AN: This is another short fic that was requested. I've been sitting on it for a while. There's a little more information about things at the end. I guess you could say it's ZA/AU.

For now, I offer warnings for child and infant mortality within the ZA.

I own nothing from the Walking Dead.

I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Things happened quickly in Alexandria. On the whole, things happened quickly everywhere these days. Once, Daryl might have been dizzied by the speed of progression surrounding him—his life had always been sort of slow and nothing much to speak of—but the constant movement had almost desensitized him to the rush. They had to move quickly because the world was moving quickly. Hesitation would cause them all to fall.

They spoke of rising and falling a great deal too. They spoke more of the falling than the rising, but even Daryl knew that with every fall there must come a rise—or at least there must have been one to begin with.

Alexandria fell. It rose again, too, from the rubble of what had remained.

Wolves had come. Walkers had come. Negan had come. Alexandria fell. But then it rose again and those who would stand against them had been the ones to fall in something that Daryl could only think of as what would be known as a great, and very quick, war that would appear in all the history books if anyone ever had the time to start rewriting them.

Like something fresh out of legend, they'd found allies that seemed to appear and materialize from thin air. The people, who had a settlement a few miles from Alexandria that they called the Hilltop, had joined forces with Daryl and his friends—for he now considered those who had resided at Alexandria before their arrival as friends—to fight against those who would tear them down. The bonding force of a common enemy, it seemed, was strong enough to bring anyone together.

With Walkers as under control as they'd ever been, Negan safe under lock and key, and most of his men either killed or converted, they'd been able to begin rebuilding Alexandria. They'd been able to focus on making it better than before. They weren't going to fall again. At least, they weren't going to fall again because of lack of preparation.

In the steady work of rebuilding the community of Alexandria, Daryl had found a version of himself that he didn't know existed. It was a version of himself, though, that he wanted to keep. He thought, maybe, it was the best version of himself that might ever exist.

He had found Carol injured from a fight with Morgan, before their Great War, and he'd feared, for the seventy two hours that he'd spent holding something of a vigil over her, that he would lose her. The fear of loss, or maybe simply the feeling of being tired of so much loss, had spurred him into action. When she'd come back to him, like she always did, he'd found the determination within himself to finally tell her how he felt—a feeling that he'd worked out for himself during his vigil. He'd also found the determination to deal with Morgan. It was fine for the man to have his convictions, everyone should have them, but it wasn't fine for him to think that his convictions gave him the right to nearly kill their own people—especially not in protection of those who sought to destroy them. When the fight had been broken up, because Daryl didn't have the qualms against violence that Morgan claimed he had when he wasn't in combat with a woman half his size, Rick had declared that Daryl couldn't kill the man. That wasn't who they were. That wasn't how they operated.

But they could keep him separate until they were sure that he wasn't a threat to anyone. And then? When the fortuitous opportunity arose after their own Great War, they could send him to Hilltop where he would be someone else's problem. Let him be some reckless guru of quasi-peace if that's what he wanted, but at least he wasn't in Alexandria. In Alexandria, they protected themselves. They weren't falling again for lack of preparation.

Every person in Alexandria had dived into the preparation. It ran, just like everything else, side by side with the reconstruction of Alexandria. And Daryl kept busy.

Because, when he embraced the fast paced flurry of their lifestyle entirely, he got caught up in it. He requested a house of the many empty ones in Alexandria and he was granted it. He moved there with Carol whom Father Gabriel declared his wife with a small ceremony that was celebrated with a cake that Carol baked herself. Daryl watched as Carol became one of the main people in charge of training those who needed it—and even some who simply wanted some pointers and some refreshing—and he was soon enough one of the main voices in charge of runs and recruitment.

And then Daryl, in disbelief, watched as his life changed even more.

The community welcomed Hershel Rhee in their own time of peace and his arrival was cheered for and celebrated as proof that the whole world would go on and, by extension, that their world would go on. He was almost as cheered for, in fact, as Maison Dixon when they welcomed him a mere three or four months after Hershel's arrival.

And for just a moment? Everything mattered even more than it had ever mattered before to Daryl. Alexandria had to be rebuilt entirely. It had to be better than ever. Better, even, than they'd ever imagined it might be. It had to be strong and well-provisioned. Hilltop, their main allies in this world, needed to be reinforced as well. People needed to be recruited because more people meant more strength—and more knowledge. Those people, by extension, needed to be trained because knowledge and preparation meant that there was less chance of a fall.

Daryl Dixon was, almost too quickly for him to even adjust to each new change before another came, a happily married man and a father of a healthy newborn son. It was something he never thought he'd see, even in a world that was teaching him not to be surprised by anything at all.

But with every rise, there must come a fall.

In this case, the fall came as a personal fall for Daryl and for Carol. Without explanation and without reason, they rose one morning to find that Maison, while they thought he was sleeping particularly well, had decided that his time with them was done. His life had been so short that they'd measured it only in weeks and they had no one to blame for his loss. It was, as far as anyone could tell, just a case of things that happen.

Daryl learned, the day that he stood holding Carol like she might slip away from him entirely, something that he never wanted to really believe. At least, not anymore. In a world where everything seemed caused by some plausible source of tragedy, there were still things that seemed to happen for no good reason at all.

In the three weeks since his son's passing, Daryl had spent much of his time with Carol. Rick had assured him, as had others, that they could handle things. They could take care of what needed to happen while he and Carol took care of themselves. Much of the time they'd spent in silence, but other times they'd spent simply being whatever it was that they felt they needed to be at the time.

There was anger. There was more anger than either of them knew what to do with. Not at each other. Never at each other. But it was there.

And there was sadness. There was more than enough of that to go around. Daryl took walks, making up excuses along the way, to be by himself and cry. No matter how often Carol told him he was welcomed to do it in front of her, and without judgment, he couldn't bring himself to let it happen that way. And she seemed to understand. After all, he understood why it was that she would take more showers than he'd ever known her to take before and why most of the time he never heard the water run in the bathroom.

There was guilt. The guilt, perhaps, was the hardest for Daryl to stomach. He thought that he might have done something different. Carol thought that she might have done something different. They both knew they were wrong, but it didn't mean that the feelings weren't there. And it was during the bouts of guilt that Daryl learned the truth about what had happened with Carol and Tyreese when they'd met up before they made it to the end of the tracks. He offered her the only thing he could, his own form of absolution and the promise that it wasn't her fault—and that she wasn't the monster she believed herself to be—but he could never be sure that she truly believed him. He knew, even if she didn't put it into words, that sometimes she thought that might be why Maison had left. Maybe she had caused it. Maybe it was her punishment.

She believed that she had a lot to be punished for. Daryl believed that her life had been punishment enough for anything she might even have imagined she'd done wrong.

They got through it, though, as much as Daryl imagined anyone ever got through it. It was always there, for both of them, but eventually the tears lessened. Eventually the guilt didn't keep them awake at night. And, eventually, they started to feel that they could go back out there, like they had to do, and keep on going.

Alexandria wouldn't fall again. Neither of them would let it. Now it was their home and it was the only home that Maison had ever known.

Three weeks after they buried him, Daryl went out to find Aaron and tell him that he was ready to go on runs again. He was ready to put his energy into building the community that they all dreamed of living in. Three weeks after they buried Maison, Carol went to find Michonne and tell her that she was ready to start taking part in the training sessions again. She was tired of death and loss and tragedy. She was ready to get back to making sure that they were prepared to keep those things from happening anymore.

Alexandria wouldn't fall again.

And Daryl and Carol, just like they always seemed to do, would dig around in the rubble of their broken hearts to find the pieces that they could find and fit them back together. Together they could do it. Together they could gather themselves up and move on. Things would keep going, for the both of them, and if Daryl had learned anything at all, they would keep going on as quickly as they'd ever moved before.

Their mourning wasn't done, and Daryl didn't know exactly how long something like that might last for either one of them, but at least they could couple their mourning with productivity.

Their world didn't stop for anything, after all, and it certainly didn't stop for loss. This was a world where loss happened all too frequently, however cruel and unfair it seemed, and they all simply had to keep moving.

The only hope they had, and maybe the only hope they ever had, was that they would rebuild. They'd rebuild the structures around them and, a little more each day and with the help of those around them, they'd rebuild the structures within them as well.

Daryl and Carol knew these things well. Both of them, if they knew little else, knew about rebuilding. And now, they had each other. Undeniably and eternally, they had each other.

Three weeks they'd mourned, but the time for mourning had passed. Now it was time for them both to start again.

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

AN: So this is going to be a "short fic". The request was made and the person would prefer to remain anonymous. I have it figured that the story will be about ten chapters long. It's just a short fic. I won't say too much, but I'll say that it will have a happy ending, as most of my stories do. I won't promise, though, that there won't be moments where it's rough along the way.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!