Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
It happened about a year ago.
They were on a routine run, the three of them: her, Daryl and Rick. It was spring and the air was cool. The trees had just started to bud and the smell of fresh grass and dirt rode along the breeze. Alexandria was theirs and things felt back to normal in a way they hadn’t since the prison.
They approached an old parts warehouse, looking for backup generators, salvage parts for the cars.
It was the three of them and they got cocky.
Rick hung an oil lantern up on the wall to illuminate the space while they worked. It flashed over the cold, concrete floor in shadows. They were joking, Carol smiling, when walkers started banging into the door behind them. It sounded like there were a lot but Daryl wasn’t concerned. “I can lead ’em away,” he said, holding up his crossbow.
Then the door pushed open.
Things happened quickly after that. An undead chorus filled the gigantic space as a mass of them swarmed in. Some went to the right, after Daryl, and the rest went to the left, after her and Rick.
A row of oil drums got pushed over and spilled. She could smell it, hear the viscous liquid pouring out onto the floor.
That’s when the lantern fell and flames engulfed the area.
She remembers little about what followed. Rick had his arm around her waist, leading her through heat and smoke. Then they were back on the grass and the fire had somehow consumed the warehouse. Walkers stumbled out after them, burning.
She cried for Daryl but he never came. After the walkers petered out, she tried to go in after him but Rick held her back. He grabbed her around her waist as she lunged, screaming at the fire that leapt into the sky. She couldn’t think, could barely even breathe. All she knew in the moment was the heat and the panic and the feeling of Oh God, this isn’t right.
“You’ll die,” Rick kept saying. He was crying, too. “Don’t.”
That’s when her anger turned on him and she started hitting. First in the face and when he grabbed her wrists, she started slapping at his chest. Just anguish and sick panic, like the day Sofia stumbled out of that barn.
Finally she collapsed and let him hold her, cried until she couldn’t speak or move.
They returned with help after the fire died out. A group of them looked through the debris for a body, for track marks, but the flames had taken down almost everything that wasn’t steel. It was just char and pieces of leftover metal, coated in layers of bubbled ash.
They searched the area but found nothing.
“If he got out, he’ll find his way back,” Rick said.
But she knew deep down Daryl never left the warehouse.
+++
Months passed.
Eugene died. Tara, too. Michonne was killed protecting Rosita and that hit the group the hardest. What hope was there if this plague had claimed their two best—the archer and the samurai?
Rick got more paranoid after that. He started sleeping very little and manning the guard tower more and more on his own. Morgan helped arming the rest of the group, teaching them how to fight and survive. Sasha, too.
Carol took over in other areas.
She and Rick started spending more time together. No one else understood what they were going through. It was just them and their grief and the work. Always the work. She started spending the night in his house and taking care of Judith. When the girl began speaking coherent sentences, they became inseparable.
The seasons changed. Rick grew more ruthless than ever. The only time he ever let his guard down was some nights in bed, when he’d draw in close to her, not to protect but to be protected, and let her pull him to her breast, her hands smoothing through his hair.
That’s how things began.
It made sense, them being together. They were the leaders of the place, after all. They were the ones left after Michonne and Daryl…
It went okay for a while after that. Until winter started.
That’s when Daryl came back.