Thank you to everyone for taking the ride with me in this story. xoxoxox Love you Krissy

"Ask me anyway, even if it's too soon," Carol said to him at breakfast the next day and he looked at her for a beat. He knew what she was talking about and he wasn't going to blow this chance. Something changed her mind and he didn't care what it was, he was going to go for it.

"Will you marry me?" He said softly, "One day."

"Yes," Carol replied and her eyes were so bright with joy that it literally almost blinded him.

"What changed your mind? Cause I know you've been full of doubts this whole week?" He said, "My age, the distance, school? What changed your mind?"

She didn't hesitate to tell him what was on her mind. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt that they belonged together now.

"You're my best friend," Carol said, "Who wouldn't want to marry their best friend, I'm a lucky girl." It had been that simple, the words that Sophia had said the night before had made perfect sense to her.

"So we're going to do this?" Daryl asked cautiously, because life didn't always work out so good for him.

"Yeah, we are."

"It might not always be easy, not that I'm worried, I've been sure of you for a long time," Daryl said, making it clear that he wasn't afraid, "Being apart sometimes, it's gonna suck."

"I know that, but so worth it don't you think?"

He took her hand across the table and squeezed it. Together they could do anything, he had known that all along. Maybe it took Carol a little time to catch up to him but she was there now.

"You'll come meet my family next month?"

Carol nodded, "And maybe you can come here this summer, if you want to I mean?"

He laughed, "What did you think I was going to do this summer?" He said with a laugh and pulled her onto his lap, "You wont ever be sorry you took a chance on me Carol, I swear it."

/

Daryl went back to Georgia the next day to finish the semester at school and Carol went back to teaching. Sophia told all her friends at school about her mother's cool new boyfriend who held one of the highest top scores ever on "Left for Dead", to her it was simple and in the end it became very simple to Carol too.

The next month she went to visit Daryl and go to her conference, she met Merle and Tara then during that trip one night when they were all together, out for dinner, he gave her a ring. He'd had Sophia on face time during the whole thing and she already knew about it anyway when Daryl had called her and asked what she thought of the idea.

Sophia had told him that she had never seen her mother more happy in all her life, and that it was like they were made for each other, two halves to a whole. He'd sent her pictures of the rings he had been looking at and Sophia told him which one to buy.

For two years while he finished school they flew back and forth from NY to Georgia and he spent the summers with her, securing a job each summer at a local garage where Carol lived. The spring after that Carol and Sophia moved back to Georgia after Sophia graduated High School and on Labor Day weekend Carol and Daryl got married on the beach in Savannah with all of their friends there.

She was forty by that time and he was thirty one, it had taken four years and a lot of miles but they were finally together, a family with Sophia. Sometimes when they laid in bed together at night Carol thought about how she'd almost dismissed him as just an online friend.

If he had never decided to drive to Syracuse to surprise her, they might never had gone any further than chatting on Tumblr. It was a good thing he was such an impetious man, who once he found what he wanted wouldn't take no for an answer.

She looked over at his sleeping face and touched his cheek, "I love you," She whispered, then she wrapped her arms around him, closed her eyes and was soon asleep.

The end