Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.

A/N: So. This happened. Oops. My life. Zombies give me nightmares. Maybe I'm a masochist. Maybe I just like bad boys. Maybe I just like Daryl Dixon. Maybe Daryl Dixon gives me nightmares. It could really be any combination there of.

Why do I only write when men give me grief? I'm probably projecting my own issues. Probably.

Let's see what happens, shall we?


Daisy Duke, But Not Really

By: Ginny


"She is definitely not a goody-two-shoes!"

"Nah, girlie, yer friend is a classic good girl," Merle argued.

Amanda shook her head so fast her blonde hair smacked her tanned cheeks. "Meg!" she called.

The other girl sighed and put her basket of clothing down. With heavy feet, she came around the other side of the tent. They probably thought she hadn't been able to hear their conversation, which was a rather stupid assumption considering that the Dixon brothers had situated themselves a good distance from the rest of the campers, to the point that there was no audio interference… and also, Merle's voice could carry across a black hole. They had been debating for the past ten minutes about whether or not Miss Meg Flanagan was a good girl or not. And really, it made sense that that kind of subject was up for debate: she was rather quiet with strangers and looked like the girl next door, while Mandy had known her for years now and had cleaned the puke out of her hair. They had history.

Shuffling around the other side, Meg was surprised to find that Daryl was sitting next to his brother on the log beside the fire. She hadn't heard him say a word in the discussion – then again, he was pretty preoccupied with the squirrel he was cooking.

"Meg," Mandy repeated as the brunette approached. "Merle here thinks that you're a good girl."

"Well, that makes sense," Meg shrugged. "I don't think I'd make a very good boy."

The two Dixon boys snorted and Mandy just glared. "Wise-ass," she muttered. Then she demanded, "Show them your tattoos."

"How do my tattoos demonstrate my bad-assery?"

"Agh, specifically Merle feels that I am more of a bad girl than you are," she explained. "But you have like, three tats and I have none."

"Well," Meg turned to Merle. "Are tattoos a sign of being a bad girl?"

"Typically," he drawled.

Lifting her tattered shirt (it was a work shirt, she honestly didn't care about it's condition) she let the group have a view of her newest tattoo: a list of initials down her ribs. Then she yanked her stained jean shorts down a bit in the back to reveal a shamrock formed by Celtic knots and then finally she let them glimpse her very first tattoo: a daisy on her hip.

"A daisy?" Merle gave another loud snort. "Yeah, that's badass, if I ever seen it."

"What if I told you it's actually a gang tat?" Meg flicked her eyebrows up and down.

"A gang?" the big man leaned back and crossed his arms. "Tell me more."

"Yeah, we were called the Daisy Dukes and we sold drugs and defended our territory."

"Drugs? Territory?"

"Caffeine and the fifth floor of the library - it was the perfect place to study."

Merle laughed – well, more like barked. "Girlie, you ain't even close to badass!"

"Hey," Meg smiled, shifting her pants back into place a bit. "I'm not the one trying to prove anything. Take that up with Mandy, here." She pointed to her friend and decided she should get back to her work.

"Will do, Daisy Duke!" Merle laughed at her retreating back.

Meg just smiled and kept walking. He was probably her favorite person in the camp, though she would never admit it. Sure, Glenn and Dale and Amy and Andrea were all nice enough and she very much enjoyed hanging out with the younger kids, but there was just something about the Dixons that entertained her. It also helped that they had wormed their way into the heart of Amanda. If there was anyone Meg would follow to the ends of the Earth, if only to make sure she didn't do something crazy and get herself killed, it was Amanda. They went back as far as freshman year in college. They had barely finished their sophomore year before the world ended. It hadn't been a long friendship, but it was a deep one.

Originally from the suburbs of Chicago, they had attended a college in central Illinois. When shit happened, they tried to make their way north – back to their families, but the suburbs had been evacuated to the city. Chicago had fallen differently than the other major cities. Most of the other majorly populated areas had fallen from the inside out, and then reached the suburbs. Chicago had been able to keep itself relatively uninfected, but its suburbs had become affected and then spread northward. By the time they managed to get up to a few towns south of their hometown, they realized just how overrun it was and that people were now trying to escape the city. Nowhere was untouched, but it hadn't been safe for them to continue north. Amanda had had family in Georgia, and so they headed downward. A few nights on the road later, and they had been just outside the city of Atlanta when Meg had come face to face with a crossbow. A quick squeak of, "Not a walker!" was probably the only thing that saved her.

They had been with the camp for only a few days, but already Amanda had gravitated to the Dixon boys. And Meg knew why: she had always been a wild child and had always had a thing for bad boys. Also, Merle had pretty quickly realized that Amanda was missing her Mary-Jane and had offered her a dip in his "medicine stash." Perhaps the fact that Meg had turned down the stuff, preferring to be pretty clear-minded given the end of the world, had convinced Merle that she was a good girl.

Whatever.


Amy and Meg made their way up the hill, back towards camp together. The blonde was great fun and they were close enough in age that Meg could relate to her relatively well. They had just reached the crest of the hill when they nearly bumped into another figure.

Daryl Dixon was carrying his crossbow and bolts down to the quarry. He paused to observe them, his face neutral before he gave them a nod of acknowledgement, and continued his journey.

"So, what is with you and Amanda and the Dixon brothers?" Amy asked once the aforementioned Dixon brother was out of earshot.

"What do you mean, what is with us?" Meg hiked her basket up a little higher on her hip. "Amanda likes hanging out with Merle, and I like hanging out with Amanda."

"That's not the buzz around camp," Amy smirked.

"Then the buzz is wrong," Meg insisted. "I think I've said all of five different sentences to Daryl and Merle is… Merle."

"That's one way to describe him."

"That's the only way to describe him."

"You know," Amy edged in as they began hanging the clothes up to dry. "They aren't very well liked."

"Who?"

"The Dixon's," she clarified.

Meg glanced across the camp, into the distance where the Dixon brothers had set up their own area. Well, that didn't surprise her. They hadn't taken the time to get involved in the camp, preferring to stay by themselves. And when they had interacted with the group, Merle was always mouthing off racist comments or sexist innuendos. Unless you looked closely, you couldn't tell that for the most part he was high when he was the most vocal. It didn't excuse his actions, but for Meg it put them in a different light. And besides hitting on her a bit, he had never done anything mean to her. She could live with that.

"I know," she shrugged.

Amy stared at her for a brief moment, over the clothesline. Opening her mouth, she was about to say something and then seemed to change her mind because her jaw snapped shut with a click and she just shook her head.

"Guess what?" Sophia came bouncing up to the two older girls.

"What?" Amy played along, abandoning her clothes for a moment to lean over the younger girl, hands on her knees.

"My mommy counted, and it's my birthday today!" she announced, giving them both a huge smile.

"So, what're you now?" Meg joked. "Five? Six?"

The girl apparently didn't appreciate the joke as she scowled and put her hands on her hips. "I'm twelve," she declared. "Which is double six. Are you stupid?"

Meg made a droopy face, "I. Am. The. Stupidest," she said in the lowest, deepest and slowest voice she could manage.

Sophia giggled and was about to say something, probably to further insult Meg, when her father called her from their tent. Meg didn't miss the way she tensed and glanced fearfully in that direction. When she hesitated, Amy suggested, "You should probably go." And go she did, her shoulders bent in submission.

"I don't get it," Meg muttered. "All Merle does is hit on women and make racist comments. And that's almost exclusively when he's high. Ed hits his wife and daughter and everyone seems to like him a whole hell of a lot more."

Amy didn't make a comment.


Meg had been saving it for later – like a special occasion or something of the sort. This world meant that it was in low supply and she didn't know when she'd be able to get more. But desperate times called for desperate measures and she was well aware of the fact that she had spent twenty years with it and now it was time to pass it on to the next generation.

Grabbing the chocolate bar she'd been saving, she put it in her pocket.

Quickly, she located her target, all alone and vulnerable.

"Sophia!" Meg called. Squatting down, she looked up at the girl. "I've got a present for you," she said as she pulled the chocolate bar from her pocket. "Happy Birthday, Sophia."

She was instantly rewarded as the girl's face lit up. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"You're twelve," Meg pushed the bar into the girl's hands. "You only turn twelve once. And it's your special day. So, yes I am sure."

Sophia waited until the woman stood back up before she hugged around the waist, nearly knocking her over. Meg laughed and patted her head. "Thank you," she whispered into Meg's stomach.

"You're welcome," Meg responded out of habit. As Sophia bounded off, she watched her leave, running a hand through her loose hair. Then, she decided to go find Amanda and bask in her good mood. It was good to know there was still happiness in the middle of the apocalypse.

Of course, when she didn't find Amanda in their own tent, she knew to look over by the Dixons.

"Well, well, well," Merle drawled and let his eyes glide over her figure. "Look here, Miss Daisy Duke back ta darken our doorstep."

"We are all living in tents," Meg snarked, sitting down beside Amanda. "No one has a door to darken."

"Wise-ass," Merle muttered.

Amanda gave a giggle and even Daryl glanced up at his brother with a smirk. That movement caused Meg to look over at the younger Dixon. He was cutting into a dead squirrel. Ick, she gave a shudder. Back at home, she used to have squirrels that lived in the trees. She had grown attached to those creatures. It was bizarre watching someone kill and gut one of them… let alone eat it later.

Daryl glanced up to see her watching him with disgust. Immediately, he was offended. "Ya got a problem?" he asked.

She shifted her attention from the dead squirrel to the hunter who was gutting it. Before she could say anything though, Amanda cut in with, "Before this whole zombie business, she was a vegetarian."

Both brothers looked at her like she had grown a head out of her ass.

"Ya was one a' them seaweed eatin' freaks?" Merle asked as Daryl got back to his work.

"I have never, to the best of my knowledge, eaten seaweed," Meg crossed her arms.

"So, ya was just starvin' yerself?" Merle scoffed. "Bitch is crazy."

Meg was going to let it drop, deciding that it wasn't worth getting involved in a discussion about. She ate meat now – it was actually most of what she ate at this point. There wasn't much she could do about it. And she had always told herself that if it meant her survival, she would eat meat in heartbeat.

Apparently, Amanda had other plans. "God Meg, I nearly had him convinced that you weren't a tightass!"

"Who tha fuck doesn't eat meat?" Merle pointed at Meg. "A good girl, that's who!"

"No!" Amanda stood up and pointed at Merle. "You have forced me to bring out my secret weapon!" She sat back down and crossed her legs. "Let me tell you a story about this supposedly "good" girl. The day before a very big midterm last year, Meg and her boyfriend got in a fight."

"My boyfriend?" Meg interjected.

"Fuck buddy, whatever."

"Just keeping facts straight." Which was true. Anyone who met Meg would wholeheartedly testify that she must had had boyfriend after boyfriend after boyfriend. No such luck. In high school she was both too shy to talk to boys and too invested in other activities to bother with boys. She also was a terrible flight risk – first sign of getting too attached or things getting too complicated, she was gone. By the time she got to college, she was so behind the curve, she just jumped from having a steady boyfriend, to casual drunken sex. It worked very well and she was still able to focus on her other activities.

"Anyway," Amanda continued. "Fuck buddy. They fought. Then she went over to his apartment and they made up. Next day, I'm waiting for her outside the classroom before the midterm. She's late, so I just go in. Test starts, she still isn't there. The test was super hard and I finished after fifty minutes. Get out of class, call her to ask where the fuck she is. All I hear on the other end is, "Fuck!" then a yelp and then she hung up." She laughed a little to herself, as she had always found this last part to be the funniest. "Ben hadn't set his alarm and they had slept in!" Clapping her hands, she recalled, "Next thing I know, there goes Meg – in nothing by a sports bra and men's boxers, right into the classroom with only fifteen minutes left. She takes the test, leaves the room, passes by and says, "Pardon me" before she stumbles into the bathroom to throw up!"

Merle let out a bark of a laugh and hit his knee a few time. Meg even heard Daryl give a chuckle.

"How badly did ya bomb that test?" Merle asked when he had caught his breath.

With a look full of conspiracy, Meg raised her eyebrows at Amanda. And the blonde said, "It doesn't matter," at the same time that Meg said, "I got a ninety-five percent. An A."

This only sent Merle into a greater craze of laughing. "Good girl!" he said, pointing a meaty finger at her. "Gooood girl, Daisy Duke!"

All Meg did was smirk at Amanda as the other girl glared back.