A/N: Assume everything that happened leading up to the governor attacking the prison happened the same as it did on the show. Assume everything after happened differently.

Small disclaimer: I do not own anything The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead owns me:)

Enjoy!

BOOK ONE

~ Two years earlier ~

At the beginning of the turn a woman named Mary escaped with her three older sons, Gareth, Alex, and Noah. Together with her sister's family they fled Atlanta and in only a short time met others with whom they bonded and formed a community. They were all good people from varying walks of life, all trying to make it in a world gone mad.

Within a month they found a train station with high fences and cement walls. They finally found a home, but first they would need to take it back from the dead. They lost many good people that first day and more in the weeks that followed. To honor their friends' sacrifice Mary placed candles at the center of the main hall so the group would always remember. They called their new home Terminus and began to carve out a life with one another.

Mary declared it a sanctuary for all people, and in the coming months their numbers grew. Her greatest joy was to watch the children play games as the echoes of their laughter filled her ears, giving her new hope that her own boys might someday be able to have families of their own and raise them in relative safety.

It was nearing the tail end of the first winter when the claim gang arrived. In the beginning these men seemed to accept the terms and conditions of sanctuary, but before long they became demanding and rowdy. Fed up by the way they consumed the resources of the community without giving anything back, it was decided by the council that the claimers were to be exiled. If only the council knew who these men really were.

Their gang emptied the weapons locker before the Termian's even realized they were being overthrown, and that's when the claim gang started claiming; First the tools and the blankets, then the food. And it only escalated from there. They beat Jacob to death for no other reason than he was with Jenny. Then they claimed her too. The community retaliated as best they could, but they were not fighters... not yet.

A month locked captive in a train car changed that however, as the men were forced to watch while their women were repeatedly raped and terrorized. Fear gave way to anger and frustration - then rage, until finally unable to accept this fate any longer, Gareth (the oldest of Mary's three sons) led a charge. He was methodical in his plan, waiting for just the right moment before leading the attack with everything they had. More than a few were killed, but in the end the Termian's stood victorious and a valuable lesson was learned.

During the battle, Gareth had seen from a distance several members of the claim gang escape across the compound, running away like the cowards they were, but he took solice in the knowledge that it was only a matter of time. Their faces were forever burned into his brain and one day he would find them and take his retribution.

The Termian's then took the bodies of the captured thieves and fried them up, consuming every last morsel as payment for what these men had stolen from them. It was the start of a whole new way of life.

~ the prison ~

two years later

Daryl slices through the courtyard, finishing off the last of the Governor's men, as walkers continue to flood the field. There was way for him to get back to the bus now. He needed to leave. Where the fuck was she? The last he saw her, she was running off the bus and back into the prison. There was only one reason she would do something that stupid.

Just as he thinks it, a flash of blonde hair catches the corner of his eye and relief washes over him, as she suddenly emerges through the thick black smoke that is quickly overtaking the area. "I went back for the kids. They weren't on the bus. Did you see them?"

Daryl shakes his head and grabs hold of her hand. "We gotta go Beth. We gotta go."

Losing the prison to the to the Governor infuriated the hunter ... They run ... It was his fault and his alone ... He shoots a bolt through the eye of a corpse ... A punishment for ever believing he had the right to be happy ... He runs harder, faster ... It wasn't just another shattered dream to add to the pile ... Beth collapses on the ground ... This was the dream that he allowed himself to believe could be real ... It angered him to think on it ... Just breathe...

~ Beth ~

With the speed that it took him to blow up the tank, Daryl's walls cemented tightly around his soul once more. He was brash and distant, acting more like the Redneck she had met on her daddy's farm and less like the man she'd come to know at the prison. He was being a jack-ass! When he wasn't grumbling curses under his breath, he blatantly ignored her. He barely spoke, and when he did it was only to bark out orders. Not even when a walker accidentally got too close, and he had to put it down before it bit her shoulder, did the hunter show even an ounce of concern.

The near fatal mishap left her shaken and stunned. How could she be so careless? "Thank you," Beth stuttered, barely above a whisper.

Daryl simply glared, and then using his pants to wipe the blood from his knife, turned and continued walking.

His mood only added to her deepening despair and she was no longer able to hold back the tears once day turned to night and the world went still. She cried for the kids, for Judith. She cried for the loss of their home, and most of all she cried for her Daddy. The gapping tare in her heart left behind by his death grew so wide she wondered if it would swallow her whole, and at times she prayed it would... It was then in these moments that Beth thought of Maggie. She focused on her like a life-line, and prayed with everything she had for her sister's safety and well-being.

Daryl's steel-sharp eyes were always on her though. She could feel them burning into the back of her head as she lay on the forest floor and pretended not to notice. It was the reason she cried under the cover of darkness. She hated the way he looked at her now... Like she was already doomed... just another dead girl walking.

Things only deteriorated from there. Very little sleep and a lack of food left the hunter and the farm girl mentally and physically drained. If not for Beth stumbling upon that little Christmas shop in the woods, the outside pressures most likely would have ripped them apart. It was a Godsend really. Left virtually untouched, it provided some hope, shelter, a chance to regroup and start again.

~ two weeks later ~

"Beth! Beth!"

Daryl ran after the car for days until his body finally failed him. Chasing a memory, a dream, chasing Beth. Gasping for air between panting breaths, he tries to stand, but the pain in his side is too much and he collapses back to the earth once more. Beth was his light... his star in the darkness. How she had managed to squeeze through his armor undetected he would never know, but she had left him forever changed because of it. Hell, he would have done the same for her if nothing had changed, but it had. No way could she just be gone.

Daryl swears to himself then and there that if he can find her, if he can get Beth back, then he will never again allow his own feelings get in the way of protecting her and keeping her safe. He would maintain a safe distance in which to watch over her, and this time he would stick to it. He just needed to find her. He would never stop looking... Not ever!

Where our story begins

~ The Church ~

two months later

"Daryl hold up, lets not be rash about this."

"Let's not be rash! Are you kidding me Rick. This car is the first solid lead we've had in months. I'm leavin', and there ain't nothin' you can say that's gonna stop me."

"I'm not gonna stop you. I just need you to think about this for a minute. We should talk to the group first. Get a team together."

"No!," the hunter curtly responds. "A group traipsin' through the woods will only slow me down. I can track better and faster on my own."

"At least let me go with you."

Daryl lets out a frustrated sigh, "Think of Carl. You're all he has left Rick. This is on me. Somethin' I have to do on my own."

Rick nods his head, giving Daryl a somber pat on the back. "We'll wait at the church so long as it's safe. No guaranties though."

"Understood. And Rick, if I ain't back in a weeks time, I ain't comin' back."

"What do you want me to tell Maggie and the others."

"Tell Maggie I've gone to bring her sister home."