Sophia woke up groaning, still reeling from her exhausting days in the forest wandering with Grendel; she sighed thinking about the soldier, he may be scary and creepy but he still rescued her and reunited her with her mother. He'd effectively earned himself a special place in her heart that was so empty for so long; he's someone she could look up too, that'd protect her and her new family from anything, and now he wanted to leave.

She sat with her head propped on her legs, she began sniffling, the possibilities of him making it out in the world alone were slim and he didn't care even if she did. To her Grendel was more than some protector, he was the brother she always needed whenever her father would be so inhumanly mean, and now he would doom himself without caring whether or not he hurts people that love him.

Carol stretched her arm out to Sophia's half asleep, "What's wrong sweetie? Bad dream?"

"N-no," She croaked not able to keep her sobbing suppressed, her mother sits up-right encompassing her with a hug, "Sophia what's wrong?" Sophia slowed down her crying and laid her head against Carol's chest, "I don't… w-a-ant Grendel to leave."

Carol stared down at her daughters face and could see that she cared a lot about Grendel and that him leaving was taking a toll on her; she sat there with Sophia for a couple of minutes thinking until she remembered the Cherokee Rose Daryl gave her, a smile crossed her face, "Sophia I think we could do something special for your friend."

She hurried out with Sophia in tow, "Where are we going Mom?" Sophia asked trying to get a bearing around the camp as most people were still asleep.

Carol smiled seeing a certain hunter just waking up, "You'll see. Hey, Daryl!"

He turned to her while disassembling the tent, "Yeah, what do you need Carol?"

The woman beamed with Sophia still looking confused, "Can you show Sophia where you found the Cherokee Roses?" Daryl turned with a cocked brow, "They're for a friend."

Grendel tossed and turned in the RV's cot as sunlight poured through a window, he yawned, sitting up though he was sore and realized that it was later in the day; "Why have these people let me sleep in? I'm not injured… well that injured, still no excuse for not-," He found his helmet with a bunch of colorful plants wrapped around it and immediately started fuming.

Outside the group was enjoying some food around the campfire enjoying themselves in the peace and tranquility, until a sudden shout caught them off guard, "WHAT THE FRAK!" Sophia and Daryl covered their mouths trying not laugh as Grendel busted out of the RV with his mask on but no helmet, "WHO THE FRAK DESICRATED MY FRAKKING HELMET WITH… WHAT THE FRAK ARE THESE ANY WAY?!"

Everyone looked at each other trying to make sense of the Grenadier's shouting; until Sophia confessed, "I put the flowers on your helmet."

Grendel shaking in anger begins to calm down being caught off guard, "What? Flowers?" He looked down at his helmet and realized that they were in fact flowers; a sudden wave of embarrassment fell over him, and his anger subsided completely, "I- thank you Sophia… thank you very much." The Krieger touches the flowers with the greatest amount of care, "I've only read about flowers in history books… thank you."

He straps the helmet on his head and stands at attention with the flowers on his helmet; some of the group members smile with endearment as they can see plainly that the soldier and Sophia have a special connection, "Their Cherokee Roses, Daryl showed me them earlier because I wanted to do something special for you because… your… leaving." Sophia's smile dropped like a rock causing some of the sympathetic group members to drop theirs too, except for Rick and Dale.

"Actually," Grendel said kneeling next to her, "Rick and Dale convinced me to stay last night." The little girl ran up to him wrapped her arms around his shoulders with glee; though Grendel grunted slightly with visual signs of discomfort he begrudgingly set his arms on her shoulders.

Carol nudged Daryl smiling warmly while the hunter tried keeping a straight face on and to not smile; Shane however was giving Rick a glare but received a sterner one in return telling him to just accept it and not to bitch.

The group disbanded mid-day to go about their daily chores around the farmland, usually they'd be planning out areas to search for Sophia but there was no longer a need to do that because she was safe at the farm they instead were organizing gun training early because somebody (Andrea) had accidentally shot Daryl, proving that some group members needed training; Grendel couldn't be any more impressed with the groups conviction to better themselves even some of the Greenes came to join in, of course how impressed could a seasoned Grenadier be?

Not very.

Grendel sighned silently that the targets chosen for the group were… glass bottles. He mentally sighed again as that one boy, Jimmy, held the pistol wrong; before he could reprimand him T-Dog had already stepped in, "Hey man don't give me that Gangsta shit."

Jimmy turned the pistol the right way and actually hit the target after wasting ammo and time, 'Bloody fool.' Rick noticed Grendel staring at everyone that was shooting noticing on his arms were crossed and looking really unimpressed with the results, "What'cha thinking about Grendel? Do you think we have a good setup?"

He turned towards Rick and scoffed, "None of these people would last a day in the Guard, they'd more than likely become meat shields."

Shane overheard Grendel insulting his training session and angrily stomped over to him, "Think you can do better?" He held out a pistol for Grendel to take, all the shooters in training stopped to see what was going to happen.

With a swift hand the Grenadier took the pistol and shot six bottles within a couple of seconds; everyone including Shane felt their jaws go slack, "I told you, these are a child's play things I don't even notice the weight."

Shane bit his lip nearly to its bleeding point while Rick stared at the broken bottles impressed, "Think you can demonstrate your guns."

Grendel nodded walking over to retrieve his weaponry; on his way back he made sure that the Lucius pattern lasgun or Hellgun had a proper charge, the bolt pistol he lifted from Commissar Raeche was fully loaded, he was ready to upstage Shane once more and upstage their weaponry.

With the group members standing back to watch he picked two targets, a tin can and an empty beer bottle. He fired one shot at the can and another at the bottle; to everyone's amazement the tin can had a huge hole through it before the flimsy metal collapsed on its self like hot pudding, the glass bottle exploded from the large amount of heat that was left over from the initial blast.

Grendel un-holstered the bolt pistol and shot a tree, making a fist sized hole before the wood cracked down the middle; contempt with his demonstration he turned to face the Terrian group welcoming the horrified surprise on their faces.

"Fuck dude." Was all T-Dog could say seeing the tree fall in two behind Grendel, Rick had a grin on his face seeing the damage caused, "I defiantly believe him now."

Shane whispered yelled to Rick storming off, "I'm going to take Andrea out for advanced practice."

Andrea looked at Shane and back to Grendel's destruction, "Maybe we shouldn't be giving threats out the guy with the Star Wars shit!" She whispered yelled to Shane as they walked to his car.

T-Dog patted Grendel's shoulder, "Good thing you're on our side man, I'd hate to see anyone else with that thing." Motioning to the lasrifle, he was smiling trying to be friendly.

Grendel deactivated the weapon and holstered it over his shoulder; the bolt pistol found its way back to its holster on Grendel's hip, "Just hope none of them are chaos cultists." T-Dog's smile faded hearing the name of the basically evil satanic alien monsters Grendel described the day before.

"That was some good shooting dude," Jimmy said playing off one of those stupid shit kicker grins, irritating Grendel with his blatant ignorance and lack of focus during training.

"Hold your pistol sideways again and I'll shoot you." The grin Jimmy had disappeared being replaced with a dead panned pale face, Beth instinctively grabbed the boys had as if that was going to save his head from a blamming.

Rick cleared his throat and pull Grendel to the side, "Grendel, people don't just make those threats around here, it makes people uncomfortable, and with the heat you're packing they might get the wrong impression."

The look and tone in Rick's sounded similar to that of a Commissar trying to put something nicely, of course Rick was far from being a Commissar and even then Commissars never say anything nicely so this was a long shot; but Grendel still caught the message, "Fine, I'll leave the Commissar role to someone else then."

Rick nodded to the skull faced soldier taking his response as an agreement to not shoot one of Herschel's people… to be on the safe side he should make sure no one holds their weapons wrong for now on.

Hopefully this chapter satisfied your needs for hurt and comfort, although one of my friends warned me about giving hints on what I'm doing for the next couple of chapters a special two for one deal, I 've decided to do it anyway.

Ahem... BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!