A/N: This one's a bit shorter. I didn't want to end in an awkward place for the next chapter, which I really didn't want to split up into two. So the next one, I'm hoping, will be a bit longer. Keep the reviews comin' guys!
The next morning, the group—Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Leigh—headed out bright and early. Leigh had indeed felt sick after her very first cigarette, but she asked Daryl for one more before she went to bed. The past few days had been hell on her nerves, and just those two cigarettes had been enough to calm her down. However, Daryl barely spoke to her the next day, much less looked at her, and Leigh had trouble figuring out why. The night before had been pleasant; mostly they sat in silence—because Lord knew Daryl would be dead before he ever started a conversation—and smoked, with a few exchanged words between them. For once, he hadn't been belittling her, calling her useless or any other sort of name.
Now, he stomped on ahead of the group, occasionally kneeling in the leaves to look for any signs of Sophia's whereabouts. A few times he simply led them in circles, claiming he'd "misread the signs". Leigh exchanged a disbelieving look with Glenn behind Daryl's back, but Glenn simply shook his head. He figured it was better to trust Daryl's judgment than piss him off by disagreeing or complaining.
The quartet walked in silence for quite some time, following Daryl's lead and judgment without question. While Leigh praised him for ability to track, he'd gone in too many circles for her to continue to believe that they were even heading in the right direction. He'd yelled at all of them when they started shouting Sophia's name,
"Ya'll wanna bring every walker in Georgia down on our asses?" he'd snapped, pinning each of them with a glare. They stayed quiet after that; not even light conversation flittered around the group.
Leigh wasn't the only one who was doubting Daryl; beside her, Glenn turned over in his head the idea that Daryl had lost Sophia's trail. They were further out and further west than they'd been the day before, and to all of them, the idea that Sophia would have run this far on her own seemed small. Rick was beginning to think the same. A twelve-year-old would have at least tried to find her way back to the group. When Rick fell into step next to Daryl, a hand on his shoulder, and voiced his thoughts, Daryl was quick to reply.
"Anyone would get turned around in these trees," he said, turning to glance back at Leigh and Glenn before meeting Rick's eyes. "Hell, if I weren't here you all might not even find your way back to camp." Leigh wanted to be offended, but she knew he was right—at least about her. Without Daryl, none of them would be able to find the trail back to the highway.
So they pushed on for another mile before Daryl claimed that the trail had gone cold. Glenn scoffed quietly next to Leigh.
"I think the trail's been cold for a while now," he grumbled. He was tired, hungry, and he was pretty sure his feet were covered in blisters, despite wearing sneakers.
They were a mile away from the highway when the sun began its descent behind the trees. The forest was cast in a beautiful orange glow as the group trekked on, pulling back branches and climbing over fallen logs. They passed by the river and the fallen log where Rick had left Sophia; Leigh looked over at the cop, a forlorn and guilty expression on his face. She reached over and patted him on the back, giving him a reassuring smile when he looked at her.
As they were climbing the embankment, a small cry made Leigh stop in her tracks.
"Wait," she said to the group as they walked on. The three men looked at her as she stayed quiet, listening. The cry came again and she looked at them with wide eyes, silently asking if they'd heard it too. Glenn cocked his head as Daryl rolled his eyes, turning to walk away. It came a third time, louder, and Daryl suddenly stopped as Leigh began searching.
"Sophia!" Rick called out, despite Daryl's warnings not to. His call was answered with a final, loud cry that was coming from underneath the log—right where Rick had left her. Leigh was the first one there, bending at the waist to peer underneath.
There she was, curled up on the bank beneath the log, shaking and tearful. When she saw Leigh, she all but dive-bombed her, wrapping her skinny arms around her legs and refusing to let go.
"Shh," Leigh cooed, rubbing the girl's back soothingly. "You're all right, Sophia. You're safe." She looked sadly at Rick, who followed her gaze to the girl's shirt. At the shoulder was a deep red stain, resembling blood.
"Sophia," Rick said as he kneeled down next to the crying girl. "Are you hurt?" Sophia didn't answer him, just buried her face further into Leigh's legs. Rick reached out peel away the shirt, but Sophia skirted away from his hands with a fearful cry. He looked at Leigh silently, his jaw clenched and numerous emotions swimming through his eyes. The one Leigh recognized immediately, though, was fear.
"Sophia, I need to see if you're hurt," Leigh told her quietly, soothingly. The girl relaxed against her legs and Leigh made her move. She slowly reached down to touch the girl's shirt and peeled away the collar. Leigh closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and willed herself not to cry. Sighing, she lowered her head before opening her eyes to look at Rick, and then at Daryl and Glenn, who hadn't moved.
The wound wasn't too deep, but the walker's teeth had broken skin and it had bled heavily at one point. Now, the blood had clotted, but a deep infection had begun. Disguising it as brushing Sophia's hair back, Leigh felt the girl's forehead. She was burning up with the fever. It was amazing that Sophia had even leaped out from underneath the log so damn quickly.
"We have to go back," Rick said, his statement ambiguous. Leigh, however, caught the double-meaning. They couldn't just shoot Sophia here, leave her, and then show up empty-handed to tell Carol the news. The woman at least needed to see her daughter one more time before she succumbed to the fever.
"Come on, Sophia," Leigh said as she began to lead the girl away. She wasn't surprised to hear the threat of tears in her voice.
When they reached the highway, Rick ran ahead to warn the others of Sophia and to break the news to Carol before the woman saw her daughter. From the woods, Leigh heard Carol's anguished cry and she closed her eyes. Sophia heard it too and tried to move out of Leigh's grip. The hike back to camp hadn't been easy for her with a fever running probably over one hundred degrees, and she'd almost collapsed once they'd stopped.
"Stay here, Sophia. Stay with me until it's okay," she ordered when the girl tried to move again.
"I want Mommy," Sophia cried, a new wave of tears breaking loose. Leigh gritted her teeth as another tear rolled down her own cheek.
"I know, sweetie. Just give Officer Rick a couple minutes to talk to her." Daryl and Glenn had both been silent on the walk back; all of them had. No one had any words to say, nothing of comfort or providing some kind of distraction from the cold truth. Daryl looked at Leigh as she held onto Sophia. She stopped holding back her tears shortly before they reached the edge of the woods and now tears rolled quickly and endlessly down her face. He averted his gaze.
Daryl Dixon had felt guilty only one time in his life, and that was for lying to his brother, Merle, about something stupid that he hadn't bothered to remember. Now, though, the guilt weighed heavy on his shoulders the longer he looked at Leigh hugging that girl to her side. If it had been anyone else that had been bitten, Daryl wouldn't have hesitated in shooting them between the eyes. But now, looking at Sophia, at the terrified look on her face, he knew, when it came down to it, that he wouldn't be able to kill this little girl, regardless of what she would become.
Rick came jogging back to the group, sans Carol. Leigh sighed slightly in relief, although she could still hear Carol crying as they crested the hill to the guardrail. Once Carol saw her daughter, though, Rick's warning flew right out the window as she pulled her daughter into her arms. She didn't recoil from how hot her daughter's skin was, only hugged her tighter to her chest. Leigh watched on sadly as mother and child were reunited for only a short amount of time.