"The only really good performance is the one where you make yourself vulnerable,

while pushing beyond your familiar comfort zone."

― Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band

I leaned against the turquoise green Hyundai as I waited for Daryl, Maggie was up in the tower on watch and she said it was alright to leave now.

I turned to look at the prison when I heard the door opening again, I saw Rick coming out first, followed by Daryl. Rick looked like he was giving instructions to Daryl and he just nodded at whatever Rick was telling him. I frowned when I noticed Daryl wasn't walking in my direction but a bit further to the right.

Rick stood in front of Daryl, pointed at Daryl's chest and said something else and with that he walked to the fence. I saw Daryl getting on his motorcycle and I just opened my eyes wide at him, walking towards him.

"Woah, what are you doing? Rick gave me the keys, you know?" I exclaimed, holding the keys and raising my hand to show them to him.

"I know, he told me," Daryl said, starting the engine. "But there are many blocked roads now, I think it will be quicker if we use this instead of the car."

"But..."

"It'll be fine, now hurry, we are wasting time, come on."

Nervously, I got on the motorcycle as well, I slowly wrapped my arms around his waist, not sure if that was okay with him but I didn't want to fall.

"It's okay," he told me, like if he were reading my mind. "You better tighten your grip."

And before he finished his sentence, we started moving. He didn't need to tell me twice, I tightened my grip so much that I thought I was going to leave a mark or make it hard to breathe for him but he didn't tell me anything about loosing it.

Rick opened the gate and we passed past him, I wanted to wave at him but I just couldn't let go of Daryl, I was so scared even when he wasn't even driving fast.

To be honest I had no idea where we were going, I just knew he drove in the opposite direction of Woodbury, which was probably the safest and smartest choice.

Daryl accelerated a bit and when he noticed I didn't tighten my grip even more or say anything to him, he accelerated even more, as more minutes passed I started to relax and actually enjoy the ride, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the breeze against my face, the feeling of freedom I had now was overwhelming and there weren't walkers around so I wasn't worried about falling into a death trap at the moment.

Daryl eventually stopped the bike, I released my grip on him and I cautiously got off the motorcycle, Daryl turned to me with a smirk on his lips.

"What?"

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" he asked me.

"No, not really," I admitted.

We found a small grocery shop, we banged on the shutters first, and we didn't hear any moans or noise inside so we ventured to open them after Daryl cut the padlock, there was nothing inside, except for a couple of rats, some dead, some alive.

I would have screamed but I knew that we had to be as quiet as possible, so I just jumped out of their way when the rats ran out of the shop. I let Daryl walked in first, just in case there were more rats inside.

We found lots of cans and quickly threw them inside the bag I had brought, we also found what I would consider a treasure. We found about two dozens of chocolate bars and lots of candies, I almost squealed when I spotted them and quickly grabbed a plastic bag that was on the counter and threw inside all the chocolates and candy in sight, Daryl just chuckled at me.

"Don't tell me you don't like chocolate."

"You have no idea how much I love it," Daryl told me. "That's why we will grab a bar each before going back to the prison, it's only fair, we are risking our asses here, we need something sweet."

"I agree," I said with a small chuckle.

This was such a small shop that I was so surprised it had so much food, there were even lots of water containers, tooth paste, shampoo, some aspirin, things that could become handy. So we took a bit of everything.

When the backpack was completely full, I closed it and put it over my shoulder, Daryl tried to get me to give it to him but once we were on the road again it would be so uncomfortable to wrap my arms around him with a full backpack in between us so I just refused and instead gave him the plastic bag full of chocolate, sweets and some junk food.

"We should have brought the car," I told him. "We could have taken some of those big containers of water with us."

"True but at least now we have an excuse to go out again."

"I guess that's true," I said with a smile.

"Now, we just need to go to a gas station, see if we can find some gas and then we can enjoy our prize," Daryl told me, waving the plastic bag in front of my face. "Come on."

Once again we got on the bike and kept driving in the same direction, looking for a gas station, this time Daryl drove faster and all I could do was wrap my arms tightly around Daryl, trying to trust that he wasn't going to let me fall or anything.

"There," I exclaimed," I see something."

Daryl accelerated even more and when we got closer we realized it was actually a gas station, I looked for two containers while Daryl figured out how to get the gasoline, I handed Daryl one first and then went for the other.

When I came back I noticed the first one was already filled, I gave him the second container and he filled it quickly and then he filled the bike as well. It was then when I saw two walkers coming our way, I got my knife and ran to the closest one, I thrust the knife deep in its head before getting it out and doing the same to the second one.

"Hmm and I wanted to keep my clothes and shoes clean today," I told him, looking at the now stained shirt.

"You could take it off," Daryl commented, making me stare at him in disbelief.

"Hmm, no I don't think so," I told him with a small chuckle. "Besides, it's already stained, I should have done that before killing them."

"I guess that's true."

"How much time we have left?" I asked him.

"Enough."

He tied the containers to the back of the bike and then got on himself, I just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Thought we were going to eat the chocolate now."

"Eat here?" Daryl asked like if I was crazy. "No way, there might be more coming, I'm not risking it."

I sighed and got on as well, I was even closer to Daryl now that there was less space. This time we were going on the direction back to the prison but instead of keeping going straight, Daryl turned right, got into a narrow road between the forest, Daryl drove for about two more miles and then turned right again but there was no road anymore, only the forest ground, which was very uneven, my eyes widened as I tightened my grip so much more around Daryl, I only heard him chuckle but he did drove a bit slower after that, about five minutes later, Daryl stopped the bike, turned off the engine and put the keys in his pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm eating a damn chocolate, in a nice, relaxing place," Daryl told me, getting off first.

When he noticed I wasn't moving, he grabbed my hand and pulled me with him, almost making me trip as he caught me off guard and I was still sat on the bike.

I had no choice but to go with him but that didn't stop me from complaining, telling him Rick gave us only two hours and he was going to kill me if we made it back only five minutes later than what we agreed on.

"Just relax, just for five minutes before we go back to our shit reality," he told me, just seconds before I realized we had stopped and were in front of a beautiful lake with clear water, I couldn't help but smile at the view. "Now, choose one," Daryl told me, opening the plastic bag.

I smiled and looked inside, I almost immediately spotted a red wrapper and grabbed the Kit-Kat, Daryl grabbed a Crunch.

Daryl closed the bag again, tying the ends of it and setting it on the ground, he sat down after that, crossing his legs and putting the crossbow on his lap, I sat next to him and opened my chocolate.

"I usually like dark chocolate but our lives have been too bitter lately, I need something sweet," he told me, taking his first bite.

"Couldn't agree more."

I took very small bites and probably chew around twenty times, even allowing myself to close my eyes to taste it better and being sure to remember its taste, it's been around a year since I had something as good as this.

Around five minutes later, Daryl threw the wrapper to the ground, stood up and walked to the lake, then he turned to me with a mischievous smirk, I knew that couldn't mean anything good. He took off his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his trousers, pulled them down and threw them to the side, I only felt my mouth slowly opening in shock.

"What...?" I started asking as he also took off his leathered vest and his shirt and threw them next to his trousers, leaving himself in only boxers.

"Want to go for a swim?" he asked me, walking backwards to the lake, I only shook my head at him. "Don't tell me you can't swim!"

"I can, it's just..."

"Relax, just enjoy it while it lasts."

"What about Rick?"

"Don't worry about him," he told me, now the water reached his waist.

"What if the water is contaminated?"

"Even the air we have no choice but breathe is contaminated, so, what the hell? Don't make me go for you and throw you inside fully clothed," he warmed and somehow I knew he wasn't joking.

I sighed and stood up, walked to the shore and looked at Daryl who was smiling at me. I nodded at him slowly and his smile just widened.

"Alright, but turn around, I don't want you to see me undress," I said shyly, he only grunted, but he turned around, he kept walking though, until the water reached his shoulders.

"Whatever."

I took off my shirt quickly, took off my tennis and socks, threw them next to Daryl's clothes and then unbuttoned my jeans and took them off as quickly as possible, fearing Daryl might turn around anytime now. I got in and I stopped immediately, realizing how cold the water was, but I kept walking towards Daryl, who turned around right when I was about to splash him with water.

"Nice, isn't it?" he asked me with a smile.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Come on, let's get deeper."

Daryl started swimming, kicking harder on purpose to splash water on me and he succeeded, I only glared at him even when he couldn't see me, I passed a hand through my now wet forehead and swam after him, I stopped and realized I didn't touch the bottom anymore so I didn't go any further even when Daryl insisted we should.

"No," I said. "We should not tire ourselves out in case we need to run or kill walkers."

"I guess we can't fully relax and forget the world," Daryl said sighing.

"No," I said sadly. "But this feels nice."

"Yeah."

We stayed there for a while, we swam around, splashing the other from time, I actually managed to wet Daryl's hair, which he was trying so hard to keep dry, it was fun and all but after a while I swam back to where I could touch the bottom.

"Hey!" Daryl exclaimed.

"I'm getting tired," I exclaimed.

Daryl swam to me, he kept his body from the shoulders down under the water even when we were at chest high water now, especially for him that he was about two inches taller than me.

I looked straight at him, at his eyes, which now looked even bluer, if that was possible, reflecting the light blue colour of the water, making them even more captivating than usual. I bit my lip and looked down, realizing I had been staring.

"Wish we could do this more often," I muttered.

"Yeah, it would be nice," he told me, getting closer to me.

Feeling a bit self-conscious that his face was practically in front of my chest, I bent my legs a bit so the water reached my shoulders now, and now we were face to face. Daryl grabbed my hands under the water and pulled me with him, he was walking backwards, so now we didn't have to bend our knees anymore and the water reached our shoulders.

"I'm on my tip-toes now," I informed him so he wouldn't walk anymore.

"Shortie," he said chuckling.

"That's not true, I'm almost as tall as you," I told him, stepping closer to him, our bodies almost touching, so he could see I was only a bit shorter than him, the difference was minimal.

"You are cheating, you are on your tip-toes," he exclaimed, looking straight at my blue eyes.

I sighed and stepped on all the surface of my feet, making the water reach almost my nose, showing him the difference wasn't that big, on my tip-toes I was just as tall as him, maybe even a bit taller.

"See?" I said grinning. "If I am a shortie, you are as well."

Daryl noticed I was struggling a bit, staying on my tip-toes all the time, he chuckled at me but he stepped even closer to me, putting his hands around my waist and slightly lifting me up, I instantly put my arms over his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his waist.

"Well, this is better," I said with a shy smile, but then decided to tease him to get over my shyness and self-consciousness. "You know, if you wanted to hug me in just my underwear, you didn't have to drag me into a cold lake."

"I think I actually had to," he told me seductively. "You wouldn't have taken your clothes off otherwise, not with everyone around."

"So, you tricked me?" I asked with a smirk.

"I wouldn't call it that," he said casually. "I did want a swim, it was just a bonus that you were with me."

"Right," I said chuckling.

I smiled at him and he smiled back innocently and shrugged at me, and then we just stared into each other's eyes, I wanted to look away but I was hooked, I couldn't look away. As we were connected by some kind of invisible wire, we both started slowly leaning in at the same time, my breath was caught in my throat.

I couldn't believe what was going to happen, I couldn't. And it was not until this very moment that I realized how much I actually wanted this to happen.

I slowly closed my eyes as I kept leaning in, I could feel his hot breath on me, we were so close I could almost feel his lips on mine, but I immediately stopped when I heard it.

We both pulled away instantly because we heard moaning, and not the good kind. At the other side of the lake there were three walkers coming towards us and five more were coming from the right, those were closer to us, without thinking the two of us ran as fast as we could to the shore, Daryl was the first to get out.

He ran to grab his crossbow which was right next to the lake and before I could get out of the water he shot two of the five. He shot another one while I threw my knife at one of them, it landed right in the middle of his forehead, the walker fell dead-dead on the ground. Daryl killed the last one of that group and quickly retrieved his four arrows while I went for my knife, we were still half naked, but it wasn't like we had time to dress right now.

"Go grab our clothes and the bag, run to the bike, I'll take care of them!" Daryl ordered me.

"But...!"

"Now, Cecilia!"

I sighed but did as I was told. I grab our clothes and the plastic bag filled with chocolates and sweets and ran to the bike. I was running to it when a group of four walkers was in front of me and if I just evaded them at first but then I thought they could just follow me and eventually catch up with me or get to Daryl, so I threw everything to the ground, killed the first by forcefully stabbing it in the head, I pushed the next to the ground while I killed another, then I moved to the one I pushed that now was on its feet and killed it quickly, kicking it down to the ground for good and right when I was about to kill the fourth, it just fell on the ground with an arrow on his skull.

I turned around and sure enough Daryl was there, he ran to me and as he did I picked up everything again and continued to run, soon enough Daryl caught up with me, luckily we didn't run into any more walkers but we were almost positive that there were more.

Daryl quickly grabbed the backpack, put it over his shoulders, started the engine and he drove away from there, and quickly we were back on the road. Finally I took a deep breath of relief, which didn't last long when I looked down at me.

"Daryl," I said in his ear, he only nodded to let me know he heard me. "You have to stop somewhere so we can get dressed."

I tried to say it as casual as possible, as normal as possible but still I felt my cheeks burning at what I had said and I couldn't help but feel a bit shy and a bit awkward being in just my underwear, riding his bike.

Minutes later, when we got to the main road, he stopped but didn't turn the bike off. He got off the bike and asked me to hand him his shirt, which I had in my hold the whole time, I threw all his clothes to him, including his shoes to him, while I quickly put on my shirt but wasn't as lucky with my jeans, since my skin was still wet and it took a while to pull them all the way up.

Once we were done dressing ourselves, I took the backpack from Daryl because it was so uncomfortable to wrap my arms around him with that on his back. We got on again and soon we were back on the road, luckily our return to the prison was event-less and we saw no more walkers.

Back at the prison, Merle opened the fence for us and Rick was standing right there waiting for us with his arms crossed and all I could think about was if we made it on time, but by Rick's face I really thought we didn't.

"Hi," I said cheerfully, walking to him, trying to change his mood. "Things went good, got the gasoline, some canned food and something that you'll love."

"What?" he asked me, looking straight at me but still he wouldn't smile at me.

"Chocolate!" I exclaimed excitedly. "We brought a full bag of it, it will give us some energy."

"Thanks," Rick said, nodding.

Daryl untied the rope that was around the containers with the gasoline and gave them to Rick and Glenn, who had just joined.

"Why are you wet?" Glenn asked me, looking me from my toes to my hair, water was still dripping from it.

"Oh, well, I, uh, I, I kind of fell into some kind of pond," I said, blushing. "It was very, very dumb of me."

"Daryl is wet too," Rick stated, looking at the two of us.

"When I tripped, I was trying not to fall so I grabbed him by his arm and he tried to hold me and all but I brought the both of us down."

"Okay," Glenn said, chuckling. "I'm going to put these with the other stuff."

Glenn walked away with both containers and I was relieved he believed my lie, I was always a good liar, kind of learnt that from my dad.

"Good job, both of you," Rick said. "Made it just in time, two hours and fifty-three minutes."

"What?" I asked confused.

"Daryl convinced me to give you two an extra hour, I assume he didn't tell you."

"No!" I exclaimed. "I was freaking out about getting here on time and you didn't tell me we had one more hour!"

"It kind of slipped my mind," Daryl said shrugging.

"Right," I said sarcastically.

"Why don't you two go change?" Rick said quickly and before he turned around he winked at us, giving me the impression he knew we didn't fall in a pond and I was suspecting Daryl planned going to that lake and asked Rick for that extra hour.

"You planned it all?" I asked Daryl as we walked inside right next to each other.

"What?"

"The lake."

"No, of course not. You barely gave me time to grab my crossbow and some arrows, and why would I plan it?"

"To relax," I said shrugging, "To have a break."

"Why do you think I planned it?"

"Well, Rick winked at us and..."

"It could mean anything," he said quickly, going up the metal stairs, some people that were in the hall waved at us when they saw us but also looked at us oddly because they noticed our wet clothes and hair. "Don't even mind that."

I said nothing more to Daryl, I just kept going up the stairs and once there I turned right and went directly to my cell. I took off my semi-wet clothes and very wet underwear quickly and put on dry clothes on as quickly as I could so no one would see me and put my hair in a high ponytail.

When I was done I grabbed the full backpack and went down again, to the kitchen. I found Beth, Maggie, Michonne, Carl and my mother there. I smiled at them and handed the backpack to my mother.

"Got lots of cans," I told her. "This will last us for a while, I think."

"Thanks," she said in a monotone voice. "Why didn't you tell me about this run?"

"Because you wouldn't have let me go," I told her as she left the backpack next to a shelf. "And I really wanted to do this, I want to help."

"It's dangerous and I'm your mother, Cecilia."

"It's dangerous everywhere, mum," I told her. "And I'm twenty, I used to go on runs all the time before, it was dangerous back then as well."

"Yeah, but we didn't have a crazy man wanting to kill us all, don't you remember what he did? What if he kidnaps you too?"

"It didn't happen," I said as calmly as I could manage, I was very conscious of the four people in the room watching us. "I'm fine, I managed to get us food and gas and I'm back now, nothing happened to me or Daryl."

"That's another thing, why did you go with him?" she exclaimed angrily, making me so surprised at her sudden outburst.

"Who else would I take?" I exclaimed. "I asked Glenn and didn't want to go, who else could I take? You know he's the best and if you really wanted me to be safe I think he's the one that can keep me the safest."

"He..." She definitely wanted to tell me something about Daryl but she also knew we had an audience, so she stopped herself, which only got me thinking that whatever she was going to say it was bad.

"You should just thank me... for the food," I told her before turning around and sitting next to Carl, who gave me a big hug.

In that moment Daryl walked in with a plastic bag in his hand, the one with the chocolate, I don't even remember how he ended up with it. He put the bag on the very top of a shelf and after that he walked away, but he didn't leave the room before looking directly at me for a couple of seconds and I followed him with my sight, action that didn't go unnoticed by most of the people in the room.

"I saw that, you know," Carl whispered to me. "You two are making M.C. so easy, I don't even have to do anything, well almost anything."

"Carl," I muttered, giving him a look and ruffling his hair a bit, and then I finally processed what he last said. "What do you mean by almost anything?"

"I'll tell you later."

"No, you tell me now."

Carl sighed, he brought his mouth next to my left ear, so he could whisper it, and a part of me was glad that he was going to do that, I didn't want the rest to hear.

"Well, for now let's just say it wasn't a coincidence that you didn't go on that run with Glenn but Daryl," he whispered and when I turned to look at him he just smirked, the little brat.

Then my mother walked out and Glenn walked in and sat next to Maggie, who looked really good but at times she had this empty look on her eyes and it seemed like her mind was somewhere else but she was better, Glenn was better too, physically and mentally.

"So, dad said you fell on a pond, how can that happen?" Carl asked, trying to hold his laughter.

"I guess I'm a bit clumsy," I said, shrugging. Michonne and Beth also seemed interested in the story. "I just wasn't paying attention to where I was going and..."

"Because you were too busy admiring Daryl's handsome face, huh?" Carl exclaimed quickly, making everyone in the room laugh, I was just glad my mother wasn't here anymore.

"No," I exclaimed at him as he and Michonne high-fived. "That would be even more embarrassing, I just tripped, next to a pond, very unlucky."

"Or," Beth said with a smirk. "You pretended to fall, grabbed Daryl's arm and pulled him with you on purpose."

"You know that's not true!" I exclaimed, feeling myself blushing and now it was Beth and Glenn high-fiving. "Why do you ask what happened if you will keep making hypothesis of what happened?"

"We can't believe you just... fell," Beth said. "That isn't like you."

"It happens," I said shrugging.

"Right, 'accidents' happen," Glenn said sarcastically, doing air quotes.

"Oh, shut up!" I exclaimed, standing up.

"Besides, what were you doing close to a pond? Weren't you supposed to go look for food, not going into the woods for an adventure or something like that?" Glenn said as he smirked at me, I just shook my head at him.

"You know what, I'll go rest, I risked my life out there and you just make fun of me!" I said pretending to be dramatic.

"Oh come on, you didn't even come across walkers, did you?" Glenn said.

"Who says we didn't?"

"Your mother asked Rick and he assured her there were no walkers," Maggie said.

"Well, don't tell her but we ran across a group of them, they were like twelve," I told them.

"Was that before, after or during the pond thing?" Michonne asked and I just glared at her.

"I'm done with all of you!" I exclaimed, walking out of the room.

"Come on, Cici!" I heard them all say, but they were still laughing, so I just gave them the finger as I kept walking.

I wasn't really mad or annoyed, I was just pretending I was, but I really wanted to rest a bit, that swim made me really tired and my eyes kept closing. I just needed a nap.

Hello guys! I hope this chapter did make up for the event-less last chapter! :P

QOTD: Where are my readers from? :D I'm really curious about this!

And please tell what ship name do you prefer for Daryl and Cecilia:

- Dici

- Decilia

- Ceryl

- Darilia

- Cecyl