Weaving cloth from a single hopeful thread, because she did look in the window of the Infirmary to check on him.

Back

"Haven't had a chance to say, I'm glad you came back." Carol to Daryl, S3:E11

Denise looked over to the porch door as Abe came in, noticing a movement at the window to his left: a flash of silver hair and blood splattered white blouse, an expression of concern on a bruised face that appeared for just a few seconds and then was gone.

"She didn't have to wait outside." Denise said as she threw another stitch in the back of the Archer's broad shoulder.

Daryl's head turned briefly to the window and then back to the front without comment, but she felt his muscles tighten under her hands.

"I need to look at her too... that's all I meant." the doctor said, keeping her voice neutral. Carol had pushed Daryl to the front of the triage line when Sasha said he'd been stabbed. No one quite had the whole story of how he, Sasha and Abe had gotten a hold of the tanker truck that had allowed them to take out the rest of the herd—but he was bleeding so he got priority.

"She hurt?" Daryl asked, his voice rusty and gravel dry with exhaustion, but that didn't mask the underlying concern.

Denise's lips twitched up into a small smile, because without even saying her name, they both knew who "she" was.

"She saved all of us..." the doctor told him.

"She does that." Daryl murmured.

"When the Wolves first attacked, before you got back? It was bad. We lost a lot of people." she thought of Holly, bleeding out on her table, of all the broken, burned and savaged bodies they'd gathered from the streets and houses and buried. "Would've been a lot more without her stepping up."

"And she got hurt then?" Daryl prompted, wanting the rest of the story. He'd been gone two days, but the Wolves had attacked while he'd been leading the rest of the herd away on the first, when everything in him fought to come back to Alexandria.

"When the tower fell yesterday and the walkers streamed in I was with her and Morgan and... Morgan had one of the Wolves locked up in the basement... he was hurt... I was..."

"He had one of them fuckers who slaughtered you all?" Daryl asked, his voice taking on an edge. "Rick know that?"

"No." Denise said with a sigh. "No one knew but Morgan and me... and then Carol."

"She kill him?" Daryl asked. Carol's mercy did not extend to assholes that hurt her family.

"Morgan thought... he thought that he could save him, change him. Carol didn't." Denise answered indirectly.

"And?"

"They fought. You know wrestling, Daryl? Know what an illegal take down looks like?" Denise's brother had been all-state Varsity. The move Morgan had used on Carol had been brutal and he'd both regretted and paid for it instantly, the Wolf using his own staff to cold cock him.

"He fucking body slammed her?" Daryl's voice rose and he whipped around to burn the doctor with his gaze. Maggie and Glenn looked over at him with concern. Judith started whimpering and Michonne scowled and stepped into the room where Rick held vigil over Carl, closing the door behind her.

"What the hell were you and Morgan doing while that asshole was hurtin' her?" Daryl growled, lowering his voice and jerking her forward.

Denise's mouth came open, her hands still holding the suture and curved needle. She didn't quite understand how Daryl had managed to grab hold of her wrist in a vise-like grip without her realizing it.

She should correct his misunderstanding, but would he then go after Morgan?

"He knocked Morgan out. I was tied up." she said. All true, just not in the correct sequence of events of what had happened in that basement. What the Wolf had done after, saving her, Denise still didn't have straight in her mind. Had he done it only because as a doctor she was valuable to him? Or had he found some last glimmer of humanity? She'd never know. Carol had done what she'd wanted; ended him... putting Denise in the right place to save Carl. You could go crazy trying to decide who and what was right...

"Shit." Daryl bit out, looking back to the window and door onto the porch.

"Can I have my hand back?" Denise asked, the tight grip of his bloody callused fingers making her start to shake.

Daryl turned his head back to her briefly and then released her and faced forward again.

"Finish up." he growled.

"One more for your collection." she quipped as she threw the last stitch.

Daryl stiffened.

She hadn't meant anything by it. Hadn't said anything about the other scars when he'd reluctantly removed his vest and shirt, which he'd clung to tightly with his left hand the whole time she was working on him. The rough raised ridges that striped his broad back, the tattoos climbing his shoulder were just part and parcel of what she already knew him to be, a warrior.

She kept her mouth shut while she finished, cleaning the wound area again with alcohol and applying the gauze and tape dressing.

"Keep the area dry as you can. The dressing should be changed once a day; watch for signs of infection. You'll need help with that." Denise advised. Where the wound was located on his shoulder would make it nearly impossible for him to change it by himself.

Daryl grunted then stood and quickly shrugged his dirty shirt and vest back on, covering up.

"Maybe she'll let you check her back in exchange." the psychologist turned trauma specialist said mildly.

Daryl's eyes met hers, narrowing dangerously.

Denise merely raised a knowing eyebrow and looked over at the porch window.

Daryl's face softened as he caught Carol looking through the window again, a brief smile crossing her pain pinched face when she saw him standing.

"We always got each other's back."he said, and headed for the door.