Crossbows, Choice And Cherokee Roses

A/N ~ Welcome, welcome, to my first (published) venture into the wonderful world of The Walking Dead! I've started various Caryl fics in the past, but judging by Super Jock and Awkward Girl's failed sequel, we all know I can't commit to full-length stories atm. But, Caryl has come to dominate my life and I've reached a point where I can't hold my feels in anymore. My pencil-sketch fanarts don't quite cut it anymore.

So these will be completely random, or based on headcanons and prompts I have, spanning various points in the TWD fandom or AUs, but feel free to review/PM me any requests or prompts you may have. I write to please. (Myself, most of the time.) R&R, children.

Worth Living For

[After Beth's death, Daryl begins acting out. The group elects Carol to talk to him, and once again, their shared suffering makes them stronger. Spoilers for 5x8. ]

"Daryl. Daryl, you eating with us?" Rick murmured, bending the lid on his salvaged can of tinned beans to use as a spoon. Hardly fine dining, Carol thought, but nobody was complaining. Nobody was doing much at all; not since. Since. There were a lot of sinces in this new world, and the latest was no easier to stomach than the first.

"Naw. I'm not that hungry." Daryl replied, and with a flourish of clipped words and white-knuckled fists, every syllable of it was thrown like an insult. When he left the room, the door crashed shut behind him, and in the wary silence of a death-strewn planet, the noise was cacophonous. It didn't make much of a difference, save to stir the heavy air of dust and dashed dreams. They were well outside of the city now, taking a night's refuge in an empty house beside the main road. Once they'd done what they had to do, they'd gotten out of the city as soon as they could. Nobody wanted to stay there, with her ghost hanging over them. For a little girl, Beth Greene cast a long shadow. (She was not the first.) They'd buried her in a small park on the fringes of the city. Lots of light, flowers. She would have liked it there.

The haphazard state of the cans stockpiled in the back cupboards of the house suggested it's former inhabitants left in a rush, if by choice at all. But at least they got to eat tonight. (Muffled by a roaring silence, a stifling sadness.) Except for Maggie, who hadn't said a word since they left the city, and had immediately shut herself away in the smaller of the bedrooms. And Daryl, apparantly, who had been understandably careless and callous since his tears had stopped. Grady was gone to them, but its ghosts were spilling out.

"Someone should see if he's alright." Sasha intoned quietly, eyes never leaving her tinned tomatoes.

"Of course he's not alright!" Glenn muttered, incredulous. "Beth died today." Carol was sure he'd tried several times to speak with his wife, but Maggie just wanted to be left alone. It was good of him to abide by her mourning wishes, as much as she could see it pained him. Maggie was the last Greene standing now.

"She was like a sister to him," Sasha replied.

"She was like a sister to all of us," Tyreese snapped.

"Carol." Rick sighed. Carol glanced up cautiously. "You go."

The house was a sprawling bungalow in truth, with a half-converted attic they hadn't yet checked. Musty courderoy couches, crouching low, an ancient TV and a crumbling rag-rug that screamed handmade with care - an old couple had probably lived here. Carol nodded wordlessly, though she wasn't sure this was the best idea. The loss of Beth, young, hopeful, happy Beth, who was so full of life she could barely hold it in, was like a grenade without a warning. You had barely enough time to recover from the shock of the sound before you were embedded with something; a memory, a connection, a wound, and you were still reeling in surprise while you were bleeding out hot, thick emotion. Daryl had been struck almost as hard as Maggie by the raw loss of the situation.

And Carol felt like nobody understood his grieving process.

This was how he worked. He broke, and he compensated by pretending he didn't care about anything else. All that did was prove he cared more, as far as she was concerned, but nobody else got that. That Daryl had to process things in his own way. Of course, she was too drained to argue, and she wanted to see how he was doing as much as she wanted to not die, so she set her battered can of soup on the dust-filmed coffee table, picked up an unopened one for him, and went to the hallway, trying a door on instinct. He was lying on the bed, and he didn't look up. "Hey," Carol tried, lingering in the doorway. The side of it was scratched. From a cat or a corpse, she didn't want to know.

After a second or a centuary, still staring at the ceiling, he asked, "You okay?" Daryl had caught her eye outside of Grady, once Beth's body had been deposited on the concrete for Maggie's final embrace, and it had meant the same sentiment. She'd just nodded. Everything ached, from the crash, from everything, but she'd had worse. Whatever they gave her - whatever Beth got her - at Grady, it had worked.

"Nine lives, right?" She closed the door behind her, placing the soup can on the bedside table and going to sit on the floor, against the foot of the wooden bedframe, awkwardly managing her fresh injuries. She masked the slowly-fading pain, for his benefit at least; something she'd learned to do long before the apocalypse. It was a single bed, meticulously made a very long time ago, pushed horizontally against the back wall, and it's offensive wallpaper. Small wooden set of drawers. Teddy bear sitting on top. Eerily undisturbed. Somewhere a grandchild might have slept, once in forever ago.

"Yeah." Daryl said. The yellowed lace curtains were open and frayed, pale evening light gushing in from scars in a teastained sky. A sallow rind of moon hung in the twilight glow. Somewhere, someone was happy. Carol wasn't sure what she believed in anymore, but she liked to have thought that Beth Greene had gone home tonight; gone home to Hershel, and the rest of them, and she'd never have to say goodbye again. If Beth was another angel for them, Carol hoped she'd found peace. The clock on the nightstand was broken. They didn't talk for a very long time, but silence was a comforting thing between the two of them. Finally, and she could almost hear the hurt as he inhaled, Daryl spoke again. "How'd you do it?"

"Do what?" Beneath their voices, the earth was deathly still.

"How'd you go on, after Sophia? How'd you make it stop hurting?" Sophia. The sound of her name never failed; ever the impact of a strong blow to the chest. She reminded herself to breathe, filling her lungs with stale air and arranging her memories back in the treasured, agonizing and rarely opened box that was her daughter.

"You don't." Carol didn't even think about thinking about what she said. For some reason, with Daryl, the inner tap turned on and the words streamed out, and she didn't have to staunch the flow, because he usually had his own torrent too. It was rare, and she was thankful, having a friend whose flawed bare soul didn't mind hers. It was all honesty. "Not really. You just... Make room for it." Silence. Daryl's teeth were clenched and Carol's head fell back to rest against the side of the matress. "And you know, I think of her every day. And I know it's never going to be alright, or the same, not without her. But I did all I could. You did all you could."

And it wasn't enough!" Daryl's voice was rising now. Grief was like a wave in the ocean; you had to let it crest before it could break. "I ain't never had no little sister, or daughter either, but..." He trailed off, sitting up on the bed, swinging his legs down beside Carol. "But I did! She was it!" He kicked the nightstand, hard enough for the drawer to crack, as he stood up. "And I couldn't save her!"

"Daryl, you did everything you could..." Carol steadied herself on the wooden frame at the end of the bed as she stood up, pain in the muscle of her legs and shoulders crying in protest.

"And it wasn't enough!" He repeated, a different kind of agony emblazoned across his face, turning to lean against the wall, smashing tightly-curled fists against it. "She was a little kid, Carol, felt like she was my responsibility, you know, and I let her die!" He turned around, hopelessly, looking to her as if she had all the answers. "I let her die, I fucking let her... It's all bullshit, bullshit! And Maggie ain't ever gonna look at me the same again. I just..." Daryl sighed, pained. "I don't wanna loose nobody else, Car, I don't wanna loose no one."

"I know," Carol nodded, swallowing the distant threat of tears, arms aching. "I know. I know, but sometimes that's the way things happen. And it kills, and the leftover humans are worse off, but you know what? When Sophia died, there was a moment when I lost all my hope. And I thought, I'm never gonna be happy again. I thought there was no point to anything, because my little girl was gone, forever, when she should have been living the most. Because I could protect her from her childish fears, and I could protect her from her own father, and I still couldn't save her. And maybe it's part of some cosmic plan, or maybe we're just programmed for pain, but I can't change what happened to her. And I'm still here. I'm learning how to live again. There are still things worth living for. I did my best. And Sophia would have never forgiven me if more than a part of me died with her. You know Beth would have kicked your ass for sittin' around and blaming yourself. It does't help anything."

Where did that come from? She'd never said any of that to anyone before. It was that inward tap Daryl inspired. She studied his expression, about a meter away, searching, looking for some response, any response and focusing on breathing through exhausted lungs. There were tears in his eyes. Without any kind of warning, he was hugging her fiercely, and she had to smile, despite the sudden, strident shock of protest from her injuries, because no matter how much he liked to act otherwise, Daryl Dixon's walls had turned to ash a good long while ago. She could feel his tears on her neck. "How'd you get to be so damn smart?"

"Well, I did finish school," Carol replied, blinking away the tears in her own eyes, and Daryl's breaking laugh cracked a smile across her face as well.

"Don't you ever die on me," He ordered.

A faint smile crossed her mind. For him, for friendship, for her daughter. For the memory of Beth Greene. "Nine lives, remember,"