A/N: I do not own The Walking Dead in any way, shape or form.

TRIGGER ALERT: There are mentions of rape in this chapter and and periodically mentions of it from this chapter on.

So, it's been a long, hard, cold week for Texas and Louisiana. I hope everyone who was hit by the storm made it out safely because that is definitely the worst winter I've ever endured in the two decades I've lived in Louisiana before. I hope everyone kept as warm and as safe as possible if you were affected by the storm.

Chapter 11

She was terrified. She was curled up in the corner of the room, tears streaming down her face. She was clutching at her injured left shoulder ,she felt the glass shards still in her shoulder, blood seeping from the wounds. She watched as he paced a few feet from her, the broken bottle still clutched in his tight grip.

She knew he had a temper but she didn't know what had set him off. She had come over earlier in the day to spend time with him, and they had been having fun, until he had gotten a phone call a few short hours ago. She didn't know what the call had been about, but whatever it was darkened his mood immediately.

He had grabbed a beer from the fridge and downed it, and then another and another. He had slowed down after the third one but his mood was no better than when he had started. Her shoulder was hurt, and she wanted to leave, but she didn't dare to move and draw attention to herself.

She shifted her injured shoulder by accident, making her whimper in pain, and she instantly regretted it. That one small noise had drew his eyes back to her, his anger filled brown ones meeting her wide green ones. She seen him take a step toward her and she quickly curled into a tight ball, giving him her back.

She wished she hadn't when she felt a sharp pain slice down her back before she heard glass shatter from across the room. She felt him grab her wrists in a bruising grip and jerk her to her feet. "You stupid bitch!" he screamed in her face before he threw her across the room.

TWD

It was nighttime outside the window. The sky was pitch black, millions of stars dotting the cloudless night sky. Everything was peaceful outside. But that wasn't the case inside the window. Daryl was sitting in the single chair inside the room, the same room he had been in little more than a week ago.

Only this time he wasn't the one in the bed, this time that privilege went to Adrian. It struck him odd that their roles were reversed this time around. He didn't know why it bothered him and he didn't feel like delving into the reasons behind it. Rick had certainly stirred the pot when they had returned from their 'simple errand'.

The second he had pulled her bleeding and unconscious body from the car, everyone freaked out, but no one had freaked out as bad as Kale and Carl. Daryl looked over Shane, Rick, and Adrian and could guess what had happened. Rick had demanded someone get Hershel and Daryl seen Dale run from the corner of his eye. Daryl said nothing as he watched Rick carry her to the house so Hershel could look at her.

Everyone had crowded into the house after Rick had put Adrian in the same room Daryl had been laid up in. Hershel walked into the room shortly after and closed the door behind him. The tension and anxiety in the living room was high, everyone feeling it but no one saying anything, mostly because the only two people who knew what happened weren't in the room. Rick was with Hershel and Adrian and Shane was busy throwing a returning Randall back into the shed.

A while later Hershel and Rick walked out of the the room. "How is she?" Kale asked the second he seen the old vet. "She's sleeping. She has some scratches and bruises, a small cut that required a few stitches, and a concussion. I won't know how bad it is until she wakes up. She shouldn't have been allowed to sleep in the first place, but Rick said she passed out and couldn't afford to keep fighting her awake." Hershel told the whole room but looking at the worried young man.

"Well why didn't you wake her up?! If she's not supposed to be sleeping then why didn't you wake her up?!" Kale yelled, panicking. "She's already been asleep too long for it to make any difference. At this point we just have to let her rest and allow her body to heal. There's nothing more we can do until she wakes up." Hershel told him calmly. "Can I see go see her?" he asked, his eyes darting in the direction of her room, a light tremble in his voice. "Yes, but remember, she needs to rest now." her told the boy.

Kale all but ran to the room. "What the hell happened out there?" Lori asked. "And why is Randall back? I thought the point of going out was to leave him out there." Andrea said. "Randall knows where we are. He told us that he went to school with Maggie, which means he knows who she is and where she lives, where we live. If he had gotten back to his people he could've lead them right back to us." Rick told them. "I'm going to take the night to think about what needs to be done about Randall." Rick told everyone before he left the house.

TWD

It wasn't until after dinner that Daryl had walked into Adrian's room. He didn't know what compelled him to want to be there, but he felt like it was the right thing to do. After all she had done for him since they had left Atlanta, especially that day he got hurt in the woods, he felt like it was the least he could do.

He thought about that day as he sat in the chair by the bed. She had risked her own safety to get down to him, and then helped him time and time again to get him back to safety. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself how grateful he was for all she had done for him that day. She had done more for him in a single day than anyone had ever done for him in his whole life, even Merle, he admitted to himself.

He looked at her laying on the bed in the dim light of the lamp, giving her a good look now that nobody was watching him. She was a little pale, but no more than normal. One of the women had come in and changed her clothes and unbraided her hair. The outside of her right arm was one long bruise and there were scratches here and there. She had a small piece of gauze taped to her right temple, a bruise about the size of a baseball showing around the edges of the gauze and she had a smaller bruise on her left cheekbone.

Overall she didn't look bad, it was just the concussion that had Hershel worried. As he looked at her injuries he wondered what had happened. Rick and Shane had gotten into a fight, he knew that much, but how Adrian had gotten so hurt was the question.

He couldn't imagine Rick hurting her, not intentionally anyway.

Shane was hot headed enough that he might not have an issue fighting whoever got in his way. And knowing Adrian's personality like he did he wouldn't have doubted that she jumped into the fight.

Daryl didn't know how long he sat there and watched her sleep, as creepy as that sounded, before she started shifting in her sleep. Her face turned from peaceful to scared and she started to whimper in her sleep, her shifting turning restless.

She was having a nightmare, he realized.

He got up from the chair and leaned over the bed, putting his hand on her shoulder to shake her awake, but as soon as he touched her she started to fight back, still asleep.

Daryl grabbed her hands when they started to get to close to his face and her fighting and whimpering got worse. Daryl let go of her hands to grab onto her upper arms firmly and gave her a good hard shake, which probably wasn't good for her concussion but this woman had already slapped him once.

Adrian's eyes flew open to see someone standing above her, which caused her to panic and fight back. "Damn it, woman, will ya stop fightin me?" she heard from the man above her. It was then that she finally got a good look at who was holding onto her.

"Daryl?" she asked, his hulking form finally coming into focus.

Adrian looked around her surroundings with wide panic filled eyes.

She was back at the farm house and in a bed. She looked back up to Daryl and gave him a hesitant nod to let him know she was okay now. He slowly released her arms and went back to the chair he had been in a few minutes prior. Adrian slowly pushed herself into a sitting position and rubbed her shaking hands against her face.

She took a few minutes to collect herself before she looked over to Daryl.

"Not as comfortable as I made it seem, is it?" she asked him, a small grin on her face thinking of when their positions were reversed. But her smile fell quickly.

"What happened?" she asked.

"What do you remember?" he asked her.

"I remember the shitstain, better known as Shane, practically body slamming me into a truck. I don't remember anything clearly after that. Just blurs and noise." she told him slowly, trying to make sure she was remembering it right.

"Seriously? Why the hell'd he do that?" he asked.

"Because I tried to stop him from killing Rick. Fat lot of good that did." she told him.

"So, how bad is it?" she asked him.

"Your body or your injuries?"

"Both."

"Well, you defiantly look like you were hit by a truck."

Then he scoffed at her failed attempt of glaring at him. "Scrapped up and bruised pretty bad. Few stitches in your head and a pretty nasty concussion." he told her. Adrian hummed in understanding and realized her eyes were drooping closed again. "Get some more sleep. Hershel said you needed to rest." he told her as he started to get up to leave.

"Daryl?" she whispered as she laid back down on her right side.

"Hmm."

"Will you stay until I fall back asleep?" she mumbled, fighting against the sleep that threatened to take her.

"What for?" he asked, a little uncomfortable at the request.

"I don't want him to come back."

"Shane ain't gonna touch you again. I'll break his neck if he tries." he told her, surprised by the words he'd just spoken.

"No...not Shane.." she mumbled before she lost the fight against the sleep that wanted to take her into a dreamless sleep.

TWD

Adrian woke up the next morning to Hershel knocking on her door. Hershel looked her over and told her that she could go about her daily routine, as long as she took it easy. She only had a headache but he didn't want her to make herself worse.

Maggie brought her a change of clothes and told her to take a shower, she looked like she could use one. Adrian wasn't sure of that was a good thing or a bad thing, but after the day she had yesterday, she was going to take it as a bad thing. Adrian felt much more human after her shower. She dressed in the light blue jeans and black long sleeve Maggie had given her. She was thankful for the long sleeve, it was getting colder outside by the day and Adrian tended to get cold easy.

Adrian walked outside to see everyone milling around camp. She was walking through when she heard Rick mention that Daryl was in the shed with Randall. Curious as to what could be going on in there, she headed in that direction.

She got her answer before she even opened the door. She opened the door just in time to see Daryl punch Randall in the face, again if Randall's face was anything to go by. Daryl looked at the door to see who was coming in to see Adrian close the door behind her.

"What's going on in here?" she asked, looking between the two men. "Just having a chat. What're you doin' in here?" he asked her. "Heard Rick say you were in here, just curious I guess." she said as she walked over to the frustrated redneck.

Randall was laying on the floor on his side, his arms handcuffed behind his back, groaning in pain. Daryl looked down at the beaten and bloody man and Adrian could start to feel the frustration coming off of him as he started to pace, glaring down at Randall. Not wanting to get in his way Adrian stepped back and sat on the table that was behind them.

"How many in your group?" Daryl asked Randall.

"Man, I told you." Randall insisted.

"You ain't told me shit!" Daryl growled before he started to punch Randall in the face again, causing Adrian to wince at the sound. When Randall didn't answer his question to Daryl's satisfaction, Daryl slowly pulled his long knife from it's sheath.

Randall's eyes got big see what Daryl was doing. "No no no no." Randall kept repeating, his eyes on the knife. Daryl lunged forward and slammed the tip of the knife into the floor, inches from Randall's nuts, causing both Randall and Adrian to jump at the sudden movement.

"How many?!" Daryl yelled at him.

The tactic worked because Randall started talking very quickly.

"30! 30! 30 guys!" Randall yelled.

"Where?" Daryl asked.

Adrian winced again when Daryl yanked off the bandage taped to Randall's leg when the boy hesitated.

"I don't know! We never stayed anywhere more than one night." Randall told him.

"Scoutin'? Plannin' on stayin' local?" Daryl asked as he ran the tip of his knife over the scab on Randall's leg wound.

"I don't know, man, they left me behind." Randall told him, trying to make Daryl believe his words.

"You ever pick off a scab before? You start real slow, but eventually you just gotta rip it off." Daryl told him, running the tip of his knife into the wound just a little harder.

"Daryl, that's just disgusting." Adrian told him, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she watched him.

Adrian felt bad for the boy, she really did, but she wasn't going to stop Daryl. Randall had information that they needed to know, and he was giving Daryl the information, but not without a lot of persuasion from Daryl.

"Why you letting him do this to me?! I helped Rick get you in the car after you passed out! I drove the car so Rick could help save that guy that tried to kill him!" Randall asked, hoping she would help him.

"Do I look stupid enough to get in that man's way? He's wielding a damn knife, for Christ's sake. I'm grateful you helped Rick save me, but you have information that we need to know and he's the only one willing to get it from you that won't kill you in the process. Be thankful it's him and not Shane that's in here." she told him.

"I'm trying to cooperate!" Randall yelled at them.

Daryl ran his knife just a little deeper, making Randall squeak in pain before he started to talk. "Okay! Okay! They have heavy artillery. Automatic weapons. But I didn't do anything!" Randall yelled.

"Your boys shot at my people, tried to take this farm, and you're just sayin' that you're innocent? That you were just along for the ride?" Daryl asked, yelling into Randall's abused face.

"Yes! These guys took me in when I was all alone. They took in other guys too, and not just guys, a whole group of guys and women, and kids, just like you guys." Randall told him.

Daryl pulled his knife away and stood up, backing off now that Randall was talking. Adrian got down from the table and walked to stand beside Daryl, looking at Randall as he spoke.

"I thought I'd have a better chance with them. But then we'd go scavenging, just the men. There was this one night that we were out and we camp across this little campsite, the man and his two daughters, real young, real cute." Randall said.

Daryl and Adrian got very still, both knowing where this was going. Daryl turned around slowly, looking down at Randall as he spoke, but Adrian still hadn't moved. She had felt as if she suddenly had ice in her veins.

"And they didn't even kill him after. They just made him watch, his two daughters." he told them.

Daryl could hear Adrian's deep shallow breaths from his right and turned to look at her. He could see her chest rising and falling with her quick breathing, her eyes as hard as the gems they resembled. It was her hand reaching down to grab her knife that made him say something.

"Adrian." he said softly, but his voice was still hard from his own anger.

Adrian jumped at the sound of his voice and looked over at him, her eyes looked troubled, but no less hard, as she looked at him.

"But I didn't touch those girls, I'm not like that!" Randall yelled as he noticed the tense atmosphere.

Adrian said nothing as she turned and walked away, slamming the door closed behind her. She could hear Randall repeating that he wasn't like that before Daryl went to beating on him again as she walked away.

TWD

Adrian didn't know how she had gotten there or how long she had been there. She remembered bits and pieces of what she'd done since she left the shed, but not everything. She had been so deep inside of her head, haunted by memories from long ago, that it was impossible to remember it all.

She was sitting on the ground, her back leaning against a tree, her machete, covered in black blood, lay at her feet. She knew that she had come across a few walkers after she had walked into the woods, and by the amount of blood she could see, she had dealt with them accordingly. She could see blood splattered all over the front of her jeans, could see wet spots on her shirt, the dark color hiding the blood, and her hands were literally covered in blood. She was still in such a daze she didn't even try to wipe if off.

She heard quiet footsteps somewhere just beyond her vision. It minute later she watched as Daryl came into view. He was wearing a thick cotton jacket underneath his leather vest, which she found a little funny but she didn't have the energy to actually find humor in it. He was carrying his ever present crossbow as he quietly stalked through the woods.

"Either you were tracking me or this is one hell of a coincidence." she mumbled, holding his gaze.

"Came lookin' for ya." he told her, his voice just as quiet, but loud enough in the silence of the woods.

And found her he had, just not in the condition he expected to find her in. In all honesty he didn't know what he expected to find when he followed after her a few hours after she had left the shed. He knew she had been upset by what Randall had told them, but he hadn't thought she'd run off on her own, in walker infested woods no less.

Her clothes were covered in walker blood, she even had some on her face and in her hair. After the condition he had found the four dead walkers in on his way to her, he'd have been damn surprised if she didn't have blood on her. She had practically beaten all of the walkers into puddles, heads bashed in and broken bones everywhere.

He could tell that whatever had driven her from the farm was still bothering her, he could almost see the black cloud hanging over her. He walked over to where she was sitting and leaned against the same tree she was sitting against.

"Ain't smart bein' out here alone." he mumbled, just looking off into the woods.

Adrian said nothing, not that he expected her to.

"I had to get out of there. If I had stayed in that barn, there's a high chance that Randall might be dead right now." she said.

"Wouldn'ta made much difference now. Rick wants to execute him tonight." Daryl told her.

Adrian got quiet and Daryl peeked down at her to see her looking at her blood coated hands.

Daryl pulled the rag he kept tucked into his back pocket out and silently handed it to her. She looked up at him when she seen something red flash in her vision, but he still said nothing as he kept his arm outstretched. She gently took the rag from his hands and began to wipe her own.

"They were covered in blood that night too." she mumbled more to herself than to him.

His eyes wondered back to her at her quiet words.

"You haven't asked why I reacted like that to what Randall told us." she said.

She knew he was curious but she had thought he might ask about it. She should've known better. Daryl was as private as a person could get, so she knew he wouldn't ask questions he didn't want to answer himself.

"Ain't none of my business." he told her.

"You've never asked why I had Seth at such a young age." she said.

He wasn't sure where she was trying to get with her line of questioning, but he figured she'd get there eventually.

"Just figured it was an accident." he said.

He felt a small pit in his stomach at the humorless laugh she let out at his words.

"It certainly was that." she said with a bitter smile.

"Seth was the result of rape." she told him.

Daryl's eyes whipped back to her so fast he was afraid he might get whiplash.

"I had just turned fourteen. I was dating this boy a few years older than me, Julius Monroe. I remember how he got along with everyone, the popular kids and the nerds. I was surprised when he started talking to me one day. I was even more surprised when he asked me out a few months later, but I was thrilled too. I had developed such a crush on him, I thought I was in love." she laughed bitterly.

"So stupid." she scoffed at herself.

"We had been dating for about a year when it happened. I should've seen it coming, honestly, but I didn't think he was capable of it. I didn't realize that he had a problem until it was too late, and by then I had this stupid girlish dream that I could fix him. He liked to drink and he had a quick and explosive temper that he kept secret from everyone. I had probably read too many romance novels and thought that I could get him to give up the drinking and that I could calm him out of his fits of anger. I went over to his house one day, his parents were gone for the weekend. It was a good day, we had been laughing and joking, playing games, and even went swimming in his pool. But then he got a call from a friend of his. It was like someone had flipped a switch, his mood changed that fast. He went inside and didn't come out so I followed him inside. He was in the kitchen, two empty beer bottles on the counter. He looked at me before he turned and walked upstairs. I had never seen so much hatred directed at me before." she said quietly.

"I followed him upstairs after a few minutes and found him in his room. He reminded me of a caged animal. A furious caged animal. He just kept pacing across his room. I walked in to is room and called out to him. The next thing I knew he was swinging his beer bottle at me. I had always thought that beer bottles didn't break easy, but it turns out that if someone swings it hard enough it'll break." she said, he hand unconsciously going to her left shoulder.

That was when Daryl remembered the scars that he had seen dotting her shoulder that morning in his tent.

"I got away from him as quickly as I could, which turned out to be in the corner of his room. I just sat there, curled up in the corner, crying and bleeding. I didn't even try to run, to afraid that he'd try to throw the rest of the bottle at me. I could hear him mumbling as he paced the room. I didn't know what to do. I was too afraid to run and didn't dare speak to him. I didn't realize that it would only take a small noise to make him snap. The second his eyes landed on me I knew I was in trouble. I seen him come at me with the bottle and turned away, trying to protect anything vital, so he cut down my back with the bottle before he threw it across the room." she said.

Daryl could tell she was back in the room in her mind.

"He hauled me out of the corner and screamed in my face. "Stupid bitch" that's what he said before he threw me across the room. I landed somewhere close to his bed because the next thing I knew was that he had grabbed me by the hair and threw onto the bed. I could hear him screaming at me about being a cheating bitch before he..." she trailed off.

"Turns out one of his friends had seen me out with a guy from my grade a lot over a two week period but had only called because he had seen the boy leave my house the night before. We had been partnered together to do a project in one of our classes and had been putting a lot of work into it because it was for a large portion of our final grade in that class." she explained.

"I managed to get home. Took a shower and hid in my room for the rest of the weekend. My grandfather found me in bed with a pretty bad fever. He took me to the hospital where the nurses found the cuts on my back. Granddad hit the roof, having absolutely no idea why I didn't tell him I was hurt. I might've been able to keep it together if he hadn't begged me to tell him what happened. I have never seen my grandfather so angry or devastated as he was when I told him what happened. By then it was too late for the doctors to collect any evidence. My grandfather called Julius' parents screaming about what their son had done to me, not that they believed him, or chose not to believe, I'm not sure which. Granddad wanted to file charges, which we did, but with no real evidence there was nothing the police could do." she said, her voice trembling now.

"No one believed me. Not the people at school, not even his own parents. Only granddad. And then one day a few months after it happened granddad came home and handed me a pregnancy test. I didn't realize it then but I had been having morning sickness for more than two weeks and my period had been absent, but I had just chalked it up to all of the stress we had been feeling lately, and my depression wasn't helping matters. He told me to take the test. If only I had known what was coming when I took that test from him. When I came back out a few minutes later, tears running down my face, he knew. He knew I was pregnant and it was that fuckers baby. I remember seeing the color drain from granddad's face before he started grabbing at his chest." she said quietly.

"He had a heart attack. The doctor said that between all of the stress and then the sudden shock to his system, he just couldn't handle it all. He never woke up from the heart attack. And then a few days later he had another. He didn't survive that one. No one knew what to do with me for a while. Granddad was my legal guardian but my sperm donor was still alive. Once he was deemed unfit to care for me my great-aunt was called, my granddad's sister. It was decided that she and her husband would take custody of me. So after the funeral I was told to pack my things because I was moving to Georgia to live with her and her husband." she told him.

That was when Daryl remembered asking her why she had moved to Georgia back at the ravine.

Daryl didn't know what to say, about any of it. He never would've guessed that she had been through something so traumatic. She had her little depressions about her son occasionally, but she never really gave anything away about ever being raped as a kid.

Neither he nor Adrian spoke for a while.

"You mentioned Rick wanting to execute Randall, why?" she said, finally breaking the heavy silence.

"Why what?" he asked, unsure of what she was asking him.

"Why does Rick want to execute him?" she clarified.

"We can't let him go 'cause he knows where the farm is and his group of friends ain't people we want finding us. They'd kill all the men, and the women..." he trailed off.

"Yeah." she sighed, knowing what he wasn't saying.

"Dale is tryin' to talk everybody into getting Rick to spare the kid. Say's he's got 'til sundown to convince everybody." Daryl told her.

She nodded her head, letting him know she heard him.

"Guess we should get back then." she said as she stood, grabbing her machete. Daryl watched her look at the drying walker blood on her blade before he eyed the rest of her.

"Might wanna clean up before you head back." he told her.

Adrian looked down at herself and agreed with him.

"Yeah."

Daryl pushed off of the tree and started walking. "Come on." he told her.

Adrian willingly followed after him.