A/N

Hello everyone!

I've never written a walking dead fic which is bizarre since I love the show but after meeting Norman Reedus I became highly inspired to actually work on my idea of a Daryl x OC story.

My OC is called Natalie and she's partially based off a good friend of mine - especially due to the childhood stories in the very first paragraph.

This first chapter will just be an intro into the basic gist of Natalie and Daryl's background but Daryl will officially be around in chapter 2.

Hopefully you guys like this, I'll try my best to make this fic a good one! :)

Natalie Taylor had always been someone who knew exactly what she wanted from life. And how to get it. When she was 7 she had wanted a new bike and had resorted to holding her breath in order to get one. When she was 14 she had wanted a mobile phone so she had taken up smoking in an attempt to persuade her parents that the money she could have been spending on phone bills she was wasting on cigarettes. However, when she was 19, what she wanted most in the world was to get out of North Georgia and move abroad to study. Sadly, this wasn't something that her childish tactics could easily grant her. Instead, Natalie was forced to use her hidden intellect to eventually gain a scholarship to study at a university in London.

Normally, people would have been sad to leave their hometowns but Natalie wasn't too much of a sentimental person and didn't cry once. She kept her smile when she was packing her things and when her friends and neighbours gathered together on the street to wish her well. Nor did she shed a tear when her sobbing mother was clutching at her arm, begging for her to stay. No, Natalie never cried once although those around her did. Including her childhood friend Daryl Dixon – even if this was when he was alone, long after Natalie had caught her flight.

He was going to miss her more than anyone; they had grown up door to door and, although he was a few years her senior, they had always gotten along well. Sharing being something which they had especially revelled in. Frequently, they would share cigarettes on the Dixon roof and take shots on the Taylor porch, never once caring about what the rest of the neighbourhood thought of their reckless teenage shenanigans. It was just a phase, they would say, they'd both grow up sooner or later. But the two had sworn that they'd never let society change them, that they'd always be close.

However, Natalie got sucked in by the idea of having a real education. Of escaping.

She grew up; her heart was suddenly set on studying hard and travelling all over the world. She had realised that she did indeed want more from life. And when she received a scholarship to study in London, Daryl knew that his friend was gone, and in her place, some strange new entity.

The night before she left, knowing that Daryl had been avoiding her, Natalie climbed into his bedroom window and waited for him to arrive home. "We need to talk." She had said as soon as her friend had entered his bedroom to find her there.

"I don't wanna talk to you. You're ditchin' me." He muttered glumly.

"I ain't ditchin' you. Don't be a pussy."

"Well what would you call it? You're fuckin' off to some rich prick school in London, tossin' me aside for this new life you're so desperate to have." Daryl glared at her, taking a puff from his cigarette. He really wasn't in the mood to be having this conversation.

"Daryl, we ain't kids anymore. I'm 21 and I need more than all this." She sighed, starting to feel guilty. "I'll come home whenever I can. You're gonna need someone to drink whiskey with at midnight." Punching his arm playfully, Natalie grinned; although she was surprised when he remained unresponsive to the gesture. "Wow, you really are gonna miss me."

"Yeah, course I'm gonna miss you. 'Cause I know that, when you get on that plane, you ain't gonna come back the same person."

"You're being an ass now. You're just jealous 'cause I'm gettin' outta this shithole." She insisted with a frown. "Why can't you just be happy for me?"

"Oh, you want a pat on the back? Well done Natalie Taylor, findin' a life away from everyone who ever gave a damn about you. You say you ain't gonna let that place change you, but it will."

"You really—"

"Just go, Nat. I don't care anymore." Daryl swatted his hand, gesturing for his friend to leave.

Dejectedly, Natalie nodded and moved to swing one leg over the window ledge. "See ya later, then."

That was the last time Daryl would see Natalie for almost 13 years. Even after the end of the world hit.

Whenever she flew home for a visit, although this was only during summer and for Christmas, Daryl would make sure that he was out somewhere else – he didn't want to see the uptight, highly-educated woman that she'd become. He didn't want to accept the fact that his best friend had undergone a complete personality transformation. He knew that he wouldn't be able to take it.

After her studies had ended, Natalie chose to stay in England permanently. She didn't return home like she'd promised him. Her parents said she'd met some guy and they were living together; which sickened Daryl to his stomach. Natalie had sworn to him that she'd never settle down. That she'd never change. Ha, lying bitch. Everything had changed.

Year has passed before Daryl heard any word of Natalie. It was a less than a year before the outbreak that he remembered seeing Natalie's mother running out of the house to meet her husband, laughing and crying while exclaiming that her daughter was engaged. Natalie was getting married. And the bitterness only grew within Daryl.

Natalie – his Natalie – was officially dead. Instead, he knew that there was some pretentious, wannabe businesswoman who was ready to marry and have kids. Again, something which she had sworn would never happen to her. But it had. Daryl didn't even know why he was so bothered anyway: she was just a girl.

But she was also his friend. His best friend in fact.

And the pain of losing their friendship didn't stop hurting until the end of civilisation began and stripped the world of any past heartaches. After all, survival had to be the main priority.

Just as the outbreak had begun, Natalie found herself in a taxi in Georgia with her fiancé, Anthony. She had reluctantly agreed to introduce her future husband to her family and friends so had been forced to make the effort to fly home. However, they sensed that something was odd when they arrived in Natalie's neighbourhood to find the streets empty; moreover, her parent's house was oddly quiet. "Maybe they've got out to the shops?" Anthony suggested, opening the door to the kitchen, his face dropping at the sight before him. "…Natalie…?"

She followed him through to the kitchen and was mortified; her legs gave way beneath her and she fell into a sobbing heap on the floor. "Mom…"

After she had cried, Natalie's sorrow turned into anger. "We're going to find out who did this." She said, standing up and heading for the door. "They could still be out there."

Anthony took her hand, "I'll go and look. You stay here and call for help."

Natalie nodded and knelt on the floor beside her mother. It saddened her that this was the first time she'd cried in front of her mother; she hadn't cried when she had left for England despite her mother's flooding tears yet, now it was too late, Natalie realised how much she had loved her despite always having wooden emotions when it came to family. Carefully she searched her mother's slim frame for the wound, confusion filling her mind when she saw what looked like a bite on her leg. Just then, she heard a slight groan and looked up, searching her mother's face for any signs of life. "Mom?"

The woman's eyes snapped open but instead of those loving brown ones Natalie had ones knew, there was nothing there. Instead lie this moaning figure that grabbed her arm tightly. "Mom? It's me…Natalie…"

Instead of flinging her arms around her and exclaiming her name with tearful joy, the woman's grip on Natalie tightened and she appeared to start bringing her arm towards her mouth.

"Mom..! Snap out of it!" Natalie cried, yanking her arm away and clambering to her feet, searching for an answer as to why her mother was…different, to say the least. The undead woman followed her daughter out of the room, still growling and groaning with outstretched arms.

Then a thought crossed Natalie's mind while in her panicked state. She recalled all the zombie movies she had watched with her friend Daryl and her siblings in the past, how they'd snarl and try to take a bite out of any living being. Then there was that bite on her mother's leg…

Natalie didn't even realise that she'd now been backed into a corner, closing her eyes in terror as her mother drew in closer.

Before the stranger could bite her, Anthony swung a shovel at his future mother-in-law's head, rendering her still once more. "Natalie, we have to go." He insisted breathlessly, hearing the faint sound of groaning from the top of the stairs.

Natalie couldn't even move. She just lie there under the lifeless body of her mother, still in tears. Then she looked to where the sound was coming from; there, just up the stairs, stood a group of monsters – the rest of the Taylor family. Squinting at the unfamiliar figures, tears formed in Natalie's eyes; her stepfather, her two sisters…and her youngest brother. In that instant, tears formed in the young woman's eyes and she fell into a sobbing heap on the floor. Everything was fucked up. Everything was fucked up and she didn't know why.

She hadn't even seen her family in two years…

She'd come home to a house of monsters with empty eyes and hollow shells. There was nothing left of her past life now.

Anthony began frantically grabbing food from the cupboards and stuffing it into a bag. "Natalie, get those bottles and fill them with water, quickly."

Numbly, she shuffled away from the staircase, hardly concerned for the rest of her undead family that began to descend down the stairs at an agonisingly slow pace. All Natalie could do was stand there helplessly while Anthony hurriedly prepared themselves for whatever lied ahead.

On their way out of the house, Natalie noticed a photograph of their family on the mantle. It had been taken years ago, when her youngest brother was just a baby and when Natalie had returned home for her first Christmas since moving away. She picked up the frame and stared closely at the faces of her family; although those happy faces had now been replaced with the decaying, desperate faces of the monsters she had faced. Those memories had been washed away the instant that her mother had opened her dead grey eyes.

Biting her lip, Natalie took the photo and headed out of the house, not even bothering to close the door behind her. After all, it wasn't home anymore.