Author's note: This chapter is going to be pretty much entirely made up of flashbacks. It's what's going through Cassia's mind while she's passed out. I'm hoping you'll all enjoy this, a return to when times were more civilised and zombie free. We also get some more insight into how it all went down with Cassia and Daryl. So here we have a peaceful chapter after all the death and trauma from the last one. Enjoy.

THE DAY OF THE OUTBREAK

There was nothing to distract her effectively enough from the reality of her current situation. Even Valerie's desperate rambling attempts to take her mind off of what she was doing wasn't good enough. Cassia Dunlain was sure she was pregnant. There wasn't even any dignity about it. She was perched on the seat of the toilet in the small home they'd rented in North Georgia, shaking a stick. A pregnancy test was pretty much exactly that, when it came down to it. A stick that was going to decide which of two ways the rest of her life was going to go. What a shitty concept, and yet, there they were; still waiting on the life ruining stick to deliver it's verdict.

"For what it's worth, Cassie... you'd be such a good mother."

"Don't, Val. I can't afford to think like that right now."

"And I would be godmother-"

"Val."

Valerie nodded, her eyes skittering away from her and to the floor. Of course it wasn't the case that Cassia never wanted to have children. Just like everyone else she often dreamed of and wondered about the family she could have in the distant future. Not now. Not just after she'd ended her highly unstable, four year long relationship. Valerie licked her lips and shifted from one foot to the other. Eventually, she just hopped up onto the edge of the sink, her earrings dangling about and swinging erratically.

"I know you don't want to hear this, babe, but the reality is you could very easily be pregnant. You need to come to terms with that." Valerie clasped her hands together, a difficult endeavour, considering the amount of rings she was wearing. This was one of Valerie's many defining habits and mannerisms. In fact, the girl interlaced her fingers together like that so often that she'd gotten little tattoos between each of her fingers that all matched up to create a complete pattern when she locked her hands together in such a fashion. It was a pretty pattern, too. Vaguely tribal.

Cassia sighed, trying to focus properly on the task at hand, but as was fairly predictable, her mind was all over the place, trying to keep herself busy with many things at once. Anything but the very possible reality the damned stick could doom her with.

Doom.

That seemed a little harsh.

"Focus, Cassia." Valerie demanded gently from the sink to the left. Cassia tilted her head, eyeing the shoddy paintwork that covered the walls. The bathroom wasn't the biggest space, and it felt like it was closing in more and more the longer she was stuck in there. Valerie cleared her throat and pointed with a trembling hand down to the offensive stick that had been held motionless in Cassia's hand. She immediately startled out of her zone-out and shook it pretty vigorously, her heart about ready to burst out of her chest. She'd already wiped and flushed and everything and was sat on the closed toilet seat, had been ever since she'd done what she needed to with the test, foot drumming impatiently against the cold tiles. The slightest of motions and change caught her eye and she brought the shaking from swishing rhythmically back and forth to an abrupt, sharp stop, eyes wide and mouth dry.

Two.

Pink.

Lines.

Just like that; Cassia Dunlain was declared to be pregnant.

Valerie squealed and threw herself rather violently towards the sink, lunging forwards and almost hurting herself in order to snatch up the pregnancy test by the clean end and see the result for herself, a hand over her mouth as if she expected it to change the moment she blinked.

It didn't.

All Cassia's mind could conjure up was how smug and delighted Basil would be. She'd lost a bet to him some time ago, and now he had the prestigious honour of naming her first child. She'd spent years worrying over it until Basil's son had been born, and her nephew had been given the completely ordinary name; Alexander. Cassia could only hope her eldest and only brother would be merciful when it came to her own child. Valerie was still jumping about and generally freaking out, and clearly had been the entire time that Cassia had been sat, motionless and expressionless; zoned out on the toilet seat-lid. Slowly, Cassia pulled herself together and got to her feet, she held her hand out very calmly for the pregnancy test to be handed over, and proceeded to take her phone out and snap a picture of the positive result, having the foresight to realise it would probably get misplaced soon. Shortly after that, she wandered, as if in a daze, into the front room where Val had erected a full length mirror the day they'd moved in. Cassia tugged her shirt off over her head and stood there in her bra and her jeans, angling herself to the side in front of the reflection and trying to spot any difference. The women who stared back seemed a lot paler than she had been before she entered the bathroom and she knew that if she turned herself around any further she'd be able to make out the bruises and the scars, so she kept herself very carefully positioned. Valerie scampered after her almost immediately, watching her as if she didn't know what to do or what to make of her best friend now that she was pregnant. Her eyes made their way over to the mirror, watching Cassia examine herself, complete immersed until a hesitant (and suddenly cut off) knock on the open door startled both women out of their reverie.

Daryl stood in the doorway, eyes very deliberately downcast and fist still raised, hovering near where he'd been knocking on the door as a formality, to announce his arrival. Cassia and Valerie both swiveled round, staring at him. They were still too shocked and dazed to realise what was wrong with the situation, until Daryl cleared his throat. At which point Cassia blinked down at herself and, still in that silent, stunned mode, bent down to scoop up her shirt. It wasn't as big of a deal to her as it would have been had he not already seen every other part of her. Regardless, she put the shirt back on.

Daryl was very careful in where he aimed his gaze, making sure not to make eye contact with either of them. He sighed and dragged a hand down his face, and now that her attention had been brought to his arm, Cassia noted he wasn't sporting his crossbow, for once.

"Uh, Merle wanted..." Daryl paused like he'd forgotten what he'd been sent over to say, frowning for a split second and then spurred right back into motion, "dinner's ready."

Valerie raised a thumb to him to affirm they'd be on their way. Daryl ducked his head in recognition and was just about to turn and leave when his eyes locked onto the pregnancy test Cassia was still holding loosely in her grip, down by her side. His adam's apple bopped, but apart from that, he didn't visibly react beyond freezing up.

Daryl licked his lips and shifted about after almost a full minute locked in frozen surprise, his lips parted to say something, but then Merle's friends could be heard singing very obnoxiously outside. Cassia recognised it straight away as "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" from the film "O'Brother, Where Art Thou?".

Cayenne loved that film.

Daryl backed out of the room.

Dinner that night was obviously extremely awkward, only Merle and Valerie conversed freely, while both Cassia and Daryl only added to the conversation when directly prompted to. This wasn't exactly irregular behaviour for Daryl, and Cassia herself had only opened herself up to free communication after Ross had moved to the hotel in the nearest town, but it was still highly uncomfortable. The silence between conversation hung there like some kind of enormous, depressing sloth, and no-one looked at each other directly, the entire meal. Nobody had informed Merle about the pregnancy just yet, assuming it was best to hold off on that for the time being. His jibes and provocations would do nothing to improve the situation.

Only when dinner was over and Merle had disappeared off somewhere with Valerie, did Daryl approach Cassia. He wiped his hands off on his cargo pants and that condescending, paranoid voice that resided at all times within Cassia's head immediately began screaming at her.

He's going to be disgusted. He wants nothing to do with it, or you. He's gonna ask you to get rid of it, and you will because you're weak and irresponsible and dumb.

"Kinda saw this happenin'," he murmured instead, sounding only slightly bitter.

"... What? Sorry?" She phrased both as a question, caught completely off guard by his serene, tired attitude.

"I guessed you'd be pregnant," he explained, irritation(?) flitting across his face. Was he irritated? Maybe the voice in her head was right.

"Part of me was hoping that we'd somehow remembered to use protection, I think. I was fooling myself."

"You 'n me both."

"So... what do we do?"

"What can we do? We raise a kid."

Cassia blinked, taken aback.

"You want- you-"

"We ain't killin' it."

"What if I wanted to? It's my-"

"Your right. I know. But you ain't gonna exercise your right, 'cause I know you well enough to know you can't go through with somethin' like that."

Since when was Daryl so observant? She tried to answer but he cut her off.

"You flinch every time you see the animals I bring back." He explained very simply.

Oh.

How had he noticed something like that?

"... I'm sorry, Daryl."

"For?"

"Getting pregnant, I suppose."

Daryl rolled his eyes and pushed his hair back from his forehead a little bit to avoid letting it stick to the light sweat that was building up there.

"Ain't your fault. You want someone to blame, you blame Mark. He brought the damn poison to the party." Daryl scoffed as if the idea of Mark in general pissed him off.

"I-"

Cassia never got a chance to finish what she'd been saying, as the door to the make-shift dining room slammed open with the force of an entire human body being thrown at it, and with a furious snarl, a walking corpse hurtled towards them. She recognised the man as Benji, the one among Merle's friends who always played the banjo and sang. He'd been the one singing "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" outside in the field only a few hours ago. What the hell had happened to him? He was a lot paler than Cassia ever remembered him being, and that was only the first thing Cassia noticed, as Benji snapped his head up to glare at her, and she saw the lack of anything in his eyes and the gaping hole in the side of his head that indicated he'd either been murdered or fallen victim to a freak accident. Parts of him were already decaying, it seemed, small portions of his skin and the shallower layers of some of his flesh were missing, and his hair was falling out in chunks, from the looks of it. Benji went straight for her, stumbling over his own feet, as if he'd only learned how to walk that same day. Daryl intercepted immediately, shouting at him to try and reason with him. To snap him out of whatever drunken stupor he was in. It was much more than just that, though. Cassia felt it in her gut.

"Something's not right, Daryl. Look at his eyes."

Daryl wrestled to keep him at arm's length, only glancing back at her when she spoke for a second or two, and then turned back to squint harshly at Benji's face, picking out the specifics Cassia had spotted straight away. He cursed and delivered an almighty kick to Benji's mid-section, sending him straight to the floor. They'd have to trust that Merle could take care of it while the two of them were gone. Daryl grabbed Cassia by the wrist and tugged her away, past Benji and out of the door. The two of them sprinted right back over to Cassia and Valerie's shared and rented house,

"Grab your shit! We gotta evac!" He yelled in her direction, already peeling off to the right to fetch his crossbow from the back of the house, where he'd left it alongside the drying racks he used to make homemade jerky on. Cassia didn't bother to nod and took off down the short hallway. It was a bungalow, which was something she was currently very grateful for. Most of her stuff was still in her suitcase; they'd been there two and a bit weeks, and yet she was still ready to go at a moment's notice. She supposed that maybe it was something to do with Ross' stuff always taking precedence. She'd been uncertain about taking up too much space. The smallest thing could set him off. Cassia scrambled about the room, grabbing as much of the stuff she'd actually unpacked as she could, ramming it all very roughly into the only open case. She'd packed two in total, and both were fairly easy to transport. Cassia grimaced upon ducking her head into Valerie's room. Her stuff was strewn everywhere, every single bag unpacked and not a care given for a single item of clothing that had been left and abandoned on the floor. She'd have to make a second trip for Val's stuff. Either that, or her best friend could come and get her own crap herself.

Daryl was waiting for her outside, hands outstretched to accept a suitcase from her, his pickup truck was all ready to go and parked up outside the house.

They set off at a run again for the other house. They met Benji again, but halfway up the stairs this time, dragging his feet and groaning, scratching hopelessly at the faulty bannister.

Daryl brandished his trusty crossbow and shot him straight through the heart. Both of them flinched, and took a moment to themselves to deal with what they'd just seen and done.

It was self defense, right? He was attacking us and something was clearly seriously wrong with him.

Cassia tried to reassure herself with that internal justification.

Eventually, they'd both recovered enough, collectively, to edge around the body and take the stairs two at a time.

They weren't there.

"Where the hell-"

Daryl gestured to the broken window. What could have made them go out that way?

An alarmingly familiar gurgling and groaning-snarl type sound could be heard from the other side of the bed. Cassia tip-toed her way round Merle's bed to be met with another one of those things. It's leg had been torn right from it's body, and it reminded her of a very gory version of a turtle upturned and stuck on it's back. She recognised this one as Mark himself, the one who supplied the particularly potent alcohol for the party. Bile rose up in her throat and she gagged, a hand flying to her mouth, she swiveled and threw up in the small basin Merle kept on the dresser. Sorry, Merle.

The thing on the floor writhed and groaned more excitedly, trying to get to her. Daryl appeared at her side without warning and pushed her back a little, crossbow in hand. He crouched down and squinted at Mark, his eyebrows furrowed, searching for some kind of an answer, or an update on the things they knew of these new, horrifying things. He straightened up after a little while, and turned to glanced back at her,

"Fucker looks hungry," he muttered.

A scream broke through the curious silence, drowning out the snarling, and hit Cassia like a javelin straight through the chest.

Valerie.

She gasped like she'd just been submerged in a tank filled to the very brim with sharks and icy water, and took off out of the room and straight down the stairs, taking them two and then three at a time. Cassia screamed when a hand grabbed her, fingers curled like gnarly, old branches, the grip was unnervingly strong, and the snarling started right by her ear.

A thwack rang through her ears and Cassia's attacker dropped, a crossbow bolt in the side of it's head this time. Daryl was revealed on the other side of it when it dropped, crouching down over this one, too, clearly astonished to find Benji hadn't been killed the first time. Cassia lingered for only a split second, as soon as the shock passed she was off again, feet pounding across the ground as fast as her legs would take her, she came to a stop outside, the momentum nearly making her tumble over, but she rooted her feet and held herself upright. Cassia looked around wildly, but followed her ears instead, when a second scream reached her.

Keep her safe, Merle.

He didn't.

Merle was kicking downwards at the lever he used to kickstart his motorbike, whipping his around to judge the distance between the vehicle and the... things every other second. Valerie was nowhere in sight, and Cassia found that she lost all control of her own body for a moment as the fury and panic took over, she grabbed a thick branch from amongst the clusters of grass at her feet and rushed forward, she delivered a hefty blow to the side of the nearest attacker's head with a whack and the corpse-woman went down, her head curved inwards a little at the side. Merle had apparently taken down two before he'd decided his safety was more important, as there were corpses barely concealed amongst the grass, down but still moving about. Cassia's own desperation and fear was so strong that it almost choked her.

Valerie, where are you?

That question was answered almost immediately, a tanned hand waved at her feebly from the ground, a dark crimson colour contrasting powerfully against the skin. Everything else turned to white noise around her, and her vision altered - it was like she developed tunnel vision. Daryl disappeared from her view, Merle and his motorbike couldn't be seen or heard, and nothing else mattered. Valerie was so small, so fragile against the backdrop that it looked like it would swallow her up. Cassia fell to her knees beside her best friend and reached out for her. It would do no good, but she couldn't help herself, one of her hands curled around and secured itself in Valerie's barely-there grip, and she dragged Valerie the short distance between them, lying her head down on Cassia's lap. Perhaps it was the denial or the initial shock that had blanked the rest out for Cassia, but suddenly Val was covered in blood right up to her jaw, where her pixie cut ended with a sharp, defining sweep. The blood disappeared in her dark hair, after that, and the way her beautiful hair was all matted together and the way it was tinted demonstrated that the damage went further still. That was only the first thing to grab Cassia's attention, secondly and worst of all, Valerie's intestines were not inside her any longer, not inside her body where they should be. It wasn't just the intestines there, either, but Cassia forced herself to limit it to that, not wanting to even think for a moment what else her best friend could be missing.

A blood soaked hand was wavering just below her chin, a tiny smear of blood was left behind to mark her there when Valerie finally made the contact. Her wonderful, ballsy, ambitious, benevolent, enigma of a best friend was dying in her arms, right then and there. The realisation hit her like a tonne of bricks, and all she could do was stare down at her, absentmindedly stroking the blood soaked hair back from her forehead. The life was still there in her eyes, and she knew it would be right until the very end. Cassia knew that, if nothing else, for certain. Valerie had been the most alive of all of them. Diapers and play-dates and maps had turned to first phones, first times, first lovers, first everythings; and they'd been through all of that together. It seemed only fitting now that they'd be together for the first death between them. So horrifying, yet so right, somehow. Cassia knew that if the roles were reversed, she would want Valerie to be the last thing she saw and experienced before she left this mortal coil, and Val appeared to share this sentiment, her eyes swimming with tears, yet her smile somehow reverent, no matter how weak it was. But the roles weren't reversed, and now Valerie could never be the last thing Cassia would see, not anymore.

She'd never wanted to exist in a world that didn't have Valerie Romero Martin roaming it.

A shaky thumb swiped back and forth across Valerie's cheekbone, a few of Cassia's tears fell and impacted onto Valerie, directly below her, but Val never flinched, never even noticed as she kept her entire focus fixated on Cassia. It was just the two of them, for the last time, and nothing else mattered; would ever matter as much as this. Valerie's chest was rising and falling too rapidly, with short little gasps, her breaths left her in bursts, pretty little patterns, just like the tattoo that was formed when her fingers locked together. Her lungs were failing. Her eyelids fluttered more frequently and suddenly her chest ceased it's rapid rise and fall, too weak to perform to that velocity now, and it was clear the end was coming. The light was still there in her eyes, and Cassia would not look away until every last bit of it had gone out.

They stayed there like that, gazing into each other's eyes, covered in blood and in the same position until the very end. Cassia couldn't help the way she gripped Valerie's cheek and her hand a little too tight when the light eventually began to fade, to ebb way, until finally it was all gone. Those astonishing hazel eyes were dormant, and there wasn't even the slightest movement from Valerie's chest.

She was gone.

It was pointless, but Cassia checked her pulse anyway, to be sure, and then glided a hand down, reverently over Valerie's still perfect features, closing her eyes. She ducked her head down towards her to speak to her in private,

"And can it be?" She whispered, struggling to get the words out past the way her body was seizing up, choking on the words, but she had to get this out and she would - "That in a world so full and busy, the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up." Cassia let out a shuddering breath, not caring how it hurt her neck and her spine to curl down enough to lay her forehead against Valerie's, shaking her head slowly, "Charles Dickens, Val, remember? You loved anything he wrote, but somehow... somehow even he could never do you justice. No-one can, Val. But that's okay, you know? That's okay. I'll never forget you, and one day I'll work out how to do it. How to put you into words. It might take me the rest of my life, and countless pages and books, but I'll do it." Cassia wavered over the thought of saying more, but someone was tugging on her arm, and the world was apparently ending, after all.

Eventually, reluctantly, and with a heart-wrenching sob, she lowered Valerie to the ground, as gently and delicately as she could, and let Daryl help her to her feet. She hadn't noticed until then, but Merle had postponed his escape so that he could kneel at Valerie's feet.

Bastard. Murderer.

A flaming, burning, intense coil of pure rage unfurled inside of her when it dawned on her what exactly had been the cause of Valerie's death.

Cassia darted forward and snatched Merle's gun off of the ground by his hand, where he'd let it drop. She didn't even hesitate, cocking it and pressing it none too gently against his skull.

Justice, every bone in her body screamed.

Daryl uttered her name, and she wasn't surprised to see him aiming his crossbow right at her when she yanked her head to the right to stare him down. Cassia couldn't even blame him. She got it, even. She understood. Merle was his brother, and he would kill for him. But Valerie had been her sister, and now she was dead. There had to be some kind of justice in this. Valerie deserved to be avenged. That girl had deserved more than anything that the world or anyone in it could have given her, and yet she'd been the one to be torn out of it entirely.

There wasn't any animosity in Daryl's eyes. He understood, too.

Merle turned his head very slowly until the barrel of the gun was against the dead centre of his temple.

Cassia was shaking too much to hold the gun firmly against his head, it parted from the skin there and landed back on target constantly, and in reflection, Cassia felt like a loaded gun herself. Daryl inched a little closer, his expression grim. There was complete silence in the field, the Dixon house not too far away and Daryl's car just that tiny bit further.

The decision was hers.

Cassia knew without really dwelling on it that she would die for Valerie's justice, and she would be glad to do it, too, as long as there was justice.

The thing was, it wasn't just her life she had to think about anymore. That fucking stick had only decided she was pregnant three hours ago, and Valerie would want, more than anything, for that baby to survive and to grow up and smile and fall in love, to go to school and learn from it's mistakes, to get it's first job, to be fired for the first time, to get the chance to grow old with the one they loved, surrounded by it's own children. Valerie would want the baby to live more than anything. And anything Valerie wanted trumped any kind of Cassia's misguided idea of justice, any day.

She let the gun fall to the floor, and, with a little difficulty, picked Valerie up, guts and gore and all, and carried her bridal style over to the pickup truck.

The trauma didn't even end there. Valerie came back to... no. That was no life, not by any definition. It was much better described as a terrible attempt at a life after death. A freakish experiment gone wrong. Regardless of the facts of it, she became animated once more as they sped down the highway, somehow smart enough to crawl rather than walk over to the small mirror at the rear of the car's cabin. The pickup truck was promptly parked by the side of the road, though Cassia didn't know why they bothered with all that when they were only car on the highway for miles around and hadn't seen any life in an hour or so. Merle leveled his gun at Valerie's chest and she snarled at him, hungrily. Cassia resisted the urge that instinctually flared up to bash his ignorant, simple minded brains in with the heaviest rock she could find, and held onto the side of the truck instead, her knuckles straining and going white. Daryl, thankfully stepped in front of Merle, blocked his shot and was merciful enough to make it a quick second death, a bolt straight to the brain. Cassia insisted on a burial and a brief funeral. Merle had, of course, protested, and she'd almost shot him again, but Daryl came up with a compromise, and so they dug a grave that was barely deep enough, and had a very short memorial service, before setting off. Merle hated having his little brother bossing him around, but it was clear he was reluctant to do much more wrong than he already had, and to give Cassia even more cause to shoot him right in the head.

She fantasised the many different ways she could kill him for what he'd done the whole drive to Atlanta, refusing to look at either of the Dixon brothers.

They stopped by Ross' hotel. He was gone, of course, and the walls were splattered in places with blood.

Cassia wasn't even surprised. It was never going to be as easy as that ever again.

THE GREENE'S FARM - 10 WEEKS AFTER THE OUTBREAK

Cassia stirred, her eyelids fluttered and a flash of light, white paint and lightly billowing curtains was all she saw before she slipped back into sleep. The shock and exhaustion must have mingled together to keep her practically comatose for so long. She was gradually coming back to her senses, however. She knew this because she started to pick up on the sounds of people muttering and things clanking and chairs being pulled out, people walking around, and it took her long enough to come around properly that she noticed when the breathing of the person sat beside the bed changed, a sigh permeating the steady silence and making way for her new companion's rate of breathing. Cassia frowned slightly, a warm, tingling strip of sun flashed across her skin before a curtain intercepted the path and put her back in shadow. She forced herself to open her eyes, impatient with herself, but also very aware of the anonymous presence beside her vulnerable form. She gasped and almost jolted upright when she remembered what she'd done.

She'd murdered a human being. Ross was dead for real this time.

A hand shot out and pushed her down again by the shoulder. Cassia whipped her head to the side so hard she almost pulled something in her neck, eyes wide and pulse rocketing.

It was only Beth.

Cassia immediately relaxed, letting Beth assist her in sitting up and drank the water that was offered to her. She realised, suddenly, that she wasn't in her room.

Well, no... she doubted she would have been made to stay in the same room after everything that had happened in there.

Beth placed the back of her hand very tentatively on Cassia's forehead, expression the perfect balance between being business-like and compassionate. She must have inherited that from her father, Cassia pondered to herself, a lethargic smile made it's way to the surface, and Beth returned it with a little more warmth.

"Your temperature's fine," the younger girl murmured softly, tucking some of Cassia's stray hair back behind her ear in such a maternal fashion that Cassia almost cried. It was such a sweet, sentimental gesture; something she hadn't experienced in such a long time. An eternity, it felt like.

Valerie used to do that all the time.

Cassia swallowed her feelings, knowing she was probably still shaken up.

"Where's-"

"You just missed 'im. S'been hard to convince 'im to be anywhere else." Beth's reply cut across her own, and she raised her pretty eyebrows knowingly.

"... Daryl? Are you talking about Daryl?"

" 'Course. "

Cassia nodded solemnly, eyes roaming about partly to take in the new surroundings, and partly because she couldn't find the damn courage to look at Beth while she asked the next thing,

"I- Did you find-"

"Maggie got t'you right after you passed out."

"How do you know?"

"The blood was still fresh, still poolin'. Everythin' went silent a couple'a seconds 'fore she opened the door."

"I'm so-" Cassia choked on a sob and clutched at the sheets, trying to hold back a break down. Beth reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, thumb swiping back and forth,

"You protected your baby, Cassie. Nothin' else matters." She licked her lips and glanced towards the window for a moment before she spoke again, "I'll go get Daryl."

Oh, Daryl. What have I done?