*** I'm giving you guys a treat and making this chapter exciting on different levels (I hope, otherwise I suck for teasing you and I'm sorry) - Enjoy! *** I OWN NOTHING but Linney!

"Ya got 'bout 10 seconds to explain that 'fore I go over there and beat the shit outta him." Daryl's voice was a growl and Linney swallowed, not sure how to start. "8 seconds." He reminded her and she tried to step back, and remove her chin from his grasp. He raised an eyebrow at her and didn't let her go.

"Daryl, I can't concentrate when you're holding my face like that." She said, trying to step back again.

"6 seconds." His voice was nearly a hiss, and Linney scrambled to explain it in a way that might keep him from losing it. "He got really, really, I don't know, intense looking, in a creepy way. He started to lift his gun up, like he was going to hit me with it. I don't think he even realized what he was doing." Daryl ground his teeth together and released her chin, turning to walk away, presumably to go kill Shane. Aaand I poked the bear - dammit. She wrapped both of her arms around his bicep, trying to pull him back and he rounded on her.

"Linney let me go, now."

"Daryl, punching Shane isn't going to help anyone. Everyone'll freak out, they won't believe me, and then he'll get to stay, and god knows what he might do then."

"It'll damn sure help me." He tried to pull away again and she yanked harder. "No! We have this information; we need to keep an eye on him. I couldn't stand it if we left and he shot Rick, or Glenn, or Dale, or hurt Lori, or one of the kids. That would be on us!" Daryl flared his nostrils in rage; his teeth clenched so hard the muscles in his jaw stood out starkly. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and then grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her backwards, to the back end of the RV, where no one could see them.

"Linney, this ain't safe." His eyes were burning again and she wasn't sure where to look. "He's losin' his mind, how long 'til he puts his hands on you? How long 'til he tries to hurt you, or worse?" Daryl was speaking in an angry rush and she couldn't suppress her shudder; Shane had already done those things. She didn't dare to even mention that to Daryl, knowing that would be the end, that no amount of coaxing or begging would keep him from hurting or killing Shane and most likely being killed himself.

"Daryl, we can't do anything, I feel an obligation to help these people stay safe, but I don't think we're trusted enough yet for them to believe us, to take us at our word." Daryl released her shoulders and walked a couple steps away. "Besides, do you honestly think Rick would be capable of killing Shane, the man who saved his family, his best friend since forever? Even if he did believe us?" Daryl turned and rushed back to her, slamming both his hands against the RV, on either side of her head, leaning in close to her face, his breathing heavy.

"He has no chances left," Daryl murmured in an angry voice, low and dangerous, "One more thing, Linney, one more thing, and he's done, I'll fuckin' kill 'im." She looked back and forth between his eyes.

"Even if you die right afterwards?" She whispered, and he narrowed his eyes, glaring even more intensely, "It'll be worth it." She clenched her jaw tightly, wanting to smack him. She wanted to tell him that she wouldn't let that happen, that she'd kill Shane first. That even today, if Shane had swung the gun she would have been able to stop him. She wanted to say a lot of things, but she didn't get a chance to, because he moved in the last few inches in a rush, pressing his lips to hers.

The kiss started out fiercely, both of them angry, but when she wrapped her hands around his neck, pulling herself up to him more evenly, the kiss deepened; she found herself panting against his lips, barely able to stand the warmth of his mouth, his tongue.

She realized she was nearly growling against him, and he had her crushed up against the RV, one hand gripping the back of her head, his fingers digging into her hair, clutching at handfuls of it. His other arm snaked down her body, grabbing her thigh, yanking it up against his hip, pulling her even closer.

Linney felt herself twisting in their embrace, pulling on his hair, groaning against the feeling of him pressed up against her own body. It was the angriest, most passionate, hottest thing she had ever done and when she heard someone clear their throat behind Daryl, she wanted to pull her gun and shoot them in the head for interrupting. Daryl broke away, releasing her leg, untangling his hand from her hair, and turned with a snarl to Rick, who was standing a few feet away, looking highly amused.

"What!" Daryl barked at him, and Linney unwound her hands from his neck, putting them behind her back, like a naughty child. Rick struggled to suppress a smile, lost the battle, and then chuckled, shaking his head.

"Time to go guys." He pointed back at the cars and raised his eyebrows before walking away with a small smile on his face. Daryl took in a few shuddery breaths and glanced back at Linney, who stared back at him, trying to keep her face calm and smooth, even though she knew she must be mussed and flushed as red as a tomato. He held her eyes and then started to smile. She smiled back, confused.

"What?" She asked him, trying to figure out why he looked so smug.

"Time to get on the bike, little coward." He said, before sauntering away.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

She gripped his waist tightly, every move the death machine made making her feel like she was surely going to be dragged to her death, leaving bits of herself along the road, like a smear. Daryl on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely. He seemed happy to leave camp, to leave behind memories that hurt, and he was exceptionally happy that she was so freaked out. Climbing on the bike took every ounce of strength she had, and she silently made her peace with god as he started it up.

Every bump on the road they encountered, she squeaked, gripping frantically at his front, and she could feel his chest rumble as he laughed. We don't even have any helmets! Goddamn, stupid, unsafe, Dixons! They followed behind T-Dogs truck, which Rick was driving, with Lori, Carl, Sophia, and Carol, meanwhile T-Dog rode with Shane, ahead of Rick. Everyone else was in the RV, which followed her and Daryl.

After a couple hours of riding, some slow, some quite fast, she was able to look up from the back of his shirt, around them. The wind was hard and buffeted against her clothes, making her feel like even it wanted to yank her off the bike. Everything rushed by the sides of them in a blur. A horrible, dangerous, blur.

It was late afternoon when Shane pulled off up ahead, into a school parking lot. Everyone followed him in and they drove around to the back of the building. When Daryl stopped the bike, putting out the stand, she shuddered, her muscles in spasm from the iron grip they had maintained for hours.

"You can let go now." He said over his shoulder and she unclenched her fingers, slowly unraveling her arms from around him. He hopped off and she grabbed the seat spastically, feeling like the whole bike was going to tip over. He laughed at her and tucked a hand under her arm, pulling her towards him. She slithered off the bike and fought to find her feet.

"Quit laughing at me Dixon, if you know what's good for you." It was meant to come out as a dangerous threat, but instead sounded like a mumbled whine. He chuckled and put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze, while he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Glad to see you're 'fraid of some stuff." He released her and stepped away. "I was startin' to think you wasn't human, or a girl, actin' like such a little maniac all the time."

Linney glared at him and adjusted her belt and weapons at her hips. Rick ushered the kids into the RV, with Lori, Carol, Andrea, Jim, Dale, and Jacqui, instructing them to lock the door and not come out. Shane stood at the double doors to the school and gestured behind himself.

"We're gonna go in through here and sweep each room along this hall until we reach the next set of doors, then we secure them and hole up in this section of the school for the night. Try to avoid gunshots, but by all means use what you need to." He turned and looked at Linney and Daryl. "You two are with Rick." He turned to Glenn and T-Dog, "You two with me." Everyone else nodded and Daryl grabbed his crossbow, while Linney quickly made sure her gun holsters were unbuttoned and ready to go, having reloaded them before getting on the bike.

"You gonna be able to shoot straight? Ya seem a little shaky." Daryl said, his voice mocking and she turned to him with a glare. "Want me to use you as target practice before we go in?" He shook his head and held his hands up in surrender to her, smirking. They moved to the doors and Shane looked back at them. "Ready?" He asked, his voice hard. Linney felt herself nodding along with everyone else and Shane kicked the doors open.

The school was dim, but not dark. Some of the classroom doors were open and all the doors had windows in them, and the windows in each classroom itself allowed plenty of late afternoon light to seep into the hall. Shane signaled at Rick, who moved to the room to the left, Linney and Daryl following quickly. She knew by the smell; it was obvious this had been base camp for a different group of survivors, one's who hadn't made it a month in this new world before falling. Linney ducked under Rick's arm and quickly stabbed a teenage boy who lurched up from a filthy, blood spattered bed on the floor. His grinning, greying teeth gnashed at her once, but she twisted the giant knife she'd forced through his eye and he collapsed.

Behind her she heard the twang of Daryl's bow and Rick grunting, as he slashed at another walker. Linney saw one of them coming up on Rick as he grappled with a particularly large man, and she heaved first one knife and then another, taking out the one trying to ambush him and the one fighting him, from across the room. He looked over at her in surprise and she wasted no time running after Daryl, into the hall.

The next room was more crowded and Daryl blocked the door, shooting off a couple arrows, trying to thin the herd. When one of them came lurching out at him, she used his shoulder as leverage and heaved herself past him, into its legs, stabbing it through its gaping mouth as they both fell. Her knife lodged in the floor below it, through the back of its skull, and when she couldn't immediately get it out, she left the knife and rolled to her side off the walker's body, pulling the other large hunting knife as she went. She looked up and saw Daryl walking from desktop to desktop, using his own hunting knife to slam the skulls open of the four walkers that came for him.

They heard a bang and saw Rick slamming a chair through the head of one of the walkers he found hiding in the classroom closet. The metal leg of the chair impaled the thing's head and Linney grimaced. She moved out into the hall right after, Rick and Daryl hot on her heels and saw they had one classroom left to clear. When she peeked through the window she saw it was a science lab of some kind, she counted quickly and turned back to the men behind her, signaling that there were 8 walkers inside.

Daryl nodded and grabbed the handle on the door, looking back at her and Rick to make sure that they were ready. When they both nodded, he threw the door open and the walkers inside all turned their heads to them in unison, their rotting faces eager and hungry. Linney threw two more knives taking out the two biggest of them, saving anyone from having to battle anything that heavy. As they slowly thudded to the ground, one of them landed on the feet of another walker who was slowly trying to shuffle towards them.

Linney watched in horrified fascination as it did nothing to stop its fall and slammed face first into the ground with a sickening crunch. "Damn," she heard Daryl mutter in disgust, before shooting a walker in the head with a bolt from the crossbow and then smoothly lunging out to stab one that wandered within arm's reach. Rick moved quickly, slamming his knife into the face of one walker, and through the temple of another. Linney ran towards the last walker on its feet and dodged its arms, darting around it and popping up behind it, blasting her knife through its head viciously.

They stood panting until it became obvious that the walker that had been slammed to the ground by one of the big ones, was still alive. Rick's face twisted as he dropped to one knee and jammed his knife through its skull. They left the class and could hear Glenn in the classroom across the hall, saying "Ew, ew, ew, aw man, ew!" Linney peeked her head in and saw that he had just killed a walker with half its guts hanging out, trailing across the floor behind it.

Shane pushed past her out the door, intent on the double doors at the end of the hall. The men started dragging furniture out from the classes, pressing and stacking it up against the doors. Linney wandered back through the classrooms, collecting her knives and wiping them clean, before shoving them back inside the sheaths.

She stepped out into the hall when she heard Rick talking. "Let's clear one of the rooms of bodies, that'll be where we stay." There was agreement all around and they decided that the first room that Shane's team had cleared was the cleanest. The four bodies in there were dragged across the hall.

"What about supplies?" Linney asked and they all turned to look at her. T-Dog started laughing when he paused to really set eyes on her and she glared at him. "What?" She snapped and he pushed his lips together to stop from laughing harder.

"Shit, Linney, you look terrifying." Glenn grimaced at his words and nodded, his face still pale from clearing the rooms. When she looked over at Rick, he was fighting a small smile too. He took her hand and lead her to the science lab and over to the sink by the door, with a mirror above it. She did a double take at her reflection.

Her face and entire body were splashed with huge amounts of blood. Her hair was doubly matted with it, and her hands and arms were dark red right up the elbows. "Yikes." She muttered and reached for a roll of paper towels, finding a small squirt bottle of distilled water in the cupboard next to it. Rick patted her shoulder.

"You clean up a little, so you don't scare the kids, we'll start pulling supplies." He walked out of the room and she dampened the paper towels and began scrubbing at her face. Linney realized that she hadn't had a chance to bathe or clean up since the big attack at camp and was disgusted with how dirty she was. She thought she would probably give up a kidney for a shower, at this point. Daryl came in about ten minutes later with a big bottle of water and brandished it at her.

"Uh, you might want to use this on your hair, found it in one the bags next door, they had a ton of water here." Her scalp was itchy from all the dried blood and she nodded at him. "Help me?" She asked him and he grimaced at her. "Do I look like a hairdresser?" She glowered at him and he shook his head. "Quit givin' me the stink eye n' bend over the sink." She smiled at him and winked, wiggling her eyebrows at him in overdone flirtation, "Anything you say."

Daryl paused and then seemed to realize what he'd said. He smirked at her, "Is there ever a time when you ain't pantin' after me?" She flicked an eyebrow up at him and said nothing, but bent her upper body over the sink so he could start pouring water over it. He rubbed it into her hair and pumped out a handful of the soap in the dispenser next to the sink. She closed her eyes as he carefully washed her hair and found herself leaning into it, enjoying the feeling of hands kneading her scalp and rubbing her hair, especially his hands.

When he was done, she reached up and squeezed out all the excess water. When she looked up at the mirror, she looked a hundred times better. She grabbed another handful of paper towels and started patting and squeezing her hair in them. He watched her and then nodded at the door.

"Ready to go?" She nodded and they headed outside the school, helping bring in bedding, food, backpacks, and weapons. They pulled the vehicles closer to the doors, so if they needed to, they could open the doors and run into them quickly, and then Shane closed the big double doors, sliding an axe through the handles on the inside.

A couple of hours later, they all sat around faint lantern light, finished with dinner, and getting ready for bed. T-Dog and Shane pulled first watch, one by the window and one by the door, and everyone else slept in the middle of the room. Linney and Rick had second watch, Daryl and Glenn third, so she was eager to get to sleep. Each watch also had to keep an eye on Jim, who had been sleeping uneasily the entire night, fraught with fever. It was left unsaid that they were to act immediately if he died.

Daryl grunted when he saw that she had zipped together two sleeping bags, to make one large bag and she yanked her boots off while sitting on their bed, laying her weapons and belt over top of them on the floor above their heads. She had hidden in one of the corpse rooms (christened so by Glenn) earlier and changed into a clean shirt, and had made Daryl change his shirt as well, not wanting to bring dried blood into their bedding. Linney climbed into her sleeping bag and Daryl slid in next to her. Carl was in a sleeping bag next to her, having insisted upon it, and his parents were on the other side of him, in a similar large bag to Linney's and Daryl's.

She laid her head on her pillow and winked at Carl. "You don't snore do you?" She asked him in a stage whisper and he giggled. "No! But my dad does." She chuckled and reached an arm from under the blanket to muss his hair. "See ya in the morning, buddy." Linney turned away and settled her head on Daryl's shoulder, gripping her arm across him. She sighed in satisfaction and he wrapped both arms around her and stroked one hand up and down her arm.

"I'm glad I'm not alone." She whispered quietly in his ear, her voice like a sigh. He nodded, squeezing her a little tighter for a moment, and she thought about the past nights she'd been alone, separated from him.

I don't care where we are, as long as he's here too.

*** A kiss, the bike ride, a zombie scene, a wee little happy ending for the day - all in all, fun to write :) Hopefully fun to read, as well ***