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Rick
“No.”
It wasn’t a soft suggestion like Glenn’s, or paired with a knowing smile from Tyreese, it was a command. The unruly beard he had grown took up most of his expression but there was no misreading the hardness of his blue eyes, narrowed and focused on her, the brown t-shirt straining against his muscles as he kept his arms cross to better fill up the doorway and block her in.
“You can’t keep me locked in here all day, Rick.”
She tried to stand straight but the pain shooting from her shoulder straight down to her knees made her hunch just a little to the right side. He cocked his head to the side, eyeing her stance with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m not trying to. But you need the rest.”
He took one step forward and Carol treaded backwards lightly, as he hoped she would. He pressed forward until she was at the bed, her knees hitting against it and causing her to wince. His arms shot out on instinct, circling around her body to aid her.
“This is ridiculous,” she said defiantly, even as he was helping her lower herself down to the soft mattress.
When they found the cabin, a small set up with one bedroom probably used for weekends away, it was clear they needed to find a way to get Carol inside. They had been on the road for three days and she was looking worse for wear with every bump and swerve. Conferring together while Carl watched her sleep crookedly in the back of the van, they decided not to leave until she had at least one night of comfortable rest.
Of course when Tyreese presented her with the plan, she glared at him, fire and ice all wrapped into her deadly expression. She gaped at Daryl when he said he agreed, until he retreated to the woods with Noah and Carl, hiding from her wrath. Maggie had coaxed her inside, told her to just rest until Daryl had gotten back otherwise they were wasting a perfectly good bed. She grumbled, but agreed, limping her way inside, stubborn as all hell and refusing any help.
She laid for fifteen minutes, eyes wide open and counting, and then she rolled off the bed. She was set on being useful, on helping them by doing anything she could get away with, but that’s when she met Rick’s presence at the door.
He understood the way she was glaring at him, knew that he’d be putting up just as hard of a fight if it was him.
“Carol,” he said gently, pulling the quilted blanket, thick and warm, around her. “You have to get better, for us. We barely know what your injuries even are. What if you’re bleeding internally? Or you’ve got broken bones we can’t—”
“I’m not gonna die,” she almost laughed, her hand stilling his at the edge of the bed. “Not from this. I’ve been through worse.”
He laughed now, hearty and full and the strain felt good in his belly. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were Superman, and getting rammed by a car wasn’t a big deal.”
“Don’t forget I fell off a bridge first,” she grinned, wincing as she did. Rick helped her slowly roll to her side, placing the pillows beneath her head.
She settled in, closing her eyes and her face fell, still embittered but calmer than she had been. “I hate this,” she grumbled, quietly enough that maybe he wasn’t supposed to hear.
He let his hand linger on her shoulder, not knowing what kind of touches would hurt her but wanting her to know he was still there. The door shut with a quiet click. She tried to sleep, and though the throbbing of her pain was deafening, it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the anxious feeling of everyone else working while she lay in a bed.
The sound of something dragging startled her, and her eyes shot open. Rick glanced at her from behind a rocking chair that had been sitting in the corner of the room, but he had brought closer to the foot of the bed.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. He sat in the chair, and she watched as he took his boots off. His toes wiggled and stretched in socks riddled with holes. Maybe darning them was something they’d let her do. His arms stretched above his head and he yawned, placing legs atop the bed, just below where her own feet were.
He smiled at her, nudged her foot with his knee. “Get some sleep,” he ordered softly, shutting his own eyes as he leaned the rocking chair back. He started to whistle, something familiar that she wanted to ask him what it was but her eyes were too heavy. She concentrated on the tune, letting it quiet all the worries and the pain, until there was nothing but the dark spaces between her eyes and a dreamless sleep.
+*
Tyreese
She awoke to a shift on the bed. She moved too fast, trying to grab at a knife or a gun that wasn’t there, and only ended up pulling her shoulder in a painful way.
“Hey. Hey,” a hand, big and warm, settled on her arm. “It’s okay.”
Her eyes focused on Tyreese, his kind eyes worried but instantly calming her. He could do that nowadays, just look at her and make her stop fretting. As if reminding her that they’d already done the worst thing they could, and whatever they were going through at the moment wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle.
The rocking chair sat empty in the corner of the room.
“How long have I been out?” she rubbed her eyes with her palms.
“Only a couple hours. Three at the most.”
Tyreese leaned away from the bed, setting a bowl of something down on the bedside table. He helped her sit up, straighten the pillows out behind her and letting them prop her up in a comfortable way.
She looked at the bowl, clear liquid with some chunks of meat bobbing in it with what looked like canned carrots, left over from Father Gabriel’s stash.
“You gonna feed me, or something?” she smirked at him, and Tyreese shook his head, a breath of laughter pushing through his nose.
“Not unless you want me to.” He brought the bowl to her, setting it onto her lap. When he was sure she was actually able to spoon the soup up to her lips without any problems, he took up his seat at the edge of her bed again.
When they got her from Grady, Tyreese had been the only one to not stare at her with an ounce of pity or somberness. Helping her from the wheelchair, he needn’t say a word for her to know what he had been thinking. Daryl had recounted all the ways she had been hurt that day but Tyreese knew the steel she was forged in.
“Knew you’d be fine,” he had whispered to her, their hands clasped together in the cold hall of the hospital wing as he let her weight lean against his.
In the present, some soup dribbled down her chin. “You sure you got that,” he asked.
“If you spoon feed me, I will stab you,” she said, leveling her blue eyes from behind the bowl. She ate the rest of the soup, bland but filling in its way. He stared out the window, watching a breeze blow through the trees outside.
“We’re gonna be alright,” he said suddenly, filling the quiet that had settled over them. She felt it too, in the way his hand squeezed her ankle gently through the heaps of blankets she was under. He took the bowl from her and settled her back into the bed, and she felt like a child being tucked in. Sated by his presence and content to be taken care of for the moment. She planned to get up in a few minutes and see what she could help with after the stew had settled in her belly, but the bed was so inviting that she fell back to sleep before she had meant to.
+*
Glenn
Her throat felt dry and sore as if she’d been screaming for hours. Something wet and cool pressed against her forehead and she tried to thrash at it but her arms were too weak. Her eyes blinked awake to Glenn standing over her, his arm stretched above her.
“Hey,” he smiled, trying not to worry her but she looked terrified. He showed her the cloth he had been holding to her skin. “We think you’ve caught a little fever. But not like The Fever. It’s actually a good sign, means your body is working so hard to heal that it overheated just a bit.”
She looked around to see who the “we” was but he was the only one in the room. The daylight was significantly duller than it had been, and she knew it must have been time for sunset. She slept most of the day away. Glenn wiped at her forehead again, whispering an apology as he did.
“You were shaking, muttering in your sleep and sweating like crazy. Scared the shit out of Eugene,” he laughed.
“You left him to guard me?” she tried to feign anger but it was lost in the weak sound of her voice.
Glenn laughed, “He’s getting better.” He turned then, walking towards the rocking chair and grabbing up a pile of something.
“You shouldn’t stay in those clothes, you’ll just get sicker. We couldn’t find much of anything around here so we got Michonne’s white shirt she was keeping around as an extra and Abraham’s pants that will probably fall down on you, but he donated them to the cause. He’s out there butt naked and scaring away all the food according to Daryl.”
He placed the pile at the edge of the bed, and started to peel back the layers that had been piled on top of her. Blankets and jackets, even Daryl’s vest had all been thrown on top of her to help the fever burn out. He took her hands, helping her sit up slowly and maneuver out of the bed. She felt weaker than she had in days, and cursed at the way her legs felt like jelly.
“You’re okay,” Glenn soothed her, pulling her just a few steps away from the bed. “Do you need help undressing?”
She couldn’t help the smirk that raised her eyebrows, and a blush crept up his neck.
“I didn’t mean like that of course. I could get one of the girls instead or I don’t know, you want Daryl to come in or something?!”
She gave his hand that was still in hers a squeeze, reassuring him. “I think I got it.”
But, lifting her arms was harder than it would seem. She had been able to strip herself of the sweater and striped blouse, but the camisole underneath was sticking to her skin and hard to raise over her head.
“I got you,” Glenn soothed her, helping her without once thinking about it being weird or not. They were far beyond that sort of discomfort. She started shivering and Glenn pulled Michonne’s shirt around her, buttoning it with a speed she didn’t possess. He helped her out of her pants, letting Carol hold onto his shoulder as she stepped out, and again when she stepped into Abraham’s too big army cargoes. Glenn looped a piece of twine around the waist, tying it to her as best he could.
She was still shivering in the flimsy materials, so he took a blanket and cocooned her within it. They shuffled towards the bed, together and he clumsily helped her into it while still wrapped in the blanket.
“I probably made this more difficult,” he laughed, half his body resting on top of the bed as he tried to roll off the bed and not onto her.
“It’s fine,” she said, teeth clattering against a smile. Successfully back on his feet, Glenn piled the other blankets on top of her, pulling them as tight as he could. He smoothed back her hair, feeling her temperature with his hand.
“You’re a little bit cooler. I’ll be back in a second, Maggie had been trying to sort through the first aid kit to see if there was anything helpful.”
“Glenn?” she said quietly, and he stalled at the doorway. “I’m glad it was you that came to help me. Thank you.”
He smiled, and nodded a promise to be back.
+*
Daryl
She didn’t know if Glenn had ever come back because the next time she opened her eyes the sky was dark, but the moon was large and round, glowing as it hovered against the inky night. The mass of blankets had lessened, and she wiggled free from the one Glenn had rolled her in.
“You okay?” the mumbled voice was so close to her that she wondered how she hadn’t noticed him lying next to her. The shaggy hair covered his face, and she instinctually moved the bangs away.
Daryl stopped her hand, pressing her palm to his mouth until goosebumps rose across every inch of her. He let go of her wrist, reaching his own hand to her forehead. “Temperature’s down,” he said.
“You don’t have to stay,” she whispered.
He mumbled something, shifting closer until there wasn’t an inch between him. His arm snuck around her waist, mindful of any injuries as he tucked the blanket in around her.
“Don’t want you to fall off the bed,” his voice was low, quiet and muffled with sleep. He brought his arm away from her, placing it between them, and linked his pinky around hers. She curled fingers around his until they were locked together, and closed her eyes as his breath shallowed. They fell into a peacefulness that they hadn’t known in weeks, as sleep caught them both in its cozy embrace.