AN: Here we go, the second and final chapter of this little short. Once again, I repeat that this isn't my prediction for the show in any way. It's simply a little thought that I had. It's only for some brief entertainment.

My apologies to the person who was, apparently, upset by not having smut. I hope you find something that satisfies you elsewhere.

I own nothing from the Walking Dead.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Daryl had seen Carol, day in and day out, for what seemed like most of his life—at least for most of the only part of his life when he'd truly felt like he'd been living. He knew what she looked like when she slept. He knew what she looked like when she first woke and how her eyes grew dimmer as the day wore on and fatigue settled in for her. Daryl knew what she looked like when she cried and how her happiness over something, no matter how simple, could light up every inch of her face.

But he felt like he'd never seen her before when he saw her smile at him, over her shoulder, as she was getting out of the bed that they'd slept in together the night before. Before she could stand, Daryl reached his hand out and brushed his fingertips across the small of her back.

"Stay," Daryl said, his own voice still graveled from sleep.

"I wish I could," Carol said. She sucked in a breath and let it out in a sigh. "You have no idea how much I wish I could. But—you said it yourself. I can't stay here."

Daryl sat up in the bed with a start.

"What?" Daryl asked.

Carol stood up from her spot on the edge of the bed and started to dress.

"I can't stay here," Carol said. "There's going to be a war and I can't be a part of that war. It isn't my fight to fight any longer. Something will happen and someone will come—someone will die. It doesn't matter how it happens. If I stay here? I'll get swept up in it. It'll draw me back in and then it'll consume me. And I can't—I can't fight this war." She looked at Daryl and frowned. "I wish you wouldn't look at me like that."

"I got no other damn way to look at'cha, Carol!" Daryl responded. He sat up, then, entirely in the bed. Hearing her say that she couldn't stay, and that she was leaving, felt like it was ripping Daryl's heart in two. It felt like she was saying that he was losing her again and, worse than that, that she was leaving him. He hadn't imagined that they'd spend the rest of their lives together—not in this tiny house when he knew well that there truly was going to be a war raging just outside—but he hadn't thought that she would leave either. He'd been suspended, for just a few hours, in the happiness that they'd created. He'd forgotten to keep his usual tight hold on the reality of the world around them. "Last night was the best damn night of my life! It was like somethin' straight out of a damn dream and now you're just telling me that you're leaving? How the hell you think I'ma look at you?!"

Carol shook her head at him.

"I can't stay here," Carol said. "I can't. You said it yourself. And I can't go back, Daryl. I can't go back to the group. I can't join the Kingdom. I can't be anywhere where there's—where there's people."

"And you can't do this shit alone, neither," Daryl said. "Nobody can. It was one of the last things I ever heard Andrea say and she weren't wrong. We weren't made to be alone, Carol. You and me? We were made to be together."

Carol nodded her head. She sucked her lips back, against her teeth, almost to the point that the disappeared.

"Yeah," she said. The word came out with a burst of air and Daryl could hear the slight choking sound that came from fighting back tears. "We were. But I can't do it anymore, Daryl. I have to be alone. Because if I'm with people? I'm going to care. I can pretend I don't, but I can't make it actually stop. And if I care? I'm always going to feel like I have to fight for them. I'm going to feel like I have to save them if I can. And the worst part of it is that I don't even believe that they'd try to save me if the shoe were on the other foot. Rick? He would never do the same for me that I would do for him. He never did."

"That may be true," Daryl said. "But this ain't about Rick. It's about you an' me, Carol." He felt like he couldn't breathe. He felt like his lungs were working—he could feel their efforts as they brought air in and let it out, but they weren't making good use of that air.

"I don't want to kill," Carol said. "Not anymore. I don't want to be the reason that people die, Daryl. And—like Morgan? I don't want to be the reason that they kill either." She shook her head at him. "I know—I know that you probably don't feel the same. And I understand. I understand if you need to stay, Daryl. I understand if you need to fight with them because you feel like this war is your war. But—I just can't stay. It's not my war. I left them, and I'm leaving again. And this time? I'm not letting any of them follow me." Now fully dressed, Carol started out of the bedroom, but she stopped in the doorway. She reached a hand out and caught the doorframe like she needed it to steady herself. She stood there with her back to Daryl for a moment before she turned and looked at him again. She offered him a tight smile, but she couldn't hide the tears that had escaped her eyes to rest on her cheeks. "I love you, Daryl. I did and I do. And—I always will. I'm so glad that you came. Thank you. Thank you for coming and—and for loving me. I understand, though, that you're not ready to leave them. And that's OK. It's OK."

Carol nodded her head at Daryl and left the room, disappearing into the rest of the house, and Daryl sat for a few moments in the bed and tried to process everything she'd said. Pushing his feelings aside as much as he could, and searching out whatever rationality that he could find within himself at the moment, he tried to put himself into Carol's shoes.

And then he made up his mind. Carol had to do what was best for herself. She hadn't done that. She hadn't ever been allowed to do that. Probably, for the first time in her life, Carol was standing up for herself in such a way as to say that she knew what she needed and she was determined to have it. Carol needed that.

But Daryl had to do what was best for himself as well.

Daryl got out of the bed and dressed as quickly as he could in the clothes he'd discarded the night before. He wandered into the living room and from there made his way into the kitchen. Carol was standing at the stove, warming a pot of water, with her back to him. He could hear her sniffing, though, and he knew that she was struggling with her own emotions over everything she'd just said to him.

Maybe she wouldn't take what he had to say to her so badly.

"You wanna go?" Daryl asked.

"I have to go," Carol said.

"You wanna just leave, then, that it?" Daryl asked.

"I have to," Carol said. "I told you. I have to go."

Daryl nodded his head to himself because Carol kept her back to him. He'd seen her in every way he thought was possible—but still she felt the need to hide from him right now. He knew, and he understood, that she felt the need to hide from him because she didn't want him to see how badly her own words had hurt her.

"Fine," Daryl said. "You wanna go? We'll go. We'll leave."

"What are you talking about, Daryl?" Carol asked.

"I'm talkin' about the same thing you are," Daryl said. "Pack up. Everything we can carry with us. We'll leave today. Disappear. Go where the hell nobody'll know where we went. Nobody'll follow us."

"You can't do that," Carol said.

"I can do it just as good as you can," Daryl said.

"They're your people, Daryl," Carol said. "Your family. You couldn't just leave them."

Daryl nodded at her again, even though she couldn't see him.

"Sometimes family leaves, Carol," Daryl said. "I ain't gonna stand here and pretend that I don't care about 'em. You know I do. I know you do too, or leaving wouldn't hurt you so bad. But—if I gotta choose? Between them and you? I can't live without you, Carol. I know that now. Don't wanna live without you. So if leavin' them's what you gotta do? It's what we gotta do."

Carol shook her head at him, her back still to him.

"I can't do that," Carol said. "I can't let you go with me."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"And you can't stop me, neither," he said.

Carol turned around. She swiped at her face with the back of her hand, trying to blot away the tears there with her skin.

"Don't you see?" Carol said. "I can't do that. We can't do that. Because eventually? Daryl—there's gonna be another Negan. And I can't see anyone hurt you. I can't stand that. So eventually? It'll be the same as it has been. Kill or die. Or make someone die or kill." Carol shook her head at Daryl. "Our love will make us die or it'll make us kill. That's why we can't be together."

Daryl swallowed. He didn't believe her. He didn't believe, for even a moment, that Carol didn't want him going with her. If she truly didn't want him to be with her, she wouldn't be struggling so much with the words that she was trying to use to tell him that he had to stay behind.

"You can tell me you don't want me to go with you," Daryl said. "But you can't stop me from followin' you. You wanna go on by yourself? You go. But I'ma be right there. Just a few steps behind. I lost you before. I ain't losin' you again."

"I love you," Carol said. "I do. I love you—so much. When you left the prison? When you found Merle? I didn't want to live without you, Daryl. When Rick banished me from the prison? I thought—I'd never see you again. So many times I thought you were gone from my life..."

"As many times as you were gone from mine," Daryl said, interrupting her.

"I don't want to live without you," Carol said. "But I don't want to kill either. I can't keep doing it. I can't keep living like that. And if I'm with you? I'm going to have to kill again because I'm never going to—Daryl, I'm never going to be able to see someone hurt you and not kill them."

Daryl nodded his head at her.

"And I'ma kill anybody that tries to hurt you," Daryl said. "Carol—there's gonna be killin' and there's gonna be dying. That's the world we live in now. And there ain't no way to stop it. Here or there, we can't hide forever."

Carol shook her head at him.

"Maybe I need to hide forever. I just want quiet," Carol said. "I want peace. I just want—as much of that as I can have before it's the end. I don't want to go to war anymore. I don't want to fight. I'm tired of fighting."

Daryl felt a catch in his stomach. It was the first time that Carol had admitted she was tired in those words. She was tired of fighting. She was tired of the life that she was living—the life that this world and their experiences had forced them into.

It was the kind of tired that Daryl could understand, too, because he'd been that tired before.

It was the kind of tired that could end a life if someone didn't have the strength to keep going and the support they needed to remind them what they were fighting for.

But maybe, also, it was the kind of tired that required a change in what exactly it was that they were fighting for.

"You and me?" Daryl said. "We don't go to war. Not this war. They don't need us. And even if they do? It's time they learned to fight their own wars. We paid our dues. We've done all we can do. You and me? We're leaving here. I can't promise you that we don't ever kill again. I can't. If I could I would—but that just ain't the world we live in no more. You and me together, nobody's gonna kill us, but I can't promise that we don't gotta kill to stop 'em from trying. But what I can promise you is that we're gonna fight to live the kinda life you wanna live. The kind of life I wanna live. With you. You like living in this house? We'll find our own. Better than this one. Where nobody knows where are. Nobody knows who we are. I can hunt. We'll plant a garden. Grow vegetables. Fruit. Whatever the hell you want. Live so damn quiet that the whole world'll leave us alone because they don't even know we're there. I can't promise we don't fight and we don't kill no more. But I can promise we'll do whatever we have to so we can live right up until we die because we got no business living anymore."

Carol shook her head at Daryl.

"You don't want to leave them," Carol said.

Daryl crossed the kitchen, closing the space between them.

"I can't stay with 'em," he responded. "Not if you don't."

"You don't want to live trapped in a house somewhere," Carol said.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"I wouldn't feel trapped with you," Daryl said. "If the damn thing hadn't exploded? We could've learned to live at the CDC. If the Governor hadn't come? We could've learned to live at the prison. I think we could learn to live in a quiet little house, Carol."

"You need your freedom," Carol said.

Daryl took a step closer. She didn't move away from him. She stood right where she was, waiting for him to reach her. He reached a hand out and she didn't shy away from it. He caught her and pulled her to him. She didn't pull away. She came willingly into his arms and wrapped her arms around him when he wrapped his around her.

"I need you," Daryl said. He sighed. Feeling her wrapped around him, once more, cemented the thought for him more than anything else might. If he'd had any doubts, he lost them all at once. He'd felt empty since she'd gotten out of the bed. Now, just standing with her arms wrapped around him again, his chest felt full enough to burst. "I only need you."

Carol sighed and rubbed her face against him like she was seeking more closeness from him than she had—but there wasn't any physical way for them to get closer. In response to her sought out affection, Daryl simply squeezed his arms tighter around her and she sighed.

"We have to go," Carol said. "There's a war coming, and it's not ours to fight."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"No," he said. "We got our own to fight. Let's pack. We oughta leave soon."

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Their pace was never the stuff of legends, but they covered ground pretty well. They slept nights in "stops" they cleared together. The worst of nights they spent in questionable holds like sheds. The best of them they spent in houses that they rejected, for one reason or another, as their stopping point. They made their path through the mountains to be long and weaving and impossible for anyone to follow and, for the most part, they made their way without seeing anyone. They avoided highways and main roads. Often they avoided roads entirely and stuck, instead, to travelling through the woods and waiting on the surprise of what might be just ahead.

Sometimes they killed, but it was only when every other option was exhausted and they couldn't avoid it at all. But Carol wasn't carrying the burden of the kills for them both. Instead, they did everything together.

And while they walked, given plenty of time to say what they needed to say and enough air and space around them to hold everything that they couldn't hold inside any longer, they confessed.

Carol confessed to Daryl about the heavy burden she was carrying. She confessed about Karen and David. She confessed about Lizzie and Mika. She confessed about guilt she had over deaths that had nothing to do with her—people who had died helping her and people she'd killed because they would have killed others if given half the chance.

And when she'd confessed, and Daryl had absolved her of her sins as much as any power granted him the right to do, he encouraged her to leave the burdens along the path they made. They were too busy carrying what they needed. They didn't need to carry things that did neither of them any good.

Daryl confessed as well. He confessed his feelings of failure. His feelings of failing her. He confessed that he felt as though he should've been the one to follow Sophia instead of Rick. He confessed that he felt responsible for her daughter's disappearance—even if it was no more his fault than T-Dog's death was Carol's—and he confessed that he'd felt he could never make up for the failure of not having found the girl. Daryl confessed those same feelings, too, when it came to the time that he spent with Beth. He told Carol that he'd felt like saving her would give him a chance to right the wrong he felt like he had in his past with Sophia—but, in the end, he'd failed Beth as well. He felt like he'd failed everyone.

And Carol convinced him to leave his own burdens behind him as well—the only traces they left of their passing through the mountains—because they were too heavy to carry when water and food were more important.

Slowly, they covered miles and they peeled off layers of past sins and past failures. They peeled off layers of past hurt and past betrayals. By the time the snow first started to fall around them, they were both more susceptible to the cold because they'd peeled off nearly everything that they'd been using to protect themselves throughout the years. They'd laid themselves bare to each other and they'd forgiven each other and accepted what was shown to them in every way possible.

Shivering and moving slower than they normally would one morning, Daryl knew it was time for them to stop. It was time for them to make a claim—at least until the spring. They'd covered enough ground together and it was time for them to rest. And he knew, the moment he saw the little house set alone in the middle of an overgrown area that had once been cleared to make a home, that they had found the place to rest.

"Carol?" Daryl called back to Carol who was ten or twelve steps behind him. She was walking with her head down, trying to guard her face from the icy wind, watching her feet as she stepped carefully over the snow that was accumulating on the ground.

"What is it?" Carol asked, closing the gap between them.

Daryl smiled at him.

"I found it," Daryl said. "Looks pretty good. Don't see any damage from here and—I think I see some firewood stacked up under that little lean to that'll get us through the first night. And we haven't even seen a Walker in miles. Nobody's gonna find us up here."

Carol looked at the little house and then she looked at Daryl and smiled.

"You mean for the night or...?" Carol asked.

"Was thinking a little more along the lines of forever," Daryl said. He shrugged his shoulders. "Or at least for the winter. It's your call."

Carol smiled and nodded her head.

"It's perfect," Carol said. "It's just—perfect."

Daryl didn't need more than that. Rather than let her walk a few steps behind him now, Daryl dropped a hand across her back and pushed her forward so that they could walk together toward the little house.

In a world where so much was so far from perfection, Daryl figured that everything was just about as perfect as it could possibly be.

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AN: The end. Thanks for reading.