California.
It's always been stereotyped as a paradise, and now it really does seem like one. Victoria is Californian herself, and honestly, it'd never seemed like the awesome fun-in-the-sun place everyone made it out to be. The grass was always dead and brown, and it was either drizzling- no, it never rained, it had to be that miserable drizzle stuff- or cloudy/foggy as fuck, or so hot you checked the map twice to make sure that yes, you really were in northern California and hadn't, say, accidently wound up in Death Valley.
But now, after the friggin' zombie apocalypse, the well-defended, zombie-free, well-supplied, enormous safe haven seemed too good to be true.
After the destruction of Woodbury, the decision had been made to go cross-country, sticking to the woods. What did they have to lose, anyway?
After four long months of traveling, they'd come across the barricade. With machine guns pointed at them the troops had come down and scanned them all, checking thoroughly for bites or scratches, and looking at their speech and motor skills before allowing them in. It'd been tense, and the leaders who Victoria had honestly paid absolutely no attention to, assigned them to the quarters and gave them the rules. Obey their form of government, Rick would be given the opportunity to represent them fairly, they'd all get their own quarters, the scheduled meal times and shit like that were posted around.
Victoria and Daryl split off from the group, electing to have their own quarters away from the group. Now that some form of normal life was being established, they wanted nothing to do with the group.
They stayed with each other because they didn't want to be alone anymore.
They don't say a word to each other for three days, living in each other's space in a companionable silence, moving around each other and acting as though the other isn't there.
Carol is worrying all over the damn place of course. She only catches a few glimpses of them looking uneasy and uncomfortable as fuck when they're forced to get food or necessary things at the center of town and she is worried.
So when she finds them on the beach a few days later, laughing and tackling each other into the surf, Victoria in a bikini and Daryl in swim trunks, she smiles so hard it hurts.