Chapter 1

Notes: Well, we are back with the 4th installment in the Guardian Angel series (the first three can be found on my page, as I have said before, if you havent read them, I highly suggest you do)! I am sorry it's been so long … I have been really busy IRL. Yes, I know the last chapter was very, very sad. I promise, it will get a bit better for a while because honestly, I am tired of all the sad, as I am sure all my readers are, too and I think the characters deserve a little time to kind of regroup, heal their wounds and mend rifts. Okay with that said, on to the summary.

Summary: It has been almost six months since the tragic events of Glenn's death, things with the Saviors have settled into an uneasy co-existence; one that leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth, especially Rick's. Sorry for the ambiguity, but I am afraid if I say any more I will give it away.

Maggie stood in front of the mirror in her house, her hand over her stomach. She was now starting to show, and her clothes no longer fit, she was forced to wear the same pair of sweatpants every day, of course she washed them twice a week, but after a month of this, they were starting to wear out.

She hated putting others in danger just so she could have clothes, she hated not being able to go herself, but she could no longer run like hell if things went to shit … and things always went to shit, especially because there were more walkers now … and they were hungry, and they wasted no time in swarming any scouting parties that went out.

"Hey girl, you okay?" Michonne's voice broke into her thoughts.

Maggie forced a smile at her as Michonne's reflection joined hers in the mirror. "Yeah I'm okay … I just … I hate this, you know? I hate knowing that others are risking their lives just so I can have some new fucking clothes." Maggie said as she rubbed her eyes wearily.

"Well, those sweatpants are about to rot off you, and I know it's gonna be summer soon and all, but we can't have you walking around naked can we?" Michonne replied as she flashed her a coy smile, Maggie laughed in spite of herself.

"Is it you going this time?" Maggie asked, Michonne shook her head.

"Naw, Rick's got me and Sasha on watch. It'll be Daryl, Carl, and Charlotte this time." Michonne said.

"Ah." Maggie said, averting her eyes at the mention of Charlotte's name; they hadn't spoken since Glenn's murder. She knew it was terrible to feel this way, to put the blame on Charlotte and to a lesser extent, Daryl for what happened, but she just couldn't help it. She had so much bitterness, animosity, and agony over losing the one person she had ever truly loved in this life that it had to go somewhere. Factor in that she was riding on an emotional roller coaster of pregnancy hormones right now and it was a recipe for a serious emotional shit storm.

"HEY! Did you hear anything I said, or what!?" Carl's voice broke into Charlotte's thoughts.

"Huh? Oh … yeah … sure, whatever." Charlotte said distractedly as she tossed the empty duffels into the trunk of the Tucson.

"We all set, or what?" She asked them sharply, they nodded, exchanging worried looks behind her back as they piled into the Tucson.

It was a silent and albeit awkward drive that lasted the whole day and they were about to lose the light as they finally pulled into the rotting remains of a city that once had a name, but had long since been forgotten. Daryl, who had opted to drive stole glances at Charlotte in the passenger seat, the outline of her face was barely visible in the quickly fading light.

"We have to find somewhere to stay tonight, I don't think we're going to make it." Carl said from the back seat.

"Well … this seems as good a place as any." Daryl said as they pulled up to a small gas station.

"Ready?" He asked them.

"Hell yeah! Let's do it!" Carl said as he pulled out his pistol and screwed on the silencer.

Daryl chuckled in spite of himself as they entered the small gas station, there were two walkers locked inside, but they were severely emaciated and weak and they made quick work of them.

The place was pretty well cleaned out, but it had an iron security cage and bars on the windows, and it would do for the night.

"I'll take first watch." Carl said as he fetched a chair from behind the counter, plopped into it and propped his feet up on the barred window with his gun across his lap.

"You know the drill, wake me up in four hours." Charlotte said as she retreated to the back of the store to try and get some shut eye with Daryl following close behind.

"We need to talk." Daryl said.

"About what?" Charlotte said, not facing him as she rolled out her sleeping bag and fashioned her pack to use as a pillow, her expression was hidden by the darkness, but he could hear the angst in her voice.

Daryl gripped her arms and forced her to face him.

"You know what, why you volunteered to do this." Daryl said as he pinned her with his intense stare, his brilliant blue eyes eerily visible in the darkness.

"Because, it's the right thing to do, regardless of my personal feelings ." She replied.

Daryl's expression softened as he placed his hand on her cheek, her ability to put her own feelings aside never ceased to amaze him.

"You're a badass bitch, ya know that?" He said.

"So you keep telling me." She chuckled.

"I'll keep telling it to you til you believe it." He replied.

At first light they were off again, Charlotte drove this time, Daryl rode shotgun, Carl was in the back, his gun drawn, just in case things went south.

Walkers were already starting to make their appearance as they slowly made their way through the decaying city towards the huge mall at the center of town. The large building loomed in front of them like a sleeping monster against the dull grey clouds of the early spring sky.

Spring was always dull and grey here, it was when this region saw most of its rain, it also meant four wheel drive and all-wheel drive only until the mud from the spring storms and the winter snow melt dried up.

There was no fence around the huge mall, which meant that anything could be inside.

"No way of tellin' just how many walkers are in there." Carl said as he cupped his hands around his eyes and tried to peer through the mall's filthy windows.

"Well, those doors are automatic, they've likely been locked since this all began, so maybe we'll get lucky that we'll only have to deal with the employees that might have been working there." Charlotte said.

"Can ya break em?" Daryl asked.

"Yeah, but it'll be noisy, it might trap us." She replied.

"I think I have a better idea." Carl said as he pointed to a tunnel, blocked by a security arm leading to the underground parking, normally used as overflow parking, and employee parking.

"I don' know if I like that better, if we get up a shit creek, it'll be like a death trap." Daryl said as he eyed their surroundings warily.

"I don't know if we have a better choice, since breaking those doors is gonna make a hell of a lot of noise, and there will be no way to get them closed again, same shit creek." Carl replied.

"Well, then it looks like we're taking the low road." She said as she walked up to the arm, thankfully for them, it would be very easy to disassemble.

"I can have this off in five minutes, no muss, no fuss." Charlotte said as she dug into her bag for a wrench.

Charlotte had been right, in five minutes exactly (Carl had timed her for fun) the arm came off in Carl's hands.

"Now let's go, we've been out here too long already, and our scent's bound to start drifting." Charlotte said as they piled into the Tucson and drive slowly down into the underground parking.

"Look!" Charlotte said as she pointed to a set of double doors.

"That's probably a service entrance let's hope it isn't automatic, if it isn't I can break it with a screwdriver … or at least I should be able to." Charlotte said as she walked forward, digging out her flathead as she went.

The universe seemed to take pity on them, and they were manual doors, Charlotte stuck her screwdriver into the rusted lock and it broke without much resistance.

They filed in quickly and quietly in line like a SWAT team with their walker killing weapons at the ready, just in case. They did run into a few walkers, former mall employees, just like they had suspected. They slowly climbed the service stairs up to the first floor.

"Well, here goes nothing." Charlotte said as she opened the door and took a peek, seeing that the coast was clear, she motioned to the others and eased her way through onto the first floor of the mall.

"Holy shit! There's no one here, no walkers, nothing!" Carl said as they looked around to find the mall probably as everyone left it when they fled all that time ago.

"This is too good to be true, it just has to be!" Charlotte said as they walked along looking into the windows of the closed shops, which looked much like the main mall, untouched, likely because the overrun city kept people at bay.

She should have kept her mouth shut, because just then, the impacts of the walker's bodies against the glass of the closed up stores echoed through the deserted mall.

Even though it was daylight out, very little light filtered in through the skylights in the mall's ceiling, but from what they could make out, the walkers were people who had once worked there.

"Shit, I guess when things went to hell, they just … locked themselves up in their stores cause they were scared." Charlotte said as she put her hand on the glass of what used to be an American Eagle store. The female walker behind the glass, a petite girl that wasn't much taller than Charlotte growled and gnashed her teeth uselessly at her hand.

"Come on, they're ain't nothin' more we can do for em, best thing now is to put em out of their misery." Daryl said as he put a hand on her shoulder.

"Some people just aren't made for this world." Carl said callously as he readied his axes. Charlotte looked at him, shocked at the cold tone of his words.

"He's right, let's just hurry up and get it done." Daryl said.

"Everyone ready?" Charlotte asked, both Carl and Daryl nodded, and Charlotte broke the lock on the metal security gate and pulled it up. Five or so walkers stumbled out, weak and emaciated and started for them, the three experienced survivors made quick work of them.

They went store to store on the first floor, opening them up and taking out whatever walkers were inside, some had as many as ten, other didn't have any.

"That should do it for now." Daryl said, wiping his sweaty brow, they had cleared almost every store on the lower level, including a gym, and a Bass Pro Shops.

"Come on, I say we all see what we can find to get clean, because I don't know about anyone else, but I want to get this walker blood off me." Charlotte said as she led the way into a Ross to look for some new clothes and soap of some kind. She grabbed a hand basket on her way into the store and made her way to the hair and body care section first.

"Too bad bath and body works is on the second level, I'd love to have some stuff from there again, it's been so long." She said more to herself than the others as she picked through the soaps and decided on a 3-in-1 for hair and body, it was for men, but what did she care?

"Here." She said as she tossed one to Daryl and Carl. "Now let's hit up the gym's showers."

"These are … nice." Carl said as they all stood in the showering area, one side was for men, the other for women, but what did it matter in this world they now lived in.

"I'll take this side, and you two can have the other side to yourselves. Just you know … try to keep it down? It's not like I can have a radio or anything to drown the two of you out." Carl said dryly as he disappeared into the men's side with a towel slung over his shoulder.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that boy knows us better than we know ourselves!" Charlotte said, as soon as the door closed behind them, Daryl pulled her close.

"Let's not make em' wrong." He growled into her ear.