A/N: This is what happens when I listen to Dave Mathews. I hope you all enjoy and will let me know what you think.

2015

Daryl drove down the familiar roads of this town, a few weeks after the movie, thinking of how they had changed and not changed in over fifteen years. Most towns were more built up by now but this one stayed the same. After all these years it was still small town America here. It was comforting in a way, the lack of industry, the farmland that was still there. He left here a young kid, shaking in his boots about his future, wondering if he would even have a future.

And now he returned, older and wiser, so to speak and it hadn't changed. The roads were full of memories though. He drove down these roads a million times as a kid, as a teenager, and one night a few days before he left for boot camp. He drove to his destiny and he didn't even know it.

He and Carol had been out that night with Maggie, Glenn, Tara and a bunch of other people at a local tavern that served minors. Carol was the designated driver and she was driving his truck, he had taught her to drive a stick shift months ago.

They were all buying him drinks and he was taking them to try and quench the fear that was always on the surface of his mind.

It was his going away party and he was leaving in two days for boot camp. Merle had been home on leave, for a little while and they were going back together.

Daryl was scared to death and couldn't tell anyone. He couldn't tell Merle or any of his friends, it wasn't what was expected of Dixon. Dixon's didn't get scared.

The Army was his only choice now that the old man was getting worse with his fists and Merle was already in the Service a year. He had nowhere else to go, and he needed out before he killed his old man or was killed by him.

But he was scared and he allowed himself to be vulnerable with her. Carol would be the only person he would let see him this way. She had seen him so much worse, she would understand him, like she always did.

Somehow they had ended up pressed against each other in the parking lot of the tavern and he had kissed her. It was innocent at first, and she was going for his cheek. But he had turned his head at the last minute to say something and her lips landed right on his.

Before either of them had realized, they had been kissing for ten minutes. Then he was asking her to drive them to the back road behind the Greene's farm after she dropped everyone else off. That was where everyone went parking and they both knew what he was asking. He remembered she said. " You're drunk." And that he had looked up at her through the fringe of his bangs and said. "I might never see you again."

He remembered everything about that night, and he hadn't been that drunk. They never discussed it but he was pretty sure it was her first time and it had been his.

1999 April

It wasn't like kissing anyone else had ever been. He was almost nineteen and he had kissed his fair share of girls. This was so different. Carol had always said he was like her brother, but she wasn't kissing him like a sister would and the feelings it was stirring up in him weren't brotherly. Not by a long shot and neither were the thoughts going through his head now.

She tasted like sunshine and he felt like he was under some spell while he was kissing her. The blood was pounding behind his ears and he realized, no one ever made him feel like this before.

He felt like he had a fever all of the sudden and like his blood was going to boil and over flow. There was a slight chill in the air but he was burning up.

It was a cool night out, and not quite summer yet. Still, nice enough to be outside and they didn't need coats anymore. But he was warm, so fucking warm all of the sudden.

Daryl's hands were on her waist and under the back of her shirt and she didn't stop him. He rubbed his thumbs in little circles on her lower back and he felt her shiver at his touch.

Carol could feel it too, that electricity, that feeling like there was something happening that neither one could control when he touched her. She didn't know what to do with her own hands and finally she settled for the same, running them along his back and dipping them down slightly into his jeans.

It was on, and he had no idea how it had happened. They had come outside for a smoke and to talk without the noise of the bar or the people and the music and now they were starting down a road that was so dangerous.

Daryl could hear the music playing inside. It was 'Teen Angst' by Cracker, that was Maggie's jam and they knew she was at the juke box loading it up with quarters and picking her songs. The words were vibrating through his ears as he kissed her and pulled her close to him, digging his hands in her hair and devouring her like a starving man.

I don't know what the world may need, and I never grasped your complexities.

I'd be happy just to get your attention.

I don't know what the world may want, but your long sweet body lying next to mine could certainly raise my spirits.

They were out there for at least ten minutes and not missed by anyone. It was like they were the only two people left in the world. The parking lot was empty and if he was a different guy he'd have thrown her on top of the car already.

But he wasn't that guy.

Finally, he stopped kissing her and set his forehead against hers, her eyes blinked up at his and the eye contact was almost too much. He didn't know what to do or say and he didn't want to stop.

He smiled at her and she smiled back. "Hi." He said softly, like a prayer.

"Hi." She replied and he kissed her again, he didn't have to try and gain entrance into her mouth, she was right there with him. The booze and the music was going through his head at a rapid speed and his inhibitions were quickly flying out into the wind that was blowing across the parking lot.

It figured it was her all along, and in his mind he had always suspected it. He forced himself not to play games and not to be the way he usually was with her. He hid behind the mask of humor, but even he knew when he drank his true intentions to her came out.

She had just never taken him up on it.

He was leaving in two days, there was no time to waste. It was now or never, literally.

"You want to go somewhere and be alone." He was surprised he even got the words out, they got stuck in his throat, but finally he got them out. Then he was doubly surprised that she said yes with no hesitation at all.

This party was over.

He took her by the hand and led her back into the bar, but before they went in, he stopped and kissed her again in the lobby and then burst back into the bar.

Maggie, Glenn, Tara, Shane and a few other kids they knew from school were all sitting at a table in the back of the party. If anyone noticed he was holding her hand, no one commented at all. That other Cracker song was on now "Low" Maggie was so predictable.

"Who's catching a ride with us." He said to the group. " We're out."

"What's the rush Dixon." Shane asked.

"Got shit to do, if you all need a ride, let's go."

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They parked back behind Maggie's fathers corn field after they took everyone home. It was dark but they could see the lights of Maggie's house in the distance on the other side of the corn. The sky was full of plenty of stars but no moon and it was starting to get chillier. He rolled up the windows and put the radio on nice and soft.

They were the only one's there, probably because it was a weeknight and most kids were home sleeping. If he wasn't leaving that Friday with Merle she would be one of those kids' home sleeping, but she wasn't.

If it was the weekend there would have been no privacy and maybe it would have been different, but something was meant to happen that night and every step towards it brought them closer to a destiny neither of them saw coming.

She wasn't home in bed.

Tonight she was listening to Dave Mathews 'Crash into me' and laying down on the bench seat of his truck.

Sweet like candy to my soul.

He settled down next to her and pushed a lock of her hair out of the way of her face and just looked at her. Why hadn't this ever happened before, but he already knew the answer to that. He was afraid he was going to die and she was afraid he was going to die.

Fear could be a great motivator when a person was going away for a long time, possibly into a war. It could make you cross lines you swore you would never cross and do things that you wanted to do only in your deepest darkest dreams.

Daryl couldn't stop kissing her, and he knew it was because it was both the first and last time. The timing had been so off it was almost funny, except it would never be funny that they were going to be separated, just when they realized something could have been.

Touch your lips, just so I know.

In your eyes, love, it glows so.

I'm bare boned and crazy for you.

As they laid there touching each other's hair and kissing it was unspoken between them…. goodbye.

It was the sweetest of goodbyes, in all of his life there would be none as sweet as that night in his truck. There would never be another girl like her, he would look all over the world for one, and never find what he had left behind that night.

He remembered every moment with her, the way her eyes shined, every whisper and every sigh, every touch.

They explored each other completely, losing clothes with shaking hands and soft touches. Their hands and lips all over each others bodies until there was a soft layer of steam on the windows.

They did all the things they dared not ever think about through the years of their friendship, but that didn't matter now.

All that mattered was comforting each other in any way that they could and living in a moment that had always been right at their fingertips.

They might not ever see each other again.

"Do you want to." She asked as he was bringing his head back up over her stomach while her breathing came back to normal.

"We don't gotta." He said, completely mentally satisfied by giving her pleasure. Physically, he could take care of that later, although the feel of her hands on him was making it difficult to think straight.

It was different when someone else touched your dick, he was slowly learning tonight what Merle had been going on about all this time.

"I want to; do you have something?"

He reached down at their feet for his pants. "You do know my brother, yeah?" He said laughing and pulled a condom out of his wallet.

She nodded.

"Are you sure." He said. "We can stop."

She whispered. "I don't want to stop."

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He woke up the next morning in his bed to his radio alarm playing that song by The Verve about taking someone down the only road I've ever been down. He knocked the clock on the floor and looked over, searching for her.

He remembered her driving him home, because she was the sober one and Merle helping them in, but he thought she stayed.

They were leaving tomorrow.

There was pounding on his door and he covered his head with a pillow, but that wasn't enough to settle the hangover.

Then Merle busted in the room.

"Bout time you get up, yeah?"

"Where's Carol?" He asked, looking behind him to see if she was in the kitchen.

"I drove her home last night…you remember last night brother?"

Daryl nodded rubbing his head.

"You got trashed, bet you got a hangover dontcha." Merle laughed.

"Yup." He flopped back onto the bed.

"You remember last night at all?" Merle asked leaning in the doorway.

Daryl shook his head slightly. "Bits and pieces."

"You remember what you were saying to Peaches?" Merle said. "Asking her to sleep over?"

"Yeah, I remember that."

"Ok, that's good." Merle said. "Cause it seemed like, to me that Peaches popped your cherry last night…finally. You were going on and on about it before you passed out."

"Don't talk about her like that." Daryl replied sharply.

"Hey." Merle put his hands up. "No harm meant, you know how I feel about her. But tell me brother."

He pushed off from the door way and approached Daryl, who was sitting up on the bed holding his head in his hands.

"I was right, wasn't I?" He said. "Aint nothing better than pussy in this whole world."

"Merle!" He said.

"You know I aint lying, you were like a blithering idiot when she got you home last night and I know why. Took you long enough, though. Almost ten years to get between that girl's legs, what a waste."

Merle shook his head.

"And now I gotta leave, so tell me Merle." He sat forward. "What kind of guy does that make me?"

"Aint like you won't ever be back." Merle said. "She's yours, always has been."

Daryl shook his head. "I don't want her to wait, it's not fair and I don't want to ruin her life by asking her to."

"Suit yourself, but she would." Merle said. "You know it."

"Let's just pack our shit and go." He stood up. "I'm ready to go."