A/N: Big thanks to those reading and especially to the review button-clickers - you're awesome! :) I should warn that updates won't always be this swift - I've got a bit of a crazy work schedule coming up, but thought I'd indulge while I got the chance ... As always, would love to hear your thoughts!

Two: Pleas to the unseen

Ten days earlier

The hot rays seared down onto shoulders that had long passed the point of being sun-kissed and turned a deep golden brown beneath the sweat-streaked grime, blood and road-dust, accumulated over many a perilous mile.

"Dan?" Ava McClaine said, as brightly as she could in the circumstances. "Danny? We gotta get moving, honey."

His head turned slowly and the once warm brown eyes she was used to seeing crinkled up at the corners with laughter met her own green ones. Something in the dull, almost lifeless gaze chilled her to the core and she took in the blood all over again as it still seeped through the bandages that were wrapped inexpertly round his head. It was caked to the side of his usually handsome, now gaunt and battered face, and his bruised knuckles too. More stained his already filthy shirt and jeans.

The memory of how he'd all but snarled at her when she'd tried to clean him up still haunted her. He hadn't spoken more than two words since.

Not unless you counted the screams when he allowed himself to sleep.

"Dan, we gotta go," she said, intending to sound firm and yet she was painfully aware of the underlying plea.

Fraught minutes and hours, each one heavy with potential to be the last, had somehow shifted into a relentless blur of surreal lost days and nights when terror fought off all but the most desperately needed sleep. A few captured moments of unconsciousness, when nightmares were just intangible workings of the mind and not walking reality, were still to be grateful for – even if it grew ever more difficult to say whether the waking was a blessing or a curse.

It was with that in mind that Ava tilted her head back in frustration, sending her long mahogany hair tumbling almost to her waist as she squinted up at the cloudless blue sky. She heaved a sigh, contemplating her next move and trying to second-guess every single thought that passed through her head. There would be less chance of rest now than ever and it was tempting to aim a kick at the blown out tyre which had caused them to plough off the road in the first place. But, realising that a long walk was looking increasingly likely to lie ahead, she thought the better of it. A broken foot wouldn't exactly help their cause.

Instead, the young woman moved to lean through the open driver's window and popped the trunk before going to haul the bags out onto the roadside. She hated the prospect of abandoning the heap of junk that had been the closest thing to a home for the last while, but with no spare tyre there was simply no choice and she forced herself to act quickly. The longer she hesitated, the harder it would be to move on.

"Leave me," Dan mumbled when she opened the passenger door, his voice sounding like he'd forgotten how to use it properly. That seemed to be all he ever said to her anymore.

For a second, the urge to just crumple to her knees in the dirt was almost overwhelming. But she steeled herself with gritty determination. They'd made it this far, lasted this long and when the odds were far from stacked in their favour. Damned if she'd sit back and let that change now.

"No."

Flat rejection was all she could muster. She used to give him reasons - everything they had to hope for, to live for. Lies, all of it. There was nothing left, she knew that now. Just like she knew she couldn't bear to face it alone.

"Please," she whispered to him. Hell, to anyone listening.

"You think we'll ever see people again? Proper people?" the boy was asking his mother, watching from beneath a man-sized sheriff's hat as she chopped vegetables for the pot. "Apart from us, I mean?"

"It's hard to say, Carl. I just don't know," came the eventual answer, gentle yet useless when it came down to it.

And that was a big part of the whole fucking problem, wasn't it? There was so much they just didn't know. A boy could look to his parents all he liked, but at the end of the day, they knew precious little more about this new world than he did.

"I sure hope so," the boy continued. "That'd be cool. Wouldn't it, mom?"

"Cool," Lori echoed, but the response was automatic and without the sincerity of her son.

That was the advantage age gave you – you knew better than to take the optimistic approach. Trying to humour the kid might have been her way of handling things, but ultimately she knew better than to wish for such an unknown quantity. More people meant more mouths to feed and that was probably the best case scenario.

You took in more people, you brought more risk down on everyone. Fact. More chance of attracting attention, more chance of those differences of opinion that wouldn't have mattered once but could now escalate out of all control in a second. A cross word in another time and place and no more would be said. In the here and now, punches got thrown and trigger fingers could be quick to itch. Too quick. Shane Walsh, as he turned his attention from the woman and child that could have been his and went back to cleaning guns, knew that better than most.

The rules had changed, he knew that too. They could band together when it suited them, but that didn't change the baseline fact it was every man for himself these days. The boy, he would just have to learn the hard way ...

"You reckon we got ourselves enough?"

Shane started at the rough voice, trying to wipe the caught expression from his face. He may have been a cop, but he'd sure be a shit poker player. "What?" he demanded, wondering how the redneck could have read his thoughts on the prospect of having to add to their number – until he saw the small dead animals he was holding.

"Food," Daryl clarified, impatience clear on his face as he shouldered his crossbow and glared at him like he was going soft in the head. "This look like enough?"

"If scabby squirrel's all you got, ain't like we got much damn choice."

"What? You got company you're lookin' to impress or shit? Hold on, I'll see if I can just rustle up some steaks," the group's resident hunter shot back, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "You don't like it, don't eat it. Asshole."

And as Daryl stormed off muttering to himself, for once Shane bit his tongue – knowing that if he was going to have to be part of the plans to refuel their vehicles, he didn't want one of their group too pissed to back him up.

Somehow, she'd got him on his feet and moving – even if that just meant trudging along with his head down and keeping two steps behind her like some kind of chastened wife. Not that she could blame him.

Ava couldn't imagine what was going through his mind and wasn't even sure she wanted him to talk about it. Blocking everything out, focusing solely on keeping them alive from one day to the next, that was all that was keeping her going. If she let down the mental barricades, the only protection she had from the horrors they'd witnessed, she wasn't sure she could keep a hold on her own sanity.

But, knowing that Dan was retracting further and further into himself and slipping ever further from her, she had to do something to try to bring him back. She needed him.

"You need to eat," Ava said, shooting a sidelong glance at her silent companion as they sat where she'd dropped exhausted by the roadside. If she hadn't stopped, she was sure he'd have kept walking without so much as a whimper until he wore his feet to stumps. But now, he wouldn't even lift the spoon she'd placed in his less than appetising bowl of cold beans. She'd given him more than his share of the last of their scavenged tins too, leaving only a few heaped spoonfuls to scrape onto her own dish. "Dan, eat the goddamn beans."

He didn't even acknowledge her - it was like she simply didn't exist. Maybe she didn't. Maybe neither of them did. They hadn't seen a soul, living, dead or anywhere in between. Not since ... She didn't want to think about that. Maybe they'd died back then after all. Maybe this was Purgatory, since it really couldn't be Heaven and surely the beans wouldn't be cold if it was Hell.

She couldn't help the little snort of laughter at the absurdity of her thoughts, but it came out with a choked sob that was equally determined to escape as she threw down her spoon and buried her face in her hands. In the whirlpool of emotions that engulfed her, tears flowed freely but the laughs proved to be in short supply after all.

Maybe she was losing her mind, just like Dan.

She started awake with a little gasp, horrified to realise she'd been exhausted enough to let down her defences and cry herself to sleep. What threw her more though was the slow dawning of the fact she'd somehow ended up with her head cradled in Dan's lap. That she caught the swift retraction of his hand suggested he'd been stroking her tangled hair, but that glassy look hadn't left his pained eyes. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope though ...

"It's getting dark," Ava mumbled awkwardly, her sleep-clouded mind barely allowing her to state the obvious and push herself to her feet at the same time. "I don't think we should stay out in the open."

Without a word, Dan stood and gathered up the heaviest bag to sling it over his shoulder as she surveyed the road ahead and took in the sign for a gas station three miles up ahead. She didn't have to drag him to his feet or push the bag into his hands. He didn't tell her she should leave him.

So, offering him the tiniest of smiles, she slipped a hand through his arm and led the way.

"But I don't see why I can't go! I want to see what's out there ..."

"Yeah? You wanna end up in its guts too?" Shane growled at the youngster. "I'll tell you what's out there, Carl – walkers that want to strip the flesh from your bones and eat you the hell up-"

"That's enough!" Lori intervened sharply, stepping between her son and the deputy sheriff as they glowered at each other like children across a playground. At least one of them had an excuse. "Shane, he is eleven years old – he does not need to hear that."

"Really? 'Cause seems to me that's exactly what he needs to hear, Lori," came the retort as he refused to back down. "Maybe you molly-coddlin' the boy's what got him fixin' to go explorin' in the first place."

She stiffened in anger, opened her mouth to speak and then thought the better of what she'd been about to lash out with. "I don't need you telling me how to raise my son. He has a father," she said finally. The words might have been calmer than she'd first intended, but the barb visibly struck a nerve just the same. "Carl, get back to the house. Now, please."

"But I want to go," the boy whined, ignoring the stern order thinly veiled as a polite request. "Come on, please, mom - Shane's right, I need to see what's out there-"

"Didn't say that – said you needed to hear it," Shane cut him off, jabbing a finger in his small face. "Don't you go twistin' my words, Carl."

"You can't treat me like a little kid any more. Dad even said so! And he's going, so why can't I?"

"You think I need the two of you out there to worry about?" Lori tried changing tack, crouching down in front of her son and cupping his cheek in her hand, only to have him shrug her off in a display of temper that – for all its childishness - still hurt. "I'd rather have you mad at me and in one piece than have it on my conscience, if something bad happened, that I let you go just to keep you happy. I'm sorry if you don't understand that. Maybe one day, when you're grown-up, you will."

Straightening up as Carl huffed out his frustration and stormed off, she watched him go and heaved a sigh of her own before shifting her gaze to deliberately ignore Shane. Instead, she focused on watching her husband as he and Daryl loaded up the fleet of vehicles they were going to be taking on their mission. But she could feel dark eyes boring into the back of her skull and tensed at the sound of heavy footsteps drawing close up behind her.

"On second thoughts ... Maybe if he saw what's really out there, he'd quit treatin' this shit like one big video game. You ever think about that, Lori?"

She did actually. But right then, all she could think about was doing whatever it took to keep her son safe. That and the venom in Shane's parting shot and how she'd ever allowed things to get so messed up between them.

But most of all, just please, God, keep her boy safe.

to be continued ...