Story Info

Title: Welcome to the Apocalypse

Fandom: The Walking Dead

Pairing: Rick Grimes/Daryl Dixon

Rating: T

Summary: At the end of the world, there's only one thing that Rick wants more than survival: his husband of twelve years, Daryl Dixon. Rick wakes up alone in the hospital he was taken to after he's shot while on duty alone with only corpses to keep him company. Forced to fight his way out of there or succumb to the dead that try to eat him, he is almost killed before a man finds him and brings him to safety. Together with Morgan and his son Duane, Rick fights his way to Atlanta to try and find his husband and his son without meeting his end in the meantime. Will Rick be able to make it back to his family before it's too late? And if he does, will he be able to protect him from a world that wants them dead?

Spoilers: Season 1+

.x.x.x.x.

Chapter Info

Title: Days Gone Bye

Number: 1/?

Warnings: Language, violence, blood, gore, angst

Author's Note: Greetings all, and welcome to my new The Walking Dead story! I've written for this fandom a bit, but this is my first Rickyl story so I hope you enjoy! For right now the rating is T for this story, but it might go up to M later for sexual content. We'll see what happens! Also note: the story info will only be on this chapter as that will never change, but the chapter info will change each time so that will be on every chapter. Thanks for reading! Comments are love!

Rick Grimes gasped as his consciousness flooded back into his system, making him acutely aware of everything going on in the room around him. His eyes were blurry, but he could see the shape of an IV pole next to him along with a vase of flowers on the bedside table and the bright sunlight drifting through the window. It was clearly daytime, but he had no idea what time of day or even what day of the week it was. Everything that happened before was muddled in his mind: the car chase, fighting with the perpetrators, getting shot. He remembered the last thought on his mind before he blacked out to be his family, trying to beg Shane to get to them and take care of them, but he only remembers gasping and choking on his own blood as he fought for voice, feeling it fill his throat and lungs before blackness faded his vision down to nothing. It felt like it was just yesterday, but he could tell by the weakness in his body and his parched throat that he had been there for awhile. How long exactly? And why was it so quiet?

"Daryl?" he croaked, his voice hoarse from disuse and he coughed past the scratchiness. "Carl? Shane? Lori?" At one point, he remembered hearing Carl and Shane's voices so close to him, telling him stories about weird people Shane had pulled over and Carl's classroom antics. Daryl was still on his road trip with Merle, he supposed, as he didn't remember his voice, though he would've figured Lori or Shane would've called him. Where is he? Where are any of them? He figured one of them would be there, waiting for him to wake up. He coughed again and slowly rolled over to try and find a clock or phone or something to tell him what day it was. A frown fell over his face as he realized something wasn't right, but he couldn't put his finger on what. "Nurse!" he called. "Nurse, help!" He coughed again and grabbed for the IV pole, slowly sitting himself up on the edge of the bed. Something wasn't—

The IV isn't running, he suddenly realized. He frowned and hit a couple of the buttons on the front, but nothing worked and the bag was empty, down to just air. A glance at the wall told him it was still plugged in, but that the lights weren't working either, and the vase of flowers was wilted and crumbling on the table. Did the electricity go out? Swallowing past his rough throat, he used the IV pole and the railing on the bed to try and get himself up, but the weakness in his legs made him fall to the floor. Really, how long had it been that his muscles were that weak?

He gasped as he landed on his aching, stinging side, making him curl up and lay there as he tried to regain back his strength and stop the pain at the same time. The IV pole was the only thing that was there to help him stand and finally he pulled himself up, leaning against it for support as he tried to walk. With one hand he yanked the IV needle from his arm and the oxygen tube out of his nose, shaking himself as he made his way into the bathroom. The lights in there wouldn't work either, so he used the sunlight filtering through the door to find the sink. To his shock and gratitude the water still worked and he leaned down to put his lips under the faucet, drinking like a dying man. It was if he hadn't had anything to eat or drink for weeks. Shouldn't the IV have helped?

Shaking his head, he finally finished up with the water, though he probably could've drank a vase worth and more, and turned it off, stumbling back out into his room. It looked like it hadn't been touched in a week, maybe two as there was a light layer of dust covering surfaces that he hadn't touched, even on the floor. There were no footprints in it, and those flowers had died awhile back, long enough that they were starting to stink. Fear and dread started to settle into his body as he looked around, trying not to panic as he yanked open some drawers and found some disposable scrubs he could change into. There were only the shoes that went with his uniform to wear, but he changed into those, too, as it was better than walking barefoot.

The hallway was deserted, the only sound being that of Rick's gentle footsteps and the squeaky wheels of the IV pole. He tried not to panic, but what was he supposed to do when he wakes up in a post-apocalyptic nightmare? At least that's what it felt like: nobody around, alone in a nearly demolished hospital. Bullet holes ran along the wall at head-height with blood staining around them, ceiling lights hung from cords, pieces of plaster littered the floor along with tipped over wheel chairs and medicine carts. His breathing was shaky as he walked, feeling the IV pole start to bend under his weight, but it was all he had left.

He stopped by a nurse's station and tried a phone, but there was no dial tone. He tried calling out, but nobody answered. Other than his labored breathing, he was alone in this dead hospital with absolutely no idea what happened and he felt the panic rising inside his body, his hand trembling as he grabbed the IV pole and quickly tried to find a way out, anything to get out of that hospital.

There was an exit sign towards the end of the hallway near a cafeteria sign and he hurried for it, his feet picking up pace as his IV pole rattled. He tossed it aside as his speed increased. For a moment he had to study the signs, seeing that the exit was pointed to the left and the cafeteria was pointed to the right. Making a quick dart for the left, he began to run down that hall when he started to see movement towards the end. He stopped in his tracks and frowned, but he felt relief course through his veins. There were other people there, real living people. Maybe they could tell him what was going on, if this was real or if it was some kind of sick joke. Frankly he hoped it was just a nightmare.

"Hey!" he called out, his feet taking him closer to the shadows dancing along the walls. They seemed to stop and then slowly turn in his direction once they heard his voice. He moved quicker, picking up into a run. "Please, can you help me? I just woke up and—"

And something still wasn't right. They didn't look like regular people, they were stumbling along and faintly he was beginning to hear groaning. He stopped running and stared at the shadows, trying to figure out what was going on, when they came into view. Well they were real people, some doctors and nurses and some patients, he could tell by what they were wearing. Did they hold up here together while waiting for...whatever is happening to end?

"Hey, are you—" His voice cut off again as one of the doctors stepped up in front of a doorway and the sunlight coming from inside that room flashed over his face. Or rather, what was left of his face. The left side looked like it had been blown away, only a steaming pile of hamburger left. One eye was gone and the other eye that was left was white and milky. Yet he looked so hungry and he lurched forward like a starving man jumping for his first meal in days.

Rick let out a startled cry and jumped back, yelping as he tripped over a wheelchair that had been left behind him. He hissed as he felt some of his stitches break open and he scuttled back, desperate to get away from whatever this thing was, because it sure as hell wasn't human anymore. It didn't stop, though, and it was joined by its friends who Rick saw, one by one, that they weren't human anymore either. Various degrees of decay and death assaulted his eyes and eventually his nose, making him gag, but he was too worried about getting away to bother with vomiting.

It seemed he couldn't grab his footing no matter how hard he tried, almost getting up only to fall backwards again. It didn't help that his shoes were smooth and flat on the bottom, the cop specialty. All he wanted to do was get out of there, somehow get past them and get to the exit to be free. Yet all he could do was yell for Daryl, at least internally, wanting his rough and tough hunter to come and save him. He would know how, right? He's killed things before, surely he would have no problem with whatever these were.

Eventually he backed into the IV pole he left on the ground and with a grunt, he picked it up and swung it at the thing that just kept coming, not dissuaded at all by Rick's frightened motions, even when he managed to get a few smacks in on its side. It reached for him, grabbing for his foot and trying to pull him towards it, making him scream and kick at it.

At first he didn't even hear the blast as his ears rung, but he saw a hole blasted through the used-to-be-doctor's forehead and it fell to a crumpled heap on the ground and didn't move again. Breathing heavily, he watched as two others fell down as well, the other two closest to him, another doctor and a patient that had long brown hair.

"Get up! Move, let's go!" Oh, were those words for him? Hands were tugging him at both sides and finally he scrambled back, using the leverage of the other hands to pick himself up and catch his footing. "Run, goddamn it!" A hand sounded across his cheek and it was as if the spiderwebs of fear clouding his mind went away and he could see clearly for the first time. Dead things were coming after him, he had woken up alone in an abandoned hospital, and some stranger had just shot the things and saved his life. But it got him moving and he nodded quickly, turning to the other man behind him.

The man was a slightly older African American man welding a rifle in one hand and a knife in the other. The other person who had tugged on him was a boy, slightly older than Carl—maybe twelve or thirteen—holding onto a shovel that had dried splatters of gore covering the blade as well as part-way up the handle. Clearly father and son and for a moment he yearned for his own son, but the man was yanking on his sleeve to get him moving and Rick followed him quickly. They were headed for the cafeteria that Rick had seen a sign for earlier and they ducked inside. The man and boy slammed the door shut and put a board through the handles along with wrapping a chain around it and clicking a lock shut. Those things began to bang on the other side, knowing that Rick and the others were hidden behind it, making Rick yelp and stumble back into an old table.

"Wha—"

"Run now, talk later," the man rushed out and turned to jog in the other direction. Rick blindly followed and realized there was another entrance there, but in the back. Clearly it was an employee entrance because it was in the back of the kitchen and the stairwell was very narrow. It didn't stop on any other floors, but took them all the way down to the ground. Rick realized they were on the third floor as he counted each flight they descended. He was panting, his side screaming in protest as they made their way down, and finally burst out the back entrance. There were a couple more of those things out there which one was taken out by the boy's shovel and the other the man's rifle. There was a Jeep parked down at the bay and they ran for it so Rick followed, jumping into the back seat as it was turned off.

Tires spun as the man sped away and Rick stared in horror around him. Harrison Memorial Hospital was barely more than ruins. Large holes covered the first couple floors of the building; how he was still there and didn't die was beyond him. Up on a hill above the hospital was the visitor's parking lot and what was left of a military operation. Bodies littered the ground, some falling out of a crashed helicopter. Bullet holes seemed to have rained every surface and the sight of blood and stench of death seemed to blanket the area.

The man was driving away from it, though, thankfully as he headed towards Rick's old neighborhood. Most of the houses looked empty as they drove past in a flurry of movement, definitely going above the speed limit, but it's not as if actually mattered then. It seemed as that Rick's sick feeling that they were in the apocalypse was absolutely right.

"Stop!" Rick suddenly yelled, making the man slam on the brakes.

"What the—" Rick didn't give him time to finish as he jumped out, barely thinking enough to slam the door shut as he was racing up the front steps of the home he shared with his family. It had been left wide open and there were clothing spilled into the hallway and around the living room. Pictures were left haphazardly along the walls and the kitchen was raided bare of any non-perishable food item.

"Daryl!" he screamed, feet taking him to the stairs and up two at a time. He could feel blood start to ooze from his wound, but he neither stopped nor cared about such a fact. "Carl!" His family was here, they just had to be. They had to be... "Daryl! Carl!" The rooms were torn apart. It was only a two bedroom house, but it looked as if a tornado hit it. He could see toys and books were gone from Carl's room along with most of his and Daryl's clothes. Rick's wasn't touched. The suitcases that Rick and Daryl had bought to go on their honeymoon twelve years ago were gone as well, and pictures that had been stored away in albums on their dresser were gone, too. The house was silent except for the sound of his panicked panting breath sawing out of his lungs and he gasped, falling to his knees right there in the middle of the hallway, his loud sobs echoing off of the vacant walls. "Daryl! Carl!" His call did not meet the ears of those it was intended for. Nobody answered him, nobody was there. He was alone in the apocalypse with no idea if his family survived or not.

Slowly he curled up, crying into his knees as he pulled himself into a ball, allowing himself to grieve and feel the devastation and effects of what had happened to him in just a matter of a couple hours. He knew they wouldn't have left him if they knew he was still alive, but that just meant that he knew he needed to find them, needed to get to them and protect them.

"...Mister?"

The voice interrupted his grieving, his loud sobs slowly fading away until he was left hiccuping in the middle of the hallway. Slowly he began to crawl over to the stairway and sat on the top step, bloodshot, watery eyes staring down at the man and boy that stood in the doorway of his home. The man looked suspicious as his eyes studied Rick, flickering along his body and then setting upon his side where Rick's wound clearly opened up.

"What's your wound?" he demanded then, his voice suddenly cold and Rick frowned, gulping down the lump in his throat.

"What?" Rick mumbled.

The man took a step forward and pulled his son behind him, rifle in his hands. He didn't point it, but he brought it in front of him as if for protection. "What's your wound?" he repeated.

"I-I don't—"

"Were. You. Bit." The words made Rick look at him as if he grew a second head and slowly he shook his head.

"B-bit? I don't—"

"How'd it happen?"

"Shot. I-I was shot."

"That's all?"

Rick nodded. "That's all."

The man gazed at him for another moment before nodding and beckoned Rick down. Rick frowned at him, his eyes suspicious as the man was clearly in charge in this position, but he did as he said if only so that gun wasn't pointed at him again. But the man set the gun aside as Rick stepped in front of him. The man gestured to his side and Rick frowned harder, but slowly lifted up the edge of his shirt. He hissed as the dirty gauze was pulled away and the man seemed to deflate, the tension leaving his shoulders and he gave a single nod, which brought the boy forward. He still held the shovel, but he set lowered it to the ground as the man put the gauze back in place.

"I'm Morgan Jones. This is my son, Duane."

Rick nodded. "Rick Grimes."

Morgan held his hand out. "Nice to meet you, Rick." Rick nodded and shook the man's hand.

"Sorry about the interrogation. Had to make sure you weren't bit by one of those things."

"What are they?"

Morgan frowned. "You mean you don't know?" Rick shook his head and Morgan sighed. "Well...we better get back to our place. We'll explain it all there." He paused. "Do you have anything that you could use as a weapon?" Rick paused for a moment before holding up a hand and heading into the kitchen, coming out with the butcher knife. Morgan nodded. "That'll do. C'mon, we're in the house next door."

"The Drakes," he said, watching as Morgan picked up his gun and Duane his shovel before they led him outside and across the yards to the house next door.

"It was empty when we got here. We're just laying low here for a little bit before we move on, try and find someplace more permanent." There was an odd lilt to the man's voice as if he weren't telling Rick everything, but he wasn't about to push. Everything just seemed so unreal and he was still waiting to wake up with Daryl and Carl leaning over him, smiling in relief that he was awake. He could tell them all about his post-apocalyptic dream and they would laugh and tell him, "that'll never happen." Except every time he took a step, his side stung and that pain told him this wasn't a nightmare.

This was real.

Morgan set aside the weapons and had Duane help him nail some boards across the front door. He showed Rick to a bedroom that he could have before he started cooking a can of beans over a candle. Without the electricity, Rick knew that was probably about as best they could do, and he sat quietly across from Duane on the side of the table while Morgan worked.

"So, you really don't know what's going on?" Morgan finally said. Rick shook his head. "What do you know?"

Rick shifted in his seat. "I was shot and taken to the hospital. I woke up and...and the world was like this." He shook his head. "I don't know how it happened, or...or what those things are that tried to attack me today."

"Walkers."

The word came from Duane, who spoke for the first time since Rick ran into them.

Rick frowned. "Walkers?"

"The dead getting up and walking around?" Morgan shrugged. "Seemed like a good name for them." He sat down with the warm can of beans and began to spoon it evenly onto the three mismatched plates sitting around in front of them. "If you're bit by one, even scratched, you become one of them. The fever will kill you first, but eventually you'll become a walker. That's why I asked you about your wound. I needed to know you weren't bit." He gave a spoon to Rick and slowly the man began to eat, but by the second bite he was shoveling it into his mouth, realizing just how famished he really was. "You must've been in there a long time. It's been about two weeks since the televisions and radios went dead." Rick looked up at him in alarm as he finished off his plate. "At first they said it was just in the cities. But then it began to spread. Soon the whole country had reports about it and were telling people to get to the cities because they were setting up refugee shelters. That was a day before everything went dark. My wife has family in Atlanta, so that's where we're headed."

Rick glanced around and frowned. "...wife?"

Morgan nodded and glanced to Duane who refused to look up as he ate. "She died on that bed in there. One minute she had been next to me, the next minute one of those things was gnawing on her neck. She died in about seven hours and turned an hour after that." He pushed his food around on the plate. "Didn't have the strength to end her..."

Rick frowned sadly and nodded his understanding. If that had been reversed and it was Daryl that had died and turned, he wouldn't have been able to put down his husband either. What if he already was? What if he's gone and I'll never see him again? The thought haunted him and he barely was able to pick up his glass of water to take a sip.

"So who were you looking for?" Morgan wondered, his voice still soft.

Rick glanced up and back down as he took another sip of water. "My husband and son. Though...he was on a road trip with his brother before I got shot, so I don't even know if—" He paused and swallowed down the lump in his throat. "—I don't know if Carl is with him or our friends. I don't know if Daryl is alive or if he was eaten by one of those...walkers. I don't know where they are, and I need to. Even if they're dead...knowing is better than not knowing." Though the jury was still out on that one.

Morgan nodded in understanding and finished up his meal as well. "Where do you think they'd head?"

Rick shrugged. "Safest place. Protecting Carl would be Daryl's first priority. Maybe Atlanta, neither of us had family there, but if there was a refugee center, that's where he would go. Our friend Lori's parents were there, though, so they could've stuck with her and her husband, Shane."

"Sounds like we're both headed that way. If you want, we can stick together. Duane and I want to stay here a couple more days. Try to...to finish up with some business." Morgan's wife. Rick nodded silently. "But if you can wait that long, we'll tag along and we can help each other."

Rick thought about it for a moment. While he really wanted to leave right then and there to find Daryl and Carl, it was getting dark out and he knew with those things and his lack of experience, not to mention his opened wound and general weakness, it wouldn't be such a good idea. Plus he knew that safety in numbers was the best possibility and even though he didn't know them, they saved his life and got him out of that walker-infested hospital. He owed them a lot and he trusted them.

"Sounds like a plan," Rick said quietly and Morgan smiled. "By the way...thank you for saving me. You don't even know me. So...thank you." Morgan merely smiled and poured him some more water.

An hour later, Rick finished up with Morgan in the living room. Morgan had insisted on helping him patch up and so with a bottle of rum in Rick's hand, he re-stitched the wound. He didn't understand the rum at first, but realized its purpose once the needle started to go in his skin. It was rough and by the end, he was sweaty and achy, but he wasn't openly bleeding anymore which would be a good thing considering. A fresh gauze pad was put over it with some more tape, and he was given some sweats and a clean plain white t-shirt to change into. The bed was actually pretty comfortable, much more so than the hospital bed he had woken up in, and he found that between the stress of waking up as he had, the lack of food and water, finding out the world had ended and the dead were walking, and add on the fact that his husband and son might very well be dead...it was exhausting and against his better judgement, his eyes fluttered shut right away, leaving him dead to the world and, thankfully, in a dreamless sleep.