They'd been out on the road for five days, and it had been a rough five days. At night, they'd had to look for shelter, during the day they'd foraged for food. When the farm had been overrun they'd been forced to flee with next to nothing as most of their supplies had been stored in the RV which had been lost when the barn had caught fire and had set Dales beloved Winnebago on fire in turn.

Not only had they lacked food and shelter, they'd also been missing the most basic comforts, which was especially regrettable since they'd enjoyed them so much at Hershel's farm - running water, cold and warm, a stove to cook on, a shower and bathtub, a toilet … The list went on.

It was harder on the Greenes than on the remaining members of the original Atlanta group. They, after all, had already endured such conditions at the quarry outside the city where Rick had found them. While they were by no means used to them, they at least weren't completely new, either. The Greenes, however, were having a hard time adapting as the conditions on the road proved to be quite hard on them after the comfort of their own home.

They were taking a break in the early afternoon of their fifth day out because Daryl had spotted a small stream winding along the valley they were driving through. They'd built a fire, filled all their pots and were boiling water now to take along in their five gallon containers that they'd scavenged from a delivery truck the day Sophia had run into the woods. Apart from that, they were basically taking a break and enjoying the sun.

Carol, however, had decided to make even better use of this unexpected free time. She had grabbed a towel, a bar of soap and her second set of clean clothes and was making her way along the stream to find a secluded spot away from the others. Her eyes were on the ground, looking out for snakes in the underbrush. She had no wish to pay for her wish to be clean and rid herself of her body odor by getting bitten by a rattlesnake.

When the underbush to her right, toward the stream, got thinner she slowed down to find a suitable spot along the water's edge - when, all of a sudden, she heard strange, rustling noises ahead of her and toward the stream. Trying to remember everything that Daryl had told her about being stealthy during the past few days, she crept toward the sounds, doing her best to move as quietly as he did out in the open, with no creaking floorboards to give him away.

Pushing aside the leafy boughs of a bush that was taller than herself, she stared at the scene unfolding in front of her.

Daryl Dixon was standing at the water's edge, his feet tangled in his shoelaces, the strap of his quiver and his poncho, desperately holding his crossbow aloft to keep it from getting coated in mud while he tried in vain to free himself of his restraints. Apparently, he'd had the same bright idea as herself, but was failing miserably at executing it.

She couldn't help herself, there was no way to contain it. For the first time in what felt like years, she laughed out loud.

Daryl's head shot up, blushing a deep crimson that started at his neck and made its way up to the tips of his ears. He couldn't believe she had crept up on him without him noticing, and had witnessed this graceless scene to boot. But … Her laugh was adorable.

With a pang of regret he realized that he hadn't heard her laugh until just now. He guessed that at first she'd had no reason to laugh because her husband had still been around who, from what he'd seen, had done his best to drain her life of every little bit of pleasure, and once he'd been gone, they'd lost Sophia.

So what if she was laughing about him? She looked so beautiful, and her laughter sounded so happy and carefree that he would have danced about tied up like this for the rest of his life just to make her laugh.