A/N: I love all of you.

Standard disclaimers apply. I own nothing save for the plot twists, and I'm certainly not making any money off of this.

Thanks to incog_ninja who dazzles me with her insight and her ability to just KNOW what I'm going on about.

"I thought we established at the quarry that I don't do laundry. I don't do dishes, either."

Lori narrowed her hazel eyes at me and jammed her hands to her hips, effecting a motherly glare that wasn't going to work on me – my own mother hadn't had much success, why would Lori Grimes? Because she was Rick's wife? "Well, then what do you want to do, Andrea? Storm around camp and pout?"

"She's good at killin' walkers," Daryl muttered out of the blue.

Both Lori and I turned to watch as the redneck passed by, carrying a jug of water. I afforded him a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes, and he looked from me to Lori. With a bob of his head, he moved on, in the direction he'd set up his tent.

Lori turned back to me with a sneer. "So, what, you want to be on watch?"

"What the hell is your problem, Lori?"

The deputy's wife gaped at my outburst. "My problem," she stated flatly.

"Yes. Ever since the CDC, you've had this perpetual look of utter distaste. Now, I can see you being upset over losing your husband. But you got him back. And I don't blame you for being distraught over Carl, either. We all were. But he's going to be fine. So unless it's a four-week long bout of PMS, get off my case. I don't do domesticity, all right?" I plucked the rifle from where I'd laid it and sauntered off through the camp.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence back there," I called out as I slowly approached Daryl's tent. I was hoping to start a conversation, and figured that a little praise never did anyone wrong. He was seated outside, going over the mechanics of his crossbow, and he looked up, squinting in the late afternoon sun.

"Need every person we got." His mouth quirked and he quickly looked back down at what he was doing, rough fingertips moving over delicate parts with practiced ease. "Won't do us any good against a herd a walkers if someone is squeamish."

I afforded him another stiff smile, then. He was deflecting. I could work around that. "Think you could teach me how to use that?" I pressed. "You said it yourself the other day: it's the best weapon in a situation like this. Might help if more than one of us knew how to use it."

"You got an Annie Oakley complex or something?"

"I just wanna pull my own weight around here." I wouldn't get drawn into an argument, no matter how petty. Daryl Dixon had a temper and I had a feeling I hadn't seen the half of it in the months I'd spent with him.

"That include hunting for our food?" He nodded to the forest surrounding the Greene's land. "You can barely put down a walking corpse. How the hell you supposed take down a deer, or even a squirrel?"

"Look, five minutes ago you said I could handle myself."

Daryl rolled his shoulder in another lazy shrug. "So maybe I don't think Olive Oyl has any right tellin' people their business."

"And you do?"

Daryl set his crossbow aside with a rough hand and stood quickly, wiping his palms on his workpants. "What the hell do you want from me, Barbie?" He growled hotly.

"I want to learn how to survive," I hissed back, moving into his space. I swallowed and blinked back bitter tears. "I want to learn how to live." I looked out onto the low light spread across Hershel's pastures, and the stark white of a house that had been painted recently. I looked to the wells, the fruit bearing trees, the small garden, the chicken coops. These people had learned to adapt. I could, too. "I want to prove to you that you didn't waste an arrow," I added, flicking my gaze back to Daryl.

He listened with pursed lips, the inside of his cheek tucked between his teeth, and when I finished talking, he afforded me another bob of his head. "All right," he drawled. "But we'll start with the basics."

I couldn't help the broad smile that spread, and while Daryl fought not to return it, I could see from the creases at the corners of his eyes and the way his upper lip twitched that he was losing the battle. He looked away and I pulled out my gun. "I'm ready when you are."

His calm stare slid back over me, and then down to the pistol in my hands. He shook his head and took it, opening the chamber and checking the rounds. With a flick of his wrist, the chamber snapped back into place, and he dumped the gun back into my hands. He brushed past me and started walking towards the farmhouse. Looking up from the gun, I squinted at his retreating back. "Daryl?" I called out.

"C'mon, Barbie. Daylight's wastin'."

I rolled my eyes at his attempt at being gruff, but even over the distance between us, I could hear the hint of a laugh in his words. I strode after him. "Shouldn't we take target practice away from the farmhouse?" I glanced back over my shoulder, fully aware of Dale's gaze from where he stood on the camper, and the way Carol and Lori paused as they pulled the dried laundry from the line. I turned back to Daryl, but he was already stopped and turning around, and I stumbled into him.

He huffed and caught me around the upper arms in his hands, and he held me at arm's length, his fingers curling into my biceps. Tilting his head to one side, he licked his lips and then scoffed. "Target practice is the least of yer worries. Y'wanna learn to survive in this world, ya gotta start at the very beginnin'. An' before guns, or axes, or anythin' else, all we had was fire."

"You watchin'?"

How could I not watch? My eyes seemed to seek out every move Daryl made, no matter how mundane. An hour earlier we were behind Hershel's shed, and Daryl was swinging an axe, splitting wood, huffing with exertion, his hair dark and plastered across his sweating brow. The sun was dropping steadily, and we paused then to eat the beans Carol had heated, and drink water the youngest Greene daughter had carried out of the house.

Daryl had ignored the fork that came with the beans, and set about scooping dinner into his mouth via his fingers, pausing to suck the sauce off his thumb, before chugging water and making his throat bob with every swallow. When he was done, his tongue flickered out, catching stray drops, and he suddenly swung his eyes towards me.

I'd been caught staring. Again. This time, however, I didn't look away. I couldn't. Daryl didn't move, and neither did I. For a brief moment, we sat on the back steps of the house and stared at each other in the dying light. It was a battle of wills – who would back down first? As the moment stretched on, it became perfectly clear to me that I wasn't the only one staring. His gaze was hot, smoking in the setting sun, and it flitted over my face, scorched along my collarbones and the bare shoulder where my shirt slid down, and then further still, along my thighs, until he came to my feet. Then, the heat of his gaze was extinguished as he unfolded his frame and downed the rest of his water. Setting the glass on the railing, he trudged down into the dirt..

"C'mon," he'd grunted, rolling a shoulder and shrugging in the direction of his tent. "Got work t'do t'night."

"There are three things y'need to start a fire: fuel, oxygen, and a spark."

We were crouched down a few feet from Daryl's tent. He'd turned in the soft light of evening, frowning as he determined the direction the wind was coming from, and, satisfied, he'd set to work, making orderly piles of wood. The pieces ranged from kindling to the halves of the bigger logs he'd split, and now his hands moved to place the smallest pieces in the centre of the dirt we'd cleared down into a slight depression.

"Now, there are two ways you can do this – either way works best, but some claim one over the other. You can log cabin," and here he paused, arranging the smaller twigs and sticks from the kindling into a square, overlapping the ends to create a tiny log cabin-like structure. His eyes sailed up to mine, to make sure I was paying attention. When he saw that I was indeed watching, he pulled the cabin down, and began arranging kindling another way. "Or you can teepee. The goal is to have enough air passing through. Y'don't want to snuff it an' waste a match."

He paused here with another pointed glance, almost expectant, and I blinked, fighting the blush that threatened to appear. Daryl's voice had a soothing cadence when it wasn't growling or cursing, and when he spoke, like that first night at the quarry with his Chupacabra story, people listened, despite his best efforts to keep to himself. In the dying of the day, his eyes had changed again, and were now like twilight, and I shivered as he pursed his lips in thought.

"Gotta match, Barbie?"

The nickname he insisted on calling me made my hackles rise, and any romantic notion I'd pinned on him was torn off. I narrowed my eyes sharply as I shifted in the dirt and patted my pockets down. "No. And stop calling me that."

Daryl snorted and reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, fishing out a box of wooden matches. He tossed it to me with a wink. "I'll stop callin' ya Barbie if you light that thing with one match."

I sighed and looked at the little box in my hands. "Daryl, there's no way I can light a fire with one match."

"Best learn quick." His reply was on the heels of my statement. "Sometimes y'don't even have that." He nodded his chin towards me. "Let's go. Light's dyin', and so is the heat. Darkness never killed anyone, but you can die of hypothermia in Georgia."

"All right," I hissed, affording him another glare.

"Shit, woman, maybe if ya stare at the wood long enough, you won't need a match."

"You know, you're a real asshole sometimes."

"And you're a whiny bitch. Stop fuckin' stallin.'"

My fingers fumbled with his gruff tone, but I managed to free a match. Grasping it between my thumb and forefinger, I made to strike it along the side of the box, but Daryl's hand stopped me. I jerked away, but he caught my wrist, and once more we were staring at each other over the kindling.

His fingers flexed around my flesh and he used his free hand to pluck the match from my fingers. Then, as he looked up at me from under his brows, he turned my hand over, and I let him curl my fingers inward, creating a cup, and he tucked the match in the v between my first two fingers, with the head facing in. The hand on my wrist slid down to where I clutched the box and he held me steady. His eyes never strayed from mine, and suddenly, there was a snap, a spark, and warmth flooded my palm.

Light engulfed his face, and I blinked at his high cheekbones, his tilted eyes, and the way the tiny flame glittered in the bright blue centers of them. My breath caught in my throat as he tilted his head and his gaze fell to my lips. I licked them self consciously, aware of how they were dry and pale they were without the slash of lipstick I'd grown accustomed to. This was the closest I'd been to a man without the trappings of my old life and it scared me.

Daryl's eyes shifted, and he looked back up to me as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. He seemed poised, ready to strike, and I suddenly discovered my heart thumping rapidly behind my ribs, and my pulse fluttering in my veins. The tension between us was palatable and thick. Before Daryl could strike – I could see it in his eyes – a quick flash of searing pain licked over my palm and I yelped, flicking the match from my fingers.

I yanked against Daryl's hold but his grip was firm as he drew my burned hand up to his face to take a closer look. "Might be a blister," he breathed.

My fingers twitched as his words heated my palm more than the match had.

"I'm fine," I stuttered, finally pulling my hand free.

He let me go, though reluctantly, and sat back on his haunches, turning the box of matches over in his fingers. Extending his hand, he held the box out to me. "Guess I can keep calling you Barbie," he snickered.

"Right," I growled, refusing to look at him. I yanked the matches from his grasp and plucked another one out, holding it the way he'd shown me.

The second after I struck the head and the flame came to life, Daryl's voice floated over me as I drew the match down to the kindling. "There's no use for hesitation these days."

We watched as the kindling began to smoke and smolder. Now all we had to do was fan the embers until they burned.

Michonne looked up from where we were crouched down in the remains of a concrete structure. Cocking her head to the side, she listened past the howling wind of Georgia in January, past the groaning shuffle of her chained walkers, until she was certain it was safe for the time being. Then, she looked back at me and nodded, giving me the go ahead to light the fire I'd built.

"You know," Michonne began, sidling back to where I was perched, "when I came across you two months ago, I never would have pegged you to be able to start a fire with one match."

I smirked, shaking my head, and stood, patting down the pockets of my heavy coat. "Sometimes," I began, remembering what Daryl had said, "you don't even have that." Tugging the zipper down and opening the coat, I dug into the breast pocket of the plaid flannel shirt I wore underneath and came up with the box. I shook it, and sighed in relief. One left.

"Where'd you learn this stuff, anyway?" Michonne asked as she nodded to the squirrels I'd laid out, and gutted and skinned. "You some sort of Green Beret?"

"No," I answered softly, cupping my hand and striking the match. I touched it to the kindling and held back tears that threatened to fall. "I learned from a guy."

"A guy," Michonne echoed flatly.

I shrugged and glanced up at her, saying nothing.

The dark-skinned swordswoman made a sound between a growl and a snort, and then grinned. "Shit. I thought you were the type that could hold your own."

"I can." Slowly, I slid to my belly and pushed my face close to the kindling, where it smoldered weakly. With my lips pursed, I blew a soft, steady stream of air and held a few more pieces to the embers as they began to glow brightly. When a flame licked up, I smiled, relieved, and sat back up. I continued with feeding the fire. "Aside from lighting fires and skinning squirrels, he taught me that I didn't have to hold my own all the time."