Carnie by Mrox
When Daryl agrees to work a carnival for the summer with Merle, he has no idea how meeting a certain blonde teenager at the county fair will complicate his life, even before the dead start walking. Pre-Zombie Apocalypse to start then merges with Season 2. Beth is a year older than canon (though still underage), to make the first part of the story work.
Daryl decided that karma was a bitch, like he’d always suspected. I mean, it was one thing when the world went to shit and people started eating each other’s flesh ‘cuz all that happened to everyone, even folks he knew were a lot better than him like Rick and Dale. And even when Merle went missing, it wasn’t like he didn’t know the asshole had probably earned those handcuffs. He was pissed, missed his brother almost as much as he didn’t miss him, but he didn’t think it was some kind of punishment for him. Life was easier without Merle, that was the truth, much as he hoped he was okay somewhere.
And when Sophia went missing, well he hoped it wasn’t some kind of cosmic punishment for Carol staying with her asshole husband like she seemed to think. Maybe there wasn’t any sense in it, and shit just happened. Same thing with Carl getting shot, because he was pretty sure Rick didn’t deserve that, or Lori. Though there was that whole thing with Shane while her husband was apparently lying in a hospital bed. But she didn’t know, so in all likelihood, the thing with Carl was random too.
But when Daryl pulled up to the Greene farmhouse and saw the young girl in tight jeans and a white sleeveless button-down (white, in the middle of a goddamn bloody apocalypse) straighten up after picking something up off the ground, he knew karma was a bitch alright. He’d fucked that girl against his better judgment, and then had the nerve to think about her a hundred times since, with his hand on his own cock, and now the whole group would know he was just as despicable as they all suspected. And her daddy would probably shoot him, and then Rick and Shane too just for good measure, and he really wouldn’t even be surprised because he’d known better and did it anyway.
