Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

Warnings: The comics refer to Dale's wife as being "Erma" or "Irma". I choose Irma because I had to make a decision, and also because I liked it better. It is also worth noting that there are instances of mature language in this story, as well as the discussion and use of Religious imagery for purposes of the central plot device. If they bothers you or makes you in any way uncomfortable, this note at the very least gives you fair warning. In addition, while this story is general, with some allusion to two separate heterosexual relationships that central around Dale, the main character of this story, this fiction does contain some allusions to a pre-slash/growing friendship between Glenn and Daryl. (However, since those scenes are minor and sparse in detail it can also be read purely as friendship as well).

Authors Note: Please read and review. I am excited to see what you all think. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism. This is my third Walking Dead story, and the first that focuses on Dale as the central character, so I am especially looking for feedback. In addition, I wanted to send a quick thank you to my reviewers. You guys are the wind beneath my typing fingers. I adore you all!

The Foundations of Faith

He was tired, bone weary and thin tempered when he finally clambered off the roof of the RV, annoyance steadily growing with each well measured tick of his old, hand wound watch. As it was, the long hand was already a full quarter of an hour past the point that marked the end of his time on watch.

His tired irritation had only grown as the blood red rays of the dawn began to tint the distant horizon, and his relief still hadn't appeared. This wasn't the first time T-dog hadn't shown up on time for his turn.

Normally he would just wait until the man appeared; as in the grand scheme of things, a little tardiness was hardly anything to get worked up about. Besides, he figured he was getting far too old to start sweating the small stuff in life, especially considering the nature of recent events. But this time he found that he just didn't have the patience to wait.

It had been a long, tense night on watch, their first since the CDC, and he was tired damnit!

Shouldering his Ruger M77 Hawkeye he made his way past the smouldering coals of the main fire pit, eyes darting with unconscious alertness from shadow to shadow as he wound his way through the series of tents that pebbled the small forest clearing they had chosen as camp after their escape. With the lack of gas and direction having quickly brought an end to their mindless fleeing, which in the scheme of things had been fortunate for the life expectancy of T-Dog's beat up van, which had begun to overheat in the excitement of their escape.

They desperately needed to regroup and think through their next course of action. But if the heated argument at the campfire the night before was any indication, they were going to be here for a while yet.

Everyone had a myriad of ideas, but no one was listening to each other. They needed a plan, a course of action.. Hell even a future goal would be a step up at this point! But yet all they had managed to accomplish thus far was to give everyone else a damn headache.

No one knew what to do, not even Rick, and it showed.

T-dogs tent was the second last from the fire, yet despite that distance Shane's small canvas pup tent, the last one in their sporadic, uneven circle, seemed to be nestled a pointed distance away from the rest of the group, practically straddling the edge of the clearing where their tin can alarms had been strung up across the robustly flowering, yellow jasmine shrubs.

He eyed the thick canvas tent for a long moment, discomfort prickling along the nape of his neck, raising the hairs there as if he had caught a chill, before he mentally shook off the shudder. That was a problem they were going to have to address soon. The man was damn near unstable. Not that any of them were exactly batting a thousand in the sanity department at the moment, but it was clear to see that Shane was at the breaking point. That much had been clear for a while now. Something was going to have to be done about that soon or he feared they were going to have another tragedy on their hands.

And as he arched his head to look back towards the fire, his eyes unconsciously fixating on Andrea's small, dome shaped tent, a tent that had been originally meant to house two, he was reminded that they had all had just about as much tragedy as they could take.

Wrenching his gaze away, he forced his mind to retreat back to safer and much less complicated territory. It was neither the time nor the place to even begin to examine those feelings. Instead, as he walked, he made himself dwell on yet another, less conventional train of thought.

He supposed that the heart of the dilemma was that he simply didn't understand it. He didn't understand why, out of millions, that he was still alive. And while he was certainly grateful for it, the matter irked and gnawed at him whenever he paused long enough to think about it, remembering the faces, the sights, the smells..and god..the screams of all those that had died around him. All those had hadn't made it as he had driven off in relative safety, the meaty fists of the dead that chased him, beating powerful and insistent at the doors even as he kicked the gas pedal flat down to the floor, panic and confusion spiking like adrenaline in his chest as the finicky motor roared to life.

Winston Churchill had once said, in response to his life and career, that: "Everyone has his day, and some days last longer then others." And he wondered, with no small amount of curiosity, just what the late Prime Minister would have had to say in response to that, if he had lived to see these times.

But knowing the old Bulldog of Britain, it probably wouldn't have been anything anyone could get away with actually printing at any rate. Not that there was anyone left to print anything mind you…

He held no illusions of his own personal strengths, or even his self worth. He knew he was on the wayside of his fifties, his eyesight progressively worsening as the years passed him by, much like his late fathers had. He neither fast, nor particular slow, moderate in built, strength, and stamina. He was delightfully average in almost every way. And until the world had changed, he had been content with that.

Luckily, he had always been a fast learner..

Throughout his life, it had been his mind that he had developed, with years of careful scholastic study had has somehow seemed to naturally evolve into the scholarly profession that he had grown to love too much, one that he had proudly dedicated over thirty years of his professional life in the service of.

Some had disciplined their bodies with diet and strict exercise, where as he had spent his life coveting his mind, collecting knowledge, enriching himself with it, and then passing it on so that others might have the same opportunity.

So, even now, he held no great delusions of himself and his chances in this new and quite horrifying world. As throughout his life he had always striven to remain honest with himself, and he saw no reason to change that now.

As while the concept that they were all in fact on borrowed time was harsh to be sure, there was just no delicate way to get around the fact that for the first time in all their lives, such an idea was no longer so foreign or unthinkable.

However, despite it all, there was one thing that the years and the hardships he had had to endure since Irma had passed that had not been taken from him, indeed something that he partially credited for him being alive today.

…..And that was the will to live. He wanted to live.

It was strange that desire, to want to live through such hard times. He didn't really know what he was living for, or even who for that matter. He only knew that he did. And for a long time he had figured that was enough. Indeed it was only after the CDC, after the explosion, and the delightfully awkward way that Andrea's smooth hands had fit together with his own, that he wasn't quite sure that that was enough anymore.

And not for the first time since she had made her dramatic entrance into his quiet, brooding life, guilt flashed through his mind with the power of something akin to a physical pain. He wasn't sure what was worse, knowing that he had feelings for Andrea, or knowing that in some, strange way, Irma would have been happy for him.

He was more surprised then initially worried when he found that T-dog had already left his tent, thinking that he must have missed him through the rows of tents when he went looking for the man. But just as he made to turn around and head back towards the RV, a deep voiced, soft murmuring caught his ear.

He couldn't make out the words, but he was struck into silence as the barest tingles of recognition teased his tired mind. The rhythm, the tone.. It was familiar! Where did he know it from?

Intellectual curiosity piked, he quietly navigating around to the back of the tent, mindful of the tense grounding ropes that secured the man's tent to the hard packed soil as he carefully stepped over them, one hand firm on the strap of his rifle as he rounded the corner.

"Hail Mary, full of grace…The Lord is with Thee.."

He stopped in mid stride, having come around the corner the very same second the murmuring words took recognizable form. It was the Ave Maria..The Hail Mary…

It took him a long, ageless moment to process what he was seeing, his eyes squinting into the growing glare of the dawn as he took in the kneeling form of the man before him. It was T-dog. He had his back to him, facing off into the sun rise, eyes firmly closed, face tense and teeming with more emotion then he had ever seen the man express.

"Blessed art Thou among women ….And Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus…."

And suddenly, a lot of things started to make sense. The clothes, the street talk, it was all a ruse, a part the man had decided to play. The man was a Roman Catholic, and a devote one by what he could tell. For here they were, the world all but ending around them, and the man on his knees, prostrate in the long grass, with a rosary clutched in his fist as he murmured words he seemed to know all but instinctively.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God….Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death…"

And somehow, he had never realized how ironically appropriate the line of that iconic prayer were to their situation until the moment the phrase left the man's lips. It certainly gave new meaning to the scriptures that described the end of days…

"Amen.."

And that was when the memories hit him. The merciless weight of decades of moments, memories, hell, even glances descended upon him all at once. There had been no warning or defence he could muster against them. But in the end it didn't matter, because he knew he couldn't deny them…he couldn't deny her.

He supposed he should have expected it. He should have known that something like this would bring it all back, everything he had struggled to put behind him. But he hadn't, and the hand that had been hanging by his side, lax with surprise at the discovery, abruptly clenched into a fight, defensive fist.

.. Irma..

He backed away silently, leaving the man to his absolutions as he slipped back the way he came, memories haunting his steps, as blackness teemed wild and dangerous along the edges of his vision as the past threatened to overwhelm him.

It wasn't until he had retreated all the way back to the RV, and had shut himself firmly inside, safely away from the sight of the others, that he finally let himself sag, more falling rather then sitting down across the bench that circled the small kitchen table.

Christ…He had almost forgotten..

And unbidden his left hand drifted over to cover his right, fingering his wedding band with nervous tension. He twisted the dull golden ring with long deliberate strokes, watching as it caught the low light and sent sharp golden reflections lancing across the surface of the table.

God..How he missed her!

Every morning when she woke it had always been the same. She had never wavered from the tradition, not even once, despite over thirty years of marriage. And somehow, perhaps in that strange way that spouses become attuned to the other throughout the passage of the years, he found that he could never tired of it. He had always watched in secret, still immersed in the bed covers that smelled just like her, and feigning sleep so he could simply watch as she would slide carefully out of bed.

He had committed to memory the soft sound that her bare limbs made as they whispered across the sheets, movements muted almost to the point of agonizing slowness as she tried not to wake him. He had always sighed in self satisfaction then, knowing better then the tilt of his own sleep-slurred breath what always came next. She would stretch, arms raising above her head, lifting her short night dress just the slightest of bits to reveal a pale swath of freckled hip, a creamy canvas that he had explored to excess through the nights they had shared together throughout the years.

He had mapped out the contours with his fingers, thumbs smoothing across the dips, and the lines. She had thirty-six freckles on her right hipbone, but only seven on her left. He had counted them to make sure. She had only laughed when he had told her. Her hands wrapping around his neck in an unmistakeable hint that she desired his attention elsewhere…

It was only the clack of the rosary beads, always quickly muted by the flesh of her palm as she collected them from the bedside table that had always distracted him from the sight of her flesh. As that was where the inner struggle often began.

As while his faith had always been stilted with unanswered questions and darkened by the pale shadows of doubt, Irma's had never wavered. She had that solid, unquestioning faith that he had never fully understood, but often envied. Even when they had stared, warring against horror and disbelief at the noxious mass that stood out in the x-ray like an unwelcome stranger, and the doctor had spouted words like 'terminal' and 'pain management' she had told the surgeon that they would have to come back for the rest of the appointment after the church service that he hadn't even realized they were almost late for.

He had been angry with her then, terrible words born of fear and frustration, bubbling up from his throat like toxins from a gangrenous wound, ripping out into the empty silence that descended in the car between them. Because to him, she just didn't seem to understand that in less then six months he was going to have to live the rest of his life without her.

And it hadn't occurred to him until that last day, when her soft, stilting breaths had been the only sound in that empty, flower filled hospital room, all the machines turned off at her final request, was that she had known it all along, and had only been attempting to be brave in his stead.

She had been thinking of him, not herself. Just as she always had.

He had dragged her to every specialist, every appointment, every slim chance, and new treatment. And all the while, despite the pain and the exhaustion, she had serenely let him. Knowing him well enough to know that in some small, impossible way, he had to try and save her.

She had always understood him better then he had ever known himself..

And each and every morning of those six months, even when her body failed her and she could no longer get herself up and out of bed, she would reach for those faded rosary beads and pray. Only then, he hadn't been able to watch her anymore.

He just couldn't.

He hadn't spoken to God since she had passed. Too angry, too betrayed to even stomach invoking his name. After all, it was far easier to blame God rather then to admit that cancer was a disease that took countless lives every year. He hadn't wanted to admit that perhaps it was just one of those things that happened…And that maybe God had nothing to do with it at all..

His mother in law had once commented, decades earlier, only months after they had wed, on the origins of Irma's name. They had been a few glasses into a particularly good merlot, and everyone's tongues had been pleasantly loosened, high on the heady flavour of the wine and made complacent in the way that only a supremely excellent supper could produce. Her mother had been reminiscing on the difficulty of picking her name, with Irma being their first, and indeed only child, they had found the task of naming her to be particularly daunting. Apparently, according to their feverish, post-natal research, its Germanic meaning was defined as 'constant motion', or the 'wind'. And since then, he had always pondered on how that description seemed so ill-fitting.

Irma had never reminded him of the wind, or even the lightest flighty breeze. No. She had always been his rock. His foundation. His anchor. She had always been the one he could count on, his confidant, his best friend, his first, and likely last love.

As a youngster, he had never believed in the concept of soul mates, too caught up in his own simmering teenage cynicism and petty tribulations. At least not until that day in college, half way through his second semester, when she strode into class not five minutes before the bell, a bombshell of a transfer from out of state. She had been all long colt legs, firm hips, and high breasts, her long auburn hair done up in the current style of the time, the ever popular Susan Blakely curls.

He had been the only man in the class that hadn't wolf whistled as she had approached, too tongue tied and nervous to do anything more then gaze at her through his eye lashes. But by some strange piece of luck, she had taken his silence for maturity and restraint and had graced him with an easy, affectionate smile and had slid into the open seat beside him. Clearly having no idea how truly devastating a smile like that could be for a twenty five year old man so green to the ways of women that he might as well have been auditioning for the role of a god damn leprechaun.

She had then proceeded to resoundly trounce him with an opposing strain of logic that he hadn't even considered as he presented his Politics in America paper. She had been sp utterly magnificent that he found that he couldn't even form a suitable offence against her argument. She had a keen wit, and a sharp intelligence that had titillated his own, thrilling him in ways, that at the time, he hadn't been able to understand nor even begin to define.

It had been from that very moment that he knew he had to have her. And true to form, she had made him work for it, unwilling like him, to give her heart out so freely. It had taken years of growing friendship, and fumbling misguided overtures before he had finally turned to her, on that cold, clear day in January, having just picked her up to go skating with some old chums from their graduating class. Where when frustration and nervous tension had made him bold, he had grasped the skates from her hands, seized her smooth, freckled face in between his clumsy hands and had captured her lips in the kiss that would mark the first of many.

She had pulled away after a long, ageless moment, the way the nature of one's first kiss always seems to be, her hands secure and strong around him as the material of her wool mittens scratched deliciously across the nape of his neck, looked him straight in the eye and had had the nerve to ask him what had taken him so long.

And he remember with a small smile, how he had chased her across that snowy clearing, laughing for the sheer joy of it as the wind had carried the sound of her happy giggles back to him, with the deep winter snow slowing her down just long enough for him to catch up, bringing them both down in the heavy snow in a soft tangle of flying limbs and heavy winter clothes.

Ah, young love.

He had gone down on one knee for her only two years later in the middle of that very same field, on the anniversary of that first day that she had sashayed her way so easy into his life. He had never looked back. He was hers as she was his; it was as if it had been meant to be all along.

And perhaps that was why he had been so angry when she had been taken from him, ushered away to a place he could not yet follow. Leaving him to raged in silent rebellion at God and fate, not understanding why he had been made to go on without her.

He still didn't.

But since the world had changed, he had begun to take solace in the fact that she hadn't lived to see this. This life was but a sad, horrific mockery of what had stood in its stead. This was no longer a world meant for the living. It wasn't there's anymore. It belonged to the dead. And he told himself that in a strange way, her death, only mere months before the first broadcasts had aired, describing a strange, new virulent strain of a virus, was really a blessing in disguise.

But in the end, it was only a small comfort.. Because at the same time, there was always another, quickly squashed, but tenuously strong voice would invariably demand to be heard…. And every single time that thought ran through his head, that little voice called him a liar.

How ironic is it that our minds tell us the bold truths of our situation only during the times when we find that we cannot bear bring ourselves to listen?

God…he missed her.

The signature, unmistakeable rasp of a tent flap unzipping brought his attention back to the window, interrupting his painful relieve into days and years that for good or ill, had long since past him by. And as he looked out of the window, the dawn hardly staining the dark grey sky, he was struck by how things seemed to have come absurdly full circle.

At the dawn of man, the earliest of their ancestors had risen like monks with the coming dawn, and now, the remnants of the human race gradually began to do the same, bidden by the coming light, to play out their parts in the grand, theatrical stage of life.

'Though', he mused somewhat deploringly. That stage now had more characteristics in common with one of the great Greek tragedies, or perhaps even a Hollywood horror film, then the lives they had all known and lived out before.

The stage of life had changed yet again. And like always, there were new actors, new scripts, rolls, and even new backgrounds to set up and design. Only this time, the curtain call was uncertain, the parts mysterious, and the plot.. unfathomable..

In retrospect, he figured he should have expected that the first one to wake would be Daryl. It generally always was. The man seemed to thrive on virtually no sleep, rising early and staying up late, seemingly always in motion, always observing, always watching. Always doing something.

Ah, the vitality of the young.

The man unfolded himself with an easy sort of lithe grace from the tent flaps, ducking out with his shirt slung over the arch of his bare shoulder as he finished doing up the zipper on his dirty, faded jeans. Shadows played across the angles and planes of the man's torso, travelling upwards to flirt tantalizingly across the high arch of his cheekbones as he angled his face up to meet the slowly rising sun.

And for a moment he marvelled at the sight, the younger man seemed entirely at peace in that moment, his eyes closed momentarily in the dawn glare, one hand at his shoulder, loosely holding the shirt the hung there, even the tattoos that no one had quite worked up the courage to ask him about seemed accentuated in the near light, displayed bold, and proud across his chest and arms.

But the moment of stillness was gone almost as quickly as it had occurred, as like an exhaling breath, the man was in motion yet again. And with a slightly unfocused gaze he watched as the young man stretched in place, apparently entirely unconcerned at his half nude state as he arched, working the cricks and tension from his neck and shoulders, even as he surveyed the perimeter of the camp with his usual dark, assessing gaze.

He could no longer count the number of times he had seen this ritual play out, perhaps more then even a couple dozen times since Daryl and Merle Dixon had joined their camp. It didn't matter if the hunter was due for watch or not, as unlike the others, he almost always rose with the dawn.

Perhaps the younger man was more in tune with the natural way of the world then the rest of them could ever hope to be. Or maybe he was just a paranoid insomniac. It was hard to tell these days.

And from the relative anonymity the distance afforded him, he let himself study the man, unconsciously grateful for the distraction. There was something in the confident, yet uneasy grace that the man seemed to display to the world that he found fascinating. It was a heady, if not combustible mixture, and he knew he wasn't the only one that had noticed it.

After the first few days, he thought he had Daryl figured out, initially placing him on the same, tarnished pedestal as he had first pegged the man's older brother. But as the days had progressed, his opinion of the young hunter slowly began to change. He was a rough character, hot tempered and even down right crude when it came to doing what had to be done, but yet, all that aside, underneath that rough exterior, he saw all the hints of a quite the deep, and indeed emotive personality.

It had shocked him at first. When he had started to stumble upon the merest hints, collecting them like bread crumbs, until the evidence had grown, and there it was, a seemingly genuinely good man hidden underneath the rough and tumble nature of the mask the man portrayed. And as the weeks had plodded inexorably onwards, the world all but crumbling at its very foundations, as they stood, stagnant and mute in horrors wake, he realized that perhaps that mask was just as much a survival mechanism for Daryl, as the Ruger that he carried at his every waking moment now was to him.

It wasn't until the young man had done a complete circuit of the camp, eying everything from the camps perimeter to the individual tents, head cocked slightly to the side as he listened intently, that he seemed to relax a fraction, shrugging his shoulders in the early morning chill as he pulled on his shirt, kneeling down momentarily as he strapped on his buck knife and sheath, and collecting his ever present crossbow before he padded silently across camp.

And idly, from the relative comfort of the RV's padded seats, he wondered if those slow, deliberate, and almost habitual movements were in some way cathartic.

It was like watching a carefully scripted scene, as it seemed as though not a single step the man took wasn't carefully thought through, and weighed before it was taken. His eyes followed the man as he crossed the camp, watching as his eyes alighted on each and every tent, as if to make sure everything, or indeed everyone was still where he had left them the night before.

And wasn't that just a thought.. Did he feel in some way..responsible for them?

But as quickly as the thought occurred to him, it was rapidly dismissed. It couldn't be.. The man wasn't that much of a humanist. Was he?

And not for the first time, he was struck by out of all of them, how well suited the young hunter seemed to their situation. The man was a predator that much was easy to see. He was young, strong, and fearless. He had sharp instincts, and was admittedly uniquely skilled for the environment they now lived in. Indeed if there was one thing that was clear about Daryl Dixon, it was that he certainly didn't need them to survive. Not in the same ways they needed him at any rate..

And yet, the man remained. He stayed even when he made it abundantly clear that he didn't exactly agree with the decisions that were being made or the opinions that his fellow survivors held, or even that he thought much about any of them at all.

Indeed, what was holding him here? For what reasons did he stay?

Because as much as it discomforted him to admit it, the truth of the matter was, that the man's chances of survival were hindered and indeed often put into needless risk the longer he stayed with them. And if there was anything he rightly knew about Daryl, was that the man was a survivor, and he would do things a normal man would baulk at in order to remain that way.

Yes, it had to be said that anyone who got in between Daryl and his survival was destined to lose. And lose quite spectacularly if he wasn't mistaken…

He almost didn't catch the movement, just about missing it entirely as his thoughts drifted. As it was, he only just caught a glimpse of the mans retreating back as he shouldered his crossbow and slipped into the brush that marked the northern most point of the clearing, disappearing from view with barely a sound, barely even a ripple to mark that he had been there at all.

And unbidden his stomach rumbled in anticipation, with the possibility of fresh game of any sort coming across as remarkable appealing. No one had eaten last night, and after those two, veritable feast-like meals at the CDC, the prospect of getting used to an empty stomach again seemed almost too much to bear.

He was startled again from his thoughts when T-dog passed in front of the window, the man sending him a quirky nod of acknowledgement as he shouldered his Remington 870 and made for the RV's roof ladder, ready to take his turn on watch.

And for once he really didn't notice how much the vehicle quaked and groaned in protest, or how the ceiling panel over the tiny little kitchen sink bowed down momentarily in that worrisome little way he had been noticing lately as the man walked across the roof and settled down above him on the deck chair.

Instead he was committing to memory the way the man's left pant pocket protruded just the slightest of bits as he walked, the faintest hints of the edges of the crucifix and rosary beads outlined by the hardy khaki material each time the man shifted. Now that he knew it was there, it seemed impossibly hard to miss. And he vaguely wondered, despite the ludicrous nature of the thought, why he hadn't noticed it before.

He was still sitting in the same spot, looking out of the window with unfocused eyes, his thoughts deep and still immersed in the memories of the past when Daryl returned, the younger man loping out from the tree line, with a quick, but easy gate only a few meters shy of the exact spot he had entered, three fat pheasants hanging by their necks in his fist.

Stomach gurgling speculatively, he watched as the hunter strode through the camp, eyes flitting across the tent tops until they clearly focused on the tent that had been pitched between his own, and Rick's large family sized one.

Setting his crossbow down at the fire, the man readjusted his grip on the birds as he hitched his waist sheath back over the side, the top of the knife blade glinting wickedly sharp, slight burnished with age at the spot where the blade disappeared into the handle.

The man had surprised him then however, as instead of settling himself down by the fire to prepare the birds, or even coax the fire to an appropriate blaze, he stalked past the smouldering coals, and instead stopped in front of Glenn's tent.

And he found that he just couldn't help the slow smile that followed the sight, as the light, and almost amusing emotions that accompanied it, seemed to crack the stony expression that had taken residence over his features. It was akin to a physical weight shifting off his heavy consciousness as his eyes greedily took in the sight before him.

Because at Daryl's pointed rap on the top of his tent's soft mesh roof, Glenn had nearly tumbled right out of half unzipped tent flaps, the younger man sticking his head and shoulders out from the makeshift entrance like a mole popping out from an underground borrow, blinking into the early morning light like he had never seen the dawn before.

His sable hair was sticking up in sleep mussed tufts that seemed out arrow out at the most impossibly absurd angles, clearly still half asleep as it took him a long moment of sleepy blinking and pointed yawning before his gaze seemed to focus, tracking slowly up from the hunter's soil stained pant legs, all the way up to the undeniably amused looking expression playing along the edges of his usually hard features.

He missed what was said, with the distance and the walls of the RV between them proving to be too much of an obstacle for eavesdropping, but the inflection of the conversation was made clear with the older mans next move.

As with a small smile that was quickly swallowed by his usual closed expression, Daryl waved the dead birds in front of the younger mans face until the Korean began swatting at them with early morning irritation. His movements decidedly at odds with his next actions as he all but tumbled backwards into his tent in a clumsy dive for his shoes, excitement clearly out weighing his irritation as he hopped into his sneakers, tossing his baseball jersey on over his maroon shirt to ward off the chill as he followed the hunter back towards the fire.

Their camaraderie was as easy to see as their movements were well timed, as if they were somehow growing more accustomed to the other on a level that superseded mere companionship. And if anything, his smile only grew more fond at the sight, as he watched Daryl plunk the birds down in front of the younger man as he set about building up the fire. He had been on the receiving end of such attuned attention often enough through his years with Irma to recognize it on another, even if it was in its infant stages.

Indeed, he wondered if the two even knew it themselves…

Glenn's smile was slow, but genuine as he looked up at the man crouching beside him, lips moving in response to something the man had said, his words causing a noticeably tilt of the hunters lips and a response that made the younger man's grin grow all the wider.

Whatever it was made the hunter huff out a small laugh, one of remarkably few that he had heard come from the man's throat. And even then, as closely as he was watching them both, he only just caught the lingering glance the older hunter shot at the young Korean from behind the cover his dark, hooded eyes. A gaze only broken as he leaned down to redirect Glenn's hesitant hands, his directions firm, but notably less abrasive then he would have expected from the man as Glenn moved to help him prepare their breakfast.

Who was to know? Perhaps Daryl was staying for something after all…

He watched them for a long time, indeed far longer then he'd realized, because the next time he looked up, glancing up over their heads and into the sky, the sun had over taken the last vestiges of the night, and the rest of the camp was slowly beginning to stir, rousted no doubt by the savour smell of cooking foul.

And unbidden his eyes were drawn to the closest tent that had been set up beside the RV, watching as the tent flaps were drawn back and the blond woman slowly emerged, fingers combing through her sleep tangled curls in an attempt to tame it.

Andrea.

There were dark circles under her eyes, but she smiled wanly regardless when Carol and Sophia hailed her from the next tent over, Sophia dancing in place excitedly, eyes affixed on the small crowd growing around the fire pit, as she waited for her mother to tie up her shoes.

After a long moment, he let out a deliberate, steadying breath, mentally and physically fortifying himself before he unfolded his tired, aching limbs from the bench and rose to his feet.

Perhaps, it was time…

Steeling himself he cleared a stack of cushions off the top of a hollowed out section of the kitchen cupboards, a place he had long ago fashioned for securing valuables. And after a tense moment of rummaging through the cramped space, his hands knew victory as they finally closed around the small lock box hidden underneath the pile. He twirled the locks expertly, long accustomed to this ritual after years of vacationing in the very same RV. And underneath the stacks of bills, credit cards, and other property related documents, now all deemed worthless by the new world they were now faced with, his hands brushed against the grainy wooden lid that herald the small, pine box that he had been looking for.

He had made this box for her only a few mere months after they had first started sharing a bed. It had taken him all those months, and a few secretive trips to the emergency room in order to complete it, finding out the hard way that his fingers were not as nimble is his mind when it came to getting out of the way of a band saw or wood pick. But regardless of the hardships that had come with making it, he had been undeniably proud of the stupid thing, his heart swelling when he had presented it to her one rainy morning before breakfast, and she had made a ridiculous fuss over the both of them, insisting on dropping everything to retrieve her rosary from the bedroom and place it inside, all but cooing in pleasure as she had run her fingers along the hand carved sides.

He had lined the inside with rich purple felt and had hand carved her name into the lid. And for longer then they were married in the eyes of both the law and the Church that was the place that her rosary had called home.

He blinked into the stillness, fingers traveling easily along the wooden edges long worn smooth with love and age, before he unlocked the metal clasp and let the lid fall open.

He knew he should have buried it with her. He knew she would have wanted it that way. But he just hadn't been able to bring himself to part with it. He couldn't.

Hell it had been weeks before he could even bear to move both the rosary and the box from her bedside table.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling, refusing the moisture building behind his eyes entry, rapidly blinking until the urge subsided. Instead, he couldn't help a smile as his mind brought forth a score of more pleasant memories, of years spent happy and content in each others company, and of passionate nights together, where like a silent voyageur, this same box had stood sentinel, outlined in the moonlight from it's place on her bedside table.

He choked back a ragged breath as the length of beads hit his skin, the familiarity of the action tingling through his skin even as his mind baulked. But he refused to back down, because deep down, he knew it was time. Time to let go of the things he could no longer change, time to let go of the long nursed hurts and simmering resentments. It was time to let Irma free. Like the wedding ring he was sure would never leave his finger, it was time that this too was allowed to exist again in her memory.

He had tried so hard to shield himself from the hurt and the loneliness, that he hadn't realized, that in a sense, what he had really been doing was sheltering himself away from her. He shook his head, fingers clenching around the time worn beads as if he were daring it to cause him hurt, feeling the edges of the crucifix bite into his palm as he mused on the folly of men.

The rosary felt almost.. warm despite the early morning chill, as he let his fingers run over the worn beads, and the tarnished silver crucifix, as if getting reacquainted with the thing before he weighed it in his palm and finally let it slip into in his pocket.

It was time to let Irma's memory flourish again, and in so doing, for him to begin living his life anew. Bereft of her only in the physical sense, while his mind searched for something new, something different to help mend that ragged hole in his chest that marked what he had lost.

And perhaps that's why; some small, wispy little part of him, only recently coaxed to life by time and circumstance, murmured in secret that they would be good for each other. For they both, all too keenly knew the raw nature of loss.

Because, like Daryl, other then for the sake of himself, he realized that he had found a reason to remain, a reason to keep on fighting, because there was something in this world that was yet worth living for. He hadn't truly realized it until that moment in the CDC where anger had coursed through his veins and his heart had seemed to swell beyond all limitations as she had looked up at him with those broken blue eyes. Eyes now disturbingly bereft of the fire that had burned like lit napalm in their depths ever since he had first seen her and Amy running pelt melt and powerful down that suburban side street, walkers all but nipping at their heels, before he had cursed himself and his soft heart as he had laid on the horn, throwing the RV into a screeching, dead stop and had thrown open his doors to them.

And in a way, in that moment, effectively opening his heart for the first time as well…

It was an irony to be sure, but certainly not a cruel one.

It wasn't until the unconscious, high pitched tilt of childish laughter rang out through the campsite that he realized that the sun had risen and the whole camp was up and about. Carl and Sophia pranced around, chattering in excitement as they ran back and forth, collecting everyone's plates and utensils and stacking them beside Glenn as both he and Daryl carefully turned the roasting birds on their makeshift rotisseries.

And despite the heavy, impressionable nature of his thoughts, his stomach growled, sharp and insistent in the close space, not so subtly reminding him of the long hours since they had all last ate.

He looked through the window again, tilting his head to better see through the glare of the red tinted sun when he realized that Andrea was looking right back at him, her stance carelessly graceful as she leaned against the thin maple sapling that grew, somewhat crookedly close beside the fire pit.

He saw her shade her eyes, meeting his own heatedly through the thin plane of glass that separated them, the corners of her lips twitching with the hint of a smile as she crooked her head slightly towards the fire, in a clear invitation to join them.

And it was a signal that he found he could no longer ignore. Not anymore. Not after everything that had happened, everything that was growing, fledging and uncertain between them..

He left his solitude then, left the memories, and the past hurts behind as he swung himself out through the RV doors slowly rusting hinges, feet hitting the ground with a grace that he hadn't felt since he had been in the prime of his youth and vitality, as he moved to join the crowd around the fire, his eyes warm as he looked over the heads of the others, as the sheen of her dirty blond hair reflected like a beacon in the sunlight.

And for the first time in a long time, as the edges of Irma's rosary moulded into the flesh of his thigh, now pressing gently but insistently along the edges of his memory, the smile that now stretched across his lips, didn't feel like a complete falsehood.

Glossary: The Hail Mary, or Ave Maria is a traditional biblical catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary. The Hail Mary is used within Roman Catholicism, and it forms the basis of the Rosary. It is also the central part of the Roman Catholic faith and is a devotion generally recited thrice daily.