Another chapter so quickly? Yeah, it's virtually unheard of for me, but I don't really have anything else to do right now, so why not post another chapter? On with the chapter I suppose.

Please excuse any grammer/spelling errors.

Chapter 11

Daryl felt like his whole body went numb and he couldn't take his eyes off of the thing that used to be the sweet little girl that he's been looking for since he ran away on the highway.

"Sophia!" Carol screamed and made a run towards her daughter, but Daryl snapped his arms out just in time to grab the woman and keep her from going any further. "Sophia!"

Daryl could hear the grief stricken woman repeat her daughter's name over and over again. Carol went slack in his arms, bringing them both to the ground but Daryl kept his arms around her. She kept whispering Sophia's name as the walker that used to be her daughter slowly stumbled towards them through the bodies of the other walkers. A movement caught Daryl's attention and he turned his head only slightly to see Rick step fowards and raise his gun. The urge to stop the man washed over him, but Daryl knew he couldn't do it. Someone had to put Sophia out of her misery. Daryl watched as Rick aimed his gun at the little girl and he could see the grief in the man's eyes. As Sophia got closer, Rick's hand shook worse. At this rate, Daryl knew that if he tried to shoot her, he would miss. Daryl saw the muscles in Rick's jaw clench and he closed his eyes to take a deep breath, like he was readying himself to do something that he never wanted to do.

Dean suddenly appeared next to Rick and layed his hand on his arm. Rick let Dean push his arm down and step in front of him. Daryl watched Dean's face closely as he raised his pistol at Sophia, who was slowly getting closer to them. It surprised Daryl how Dean's face was stone cold as he aimed carefully and pulled the trigger. Sophia's body fell backwards and hit the ground, a small cloud of dust puffing up from the impact. Carol's hands gripped so tightly to Daryl's arm that it hurt and he felt the woman bury her head in his chest to get away from the scene that played out in front of them. Daryl watched Dean slowly lower his gun and close his eyes, keeping them closed for much longer than he needed. When he finally opened his eyes, Daryl thought that he saw a flicker of color in them that wasn't the normal green, but he played it off as a trick due to the sun. Dean turned from the scene and made his way towards their tents, not even casting a look behind as he went.

Daryl wrapped his arms around the crying woman in his arms tighter and slowly raised them both to their feet. Carol went with him willingly and Daryl turned them away from the massacre of the barn and towards the RV. She walked beside him, dragging her feel and leaning heavily against Daryl, but she went anyways. Daryl lead them into the RV and gently set Carol on the table in the back of the RV. Not sure what to do now, Daryl quickly grabbed a roll of papertowels and set them on the table in front of Carol. Left with no more ideas as to what to do, Daryl slowly left, making is way back towards Rick and the others, who had gathered in their own camp.

"Hershel wants us to leave," Rick was saying when Daryl joined the group. No one looked at him.

"What? He can't kick us out! We have no where else to go," Lori said, panicked. Daryl could only roll his eyes at her.

"Yeah, well maybe ya shoulda told that ta yer little friend over there," Daryl said, throwing his head in Shane's directions.

"Don't blame me, redneck," Shane hissed at him. "I was only doing what was best for the group. Those walkers were going to get out of there eventually and kill us all. It was only a matter of time and I decided that I wanted to get rid of the threat before it killed us."

"Don't fuckin' matter. You were the one that fucked us over this time," Daryl swore back at him. "This all yer fault."

"I was only protecting us!" Shane yelled at him, letting his anger overcome him once again.

"Yeah, cause gettin' us kicked outta the one safe place we got is protecting everyone," Daryl said, keeping level headed even though all he wanted to do was shoot the son of a bitch between the eyes.

Shane suddenly lunged at Daryl, intending to do some sort of damage to the man, and Daryl was ready. But Shane never got to him. Something suddenly seemed to grab him and pull him away from Daryl will force. Daryl, as well as all the others, looked in surprise to see who had thrown Shane so hard that he fell to the ground. Dean stood behind them, and they barely recognized him. After shooting Sophia, he must have went back to their tents and found something to shave with because his heard was now gone and his hair was cut short, making him look totally different from the Dean that they all got used to seeing. Daryl noticed that his face was as emotionless as it was when he pulled the trigger that put Sophia out of her misery.

"Are you guys really going to fight? There's people over there that need to be buried," Dean said, looking from person to person. No one dared talk, not even Shane. "We're going to bury Carol's little girl for sure, and Hershel can figure out which of his people he wants buried as well. We'll burn the rest."

With that, Dean turned away from them and headed towards the farmhouse, no doubt to talk to Hershel.

XxXxXxX

Daryl found himelf back in the RV after the confontation with Shane. He kept a close eye on Carol, even though he wouldn't look directly at her. When Lori poked her head in, she said, "They're ready. Come on."

Daryl looked back at Carol and watched her shake her head. "Why?"

Daryl stared at the woman like he couldn't believe what she had just said. She had never given up hope about finding her little girl, and now she wouldn't even go to her funeral? What the hell? Daryl opened his mouth and said, "Cause that's yer lil' girl."

"That's not my little girl," Carol said, finally raising her head to look at them. "It's some other... thing." Carol looked away from them and out the window. "My Sophia was alone in the woods. All this time I thought... She didn't cry herself to sleep, she didn't go hungry, she didn't try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago."

Daryl stayed quiet, looking away from her. Lori didn't say anything either, instead slowly leaving the RV. Daryl couldn't believe that she wouldn't come to her daughter's funeral, but he knew he couldn't do anything to change her mind. Sure, he felt like everything that he did to find that little girl was ultimatly useless, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from saying goodbye to the little girl. Daryl simply shook his head and jumped down from his spot on the counter, holding his shotgun in one hand. He sent the woman one last look before leaving the RV to go to the funeral.

Everyone, except for Carol, had made a line in front of the three graves beneath the trees. Daryl stood to the side, but Dean stood the furthest away, behind everyone, even though the offered to let him closer. Dean only shook his head and remained where he was. Once the service was done, they all went their separate ways, leaving only Dean by the graves. Daryl didn't bother to stay around long enough to see what he was doing.

Daryl went back to the mine camp that was his and Dean's tents. Without looking around, Daryl began to pack his things up. He needed to get further away from these people and he knew the perfect place. There was the remains of a building that had long since falled down and it would be a good place to set up camp. It was far enough away from the others so they wouldn't bother him but close enough to help with anything major. He was halfway done taking down his tent when Dean appeared. The man didn't even ask Daryl what he was doing. Dean simply began packing his things too. Daryl knew that he was going to move with Daryl, and honestly, he didn't care. He was beyond caring what Dean did.

Together, the two men moved all of their belongings to their new camp. As soon as they began resetting up, Freak appeared. Since there were more trees where their new camp was, Freak could come closer to them while still being under the protectiong of the shade. He watched the two of them put their tents up and unroll their sleeping bags inside. Once they were done, Daryl took to sitting of the remains of the buildings foundation and sharpening a stick with his knife. Dean sat on one of their chairs, not too far away, cleaning his pistol again. Daryl had lost count of how many times he had cleaned that damn thing.

It didn't take long for someone to come bother them.

"Moving to the suburbs?" Lori said, jogging up to them. Dean only looked up briefly at her before turning back to his gun, while Daryl didn't even raise his head. Lori stopped by Daryl. "Look, Beth's in some sort of catatonic shock. We need Hershel."

"Yeah, so what?" Daryl asked, still not looking up at Lori.

"So I need you to run into town real quick and bring him and Rick back," Lori responded, crouching down next to him. When Daryl remained quiet, Lori said, "Daryl."

Finally, he looked up at her. He stared at her for a moment before going back to his stick sharpening. "Yer bitch went window shopping. You fetch him yerself. I got better things to do."

"What's the matter with you?" Lori asked as if she couldn't believe that Daryl wouldn't do what she asked. "Why would you be so selfish?"

"Selfish?" Daryl demanded, finally having enough of her bullshit. Anger boiled through his veins as he got to his feet. "Listen to me, Oliveoil. I was out there lookin' for that little girl every single day. I took a bullet and an arrow in the process. Don't you tell be that I haven't been gettin' my hands dirty! Ya want those two idiots, have a good ride. I'm done lookin' for people."

Daryl sat back down, still furming with anger. He went back to sharpening his stick and ignored Lori as turned away and walked back toward the house. Daryl looked up to see Dean watching him silently.

"What the hell are you lookin' at?" Daryl demanded, still anger. Dean shrugged and looked back down at his gun.

"I know who you feel. It sucks when you put alot of work into something and then find out that it was all for nothing. Life's a bitch," Dean said, slowly putting his pistol back together. Daryl snorted and rested his head back against the bricks.

"I wanted ta find that girl with every fuckin' fiber of my body. Don't know why. Maybe I thought that finding the girl would help erase some of the shit I've done in the past," Daryl admitted, closing his eyes. "I went and fucked it up, like always."

"God do I know what it's like. I hunted things like wendigos and demons my whole life," Dean said. "In all those years, in almost every case Sam and I would find someone that we wanted to save, so keep alive, but it rarely ended in our favor. The person usually died, and it would make me feel like shit. I think it was the part of the job that I hated the most."

When Dean stopped talking, Daryl didn't open his mouth. He stayed silent, staring at the darkness of the back of his eyelids. He knew that Dean knew how he felt, but honestly, right now he didn't care. Daryl only wanted to be left alone. He didn't want Lori bugging him to go do something that he is perfectly capable of doing, he didn't want to deal with Carol grieving over her little girl, and he didn't want to talk to Dean right now. He wished that everything could go back to the way it was before. It was easier then. The only thing that he had to worry about then was if Merle was gonna come back that night and how stung out he would be. Daryl would take that over losing a little girl anyday.

Something touched his arm and Daryl opened his eyes to see what it was. Freak had shifted towards him and made a spot at his feet. He had curled his body around one of Daryl's legs and now rested his chin on Daryl's thigh, staring up at him. Daryl was reminded of a dog again as he stared down in confusion at the wendigo.

"Hey, didn't ya say that these things were supposed to be, like, evil and cannibalistic and shit?" Daryl asked, raising an eyebrow down at Freak.

"Yeah, that's their nature," Dean said from his spot.

"Then why the hell is it acting like some fuckin' dog," Daryl asked, shoving Freak away from him, but the wendigo just came right back.

"Who knows. Maybe it thinks you're its mommy," Dean laughed. Daryl snapped his eyes up to Dean and glared at him murderously. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm only saying."

Daryl rolled his eyes and watched Dean stand up. He walked over to a bag that he had grabbed from his car that he had set outside the tent and began rummaging through it. Finally seeming to find what he was looking for, Dean stood and turned to show Daryl the homemade tattoo kit.

"How 'bout we get that tattoo done?"

So, I'm sorry that this chapter is short. I know that I changed some of the scenes a little, like how Dean shot Sophia instead of Rick, but I felt like Dean would be able to handle it better than Rick, seeing how he's used to killing shit like that. Anyways, I hope this chapter was enjoyable for everyone!