The Walking Dead

Valentina Grimes had spent her life saving others. As a surgeon, she was used to long hours, blood on her hands, and the weight of life-or-death decisions. But nothing had prepared her for what she was about to face.

When she heard Rick had been shot, she didn't hesitate. She left her hospital in another city and rushed to King County, desperate to be by her brother's side. By the time she arrived, he was still unconscious, Lori was barely holding it together, and Shane was doing his best to keep them all steady.

Then the world fell apart.

The first reports were brushed off as mass hysteria-people attacking each other, hospitals overwhelmed, emergency services collapsing. But when the dead started walking, there was no denying it. The hospital became a death trap, and Shane made a split-second decision: get Valentina, Lori, and Carl to safety.

Valentina didn't argue. She wanted to stay by Rick's side, but she knew Shane was right-staying meant dying. As much as it broke her heart, she ran.

They made it out of King County and eventually reached a survivor camp at a quarry outside Atlanta. The people there were wary, broken, clinging to some semblance of normalcy. It was there she met him-Daryl Dixon.

He was quiet, rough around the edges, radiating distrust. He didn't say a word to her, and she didn't force conversation. Instead, they sat in the same space, the silence between them not awkward, but comfortable. In a world gone mad, it was strange to find peace in a moment with someone she barely knew.

Little did she know, that silence was the beginning of something neither of them could have predicted.

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