"Erin, are you sure we should be doing this?" My sister Caroline asked me.

I smirked for us both and took the baseball bat in my hands and smashed the glass door before the vending machine. I grinned as the glass shattered and fell to the floor in a million shards. Cracking my neck from side to side, I dropped the bat and began grabbing all the bagged snacks and putting them in my backpack. There were bags of Swedish fish and Starburst candies, and bags of pretzels, too.

"Is there something you need to tell me?" Caroline looked at me with wide eyes. I looked up to her as I finished packing my bag with snack foods and slung the whole thing over my shoulder.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Caroline looked to the baseball bat and then to the broken vending machine. "Well, Erin . . . I- Umm . . ." Caroline stammered. "You seem to have an alacrity for clandestine activities. Is there something I should know?" My gorgeous brunette of a sister looked at me, her green eyes narrowing now.

I laughed. "I have many hidden talents, dear sister, that few truly know. Even you." My sister and I were closer than close. We were not only blood-related, we were best friends. My sister gave me strength and showed me the way to being a better person, a great sister. Still, there were things I kept at arm's length from her. That hurt me occasionally but I sometimes did it to keep Caroline safe. I was like our father in many ways but I won't go into that much. All I will say is that my dad and I are two peas in a pod and are much alike with secrets.

I turned my back from my sister to pick up one last thing from the ground of shattered glass when Caroline spoke to me again. "Erin, I've kept something from you I think you should know. I-" A scream. A scream from Caroline!

I turned to her once again and my jaw fell to the floor. A walker had jumped upon Caroline's back and was knocked to the floor. I took a step back but slipped on the glass and fell myself. All I could do was watch as the dead took my sister from me. My kin. I let out a cry and reached for the baseball bat but I found it wasn't there, that it had slid under the vending machine.

"Run, Erin! Run! Run now!" Caroline shrieked to me as the dead tore her flesh from her bones. I jolted upright and dropped the backpack to the ground. I lunged at the walker and knocked it off Caroline. Caroline was fearful for the both of us but did not cry out in pain. She was strong, stronger than me in some things, and dared not cry out in pain and give the devil-walking the satisfaction of hearing her cry out. The dead came to its feet and snarled at me, spit forming at the corners of its mouth. I grabbed my sister by the arms and pulled her out of the pool of shattered glass. Caroline continued to tell me to flee, but I did not listen to her. I called the walker to me and it came for me. I ducked behind the vending machine and pressed against the wall and the machine with all my might, tumbling the machine over and watching as blood seeped out from under it, the walker now crushed with incredible force.

"Caroline!" I cried, tears now streaming down my cheeks like waterfalls. I dropped to my knees and cradled my sister in my arms. Feeling her head, I could see now she was feverish.

"Erin, why didn't you-" Caroline coughed and spit up blood, which I wiped away from her cheeks and chin with my shirtsleeve. "Why didn't you run when I told you to?"

I looked my sister over with tears dotting my eyelids that now fell into her face. "Caroline, I couldn't leave you. Ever! We live together; we die together."

Caroline's green eyes became distant and then they came back, looking to me now. "Erin, you'll..." She sounded weak. Weaker still as she coughed up more blood. "You'll have to live without me... For a while, at least." She looked to the glass doors and to the sky. Despite the day being gray, the sun peered through the clouds and shined bright. "You'll be without me but know... Know that I'll always be here..." Caroline raised a hand and put it to my chest where my heart lay beating underneath my skin and rib cage. "I'll always be with you... Always." Caroline phased out again and her green eyes closed. I held my sister for seconds and then minutes, then hugging her close to me and crying into her shirt.

"Why didn't I see?" I yelled at myself through sobs. "Why couldn't I have protected you? Dad always said, 'Never lose focus.' And I lost focus! I lost you!" I cried, now gasping for breath. "I love you, Caroline. Forgive me for all the wrongs I've done. Forgive me." I set my sister's head on the ground and watched her body stop moving entirely, her chest once moving up and down now lay flat. I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked her over. She never did anyone wrong in life and meant the universe to me. No one ever disliked her - like they disliked me - and no one dared insult me in front of her for she would step up to the plate and bat for me, so to speak. My sister meant everything to me and I loved her so much.

Caroline's slender fingers twitched and she moaned. I thought for a moment she was fine, that she would come back to me as she was before. I was wrong, though. She sat up and cracked her neck to the side to look at me, her eyelids opening and revealing her eyes were white and dotted with red, her pupils black and small. She reached a hand towards me and moved to grab at my throat. I pushed her away and told her not to do that. She didn't register me and she moved for me again. I stood up, my knees now skinned and bloody from the fallen glass. I moved back and tripped over my backpack, the baseball bat now in my line of sight. Caroline rose to her feet and came at me again. I picked up the bat and-

I came from out my flashback as I heard Carl call my name. "Erin!" Carl said, coming to my side. "Erin, what's wrong?" I looked to the boy, now practically some young man the way he's grown in this past year, and blinked my blue eyes a few times to come into focus the present, again.

"Nothing is wrong, Carl." I breathed in quickly. "What do you need?"

Carl looked at me with disbelief. He knew I wasn't alright and picked up on my language as my lips trembled and my eyes grew teary again. "Daryl was asking for you. He wants you to meet him inside the prison again. He said he has a... present... for you. Something about cheap... I don't know what he said." I wiped the tears from my eyes with the palms of my hand and held my rifle in the other.

Cracking my neck from side to side, I left the watchtower and put up a front of bravado as I walked through the now crowded prison blacktop. I wasn't used to this many people, and those of Woodbury were quite nice. Now, anyway. I didn't believe they were good before we killed the Governor and his henchmen.

"Hello, Erin!" Several the new prison-folk said. I smiled and waved as I made my way back into the prison, going to the cell block where Rick and the others and I first bunked.

"Rick?" I peered around the corner and saw Rick swaddling Judith and holding her in his arms. From what Lori said before, Rick may not have been the best of husbands, but he certainly was a devoted father figure for both Carl and Judith; even if Judith wasn't his daughter.

"Yeah?" I smiled as Rick turned to me. Judith cooed and held a chubby hand out to me, her eyes alight and happy. I entered the block and let Judith take hold of my fingers. Little Ass-Kicker certainly had a grip.

"Do you know where Daryl-" I was interrupted.

"-Is?" Rick nodded. "Yeah, Daryl used a bottle of spray-paint he found at the abandoned store and painted you a path to- I'm not going to say what he has for you." Rick grinned and I heard laughter. I looked up and saw Glenn and Maggie on the level above us. They looked down at me with smiles on their faces.

"Does everyone know what Daryl has planned for me but me?" I asked.

Glenn and Maggie nodded. "Yes!" Rick, Glenn and Maggie said all simultaneously.

I smiled and shook my head. "Alright. Point me in the right direction of the painted path." I paused. "Will this be my yellow brick road?"

Maggie laughed. "Yep!"

I inhaled through my nose and smiled to Judith before I left them in the cell block. Right outside the cell block was yellow spray-paint on the wall that pointed me down a long corridor and around the bend. I walked until I didn't hear voices anymore, keeping my rifle ready just in case Daryl and the others missed any walkers that lay in hiding. Since those of Woodbury came to us a week ago, we had to take down the walkers in the other cell blocks and did a secure job of it. There was still that sense of worry, though, that kept me on edge.

I didn't hear anything for a few seconds until I heard footsteps coming towards me. I turned the corner and gasped in as I saw Daryl bump into me and hold up his hands in the surrender position. He laughed and I lowered my rifle, the nozzle now pointing to the ground after pointing to his head.

"Damn it, Daryl! Don't scare me like that!" Daryl smirked and then began laughing. Taking my hand in his, he pulled me close to him and then propped me against the wall. Making sure I wouldn't move from his embrace, he pushed his knee between my legs and kissed my lips. I closed my blue eyes and smiled as my arms wrapped around my lover's neck. We'd had so little time together - just the two of us, I mean - since the townspeople of Woodbury came to us, that now when the time came for alone time with Daryl, I took it head-on!

Daryl broke our kiss after a few moments of kissing - and not breathing! "I got a surprise for you. I hope you like it."

"What is it?"

"Follow me." Daryl took my hands in his and led me down the hall to a room with windows high on the walls. All was alight in the room and Daryl beamed as I looked around the room we were in. We were in the showering room. Daryl took a few steps away from me and spread out his arms before turning to me again. "What do you think? It's private-" Daryl came to me again in three long strides and moved a hand down the front of my blouse, undoing the buttons and smiling as he did it. "-And sexy."

I kissed Daryl again and brushed my hair out of my face. I looked to a small table on the side of the room - under the windows - and saw there was a white sheet covering two points. "What's that?" I asked.

Daryl looked to where I was staring and led me towards it, picking the white sheet up. What was revealed? Two bottles of cheap wine. My eyes widened and a smile beamed on my face. "Daryl! My God! You're a Godsend!" Daryl laughed and snaked a strong arm around the small of my back.

"You're my angel, Angel." That was Daryl's pet name for me, one I liked despite being a bit of a demon in the bedroom. I laughed as Daryl opened one of the bottles and drinking from it. Leading me over to the showers, he turned one on. I gasped in and Daryl's eyes shifted to me.

"How are these things still on?" I asked him.

"We found a generator that I set up for us for now. We'll have to tell Rick and the others about it later but now let's have some fun." Daryl grinned, and my hand ran down Daryl's cheek and pulled him close to kiss me again. We kissed and I took the bottle of cheap wine from him, drinking it with no restraint. "Damn, you're thirsty."

I smirked and ran my hand down my shirt, unbuttoning it more. "For you alone, darling!" I smiled and gave Daryl the bottle of wine again, now taking off my clothes. It didn't take me long to take off my clothes, but not soon enough for my lover - the lover who called me insatiable when he was quite the energetic one himself! Daryl drank from the bottle of wine quickly and let me practically tear his clothes off him, the showers now turning on and spraying water all about. Daryl laughed as I fumbled with the button of his jeans but that didn't stop me from taking his clothes off.

Once we were both unclothed, I leaped upon my lover and we backed into the wall, the water pouring all over us. I continued to kiss Daryl and drink the cheap wine as we made love. It didn't matter to me if the wine was cheap or tasted bad; all I wanted were Daryl and to live life normally again. Living normally again - without killing the dead or the live - was next to impossible but Daryl, being in his arms, made me feel normal again.

Daryl's hands ran up my sides and back and I felt tickled the water beating down on us. I let out a laugh and Daryl took his chance to plunge his tongue into my mouth. I let out a small moan of pleasure and Daryl smiled, drinking the wine which was now mixed with the water from the shower.
I don't know how much time had passed but it felt good to be with the one man I loved, the one man I couldn't possibly live without. I may have lost my sister, but I gained back something equally precious. I knew I would die one day and see my sister again at the Gates of Heaven, but I would love everything that happened here and now. And all I wanted now was to be with Daryl forever, in life and in death. Would that precious gift last? Or would we be fated to be parted?