AN: Hi there! This was actually requested, and I've been thinking about it since then. I'm excited with this!
I should begin by saying that knowledge of The X-Files and The Walking Dead might help with this story, but neither is absolutely necessary. You might want to google to see what some characters look like, but I'm going to do my best to explain everything that you need to know as we go along. It should also be said that I'm not really following canon here (for either show) so there's no need to have that information.
For my MSR people, this is early MSR.
For my Caryl people, this is early, too. (Same for Mandrea peeps.)
This is going to be slow burn (or as slow as I ever am) on all fronts.
We're set somewhere around the year 2012 to start, but you can consider my time a little purposefully fuzzy. It won't matter much, anyway, honestly.
I own nothing from either show, and this is simply for entertainment.
I hope that you enjoy! Please let me know what you think!
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Special Agent Dana Scully had only been back to work a short period of time following a kidnapping and disappearance that, thanks to a wicked case of amnesia caused by brain trauma that had nearly cost her life, she could barely remember. Some people may have called the recovery from that ordeal a vacation— especially since it meant that she was out of work for such an extended time and had been ordered to fill her recovery time with little more than relaxation and the physical exercises necessary to return her body to its previous level of physical fitness—but Scully didn't count such an ordeal as a vacation.
There were times when Scully thought it might be nice to take an actual vacation, though.
Many of those times came about when her partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, was so very exuberant about some new case that, more than likely, was going to drag them on a sort of wild goose chase—especially when that chase started before five in the morning.
"I would've come up," Mulder said, coming around the car only a moment after he'd dropped it into park. "You didn't have to wait on the sidewalk."
"You told me we had to leave immediately," Scully said. "I assumed it was pretty urgent when you woke me up at this hour. What's going on, Mulder?"
"Get in. I'll explain in the car," Mulder said, grabbing Scully's bag and making quick work of stuffing it into the trunk. He may be trying to act a little nonchalant, but Scully could practically smell equal parts happy excitement and anxiety on him. No matter how good Mulder believed he was at hiding his feelings, sometimes, Scully could usually read him like a book.
"Are we going to the airport?" Scully asked as soon as she was buckled into her seat and Mulder was already maneuvering the vehicle.
"Georgia," Mulder said. "A little town just outside Atlanta. I'm afraid we're driving, though. This coffee's for you."
"Driving?" Scully asked. "That's like…"
"Ten hours, at least. We'll make it by four if the traffic's on our side. Haven't you been watching the news?" Mulder asked.
"Not since last night," Scully said. She looked around, inside the car, trying to locate the files that she knew were tucked somewhere.
"A lot happens in a few hours, Scully," Mulder said. "Especially these days."
"You can say that again," Scully breathed out, the words barely coming out loud enough for Mulder to hear if he'd been trying to listen. "What did I miss?"
"Atlanta airports are shut down," Mulder said. "Officially and indefinitely. So are all major airports, actually."
"The virus?" Scully asked. Mulder hummed in the affirmative.
The virus. That's what they were calling it because, at this moment, they didn't have enough information to give it an official name and what little they did know, they didn't want to share with the world.
As FBI agents, Scully and Mulder's knowledge of what was going on—what was really going on—was almost as limited as what every other person got from the news. They knew only enough, essentially, to know that they hardly knew anything at all.
"It's spreading," Mulder said. "They think shutting down major airports is the best move, though. Nothing and nobody coming in or going out."
"No quarantines? No lockdowns?" Scully asked. She'd been following things for a while, as had most of the world, but she'd shut off her television to sleep. She was only awake at this hour because Mulder had woken her up when he'd called to say that they'd been assigned a case and were asked to start work immediately. Scully was supposed to have the day off. Instead, she'd thrown what she needed for a week—because Mulder hadn't really given her a timeline—into her bag, and she'd waited for him to show up.
"Nothing like that's changed yet," Mulder said. "But they're starting to take channels off the air to replace them with emergency information. They're telling everyone not to panic."
Scully sighed. As an illustration of the thought that darted through her mind, some idiot driving way too fast cut Mulder off, and Mulder blew the horn as he slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision.
"You OK, Scully?" Mulder asked quickly.
"I'm fine," Scully assured him, quickly.
Mulder sighed.
"Telling everyone not to panic only causes people to panic," Mulder said, clearly hearing Scully's thoughts as well as she sometimes felt that she could hear his.
"So, what are we doing?" Scully asked.
Mulder reached his arm back, produced the files from somewhere behind Scully's seat, and dropped two of them into her lap.
"What's this?" She asked.
"Open the top one," Mulder said. "I can talk you through it while I drive. Murder case. That charming gentleman that you see pictured there was Edward James Peletier Jr.—known to everyone as Ed— of Hickory, Georgia."
Scully frowned at the picture.
"Shotgun?"
"Complete with scattershot," Mulder said. He laughed to himself. "Doesn't paint a pretty picture, does it?"
"Suspects?"
"There," Mulder said, gesturing to another page and some additional photos. "There's where some of the complication comes in. Four individuals are possible suspects at the moment. Two brothers—Daryl and Merle Dixon. Two women, unrelated. Andrea Harrison and Carol Peletier."
"Peletier, like the victim?"
"The victim's ex-wife," Mulder said. "The divorce wasn't final, but it is now. Ed had a history of domestic abuse against Carol Peletier and, recently, there were allegations of misconduct toward their ten year old daughter. The victim was killed outside of the house—or, rather, the trailer—where Andrea Harrison lives with Carol Peletier and her daughter."
"So—Carol Peletier killed her husband. Her ex-husband. Because of a history of abuse." Scully said, testing out her first theory. "He came to the house to pay his soon-to-be-ex-wife a visit, she felt threatened, and she shot him. Mulder—I don't see why local authorities couldn't handle this. Why are we driving to Georgia in the middle of a viral outbreak?"
"Because it's not as simple as all that," Mulder said. "It was Daryl Dixon that pulled the trigger and rid Ed of his head. You see, the yard to the trailer where Andrea Harrison and Carol Peletier live is also the yard to the trailer where the Dixon brothers reside. Ed Peletier was killed in the yard between the two structures. You can see the photos of the crime scene there. Unfortunately, it's all been cleaned up already, but it's still going to be our very first stop."
"Were they having an affair?" Scully asked, considering the new information.
"Not that anybody knows about," Mulder said. "Of course, anything's possible, Scully."
He smirked at her.
"I still don't understand what this has to do with us, Mulder," Scully said. "So—what was his name? Dixon?"
"Daryl Dixon," Mulder said. "He's the one that pulled the trigger."
"So—Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier are having an affair—maybe even before she seeks the divorce. Ed comes to pay a visit and Daryl Dixon kills him—either to protect Carol or, maybe, to simply be rid of him."
"Open and shut," Mulder said. His tone of voice and the amused smirk on his lips told Scully that it was anything but open and shut.
"What is it, Mulder?" Scully asked. Something like a chill ran up her spine, but she suppressed her body's reaction to the sensation. "What does this have to do with us? It's not an X-File."
"How much have you been following the information about this virus from a medical standpoint?" Mulder asked.
Scully shrugged her shoulders.
"A little," she said. "There's really nothing being released. I'd love to get the opportunity to stand in on an autopsy, but…"
"What do you know?" Mulder asked.
Scully hummed to herself and scanned her memory for any bits and pieces she could recall gathering since the whole thing had started—very slowly at first—and had begun to spread.
"It's attacking the brain," Scully said. "Maybe causing strokes. There have been reports of violent behavior. Erratic behavior. Uncharacteristic, in most cases. They haven't identified an at-risk group, yet. The cases have been too erratic."
"The reason they've called us in is because Daryl Dixon is claiming that he shot Ed in self-defense," Mulder said. "And every one of the other suspects—seemingly with no more reason for the four of them to be involved than their status as neighbors—is corroborating his story."
"That's not too unusual," Scully said. "Was Ed armed?"
"No," Mulder said. "However, at the moment, they can't hold Dixon for anything."
"Except killing Ed—an unarmed man—in self-defense."
"Not even that," Mulder said. He smiled to himself. There was clearly some piece to this puzzle that he was still holding onto, and he was anticipating that he was going to enjoy Scully's reaction. "According to Mr. Dixon's story he didn't kill Ed."
"Mulder—he has no head," Scully said with some exasperation, looking back at the crime photo. "And you said that it was Daryl Dixon that pulled the trigger."
"He admits to that," Mulder said.
"Then it's cut and dry," Scully said.
"Not exactly. According to Mr. Dixon's story—and supported by their autopsy results—Daryl Dixon didn't kill Ed Peletier. He couldn't."
"I don't understand," Scully said.
"According to the four accounts that were given, and the autopsy results, Scully, when Ed Peletier attacked Daryl Dixon, he was already dead."
Scully's stomach lurched and rolled.
"Dead?" She asked, suddenly getting the feeling she'd tumbled down some kind of proverbial rabbit hole—and having no idea how far she still had to fall.
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"That's the last of the campin' supplies, Merle," Daryl said, shoving the tied-up tent pieces into the small trailer that was attached to the back of his truck.
"Can we just talk about this for a minute?" Andrea asked. She was hovering just inches away from panic. Daryl could hear it in her voice.
"The hell is there to talk about, Sugar Tits?" Merle asked. Daryl saw the blonde woman curl her lip at Merle.
They were neighbors, and they had been for nearly a year. They were, sometimes, "borrow a cup of sugar" type neighbors. They were occasionally "I made too much, do you like meatloaf" type neighbors. They were absolutely "I can jump your car off" type neighbors. And, very recently, it seemed they'd become something entirely different. They'd become "I killed your dead and very angry ex-husband" neighbors and, almost immediately after, they'd become "we've killed our dead and oddly violent neighbors from down the road" neighbors.
That didn't mean, however, that they were all extremely comfortable with one another, or that Merle never rubbed Andrea and her roommate, Carol, wrong. In all fairness, though, Merle rubbed most people wrong from time to time.
"Maybe we should call the police," Andrea said.
"And tell 'em what, exactly?" Merle asked. "We know you was just the fuck out here for us killin' that lil' mousy woman's husband—despite the fact he was already dead an' shit—but we just thought you oughta know that two more fuckin' corpses just sauntered into our fuckin' front yard an' tried to make a grab for the kid so we killed them, too."
"They didn't arrest Daryl," Andrea said, "because they could tell that Ed was dead at the time of the shooting."
"You're a fuckin' moron if you think that shit ain't temporary," Merle said. "They ain't arrested him 'cause they don't know what the hell is goin' on. It's all over the damned news. Nobody knows what the hell is goin' on. This damn virus or—whatever the hell this shit is—has the whole world turned fuckin' upside down. There's fires an' people losin' their damned minds an' they got side-tracked, but that ain't gonna last forever. They comin' back. You can count on that. And when they find them other bodies, they gonna take you an' me down, too, since you was the one that helped wrestle that meth head down for me to hit her with the shovel."
"So, we're just going to—run?" Andrea asked.
The question was almost hypothetical. Daryl and Merle had nearly finished packing the truck bed and the trailer. Merle had already packed his saddlebags. Across the yard, Carol Peletier had been steadily packing food, suitcases, and other items into the car that she and Andrea were sharing since Andrea's little Pinto had given up on trying to hold onto what little bit of life it had left.
It had been a snap decision, and they really didn't know what they were going to do, but they knew they couldn't stay here. There was too much going on. There had already been three violent corpses—how many more would show up? None of them, except maybe Andrea, trusted the police to do anything to protect them and, worse, they were now on a list of suspects and, possibly, even of most-wanted. If they weren't, they would be when the bodies were uncovered, and they weren't well-hidden at the moment.
Beyond that, there was something rotten in the state of Georgia—and possibly the whole world. Daryl wasn't sure that there was anyone they could trust right now.
"Look—you go with us or you stay," Daryl said, checking his voice to keep it calm. Andrea was near panic, and that was only reasonable, really. She'd do better with him than she would with Merle at the moment. "Either way—you better tell Carol what the hell you're doin' 'cause she's done packed your shit and, if you ain't goin', we can put somethin' else in that space."
"No—it's just…do we even know what we're doing? Where we're going? We're just—running?"
"We'll figure it out," Merle said. "Don't'cha worry, Princess. At this point? If everything we've seen on the news, and all the shit you can bet we ain't seen is true, and takin' into consideration what the hell's happened here already? You're safer wherever the hell we end up than you would be sleepin' in your own damn bed." He winked at her. "You stick with me. I'll take care of you—take care of you real damn good, Sugar."
"Merle," Daryl called out, warning his brother off of pursuing the woman too hard—especially with their current situation and her level of anxiety. She'd already hit one person—or corpse, rather—over the head with a shovel in a state of sheer panic.
Carol came out the door of her trailer, carrying something else to go in her car.
"Did you think of anything else?" She called out. She'd been taking directions, rather happily, from Merle since he'd suggested that the best thing they could do was move and move fast. She was terrified for her daughter, and Merle promised that getting the hell out of Dodge would help protect all of them.
"Just wrap it up!" Merle said. "Brother—you too. Take a last look around, if you want. Make sure we ain't missed nothin' too damned important. But it's gettin' on toward five an' I don't want our asses out in the dark with no idea of where we restin' our heads tonight."
"Got it," Daryl said.
He mounted the porch steps and checked the inside of the trailer quickly. Neither he nor Merle had hardly ever had much more than a pot to piss in, so there wasn't too much that he needed to check, but he did a last minute grab for the money that he had squirreled away, and he checked to make sure that they hadn't forgotten any of the guns that they stashed throughout the trailer.
There was no need to have a long moment of looking around, memorizing the place for nostalgia or anything of the like. The trailer had been a roof over their heads, but it had been little more than that. Daryl didn't even bother looking for the key to lock the door. If anybody wanted the couch they got off the side of the road, their collection of yard sale furniture, or the television with the busted color rods, they were welcome to all of it.
Stepping back onto the porch, though, he froze almost instantly at what he saw.
And then, figuring he could maybe deescalate the problem—but not forgetting the gun concealed beneath the back of his shirt—he stepped down the porch slowly, hands raised, and addressed everyone outside.
"Afternoon," he said. "Can we do somethin' for you?"
He hoped, if he was nonchalant about it, neither Merle nor the two obvious cop-types—all with their weapons raised and pointed at each other—would feel the need to pull a trigger.
After all, killing the already-dead was one thing. Killing the living was something else entirely.
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AN: I hope you like the setup, so far, for this story. I'm excited about all the possibility!
Please let me know what you think!