Hello there folks! Thank you so much for reading my first chapter and sticking with me to check this one out too. I have the first three chapters prewritten, so they will come fairly quickly, after that it might take a little more time to get them out. Reviews do make me write faster though! I want to thank those of you that added me to their favorites, or followed this story. It means a lot!

I also really want to thank the guest reviewer that I wasn't able to PM to thank. Your review absolutely made my day yesterday, and had me walking around with a silly grin for over an hour. Thank you so much! I noted that this is a Daryl/OC story on my summery since you brought it to my attention that I didn't make that clear. Thanks for the heads up. I hope you are still with me, and that you enjoy this chapter as well.

So, without further ado, I bring you chapter two!

Chapter Two - Pompeii

I was left to my own devices, Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down, In the city that we love, Great clouds roll over the hills, Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes, Does it almost feel like, Nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like, You've been here before? How am I gonna be an optimist about this? How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

- Bastille

First Week of the Walkers

"Boy, it sure smells good in here! What are you cooking in there, babe?" Emma asked as she walked down the short hall from the front door of their modest home and into the kitchen.

"It's a secret family recipe… I'm sorry, but I can't tell you all my secrets." Stephen turned to face her holding a bowl of obviously microwaved Italian food in his hands with oven mitts, his face split with a wide, sheepish smile.

"Don't let your mother hear you saying that Bertolli is a secret family recipe. She'd skin you alive for that." Emma replied with a chuckle. She walked over to her fiancé and placed a light kiss on his cheek, being careful not to touch her body to his or the bowl of food. "Do I have time to change my clothes, or do we need to eat right away?'

Steven took a long look at her, obviously sizing up the amount of blood and gore on her scrubs, and seeing the exhausted look on Emma's face. "I think a shower is in order. I'll just reheat this when you get out. No falling asleep in there though… I'm hungry."

Emma smiled up at him again and nodded her head. "Thanks babe. I'll be out in no time."

True to her word, Emma rushed through her shower, and was back in the kitchen in under ten minutes. She laid out the crisp, white place mats they had gotten as an engagement gift the week before and helped Stephen serve the tepid pasta on paper plates. The whole set-up looked fairly foolish, but seeing as how Stephen was studying for the bar exam every waking hour, and Emma worked 60 hours a week, it suited them just fine.

"So how was your day?" Stephen asked as they settled down in front of their plates. "It looked like it might have been a rough one."

Emma took a bite of her dinner before she responded. It had in fact been an insanely crazy day, and she honestly didn't even know where to start. She swallowed her bite and looked up at the love of her life. "It was pretty weird actually. There's some cult or something running around town biting people. Rob thinks somehow these people have Rabies or something, because it seems like a bunch of the ones that had been bitten started acting crazy." She paused and took a drink of the beer Stephen had set out for her, letting the cold liquid wet her suddenly dry mouth. "We went on 18 calls to get people that had been bitten, and we had to retrain six of them. One of them even bit Rob's hand." Emma could feel her stomach do a summersault at the memory, it had been one of the scariest calls she had ever been on.

She could feel Stephen's eyes on her, and she looked up at him. She knew he was one of those crazy preppers at heart, and she didn't really want to hear his thoughts on some crazy apocalypse at this point. His eyes didn't hold the slightly crazed gleam she had come to recognize as one of those moments though, if anything he just looked worried. "You know I think I saw something about that on the news this morning, but it wasn't the local news… I think they were talking about India, or somewhere in the Middle East." He calmly stated. "Nobody bit you though, did they?"

Emma smiled slightly, "No, babe. You know I don't take shit off my crazier patients, and I sure as hell don't tolerate biting. From anyone." She finished with a slight smile. Stephen knew that wasn't true; she was a rather big fan of little nibbles in the bedroom, and she had said it to get a smile from him.

Unfortunately, she didn't get the response she was looking for, and instead he only gave her a slightly steely look, and shook his head. "Well I'm glad nothing happened to you. I think maybe you better take the next couple of days off." She was shaking her head vigorously at that, but he just plowed on ignoring her refusal to take sick leave. "Just until this silly thing blows over. Please Emma? I just couldn't stand it if you got hurt."

"Stephen, I know you don't like that I work on the ambulance crew, but I'm not going to quit that any time soon." They had had that talk way too many times to count at this point, and Emma had been tired of it after the first time. "I can't transfer into the ER until I take those extra courses, and I can't take those classes until you pass the bar. You're just gonna have to wait another couple months." She noticed that her voice was trying to take on that southern twang she had fought to lose over the last eight years, and she fought it down with all her heart. She wasn't going there.

Stephen looked at her imploringly with his handsome green eyes, "But you could just take a couple days."

Any further argument was cut off by Emma's cell phone ringing from her purse on the kitchen floor where she had dropped it when she walked in. "Who the hell could that be?" She asked pointlessly, Steven wouldn't know who it was any more than she did.

She stood and pulled her phone out of the purse, sliding the screen to answer the call before she put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Emma Parker?" The voice on the other line questioned, and Emma felt her blood turn to ice. She hadn't used that name in five years, and she didn't want to know who would be calling her by it now. She couldn't very well just hang up though, it would be something important if they were calling that Emma.

"Yes. And who is this?" She asked quietly, begging for her heart to stop racing.

"William Jackson… I'm your father's attorney."

"Mmhmm." She responded in a non-committal sort of way. That man was not her father, and she didn't like to hear him referred to in that way. "You mean you are Mr. Parker's attorney?"

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line that she took for confusion. "Well, yes ma'am, I am Mr. Parker's attorney, and I need to ask you to come down here and testify at his appeal hearing."

Emma didn't even have to think before she responded, "No." She said it flatly, but inside she was screaming.

The man on the other end sighed slightly, as if he had known she was going to say that. "I understand that you aren't overly interested in doing this Ms. Parker, but your father needs you. He's not the man he was ten years ago. He's made a lot of changes to himself and how he looks at the world while he's been away."

Emma couldn't suppress the snort that came out of her; that man changing, priceless. "There is nothing you can say that will bring me down there, Mr. Jackson. I'm sorry you wasted your time."

She was preparing to disconnect the call when the lawyer cut her off, "I have a subpoena saying that you have to be here one week from today, at three o'clock."

Emma felt her mind go blank. She didn't have any choice in the matter, she was going back to Georgia whether she wanted to or not. What the hell was she going to tell Stephen? He didn't know about that part of her life, and she didn't want him to. She only knew she was going home, and she would have to lie to the man she loved in order to do it. It was just dandy. "I'll be there." She managed to mutter, before she disconnected the call and faced her fiancé.

"I have to go to Georgia… I should leave in the morning."

Emma sat on the hard, wooden bench outside the courtroom door, waiting for her name to be called so she could go home. She just wanted to get this over with so she could get back to her real life. Even though she was in Atlanta, not home, she still felt as if the entire state of Georgia sapped her energy away, stole all the power she had fought to gain over the years, leaving her a scared, weak teenager again.

She didn't want to be there; had hated lying to Stephen, telling him that an old friend of hers was in trouble and she needed to stand as a character witness at his trial. She knew Stephen didn't believe her for a second, but he hadn't pressed her for the truth. He wasn't like that; he never made her share something she didn't want to. He had once told her that she didn't need to tell him anything she wasn't ready to, and that he would never force her to. That was a big part of why she loved him; he didn't care who she had been, only who she was right then. God she missed him.

She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't even notice the way people were racing around the courthouse, or the armed man that approached her. "Ma'am, I need you to go to the busses out front, and head to the refugee camp."

Refugee camp? What on earth was this guy talking about? "I'm here for an appeal, and I'm not leaving until I've testified." She said tersely. She glanced at the man talking to her, and noticed that he definitely wasn't one of the courthouse security guards. This guy looked like military to her. Dressed head to toe in city-camo riot gear, with a pistol on his hip, and a riffle slung over his shoulder.

He stared at her for a moment, and then spoke, "All the trials have been postponed indefinitely. All the prisoners are being loaded in the vans to return to their cells as we speak. Now you need to do as your told and get to the busses." He grabbed her arm roughly, and jerked her to her feet pulling her toward the exit.

"Let go of me!" She hissed. "What the hell is going on?"

He rounded on her, placing his hand on the holstered pistol. She would have taken it as a threatening gesture, had she not seen the look of fear in his eyes. She knew that look; she had seen it in the eyes of nearly every person she had ever taken care of in the ambulance. He thought he was going to die. "Ma'am, I really don't have time to explain things to you. We just need to get out of here."

Emma was pretty damn mad at that point; she hated being manhandled, and she wasn't one to tolerate it anymore, but she was also beginning to feel the first stirrings of fear. She pushed past it though and said the first words that came to mind. "I'm a paramedic, maybe I can help. Just tell me what's going on." She was surprised by how reasonable she sounded, and knew the army man was too.

His hand dropped from the gun and he looked at her for a second, time seeming to stand still as he did. "There's a herd of people attacking everyone out there, they're biting anything that moves… eating them." He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath like he didn't want to say the next part. "And lots of those people were dead yesterday."

Emma felt her mind racing. She had seen the news broadcasts in her hotel rooms at night, and she and Stephen had talked about it a little. He had said he was right to send her with his .38, and she had laughed it off, telling him he was being paranoid. She wasn't so sure now. "What do you mean they were dead yesterday?" She asked, her voice slightly choked at that point.

"I mean they got bit, got real sick afterward, and then they died. But they don't stay dead…" He looked her hard in the eye, and she saw his whole body shudder. "A little bit later they… they just wake up, and they're hungry or something because they attack anything that moves."

She could feel her legs getting weak, but she forced herself to stay on her feet. The only thing that was running through her mind were all the people she had taken into the hospital with bites. Were they all dead now? Dead and up trying to eat people? She couldn't really believe it was true, but she also could tell that the young man in front of her wasn't lying. She knew he had seen it with his own eyes, and that was what scared her worse than anything else. This was real.

"You need to get to the camp now, ma'am. Maybe you can help there." He told her, and she felt her head nodding.

"Okay, you're right. Where is it? I'll need to take my car, I have a lot of medical supplies in there." She said calmly. It was only a partial lie, she always carried her jump bag with her and it was in the car, but she had no intention of going to the camp. She needed to get home, she needed to make sure Stephen was safe.

The tall man looked down at her for a moment, but he didn't see the lie in her words. She knew he wouldn't, she had been so tightly wrapped in lies for the last eight years that they came out as cleanly as any truth could. He nodded at her, "That's a good idea. I don't know how many supplies they have there at this point. Anything will help. The camp is at Georgia Stadium. You know how to get there?"

She smiled slightly, and nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'll get there as quick as I can."

The man gave her a small, tight-lipped smile of his own and then patted her shoulder. "See you there. I hope."

Then he turned away from her and strode back the way he had come. She knew what she was doing, and she needed to do it now. She was going home. Home to California.

Emma sat in the giant snarl of traffic trying to get out of the city just like she had been for the last three hours. She hadn't moved more than 100 feet in the last hour, and she was beginning to feel desperate. The traffic would have been enough to make the veins pop out in her neck, but it was the fact that she had been trying to call Stephen for the last three hours without any luck that was really getting to her. Every time she hit that damn call button she would just get an automated voice informing her that the network was currently busy.

She stared out at the mass of cars ahead of her and groaned loudly. She jerked her eyes down to her phone again and hit the send button for what had to be the millionth time, and punched the phone to her ear. She was expecting that voice again, and jumped when the phone rang in her ear instead. She felt a small grin fill her face; now she would be able to talk to Stephen and make sure he was okay. The phone rang three times, and she felt the smile evaporating. Pick up, pick up, please answer the phone Stephen. She was about to give up hope in the middle of the fourth ring, and then it abruptly stopped.

"Emma, where are you? Are you okay?" Stephen's voice was full of worry, and she could hear that he was out of breath.

She grinned, the sound of it carrying into her voice. "I'm fine, baby. I'm on 80, trying to get out of Atlanta. It's a mess out here though." She paused to take a quick breath, then asked what she was so desperate to know. "Are you okay? How are things there?"

She could hear strange noises in the background on the other end of the line before Stephen answered her, and she felt her heart hammering even faster. "I'm ok, but things are crazy here. All of Los Angeles County is in a state of martial law, and they're shooting people in the streets. I'm getting out of here while I still can, and going to my mom's. I talked to her a few hours ago, and she said it was better there."

Emma tried to process everything he had just told her, but she just couldn't do it. They were shooting people in the streets. She had thought it was a mad-house in downtown Atlanta, but it was obviously far worse in Alta Dena. She heard Stephen chuckle humorlessly, "I guess you're glad I dragged you to all those survival seminars now, huh?"

She couldn't hurt Stephen's feelings by telling him that she hadn't learned a damn thing in those seminars; that she had already known everything they had to say from when she was a kid. She had learned it in a practical way from her father when he took her out hunting. Lee Parker was a real son of a bitch, but he had done right by her in that sense at least. So instead of sharing her secrets, even if it seemed pointless to keep them at this point, she smiled and replied with yet another lie, "You bet I am baby. It looks like those skills might come in handy now."

Stephen huffed out an approving sound, "Good. Now you get out of there as fast as you can, and get to Sedona. I'll be there waiting for you. You still have my gun?"

Emma was going to tell him that she did, but didn't get the chance. Suddenly there was a click, and the connection she had fought so hard to get cut out, leaving her feeling more alone than she had since the night she left Georgia.

She had been distracted by her conversation and hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on around her, but she was brought back to it when she heard a multitude of screams coming from behind her. Her eyes jerked up to the rearview mirror, and she felt her heart abruptly stop in her chest. There were hundreds of those people… things moving down the highway behind her. They were viciously ripping the people that had foolishly thought the glass and metal would protect them from their cars and tearing them to shreds. There were quite a few other people running for their lives, but it didn't seem like many of them stood a chance. For every one that seemed to be getting away, ten more were swallowed up in the horde of man-eating creatures.

For an instant she simply looked in that mirror, frozen in place, and then as if broken from the spell placed over her she started moving. She reached into the passenger seat, grabbed her med kit, and the emergency duffle bag Stephen insisted she always keep where she could reach it in the car, slinging them over her shoulder. She then opened the center console and pulled out the .38 he had pressed into her hand as she was walking out the door, and shoved the small box of ammo that had come with it into one of the many pockets of her med kit bag and she shoved the car door open with all her strength.

She climbed out of the car in a fluid movement unlike how she usually moved these days. It had been a long while since things had been life or death for her, and while her mind hadn't really caught up yet, her body remembered how to handle things. And so she did what all good squirrels do; she ran for the woods.

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