AN: So this is just a little one shot/fic thing that was in response to a Tumblr request.

I own nothing from the Walking Dead.

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

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Rick's hand hovered somewhat over Carol's bowl. His eyes said everything that his mouth didn't say. She'd taken a larger helping than usual—a larger helping, perhaps, than would be allowed to anyone when they were down to eating a few squirrels stewed up with some beans.

The helping she took barely qualified as a meal, but it was still too much when there were children to be fed.

She didn't complain, though. She simply sat back and held her hands out as if to say that he was free to take the bowl. He did take it, and he scraped some of the contents into the plastic bowl that would then make its way down the line to those who really needed it. He deposited the paltry amount of food that was left in front of Carol.

"Thank you," he said. "Sorry," he offered as an afterthought.

"Don't worry about it," Carol said.

"It's just..." Rick said.

"I know," Carol said. "It's fine, Rick. Lori needs it. Really—don't worry about it."

"If it were..."

"It's fine," Carol repeated once more. This time she said it sharply enough that Rick took that as permission to move on with his job of practically circling their camp looking to see if anyone looked like they had more than their share.

They'd been run off the farm—a place where they'd found some safety—by a Walker herd. Just before they'd been run off, they'd lost Carol's daughter—or rather they'd discovered that she'd been lost to them for a while. The night they lost the farm, they'd also lost two of the group members that had been with them since they'd left the rock quarry outside of Atlanta. Shane and Andrea had both simply been gone in one chaotic night.

Now they were on the road and they were hoping to stumble upon somewhere that might offer them long term safety. Their group had proven good at losing people, but it seemed that they might actually gain one person before too much time had passed.

Rick's wife, Lori, was expecting a baby.

Daryl wasn't a fan of Lori, per se, but he liked children. He liked babies in particular. They were innocent. They meant no harm to anyone. They were too new to the world to be fucked up by their parents or any other shit that society might sling at them. Babies meant hope, and all of them could use a little hope right now, even if it was Lori that was the mother of the hope they all shared.

Daryl worried, too, about the little thing. Babies needed things to grow. They needed proper nutrition, rest, and care. Before they were born, the only way they had to get that was to take it from their mothers. Daryl's understanding of babies and their needs—which was truly limited at best—was the only reason that he tolerated all of Lori's bitching and moaning.

They didn't have anywhere comfortable to sleep—so she got the best beds and blankets they could find. It would start to get cold soon because it was already chilly at night, so while they all made do with the least of the sweaters and jackets they could find, she got everything they had to offer to keep her warm and dry so she wouldn't get sick. She was always thirsty because the baby needed water, which meant that they rationed and did without to make sure she got plenty. The baby needed food so she ate even if the rest of them couldn't. She had to be protected, and she could hardly protect herself in her condition, so they circled around her at all times to protect her.

And what she didn't need or take, her son—young and somewhat annoying to Daryl but a kid nonetheless—took for his survival.

They were going to have to find something soon, though, for the survival of all of them. They could keep travelling for a while—sleeping in a store one night, an abandoned house the night after, and a barn the night after—but eventually they were going to need to settle down. They were going to need to find a steady supply of food and water, and they were going to need somewhere to stay warm and sheltered for the winter.

If they didn't, they wouldn't survive. And then Lori and her children, by default, wouldn't survive either despite the whole group's sacrifices and good intentions.

Daryl watched Carol eating from the plastic bowl that held what remained of her meal. She ate delicately and slowly. She savored every single bit.

She'd lost her husband at the rock quarry in Atlanta—an abusive asshole that was no great loss to her or the group. She'd changed a lot since he'd been gone, but it was probably because she could breathe a little. Daryl understood, in his own way, what it felt to have some of the weight lifted off your shoulders of an overbearing asshole or two. Carol had also lost her daughter, though, and that hadn't been an easy or fortuitous lost. Still, she was handling it pretty well, all things considered.

She didn't complain—not that anybody would have listened to her anyway—and she only cried at night when she was mostly alone. As time went on, too, she spent less and less time crying.

Daryl knew because he tried to stay close to her.

He told himself that he stayed close to her because he understood her. He understood what it was like to live under the thumb of an abusive asshole, and most people in their group didn't. He stayed close to her because he worried about her having lost her daughter. He'd searched tirelessly for her kid before the missing child's status got officially changed to deceased. He told himself that he stayed close to her because there was nobody in the group that was looking out for her, just like there was nobody in the group that was looking out for him. But she looked out for him. She helped him. Cared about him. Did little things that let him know it. So he looked out for her.

And maybe, even though he hadn't fully admitted it to himself, he stayed close to her because he wished that he had the guts to care for her more—to admit to her that he thought she was beautiful, he respected who she was and who she wanted to become, and that he wanted to know her better. He wanted to know her much, much better.

It would have sounded ridiculous to her to say it, so he wouldn't, but he thought that she was the kind of woman that he could love if she could ever see fit to love him—and something in his gut made him think that she might.

But for now, until he could bring himself to say anything, he would simply give her what he could from something of a distance.

Daryl reached over and bumped the top of Carol's arm with his own bowl. She looked at him and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm done," he said. "Here."

Carol laughed to herself.

"You are not," she said. "Eat your food."

"For real," he insisted. "I'm full."

"Nobody's been full in—two months," Carol said.

"It don't sit right," Daryl said. "Here."

"Well which is it, Daryl? Are you full or doesn't it sit right?" Carol teased.

"Eat it," Daryl said, pushing it at her again.

"Eat your own food, Daryl," Carol said. "It's not going to do anybody any good if you get sick." She lowered her voice. "If it weren't for you—we wouldn't have had those squirrels and we would've been eating dirty water for the last two meals. Eat your food. I've had plenty."

Daryl didn't want to eat his food. He didn't want to accept that as the final word on the matter. However, he could tell that she wasn't going to hear anything else about it. It was easy to tell the moment that Carol had heard all she would.

So he finished his meal and decided to simply do his best to make sure that whatever he got for them when he went hunting tomorrow had a little more meat to offer around.

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"Now that's what I'm talking about," T-Dog announced as soon as they bunched into the living room of the farmhouse.

It felt like they'd been wandering for weeks since the last time that they'd found an actual house that they could call "home" for a night. Most of the houses that they encountered were impossible to protect against Walkers. This one had fences that, though they wouldn't hold against a sizeable herd, would withstand a few passing Walkers wandering in the night. Many of the houses they'd come across had simply burned down. For whatever reason, it seemed that a good bit of the area had caught fire. Maybe generators had shorted out or something of the sort. As a result, they'd lost a lot of potential shelter.

This house had been easy to clear, though, because it had only offered them a couple of Walkers that had probably once called it home. It had fences, and it was intact. It would be perfect for a night or two.

Rick walked through the house before returning to where they were all bunched together.

"It's clear," he said. "We can bring the stuff in. There are three bedrooms. Lori, Carl, and I will take one. The rest of you can figure out how you want to divide the rest. Each room can sleep two in the bed—three if you get really crowded in."

"Hershel and Beth," Daryl said. "Why don't y'all take that other room?"

"We'll all three take it," Hershel said, gesturing toward his oldest daughter, Maggie, as well. "There'll be enough room and we could all use a good night's sleep."

The rest of them looked between themselves.

"Carol," Glenn offered. "Ladies first."

Carol shook her head.

"I'm just as comfortable on the couch or—even the floor," Carol said. "You look like you could use some sleep. Take the bed."

"You sure?" Daryl asked, interjecting for Glenn.

"Sometimes—a harder surface is better for my back," Carol said.

Daryl accepted the explanation. Slowly, and in the few moments of private time that he'd stolen with her when they kept watch or happened to share a hayloft, he'd learned that her body had clearly suffered a great deal of injury at the hands of her now-dead husband. She would pay for the dead man's anger and mistreatment for the rest of her life. If a harder surface made her back feel better, he wasn't going to make her argue her case.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "We'll make pallets. They'll be as good as any bed."

"At least it won't be cold," Carol offered. "With walls to keep the wind off."

"We're sharing the bed," T-Dog said to Glenn.

"That's a little weird," Glenn offered.

"Then I'll make you pancakes in the morning and it won't be as weird," T-Dog said with a laugh. "But that mattress is half mine tonight."

Carol laughed and Daryl laughed to himself. Glenn wouldn't win, but at least he'd get half the bed.

"Let's bring the stuff in," Daryl offered. "Then we can get some rest. I'll keep first watch tonight."

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Daryl sat with his back against the open front door and looked out into the darkness. They dared only to have a small camping lamp burning on the floor because they didn't want the light to draw Walkers to the fences and test the strength of the rickety things.

Daryl couldn't see much, but at least he could alert the others if Walkers were actually able to make it through the fences. They would have enough time to have weapons in hand.

Keeping watch, though, was a fairly non-strenuous job. He smoked a cigarette, flicking the ashes into a peanut can that he'd found—he'd emptied the last handful of contents by sharing them with Carol—and waited until it was either time to trade off with someone else or it was time to go because Walkers had infiltrated their temporary safe zone.

"You oughta get some sleep," Daryl said.

"I could take watch," Carol offered.

Everyone else had gone to bed and Carol was somewhat awkwardly sitting in a chair nearby like she didn't know how to proceed now that the two of them were sharing the small living room.

"I got it," Daryl said. "I'll wake you up if I need you. Get some sleep."

Carol sighed.

"I can't sleep in all this," she said. "It's warm in here."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"So strip down," he said. "I don't care."

That wasn't entirely true. The thought of her stripping out of anything made his stomach flutter and other parts of his anatomy twitch at the thought.

But he didn't want to tell her that.

He shrugged and put his cigarette back to his mouth, peering out at the darkness beyond the wooden porch.

"Ain't like we ain't shared a space before," Daryl said.

"Well it was different then," Carol said. Daryl noted a bit of bite to her tone. He wasn't sure why it was different, but he got the feeling that she didn't want to discuss it with him.

"Suit yourself," he said. "But I ain't lookin' if you scared I'ma—see your underwear or whatever."

It was nearly impossible to act like he didn't care. It made his mouth dry to think of her in her underwear. He'd stolen a few glances at her along the way—once or twice while she was changing or bathing in a creek nearby while he kept an eye out for Walkers—but that had been secret and she'd probably be pissed to know he'd peeked. It had been a while, though, since she'd even chanced it. She'd been keeping to herself lately, and with the weather cooling off, they had done more bucket and rag baths than open-air bathing.

Carol seemed to trust that he wasn't looking.

"I'll take the pallet," she said.

"You'll take the couch," Daryl said. "I checked it. Ain't too soft, but it's better'n the hard floor. I won't argue. You lay down on that pallet an' I'll just move you the next time I get up."

Carol laughed to herself. She walked something of a circle like she was still uncomfortable with the whole arrangement, and then she started to peel out of some of the extra layers. It wasn't easy to come by good winter clothes—most people had been carrying summer clothes when they'd made a run for what they'd thought was temporary shelter against some kind of strange virus outbreak—and the good winter stuff they found got doled out to everyone else first. As a result, Carol simply layered up a great deal of other clothes to create something relatively warm and flexible. Her bundled attire suggested, and it was much the truth, that she'd been homeless for quite some time.

Slowly she worked her way through the layers that she was wearing, tossing them onto the abandoned chair as she went. Daryl meant to keep his promise to look out the door and give her complete privacy, but his eyes wandered as they were sometimes wont to do when she was around.

When she had stripped down to the thin long-sleeved shirt and thin stretch pants that she wore under everything, she peeled back the blanket on the couch that Daryl had made up as a bed.

It was then, watching her move around with her body silhouetted by the light, that Daryl noticed what he was surprised he hadn't noticed before.

He coughed to cover the sound of surprise that he made as Carol sat down on the couch, not yet settling in to lie down.

"Uh—Carol?" Daryl said. He lit another cigarette for himself to occupy his hands. He always thought better with his hands occupied.

"Hmmm?" She hummed at him.

"Not to—invade your privacy or nothin'," Daryl said. "Because I weren't really lookin' but I just kinda looked—like you look when you see somethin' out the corner of your eye..."

Carol sighed.

"What is it?" She asked.

"I don't know no delicate way of sayin' this," Daryl said.

"So just say it," Carol said.

"You—puttin' on weight?" Daryl asked.

Carol laughed from the couch.

"You shouldn't ask a woman about her weight," Carol said. "We're sensitive about it."

"I swear I wouldn't," Daryl said. "But that handful of peanuts you eat tonight was about the most I seen you eat at once since—since the farm. And that's only 'cause Rick didn't know we found 'em or he'da took three fourths of 'em like taxes."

"Lori's underweight," Carol said. "She needs the calories."

She started to settle into the bed that Daryl had made on the couch. The pillow's location left her facing him. She tucked an arm under the side of her face and hugged the pillow to her face—he'd given her the nicest one that the two of them had been given. She lie on her side.

It wasn't as noticeable now that she was lying down under a blanket, but Daryl's gut told him he hadn't been wrong.

"You didn't say you was needin' the calories too," Daryl said.

"I don't," Carol said. "You just said—I'm gaining weight."

Daryl hummed at her.

"Couldn't help but notice—it's all concentrated to one particular area."

"It's that way for some women," Carol said. She yawned.

"I don't appreciate you treatin' me like I'm stupid," Daryl said. "I'm not."

"I don't think you're stupid."

"Concentrated to one area—'cause that's where the hell it's set to grow. Would be pretty hard for it grow all over."

"Can we stop talking about my weight, please?" Carol asked. "I thought—I was supposed to be going to sleep."

"I'ma let'cha go to sleep. Ain't wakin' you up for watch no more, neither. Just—want you to answer me one question."

Carol sighed.

"Go ahead," she ceded.

"How long you had that? How long you been hiding it?"

"That's two questions," Carol pointed out.

"Same damn difference," Daryl growled. "I'm serious. I want to know."

"Since Atlanta, I guess," Carol said.

"When the hell'd you know about it?" Daryl asked. "'Cause you ain't just figured it out today."

Carol hummed in thought.

"Since—the farm? Just after."

"And you ain't said nothin'?" Daryl asked.

"What was there to say?" Carol asked.

Daryl growled to himself.

"What about—I'm fuckin' pregnant? You coulda started with that."

"Why would it matter?"

"Baby needs things," Daryl said. "You need things. Make sure it gets here OK."

"It's either going to get here or it's not," Carol said. "I've seen enough to know that—no amount of planning or...or praying...is going to make things happen like you want them to happen. They're just—going to happen and you have to deal with that."

Daryl's stomach twisted. She'd lost her daughter. She'd lost her daughter and, for the most part, they'd simply asked her to deal with that. They hadn't even known that she'd been dealing with that while also dealing with the fact that she was expecting a baby.

And the baby couldn't help its father had been an asshole any more than Carol could help that the husband she'd trusted to love her had turned out to be someone much more interested in dominating and hurting her. It was still a baby, and it still meant that there was some hope for the future.

Daryl was sorry that he hadn't paid enough attention to notice it before. But Carol had never said anything. Unlike Lori, she didn't complain about the food they were served and how it unsettled her stomach before turning around and complaining that there wasn't enough. She didn't complain about the quality of the drinking water. She didn't complain about the weather or the threats that were at their throats and at their backs constantly. She didn't complain about carrying the weight of supplies when they moved it around.

She was simply going on like the rest of them, never letting them know what she was hiding. And Daryl was sorry that he hadn't paid her enough attention to see it for himself before tonight.

"You want it or you don't?" Daryl asked. "Just—answer me that."

"Of course I want it," Carol said. "But—what I want doesn't matter very much."

"Does now," Daryl said. "At least—far as I got somethin' to say about it."

"Don't worry about it, Daryl," Carol said.

"An' you don't tell me what the hell I worry about an' what I don't," Daryl responded with just enough bite to stop her from coming back at him again with that same line of thought. "I just wish you woulda said somethin'. So things coulda been different."

"Things wouldn't have been different," Carol said. "And it doesn't matter. Rick's in charge, remember? And everyone takes care of Lori."

Daryl leaned his head back against the door.

"Not now they don't," he said.

"What?" Carol asked.

"I said not now they don't," Daryl said. "Everyone else can take care of Lori, but that's enough. At least me—I'ma take care of you."

His stomach twisted at the fact that his mouth had dared to say the words that his brain had thought—in one capacity or another—for some time.

"Daryl," Carol said softly, but he didn't let her finish. She didn't sound angry or offended, she simply sounded like she was about to tell him how she wasn't as important as Lori—and he didn't want to hear that. To him, she was every bit as important as Lori. To him, she was more important.

And one day he'd find the guts to tell her that.

For now, though, he had said what he could.

"Don't argue with me," Daryl said. "It won't do no good. I've said what I'ma say. Things are changin' around here—even if it's just me that's changin' 'em."

Carol was quiet for a long moment. Daryl almost thought she'd fallen asleep. He was surprised to hear her speak.

"Thank you," she said softly. "For everything."

Daryl swallowed.

"Go to sleep," he said. "You need the rest. Both of you do. Don't worry about nothin'. I'll keep watch."