What? Two updates in one day!!??

Okay, so I JUST finished writing this and I was going to wait to publish it until tomorrow but you guys voted and commented a TON on the last chapter and that just didn't seem fair to hold out on you. So here it is!!! I hope you enjoy!

Please continue to comment/vote you guys are amazing!

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Jo

They gave us two houses, two massive houses. They were beautiful with gleaming hard wood floors and granite counter tops. They were each at least five bedrooms, with extra bonus rooms that could easily be used as bedrooms. It was more than enough room for our entire group. Not just enough room for the group, but enough that everyone would be able to have privacy. 

It was an overwhelming thought and I felt entirely out of place. There was running water, power and heat. The yards were neatly trimmed and well maintained. This place was completely untouched by the horrors beyond the fences. I stood out in front of the houses beside Rick, Daryl and Carol. The rest of the group stood behind us waiting for Rick to tell us what we were going to do. 

Rick's mouth was pinched into a hard line as he studied the houses. 

"Both of them?" Carol asked suspiciously. 

Rick nodded, chewing on his lip. "That's what Aaron said." 

"Hmm," Daryl said, and he prowled a short line on the sidewalk next to me, his eyes glued to our new territory. I could practically feel the tension coming off him. We hadn't been behind the walls for a full day and he already reminded me of an animal in a cage. 

Rick looked at Carol, "You and Michonne clear the one on the left. Abraham and Sasha the one on the right. Every room, top to bottom. Daryl and Jo check out the outside the one on the left, be thorough. Check the fence line too. Carl, you're with me. Everyone else, stay put," Rick ordered, turning to hand Judith to Maggie. . We all nodded and crossed the road.  

Daryl and I prowled around the one on the left. I wanted to rest my hand on the knife at my waist but I resisted the urge, knowing there was a good chance we were being watched. Little demure me might follow Daryl around, but she wouldn't have any use in resting a hand on a weapon. Times like this were when the lie was going to be especially tough for me. 

"You good?" Daryl asked glancing back over his shoulder at me. 

"Yeah," I snapped back a little too quickly. 

He arched a brow and I waved him off. "I'm fine," I snapped tightly. I turned away from his eyes a peaked in through one of the windows. Inside I could see Abraham and Sasha clearing the room. "Seems a little too good to be true," I muttered under my breath. 

"Mmhhmm," Daryl agreed, his crossbow in hand. He checked all the windows from the outside and we opened a small shed behind the house. There was nothing in it but tools for lawn care and gardening. We moved from the house to the fence that surrounded our houses on two sides. Daryl pressed against it and kicked at the metal along the ground, making sure it wasn't loose. He paused at one of the supports and leaned against it with all his weight.  

"Seems stable," he said looking back at me. 

I nodded, trusting him to make the call. "Let's go then," I said, jerking my chin back towards the front of the houses. Daryl grunted and followed me. We met Rick and Carl as we came through the middle of the two houses. 

Rick looked to us and we both nodded to let him know everything was good on our end. "They're right next to each other but-" Rick dragged off. 

"They took our weapons and now they're splitting us up," I said thoughtfully looking at the house on the left. 

"Yep," Rick and Daryl both nodded. 

Rick jerked his chin back towards the first house, the larger of the two. "We'll all be staying in the same house tonight." 

"That's a good idea," I said. 

Rick whistled at the rest of the group and motioned towards the first house. We all started in. The house was beautiful, just like Deanna's it looked like it was decorated directly out of a Pottery Barn magazine. Rick motioned everyone into the living room. Once everyone was inside he looked around at all of us. 

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "we're here. So far things seem to be on the up and up, but we are going to be cautious. We have two houses at our disposal but for the time being we will all be staying together in here," he said pointing at the floor of the living room. "together. I don't want us split up at night. If everything seems okay after a couple days we will split up. When the time comes I want Me, Carl, Judith, Michonne, Carol, Daryl and Jo in this house. Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Glenn, Maggie, Tara, Noah and Gabriel in the other one. There's running water, showers there's three bathrooms in this house, four in the other one. Take turns, but no one gets left alone in the other house. Come on back here when you're done getting cleaned up. Understand?" He asked. 

Everyone nodded and the group from the other house headed out together chatting excitedly.  I wondered at Rick's choices of who stayed in each house, but as I looked back at those of us who would be in this house I realized he filled the house that had his kids in it with fighters. Carol would be the weakest of us, and that was saying something. Judith and Carl would be well protected here. 

Rick, Carl and Judith all went upstairs and into the master bedroom which had an en suite bath. Carol took the other bathroom upstairs and Michonne took the one in the finished basement. I wandered around the house opening doors. The house had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, plus a half bath on the main level. There was a huge rec room in the basement and a den off the family room on the main floor which was open concept to the dining room and kitchen. This house was incredible. 

Daryl and I sat in the living room in silence together. I picked up one of the books off the coffee table and was flipping through it while Daryl stared at his crossbow and paced the room anxiously. Every now and then he would stop and look out between the wooden blinds, but he never seemed to see anything and he would continue his pacing. 

There was a knock at the door. Daryl whirled around, his crossbow pointing at the door. His eyes traveled to me. I was on my feet, my knife in my hand. It took me a second longer than normal, my hand tangled in the damn shirt. He noticed and he frowned, staring hard at my waist for a moment before looking back at the door. He looked to me then jerked his chin towards the door. I nodded and slid my knife back into it's sheath. I pulled the door open to see Olivia waiting there. 

"Hi!" she greeted brightly. 

"Hi, Olivia." 

She was holding a large hamper in her arms. "I brought over some fresh clothes for you guys and a few necessities."

"Wow, thank you so much, that's so generous," I gushed. 

She handed me the hamper and waved me off as though it were no big deal. "I will bring another one over to the other house, just mix sizes of mens and women's clothes and a few other goodies. You guys will have to fight it out over who gets what clothes I'm afraid until we can get you over to the pantry to pick out what you like." 

"I'm sure it will be great," I responded with equal enthusiasm in my voice but once more this entire conversation felt entirely surreal. As though we would care enough about what we were wearing to have an argument over it. These people still put value in things as trivial as clothing. 

"I put a few items in there I thought you would like," she said with a wink. "It's on the bottom." 

"Thank you so much," I said again, mainly because I wasn't sure what else I was supposed to say. Off to the side of the door, Daryl still stood at the ready with his crossbow. I took a step in front of him to block the shot so he would know he could put it down. There was absolutely no threat from Olivia. I could take her easily without any weapons. 

"I'll send one of the other girls buy with a few more things a little later, I just need to get things sorted out at the pantry," she said. "Well, I'll let you get settled." She stepped back and gave me a friendly wave before heading down the stairs. 

I set the hamper to the side of the door and closed it. I wanted to turn the lock but I knew the others would start to come back soon. I dug through the hamper and sorted through the clothes, setting them in piles on the dining room table. There were enough toothbrushes for everyone, toothpaste, deodorant and make up. It was so strange how these were things before the turn I would have considered necessities, but not anymore. Here they still were the necessities. 

At the bottom of the hamper I found the pile of things Olivia had set aside for me. I frowned down at the leggings, underwear, sheer yellow tunic top and white tank top. They were all folded up together with a pair of black ballet flats. Tucked inside was a tube of mascara, eye liner and some hair product. I sighed. Clearly my deception was working if Olivia thought I would be over the moon about this stuff. 

I turned back to Daryl who still looked tense. "Well that was nice of her." I commented in as level of a voice as I could muster. 

He grunted and peaked out the blinds once more, his crossbow still in his hand. 

Rick came down the stairs a few minutes later, clean shaven and shirtless. I arched a brow at him but said nothing. Michonne reappeared and I motioned her towards the piles of clothing and necessities. "Olivia dropped off a goody basket." 

"Thanks," she said. "Go ahead and take the bathroom downstairs. I'll get changed in one of the rooms upstairs."

"Cool," I responded and I took the bundle of clothes and headed downstairs. I wasn't surprised when I heard footsteps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder smirking at him. "You joining me?" I teased. 

"Stop," he grunted in annoyance, looking around the basement. 

I sighed. He was way too tense for teasing, I should have known that. I wasn't sure if I had ever seen Daryl this out of sorts. He was clearly feeling insecure enough to follow me around. Something like this was always going to be difficult for Daryl to adapt to. Hell, it was going to be hard enough for me. The only thing keeping me together was me wrapping myself in the lie I was telling so tightly I didn't allow any room for other emotions. 

The basement was a large finished rec room complete with big screen TV and huge sectional couch. There was a dart board on one wall. Soft, plush white carpet was underfoot. Daryl started prowling around the basement, opening doors and the built in cupboards. I wondered what it was he was looking for. Maybe he just needed to keep moving. 

I stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. When I turned around and saw myself in the mirror I flinched. I didn't know when the last time was I had seen my reflection, maybe the prison? 

I stepped up to the sink and touched my face in the mirror. I looked nothing like myself. My short hair was a mess, which was no surprise.  The back was still short and stuck up in odd places, but the front was starting to get long. I needed to clean it up a little bit. It looked exactly like I would expect give the fact that most of the time when it got annoyingly long I would cut it away with my knife. My face looked worn and tired, there were deep bags under my green eyes that I wasn't sure would ever go away. 

I pulled off the tank tops and stared at myself objectively. I was skinny, too skinny. None of us had been getting enough nutrition and I hoped we would all have a chance to settle in and gain back some weight while we were here. I was rangy looking, my muscles and tendons stood out. My whole stomach was still vaguely yellow colored with the old bruises from getting hit by the car. I tried to remember how long ago that was. I couldn't believe it had taken so long for them to heal. But then I remember how they had been nearly black shortly after it happened. I pressed on my stomach trying to find anymore sore spots on my ribs, but everything felt fine. There were other, more recent bruises in various places on my body but I had no idea where they came from. One of the many hazards of living in this world.

The layers of dirt and walker blood made me look tanner than I was. I scratched at my hair, making it stand up even more and shook my head in disgust. I was going to have to do something about that.

I pulled off my boots, dropping them on the ground and wiggled out of my jeans. I stepped over to the shower and turned it on, reaching my hand in to see if the water would warm up. I was delighted when it immediately turned hot. I looked around and frowned when I saw there was only one empty towel rack and no cupboards or other places to store extra towels. I stepped back to the door and opened it a crack, keeping myself mostly hidden behind the door. 

"Hey Daryl?" I called.

He appeared in seconds, frowning at me. His eyes widened when he realized I wasn't dressed and he immediately looked away. "Yeah?" he asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. 

"Did you find any extra towels or anything down here?" 

"Naw, I'll go check upstairs." 

"Thanks," I called after him. He grunted in response. 

Figuring it would take him a while I stripped out of my bra and underwear and dropped them on the floor. I stepped beneath the deliciously hot spray. I moaned out loud. I put my head under the spray and relished the feel of the pounding spray on my scalp. I moaned again as I rotated my neck so the water ran down my body. The water was too hot, it was nearly scalding my skin making it feel tight but I couldn't bring myself to turn it down. It felt too good.

There was an uncertain knock at the door. 

"Yeah!" I called loud enough to be heard over the spray. 

I couldn't see through the shower curtain but I heard the door open and Daryl hesitate just inside. 

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and I let him squirm for a few seconds. I finally took pity on him and pulled aside the curtain so I could poke just my head out. He flinched as though he wasn't expecting it. It was so weird to see Daryl standing in this beautiful expensive bathroom in his dirty clothes. He looked so out of place and uncomfortable. His crossbow was in one hand and a plush white towel was in the other. 

He drew in a deep breath and swallowed. "I'll leave it-" he started to say and he turned to put it on the seat of the toilet. 

I stood there watching him squirm and took a strange sense of satisfaction from it. There had been something between us for as far back as I could remember, at least on my side, and more recently Daryl had shown that he felt the same way. I couldn't help but wonder if things settled down here, if we would be able to see where it led. He glanced at me once and a blush crawled it's way up his neck. I giggled. 

"Wanna join me?" I asked again with a  teasing with a smirk. 

"Stop," he said, looking down at his feet.

I was still smiling when he lifted his eyes to meet mine. The smile slipped from my face at the look in his eyes. I licked my lips and suddenly things like swallowing and breathing normally seemed difficult. 

"Th-thanks," I stammered, "for the towel," I clarified motioning towards it, which made me let go of the shower curtain. I snatched it back before it fell completely open and it was his turn to laugh. Only his was a sensual chuckle deep in his throat that made me think of all sorts of other things. 

"Stop," I said, blushing furiously. I couldn't look him in the face all of a sudden and I jerked the shower curtain closed. 

He laughed again, this time out loud and it was nice sound. "Enjoy your shower." He called to me and pulled the door closed behind him. 

I let out a shuddering breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Okay, point to Mr. Dixon. Suddenly the shower didn't feel as hot as it did before. 

I shook my head and forced myself to focus. I quickly washed and conditioned my hair. I was excited to find a razor and shaving cream. It took two passes to get my legs smooth again. I hadn't shaved since the prison either. There was a loofah hanging on the rack and I set about the task of scrubbing the dirt and blood from my body. I watched as the expensive tile at my feet became covered in dirt and the water turned rust colored for a few moments. 

When I was done I dried with the plush white towel and set it aside. I pulled open the drawers and found a pair of scissors. I cleaned up my hair as best as I could and got dressed. I applied a little make up and ran the hair product through my short hair, arranging it in something that resembled a style. Looking at myself in the mirror I hardly recognized myself once more. It felt strange, like I was wearing a costume. 

I rolled my dirty clothes up in a ball and stepped out into rec room. It was empty. One of the doors was a large laundry and storage room. I dropped my clothes in a pile in front of the washing machine and set my boots off to the side. I slid the small fold up knife on the waistband of the leggings but there was no way for me to wear the hunting knife. I carried it back upstairs with me. 

Michonne and Carol were in the living room. Carol looked up when I walked in and flashed an approving smile to me. I set my extra knife on the counter where I could get to it if I needed it. 

I glanced through the glass door to see Rick and Daryl on the porch. I stepped out. Daryl was sitting on the top step cleaning the possum. His knife was sticking out of one of the planks of the porch. When he pulled out the handful of guts he threw them down onto the planks beside him. 

I sighed. There would be no changing Daryl. He was a force of nature. I glanced over at Rick who was watching Daryl, the ghost of an amused smile on his face. He was clean shaven, wearing new clothes and if I wasn't mistaken he looked like he had a hair cut as well. Rick looked like a new man. He looked at me and did a double take. 

"Wow," he said blinking. "You look-"

"Ridiculous," Daryl muttered from his place on the step.

I looked at him a scowl on my face but he hadn't looked up from the possum in front of him. 

Rick glanced from me to Daryl his eyebrows raised. I just waved him off. Daryl could be pissy if he wanted to. I would be dreaming if I thought Daryl would be any less surly when he was uncomfortable. 

Rick cleared his throat. "I was going to say really pretty. You look like you belong here." 

I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders. "That's the idea." 

Rick nodded, pinching his lips together. He stepped up next to me. "How are you doing with all that?" he asked in a low voice. 

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Fine," I replied. 

"Are you armed?" he asked. 

I touched my waist where the fold up knife was. "One knife," I replied. 

"Where are the others?" Rick wanted to know. 

I jerked my chin towards Daryl. "His bag and mine." 

Rick nodded slowly. "Well, if you think this will help..." he didn't sound convinced, but I was committed now, no point in backing down and getting caught in a lie. Something like that could easily turn our new friends against us. All I could do was move forward. 

The sun was setting and as I glanced towards our other house I could see the people in it moving around, laughing and talking. Down the street people were out for walks and sitting on their front porches. This community reminded me of my mom's neighborhood where I grew up. 

It was eerie being here. Like I had stepped back into my old life and Rick and Daryl had suddenly shown up. I stepped up to the railing and leaned my hands on it, looking out over the perfectly landscaped pond at the center of the community. My eyes traveled to the fence. It was the only thing protecting these people from the reality of the world out there. 

"Welcome to Mayberry," I muttered under my breath, dropping my hand so it rested on my knife. 

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Well I hope you like this one. I had fun writing it! Sorry it got a little long, I couldn't bear to edit any of it out. Please comment/vote.