[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 410 - Carol's Gratitude — Tears Unshed

The prison cafeteria had stopped doing communal meals. Everyone grabbed their food and took it back to their cells, so the place was rarely this quiet.

Most of the survivors had already gotten their trays and drifted back to their quarters in small clusters. The only exception was that loudmouth bastard Merle, still camped in the corner, bragging to T-Dog about how many women he'd slept with in his younger days, a number that kept climbing with every retelling.

Carol carried two trays to a corner by the window.

Daryl was already there.

His crossbow — the one he treated like a firstborn child — leaned against the wall beside him. He was bent over a piece of wood, working at it with a small knife, whittling something that may or may not have been anything at all.

"Yours."

Carol slid one of the trays in front of him.

Two pieces of venison, roasted dark and fragrant. A scoop of some kind of bean mash on the side.

"Mm."

He didn't look up. Just grunted through his nose, set down the knife and the half-finished carving, picked up his fork, and started shoveling food into his mouth.

They ate in silence.

The cafeteria had emptied out enough that you could hear the clink of metal on ceramic, and Merle's voice carrying from the corner, each new story more unhinged than the last.

"Thank you, Daryl."

Carol broke it first.

Daryl's jaw went still for a moment.

"For what?"

Muffled. Mouth still half-full.

"For this afternoon."

She looked at him.

"And for... before."

The "before" she meant was the Quarry.

Even now, just thinking about that place sent a chill across her skin.

Daryl didn't answer. He speared a chunk of venison and pushed it into his mouth, chewing hard, like the meat had personally wronged him.

"I remember all of it," Carol said.

Her voice was quiet, the way people sound when they're reaching back for something far away.

"Every time Ed lost his mind... you and your brother would step in. It was always you two."

If Leon had been there, he would have understood exactly what she meant.

Back then, Shawn had already been roped into Leon's operation ahead of time, which meant he never had the chance to throw his weight around at the Quarry, let alone pull off that moment where he beat Ed half to death. So it was Daryl who filled that gap, again and again, putting himself between Carol and Sophia and whatever was coming. This man who looked harder and meaner than anyone else in the camp, whose face seemed permanently set to leave me alone.

That same face had been the most reliable thing she had.

Women. Nothing but trouble.

Daryl chewed and didn't look up.

What was there even to talk about? It was nothing. He just couldn't stomach watching some gutless piece of work put his hands on his own wife and kid.

It reminded him of his old man. The drunk. That face.

His stomach turned just thinking about it.

"You used to slip food to Sophia when no one was looking," Carol said.

The corner of her mouth curved. A small, soft smile she didn't seem to notice herself making.

"Squirrel meat. Fish. She was so thin back then — skinny as a weed. You're the one who gave her the first real meal she'd had since the whole world fell apart."

"Everything you've done for us, Daryl. It's more than Ed managed in his entire worthless life."

Daryl lifted his head and looked at her face.

Then he looked back down at his plate, at the piece of venison he'd been stabbing into pieces without noticing, and pushed a few words out through his teeth.

"He was just trash."

No room for argument in it. Just a flat, bone-deep contempt.

Then he put his head back down, like a kid waiting to be dismissed, and went back to fighting with what was left on his plate.

He didn't know what to do with her eyes.

Gratitude in them. Reliance. And something else underneath that he couldn't name and didn't trust himself to try.

He was a redneck who hunted in the woods. He knew crossbows. He knew knives. That was the whole list.

He didn't know how to do this.

Carol watched him fidget, that broad frame somehow making itself small, and felt something settle quietly in her chest. There was a space there that had been opening up lately, widening as Sophia got older and needed her less. Something had just filled it in, a little.

She didn't say anything else.

This man, in the most graceless way imaginable, had given her and Sophia the one thing they'd needed most.

That was enough.

The cafeteria went quiet again.

But it was a different quiet this time. No tension in it. Just something faint and warm, present without being named.

A long moment passed.

Then Daryl stopped moving.

He took his slightly bent fork, and with more care than anything else he'd done all evening, nudged the largest piece of venison on his plate, the one roasted best, the one with the perfect char, across onto Carol's tray.

➤ Next: Filthy Thoughts — Heartbreak