AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I need to make it clear that this will have some canon parts to it, but it will be breaking with the show a great deal.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Daryl was almost certain that the herd that Maggie and Glenn reported wasn't real. At the very least, it wasn't a herd of such epic proportions that it kept them stuck in a store overnight. He sincerely doubted that such a herd, if it had existed and had surrounded them because they'd caught the attention of the Walkers, would simply dissipate when morning rose to allow the two of them to return to the prison just in time to avoid them being found out by a search party.

Looking around, Daryl didn't know if anybody listening bought the story about the herd or if they were all simply willing to suspend their disbelief to hear more about the area that Glenn and Maggie had uncovered when they weren't holed up somewhere.

Daryl wouldn't want to deny the two any privacy they had found for a good quality fuck. A private moment, these days, was hard to come by. You either had to be pretty sneaky, or you had to simply accept that everybody was going to know your business and decide that you just didn't care.

Daryl had learned not to care, even if things had made him a little uncomfortable in the beginning. Everyone in the prison knew that he and Carol were together—even more so now than before, perhaps, with the existence of the little one they'd accidentally created—and there was no need to try to be coy about things. Life was short and he enjoyed Carol in every way possible.

Of course, Daryl and Carol weren't living in close quarters with her father and baby sister. He could see how that might rub some of the shine off Glenn's good time.

"The place isn't half as picked over as we thought it would be," Glenn said.

"And yet you come back practically empty-handed," Daryl commented.

"We were in a hurry," Maggie somewhat stammered out.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Had to get outta there 'fore the herd caught up with you again," Daryl offered. "I forgot."

"The point is that there's some stuff there that's worth going back for," Glenn said.

"I bet there's a lot worth goin' back there for," Daryl mused.

He felt Carol's foot make contact with his shin under the table and he swallowed down his laughter. He cast a glance at her, but she wasn't making eye contact with him. She was sitting, her chin on her hand, smiling at the two storytellers like they were absolutely fascinating. There was no indication that she was every bit as aware as Daryl was that the two of them hadn't been looking for a single thing out there except an orgasm—which they'd very likely found—and now she was kicking Daryl under the table to keep him from embarrassing anyone.

"We'll arrange a run," Rick said. "Tomorrow or the next day. We'll take a couple of vehicles and clear the whole area at once."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Glenn said quickly.

Daryl swallowed down his urge to point out that Glenn wouldn't want anyone disturbing his love nest. Instead, he turned his attention to watching Sophia at a distance where she sat on the floor and drove the few pieces of a wooden train that she treasured across the floor and hauled rocks and other small items around in one of the open cars that was made for hauling just such little pieces.

He lost himself watching Sophia long enough that he missed most of Glenn's reasoning over why it was a bad idea to take a run team, and had to ask that he repeat himself.

Glenn only looked slightly annoyed. He'd probably spent most of the night getting laid and he was probably in the best mood he'd been in for a very long time. It was going to take a lot to piss him off.

"It would draw too much attention," Glenn said. "We're not alone out here."

"You saw somethin' besides Walkers out there?" Daryl asked.

"We saw tire tracks," Maggie said. "Fresh ones and a fair amount of them. The area near the shopping center had some dirt roads that led out through the woods. We didn't go that way, but we did see the tracks."

"You trackers, now?" Daryl asked. "How do you know they was fresh tracks?"

"It's been probably a month since it rained," Glenn said. "We can't swear that the tracks happened last week, but we know that they happened since it rained. They would have washed away, wouldn't they?"

Daryl hummed.

"They'da washed away," he confirmed.

"If there are people out there," Rick said, "then that's all the more reason that more of us should go and not just send the two of you again. You don't know who's out there or how far away they are. You don't know if they could come back. It would make more sense to take a group."

"There's safety in numbers, yes," Glenn said. "But it's just like it was in Atlanta. It's just like it's always been. There's safety in numbers, but there's also danger in numbers. If we get too many of us out there, we're tripping over each other. We're not as effective. At the same time, we draw more attention. Maggie and I going in with one truck isn't going to draw too much attention. If we all roll in there, we're almost sure to get the attention of someone."

"If there's anybody around," Daryl offered.

Glenn nodded.

"I don't like the idea of Maggie going out there," Hershel said. "Not if there are people out there that we don't know anything about."

"Daddy—I'm grown up now," Maggie said. "And we don't even know what kind of people they are. They might be good people."

"And they might not be," Hershel said. "We've found both kinds."

"We gonna find all kinds," Daryl offered, "if we go on long enough."

"Glenn and I are good at runs," Maggie said. "All we need is something big enough to bring back whatever we find. We can explore the area. If there's more than we can get in a day, we'll go back. It's worth it, really, just to know what's in that direction. There might be something we can use, especially with the winter coming."

Rick and Hershel both looked at Daryl. He was pretty sure that they wanted him to say something about the two of them not going on the run, but he didn't feel there was really anything to say. The two of them had proven themselves many times over. They were good at runs. They were capable. There was really no reason to deny them the run if they wanted to take it.

And Daryl wasn't really in the mood to take the run himself. He knew full well, too, that he'd be "elected" for the run if more than just Glenn and Maggie were deemed necessary to complete it.

"That truck T and I found is plenty big enough for whatever the hell you might find," Daryl said. "We loaded her down, though, so it's gonna take a couple days to clear her out an' move everything to storage. Less, maybe, if we get everybody workin'. Once it's clear—it oughta get you there an' back if you don't detour too far."

Daryl laughed to himself at the variety of responses that he got. Maggie and Glenn looked ready to kiss him. Rick looked like he normally did—concerned or constipated, whichever it was that put that deep line between his eyebrows. Hershel looked a little annoyed. And Carol looked pleased—and that was really the only expression that mattered to Daryl.

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up.

"If you'll excuse me," he said, "I got some things on that truck I been meanin' to clear off since you two went an' got'cha selves lost all last night."

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"I don't pretend that I know a lot about this stuff," Daryl said, "but—that's why the hell I come to you about it."

There was no real love between Daryl and Lori Grimes.

They didn't love each other, and they didn't hate each other. They merely accepted each other's existence and moved on with their lives.

There were things that Daryl had done that Lori didn't agree with. She thought he was, overall, a dirty and ignorant redneck. Whether or not she'd based that opinion of him on fact or first impression, it didn't matter. Daryl had seen her curl her lip at him more than once when she thought he wasn't looking. He'd seen the expression, too, that Lori sometimes made at Carol when she was reminded that Carol and Daryl were not only a couple, but they were clearly intimately involved.

Even though Carol wouldn't ever say anything about it, Daryl was pretty sure that he'd heard Lori trying to convince Carol that Daryl was probably bad for her.

But he didn't care because he wasn't going to pretend that Lori was his favorite person either.

He had seen Lori Grimes manipulate two men to the point that they'd been ready to kill one another over what he assumed must be the best pussy that either of them had ever tasted—as his brother had always been fond of saying.

Daryl didn't care, one way or another, who anybody was fucking. As long as Carol wasn't fucking anybody else, it didn't affect him one way or another. Lori had been fucking Shane solidly when the Dixons had first found the group, to the point that Daryl had assumed that the two of them had been together for a long time. He'd never been able to figure out, though, why they were trying to hide their escapades—unless it was that they didn't want her kid to know what they were doing—until he'd been out hunting with Merle one day and Merle had filled in enough of the story for him that Daryl had somehow missed. Merle liked gossip a good bit more than Daryl did, though, so he paid good attention to it. Lori had been married to Shane's partner as a cop. Her husband had been killed just as the world had gone belly up. She'd ridden Shane's dick all the way to safety.

At least that was how Merle had told it. And he was at least half-right because Shane made sure that Lori and her kid, first and foremost, were safe—just like any man in love would do, Daryl assumed.

But then Rick had come back just as Merle had disappeared out of Daryl's life. Rick had been the reason, really, that Daryl had lost his brother—though Daryl understood that Merle had contributed a great deal to his own downfall. Rick Grimes was their fearless leader or, at the very least, he pretended to be such. Rick Grimes was a decent guy, but he had a bit of a power issue from time to time. He wanted to be leader and most of them let him be leader because it was a shit job. Besides that, every group needed someone to follow and it was easier to let him lead than it was to stage some kind of revolt.

Rick wasn't a problem in himself, and his coming back hadn't been an issue for the group, but it had caused some trouble with Lori and Shane. Rather than admit what had happened while they'd believe him to be dead, Lori and Shane had launched into a game of trying to pretend that they hadn't been fucking like the end of the world was within spitting distance.

Rick wanted his wife back, naturally, and Shane didn't want to let his beloved piece go.

And Lori seemed unable to decide between the two, or else she was unwilling to ever let go of any of that safety—as Merle had identified what she'd seen in Shane—that she found in either one of them.

They hadn't done a very good job of hiding the tension that built up between the three of them. Daryl hadn't minded it, of course, because it didn't have much to do with him, but he'd still kept his eyes on all of them to make sure that the explosion of their shit-show didn't land all over him and his.

Shane was dead now and, arguably, so was Lori and Rick's marriage.

But nobody talked about that with their mouths even if everyone talked about it with their eyes.

Daryl didn't care what they did with their lives, but he recognized that Lori could have changed the outcome of things if she'd handled herself differently. He didn't care who she fucked, but he hadn't liked her manipulation of the two men. Honesy could have made things work out very differently—but that was none of Daryl's business.

And the only reason he'd ever mentioned it to anyone was to make sure that Carol knew that he appreciated the idea of honesty and openness and, apparently, she did too.

"Nobody gives a woman a baby shower when she's not even showing, Daryl," Lori said.

Daryl chewed at his cuticle.

"But they could," Daryl said.

"It's not what people do," Lori said.

"Comin' back from the dead to eat people weren't what people used to do," Daryl said. "But they sure as shit do it now. It's what I want."

Lori laughed to herself and it crawled around under Daryl's skin.

"Well, just like you would tell Sophia, you don't always get what you want," Lori said.

Daryl didn't hide his expression, but he did bite his tongue. He knew about a thousand times more about not getting everything you wanted in life than this bitch ever had. He resisted the urge to tell her that—and to tell her what she could do to herself, something he was sure that her husband had given up doing some time ago. Daryl swallowed back his annoyance.

"She oughta have somethin' like that," Daryl said. "We got the time an' the calm for it."

"You don't do something like that this early," Lori said.

"Why can't you do it any damn time you want?" Daryl asked.

"Because a pregnancy that new, Daryl? Sometimes they don't even make it," Lori said. "It just ends." Daryl's stomach twisted up. He returned his thumb to his mouth to soothe away the feeling of nausea. "I didn't mean to upset you," Lori said. "It's just the way it is sometimes. You don't want to celebrate too early. Besides—there are things that I need now for Judith. I can't wait three or four more months."

"Fuck you," Daryl stammered. He surprised himself to hear the words tumble out of his mouth. He hadn't mean to say them. He'd meant to keep them for himself. Carol wouldn't be happy when she heard that they'd dribble out of his mouth—and she would hear about it. But he hadn't been able to stop himself and he couldn't suck the words back up out of existence. Now that he'd said it, though, and knowing that he was likely to be scolded for having said something crass, he figured he might as well say all that he had to say. "Take whatever the hell you want. She'll get your damn leftovers, like she always does, an' I'll go lookin' for some shit later. I don't need your help—some damn body else'll help me."

Daryl turned, ignoring everything that Lori tried to say to him, and walked away as quickly as he could. He headed toward the fence. He'd decide what he was going to do once he got down there. For now he just needed the air.

What he'd said to Lori hadn't taken away the nauseous feeling entirely, but it had helped him feel at least a little bit better—for the time being.