A/N – This is my first foray into fanfic, actually my first real attempt at fiction period. So if you plan to review, feedback would be appreciated, but please be gentle. I started this as a smutty one shot, but started to have some fun with it and I'm finding that I can be a bit rambly… So I kept going and now I have eight chapters which I plan to post once per day. I'm also thinking this could be the start of a multi chapter Daryl/OC pairing, but that depends on whether anyone digs what I have so far.

And be warned. When I say smutty, I mean if you're under the age of 18, your God, parents and any authority figure you're scared of will instantly be able to read every single filthy word you've read on your face kind of smutty. But if you're over the age of 18 and that's what you're into, welcome – but be advised that you'll have to wait a little bit for it. While my OC is a brazen hussy, both she and Daryl are a bit shy. And it's more fun that way, isn't it?

Disclaimer – I own nothing but Stella, my potty mouth and my filthy imagination. All credit for Daryl and the brilliant series goes to AMC and Robert Kirkman. Anyway, I'm certainly not making any money off this, so nothing here for any legal ferrets to worry about.

Patsy Cline, Hoodoo Eyes and Other Acts of Bravery

Chapter One

It took me quite a while to figure out why he seemed so familiar. Why wouldn't it? The man never talked! He snarled, sure. Tossed out sarcastic bon mots when he didn't think anyone was listening, certainly. Grunted, frequently. But talk? Hardly ever. Anyway, it wasn't his voice that finally triggered my recollection of him. It was those eyes of his. Blue, penetrating, cold and blazing at the same time. But again, how on earth could I be expected to remember him if he never even looked at me? He'd never been around that much, usually off hunting, sometimes for several days at a time. And when he was around, he kept to himself, hanging out with his obnoxious brother who, after grabbing his crotch and suggesting I sit and spin, gave me all the incentive I needed to steer clear of both brothers. Anyway, I'd always had the distinct impression that he was pissed off at me for some reason or another. Something about the way his shoulders would tense up and he'd turn his back to me whenever I was around… Maybe he hated me because I'd told his brother where to go fuck himself? But all the women, at one point or another, had told that asshole to put his dick somewhere painful, so who knows? I didn't bother analyzing it. It was easier all around to just ignore both him and his surly attitude.

But it was weird… The few times I did see him around camp, usually at meals when we were forced to exchange a few words – with him refusing to look at me, of course – some little part of my brain would nudge me with a, 'hey girl, does he remind you of someone?' But I just thought that he resembled someone I'd had some kind of passing interaction with. Or my brain was confusing familiar with handsome, because come on… the man was rather hot, under all the dirt, sweat and rudeness. In a testosterony kind of way, of course, what with the broad shoulders and muscular arms…

There was that one time I went to fill water buckets at the quarry and stumbled upon him while he was taking one of his all too infrequent baths… I saw the man buck naked – well, just above the hips naked – and I hadn't been able to take my eyes off him…. Muscles for days and days, hard and defined… Water glistening on his skin in a way that made me really thirsty… The trail of hair down his stomach that disappeared into the water… Well, let's just say the sight had inspired quite a few dreams that left me all tingly and moist when I woke up. But he'd never, ever looked at me! Barely ever talked to me! So that was all he was – just some vaguely familiar, hot, socially inept redneck I shared space with. Until I finally got a good look at his eyes, that is. Across that big table at the CDC, about two weeks after Glenn found me in Atlanta and brought me back to his group. And it finally dawned on me as to where I'd seen him before. The Spotted Cat. New Orleans. Spring Break six years ago.

I hadn't planned on spending my break there, but Margie and I had decided to bail on our original plans to camp on Marathon Key with a bunch of our friends, figuring that all the signs pointed to turning our New Orleans pit stop into a week-long bender. Margie was my degenerate comrade slash roommate, the kind of friend who had this inexplicable talent for inspiring me to push past my fears and do stuff I ended up being glad about… Anyway, when Jeffrey, Margie's big brother, invited us to stay with him and his band, how could we refuse? They'd booked a five-night gig at The Spotted Cat, a tiny but popular club in the Marigny district, and a place to stay was bundled into the deal. Sure, it involved a disgusting foldout couch and having to fend off the persistent advances of Miles, the band's pervy bass player, but it was free and certainly better than washing sand out of my crotch for the rest of the semester. Anyway, it was New Orleans, for fuck's sake! All the stars had aligned and we would have been stupid not to take him up on his offer.

Now it was six years later, and I look back on that week in New Orleans as one of the best in my life. Seven days when I was the greatest possible version of myself. Daring, brave, self-assured… Ever since, I've used that week, memories of the person I'd been while I was there and the lessons I learned as touchstones. Whenever I need courage or confidence, they remind me that I'm capable of handling whatever comes my way. And six years later, trying like hell to survive in a world where a gruesome death is always a very real possibility, they've helped me stay alive. It's kind of silly, really, when I think how far I've come. But also deadly serious when I think of the person I'd been before that fateful trip and how she would have handled herself during a zombie apocalypse. Because I conquered something that, for me back then, was huge. My biggest fear. Ever. Of being noticed.

Before that week, I never spoke in class. Never drew attention to myself. Always hid in the corner, hoping no one would notice me. I'd only speak to someone I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary. Only family members and good friends had ever heard me speak more than ten words at once. Sure, I could let down my hair on occasion, but only when I could control the circumstances and was certain that I was safe around people who already knew and cared about me. Now Margie, despite scaring the hell out of me that first day of our freshman year, what with her bright pink hair, nonstop talking and frequent hugs, had helped me come out of my shell a little bit. With her unique mixture of patience and nagging, I learned how to resist the impulse to hide in the bathroom when she dragged me to bars and parties, and even managed to have fun on occasion, as long as I didn't have to talk to anybody I didn't know. But I was still extremely shy.

So before that week in New Orleans, I certainly would have never, in a million years, even under threat of a painful death, have ever…. Never, ever…. Had the guts to sing in public. I loved music, sure. All types, really. And after Margie, I even started to go to see live bands. But most of all, I really, really loved to sing. Especially in the shower, probably because being naked helped to bolster the feeling of freedom singing gave me, of being utterly at home in my own skin. And that was rare, given how often tension seemed to overwhelm me, what with all the other people I had to share space with on the planet. Of course, I only sang when I was absolutely sure I was by myself. I was always really careful to make sure no one heard me. Until that one afternoon, during a weekend trip that Margie and I took to her home in Washington, D.C.

I had been hanging out with Margie and Jeffrey, who I'd become pretty good friends with by then, playing a game that was half croquet, half Frisbee Golf and made more interesting with enormous quantities of alcohol. I'd managed to get stupid drunk and went in to get ready for our night out without checking to make sure my drinking buddies were still outside. While in the shower, I belted out a particularly loud, impassioned rendition of my favorite song, 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline. Yup, it appears that five beers and a shot of tequila were all it took to prevent me from taking the normal precautions, and I sang where people could hear me. But that didn't mean I wanted an audience. And the last thing I expected was to come out of the bathroom and find my roommate and her brother sitting there, on the bed, gawking at me.

Margie had whispered, "Oh… My…. God…."

Jeffrey had yelled, "What the fuck, girl?"

I just stood there in the doorway, legs buckling, and grabbed the doorjamb with one hand to keep from falling down and my towel with the other to make sure I didn't add nudity to the mix of overwhelming embarrassment that made me want to turn back around and lock myself in the bathroom. Because no one, other than my parents, had ever heard me sing before. And that was when I was eight… Remember? I didn't like to draw attention to myself. Crippling shy person, that was me. But they wouldn't let it go, bringing it up over and over during our bar crawl that night and several more times the next morning.

Margie wouldn't stop with the "Where in the hell did you learn to sing like that?", "Do you have any fucking idea how amazing you sound?", "I'm dragging your ass to a karaoke bar the first chance I get." and "You need to stop hiding, girl! You've got a gift!"

Jeffrey, in his own way just as dramatic, kept saying stuff like, "You need to get on a stage, honey.", "Let me record you and send it to this scout I met last year." and "You can't let your fears hold you back from singing, hon, because with a voice like that, it's what you were meant to do."

Of course, I'd kept blowing them off, shutting them down and telling them to shut the fuck up until they finally let it go. Actually, it was probably the crying, combined with the begging and pleading to respect my need for privacy that made them finally stop. But all the gushing and compliments must have laid some groundwork, somehow fertilized my unconscious and given me a little boost of confidence, so that when Jeffrey called me to the stage that first night at The Spotted Cat, asking… no… demanding that I get up there and sing 'Crazy," I didn't run away and lock myself in the bathroom. Those four mint juleps probably helped, of course, but really, I honestly don't know how I made it to the stage. I couldn't tell you how I managed to keep the microphone from slipping out of my sweaty hands. Fuck if I know why my legs didn't give out on me during the opening bars of the song, delivered in the band's signature gritty, bluesy style. And it's one of life's little mysteries that my voice kept working after the first word of the song cracked as it emerged from my throat.

Frankly, my entire time on that stage was a blur. But I do remember how I managed to stay up there and sing the entire song, though. An extraordinary pair of blue eyes, staring at me from the far end of the bar. They were barely visible through the dim lighting, so I couldn't tell you how I knew they were blue… But I held on to them, focusing on those eyes and nothing else as a way to block out the chaos, the people and all of those other eyes. On me. While I sang. In public. For the first time in my entire life.

That was the start of something for me. Something important. For the next four nights, Jeffrey managed to convince me to get up there and sing that song. And each night, I found that I had a little more courage. And by the end of that fifth night, by the time I sang the last six words, "and I'm crazy for loving you," I found out something very important about myself. A deeply buried part of my character that I hadn't even known was there. I found out that I was capable of conquering my biggest fear and walking away from it with my head held high, applause ringing in my ears.

Now I didn't drop out of college and move to New York to get 'discovered.' And I didn't join Jeffrey's band, despite their pleading and a borderline intimidating call from their agent. But I did go to the occasional karaoke bar after that, and I always sang that one song. And I did get up on stage a few more times to sing with Jeffrey's band when they were in town, but I only sang that one song. And those were big things for me. Huge, in fact. But not the most important. What changed me for good, for the better, was that I became braver in a million other, more profound ways.

I learned that being noticed by strangers wouldn't kill me. Revealing something about myself didn't diminish me. Any attention given to my words, actions or even demands was part of the natural order of thing, a right I'd earned simply by being a human being. But most importantly, I learned that I was capable of conquering my greatest fear. That, if I could get up in front of a crowd of strangers for five nights in a row, I could take on a shuffling pile of rotting flesh. Hell, I could take on several of them at once. I know, because I've done it. The person I was before I took that stage certainly wouldn't have had the guts to kill five walkers in the space of five minutes, but the person I became afterwards didn't hesitate to do so.

So who knows, maybe those five nights on that stage at The Spotted Cat helped me to stay alive after the world went to shit. But if that's true, and deep down I think it is, it's safe to say that those blue eyes, which were there every single night when I took that stage, helped me summon the courage to remain there and conquer what had been my greatest fear. And I'd just now figured out that those eyes belonged to none other than Daryl fucking Dixon, my new group's socially stunted loner and surly badass.

As soon as I actually saw those eyes again, the first time I actually got a good look at them, I knew. How could I ever forget them? That first night on stage, they'd helped me build a wall that blocked out all my fears and insecurities. Was it because they happened to be directly in my sight line, giving me something visible to focus on? That was part of it, sure. Did the lighting in the bar favor that particular spot so that I could actually see them? Possibly. But the main reason? The real reason? It was the fact that they were extraordinary... They were… well, beautiful. And intense. And kind.

They'd turned up the second night, leaning on a support beam to the right of the bar, never leaving me, not once, during the entire song. The third night, I'd managed to gather the courage to actually move my eyes around the room and found them in a different spot, leaning against the part of the bar directly in front of me, intense and unwavering. By the fourth night, I actually looked for them and panicked until I found them leaning against a wall to the right of the stage, watching me, giving me strength. And that fifth night, I found them instantly, back to leaning against the bar, because I had no doubt in my mind that they'd be there. And that night, knowing it was my last, I ignored everyone else in that bar, not because I was scared, but because I wanted to sing for him and only him.

Over the course of those five nights, I'd gotten a pretty good look at the man who owned those eyes, despite the dim lighting. Tall. Broad shouldered. Scruffy hair and clean shaven. Maybe four or so years older than me with a zen way about him, not easily distracted by the jostling and noise one generally finds in a club. Always dressed casually, jeans and some kind of button down shirt. A cleaned-up redneck, not generally the type of man I found myself attracted to. But I didn't care. Because of those beautiful, intense, kind eyes. On some level, I'd expected him to approach me. I certainly wasn't brave enough to go up and introduce myself at that point, but I really think I would have found the courage to talk to him, if only to get a closer look at those gorgeous eyes of his. It never happened, though.

When I stumbled off the stage that first night, he'd been busy quieting down some loud, obnoxious guy who'd started yelling at me, wondering what else I could do with that pretty mouth of mine. And with my newly found frame of reference, I'm pretty sure that was Merle… That second night, he'd disappeared by the time I put the mike back in the stand. The third night, I saw him pay his tab and leave. The fourth night, he lingered to throw what I'm convinced was the $50 bill we found in the pass-around basket. But that fifth night? I'm almost positive I saw him walking toward me with a determined look on his face. At the same exact moment that Miles, the pervy bass player, decided to pick me up and carry me off the stage. By the time I managed to get him off me, he and those eyes of his were gone. And I never saw them again until tonight, during one of the many glances I kept throwing at the handsome redneck who, without that crossbow slung over his shoulder, looked a lot less intimidating. And once I saw his eyes, once I caught that flicker of intensity and kindness in them, I realized it was him. I realized that I'd been living with the same pair of blue eyes that had burned themselves into my brain and my heart six years ago.

Maybe the booze served as a social lubricant, finally allowing us both to lose enough of our inhibitions to look around and actually see one another. And there was a lot of booze, all kinds. I stuck to wine, but I'm pretty sure I managed to polish off one and a half bottles over the course of the entire evening, what with Dale topping off my glass every time I turned around. How could we not drink after finally finding a haven after so many weeks of constantly watching our backs to make sure some dead fucker wasn't trying to chew our legs off? We also had full bellies and, given the CDC's overflowing pantry, had every reason to believe we'd be able to keep them that way for some time.

And don't forget, we'd just lost Amy, Jim and Ed. The only people who might have missed Ed were his wife and daughter, and maybe they did, but they certainly seemed more relaxed without that raging asshole around. But I felt a twisting knife in my stomach every time I thought of Amy, who'd barely had a chance to experience life before having it brutally snuffed out. And Jim? Jim had been one of the sweetest, most serene men I'd ever met, so the thought of him as a walker or still sitting under that tree just dug that knife in a little deeper. Needless to say, all of our hearts were broken. That grief, combined with Jenner's little seminar on how little we knew about the virus and the dawning realization that the world we'd known was gone for good, left us needing some kind of distraction. Even with the basics of safety, shelter and food taken care of, we weren't quite ready to confront the larger implications just yet.

Hell, I couldn't handle the implications of those eyes belonging to Daryl! The eyes I remembered just didn't match what little I knew about the man – the eyes from six years ago were kind, never left me, had comforted me in some strange, intimate way… And they belonged to the sullen redneck who always acted like he was pissed off at me? It just didn't compute, and that's probably why I knocked over my glass. As soon as Jacquie and I finished cleaning up the mess, Daryl had turned away and he was back to teasing Glenn. Well, I was pretty sure it was him… It was six years ago and so much had changed since then…

But goddammit, I'd stared into those eyes for the two and a half minutes it took to sing that song for five nights in a row. When you're scared out of your mind and locked into a pair of eyes that are the only things that stand between you and a panic attack, that equals twelve and a half minutes of very intense gazing. I knew those eyes almost as well as my own, but I looked again to make sure. I tried to be discreet by making it look like I was scanning the room, and there they were again. Just a quick glance that connected briefly with my own, but now that I knew what I was looking for, I was certain that it had been Daryl and those eyes of his in that club. I was positive.

So, now that I knew that Daryl owned the blue eyes that helped to transform my life in such a significant way, I had to keep sneaking peeks at him. He was different tonight, more relaxed, certainly chattier than he had ever been around camp. He was smiling a lot too, almost boisterous, what with the "booyahs" and trying to get Glenn drunk. And he wasn't dirty! Like, just showered, hair still a bit damp, wearing a clean button down shirt with sleeves. Actually, very similar to how he'd looked at The Spotted Cat. He had a goatee and was a bit scruffier, of course, but weren't we all? A little less zen and more hardened. But again, weren't we all?

I know my appearance had changed more than his, which is probably why he hadn't recognized me. I was thinner, as everyone was these days, and my hair was shorter. Six years ago, it had hung all the way to my waist, a wavy auburn curtain I would hide behind when the people around me got to be too much. But after that fateful week, I'd mustered up the courage to have it trimmed to just below my shoulders. It was longer now, to my shoulder blades, but I generally pulled it up in a messy bun because of the heat and to protect against dead, grasping fingers. It was down tonight, though, and I'd taken the time to apply the mascara and lip gloss I'd found in the bottom of my backpack. It felt so strange paying attention to my looks. Hell, looking at your reflection was a luxury these days. But it's safe to say that the way I looked tonight was about as close as I'm likely to get to the way I'd looked six years ago.

I was still puzzled, though. He'd stared at me for twelve and a half minutes…. So why hadn't he recognized me? Perhaps for the same reason I hadn't recognized him? I mean, we'd barely interacted and he never really got a good look at me. Or… Maybe it wasn't me he'd been staring at… For all I knew, he was gay and had been staring at Miles the whole time. Should I go up to him and talk to him about it? Yeah…. No. I was certainly braver now, but I would never be the kind of person who could just go up and start talking about something like that to a person I hadn't exchanged more than ten words with. And even if I was, Daryl didn't strike me as the type of guy who would be receptive to that type of conversation…

I leaned forward and took another sip of wine, using the opportunity to look at him once more. And there they were again, those crazy crystal blue eyes… I gulped the rest of the glass, trying to cool down the hot flush I could feel creeping up my neck and cheeks. There was something in that look that said he might have recognized me as well... The heat in my face had now spread to the pit of my belly and felt like magma bubbling inside a long dormant volcano. Long dormant. As in, it had been a good two years since any lava had flowed out of this particular volcano and I thought it was extinct. Hell, until I saw Daryl down at the quarry, I thought my sex drive was extinct, another casualty of the times we found ourselves living in. I wasn't sure why the sudden possibility of him recognizing me was making me feel this way…. Maybe the realization that now, since I basically lived with the guy, we now had a chance to do more than just look at one another…