Wasn't expecting to post this one so soon. It's one of those things that just kind of slammed into my head and needed to be written. Hope you enjoy. Be safe this weekend and thanks for reading!

Chapter One

Normally he didn't bother paying attention to what day it was. He didn't care if it was December or if it was January. He never knew if it was a Monday or a Friday. He didn't give a damn about things like that. Time wasn't the same as it had been before. Time had become subjective. In the old world it was split up in nice neat categories.

There was a time to get up in the morning, a time to punch the time clock, a time to get yourself in bed, a time to eat, a time to hunt. The weeks were broken up the same way. Each month brought with it a sense of separation from the next with the coming of Holidays and Birthdays. Seasons meant something in the old world.

Everything back then was neat, orderly. It gave a man a sense of control over his life. It gave him a clean cut impression of the now.

Normally, he didn't give a damn about things like times or dates.

Normally.

Today wasn't a normal day. Today, there was a distinct marker to separate it from every other day. On this day, a year and a half ago, his life had made a turn that he had never expected. Now time was broken down in six month intervals. He wasn't sure why it was like that but it was. He had turned his back on people that he had thought of as family. This marked a year and a half since he had walked into the woods and didn't look back.

He left the safety, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging and the security of the prison to follow his brother into the unknown.

He had regretted it after a while. No matter what had happened, when he was with the group, he felt like they were the good guys. They were people that were trying to hold on to who they had been and they were out to help one another like a family should. Those people hadn't looked at him like he was lower than them. They didn't doubt him because of his social standing or because he was raised differently. They had respected him and they had valued his ideas and opinions and they had appreciated his skills.

Oh sure, it hadn't always been like that. Not for most of them. In the beginning they had looked at him with clear contempt or fear in their eyes. He knew this. He wasn't delusional. But not all of them had. One person had always met his gaze with a strange understanding in her eyes. From the start, he'd found a kindred spirit. Someone that somehow knew exactly who he was instead of who he wanted people to believe himself to be.

What about Carol?

Glenn had asked the question and a year and a half ago he had been able to give the boy an answer. An honest one. He knew she would understand why he was leaving. But after all this time, Glenn's words had taken on a new meaning. The implications in that question had been obvious but Daryl had ignored them. Glenn hadn't been asking him what Daryl had pretended to hear. Glenn was voicing something that Daryl had never dared to contemplate before.

What about the woman back at the prison that clearly loves you? What about the one person in your life that has stood by your side without ever asking for anything in return? What about the heart you're about to break when we go back and tell her that you're gone. Alive, but gone?

That was what Glenn had been asking. And that was one of the things that kept popping into his head every six months or so. That was one of the things that he could honestly say, he'd thoroughly ruined. Because the woman did love him. Had loved him for a long time. She had been the anchor. She had been the one warm place in his heart. And he knew he'd hurt her by leaving with Merle. She wouldn't begrudge him for what he had done. She would have pushed her pain away and she would have persevered regardless of his absence. She would have wished him the best.

He could have had it all. If he'd just said something sooner. If he'd just tried harder to get the others to understand that he couldn't walk away from Merle. If he could have convinced them all that there was a chance they could all make it work, despite Merle's crimes.

But he hadn't. And it had ended up costing him everything. Walking away that day he was convinced that he could eventually put them out of his mind for good. He had convinced himself that it had always been just him and Merle and it wouldn't be hard to go back to that.

He'd been wrong. Because the man that walked away with Merle that day wasn't the same man that had walked into that quarry camp. And now he was haunted by the ever fading memory of her kind smile. Her quick wit. Her unending fucking compassion. The brief touches and the playful banter. And the realization that all of it could have been his if he'd just done something about it. And now he was here and he was changed once more, because he wasn't the man she had known then.

He was a killer.

But there wasn't any sense in dwelling on that now. Now he was a part of a different kind of group. The kind of group that his old one would have taken out in a heart beat, or would try to anyway. The men in this group had seemed to shed all of their humanity at the start of it all. They were rough, wild, with a strange code of conduct that Daryl still didn't necessarily understand. They were hard, mean, and had no sense of right. They fought amongst themselves a lot. Daryl had the blood of several on his hands.

The women were nothing like the women in his old group. Some were wives from before the world ended. Some had been captured, literally taken from other groups. All of them were meek, abused, used. Some were traded off for odds and ends like they were nothing but material bric-a-brac. It made him sick. Literally, the first time he realized what was happening when one of the friendlier men asked if Daryl wanted to take his woman for the night, he'd became nauseous. The sickest part, the woman actually looked like she didn't mind.

He'd actually helped as many as he could. He'd figure out ways to get them out of there. Send them off with enough food and any kind of weapon he could get his hands on. Ten women in a years time were free because of him. The other women seemed to accept their lot without complaint. It was as though the thought of being nothing but meat didn't bother them in the least. But it was the other ones. The ones that wanted out, that he stayed for. Without him, that's ten more women that would have ended up dead, used up, or wishing for death.

Sometimes it seemed like it was just too much, and yet, he stayed. Merle wasn't as bad as some of the other men but he sure as hell fit in a lot better than Daryl did. He was rising in ranks while Daryl stayed on the fringes, almost like nothing had ever changed. It was how it had always been. No one looked at him like he had any value. No one asked for his advice or his opinion. No one here respected anyone at all. But most of them feared him, and that was more than he could have asked for. Weak men had no place in this group.

"Where's your head at, little brother?" Merle asked, sidling up next to him.

Daryl stood up from where he was crouched. They were on a low ridge not too far from the city. He was suppose to be scouting for signs of life but he wasn't. If he'd seen a group that was loaded down with more food and weapons than they could ever use, he'd still never tell the others that he had spotted anything. These men didn't just take. They took and then they slaughtered. Merle kept him away from the worst of it but Daryl wasn't stupid and he wasn't blind. But his hands were tied. And that was why he was going to keep his mouth shut about the group of women he had seen down there in the town they were checking out.

Besides the fact that he felt like he could help a few of the people here while still keeping his brother close, if he was a part of this group, he could do what he could to make sure that he was able to keep them clear of the prison. Merle had caught onto that when the men had talked about pulling up stakes and finding a new, more secure place to stay. One of the men had done some time at the prison years before and suggested going to check it out. It took him a while but he was able to convince Merle to convince the men that the prison was a lost cause.

"See anything of interest?" Merle asked, eying him.

Daryl shook his head. It was a lie but he wasn't going to tell Merle what he'd seen through the rifle scope.

"You sure about that?" Merle asked.

"How about you get the fuck off my back?" Daryl snapped. He'd been doing a lot of that lately.

Merle spit off to the side, his eyes narrowing. "You know, that fuckin' attitude of yours has been a goddamn thorn in my side. Those assholes are getting twitchy around you, brother. You're gonna have to step up. I ain't gonna be around forever."

"Fuck you. What am I suppose to do? I gotta go out there on one of their runs and pick me up some unwilling woman to bring back. Slit a couple of throats of some men that ain't never done me no wrong? Go fuck yourself." He turned around but Merle's heavy hand landed on his shoulder hard enough to cause him to wince. Merle jerked him back roughly.

Daryl had changed during his time away from his brother in more ways than one. He didn't take shit wordlessly anymore. He turned and stepped into his brother until they were nose to nose, both fuming, breathing heavily as they sized the other up.

"You wanna do this, boy?" Merle asked, his blue eyes flashing dangerously.

It was time. It'd been a few months since their last brawl and it was about time he reminded his big brother that he wasn't a boy. He took a small step back and saw the smirk on Merle's face, thinking that he'd caused his little brother to back down. That was when Daryl reared back and headbutted the bossy son of a bitch right in the face.

Merle howled, his hand going to his nose that was now streaming blood. That was when Daryl hit him. He landed two blows before Merle came in swinging hard, clipping Daryl in the jaw with the force of a Mack truck. But he'd seen it coming and was able to out maneuver his brother easily. Merle was a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger but Daryl was faster and he'd take speed over brawn any day.

By the time it was over he was on his ass, blinking blood out of one eye after Merle's fist busted his brow open, but Merle was on his back, panting for breath. This one went to the younger Dixon. Not even Merle could dispute that he'd gotten his ass kicked this time. Daryl grimaced thinking about their last fight because it'd taken him three days to recover.

Merle wasn't the only man here that he'd had to fight either. He'd been in plenty. In a group with this many men, all vying for the Alpha male spot, you got in your fair share of fights. He'd seen men beat to death in this group. No one ever batted an eye. He'd beaten three to death himself. The first time it had made him sick but he hadn't been given a choice. The second time he wasn't exactly sure how it had happened. It was all a blur until he had found himself standing over the body. The third time was a week ago. It had started off as a minor argument. The man had come at him, knife in hand. Daryl did what he had to do.

But sometimes he worried about it. Worried because he felt very little after playing God and taking another persons life like that. It was just another day. He felt nothing but an odd sense of detachment.

Most of the men steered clear of him for the most part. Merle was right. He made them edgy and one of the reasons he made them edgy, besides the fact that he didn't seem to mind the killing, was because he didn't go out of his fucking way to empress any of them. He didn't grab up a woman at random and start fucking her right there in the middle of camp. He didn't try killing his neighbor over any minor disagreement. He only hurt people when he was given no other choice. He was quiet. He was watchful. And that made these men damn nervous. He had nothing to prove here. Not like they all seemed to.

"You're gonna pay for that you little fucker," Merle grunted as he grabbed Daryl's offered hand.

"Go fuck yourself," Daryl said in a low voice before he turned and headed back to camp.

Hopefully the women he'd seen earlier down there on the streets had gotten the hell out. Merle was the one on lookout now and Daryl didn't know if Merle would sound the alarm or not. He counted seven of them. That would be a real score for this group. The good thing was, they didn't look like any of the women that he'd encountered before. For one, all of them were armed and even from this distance, they seemed to carry themselves with a kind of lethal grace. So maybe they would be okay. And if the men did go after them, maybe the women could protect themselves.

He was thankful that Carol was safely behind the walls of the prison and protected by decent men. Rick would never let anything happen to her. He was sure of that.