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It starts small and without purpose, as all seemingly unimportant things usually do.
They both need a break from the claustrophobic storage units Rick decided should be their home for the foreseeable future. It's too crowded, too tight and it stinks of sweat and vomit because pregnant Lori keeps getting sick. They haven't eaten anything but old peanuts for three days. Daryl tells Carol he wants to try to hunt something big to fill their stomachs, muttering more to himself than to her that there must be some deer out there that those damned walkers hadn't chewed up yet. Carol wants to harvest some greens to, at worst, guarantee some kind of soup to warm them up for the night, and at best, serve as a side dish for whatever game he manages to catch. So they leave at dawn, while most of the group are still sleeping bundled together; T-Dog guarding them, chain-smoking at the rooftop.
The early morning air is crisp and invigorating in her lungs. Even though winter is fast approaching, the woods are still vibrant with all the fall colors that the slow rising sun reveals to them. The burnt orange reminds her of Sophia, but today it doesn't make her heart ache. Not really.
Carol can't hear, see, or smell any signs that indicate a horde is approaching, and the fact that Daryl is walking relaxed beside her makes her feel confident that her assessment is correct. It's not the first time she joins him on a hunt. Or to walk the perimeter. Find water or wood to make a fire. After the farm fell, they tended to navigate towards each other. Together, on the outskirts of everything else.
“You seem quite chill today.” She says quietly, crouching down to bag some wild kale.
“Uhm, jus’ like mornings like this. Fresh. Clean.” He takes a deep breath while scanning their surroundings. Blue eyes narrowed attentively, crossbow in position just in case. “Way better than those stinking metal coffins we livin' in. If Carl keeps taking his nasty shoes off to sleep, I'll have to cut his feet off.”
Carol snorts. “Be nice. We need to find him some bigger shoes. It's not Carl's fault he's growing and going through hormonal changes. Teenagers smell, Daryl.”
“Not my nose’s fault neither.” He grunts, extending a hand to help her get up.
“Well, you’re really hot, you know?” Carol says, busy with arranging her shoulder bag. “You could always try sleeping outside, at least as long as the temperature isn’t too low.”
When Daryl doesn’t answer, she looks up. His whole face is flushed red and he’s staring at her with a completely new, baffled expression. It takes a beat for Carol to understand what it means.
“Hum...We’re missing daylight.” He murmurs and instantly walks away, almost tripping on an exposed tree root.
Embarrassed.
And it's such a foreign notion that Daryl Dixon could get so flustered over a poorly phrased sentence like that, that Carol can't help but file the knowledge away for the near future, while chuckling softly to herself.
Between running for their lives, scavenging non-stop for food, sleeping with one eye open and trying to not to freeze to death, making Daryl blush becomes a welcome distraction to push Carol through the winter. She throws silly innuendos at him whenever they are alone - sharing some chores or just keeping each other company while avoiding the rest of the group - and delights in making him squirm. It takes some of the weight off both of their shoulders, as she finds that Daryl does get flustered easily but doesn't seem to mind her dirty sense of humor.
Uh, are you glad to see me? She asks every single time she catches Daryl cleaning a gun, with a perfect Mae West impersonation, that paints the tip of his pointy ears bright red. Not really. He always says back, snorting or squinting his eyes in her direction, depending on his mood, but never sending her away or ignoring her presence.
Any compliment Daryl gives her cooking is met with fluttering eyelashes and bright smiles that put a healthy flush on his cheeks.
Carol calls him a dirty, dirty man when Daryl comes back from the woods with so much blood or mud on his clothes that they need to be washed. The more languid her voice, the redder his face becomes.
It is funny and sweet and she can’t get enough of it.
“That’s a big cock.”
Carol happily observes when Daryl comes back from a hunt with three dead chickens and a giant rooster. It’s a Christmas miracle, the last good meal they have before the group is forced to leave the storage units behind because it got too cold to live on bare concrete and metal..too dangerous to lit a fire inside those walls and suffocate to death.
“You’s seriously unhinged, woman, you know that?” Daryl manages to answer back, not before almost choking on his own spit.
No one understands why she keeps laughing throughout the meal, nor why Daryl's face is as red as a ripe tomato the entire evening.
It happens less when they are back out in the open, constantly moving and looking for new places to sleep every night, but Carol doesn't give up. Her brain keeps working on new embarrassing remarks when the road stretches out in front of them on days they do nothing but drive around. She keeps trying to remember silly sex jokes she heard before the end of the world and to evoke the wit of her teenage years, when she worked at a diner and charmed customers into leaving bigger tips. And Daryl keeps indulging her, blushing almost on cue, even when she's not funny or clever at all.
"I'm starting to think you really, really like to hold my hand." Carol whispers, staring at the wood ceiling and blinking away tears. Feeling his warm, calloused hand closed over her smaller, shaking one.
"Shut up." Daryl more grunts than whispers back. Carol turns her head to look at him, the semi-darkness allowing her to see that the tip of his nose is bright red.
They're lying side by side, a foot apart, in the corner of a dilapidated farm barn that looks enough like Hershel's to give her nightmares. This has been their ceiling for over a week; the only building on the property (and within miles) that was not burned to the ground. If it weren't so cold, she would gladly sleep outside, but that wasn't an option at this time of winter. Although having hypothermia from sleeping out in the open seemed much better than dreaming about her dead daughter, over and over again.
"It's going to be spring soon." Daryl tells her like he knows what she's thinking about. "Couple of weeks? We'll be campin’ again."
"It's colder than ever." She turns her body carefully in his direction and Daryl doesn't move beyond adjusting his grip on her hand.
"Nah, 's always colder just before spring. Winter is almost done."
"How do you know?"
"Hum..Things just smell different. Sky's getting bluer too. Soon, we'll sleep outside. No more barns."
No more triggers and bad dreams, it's what Daryl truly means. Carol doesn't think she ever felt this grateful for this man and the gentle touch that he always uses to wake her up when she starts tossing and turning and whimpering in her sleep.
"No more barns." She repeats, closing her eyes, bone-tired but feeling safe, knowing Daryl won't let go until she falls asleep again.
“It’s pretty romantic. Screw around?”
Daryl double checks before snorting and Carol laughs, feeling as happy as she can get after they conquered the field around the prison that afternoon. The real promise of a permanent home after so many months on the road releasing something inside of her.
“I’ll go down first.” Daryl mumbles, a light but very present blush on his cheeks.
“Even better.” She can’t resist. It’s like he’s asking for it.
“Stop.”
“What yah doin’ up?” Daryl asks as he abruptly takes the large plastic box she's carrying from her hands, only to find that it’s empty aside from a blanket. “You should be restin’! You just came back from the dead a few hours ago!”
“Yes, I did, thanks to you.” She answers, resting a hand on one of his upper arms. “I’m feeling fine, Daryl. See, I got cleaned up and all. Back to the living side.”
“Yah sure?” He insists, checking her from head to toe.
“Yes, I am. Look at you, all sweet and worried about me.” Carol teases, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Stop.” Daryl squints, not without humor in his voice, and she laughs, taking the box from him “What this for, anyway?”
“For the baby. She needs something safe to be put on. She can’t be held all the time. This can work as a crib while we don’t find one.”
“Lil’ ass kicker.” He informs her, matter-of-factly.
“What?”
“Lil’ ass kicker. That’s how I’m callin’ baby girl while Rick and the kid don’t choose a name for her.”
“Of course you are.” Carol feels her heart swell a little bit with affection for the man in front of her. “When are you all leaving to get Maggie and Glenn?”
“Any minute now.”
“Okay. Let me put this on my cell. I’ll see you out.”
Carol doesn't see the rubor that takes over Daryl's face as he watches her walk away.
“He is your brother, but he is not good for you. Don’t let him bring you down.” Carol tells him, like she sees it, because she has to. “After all, look at how far you’ve come.”
Daryl looks all around the cell and back to her, jokingly taking her point as the literal place they come to. She just smiles and shares the small laugh that it’s only theirs, content to be reunited with him, even with everything else changing around them.
“So, what exactly happened out there?” Carol inquires after he joins her in the courtyard. She is sitting on top of one of the tables, rifle resting on her thighs, eyes on the horizon as the sun sets. He mimics her pose with his crossbow.
“Rick and that eye-patched prick talked alone. Me and Hershel stayed out with his men. Had a smoke, talked some shit. Don’t think no one on that side wants no war either, but they have a murderous asshole as their leader. They’ll do as they are told.”
“As we will on our side, you mean?” She asks just for the sake of it.
“Yeah...yeah, ’s we will.” He agrees, sounding defeated.
“War it is.”
They sigh, somewhat synchronized, reluctantly sharing the same loyalty towards their group. Their family. Daryl rests his hand on her shoulder, so very lightly, and Carol turns to look at him.
“No matter what happens, tho’, I’ve got your back.” He tells her in a soft but firm voice, looking straight into her eyes.
The air entering her lungs feels too thick to breathe. “I know you do.” She blinks twice and swallows, before putting a cheeky expression on her face and whispering. “You’re my knight in shining leather.”
“Ugh, stop!” Daryl complains, taking the hand off her shoulder and facepalming to hide his blush. “Why are you like this?!”
Carol giggles in response. She rests her head on his shoulder to keep him from escaping, eyes trained on the increasingly dark sky.
“You’re just too easy, that’s why. I can’t help myself.” She says a few moments later, after giving him time to calm a little bit.
“So you saying you have no self control, that’s it?” Daryl retorts.
“That’s pretty much it.” She admits, not feeling a little bit ashamed of herself.
“Yah know? One day, I’ll make you regret all this shit.” He says, as seriously as he can, while tentatively putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Oh, and what do you mean by that?” Carol snuggles, testing her luck.
“What I mean is that I will get you when your ass is distracted and you will be the one that gets all hot and red in the face.”
Daryl’s eyes are also trained at the sky, pretending not to acknowledge the half embrace his own arm initiated. By the corner of her eyes, Carol can see that he’s still blushing hard and can’t help to feel the same kind of heat spreading through her own face.
She wishes her own blushing away and responds in a small voice, grateful that he won’t be looking at her direction any time soon. “That doesn’t sound as frightening as you think it does. Quite the opposite.”
“Just shut up.” He sighs, squeezing her tighter so she adjusts her body to rest more comfortably next to him. “Impossible woman.”
They stay like that long enough for Carol to formulate three different sexual innuendos that could be used in a life-or-death situation, should they find themselves in one when the Governor comes for them.
(And for his scent to rub off and linger on her clothes, which would guarantee nighttime blushes, unbeknownst to Daryl).