Seven Days Straight

A week had passed since Izzy had arrived on the scene. The young girl was having a very successful recovery with her wound, even when she was tripped by a walker which had gotten into their back garden. Her leg was unharmed, although she'd another cut on her arm to add to her already very full collection.

She'd become very good friends with Andrea and Glenn, even better friends with Amy. But she was still on very shaky ground with Shane and had barely spoken a word to Daryl. The other three kept on telling her to not take it personally, but she was convinced that he wasn't a fan of hers.

Andrea, Glenn and Izzy were downstairs in the living room. They were gearing up to go on another scavenge. Daryl was going to go with Izzy and Andrea. The other three were going to stay home and try and secure the back garden a bit more.

Amy came downstairs after getting changed and wandered into the living room. Immediately, her eyes met Izzy's and they smiled at each other.

"Hey," Izzy greeted.

"Hey," Amy responded.

Andrea glanced at them both and chuckled to herself. Glenn handed Izzy over a handgun.

"Know how to use one?" Glenn asked, trying not to sound overly condescending.

"Cock it, aim, pull the trigger," Izzy replied, taking the gun. It was in a black leather holster.

"And make sure the safety's off," Glenn added, raising his eyebrow at Andrea.

"Okay, that happened once," Andrea defended herself and Glenn laughed. She looked across at Izzy, who had a small smirk on her face. "Don't ask."

Izzy put her hands up. "Okay. Okay."

At that moment, Shane wandered in from the kitchen. He and Andrea glared at each other as he walked through into the room. Izzy kept her head down, not wanting to make any kind of eye contact with him.

"You going with Daryl and Andrea?" Shane asked, seeming rather calm. Izzy nodded, still not looking at him. "They can take you back to where you were, then."

"Shane, shut it," Amy growled.

"I'm being serious; I don't want her here," Shane continued.

"Why? What the hell has she done?" Amy demanded, approaching him.

"Amy…" Izzy said, getting up from where she was sitting on the arm of the couch. She edged closer to where they were standing in the middle of the room.

"She just waltzed into our lives as if it was nothing," Shane argued. Izzy noticed that Amy had clenched her fists.

"We invited her!"

"No, you invited her! I never wanted her to be here! You're lucky I didn't drag her out the door the moment she stepped in it!"

Amy went to hit Shane, but Izzy was in between them straight away and clutched Amy's fist before she came into contact with him. Amy stood there, gaping. Izzy had a somewhat apologetic look on her face, but she knew she'd done the right thing.

She couldn't see Shane's face, but she was sure that he was just as surprised as Amy was.

"Shane…" Andrea said after a moment or so. Shane looked across at her and nodded. Slowly, he backed away and left through the kitchen door.

Amy and Izzy continued looking at each other in complete silence. The older girl couldn't understand why Izzy had stopped her.

After a little while longer, Izzy let go of Amy's hand.

"I'm sorry," Izzy apologized. "But hitting Shane wouldn't have solved anything…"

Amy grumbled and looked away. Very gently, Izzy put her hand on Amy's cheek.

"I'm not saying I don't appreciate you standing up for me…" Izzy continued.

Slowly, Amy glanced at her. Her fists were still tightly clenched. Her eyes softened as they met Izzy's. Swallowing hard, Amy nodded. Izzy gave a small smile.

"C'mon…Unclench your fists…You're not gonna hit me, are you?"

"No no no…" Amy shook her head, thinking that she'd scared Izzy. "I promise I'm not…I won't."

"I trust you, Amy. Don't worry," Izzy assured her. "C'mon…Give us a cuddle."

She wrapped her arms around Amy and hugged her tightly. Amy hugged her back. She was still very tense and Izzy could feel that.

"It's okay…" Izzy whispered in her ear. She felt Amy clutch the back of her t shirt and hug her even tighter. Gradually, she seemed to become more and more relaxed. "There we go…"

They drew back after a while, but kept their arms around each other.

"Thank you," Amy quietly said, running her hand up Izzy's back.

"It's no problem," Izzy smiled.

Once again, Andrea gave a small chuckle. They both heard it this time and they turned to look at her, taking their arms away from one another.

"What's so funny?" Izzy queried.

"N-Nothing! Nothing!" Andrea assured them, clearing her throat. "Right…Well, if you're good to go, I'll go get Daryl."

Very quickly, she fled the room, still giggling to herself. Glenn too had a small smirk tweaking at the corner of his mouth.

Andrea returned five minutes later with Daryl. He was all geared up with a duffle bag and crossbow over his shoulder. As a greeting, he nodded at Izzy. The two hadn't spoken much to each other, so they couldn't determine just how they felt about one another.

"Okay. You good to go?" Andrea asked her. Izzy nodded.

She felt Amy's hand on her shoulder.

"Be careful," Amy said. Izzy looked at her. "Please?"

"I will," Izzy promised, rubbing Amy's arm. They smiled at each other before Daryl and Andrea took Izzy outside.

"We're gonna go to a supermarket about twenty minutes from here," Andrea informed Izzy. Although the young girl's leg had more or less healed, she did still walk with a limp. "Just say if you need to stop…Okay?"

"Will do. Thank you," Izzy thanked her.

"Don't wanna be stopping too much. I wanna be back before sundown so I can go hunting again," Daryl said. He glanced down at Izzy. "You any good with a bow?"

"Never tried before," Izzy confessed. "But I've been told I'm a fast learner."

"Heh, well, maybe I'll take you and your girl with me," Daryl nodded.

"Yeah—Wait, my girl?" Izzy looked up at him, very confused.

"Amy," Daryl bluntly said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a zippo lighter from his pocket. He put one in his mouth and lit it up. "She's ya girl, ain't she?"

"Not…Not in that way," Izzy replied, seeming slightly upset over that.

"Oh. My mistake," Daryl shrugged, breathing in the smoke. "C'mon. Not much farther now."

Meanwhile, back at home, Glenn and Amy were sitting in the living room taking an inventory of their supplies. Food; water; medicine; ammunition. The only thing that they were severely low on was ammo. They'd a decent supply of the other three things, but that would run down quickly. Their medicine supply always depended on the health of the group, so when one of them was sick, they'd be completely isolated from the rest.

Shane was outside making preparations for fixing up the back garden. They'd several breaks in the fence due to walkers and the poor weather. The fence was rotting in one corner, which was becoming extremely vulnerable.

Amy was sitting on the couch and Glenn was kneeling in front of the coffee table opposite her. They were just finishing off writing down what medicines they had.

"We should have done this months ago," Glenn said, writing down whatever Amy told him to. "It's gonna make things so much easier for us."

"Why didn't we do this months ago? We suggested it to Rick and even he thought it was a good idea," Amy pointed out, undoing a box of Ibuprofen. "Three Ibuprofen tablets."

"Because Shane didn't want to. Thought it'd be a waste of time," Glenn replied, jotting down on the pad. "And you know how laid back Rick was. Whatever Shane wanted, Rick gave to him."

Amy shook her head and sighed. She told him to write down half a bottle of TCP.

"Did Rick have a wife?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, girl named Lori. He'd a kid too, called Carl," Glenn informed her, shaking the pen to get it working again. "Why do you ask?"

"I'd just heard them mentioned. Didn't know their names or what happened to them or anything like that."

"Rick didn't either," Glenn said. He was about to continue talking, but Shane came in, dressed in a very muddy t shirt which was once white and a pair of cargo pants.

"Right," he said, barrelling into the room, making them both jump. "We should have enough wood to fix the breaks. We gotta get more if we wanna replace the corner which is rotting."

"That's good. At least there won't be a chance of Daryl getting torn apart in his sleep," Glenn said, finishing the medicine list.

"What's this you're doing?" Shane asked, looking down at the table where all the medicines were laid.

"We thought it was about time we took an inventory," Glenn explained. "That way, if we're low on certain things, we can specifically look out for that."

Shane looked as if he was about to argue, but he noticed that Amy was glaring at him. He'd rather avoid another confrontation with her.

"Alright. Well once you're done, come out back and give us a hand," Shane said before going back through the kitchen door. Glenn looked at Amy, surprised.

"Did-Did Shane just…Avoid an argument?" he asked quietly, just in case Shane wasn't out of earshot.

"He made the right choice if he did," Amy grumbled. Glenn frowned.

"You really want her to stay…Don't you?"

"Of course I do," Amy nodded, lowering her head slightly. "Look at the state she was in. How beat up and bruised she was…I can't let Shane kick her out; especially when she's done absolutely nothing wrong to him or to us."

"I know, I know," Glenn agreed. "You don't have to try and persuade me; I'm on your side. You just need to try and get Daryl on your side, too. That's not gonna be easy, but it'd be worth it. Remember how protective of that woman who we had with us? Carol? God knows what happened to her. But she and Shane never agreed on anything, and he stood up for her, no matter what."

"I know. I remember," Amy nodded, rubbing her hands together. "And if Izzy makes a good impression on Daryl, hopefully it'll be the same thing."

Glenn glanced at her.

"Here's hoping she does."

Andrea, Daryl and Izzy arrived at the supermarket. It was single story and had a large parking lot out the front of it. They were all stood in the entrance way of the parking lot, glancing around. They could see at least a dozen walkers, most of them on their own, stumbling around the concrete area before them. Some of them were munching corpses on the ground or inside of cars. The lot was fairly full, but the majority of the cars looked as if they'd already been looted.

The supermarket was in a bad way, too. All around the perimeter of the building were long windows, which had been smashed. There was glass all over the place. A car had driven straight into what would have been the doorway.

"Goddamn," Andrea sighed, hands on her hips. "This place is a mess."

"Still, it's worth a look. A lot'a people wouldn't have made it outta there, so there should still be some salvage," Daryl pointed out, wielding his crossbow. He shot a bolt at a walker which had been sneaking up on them from the side. He got it right between the eyes, killing it instantly. He pulled his bolt out and reloaded. "Gonna want to keep quiet for now. God knows how many of the geeks are inside."

He turned to Izzy and gave her his machete.

"Here. Take this. Aim for the head, remember?"

"I remember," Izzy nodded up at him, taking the machete.

"Alright," Daryl grunted. "C'mon. Keep together. If we get separated, we meet back here."

The two women agreed and they followed Daryl as he made his way to the centre of the parking lot. There were only a few stragglers by the entranceway; most of the walkers were very close to the actual building.

One came close to Izzy. A rather tall one. Quickly, she drove the machete through its knee, making it fall to the ground. Then, she sliced the top of its head straight off. Andrea was very impressed with Izzy's quick thinking.

"Nice going," she complimented.

"When you're five foot in height, you gotta find a way to make life easier for yourself," Izzy said, keeping close to Daryl and Andrea.

Between the three of them, they cleared the parking lot. A few walkers who were inside the building had been alerted of the commotion and headed out to join them.

"God knows how many are gone' be inside," Daryl mentioned, pulling out a bolt from the head of a walker. "Shame. If we could make some noise out here, we'd be able to get 'em into an open space; make life easier for ourselves."

"Can't we fire a shot?" Izzy suggested.

"Unfortunately, we don't have any ammo to spare like that," Andrea shook her head, hands on her hips. "It'd work, but we just can't do it."

"There's some cop cars over there," Daryl pointed to the far corner of the lot. "Might have something useful in one of 'em."

The two girls agreed and they all headed for the cars. By the looks of things, they'd already been looted, but it was always worth a look.

"Nothing in this one," Daryl huffed, slamming the trunk down on the police car. He wandered over to the second one which Andrea and Izzy were searching. "You guys got anything?"

Izzy climbed out the back seat of the car, something in her hand.

"This do?" she asked, showing Daryl. A small smirk came across his face.

"Firecrackers," he nodded. "Hell yeah, that'll do."

Back at home, Shane, Amy and Glenn were busy in the back garden, fixing up the fence as best they could. Amy and Glenn were having a long discussion about their favourite video games. Shane would often scoff and roll his eyes at them. Amy and Glenn just ignored him and carried on talking.

"God, I miss pizza," Amy laughed, holding a board up for Glenn to nail into the post.

"I was a pizza delivery guy," Glenn told her, slamming the hammer into the nail. "Used to work in a little place in Macon."

"Holy crap, really?" Amy asked. Glenn nodded.

"Yep. I swear I ate more pizza than I delivered," Glenn chuckled, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"You gotta stop living in the past. You ain't ever getting it back," Shane growled from the other end of the yard.

"We can say the same thing about you," Glenn retaliated.

"Don't go there, man," Shane shook his head, viciously slamming a hammer against the head of a nail.

"Well, mind your own business," Glenn quipped, glaring over his shoulder. Shane had his back to them. Amy put her hand on his shoulder.

"He's not worth it," she whispered. Glenn looked at her and nodded with agreement before continuing to fix up the fence. They fell into silence, only the sound of the hammers against wood could be heard.

"So you were gonna take a swing at me, huh, Amy?" Shane spoke up after a while. Amy rolled her eyes and ignored him. "Thank God your girlfriend stopped ya, eh?"

"She's not my…" Amy began, but stopped herself. She was only going to give Shane even more ammunition. "Forget it, Shane."

"I see how it is," Shane gave a small chuckle. Glenn stopped Amy from charging over there.

"He's just as bad as Daryl's brother…" Amy said a little too loudly.

"Now don't you go comparing me to Merle Dixon!" Shane shouted, throwing his hammer into the mud and advancing on Amy. "I am nothing like that drunken, crippled asshole!"

"You're right. He's actually a better man than you are," Amy argued back. "He wouldn't have left you stranded in an apartment building with God knows how many walkers surrounding it."

"I was just looking out for the group," Shane raised his brow before walking back to the fence at the other side.

"You say that…" Glenn said. "But Rick went back to try and save him. You were the reason why Rick was killed. If you hadn't locked Merle in, then Rick wouldn't have had to go back."

Very slowly, Shane turned back around to look at them both. Amy stood there, open mouthed. Out of all the people in the group, the last person she had expected to say that to Shane was Glenn. He was the quiet one; the one who never liked arguments or took enjoyment from pissing people off. But he'd said what everyone in the group was thinking.

"Rick was like a brother to me…" Shane began.

"Don't pull this crap, Shane," Glenn shook his head. "You exhausted that weeks ago. If Rick was like a brother to you, then why didn't you stop him from trying to save Merle? Why didn't you go with him? You knew his life would be in danger. You knew!" Glenn was swallowing back tears as he furiously raged at Shane. Rick was the greatest man Glenn had ever met and he was gone. Because of Shane. Two weeks of pent up anger finally released.

Shane had gone red in the face and was about to pounce on Glenn when the Korean pulled his gun from his back pocket and aimed it at his chest.

"Try," Glenn dared him. "Go on! Try!"

Shane took a quick glance at Amy, who was tugging on the back of Glenn's hoodie. Glenn felt her pull on his clothes and he looked at her. Her eyes were filled with fright and his were filled with tears. Hesitantly, he lowered the gun, keeping it in his hand.

"Just go…" Glenn gulped. Shane's jaw tensed and he edged towards the back door, keeping his eyes on Glenn's gun the whole time. As soon as he was out of sight, Amy let go of Glenn's jacket.

"Was I…"

"No, you weren't," Amy told him gently. "I wouldn't have let you." Carefully, she took the gun from his hand and put it down on the garden table beside them. "C'mon. It looks as if it's gonna rain. We'd better get going."

She wandered back over to where she and Glenn had been fixing up the fence. Glenn stayed put for a moment, staring down at his hands. He looked at the gun. Was he gonna do it?

Was he gonna shoot Shane?