Walking Dead 1. Chapter 1

He wakes with the dawn just as the last of their fires start to fizzle out. Their group had camped out last night in a clearing where they had found two walkers dangling from a tree. He could hear his brother's snores from where he was propped up against a nearby stump and snorts. It isn't exactly the first time Merle had fallen asleep on his watch and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last. Joe could be quite particular about that sort of thing though, so Daryl, being the dutiful brother that he is, walks over and kicks him in the ribs.

Merle startles awake, brandishing a knife and a choice of swear words. Daryl jumps back just in time to avoid a swipe at his shins.

"God damn it, baby brother. What the fuck were you thinking?"

Daryl resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Shut the fuck up, Merle. You know I just saved your sorry ass from Joe's 'discipline'."

Merle pales a bit at that and Daryl couldn't help but smirk. Merle could be one stubborn son of a bitch at times but he still had enough common sense and survival instinct to know that Joe was not someone he wants to cross.

He and his brother stumbled upon Joe's group in an old suburban house a little ways off the road leading out of Atlanta. There appeared to be only three or four of them at the time and Merle was either drunk or brave (or stupid) enough to charge headlong into what turned out to be three arrows and almost a dozen gun points trained at them. Daryl had cursed as they slowly approached, crossbow at the ready, just in time to hear Merle mouthing off about how everyone these days seemed to be hiding behind their weapons like fucking pussies.

"Did you hear that, Boss?" the one with the short bow had quipped. "Dumbass just volunteered himself for target practice."

"I'm Claiming his head," another had called out.

The men had laughed loudly at that, except for the one the first guy addressed as 'Boss'. He cut a rather strange picture against the backdrop of the house with a white vest, white-streaked hair and a leather jacket embroidered with roses and a skull. He held a rifle at his side and appeared to be in his late forties to early fifties but Daryl knew it would be a mistake to underestimate the guy's strength if he indeed were the leader of this ragtag group. He adjusted his grip on his crossbow, shifted him aim and snarled, "Do it and your 'Boss' gets to be _my_ target practice."

Joe looked at him then with interest and something that he would later on learn was amusement in eyes.

"A bowman? I respect that."

Daryl glared at him, trying to appear as though those dark eyes trained at him weren't making him the most nervous he'd ever felt since the dead began to walk.

"You see a man with a rifle, he could have been some kind of photographer or soccer coach back in the day," Joe continued, "but a bowman's a bowman through and through."

Joe had smiled eerily at that.

"The name's Joe," he said. "I'm assuming this is your brother?"

Daryl refused to answer.

"You know, my men could always use themselves a new practice post. But then, you two interest me, so why don't you be a good little redneck and put that bow of yours away. We wouldn't want any accidents, would we?" And then, almost as an afterthought, "Besides, why hurt yourself when you could hurt other people?"

Daryl hesitated for a second before lowering his crossbow.

"Daryl. That's Merle."

"Well, Daryl, Merle. Would you care to join us for some beer?"

That had been a couple of years ago and the group hadn't changed much since then. They had learned that the group that had started out as a biker gang with Joe as its leader respected no laws but the rules of Claiming and Joe's own brand of justice. The way their world worked was that if you wanted something or someone, you just Claimed it – no ifs, no buts, no consequences. In the span of time since they'd joined, the group had moved from the outskirts of Atlanta to the area around Fort Benning, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Daryl had unwillingly participated in all the killing and torturing and the pillaging just to stay in Joe's good graces and to keep his brother out of trouble, but rape – well, that was just where he drew the line. In the twenty odd months he'd spent with their group, he'd never actively participated in Claiming, much less the Claiming of people. Some wise ass made a crack at his masculinity once and something about him and his brother being suspiciously close, only to be met with an arrow to the gut. Daryl was lucky that Joe was on a rare good mood that day and he'd managed to escape with as little as night watch duty for the next two months.

Merle seemed to fit right in with the rest of them, though, and Daryl begrudged him for it. After all, it was his fault they were in this predicament in the first place and he had half a mind to say screw you to his DNA and just walk the fuck away. But that was just it - he'd promised himself that he'd never allow himself to be like Merle, would never walk away from family, and god damn it if he was letting the only piece of his family left get stuck with arrows to a tree and be left for walker fodder.

"Try to at least pretend you've been awake for half the night," he sighs. "I'm going to go hunt us some breakfast before that bastard Len steals our meal."

Daryl seems to be in luck that day and Len, the guy with the short bow, is passed out drunk in his sleeping bag when he makes his way out of their camp. By the time the sun had risen, he'd gotten himself a decent haul of two rabbits and a snake. He starts to make his way back to their camp when he hears footsteps crashing heavily against the forest bed - too fast to be a walker's but too light to be one of theirs. He holds his breath, presses himself up against the nearest tree and waits.

A figure rushes past him in a blur, heading straight in the direction of their camp, and he reacts on instinct and throws himself bodily against it, tackling and pinning the person to the ground.

"Who are you?" he demands, easily keeping the person in place despite their struggling. "What are you doing here?"

He is shocked to find startling blue eyes staring up at him and it is only then that he realizes that he'd just tackled a teen-aged girl. She is frightfully thin, unbelievably dirty, and her thick blonde hair had fallen out of its ponytail.

The girl just continues to look at him for seconds, the panic slightly fading from her eyes to be replaced with something Daryl is surprised to recognize as defiance.

"Get off of me, please," she says in a soft voice. "I promise I mean you no harm."

Daryl blinks at her then and almost laughs, wonders just how this tiny slip of a girl thinks she could do him any "harm."

"I'd say, scrawny little thing like you. Aren't you a bit lost, blondie?"

The girl glares at him then and he swears she would've given him a scathing reply if they weren't interrupted.

"Well, well, what do we have here?"

Daryl feels the beginning of a headache burn at the back of his head.

"Fuck off, Len. This ain't got nothing to do with you."

"Been wondering what's been taking you so long. Figured if you wanted to lose your breakfast, I'd be pretty much obliged. Never thought..." He lets out a low whistle. "Actually, when you're done with her, I don't think you'd mind me taking a turn or two."

Daryl glares at him, pushes himself up and off of the girl and growls before his brain could register what he was doing. "Shut your hole, dumbass. Can't you see she's been Claimed?"

Len raises both eyebrows at that. Daryl Dixon had never Claimed anybody for anything.

"You must've been a good one, girlie," he says, his eyes raking lecherously over the girl's body. "For you to make Dixon Jr. here crack."

Daryl hauls the seemingly shaken girl up, pushes her behind him, and trains his cross bow at the other man. "Piss off, Len. You know better than to Challenge what has been Claimed."

Len frowns at that, gives him a long look, snorts before turning his back on them.

"Whatever you say, brother," he mutters. "Totally not worth it. Joe's fucking pet!"

Daryl watches the other man go, tries to calm down the unexpected rage that was rising within him. What the hell possessed him to declare a Claim like that out of the blue? It is bound to bring more trouble than what it's worth, staking a Claim like he had. But then, the thought of delivering another innocent into those people's hands...

So distracted is he that it takes a moment to register the point of an arrow against his throat.


	2. Chapter 2

She holds an arrow to his neck with trembling fingers, tries to remember the times she'd helped her father treat people – impromptu lessons on human anatomy. She wishes she had something more substantial, like the knife Michonne had given her. _Michonne_... Her resolve threatens to crack when she thinks about the older woman. It happened too fast, too quickly, too unexpectedly. Both of them let their guards down – even the ever-vigilant swordswoman – and for what? A glimpse of peace in this chaotic world? A chance to live instead of merely surviving? Both of them were caught completely unaware and then _that _person...

She shakes her head, chastises herself for being sidetracked, tightens her grip on the shaft of the arrow. If there was one thing Michonne had managed to teach her, it was how to be resourceful, to work with what you're given in the circumstances and just pray your hardest that you'd make it through. Right now, what she has is an arrow, carefully pilfered from the hunter's sheath while he was too busy snarling at the man who had come crashing through the bushes.

The two men seemed to be in a group together, the trade of insults sounding awfully familiar and routinary. She didn't like it, especially with the way the man - Len, he was apparently called - took one look at them and assumed the worst. She hated it even more – the way he raked his eyes across her body like one of those sleazy, perverted guys who hung around in back alleys outside their high school. It made her skin crawl and her stomach churn and she found herself almost grateful for the rough way the hunter, the man who had her pinned to the ground just seconds ago, had shoved her behind him, taking her out of the other man's line of sight. Dixon, Len had called him, and apparently he had Claimed her. She'd frozen at that, thoughts of exactly what that may have entailed making her blood run cold and she'd tried desperately not to think of Michonne, not to think of anything really, to focus on the most pressing concern at the moment.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, her breath stirring some of the strands of hair at the hunter's nape, hoping she doesn't sound as scared as she is feeling, hoping he doesn't notice the way her heart thumps loudly against her chest. "Please don't make me hurt you, Mister Dixon. All I need is just for you to promise not to tell anybody you've seen me and walk away."

She feels him tense against her for a moment and she can't help but feel a bit of triumph at having caught him by surprise but then he's laughing and it's the most genuine, human sound she's heard in a while.

"What's so funny?" she finds herself asking, in spite of herself, honestly curious as to what could have caused the man who was just moments ago ready to take another man's head off this much amusement.

"I have to hand it to you, girl," he says in between his chuckles. "Can't say I've ever had anybody call me something like 'Mr. Dixon' before, especially not someone threatening to slit my throat."

She swallows hard, tries not to let the way he so nonchalantly dismissed her as a threat get to her. "Put down your bow, please."

Surprisingly, the older man complies, tossing his bow to the ground and letting his arms fall to his sides.

"Alright, there. Now why don't you put that pointy thing away and let's talk."

She pauses, "How do I know I can trust you?"

He groans then, going from mild amusement to the beginnings of frustration in a heartbeat. "Damn it, girl! If you only knew what _hell_ I've saved you from, you'd better be-"

"I know!" she interrupts, feeling the emotion she's been trying to suppress rise up and threaten to choke her. "I know all too well what your kind does. I know how people hurt other people – it's happened before – and I'm never going to make the same stupid mistake of trusting anybody in this world ever again."

She feels him tense for a moment but nothing could have prepared her for when he spins around and pins her against the nearest tree, nicking the side of his neck in the process. She watches, mesmerized by the trickle of blood from the shallow wound.

The man doesn't seem to notice it nor her morbid fascination at the fact that she has just drawn a breathing, living person's blood.

"So it's _my kind_ now, huh?" he seethes. "_My_ kind? I have half the mind to drag you all the way to camp and let the bastards have at you, if this is all the thanks I get for putting my neck on the line."

She meets his eyes then - gray and green and brown in turn - and is floored by the intensity of the emotions she finds there. She doesn't understand, wants to think that he has no right to be angry, but there's something so raw, so honest with what she finds in his eyes that makes her want to try and trust him. She doesn't understand him - this rough, ill-mannered stranger who not just moments ago was having a laugh at her expense; this man who had apparently saved her from rushing headlong into a much bigger mess than what she was running from; this man who is now looking at her with a kind of hurt that pierces through the haze of fear she finds herself in. Her father had always said that instincts made a good judge of character and right now, her instincts are telling her that this man is different – different from Len and _that person _ and all others she'd ever met before. She swallows audibly at that, her mouth feeling dry all of a sudden, her throat constricted.

"What do you want from me then, Mr. Dixon?" she tries to say it bravely but it comes out as an almost breathless whisper.

She watches as he takes a step back, closes his eyes, tries to get his breathing under control. She stares, transfixed, as he takes deep, calming breaths, still seemingly oblivious to the wound she had inflicted on him. She holds her breath until he opens his eyes once again and finds that they are clear and openly taking her appearance in, as though seeing her for the first time.

He sighs.

"Are you travelling with anyone?" he asks neutrally, almost diplomatically.

She stalls for a bit, wonders what lies she has to say that someone like him would believe. Coming up short, she settles for a version of the truth instead. "Yes – a woman. We got separated from our group when the prison we were living in was overrun."

The man cocks a curious brow at the word 'prison' but focuses on his original question.

"And this... woman - is she out looking for you?"

She bites her lip to keep it from trembling. "No. She's gone. _He _killed her." And she forces herself to stop at that. For even if her instincts were telling her to trust this man, she couldn't afford to give him something to use against her.

"And is it _him _you're running from – the man who killed your friend?"

She glances at him. "No," she lies against her teeth. "I was running from a forest fire and a herd of walkers. That man – he's dead."

He gives her a calculating look but doesn't press the issue, turns to pick up his crossbow and what appears to be a hunting bag. She watches his movements curiously, couldn't believe what they could possibly mean. This man, she had told him so much and yet now...

"So you're letting me go?" she asks, incredulously.

He looks back at her, shrugs. "Ain't no business of mine, you running around telling those lies, pretending you've killed people." And then, without warning, he approaches her, unsheathes a knife she hadn't noticed from his hip and places it in her hand. "Just steer clear of this area – around ten miles out is the main road. Try to stay alive as long as you can. It would be quite tough to do alone but..."

"Is that why you're with those people?" she asks spontaneously. "You seem to be a good hunter. You don't need them to survive."

And by the way he jerks back and doesn't meet her eyes, she suddenly understands.

"You don't know nothing," he growls weakly at her, defensively.

"But I do," she insists. "You are a good person," says it with so much conviction. It startles the both of them when she takes one of his hands in hers and says, "My name's Beth, Beth Greene. Come with me, Mr. Dixon."

He looks disbelievingly at her and she's sure that if he expected anything to come out of this, this wasn't it.

"Daryl," he says after a long pause, squeezing her hand.


	3. Chapter 3

To say that Daryl's thoughts were one tangled, fucked up mess the moment the strange blond girl - _Beth, _his mind supplies helpfully; _her name is Beth_ \- takes his hand in hers and practically asks him to run away with her would've been an understatement in a lifetime of understatements. He doesn't understand it – how someone he'd just met, someone who just moments ago held an arrow to his throat, could make him feel such a variety of strong, conflicting emotions. Anger, he could deal with. Anger has become such an important part of who he is - violent and hurtful and explosive at times, simmering just beneath the surface at others; anger at himself, his brother, his group, the whole fucking human race. Anger is safe, something familiar in this gods forsaken world. Anger overrides fear and loneliness and guilt and insecurity and all those other useless feelings that get you killed in the zombie apocalypse. Anger is the one thing other than his crossbow that he could count on when things don't go his way, as they usually do; the one thing that he could rely on to tide him through rough waters; and now, it is the one thing that he clings to amid the confusion, the curiosity, the begrudging respect, the irrational concern for this random chick who would have ended up as just another of _their _victims had he not stepped in. And that was it, wasn't it? He _had _stepped in, to the extent of Claiming her, when just a couple of months ago, he had done nothing when their group found a pair of sisters travelling with their aged father. He had not simply handed her over to Len just to get the asshole out of his face as he usually did. And the mere fact that he allowed her words to get to him, to hurt him, when he would've just brushed them off had anybody said them to him before – well, she sure has a hell of an effect on him and it unsettles him. He doesn't like it, not one bit.

He was actually prepared to walk away, to leave her behind with nothing but his knife and a couple of words of advice to pacify his conscience but then she just had to look at him with those clear blue eyes, just had to say the words he'd been selfishly thinking himself all these years, just had to say them with the kind of conviction that makes him want to believe and, for whatever reason, makes him want to dare hope for things to be different from the way they are.

So he tells her his name and he squeezes her hand and it's a good half a minute until he realizes that he's been staring. He clears his throat and quickly lets go as though her hand had burnt him. He feels heat begin to creep up from his neck, into his cheeks and ears, and he turns his back to her but not before he catches the triumphant smile tracing the curve of her mouth, lighting up her face in spite of the dirt and the grime and the soot.

"The hell are you smiling about, girl?" he says, gruffly, trying not to show his discomfort. "I just told you my name. Haven't said nothing about going with you."

He could almost see her smile widen at that, as though he'd just confirmed what she knew all along.

"But you want to, don't you?" she pushes, takes a step towards him, would've probably said something more if he hadn't turned back around abruptly and aimed his crossbow at her.

"What are you...?" she manages to get out before he's letting the arrow fly, straight and true. It whizzes past her, just a hairbreadth from her head, and pierces through the skull of the walker reaching gnarled fingers out for her.

Her mouth remains frozen in shock, blue eyes wide with disbelief and something else – hurt? betrayal? – and it's that look on her face that will haunt him for the next couple of days. He takes one step towards her and her knees give out. She slumps boneless to the ground, stunned, barely noticing him when he moves forward to retrieve his arrow from the remains of the walker that would have been the end of her.

"Too slow, girl," he sneers, tries to ignore the way his senses are still tingling, telling him something else is wrong; wipes the arrow against his pants. "With those reflexes, it's a wonder you're still alive."

She remains unmoving, silent, doesn't rise up to the obvious taunt at her abilities as he'd hoped she would, stares unseeing at the ground before her. He doesn't have to be a doctor to know when a person has gone into a state of shock, considers for a while just leaving her there, but that part of him, the one she'd recognized for what it is, wouldn't allow him to leave her without at least a fighting chance. He kneels in front of her, starts to reach for her shoulder when she tenses, lunges blindly at him, the knife he'd given her clutched desperately in her hands.

He reacts instinctively, catches her wrists and wrestles the knife effortlessly from sweat-slicked hands.

"Hey! Girl! Are you out of your fucking mind? What the hell do you think you're doing?"

She continues to struggle against him, screaming, screeching and yelling, eyes still unseeing. "How dare you! How dare you! Let go of me, you bastard!"

He hears the uneven shuffle of footsteps then making their way in their direction. Damn girl is practically crying now, alerting walkers within half a mile's radius as to their location, and for the first time in his life, Daryl Dixon finds that he doesn't know what to do. He's never had to deal with women in the Before, save for quick, meaningless fucks at the back of bars he let Merle drag him to. He was usually either drunk or stoned or both on those occasions; couldn't tell which way was up or down, let alone manage to remember their names the morning after. He certainly hadn't learned how to deal with women in the light of day then, much less what to do with a hysterical one in a forest full of the undead.

"Beth," he tries again. "Beth, listen to me," tells himself to calm the fuck down for both of their sakes, and after a while, it works. She stops struggling, allows him to hold her wrists. "Look, I wasn't trying to hurt you. Take a look behind you and you'll see that I just saved your damn life. Now you can either clock out on me right now and I'm gonna leave you for those damn biters or you could be that stubborn girl who held an arrow to my throat and get off your ass and we run. Choice is all yours."

She does snap out of it then, and he wonders whether it was his choice of words or tone of voice that she responded to. A sliver of recognition and then she's whispering his name.

"Daryl?" she asks in confusion.

"Yes, it's me," he says. "Now come on. We have to go, Beth."

She blinks at him, still not quite here nor there. "We have to go? But where?"

He sighs, unsure of how she'd take it; figures there isn't much of a choice if both want to survive the night.

"Home sweet home," he says sarcastically. "I'm bringing you back to camp."

* * *

A/N: First off, thank you so much for all the reviews, favorites, follows - basically for the interest in this AU story of mine. I know Beth and Daryl may come off as OOC and unstable – Beth, mostly - but I swear there's a reason for all these, some back story that will eventually be revealed in the coming chapters. I can't promise how often I'll be able to update but do know that I'll be working on this as much as I can while juggling a full-time job, various part-time jobs and Law school preparations. I hope you all like where this seems to be going so far and don't mind short chapters (much). Hugs for all.


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