch past first base)

He didn't sleep afterwards.

After he'd slowly closed the door to their room and put boot to carpet - making his way back down the hall as his flashlight turned every shadow into a threat. She didn't need to hear it. Not the creaking door or the way little hands squeaked and slammed against the frosted glass.

She didn't need the weight.

Instead, he spent a while just listening to her breathing. Watching from the chair he'd pulled up beside the door – just in case – as the blankets on the top bunk rose and fell. And not for the first time, he was struck by how small she was. All that fierce and feeling stuffed into such a tiny little package.

It was trip to the senses, that was for damn sure.

He gnawed on the inside of his cheek as the urban sprawl creaked and groaned around them. He let the flinch go without regret as somewhere close-by, metal grated across metal – nails on a chalkboard only ten times worse. He peered out the window as the wind blew up a bunch of trash – ghosting down the main street as a lonely growl followed after. He kept watch, squinting at the street below. But nothing was there. It was just the wind.

His thumb trailed along the sill.

Slicking through the condensation.

Clouding with the pale grey of his breath as Carol slept on behind him.

He didn't like it here.

It was worse than he remembered.

The city wasn't just dead and cold, it was decaying underneath their feet.

It was worse than that though. Because unlike the other towns and back-ass strips they'd spent the last few years picking clean, Atlanta still held fast to its charred ashes and moldering concrete slabs. What green there was had come up spotty and shriveled - warped and stunted in a way that made him wonder what the fuck they'd put in that shit when those military pricks had fire bombed the city.

Even after all this time it still looked like a wound - raw and still bleeding.

It seemed as fitting a time as any when Carol whimpered in her sleep.

Kicking out, boots to blanket, before settlin' again.

He turned away from the window, shaking his head.

It was like even nature didn't want it back.

The moonlight was weak, just enough to light up the title of the book he'd been eying on the dresser since they'd come in. "Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse." He kept coming back to it, staring through the mid-night pitch as the clock in the office next door tick-ticked.

His hand curled into a fist.

What the hell was he so worked up about anyway?

It was just a damn book.

If he was curious, it was his own damned business.

Wasn't like there was anyone around that would care, right?

He huffed, snatching it up with a nervous grab. Half-paranoid that Carol would chose that moment to wake up and catch him as he retreated to his corner chair. Leaning back against the sill as he cracked the cover.

The table of contents seemed simple enough.

Basically a fix 'yer head space for dummies' sorta thing.

But it was chapter headings that really stood out.

Emotional regulation.

Imparting the resource of hope into the client's treatment.

Understanding relationship patterns.

Developing agency in relationships.

When protector and perpetrator are one.

He winced. It stood out like a fuckin' dirty laundry list to the soul.

He thumbed the line of pages, flirting with a paper cut as the edges threatened to cut deep.

But he supposed he had to start somewhere.

That was what this place was all about, right?

He read through the night, skipping ahead here and there only to page back and re-read things he'd just skimmed over in the beginning. He read the end before he got through the preface, just for kicks. Ignoring the positive, happy go lucky shit for the true meat of it. What had been hammered through each and every chapter from start to fuckin' finish.

That treatment - real treatment, real progress - took time.

Effort.

A big set of brass balls.

And that you couldn't do it alone.

He looked up as the pre-dawn started staining across the sky, thinking about the cold bodies the next room over. Thinking about twelve step programs, that full blown smile he hadn't seen on Carol's face for what felt like ages, and what was supposed to happen next.

His brother's ghost chuckled in the back of his head. Stretchin' out all lazy and thick like he was prone to do on those rare days where the only thing Merle was nursing was a hangover and a hard on for some biker chick they'd seen at the bar the night before. Where you'd find him, without fail, stretched out on the couch like some big 'ol tom cat catchin' the rays - mock ordering some big breakfast the moment he heard the bed springs groan, just to get a rise outta' him.

Merle had always told him that a Dixon wasn't a thinker.

They were doers.

It had only taken him the end of the world to realize that he'd probably always been the black sheep of the family.

He dealt with the bodies as soon as there was enough light to see. Wrapping them up in sheets from the beds. Mindful of the place of the sun in the sky as he lugged them onto the roof and set a bunch of broken chairs on fire. They'd learned the hard way that if you wanted to burn them, you needed a fire to match.

He wanted this done by the time she woke up.

This was shit she didn't need to see.

Shit she wouldn't have to see ever again, if he got a say in it.

There had been two of them.

Two kids.

It'd thrown him a bit, once he'd dealt with the two that'd been beating on the glass. He followed the smears and rust of long dried blood all the way to the source. The other one – smaller, younger - had fucked itself over. It'd turned under the bed – all tucked up in the farthest corner – the hood of its sweater snagged on the mattress strings, little sneakers kicking up dust bunnies when he got down on his hands and knees for a look.

It'd lashed out the moment his face came into view. Milk teeth pearling with decaying white as it snarled and thrashed. All glittering opaque-eyes and jagged nails that looked like they'd spent the better part of a few years ripping the carpet underneath it into tatters.

It was just a kid.

A fuckin' kid.

It'd probably hidden under the bed when-

Christ.

It wasn't until his mouth flooded with red – tart, bitter, but not altogether surprising – that he realized he'd bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.

He'd always hated his own taste.

The way the blood flooded thick on his tongue.

It made him feel lesser, hemmed in and drained. Like he was worse off with every drop that spilled. He supposed it harkened back to the person he'd been before all this. The one that'd lived on anger and resentment. Surviving on a constant diet of determination and suspicion that'd only been shaped all the worse when their mama died and it'd been up to Merle and their old man to raise him.

It reminded him of-

The point of his knife slid through its skull easy after that.

He wrapped the thing – something that had once been a boy, probably no older than four or five – with a type of care he hadn't thought himself capable of. Carrying him out into the open air the same moment the sun peaked through the clouds and decided to shine in earnest.

He set it down on the blaze gently, refusing to jerk when a handful of sparks spat up, popping and cracklin'. It was only when he stepped back that he caught a flash of color from the window of the room he'd left her in. Unable to stop himself from wondering what she was thinking as he watched the flames lick across the edge of the sheet.

He used to tell himself he liked the way the darkness felt on his skin.

But now?

Now he was sure that was just another lie he'd told himself to get by.

They weren't ashes.

They weren't flame.

Instead, he reckoned they were the new growth that came after – the freshness of green and cleaner things.

He was sure as hell ready to try, anyway.

He figured at the end of the day that had to count for something.

Right?

A/N #2: Thank you for reading. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This ficlet is now complete.

Reference:

* The book used in this episode is actually a real book: "Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse - Psychotherapy for the Interrupted Life" by Marylene Cloitre, Phd, Lisa R. Cohen, PhD, Karestan C. Koenen, Phd. Chapter titles were taken from the index, out of respect of copyright, I own none of it, all credit goes to the aforementioned authors.