A/N: Thank you to my reviewers! Every bit of feedback is wonderful and really makes a writer's day. As for this chapter, Connor's head is a bit of a mess but I hope his rambling isn't too confusing to keep up with. Italics tend to signal dreams, memories, or general delusions.

Also, I hope everyone enjoyed the season 4 premiere last night! As of now there will be no spoilers for the new season and I'm not planning on bringing any in, though elements from season 3 will be incorporated as the story goes on.

Chapter Three

"Don't ever fall back like that, eejit!"

"Hey, calm down; just getting my knife. Don't be such a mother hen."

"Don't you get yourself killed over a fucking knife, man. Did you notice we've got a bit of a fan club on our tail?"

"Exactly why I want to hold onto this beauty."

"You and your stupid knives…"

"…Hey Conn, seriously. Don't worry about it. You think God's going t'let me get bit and leave you to fend for yourself? He knows better than that. You wouldn't last a fucking week, brother."

.-

The sound of a voice coaxed Connor back from a dreamless slumber. Familiar but different: that voice he'd know anywhere… but now affected to a low, growling drawl. Like his brother was trying to play-act Clint Eastwood.

"-him for bites before I let him in the car. You think I'm an idiot?"

A second voice: just as low, just as drawling. Quick and direct with a hint of command to it.

"Scratches? Cuts? We don't stay alive taking risks, you know that."

"And I said he ain't got a fever. He's just bumped his head. Hell, ask the Doc."

There was a pause, during which the men presumably looked to the 'Doc' for validation. Connor, meanwhile, was starting to notice a strange itching across his face. A tightness on the cheeks and at the corners of his eyes, like Father Slumber'd backed up his dump truck and spilled fucking sleepy sand all over him… or like something wet and salty had been running over his cheeks while he slept.

He fought the urge to scratch at it, to move at all. Not just so he could feign sleep and keep listening, but because his head felt ready to split as it was. Any movement at all and it just might break up altogether.

He almost jumped out of his skin when a third voice sounded from less than a meter away, this one smooth, gracious and the embodiment of every southern plantation stereotype he'd ever seen in movies.

"So far," the voice started pointedly, the words going bounds toward placating the other men, Connor was sure, "he's shown no sign of infection. I'd venture to say that Daryl's right; the wound in his head's hardly serious, but it's certainly enough to cause a concussion. He also doesn't look as though he's been eating well, and all that tied in with acute exhaustion, well… I don't think any one of us could blame him for lacking focus."

"Sounded like he did more than just lose focus back there."

Murphy snorted and Connor wanted desperately to blink his eyes open, unstick the salt that was gluing them shut. His brother was here.

No, that wasn't right…

Yes. His brother was here. He heard him, he remembered… he'd seen him.

But he was too tired to move. Everything hurting and his limbs like dead weights.

"That's right he did more." Murphy was talking again, still sounding like he'd spent the last month acing his way through the Redneck Academy for Intimidating Accents. "He saved my hide too, twice. He didn't break from the rest and run back when he did, my insides would be taking a trip down a Walker's belly right now."

The second voice, the one whose attitude was just screaming "leader," spoke up again, calm and reasonable: "And I'm grateful for that, I am. Of course. But you know what it's like with outsiders. We don't know the first thing about him. Why would he go running back to help someone he didn't know? Someone who'd just had a crossbow at his back?"

There was another pause, and Connor felt sleep creeping in on him again. Keeping track of this conversation was too much for him right now. The words, the voice, none of it was adding up.

Then Murph murmured, "Reminded me of you, actually." His voice barely there, almost like he didn't want to be heard. "Back when we first met. You didn't know me, didn't know Merle. Had no reason to give a damn about us. But you went back for him anyway. What made me trust you in the first place."

Then there was a huff of air, a shuffle of movement, and when Murphy spoke again he sounded almost normal. Loud and blithe, like his last words hadn't even happened.

"Screw it; do whatever you want. I'm getting us some grub before the natives start chewing their own legs off." A quiet rustle as he stood, as he made his way past whatever Connor was lying on, and then: "He's awake, by the way. Just check his breathing."

And he left.

.-

Daryl stalked from the old fishing cabin where they'd set up temporary shop, leaving the prisoner's fate in Rick's hands and trying to convince himself he didn't give a damn, whatever their leader decided to do with him.

The truth was, Daryl couldn't decide why he cared what happened to the man. Ever since the group had split from the farm months back, Daryl had been one of the strongest advocates of isolation – of keeping heads down to keep safe, of not being seen and definitely not trying to make friends. They didn't need new allies; they could handle themselves. Were developing systems of survival that had kept the ten of them alive for their longest casualty-free count since they'd first come together on the outskirts of Atlanta. Another person around just meant a potential weak link, another mouth to feed and, worse, someone whose motivations you didn't understand.

But with this guy it was different. The idea of casting him out, sick as he was (even though sickness made him even more a threat to the group, really), and just leaving him to almost certain death, created something of a frustration inside Daryl that he couldn't explain. It couldn't just be guilt. The guy'd been starving, exhausted, delusional before Daryl'd ever run into him; Hershel'd said so. Whatever they left him to would've been the same fate he'd have faced before they met.

It wasn't sympathy. They were trying to survive, not running a charity. Daryl didn't like the idea of anyone dying, but if they weren't able to handle themselves how did that become his problem? He had enough trouble looking after the people he'd already got.

Those were the positions that'd kept him alive, kept them all alive, for the past four months. Whenever they'd seen other survivors – rare enough but it had happened – their tactics had always consisted of subtlety, avoidance, and (if they had no choice but to face them) a cold front with a quick exit strategy. Today Daryl'd had more than one chance to leave the guy and keep moving. So what had changed?

Maybe, like he'd told Rick, it was just because he'd seemed like a decent guy. Muddled, injured, sometimes seeming off in his own world even when he was staring straight at Daryl's face, sure, but he'd still risked his life to come back for Daryl. Had come back even while the rest of the group fled to safety. Had taken down a Walker Daryl hadn't even managed to keep track of and then shot the one that'd been seconds from ripping him open like a jelly-filled piñata. But was gratitude really enough to risk the safety of the group when guilt and sympathy hadn't been?

Daryl doubted it. He didn't know if he had it in him anymore to risk letting a person's decency dictate his treatment of them. He was sure it was a quality Rick had lost. In the past months, survival had come down to a weighing of pros and cons – what benefits could this action bring the group? What potential threats? The others could bleed their hearts out all they wanted over things like what was right, what was fair, what the "good" thing to do was… but not Rick. Rick had one job in this world, and that was to keep the people in his group alive. And Daryl… Daryl was there to make sure he didn't carry the weight of that burden alone.

…So saving the stranger hadn't been an act of kindness. Hadn't been just a thank you for his help, hadn't been because he'd looked so damn pitiful lying unconscious on the ground beside all those bodies. No, Daryl figured it was probably something a little more selfish.

He would have died today.

They'd had close calls before, times when one of them or another had been just one good jaw's space away from an existence of milky-white eyes and a taste for raw flesh, but today it had gone further than that. Yeah, they'd all almost died. That was just a part of what life was now. And Daryl accepted that his life was only worth so much as it managed to keep the others alive a bit longer. He would go down before any of the rest if he had anything to say about it, and he would go down fighting. So no, it wasn't that he'd almost died today… guts bleeding across the grass blank white eyes and rising up to—

It wasn't that he'd almost died. It was that today, for the first time in months, everything had gone wrong. The system had fallen apart.

Before now there'd never been any problems. They'd always had each others' backs. If one of them were in trouble, the others would show up to defend him, and that was how they all stayed alive. But today they'd gotten split, and split again. They'd been scattered like ants by a few drops of rain and they hadn't had enough fighters – not real, practiced fighters – to go around. Out of the ten of them, only half really had any sense of what they were doing with a gun, and it just wasn't enough anymore.

They needed more fighters, plain and simple. And the Irishman'd proven himself to be one. Had proven himself willing and able to help out. Maybe if Rick let him survive, they'd be a little safer for it.

…Or maybe he'd get them all killed before the week was out, no real way to tell. That's why Daryl'd never tried to lead.

.-

"Beloved Annabelle, I am getting closer now. Every day, closer. I feel it in my bonns… no, bones. There are many opper-toon-ities to be had in this hungry New World, and one day soon they will carry me back home to you and our boys—"

A heavy sigh interrupted Connor's careful reading. He looked up, brow furrowed, from the yellowing paper to where his brother lay sprawled on his back across the living room floor.

"What, really Conn? You going to waste all day reading that shite?"

"Language," Connor replied on instinct, smirking at the sound of his mother's words coming out of his own mouth. Murphy's eyes rolled toward the ceiling.

"Really, Conn. What d'ya care what the creep wrote to Ma back when we were babies?"

Connor's good humor fled, the edge of the precious letter starting to crumple in his hand.

"He's not a creep; he's our Da."

"And he left. We haven't gotten as much as a stupid letter in five years."

"And don't you want t'know why, Murph?"

The other boy shot to his feet, shoulders drawn up and scowling with a brittle rage that looked far fiercer than his seven years should allow. Connor suddenly feared for the pile of letters so carefully liberated from their Ma's bedroom drawer, and his arms darted out to protect them from his brother's angry feet as Murphy stomped closer.

"I don't care, and you shouldn't either. If you knew what was good you'd rip these up right now, save Ma from having something to cry over."

.-

Connor's eyes slitted open against the fading light and immediately wished they hadn't. The stinging brightness sent signals out to the pain and nausea centers of his brain so sharp that he thought he must've been shot. Again. He resisted the urge to gag (his days-empty stomach actually coming in useful for once) or squeeze his eyes back shut and hide again in the darkness.

He found the eyes of two strangers on him, one cold and discerning; the other wary but concerned. The concerned one – an older man with shaggy white hair hanging down the sides of his bearded face – seemed vaguely familiar.

Connor's lips parted, but before he could try breaking the ice with some clever quip the older man was shuffling forward.

"Not yet, just going to hurt your throat." He reached out somewhere just past Connor's line of vision, hand coming back into view clutching a water bottle, and twisted the cap open. Connor tilted his head to let the water in, and it was enough to bring the nausea surging back again. He gagged, turning to escape the flood, but the man caught his cheek firmly, grounding him. Stopped the room's spinning enough for the stomach acid to stop clawing its way up his throat. His coughs subsided after a few seconds, allowing the man to tip more water into his mouth. It burned his dry throat like hellfire, but the man was careful and patient, stopping the liquid every few seconds and dabbing Connor's chin with his sleeve's edge whenever the dizziness wrenched out another cough. It took several minutes for him to choke down what the man deemed to be enough; he felt half drowned, but when the man capped the bottle it was still two-thirds full.

The other man, perched on the edge of a battered wooden dresser, elbows on his knees and hands clasped, watched the process silently. Everything from his comfortably authoritative stance to his air of quiet contemplation screamed that he was the one calling the shots. If Connor had to impress anyone to get out of this, it was that man.

He nodded a quick thanks toward the older man. The 'Doc,' if any of his memories could be trusted… and that was asking a lot. He hadn't really just been hearing Murphy amidst this group of grim, southern survivors, had he?

Then he turned to fix his gaze back on the man in charge, returning his assessing gaze with one of his own.

"Thank you for fixing me up. Plenty wouldn't have done as much."

The man shifted further forward on his elbows, light eyes narrowing to slits. He wasn't glaring, not quite. Just making sure Connor didn't mistake him as someone looking to make friends.

"If you've really been awake long you know that wasn't exactly my decision. One of our men seems to think you're a decent guy, worth offering a chance. Now, I'd like to agree with him, but a chance is a pretty big thing to offer these days. You have any reason to think he made the right call?"

The man was straightforward; he had that going for him. And Connor didn't have anything to say against the look in the man's eyes, which seemed to suggest a sort of rationality – a sanity – that'd been hard to come by since the Reckoning had begun.

"Your man…" He had a vague memory of being pushed forward with a group. Of Murphy falling back. Panic. No… he was mixing up memories, that's what. Getting lost inside his own head. But he was pretty certain that… "That's the one I saved from having his faced gnawed off, was it?" In his memory it was Murphy's face. Refused to resolve itself into anything but Murphy's face. But he shoved aside the image and kept going. "Not much more can be done to prove I'm 'not evil' than that, aye?"

He tried for a winning smile. The man, unaffected, leaned back again. His lips were a thin line, eyes set on mistrusting.

"You been on your own long?"

However long it had been, it'd been too long. Connor's eyes started to slide, the memories closing in. Whatever had happened to his skull back in town, it seemed to have knocked loose the part of him that could keep memories buried in the back of his head where they belonged. Blinking quickly acted as a short-term balm, and he cleared his throat to speak before the rotting hands scratching at his subconscious broke through to tear flesh.

"I'm not scouting for some group, if that's what you mean." His voice came out rougher than intended, but the narrow-eyed leader didn't flinch. "Coming in friendly to rob you in the night."

"No way of knowing that for sure."

Fair enough, but the demons were scratching inside Connor's eyes, making it hard to play nice.

"Think there'd be a better way to steal from you than starving myself and giving myself a concussion." He lifted an arm slightly, not suddenly, but the movement still made the stranger's hand dart to his hip. "Hey…" Keeping the palm up, non-threatening. "Just… not complaining, but if you thought me such a threat, why am I not trussed up like a stuffed chicken on Sunday?"

The other two exchanged glances. Then the Doc spoke up.

"I told him not to bother. Yet. And I would appreciate if you didn't try anything that'll make me look foolish." The old man had a manner of decency that Connor couldn't help respecting. Like the world could take what it wanted and spit it back in his face, and he'd still greet it with a polite word and a nod because… that's just how things were done. The scratching hands seemed fainter all of a sudden, less solid, less desperate. Connor managed a faint, sincere smile.

"Wouldn't dream of it, thank you."

But the leader didn't seem ready to be convinced.

"You seem pretty coherent for someone who was delusional and passing out not three hours ago."

Three hours… Connor's mind scrambled for some mental map to go with that timetable, but came up short. They could be anywhere, then. Could be minutes outside the town they'd met at or half a state away. Not that it mattered much to begin with; he'd had no concept of where he'd been before anyway. The leader's jaw set, and Connor realized he'd been drifting.

"Wonders of a few hours of uninterrupted knocked-into-unconsciousness…ness, aye? Trust me, I still feel sick as shite. So don't ask me to dance any time soon, alright friend?"

Doc drifted back toward him while Fearless Leader pursed his lips.

"How'd you end up alone?"

"You and your fucking knife…"

"It's called being practical. Planning ahead, thought you'd approve."

The hands were back. Stretching closer, tirelessly closer…

He blinked hard, eyes sliding back.

"What?"

A hand was pressing against his forehead, pushing the long-grown bangs back with a careful hand. In the distance, the leader's voice sounded again.

"How did you end up alone?"

There was a scream sounding, somewhere in the distance. Raw, wild wailing that made him shudder and tense simultaneously.

"Rick…" The Doc's hand smoothed his bangs back down, like he was a child. His voice made the world seem a little bit warmer, less distant. "Still no sign of fever. I think it's largely emotional, perhaps partly the head trauma."

"Don't fall back."

"I'm covering you, eejit. Now get down that door before we get overrun."

"…your fucking knife…"

"Don't be jealous 'cause I'm the action star here, Conn."

"Right, right, Macho Murph, aye? Just need to get in some hand to hand fighting with a bunch of freaks that can kill you off a scratch or a stray strand of spit."

"You worry too much, Ma."

"-like he's not even in there."

Connor blinked heavily. The leader – Rick, he wanted to hold onto that, that solid fact: Rick – was on his feet now, looking angry. Disgusted. The world felt distant…

The Doctor sighed.

"We should give him a chance to mend before placing judgment."

Rick ran a hand through his hair, quick and agitated.

"Fine. But I want him bound, and I want someone on him at all times until then, you hear me? We don't know who he is, what his story is. Even if he's not a violent person, we don't…"

It was hard to keep his eyes open against the pounding, the onslaught, the stretching hands. Hands… His hand was being dragged upward. A sound of tearing made him flinch. Something sticky touching his skin, hands pressing against his face, his forehead.

"…a scratch or a stray…" Hands reaching for him, grasping at the folds of his coat. Penned in. Pinned down. Grabbing his arm. Pulling it upward. Jaw already working, rotten teeth preparing to tear into the tender flesh of his hand, to rip away the skin like fried chicken. Just like…

"No…" The hands were wrenching at him; dead, cold hands, clawing at his… "No! Let go! Let go of me, you fucking bastards!" He jerked one arm free, felt knuckles slam against a stretch of bony flesh. The other arm was caught in place. Tied… cuffed? Couldn't move. His brother being dragged away by the Russians, that last look, steady and fearless. "No… Murph!" Hands were back on his free arm. Colors were spinning above him as his body jerked, clawing hands and gritting teeth and hard eyes milky white eyes…

He needed to get out. To run. To find Murphy'd fallen back. Fucking knife. Stupid, fucking knife… "I'm going back, I'm going back… Murph!"

He was straining against the one force that seemed to be pinning him, the other arm tearing against the cuff no, not a cuff, tough and sticky and just a little give… How had the demons found him while he was cuffed to the toilet? Murph was gonna be shot. Murph, shouting and pulling an arm back, dripping red. "Fucker bit my…"

There was shouting around him, past his own miserable yells. A clash of voices that might've been the baying of hounds for all the sense they made.

"Let me go! Murph!" Screaming, chained down, locked in a dark room. The gun sweeping to aim at "Roc!" Bloody on the ground. Murphy lying there beside him, his expression confirming what Connor could already tell – that all was lost, the light in his eyes fading out. Nothing left but the hope for righteous vengeance.

And now he was choking. Spitting ineffectually against something dry, thick, cotton in his mouth. Trying to suffocate him, he couldn't breathe. He was going to die here.

.-

Daryl was still hovering along the side of the cabin, working the nicked edge of a bolt smooth against the side of a rock, when Carol approached. She met his eyes and smiled faintly, before leaning back against the too-shiny recycled-wood siding and breathing out a quiet sigh. Watched her breath float away from her and into the falling night. A few seconds of peaceable silence passed while he continued to even out the edge with careful swipes of steel-on-stone.

"So, not going hunting?"

There was more to her question. There always was, beneath the surface. His hand stopped scraping the rock. Weighed it in his fist.

"Heading out in a bit. Just wanted to…" Most people, he'd just give the nicked bolt excuse. But not with her. Something about Carol's patient, knowing manner always made him want to say things, to admit things even he was only half-sure of. Luckily, he usually didn't have to.

"You wanted to wait around, see what Rick decides."

And just because he could, because with her the bravado and the grim eyes might be a thin mask, but one he was comfortable wearing, he shrugged her knowing words off and went back to sharpening.

"I made my case. He helped me out, so I helped him. Not much else to say."

She was smiling; he could hear it in her tone when she responded. That soft, fond smile that made him want to shrink back in on himself, spend a week out hunting with only the squirrels' eyes to weigh on him.

"You vouched for him. That'll matter to Rick."

He shrugged again, and she went back to watching her breath. Most days he would've enjoyed the silent stretch that followed. Most days these quiet moments were the best bit of peace he had, but now…

"I don't know him, alright?"

He felt, rather than heard, her shift to look at him. But there was a strange tension running through him, a restlessness that made him want to pace, to hunt. His hands felt oddly unsteady on the stone, and he left off sharpening, dropping the rock into his pocket to finish with later. Last thing anyone needed was him brutalizing his bolt over some twitched-out nerves.

Why hadn't he heard anything yet?

Stupid question; Rick wouldn't risk making noise. Whatever he decided, he'd be quiet about it.

Not that it mattered. He'd left it to Rick. He didn't know this guy.

"All I know, he shoulda been left to the Walkers."

She sighed faintly. He wished he'd kept silent. His restless fingers found the rumpled fletch and went to smoothing out the imperfections.

"If that's the case," she started softly, "we'll deal with it. But I don't see that happening. You have good instincts about people, Daryl. When you've got faith in a person, they're usually worth it." A slight break, another quiet exhale floated away into the darkness. "Even if maybe we don't feel that way ourselves."

The words hit him sideways, made the edge of the fletch crumple. He looked up, catching her gaze through the misty air, her cheeks tinged pink from the cold. That strange restlessness surged through him again.

And then he snorted. A second later, she started to laugh. He slid the bolt back onto the bow, shaking his head.

"Right… You should put that on a card."

"Make one of those self-help books." She was giggling through her words, leaning against a wall, and a smirk dragged itself across his unresisting lips.

"Hell, you'd make a mint off those these days."

"Walking with Walkers: What to Do When Your Neighbors Decide to Eat You Alive."

"You should write that down."

"I'll have a book tour."

"Become a Geek counselor."

"What is their motivation?"

Laughing felt good. Watching her laugh. It released all that riled up tension that had been tugging at him like a drawn bowstring since he'd first set foot in town that afternoon. And she needed it at least as much as he did, her eyes squeezed shut and a hint of dampness gleaming around the edges. Pressed back against the side of the house for support, one hand lifted as though to cover the sound of her laughter… but not quite reaching her mouth. Comfortable enough, now, to show her smile.

The moment broke when the screaming started.

Terrified, agonized wails from the inside of the house. Daryl was moving before Carol had managed to comprehend the sound, bow shouldered and halfway to the door. Lori was hovering uncertainly in the doorway, hands floating above her rounding belly as though to protect her unborn child from the sound. Daryl slipped by her and toward the back bedroom, just as Carl came tumbling out. He looked up.

"Guy just went crazy. Dad told me to go get—"

"Murph!" Whatever the kid was going to say ended up being cut off by the Irishman's next wail. Rick was shouting "shut him up!" and then Daryl was in the doorway, bow lowering slowly as he took in the scene before him. The man's right arm was bound to the wide wooden bedpost with a strip of Carl's duct tape; the other pinned by Rick, whose lip was split, chin streaked with blood.

Eyes heavy, flitting wildly under half-shut lids… the man was obviously delusional and just as obviously scared shitless by whatever he was seeing. Shouting demands for freedom, screaming names of people likely long dead.

Rick's eyes caught Daryl's and he found himself lowering the bow to the ground in a quick motion, sliding it toward the nearest corner and moving to the far side of the bed. Glancing back toward Rick for guidance.

"Shut. Him. Up."

And there was the gun at Daryl's waist. A gunshot wouldn't be much worse than all this racket, and he shifted faintly, drawing in a breath and reaching down to—

"Here." Hershel was beside him suddenly, holding out a ragged strip of fabric he'd probably just torn from the bed sheet. Daryl grabbed it, folded it over once, and pressed it between the prisoner's lips.

His head started to jerk wildly the second it touched his skin, gasping and snarling like something feral while Daryl struggled to knot the fabric in place. But he did finally stop screaming. Went quiet enough that Daryl could think past sheer instinct and nerves.

"Hell…" Daryl secured the knot and leaned back, sparing a glance at the grim-looking vet. "You sure he ain't got no fever?"

The man shook his head, eyes scanning the prisoner warily.

"He's got none of the signs of being bit."

"Right." Daryl spotted the duct tape roll on the floor, ducked to grab it, and started unrolling it in sharp, jerking motions. "'Sides him wailing like a full-moon banshee and trying to-"

The suddenly silent room put him on alert, and he looked down to find that the prisoner had gone still. Not passed out, like Daryl'd expected, but staring straight up at him. It was that same, searching look he'd gotten back at the store – slow and wondering and decidedly lucid.

The expression touched something in Daryl that made him want to shove the prisoner, or get out of there fast. The man made a sound – a quiet, questioning sound that was nothing like the spits or hisses from before. A one-syllable utterance that might've been a question, its meaning swallowed by the makeshift gag. Daryl tore his gaze away and found Rick looking between them with equaling, unnerving intensity.

"Daryl, you know this guy?"

He still felt those pale eyes on him. Looking like he was some long-lost wanderer returned home or something. He shook his head, distractedly.

"Must recognize me from town today."

"That's not the look of someone who recognizes you from town."

That irked him. Bad. What, Rick thought he was lying now? Over some goddamn look from a guy who'd just been screaming like a fox with its leg in a trap?

"Well, that's pretty much the definition of delusional, ain't it?"

He leaned straight over the man to where Rick had his hand braced next to the far bedpost, and strung the tape around the prisoner's wrist in a couple of quick, jerking motions. And the man's eyes were on him, and Rick's eyes were on him, and hell if the Doc's eyes weren't on him too, so he straightened up, tossed the roll of tape toward Rick without quite meeting his gaze, and made his way back toward the door, stopping only to grab his bow from the corner.

"Gonna go set up a stronger patrol. All that screaming's gotta've gotten something's attention."

-TBC-