When Rick and Carol walked up to the house a few hours later, they were pleasantly surprised to hear the very rare sound of Daryl's laughter. They looked at each other and grinned. They had all been worried about Daryl since Beth's death. He had taken it especially hard. They all knew he had felt especially protective of Beth and that his self perceived failure to keep her safe had worn him raw. They knew he was sleeping even less than usual, eating very little, and had taken to mumbling to himself before catching himself and then turning red with embarrassment. He refused to bathe or even change into fresh clothes, as if remaining filthy was akin to wearing a hairshirt to atone for his sins. As they climbed the porch stairs, they realized they were hearing another voice in addition to Daryl's. A softer, female voice. And both voices were coming from inside. They glanced at each other in surprise again and raised their eyebrows at each other. Curiosity got the better of them and they stepped inside and walked toward the voices.

Entering the large kitchen, they stopped dead in their tracks at the sight before them. There sat Daryl Dixon-although he obviously still hadn't taken a shower it was also obvious he had made some attempt at cleaning up his face and hands. Beside him at the table in the breakfast nook sat a beautiful young girl of about twenty or so. She was gazing at Daryl with a look of absolute adoration, and his look toward her was no less adoring. Neither of them noticed either Rick or Carol, so absorbed in their conversation they were oblivious to anything other than each other.

Carol cleared her throat softly and whispered, "Well my day has been full of surprises but none of them have made me as happy as this one." Daryl and the girl started and dragged their eyes from each other to gaze at Rick and Carol. The girl blushed prettily, and Carol could have sworn she saw a slight pink on Daryl's cheeks as well. He shrugged his shoulders as was his habit when he felt embarrassed, but Carol noticed his grip on the girl's hand remained tight. He cleared his throat and nodded slightly toward Rick and Carol.

"Y'all this is Maddie. I know her from before…..before the world went to shit. She was a friend of ours, lived in our town while she went to college." Maddie's eyes flicked over to him. She was aware he had not mentioned Marshall. She squeezed his hand and smiled at him. She was not going to mention Marshall unless Daryl did. There was no point in it. In the world now, the past was more dead than anything else and there was no use in getting stuck in it. Marshall was dead. Nothing was going to change that. But now she had a second chance with Daryl Dixon. And from what she had observed this afternoon, he had had his heart crushed as thoroughly as hers had been. Maybe this was Karma's way of giving them a second chance at whatever passed for happiness in this world.

"Well that is just amazing. How wonderful that you've found each other again after all that has happened," Carol said. She couldn't get over how much younger he looked, and it wasn't just that his face was clean of filth and his hair was somewhat pushed out of his eyes. It was obvious that this young girl had meant a lot to him and that seeing her here had lessened his unhappiness somewhat.

Rick laughed and stepped forward. "What is it y'all are eating there? It looks delicious," he leaned down to look into the basket Maddie and Daryl had retrieved from the lawn.

Daryl laughed and pushed the basket toward Rick. "It's pie. The best pie you'll ever eat. Maddie here is a prize baker and pie maker from back in the day." He suddenly looked abashed at what for him was babbling. He turned to Maddie and beamed at her. She turned an even prettier shade of pink and shrugged.

"Mind if I have some?" Rick asked her. Daryl stood up and pulled Maddie up with him.

"Go ahead and help yourself Rick. Maddie and I are going to go over to her house and pick up some of her stuff and bring it back here." He stopped and looked uncertainly at both Rick and Carol. "That is, if it's okay with y'all. Maddie doesn't really know anybody over there, and I figured she'd be more comfortable here with someone she does know." He shrugged as if this was all being done for her benefit. Rick and Carol looked at each other, then back at Daryl. They noted he still had Maddie's little hand grasped tightly in his. They both nodded yes, and mumbled of course and not a problem. Daryl and Maddie left quickly and headed out the front door. Carol blew out a breath and sat down heavily in a chair. Rick raised an eyebrow at her.

"I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself," she exclaimed. Rick nodded in agreement. "She must have meant an awful lot to him for seeing her again to have brought this much change to him so quickly," said Rick.

"Thank goodness for karma or fate bringing them together again," replied Carol. "I was so worried about him, this is just what he needed. Maybe now we'll get a new and improved old Daryl back" Carol laughed. "By the way, Rick, how is the pie?"

Rick hmmmmed and grinned. "Well, I don't know that it's the best pie in the world I've ever eaten, but it's pretty damn close. If nothing else, maybe Maddie can sweeten his temper with her cooking." He stuffed another forkful of the pie into his mouth and Carol dipped a finger in some of the filling of the pie still in the tin on the table.

"Maybe Rick. I certainly hope so," she replied as she licked some of the filling off her finger and smiled.

Chapter 9

Daryl and Maddie walked the few blocks to the house she was sharing with a group of women around her age in silence. Their hands were clasped and they swung them back and forth the way small children do. Both of them kept sneaking glances at the other as if to reassure themselves this was real, not another dream to wake up unhappy from. Their pace was slow and unhurried. At the end of the third block Maddie pulled Daryl slightly to the right and they turned down Ash Street. "I'm staying in the third house on the right," Maddie murmured. Daryl nodded. The house was slightly smaller than the one his group was in, but definitely much nicer than any place he had lived in previously-especially the last two years.

At the front steps they stopped. "D'ya want me to go in with you?" Daryl whispered.

Maddie shook her head. "No, I don't have much. It won't take me very long." He nodded but didn't release his hold on her hand. He felt uneasy letting her out of his sight so soon. Which was ridiculous, she was just going in the house to get her clothes and would be right back. Still, after everything that had happened the last two years he knew it would be a long time before he would be able to let her out of his sight without feeling tense.

He squeezed her hand and mumbled, "I'll go with ya anyway. Might need help carrying some of your stuff out." Maddie squeezed his hand back in relief. She knew he had never liked meeting new people and that he would rather wait outside, but she didn't feel comfortable letting him out of her sight so soon after finding him again. She sighed and unconsciously squared her shoulders before starting up the steps still holding hand.

There were three young women sitting on a couch in the living area and they looked up when Maddie walked in the door with Daryl trailing after her. He could see right away why she didn't feel comfortable here. These girls reminded him of the girls she had been with the few times he had seen her at the bar before she started seeing Marshall. They looked well fed, content-they didn't look to have suffered any the last two years in the least. Their clothes looked the type they would have gotten in some fancy store back before the virus. They were wearing makeup and had their hair fixed up. It was as if they had been frozen in time from two years ago.

"Hey Maddie," a blonde trilled over to them. Daryl could feel their eyes on him, and knew they were trying to figure out who he was and why he was holding Maddie's hand. He knew he was definitely not the type of person they would have ever had in their house previously. His old feelings of awkwardness rose up in him causing his face to burn. Unconsciously his hand started to pull away from Maddie's –but she gripped it even tighter and came to a dead stop, turning to face the three girls. Daryl suddenly realized that the way the girls looked at Maddie was not in the least friendly. They were looking at her like folks had always looked at him and Merle. Like she was filthy trash. He looked Maddie up and down slowly, taking in her hiking boots, skinny little skinned up legs leading up to her very short jean skirt. She wore a black tank top that left a bit of her midriff bare. And he also realized she wasn't wearing any bra. He noticed her hair was rather wild and tousled. He had always loved her long dark curls, and although he remembered her complaining whenever the weather had made her hair what she called "wild", he had thought she had looked even more beautiful. Her face was thinner than he'd remembered, making her cheekbones more prominent and her pretty eyes appear enormous in her little face. As she opened her mouth to speak, he noticed her pink plummy lips were chapped from her old habit of biting them when nervous or in deep thought. Daryl realized he had been so grateful to see her again that he hadn't really taken in how altered her appearance was. She looked like everyone else he had seen these last two years-starved and bruised from the daily struggle to survive. Despite having been inside these walls the last six months, the previous months on the outside with Marshall had left a visible mark on her appearance. Having known Maddie from before, he knew she had been raised every bit as privileged and proper as these three young women may have been. But he realized they had never bothered to find that out or even considered that possibility. They thought she was trash because of how she dressed-they had no idea how well dressed and clean she was compared to how his group had been when they stepped through the town's gates-clothes basically rags, all of them filthy from weeks on the road with no chance for showers or baths, nothing much beyond a quick swipe at the walker guts and blood covering them after each encounter with the damn things. Truth was, the same had been true of any folks they had met up with in the last two years with the exception of the Greenes at their farm. There wasn't anyone he could think of in the last two years that had appeared as clean and unruffled as these folks here in Alexandria –it really was as if the last two years had never happened-almost like this place and the people in it had been frozen in time. He was glad now he had come in with her after all.

Maddie puffed out a breath of air in disgust. "What the fuck r ya looking at," she snapped at the blonde. Daryl looked at Maddie sharply and his mouth stretched wide in an amused grin. She had thrown his first words to her from earlier today right at that snippy bitch. The blonde's mouth dropped open. A brunette sitting next to her shook her head.

"I told you not to ask her to move in here with us. No breeding or manners," she sniffed.

A second blonde nodded in agreement. "Bad enough we have to put up with your bad manners and slutty looks, but now you're dragging in something you've found in the gutter. Don't think he's going to move in here with you, or even stay the night." The first blonde tsked and said, "And your boyfriend (and she stressed this word in an ugly way) barely dead a month. You certainly didn't wait long to move on, did you?" The three girls looked at each other in smug satisfaction.

Daryl glanced anxiously over at Maddie, expecting her to start shouting a string of filthy language at these snotty bitches. He wouldn't have blamed her, and sure wouldn't have stopped her. But to his surprise she laughed a short bitter laugh and shook her head.

"Don't worry, I'm getting my shit and moving out. Your hospitality (and she stressed the word in a sarcastic tone) has been much appreciated. Just remember you sorry, weak bitches, when the shit hits the fan again and this place gets overrun by walkers or some group of murderers it'll be folks like me who will survive and get away. You look down your noses at me and think I look like shit-this is how someone looks who's been on the outside and learned to survive in this clusterfuck we call life now. Y'all can go to hell with your opinions and go fuck yourselves. And by the way, back before all this shit started y'all would've been what my folks called new money and posers and trash. I come from better than any of you, and my appearance to the contrary I'm still further up the ladder than any of you will ever be." With that Maddie flipped them all off and turned and stomped up the stairs with Daryl scrambling to follow her. He could hear the three girls in the living room start chattering like a bunch of excited hens, and laughed quietly to himself shaking his head. He had forgotten what a little firecracker Maddie was-it was the reason Marshall had fallen so hard for her. For all that she had grown up privileged and spoiled, she was a tough and realistic little cookie and could handle herself very well in most situations. Daryl had no doubt her presence had been a major help instead of hindrance to Marshall while they had been on the outside. He would have to keep that in mind and not treat her as anything other than his equal.

Maddie flung open a door and pulled him into a small, neat bedroom. Whoever had decorated the room had apparently been planning this room for a young girl. The walls were a pastel color, the furniture that white and pink shit he had seen in catalogs, and the bed was a frilly, girly canopy like he'd only ever heard about. No girl he had ever known had ever had a bed that fancy. He whistled softly. Maddie turned quickly to him and raised her eyebrows at him.

"Boy you are just full of surprises ain't ya girl" he laughed. "A girl with that kinda shocking language, and you're sleeping in this fancy bed like in some fairy tale. I never read about no princess talking like you just did." He laughed again at the thought of the way she had just raked those three girls over the coals.

"Aw hell, Daryl. You and Marshall were the only two people I ever met that thought of me as some little angelic princess. No matter what I ever did or said, I just couldn't get that image out of your heads." She shook her head in exasperation.

Daryl crossed the room to her and pulled her close to him. He kissed her forehead and shrugged. "I thought girls liked being put on a pedestal, liked folks to think they were perfect and special." She looked into his eyes and he could see that she was suddenly serious.

She shook her head. "No Daryl. It's lonely and scary on a pedestal. You start to worry that you'll do something stupid and folks will be disappointed in you and walk away from you because you aren't perfect." She sighed and hugged him tightly. "I'm just me, with faults like everyone else. I want whoever loves me to love me because of all my faults, not despite them." Daryl nodded and hugged her just as tightly. He cleared his throat, unsure of what would be the right thing to say. He had never been good with words.

He let go of her and pulled a lock of her hair. "Reckon we better get this over with girl. They'll have gathered a mob with pitchforks downstairs if we don't hurry it up." She nodded and looked around the room swiftly. She and Marshall had not had much with them by the time they had gotten here. She grabbed a duffel out of the closet and quickly went through the dresser drawers throwing items into the duffel. She hesitated when she came across an old flannel Marshall had worn, then threw it into the duffel. They hadn't had any pictures or books or anything of personal value to them-just some clothes and toiletries they'd scavenged along the way. She was finished within a few minutes and turning around for a last look she sighed. "Guess this is it." She started toward the door. Daryl looked around the room again quickly, afraid she might have missed something. Not seeing anything she might want he followed her to the door and they both went out, closing the door behind them. They hesitated at the top of the stairs, straining to hear the girls voices. Silence. The girls had either left the house or were in another room avoiding them. They jogged down the stairs and out the front door without looking back. They trotted out to the street and didn't slow down until they'd turned the corner and were out of sight of the house.

They quickly slowed to a leisurely pace similar to the one they had walked on the way over. Daryl took the duffel bag from Maddie and shifted it to his right hand and grabbed her right hand in his left. He felt less tense now that they were out of the house and headed back to his place. Maddie and he started bumping arms as they walked along, leaning into each other and enjoying the contact.

Looking sideways at him through her soft curls, Maddie ventured a question. "Where do you sleep in that house Daryl? And am I sleeping with you?"

Daryl stopped in his tracks. He hadn't even thought that far ahead. He had been so wrapped up in her sudden presence that he had not given a thought to anything beyond the next few minutes. He started to pull his hand from hers, suddenly embarrassed and feeling foolish. She gripped his hand tightly. He looked down at his feet and scuffed his boots on the pavement. He shrugged. "I haven't even thought of that. There's enough room in the house that you can have your own room of course." He could feel his face getting hot. He had honestly not given any thought at all to sleeping arrangements or anything else. He hoped she didn't think he expected her to sleep with him, now or ever. His old doubt rose up again. Of course she had been glad to see someone from before, someone she was familiar with. And she had just lost Marshall a month ago. She might not ever want to be with anyone again if her heart was crushed badly enough. He was crazy about her, but he did not expect her to feel the same about him. At her continued silence, he felt his chest constrict. Of course she would want her old room. Even in this world he was trash, unwanted by any decent woman. It would always be this way. He had made a fool of himself this afternoon.

He tried again to pull his hand from hers. Again she gripped it tight, and then shook her head. "No you don't Daryl Dixon. Don't you pull that don't give a damn act on me. We're going to settle this now, so there aren't any lingering doubts or questions."

He looked up at her from under his shaggy hair and shrugged. "Well tell me what you want Maddie." He unconsciously held his breath at her answer, his palm growing damp with nervousness.

Maddie tapped her foot and pulled him closer to her. "Well, I want you. I want us to be together the way we should have been years ago. I think we both knew there was something between us, but we took it for granted we had all the time in the world and did nothing about it. And look where it got us." He nodded slowly, looking at her more fully. "So, if you feel the same way I think we should just be together. In the same room, in the same bed." His mouth dropped open in happy surprise at this. Seeing this Maddie smiled softly. She knew he had a huge hole in him from his rough childhood and all the years after, always being teased and tormented by his hateful brother Merle. She knew he was suspicious of any kind gesture and slow to trust anyone. The fact that he had been this open with her this soon was a sure sign of how starved for affection and attention he was. Her heart ached for him. He was such a good man, so kind hearted and caring and he always hid it behind a gruff exterior for fear of being found out and having his heart crushed even more than it already was.

Daryl cleared his throat and sighed. "I don't want to push you into anything. Marshall hasn't been gone that long. I know you're probably still getting over that." Maddie nodded.

"Daryl, I loved Marshall. I was happy with him, I think we were both happy in the time we were together. But I don't believe there's only one person out there meant to be your soulmate. I mean, some folks are lucky and do find one person to grow old with. Other folks through circumstances end up being with and loving more than one person. Loving someone else doesn't take anything away or diminish the love that Marshall and I had." Daryl nodded. "I used to lie awake at night sometimes and think about you," she continued. Daryl's eyes widened and he shook his head slightly in disbelief. "Yes I did. Before the virus and even more afterwards. It didn't mean I was unhappy with Marshall, it's not like I was imagining you in bed beside me instead of him. But sometimes my mind would wander while I fell asleep and I'd catch myself wondering how you were, what you were doing, who you were with. And I used to pray that you would meet a woman who would be good to you and for you."

Daryl frowned. "What? Why would you be thinking about me meeting anyone?"

"Because I knew you deserved to be happy and to have someone care about you and love you same as anyone else on this earth. You're a good man. Marshall used to talk all the time about what a good man you are, how it was just lousy luck that you had Merle for a brother instead of someone who would help and encourage you. He used to brag about your tracking skills and how good you were living out in the woods-he said you were a true survivalist and after the virus hit and we all scattered he used to say that if anyone made it out of all this shit alive, it would be you. Not your brother, but you. He said your life's troubles had made you strong and that all your tracking and hunting and living on your own had prepared you for this. He said anyone lucky enough to have you with them would have a much better chance of survival."

Daryl bit his lip and shook his head. "Not that good –we've lost a lot of our people. I failed them."

Maddie squeezed his hand and placed her other hand on his cheek. He looked at her steadily, and she could see the doubt and sadness and guilt in his eyes. "You did the best you could under the circumstances. Bad things happen sometimes no matter how hard we try to avoid it. I have no doubt that if you asked any of those people in your group about you, they would have nothing but praise for you." She leaned up on her tiptoes and planted a soft kiss on his lips. "Now can we go to your place? I want to get settled in and find something to eat. I'm actually hungry for the first time in a very long time."

Daryl smiled and nodded his head, at a loss for words. How had this happened? How was it that a woman like her would've been thinking about him, wondering how he was and now was here beside him telling him she wanted to stay by his side from now on. He felt dazed and light headed, like back in the day when he would drink or smoke too much. Only this was a good kind of light headed. He didn't have to worry about a hangover tomorrow morning, or waking up to embarrassing memories of fights he had gotten in or some cruel prank Merle had played on him.

They turned and continued on their way toward his house. As they walked, Maddie noted from the corner of her eye that Daryl's posture straightened up, his gait had more confidence in it. She smiled and felt her heart turn over a little in her chest. Yes she had loved Marshall. But this, this feeling she had for Daryl was something entirely different. She felt as if they were two halves of a coin that had finally been rejoined. She remembered reading some book years ago while in school, Jane Eyre. The passage where Mr Rochester had told at last told Jane he loved her had always struck her as wildly hopelessly romantic. Something about their two hearts being joined by a thin thread, and if they were separated the thread would be broken and he would not survive the heartbreak. She had always wondered what a love so encompassing would be like-a passionate, unyielding love that would endure anything that life threw at the lovers. She remembered that all the great love affairs in literature had ended in death and despair and madness. Even so she had always longed for a love like those great romances-obsessive, possessive, love that was close to madness it was intense. An all consuming, never ending love. She felt that now, in this kind of world, a weak love wouldn't survive all the trials a couple would go through here in this wasteland. She felt instinctively that she and Daryl could have that type of love, if she could just lead him to loving himself and believing in himself.

She looked at him over at him as they walked along. She knew she would have to be patient and kind and tender with him, but had no doubt the end result would be worth the effort. She was used to jumping into situations headfirst and asking questions much later-but had never had any doubts whatever she jumped into would turn out right. With Daryl, being impatient would cause him to worry and doubt himself and withdraw into himself more. She stifled a sigh and resolved to tread carefully so this would turn out happily for the both of them.