Author's Note: This is my first dip into this fandom, and regular readers, sorry :) I know you're waiting on many things, none of which are this. But this is what we have. I hope some of you know the show and might stick around!

And TWD people, hello :)

Briefly, this is a ZA AU of Carol and Daryl and a different take on how they first met, and how that changed things completely going forward in canon.

The two primary show elements to hold onto here, are that 1) before everything fell apart, Carol and Sophia once tried to leave Ed by going to an Atlanta shelter, and 2) that Daryl was basically a 'drifter' following his brother around. I just suddenly got this image of them both being in Atlanta at the same and something happening that caused their lives to intersect about a week before the world shifts. I'd say it's about three to four weeks out before the show started with the quarry camp already setup. More at the end on how things will play out.

And I guess a warning here for bad language. But it's Daryl talking in his head, so it's kind of hard to avoid bad language :) And allusions to the general type of violence you'd find in TWD world. If it starts getting too explicit, I might change it to an M. But for now I think T works.

Beyond that, please just go with it :)

Updated Note 03/22/15 - Please Read: Please know, I am NOT watching season 6. I tried a little of the first episode last month and it killed my muse, dead, for two days. Being exposed to new canon, and other people's imaginations for how the characters are living, it blocks my own ideas and creative spark. It happened back when I was writing Criminal Minds too, it's just how my brain processes this stuff. So please, for the love of all that is good and decent in the dead world, NO SPOILERS in your notes to me :) I love and totally appreciate the story feedback so much, but ANY canon knowledge of current events, be it about Caryl, lack of Caryl, or anything/anybody else, can shut this baby down! And we don't want that :) So thank you all for being good doobies and lying to me for the rest of our time together :)

"It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke."

- Søren Kierkegaard

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"There's no big apocalypse . . . just an endless procession of little ones."

-Neil Gaiman,Signal to Noise

In The Beginning

"Fucking Merle, pick up your own fucking drugs next time."

The angry grumble had left Daryl's mouth in a sneer, before he'd even realized that he was speaking aloud. And given that he was actually walking alone, in the semi-dark, down that crumbling Atlanta sidewalk, with Merle nowhere even in the vicinity, he looked a damn fool for talking to himself. But as he looked around, taking more careful note of the few people on the street surrounding him, Daryl realized that he had no one to impress in these quarters. Nothing but pimps and druggies and whores. His eyebrow twitched.

Maybe a few drunken bums.

Basically nobody worth mentioning. Not that he was anyone worth mentioning either. He was a nobody too. But he wasn't a pimp, a druggie or a whore though, he didn't do that shit. No, he kept his shit to the legal kind. Well . . . he grunted to himself . . . mostly. If it was up to him he'd always stay on the straight and narrow just because it was less stress than not. But it wasn't always up to him. Sometimes it was up to Merle. And Merle . . . Daryl felt a good head of steam rising back up . . . did not generally take "no," or "fuck you brother," for an answer. No, typically an answer like that, just got you a punch to the ribs. So you could take that, or not.

Mostly Daryl just took it.

As long as it wasn't too bad. The things that Merle wanted him to do, that is. Like, he wouldn't kill nobody, or hurt 'em too bad. Not on purpose anyhow. Not if he could help it. But if Merle needed some back-up on a job . . . and given Merle's present 'occupation' of choice, dealing meth . . . Daryl might need to provide a little back up just to make sure his brother didn't come home in a body bag. So he'd go out with him and bust up a nose or bruise some ribs. Black an eye or three. But that was chicken shit stuff. Stuff that he'd been putting up with since he was a boy. And if a grown man couldn't take that, well . . . he turned his head to spit . . . he weren't much of a man now, was he?

Sometimes though, when he was cleaning up his bloodied knuckles as he stood in that shitty little cracked tile bathroom back in the shaggy dog house that he and Merle called home, Daryl'd catch his reflection in the mirror. And behind that reflection, he'd see the fading pink flowers covering the nicotine stained wall.

Mama's wallpaper.

Put up decades ago, now. But it was there, peeling a bit, colors all sun bleached to hell . . . but it was still hers. And when he looked at the flowers while he felt the burning of peroxide on his torn flesh, he'd wonder what his mama would think of the kind of a man he was.

If she'd be proud.

Probably not, he'd decide after a few minutes, as he bit down on his lip. But he always knew that he could be worse.

He could be Merle.

And well, Merle, he was a son of a bitch. Case in fucking point, asshole had to get himself picked up on a DUI . . . his third of the damn year . . . and thrown into county lockup. No bail, they'd said. Driving on a suspended license, they'd said.

Repeat offender, they'd said.

Yeah . . . Daryl grunted to himself . . . tell him something he don't know. Merle was the smartest God damn idiot, he'd ever met. With his age, counting juvie and what he did in the Army, his sheet had to be freaking thirty pages by now. Half of that crap, was drugs and booze. But Daryl's sheet, on the other hand, was at last count . . . two years ago, his last lockup . . . only a page and a half. And most of that shit, that was all due to Merle. A month for this bar brawl, two weeks for that one. The six months he got once for getting caught with Merle's dope. Then the three months he'd served for a battery charge on a cop. Yeah, his asshole brother had picked a fight in a bar, and Daryl was just trying to break it up before anybody'd have to go the hospital.

How the hell was he supposed to know that the guy he'd punched in the ribs . . . the guy that Merle had poured the damn beer on and who at that present moment had his brother in a chokehold. . . was an off duty cop?

He scowled thinking back. They should make those assholes wear a damn sign on their foreheads if they're going to be out there mingling with regular folks. But anyway, he let out a huff as tried to get his mind to refocus on the main topic at hand. What was it? Right.

Merle and his jackass stupidity.

Which in this case, was Merle getting himself locked up until trial, with trial a full three weeks out. Which would have been just fine by Daryl, he could have gotten some damn peace and quiet at home, maybe aired the place out a bit. But then he got the call from the jail house. Merle wanted him to come in and, 'visit.' Yeah, Merle didn't ever want nothing, without wanting something else too.

So the next day Daryl had gritted his teeth and got in his truck and drove on down to Jackson County Correctional, to "visit" his brother. Which was of course where he found out that Merle had a job for him to do.

"Just a quick favor little brother," he'd said with that smirk of his, "won't take but a few hours."

And Daryl had wanted to shout right there in the visitor's room, "no, fuck you Merle, I ain't doing you any damn favors, anymore!"

But he didn't.

He'd just sighed and asked where he was going.

Merle gave him a name and an address and a dollar amount.

Daryl didn't need to be told where to get the dollars. They was buried in a strong box under the house. That's where Merle had been keeping his 'proceeds' for as long as Daryl could remember. And that was remembering back to the very old days where Merle used to steal spray paint cans and then sell them, at cost, to the idiot teenagers looking for a cheap high. Huffing, they called it.

Damn foolery, Daryl did.

Either way, once they made a law about it, Merle did his time on that one too. But not before he'd made himself a pretty penny. Some of those pennies were probably still in the very bottom of that lock box. Daryl didn't bother to look. At the bills that is. He just grabbed a stack of hundreds from the top, counted them through, counted them through again, added in a few twenties just for an emergency, and then shoved the whole damn stack into the empty envelope that the 'lectric bill had come in. Then he'd sealed that shit up, and jammed it down into the bottom of his traveling satchel.

He knew it was going to be a long day.

Because Merle's definition of a favor taking, "but a few hours," was more than likely eight or nine. Coming and going with traffic, that is. But Daryl knew that it was better to just get it done than be bitching about it in his head. So two days later, which was the third Friday in May (late afternoon, now) he'd gassed up, and headed out. All he had with him was the satchel filled with his wallet, the cash, his bowie knife, pack of jumbo slim jims and a couple of bottles of sweet tea. Plus an empty duffel of course.

For the shit that he needed to pick up.

And he'd thought that it would be easy enough to get in and out. He'd checked on his Atlanta map and it looked like the neighborhood he was going into, was right off the highway.

'Cept it wasn't.

Because Merle gave him the WRONG DAMN ADDRESS! Yeah, fucking idiot sent him to a freaking Starbucks, to pick up a crate of Sudafed! Daryl was so God damn mad when he pulled up out in front and saw that giant green sorry ass mermaid, that for one brief, shiny, moment, he nearly pulled that whole wad of cash out of the envelope, and tossed it into the gutter.

But then he'd pictured Merle's face. And what it was going to look like when he found out that "little brother," had thrown six grand of his illegally earned cash, out for the bums.

He woulda had a damn stroke.

And then he would have kicked Daryl's ass, probably from his hospital room.

So like he'd been doing his whole life, Daryl had pushed that anger down deep, and then he'd tried to clean up Merle's mess. He'd gone into that Starbucks, ordered himself a giant ass, ice cold, raspberry flavored sweet tea, (which he paid for out of the 'emergency' cash) and settled down at one of those computer stations they had in the corner. Now Daryl wasn't much for computers, he was too much of an outdoors guy to have any real interest in crap like that, but he wasn't an idiot about them either. Even his shitty little Appalachian school house had had one shitty little computer for the kids to take classes on. And then during his three month incarceration for that battery charge, he'd decided to take another class. They was free in the jail house, ('Occupational Skills Classes,' they called them) and computers had changed some since the eighties. He definitely knew that much. So he'd taken his free class, and he'd learned a bunch of nonsense that didn't generally help him out much on his day to day. But the one thing he did learn that actually did come in quite useful at times, was what Google was, and how to use it to look shit up. Shit like addresses and maps, and such.

Which is what he did in Starbucks.

He'd figured out where Merle had gone wrong with the address. Turned out there were two "Jackson Avenues" in Atlanta. One in the good part of town.

One in the bad.

And as one might imagine, if one had such an imagination, there ain't no Starbucks in the bad part of town. Nowhere. So once he'd figured out where it was that he should have been going, and Google street mapped that shit just to be sure that the address looked like the crackhouse he thought it should be, he'd downed the last of his sweet tea, and had headed out again.

At that point the light was fading from the sky, and he knew that it wasn't exactly "safe" to be a redneck driving around the ghetto after dark. Especially when you got six grand and some change burning a hole in your front seat. But it wasn't like he could just go home empty handed and come back the next day. These assholes were waiting on him.

They were waiting on Merle's money.

So he'd figured it was best to just get that exchange done and be on his way. He wasn't picking up the meth, just the Sudafed to make it. And there weren't no damn laws against driving around with cold medicine. All right yeah, he rolled his eyes, there were quite a few damn laws covering him driving around with cold medicine. But regardless, he wasn't too worried about getting picked up. If it came down to it, he'd just say it was a donation to a ladies shelter, or some shit like that.

Let 'em try and prove different.

That had been his last real thought on that point as he'd rolled through the streets of Atlanta. By then he was mostly just focused on not getting himself turned around again. But, be it tracking in the woods or speeding through the city, he had a good sense of direction. And he found the right Jefferson Ave without too much (additional) difficulty.

At least that's what he'd thought at first.

But when he'd started to turn the corner, and head down to the numbered block of houses that he needed to find, he saw a whole mess of red and blue lights in front of him. A whole lotta noise too.

He'd backed the hell up, real quick.

And after he'd stashed the track a block back, halfway down an empty alley, with just the satchel on his shoulder, he'd hiked back out on foot. At that point he was holding no, 'Illusions' about still getting Merle's favor done that night, but still, there was a chance. Maybe the cops were busy with some other mess.

Maybe the house he needed to be at was way further down than he thought.

So he scoped it out, real subtle like. Heading up and back around the corner to join the crowd of locals all pressed up against the yellow tape, pointing and whispering. Down the block aways, seemed like whatever was happening was still happening. If he squinted, he could sort of see it, off in the distance, under the street lamps. He was expecting that it was probably a shootin' or something.

Lots of guns in that neighborhood, he was sure.

But turned out it wasn't a shootin'. Not to start. It was some kind of, well . . . his brow darkened just thinking back on it . . . it was some kind of horrible, terrible thing. Word around the yellow tape was that some tweaker had flipped out. Got some bad shit or something. Either way, he attacked this old lady who was walking by with her groceries in a little cart. Tore her up real bad. Tore her up to pieces.

Literally ate off her damn NOSE!

Eating people! What kind of fucked up shit was THAT?! And the guy wouldn't even stop when the cops got there. He just kept chewing and chewing, and growling at them like a rapid dog. So they'd had to put him down. Like you do a rabid dog.

Shot him straight up in the head.

He still didn't go down right away. Just kept getting up again, like tweakers do. Daryl had been there for that last part. Them last two bullets. He'd heard them go. And then the police helicopter came in, flying overhead with the big bright light, and he saw that old lady's cart laying there upside down.

And her there next to it.

He let out a soft breath . . . it was quite a mess. And then that poor old lady, who probably hadn't ever done anything to nobody to deserve a bad end like that, there she was, digesting in that asshole's belly. That was not right.

Not right at all.

And as he walked back to the truck, all he could think was . . . what if that had been Merle's meth? What if there was some bad shit going around? Because he and Merle had been hearing things the last few weeks. Weird things. About bad reactions, and such. All over. So maybe it wasn't 'okay' that he was only going to be picking up cold medicine. Maybe it was the cold medicine that was bad.

So maybe he needed to just go home.

He could make up a story for Merle. Tell him he had heard for sure, that it was the Sudafed that was fucking people up. That he'd heard it on the street in Atlanta.

Heard it while they was scraping up that old lady off the sidewalk.

And Merle would be okay with that. With him leaving the Sudafed behind if he thought it was gonna hurt somebody that way. Because Merle might be a son of a bitch, but he wasn't that bad. He didn't want to kill nobody.

And definitely not like that old lady got killed.

That would bother him right bad, if he thought it was his shit that had done that. So Daryl was feeling pretty good about his story by then, by the time he got back to the alley where his truck was. He'd just head on back home, and then tomorrow he'd go down to the jail house and he'd tell Merle what happened on the sidewalk. And why he'd come home empty handed.

And that would be that.

'Cept it hadn't been.

Because when he'd gotten to the alley, he found his truck had been stripped bare. All four tires . . . he scowled as he thought back . . . gone! He'd been so mad that he'd started to scream.

"DIRTY ROTTEN NO GOOD NI . . .!"

And then he'd stopped. And he'd kicked the side of the truck instead. Because he was trying not to use that word no more. Not since that day he'd seen Merle use it in the coffee shop, all casual like, and how it had made that lady wince and turn her head. And mind you Merle wasn't directing, that word at her. He was just talking, as Merle does. But still, it had pained her to hear it. And since then, 'bout five years on now, Daryl had been trying real hard to watch his words. He'd never meant nothing by them anyway. It was just the word that Merle and his daddy had taught him.

It was the only word he knew.

Back then.

But then he got older, and he learned other words. More general, words. Nicer ones. He mostly tried to use those instead.

Even if Merle called him a PC pussy.

He didn't care about that. He just cared about not hurting nobody that didn't have it coming. And that pretty lady in the coffee shop, she hadn't had nothing coming to her. At least nothing that he knew about. So she shouldn't have to listen to that stuff.

Not if he could help it.

So when he found his truck in the state that it was, he'd there stood in that alleyway, kicking dents in the doors and swearing up a blue streak . . . but keeping racial persuasion out of it. Race didn't have nothing to do with it anyway. He kept trying to tell Merle that. Assholes were assholes.

No matter what color they were.

It had been while he was throwing that damn tantrum though, that something funny had happened. He started hearing this noise. A growling sound. Like a dog sorta. But not a dog. Whatever it was, it stopped him cold. Because he was flashing on what that guy behind the tape told him.

About how the tweaker had been growling just before he jumped on the old lady.

And right about then, Daryl realized that the weird growling sound, that was sorta like a dog, but wasn't, was coming from the other end of the alley. The dark part. And for a second he'd stood there, feeling the hairs on his neck standing up on ends.

Then he took off running.

Now Daryl Dixon wasn't no pansy ass. He could hold his own in any fight. But he wasn't no damn fool, neither. And if that was another tweaker, one like the kind that got the old lady, he wasn't tangling with that asshole! He liked his face right where it was, thank you very much.

And there wasn't nothing to be done about the truck then anyway. He needed to get it towed out and all new tires put on. But there was no way in hell he was going to find a tow truck to go into the middle of the GHETTO, on a Friday night, just to drag his sorry ass Ford out to sit in the shop for twelve hours. Just cost him more money anyway. Really, it was gonna cost Merle more money. Because he was damn sure using Merle's cash for this. It was his fault he was out there, so he was paying for the tires, whether he knew it or not.

But either way, Daryl was planning to just get it sorted tomorrow.

So for tonight, with it closing in on near nine o'clock, he was just trying to walk himself to some part of the neighborhood where he could find a room to rent. Something cheap, preferably, but without no damn bed bugs neither. Merle brought those back once from prison, and they took FOREVER, to get them out of the house.

He wasn't doing that fumigation shit again.

His thoughts on bed bugs and truck repair costs were suddenly interrupted by the sound of someone yelling up ahead. Now, mind you, Daryl had obviously been hearing quite a bit of yelling and cussing and honking and all manner of city noises as he'd traipsed through that neighborhood sticking out like a giant, redneck, thumb. He'd even heard a few "cracker ass," remarks, which he had quite admirably (as far as he was concerned) ignored. But this yelling now was different. Because it was a woman's voice.

And she sounded scared.

"Just keep walking little brother, ain't your damn business to get involved in."

These were Merle's words. And Daryl could hear them in his head, just as clearly as he would if the man himself was standing next to him on the sidewalk. But Merle wasn't there. It was just Daryl. And Daryl couldn't just ignore, some lady screaming for help. Even if that lady was likely just a whore.

She still didn't deserve to be hurt.

So he found himself, against Merle's better judgment, suddenly running flat out. Trying to see what was happening.

And put a stop to it if he could.

Even with the sun down, he'd already been sweating like a stuck pig just from the summer heat. So by the time he spotted the source of all the troubles, his shirt was sticking to him like he'd just gotten soaked in the shower. But he ignored that, and the pounding of his lungs (too damn many cigarettes, needed to cut back) and he sized up the situation at hand. And that was when he realized, it wasn't any whore who was yelling. It was a real lady.

Somebody's mama.

And he knew that because the somebody, was right there too. A little girl, blondie, maybe nine or ten. Sobbing like her mama was being murdered. And mama was right there on the ground, kicking and clawing and crying.

Trying to push somebody off of her.

"Ah shit."

Again the words fell from his mouth without him even realizing it. Though that time it didn't matter if anyone else heard him. Because nobody else was paying them any attention. Lady and her little girl getting attacked on a big city sidewalk, and everybody had scattered. All of them, the upright citizens and not, were now just 'minding their own business.'

Fucking assholes all deserve to die.

That was Daryl's last fury'd thought right before he barreled into that son of a bitch like a freight train. The guy went flying . . . a knife did too. Long butchering kind. He hadn't seen it in his hands before that.

But Daryl wasn't concerned about the knife.

It flew too far for the guy to grab it. So Daryl moved in while he could, bringing his steel toed work boot back . . . and then ramming it into the asshole's side.

He heard the crack of at least two ribs.

But that wasn't enough, not for what he'd tried to do. So Good Samaritan that he was, Daryl kept stomping. Two . . . three . . . he snarled . . . four, times. Hearing that nice satisfying bone crunch after each one. It only took two kicks before the guy had pissed his pants and had started sobbing like a little girl.

Actually he was sobbing worse, than the little girl.

And though he knew it was a bad thought, as he finally pulled his boot back, and stood there, panting and sweating, staring down at that SOB on the ground, Daryl was kind of wishing that tweaker had found this guy. Gobbled him up good. Him instead of the old lady.

Because this guy woulda deserved it.

"Is he dead?"

Hearing the soft, raspy, tear filled voice coming from just behind him, Daryl spun around. The woman was trying to push herself up off the ground. Her lip and elbow were bleeding and her shirt and pants were dirty and torn.

But that was just the new damage.

He could see lots of old.

Fading marks on her face and arms. And before he could stop himself, he was reaching down to try and take her hand. But of course he moved too fast, got in too close . . . and he scared her. She shrunk back, bright blue eyes wide and watery, trying to pull the little girl to her side. Away from him.

And he felt awful.

"Ain't like that," he said as gentle as he could, even while he took a half a step back . . . just so she'd feel better, "I won't hurtcha. I was just trying to help you up."

For a second his eyes stayed locked onto her watery ones, and he couldn't help but notice it was a bit unusual to see such a young face with such short, silvery hair. She was real pretty though. He felt a twinge in his gut.

And she looked real scared.

And maybe she woulda felt better if he just walked away. But he couldn't just leave her and the girl sprawled out there on the sidewalk. Wasn't safe.

Not by half.

But still, he didn't say nothing else. Just let her take her measure of him. See whether she thought he was coming up short. But finally, after a minute or so . . . long enough almost for his heart to stop pounding . . . her expression softened a bit. She gave him a little nod then as she let out a breath. Like she'd decided that he was okay. He wasn't gonna hurt them.

Not like the other one.

"Can I help you up now?" he asked softly, once more extending his arm. Slowly this time.

That time she didn't shrink back. She let him take her fingers.

"Thank you," she whispered. And then he was helping up off the dirty ground. But once she was standing, now with the still crying girl tucked a bit behind her, he didn't know what to do. Because he'd just realized that he was still holding her hand.

And he kinda didn't want to let go yet.

So his eyes crinkled slightly as his lip quirked up a bit in kind of sad smile. Then he gave her fingers a light shake.

"Daryl," he whispered, again trying to keep his tone from frightening her, "Daryl Dixon. You and your girl okay?" His brow darkened as he looked between her and the man lying on the ground.

He'd just passed out.

"Didn't do nothing to you, right?"

The question was asked as he stared down at the still body. But then he heard the woman sniffle and his eyes snapped back around.

"I'm okay," she gave him a little head shake, "he didn't. You knocked him off." Her lips twisted in a smile then, though her eyes filled with a fresh back of tears.

"Thank you."

"Weren't nothing," he answered softly, feeling a tickle of embarrassment. He pulled his hand back then and rubbed the back of it across his mouth.

"You ladies shouldn't be out here by yourselves," he continued in the same tone, "not a safe area for decent folk."

For a second she just looked at him again, and once more he seemed to pass some kind of internal test. She bit down on her lip.

"We got lost," she stated quietly, answering the question he didn't actually ask, "there was a place where we were supposed to go," she swallowed, "a safe place. But they were full up and turned us away. There was supposed to be a church though. Somebody at the other," her voice faded, "place, they gave me the name and an address. I thought we could find it before dark. But I think I took the wrong bus. I got all turned around, and I was going to try and find another bus to get us back to somewhere I knew, but then," her voice started to thicken, "this boy grabbed my bag. Didn't hurt me, but he was long gone with all my money, before I could even blink. We've kind of been wandering around since then," her eyes flickered past his and down the block.

"Trying to get back to the big buildings."

"Not safe there neither." Daryl answered with a faint, though derisive, snort. "Sun goes away, rich people go home, bad element moves in all over."

Then he looked back down at the woman, and the girl poking her head out from behind her mother's back.

He gave the little one a faint smile.

Though he immediately sobered when he saw the marks on her shoulders too.

He looked back up at her mama.

"You were trying to get into a shelter?" He asked somewhat rhetorically. And he could see those pretty blue eyes widen a bit in surprise, like he wasn't going to figure out from the bandage on her arm, and the bruises on her cheek, that was what her safe place was supposed to be.

"Yeah, yes," she stammered a bit in her response, "a woman's shelter."

"So you're running from somebody?" He asked. And she nodded, while again blinking back fresh tears.

"Yes."

"All right then," he let out a sigh as he looked down at the body on the ground, and then back to the woman again, "need to find you two a hotel. Get you setup for something else happens."

"Oh but," the woman shook her head as she shifted slightly into his space, trying to keep her voice down, "remember? I don't have any money. Do you know of a church around here? Or just a regular shelter, just one that might take us for the night?"

Before she'd even finished speaking, he was already shaking his head. His brow had darkened.

"You stay away from those coed shelters. Lots of bad men in there." He jerked his head to the side, "men like that. And trust me, there's not enough staff to keep the ladies safe after lights out. So, no," his lips pursed at her crestfallen look, "that won't work. We'll just find you the hotel, put you up there."

"But . . ."

"S'okay," he cut her off, "got some extra money. I can getcha a room."

Though Daryl thought this was the best idea out of a lot of bad options, seeing the woman swallow as the color started to drain a bit from her face, he realized she might be getting the wrong idea. And at that, after he'd been on his best behavior and all(!) he felt a bit of unexpected irritation.

"Already told ya," he scowled, "ain't like that. Just gonna get you setup and that's all. I'll leave you alone. No funny business," his eyebrow arched up, "'k?"

"Okay," she nodded seriously for a moment before her eyes crinkled slightly, "thank you. And I'm sorry. You're being very nice, I just," she made a fist and brought it up to her chest, "you know."

"Yeah, yeah," he gave a weary grunt as he looked away, "I know. S'okay." He looked over at her with a faint smirk. "No offense taken."

Seeing her mouth start to quiver, just before she clamped down on the smile, Daryl looked away. He felt a dig in his chest.

Nice lady like that, shouldn't be getting kicked around.

World was too fucked up.

"So," he brought his hand up to tug a bit on the short strands of his sweaty hair, "you got a name there that you wanta share? Or would you prefer not?"

Given her reasons for being out in the street, running away from a bad man, he could understand her not wanting him to know who she was. Less people know your name, less people can track you down.

That was an easy one.

"Oh," she snorted slightly, "yeah, I'm sorry. I'm Carol," she put her hand out, "Carol Pelletier."

As Daryl's hand came up to lightly squeeze her fingers again, she tipped her head to the side.

"This is my daughter, Sophia."

"Hey there, Sophia," he said with a serious nod. One which she returned in kind. Then he looked up at the girl's mother.

"Carol," he repeated her name softly, memorizing it to himself, "Carol Pelletier. Got it."

And then he let her fingers go.

"All right well," he looked around, "still need to find that magical hotel. I was looking for one myself when I came across you two. So," he pushed his bag back on his shoulder, "best get moving again before it gets too late." He looked down at his two new, temporary, walking, companions.

"You ladies ready to go?"

"Yep," the woman . . . Carol he reminded himself, her name is Carol . . . quickly nodded as she turned back to snatch her backpack off the ground, "we're ready."

"Okay then," he put his arm up, gesturing to the road ahead.

"Let's go."

A/N 2: Long note here. Regular readers know the end one usually is:)

I wasn't looking to start a new story, let alone go into a new fandom, but I just couldn't shake the image I had of Daryl roaming through the streets huffing to himself about Merle. And then things kind of spun out from there. And as that goes, generally to get the images out of your head, you just have to write it down to get them out.

Beyond the timing/circumstances of their meeting, most everything else about them, and the other characters that might pop up, should be the same. I might tweak some stuff but given that these are new characters for me, I don't want to go too AU or I'll lose their voices completely. One point though that might seem like a bit of a shift for both of them, is that I think if they had known each other earlier, given that they are a good influence on one another, that by the time the events of the show happened, Daryl would have been a bit less 'feral' and Carol less timid. Because without Ed or Merle around, (plus the world not having ended yet) it's likely they would have become friends more quickly. Plus that easy humor they have with one another, that would have been more evident too.

Daryl's voice is harder to write than what I'm used to. You don't want his actual words/thoughts to read like complete redneck cliché rambling, but at the same time, if you don't include some 'slang spelling' (for lack of a better term) you do kind of lose his accent which is so much a part of his character. Because I poked around a little in the fandom and people who just wrote his lines 'straight,' I couldn't always hear the words coming from him. No offense intended if that's your style :) and maybe it was just me, but I figured I'd try it this way and once I got in the groove, I ended up liking the flow pretty well. But I'm sure it'll continue to be a balancing issue moving forward. If nothing else, it's a good exercise :)

I'm hoping to keep moving quickly on this for as long as I can. I haven't been able to write anything in my regular fandom for months and then last night I cranked out thirteen pages here in like two hours. And I have vivid chunks of the story in my head so I want to keep cranking as long as I can.

Lastly, I'm trying to use this one to fill in (for myself at least) what I thought was a HUGE disserve done by Fear the Walking Dead. That was a show I was genuinely excited about because I thought that those initial weeks where civilization begins to fall apart, and everyone you know (not just family and friends but EVERYONE) starts dying, would have been something great to explore. It would have been terrifying in a totally different way than "just" the horror of Walkers. But Fear just skipped that time period, which made (if I might rant for a second) ZERO sense, seeing as the whole point of the show was apparently to show the societal breakdown! Instead they started off with a few good creepy bits (crackhouse massacres, video of the freeway attacks), had one big riot…time jump. Walkers everywhere! Seriously?! So now you just have the exact same plot as TWD, but without ANY likable characters. Because God knows you wouldn't want the audience to care if everybody gets eaten! I'll stop now :)

So anyway, that's that. Hope you'd like it so far. And I'd love to know what you thought.

Thanks!