Thank you to all who have favorited and/or followed my story. Response to reviews;

bridgetlynn: Thanks for reading and telling me everyone is in character! Yeah there were times in the show where Dale was too opinionated but in my opinion he does try to help people (even if it wasn't always the best idea cuz like you said there is a lot of grey area in a zombie apocalypse). Hope you like what's to come :)

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead television show or comic book(obviously but I do this to avoid problems). Just my OC Natalie.

Warning: Language and drinking are mentioned.

Chapter 11

Natalie's POV

It has been three days since I got back from Atlanta and things have been pretty calm lately. I've spent more time with Glenn and Amy having them get to know each other. I remember what Amy said about having dibs on the next cute guy to come by so I've been trying to see if she was serious about it. However, because I'm with them a lot more it meant that I haven't had much time to hang out with Daryl who seems like he's been avoiding me. It didn't faze me when I first found out he was going to go hunting but before he left I would catch glances of him and he looked even more distant and pissed than usual. I wanted to confront him about it to see what was up but he would always walk away from me when he saw me coming or would go talk to Merle. However I remind myself that he's only been gone for a day and a half so far and I'm probably over thinking things.

I'm in my tent now treating my wound and sorting some laundry I was going to do today. Luckily my wound is healing nicely and there is no sign of infection. It only stings slightly now so I can still do chores like laundry and carrying the heavy baskets. I'm just about to wrap it again when I hear someone call out from inside.

"Natalie? It's Carol, can I come in?" she shouts. I'm kind of surprised its Carol, usually it's Amy, Glenn or Dale who come by my tent but Carol has been more friendly to me since I got back.

"Sure. I'm decent." I say. She comes in the tent and see's that I'm wrapping my wound. She winces a little seeing it looking a little bruised and scabbed.

"How is it?"

"A lot better believe it or not. It just stings a bit, I probably don't have to wrap it anymore but I don't want to gross the kids out."

"Well that's partly why I came. I heard that you were on laundry duty today and wanted to help you carry some of it down."

"That's sweet Carol but you don't have to. I'm okay with moving stuff." She waved her arm though dismissing my comment.

"Trust me Natalie, it's heavy enough carrying it without an injury. Plus we got stuff from the kids and guys too." I didn't realize that we had that much.

"Well when you put it that way I think I'll take you up on that offer. I'll just grab some of my stuff that I want clean and leave what I don't need behind." As I finish that I hear someone else stumble into my tent and see Glenn with a basket.

"Hey Nat, thought I'd help you out." He said walking towards a pile of clothes. I start to snicker a bit thinking of how cute it is that he always wants to help but this is going to get awkward.

"It's okay Glenn, Carol is going to help me and I'm not incapable of doing laundry." I say finishing wrapping my arm.

"But you're still hurt, and it doesn't seem that fair that the women have to do all the laundry. That's really sexist…" he stops as he picks up a pair of panties from my dirty pile, he flings them across the tent like they are tainted and me and Carol are just holding in our laughter at the horrified expression on his face.

"Haha! Don't worry Glenn it's not a grenade. But why don't you go see what Dale and Jim are doing, I think they'd be glad to teach you stuff about engines."

"Yeah… that's probably a good idea." He says in a daze and walks out of my tent. Me and Carol just start laughing really hard.

"Men!" Carol says

"Yeah, Glenn is sweet and can kill a geek but he's just so awkward when it comes to women." I say as I go grab the discard underwear, put it in my basket and pick it up.

"Personal experience?" she asks

"If that's your way of asking if anything is going on between us then no. I need him more as a friend than a boyfriend."

We walk out of my tent and go grab more laundry left in a pile in front of each tent, Lori came up with the "great" idea that the women should do all the laundry for the camp. I wanted to roll my eyes and share my disgust about washing the guy's sweaty clothes and underwear but I've been picking my battles lately. Everyone just got over the last time I flipped out about the rules and I don't want to cause drama like that again. As I grab some clothes in front of the Lori's tent Carl and Sophia come running by.

"Hey Nat!" Sophia says happily.

"…Hi" Carl says shyly. I'm pretty sure he's confused about how to treat me. On the one hand he and Sophia look up to me because of how "brave" and fun I am when watching them but on the other hand I don't get along that well with his mom and I really don't get along with Shane who he idolizes.

"Hey guys. What's the rush?" I ask wondering why they're running so fast.

"We're playing hide and seek!" Sophia said. "Louis is counting and we need to find a place to hide." Oh how I envied the kids sometimes.

"Glad you're having fun but be careful. We can't have you guys wandering too far from camp and don't go near the Dixon's truck or bike. You can hide by my car if you want; no one ever goes over there but me anyway." They both smile when I say that and go running off. I chuckle when I see them avoid the truck and motorcycle like one of the brothers was going to run out any moment to yell at them. I grab the pile of clothes and as I pass Glenn, Dale and Jim I ask them to keep an eye on the kids. They agree and I walk ahead to catch up with Carol.

"Man do I wish I could be one of the kids right now." I say to Carol as we make our way down to the lake.

"I think you're just saying because you'd get out of laundry." We both laugh at that. "But if you ask them they'd wish to be your age. Carl keeps going on about wanting to go on patrols with Shane and I've seen Sophia pretending she's shooting a bow and arrow from time to time."

"Well I don't know if I can talk sense into Carl but if you're okay with it I wouldn't mind giving Soph some lessons for fun."

"I don't think Ed and I would be comfortable with that." She said her face hardening. She always gets tense anytime Ed is brought up in a conversation, not a sign of a happy relationship (if that can even possible with Ed). She also had a bruise around her eye that she was trying to hide with make-up but she must be running out because it barely covered the whole thing. I don't think I can keep my mouth shut about it much longer but I also don't want to break my ties with Carol by butting into her business. I see a little bit of my mother in her, doing whatever it takes to take care of her daughter no matter how bad she feels.

"I can understand that. I just want you to know that I'm here for you and Sophia." We reach the water and start sorting the laundry, I was taking the kids and women's clothes and Carol was taking the men's clothes.

"Thank you Natalie for looking out for us, you're Sophia's hero. She wants to be like you when she's older and I would be glad if she was but I just hate the idea of her dealing with those geeks."

"I get that. It's hard to picture Soph, Carl or any child in these situations. Hell I still can't believe everything I've done; it sounds like a whole different person."

"Well it's a person that people need in times like this." She had a distant look in her eyes as she was washing someone's shirt.

"Try telling that to Shane, almost every other day he looks like he wants to throw me out of camp and oh god please tell me this isn't his!" I say as I accidentally pick up some dirty underwear from a guy's pile. I must have gotten distracted while talking to Carol "Dammit whose bag did I just pick up, I need to know if I have to wash my hand or boil it with water so hot my hand will melt off."

"Let's see… oh that's…" she started giggling a bit. "That's the Dixon's bag."

"Oh god! Now I know how Glenn felt!" I say as I dip my hand into the water scrubbing it like I had a stain that wouldn't come out. "With my luck it's probably Merle's and I'm going to get some type of disease." Carol was still laughing.

"God Natalie! I almost forgot how young you were for a while."

"Maturity has nothing to do with age Carol. It's a state of mind and I'm pretty sure the most mature person in the world would have the same reaction to that." I say.

"Well let's just say that it's Daryl's. Does that make you feel any better?" She asks. My eyes go wide for a minute when she says that.

"Well I'm probably less likely to get a disease so I guess it does."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because he's not a total pig like his brother. He's just rude sometimes." Like right now since he keeps avoiding me, I don't know why it bugs me but it does.

"Well it looks like you're almost done. How about I take the last bag and finish up."

"Are you sure Carol? You've done enough for me already."

"I'm fine. Go drop those off, check on Sophia for me and then we'll call it even."

"Deal." I say with a smile as I get up and collect the stuff.

"You know Carol; I can see why Sophia always talks about you when she's around me. You're stronger than you think you are and a good woman, don't ever think that's underrated when times get really bad." I say as I walk off.

"Natalie!" she shouts at me. "Thank you."

"Just telling the truth. What you and Sophia have makes me miss my mom." I walk away at that point and my heart feels heavy after what I just said.

Later that night

"I'm so bored." Amy said as we sat around a low burning fire. It was a little one that just had her, Glenn and me because we wanted to have a night away from the group. Some of the adults deemed it the "kid's fire" which made the real kids want their own fire but that was put to rest immediately.

"Well you wanted to have this fire by ourselves so we could do anything we want without Andrea judging you. It's not our fault we're running out of stuff to talk about." I say.

"We could play a card game." Glenn suggests, "War or poker."

"Poker's only fun if it's for cash or to strip Glenn, and if you want to do the latter I got to warn you I have a mean poker face." I say, even in the glow of the fire I could see his face glow red and Amy and I start to laugh. God I love how awkward he is.

"Never mind then. It's not my fault there's not much to do."

"Hang on I got an idea." I say as I grab a bottle out of my backpack.

"Is that what I think it is Natalie?" Amy asks with a little excitement on her face.

"I found a bottle Jägermeister that Reese got for a birthday gift but never opened. In honor of Carol reminding me of how immature I can be I say we play a game of never have I ever. Rules are if you did it you have to take a drink, if no one else did it either the speaker has to take a drink."

"You sure that's a good idea Natalie?" Glenn asks looking towards the others worriedly.

"Don't worry about them. We'll stop once one person gets to four if you're that worried. Besides I want to drink some of this before anyone else finds out I have it and confiscates it." They both agree and I have Glenn start us off.

"Okay, never have I ever… cheated on a homework assignment." Me and Amy just let out some laughs as we both took a drink.

"Really Glenn? That's the best you can come up with? You know the internet is just begging to be used for that one assignment you procrastinated to long about." I say as Amy nods in agreement with me.

"My turn" Amy said as she grabbed the bottle. "Never have I ever done something that was considered illegal."

"Wait what do you mean considered?" I asked. "Does that include things that aren't that looked down upon like smoke weed or download free music from questionable sites?"

"Some people do think that's bad, and fine those don't count. I guess things like assault or damaging public property." I take a drink and I'm surprised to see Glenn reach out for the bottle.

"Wait what! What did you do Glenn?" I ask as he takes a sip.

"God that burns! Don't know how some people keep a straight face." He says

"Glenn what did you do?" Amy asks

"I know how to hot wire cars. Not something I usually go bragging about." He says and me and Amy's jaws drop.

"Damn Glenn!" I say. "All I did was key some douche's car for cheating on a friend. You're into some grand theft auto shit!"

"Can we not make a big deal out of it? I'm not exactly that proud of it, I needed the money."

"No one's judging here Glenn. Although now I want you to hot wire a sports car and bring it back to camp." I say with a smile.

"God I wish I could. Deal! If I ever get the chance I'm going for it!" he says.

It's now my turn and I'm trying to think of something I've never done. I have a feeling I've done more things than them but after hearing Glenn's confession who knows what else they've done in their past.

"Never have I ever… god why is it so hard to think of something?" I say while I face palm myself. "Okay I got it. Never have I ever hooked up with someone of the same sex." I say. Glenn shakes his head no but Amy looks like she's in deep thought.

"… Define hooked up?" she said.

"Amy you little vixen!" I tease her as I see Glenn get more interested in the game (of course it was this part he was into). "I mean did anything that can be classified as sex. I don't count kissing as hooking up or anything bad and I don't judge whatever anyone is into… so long as it's not bestiality."

"Ew Natalie! And no, now that you clarified it I didn't hook up with the same gender. It was just one kiss and nothing else." She said.

"Dammit! I shouldn't have said that." I say as I take a swig of the drink. So far I've had three sips while Amy and Glenn just had one. At this rate I was going to lose. "Back to you Glenn."

"Okay never have I ever learned to play a piano."

"… I never played a piano."

"Me neither." Amy and I said.

"Dammit!" He said and took a drink.

"Glenn why would you pick something so random?" Amy asked.

"I don't know. I thought a lot girls went through the I want to play the piano phase." He said.

"I didn't know such a phase existed." I said and we all laughed at that. Amy stopped and got our attention back to the game.

"Okay, never have I ever had a messy break-up." She said. It got awkwardly quiet as Glenn shook his head no and I reluctantly grabbed the bottle and took a long drink.

"That bad Natalie?" Amy asked.

"It was pretty messy. Yelling, something broke, and I stopped talking to him all together after that."

"Must have been pretty bad." Glenn said.

"Actually before all that it wasn't and it probably didn't have to be that bad if we could just function normally. He thought he could fix me but I didn't think that I needed to be fixed."

"Why would he think you were broken?" Glenn asked. I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair.

"I didn't live a perfect life. I didn't have a white house with a picket fence, I had parents who tried hard to provide but their lives ended too quickly and I was left to drift between homes. When Eli, my boyfriend, found out he didn't take it well. He freaked out, basically called me damaged goods and told me he'd try to fix me."

"What a douche." Amy said. "How could he do that?"

"Yeah he was a douche and to answer your question it's pretty easy to judge someone. We're taught to label and judge people ever since we were kids that it's become harder not to judge someone. We can try to not be judgmental and maybe even convince ourselves we aren't but it's always still there. We just need to make sure we have a good reason to have those thoughts, like it's your gut telling you not to trust someone." I see that they're both in deep thought over what I just said. Crap this was not what I wanted to happen tonight.

"Okay I'm over it, we were supposed to have fun not mope and get all sentimental!" I say changing the subject.

"True, sorry about that." Amy apologizes.

"Well don't be too hard on yourself." Glenn says, "It's kind of hard to be positive all time."

"Amy usually is for the most part." I say. "I just brought it down, but now I'm going to bring it back up by listing all the stuff I don't miss in life. For example, I do not miss the sound of the my neighbors having sex through the paper-thin walls." That got a couple groans of disgust and shivers out of the two and we all laughed.

"Okay my turn." Glenn said "I do not miss getting stuck in traffic during a delivery and having the pizza be free."

"What? I thought you were speedy Glenn?" I said.

"That only happened when I couldn't take my shortcuts." He countered.

"My turn!" Amy said. "I do not miss turning in homework and keeping up with my appearance." That was technically two but I'll let her have it.

"I don't miss debt and student loans." I say as I take a drink.

"Here here!" Glenn said as he asked for the bottle taking a longer sip than he usually took. I guess that's why he was a pizza boy.

"Same!" Amy said as she asked for the bottle. Well it looks we all have one thing in common, we all hate debt.

"Okay that's enough for tonight. I think if we keep this up they're going to get suspicious." I put the cork back in the bottle and stuff it in my bag.

"Yeah I'm getting tired." Amy said.

"Night." Glenn said.

"Goodnight. I'll put the fire out since I'm not that tired." With that they both went back to their tents as I put out the fire.

I empty a bucket of water on the fire and it goes out with a quick hiss before it's all quiet. In fact it's really quiet. I look around and see that the other camp fire is out and that everyone is probably in their tents sleeping now. I take this moment to appreciate the quiet and lay on the ground looking at the stars. Sure it's not the safest thing to do but I haven't been able to look that the stars since the first night we got here and I only had a sleeping bag to sleep in. I make a face thinking about how awful the mosquito bites were but since then I've grown used to them and luckily haven't had that many more bites. Maybe they think my blood is tainted or something. I roll my eyes at the thought.

Snap! I hear a twig break and whip my head around in the direction of the noise. I see someone lurking in the shadows, a man's silhouette that is trying to get away.

"Hey! I know your there! Come out before you do anything stupid." I say firmly. The figure swears in a deep voice that has a twang to it before he steps out into the moonlight. I relax a little as I see it's Daryl. "Well long time no see Dixon. Felt like you were avoiding me for a while." And it seemed like he still was since I caught him trying to run away.

"Been out hunting Falco. Getting close to bagging that deer." He said from his spot.

"Well come over here. Pop a squat and tell me all about it." He gave me a bewildered look at my lax behavior but came forward a bit. He was staring at me for some reason.

"You drunk Falco?" he asked.

"Nope." I say emphasizing the P. Something I picked up from him. "Might be a little tipsy though. Shared a drink with Glenn and Amy."

"Did he get drunk off his ass?" he asked with interest as he sat down next to me, not too close though.

"No he probably only had two or three sips of Jäger. But I can tell that if he had anymore he'd probably be out of it."

"Seems like a lightweight. And where the hell did ya find Jäger?" he asked.

"If I tell you that somehow Merle is going to find out and steal it. And no you can't have some, I'm saving it for special occasion."

"Greedy bitch." He mumbled which caused me to laugh. "What are you doing out here anyway?" he asked.

"I was putting out the fire but I didn't feel tired. So I thought I'd appreciate the quiet and look at the stars. Right now I'm trying to find Polaris."

"Tryin to find who?" he asks with a confused expression. I laugh a little remembering who I'm talking to.

"Sorry, I had a flashback to an astrology lecture. Polaris is also known the North Star. The brightest one in the little…"

"Right there." He points at the sky towards the brightest star in the sky.

"…dipper. How'd you know that?"

"I'm not a total idiot Falco. I've used that star plenty of times when I got off track hunting."

"I have never thought you were an idiot. There are all sorts of smarts than just book smart, you're more survivalist smart." It got quiet at that. Why is it anytime I say something that's nice and has no hint of sarcasm around him it gets awkward? It's not like it's totally out of character for me to be nice, ask any of the others besides Shane, Ed and possibly Merle on a bad day and they'd all say I was a decent person. Maybe it was just our relationship or lack of one. We always seem to take one step forward to becoming friends but then two steps back.

"Thanks I guess." He finally says.

"You're welcome. Now tell me about this elusive deer."

And then the awkwardness was gone. He started going into how he was tracking it and tactics for how he was going to finally get it. I see that seriousness in his eyes as he talks about it and can't help but admire his passion. It must be nice to still be able to do something you love when everything else goes to shit. It made me miss taking pictures but I didn't have the heart to use my camera, I'd be afraid of drawing unwanted attention with the flash and the shutter (I still like to use retro cameras). But I put that aside and listen to Daryl talk, sometimes I add suggestions or make snide remarks about how smart the deer must be to allude Daryl the greatest hunter in Georgia (he'd just glare at me if I said the last part). It felt like we talked for hours before I started to get tired.

"It's late, you should get to your tent." He said as I was fighting closing my eyes.

"Yeah probably a good idea." I say. I try to get up but I'm a little slow, next thing I know he offers his hand out and I take it so he can help me up. We lock eyes for a minute and see that he's not on edge like usual. He actually seems calm for once.

"Hey two things." I say. "First one, you don't have to keep calling me Falco. You can call me Natalie or even Nat if you want. Second, if you need a hunting partner I don't mind. Last time I checked we did pretty good bagging that boar." I recalled the first time he trained me, that feels so long ago for some reason.

"Last I checked I'm the one that shot it between the eyes."

"But I'm the one that pointed it out."

"You distracted me." He reminded me of when we had that scuffle and I managed to flip him on his back (something I'm still surprised I did and I'm proud of).

"Careful, if you admit I distracted you Dixon you might lose your title of master hunter." I say and stick out my tongue (okay maybe I'm just a little more than buzzed.)

"Go to bed." He said as he shoved my bag into my arms.

"Fine, night Dixon." I say as I walk away. I'm not sure if I was hallucinating or not but I could have sworn I heard him say

"Goodnight Natalie."

End! So this chapter was mostly filler. Pretty soon I'll be writing from season one and I found a good website with the scripts! Right now I'm just trying to establish most of the relationships Natalie will have with other members of the group. Hoped you liked it even though it didn't have any action in it, and as always feel free to favorite, follow and leave comments.

P.S. I do not condone getting drunk (i didn't even make her really drunk just tipsy), hot wiring cars, damaging someone else's property or cheating. (Although I would admit that the internet did help me get through some hard classes but I NEVER PLAGERIZED, just did some research when I was only supposed to use a text book.)