BEFORE I BEGIN : This is a total AU, just like my other Walking Dead story. Sophia is alive here, and she makes her way back to the group in an interesting way. Pairing will be Daryl x OC with a Carol x OC friendship / family ship.. This came to me while writing another chapter for my Shane story, so I wrote it all down and thought I'd share. At this point, one chapter is all I have written and it takes place after Shane and Jenny have left the farm but before the farmhouse is attacked and burned down..
sorry ahead of time for any ooc ness that may occur, I'm really trying, I swear to god. If you want more, you know what to do...
ONE
She'd honestly lost track of time as she made her way through the woods, sun beating down on her, the words the older man had said sticking in her mind like a red alert. If she kept going, Sophia reasoned, if she kept the sun at her back, she'd be safe.
And the little girl was scared and alone and very afraid until she heard the screams. She knew one was a woman, maybe a teenage girl, she wasn't sure yet, but the other was a little child just like her.. And then something her momma said came to the front of her mind.
She stood in the clearing just listening for a few minutes and then she saw the little shack nearby, she shielded her eyes from the sun and saw the window, quietly ducking, making her way over to the shack. Crouched out of sight, the men laughing and high fiving as they said some very vulgar things didn't even see the little 9 year old girl.
But the little girl in the window did.
The window was open a crack and Sophia hissed frantically, "Can you get out?"
The little girl nodded and worked the window open wider as she said quietly, "My momma's hurt real bad. I can't get her out by myself."
"We gotta hurry." Sophia told the other little girl, adding quickly, "My name is Sophia Peletier."
"Mine's Candie Burke." the little brunette told her, asking, "Where's your momma and daddy?"
"I got lost." Sophia admitted as Candie told her, "The men.. they come and killed my daddy and my uncle. Tried to kill me and momma too but we fought 'em off and they took us prisoner. I'm scared."
"We'll figure this out." Sophia stood there, fingers winding in dirt matted blonde hair as she tried to think of a way to get the two out of the shack. Her eyes darted around the perimeter and settled on the back door of the shack. She told the girl what she was doing and quickly, she ran around, trying the handle. She felt a huge wave of relief wash over her when she found out the door was unlocked and she was inside within seconds.. But then the teenage boy stepped out.
"And just what the hell are you doin?"
Sophia gulped and the teenage boy studied her a moment. He could let her and the other two his father bought back go now, or he could be like his father and tie her up, toss her in the little room at the end of the hall too..
The teenage boy sighed and grabbed the keys from the table. He'd lie, he'd tell his daddy that the woman got loose again and knocked him over the head. Whatever happened, happened. What his daddy and his uncle were doing was wrong and sick.
"You saw 'em."
Sophia nodded and the boy said quietly, "I'm gonna have my fuckin ass kicked for this, or beat real bad, but… I'm gonna let 'em go, take the three of ya to a farmhouse up the way and drop ya off. The Greene family is good people.. Better than my dad."
Sophia wanted to hug the boy, but instead, she searched his eyes for hints that he might be lying to get rid of her. When he took her to the room, cut the bonds off the woman and scooped her up into his arms, she hugged him quietly. "You're doing the right thing."
"I know, kid.. Just hope I can remember that later when my pa is beatin the hell out of me." the teenage boy said as he cut the little girl's leg ties free and then quickly grabbed truck keys. He got the three of them into the truck and got the truck on the road, spinning out wildly, and within minutes, the trio was sitting on the porch of the Greene farmhouse, Sophia and the other little girl talking quietly about what they'd do if these people turned them away or they'd been bit.
"If there's nobody livin left, we can get food, stay a little and let Momma heal.. She'll take real good care of ya too." Candie told the blonde sitting to her left as she bit the inside of her cheeks and prepared to knock.
Before she could even knock, someone was yelling, running towards them.
Carol almost wouldn't have believed what she'd seen if Andrea hadn't seen it herself and started screaming for her.
She saw Sophia standing on the porch of the farmhouse, dirty and sweaty and scared but very much alive.. And with an older woman who was laying in the swing as if she needed serious medical attention and another little girl, a brunette who shrank away at the sudden appearance of other adults, especially male ones.
"Sophia, baby, mommy was scared to death." Carol's tears rolled down her cheeks, falling like rain as she kissed her daughter and squeezed her so tightly that she thought she'd squeeze the breath right out of her daughter's little body.
"Momma, we gotta get Candie's momma some help. These men had her and they beat her real bad." Sophia nodded to the leggy brunette lying on the porch swing, ripped clothing, bruised and beaten.
Carol fixed her eyes on the other little girl and asked, "Were either of you bit?"
The little girl shook her head quietly and then under Sophia's promise that everything was okay, nobody here would hurt her, the little girl began to quietly tell Carol everything that happened, from the night the men broke into their deer camp and killed her father and uncle, to just now, when the teenage boy freed them and at the end she nodded to Sophia and said quietly, "She saved our lives."
Carol hugged her daughter, patting the girls head as she muttered quietly, "Good girl.. Mommy raised you right. Such a good girl. I'm so glad you're alive and here again."
"Momma, we need to get them inside.."
The men were returning from the supply run by now and Carol gave a shrill whistle to the man with the bow and arrow just as Carlie began to waken from the grogginess of the pain of her injuries. The second light brown eyes set on his green ones, she muttered quietly, "Tommy? But they killed you..." and fainted again as Candie stared up at the man wide eyed.
Daryl caught the woman just as she went to fall back against the porch swing again, scooping her off, ignoring the comment and the strange way she behaved long enough to get her into the house and into the guest bedroom.
Once Hershel was in the room with the woman, the little girl made her way over to Daryl and said quietly and in a confused voice, "You're not my daddy.. He got shot in front a me."
Daryl exhaled a plume of smoke into the air, fixing green eyes on the dirty faced 8 year old and said "Obviously not, kid."
"But ya look exactly like 'im." the little girl dug around in a faded and dirty pink backpack to pull out a photo and held it out. Daryl took it, and he coughed in discomfort and shock. But there it was, in a photo in a frame.. The man standing in the picture could have been his mirror image, maybe a lot taller, a lot more muscular, but still almost uncomfortably like looking into a mirror for the irritable redneck.
Suddenly, the mom's outburst at seeing him made sense.
He stubbed out the cigarette and then held the photo back out to the kid, eager to get it out of his sight.
It was weird, seeing a version of yourself but happy, without all the messed up shit that went on in your own mind half the time. And one hell of a lot more uncomfortable than he'd ever imagined it would be.
"Might wanna go put that up, kid."
The little girl gave a nod and quickly walked away, shoving the photo back down into her bag. She went outside after, playing with Carl and Sophia under the big tree in the yard.. And for whatever reason, Daryl slid the pocket doors to the guest room the woman was laid up in open and made his way in quietly, sitting down.
The woman tossed and turned, putting her hands up defensively as if she were fending off an attack and from behind him, Hershel spoke up and said quietly, "She'll be fine once she's up and healed. The most recent blow to the head she took gave her a bad concussion and it's lucky she didn't just slip into a coma from all the blood she lost. She fought hard though, most likely for that little girl of hers."
"She wasn't bit.. Right?"
"Nope. Not a bite mark on her, Dixon."
"Good."
"Heard what the little girl told you out there earlier.. Any relation to you?"
Daryl shrugged, after their momma died, their daddy had gotten around a lot, but he somehow doubted it. "Dunno, old man. I doubt it though. Guy looked like he was my age."
Hershel gave a nod and left the room, leaving Daryl to sit there, watching the woman lying in the bed. "You gotta fight harder, woman. You got a kid out there." he stated simply before getting up, leaving the room, doors shutting softly behind him.
And in the bed, Carlie Devain lie there, trying to wake herself up, to keep herself from slipping out while she slumbered...