The Caryl reunion in the creepy house continues. Carol's POV.

Love and Trust

The simplest things can be the hardest to do
Can't find what you're looking for even when it's looking for you
The judge and the criminal, the sinner and the priest
Got something in common, bring 'em all to their knees

Do what you can, do what you must
Everybody's trying to find some love and trust
I walk the line, I walk it for us
See me out here tryin' to find some love and trust

Lust ain't an offender, but stealing from a thief
Storm after storm leave you shaking like a leaf
They say broken hearts make the world go around
Trading headaches for heartaches, wanna get you down

Give it some time, don't try to rush
When you're trying to find yourself some love and trust
Do what you can, might not be enough
When you're trying to find yourself some love and trust

Like a horse in a race who don't want to run
Like an executioner who won't fire his gun
Like a boxer who won't take a swing
Just like a prince who don't want to be king

Haven't we suffered, suffered enough
Now we're out here tryin' to find some love and trust
Do what you can, do what you must
Everybody's trying to find some love and trust
Everybody's trying to find some love and trust
- Mavis Staples

She hadn't planned on Daryl Dixon.

They say if you're lucky at least once in your life you can find someone who "gets" you; someone who you can love and trust; someone who understands and accepts all your flaws, weaknesses and sins and loves and trusts you anyhow, in spite of them... or maybe even because of them; because they have flaws, weaknesses and sins of their own to match.

Carol had always thought that was what was at the root of her unlikely friendship with Daryl: damaged people gravitate to damaged people. Of all the people she'd met since the Turn he was the most like her, abused and beaten down before and a phoenix rising after.

She'd trusted him almost as soon as she'd met him. The day he and Merle had arrived at the quarry he'd gone out on a hunt to bring back a deer that had fed the whole camp, but had refused the thanks and appreciation everyone tried to heap on him, instead swearing a blue streak and storming off to hang and butcher the doe when he found out no one else had the least clue about how to do it.

Somewhere along the way he began seeking out her company instead of just hovering protectively in the background as he'd done after Ed had died. When he'd looked for Sophia, when he'd brought her the white rose, when he'd held her back from rushing head long into disaster and sat with her after...

After that they'd kept saving each other's lives, sometimes literally, growing closer with each passing month. She worried about him not coming back every time he left to go on even a short run and they'd had their longer times apart—when he'd left with Merle and later Michonne to hunt Blake—but he'd always come home afterwards, back to her.

Letting go of all of them, to leave when Rick had sent her away, had been one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do, but part of her felt that she deserved it. She'd killed two of their own to save the rest. If never seeing her family again was the penance, she accepted it as her due for making the hard decision. When she had to do it again, to save Judith, she knew what she had to do. She didn't deserve to be with her family when she'd killed another one of them, a child this time.

But fate had worked against her one more time, forcing her to kill again to save her family from Terminus.

What are you going to do, Carol?

I'm going to kill people.

She'd stayed with them after that, Tyreese's forgiveness serving as a buffer, letting herself hope things could be different, letting Daryl back in, just a little, before realizing he wanted too much from her, to start over, when she was already damned. She wouldn't drag him down to hell with her.

But he was as hard to shake as a burr in lamb's wool. No matter what she did, he forgave her. No matter what she said or didn't say, he still believed in her.

She was already teetering close to edge of a breakdown, though she didn't know that's what it was. She just felt buried deeper and deeper under the weight of everything, the responsibility to keep on living so she could try to save people growing heavier every day. From the outside she seemed like the consummate bad ass, playing undercover agent, blending in with the people of Alexandria and defending them against attack.

We don't have to kill, Carol.

Of course we do.

Morgan made her furious with his dangerous platitudes and unwillingness to do what she knew had to be done, even at the cost of her own soul. Yet every death from her hands piled on and pushed her deeper into the pit, her despair growing daily.

She couldn't let herself feel it and so sought the things that she knew would numb her to the pain. Cigarettes fit the bill: Ed had smoked and she'd hated it, the stench in the furniture, her hair and clothes and the second hand smoke worrying her for Sophia's sake. Now she inhaled the coffin nails gladly, hoping they would also lessen the time she'd have to wait to see her daughter again.

Unwilling to just swallow a bullet she cast about for other passive-aggressive ways to self-destruct. Feeling safe in the bosom of her family? That meant she had to cut ties, to distance herself from anyone who knew her too well.

Longing for her lost closeness to the one very complex man who'd always understood her best, but never seemed to see her as a desirable woman? Fill the emptiness with exploring her abilities at seduction with a simple man; to have sex without complications with one who wasn't afraid of his attraction to her.

But even then she was hurting someone. She knew Tobin cared about her when all she was doing was marking time.

Then Daryl was there again, pushing past her carefully erected barriers to embrace her even after she'd killed again, this time to save Maggie and her unborn child. She'd tried to stay away, but when he came through the gates with the body of another friend, she couldn't just stand by and watch him hurting.

His determination to find and kill the man from the burnt out forest who'd killed Denise had been the proverbial straw. It broke her to think of him going off on some murderous quest, heading down the same dark path she'd pulled him away from after he'd killed the woman at Grady. She didn't have the strength to stop him, couldn't find the right words to comfort him over the distance she'd put between them.

She had to get out, leave as she'd always intended to. She couldn't stand by and watch it all fall apart and she couldn't kill any more to stop it. She knew her chances of survival outside the walls weren't good, but at least she'd only be responsible for her own life, no one else's. She'd prepared her escape carefully, hoarding supplies, preparing her stealth defense system by sewing the guns into the oversize coat she'd purloined from the man in whose bed she was sleeping.

Of course Morgan had interfered. He must've been placed on the earth to plague her. After he saved her they came here, to Kingdom, a place where she was being given time to heal before she could be on her way again.

Because that's what she had planned; this was only a convenient way station. She'd live in isolation; she wouldn't get to know any of these people. Morgan would return to Alexandria and tell them all that she was dead and she'd be on the road until the inevitable.

She hadn't planned on Daryl Dixon.

In retrospect she should've known, should've remembered how tenaciously he'd searched for her child, never giving up. The irony this time was that he hadn't even been specifically looking for her. Trying to gather forces to fight the newest big bad had brought him to her.

When she took the vest from Dwight and restored it, she'd justified the effort by telling herself that she'd send it back with Morgan. It would be one last token of... of how much she cared. She wouldn't have to see him again, but he would know.

When Daryl had shown up on her doorstep all thoughts of sending him away had vanished in an instant. He was different somehow—still shy, but working hard to push past that and be more open as well, like he had been after Terminus. He told her he wanted to help her, but she feared she was beyond even his care.

He kept at it though, pushing and prodding until he found an opening.

"Let me be here for you, now. Whatever you need."

What did she need? To forget, to go numb again, just take the comfort she knew he would try to give her. She tried to hold out, not to take what he was offering in his awkward way, but she needed it... needed him too much. She let the tears come, her emotions so close to the surface her skin felt burned from the inside. Exhausted, she had fallen asleep in his strong arms.

When she awoke she was overwhelmed by his closeness, the heated masculine scent of him filling her lungs with each intake of breath, the salty tang of his skin when she pressed her lips to his throat, making him shiver.

He didn't stop her, he didn't run; could he have really had changed so much? He'd had examples all around him, Glenn and Maggie, Aaron and Eric, Rick and Michonne, Tara and Denise... no... don't think about it... Tara's grief was one more thing she couldn't let herself feel...

Instead she made a little pleased sound and found the strength of his muscular chest under her palm, the nipple as erect as another larger part of him she could feel under her hip...

He groaned at her touch and then she closed her teeth over the cords of his neck...

"Carol?" he breathed, probably trying to ascertain if she knew what she was doing.

She ignored him and kept kissing his neck, alternately sucking and lightly biting as well.

"Wait... it's me, Daryl..." he whispered the words to stop her without actually saying the word, though his voice sounded throaty and hungry.

Carol realized he thought she didn't know who she was doing. In response she sat up and then very carefully moved so that she was straddling his hips, her knees to either side of them, her hands on his chest, looking down on him, her eyes bright and hot.

His expression as he looked up at her was pure naked desire, quickly masked behind a sort of befuddled shy surprise.

"Carol...?"

She rolled her hips up and back, just once.

His mouth fell open and his eyes rolled back, but then he gently put both hands on her hips to stop her.

Carol held still, waiting for whatever he would do next. She had offered and now it was his choice.

Daryl opened his eyes and looked up at her, his head tilting to the side as he regarded her, one side of his lips quirked up almost imperceptively, his eyes hot and narrow. His hands urged her closer and then slid up to her waist. She leaned in until she was close enough for him to cup her face and brush a light kiss to her forehead. Then he waited, his lips against her brow, as if he was gathering his courage or maybe giving her time to change her mind.

Carol stayed perfectly still, waiting for him to act, her heart racing in anticipation.

The kiss, when it came, was so gentle that it was as if he was afraid of breaking her, but it was also full of restrained passion, delicate and heated at the same time. His lips were chapped but tender, his scruff scraping against her chin and cheek.

Daryl broke the kiss to take a breath and she gave a whimper of protest and then he took her mouth again, this time letting some of the passion loose, his right hand moving back to cradle her head, keeping her close even as her hands gripped at the front of his vest to do the same.

She hadn't really guessed he could kiss like this... and her surprise grew as his mouth slanted across hers and his tongue sought entrance and she opened to him, reveling in his possession. Maybe it was because she'd thought it could never happen that it was so...well, so amazingly hot.

She hadn't planned on Daryl Dixon...

Just when she thought she was going to burst into flames he broke the kiss again, his chest heaving.

"Can we... can we slow down a little?" Daryl murmured, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, trying to get his breathing under control.

"Too much?" she asked, though truth be told, she was just as overwhelmed.

"Should at least make you buy me dinner first..." he drawled with a little raw chuckle, while exploring her jaw line and ear with his lips, using one of Hershel's favorite expressions for when someone wanted some outlandishly pricey favor, again surprising her with his light humor.

"I could cook you dinner tonight." Carol agreed, sighing and turning her head to the side to give him more of her long neck to explore.

Daryl made it all the way to her collar bone at the neckline of her Henley before he forced himself to stop. He groaned a little when he looked down and saw curve of her breasts in the deep vee of her shirt and the way her nipples stood at attention as if begging for him to continue on down...

He abruptly sat up and gave her a rueful smile, his eyes falling to linger on her chest before rising to meet her eyes which were full of desire and mischief.

"Don't want jus' one night with you." Daryl said, his hair falling back in his face as he bowed his head in shyness at what that implied; at the future that implied.

At the sweet honesty of that statement Carol lifted her right hand to cup his cheek, her head tilting to the side in an adoring look.

"But the way things are goin' I might not make it back... any time soon." he tacked on the last after realizing that it sounded like he was trying to talk her into something.

Carols mouth turned down, her thumb tracing a pattern over his chin and kiss swollen lips.

"I can't stay here in the Kingdom." he sighed. "Rick n' them, they need me."

They were at a turning point in the marshalling of forces to go against Negan. Even if she chose not to participate, she knew it was happening.

"You know I can't leave." she sighed back.

Daryl dipped his head in a nod of acknowledgement and understanding. As much as he wanted her with them; with him, he wasn't going to push the issue. She was here because she needed to heal and she wasn't done.

"Can you stay tonight... for dinner... and to light my fire...?" she asked him, raising her forearms to rest them on his broad shoulders and linking her fingers together behind his neck, smiling at his frown at the innuendo and nodding her head towards the opposite wall. "Fireplace went out while we were napping."

"Dixons don't nap." Daryl snorted right back. "We are alert n' ready at all times."

"Some parts of you..." Carol said wickedly, and enjoyed the rise of the blush along his neck. "...do seem to be quite alert and ready."

Daryl stood and brought her along with him so she remained flush against his body.

"You didn't say stop." she reminded him about his usual reply to her flirting.

"Don't wanna... but we should." he growled, hauling her up even closer before setting her away from him.

"Oh?" Carol breathed, swaying back towards him a little, unsteady on her feet, still caught up in the heady feeling of finally having him over the wall that kept them from becoming... something more...

Daryl reached out, but she regained her balance on her own and he dropped his hands to his sides and they curled into fists.

"What?" Carol asked when she realized he had an intense look of worry on his face.

"I ain't... steppin' on anyone's toes here?" he asked, his hair hiding half his face again.

She understood immediately what Daryl needed to know.

"No." she told him quickly. And knew now with certainty that there never would be anything more than friendship between her and the King.

"And back in Alexandria?" he had to ask. It wasn't like she'd tried to hide the fact that she'd been living with Tobin.

"I ended it... when I left..." Carol told him. "It was... it wasn't..." then it was her turn to frown. Was he asking this because he had something he needed to tell her?

"You? Is there... someone? Back in..." she had to ask. She knew he'd gotten closer to the people in their group since they'd been on the road together. Maybe now that Sasha was with Abraham, Daryl had realized how beautiful and brave Rosita was... or he'd met someone at Hilltop or—

"Nah..." Daryl shook his head a little and shrugged self-deprecatingly, "Always only ever been you."

"Always only ever?" she said and gave him a pleased small smile.

Daryl gave her a bashful grin in return.

"You gotta know that." he told her, giving her such a look full of love and trust that Carol started to tear up again, making him frown, "Ah sweetheart, don't..."

"I wish I could be what you need me to be..." Carol said quietly, looking away. There was still so much he didn't know; it would never just be simple with her, she had too many secrets, too many self-imposed sins—

"Hey—don't. Don't need you t'be anything but what you are." he said with soft earnestness, "Just hope you'll let me come back here maybe." he said, reaffirming his intention to return to her when he could.

"Any time." she told him, nodding, moving closer, and then as natural as breathing they were kissing again, his hands cupping her face, her hands gripping his vest.

The rightness of it, the ease after so long holding themselves back from even the possibility that this could happen for them made it all the sweeter.

"Somebody said somethin' about supper?" Daryl asked, trying to even out his breathing, resting his forehead on hers.

"Thought we had a deal—you light my fire, I cook?" she said, a bit breathless as well.

"I'll light yer fire..." he nodded and then paused.

When she leaned back to look up at him, he gave her an incongruously shy-smug grin that made Carol's knees go weak.

No, she really hadn't planned on Daryl Dixon.

To be continued...

I'm on the road heading to visit family for the Holidays for the next few days, so I'll update as soon as I can. Safe travels everyone!