Daryl knew he weren't like other people. Hell, he weren't even like Merle, and if there were someone he was gonna be like he figured that would be the one. He'd known as much since he was a kid, though, and if he'd learned one thing since then it was that nothin' weren't ever gonna change.

Even now, it weren't all that different. Well, mostly nothin' was different.

Merle was gone.

That weren't nothin', though.

Merle had been gone before. Hell, for a while he'd been gone more than he'd been around. Even if this felt like an entire different kind of gone, the kind of gone that might just be forever, and that hurt worse than just about anything Daryl had felt in his life. (The heart kinda hurt, anyway. He weren't gonna think about the other. Thinkin' on somethin' what was done over never changed a damn thing.) Truth was, thinkin' about Merle bein' gone for good didn't just hurt, it was scary as hell. There weren't many things Daryl would admit to being scared of, but life without Merle out there somewhere was about as scared as he got. Hell, it hurt worse than anything, and there was some tough shit floatin' around in his head waitin' for him to make his peace with it.

And o'course there were dead people walkin' 'round tryin' to eat people. Probly said somethin' about him that walking dead fuckers came behind Merle bein' gone, but they did. Merle was the only person what ever gave a fuck about Daryl, or ever would. He was an asshole, but he was an asshole who would stand between Daryl and whatever (except Merle) wanted to hurt him. Always had been.

He felt about as useless as he ever had, and Daryl was an expert in all the different shades and nuances of useless. Not all that much had changed, when you stopped and really thought about it.

Maybe for other people, but not for him. And seein' as how Daryl was used to things that were true for other people without bein' true for him, even that was pretty much the same. That weren't nothin', just the way the world went about it's business.

Other people still looked down their noses at him. Still gave him looks he pretended not to see, and whispered things he pretended not to hear.

But Daryl saw. He heard.

Weren't nothing, though. That stuff, it weren't what was important.

And what was important certainly wasn't Carol Peletier. There was a time, back when he was an ignorant kid who thought that if he just got away from his old man he might learn to be like other people, that the curve of her neck and her cute little nose might have convinced him to try to be what he weren't. He'd let himself get all worked up thinkin' 'bout her and then see if he could stand her hands on him long enough to give her that stuff other people seemed to need so much.

But he wasn't a kid anymore, the world was full of dead people wanting to take a hunk out of ya, and he didn't have time to pretend that he wanted anything more than to look at her profile against a sunset every now and again. O'course, if he were gonna try to rub against somebody, he figured she'd be the one he'd wanna rub up against. But that weren't nothin' to bother thinkin' about. Not what was important.

No, the only thing that Daryl reckoned came close to bein' important was that he might be the only one who could find that little girl. Sophia. Tiny little thing, who was out there alone and scared in a world that wanted to eat her. Sometimes, he pictured her mama's face when he came back with the girl trotting along beside him. That weren't the most important thing, but it was a thing that was important. It weren't exactly nothin', but it weren't something, neither.

Sophia. Daryl knew what it was like to be small and alone and scared in a world that would just as soon see you dead as alive. He couldn't do anything about the world, and he knew there weren't a damn thing he could do about the scared. Even if there weren't dead fuckers walkin' 'round, Sophia would likely be scared of a lot of things for a long time. Considerin' what her old man had been like an' all. Weren't a damn thing ever gonna make that anything other than what it was.

But he could fix the alone. He could bring her back to her mama. In his tent in the middle of the night, he even thought a little about tellin' her that having a bastard for an old man weren't nothing unusual, and maybe sayin' that she had a mama who loved her the right way and how that might could make all the difference. Hell, might even tell her he would be around, so she wouldn't be alone really, 'cause his old man had been one hell of a bastard and she could talk to him about stuff if she needed to.

Or, since he weren't no pussy, he'd just find a nice fat rabbit and cook it up for her instead, seein' as how she'd be hungry when he got her back.

Sophia.

She was something.