Looking and Seeing: Andrea.

Companion piece to Looking and Seeing: Daryl.

Andrea doesn't like to think of herself as being driven by pure lust, especially not when there are more important things like a Zombie apocalypse to worry about. But, she realises, that's probably because she hasn't seen Daryl Dixon half-naked before. Just a short one, post 2.03 and 2.04.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is my first fic for this fandom, hope you enjoy!

###

"Hey, do you mind if we stop for a few minutes so I can splash my face?" Andrea asks as they amble back to the RV after a night's fruitless searching for Sophia. If circumstances weren't what they were, she'd be ready to kill Sophia for running off. They have been searching all night and for some time since sunrise, to no avail, and Andrea can feel the sweat running down her back and her chest, dampening her ponytail. The cool, inviting brook, with its shallow, clear water is just too much to resist, not when she can't remember the last time she took a shower. So five minutes. That's all she wants: five minutes to splash some cool water on her face.

To her surprise, Daryl acquiesces without opposition. "I'll just scout around a bit." He says, slinging his crossbow across his shoulder. "I'll holler if I find anything."

He disappears into the taller grasses and undergrowth then, scouting around lest there be any lurking walkers or roamers waiting for a snack. She can hear him whistling what sounds like Willie Nelson and guesses that it's as much for her benefit as it is his. He's keeping his distance, giving her some privacy but letting her know that he's still there. It's a thoughtful gesture, especially now, when privacy could soon give way to torn flesh and undead eyes. Plus ... she hasn't had any time alone since their escape from the CDC. Dale and Lori have been watching her like two hawks, fearful that she might do something really stupid like blow her brains out. She isn't in that place any more. Or at least, most of the time, she isn't, so she doesn't need a babysitter. She needs some time alone to think. She needs this.

Just for five minutes

She listens intently to Daryl's idle humming before quickly stripping to the waist, tossing her bra and shirt to one side, keeping the pistol within easy reach. Shane and Rick had mentioned something about shooting lessons, which she figures is a good idea, assuming that they get over themselves before they wind up getting everybody killed. As she splashes her face with cold water she takes that back. It isn't Rick's fault that his wife and partner thought that he was dead and decided to knock boots together. In fact, she rationalises as she throws water down the back of her neck, it even makes a sick kind of sense: he's known, familiar. He'll look out for her and Carl. In this world of amorality and death and kill-or-be-killed mentalities, you couldn't ask for much more. Despite her bitching about Dale and his well-meaning but interfering ways, she knows that their only crime is that they actually didn't want her to kill herself. She could have fallen in with a worse crowd or – worse again – no crowd at all.

"Come on, Andrea!" Daryl calls out to her then, jolting her out of her thoughts.

To her left, she can hear him thrashing the bushes and grasses behind her, his feet making noisy sploshes in the water. Clearly he's decided that she's had enough pampering for one day. Either that or he's just getting antsy. She's noticed that he doesn't like to be still for a while; she doesn't blame him but she worries that if (when) they stop in one place for long enough to catch their breath, he might leave, decide to take off on his own with Merle's motorcycle. They'd be worse off without him, more than anyone would like to admit.

"Just a minute!" She calls back, hurriedly beginning to wash under her arms, under her breasts, her stomach, down her back. It isn't much but it's better than feeling constantly dirty and grubby all the time. She's almost forgotten what a hot shower feels like; she can't remember the last time she had one. It was probably when she and Amy had stopped at a motel, right before everything went crazy.

Amy.

Her breath constricts in her throat then and she forces herself to breathe, her shoulders slumping. She doesn't even feel as though she has had time to breathe. She waits for the tears to come, for something other than the ripple of agony to sear through her body, but it doesn't. She splashes furiously at her body, using the water to disguise the blotches she knows are there. She doesn't want anyone, especially not Daryl, to see her like this. He doesn't strike her as the particularly sensitive type, even if he too has lost a brother.

Its then that she notices that the air and grass around her has gone very still and quiet. His humming and movement has stopped. All she can hear is the rustle of the grass and branches, the occasional chirping of birds. It's enough to send a shiver of fear right down her spine.

"Daryl?" She calls again, reaching for her bra. Suddenly she feels incredibly exposed and vulnerable, sat here on a rock like a stupid water nymph when a literal walking nightmare could be snacking on her friend. Is Daryl her friend? She's still deciding when she hears his voice, and the familiar twang is such a blessed relief that she decides right then and there that Daryl Dixon definitely is her friend.

"I'm here!" He calls out from behind her, moving out from behind a tall swathe of grasses that jut out into the brook.

She's about to start wondering just how long he's been standing there but like him she's startled by the sudden, stumbling, splashing movement behind him. It's a walker, only ten feet from him. From the looks of its bloodstained uniform it's a former soldier. Now it's a nightmarish husk, dragging one ruined leg behind him, half of its face chewed off.

Daryl turns and takes one, two, three quick steps back, further into the water which comes to mid-calf. "Stay back!" He calls to Andrea, holding his right hand out as he cradles the crossbow with the left, gesturing that she stay back, away from the zombie. Too late: she's already moving towards him with her gun in her hand, her t-shirt still abandoned on the grass by the water's edge.

He finishes off the walker with a smooth, practiced motion, a crossbow bolt right through what remains of the walker's forehead. It crumbles to the ground immediately, twitching as its final death comes.

"You okay?" Andrea asks as she moves to his side, lowering the gun and tucking it into the waistband of her jeans, the metal cool and reassuring against her bare skin.

She feels as though she should be embarrassed, standing in front of him in nothing but her bra and jeans but she isn't, and as she stares at Daryl, she wonders why she was even concerned about being vulnerable in front of him: he's saved her life more times than she can remember. He isn't an aggressive, bullish drunk like his brother. She can trust him. She should trust him.

"I'm fine." He says softly, his eyes flickering over her skin. She smiles a little, trying to diffuse the tension that's suddenly threaded through the air.

He clearly feels it too. "We should probably go back now." He says, moving to retrieve his crossbow bolt. Maybe they could find a sporting goods store and get him some new ones.

They walk the rest of the way in silence, but she can feel his eyes on her throughout. Surprisingly enough, she doesn't mind.

###

The farmhouse is nice, in a way. Kinda like Little House on the Prairie meets Resident Evil. Its quiet. And clean. And no guns are allowed on the property. Its such bullshit but Herschel saved Carl's life and has taken them all in, so she shouldn't complain. But Carl's in a bad way and Lori and Rick are fighting about some bullshit and Shane looks like he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so it's probably a good idea that they stay here for at least a few days.

She's feeding the horses at the end of their first day when she hears the swing of the fire axe and 'thwack' against wood. Intrigued, she follows the sound of the wood. She doesn't have to look far. Andrea doesn't like to think of herself as being driven by pure lust, especially not when there are more important things like a Zombie apocalypse to worry about. But, she realises, that's probably because she hasn't seen Daryl Dixon half-naked before.

He's cutting wood for the fire, that much is obvious. He's using short, economical strokes, swinging the axe with practiced ease. Sweat and splinters fly in every direction as the axe hits the wood. His chest is bare, sweat beading his smooth, pale skin. He's robust and thick, but not like the guys Andrea sees in the gym. His bulk is deceptive and derived from work rather than weights in fancy gyms. When he swings the axe up and then down the muscles in his back and arms appear almost from nowhere and a jolt of desire hits her with more force than he uses on the wood. She wonders what he tastes like. She smelled him as they walked back to the RV; he smells like male sweat and the forest and she feels a fire light inside of her.

She's looked at him plenty of times, that much is for sure. He's attractive in a gruff, redneck kinda way. And as much as her inner feminist scolds her when she admits it, but there's something very attractive about a man who's able to protect you. She would never have really given him a second look before ... everything. Well, she might have given him a second or even a third look, but she wouldn't have seen him, not like she's seeing him now.

His hands still on the axe, clearly sensing her presence. "Hello!" He calls out, but Andrea freezes. She's concealed within the bush and trees and she doesn't want him to know that she's been staring at him even though she's pretty sure that he was checking her out at the brook the other day. She silently counts to fifty in her head before darting back to the house, her heart hammering at her chest.

###

"Saw you and Daryl together." Lori says the next day as the two women sit on the front porch watching Glenn and Maggie tend to the horses. They've been making eyes at each other since they returned from the pharmacy run; Andrea almost feels sorry for the kid. "You guys getting closer?" Loris asks, although there's more statement than question in her words. "I didn't think he was your type."

"So what?" Andrea says back, a challenge prickling her voice. Lori's really not in any position to be giving her relationship advice but then, Lori doesn't know that Andrea knows that. "So what if we enjoy each other's company a little?"

She obviously sounds defensive at that statement because Lori tries to backpedal. "Andrea, you know I didn't mean anything-" She says quickly.

"He's just ... I don't have to talk when I'm with him." Andrea says defensively. "He's lost Merle, I lost Am- we've both lost someone." She finishes, feeling pain stab at her when she talks about Amy. The only time she doesn't feel in pain about it is when she's with Daryl, and she can't decide if that's because it helps knowing that his uncertainty about Merle must on some level be worse than her awful certainty about her sister, or because he's the first person who doesn't treat her with kid gloves. They just sit together, sometimes in silence, sometimes not.

"He doesn't want to talk about it, or ask me how I'm doing, or check that I don't want to kill myself." She says, fighting down a million bitchy remarks that would be so easy to make about Lori at this particular point in time, but she doesn't. Now isn't the time. "So its easier. And he's actually good company, if you'd give him half a chance."

"Well ... okay, then." Lori says. She isn't convinced that they both know it, but its enough to make her stop with the questions.

One of the big bonuses about the Herschel farm is that it comes with clean, warm, abundant water and as the others gather downstairs for dinner and banter Andrea slips away for a shower. The water is hot and shoots out of the old shower head in a surprisingly fast stream and soon the bathroom is filled with the scents of honeysuckle and lavender and other smells from older times, the kinds of scents Andrea's grandmother used to wear when she was still alive. She cleans her teeth and manages to find a clean razor to shave her legs and under her arms, sighing at the small joys that basic hygiene can bring. Finally, she's stepping out of the shower and reaching for the towel, her long hair dripping water down her skin and onto the bathroom tiles.

That's when the door opens and Daryl Dixon steps inside the bathroom, clutching a towel.

He's embarrassed, that much is obvious by the way his cheeks immediately colour. "Sorry." He mutters, moving to back pedal out of the bathroom, his hands fumbling for the doorknob behind him. He can't tear his eyes away from her naked body though, and Andrea realises that its probably been awhile for both of them since they were intimate with anyone. She can't even remember the last time she saw a guy naked and suddenly, right then she decides that that is going to change right now, if he's willing.

"Its okay." She says quietly, her blue eyes boring into his.

She's faster than Daryl and her hand flies over his right shoulder, closing and locking the door behind him before he can protest. She has to move into his personal space in order to do it and the smell of him hits her. It isn't all that unpleasant its just ... strong. Pungent. Musky. Like an extreme version of his scent. Acting on instinct, she leans closer, smelling deeper. Suddenly she wants to know what he smells and tastes like when he's clean.

His eyes are roaming all over her naked body, he can't stop looking. From the expression on his face he's seriously toying with the idea of bailing right now, of turning around, opening the door, walking right out of it and never speaking of it again. But as her blue eyes meet his dark blue ones, she knows that he isn't going to. He wants this as much as her and that knowledge makes her feel incredibly powerful. Her hands slowly peel away his t-shirt and reach for the fly and zipper on his jeans, his hands colliding with hers as he helps her take off his clothes. Once he's naked, she tugs him into the shower with her.

Some time later, they come downstairs - separately, of course - their skin still pink and wrinkled from the shower. Andrea's hair has curled as it dried and his is stuck up at peculiar angles. Lori gives them a knowing look over the rim of her coffee cup, but stays silent. No-one else has even noticed that they've been gone. She watches as Daryl moves to the coffee pot to pour some coffee, her gaze on the tattoo on his back that she knows is hidden beneath the clean white t-shirt that he's found.

She was right: he does smell like the forest. He smells like wild flowers and blue skies and clear brooks where you can see right down to the bottom. He smells like the rich, dark earth that covers the forest floor. He smells like crossbow lubricant and motor oil.

She thinks it might be the best smell she's smelled in a very long time, not least because it clings to her clean bed sheets when she slides into bed that night.

FIN.