A/N: I've never done a full length fic before, but I love this pair more than anything and I wanted to explore a world where all they have is each other. There will be talk of suicide and a few darker themes throughout the story, but there will also be Rick and Daryl behaving like drunk teenagers, hope, and an eventual love and bond that only the end of the world can create. Hope you enjoy it!

Confusion and a small fraction of hope were the only reasons Rick Grimes made it out of the hospital. That and the instinct to survive that came with years of police work. Without those things he might have just been paralyzed with fear at the sights before him.

He didn't understand the world around him. It was like some horrible nightmare that made him wonder if maybe he was still in a coma, just lying back in that hospital bed.

Nothing was what it had been the day he'd gotten shot on the job. Cynthiana, Kentucky was in ruins and it seemed as though he was the only one left alive. Somewhere in the back of his mind he absently wondered if he was the only one—if the rest of the world had wasted away and he was the only man left wandering this wasteland.

Rick stopped those thoughts in their tracks, knowing he couldn't afford to think that way. He had to believe that Carl and Lori were okay. He had to find them alive and well at home or there was no way he could go on. If this horror had touched them—if it had taken them down with the rest of the town—then there was no reason left for Rick to survive.

His hands shook and his heart hammered painfully as he stumbled up the steps of his house. Half of him didn't even want to go inside, too afraid of what he might find, but he clung to that little shred of hope that the two people he loved most in the world could be okay. It was that last shred of optimism that allowed him to push open the front door, but as he did he felt that shred be ripped away like his heart being torn from his body.

Nothing could ever prepare him for this. No amount of training or inner strength could keep him from breaking at this point. Instantly, within the second it took to open his front door, he felt his whole world shatter around him and his legs give out from underneath him.

Rick hit the floor hard, the pain in his knees barely registering, as he muttered to himself, "Is this real?"

It couldn't be real. Surely he was still in a coma and this was just some morbid dream, because there was no way he could exist in a universe where his wife and son were dead. It wasn't possible.

A numb haze settled over him as he stared at the gruesome image of his child and the love of his life decaying on the once pristine living room floor. There was blood everywhere and the smell...it was all wrong. He couldn't process it.

Time was irrelevant in that moment and so he had no clue how long he kneeled there. He also didn't know what finally made him get to his feet, but as he crossed the room in a daze he found a note lying on the coffee table. His name scrawled in Lori's handwriting across the top.

The note was short and simple, but it made no sense to Rick. The words didn't add up in his head and he read it over and over, trying to decipher it.

Rick,

I am so sorry. I wanted nothing more than to protect our son, but I couldn't. He was bitten and I did what I had to do. I'm sorry I couldn't wait for you, but I just couldn't go on without our little boy. I love you and although part of me hopes you see this, the rest of me hopes you never will. Goodbye.

With all the love in my heart,

Lori

What did it mean? What did she mean when she said Carl was "bitten"? Why in a million years would this ever be the only option she had?

There was a piece of Rick that wanted to figure out the answers to all the questions running through his head. However, there was another part of him that wanted to pick up the gun lying at his wife's side and put a bullet into his own brain.

He didn't know what the hell had happened while he'd been asleep in that hospital, but if it had taken his family from him then he wasn't sure he wanted to know. This was enough reality for him.

Rick was unaware of how long he stood there staring at that note, but eventually he finally moved to pick up the pistol. He checked it, finding four more bullets waiting for him to make up his mind.

Daryl hadn't really intended to go to Kentucky, but he figured it was just as good as any other place. It wasn't like he actually had a destination in mind; he was just walking and surviving until he couldn't do it anymore. He figured he'd wind up in a herd of walkers or starve to death eventually and that would be the world's way of telling him his little adventure was over.

As much as the whole apocalypse thing sucked, he was finding out how to make the best of it. When the government no longer existed and the only concern he had was survival, he found he actually excelled at something for once. He could hunt better than most people and he didn't have any emotional attachments to drag him down. Sure, losing his brother had been rough, but they'd never really been all that close anyway.

It was funny though…Merle was kind of his motivation those days. When he felt like giving up and just ending himself, he heard his brother's voice in his ear, taunting, "Just gonna give up, lil' brother? You that much of a bitch now?"

Suicide didn't seem like the way to go that day though. Daryl was pretty optimistic, having just picked up a couple of rabbits before stumbling across the town he was wandering through now.

Cynthiana looked like a pretty small place and he didn't imagine he'd bump into too many walkers. The place was basically a ghost town, torn to shreds with the truly dead lying all over the streets.

Daryl fucking despised walkers. He wasn't really afraid of them as long as there weren't too many, but they made him sick to his stomach. He was a firm believer that what was dead should stay dead and cannibalistic corpses wasn't exactly his ideal way for the world to come to an end. Watching them shuffle around aimlessly, groaning for human flesh…it freaked him the hell out.

They could be fun to kill though. He'd perched on top of a building more than once, snacking on whatever he had managed to scrounge up and passing the time by seeing how many walkers he could put down with one shot.

Today was no different. The only thing on his agenda was searching for supplies and killing whatever came his way. He might stop for a drink or a smoke somewhere if he could get lucky enough to score some whiskey or a pack of cigarettes.

For once he was feeling lucky as he made his way into downtown, seeing how many buildings there were to scour, but as he turned into the main street that mood dwindled. He should have figured this was where he'd run into trouble and he glared at the small herd of the undead that were wandering around and coming between him and potential supplies.

He stepped back from the street, sliding up against the wall of the closest building and formulating a plan. He'd have to sneak, but he could definitely make it in and out of some of the shops without drawing attention to himself. His only real problem would be his scent, but if he was quick enough they might not catch it.

Deciding to start with the shop he was pressed against, he carefully moved forward, slinking around the side of the building and making a swift, silent dash for the door. He kept his eyes planted on the walkers as best he could, glowering at the only one that bothered to glance in his direction.

After making it inside without any problems, he found himself at the front of what was obviously a sports store. He smiled at that, deciding there were definitely worse places to start. He could already spot a few things that could be useful as he made his way further inside.

Daryl didn't take long, only grabbing what he really needed and heading back to the front. He was never the type to tempt fate and wanted to make this little escapade as quick as possible.

The plan was to slip back outside unnoticed, but that idea was stunted as the front door come into view. He looked through the glass to see the herd beginning to press in on it and rolled his eyes, deciding he was blaming the bastard that had been watching him on his way in.

"Undead dicks," he sighed, flipping off the walker with its face pressed against the door, rotted teeth gnashing hungrily.

It wasn't too much of a setback. There had to be a back way out—there always was in places like that—and so he went to find it. It didn't take more than a minute considering how small the store was, but he still let out an aggravated stream of curses when he reached his destination.

"Ya gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me. Did one of 'em ring the damn dinner bell or somethin'?"

Okay, so the mass of the undead trying to force their way through the back was one hell of a setback. That wasn't going to stop him though, because Daryl Dixon always had a plan C. This time his plan C involved finding his way to the roof and praying for a fire escape, but if it came down to it he figured he could just lay low and wait it out. They'd move on once they decided there was nothing there for them.

But as he went to start his search for a way upstairs, he was stopped in his tracks by the sight of walkers starting to drop dead one after another at the back door. Someone was outside shooting them down and that thought made Daryl a hell of a lot more leery than hiding out on a roof for the next few hours.

Rick didn't know why he was helping whoever the idiot was that had gotten himself locked into the local sports goods store. Maybe it was because he'd decided not to use the gun on himself and decided he needed to use it on something. Either way he was wasting ammo, which he didn't have a whole lot of (he'd grabbed the small stash he kept at home along with the gun he kept there as well).

He didn't bother stopping though. He took out the majority of whatever the hell those things were swarming the building and watched as the tall, rugged man burst through the door, stabbing an arrow into the skulls of the remaining corpses.

Once they were all down the stranger didn't hesitate to raise his crossbow, pointing it directly at Rick and calling in a low, husky voice, "Who're you?"

"My name's Rick Grimes," he called back, lowering his gun in an attempt to diffuse the situation. "I'm a—well, I was a local sheriff's deputy."

"Oh great. Haven't seen another face in ages and the first one I come across if a fuckin' cop." The man scoffed and sized him for a moment before lowering his crossbow. "We should probably get outta here before the other walkers start comin' this way."

"Walkers? S'that what ya call those things?" Rick hadn't known what to call them short of "corpses". He still didn't understand what was happening—why the dead were walking the city—but he had put a few pieces of the puzzle together.

They were heading back the way Rick had come now, walking a safe distance from each other and watching one another cautiously.

"What else am I gonna call 'em?" the man spat back.

This guy was all pent-up rage and prickly walls—just looking at him made Rick want to draw back before he got punctured. Still, he couldn't say he wasn't happy to see someone else walking around that wasn't rotted and groaning.

"Hell, I dunno…I was in coma from a gunshot wound and I woke up to all of this." He gestured around them, to the general chaos of things, and continued, "Last thing I knew I was on a chase with my partner and then I come to this morning and…"

"This mornin'? Are you shittin' me?"

Rick shook his head and the other man's eyes widened considerably. "God damn…how are you even still alive?"

"Why? I mean…how long has all of this been goin' on?" Rick hadn't really been able to fit together a timeline for all this just yet.

"Shit went global about a month ago—tha's when it all really went to hell."

A month? He'd been out longer than a month? He shuddered as he remembered the horrid smell and the starting of decay to his family's bodies, but he quickly pushed those thoughts aside. If he had any chance of surviving he would have to block that out.

"What…what happened?" he asked, trying very hard to wrap his mind around it all and failing miserably.

"Some kind of disease or somethin'. Made people real sick, burnt 'em out with a fever. They didn't stay dead though—started comin' back as walkers and feedin' on people."

Rick's stomach churned and he shook his head as he muttered, "Feeding on people?"

He was bitten and I did what I had to do. The words flashed through his mind against his will and he felt a wave of red hot, crippling rage as he figured out exactly what had happened to his son.

He stopped in his tracks, his breath becoming shallow and his jaw tightening. Carl…his little boy, the most important thing in his entire world, had been forced to die so that he wouldn't become one of those monsters. And Lori…

"Ya alright, man?" the stranger asked, his words barely registering in Rick's head at first.

He shook his head, bending over and placing his hands on his knees as he tried to settle the sick feeling in his stomach. "My son…"

Rick didn't see the man's face as he spoke, but he could hear the pity in his voice as he sighed, "Oh, shit…"

They waited in silence for a long moment while Rick tried to pull himself together. By all means he should just go back home and die with his family, but he was a survivor and there was a stubborn streak in him that even in that moment said he was going to stay alive through this. He just had to shut down—let go of his emotions and the memories that threatened to haunt him. He had to become an animal, running solely on survival instinct.

When he had finally settled back into the numbness that he'd found previously, he stood up straight and studied the man standing next to him. The word "redneck" was written all over him and Rick was pretty sure he was the kind of guy that could handle an apocalypse with a surprising amount of finesse.

"What's your name?" he asked, mainly to distract himself.

"Daryl."

"Well, Daryl…whataya say you and I go check out the police station and stock up on some ammo?" Rick didn't trust this guy, not even the slightest bit, but he really didn't want to go off on his own just yet. The last thing he needed was to be all alone with nothing but his traitorous thoughts.

Daryl shrugged, not seeming to care what they did, and agreed, "Sure, why not? Ain't got nothin' else to do with my time."

"Okay then. Just don't try anything funny, 'cause I'm not above puttin' a bullet in your head. We clear on that?"

"As long as you're clear on the fact that I ain't above puttin' an arrow in yours."

Rick smirked like that and tucked his gun into its holster. "Well, alright. Looks like we understand each other."