A.N: Hey guys,

New Walking Dead story here I hope you like it. Please read and review to let me know what you think. I would also like to take a second a thank my fantastic beta Daniel. He is awesome and one of my BFF. Thanks Dan for doing that.

Summary: Story set 17 years after the end of Season 3 and will follow a 17 year old Judith and a 28 year old Carl by alternating POV.

Losing the last root of the original Atlanta group affected Judith and Carl much more than anticipated, they decide to leave together to try to build a life away from all the painful memories. The world had changed in 17 years, humans managed to adapt to the apocalypse... Growing up during the Zombie apocalypse was bound to affect the person you are become.

When they reach their destination, they meet a stranger with an unexpected link to their past, reopening wounds and giving them more than they bargained for.

Carl G/OC, Judith G/OC.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead, just the plot and the OC

Steffy2106

Chapter 1:

Looking at my sister, hunched over the grave broke my heart into a million pieces. It has been a week since we buried him and yet she was still spending all day every day talking to a rotting corpse, under 6 feet of dirt. I would have sold my soul to take her pain and sorrow away from her but there was nothing I could do, I have never felt so useless before and it was making me crazy.

I knew Daryl had been everything to her; he had been the one raising us since Judith was only three and I knew his death would be devastating but this was taking it to a whole new unhealthy level and I couldn't let this continue any longer. I would lose the little sanity I had left seeing the constant pain in my sister's eyes, hearing her soft sobs at night when she thought I couldn't hear.

This world had toughened us up; we both had physical and emotional scars proving that this world had never been kind to us. I had lost so many people that, except for Judith, nobody really mattered to me anymore, she was both my weakness and my strength...She was my world, the only reason I really kept on fighting.

I need to protect her; she is my baby sister after all...my only family. I knew she was highly trained but she looked so frail, especially kneeling beside Daryl's grave.

"I heard you're leaving."

I turned to see Theresa standing just behind me, and cursed myself. I was sloppy, even lost in my thoughts I should have heard her approach...I should have known she was there at least 12 feet before she reached me. Daryl would have bitched for hours.

"Ya need to always be on high alert boy, this world is jest waitin' for one thing and it's to eat ya...literally, now get yer head out of yer damn ass and come back down to this hell we live in. Ya have people lives in yer hands, ya have yer sister life in yer hands...ya need to keep her safe, no matter what" he would have said.

"Yes, we're leaving, as soon as Jude is ready...Today would be ideal. The sooner, the better."

She came to stand closer to me. "And you intended to tell me when?" She asked, brushing her arm against mine.

I took a step aside to break the contact, and looked down into her stormy grey eyes. "Why should I tell you?" I sighed, and shook my head. "Listen T, I told you from the start that we would never be a couple."

"I know but—"

"There is no 'but'! Listen I have been honest with you, I don't remember promising anything. I told you I don't do relationships. I told you Judith was my priority and always would be. I told you when Daryl got sick that Judith and I would be leaving as soon as he was gone. I never lied to you."

"I know but I hoped that you might let me in, we've been seeing each other for over two years...don't tell me there is nothing here. Let me come with you."

"I like you T, I think you are a great girl but no, I don't feel the way you do" I shook my head. "Your family is here and...No, I don't want you to come, sorry. It's me and Jude, it will always be like that."

"Jude is the most important person in your life, but you were not the most important person in her life, Daryl was."

"So what? Jude is the only person that matters to me and always will be. Goodbye T, be happy." I walked away up the hill to go meet Judith.

I didn't turn around to look at Theresa; I didn't need to see the pain in her eyes, the betrayal written all over her face. She did know better, I told her from the first day and never pretended otherwise. Women were only trouble, everything that went wrong with the group was due to women and their stupid decisions. Starting with my mother, and her inability to keep her pants zipped up for a few months after my father supposedly died. This indiscretion made me lose both my parents, the man I saw as a hero, and brought a little girl into this world...A little girl that had been rejected by the great Rick Grimes, at least she had Daryl to give her the love my father never gave her.

Judith was sitting beside Daryl's grave now; I sat beside her, pulling her into a hug, resting my head on top of hers.

"My dad died..." She whispered, resting her head in the crook of my neck. My heart broke into another million pieces.

She knew Daryl was not her father, but it was what he had been to her since she was born and even more after my father died. I looked at Daryl's grave and I could remember the day my father died like it was yesterday.

Judith had been three years old, I was 14, and as usual Daryl was putting Judith to bed in the room we were sharing. He was then laying beside her and reading her some silly book he found until she fell asleep.

"Am I a bad girl?" She asked out of the blue.

Daryl threw me a quick glance, but I pretended to be listening to the Ipod my father had found a few weeks ago. That was my strategy to listen to them talk without being noticed.

"Why would you say that Juju? You are the most amazing little girl in the whole damn world. If I ever had a lil'girl I would want her to be just like you."

"Then why Daddy doesn't like me Unke Dary?"

"Daddy loves you, just as much as Unke Dary does." Daryl said kissing her forehead. Jude couldn't say Uncle Daryl...She always said 'Unke Dary' and it stayed like that.

The next day, a huge argument exploded between Daryl and my father. Carol took Judith away, but I remained behind and this was how I learned the truth...To be honest, I always suspected it but hearing it made all the difference. It was the day I realized that my parents were flawed, just like everybody else.

"Yer daughter asked me why ya didn't love her yesterday, couldn't tell the lil'girl it was cuz you are a fucking son of a bitch".

"It's okay, I think you love her for both of us".

"What that supposed to mean?" Asked Daryl, standing centimetres from my father's face.

"You are acting like she is yours."

"Well she needs a father and I don't see ya stepping up."

"I am not her father!" My father growled.

Daryl spat of the floor, disgust and rage written all over his face. "That's it?! Yer rotten Grimes, ya don't even know if she is yer daughter or not."

My father snorted. "Are you serious? Look at her charcoal eyes, they are Shane's! It's like Shane is staring at me from the grave every time she looks at me. Taunting me. Laughing at me. Betraying me all over! What about her button nose and dark blond hair? You don't know Shane's mother, but believe me all that screams Walsh, not Grimes! WALSH!"

"And so what? Ain't Juju's fault! She didn't ask to be born, hell I'd hate y'all if I was her jest because you brought her into this shit hell whole of a world. You gotta step up Grimes, yer always was the bigger man and ya need to do it now. I love yer lil'girl ya know that. I never loved anyone as much as I love her, I'll give my life for her but she thinks yer her dad, and she needs a dad. Be there for her Rick! Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad, family doesn't end in blood brother."

My father closed his eyes, and ran his hands over his face in exhaustion. "Tell me Dixon, how can I do that? How can I do that when every time I look at her she reminds me of the betrayal of my wife and best friend? When she reminds me of the best friend that wanted to kill me to steal my family?" He shook his head. "I can't be that man sorry".

Daryl shook his head. "Maybe she will be better without you, making her feel like she ain't good enough."

It was on the same day that my father was bitten, he left after the fight and came back infected. He was still coherent enough to ask Daryl to take care of me and Jude and there has never been a day where he didn't keep his promise. Judith always thought Rick Grimes was her father, but she always considered Daryl Dixon as her dad.

"What are we going to do without him now Carl?"

I pushed her slightly to look into her dark eyes, I dabbed her eyes with the corner of my shirt. "What do you mean? We're going to be just fine baby sis. Daryl raised you, man with what he taught you, I wouldn't be surprised you could take everything! I'm even scared to anger you and I have almost a foot and sixty pounds on you."

She smiled sadly.

"Unke Dary prepared you to face everything; you remember what he always told you?"

"If you can't be the example, be the warning?"

I couldn't help but chuckle, Daryl always had the stupidest life advice to give but I suspect he did that just to make Jude and I laugh.

"No, not that one."

"You're never too old to learn something stupid?"

"Jude..."

She sighed, looking back at the grave. "The hardest thing to do in this World is to live in it. Be brave. Live."

"He wouldn't want you to stay here, and mourn him. Jude he loved you, he wanted the best for you, and the best is not staying here talking to a grave all day." I stood up, extending my hand to help her up. "Come on baby' sis it's time for us to move on, time to leave New Covington."

Jude looked at my hand doubtfully, still sitting on the floor. "Where do you want to go?"

"New Philadelphia, Glenn and Maggie are there. You liked Glenn and Maggie didn't you? And it's a huge town Jude, we could build lives there."

She looked back at the grave once more before taking my hand, letting me pull her up. I let out a sigh of relief, she was agreeing to leave with me, and taking the first step to recovery.

She rested her hand on Daryl's grave. "Until we meet again Unke Dary, may God bless you in Heaven as he blessed me when he gave me you. You told me not to cry when you die but simply look in the sky and say goodbye." Jude looked up the sky, quiet tears streaming down her face. "Goodbye Unke Dary, I hope you're with Carol now. You taught me how it was to be loved. In your arms I was always safe. You taught me selflessness. To you I am forever grateful, my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along this crazy road. I love you, I miss you but I'll make you proud. I'll show the world what a woman you raised Unke Dary."

Judith turned to me and stood straight and as tall as her 5'3'' allowed her. "Let's go Carl, I'm ready now."

And I had to admit that seeing her standing so straight and strong after losing the person she loved the most...I had never been prouder of her than I was at that instant.