Chapter Text
Chapter Two
The drive down to Atlanta took Daryl most of the night.
Under the cover of darkness, nobody noticed the little redneck in the rusty truck. And during his only pit stop, the tweaker gas station attendant was too high to realize he was far too young to drive. The woman even sold him a pack of cigarettes without asking for ID. After a couple more hours of driving, Daryl arrived in Atlanta just before dawn. Once downtown, he parked his father’s truck in a self-service underground parking garage, and quickly moved the supplies into the cab of the truck where they could be properly locked up while he went looking for Glenn.
He looked at his crossbow longingly before locking up and reminded himself that carrying his father’s illegal handgun was less conspicuous than carrying his crossbow. He stuck the gun in the back of his jeans and vowed to get himself a proper gun holster as soon as he could. Then he covered the gun with his oversized leather vest, hid a knife in each boot, and went off to find a place to crash before pizza shops started opening. He would’ve preferred sleeping in the truck, but the last thing he needed was some city slicker do-gooder reporting him as an unattended child sleeping in a vehicle.
He ended up having breakfast in a 24 hour diner before heading over to a public library that had just opened. He snuck past the sleepy librarians arranging the front desk and found an empty table on the second floor situated between two shelves of dusty biographies. Instead of sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair and resting his head on the scratched-up table, he crawled under the table and curled up like a fox in a den—certain this would keep him from being discovered.
He woke up three hours later with a sore neck and an urgent need to piss.
When he crawled out from under the table, a librarian arranging books in the biology section screamed in shock, and he had no choice but to leave the library before he was interrogated about missing school and potentially being a runaway.
He ran out of the library and kept running until he reached a park with enough trees to hide him as he relieved himself. Once his bladder was empty, he found another cluster of trees to rest under. Hidden from view, he picked up a thick fallen branch, broke off a fourth of it, and pulled a knife from his boot. Then he began to carve the wood into a small bear for Glenn because his version of Glenn, the man he’d gotten killed, had once told him a Korean folk tale about a bear.
As Daryl carved the bear, he found himself silently crying as the reality of his situation finally sank in.
Despite the fact he was breathing, he was dead.
He was f*cking dead and he was never going to see his friends and makeshift family again.
He was in an alternate reality with different versions of his loved ones who didn’t have a clue who he was.
However, despite this he still loved them.
He couldn’t help but love them no matter what reality he was in.
Hell, if he landed in a universe where everyone he cared about were rabid possums, he’d probably still love them because he was a sap.
During the last twelve years, he’d become a f*cking sap and—
Daryl nicked his thumb with his knife.
“f*ckin’ idiot,” Daryl muttered, dropping his half-carved bear and sticking his cut thumb in his mouth.
He sucked on the wound for a second before returning to carving the bear.
As he carved, he silently cried like a little bitch.
With each move of his knife, he thought of another thing he would miss from his original reality and allowed himself to mourn. When he ran out of things to miss, he started to mentally list all of the reasons why he was scared to fail the people of this reality.
The apocalypse couldn’t be stopped.
He was just a f*cking kid now.
They didn’t know him from Adam.
Nobody except Glenn the science fiction nerd could possibly believe he was some kind of reincarnated reality hopper from the future.
Even Glenn might not believe him in the end.
Being a kid meant killing walkers would be harder.
It also meant that any survival advice he gave would be ignored.
So no matter how hard he tried, he still might not be able to save the people he wanted to protect.
Everything could go to hell again.
Sophia could die.
Beth could die.
He could get Glenn’s head bashed in by a psycho’s baseball bat—
Daryl stopped carving again as the faces of everyone he’d failed to save flashed through his mind.
And suddenly he was unable to do anything but sob.
He set aside his woodcarving project, put his head in his hands, and allowed himself to sob for an hour.
However, once that hour was up, he forced himself to man up.
He did what Dixon men did best and repressed his feelings.
Then he worked on finishing the bear for this new universe’s version of Glenn.
When the wooden figure was finished, he put it in his pocket and finally started visiting pizza shops.
***
“Hello, sir. I’m looking for a man named Glenn Rhee. Does he work here?” Daryl asked for the fifteenth time.
“I’m sorry, son. I don’t know anyone by that name,” an elderly man in an apron said.
“Okay. Thank you for your time.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school, son?”
Daryl didn’t bother to answer and left the shop, a bell signaling his departure.
Then he went back to using the internet on his father’s stolen cellphone to locate pizza shops to visit.
It took him twenty minutes to reach another shop, and his stomach growled as he approached the door labeled Antonio’s Pizzeria. As Daryl entered the sixteenth pizza shop of the day, he vowed to buy himself some lunch even if it wasn’t Glenn’s workplace. The door shut behind him and he took a moment to enjoy the feel of the air conditioning on his overheated skin and the smell of authentic Italian pizza. Then he walked past the empty dining area and approached the young woman at the cash register.
Her nose wrinkled a bit as she took in Daryl’s flannel shirt, oversized biker vest, ripped jeans, and muddy boots. However, once she got a closer look at Daryl’s surprisingly pretty face, she smiled.
“My, aren’t you a cutie,” the young woman said in a saccharine southern drawl. “Did your daddy dress ya?”
Daryl scowled. “My daddy can barely dress himself, ma’am. So he ain’t dressin’ me.”
The woman’s smile fell. “Is that right? That’s a shame…”
Silently kicking himself for stupidly sharing too much about his home life, Daryl changed the subject. “Ma’am, I’m looking for a man named Glenn Rhee. Does he work here?” Daryl asked for the sixteenth time.
The young woman’s smile returned twice as bright. “You’re lookin’ for Glenn? Oh, he’s just the sweetest thing. Fixed my laptop for me just the other day and didn’t charge me nothin’. Felt bad about turning down his offer of a date. But my daddy ain’t fond of the Chinese—”
“He’s Korean. But where is—”
“Is that right? Well, sadly I doubt that will make a difference to my daddy. I’m sure ya know how it is. That accent of yours…are ya from up north? I have some kin up in the mountains myself.”
Daryl clenched his fists in impatience. “Ma’am, where is Glenn? I need to speak to him.”
“Oh, he’s out on a delivery. Should be back soon.”
Daryl nodded and began to peruse the menu displayed above the woman. “Can I get two slices of pepperoni and a Mountain Dew?”
“Sure thing, sweetie,” the woman said, typing his order into the register. “Your total is $12.50.”
Daryl frowned at what he considered a large total for a lunch, but handed over a crumpled twenty anyway.
The woman slowly began counting his change. “How do ya know Glenn?”
“He’s my brother,” Daryl said truthfully.
The woman’s eyes widened in shock. “Brother? Is Glenn adopted or—”
“That really ain’t none of your business,” Daryl snapped.
“Well, ain’t you a little spitfire? It was just a question. You have ta admit, the two of ya look nothin’ alike. And if your manners are this poor, ya shouldn’t be skippin’ school,” she scolded before finally handing Daryl his change.
Daryl stuck the money in his pocket and marched over to an empty table far from the cash register and the chatty young woman.
Then he sat down and waited for Glenn.
Ten minutes later, his order was ready and he quickly ate it while keeping his eyes glued on the front door.
It took another twenty-five minutes for Glenn to finally arrive.
“Hey, Ashley. I’m so sorry I’m late. That last delivery was…”
Before Glenn could finish his statement, Daryl ran across the pizzeria and tightly wrapped his tiny arms around the young man’s waist. His eyes teared up, but he thankfully didn’t cry.
“…oof! Umm…hi? Do I know you?”
“Kid says you’re his brother,” the young woman who was apparently named Ashley said.
The painfully young version of Glenn looked down at Daryl in shock. “He did? That’s weird because I have never even—”
Daryl looked up at Glenn with wet eyes and said the ridiculous secret time-traveler code Glenn had come up with as a teen—a code he’d told Daryl during a drunken night in Alexandria just weeks before his death.
“Marty McFly can’t fly,” Daryl said, cutting off Glenn’s statement.
The delivery driver looked down at Daryl in shock. “What…what did you just say?”
Daryl let go of the physically older man and took a step back. “Marty McFly can’t fly.”
Glenn paled. “Oh my god…”
“Ain’t ya gonna ask me the questions?”
“Yes…I…of course. I just can’t believe this is happening and—”
“Glenn, is everything okay?” Ashley asked.
“Fine,” Glenn squeaked. “Everything is perfectly fine.”
“Are you sure?”
Glenn ignored the question and kept his eyes focused on Daryl. “What caused the fall of the Roman Empire?”
Daryl sighed. “Purple llamas. This is so stupid ya know.”
Glenn moved on to the next question he’d come up with to help identify real time-travelers connected to his future self. “What is the capital of New Zealand?”
“These answers are so f*ckin’ dumb. Margaritaville.”
“Right…oh my f*cking god, that’s right.” Glenn took a deep breath and looked down at Daryl seriously. “Okay. Last question. Who was the last Empress of Korea?”
“Morgan Freeman.”
With that ridiculous answer, Glenn absolutely lost his sh*t and Daryl found himself smiling as he watched the man practically bounce around the pizzeria, much to the confusion of his chatty coworker.
“Oh my god! It’s happened. It’s finally happened. Someone from the future has come to visit me and—”
“Glenn, are ya okay?” Ashley asked, worry clear in her voice. “Ya keep talking nonsense with that pretty biker kid. Is he really your brother?”
Glenn blinked down at Daryl. “We’re brothers? Really?”
“Yeah…decided it together.”
“Oh. Okay cool. Umm…so my future brother is standing in front of me and…” Glenn looked at the clock on the wall and winced. “sh*t. My shift only started two hours ago. Is the purpose of your visit life or death? Because I really can’t afford to miss any work.”
“I’m here to stop ya from dying,” Daryl said, his voice deadly serious. “And fix some other mistakes.”
Glenn looked like he was going to be sick. “f*ck…”
“Yeah. And the world ya know is gonna end in nineteen days so quit this stupid job. Ya ain’t gonna need it soon and we got a lot to do.”
Glenn studied Daryl’s face intently for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
“Hey, Ashley. Tell Antonio I quit.”
With that, Glenn let Daryl lead him out the door.
