**NSFW material ahead! You've been forwarned.**

Let the world keep on turning.

This chance could be the last.

Don't let it go…

It was a mistake. Daryl should never have been that forward with Trish. A woman like her with a man like him? What on earth had he been thinking?

He nearly hit the bathroom wall in his frustration before remembering what had brought Trish to him in the first place. This world wasn't the same as the one that would have kept them apart. It was dark, dangerous, and bloody. He wasn't one to believe in fate, but Daryl couldn't help but wonder if there was a reason they had met.

She hadn't followed him immediately. Even now, he stood in the bathroom alone, boots off and stripped to the waist, fiddling with the faucet and waiting for the promise of hot water. Leaning his head under the shower, Daryl tried to drown his doubts as water streamed down his face. Dirt and blood dripped to the tiles below and swirled down the drain. A lone drop trailed down his back, and his body stiffened as he felt a finger gently follow its path.

His scars. Jesus, he had forgotten that they were as plain as day with his shirt off and back turned to the door. Realistically, he knew that she would see them eventually, and after a moment Daryl relaxed to her touch. Trish was close enough that he could feel her breath on his shoulder, and he caught a glimpse of her auburn locks out of the corner of his eye. As her fingertips danced across his skin, taking inventory of every mark that had been left behind, her other hand went to his waist as she leaned into his side. Without thinking, he took that hand by the wrist and brought her knuckles to his lips. Daryl noticed that her nails had been cut and polished again, and he smiled against her fingers to see that tiny spark of her old self return.

Pulling his head out of the shower, Daryl turned slightly and skimmed his hand down her arm to her elbow. Gently, he led her to face him and cupped her head in both hands just as he had out in the courtyard. Trish's face was inches from his own, and her eyes danced with a myriad of emotions. Fear. Curiosity. And yes, desire was very much present as well.

"You sure?" he asked quietly. She gave a slight nod and it was all the incentive Daryl needed. All thoughts of what had brought them together melted away as soon as his mouth collided with hers. As their tongues fought for dominance, he fisted a hand in her hair and led her into the shower, clothes and all. They paused only for the briefest of moments as he pulled her shirt over her head, then backed her against the wall with renewed fervor. The blue satin bra she wore was grungy and faded from weeks spent on the road, but underneath the soaked fabric her nipples perked as Daryl ran his hand over her breast experimentally. He felt Trish's nails digging into his shoulders at the touch, and she hissed through her teeth as he dipped his head to replace his fingers with his lips while his hands went to unfasten her jeans.

"Shit, wait," she whispered heavily, and Daryl held his breath as she reached into one of her front pockets. When Trish hastily shoved a small package into his hand, he couldn't help but chuckle.

"Glenn and Maggie to the rescue?" he teased, his lips roaming to her neck and nipping her gently.

"No, Lor…oh, fuck," she replied, interrupted by a slightly harder bite. "Lori. But she raided their stash. And Jesus. Fucking. Christ. We need to get naked faster." Her words were punctuated with each brush of his teeth against her skin, and Daryl couldn't help but pull his head back and grin down at her.

"Easy enough."

Hands were everywhere as they hastily explored one another, unfastening and shimmying out of whatever clothes they had left. He honestly didn't pay attention to where any of it landed once it was out of the way. He was focused on the woman in front of him, chest heaving with need, body slick from the stream of water above them. Trish was glorious, gorgeous vision in an ugly world, and Daryl flushed when he realized she had been looking at him the same way.

"I know I ain't nothin' to…"

"Shut up," she interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips as he placed his palms against the wall on either side of her head. "You're beautiful."

Dumbfounded at her words, Daryl simply leaned in as she snaked her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. It was slow, deep and intoxicating. As he melted into her, Trish slid her hands down his chest, across his belly and towards his groin. He knew she had somehow gotten the condom away from him, but Daryl couldn't help the involuntary buck of his hips as she took his already-throbbing cock in her hands and slid on their protection.

It was torturously slow. Daryl tore his mouth away from her and buried a groan into her shoulder at her touch. Every instinct told him to go! Now! He wanted to lose control and bury himself inside of her, but consciously he knew that to do so would completely ruin the moment. Trish wasn't a trophy to put on display. She wasn't a doll to be hidden away once she had been used. Whatever had been done to her needed to be undone.

She was positively tiny, Daryl noticed with a small twinge of apprehension, and it took no effort to lift her off the floor. Trish's core radiated heat, and it hovered just over the tip of his erection as she wrapped her legs around his back for balance. When she looked at him expectantly, her green eyes meeting his blue, Daryl braced her against the tile once more and slowly lowered her.

It was as if he had found heaven for the first time in his life. No adolescent groping or drunken fumbling could have prepared Daryl for the exquisite torture of being completely sheathed inside of Trish. She whimpered slightly once she had taken him fully, but when he looked at her face, he found her biting her lip to hold back a moan. There could've been no mistaking her expression for one of pain, and slowly he began to move.

It was like that at first. Gently thrusting, sliding in and out of Trish, building her up until she was writhing against him. She pulled Daryl closer, their torsos slick against one another, and he moved one arm across her back to brace her head from behind to keep it from hitting the wall. When she began to shudder, and dug her teeth into his shoulder to keep from screaming, Daryl moved faster, pushing himself to completion. As her inner walls clenched around him, he knew he was over.

Her name was on his lips when the orgasm exploded from him like nothing he had ever felt before, but it was a different thought entirely that filtered through the aftermath. They collapsed against the wall in blissful satisfaction, their bodies still joined, chests heaving as they gulped in precious air.

Mine, Daryl told her silently as he ran a hand across her temple and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Trish's ear. Nobody else will touch you. Ever again.

Trish woke slowly to the dark silence of the dormitory. Next to her, Daryl slept soundly, blissfully unaware that he had curled himself around her with his back to the rest of the room. Yet he still had a knife under the nest of blankets they had thrown on the floor of her bunk space, and a pistol within arm's reach. If it hadn't been for those two details, she could almost force herself to imagine that there was nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about.

She shivered involuntarily, dwelling for a brief moment on the horrors they had each faced both before and after the biological catastrophe that had thrown the world into chaos. The constant battles against the reanimated dead were wearisome, but those creatures were no worse than rabid animals. Avoid them when possible, kill them when necessary. But the human factor was what truly terrified Trish.

She hadn't told Daryl about what had happened at the compound outside Tallahassee. She hadn't needed to. He'd seen the scar more than once on their journey, and the look on his face had grown into one of disgust and fury. Not at her. Never at her. But it had made him cautious. Where other men wouldn't have understood, or flat out not cared, Daryl had kept his distance due to the mysterious code that only others who had been abused could ever understand.

And his scars. God, Trish thought, I hope that whatever monster did that to him is long dead. A majority of them were old enough to have faded, but there was no way he had acquired the most severe in adulthood. Daryl wasn't exactly a twitchy sort, but it had been obvious to Trish that after surviving the abuse he had endured in his youth, he rarely let his guard down.

And yet he had done it for her. Had put faith in the belief that for at least one night, he could slip out of survival mode to act the part of a lover. Beneath the rough exterior, Daryl Dixon had a heart of gold. Tough and badass when he needed to be, which was most of the time, but gentle when he knew that anger would be counterproductive. And smarter than anyone else in the group gave him credit for, with Carol the only exception.

"Can't sleep?" Trish heard him whisper, his words hot against her neck.

"How'd you guess?" she replied with a small smile, rolling in his arms to face him. There was just enough light to reflect off his eyes, and she knew Daryl was doing his best to read her expression.

"You breathe differently."

"You've made a habit of watching me breathe?"

"Can feel it. Goin' on two months now of sharing sleeping space, City Girl. I'd be a right sorry hunter if I didn't learn your habits." While he spoke, one hand had begun skimming the bare skin on her belly, a subtle reminder that they had fallen into bed completely nude following their shower.

"You haven't gotten me completely figured out, Hillbilly," she teased, moving her own fingers across his shoulders. They lay like that for what seemed to be an eternity, silently exploring one another in the dark, navigating their way across one another in a way they hadn't been able to earlier in the night. He found the ticklish spot behind her knee. She learned that running her hands in his hair relaxed him.

Minutes, possibly hours passed by, and eventually their touches grew bolder, returning to the spots that did more than just relax or tickle, and replacing fingertips with lips and tongues. In those moments, there were no walls between them. No emotional barriers. No fear. And for the first time Trish was able to finally admit that somewhere along the way she had fallen in love. She dared not to hope that Daryl felt the same. She'd never ask it of him. These stolen memories would be locked away in her heart and cherished regardless of what their future held.

But as their love play finally came to an end and they curled up together, satisfied and physically drained, Trish had no way of knowing that Daryl's thoughts had mirrored her own.

**Disclaimer: Kirkman still owns "The Walking Dead." I still own Trish.**

Lyric credit: "We Own Tonight" by NKOTB