Author's Note: This is going to go in a slightly different direction from the show. I'll try to update it at least once a week. Your CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and compliments are welcomed and appreciated. I know this chapter isn't that long, but my computer's dying, I promise the next one will be longer.

At the Beginning:

The mass of people was too much, everyone was scared, screaming, and crying. People pushed and shoved, trying to get into the safe house. Atlanta had been breached, and Daryl, Merle and Lucy needed to get the hell out of there before the Napalm started to drop. Atlanta was supposed to be safe, but a horde had gotten through the defenses. "Merle!" Lucy shrieked.

They turned to her, the crowd of people surrounded her, military personnel, mostly. She stuck her arm out, grasping for them. Merle stood there while Daryl actually attempted to help her, but it was too late. The gates slammed shut. The Dixons were on the outside, while Lucy met her fate inside the city.

Now:

She watched as the Dixon brothers helped the Spanish family with the horde of walkers that had attacked them, and was a little surprised when Daryl turned his crossbow on Merle, So, he finally grew some balls, she thought, smiling to herself. She followed them through the woods, careful not to be noticed. It didn't take long for them to get in a fight, and when she seen Daryl fall to the ground, his shirt ripped in Merle's hand, revealing the scars on his back, she decided it was time to intervene. "Boys, boys, boys, you should quiet down before you attract any unwanted attention."

They turned in the direction of the voice, but didn't see her anywhere. The heat was getting to their heads, and they were starving, it was hallucinations. But they couldn't both have the same hallucination, could they? The phantom voice continued to speak, but the ignored the words, trying to pinpoint the location, but everytime they would think they had it, it would come from a different direction. Daryl loaded his crossbow, and pointed it to the tree tops, scanning them for any movement.

The light crunch of leaves sounded behind them, "You don't really intend to shoot me, do you?"

The brothers turned to come face to face with a woman they thought they would never see again. She was different though. Her skin was tan and her complexion was no longer washed out, her big brown eyes shone brightly as the corners of her lips turned up in a smile. Her long, black hair fell in curls to her waist with a variety of feathers weaved throughout, and was glossy instead of dried up and stringy, and where the sun shined through the leaves her hair shined dark blue. She no longer looked frail and breakable either. She had gained weight, her arms were toned with muscles and her thighs that used to be slightly bigger than Daryl's forearm were now muscular, and both Dixons knew under the T-shirt and vest she wore was a six-pack.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't lil' Miss Cherokee Rose," Merle grinned. Daryl tried to suppress his dispair at the reminder of his failure to save Sophia, his broken promise to Carol.

"Her name's Lucy," Daryl muttered, but only to himself. He refused to refer to her by her stage name.

"I've missed you too," she grinned. She gave Merle an appraising look, her eyes lingering on his right hand, or at least, where his right hand should've been. "What happened?"

Merle lifted it up, turning it slightly, and told her about how he had been left on a rooftop to die. As they caught her up with everything that had happened in the last year or so, they walked through the woods, Merle staring at her backside as she led the way. Aside from the bow she carried in her hand and the quiver of arrows on her back, there was also a sword sheathed on her left hip, a gun holstered on her right thigh, an array of knives secured to her forearms, and an unusual device on her left hand. "What about you?" Merle asked when their tale was over. "How the hell did you make it out of Atlanta? We watched the place get napalmed that night."

"Before the bombing started, they led all of the survivors into an underground bunker. There they separated us into groups, and then into more groups according to age, gender, height, and weight. Husbands and wives, mothers and children, everyone was ripped away from their loved ones. They drew blood and ran tests, then filled us with drugs, and ran more tests, and drew more blood. It went on like this for..." she shook her head, "I don't even know, it felt like forever."

"How did you get out?" Daryl asked when she paused.

"I'm getting to that. We're all infected, but of course, you already knew that," she said, glancing back at Daryl. "The government was trying to make better humans-"

"They can't do that!" Merle interuppted.

She ignored him and continued, "They tainted the fresh water wells with their virus. It was supposed to make us faster, stronger, smarter, even prevent the common cold, but what they didn't know was that the virus mutated. By the time they figured out what was going on, it was too late. People died, and then came back to life. The virus restored the brain, but not anything else."

She took another pause before continuing, "The tests they ran was to find a way to fix the virus. They weren't concerned about curing us, they wanted to fix the virus. We were all test subjects, different groups received different treatments. Something happened to one group, and they...changed without even dying. Whatever drugs they had been filled with sped up the virus, and they changed almost instantly. They overwhelmed the scientists that had been working on them, and before the security team could subdue them, they had over ran the place. Everyone ran for the surface. I just barely made it out with my life."

"So...all those tests," Daryl started, nerves getting the best of him, "What did they do to you?" As if it wasn't obvious.

She turned, "Aside from the obvious," she flexed her muscles slightly before sliding one of her knives from it's sheath. She bent down and dragged it across the skin of her left thigh. The blood oozed down her leg, but in mere seconds the wound had reknitted itself and the bleeding stopped. "Not only that," she said, undoing the buttons on her vest. She took it off and pulled her shirt collar aside, revealing a large patch of skin on her shoulder that was slightly paler than the rest, and there were tiny scars around it. "It happened during my escape. One of those damn things took a chunk out of me. Scared the hell out of me too, but I guess it's a good thing I couldn't bring myself to suicide. Hurt like a son-of-a-bitch too, waiting for it to heal."