Carol swung open the chain link fence of the prison so Daryl could roar in on his motorcycle. He looked so relaxed on that iron horse. Michonne sat behind him, her arms wrapped casually around his waist, her knees against his hips. For a brief moment, Carol envied her.

The bike vroomed to a sudden stop, purred, and sputtered off. With booted heel, Daryl kicked out his stand and let the bike fall to a prop on its side. Michonne slid off from behind him, and then he followed.

"Any luck?" Carol asked.

"Trail's gone cold," Daryl told her.

"I want to keep looking," Michonne said. "Regroup for a couple of days, then head out again."

Daryl shook his head. "I'm tellin' ya, ain't no point."

"Fine. I'll go by myself." Michonne strutted away.

"Don't be like that," Daryl called after her.

She turned slowly. "He's planning his revenge, and he has to be stopped."

"Who knows if he's even alive," Daryl said.

"I'm going back out tomorrow. If you're done, you're done, but I'm going back out."

Daryl sighed. "I would. But ain't no point. Got other shit to do. Got to hunt. Scavenge. We got a whole lot of people to feed now."

Michonne, looking peeved, replied, "I'm still going."

Daryl shifted on his feet. "When will you be back?"

Michonne shrugged in that can't-be-bothered way of hers. "When I get back. A few days. A week. Two weeks. I don't know." She turned and walked away.

Daryl watched her leave and sighed. "I'd go if I thought there was any real chance of finding him."

"I know you would," Carol said.

"Wish she wasn't pissed off at me 'bout it."

"She'll get it over it," Carol assured him.

Zach walked by them on his way out to work in the cropland and pointed a finger at Daryl as he passed. "High school football coach," he said. "I bet you could yell real good. Really put the fear of God into those players."

"Nah, man. I ain't never even played high school football."

"I'm almost there," Zach insisted as he walked away, shaking his head.

"Is he still trying to guess what you did for a living?" Carol asked him.

Daryl nodded.

"Listen," Carol told him, "I'm sorry to make you turn around and go back out right away, but after you have some lunch, we need to go find some more formula for Judith. We're running low again. We probably have a week's worth, but I figure we better go now, in case it takes a while to find some."

"Ya comin' with?"

"I'm bored."

"A'right." He sniffed the air. "What ya got cookin' for lunch?"

"Nothing you can smell from here. But you'll like it, I promise."

Daryl did like it. He murmured and hummed while he ate, and then he licked every one of his fingers clean. Carol didn't know why, but she couldn't help but watch him whenever he did that. It was a disgusting, unmannered habit, but it sent a little shiver through her. She found her mind drifting, against her will, to thoughts of what it might feel like if it was some part of her he was licking and sucking instead.

After lunch, Carol crammed a change of clothes, a hammer, nails, a first aid kid, and some snacks into her backpack. They might return from their run this evening, but you never knew where or why you might end up having to spend the night.

Daryl met her near the vehicles. As they neared his motorcycle, she found herself looking forward to slipping her arms around him, spreading her legs behind him, and pressing them to his as they rode. It was a strange thought for her. Carol hadn't experienced physical feeling for a real-life man in years. She'd shut that part of herself off at some point during her marriage to Ed. But now she might feel a genuine urge to touch, or a titillating tingling, several times a day. This sexual reawakening was vaguely bothersome, especially in the midst of an apocalypse when her mind needed to be focused on survival, but she couldn't control it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Clamping down on it would be like crushing beneath her heel a single flower that had begun to bloom in a dark and barren field. Daryl was not the only man around whom she felt these urges, but he was the one who inspired them most often.

Carol didn't expect anything to happen with Daryl, but she did think about it on occasion. She thought maybe he loved her, but in the way a man loved his big sister or his best friend. Carol didn't think Daryl wanted to take her to bed. Michonne, maybe, but not her. And, who knew, maybe he had taken Michonne to bed already, one of those many nights they were alone together, following the Governor's trail. Maybe something had happened between them out there, and maybe that was why Michonne was really pissed off at his reluctance to keep looking with her.

"Nah," Daryl said, and for a startling second she thought he'd read her thoughts. But he was just following her gaze as she looked at his bike. "Better take one of the cars, case'n we find a big haul of shit."

Carol knew he was right, but it was with a heavy step that she turned and walked toward the sedan. "I kind of wanted to feel the wind in my hair."

"What hair?" he asked.

"Thanks a lot."

"Ain't an insult. Just meant it's short is all." He opened the passenger's side of the car and just held it open, like he wasn't getting in.

It took Carol a moment to realize he was holding it for her. "Well aren't you a gentleman," she said as she slid inside.

"I told you it weren't an insult!" He shut the door with a clang.

When he got in the driver side, she said, "I meant holding the door open for me. Although I'm fully capable of doing it for myself."

"Ya are? Never would have guessed by the way you shot that three inch group last week." He shut his door and cranked the engine. "I really ain't insultin' ya. And I like yer hair. Like the color."

"Really? It doesn't make me look old?"

"Pffft..." The brownish-red sedan crunched over the gravel as he began driving. "Ya ain't old."

"I'm not as young as Michonne."

He shot her a puzzled look as Carl Grimes shut the fence behind them. "How old are ya?"

"How old do you think I am?" Carol asked.

"I ain't dumb enough to play that game."

"How old are you?" asked Carol as she checked her rifle to make sure it was cocked and loaded and ready to go should they run into a herd of walkers or any unfriendly people.

"Dunno. Don't keep track. Ain't exactly ever had anyone bake me a birthday cake."

"Never?" His revelation truck her as terribly sad.

"Nah. Never." He gunned the engine and swerved around a walker before hitting the paved road and slowing down again.

"Well, when's your birthday? I'll make you a cake. Or something. Whatever I can manage to put together with what we have."

"In that case, it's whenever we get back from this run."

She chuckled. "When is it really?"

"Dunno."

"Don't know!" she said. "What do you mean, you don't know?" She reached right into his back pants pocket and pulled out his wallet.

"What do ya think yer doin'?"

"Looking for your driver's licenses." Carol flipped open the black leather wallet

"Ain't got one. What the hell do I need it for? Think Sheriff Grimes is gonna write me a ticket? Give it back!" He grabbed for the wallet, but she pulled it away, laughing.

She didn't find a driver's license, but she found a condom. When she held up the foil package, he turned a shade of red she did not think it was possible for a human being to turn. She laughed, but then she felt suddenly sick to her stomach and shoved the condom back in his wallet. Had that been for Michonne? Why only one? Was it because he had no real hopes of getting laid, or because he'd used up several already?

As she began to close the wallet, a loose photograph fluttered out and landed between her feet. Carol looked down at the young, beautiful, blonde woman with blue-gray eyes. When she recovered the photo, Carol observed that the young woman wore a white cowgirl hat, a pink, spaghetti string tank top, and cut-off blue jeans. "Who is it?"

The girl seemed too young for him, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, but if the photo had been taken a few years ago, and if Daryl liked women who were a few years younger, it was possible this woman had once been his girlfriend. Possible - and yet, the very idea that Daryl might have had a girlfriend before the Outbreak - someone he'd lost to the disease - maybe even someone he'd been forced to put down - had never occurred to her before this moment.

"Yer nosy as hell, ya know that!"

"Sorry," she apologized, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with guilt and wishing she hadn't teasingly grabbed that wallet. She hadn't really expected to find anything in it but his license and maybe some scraps of paper with a list for the supply run. After sliding the photograph back inside, she closed up the wallet and handed it back to him. The black leather was well worn and warm to the touch. The wallet just felt like it belonged to Daryl.

Daryl grabbed it, shoved it in his back pocket, and glared at her. Carol wished she could take it all back, make friends again. She needed his friendship. Sometimes it felt like his friendship was all she had in this world. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I was just teasing, and I took it too far. I really didn't mean to upset you."

His jaw set tightly, Daryl stared out the windshield. He'd driven silently for several minutes when he said, "It's a'right. I ain't mad at ya. It's just...ya can really stick in my craw sometimes, ya know?"

"I know," Carol said softly, and she turned and looked out the passenger's side window.

"Ain't personal," he said. "Everyone does. You less'n most."

"Really? Sometimes I think I stick in your craw more than most."

"Nah. Ya just hang 'round me more than most. Hell, most people don't even talk to me less'n they have to. Ya know, for business reasons."

She smiled. "Well, they're really missing out, because you can be fun to talk to."

"Pffft."

"I like talking to you."

If he hadn't smiled, and then bit down on his bottom lip to hide that smile, she wouldn't know her words had pleased him.

"Is that a strip mall down that road?" she asked.

Daryl leaned forward, peered through the windshield, and made a sharp left.