I can barely even remember a moment of clarity, looking back on it all. Was there ever, really, a time when I wasn't angry at Daryl? All I could remember were the bad parts of what we had, of what we longed for or went without. Of how Daryl could never keep a job. I was always working to keep our family going… and that was what I remembered. Memories of Alena needing shoes… Of the kitchen cupboard naked.

Of Merle Dixon, his damn brother, getting my husband into trouble.

I let out a deep sigh against the cold, trying to calm my fluttering heart. It was dark, damp, and we needed to leave that damn farm. Things were going all to hell for the second time, it seemed, those undead bastards were everywhere. That many? They would tear this safe haven apart. Being honest, I thought… I had never seen so many of them in one place before. Countless walkers, heading for the farm.

Daryl hopped over the porch railing. I watched him as he made a break for his motorcycle. His crossbow was aimed, was ready, and he fired a single bolt, landing between the eyes of one little bitch too close for comfort. As I watched him, it dawned on me that… he could care less about Alena and I. He didn't look back to make sure we were following him, or call out for us.

It was so beyond over for us, it was like we were never married. We never dated. He never saved me. All we had that was any proof those years existed… were the children.

Pulling myself out of that heartbroken trance the country boy left me in, I picked Alena up by her underarms and walked down the stairs with her against me tightly. I could tell, she was scared. My stomach was cramping up… never a good sign if you're pregnant. Never a good sign.

It took the last bit of strength I had to make it to the car. When I got there, Glenn and Maggie were fighting off walkers. With my free hand, the hand that did not have a six-year-old mini-Dixon in it, I swung my knife into the skull of one of those… fuckers.

The sound of foot steps behind me put me on full alert, but I kept moving. Glenn jumped into the driver's seat, and Maggie struggled to open the door calmly. She fumbled with her seatbelt as Glenn pulled out of the hell hole. The barn was ablaze, from what we saw, and… Daryl.

Daryl swooped in on his high-metal-horse and allowed Carol to hop onto the back of his bike. The woman was about to be torn up by those things. My husband… ex-husband… had saved the broken lady, who had just watched her daughter be put down… Her little girl had been a good reason Daryl and I had split up. I believe that with all my heart.

My heart began to ache even more, just as hard as it had when Daryl told me he didn't want to see me around anymore. That ache started at the base of my chest and worked its way up, deep into my neck, and then back down, into the very soles of my aching feet. Every time I so much as twitched, or Alena touched me, I felt the ache surge up into my nerve endings again.

"Mama! Mama! Where's daddy?!" Alena cried out. I looked over at her, she was sitting on her legs in the middle of the seat, looking up at me for answers. What fucking answers could I give her? I had none, I couldn't tell her where her daddy was, because for all I knew he and Carol were torn up by now. But I prayed hard in my head that maybe they both were okay.

"Behind us," I told her, reaching over to run my hand through her mess, blonde locks. She looked like her daddy, she looked like me… I saw both of us deep inside of her.

Alena was beautiful, smart… Basically, anything and everything a set of parents could want in their daughter. She always did good in school, never gave us an attitude. There was no way… Daryl didn't want his daughter.

I sat there for a second and remembered how close Daryl and Alena were. Staring out the fingerprint-stained window, into the deep night sky. Something that amazed me was how human society were to hell, but all the beautiful species of Flora and Fauna continued their life, if not even better than before, without humans polluting everything...

Luckily, I wasn't the only pregnant woman in our group. Lori, Rick's wife, was also carrying a child. The trouble with me was that I was further along than Lori. In fact, I was sure I was going to drop this baby out at any moment…

Alone, of course. Without its father around. It would just be me in my part of the group, raising two beautiful children, and their father being the archer in his part. I was going to be alone with these kids, wasn't I?

My thoughts drifted me into some much needed rest as we approached the highway. My dreams were filled with the horrors of this world, of what it had become. I was reliving the moment when Alena was bitten, and I hacked her arm off with a hatchet… That hatchet had saved her life, had given me more time with my little princess.

I awoke softly when the car came to a stop, we were finally out of danger. We had met the others on the highway… Finally. Everyone was okay, save for Andrea and Beth's little boyfriend. I loved Andrea. That news was just as upsetting. She was there for me when no one else was, when Daryl and I split up.

"Saw them head lights zig zaggin' all over the road, knew it had to be an Asian boy drivin'."

Daryl's joke, was quite funny… a bit of a relief in a time of terror. Alena practically crawled over me to exit that car. Before I could even try to stop her, she was lunging at her daddy.

"Daddy! I knew you were okay!" she called out.

"Gon' take more than a few dead thangs to kill your daddy."

I only watched, leaning against the car carefully. Daryl was such a natural father… it was unreal. How had we fallen apart? We needed to stick together for the children but…

We were apart, and for the first time since we were teenagers… Daryl Dixon had broken my heart.