A/N – Sorry for the super late update! My goal is to get this fic updated at least 2 or 3 times a week. Thank you so much for the reviews! I love hearing from you all and I'm glad you still like this.

Chapter 10

It was hard to sleep in this strange camp. The noises from Jerry's tent next to theirs were shrill and scary. Sophia thought she heard crying in the night, and whimpering maybe. After a while, when Merle noticed that Sophia was shaking, he went over to her and shushed her. She was lying on her side, one of her ears pressed to the makeshift pillow.

"Gonn' be a'right, girl," he'd whispered and then put his hand over her other ear to block out the noise.

That's how she fell asleep, with Merle's hand covering her ear and keeping her safe.

When she woke, all was quiet. She opened her eyes and saw Merle sitting across from her. He put a finger to his lips and she closed her mouth, nodded. She swiveled her body into a sitting position, and mimicked his stance on the tent floor. She listened, footsteps sounded by the side of the tent, and then, as the person moved farther away, they became more and more muffled.

Merle nodded at her once the footsteps became barely audible and she took that as an okay to speak.

"What are we gonna do?," Sophia said, keeping her voice low.

Merle made a face and shrugged.

"Are we gonna find my mom still?," Sophia asked.

Merle nodded once.

"When?"

He grunted and scooted across the tent floor toward her. "Ain't simple no more. Not jus' bout findin' yer ma, it's bout keepin' 'em all safe now. These fucks find yer ma and the others… ain't gonn' be good." His voice was gruff and growly in her ear.

Sophia chewed her bottom lip and nodded. "What about us?"

Merle half smiled at her. "We be fine. Ya jus' stick close to me. Ain't lettin' nothin' happen to ya."

Sophia smiled.

It had been three days since Merle and Sophia first arrived at the camp. So far the men had respected that Sophia wasn't to be bothered and they stayed clear of her. The only ones who still continued to leer were Randall and Tony.

"Nah, nah, nah… yer doin' it wrong again," Merle huffed at Sophia. "Pay 'ttention."

Sophia stood there, knife in hand and watched as Merle strode over to where she stood, grabbed a second knife and tossed it, the knife lodging loudly into the area of the tree that he'd marked earlier for a target.

"See?," he asked, looking at her.

"Well no, Merle, not really. I don't see, otherwise I'd be able to hit the stupid thing," she said angrily.

"the fuck why?," Merle muttered, his voice clearly exasperated. They'd been at this for hours today, and all day yesterday. It was hopeless. She could hit the ground, she could whiz straight past the tree branches, but she couldn't hit the tree to save her life. She didn't seem to be improving at all and Sophia was just as frustrated as Merle at this point.

"You're taller than me, for one," she said, "and for two, I just suck at this. Can't we try something else?"

"No, 'Phia, we's tryin' this. And we gonna keep tryin' this til yer ass gets it." His face softened as he said it, the words still gruff but his eyes kinder on hers. He'd taken to calling her 'Phia – short for Sophia – when the others weren't around, and calling her girl or kid when they were. He had a hard time remembering to call her Molly so girl or kid was just easier.

"Dammit, I hate this though," Sophia said angrily, launching the knife she was holding as she stomped away from him. She heard the thunk of the knife hitting bark and spun to look. The knife was lodged in the tree, down close to the bottom and not anywhere near the target, but still – in the tree.

Merle stifled a grin and mumbled, keeping his voice angry and rough, "Ain't mean shit to me, 'Phia, but yer ass ain't quittin'. Get over 'ere and do that again."

Sophia made a face, scrunched her nose up and rolled her eyes, but she did as she was told.

Four hours later, dusk was on its way, but she'd hit the target five times. Never in the center, but at least inside the lines.

They were just about to call it a night, when they heard the trees rustle, a low groan and the shuffling of unsteady feet. Merle cast a glance at her, and jutted his chin in the direction he wanted her to go. Sophia hesitated.

"Go!," he scowled, and she scrunched up her face again but went – running off in the direction he'd showed her before and hiding inside a rotting tree trunk.

She could hear the sounds of a struggle on the outside, could hear Merle swearing at something – a walker, she realized when she heard him say – "fuckin dumbass geek, ain't be findin' no brains in me."

Sophia grinned in the darkness of the tree, scratched her cheek and then put her hand down on her lap. She was sitting cross-legged and the first thing that registered was the wetness on her pants before she pulled her hand back up. There was a thin sheen of red on the part of her hand that had touched her pants. She glanced down in shock and confusion at the spot of blood on her pants, but before she had time to think she heard a moan from outside of her hiding spot, and then a groan followed by a hiss, and then legs were visible through the hole in the tree.

The walker sank awkwardly to its knees and proceeded to try to get at her. Sophia scrambled back, the blood forgotten about in her haste to escape the walker that was trying to get in. It wasn't a large hiding spot, its hands were grabbing at her and Sophia shrieked and grabbed for the knife she still had in her pants. She jabbed wildly at the walker's arms, missing as it grappled to get a hold of any part of her; she pulled her legs underneath her body and kneeled. Its head was half inside the rotted tree hole and Sophia took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down.

Merle voice was in her head, "fuckin do it right, 'Phia."

She pulled her hand close to her chest, gripping the knife, and then raised it, stabbing the walker straight in its skull.

When its face hit the dirt, the knife still sticking out, her heart was in her throat and she could feel it pounding there, and she was shaking, but the smile on her face could have lit up the world.

"'Phia!," she heard Merle call out loudly and then, "fuck!" She heard him scrambling through the bushes to get to her hideout, yanking the downed walker out of the tree, and then helping her out. She stood up as he checked the walker to make sure it was dead, removed her knife.

"Fuckin' hell, I swear this fucker jus' slipped outta my sight," Merle swore angrily before looking at her, before taking the sight of her standing there in. The first thing he saw was the blood on her pants. "Fuck, ya fuckin bit!" Merle took a step towards her.

"No, no, I'm fine. Really, Merle, I'm fine," Sophia said, glancing down at her pants again, remembering the blood.

Merle wasn't listening. He had maneuvered her onto the ground and was checking her bare arms, her lower legs, for scratch marks, for bites. He was frantic and muttering repeatedly, "fuck, stupid dumbass, fuckin got 'er killed, fuck, I's fucked up this shit, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckin sorry, fuckin forgive me, sorry stupid dumbass."

Sophia found her voice. "Stop Merle!," she said grabbing his hands and forcing him to look at her. "I'm fine," she said.

"Yer bleedin'," he growled.

"It's not what you think," Sophia sighed, scooting away from him and sitting on her knees. She knew what it was now. It was the first time it had happened to her, but her mother had been telling her for months now that it was only a matter of time. Her first period. What luck she had. Her first period in the middle of the woods, during some kind of zombie apocalypse, lost without her mother, and surrounded by a bunch of men – most of which with extremely questionable character.

"But… the fuck then is it?," he said.

Sophia grimaced and looked down. She couldn't help the tears that welled in her eyes.

Merle frowned. He put his hand to her chin and forced her to look up at him. "What, 'Phia?," he said, his voice concerned. He was no good at this. No good at this crying shit, but he needed to know what was going on.

"It's… my… period…," Sophia sniffled out haltingly, the tears starting to flow.

Merle sank back on his heels and looked at her. He sighed and then took Sophia in his arms to hug her as she melted into him. "Well hell, kid," he muttered softly, his heart still beating frantically at the thought that he'd lost her, "ain't no big thing… I thought yer ass was dead."

A/N - In my head, I'm imagining that all of this Merle and Sophia stuff is happening simultaneously to what was going on in the show at the Greene Farm – Shane and Otis, Carl's recovery, the search stuff, Daryl getting injured, the barn. I'm figuring three or four days is a fair amount of time spent on the farm before Rick, Hershel, and Glenn run into Dave and Tony in town.