A/N: Before you read this, be prepared for a bitter pill. These characters are retreating to their dark places and this is not a scene in which they find their way back to the light. I still see them doing that, together, but not in this ficlet.

So Be It, by MissMishka

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.

He finds her in the Winnebago, as he expected he would.

She doesn't react to his opening the door or stepping inside and he stands there for a moment, watching her stare out the window. His tongue twitches inside his mouth, seeking the right words to say, some story to tell her to give her comfort at this, which must be one of the hardest moments in her life.

Every thought in his head sounds like bullshit, though, so he says nothing.

Her posture is closed and standoffish, one that he himself had spent years perfecting so he's not put off by it despite the way she had rejected his concern moments ago.

His arms still hurt with the way she had torn from them and he still felt that kick in the gut at how she had looked at him in the second before she turned to walk away. Her eyes had been so wounded and he had no idea if she blamed him for this injury or not.

He didn't know what to do if she did.

He eyes the seat across from her at the table, but it's too close. He feels he'd be invading her space and moment to sit there, so he opts for the counter instead.

The cupboards make it an uncomfortable perch, forcing him to bend forward under them to get his ass on the surface, but he does it without word or complaint.

Being with her, near her, is all that matters.

She looks at him then, as he settles. He can see that she's waiting for the words, the useless platitudes people offer in times of grief and loss.

He also sees the rejection within her, the challenge for him to dare utter a single 'I'm sorry' for her to shoot down in the fury of her feelings.

He says nothing and after a moment, she turns back to the window and ignores him.

Daryl bites at the inside of his mouth as he watches her. He wonders how long she'll go on like this and how much of it he'll be able to take.

She's a woman. She should be saying something soon seeing that he was offering himself as an audience for her to air her thoughts.

He needs her to say something. To give him some idea what's happening in her head so he can start to sort out what the hell is going on in his own.

All he gets, though, is the back of her as she stays unmoving and staring out at nothing.

He feels the passage of time as he stares at her, picking at the grit under his fingernails and willing her to move or speak or show some sign of life.

His mind begins to function independently at her refusal to react.

He remembers his earlier anger at her for suggesting that they give up the search. Remembers how he'd hated the idea of a mother giving up on her child like that, especially after all he'd done to find Sophia.

He thinks about their exchange in the clearing. His foolish words of hope and feelings.

Merle was laughing his ass off at him and it was deserved.

Daryl had allowed himself to care for these people. To imagine himself a part of this group.

All he'd been doing was chasing figments.

That little girl had been locked in the barn all along and Merle howled with malicious glee at that bitter reality.

Daryl kicks and berates himself in the prolonging silence. Wondering what the hell good he'd actually done in all of this. What purpose it had served to get the bullet grazing his head and the stitches pulling at his side for a damned doll.

Shane had been right and that was a damned kick in the teeth.

He didn't know how long they stayed there like that, he staring wordlessly at her and she staring out the damned window.

The quiet grated on his already frayed nerves, but he wasn't about to leave her alone.

He was grateful to Lori when she came to knock on the door, but Carol didn't even flinch at the sound.

The other woman seems as lost for words at Carol's icy exterior as he was and that eases him some as he watches Lori falter for something to say as she steps into the camper.

She looks to him, as if he can give her some kind of insight in how to deal with the grieving mother, but his fidgeting hands clearly convey the nothing he's got to share.

"They're ready," she says, not looking at either of them as she makes the statement.

He watches the words reach through the barrier surrounding Carol and hopes for some magic to happen, but the woman just shakes her head in rejection.

"Come on," Lori urges, shifting restlessly in the doorway as she stares at the other woman.

"Why?" Carol asks, head still shaking in refusal.

"Cause that's your little girl," he replies, struck by idea that she would reject this goodbye.

Her eyes rise to meet his and he gets a real kick in the teeth when he reads the dismissal there.

"That's not my little girl," she refutes. "It's some other….thing."

He wants to argue. For the first time, he understands where the others had come from at the quarry in demanding a burial for the dead from their group.

It had been Sophia and for better or worse, they had found the girl and her remains deserved a proper burial and Carol needed to see them laid to rest. He needed to see Sophia laid to rest.

Something of his disbelief must of shone in his eyes because she turns away, severing their contact, to go back to staring out that fucking window.

"My Sophia was alone in the woods. All this time, I thought…," he knows what she had thought because he had encouraged those thoughts. "She didn't cry herself to sleep. She didn't go hungry. She didn't try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago."

She seems at peace with that.

Like her girl's in a better place now.

Like the events of the day didn't even fucking matter.

Like Daryl's guts shouldn't be in a fucking twist at having seen Sophia turned to a Walker.

He feels Lori's gaze touch upon him, sympathetic and maybe fucking pitying him because she seems to understand the gravity of the situation even if it's lost on Carol.

The other woman leaves and he keeps his eyes on Carol. Glaring at her, willing her to turn and face him and fucking talk to him. Help him understand .

But she doesn't.

She keeps her gaze on the outside of the window that he would have loved to smash and he realizes he's on his own.

He can't believe he'd allowed himself to think it might be any different.

Merle was his only kin and his brother was gone.

Carol felt no connection to him. He had been a fool to think that she cared.

Fooled by gentle hands and an awkward kiss to his temple. Fooled by big, blue eyes that watched him and soft lips that husked bullshit kindness. Feeding him false praise of being as good a man as Rick or Shane.

She couldn't stand to lose him too, yet here she was, pushing him away quicker than he could blink.

So be it.

He grits his teeth, sets his jaw, grasps his shotgun and pushes from the countertop.

He gives her one last glance, one more chance to turn to him as she had been doing.

She stares out the window.

So fucking be it.

He moves from the RV with a stomp in his stride, blaming the dust he stirs for putting grit in his eyes and making them water, despite the fact that he'd teared up before leaving the Winnebago.

To hell with fickle females.

He had a little girl to see laid to rest and a dream to say goodbye to.