Characters are from TWD. I am just writing for fun :)

I Spy

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with G."

"Glenn. I'm warning you now…If it's grass again, I'm going to scream."

She had been playing road trip games with Glenn for about an hour now as they drove behind the Dixons' truck. The plan was to stop by a lake which was probably a few miles away now to stock up on water before starting the drive up to the CDC. Alice had wanted to start the drive straight away, but they were down to two water bottles and the lake was on the way. So, the plan was to set up a camp near water for a few days until Glenn and Daryl recovered.

"Yeah, well it's better than your hints." Glenn imitated her, raising his voice an octave higher. "Glenn, I spy with my little eye something beginning with P. No Glenn, you're so silly! It's not the plants. It's your Palmaris Longus! How was I supposed to know that's what the muscle in my wrist is called?!"

Alice threw her head back and laughed, "Okay. Okay, I get it. Is it the garbage by the road?"

"No, but that would have been a good one."

"Glove compartment box?"

"Nope!"

"It's grass, isn't it?"

"Maybe…"

"Glenn…You are the worst person to play this with."

"Cheer up, Doc. The road trip is going to be over soon. You can drive up to the CDC with Daryl. I'm sure he'll play I Spy with you."

Alice sighed and glared at Glenn who was now laughing at her misery, but before Alice could answer, she heard the engine sputter. She looked at Glenn in concern.

"Aaaaand, our engine is dead. We're pretty much out of gas too," Glenn sighed and pulled over the car. Alice opened the window and waved the Dixons over.

"Well, we knew this would happen eventually…" Alice said as she got out of the car. She gripped her bat tightly as she looked around before relaxing slightly. One could never be too careful.

"Engine's dead. And no gas," Glenn called out to Daryl who got out of the truck first.

"S' getting' dark out anyways. We'll set up camp here. Lake's 'bout half a mile from here. We'll take a look at the car tomorrow," Daryl said as he began unloading his camp gear from the back of the truck.

Merle grabbed a backpack from the truck and walked off into the woods without a second glance at them. Alice and Glenn exchanged a glance and then simultaneously turned to Daryl for an explanation. Daryl was busy setting up his tent near the edge of the woods.

"Merle's placin' snares," Daryl said without looking up from his work.

Alice nodded her head at the explanation and went to go help Glenn with their tent. She was absolutely starving. It seemed ridiculous to her that only 3 months ago she was going to the gym every day to stay in shape. Now, she had never looked more fit. Running from walkers for dear life did that. Well, it's not my diet… Alice thought. She had been drinking soda, munching on candy bars, and other junk food her and Glenn found to keep herself fueled. If Merle could find them any sort of meat, she would be absolutely thrilled.

"I'm going to look around the campsite. I'll check for walkers." Alice told Glenn when she finished helping him set up the tent.

"I'll go with you," Glenn offered, attempting to stand but he wobbled slightly, his ankle still unstable.

"Rest your foot. I'll be back soon," Alice assured him, "and keep your ankle elevated," she added.

Glenn looked hesitant but he nodded his agreement.

"Stay within shouting distance!" He called after her.

As she walked into the woods, Alice felt more than saw Daryl fall into step behind her. "You should be resting your leg, Daryl," she told him.

She heard him scoff behind her, "S' fine. My legs been cramped for too long in the truck. I ain't plannin' on sittin' 'round doin' nothin'."

Alice wasn't sure if that was a pointed remark about Glenn so she chose to ignore it.

"You are tougher than you look, Daryl."

"What's that supposed ta mean? Sayin' I look weak?" Daryl grunted, catching up until he was directly next to her.

"Well, you know, sometimes it's the toughest guys that complain about the smallest aches and pains… not that your bullet wound is a small injury," Alice clarified as she looked around the woods, listening for any moaning or stumbling figures.

"I ain't a bitch," Daryl said roughly, but accepted her explanation.

They walked along in silence for half an hour. Alice had always considered herself to be agile and light on her feet, but walking alongside Daryl in the woods, she felt like an elephant. He almost didn't make a sound, but she constantly would step on twigs or jump at a bird's call.

"So, you and Merle grew up around here?" Alice asked, breaking the silence.

"Uh-huh," Daryl answered as he fired an arrow at a yet another squirrel.

Daryl's crossbow proved to be very useful. He could shoot with surprising accuracy— he had already managed to bag three squirrels even with the sun setting rapidly, diminishing visibility drastically. Apparently, Daryl also knew how to track. Occasionally, he would squat down and analyze an animal track he noticed. They were now pretty far away from the campsite, but Alice didn't feel unsafe with Daryl at her side. Quite the opposite really. She felt safe, which was a rarity these days.

"How can you tell if it's a walker's track?" She asked him as he squatted next to him to analyze a track.

"This one ain't. They drag their feet…ain't light on their toes. S' a person's but it's real old," Daryl explained to her.

"I think it's so amazing that you know this stuff, Daryl. It's really handy to know. If I had known the world would be ending, I would have taken some wilderness survival courses," Alice said, looking at the track thoughtfully.

Daryl didn't say anything in return, but he looked up from the footprint to stare at her intently. Alice continued, "my med school offered a wilderness medicine elective one semester where we would have been taught a bunch of useful things like how to treat stings, bites, heat injuries, burns, wound care, etcetera, but I always hated camping so the course sounded like an absolute nightmare. I lived in big cities my whole life so I thought it would be useless. I was an idiot."

Alice was thrown for a loop when she saw Daryl stand up, straighten himself, and then offer her his free hand, almost gallantly, to help her up. Alice found her hand accepting his gentlemanly offer. It felt strangely comforting to clasp his hand, even if it was only for a split second.

"We should head back. I don't want to leave Glenn for too long," Alice mumbled. She brushed off the small electric spark she felt when her hand met his, chalking it up to surprise that Daryl offered her assistance.

"I'm gonna look 'round some more, gather us some more food. Don't get lost." Daryl ordered. He already had three squirrels strung to his belt, but Alice wasn't planning on complaining about having extra food for the night.

"Be careful," Alice said, but Daryl was already walking further into the woods without a second glance back at her.

She shrugged her shoulders at his sudden retreat and began to trudge back to Glenn. Well, that was weird, Alice thought. Daryl and her had walked further than she had anticipated, but thankfully they deemed the area safe.

She must have jinxed herself because only a few minutes after she thought about how lucky they were to find such a good campsite, she paused when she heard a branch snap somewhere in the distance. Immediately, she became alert. She gripped her bat.

"Daryl?" she hissed, straining her ears. There was no reply.

"Merle?" she tried again, but this time she distinctly heard footsteps. She was about to choose the cowards way out and run at full speed back to camp when she glimpsed the source of the sound. It was a one-armed walker who was stumbling towards something at a surprisingly slow pace. Pathetic. She adjusted her grip on the bat and was about to walk up to the walker to finish him when she saw a young girl hiding behind a tree, staring at her with wide eyes.

She looked to be around ten or eleven and in her hand, she was clutching a rock. Before Alice could warn the girl, she threw the rock at the walker's head. She missed by a mile. If anything, her assassination-attempt only served to anger the walker.

Oh, give me a break, Alice mentally lamented. She sped up and before the girl could react, or even worse, scream, Alice took a swing and in one stroke, ended the walker's miserable life.

"Please, don't scream!" Alice warned the girl quickly. She jumped slightly at her voice, so against her better judgment, Alice slowly lowered her bat and held her hands out so that the girl could see that she meant no harm.

"It's okay. I promise. What's your name?" she asked the girl, squatting down so that she was at eyelevel with her.

"Sophia," the girl said, smiling at Alice as she stepped out from behind the tree.

Alice sighed in relief when she saw that she didn't look harmed, or even worse, bitten. There was a nasty gash underneath her eye, but other than that she was fine.

"I'm Alice. Where are your parents? Are you alone—

"Sophia! Where are you?" a voice suddenly hissed. The girl jumped and looked at her apologetically.

"That's Carl. I wasn't supposed to wander off. But Carl and I went out exploring. Our camp is nearby."

"I'll walk you back. Now, let's go find Carl," Alice told her immediately.

"Thanks," the girl told her, looking up at her in relief.

"Carl? Sophia is safe. Come on out," Alice called quietly, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention.

"You probably should not wander off," Alice told a young boy who stepped out from behind another tree a few meters away.

"We didn't think there'd be any of those things here. I didn't see him, sorry, Sophia," the boy told his friend apologetically, "I would have tried to stop him if I had seen him going for you."

"It's okay, Carl," Sophia told her friend, wiping her eyes.

"Are you alone here?" Carl asked her as the trio began walking back to the kids' camp.

"I have a couple of friends here," Alice told them. She wanted to get back to Glenn ASAP. If Merle and Daryl were already back and she wasn't, Glenn would panic.

"What happened to your eye?" Alice asked Sophia when she saw the young girl gingerly touching the cut under her eye.

"It wasn't one of them," Sophia hurried to assure her, "I ran into a branch."

"I'll take a look at the cut under your eye. Just don't touch it," Alice promised.

"CARL! SOPHIA!" A chorus of voices suddenly erupted in the distance.

"They know that noise attracts the walkers, right?" Alice muttered, speeding up. As they exited the woods, Alice could see a big campsite with a number of cars. There were at least a dozen people standing around, looking panicked.

"OH! Carl! Thank God." A brunette woman cried as she saw Alice and the kids make their way through the bushes into the camp.

"I'm okay, Mom. Alice helped Sophia and I. I'm sorry I left," Carl told his Mom who was now hugging him to her chest.

Alice stood awkwardly as a large number of people ran up to her. A shorthaired woman was now clutching Sophia to her chest.

"Who are you?" A tall, dark haired man asked Alice, eyeing her and her bloody bat carefully.

"Alice," she told him, extending her hand out in greeting, "my car broke down the road from here." She didn't drop her bat and decided against mentioning her group before she understood who these people were. The fact that there were kids and women was a good sign though.

"Shane," the man said, gripping her hand.

"I'm Lori. Carl's mother," the brunette woman introduced herself.

"She saved us from one of them." Carl told Shane.

"Oh my god," Lori gasped.

"Thank you for saving my little girl," Sophia's mom told her, squeezing her arm.

"You ran into a zombie so far into the countryside?" Shane asked her, looking alarmed.

"I was surprised too, but by now, there's walkers everywhere nowadays," Alice told the group, giving Sophia's mom a gentle smile.

"Walkers?"

"Zombies, lamebrains, living dead, undead, etcetera. Same thing."

"Are you bit, Sophia? Is that a scratch? Did one of things scratch you?" A big, beady eyed man suddenly exclaimed, yanking Sophia roughly towards him when he noticed the cut on her face.

"Ed—

"Shut up, woman! Answer me, did it get ya?!" Ed interrupted the woman's plea.

"No," Sophia whimpered, squirming in his grip. "It's just a branch scratch, daddy"

"Here," Alice said, swinging her backpack off of her shoulder just as Shane placed a warning hand on Ed's shoulder. "I'll take a look." She didn't like the way the father was manhandling his daughter and she also didn't like the way the mother cowered away from him.

"Do you want me to do it?" Lori asked Carol. At the same time Shane asked, "you're a nurse?"

"Doctor, actually," Alice said removing her kit from the bag, handing it out to Lori, "be my guest," Alice told her, a little annoyed at her behavior. When both Lori and Carol shook their heads, Alice turned back to Sophia.

"It's not even going to leave a scar. I'll must put some antiseptic on it, but I'm going to clean it first. This is going to sting a tiny bit." she told Sophia, smiling slightly at her.

"It's been a difficult time for everyone. How have you been holding up? Didn't run into too much trouble getting here?" Shane asked her as she began to clean Sophia's cut.

"No, not really… it's been a dreadful bore out there," Alice replied, shaking her head causing Lori to stare at her with her mouth gaping open like a fish. "That was a joke. Sorry," Alice explained dully a few moments later. "It's been really tough," she finished lamely.

"I'm Dale," a bearded man in a fisherman's hat interrupted the awkward exchange when she finished tending to Sophia's cut, "I can take a look at your car. And Jim here's a mechanic."

"You can stay in our camp," Shane added, "having a doctor here would really put some of us at ease."

Presently, Alice had a huge headache. She felt completely exhausted. Looking around the camp, she finally noticed how nice it actually was. In comparison, her and Glenn had been slumming it. There was a large RV, a number of chairs, clothing lines hung up, scattered pots and pans and a water cooler. Besides, being in such a large group would offer her protection. She knew for a fact that Glenn would want to stay in their campsite. She wasn't sure about Merle and Daryl. Well, maybe Merle would like it, Alice thought when she caught a glimpse of two beautiful blondes standing near the RV. She wondered for a split second if Daryl preferred blondes to brunettes before shaking the silly thought away.

"I'm traveling with three other people," Alice admitted hesitantly, "is it okay if they stay here too?" She heard Ed scoff so she added, "we have our own supplies. We can pull our own weight."

"I think we can all agree that they are welcome here too," Dale said, looking around the camp for confirmation.

"I'd like to meet your group members," Shane told her. His tone left no room for argument.

Alice shrugged noncommittedly, but internally she was praying to God that Merle Dixon would be on his best behavior.

I am glad that you are enjoying the story and the funny moments I add :) I will for sure be writing a chapter from Daryl's perspective and hopefully that will clarify what both parties are starting to feel. And in my head, I do picture Alicia V. as Alice. I am not totally going to follow everything that happens in the TV show, but I do want to have the original gang included at least at the start of the story because I think it will allow for Daryl's and Alice's character growth (but it will diverge from the TV show soon). I hope the characters' behavior is not too OOC (let me know if it is. I am trying my best). The story is a little slow right now, but it will be progressing quickly after the first couple of chapters-I just need to set the scene for the trip up to the CDC (where Alice will feel right in her element!)