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The Embrace	By : bonnyblonde Category: S through Z > The Walking Dead Views: 4557 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead nor do I make any money from the publications of this story

Chapter List
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A foray into a new world! This is not my first fic but it *is* the first Walking Dead one I've attempted. I felt a pressing need to fill in the blanks between the moments when Daryl finds Carol in the basement cell and when he leaves for Woodbury with the rest of the group.
Thanks to RF for her continued beta services (she really is amazing!). Hope you like this first chapter!
*****
Chapter 1
Daryl stalked the perimeter of Carol’s small cell, instinctively testing the edge of her recovered knife against the pad of his thumb as each passing second made him more restless. How much longer was Axel gonna be in getting a frickin’ cup of water, for chrissakes?
Carol was gonna be fine – she had to be fine. Least ways she wasn’t bit, not that he could tell just lookin'. The bloodstains that had soaked into her clothes more than likely came from the walkers she’d put down; she didn’t have any teeth marks or scratches from what he could see. And sure she’d passed out cold as he rushed her back to their cell block, feeling as thin and brittle as twigs in his arms, but hell – she’d been without food or water for three days, fightin’ for her life with no one to help her. It was a miracle she’d survived at all when the dead had been let loose in the prison yard.
He stopped suddenly and stared down at her, an unassuming slip of a woman sprawled unconscious on the bottom bunk. Her short greying hair was matted with grime, her forehead splattered with gore, her skin stretched and papery, her lips cracked and chapped. She had been a day away, maybe less, from dying alone in the dark - that knowledge chilled him to his bones.
Why hadn’t she screamed for him when all that shit went down in the compound? Chaos or not, he’d have heard...he’d have come for her! Hadn’t he always? It was stupid as all hell, hiding out in an isolation cell like she did – it was a fluke and nothin’ more that he’d found her at all. Along with Carl and Oscar, he’d passed right by her twice without thinking to check what was really trying to push the cell door open. If he hadn’t recognized the knife in the walker’s swollen neck as the one he’d given her, he’d have walked away never knowing how she’d met her end.
Daryl started pacing again, unable to keep still. He’d thought she was gone, consumed by walkers with nothing left behind to resurrect. In the days that followed, he had turned his grief inward and nursed his wounded heart in private while life had simply – unfairly – gone on around him. He sure as hell wasn’t about to let the others know how hollowed out and empty he felt, having her suddenly vanish like that. Like his mother...like Merle. People you loved shouldn’t just...
Nope, stop right there. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and shook his head as though trying to dislodge the thought.   It wasn’t love – he could almost hear Merle sneer at the suggestion that he was even capable of such a feeling. Sure, Daryl cared about her, and why wouldn’t he? She’d never looked at him like he was less of a man for being brought up so poor, never had she thought herself better than him. Made him feel like he belonged, that he deserved to be part of their group, had refused to let him pull away even when she was caught up in mourning Sophia’s death. Had a heart as big as all outdoors, Carol did.
And strong! She was the strongest person he knew. It would have been so easy for her to give up after they’d found out Sophia had become a walker, to stop fighting and welcome death, but she hadn’t. Instead, she filled her life with the rest of the group, kept herself occupied trying to make things as normal as she could for everyone else, even while losing her daughter had to be eatin’ her up inside. She’d told him she felt like a burden to the group but instead of just whinin’ about it and feeling sorry for herself, she’d set out to change all that. She’d learned to shoot and put down a walker with whatever weapon she had at hand. Better yet, Herschel had given her training in medical basics, imparting skills they were all in need of at one time or another…including Herschel himself when the man lost his leg.
Even before all that, though, Daryl had never thought of her as a burden. Rick mighta been the leader but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Carol was the real backbone of their makeshift family. Because of that fact, it seemed to him that the other members of their group had accepted her death a little too easily, compared to their reactions to losing Lori and T-Dog.
And him…well, he’d left her for dead, hadn’t he? Mooned over an empty grave, laid a Cherokee rose on a little rock shrine and said a silent prayer that she and Sophia would find one another on the other side. Christ, what morose bullshit that was! Never did he think for a minute she’d be wily enough to survive on her own. Daryl’s face went hot with shame at the thought. He shoulda had more faith in her, shoulda gone lookin’ for her in the same frantic way that Rick had tried to find Lori, shouldn’t have rested until he knew what had happened, good or bad.
“I got it!” called Axel as he scrambled around the corner, a tin can brimming with water in one hand and a fistful of what looked to be matted-up papers in the other. He held both hands out nervously towards Daryl, seemingly half afraid - well, probably ALL afraid, mouse of a man that he was – that Daryl might snap his little convict neck for the delay.
“Took ya long enough!” Daryl snatched the makeshift cup from Axel’s hand, spilling a bit of water in the process, and glowered at him before turning to crouch at Carol’s side. He gently slipped a hand beneath her slender neck and carefully tried to tilt her head up enough that he could pour the water into her mouth.
“Whoa, boy! Now hold up there!” Axel quickly grabbed Daryl’s hand before he could give Carol a drink. Daryl went still and stared at the other man, more shocked than angry that Axel would have the balls to talk to him like that, never mind actually lay a hand on him.
“What did you just say to me?” Daryl snarled, narrowing his eyes in warning.
“Ya can’t just go and give her water like that! She’s dehydrated and out like a light. If ya don’t end up pourin’ it down her lungs an’ chokin’ her, she’ll just be pukin’ up the water if you give it to her plain!” Axel stepped forward and held his other hand out again, his ginger brows coming together in grave concern.. “Ya gotta mix a bit of salt and sugar in there; she won’t be able to keep it down otherwise. And ya should just start off slow…wet her lips a bit, get just a few drops in her mouth fer now.”
“How the hell do you know all that?” Daryl eased Carol’s head back onto the mattress. So that’s what Axel had in his other hand – salt and sugar packets from the food cupboard.
Axel frowned and shifted uncomfortably. “Told y’all right off I had a habit I had to feed –I ended up in here for stealin’ so’s I could keep myself in E – y’know, Ecstasy. Stuff dries ya out like a raisin in the sun. I know firsthand what can happen if ya don’t treat it proper like.”
Daryl didn’t comment further but instead held up the can so Axel could shake a couple of tiny portions of salt and sugar into the water. On the outside, in the past, Axel would’ve been just one more sad little man looking to feel good for a few hours even if it took poisoning himself to death to do it. Merle had a hundred guys like this on the ropes, ready customers for whatever crap he was peddling at the time. None of that mattered anymore, though. Who Axel was then…who they all had been, back in the day…well, those folks were all good as gone. What counted now was that he was helping Daryl to get Carol back on her feet.
“Thanks,” Daryl said grudgingly, swishing the liquid in circles until he figured it was mostly dissolved. Dipping his fingers into the lukewarm water, he slid a bit closer to Carol and dabbed at her cracked lips as gently as he could, wincing in sympathy as the solution soaked into the bloody lacerations. She didn’t react but he kept at it, watching as water trickled slowly into her parched mouth. It was hard to tell if anything was going down but at least she wasn’t gagging on it, so he knew he wasn’t filling up her lungs.
“That’s real good. Exactly, just a bit at a time,” Axel encouraged, peering over Daryl’s shoulder as though assessing his work. “Ya should prob’ly talk to her some, let her know she’s safe now. She can hear ya, even if it don’t seem like it. And if she wakes up, just let ‘er have little bitty sips. She’ll wanna gulp it, been a real long time since she…”
“What do you mean, if she wakes up?” Daryl’s fear spiked and his anger surged at the very idea. Axel cringed at his reaction, retreating a few steps towards the cell door as if to ensure an escape route should Daryl truly lose his temper.
“Don’t be like that. I didn’t mean anything by it, now. Actually meant to say, ‘when‘, so I did,” Axel rapidly assured him in an overly calm, deliberate way, as though trying to talk down a vicious dog. He held his hands up in surrender and Daryl almost felt bad for the way they shook. Almost. “I see ya got things well in hand here, so mebbe I’d best go see what Oscar’s up to. I’ll bring ya some more water in a bit. Holler if ya need us, we won’t be far.”
Daryl didn’t waste time watching Axel scurry away; he immediately turned his attention back to Carol. “Hey,” he murmured softly, “about time you got up, don’t ya think? Place is fallin’ to pieces without you. You had enough vacation down there in solitary. We need you here now.”
He gave her a few more precious drops and then, unable to stand the sight of the crusted blood on her face any longer, he tipped a few spoonfuls of water onto the corner of her blanket. Ridding himself of the can for the moment, he worked on cleaning the worst of the rusty smears and spatters from her face. The sheer amount of gore that covered her, head to toe, was proof positive that she had put up an incredible fight…had been determined to live.
“Were you waitin’ for me to find you?” he whispered as he gently blotted around her mouth. “I shoulda known when we couldn’t find any sign of you that you’d just gone to ground. Playing a game of walker hide-and-seek, looks like. You tagged that bastard pretty good with your knife…hope you don’t mind that I put him outta the game permanently.”
The silence was filled with her short, shallow breaths, her chest barely moving beneath the bloody shirt that had dried fast to her body. Where his fingertips grazed her face, her skin was dry and hot, and he wondered if he shouldn’t check her more closely for bites or abrasions. When Jim’s infection had taken hold, he’d burned with a bad fever, too. The process had been agonizingly slow and nothing he’d wish even on his worst enemy. It was one thing to die in a fight and then come back to life; another thing entirely to feel the hunger for flesh growing in your gut even as your body started to rot around you.
Daryl went cold to his core with dread. That couldn’t be the way it ended for Carol, not after she’d endured so much. But if what he was seeing wasn’t dehydration, she could be succumbing to the virus right in front of him.
Something close to panic rose within him. If he was faced with seeing Carol go through that transformation, could he put her down? He had tried to be strong all along, had proven capable of ridding the world of cloudy-eyed, shambling monstrosities without a second thought. What needed doing, he did. But Carol wouldn’t be just another walker, any more than her daughter had been. Daryl knew now why Herschel had chosen to keep his family and neighbours corralled in the barn. Even though their souls had flown and all that was left behind was a relentless, hungry shell, what they had meant in the lives of those around them was not so easy to throw away.
If she was infected, he wanted to know before she started to transform. If he knew it was coming, maybe something more humane than a bullet through her brain could be done to spare her the torture of going through that. And if it came down to it, yes...yes, he would take care of it himself.   He was pretty sure, though, that there’d be nothing left of him afterwards.
He shifted position and tugged the covers down so that he could take a better look at the blood stains on her torso. When he inadvertently brushed the tip of her nose with the edge of the cold, damp blanket, though, Carol gasped and her head weakly lolled to the side, her brow furrowing slightly as if in annoyance. Hope sparked in Daryl’s heart and he cupped her chin in his hand so he could turn her face back towards his.
“Carol? You’re safe now. I found you in the basement cell and brought you back to C Block. It’ll be okay, I swear. Just wake up, okay?” he murmured, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.
She didn’t open her eyes but instead parted her lips slightly as if to answer him. He leaned in close to listen and heard her make what sounded like a faint, hoarse sob. Probably couldn’t do much more than that, not with her throat so dry. He went down on his knees beside her bunk and carefully slid his arm under her neck again, cradling her against his shoulder as he propped up her head.   He retrieved the can, tilted the rim to her mouth and watched with no little satisfaction as the pink tip of her tongue tentatively licked away the few tiny droplets he dribbled onto her lips. “That’s my girl. Lots where that came from, you’re doing fine.”
Carol’s lacy eyelashes fluttered. “More…” she rasped quietly, lifting a shaky hand towards the cup so she could do exactly what Axel had warned him she might do. He just about wept with relief, though, when she uttered that single word and proved that she was regaining consciousness...and she was still Carol.
“Nah, you gotta take it easy at first,” he chided softly, lifting the can out of her reach. His voice was strained and he tried to swallow the lump in his throat, determined not to let her know how close he was to giving into tears. “Lemme help you or you’ll make yourself sick from it. Trust me, all right?”
She settled back against him with the slightest of nods. When he brought the water to her lips again, she weakly but purposefully wrapped her cool, thin fingers around his wrist and held on as though to assure herself that he was really there.
*~*~*~*~*~*
More to come!
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The Embrace