A/N: Thank you for reading my fiction, I hope you are enjoying it!

I know I said this chapter would be longer, but I didn't feel like the festivities were a good time to go into the kind of stuff that's inevitably coming up in the story, even if they aren't going to be quite as festive as usual (or maybe because of it).

I still wanted to post an update before the end of the year, though, so this is what I came up with.

Happy celebrations to everyone and stay safe! See you next year 😊

* There are two trigger warnings in the end notes.


Michonne felt like she'd travelled back in time to when she was in high school and had spent many an afternoon lip-locked with her then boyfriend. She'd followed Daryl's lead the previous night, as she'd told him she would, and that's exactly where he'd led her: a fairly innocent make-out session. And she'd enjoyed every second of it! In the middle of the apocalypse, she had found someone who seemed to be just starting their romantic life, and she was excited at the prospect of being invited along for the journey. It was almost as if she might be getting the opportunity to relive this special part of her life to balance out the hell in which the world currently found itself.


When Daryl had told Michonne he hadn't had a lot of practice with physical intimacy, he hadn't been completely forthcoming. While the statement had technically been true, the fact was he'd only had one experience, and a sorry excuse for one at that. It'd been with a girl he'd thought was hanging around their place because of Merle. To his complete surprise, she'd cornered him one day and, before he'd known what was happening, she'd pushed him down on the bed, unzipped his pants, sucked him just until he was hard enough, and sank onto him before moving up and down a few times while rubbing herself. It had all happened so fast he'd barely managed to ask her to stop, which didn't matter anyway, since she had simply ignored his request. She had then gotten up, straightened out her skirt, and walked away after saying 'tell your cheating, piece-of-shit brother this is for Brenda'. Between this and the two less-than-positive reactions he'd gotten for his scars, it was pretty clear he was better off on his own, so that had been that.

But with 'Chonne it'd been completely different; he'd felt like a part of what was happening as opposed to just being a prop. Granted, they hadn't gotten too far, but to him it had been a lot. And he'd enjoyed every second of it! What's more, she had also seemed to like it. After a while, he'd started to loosen up and to become aware of her reactions, so he'd decided to explore, finding a spot on her neck that elicited a particularly sensuous response. He, on his side, had discovered he very much enjoyed it when she breathed and moaned close to his ear.

And now he was waking up with his arms around her for the second time, a huge smile across his face. He felt her stir and knew they had to get going, but that was the very last thing he wanted to do. Maybe just a little bit more? He decided to try that spot he'd found and see what happened. "Mmmmmm" was Michonne's reaction as she was roused by the pleasurable feeling, tilting her head to give him better access.

"Good morning," she said.

"Mornin'," he breathed against her skin before rearranging their bodies, so she was lying on her back with him above her, and shifting his attention to her collarbone, which earned him another moan.

"We should go," Michonne pointed out with no resolve in her voice whatsoever.

"Uh-huh," Daryl answered without stopping.

She hesitated for all of two seconds before abandoning all thoughts of what needed to be done and they ended up fooling around for a good hour or so.


They'd been on the road (or rather, track) for some time, talking a little about themselves with the occasional break to put down walkers. It was like the weirdest date in history.

"So, what did you do before all this? Michonne asked. "I assume Zach, rest his soul, didn't actually get it right?"

"Nah, didn't even come close," Daryl started. "Truth is I didn't do anythin'… odd jobs here and there when we needed money, hunted some… mostly followed Merle's drunk ass around, just scrapin' by," he said looking down. "Wish I done more."

Michonne didn't quite know how to respond. She couldn't care less about what he used, or didn't use, to do. But she had to admit she'd have judged him before; she wouldn't have been able to look past the stereotype. And that would've caused her to miss out on meeting an amazing person. It would appear zombie apocalypses were great for putting things into perspective.

"You know none of that matters now, right? Didn't mean you were any less before either, people were just too quick to assume the worst about everyone else. I'd say a lot of your past experiences actually benefit you now."

"I dunno…" he looked uncertainly at her. "The girl we met; I think she said somethin' like that."

"Marissa? Really?" Michonne asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Yeah. She said I was 'desirable'. Used some fancy words, sounded like a tv show one of Merle's woman liked to watch. Fuckin' nightmare tryin' to get the remote from her."

Michonne racked her brain trying to think of what Daryl could possibly be talking about and then it hit her. "You mean bachelor?" she asked, sounding tickled.

"Yeah, I think that was it. Said you were one too, but she changed the word a little. She made it sound like a good thing," Daryl said. "You I can see…" he trailed, turning red.

"And why is it that you think it's true for me but not for you?"

At that he stopped, the shade of red on his face moving up to crimson, looking positively terrified at having to answer the question. He faced down, shifted on his feet, and spoke in a low tone, almost mumbling, "you're so good with your katana… and you're not afraid, you survived all alone." The crimson deepened, going on dark purple at this point, as he added in a nearly inaudible whisper, "plus you're so beautiful."

Michonne couldn't help but gently move Daryl's head upward so she could look intently into his eyes before bringing their lips together as she entangled her fingers in his hair. After some time, however, they heard the familiar growling and broke the kiss with exasperated sighs before disposing of the inconvenient walkers.

"And how can you possibly conclude you're not just as 'desirable' as you consider me to be?" Michonne resumed the conversation as if there had been no interruption. "You're deadly with your crossbow, you hunt, fish, you're an excellent tracker… I'm seeing a lot more qualities in you then in me." She approached him in a conspiratorial manner and said, "plus, I'll let you in on a little secret," she slowly ran her hand up from his wrist all the way to his shoulder, following the motion with her eyes, which ended up looking directly into his, before she broke their gaze and brought her lips close to his ear to whisper, "you're damn hot."

For a second there she was worried she'd gone too far, as she was pretty sure all his blood flow had been directed to his face. Some of it might have gone a bit lower; she didn't want to ogle, so she wasn't sure. When he seemed to slowly start regaining control of his body, she felt it was safe enough to turn around and give him some privacy to recover. During the not-so-short time it had taken him to do that Michonne put down some more dead, which for once had shown up at an opportune time.

"What did you do before?" Daryl asked, obviously trying to shift the conversation, as they resumed their walk.

"I was a lawyer."

"Lawyer?" he sounded surprised. "You don't look like one."

"Really? And what does a lawyer look like?" she asked sounding amused.

"A greasy weasel tryin' to take advantage of people," he answered. "No offense," he added.

"None taken. There did seem to be a lot of those in the profession, so I can see how you might have gotten that impression." she said as she chuckled. "I was a prosecutor."

"Ah, so you was on the opposite side of Merle even then."

"Merle was arrested?" Michonne asked, not sounding surprised in the least.

"Let's say he got himself into a spot of trouble more than a couple times."

"I can imagine. I don't think we would have crossed paths, though. At least I hope not."

"How come?"

She paused when she realized the implications of her answering the question and censured herself for not being more sensitive in a conversation around this topic. She'd already suspected parental abuse from Daryl's behavior and one or two things he'd said, but that hadn't kept her from being horrified two nights prior when he'd shown her his scars. The things people were capable of doing to each other always disturbed her, no matter how many times and variations she saw. She could imagine that, for someone who had actually lived through it, discussing abuse might not be something they'd be comfortable with, even if it was just in general terms. She decided to give a vague answer and only go into detail if he prodded.

"I worked with more serious crimes, which, from what you said, doesn't sound like what Merle got up to."

"No. Merle was a dickhead, and he did a lotta stupid things, but never nothin' real bad. At least nothin' he told me about," he pondered, and then shook his head, concluding his brother hadn't really been a bad person, so he wouldn't have gone down that path. "So, you worked with stuff like murder?"

"Yeah," she answered.

"And what else?"

"Well… I was in the Crimes against Women and Children Unit," she said with a discreet look at him and waited to take her cue from his reaction.

"Oh," he said. It seemed as though that would be it but, after a while, he went on, "it musta been difficult."

"It was."

There was another long pause before he continued, "did you arrest a lotta people?"

"I would say so, we had a high conviction rate."

"Good!" he said with quite a bit of anger in a slightly raised voice.

She gave his back a brief caress before bringing her hand down to entwine their fingers as they walked on.


A/N: Trigger warnings

- past sexual assault

- discussion of past physical and psychological abuse

I hope you enjoyed the update. Please let me know what you think, your comments always make my day :)