Carol's been keeping to herself all the more since that day. If she wanted to tell people -- and that's still an if, part of her would have been quite content to keep it to herself -- that wasn't the choice she'd have made as to how. She's no stranger to secrets, she hid Ed's behavior for years before the apocalypse killed all measure of privacy. Karen and David though, it's as though even the act of speaking the truth changes her in ways she isn't sure she wants to be changed. There's no relief, no burden lifted now that it's out. Just fear, and shame, and doubt.

Lizzy and Mika still remain private for now, at least there's that. It's not just that she's less able to explain in a way that anyone who didn't know Lizzy could understand, though there is that, but rather that the whole thing feels too personal to share. Karen and David were a deep malignancy, hard to excise but left enough normalcy to salvage. Lizzy and Mika are wrapped in and around Carol's heart, her mind, everything that makes her. The longer she keeps their secret, the more it grows and the heavier it becomes, the harder Carol has to strain to drag it along, the more certain she is that there's no way she'd know how to survive without it.

Here there's no hiding, so when she goes to answer the knock Carol makes no attempt to shy away. She opens the door with one smooth motion and stands in the doorway, ready for judgment. Only being pulled in fifteen emotional directions keeps her expression some semblance of neutral at first glance; look closely and Daryl will see she simply can't decide between them.