The run back to the car and Daryl's bike was slower than Daryl was comfortable with. There were more walkers roaming around that he was used to and, frankly, he would have been content with ditching their crippled savior by the side of the road. Combined with the scent of her blood, her limp was just going to get them killed.

But Rick hadn't said anything that hinted that he wanted Daryl to take action, so he just kept his mouth shut. He could almost hear his brother's raspy voice taunting him, Yo, Darylina. You takin' orders from a pig like some lil' bitch?

He didn't answer. Only a few weeks ago, he would have gotten into an argument with his possibly dead brother in his head but now he pretended he wasn't hearing him at all. Merle continued, Why didn' you shoot the girl, huh? Git a soft spot for a woman? You know ol' Merle wouldn' need ta cozy up to some bitch just for some pussy…

Even the sound of his brother's motorcycle couldn't drown out the sound of his brother's phantom voice. Once they'd made it to the vehicles, Rick took the semi-conscious woman from where she hung on Maggie's shoulder and stuck her in the front seat of the Hyundai. Daryl supposed she gave Rick instructions on where to go to meet up with Glenn and the kid because only moments after strapping her in, the car spun away from the shoulder and down the highway. Daryl barely had enough time to gun his engine before Rick, Maggie, T-Dog, and the woman were around a bend.

They didn't have to go too far. They drove fast for around ten minutes before Rick signaled left onto a dirt road that Daryl had almost missed. Trees were thick around them as they pulled to a stop. Daryl wondered if they'd have time to hunt around a bit, seeing as their supply run had been a complete failure. Especially considering that the few supplies they did grab were being used by the woman, whose injuries were looking more and more grave.

Maggie sat her in the back of the Hyundai while she rummaged through their bags for water and antibiotics. Daryl would admit that she needed some medical attention; her bare arm was torn all to hell from scraping the road. Her stitches had busted and blood had managed to seep out from underneath her bandages, dripping onto her torn, dirtied jeans. But hell if he was going to let her use their supplies.

"Maggie!" he yelled and was immediately shushed by the rest of them. He ignored them and said, "What the hell are you doin' with our supplies?"

She gave him a disapproving look. "I'm not gonna sit here and let her bleed out when I can do something about it." Indeed, the woman looked faint from blood loss, her face white as a sheet with a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.

"She almost got us all killed!" he growled. "Not t'mention that supply run was a bust thanks to her!"

Damn T-Dog stood in the way again. Daryl would have shoved him out of the way if he knew he could. "Take it easy, man."

"Nah, I won' 'take it easy, man'," he mocked, drawling out the words in that annoying, slow-as-molasses way of talking that T-Dog had when he was trying to calm someone down. "This bitch is the reason why Carol and Lori and the others are gonna go hungry again!"

"Stop," Rick finally interjected from where he was leaning against the side of the car with his arms crossed. He straightened up and joined T-Dog in front of Maggie and the woman, very conspicuously shielding them from Daryl's ire. For some reason, that made his blood boil.

"Am I the only one takin' our survival seriously?" he grumbled, pacing away from them and gesturing wildly to the surrounding forest. "Ain't seen hardly anythin' for days out here and it's only gonna get worse when winter comes."

He almost continued to speak but the flash of warning in Rick's eyes stopped him. They both knew what he was planning on throwing out there. It's only going to get worse when the baby comes.

"She's passed out," Maggie said quietly. She was wiping her right arm, the one with the road rash, clean of blood. Even with all the blood soaked up into a t-shirt Maggie had dug up from the back of the car, the woman's arm was mangled pretty badly; it reminded him of the torn flesh he saw on walkers. If Daryl saw her limping towards him, he probably wouldn't have hesitated to put a bolt in her head.

"She bit?" he asked in the nicest way he'd spoken all day. Maggie glanced at him before shaking her head.

"No. Probably a concussion, though." The men stood in silence for a moment, watching Maggie carefully remove the broken stitches from her arm.

Then, T-Dog asked, "What the hell are we gonna do with her?" Daryl snorted.

"Toss her out. This ain't even a discussion."

"We can't," Maggie exclaimed, nearly spearing the woman's arm with the needle in her distress. "She's injured and I'd feel better if Dad could take a look at her."

"She ain't our problem!"

"She saved our lives," T-Dog pointed out, crossing his arms.

"After she tried to kill us!" he reminded them. It's like they couldn't even remember that she'd held Maggie and him at gunpoint.

"She was scared!" Maggie argued.

"Yeah, well, scared almost got you killed!"

"She wouldn't have done it," Maggie protested, but with a hint of doubt coloring her voice.

Daryl pounced on it, "Look at her!" he said, gesticulating to the woman lying bloody in the back of their car. She didn't fit right at all; her hair chopped at different lengths, her face caked in dirt and dried blood, and her clothes were much dirtier than even his were. She looked feral. He wouldn't have been too surprised if she woke up, turned into a coyote, and ran off. "She's practically an animal! Ya don' know what she woulda done. Ya willin' ta bet your life? Or your sister's?"

"What about the kid?" T-Dog asked suddenly. "She took care of that kid. She can't be all bad."

Daryl shook his head, "Yeah, and Hitler was a vegetarian." He ignored Maggie's rolling eyes and continued, "It don't matter if she's Jesus Christ reincarnated, she put a gun to your head and she'll do it again if she has to."

It was a belief that lingered with them from the old world—that is, the world before walkers. Daryl could see it in T-Dog's and Maggie's faces. They thought that anyone who tried to protect a child was good in their eyes. They thought that just because she looked out for some kid, it meant she was trustworthy. In Daryl's opinion, that just made her more dangerous. A mother bear is most vicious when her cub is being threatened. If anything happened to that kid, there would be hell to pay.

They'd all been dancing around the subject of the woman's darker companion—the one they trusted to lead Glenn back to them safely. They didn't want to acknowledge the fact that if anything bad happened to the woman, they'd have another problem to deal with. As hard as they'd gotten since the shit well and truly hit the fan, none of them were willing to toss a kid no older than Carl out on her ass.

They were all silent. Then T-Dog asked, "Was Hitler really a vegetarian? I read somewhere that that wasn't true."

Thankfully, the woman chose that moment to regain consciousness with a groan, cutting short what could have been a loud conversation between Maggie and T-Dog about shit that didn't matter. When she tried to sit up, Maggie held her shoulder down and soothed, "It's alright."

She blinked hard, adjusting to the waning afternoon light. Her eyes suddenly focused as she took in the three imposing men standing around her. Immediately, she lunged for her bow that lay just out of her reach. Rick and T-Dog jumped to hold her down, while Daryl snatched the bow from her grasp. It was taller than he'd expected it to be; maybe around five feet. Looking at her, he would have guessed her draw weight was twenty-five pounds at most, but her bow looked too big for that.

"Easy now," Rick said, not struggling at all to keep her pinned. She was obviously weak from blood loss and a possible concussion. "We're not going to hurt you."

Daryl scoffed, but silenced at a sharp look from Rick. Maggie asked carefully, "Do you remember what happened?"

She blinked at them all with those stupid eyes that made Daryl want to turn away. "…Where's Cassie?"

Well, that answered their question. Daryl shifted her bow in his arms so he could cross his arms and glare at her. "Dunno. But you best pray she shows up soon. With Glenn in one piece."

The weary lines in her face deepened as her face hardened. It was an odd expression on her childish face; fleetingly, he wondered at her age. He would have guessed she was eighteen on a generous estimate, but he wasn't entirely sure. She seemed too serious to be a teenager. "He'll be fine."

"He better be," Rick growled, letting her shoulder go. She didn't try to get up again, though she narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

"He's safer with Cas than he's ever been in his life," she said with such certainty that Maggie visibly relaxed. Daryl wasn't so easily fooled though.

"Ya mean with Little Miss Sunshine?" Daryl snorted. "She's, what, eight?" Twelve, his own mind answered.

"She's tough," she insisted coldly.

"Tough kids are still just kids."

"Look, asshole," she snapped, swatting away Maggie's hands while attempting to pull herself up to a sitting position. She winced when she shifted around to give him a murderous look. Her ribs might have gotten bruised when she took a roll out of the car, he analyzed out of instinct. But she ignored her pain to address him, "I wouldn't have told her to do something I didn't think she could handle."

He opened his mouth to retaliate, but she continued over him in a louder voice, "I get it, dude. Ok? You think I'm a complete monster. Whatever. I saved your ass, though, and you know it."

"What the hell?" he seethed, tossing her bow off to the side of the dirt road. She clenched her jaw at the dull thump it made, but Daryl didn't give a shit.

Neither did she, apparently. "I get that you're the camp guard dog, so I'm sorry that you feel like shit 'cause you got your ass handed to you by a couple of chicks."

His vision went red. He forgot that they'd just run for their lives from flesh-eating monsters, that she was a woman, that she was probably a little fuzzy from blood loss. He wasn't entirely sure what happened next, but one moment he was arguing with a mouthy bitch sitting in the back of a car and the next T-Dog had him by the arms, holding him back from lunging at the girl.

"The fuck did you say ta me, girl?" he snarled, spitting and swearing against T-Dog's strong hold.

"Are you deaf and stupid?" she jeered, albeit weakly, around Rick and Maggie. "God damn, you got the short end of the genetic stick, didn't you?"

Rick grabbed her right arm, making her cry out in pain and snap her mouth shut. He hissed under his breath, "You are not making a good case for yourself, so I suggest you stop talking."

"A good case for what? Y'all deciding whether or not to kill me?"

"No, we want to take you back with us," Maggie said. She nodded her head at the woman's extensive injuries. "My dad is a doctor; he can check you over."

"No." Maggie quirked her eyebrow at her blunt answer. "Once Cassie and your man get here, we're taking off."

"Somethin' we agree on, then…" Daryl muttered. He'd calmed down enough for T-Dog to release him.

Maggie shook her head, arguing, "You might have a concussion. I'd feel better if Dad made sure you weren't going to pass out randomly."

"No," she repeated, her chin set stubbornly. But she was beginning to sway again, like she had when she'd passed out the first time. Her eyes glazed over as she stared through Rick's torso.

At that moment, a Nissan pickup pulled around the bend. Glenn clambered out of the tall truck looking a hell of a lot more put together than the rest of them combined. His grin faded when he saw their tense stances and the blood coating their clothes.

"What happened?" he asked when he'd rushed over, grabbing Maggie in his arms before checking her over for bites. The little girl—Cassie, Daryl reminded himself—trailed after him, softly as a shadow.

If it weren't for the dark color of her skin, he might have mistaken the two strangers for sisters. They both had those enormous doe eyes that were innocent and old at the same time. They wore matching solemn expressions that didn't fit quite right on their soft faces. They even stood the same way; on the balls of their feet, like they were forever about to dart away.

"Walkers," Maggie answered, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"Tons of 'em," T-Dog added tiredly.

"Anna?" Cassie asked out loud, to no one in particular. Daryl wasn't sure if she was asking them about her or if she knew Anna was nearby and could hear her shaky voice.

"Cas." Cassie gasped when she saw her companion bloodied and bruised. Rick held her back from tackling Anna. He even gave her a soft smile, one that none of them had seen since before Carl got shot almost two months before.

"She's pretty badly hurt, so don't go body-slamming her," he instructed her. For a second, Daryl was sure Cassie was going to shoot off some biting comment at him—after all, the two of them were already so alike. But she just grinned, all of her teeth glowing against her dark skin.

"Don't worry!" she chirped and hopped up beside Anna. She gave her a quick onceover. "You bit?"

Anna shook her head and opened her mouth to reply, but then her eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted again. Cassie yelped when she slumped over onto her tiny shoulder.

"Annie!" She held her face in her tiny hands, but the woman's head just lolled heavily. Maggie and Rick jumped to yank Anna off of the young girl, who was becoming understandably hysterical. "Is she ok? Was she bitten? Help her, for God's sake! What—"

"We're gonna get her patched up, alright, sweetie?" Maggie soothed, throwing a glare at Daryl as if she was daring him to argue. He didn't change his expression. Of course he couldn't. None of them could tell the kid that they were debating on whether or not to toss them out on their asses, not while she was quivering uncontrollably with tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"Hey, hey," Glenn crouched down and put a hand on her shoulder. "We're gonna take her back to our camp. We have a doctor who can look at her, so she'll be fine, alright?"

Rattled, the girl managed to give him a nod. He gave her shoulder another squeeze before straightening and turning to Rick, "I'll drive their car back."

Once he'd agreed, there was a flurry of activity. It was beginning to get dark. They hadn't thought this run would last so long, but thanks to the unanticipated amount of walkers crawling around, they were out for an extra two hours.

T-Dog and Daryl held the woman up while Maggie cleaned up as much as she could from the back of the Hyundai. It was a lost cause; there would be blood stains in the carpet forever now. Then, they laid her across the back seat of the car and Maggie slid in after to monitor her condition on the ride back.

Cassie rode with Glenn, which was surprising. They all thought she'd want to stay close to Anna, but she only gave them wary looks when they voiced that assumption. Though she looked at Glenn like he'd hung the moon—something Daryl noticed immediately and with intense amusement—apparently she didn't trust him enough to not to take off with their truck.

It was only a thirty minute trip back to where they'd set up camp just off of the highway at an old campground. It was by no means permanent; the only good thing about it was that they had a mountain covering them on one side. They would have to move on soon, though. Daryl hadn't hunted anything bigger than a couple of squirrels.

The rumble of Daryl's motorcycle echoed off of the trees around the small fire that Carol and Lori had obviously set up recently to keep them warm during the chilly night. They'd lost a lot of supplies when they got overrun at the farm, so there were only three tents to split amongst the ten of them. The largest went to Rick, Lori, and Carl, the next largest was for Hershel, Beth, and Maggie, while Carol took the one-man tent. T-Dog, Glenn, and Daryl switched off every night to share with her, though Daryl rarely used it. He either took long watch shifts or slept in the bed of the truck. He felt too weird sharing a tent with someone, even if it was someone he knew well. Hell, the only reason he shared a tent with Merle back at the quarry was because he wanted to keep an eye on Merle—make sure he wasn't getting so stoned that he became a danger to everyone.

Everyone left in the camp looked up when they heard his engine grumbling and saw the car pull around them, providing them with at least a little extra cover. Carol frowned when she saw the extra car.

"Yo, Hershel!" Daryl called over to the old man, who had been checking Lori's pulse, one hand at her neck, the other holding his watch. Rick pulled the bloody, unconscious woman from the back of the car.

"Oh my god!" Carol gasped, jumping up from her place at the fire. Carl and Beth cleared debris off one of the picnic tables that they weren't using and flung semi-clean tarp over it so Rick could place her on it. Hershel came over, a grave look on his face.

"What happened?" he asked, taking Maggie's bag of medical supplies when she held it out for him.

"Got trapped by some walkers," T-Dog offered. "This chick helped us out."

"Yeah, after putting a gun to Maggie's head," Daryl muttered. Carol put a hand over her mouth in shock and Lori gasped. Maggie glared at him before turning to her frozen father. He looked uncertain about helping the woman now.

"Daddy, she was scared," Maggie said, "She ended up saving us."

"Why would you bring her back here?" Lori asked in one of her tones. Daryl secretly called this one the 'mom tone.' She used it when she was scolding Carl or when she wasn't getting her way and she wanted everyone to know just how pissy she was feeling. "If she threatened you…"

"It's because of me," Cassie said, pacing over so quietly that Daryl almost hadn't noticed her. No one else did, certainly; they flinched when they heard her small voice. "They were worried about what would happen to me if they left her to die."

The back of Daryl's neck burned. For some reason, he felt like a kid caught with one hand in a cookie jar. The kid had nailed it right on the head with her assumption, though Glenn, T-Dog, and Maggie all floundered to find excuses.

"She saved our lives!"

"We're not horrible people…"

"She needed help, and you know…"

"She's right," Rick interrupted. The others quit their blathering at Rick's cold tone. "And as soon as Hershel says she's good to go, they're taking off."

Cassie gazed at him coolly, nodding her head like a queen. She still didn't trust them, Daryl realized. He wouldn't be as surprised to see that if she was older. But then he was used to kids like Carl and Sophia—ones who trusted easily and couldn't follow an instruction even with a map.

Glenn sighed, clearly unhappy with that declaration. Or he was just tired. Exhaustion hit Daryl like a bag of cement. Now that they were somewhat safe, all Daryl wanted to do was collapse in the dirt and sleep for a few days. But since the supply run ended up being a colossal waste of time, he knew he had to catch something for them to eat. Or at least for Lori, Beth, and Carl to eat.

"I'm gonna go hunt," Daryl declared, shifting his crossbow on his shoulder for emphasis and nodded over at Anna's prone figure. "Since this chick ruined our supply run."

"Wait." He stopped stalking towards to the trees at Cassie's excited voice. She raced over to the Nissan pickup that Glenn had driven back, propped up the hard cover, and hopped up into the bed. All the others—excluding Hershel and Anna, of course—followed her to peer after her. Lori gasped when Cassie held a can of mushroom soup aloft with a grin. She tossed it to Glenn, who predictably dropped it in surprise. "We have some food. It's not much, but we can eat tonight."

Rick rummaged through the cardboard box, pulling out cans of Spaghetti-O's, ravioli, at least three kinds of soups, pears, pineapples, and more. Juggling four cans, Rick raised an eyebrow, "'Not much'?"

She shrugged, shifting out of the way so T-Dog could grab the box and hoist it over to Daryl. "I meant for you guys. It would have lasted us another week." Lori and Carol looked uncomfortable at the girl's matter-of-fact tone, but Cassie didn't seem to pick up on it. Daryl thought that she probably did pick up on it, and she reveled in their discomfort. "But if you all just have a can each, then you'll need more food by tomorrow night."

Rick placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "This is more than enough. Thank you." She shook her head.

"You guys are looking after Anna, so it's the least I can do." Rick and Daryl shared a look. Neither of them was very comfortable with the stranger that Hershel was leaning over. Neither of them would admit it—they were both too proud to—but they owed her their lives. She didn't have to risk her life for them back at the town, but she did. And now she had provided them with food that they desperately needed. They were just falling deeper and deeper in her debt and Daryl couldn't easily suppress the feeling of obligation. Nowadays, being in someone's debt, especially a stranger's, was a liability.

Rick nodded to her before checking up on Hershel. Daryl began to trail after him—in case Anna woke up again and lashed out at Hershel; they'd need some muscle to hold her down—but Carol blocked his path.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly, her eyes wide with worry. Daryl still wasn't totally comfortable with Carol's overt concern; he had to consciously suppress the urge to tell her to mind her own business. He managed to make one side of his mouth turn up, though. That was an improvement in his books.

"Yeah. Nobody got hurt 'cept for Legolas over there," he said, jerking his head in Hershel and Anna's direction. Rick and Hershel were leaning over the woman's body, speaking quietly while the older man stitched up the deeper wounds in her arms.

"Was it really a good idea to bring her back here?" she whispered, looking at him like he knew what the hell to do. It's not like he was king boss; that was Rick's job. "She threatened you; she's dangerous!"

He shrugged, saying, "It ain't permanent. Once she can move, she and the kid'll be out of here. 'Sides," he rolled his eyes, "'s not like she's movin' around much now."

Carol was still uneasy, he could tell. But she nodded and patted his arm before leaving his side to help Lori sort through the box of food.

Later that night, after Hershel declared the woman's condition stable—"She has a mild concussion," Hershel'd said, "but she's so exhausted that we should let her sleep."—and they'd moved her into the third tent, the one that Carol usually slept in, they sat around the fire and had the biggest meal they'd had in a long time. Cassie didn't join them; while they were all settling down and heating up their soups and pastas, she grabbed a can of tomato soup, without bothering to heat it up, and disappeared into the tent where Anna lay resting.

"It's like college all over again," Maggie laughed softly. She leaned into Glenn's shoulder while poking her fork into her can idly. "I must've had Spaghetti-O's every day in my sophomore year. Don't think it ever tasted so good, though."

Carl and Beth giggled while Glenn breathed an amused sound, wrapping his arm around her shoulder to keep themselves warmer.

"And we have those girls to thank," T-Dog murmured under his breath, like he didn't want anyone to hear what he said. But Daryl heard him loud and clear, even from his place across the fire.

"Don' mean nothin'," he snarled, stabbing his spoon into his can of chicken noodle soup so aggressively that the broth spilled out onto the forest floor, narrowly missing Carol's foot. She shot him an annoyed look, which he ignored. "They ain't stayin'."

"Maybe…there's a place for them," Glenn suggested, his expression somehow confident and meek at the same time. "I mean, they helped us out. They're not bad people."

"This world can make people change," Carol reminded him darkly. They didn't need to say who they meant. Shane. No one talked about Shane; it was their new unspoken rule.

"The older one threatened Maggie," Hershel said. "I don't feel comfortable with her around, even if she's incapacitated."

"Daddy, I told you; she was afraid!" Maggie interrupted, exasperated for some reason. Daryl would have hoped that a gun to the face wouldn't make you too hospitable to the person holding it. But then again, the world can make people change, as Carol said. Maybe Maggie'd lost her sense of reasonable fear.

"No." Everyone stopped bickering at the sound of Rick's hoarse voice. He'd always had that voice, the one with enough weight to drag your attention away from whatever you were doing and listen, but ever since they'd found out that he'd killed his best friend, his voice seemed to have even more gravity. "They know that as soon as Anna is fit to travel, they are gone."

"But they're just kids, Rick," T-Dog said.

Rick shook his head adamantly, leaning forward, closer to the fire. The flames danced in his hard eyes, so different from the man who'd led them out of the CDC and the man who cried over every loss in their group as though they were his blood. "My decision is final," he snapped. T-Dog sat back, a little stunned at his tone.

Daryl chewed a noodle, staring at their fearless leader. Hell, he was surprised at his tone too, even if it was the tone Daryl would have taken with T-Dog's remarks. But Rick wasn't so harsh and he sure as hell wasn't like Daryl.

"Can't we take a vote?" Maggie asked, quietly. Rick clenched his jaw, but didn't do or say anything else that expressed his displeasure.

But just as Maggie opened her mouth again, he threw his can into the fire, said, "Do what you want; it doesn't change the fact that my decision is final," before stomping over to his tent and zipping himself inside. The sound of the zipper wasn't quite as dramatic as a slamming door, but it did the trick. No one spoke for five minutes.

The fire spoke enough for them in that time—it crackled and popped, sending fireworks up above them, floating higher and higher towards the canopy of the trees. Daryl was certain that some of the sparks would make it past the leaves of the trees and continue to float forever, up into the sparkling night sky, but they never made it more than five feet in the air before their glowing bodies were snuffed out by the cold night air.

Daryl thought of what Rick had said two weeks before, the night that the farm was overrun. This isn't a democracy anymore. They hadn't felt any repercussions from that declaration since he'd said it. Things went on as they had before, with only minor changes—obviously, they were on the road now instead of on a farm, Lori was pregnant and so she had to eat more and do less, and they'd gotten a new car. But they didn't really think much of Rick's words until now.

Daryl agreed with Rick, of course; he thought having those girls around would just be a problem. Two more mouths to feed, two more people to look out for, at least one more irresponsible kid to keep an eye on. But it kind of pissed him off that Rick wouldn't even listen to what the others had to say. It almost made him want to vouch for the girls.

Almost.

"I still think we should vote on it," Maggie grumbled. Glenn nodded in agreement.

"Whatever," Daryl said, without much venom. He just felt tired now. Sick of thinking about how fucked up Rick was, of worrying about the lack of food, of keeping an eye on that tent with the girls in it.

"She saved our lives," T-Dog said, for the thousandth time.

"They gave us food," Maggie added.

"Uh…" Glenn struggled to come up with a third thing. "They're girls…?" he finally offered lamely. Maggie gave him an annoyed look.

"Are you saying that just because they're women, that means they can't take care of themselves?" she asked, raising her eyebrow. Glenn paled and swallowed visibly.

While he fumbled around for an answer that wouldn't dig him into a deeper hole, Carol said, "They tried to kill you."

"Twice," Hershel reminded them.

"We don't know them," Lori finished quietly, stroking her stomach with a thin hand. She was just beginning to show, something that made Daryl feel even shittier about not being able to find food.

"We didn't know y'all," Maggie said, breaking out of her little argument with a nervous Glenn to defend the strangers, "but we took you in."

"Yeah, and that ended well," Daryl muttered, ignoring the pained looks the Greenes gave him. He was talking about Otis—Shane had killed him. Not to mention the walkers in their barn that they thought could be saved; that is, until Shane took a shotgun and blasted the lock off of the door, letting the walkers roam free like some fucked up herd of cattle. Cattle that they had admittedly massacred as soon as they stumbled out.

"They could be helpful, you know," Glenn pondered.

"Yeah, ok," Daryl snorted in disbelief. "They don' look like they weigh more'n 100 pounds combined and covered in motor oil."

"Look, I spent an hour in the car with that kid," he insisted, growing more animated in his gestures, nearly knocking Carl's hat off of his head in his excitement. Not bothering to apologize, he continued, "She's, like, a genius."

"Like, can recite 500 digits of Pi genius or Doogie Howser genius?" Maggie asked.

"Uh, neither of those," Glenn gave his girlfriend a weird look. "She knew every street by heart; she didn't even need a map or anything."

"So, she's from around here," Carol said, unimpressed.

"I'm from Philadelphia," a small voice piped up from behind Maggie and Glenn, who both let out a yelp of surprise. Daryl was pissed at himself. She'd snuck up on him again! It didn't matter that she was a tiny kid and was probably quiet without even meaning to be; she could have slit Maggie's throat without making a sound.

She stepped out from behind them, her eyes glittering with mirth in the firelight. She apparently liked startling people, a trait Daryl found fucking annoying and somewhat rude, even by his pretty low standards. She elbowed Carl out of the way, ignoring his groan of pain, so she could sit cross-legged by his feet.

"What the hell are you doin' down in Georgia, then?" T-Dog asked.

She smiled without humor. "I lost my family. My parents, my younger brothers and sister. But I have aunts and uncles in New Orleans, so we're heading down that way."

Knowing what he did about major cities, Daryl didn't voice his opinion. But he was sure New Orleans was wiped off of the map and he barely knew anything about it. If her family was still alive, they sure as hell wouldn't still be in New Orleans. They'd have taken off a long time ago.

She noticed the condolatory looks the group was giving her and shook her head, "I know they're not alive. I'm not stupid."

Like that made them feel any less sympathetic. "So…er, if you know they're…you know," Glenn stuttered, gesturing vaguely to indicate 'dead', "Why are you going to Louisiana?"

She shrugged, "It's just what we're doing. We decided to go back when this thing wasn't so bad, you know, when my family might've been ok. And now it's like, well, we've come this far, what's the point of giving up now?"

By the looks on Glenn's face, it was clear that he didn't understand why they'd risk their lives on a goal that was most likely unattainable. The others appeared just as puzzled.

Daryl knew what she was saying. Right now, their group had a goal in mind— find a place to hole up long enough for Lori to have the baby. When they'd escaped from the CDC, their goal was to get to Fort Benning. It gave them something to think about, to work towards. He couldn't imagine wandering around, no safe end in sight, just trying to survive for the sake of survival.

Daryl understood her. But that didn't mean he didn't think it was stupid.

"Does Anna know?" Maggie asked the little girl, though her voice had changed from the strange lilting tone that everybody seemed to adopt when they talked to a child. If he couldn't see who was speaking, he would have thought she was talking to Carol or Rick.

Cassie cocked her head from side to side. "I think so. We don't really talk about it," she replied sadly.

An awkward silence descended. It clicked then for him; he'd been wondering why the kid was revealing so much about herself and her companion. From the few moments he'd spent killing walkers with the older one, he'd assumed that she would have been instructed to keep her mouth shut about personal details. But it was clear now—the kid was lonely. Why wouldn't she be? Her whole family was dead, the person taking care of her was practically a mute, and she probably hadn't seen someone her age since before the world took a nosedive off a cliff into hell.

"So, Cassie," Carol must have picked up on the little girl's despair, for she rushed to change the subject to something a little more cheerful, if any happy topics still existed, "How long have you been with Anna?"

"Four months, twelve days, and seven hours," she recited in monotone, like she was already growing bored with where this new conversation was going.

"You've been keeping track of the days?" Carl asked, speaking for the first time since the strangers had arrived, probably just now warming up to the idea of having another kid around. He had lowered his voice in that way that Daryl had noticed he'd started doing since they'd left the farm. He wasn't sure if it was because he was trying to be more mature so that his mom let him carry a gun or if he was trying to impress Beth, but either way Daryl smirked every time he heard the kid talk.

"Yeah," Cassie replied, looking at them all strangely. "You don't?"

Daryl snorted. "What's the point? Don' need to know if it's September or July; just need to know if it's hot or cold."

"Yeah, but when you know the month, you can predict if the weather's gonna get worse or better, you know?" she said. Glenn and Maggie nodded in agreement. Daryl just snorted.

"Whatever."

"So…" Beth started nonchalantly, probably so that Daryl wouldn't glare at her for being too curious, "do you know what day it is?"

"November 4th." The others had to fight to hide their smiles. He guessed it was because after spending your whole life as a slave to time, it was difficult to forget it. Go to school at eight, get to work at nine, do the laundry at one, make sure you visit your aunt on the 13th. Daryl hadn't been good with time—he was late to nearly everything he did.

He didn't need to keep track of time, not even before. When you spent your days in the forest, time didn't matter. It was the angle of the light that told you how long it'd be until you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and it was the smell of the breeze that told you to take cover from the rain.

"It's Sunday," Cassie added, picking up a long stick from beside her and poking a glowing ember in the fire.

"Damn, I've got work in the morning," Glenn said jokingly. The others chuckled at that; even Daryl smirked.

Any joke in the apocalypse was way funnier than it would have been before. It was like a joke at two in the morning. Perpetual exhaustion and a lack of anything genuinely funny tended to do that.

"So, you were voting?" Cassie asked, jumping right to the elephant in the clearing. Maggie and Glenn shot each other wide-eyed glances while Carol hemmed and hawed out some bullshit excuses.

Daryl saw it again in the girl's eyes—she enjoyed making them uncomfortable. "Don' matter none," he muttered under his breath, but Cassie turned her head in his direction. He caught her wide-eyed gaze and stared her down; just because she was a kid didn't mean Daryl wasn't going to tell her the truth.

"Rick says y'all gotta beat it once your girl is fixed up," he finished.

"We," Maggie was quick to say, glaring at Daryl who didn't have any qualms sneering right back, "don't want to toss you out, though."

"You really helped us out back there," Glenn added. T-Dog nodded emphatically.

"Didn't that girl threaten you, Maggie?" Lori asked quietly; it was the first thing she'd contributed since the kid had sat down with them.

Maggie breathed a weary sigh, like she was growing tired of talking about how she'd almost gotten a bullet in her brain. "What would you have done if you'd found some strange person riffling through our supplies?"

Lori's mouth tightened before her eyes darted to the dark girl outstretching her small hands towards the fire. Her eyes softened a little, the way they did when she saw Carl laughing or how they had when she had watched Sophia and Carl play together at the quarry.

She felt guilty, Daryl could tell, guilty about leaving a child behind. But she felt even guiltier about sleeping with her husband's best friend and getting knocked up in the apocalypse. She couldn't afford to lose any more points with her husband, so she'd support him blindly, just so that he'd maybe look at her again.

The whole situation sucked. Rick was slowly losing it and no one really blamed him. He killed his best friend, found out that his wife was sleeping with said best friend, and learned that she was pregnant with said best friend's kid. He'd watched his son put down a dead Shane, shouldered the blame of every loss that their group had suffered, and lost his trust in any unexpected kindness.

And now, the only person who was able to sway his decisions had so thoroughly fucked up their relationship that the rest of the group could only follow their leader into the dark. They all suffered for it, but none more than these two girls who'd, frankly, saved their asses several times in the past seven hours.

Even he felt a little guilty about supporting Rick. Sending them out on their own in this shitty world was essentially a death sentence. Even if the older one insisted on leaving their group as soon as she was able, it didn't sit well with Daryl to make the kid take a hike. He didn't think he could handle another little girl's death weighing on his conscience.

"Rick wouldn't turn her away," Carol whispered so quietly that only he could hear her. Apparently, she'd gotten the same idea as he had. "She should stay with us."

Daryl didn't answer. He chewed on the side of his thumb in deep thought.

"Rick won't let Anna stay," Carol said louder, so that Cassie glanced up at her. "But he wouldn't want to see you get hurt, Cassie."

She narrowed her eyes. "What are you saying?"

"You can stay with us," Carol offered, growing more eager. The others who had remained silent—Hershel, Beth, and Carl—perked up a little at that suggestion.

She shook her head; slowly at first, as though she had to consider it. "No."

"You're safer with us," Lori said.

"I'm staying with Anna," she said in a louder voice, a hint of defiance in her tone. She sounded much less like the creepily mature adult that Daryl had almost gotten used to; now, she was more of a petulant child.

None of the adults wanted to say it, for fear of frightening the kid. How long will you two survive out there on your own? How much longer can you keep each other alive?

Thankfully, Carl had much less tact. He asked her quietly, "For how long?"

Setting her jaw in a manner reminiscent of Anna's tightly clenched teeth only a few hours before, she said stubbornly, "We're going to New Orleans."

"Your family is dead," Carl said coldly, ignoring the look of disapproval that his mother shot him. None of her opinions held any weight with him, no more than they did with Rick. And she was becoming too afraid of turning her son against her any more than she already had, so she rarely scolded him anymore. "You said it yourself."

Suddenly, Cassie stood up, fire blazing in her wide brown eyes. She stared at each of them individually, holding their gazes with her own dark one just long enough for a shiver to crawl down their spines, before she wordlessly spun around and marched back into the tent where her guardian lay wounded.

"Carl…" Beth started, her tone as stern as his mother's would have been if she wasn't too chicken-shit to berate him. Carl simply mimicked Cassie by shoving the deputy's hat over his eyes and stalking to the tent where his father was probably still awake and listening to the entire conversation.

"Shit," Daryl mumbled under his breath. The others glanced over at him curiously. "Not even part of our group and they're already causin' problems."

"So you're saying to leave that kid behind? Just because Anna seems volatile?" Maggie asked him, anger burning in her eyes.

He shrugged. "She's old enough to decide for herself."

"Old enough to decide whether to abandon the only person she knows? Is she old enough to understand that she's safer in a group, but that she'll have to leave Anna behind?"

Rubbing his hands hard over his face, he sighed heavily. "Shit, I dunno. The kid is fine. I'm alright with her stayin', and I'm pretty sure Rick is too. But…" he shook his head.

Lori finished his sentence quietly, "But the older one…we can't risk that."

"What, do you think she'll slit our throats in the middle of the night?" T-Dog asked with a pathetic attempt at a smile. "What the hell would she get out of that?"

"It's not just that she's dangerous," Carol said slowly. T-Dog frowned at her obvious dodge. "She's another mouth to feed."

"And Cassie isn't?" Glenn argued.

"She's a child, though," Lori said.

"What are you saying? She eats less?" Maggie scoffed. "She gets mercy because she's not old enough to vote?"

"Are you arguing against her now?" Carol snapped, clearly not enjoying the icy tone Maggie took, though each of the women had taken an obviously frosty tone with one another.

"No, I'm saying that you're acting very charitable, but only when you ain't got nothing to lose!"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Carol seethed. Everyone except Maggie and Carol looked surprised at how heated this argument had gotten in a matter of seconds. But it seemed Carol had grown a backbone since they'd left the farm, voicing her opinions loudly and standing by them despite the rough verbal treatment she was getting. And Maggie had always been a stubborn woman, Daryl knew. Ever since the day she'd come galloping through the woods on horseback and clubbed a walker's head off with a baseball bat. Together, the two women were a much more volatile combination than they were only a month before.

"Let's calm down," Hershel interrupted them before Maggie said something she would regret. Already, though, Daryl saw guilt on her face for whatever she was about to say. "This doesn't need to be solved today. Why don't we get some shuteye and continue this discussion tomorrow? You must be tired," he said, referring to the ones who'd gone on the run earlier.

"I'll take first watch," Daryl offered, standing before anyone could object and walking away. He was exhausted, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. He'd just lie there, feeling the weariness sinking into his bones, relaxing the muscles in his body, but stay awake for hours. He needed to think for a while. Maybe that'd wear him out.

"Just wake me up in three hours, man," T-Dog called after him softly, gratefully. He waved his hand behind him to let him know he'd heard him. He couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't stay up all night, though.

What he wouldn't give for a smoke right now. He'd found a pack in a convenience store about a week before, but those were long gone. Besides, he'd made sure to smoke those quickly and right before they all took off from wherever they were staying, so that the smell of smoke wouldn't linger on the group. He'd just have to settle on chewing the side of his thumb, a somewhat painful habit he'd had to pick up when smoking cigarettes became impossible.

It was quiet after he left the fire. A few more low murmurs, sure, but after twenty minutes, the rest of them went to sleep. Daryl wasn't sure where Carol was going to sleep, seeing as her tent was occupied by a bloodied up woman and her kid, and he knew she wouldn't want to sleep within twenty feet of them. Not that he blamed her; he made sure to keep one eye on the tent so that'd he'd be the first to know if the woman was going to give them all Colombian neckties.

The woman. He couldn't bring himself to use her name, nor could he do that for the kid. Once, when he was still a kid, he left food out for a mangy dog that would come around every so often. Eventually, the dog warmed up to him, let him scratch his massive head, even jumped around when Daryl came out to see him. He'd named him Duke, even though he wasn't sure if the dog already had an owner.

Then his father found Duke begging for scraps at their door and kicked him so hard he never returned. Daryl had watched through the window, horrified, with his hands clamped over his ears to muffle the sound of breaking bones and the pained yelps of the dog—his dog. And when he cried in front of his father, he'd grabbed him by the front of the shirt and slapped him hard across his already reddened face, screaming at him for feeding strays and "being a bitch."

He never really got used to the beatings from his father, but that time he hadn't cried because he hurt. He'd cried because he'd lost the only thing that loved him without judgment, without pain. He'd lost part of his family, as stupid as that was to say about some street dog. Even to this day, he wondered what had happened to Duke, his only friend during one of the darkest times in his life. And most of all, he wondered if it would have hurt so much to lose him if he hadn't given him a name, made him an actual living thing with feelings and pain. It was easier when he thought of things as just that—things.

If he called them by their names, then maybe it could hurt when they left. He knew he'd wonder for the rest of his short life about the two girls with doe eyes that saved their lives and wonder if they died because they were too afraid to take them in. And Daryl was 80% sure that they weren't a threat.

He heard Rick coming up behind him, knowing it couldn't have been a walker; their tell-tale growls alerted him from yards away. All he could hear was Rick's slow, steady breaths and his heavy footsteps crunching twigs underfoot.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, their breath coming out in puffs of white clouds. After the hot day, the cold had settled back in to the crevices of the valley, chilling them to the core. And it was only November, Daryl scoffed to himself. The cold was only going to get worse.

Finally, Rick wiped under his nose with his thumb, the way Daryl noticed he did when he was about to speak. "What do you think?"

"Think the whole argument don't matter; they already said they're leaving."

Rick nodded absently, clearly unsatisfied with Daryl's answer. "That girl is Carl's age."

"Somehow, I get the feeling they don' want to be separated," Daryl replied, sarcasm tinting his voice.

"But how much longer could she keep her alive?"

Daryl glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "You sayin' we should offer a place for the kid and leave Robin Hood out to dry?"

"I…" Rick sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "Yeah. We gotta at least make sure they know that's an option."

Daryl was silent, mostly because he knew Rick wanted him to either agree or disagree with him so that he could get some reassurance. And, frankly, Daryl didn't know what the best course of action was.

"I don't think I could let them go without giving them the option. I mean…" He exhaled loudly. "They come across Randall's group or another one like it and they're dead. Anna can't protect her and those sick bastards wouldn't think twice about hurting a little girl."

Daryl detected a small flaw in that logic; if the girls had run across a group like Randall's, they would both be fucked. And if they took the kid in, and Anna ran into Randall's group, then she'd still be fucked. He guessed that because she was older and had pointed a gun at their heads that Rick would feel a lot less guilty about whatever happened to her.

"Alright. Whatever. I don't have a problem with the kid."

"Alright, I'll talk to Anna when she wakes up."

"You're not gonna ask Cassie?"

"She's not old enough to know what's best for her. I think Anna would see that Cassie is more likely to survive with us than she is with her."

"She's Carl's age," Daryl repeated the words Rick had said earlier.

"Yeah, and I don't know if he knows what's best for him. She's the same age Sophia was, too. I'm not letting another little girl die because I thought she was old enough to know what's best for her."

"Let's be honest: that kid in there is nothing like Sophia."

"She's not an adult, Daryl." His tone shut down whatever argument Daryl was about to make for her. The way Rick dismissed Cassie's opinions irritated him, probably because he remembered being her age and being furious when Merle or his father thought they knew what was best for him. They never did.

But he knew the only reason he was still arguing with Rick was because he was pissed. He agreed with him. Neither one of them could handle the burden of another little girl's death weighing on their consciences.


Hello, readers! Thanks for reading chapter two. I've gotten up to chapter 5 written, but I won't be posting those immediately because I'm a slow writer. Seriously, I've been writing this story for months and I'm only up to chapter 6. So, please be patient with me!

The title-by the way, in case anyone was wondering-is from Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice." If you haven't read it yet, I totally recommend it. It's super short. Also, it's pretty cool, but mostly because it's a nice, bite-sized poem.

Anyway, let me know how you liked this chapter (or didn't like this chapter, whatever).