"So this is where we were going the whole time?" They were walking towards Daryl's old house.

"No, but once I recognized the neighborhood I thought 'What the hell, why not'" He looked around and got in front of Carol with his crossbow.

He slowly opened the door and looked around. The house was covered in dust and old beer cans. The way it was when he moved out when he was eighteen. There were no walkers there. Carol closed the door behind them. She stayed behind him; he knew the house. She wrapped her hand around the handle of her knife and kept her other hand on her stomach. He guided her through the house. He checked all the rooms and they separated once they found no walkers. Carol went into the room that was obviously Daryl's when he was younger (well obviously his and Merle's since there was two beds). She sat on one of the beds and looked around. She saw a nasty looking blood stain on the wall and the sad part was that she was trying to figure out if it was put there before or after the apocalypse.

Daryl went straight to his parents' room. He hadn't been in there for a long time. He sat on the floor and stared at the wall. After his mom died, his dad got rid of all her stuff, and almost instantaneously it was like she was never there. He opened the drawer on his mom's side of the bed. He found an empty beer can (credit to his dad), a used syringe (credit to his dad), and for some reason an old pair of his socks from when he was like five. Under the socks and some wrappers he saw her wallet. He remembered very clearly what it looked like because she never carried a purse. He opened it and he wasn't surprised that there was no money (thanks to his dad probably) instead of money in the pockets there were pictures. He knew that his mom took pictures but he thought his dad burned them when she died; so she could have them back. He pulled them out and saw two baby pictures of Merle, three baby pictures of him, one picture of him and Merle when they were little, and one picture of his parents when they were younger. Probably in high school. His dad actually looked...nice. The kind of guy that was everybody's friend. He had his arms tightly wrapped around Daryl's mom. It scared him how much it reminded him of him and Carol. He put the pictures down on the bed and he saw his mother's driver's license. It said Jordanne L Dixon. Carol walked in the room.

"Jordanne. My mom's name was Jordanne" he didn't realize that he was smiling.

"Can I see?" She held her hand out. He handed it to her. "You look like her"

"Merle used to say that. Merle used to be nice" he said as he picked up the picture of the two of them. Carol looked at it from where she was sitting. She sat next to him on the floor and looked at the picture with him.

"I'm guessing you're the little one" she smiled at him.

"Yeah...Merle wouldn'ta' smiled if mom didn't make him laugh...I was laughing at Merle laughing"

She giggled at him and rested her head on his shoulder. He grabbed the other pictures and handed them to her.

"Aww" she sat up "look at little baby Daryl!"

"I wasn't that cute"

"Oh my god, look at your cute little hands! Aw, I want ours to look like that" she smiled at him and he glanced at her stomach.

"Here" he handed her the one of him when he was about one and a half.

"Oh my god, little Daryl diaper butt!" She looked at him as he sighed. "Oh come on! You were adorable!" He smiled a little "Hey" she elbowed him "I love you"

"I love you too" he sat up and kissed her. "I haven't been in this room since she died" he looked around. "Merle used to tell me that she haunted it"

"You miss him anymore? "

He nodded weakly. "I miss all of 'em 'cept my dad"

She gripped his hand. "Well...Merle's with your mom again"

That was the first time anyone had referenced Merle going to heaven. "Yeah but my dad's there too"

"People like that don't go to heaven." She looked around "I Sophia's as far away from Ed as she'll ever be"

He kissed her cheek. "Baby, don't worry about it...if she's lucky, she'll run into the wisdom of my mother" Carol smiled at him with watery eyes.

"Gimme' those other pictures"

He handed her the other pictures, even the one of his parents. She looked through them. "Should we get home now?"

He stood up "Yeah" he held out his hand to help her up. While they were walking down the hallway he stopped at his room. He was holding Carol's hand and when he stopped, she did. She looked at him.

"Just...gimme' a minute" he walked into his room. He could see young Merle and him playing catch from their beds. Sharing a room was a terrible idea, their fevers would ricochet off each other and they would be out of school for weeks at a time. He was gonna miss it here. "Alright let's go" Once they were outside he looked back at the house. That was the last time he was going to see it.


He was laying in bed with Carol. She was facing the wall, her back to him. He was staring at the ceiling. He grabbed the pictures off the nightstand. He looked at the one with him and Merle. He missed his brother. He really did. More than he acknowledged, but he did. Hell, he loved his brother. He didn't realize it, but he was crying. He put the picture down and wrapped his arms around Carol and tried to focus on her instead of Merle.