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He says "Stop" when she teases him because what he wants to say is, "I will do anything to make you happy and be glad I've done it."
When he holds up his hand to help her down from the flipped truck where he was keeping watch, he expects her to ignore it and step down by herself. She'd gotten up there, after all--with a plate to boot--so she'll have no problem stepping down.
But she takes his hand and lets him help her down, and behind that flipped truck, just the two of them where no one can really see, Daryl steps forward, and Carol lifts her head, and they kiss.
They've never kissed before, but it's like the answer to every question Daryl's had since the world went to shit.
What will I do now?
How will I keep going?
Will anyone ever take care of me?
And the answer, in that kiss, is Carol. He will be her companion now. He will keep going because she keeps going. And Carol will take care of him, as she has tonight by bringing him food, as she has in other nights by laying at his back, by helping him clean his weapons, by learning how to work with weapons so she can take care of herself.
Daryl remembers her in the camp outside Atlanta, a flintiness to her eyes, but pure fear in her movements. He'd seen Ed and known without asking. When you've lived with a certain type of asshole, you could spot them at 30 yards. He'd kept his distance, made a point not to talk to Carol because he was certain any sort of male interference would make her less safe. When Shane punched Ed's lights out, Daryl wanted to punch Shane's lights out because another man defending Ed's woman could only lead to Ed being more violent, more awful. Not that anyone asked Daryl. Back then, they'd deferred to Shane, and Shane had seen Daryl hunt and capture and swear and distance himself and decided that was all there was to be seen.
Shane had been a fucking idiot, to Daryl's view of the world. Not that he'd ever said it aloud. He and Merle had--in all honesty--approached the group to rob them of supplies and keep going, but Daryl had realized the people in that group were good people and convinced Merle it was worth hanging around.
"I don't need your fucking advice, baby brother," Merle had said when Daryl broached the subject.
"Course not," Daryl had agreed. "I'm just saying what you're already thinking. The bigger the group, the better chance we got to run if we get attacked. Plenty of people to throw in front of us."
He hadn't meant it then, but he'd said it with enough conviction for Merle to believe him. Merle never had figured out that Daryl had figured him out years before, knew how to play to his vanities to get the best opportunity to use Merle to take care of himself.
Merle always thought he'd taken care of Daryl, but Daryl knew he'd always taken care of himself. And sometimes he wiped his ass with poison ivy, but goddamn if he hadn't learned from the experience and gone to the library and read book after book about how to identify wild plants so his ass never itched like that again.
"We gotta clear the library," Daryl says a few days after they give the prisoners their own cellblock.
"That ain't real high on my priorities," Rick replies, though he says it in the mild way that tells Daryl he can push the subject.
"Should be," Daryl says. "If we're gonna make this permanent, we should have a few fucking books."
"What do you know about books?" Rick asks. Not in a mean way. Daryl knows Rick understands him, knows there's more to Daryl than being a good shot and a good tracker. It's teasing, the kind Daryl thinks Rick used to do with Shane. It's a type of familiarity Rick can't quite shake, and Daryl can understand him not wanting to.
"Know enough that we'll need some escapism," Daryl says. "We gotta clear the whole prison at some point. Some decent fiction about magical realism won't hurt."
"Magical realism?" Rick asks with that grin that tells Daryl Rick thinks he's something else.
"Yeah," Daryl says. "Stories built on an idea of the world as we know it with a few tweaks that keep it from being the world we know. Nothing actually magical, just sort of fun-weird."
"And The Count of Monte Cristo," Rick says, his grin shifting to one that Daryl knows means he's being taken seriously. "Prisons' always got that one."
"Always liked Different Seasons myself," Daryl says. "You got a prison breakout and some other good shit at the same time."
"Can't promise we'll do it this week," Rick says, "but we'll clear the library within the month."
*
That night, Daryl goes to Carol's cell, and he finds her laid out on the bed, looking blissful and relaxed. "Hey," he says quietly, and when she doesn't jump, he feels good about a lot of things.
"Hey," she answers as she pushes herself up to her elbows.
Daryl sits on the edge of her bed, and he reaches out when Carol doesn't move away, curls a hand around her waist, and he says, "What's your favorite book?"
"I dunno," Carol answers without pause. "Never really had one."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I just liked them in general, I guess."
When Daryl scoots a little closer on the mattress, Carol reaches up and curls an arm around his neck. "Okay?" she asks.
"Yeah," Daryl says.
She curls her fingers into his hair, shifts so she's on her knees and a little taller than him, though her head's lowered because of the bunk above her. "Yeah?"
Do whatever you want to me, Daryl thinks. "Yeah," he says.
She kisses him, tilting his head back just a little so she can reach it properly. He reaches for her without thinking, his hands clumsy and grasping at her shirt, and she follows when he tugs, straddles his lap so they can keep kissing and be closer.
"I--" he says and doesn't know how to finish the sentence.
Carol kisses him again, on his neck, one hand stroking from his cheek to her shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asks, and that makes Daryl laugh, makes him tumble her down from his lap and onto the mattress, makes him run a hand up her thigh and watch the way her face brightens at his touch.
"I'm good," he says. "You good?"
"Just fine," she says.
"I--" Daryl shakes his head and wonders how to explain. "I like touching," he says. "And kissing. But I--I don't really--" He knows the word. Read it in a book at the library a few years back. Asexual, he thinks. But he's never said it out loud, never to another person.
"I like kissing and touching, too," Carol says. She touches Daryl's ear and his jaw and his neck. "I like you," she adds. "However I can get you."
Daryl slides his hand up the curve of her hip. He can feel, even though her jeans, how thin she is. They all are, really, getting by on what they could find and all sneaking at least some of their food over to Lori when they could. He needs to go hunting, see what he can find to feed her, feed the rest of them, too. "Yeah?" he asks.
"Yeah," she says. She tugs at Daryl's shirt, and he leans down to kiss her, then lays beside her, pressing his forehead against her shoulder. "Always knew you were a little cuddle monkey," she says.
"Stop," Daryl says because he wants to say, Run away with me. He slides his hand up to the edge of her shirt and pinches the hem. "Okay?" he asks.
"Absolutely," Carol says, and Daryl kisses his shoulder as he slides his fingertips onto her stomach. "Oh!" Carol yelps, and she grips his wrist before he can pull away. "Your hand is cold," she says. "That's all."
He laughs against her shoulder and sits up, planning to pull her up and hold her close until his hands warm up. There's footsteps behind them, halfway down the hall Daryl guesses, and he sees Carol realize it at the same instant. He tries to sit up quickly, but his hand slips on the mattress, and he's half-bent over Carol when Maggie walks in, knife in one hand.
"I heard someone yell," she says in greeting.
"Not me," Carol says, calm as you please. "Probably him," she says, nudging Daryl with her knee. He nudges back. "Loud in bed, this one."
"Stop," Daryl says, and he turns away from Maggie so she can't see him blush.
"All right," Maggie says, and she walks away.
"Oh," Carol says when it's just the two of them again. "That one actually embarrassed you."
"Little close for comfort," Daryl says.
Carol grips at his hip and then puts her hands behind his head. "I'm sorry," she says.
Don't ever say those words to me, Daryl wants to say. You never have to say those words to me, but he's trying to accept the way Carol responds to people. He's trying, even after all these months, to understand that she's damn near as pragmatic as him, but she's also just bone-deep kind. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, even something so little as some minor embarrassment. "It's all right," he says instead. "But don't do it again."
"Oh, sure, take all my fun," she says, and then she knocks his arm sideways so he loses his balance, and she can roll him so they're cuddled up, front to back. She's behind him, arm around his waist, and her mouth pressed against his neck. "Okay?" she asks.
I love you, he thinks. I have never loved anyone like I love you. "Yeah," he says. "Okay."