Author's Note: This is an expanded scene from episode 5x6 Consumed, when Daryl and Carol take off to Atlanta to try and rescue Beth from Grady Memorial. In this scene, they're in the domestic violence shelter. I took the moment where they're side by side on the bed together and ended it a different way. A little more intimate, a little more turning point-y. Because I desperately want to see Daryl haul her back from the edge and I don't feel like the show fully gave us that moment. Spoilers up to 5x6

Soundtrack for this one is "Shelter" by Ray Lamontagne.

Shelter

Daryl had never been alone with Carol before. For a minute, yeah, with the others in the next room or a little ways away in the forest. On a run, a few times. Never overnight, just the two of them in a city that made the whole world feel emptier.

Somehow, it made him feel lonelier, because every second of her presence echoed on his skin with the threat of how close he came to never seeing her again. Even now, he wasn't sure she wouldn't take off as soon as they got Beth back. So he kept pushing her, harder than he had back in camp. He only had a day, maybe less, and then all bets were off.

And fuck, the world was a huge place now. As soon as somebody got to a road, he couldn't track them anymore. Phones didn't exist, computers were just plastic and junk. There weren't any mailmen. The most important person in your world could vanish in an instant.

They could spend the rest of their life ten miles from you and you'd be stuck missing them the whole time.

Daryl sat on the tiny bed in the tiny room meant as a refuge for people running from a whole world of bad shit, and he had no idea how to pull this off. Once, there had been counselors all over this building, and maybe they would have known better how to fix her. Thing was, there was a tiny voice inside of him. A voice that had never spoken up until just lately. If it existed before, Merle's own opinions were so loud, they would have drowned it out. But right now that instinct was telling him nobody else could reach her. Because they were the same, him and Carol.

Nobody else in the group would have ended up in a place like this, before the walkers. Even though Carol didn't stay and he never had anybody who cared enough to bring him to a sanctuary in the first place.

It figured that it would be him and Carol here now, on a doomed rescue mission, two against maybe dozens or hundreds of guns. However many it took in a world like this to make people rich enough to not only own a fleet of working cars, but paint them to match. He couldn't even imagine that kind of wealth. The best mattress he'd had since the change was stained with the blood of a dead criminal. Rich in this world would just be his people safe and maybe a new quiver of arrows.

"I don't think we get to save people anymore," Carol said, responding to his last question, long after he'd forgotten what it was.

In the dim light of the dead city, the sight of her scared Daryl a little. All the colors were washed out of her face. Of her hair, her eyes. Those dainty little earrings that, for him, had always been like a wink of beauty left over from a world gone by. He didn't like seeing her painted all silver and gray, because it matched the dullness of her voice too well.

"Then why are you here?" he asked.

He didn't believe for a second she didn't want to save Beth. Thought they couldn't, maybe. There were only two of them, but hell, there'd only been one of her against all of Terminus and if she'd hesitated then, it couldn't have been for long.

"Trying," she said softly. He didn't believe that, either. She was going through the motions, but only barely.

He dropped his face into his hands, rubbing his burning eyes. He was so fucking tired. In the muscles of his legs, his back. His lungs felt paper thin every time he shoved another breath into them. He needed a day off from this shit. They all did, and it wasn't never going to come.

He couldn't stop remembering her face, when he showed up out of the woods and interrupted her escape. She hadn't been surprised. Just apologetic, because she damn well knew what it would do to him if she left.

The mattress dipped beside him and she lay back, her tiny weight hardly moving it at all. He dropped his hands, picking at his shredded fingers.

"When we were out by the car. What if I didn't show up?"

"Still don't know."

He exhaled, too tired to keep upright. He laid back beside her, and she let him.

How could she say that? After she'd seen how much everyone wanted her back. How much he had wanted her back.

"What would you stay for?" He stopped breathing after he asked, because he had nothing to lose. And in this moment, everything.

"You don't need me," she said. "The group's strong. And Rick thought I was a danger to the group. He's usually right, you know? Even when it's inconvenient, or it doesn't turn out the way he wanted it to. Rick knows right or wrong, even now. Part of me thinks I ought to respect that."

Daryl stared up at the underside of the bunk above them, crisscrossed with the scratched initials of people desperate to leave their mark, somewhere.

He chuffed out a disgusted sound. "Listen to you. Sounding all wrung out. That's bullshit. When we was locked up in that train car like cattle, you rained fire down like God him-fucking-self and now you say we don't need you. They had me on my knees." He hated saying the words. Merle's voice whispered "Pussy" somewhere deep in his chest. "Gagged and tied and bent over a trough to catch our blood, and wasn't a damn thing I could do about any of it." He rolled up onto his elbow, glaring at her, daring her not to care.

Her eyes widened just the smallest bit.

"I was at the end of the lineup. I'd have had to watch, while everybody…" He closed his eyes, just for a second, and realized he'd let himself fall too far into the memory. He opened his eyes and focused on her, as hard as if he were on the hunt. "We needed you. We'll need you again. And I—" He stalled out.

He toed at the blankets with one of his boots.

"I never—" He reached out with a sudden spurt of courage and grabbed her hand where it lay limp at her side. "I never knew you could say things, when you touched somebody. The way you—" He couldn't say it out loud.

It was too private. Even though it had happened only between the two of them. Her lips on his forehead, when he was beat to shit for the whole world to know. She said he was as good as Rick, as good as anybody, but those words slid right off him, sounded like bullshit. The kiss stuck. Which was his whole point: all those meanings wrapped up in a touch way past what you could say with your mouth. Not that he knew how to explain all that. So he squeezed her hand.

"You was the one who taught me touch could do something good to you."

She tilted her head to look at him, half-puzzled but something else, too. A little spark like she maybe liked what she saw.

"You're the only one of the group who ever knew me," he said. "Only one who ever asked me anythin', looked deeper at me than at just what I was doing for the group at the time. After you was gone, I kinda stopped being anything. I just shot and ran and ate and killed. Whatever needed doing until I forgot there I was anything but a set of hands." He paused. "Beth looked at me. When we were alone, once, wasted on moonshine, o' course." He chuckled, but it didn't quite make a sound. "Made me feel real again, like a person. I remembered how you used to make me feel like more. And I missed you so bad right then because that little girl with her clean shiny life…she had no business anywhere near me."

The thought of a smirk touched Carol's lips. She looked sideways at him, brow arching. "You saying I'm not exactly bright and shiny?"

"Nah. You're…old."

There was a beat of silence and then she pulled her hand away, bursting into laughter.

"Not like that," he hurried to say, and she slapped at him, still grinning.

"Just an old, gray haired grannie over here. Fetch Grannie her pills, will ya, you young buck?"

"Stop," he grumbled, his ears starting to heat red. "I just meant that you've seen stuff. Beth's tough, but you're…strong."

Carol stopped laughing.

"The thing that happened with you and those little girls, when you were gone…"

The risk of even saying it made his heart pump a little faster. He knew how easy it would be to chase her off. She'd go, too. Alone, right in the middle of Atlanta, those cool blue eyes calm as death as she slipped away the first time he was fool enough to sleep. And he didn't know what had happened, not really. He thought maybe one of them had turned, that she'd had to put her down. Maybe both.

They were so close to Sophia's age…The thought made him queasy.

"Nobody would have protected two little girls better than you. Nobody." He spat out the word so hard the bed rocked beneath them. "Not me, not Rick. Not an army, hell. I've seen you with little kids. Whatever happened out there, Carol, you did what had to be done."

"You don't know that," she said, the words the barest thread of sound.

"I know you." He threw out a hand, toward the bombed out city. The scorched buildings and hordes of wandering dead. "You can't hate yourself for what you've had to do. You think I like living like this? You think this is the life I wanted? Carol, I had to stab the only family I've ever had in the face because he was trying to eat me. 'Cause I was too slow going after him. I didn't save him. Not when he lost his hand, not when he lost everythin' else. I didn't save my brother."

"Daryl…" She started to sit up and he reared back from her, not realizing there were tears in his eyes until his vision started to blur and he had to knuckle them away.

"But I don't have nightmares about putting him down. Running to get there, yeah. I miss Merle." His throat throttled down around the words he'd never said aloud, and if it was anybody else, he'd have taken off to go break something. For Carol, he shoved that feeling down and he stayed. "I don't think about the end, and I sure as shit don't hate myself for it. Had to be done. We're the kind of people who do the dirty work, Carol."

She looked at him, her eyes frightened, but more focused than they'd been a minute ago.

"Me and you," he said, feeling calmer now that she was looking right at him. "The group looks to both of us for that now, and I don't feel bad that I'm not weak. I'm sorry if you do. I never want them to feel like they gotta step up for me. That guy asked you to watch out for his kids, because he knew you'd do the best job, and you did. You got no call to be sorry."

She caught up a little breath, but her gaze flickered away and he could tell she was arguing with him in her head, thinking he didn't know.

He pointed at his black eye. "You know how I got this?"

Her expression flickered, and he could tell she hadn't even thought about it. He was always some sort of beat up, so he guessed he didn't blame her.

"I fell in with a group of guys, after I lost Beth. I knew they were bad, and they turned out even worse than I thought. Tried to kill Rick. They took Carl, tried to—" He broke off, his voice cracking a little. "Wanted Michonne, too. I beat one of them to death with my damn hands to stop what they were about to do, and I don't feel bad about that neither. I ain't gonna wish I was weaker, because then they would have killed me. And I sure as shit ain't gonna wish I was off on my own, with nobody that I cared about, because then Rick and Michonne and Carl would have been stuck there, and I don't think any of us could have made it out without all of us. So when you go hating on yourself for doing what has to be done, you better take a long hard look at all the people around you that are alive because you are what you are." He glared at her. "You better look at me right now. Because I'm one of 'em."

He shoved away and fell back onto the bed, breathing hard, as silence settled into the building once more.

"I think that's the most words I've ever heard you say," Carol said softly. "I really yanked your chain, didn't I?"

He grunted, still too pissed to respond.

Her fingers brushed his. Not holding, just sort of toying with his. "I mean, I should have known things were getting bad when Daryl Dixon was trying to get me to talk about my feelings."

"Ain't funny," he bit off.

"It hurts that you care," she murmured. "I can't stand it sometimes. Especially not right now. I look at you and I know what it would be like to bury you."

She stopped, and all he could hear was the faint groan of walkers, somewhere nearby.

"I know what it would take to keep me moving after that, and I don't have it left in me. That's why I wanted to go, so I wouldn't be there whenever it happened. But I'm not blind. I know how much it would hurt you if I left, because it's how I felt when you left us for Merle. And I didn't want to feel that guilt either. So I was just stuck there at that car, hurting on all sides and hating everything about this damn world." She let out a soft laugh. "And then you showed up, because of course you did."

"Carol." He shifted. Just turned his head, because he couldn't entirely face her right now. He knew what she meant, because he hurt. He hurt all fucking over. "Me and you—" He started, and all the words piled up and crashed into each other. "Me and you," he said, his throat tight.

"I know," she said. "We're…old."

And she smiled, and he laughed, real low, and his chest hurt a little bit less.

She reached up to touch his bruised eye. He didn't pull away even though it hurt. There wasn't much he wouldn't give her, right now.

"I hope you hit them really hard," she said.

He watched her eyes, in the dark, and wondered if she could tell that the steel had come back into her voice. No, something thicker than steel. With Carol, her strength seemed low and quiet, like the earth beneath his feet. No wonder he felt so dizzy when it had started to slip away.

"Get some sleep," she said, punching him lightly in the arm. "I'm all right, Dr. Dixon. Promise."

"You're in my bunk, woman."

She laughed. "I knew you wouldn't want to give up that pink blanket."

More like he wanted to be where he could have his boots on the floor right away, where anything that came at them would find him first. She'd known it, and she'd been kind enough to pretend that she wanted the top bunk because she knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, if it were the other way around.

She scooted down and stood up.

But he wasn't done. He hadn't known it until she moved away, and then he was suddenly on his feet, face to face with her.

She was so close, he was surprised for a second at how much shorter she was than him. Her eyes widened and she looked up at him, like she wasn't sure exactly what he was doing.

She didn't move away.

He cupped the back of her head and bent to kiss her forehead. He'd never done it before, so he wasn't sure exactly how to do it like she'd done. So he just pressed his lips there for a second. Steady, and soft, while her short hair tickled his palm. "We need you," he said. "We need you back, Carol."

The light from the window caught her face just enough that he could see the glint of tears in her eyes. And then she smiled, and he knew.

The End

Author's Note: I have two one-shots for this episode, actually, starting in episode canon and expanding until Carol finds her hope again. The other is called "We Ain't Ashes," and it's coming out soon, so try the author follow button if you want to make sure and see that one, too. I couldn't link them in one story because in both, she turns a corner in her thinking and I wanted to show it separately, starting from two different conversations.