Life in the Alternate Universe

Daryl was going in and out of consciousness. He didn't know where the hell he was but it wasn't his house in Atlanta and it wasn't a hospital. The guy examining him had clean hands but he smelled like a damn barn. The old geezer kept calling him "Mark" too.

Merle was there which was all fucked up too because Merle was in prison. Gonna be there another two years at least. Merle wasn't Merle. Wasn't yelling obscenities and he held the bucket when Daryl threw up.

Daryl tried to remember if he had taken some 'shrooms or something. He had given all that shit up a long time ago. Somebody might have slipped something in a beer. If he could get awake then he could get his bearings and find his way back to his house.

Some woman kept wiping his face. Tears in her eyes and she kept rubbing his shoulder and smiling at him. She was pretty and her touch was gentle but he didn't like to be touched and she needed to back off. Finally, Daryl snarled at her, "Lady, get your hands off of me. Get the hell out of here. Merle will take care of me." She backed off then, her blue eyes going wide as she stared at him. Prettiest eyes he had ever seen. Blue as a robin's egg. Not young, there was a lot of silver in her dark hair but she was beautiful even her hands. Long slender fingers with a narrow palm. Hands of a lady.

The stinky doctor wannabe spoke to her, "Carol, go on out. Let me talk to him. He's just confused right now."

Pretty Lady nodded and gave Daryl the full force of those baby blues aimed at him. Like she was searching for something in his face that wasn't there. She bit her lip and left in a hurry. The doctor asked him some questions and Daryl answered. He could tell that the doctor and Merle didn't like what he had to say because they kept asking them again.

Finally they stopped talking to him. Daryl just closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He slid his eyelids up a bit when a slender tall Black woman came in and talked to Merle. Merle's face softened and he smiled at her. There was something going on between them. Merle with a Black woman? Not just to screw either. They were wearing matching wedding bands. It was then that Daryl noticed his left hand. He was wearing a wedding band. He wasn't married. He was living the good life in Atlanta. Thing was he knew where the matching band to the one on his hand was. Pretty Blue Eyes wore a ring like that along with an engagement ring with three diamonds on it. He must be in some alternate universe in which Merle wasn't a racist and he was married to the woman Hershel had called Carol.

That was too fucked up. Somebody must have slipped him some drug. Daryl decided to go to sleep for real and when he woke up he would be in his aunt's house in Atlanta. Merle would be in prison. Maybe he would take the bike out somewhere in the country. Get some fresh air and wipe out all this craziness from his brain.

Carol was there when he woke up. She was standing along the wall of the small room. No windows and it felt like a basement. He was in a hospital bed and Hershel and Merle were there. Another guy who introduced himself as Rick Grimes. The questions began again and again Daryl had to tell them the truth. His eyes kept straying to her. Everything he said seemed to hurt her. He could see the little flashes of pain on her expressive face. Finally, she left and Merle sent the others out.

Merle had a way with words. He could tell a good story and make you laugh or slash you to ribbons with his words, but today he was matter of fact. Merle told him he was out of prison and owned a bookstore. Daryl was in the construction business. They were living in Virginia. Merle was married to Christie and he was married to Carol. Daryl stopped listening at that point. He was getting another headache and he was starting to think that he really had jumped to an alternate universe.

The headaches were a bitch and his dreams were all over the damn place too. He only remembered one of them. He was skiing with Pretty Lady. He kept falling down and she would hold her mittened hand out to help him up. A teenage girl dropped snow on his face while he was down and he threw a snowball at her. She just laughed at him. He was smiling when he woke up from that one.

They didn't let him go upstairs for two days. A variety of strange people kept coming and going in his room. They all called him "Mark" which was weird but he was getting used to it and they called Merle "Michael" or "Mike". Carol didn't come back though. Not until it was time for him to go "home."

Merle and Carol took him upstairs. He had walked around the basement some so he knew the house had to be big. The living room upstairs looked like a lobby for a hotel. The windows were covered with steel which added to the weirdness. He could hear children and he stopped to listen. "Where are the kids at?"

Merle looked at Carol and she nodded. They changed directions and headed toward a side door. Carol opened it and she moved aside so he could step in. Three little ones dancing and laughing to some lame kiddie music. Blond girl, dark skinned boy who looked like that guy named Jesse, and another boy. Blue eyes and light brown hair. He had Carol's eyes but Daryl knew that in this AU this was his boy too. The way he moved and the shy grin was his. His boy looked up and ran toward him, "Daddy." He picked him up 'cause the kid thought that Daryl was his Daddy. He didn't look at Carol because he knew that it would hurt her to see that he didn't know this kid either.

"His name is Dayton Alexander Reynolds. He's two years old. He loves you very much." She held out her arms and Dayton went to her. Daryl's arms felt empty and useless without the boy in them. Carol led the way upstairs and opened a door. They were inside an apartment. Big living room and kitchen. She set Dayton down and he ran down the hall toward a hallway.

"Your room is in here." Carol opened another door to a big bedroom. "Bathroom is in here."

Daryl stared at the bed. This was where Mark slept with this wife. It wasn't his room. It was their room. Dayton was back with a toy truck to show him and Daryl sat down on the bed with him. The kid leaned back against him with complete trust that his daddy wouldn't hurt him. I promised myself I wouldn't ever had any kids. So how did this happen?

A door opened and a teenage girl came in the bedroom. She looked like Carol. Light brown hair and Carol's eyes. She looked a little pissed at him so she must have gotten her personality from the Dixon side, "You don't look too bad for a man who fell out of a tree." Guess she didn't take too kindly to being forgotten.

"Good to see you too, Sophia." Merle had filled him in on her name.

Daryl looked at the windows. Steel bars across the windows. "Merle said that you would explain why this house looks like a prison." He picked Dayton up and moved to the window. Rolling meadows and barns. It looked like a rich man's paradise. Where were the rundown houses and falling apart trailers? He had been living in a nice neighborhood in Atlanta but nothing like this. He couldn't see anything out there that would be a reason why they were living in a fortress.

"Let's go, Lil' Bruther." Sophia took Dayton from him. "Good luck explaining what's going on."

Carol told him some wild story about a contagious disease known as Rio Fever that turned humans into ravenous beasts who bit other humans and made more ravenous beasts. Finally she turned on the television. The programming on every channel was basically updates on outbreaks of Rio Fever. Daryl finally turned it off. "Okay, I believe you. Rio Fever is a real thing. Monsters are rising up and turning people into more monsters." Maybe this is just one long bad dream.

"Let's take a walk outside. Get some fresh air." Pretty Carol open a closet door that had a latch way above Dayton's reach. She pulled out a pistol and a sword. "Do you want your pistol or your crossbow?" Obviously, Carol is more than a pretty face. She handles those weapons like she knows what she's doing.

It wasn't the crossbow that he had in Atlanta. This one was more expensive but it felt right in his hands. "I'll take both in case a horde of bloodthirsty humans comes running over the ridge." It was a smart ass answer and he saw the flicker of pain cross her face and wanted to kick himself. "I'm sorry." Ain't like me to apologize. Guess old Mark was a complete pussy.

"We lost two of our own a week ago. Not here. In Roanoke. The boy bled out from a bite to his throat and his mother went into cardiac arrest. Morgan's son and wife. Gone in less than a minute. You were setting security cameras up in the trees around the house when you stepped on a dead branch. This place is ten miles away from the nearest town, Lost River, Virginia. There were sighting yesterday of biters roaming in town. The biters are like roaches, see one but you don't see the other ten. They are more active at night." Her eyes met his and he felt a spark. Like static electricity. Carol turned toward the door and he looked at her ass in cargo pants. I may be a swine of the highest order but we are married. We got rings to prove it. Maybe if we stayed her and had sex I'd remember everything. Think of it as therapy.

She gave him an odd look. Like she knew what he was thinking but wasn't mad at him. She picked up sunglasses from the bookshelf by the door. She took one pair and handed him the other. Grabbed a small pack and put it on.

It did feel good to be outside. Carol gave him the tour. They walked up the hill so that she could show him how big a farm it was. "Merle says that we all own this. Don't know where the money came from. I'm all mixed up in my times. When did I meet you?"

"About three and a half years ago Sophia and I moved into a house beside of you. We worked on our houses together." She was smiling like there was a hell of a lot more to the story. Wait a second. What about Sophia?

"You mean that Sophia isn't my daughter." It was weird how much that hurt. I want her to be my little girl the way Dayton is my little boy. She's even got the Dixon snark.

"She loves you, Daryl. She's legally your daughter. You adopted her when we got married. Her father is dead and good riddance to him. Are you tired? Need to go back to the house?"

She don't want to talk about the dead husband. "I've been cooling my heels in the basement too damn long. Let's walk on around the hill." The graveled road wound around the hillside to a meadow. There was an orchard to one side but Carol followed the road which changed from gravel to dirt as they left the meadow and walked toward a rock cliff. They left the road and followed a path toward the top of the cliff. Carol sat down and opened her pack, handing him a bottle of water and a protein bar. "Let's talk." She pulled out another bottle and bar for herself.

Daryl smirked, "You set me up. Carol, I'll listen but I'm not much of a talker." Carol laughed. I guess that isn't big news to her.

She told him a wild ass story about Merle being a snitch in prison got him out early. He was put in witness protection and had to leave her behind. He became Mark Reynolds. Then Mark Reynolds and his brother Michael went on a mission with Jesse and Morgan. Blew up some murderous racists and stole their money. We killed people and took their money. I wish I could remember this shit, my life was a whole lot more interesting that what I remember.

"Eventually you found me and Sophia and convinced us to move to Virginia with you. You had to stay Mark Reynolds, but we were married here. You are in the construction business with Jesse and Morgan." She gazed out on the mountains. "Most of what we see is a national park so we don't have neighbors. We're going to put a gate up here." I don't care if this world has monsters. I don't want to leave. I'll trade safety for being part of this family.

"So what is the backup plan? The world is going to go to shit and fairly soon from what we saw on television. Do we have enough firepower to hold the Ark? Where do we go if we can't?" Guess I am part of Team Family now. Better start planning ahead.

"Daryl, I know this is all strange to you. It's strange to me, but I didn't lose all these last three years. Why do you call our home the Ark?"

"An ark is a safe place. A place to ride out the storm. This place reminds me of the last episode of Lost. Like I died and I just invented this happy world where Merle is sober and I have a pretty wife and sweet kids. We live in a beautiful house and all our friends live with us. Like it can't be real." She is going to think I'm nuts.

Carol smiled at him and he really hoped that she didn't do that again. She looked too perfect sitting there in her hiking boots and cargo pants. A black t shirt that only accentuated her small but perfect boobs. A perfect blend of sweetness and saltiness. Woman and warrior and he wanted to kiss her to taste her sweetness and saltiness. Maybe most of it was sexual attraction but he liked everything about Carol Reynolds. The way she was sweet and smart and the way she looked. Her silver hair glinted in the sunlight and she had these freckles that he wanted to trace with his tongue. Stop.

She was a distraction. He needed to get his addled thoughts together and take care of her and his children. He needed to be a useful part of the group. All this mooning after Carol was going to have him off his game. He didn't remember loving her and that might be for the best until this Rio Fever epidemic passed. He couldn't be wondering if she called his name when she came or how she would feel in his arms. Those fingers stroking his. Stop.

Carol stood up and dusted the dirt off her ass. "You and I have talked about exploring some of the cabins in the national park and there are cabins along Lost River and in the mountains can be fallback places to go to. We need to talk to the others." Daryl tore his glance from her buttocks and pretended a real interest in the mountains that sort of looked like boobs and buttocks right now. Stop.

He stood up, "I'm going to go talk to Merle. My memory is for shit but in a day or two I'll be back to whatever passes for normal with me. I'll get some weapon practice in. Try to get a handle on how we're going to defend this place."

Carol went all bossy on his ass, "You aren't going to do anything until those headaches stop. You suffered a serious head wound. You could have died."

"I ain't dead. My headache is better. I just need some fresh air. I got things to do. So get your ass in gear and let's get back to the Ark." That's the ticket. Show her that you going to protect her.

Carol looking mulish which was a surprisingly good look on her, "We're going to talk about this tonight."

His traitorous mind instantly ran the reel of Carol lying next to him in their bed. "Stop".

Carol gave him an irritated look and Daryl realized that he spoken out loud. Better not say anything. She thinks I am addled enough. "Let's get some apples from the orchard and give the horses a treat."

She laughed, "I would love to go to the orchard with you. " Crazy woman was laughing her ass off about a trip to the orchard. She must have landed on her head too.

Carol led the way to the orchard and they gathered apples and put them in her pack. He put the pack on his back on the way down 'cause it was too heavy for her. She rolled her eyes at him when he told her that and he bit back a smile. Damn, she is cute. I'll talk to Merle and then I'll go back upstairs. We can eat dinner with Sophia and Dayton. Maybe we can go sit outside after we eat and watch the stars come out. Who knows how much time before the Ark gets attacked?

AN

Poor Daryl. I gave him amnesia because I had writer's block and I pulled the oldest trope in the book to try to get started. It was either amnesia or Carol was going to have to get pregnant again. She may yet. Too soon to know if this amnesia thing works.

I am a complete "Lostie" and I reference it occasionally in the story. Won't tell you anymore in case you haven't watched it.

I like to write Daryl falling in love with Carol.

Next chapter is Carol's.

Review?