Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'The Walking Dead'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

A/N: This is a four-parter consisting of conversations Daryl has with other members of the group; each scene is prefaced with where in the overarching storyline it falls.

Warnings: Some talking about killing, a little cussing. Nothing too horrid.

Discussions in the Dark

Daryl and Sophia – Between Decisions and The First Week

"Well, Phie – whacha think?" Daryl asked, joining the girl on the porch. The brainstorming session with Rick and Glenn had come to a close when Glenn couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and fell asleep on the sofa; Rick had only just left a few minutes earlier.

"'Bout what?" she replied, staring up at the stars.

He shrugged a little. "Still got a shit load of crap ta gather up b'fore we can leave."

Tearing her eyes from the sky, Sophia turned and leaned against the porch rail. "Well, most of it's stuff we've happened across while lookin' for other things. Shouldn't take too long to gather up. The clothes, though… Gonna need ev'ryone's sizes." She let out a small laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"Just thinkin'. This keeps 'mindin' me of that game in Social Studies – Oregon Trail."

"Never played it."

She chuckled again. "'S a computer game. Set during the pioneer days. Ya start off wi' a wagon an' some cash an' ya gotta figure out what ta take with ya, includin' how many animals, what clothes, an' how much food, an' all that. Ya pick when ta leave an' where you're headed. I always liked playing it during the 1840s – there weren't as many interruptions. Stuff sayin' 'You've reached Wherever Town'. Ev'ryone else always complained they couldn't get a good score. They didn't understand ya had to start off as a teacher – they have the least money – and be the trail guide in order to get a really great score."

Daryl let out a grunting noise to indicate he'd heard. "I'll take yer word for it, Phie. Recall seein' a coupla CBs in town. Think I'll take Alan an' grab 'em tomorrow."

"Hmm…"

"Whacha thinkin'?"

"Might be best ta get ev'ryone ta head in an' start collecting what we need; it won't take as long that way."

Daryl nodded in agreement. "Can leave the old guy –"

"Herschel," Sophia supplied the name.

"Herschel. That one girl's still sick, so it'd be a good idea."

"Britney. Miz Grimes pro'ly won't wanna come."

"Doubt she'll wanna let Carl help, either," Daryl said.

"Pretty sure Carl's gonna be mad 'bout that," Sophia replied. "Might be best ta leave a couple of folks what can fight, just in case."

"Andrea's a fair shot. Figure T-Dog, too. Can't see bein' down an arm's gonna be much help in scroungin'."

Sophia shrugged, the motion barely perceptible in the dim lantern light filtering through the cabin's window. "So… We need clothes. We got food. Heard ya mention cat litter an' shovels an' radios. What else we lookin' for?"

"Might not be a bad idea ta see if we c'n find a coupla big barrels for water."

"Carry them in the pickup?"

"Yeah," Daryl replied, shifting a little against the railing.

"How ya gonna keep 'em from freezing when we get further north?"

"Same way we kept 'em from freezin' at the park stables. Gonna wrap 'em in electric blankets," It wasn't exactly what they'd had at the park, but the idea was similar. "Saw a couple of those back when we was lookin' fer books on cannin'. Won't run directly off the battery, though, so I'm gonna need ta find a power adapter."

"An inverter," Sophia quietly said, more to herself than to Daryl. Slightly louder, she clarified, "Dad had one in the truck. Used it to power a microwave – had a fridge, too, but it plugged directly inta one o'them lighter-outlet thingies. The inverter he had shorted out on a trip he took me on down ta Miami. Most truck stops carry them, though I don't know how to hook them into the wires to make 'em work."

"Can't be too hard," Daryl replied. "I'm sure we c'n figure it out."

Sophia let out a sigh, returning her gaze to the splash of stars overhead. "C'n I ask ya somethin'?"

"Just did," Daryl teased.

Sophia shook her head, then asked, "Say we actually make it all the way to your place in Wyomin'. What then?"

Daryl blinked at her, then sat heavily on the stacked firewood near the cabin's door. "Well… Got a mess o'ideas, but nothin' concrete. Why?"

"'Cause I been thinkin' on it some," she said, still staring up at where the arc of the milky way was just barely visible in the strip of sky over the river.

Daryl let out an affirmative grunt. "So, whacha thinkin'?" He was expecting to hear something along the same lines as his own thoughts – types of animals to locate and transport, crops that would survive the high altitude and short growing season, and other things of that nature. It wasn't what he heard, however.

Sophia smiled a little to herself. Had any other adult she knew, with the possible exception of Michonne, asked her that particular question, it would have come across as patronizing. But the way Daryl asked it, she could tell he was honestly curious and wanted her opinion.

"Everything we used to take for granted is gone," she said. "Ain't no police or laws or even a government no more."

"I got the memo," Daryl dryly replied. "Where ya goin' wi' this, Phie?"

She shrugged. "Just… We got a chance ta make somethin' here. Everyone else – they're all thinkin' the world's ended, but that ain't true. Sure, we ain't livin' like we used to – jobs, school, an' all that. But the world's still here. We're still here. An' if we c'n make it ta your place, then we got a chance ta really live, not just survive like we been doin'."

"Yeah. 'S partly how come I been pushin' ta head on that way." Even a rednecked hick from the most backwards portion of Georgia mountain country knew there was a huge difference between living and surviving, and further knew that what they'd been doing since May had been pure survival. "But ya ain't really said whacha was gettin' at."

They fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes – Daryl could tell that Sophia was trying to figure out how to explain the point she was building towards. Eventually, Sophia nodded a little. "Accordin' to the unit we did in science class on what makes a species, ya know, a species, an' how they figure if one's endangered or not, ya need fifty genetically-diverse individuals ta make sure the species survives a short-term crisis. Short-term meanin' somethin' like a century or so. In order to make sure the species survives as a species in the long-term, ya need five hundred genetically-diverse individuals."

Daryl nodded. "Don't gotta dumb it down for me, kiddo – part o' my job was countin' endangered critters."

Sophia looked a little frustrated at herself for not realizing that on her own, a frown flitting over her face, barely visible in the spillover of light through the window. "But," she said, her tone deadly serious, "people seem ta forget this, but we're nothin' more than animals our own selves."

His head rocked back a hair, almost as though her words had carried a physical weight. He let out a quiet whistle. "Damn, girl – yer right. Talkin' sheer numbers, an' yeah, there's pro'ly enough people of the right age alive right now. Pro'ly e'en enough just in the nearest coupla counties. But I doubt many – if any – are in a trustin' frame of mind."

"Suspicion's a survival trait," Sophia commented, joining Daryl on the wood pile. "But only when applied to an individual."

Daryl quirked an eyebrow at her. "Where'd ya read that one?"

"I watched a lot of fuzzy Discovery channel," she retorted, then stuck her tongue out at him.

"That an invitation to cut it off?"

"Quit it!" she protested, poking him in the cluster of nerves in his side that always made him twitch.

He snorted out a giggle, then said, "A'right! I give. You win."

"You just don't wanna wake everyone up."

"There is that, too," he admitted, then sighed. "An' yer thinkin' way longer-term than I was."

She shrugged again. "I liked history. An' right now's just tomorrow's history."

Daryl let out something that could be labeled a snicker, if the listener were in a generous mood. "There a class what ya didn't like in school?"

Sophia seemed to think hard on it. "P.E.," she eventually said. "An' I wasn't good at music class, either, but I still thought it was fun… and even though I can draw, I couldn't make nothin' outta clay an' have it come out lookin' like anything other than a sloppy mess."

Daryl laughed outright at the admission, quickly hushing himself. After a moment, he said, "So, five hundred folk, huh?"

She nodded gravely. "An' that ain't countin' the folk who'd be too old ta have kids."

Daryl nodded. "Din't think it did. But I don't think Shadowvale's got enough space fer a group that large. Cody would, though," he said. "Problem there would be makin' it safe fer ev'ryone. Ain't like Cody's got walls an' the like."

Sophia let out a thoughtful humming noise. "But you've said there's lots of lumber an' stone an' what-all out in the area."

"There is, but trees only grow so fast. Most new buildings would need ta use firewood for heat. Yeah, the ones currently built are all hooked inta the geothermal vent, but I ain't got a notion as to how ta hook it inta a new buildin'."

"Maybe we'll find someone what's got that knowledge," she said. "An' if not, then there's always books."

"Yeah," Daryl huffed the word like a sigh. "Hopin' we'll find more folk wi' skills what ain't really learnable from books. I'm sure that old guy –"

"Herschel," Sophia corrected.

"Whatever. He's just a vet. I'm hopin' we'll trip on a real people-doc on our way up there. Herschel," he stressed the name, "I'm sure, wouldn't argue none wi' me on it, neither."

After a couple of seconds, Sophia said, "Ya realize everyone's gonna be lookin' ta you, even after we get there, right?"

Daryl grimaced. "Thought had occurred. Dunno what ta do about it, though. Don't really wanna be in charge of ev'ryone." He peered up at the sky through the trees. "But I'm pretty sure ain't no one gonna lemme just fade back once we get there, neither."

"Pro'ly not. So, you're gonna need ta start thinkin' on what rules – what laws – we need." Sophia shrugged a little self-deprecatingly. "Maybe get Andrea ta help. Don't make it an open discussion, though, 'cause that'll cause problems later."

"A'right. I'll think on it some. See what I c'n come up wi', an' talk wi' Andrea if I get stuck. Don't hesitate ta speak out if ya think of somethin' yerownself, Phie."

She nodded and the pair sat in silence for another long minute, a distant rattling snore coming from the vicinity of where Alan was bunked down. Daryl had a passing thought that he was sure to hear complaints about the snoring at some point from whichever unlucky bastards had wound up bunking in with him come morning. "What about a moat?" Sophia asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Huh?"

"A moat. Around Cody."

Daryl thought about it. "There's the river right there… And Buffalo Bill Reservoir, too…" He sucked air through his teeth. "Helluva lot of dirt an' rock ta move, though. That much work, we'd need heavy equipment, which'd also mean someone who knows what the fuck they're doin' wi' a bulldozer or backhoe. Pro'ly explosives, too, which'd also mean we'd need lookouts ta take down any walkers what showed. Now, I'm pretty sure winter would mean the dead won't be a threat, but ya can't do much construction work in deep winter. The fuel gums up when it gets too cold, an' the ground's too hard ta work wi'."

Sophia leaned against the side of the cabin and looked up at the sky once more. "Never mind. Didn't realize it'd be that hard ta do."

"No, Phie – I think ya got a solid idea. Just don't really have the manpower ta put it inta action yet."

She sighed, but nodded. "Yeah – I see your point."

They spent a few more minutes staring up at the sky. "Ya know them wind-sock puppet things what the used car dealers like ta put out when they're havin' a sale?" Daryl asked, his hands making vague gestures in the spillover light.

"Think so. They liked ta use 'em at cell phone stores, too. The bright yellow or green things that looked a li'l like an animated stick of gum?"

"Yeah," Daryl confirmed, wondering if it was a sign he was getting old that Sophia didn't simply compare them to Gumby. "Them things."

"What about 'em?"

"Well," he drew the word out into a long drum roll of anticipatory teasing. Sophia poked him again. "Damn it! Would ya quit ticklin' me?"

"Never!" Sophia replied, then asked, "Or, at least, I'll quit it for now, if you tell me whacha meant about the wind-sock doohickies."

"A'right, you got yerself a deal. Know how the walkers seem ta be attracted ta noise an' movement?"

"Yeah."

"What if we got ourselves a shit load of them wind-sock dudes, a mess of outdoor speakers, and hooked 'em all inta solar panels. Set it up in the middle of a ring-shaped trench. A mini-moat, yeah? An' put a coupla dozen up around where we're workin'. Think it'd work?"

Sophia gave him a huge grin. "Yeah, I do. An' when the moat fills up, just douse 'em wi' gas an' toss in a match. Wouldn't take as long to build the traps as it would ta build a full moat, neither."

"Sounds like we got ourselves a good idea, Phie," Daryl said, ruffling her hair in revenge for having been poked twice in his only ticklish spot.

In retaliation for the hair, Sophia pulled a folding brush from her jacket pocket and hit him in the shoulder with it. "You messed it up – you fix it," she demanded.

"You carry a hairbrush with ya?" Daryl asked, a little bemused, as he took it from her.

"That one, yeah," she replied, scooting off the top layer of the wood pile and perching on the end that was low enough to put her head at the right height for Daryl to brush her hair.

"Want it braided, too, princess?" he teased, stalling for time as he tried to figure out how the damn contraption unfolded.

"Please?" Sophia asked, hopeful, and sounding more like the shy little girl he'd first seen out at the quarry than the self-assured young lady she was growing into.

Daryl was suddenly inundated by a memory of Jolene. She'd been all of four or five, and had climbed into his lap with Diana's antique silver heirloom brush and the rubber band he had been certain had been wrapped around the celery in the fridge. Tresse mes cheveux, père, she'd said, holding both the brush and rubber band out to him. Pretty please? Swallowing hard past the memory, he finally got the damn brush to unfold. "A'right," he said. (Braid my hair, father.)

Something in his voice must have tripped Sophia's spidey-sense. She twisted her head around and looked at him, the light from the window cutting across her face at a diagonal. "You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"How come I don't believe you?"

"Maybe 'cause I'm talkin' out my ass?"

Her expression turned sad. "I don't do it on purpose. Remind you of them, I mean."

"I know ya don't, chaton."

"Chaton?"

"Means kitten."

"Oh," she said, then turned away so Daryl could run the brush through her hair. "What language?"

"French. Diana was French-Canadian. We spoke both that an' English at home."

"If it's too painful, you can just tell me to shut up," Sophia said, matter-of-factly.

"Nah," he replied, carefully working out a tricksy little snarl. "Hurts, an' I ain't too shamed ta admit it, but… It's a good kind of pain."

He knew the girl knew him well enough to hear the truth of his statement. She proved it with her next question. "Did you braid Jo's hair a lot?"

Daryl let out a small chuckle that was less amused than nostalgic. "Yeah. Dian' din't know how ta braid. Leastways, not a French braid. I learnt how when I learnt how ta take care of horses – it's the same technique used when ya braid a horse's mane." He finished taking out the accumulated tangles of the day, then set to pulling Sophia's hair up into a thick French braid that stuck out from her skull like a line of rope. "We always meant ta sit down one day an' have me teach her, but we never got around to it." He paused and took a deep, steadying breath.

"Ya thought ya had more time." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Daryl replied. "We did."

Daryl, Sophia, and Lori – after the end of Close

In the hours since the misadventure on the Missouri River, since Daryl had grabbed a startled Glenn by his coat and shook him while demanding, "Get us fuckin' there yesterday, China!", since sorting through sodden pockets and a series of firecracker revelations which had shattered her impressions of the man, Lori had sat in silence, not really sure what to say. The trailer rocked back and forth with every pothole, lump, and bump in the road, and the rush of air around the outside was the only real noise, underscored by the clanking of the chains on the tires as they hit the ground. But none of it was particularly loud. The quiet broke every now and then when Sophia stirred and coughed hard enough that Lori's own throat started aching in sympathy. Daryl soothed the girl through the fits, giving her small sips of hot, sweet tea from the thermos Nick had handed him just before they'd closed the trailer door and latched it shut.

Another harsh bout of coughing reverberated through the trailer, and Lori heard Sophia's raspy voice ask, "Tell me a story?"

Daryl leaned against the wall of the trailer, Sophia's head in his lap. "A'right, Phie. I e'er tell ya 'bout when m'brother met Diana?"

Since most of the lanterns had been turned off to save their batteries, Lori couldn't see much, but she assumed that the girl had shaken her head, because Daryl continued talking after a brief pause. "Was back in '96, finals week, my junior year at Montana State, when Dian' come burstin' inta our shithole apartment, wavin' a piece o'paper around like she'd just won the damn lotto. Turns out, I weren't far wrong – she'd just gotten an offer of a three book deal wi' her publisher. Liked her book so much, they'd also given her a helluva an advance – that's when a publisher pays a writer afore any books is e'en printed. Anyways, she comes runnin' in wi' that letter an' ambushes me in our kitchen. I was just tryin' ta get the damn coffee-maker ta spit out a bit more caffeine. I'd had three exams that day, an' still had two more afore I could call the year 'done', not countin' the paper fer Professor Rashmin I hadn't e'en started yet."

"How's this tie in wi' Merle?" Sophia asked, then coughed again.

"Shh," Daryl hushed her, stroking her hair. "I'm gettin' there. Anyway, Dian' come screamin' inta the kitchen, shoved that letter in front of my face, all while yellin' about how she's finally gonna be a real author. She finished up the chatter by grabbin' me an' kissin' me hard enough I swear I c'n still feel it." Sophia let out something that was a strange hybrid of a girlish giggle and an irritated cough. "Anyways, when she let go o'me, she says all breathy, 'Marry me, Dix'. Now, I know I ain't the sharpest arrow in th' quiver, but I ain't so broken as ta turn her down, neither, so I said, 'Huh?'"

The admission was enough to pull an amused snort from Lori herself. "No comments from the peanut gallery," Dixon growled in her direction before returning to his story. Despite the irritation plain in his tone, Lori could clearly hear a lack of any true malice in his words. "Well, eventually, Dian' managed ta get through my thick head she weren't kiddin'. I'm gonna flash-forwards a li'l, now. We filed paperwork at the courthouse, an' she called her momma, an' I tried callin' Merle, but couldn't get through. Wound up callin' one of the folks what lived nearby, an' they was kind enough ta get a message to 'im for me."

Another bout of coughing from Sophia interrupted him. When the girl had settled again, Daryl continued. "'Parently, June's a busy time fer weddin's, but we managed ta snag a slot on the thirteenth. Mama Bouchard – Dian's mom – she showed up on the tenth, an' got some of the li'l details hammered out for us. Clothes, flowers, an' what-all. My opinion weren't asked fer, nor was I all that interested in it. Me an' Dian', we woulda been fine wi' just showin' up in our street-clothes, but Mama Bouchard weren't havin' it. Anyway, mornin' of the twelfth rolls around, an' I still ain't heard back from Merle. Mama Bouchard takes Diana an' heads off ta do somethin', I misremember what, exactly, an' I was all set ta take a coupla hours an' relax. Despite Mama Bouchard plannin' ev'rythin', it'd been a stressful coupla weeks. Well, I'd just kicked back on our old couch an' was channel-surfin' when someone starts poundin' on the apartment door like they're lookin' ta bust it down."

"Merle." Lori and Sophia said the name simultaneously.

Daryl nodded, the motion just perceptible in the dim lighting from the single lantern still lit. "Merle," he agreed. "He come stormin' in as I unlocked the door, demandin' ta know how come Ol' Miss Hawthorn'd left a note pinned ta his front door claimin' I was gettin' married, only since he's, ya know, Merle, it weren't so straightforwards as that, an' contained enough cussin' our upstairs neighbor hollered down that he was gonna call the cops if he heard just one more shout of 'fuck'. Now, I know m'brother, an' I could see he wasn't, for once, high. A li'l drunk, maybe, but nothin' more than two or three beers. Know when he's like that, best thing ta do's let 'im run outta steam. So I was just kinda standin' there, waitin' fer him ta wind down, an' he says, 'An' why I gotta hear it from fuckin' Violet Hawthorn, of all the dried-up ol' cunts in the county!?'"

Lori tsked at the language. This time, Sophia's gravelly voice said, "Like I ain't heard it b'fore, Miz Grimes. Seriously," the last word was laden with all the scorn a sick teenager could muster. She coughed again, then asked Daryl to continue.

"Well, while he was shoutin' an' carryin' on, I saw Dian' had come back. She'd forgotten her purse. An' soon as Merle shouted out that last question, she stepped right up b'hind 'im an' said, 'Maybe because a pompe à chiasse like you can't be bothered to keep your telephone in working order.'" He mimicked his late wife's voice, right down to the lilting accent she'd possessed.

"What's –"

Daryl interrupted Sophia's question, "Pompe à chiasse?"

"Yeah."

"Means diarrhea pump."

The laughter that statement caused also triggered a solid five minutes of harsh gagging coughs from Sophia. Lori had tried not to laugh, but the insult was just so suitable, she couldn't help herself. Daryl patiently waited for the laughter and coughing to die down, then said, "Just wait – it gets better."

He took a quick sip from the thermos of tea, and continued his tale. "Merle jumped at the sound o' her voice like someone'd shoved a cattle-prod down his shorts, but somehow he managed ta make it look like she hadn't just scared the shit outta 'im. He lays eyes on her, an' out comes his very best smile. 'Well, hello there, blondie,' he says, but Dian' cuts him off wi', 'You show up drunk or high at my wedding tomorrow, Monsieur Dixon, and I will castrate you with a rusted spoon, then feed you your own testicles.' She then brushed right past him, kissed my cheek, an' grabbed her purse off the counter that separated the kitchen from our livin' room. Woulda ended right there, but Merle reached out an' grabbed her arm as she went ta step around 'im. Dunno what he started ta say, b'cause Dian' landed one helluva punch right in his stomach. 'A word of advice, Monsieur Dixon,' she says, all while Merle's tryin' ta gasp in a breath, 'do not touch a woman without her permission.' Took 'im nearly ten minutes after she left ta get his wind back. By then, I'd flopped down on the couch. He joined me, once he could breathe. 'So that's her, huh?' he asked. 'Yep,' I replied. He stared at the door then laughed a li'l. 'I like her,' he says, then actually managed ta congratulate me. He musta taken Dian's warnin' seriously, too, 'cause he was actually sober the next day. E'en showed up wearin' somethin' other than wore-out jeans an' a tee, too. Dunno where he got it on such short notice, but he actually wore a suit ta the courthouse."

"Think I woulda liked Diana," Sophia murmured, her voice just barely audible.

"Think she woulda liked you, too," Daryl replied. "Now, try an' get a bit more sleep, Phie. It's been a fuck of a long-ass day."

Daryl and Rick – about a week before Close

"Glenn and Maggie found a bunch of food in the cellar," Rick said as he joined Daryl on the porch of a large, isolated farmhouse in rural Iowa. "Some tools, too, but everyone's all excited about the food."

"Don't blame 'em any," Daryl replied, peering past the porch's roof and up at the leaden sky overhead; it was dark enough that it felt more like twilight than just past one o'clock in the afternoon. "Weren't figurin' on pickin' up a full dozen more folk when we set out on this journey. Surprised what we had lasted as long as it did." He sighed. "Gonna get more snow afore tomorrow – I'm guessin' about six or eight more inches," he said.

"More?" Rick sounded truly baffled by the claim.

Daryl had to laugh some at him. "Yeah, more," he said, mockingly. "This here's actual winter, ya know. An' it's only gonna get worse afore it gets better."

"Is it too late to turn around and head for, say, the Florida Keys?" Rick asked, only half-teasing.

Daryl turned and sat on the porch railing, nodding through the window at where some of the group's women – Lori included – were sorting through the clothes the previous owners of the house had left behind. "Yeah, I think so," he said, using the same half-serious tone as Rick. "B'sides, we ain't come across a doc yet. I know Herschel tries his best, an' throwin' stitches ain't no different on a person as on a dog, but I'd feel better about our long-term chances if we had e'en a nurse wi' us."

"Your friend – the midwife?"

"Pixie," Daryl supplied.

"Yeah. Pixie's not a nurse?"

"Just a midwife," Daryl replied. "She knows ev'rythin' there is ta know about pregnancy an' such, but she don't feel right e'en diagnosin' a cold. She talked some a few years ago about goin' back ta school ta be a nurse practitioner, but she an' Mike din't have the cash. Me an' Dian' offered ta pay for her, but she turned us down, sayin' how if it was somethin' she was meant ta do, then they'd find the money somehow."

Rick stared at Daryl, not quite sure how to ask the question he had in mind. Daryl smirked a little, then said, "Just spit it out, Grimes."

"Alright," he said, taking Daryl at his word. "You and your wife offered to put a friend through college?"

"Yeah."

"You had that kind of cash?"

Daryl snorted in amusement. "Rick – Dian' wrote almost fifty books afore she died. Twenty-eight of 'em were on the New York Times bestseller list. I had me a million problems afore the world went ta shit on us all, but money weren't one of 'em."

Rick chewed on that admission for a long minute, then bluntly asked, "But you still had a job, didn't you? Know ya told me once, but I don't remember it."

Daryl snorted in amusement. "I know why ya don't recall it – you was too busy tryin' to picture a redneck hick like me actually goin' ta college."

Rick shrugged. "Can't argue with that assessment any. So, gonna remind me what you did for a living? And maybe explain why you bothered workin' at all, if you had the kind of cash I'm picturing."

"Why not?" Daryl rhetorically asked. "I was a park ranger at Yellastone. An' no one takes that kinda job for the money. Ya do it 'cause the land fuckin' owns ya."

"So you gave tours of hot springs and handed out camping permits?"

Daryl chuckled outright at that. "Fuck no! We had grad-students an' interns fer shit jobs like that!"

"Okay, I'll bite – just what did you do, then?"

"Lotsa dif'rent shit. Me, personally, I was one of the outriders. We kept track o' the populations of different animals. Bears, wolves, mountain lions, elk, and buffalo mostly, but we had ta report if we noticed a decline in squirrels, beavers, chipmunks, an' so on. Spent close ta twelve hours a day on horseback, countin' critters durin' the season. Sometimes, if I found someone back-country campin', I'd check their permit, but it was always at my discretion. I was also one of the rangers in charge of our horses, so I sat a lot of nights at foal-watch ev'ry spring."

"Foal-watch?" Rick interrupted. His experience with horses was limited to knowing how to saddle and ride one, though he was pretty sure he could brush one down, too, if the need called for it.

Daryl retrieved his hunting knife and started cleaning his fingernails with it. "Means I was stayin' in the stables, watchin' the mares who were 'bout ready ta drop a foal. Mostly, they din't need no help, but if they did, I was there. If it were somethin' I couldn't handle, we had a vet on-call, an' I'd get him ta come – like if a foal were breech."

"What else did you do?" Rick asked, a little fascinated. The job Daryl was describing was far more complicated than he'd thought it ever could be.

"Got called out on a lot of search-an'-rescue. An' by 'a lot' I mean it was at least once every three or four weeks at the most. Dumbass tourists who don't bother readin' the signs warnin' 'em ta stick ta the trails, mostly. Only e'er found six of 'em dead outright – four more died later from injuries or sickness. Most of 'em, though, I brought back alive."

"That's why you took off after Sophia back at that traffic jam, when the herd came through, isn't it?"

Daryl gave him a shrugging sort of nod. "Some. Part's 'cause I din't want her momma goin' through what I did. M'wife an' daughter disappeared a li'l b'fore Christmas, but we din't find out what happened 'til the spring thaw. Nearly four fuckin' months, I din't know what'd happened ta my family. Damn near drove me insane. Did drive me ta livin' in a bottle of Southern Comfort." He fell silent, then slid his knife back into its sheath.

Rick realized at that moment, more so than the out-of-the-blue admission he'd been to college back before they'd started this road trip, that Daryl really wasn't much like his brother at all. Though he'd only had a brief interaction with Merle, it had been intense enough to easily recall, even all these months later. And he'd heard the others talking about Merle, too. Though Daryl shared his brother's accent, that was about the only commonality Rick could see.

Where Merle was loud, Daryl was quiet. Where Merle gave his opinions with a free hand, Daryl waited until someone asked him for them. Where Merle was brash and impulsive, Daryl thought things through. Where Merle didn't seem to want to listen to anyone, Daryl could often be spotted seeking advice from others. The list went on and on.

Though I went looking for him, it was more out of a sense of duty than for any other reason. When we found him – no, Rick, be honest. He found you. I decided to tag along with him to Wyoming because of Lori and the slim chance that his midwife friend is still living than for any other reason.

"I'm gonna go see what them tools Glenn an' Maggie found include," Daryl said, then left Rick to his thoughts.

Now, Rick thought, watching the snow drift down, I think I'm more alright with my decision than I was back then. Hell, if I'd never met his brother to begin with, I might've wound up following him, had he been with us on the farm, after Shane lost it.

Daryl, Sophia, and Walter Müller – midway between the end of The First Week and the beginning of Close.

Thin streaks of snow could be seen along the edges of the road and in shady places. Though it was cold by the standards of the majority of the group – it was hovering in the high twenties – Daryl knew that it was only going to get worse before it got better. At the moment, it was clear, but his shoulder was aching enough to tell him they were about to see some snow. Not t'day, he thought, peering out the window of the goldtone Jeep that followed the old day care bus in their line of vehicles, but definitely by the end o' tomorrow.

The CB crackled to life, and Nick's voice filtered through, "Hey, y'all – anyone else see that line of smoke? It's off ta our ten o'clock."

Daryl looked as a few affirmatives came over the CB. He could see a thin and wispy column just barely visible amid the glow of the lowering sun. Rick's voice asked Glenn to check the maps. A couple of minutes later, Glenn came on. "Looks like it's down a county road. A gravel road. It should cross our road in about a mile, mile-and-a-half."

Sliding the Jeep into the oncoming lane of the blacktop highway they were following, he sped up enough to run parallel to Reggie's F-750 work truck that was at the front of their caravan. With the addition of the ex-daycare bus to their vehicle lineup, the only person who habitually rode with him in the Jeep was Sophia. Jimmy preferred to ride said bus, and Beth had taken to riding with Nick and her vast collection of digitally-stored music. "Gonna go check it out," he said over the CB. "Ev'ryone else hang back." He accelerated past the other cars and trucks while they all slowly came to a halt and another series of affirmatives echoed over the radio.

It wasn't hard to locate the dirt road Glenn had mentioned, and Daryl turned left, most of his attention on the line of smoke. Sophia checked her pistol, making sure it was fully loaded, then as she put it back in the holster, asked, "Think it's people?"

Daryl nodded. "Yeah," he said, chewing his lower lip a little. "If it were a natural fire, there'd be more smoke."

"Like if it was started by lightning?"

"Yeah," he repeated. "Just hope they're friendly."

After only a couple of moments, Daryl spotted a side-road that seemed to led directly to the origin point of the column of smoke. He stopped and turned to Sophia. "Direct approach, or should we park here an' circle around on foot? 'Cause I c'n see this bein' trouble either way."

Sophia frowned and worked it out herself. "If they're friendly, an' we park here an' go in an' spy a bit first, then if they catch us, they're gonna be suspicious. But if they ain't, an' we pull right up, then there won't be nothin' stoppin' them from just shootin' us an' takin' everything."

Daryl nodded, then rested his forehead against the steering wheel. He hated this part of leadership, likely more than any other part – having to make potentially fatal decisions with little to no intel backing them up. Straightening, he asked, "So, whacha think?" He knew what he wanted to do, but if Sophia had a better plan, he'd leap on it.

Sophia stared at the column of smoke for a long minute, obviously thinking hard. Eventually, she said, "Why not do both?"

That was nearly word-for-word what Daryl had been thinking. He gave her a small smile and tugged a little on a lock of hair that had come loose from her braid. "Good call, kiddo. Figure I'd approach out in the open, while you take that spare handheld CB wi' ya an' circle around, call fer backup iffen it looks like they're raiders."

Sophia shook her head. "You're better in the snow than me," she argued. She gestured to her bright blue coat, "An' your browns an' blacks blend in better than this does. You should be the one circlin', an' I'll walk up outright."

Daryl didn't much like it – the direct approach was the more potentially dangerous of the two options – but he could see what she meant about her coat. The sky blue of it would stand out like a neon sign against the backdrop of browns and whites and greys of the surrounding countryside. "I don't like it none," he said, plucking the spare CB out of the storage cubby that stood between the Jeep's front seats. "But I can't argue it any, neither."

They climbed out of the Jeep and set out on foot down the unpaved track that led towards the smoke. When they were still about a quarter of a mile out from it, Daryl stopped them with a hand on Sophia's shoulder. "You yell fer me, iffen things start movin' south. Whistle iffen they's a'right."

Sophia nodded. "Be careful," she commanded.

"Ain't I always?" he teased, then took a breath and loped off towards a thick stand of mixed hardwoods and pine that crept close to the dirt track of a road.

When Daryl was out of sight, Sophia closed her eyes for a moment, then started towards the source of the smoke once more. She was nervous, and couldn't quite keep her mind from flitting to those men who'd held her and the other girls captive. "No," she muttered to herself, her hand going to her fillet knife in its sheath on her belt. "Can't get distracted. I'm not there any more, I'm in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. I'm with Daryl, even though he's not right by my side. We're scouting out a man-made bit of smoke to see if they're good people. If they are good, we're going to see if they want to come with us. If they're not good people, then I will worry about it then. Now is not the time to borrow trouble."

She repeated it like a mantra, right up until she crested a low rise in the road. She stopped and blinked at what she saw. "Wow," she murmured. A split-rail fence, similar in nature to the fences she'd seen surrounding farms back in Georgia, encircled a large cluster of various buildings. The fence, however, wasn't the simple three-or-four-foot high style she'd been familiar with, but a massive thing that towered a good ten to fifteen feet high. Though she could see through it to the buildings beyond, it was also 'woven' tightly enough that she was positive that she wouldn't be able to find a gap big enough to fit through. It wasn't quite a palisade, but it was definitely far more substantial a protection than anything else she'd seen since the world had ended.

Beyond the fence stood a variety of buildings, making up either a very large homestead or a very small village. She counted nine buildings that were probably houses, four that had the look of barns, and about ten smaller structures that could have been anything. The smoke was coming from the chimney of one of the smaller buildings.

"Hey there!" a man's shout came from above her. Looking up, Sophia saw that where the dirt track entered the compound, an elaborate gate was set into the fence, with a lookout platform directly above it. Two men were standing on the platform.

"Hi!" she called back. The two spoke to one another for a moment, far too quietly for her ears to catch, before the shorter of the two climbed down.

"Wait a moment, mädchen, yeah?" the other one called down to her. He had an odd accent that Sophia couldn't place.

"Alright," she replied. She wasn't getting a 'creepy' vibe off them, and further knew that Daryl was out in the trees somewhere, watching and waiting for her signal.

It didn't take long until the gate began to open, revealing the second man from the lookout and an older man who reminded Sophia strongly of Herschel. The older man stepped through the gate alone, his hands up to show he was unarmed. "Guten tag," he said. "I'm Elder Walter Müller of Mittestadt," he gestured to the compound behind the fence.

Sophia nodded at him in greeting. "Sophia Peletier, of Palmetto, Georgia," she replied, suddenly acutely conscious of her own southern drawl.

"You are a very long way from home, fräulein, yeah?" the man's accent seemed somewhat familiar the more she listened to it, but she still couldn't place it.

Shrugging, she said, "Home's more the people than the place, isn't it?"

The man laughed outright. "It is at that, Fräulein Peletier. May I assume you are not traveling alone in these troubled lands?"

"No, not alone," Sophia agreed, echoing the old man's smile. He really did remind her of Herschel – from his sturdy work boots to his gentle good humor, the more she spoke with him, the more he reminded her of their resident veterinarian. She whistled loudly. "I'm with Daryl at the moment, but we're scouting ahead for our group."

"May I ask how large your group is?"

"Twenty-eight," she replied, "including both myself and Daryl." As she said his name, Daryl strode out of the woodland that crept almost completely up to both the village and the dirt road.

"Phie?" Daryl asked, looking from her to the man and back.

"He's good folk," Sophia replied simply.

"That true?" he asked, looking to the stranger.

"I like to think so, but it is not in a man's nature to judge himself accurately," Müller replied.

Daryl stared at him for a long minute, then asked, "Amish?"

"Glauben," Müller said. "Though often confused with our Amish and Mennonite cousins by the outside world, we hold subtly different beliefs than either group and as such stand separately from them."

"Sorry," Daryl said, a little sheepishly.

Müller gave a little shrug. "No offense is taken where none is meant," he said.

From there, Daryl segued into a quick explanation of the immediate problem: that he needed to find a safe-haven for better than two dozen people before the storm warned of by the scars in his shoulder hit. Müller nodded all through it. "I see," Müller said, stroking his beard. "Well, Mr. Dixon, it seems as though we might hold the answer for each other's problem. As to Mittestadt," again he gestured to the town behind him, "we are starved for outside news. When things began to degenerate, half our number left for Oberstadt or Östlichstadt to check on extended family, yeah? And the last visitor to come this way wasn't long after the town radio stopped receiving transmissions back in early June. We have done our best to continue as we always have, but more and more, we cannot afford to send our youths out to bring back the goods we don't produce ourselves – too many do not return."

"So, just lemme see if I got ya rightly – yer offerin' us a place ta wait out the storm, in exchange for news on what's goin' on?"

The old man nodded. "Exactly so," he said.

What followed was a bit of a discussion on where they needed to park their collection of vehicles – apparently the Glauben community were no strangers to the needs of a semi truck and had a large gravel lot halfway down the dirt track to the main road where it could safely turn around with little risk of getting stuck. Later, it was explained that they often had additional crops they didn't need come harvest time, and so sold them to an organic grocery chain, who sent out a large truck to collect them.

Daryl's group were allowed the use of two of the village's empty homes for the duration of the storm. In exchange, they paid their dues at a meeting of the entire village where they described for the Glauben just what it was they were up against: The dead up and walking and hungry for the living; the bands of roaming marauders; the growing scarcity of things like canned food, ammunition, and weapons; and most importantly, the observed weaknesses and behaviors of the dead and how to kill them.

During the course of the discussion, it was revealed that though they appeared similar to Amish people Daryl had come across in the past, these Glauben were definitely different – less suspicious of outsiders, less patriarchal. There were even two women on their council of elders.

Afterwards, Daryl quickly escaped the town hall. The villagers were descending on his people in knots of three to five, seeking more detail about what they'd been through. Just too many damn people, he thought as he ducked out the doors and found a secluded spot around the side of the building. It gave him a good line-of-sight to see that the smoke that had led him here was coming from what was obviously a small blacksmith's workshop. He added that to his list of skilled people to find, alongside an actual medical professional. Shadowvale had a smithy all set and ready to go, but no one to run it. Kinda wishin' I'd actually gone through wi' Diana's plans now. At least, if I had, I'd have some idea as to where ta look fer someone what could make nails an' horseshoes an' what-all.

A light chuckle startled him out of his thoughts. Daryl looked over his shoulder and spotted Walter Müller leaning casually against the corner of the town hall. "Too many people for you, yeah?" he asked, his tone knowing.

Daryl sighed. "Yeah," he agreed. "Wish one of the others'd step up an' take over. They all know where we're headed, any one of 'em could get us there. But ain't no one takin' the opportunity. I hate bein' in charge."

Müller nodded in sympathy. "I know, son. But I've seen that the best leaders are the ones like yourself – the ones who don't want to lead, yet who do so anyway. It's the ones who want it who wind up succumbing to the temptations of power over others."

Daryl nodded in acknowledgement of Müller's point, then sighed again. He leaned against the wall a few feet down from the man. "S'pose I c'n see that," he said, "don't mean I like it any, but I see it."

"Understanding does not require liking," Müller replied, retrieving a pipe from a pocket and a pouch of sweet-smelling tobacco. "Merely acceptance."

Without knowing quite how it came about, Daryl found himself talking to the older man; later, he figured it was some distant and nearly-forgotten memory of his grandfather triggered by the pipe smoke that had spurred his words. He told Müller of how he'd wound up in Georgia, getting a sympathetic, 'One always wishes one's kinsmen would see to their own problems, yet one is so often disappointed, yeah?' in reply. He spoke of those early days at the quarry, of hunting and gathering for a group of strangers who never seemed to care that he went to such trouble for them. Müller had just nodded in sympathy, saying, 'Yet you continued feeding them, without thanks or even acknowledgement. This is a good thing. Of those who still travel with you from there, they now know your worth, do they not?' He told of the false hope represented by Jenner at the CDC, of their nearly too-late escape, of the herd that had driven Sophia into the woods. His tale wasn't precisely in order, but a long series of vignettes, backtracking and jumping ahead nearly at random.

It was well past dark before the words finally trickled to a stop. Müller let the silence stretch as he reloaded his pipe and lit it once more. "All this, I think, is not what weighs most heavily on you, son," he eventually said, his pipe and the cold air giving shape to his words in the form of a barely-visible cloud that slowly dissipated into the night.

Daryl winced. "Yeah – I know."

"I cannot guarantee peace with the telling," Müller said, "but I offer to share whatever load might be bending you so."

Slowly, haltingly at first, Daryl finally got to what had been bothering him most. "I… Well, it was back when it were just me an' Sophia. Still high summer, an' fuck iffen that heat don't seem like a damn fever-dream right now… I c'n still hear her, ya know, screamin' m'name…" He took a searing breath of cold, tobacco-scented air. "Took almost five full days fer me ta find 'er, an'… I couldn't…" The words seemed to freeze in his throat. He cleared his throat and spat off into the darkness and tried to tell himself that the tightness there was caused by the cold. "I din't know how many there was. I had ta watch an' wait. Bastards kept 'er an' some other women in cages…" Again, his voice simply halted. It was getting harder for him to convince himself it was just because he'd been out in the frozen cold for who-knows-how-many hours.

Müller let out a humming noise. "I can imagine just what sort of group had taken the mädchen, son. I assume those involved in the theft were men, and men alone, yeah?"

"Yeah," Daryl croaked the noise, then cleared his throat again. "Yeah," he repeated, a little more clearly this time. "Though I ain't so sure 'men' is the right word fer such as them. But if they wasn't, why's it tear me so?"

"You killed them," Müller stated, his own voice nonjudgmental.

"One of 'em," Daryl admitted. "Freed their captives afore that, though – the girls done did fer one of 'em theyownselves. Li'l Phie did the third an' last. Were the second damn time she'd saved m'hide. But I ain't worried on her – she done good, an' I hope she does it again iffen shit like that e'er happens again."

"It is the man you killed which weighs on you," it wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Daryl repeated. "An' I wish I knew why. Puttin' down the walkers don't bother me a bit. Not e'en when they ain't actively tryin' ta eat me or mine. But that man what'd been holdin' them women? What he'd likely planned ta do ta Phie? Why's killin' him got me so fucked in the head?"

Müller was quiet for long enough after Daryl's half-hysterical question that he thought the man might not answer him at all. He was a little startled when Müller spoke. "You are a hunter, yeah?"

"Yeah," Daryl cautiously agreed. "Been doin' it nearly m'whole life." He wasn't too sure where Müller was going with this.

"Do you remember the first animal you killed yourself, without help from father or uncle or brother?"

Daryl nodded in the dark, then realized the older man probably couldn't see him clearly enough for that to be an adequate response and said, "Yeah. I were maybe six or seven. M'brother'd just taught me how ta shoot a bb gun a coupla days earlier. Don't remember why – Ma was still alive back then – but I come home from school one day an' found I had the place ta m'self."

"And like all young boys when left alone, you made a little mischief, yeah?"

Daryl let out an amused snort. "Yeah," he agreed. "Got Merle's bb gun from our closet an' was practicin' wi' it in the back yard. Shootin' at stuff like the ol' broke bird-feeder what was nailed to a tree, or the tin sign hangin' on the garage what'd been there so long ya couldn't e'en guess at what it used ta say. When that got too easy, I started aimin' at leaves in the tree. Dunno how long I kept at it – only really remember that I'd had ta refill the bbs on the rifle a couple of times – when this big grey squirrel come skitterin' down outta the upper branches, chatterin' on at me. I knew Merle'd gone huntin' squirrels afore wi' the very gun I was usin', an' shootin' the leaves was startin' ta get borin'."

"So you shot the squirrel."

"I shot the damn squirrel," Daryl echoed. He paused as something came back to him. "Huh – ain't that the damnedest thing?"

"Hmm?"

"Din't recall this 'til just now, but after I shot the squirrel, I remember feelin' guilty, almost as soon as I'd squeezed the trigger an' saw it fall off of the branch. I ran over to it, Merle's bb gun still in m'hands, an' I c'n 'member how I thought maybe I could take it over to ol' Doc Bensen. Doc Bensen'd been a vet, an' he'd taken care of a few wild critters folks had brung 'im afore. But then I saw I'd hit the squirrel in the eye. E'en then I knew there weren't gonna be no healin' from sommat like that."

The pause in the conversation wasn't half so long this time, just a simple break of a couple of breaths. Müller said, "It is never an easy thing, to learn to take a life, whether it be man or beast."

Daryl wasn't sure how or why, but the old man's words made him feel better.

A/N2: I should point out I completely made up Glauben, borrowing a bit from Amish, Mennonite, and other similar religious sects. I don't really know enough about any of the sources I borrowed from to really do justice to one of them, so I decided to err on the side of caution and just make things up as I saw fit. I hope no one takes offense, since none was meant.

Kindly lemme know what y'all think! Thanks in advance.