The Stars Look Different Today
By Cider Sky

Together, they would rewrite history.

A/N: First, thank you for deciding to suspend belief to read this. I know it might be a tough one to digest. This will be an AU, as I am sure you aware. Time travel is only small piece of it, in the grand scheme of things.

A/N2: This is based on a prompt by anon over at TWD_Kinkmeme that asked what would happen if mid-season 4 finale Daryl (and Beth) had time traveled to the beginning; what would change? I love the idea of S4 Daryl in the place of S1 Daryl, and quite honestly, I miss the cast and simplicity of S1, so this was born.

Chapter Three of WDKY to come this week.

Enjoy!

Time travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labeled a crank. But these days, I'm not so cautious.

– Steven Hawking

It happens because it was meant to.

Two equal masses, separate from each other, place pressure on two equally different parts of the universe. They increase their pressure until they, for a brief moment, meet.

The product of their rendezvous is a tunnel.

These tunnels constantly blink in and out of existence, linking separate places and time in a galactic game of Chutes and Ladders. These tunnels are considered highly unstable. It is believed they occur more often than originally prescribed by science.

Astrophysicists call these tunnels wormholes.

unstable.

They had lost everything and in their haste to distance themselves, and because night had fallen, they tripped. They tripped. They tripped

Daryl had been leading, his hand grasped firmly around Beth's small wrist, and as his feet fell from under him he felt a strange combination of guilt and disorientation wash over him.

Guilt because he had gotten distracted, lost his footing and was dragging the exhausted girl down with him.

down

down

down

down

Disorientation because he had lost his footing over … … nothing. If anything, the ground had just disappeared. That was how it had felt, at least. There had to have been a stone or a root.

We gotta go Beth …

… runnin' off …

you like that, lil ass-kicker

where's my brother –

- just keep an eye on her! …

He heard Beth gasp because though they fell, they kept falling. When one fell, at some point, they expected to stop falling.

... my head, you gonna shoot me?

Sophia!

… can kill Merle but Merle.

They fell and fell and then – he let go of Beth.

Rick Grimes?

He fell –

- and, suddenly, he landed.

Daryl was laid out on his back, staring at the … roof of a tent. He hadn't lost any time – he remembered falling, remembered Beth, and remembered everything that had happened before, when they had been forced from the prison.

That had been a … dream?

Had he gone hunting and slept like a goddamn log? No. He hadn't done that ever and he had given up on using tents months ago. They were a waste of space.

"Beth?" he murmured from a familiar spread of blankets.

No answer.

"Rick?" He tried, and then, "Michonne," because if he was hunting and had gotten … wasted – and had been months since that had last happened - and okay, had forgotten about the tent – he rarely forgot anything - he would most likely be with one of them.

He gave himself one second more, a second to give his brain time to reach a rational conclusion.

Finding none, he sat up, his feet finding the ground – it was softer than the soil that surrounded the prison – propelling him towards the hatch of the tent in a less than graceful stumble.

He searched the floor, looking for anything that might work as a weapon, and spotted his old hunting knife under the pillow – he stepped back to grab it before turning back to the flap.

His fingers found the zipper and he stopped, hunched over, his eyes searching the floor for answers. He was breathing heavily, his heart hammering away as a persistent sense of déjà vu filled him.

Wake. Up. He told himself.

He had fallen and hit his had, cracked it wide open; he was bleeding out in the soil because he was too stupid to watch his step.

The tent shook in a slight breeze and he stared at the material before him, taking in the cross section of polyester, the small tear – he had never dreamed or hallucinated this vividly before.

He knew this tent – of course he did – it was Merle's.

It was Merle's tent. Merle's tent. Daryl let the idea sink in. He was standing in Merle's tent. Okay.

But why was he in Merle's tent? He turned his head slightly, seeking out any of his brother's possessions and as soon as his eyes landed on the wadded lump of clothing, the empty cigarette cartons, the magazines, he looked away.

He would never forget Merle, but he'd moved on. He hadn't … dreamed … of Merle for months.

He swallowed and continued to stare ahead, hands on that damn zipper. He could hear commotion outside, could smell campfire -

Daryl was an observant man, so, naturally, he knew where he was. He knew exactly where he was, where his mind was suggesting he was.

Fuck it.

He roughly pulled the zipper down, sliding it from its tracks, and stepped out into the morning light. The sight that greeted him made his stomach drop and his fists tighten, his head swam as it denied the reality before him .,.

"Well, well, looks like Darlyna has finally decided to grace us with her presence this morning –"

"Merle –" if it was a dream, or a hallu – it was a helluva one, whatever it was.

"What. Cat gotch'er tongue, baby brother? Quit lookin' at me like that or –"

Daryl couldn't hear anything else. His ears were ringing.

Miles away.

The chimes outside her window played their tune and she screamed.

"Daryl!" She choked out like a feral animal; she didn't understand what this was, what this –

She had been strong, she was strong, but she had been falling, had been yanked down, too suddenly to know what happened, but –

This was her home. Why was she – how could she be? She didn't want to be, not if – Beth untangled herself from her bed and spilled onto the floor, her legs taken by weakness.

"Daryl, please –" whatever was happening, she hated it. She wanted it to stop. Not even in her cruelest fever dreams would she think of this.

A stomp stomp stomp shook the ground and she backed herself into the wall, hand reaching for a gun or her small boot knife but no – she was barefoot, in a nightgown, weaponless.

Not a moment later and the door to her – her room flew over.

"Beth!" Maggie's voice lifted, filling the space of the room, "What's wrong?"

Her sister's sudden presence had her jumping to her feet; the day's events were not hard to remember but the flood of emotion that came with them tightened her throat, blurred her vision.

"Daryl –" she spat in her panic, "where's Daryl, Maggie … he was just, we were, the prison, and dad –" Thoughts flowed from her torrentially, each fighting for space and representation.

"What are you - Beth, calm down, I'm here – stop!" Beth looked up at her sister; she looked different. She looked the same.

She called her name, over and over, but Beth couldn't stand it – couldn't understand it.

"Patricia!" Maggie called and Beth felt her chest tighten – she hadn't heard that name in far too long, had almost forgotten what it sounded like, out loud. "Dad! Come quick, something's wrong!"

Footsteps. The creak of wood; creaks she remembered from childhood.

She tried to contain herself but she couldn't pull herself away from her sister, her hands gripping the other woman's shirt in a death grip. She was hyperventilating, hiccupping, drooling – it was a show of complete hysterics, she knew, but it was the most incredible release she had ever felt.

"Beth, darling - " her heart, time, everything, stopped at the sound of his voice. His voice.

She wanted to look but she couldn't. She had seen …

"Sweetheart, look at me, please –"

She looked up to see her father, and behind him was Patricia – down the hall she could hear Otis' heavy footfalls. Her throat tightened painfully and an inhuman sound escaped her, made of pain and suffering and … relief.

She could hear them talking over her but she couldn't respond. This house had burned. Most of these people, most of her family had died.

"I think it was a nightmare." Maggie said as she held her, stroked her hair, spoke over her sobs. "Just a nightmare."

It takes him two days to accept what was happening. What might be happening.

He wasn't dreaming or what the fuck ever, that much was sure. It wouldn't have hurt so fucking much when Merle had smacked him upside the head for the way his voice had cracked when he had first seen him, for the way his expression had softened.

In fact, it had cleared his head if anything; the vertigo that had taken over abruptly cleared and there he was, standing outside their tent in the quarry. No big deal.

Except it was and we wouldn't look at anyone or anything but the ground for two days; it didn't raise suspicion. It's exactly how he had been … back … then. He kept on like that hoping that maybe he would wake up, that he had hit his hard and had been really fucked, was in a coma or something.

He figured as long as he just waited it would stop and he'd happily remain in this fugue state until the memories played out.

But then Merle had it and something inside him had snapped.

" – goin' on that run, then, like we talked about."

"What –" Daryl croaked; he hadn't spoken for two days, had only acknowledged Merle in grunts, but these memories, whatever they were, and had been completely unmemorable up until now.

He remembered this moment very clearly as the last time he had spoken to Merle, before everything had changed so much.

"Damn, boy, get that shit outta your ears. 'M goin' on that run, like we talked about."

Daryl had sat there, staring, stupid, as the pieces clicked together. This wasn't a fucking dream. He had tried to convince himself it was but so far he'd come up empty. He'd looked for the scar on his abdomen from the arrow, the one on his head from the bullet; he'd gotten a good look at himself in the lake, his rippling reflection revealed a slightly younger version of himself, a cleaner version, his hair clipped shorter than it had been for the past two years …

He hadn't failed to notice the difference in his endurance, in his strength; he wasn't as hardened as he had been and damn, he didn't ache as much neither.

Point is, if this were a dream he wouldn't be like this. It was too fucking specific, too random, too … far in the past.

No this was something else. Something that might actually be exactly what it was … reality. He hadn't forgotten that odd sensation of falling, or of Beth. It was an odd thing to know someone one day and then for them to not exist the next. It wasn't like she had died, like Michonne or Maggie or Herschel – the people he was yet to meet – had died. It was more like they had never existed in the first place.

There were emotional attachments to this people, something he was no longer so hesitant to admit. So yeah, it was a strange, fucked up feeling to confront the idea that it was all in his head, that it might have been all along.

It was almost easy to accept that maybe he had succumbed to Merle's stash and had had the most elaborate trip of his life but fuck that. He knew it wasn't that. He hadn't touched that shit since he was seventeen and nothing would have turned him towards it now. Not even some dead fuckers trying to eat your goddamn flesh.

He wasn't fucking crazy, he had decided. This was real. This was goddamn real.

"No –" Daryl said it a little too desperately but excuse him for having the realization that this might mean changing things.

"Could use you here." It sounded nothing like him, at least not the him he was supposed to be. It sounded like how he talked to Herschel, or Carol. It didn't fit and Merle's brow furrowed.

"Bullshit. Thought you were goin' on your little huntin' trip. Bout time we had somethin' other than squirrel –"

That's right. He was supposed to be heading out for his hunt … and when he got back Merle would be missing, left in Atlanta to die. Then there would be the governor and all that sorry shit. And finally …

"Was thinkin' you could come with." He tried but it came out … soft, level headed, calm. It came out in a way they had never spoken to each other.

"What in the hell, baby brother? You gone soft in the head'r what? Need me t' hold your hand?"

"It ain't –" Daryl watched as Merle's face fell into an expression that seemed to cross confused and annoyed; he wasn't acting like himself, Daryl realized. Himself back then.

"'S just a waste of time, goin' on a run." Daryl huffed as his heart began to hum a little faster; he was just trying to change fate here. Nothing big. Give him a fucking break.

"Don't you remember why I'm goin' on this run –" Merle said, his voice low and dangerous. Daryl's chest clenched; he hadn't until now. It had beena long time ago. A lot of shit had happened between now and … whenever but hell, this had been a bad memory if anything.

"Thin the numbers, baby brother. We know Atlanta ain't nothin' but a mess right now."

Daryl felt as though he'd been punched in the gut.

The only condolence to having to confront this shitty memory was the fact that it had been Merle's idea and he had been mostly indifferent, at the time.

But now – he thought about the old plan, about Merle letting T-Dog and Glenn fall to the walkers, about his interest in Andrea, about how Ed was supposed to be part of it, that piece of shit.

Thin the group, pick out the troublemakers, take what they needed, what they wanted, run the show. Daryl could've laughed out loud. What a fucking joke.

"It ain't the right time –" Daryl whispered doing his best to look like he wanted this. Wanted them … thinned out.

"The right time? Baby brother, time don't mean nothin' now." His brother huffed; now he was suspicious.

He could turn this around. He could. Merle had more in him than this prick before him. He knew that, knew what he was really made of after the Governor.

He could save his brother.

"Trust me, Merle. They don't like us," that much he remembered, "and they sure as hell don't trust us. How do you know they ain't thinking the same."

For once it looked like Merle was really considering what he was saying; it was no small victory. Had he tried this the first time around it would have ended in a fistfight, wouldn't have gotten past the first sentence.

Regardless, it felt fucking shitty. None of these people, save for Shane, would do that to them. Not now, at least.

"I don't – I don't trust 'em is all." Daryl said and was surprised how wrong it felt; he felt … bad saying that, felt like a liar; he may not have been prince charming back then but he'd always been honest, brutally so.

For the first time since this shit began, Daryl looked around. It was as surprising as he'd expected it to be. It looked exactly the same, a living memory.

He school his expression, doing his best to glower – he never figured there'd be a day where he had to try to glower.

"Look at 'em –" he said and his brother grinned and complied, his eyes drifting lazily across the camp.

Daryl followed his gaze. The Morales', he hardly remembered them to be honest, had only really talked to the man.

"Can hardly tell a biter from a live one –" Daryl fought to hold his glare; there was Amy … talking to Jim and Jacqui.

Their names were slow to come; the only thing he had ever done for Jim was try to put an axe in his head. The only time he had ever talked to Jacqui was to call he an 'uppity bitch.'

He wasn't fucking proud of it.

"Hell, half of 'em can't even shoot a gun –" He continued. The smack of the RV door grabbed both their attention. Andrea and Dale stepped out, toolbox in hand. They were laughing.

Daryl looked away; his chest hurt in that annoying fucking way it always did back at the prison when they lost one of their own; that thing that had started sometime between lil'Asskicker coming into the world and when they took the folks from Woodbury in.

"They'll drag you down, get you killed. Best let it play out –" Carl ran across the camp, waving someone down and Christ, had the kid ever been that small and that … smiley?

"Yeah, you're right about one thing," Merle laughed and clapped him on the back, hard, like he always had.

"Half these sorry assholes –"

"Sophia!"

Daryl's head snapped towards the sound of her voice; he looked over just in time to see Sophia … Sophia bounding from behind a car to meet her mother who was coming up from the quarry's lake with Lori.

" - will be dead in a week."

Suddenly, his heart was hammering in his chest, his brother's words and the scene before him twisting into one another to create a truth he knew.

He watched as Carol showed Sophia their catch making the little girl scrunch her nose up as Carol playfully swung the line of fish closer to her daughter. He watched as Carol put her arm around her daughter, leading her towards the fire pit; he could just make out her promise to teach her how to cook.

It took every fiber of his being to not run over there and shake the girl, tell her not to wander off, to tell Carol to stay close to him, to tell her he is sorry –

"Into little girls now, or is it old ladies?" Merle effectively broke his attention and Daryl found himself whirling around, his breathing coming in fast, tempered breaths

"Fuck off, Merle –" Now this seemed to satisfy his brother, must have seemed more in character because the man grinned wide, pleased with having got under his skin.

"Ho, Darylena, what's with the temper! Ain't nothin' wrong with wantin' a little action. Ed says she's a good 'nough lay. 'M sure we can work somethin' out –" Merle leered; he was enjoying this, that asshole.

"Forget about that, jackass –" the mention of Ed sends a spike of rage filled adrenaline through him; he knew too much about Ed for that to be a salvageable thing. The mere mention of the man made him near homicidal.

"You in or what –" Andrea was giving her sister a hug goodbye, Glenn – hell, the kid looked young, inexperienced – was edging around the vehicle, waiting; they'd be living any second now. "- ain't got all day."

That worked; had the right amount of asshole in it to spur his brother on, to make Merle punch him on the shoulder.

"Keep your panties on," Merle guffawed and Daryl just stared back at him; it had been so long. He had made his peace. He didn't know how the fuck to act – he just wasn't the same and it had never been more obvious.

"Gonna just grab somethin' for the trip and then I'll be back to hold y'r hand." Daryl watched him turn towards their truck but quickly lost interest for across the camp he could feel eyes on him.

He looked back to see Carol, hunched in on herself, eyes full of hurt – their gaze met and she looked away, searching for Sophia and promptly ushering her away.

He would fix this. He would.

A slight fever had taken her and for two days she lie in bed, sweating and quivering as she thought about things that had never happened.

Maggie sat with her, asking about Daryl, about Glenn, about baby Judith, about the incredible details of her dream. Maggie had smiled at her fondly; she told her she had always had an incredible imagination, such an ability to create.

She flinched when Jimmy touched her for the first time after her … awakening. It had felt like the touch of a dead man and her feelings had felt removed, distant. She asked him for some space, some time to figure things out.

When her father was around her heart felt warm and she felt as though she could cry, but she had to remind herself that that had all been a dream. When he talked about the sickness, the test from God she felt … conflicted. What she had dreamed had seemed so real; her dream had told her this was not what her father thought it was. She didn't speak of that, though.

Patricia told her that she had most likely had a fever dream, that they could feel like weeks worth of time lived. Beth felt comfort in her assurances but found no way to explain the change it had effected – did fever dreams do that, too? She'd be back to herself in not time, the woman promised.

After four days she left her room – the shock mostly having worn off. That day she collected eggs and groomed the horses, she helped can tomatoes and helped her sister cook dinner.

As she chopped and diced she wondered why the blade felt so right in her hand, how much better it would feel if only it was tucked in snug to her, blade down, just like Daryl had taught her …

Maggie bumped her with her hip and had asked her what she was thinking about.

"Nothing." She gave a weak smile; in time it would wear off, that strange dream.

I am completely aware this story is strange - thank you for taking the time to read. That is all.