AN: well two new stories. This will be AU- no zombies. Caryl. This will be mature with smut and sexual themes. Short chapter to begin

Let me know what you think

I do not own or profit from The Walking Dead

Chapter 1

This job was a blessing. Carol repeated it over and over in her mind. A blessing she reminded herself of that fact on a daily basis.

She was able to work at the office when Sophia was in kindergarten and at home when she was not at school. No daycare bills. Plenty of time with her child. And the job payed excellent benefits. Benefits she wouldn't get anywhere else.

Tara payed her employees well. When Carol had come to her old friend desperate for a job when Ed died she'd been more than willing to offer her one. Carol had known what she was getting into, from the beginning. Tara had been completly honest with her. At the time she'd been desperate, and honestly she still was. Carol couldn't think of any other way to support herself and Sophia right now. She had no education.

She'd been a moron and let Ed sweet talk her into dropping out of college. If she'd been honest she really hadn't wanted to be a teacher. It just seemed like the thing to do. All her friends were going to school to become teachers or nurses, it had seemed like the next step.

Maybe that's why she'd fallen for Ed's charm. Maybe that's why she'd let herself believe the fantasy that he was her knight in shinning armor. Her dream come true, he only wanted to take care of her he said.

It had been like all her fantasies come true. Until he turned into a nightmare.

The beatings had started gradually. Same old cliched story she'd read a thousand times in every book. They were always sorry afterward. And Ed was no different. He would cry with his face pressed into her stomach. Begging her forgiveness.

She thought a baby would change things, it had not. Sophia though, was the best thing she'd ever done. The one part of the mess that was her years with Ed she didn't regret.

The night it had happened, Carol had enough. Ed came home from God knows where, drunk and angry for God knows why. Sophia who was already asleep in her bed had forgotten a toy in the porch. Ed had gone into a rage, heading towards the four year old's room to teach her a lesson.

She'd lost it. Blocking his path to the hallway she'd fought like a wildcat. Something deep inside her had broken, a dam she did not know she had. They'd struggled at the top of the stairs until Ed had stumbled drunkenly and fallen to his death, his head bashing into an ugly cement figurine he'd insisted on keeping at the bottom of the stairs.

She'd calmly called the police. She hadn't even been charged. They believed her story. Self defence they called it. She'd been saving her baby.

But when the bank took the house and she realized what a mess she was in. Ed was a moron, a moron who apparently had no clue how to handle money. A moron who cancelled his life insurance.

She was 32 years old single mother and broke. This job was a blessing. It didn't matter how it made her feel, it was a blessing. It didn't matter that she oddly excelled at ad libbing the script; it was a blessing.

"Carol." Tara called from the next office "Officer friendly on line 2"

She sighed picking up the phone, adding the required sultry rasp to her voice, she used when working the phone line "Well hello officer friendly... I must confess I've been very bad today."