Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I don't even own Annie, she belongs to Sophie, who you can find on YouTube under xSoppySofax. Read on, darlings, and enjoy!

This chapter takes place during 1x01, "Days Gone Bye"

Chapter 1

Annie looked up as Morgan entered the house, Duane behind him. The surprise was that not only did they not come back with more food, as that had been the whole point of them leaving, but Morgan was carrying a man over his shoulders. The stranger was unconscious, in a hospital gown and boxers. Duane quickly locked the door as Morgan passed her, heading upstairs without saying a word. Before she could even ask what happened, the ten-year-old boy explained that he'd smacked the man in the head with a shovel, mistaking the "sum'bitch" for one of the dead people. Quickly rushing up the stairs, she watched as Morgan laid the stranger down on the bed and set about washing his hands and pulling on some latex gloves from the kitchen. Arms cross, Annie leaned against the doorway and observed the stranger. He was still knocked out, his breathing shallow, and that was when she saw it. He had a wound, one that still looked pretty fresh and possibly infected.

"What's that bandage for?" she asked, staring at the man cautiously, ready to strike if he rose up as one of them.

Shaking his head, Morgan answered, "Don't know."

""Don't know"?" she echoed incredulously. Morgan didn't respond, didn't even look at her. Uncrossing her arms, she stepped further into the room. "I'll take a look."

"No," Morgan ordered and held up a hand, motioning for her to stop. "Just restrain him and stay with Duane. I got this." Reluctantly, she nodded and set about tying the man to bed, wrists and ankles, with some extra linen from the closet. When it was done, Duane was peeking from the doorway and she quietly led him back downstairs.

"Come on. Keep me company while I keep watch," she told him. "Your dad knows what he's doing. He's gonna be just fine."

"Promise?" Looking down at him, she smiled grimly. Who could promise safety with the way the world was now?

"Promise."

Morgan had told them about the man, how he'd woken up and said his wound had been a gunshot. Just a gunshot. All of them were confused by the stranger, how he didn't seem to know what was going on. When Morgan had asked him about whether or not he'd been bit or scratched, the man looked at him like he was crazy. Later than night, Annie ambled quietly up the room with a candle. Downstairs, Morgan and Duane were fixing their meager meal, whispering to one another, so that left her with checking on their guest. She peered into the room and quietly entered, pulling a chair to the bed and sat down. She pulled out a big hunting knife, ready, and set the candle on the nightstand. Reaching out a hand towards the man's face, she looked at him as he flinched away.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," she quietly assured him. The man settled and she nodded slowly, putting her hand on his forehead. "You're cool," she said, eyes locked with his. "Fever would've killed you by now."

"I don't think I have one."

"No. It'd be hard to miss." Annie raised her knife, giving the man a hard look as he flinched away from her again. "Take a moment. Take a good, long look and believe me when I tell you that if you try anything, I will kill you with it." The man absorbed that and nodded. "And, if I don't? I promise you Morgan will. Okay?" He nodded once more, a petrified look on his face. Annie nodded in return before slicing through his restraints and freeing his wrists. The man brought his hands shakily to his chest, no feeling in them. "Can you sit up?"

"Ah, God..."

"I'll take that as a "no"," she said and helped him sit up. "What's your name, stranger?"

"Rick. Rick Grimes."

Nodding, she replied, "Nice to meet you, considering the circumstances. I'm Annie Stone."

"He already threatened me," the stranger told her. Annie looked at him, awaiting an explanation. "He told me he'd kill me, if I didn't tell him…if I didn't tell him about my wound."

"To be fair, you had it coming." Rick groaned and looked at her, that same dumb and confused look on his face. "You're the first person we've seen in awhile. Some strange man shows up, half naked, with a mysterious wound?" She scoffed. "You're lucky Morgan is so nice. He changed your bandaged for you. It was pretty rank." Rick thought that "nice" wasn't the word he'd use to describe the man that held a gun to his face and swore to kill him, but he didn't say that. He had no idea who these people were, what they were capable of. He had to wait things out, until he was healthy again, so he could find Lori and Carl. "We had to take precautions," she explained.

Perplexed, he wondered, "Precautions against what?" He didn't understand. What was so bad about his wound? Why had Morgan been asking if he'd been bit or scratched? Bit or scratched by what? Annie stared at him a moment before passing him a thick blanket.

"Come on down when you're able," was all she offered before quickly ducking out of the room. Rick stared after her, more and more questions flooding his mind.

Downstairs, Morgan and Duane had lit their usual candles. The father was standing at the table, stirring a pot over sterno-warmers, while the son was pouring bottle water into tumblers. Morgan looked at her and she nodded, which he returned. It was a silent answer to his silent question: the stranger was alive, really alive, and well. Not long after, their guest emerged, moving slowly, drifting as he looked around. Apparently, he knew the house, had been there before, it belonged to friends of his that lived a few doors up from his own home. Morgan explained to him that it was empty when they got there, assuring him that they'd done nothing to his friends. Not that it mattered because, in Annie's mind, they were probably already dead. Most people were nowadays.

"Picked it because of the small windows. Easier to board up," Morgan explained. Rick looked around, at the blanket duct-taped over the front window. He touched it, feeling the boards nailed across the window underneath. He could hear the distant groaning outside, they all could. He reached to pull the blanket down but Morgan called to him, "Don't. They'll see the light." Rick turned to see the trio watching him warily. "There's more of them out there than usual. I shouldn't have fired that shot today. Sound draws them. Now they're all over our street."

"Wasn't your fault," Annie assured him as they all took their seats.

"Yes, it was," he protested. "Stupid, using the gun. It all happened so fast, I didn't think."

"Which is why it's not your fault," she reiterated. Morgan ladled canned stew into bowl and slid it toward the empty chair, motioning for Rick to join them. "Going for your gun is a instant knee-jerk reaction."

"Not for you it isn't," Duane pointed.

"Well that's cause I was carrying a knife around long before I learned how to shoot a gun," she retorted with a small smile. "Its why you always use a bat. You pick the weapon you're most comfortable with, something familiar," she instructed and Morgan nodded.

Rick stared at the trio, horrified. "You didn't think?"

"No. I should have used the baseball bat or knife instead. My mistake." Rick stared at him, dumbstruck. "What?"

"You shot a man today," he reiterated.

""Man"?" The trio traded a quizzical look.

"Weren't no man," Duane told him and Morgan scolded him. "It wasn't a man," he corrected. Rick stared at them. A man who committed murder is calmly correcting his son's grammar. Surreal.

"You shot him. In the street, out front, a man!"

"Friend, you need glasses. It was a walker." Morgan nodded to the chair, telling him to sit down before he fell down. Rick gave in and sat down, Morgan to his right, Annie his left and Duane across from him. Once their meager meal was blessed, Rick not missing how Annie rolled her eyes, Duane dug in while Rick just continued to watch them. Annie paused and motioned to his silverware. Eat, was her silent command. Rick picked up the spoon uneasily, his hands still not fully working. "And you. Damn fool. Just sittin' on a porch like it's any sunny day. You even waved to it. Jesus."

"You waved at a walker?" Annie asked curiously, trying not to laugh. But Morgan wasn't laughing. He was watching Rick take a few bites. It suddenly dawned on him that the man across from him just might be every bit as clueless as he seemed.

"Hey, mister," Morgan said, keeping a watchful eye on their guest, "you even know what's going on?"

"I woke up today. In the hospital. Came home, that's all I know." The trio around him traded another look. Morgan asked him if he knew about the dead people. "Yeah, I saw a lot of that. Stacked like firewood, out on the loading dock. Piled in trucks. Even tossed down the stairwell."

"No, not the ones they put down," Morgan corrected him. "The one's they didn't. The walkers." Rick stared at Morgan, not comprehending. "Like the one I shot today. He'd have ripped into you. Tried to eat you. Taken some flesh, at least. That's what they do." Annie looked at Rick sympathetically. He was completely flabbergasted, not knowing what to say. "But, I guess, if this is the first you're hearing it, I know how it must sound."

"Insane," was Rick's immediate response. "I saw a…woman. In the park today. She…looked at me. Reached out. Half her body was…" He didn't need to say anything else. It was clear what he'd seen. Morgan nodded without question, continuing to eat.

"That wasn't a woman. That was a walker," Annie clarified.

"And they're out there now? In the street?" he wondered, nodding towards the window. The trio nodded.

"Yeah. They get more active after dark sometimes. Maybe it's the cool air. Or, hell, maybe it's just me firing that damn gun today." Annie shook her head at him. Morgan really needed to stop blaming himself for that. "But we'll be fine, long as we stay quiet. They'll probably wander off by morning." Rick searched each of their faces, trying to make sense of it.

"They were saying on the news that it was some kind of virus," Annie explained. "They were guessing. There was a whole lot of that going on. All those experts looking so scared," she scoffed, shaking her head. "Then the broadcasts stopped. That's the last we heard. That was a few weeks ago." She shrugged and watched Rick as he absorbed this. "One thing we do know for certain? Don't get bit," she warned.

"We saw your bandage, that's what we were afraid of," Morgan explained. "That's why you were tied up." Rick told him he didn't understand. Morgan sighed quietly and told him, "The bite kills you. You get a fever and that burns you out. But then, after awhile, you come back. And you're hungry."

"Seen in happen," Duane told him sadly. Rick had been about to take a bit of his stew and hesitated, forcing himself to take the bite. The rest of their meal was silent.

In the living room, Annie helped Rick, who they'd discovered was a police officer, settle onto a bare mattress on the floor. She handed him another blanket and even a sleeping bag. It was unbelievable to him that strangers were so trusting – now, at least – and welcoming. Things had been tense when a car alarm had gone off, but Rick had helped in turning all the lights down. He looked at Duane, tucked against his father's side, sleeping fitfully after a good cry over his mother. Annie carried a candle over to the window and sat down in a chair. She was keeping watch. Morgan called to her softly and he nodded towards her bed. Silently, she rose and blew out the candle and undid the safety pins, looking out the slit one last time. The street was dark and the walkers moving around aimlessly, including Morgan's wife. All clear. She re-pinned the blanket and walked to her bed, beside Rick, and settled down. These people, they didn't have to take him in, tend to his wound, feed him, and let him stay. They could have just left him for dead, let him find out the horrible truth of the world all on his own. But they didn't. Outside, he heard weird groans, occasional distant snarls, thumps. He looked at Annie and, feeling eyes on her, she looked over at him.

"First night off in awhile. Maybe I'll get some real sleep," she joked quietly, cracking a smirk at Rick.

Seriously, he whispered to her, "How did you find them?" It was obvious that they weren't family, given her pale skin compared to the father and sons dark. Smile gone, she looked over at the sleeping father and son.

"We found each other," she answered. Rick waited, expecting her to tell him more, but she never did. "You should get some rest, Sheriff. Gonna be a long day tomorrow, teaching you how to survive." She settled into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes with a sigh.

"Thank you," he whispered. Annie closed her eyes and snuggled into her blankets.

"You're welcome."