Chapter One

Meeting in the Woods

Thankfully there were no unusual sounds in the woods, nothing but the happy chirping of birds and scurrying of squirrels, unaware of the dangers that lurked in the world today. The sun had just come up and that meant that the woods were just barely coming to life and that, in particular, meant the perfect time to hunt.

Daryl had been silently following a doe through the forest since he spied it first waking up, but unfortunately he lost its trail and he stopped under a large tree to curse quietly to himself. He knew how to track so how could he have possibly lost this deer? Angry with himself he punched the tree next to him before leaning his arm on it to rest and think about whether he should try to find the deer again or not. Drip. Looking to his bare, left shoulder he noticed an unusual substance had dropped one it. He reached his hand over and swiped his finger over it and holding it in the sun so he could fully see what it was.

"What the…" he said to himself after recognizing that blood had dropped on him, not walker juice, but normal human blood, or an animal's. He glanced up above him and there on one of the larger branches of the tree was a young woman. He couldn't tell an exact age from his angle but he did notice a few other things about her.

She had used some rope to tie her self securely to the branch as she slept. She was just as filthy as he was, if not more and her hair was pulled back into a long pony tail, probably to minimize the amount of leaves and twigs that were already stuck in there. A pack rested on her lap, no doubt tied to her with the rope as well, and as his eyes traveled down the rest of her he found the blood source. Her pant leg on her right calf was cut and blood stained around the cut. She must have injured her leg there, and pretty badly, since he could somewhat make out a makeshift tourniquet.

Planning on just leaving quietly, no time to worry about some girl, Daryl started to walk away but still facing the woman when her eyes opened and the first thing they seemed to land on was him. She glared and with lightning quick speed she had pulled out a dagger from somewhere and pointed it at him.

"Who are you?" she asked a slight Southern drawl, but hardly noticeable.

"None of your business," he grumbled, stopping in his tracks and putting his hand on his dagger hanging from his belt.

"What were you planning on doing to me?" she asked not lowering the dagger.

"Nothin'. Was just walkin' away, so if ya don't mind, I was huntin'," he said before straightening up his stance and preparing to walk away once more.

"That's what I thought," she said to herself but with Daryl's hunting ears he was able to pick up the comment loud and clear.

"Hey, I could have killed you just now but I didn't, I thought you had enough problems what with that leg of yours, so why don't you watch your dumbass comments, hmm?" he snapped turning to face her once more. She had untied the rope and was folding it up to put back into her pack.

"Weren't you leaving?" she asked focused on the task at hand. Daryl glared before growling and walking away, punching a tree in the process. He planned to just kill whatever moved and bring that back to camp, that woman lit his flame and irked him the wrong way and now he just wanted to get the pent up anger out. Every since the world went to shit he never really did get a chance to let any emotion out and hunting was a good way to do so. He thought, that with his brother, they would be able to survive anything but they met up with that group and soon his brother and constantly high and bossing him around. Daryl didn't want to listen to anyone, especially not his no good older brother. Sure he loved the guy, he was family, but that was beside the point, it didn't change the way Merle treated his younger brother.

Daryl had just spotted a squirrel to kill and lifted up his crossbow to shoot when there was a loud thump and the squirrel took off running. Frustrated, Daryl turned around, crossbow at the ready to shoot the idiot that ruined his chance at another kill. He couldn't help but find the sight before amusing, the girl had tried to get out of the tree and by the looks of it fell. She was trying to slowly crawl down but her injured leg couldn't support her and she fell. Daryl let out a snort and lowered his crossbow.

"Yeah, yeah laugh it up squirrel boy," she said as she slowly turned around so her back was resting against the tree trunk. She then grabbed her head and closed her eyes as extreme dizziness attacked. "Say you wouldn't happen to have a twin there would you?"

Daryl groaned before shouldering his cross bow and walking over to her. He crouched down in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder before giving her a peace sign.

"How many fingers do you see?" he asked.

"Four….six….either way much more than the two fingers you're holding up," she said. She took a deep breath and tried to shake the dizzy feeling but it wasn't going away, it was getting worse. Thinking it was dehydration, she shifted a bit and pulled the pack off of her back and began to dig through it before pulling out a water bottle and draining it of what little water it had.

"I don't think it's dehydration," he said while looking at her leg.

"I know," she said, "but water wouldn't hurt. Why are you still here, shouldn't you be off hunting some unsuspecting animal?"

"I would but you keep scaring them off," he mumbled before pulling her pant leg up and looking at the cut. It looked like someone took a knife or something and just sliced into her leg, almost like they were trying to cut it off. It was crusting and dried blood was being covered by fresh blood.

"What are you doing?" she asked trying to scoot away from him but he had a firm grip on her leg.

"You aren't getting far on this leg," he said.

"Yeah, my other leg doesn't look to great either," she said with a snort. He gave her a look before looking down at her other leg and pulling the pant leg up to see her ankle covered in a dark bruise. He touched it gently, having seen all kinds of ankle injuries growing up hunting in forests and he felt around for the necessary bumps.

"You sprained it," he said lowering that pant leg and wiping his hands.

"Not an uncommon sight after running through a forest being chased by corpses. That's what I get after trying to a hide out in a house where a family reunion was happening," she said groaning a bit as she got more comfortable on the ground.

"Do you have a group, or someone else out here with you?" he asked looking around. She chuckled.

"Nope. I was with a group, but they kind of turned on me," she said clenching her hands as another dizzy spell came over her.

"Why did they turn on you?"

"Someone…" she took a deep breath and blinked trying to clear the spots in her eyes, "got bit. I….tried to put them out, but they were against it."

"Stupid, no chance of survival once you're bit."

"Yeah, that comment got me an ax to my leg, after I tried to put an arrow through the bit ones …head." That's when Daryl noticed her weapons. Both were on her back so it was hard to see but it looked like she had a set of bow and arrows and twin blades. An unusual combination but at times like these, anything worked. That's when he noticed her head droop, she had passed out, no doubt from the injury on her leg.

Crap. Now what was he suppose to do?

Daryl stood up and began to pace, occasionally glancing at the passed out nuisance. He didn't know who she was so why should he care if he leaves her here to be geek food. He sighed and walked away. Not his problem.

His mind, though, thought it was his problem. It kept thinking about her and how she pretty much had no chance to survive. She seemed to have the will to survive, but with her body in the state that it is, she would be someone's dinner before dawn tomorrow at the latest, especially if there was a family of geeks wandering the woods. So then it just left what plan of action he wanted to pursue now.

"Damn it," he said before turning in his tracks and going back the way he had come. It didn't take him long to find the tree where she was still passed out. A walker was coming towards her from his opposite direction but he quickly took it out. Pulling the arrow from the walker's head, he wiped the guts and blood off before leaning down towards the woman.

"This better be worth it," he said as he put her on his back and carried her back to his campsite and where he knew the others would be ready to ask him twenty thousand questions. Already he didn't like the idea of bringing her with him.

A/n: I will update this story once a week, possibly twice if I have enough written. I've had this idead in my head for a while and decided to write it.

Thanks for reading.

-Charlotte