A/N: In this chapter, we will focus on Andrea. I did not like the way this character was portrayed in the show, so she will be written a little differently here and with an altered backstory. I'm still not sure if Andrea will be a 'main' character for this story, but I had fun writing this. I think her character could have been great.

XxX

Chapter 12.

Someone Else.

Andrea.

Andrea lay in the back bed of the RV, watching the only window with steady blue eyes. It was the only vision of the outside world, emitting a soft glow that sometimes faltered, like someone was waving a flashlight in the distance. It was the middle of the night, and like every night, she was not sleeping. Her mind wandered, reluctant to shut down completely, always drawing images of walkers and blood to the forefront if she dared to begin to rest.

Her dad used to have an RV like this one. She was thinking about that tonight. She used to run straight for the door when he got back from his fishing trips and he would throw it open just before she got there and wrap her up in a hug. It was ironic because she had been running for her life, dead people lurching after her, when she had spotted this RV on the highway. Dale had thrown open the door to let them in, and for a moment, in her panic, she thought she saw her dad standing there. It could have been him, because she had not seen him die. But the reality was grim and thinking about that RV made her sick to her stomach now.

It had been over two weeks since Dale had rescued them, and every night she lay here with her arms folded tightly around herself, trying to hold the fear in, thinking through the silence.

But that night, she heard voices.

Carol had come to visit Dale on top of the RV.

"What about you? What did you do before all this?"

Andrea tuned into the conversation, suddenly curious. Carol was saying that she was a housewife – which is what Andrea had expected. She was one of those women who stayed home to raise the kids while her asshole husband did whatever he wanted, with whomever he wanted. Andrea was unhappily reminded of Jacob and a scowl slipped onto her face.

Dale responded, "We wanted kids, my wife and I, but it just wasn't meant to be, I guess."

He liked to talk, but he never talked about his family. Andrea had brought it up once when she found a picture of him and his wife in the RV, but the look on his face was enough to keep her from ever mentioning it again. It was common courtesy in the camp not to talk about anyone who was not there – family members, friends – because they were probably dead. Everyone knew it, and most of them accepted it and dealt with it on their own. Families stuck closer together. Friends never left one another alone. But some of them had come to the camp without anyone. Dale was like that, and so was that kid, Glenn, and Jacqui, and T-dog, and Jim, and Roy – Andrea suddenly wondered how they did it, how they managed it.

She had her sister, but they didn't talk about what had happened. Amy was the spitting image of their mother, so every time the girl smiled, Andrea was reminded of what she had lost. She saw the blood again, felt the grief like a punch to the gut.

Dale went on,

"You know, the world is changing. If you ever wanted to remake yourself, be someone else, now would be the time."

His words made her wonder if the world had really ended out there, if Rick Grimes was right about no help coming. If there was no military, no government, no police force, then they were really, truly alone out here. If she wanted to start over, to become someone else, she could do it now. Amy had not seen her in years, and no one else in this camp knew anything about her.

She could forget about her life, her mistakes, her regrets.

Andrea curled up on her side, wrapping her pillow around her head to block out their conversation. She was looking into the dark hall of the RV now, where the soft light of a glowstick illuminated the floor. Amy was looking at her from the table bed. Andrea stared for a minute to be sure she saw it right, and her sister blinked, vibrant blue eyes turning a little green in the weird light.

"Hey, you okay?" Andrea whispered.

"I can't sleep," Amy responded, her voice husky. It sounded like she had already been asleep. She reached down and toyed with the glowstick.

She was a grownup – barely – but she was still afraid of the dark.

"Nightmares?"

Amy nodded sullenly.

"Do you want to sleep with me?"

It almost seemed like she would turn the offer down, but she rolled out of bed suddenly and crept down the hallway, climbing over Andrea so she could sleep by the wall. She pulled the covers up to her neck and stared at Andrea, like she wanted to say something.

"Practicing sleeping with your eyes open?"

Amy smiled, but the expression slid off of her face too quickly. "I had a dream about college. I was on campus and then…"

It was the way that every nightmare ended nowadays.

"Well, the way this is going, you won't have to worry about flunking out. You can just tell everybody you graduated."

Amy looked wounded, "Who told you?"

"Oh, just everybody I talked to. Your first mistake was telling mom. You know she-" Andrea cut herself off, but the warmth of remembering her mother had already flooded through her, followed by a fresh wave of grief. She cleared her throat and tried to keep what she was feeling out of her face – a talent her father had passed on. "Get some sleep."

It was like she was eighteen again, lying in bed that last night before she went across the country to go to school. Amy had a bad dream and crawled into bed with her. Andrea remembered being so frustrated with her but letting her stay because it would be a while before she came home.

It ended up being a year before she saw her again.

XxX

Andrea rose at dawn, because there was sunlight pouring through the little RV window, right onto her face. It was already starting to heat up and she was sticky with sweat. Amy had taken all the blankets and cocooned herself, while Andrea lay spread-eagle across the flat sheet. Everything ached, like she had run a marathon in her sleep, and her head was throbbing.

A typical morning.

She left Amy sleeping and crept past Dale, who had passed out in the driver's seat clutching a pillow and drooling.

Camp was bustling: Shane was striding across her path, nodding a hello as he passed; Lori was with Morales by their tent, whispering with him; Carl was dragging himself from their tent to the fire, while Sophia scurried behind her mother to join him; Glenn was hauling a backpack onto his shoulders, arguing quietly with Jim about how to read his map. Andrea felt a little overwhelmed at first, standing dumbly at the foot of the RV steps, yawning, until Lori came over to her.

"Louis is sick."

"How bad is it?" Andrea asked, looking pointedly around them, "Is someone going on a run?"

"He has a cold, I think. It could be a sinus infection. I'm not sure." Lori crossed her arms tightly, glancing back at their tent, "But he looks pitiful. He has a fever. I think Glenn is going out for medicine, if they can't find any."

Andrea knew who 'they' was immediately, because Shane reappeared with Rick, and they had a bag of medicine with them. Lori touched Andrea on the shoulder and rushed to the tent with them.

It was too early for all of this.

Andrea yawned and slumped down on the step.

Dale pushed the door open, gently nudging her away, and she groaned as she got back to her feet.

"Busy morning," he commented. He had deep circles under his eyes from taking the sunset to midnight watch, and not sleeping in. But he always did that. "What's going on?"

She relayed the information she had, and added, "I think the alphas have got it."

"Alphas, huh?"

"Might as well be."

"I guess." He heaved a sigh, "What are you up to today?"

She answered without thinking, like her brain had chosen at random, "Fishing."

"Want some company?"

"No. I wanna be alone for a while." She realized her tone was a little harsh, and Dale was frowning at her rejection, "We can team up next time."

"Okay. You know where to find me if you change your mind."

She made her way to the water alone, feeling suddenly free. But her desire to actually fish waned as she paddled into the middle of the lake. She toyed with the rod, occasionally spinning the boat to view a different shore, slowly but surely driving herself away from the camp until it was just a little blip in the distance.

It was nice to be alone for once.

She used to fish when she was younger. Her dad taught her. He was a dictator on the boat, correcting every slight wrong, even if she had simply misnamed a type of tackle. She liked the idea of being with him out on the water with him and she asked to go every time, but once they were out there, she regretted it. What did he want from her, anyway? When they argued, she would always say she could just go get fish from the store if she wanted it so badly. He would ask her what if she had no money, or what if the store was closed. She had spent her whole life with this skill that didn't interest or benefit her until now – until the world ended.

It was almost like he knew.

Andrea sat up again, sighing, and prepped the pole. Before she cast, though, something glinting on the shore caught her eye.

She sat waiting until it glinted again.

It was just a patch of overgrowth leaning into the water, far enough away that it could have just been the sun reflecting on the lake – but for some reason it held her interest. She started paddling, leaving the deep water and coming up on the shore.

She forced the boat into the reeds, and for a moment the glinting evaded her.

And then a walker lurched out of the shallows.

Water poured off of him in waves.

His clothes were caked with mud, making him look like a monster.

He crashed into her boat and fell into it, clawing his way over the seat toward her.

Andrea screamed, throwing herself backward and flipping out of the boat. She hit the ground in the shallow water and raced for the shore, thrusting through the cluttered reeds, her heart thrashing in her throat. She forced her way through a briar patch, the thorns raking her face, and jumped up the steep bank. The walker had flipped himself out of the boat and he was floundering toward her in the shallow water, tripping over the mess of reeds she had left behind.

She paused there on the shore, staring at it, adrenaline telling her to run – but where?

She was on the opposite end of the lake. Either direction would take her back to camp. She started to the right, stopped, and went to the left, but indecision froze her again.

She was going to lead it back to the others.

It made it to land, dragging itself onto the bank and finding its feet. Andrea made a wide circle, leading it around, trying to buy herself time to think. Her heart began to slow as she got a better look at it – not a monster, but something that used to be a man. He was not very fast, or very smart. She led him into a few bushes, and he crashed into them before he figured out he could go around.

She forced herself to swallow her terror and think.

The gun.

Andrea had left her gun in the boat. It was usually on her hip, but whenever she sat in a boat she set it on the seat beside her, like her dad used to do.

She made another circle, wider, luring him away from the shore, and then doubling back. She pushed through the reeds again, waded into the water, and grabbed at the boat with shaking hands. It was right there. Her hands trembled around it.

The walker was in the water. He splashed loudly toward her.

Andrea turned, flicked the safety off the gun, and backed deeper into the lake, hesitating again at the distinctly human shape of her target. But there was no choice.

She shot once, hitting it in the face.

The walker collapsed in the water, lying facedown for a moment on the surface and then sinking to the bottom. Andrea stood absolutely still, holding the gun ready, her skin blazing hot as the adrenaline spiked and began to ebb.

She was okay. She was fine.

She dragged the boat in a wide arc around where the walker had sunk, getting it up to the shore so she could climb back in. She sat there, soaking wet, the gun on the bench beside her, and rowed back across the water. When she was only a hundred feet from shore, she dropped her paddles and vomited over the side.

"Hey, you alright?"

She looked up sharply, finding Rick and Shane on the shore holding weapons, waving to her. They had walked up to their knees in the water.

Andrea gave them a thumbs-up but said nothing. She thought she might cry, or vomit again, or both. Her dad always said there was no crying allowed on the boat.

I bet Jacob would have been walker food, Andrea thought. She forced herself to pick up a fishing rod and bait it, working through trembling hands. Maybe that was what Dale meant. Andrea had always had steel in her, from how she was raised and who her father was, but she was never pushed this far before. Her life had been challenging sometimes, but never in this way.

She held her head high and kept her back straight, pretending she was unfazed.

And maybe pretending would make it real.