AN: Here we go. This is the third little chapter and the last little bit of this fluffy little something.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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The homemade wine was the only kind of wine that Daryl could drink. It was sweet enough that it might as well have been called liquid candy and the buzz that it brought was an easy, peaceful buzz that made everything, if only for a moment, simply seem more pleasant. They'd foregone picking up anything else, and now they were sitting on the bank of Johnson's pond, asses in the dirt, staring out at the still water. Every now and again there was the sound of some small splash of water—a fish's tail or someone coming up to snatch a bug off the surface.

It was a nice evening and the sunset was bleeding out all around them. The light from it, when Daryl glanced at her, practically seemed to be reflecting off of Carol's hair. She sat, drinking the wine out of the plastic cups that Curt had given Daryl when he'd asked for them, and smiled at nothing—the wine buzz apparently making her feel a little happier to be alive too.

They'd been there at least an hour before the silence between them was broken at all. It might have gone on that way until the sun had entirely disappeared from sight, but Carol slapped suddenly, and with some seeming surprise, at her arm and let out a quiet barking sound.

"Somethin' bite you?" Daryl asked.

She smiled at him, then, like she'd entirely forgotten his presence beside her on the bank.

"Mosquito, probably," she responded.

Daryl hummed.

"They'll do that," he said. "You—uh—you wanna go? They botherin' you?"

She hummed in the negative and shook her head, so Daryl offered her a refill from the glass jug-like bottle that Curt made his wine in. The bottle, as always, would be returned when the product was gone. She thanked him for the wine and tasted it, but the silence was broken and therefore they might as well chat—at least that's what it seemed she'd decided when she started to speak.

"The Greenes," Carol said, "how did you meet them?"

Daryl hummed.

"Was in a bad place," he said, scratching at his own mosquito bites. "Uh—come here just outta...hell, I don't even know. Come here 'cause it weren't where I was. Hershel? He had a job. Needed someone to—to pick up the slack? Someone to do what his son couldn't do because he didn't want to be no farmer. Went off to college? Well—I didn't have a job and I didn't have no money, so it sounded alright to me. Took it and..."

Daryl broke off and shrugged. It was difficult, sometimes, to tell a simple story. There wasn't that much to tell and it wasn't that interesting, so it didn't exactly seem to come smoothly.

"Took it," he said again, this time more abruptly. "They helped me out. Still help me out. Good people."

Carol smiled and nodded her head. The smile grew. Whether it was the wine or it was the poor story, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

"So you're not from here?" Carol asked.

"Not sure if I'm from anywhere," Daryl responded. She raised her eyebrows at him to ask for more information, but he shook his head at her and tasted the wine from his own plastic cup. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It ain't worth telling."

She did something of her own type of shrug and hummed quietly.

"You from here?" Daryl asked, trying to keep things going as soon as he was struck with the fear that he might have offended her.

"Close enough," Carol said. "I'm from Chesterton. It's about twenty miles away? Close enough, though. I've lived here a while."

"After your folks?" Daryl asked, though he didn't try to fill in the information about what he suspected had happened to her parents. He didn't have to, she nodded her head slightly to close out the comment and he assumed it was her own way of saying that it was a story he shouldn't worry about.

"So have you thought about it?" Carol asked. "How you'll—tell the Greenes we'll break up?"

Daryl's stomach did the same odd twist that it had done ten times over since dinner.

"No," he admitted. "I guess—I'll come up with something. Tell 'em—say that things didn't work out? Say—I weren't right for you? Shouldn't come as no surprise to them."

"Why not?" Carol pressed.

Daryl shook his head. A quick glance, though, told him that she was getting tired of being dismissed. She was growing bored with him simply shutting down everything that she chose as possible topics of conversation. He couldn't keep dismissing her or he'd have a real solid reason to tell them why they might have broken up if this were real and not just some fantasy that was topped off by a wine-fuzzied heart to heart.

Daryl chuckled to himself and shook his head at the thought. Just as he'd suspected, he heard her prompting him to tell her what he found funny about the whole thing.

"Tell 'em we broke up because you got pissed off because I wouldn't tell you nothing," Daryl said.

"I feel like you owe me something," Carol said. "I mean—if you don't want to talk about why you came here or where you came from, you owe me something. Why did you lie to them? Why did you—why did you make this whole thing up?"

Daryl stared at her a moment.

She was pretty. The longer the day seemed to grow, the prettier she seemed to get. She wasn't pretty in the magazine and movie way. She wasn't that kind of girl that everyone dropped their jaws and bugged their eyes when she walked by.

But maybe that's what made her so pretty.

Right now, with the last bit of light from the day failing out around her, she was especially pretty.

Daryl swallowed.

"Made you up because there weren't nobody else," he said. "I made you up because—the Greenes? They got a whole parcel of kids. Got enough kids that you'da damn near thought they run an orphanage. And all of them kids? They're their kids. Every one. Got two daughters out of the whole mess of them and one of them's going steady with this guy. The other one? She makes these damn—owl eyes—at me all the time. Just—bugs me while I'm doing stuff. Always wanting to talk about this or that—telling me what she's thinking about and what she's..."

Daryl huffed and shook his head.

"Hell if I even know what it's all about," he said. "Just—gets under my fingernails like a splinter."

Carol laughed.

"She's got a crush!" Carol declared. She seemed to be overjoyed at this. She was so pleased by the idea, in fact, that coupled with the pleasure of the wine it sent her into a laughter that made her steady herself by putting her hand out to the side to keep herself from toppling into the dirt. Daryl let her have her laugh, and he even stopped himself from laughing at her twice, but then he responded when the wave had passed.

"I know she does," Daryl said. "I'm not stupid. I know what the hell a crush is."

"Then why make something up?" Carol asked, still somewhat amused. "I don't understand. If there's something there...why make something up?"

Daryl hummed and turned his attention to ripping grass out of the ground around him. Once he'd mowed enough of the area to think about his response, he shared it with Carol.

"If we were fishing—just like you said we would've done—and one of them snappers down there in the edge got hung up on your hook, what would you do?" Daryl asked.

Carol furrowed her brows at him slightly in question, but when he nodded his head at her to continue, she spoke.

"Throw it back?" Carol said, her response coming out like she was unsure of it.

"You sure?" Daryl asked, amused. "You want some snapper soup or something?"

She snorted quietly at his teasing.

Now the night was wrapping around them well enough that her features were become much more hidden to him.

"We weren't eating them," Carol said. "We were throwing them all back. I made a lunch. Remember?"

Daryl smiled to himself.

He didn't remember the event. He couldn't. It had never happened. But he did remember the way it had made him feel when he'd listened to her talking about it and about how much fun they had.

"Yeah," he said. "But—saying we were gonna eat them. What would you do?"

"Throw it back," Carol said, this time with more confidence behind her response.

Daryl hummed, satisfied.

"That's not an answer," Carol said softly.

"It's a damn good answer," Daryl said. "Just because you got something on your hook—don't mean it's what you want. Just because it's biting don't mean you wanna eat it."

Carol laughed, this time with a giggle that was a pleasant middle ground between the snort and the belly laugh that had threatened to lay her out on the grass.

"So you don't like her," Carol said.

"Too damn—young," Daryl said. "She's barely eighteen. Graduated high school just in May."

"That's not that young," Carol asserted.

"Too damn young..." Daryl said again. "Not just—it ain't just her age, you know? Just—too young. Helluva lot younger'n me. She ain't never seen nothing. She ain't never..."

He broke off and sighed, struggling to find the words. Carol sat there and waited, though, clearly fine with giving him all the time that he required to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. She wasn't telling him, like some people did, to spit it out because his thought time bothered them.

"Worst damn thing that's ever happened to that girl is maybe that she got a Chestnut pony when she wanted a grey one," Daryl said finally. Carol made a noise now that was closer to the snort. "You know what I mean?" Daryl pressed, searching for validation.

"Yeah," Carol responded softly. "I know exactly what you mean. So—not the farmer's daughter. I get it. But—why make it up? There's nobody else? Nobody that—could've not been made up?"

Daryl stared at her a moment, not that he could see too terribly much in the failing light. She moved and came to him, surprising him for a moment when he felt the pressure of her body against his. His pulse picked up oddly. He felt his breathing change its rhythm. But, almost immediately, she pulled back and he realized that she'd only reached across him for the glass jug.

His stomach did another dance and then sunk down like a dog that had been banished to the corner.

He didn't feel, anymore, like he was in the mood for the question and answer period.

"You interviewing me or something?" He asked. "You keep asking me all these questions. I don't have nothing to tell."

Silence for a moment.

"I'm sorry," Carol said softly. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just meant—surely there was someone out there that was biting that wasn't...a snapping turtle."

Daryl chuckled in spite of himself. Then he sighed.

"No," he said. "It's just a big damn pond full of snapping turtles. And I knew—when the Greenes started badgering me like they were about finding someone nice? I knew what they were gonna do. They were gonna say—ya know? That maybe I oughta..."

Daryl cleared another small area of grass.

"But I didn't want to," Daryl said. "So—I just told them about this woman that didn't exist. I told them about the one I wouldn't have wanted to throw back, just like she was here and real and really on the hook, and I guess I just liked the lie too much and I got wrapped up in it. So it just kept on growing."

Carol hummed.

"And then you come right into the Lobo and you decide to find her," Carol said.

Daryl chuckled.

"Or find an actress," Daryl said. "Found a damn good one too."

Carol hummed again.

"There really wasn't all that much acting involved," she said. But she didn't clarify and she didn't go on any longer. She let the silence fall between them again except for the sound of her slapping at the mosquitos that were making a meal out of her.

It wasn't fair to make her sit out here and become an entrée just because Daryl wasn't ready to call their fictional evening to an end.

He groaned and started to his feet.

"What are you doing?" Carol asked.

"Getting up," Daryl said. "Getting late. Mosquitos are ridiculous. You shouldn't have to sit out here—just getting your blood sucked up. I'ma take you home. Like I said I would."

"You're—are you OK to drive?" Carol asked.

"Yeah," Daryl confirmed. "I'm good. Besides—nothing else to do unless you wanted to just sleep in the truck."

Carol laughed quietly.

"Well," she said, "there is a bed..."

Daryl snorted and reached a hand toward her.

"Stop," he responded. He found her hand and pulled her up before they gathered up their cups and the glass jug—all the evidence that they'd been there beyond the very probably butt prints in the grass and the small area where Daryl had yanked up the tall blades and ripped them off.

Carol didn't protest the going home any farther. In fact, as soon as she hit her feet, she practically ran for the truck, slapping at the mosquitos as she went. Daryl followed behind her with a little less enthusiasm and smiled to himself when she was waiting by the side of the truck for him to open her door. He did, just as she expected he would, and she crawled inside. He put the glass jug on the floor between her feet, where it wouldn't be easily noticed by any nice police officer that might glance into the vehicle for any reason at all, and Carol touched his arm as he was straightening up to close the door.

"Mmmm?" He hummed.

"I had a good time," Carol said. "I mean—the whole thing. The dinner...the pond. The—dates? I had a good time."

Daryl smiled to himself, but quickly swallowed at the now familiar feeling in his stomach.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Me too."

Carol cleared her throat.

"You still—owe me one," Carol said. "If—answering the questions didn't cancel that out? You still owe me a favor?"

Daryl felt a normal sensation of worry surrounding the thought of a favor owed—of anything owed.

"No," he said. "No—I mean no they don't cancel it out. Yeah. I owe you. Whatever. Just—just let me know."

"I will," Carol said quickly. "Right now. I mean—I know what I want you to do..."

Daryl hummed, his pulse kicking up a notch like he was waiting for some kind of big reveal on a horror movie.

"I had a good time," Carol said again. Daryl resisted the urge to tell her that she'd already said that. "The whole thing. The dates—were nice to imagine."

Daryl found that even if he wanted to respond, he was suddenly without the ability. He only wished the light in the cab of his truck wasn't burned out and they hadn't stayed out so late so that he could see her. He couldn't, though, and no amount of wishing was going to give them some kind of instant, magical light source.

"So—I want to go on a date," Carol said. "A real one. You and me—the real me. And—the real you. The whole thing."

Daryl still couldn't respond. His stomach now was doing acrobatics that it hadn't even imagined doing before. He could've blamed it on the wine, but he knew it had nothing to do with the wine. He hadn't even had that much of the sweet drink.

"You wanna go on a date with me?" Daryl asked, as soon as he managed to find the words that had gotten lodged somewhere in his throat.

Carol apparently found that as amusing as some of the other things said during the course of the evening.

"Well—that would be part of the favor," she said. "But—if you didn't want to, I understand the whole thing. Snapping turtle."

Daryl chuckled at his own example.

"No," he said. "No—you ain't...you ain't a snapping turtle."

"So—you'll do it?" Carol asked.

Daryl wanted to tell his stomach to calm down. There was no need for all that activity, and if he got sick right now he might never be able to talk his way out of it. The whole thing, though, was almost too much, apparently, for certain parts of his anatomy to bear.

"Yeah," he said quickly, not wanting to talk himself out of it—which he might if he gave himself time. He could be very convincing. "Yeah—I could do that."

When Carol spoke, Daryl didn't have to see her face. He could hear the smile in her voice.

"Then—Saturday?" Carol asked. "If—you don't have any other plans?"

Daryl thought about it a moment. He was smiling, but he doubted that she could see it, judging by how little he could see of her face. He ran his hand, for a moment, along the cool metal of the truck door that it was resting on while frozen in his efforts to close it.

"Saturday," he said. "But—I'ma still owe you one. This one's—just as much a favor to me as it is to you."

Carol hummed.

"We'll work it out," she said, reaching and pulling the door shut herself before she left Daryl, smiling to a point that his lips were unaccustomed to such an expression, to come around the truck and drive her home, just like he'd promised.