AN: REVISED

12: Healing

In the morning, a solid day after it all happened, I woke up to a knock on my door. I rolled out of bed, sorer than I had ever been in my life, and opened it. It was Daryl, surely here to get the keys to the gate. I was too tired. I was too broken. I reached to find them back on my neck. I was wearing fresh clothes too. I took the keys from my neck and weakly threw them at him, wincing at the pain in my shoulder, before shutting the door. I debated curling back up, hiding away from everyone and pretending I was dead just for one more day. But I knew I needed to stay fed and hydrated for my body to fight off infection and heal.

I needed to get back into fighting shape as soon as possible. That was how I could keep staying alive.

First thing was first though: I grabbed the bottle of pills that had been set on my bedside table and made my way down the stairs slowly. The movement brought a throbbing to the graze on my leg. When I made it into the kitchen, Lori and Carl were eating breakfast.

When she looked up at me she smiled. "How are you feeling?"

I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and laughed, "Better than I look." Carl and Lori laughed too.

She stood up. "Here, let me make you something."

I held my hand up to stop her. "No, I got it. I miss cooking." I grabbed a bit of whatever meat was in the freezer and threw it into a skillet while munching on aone of the remaining apples.

"Rick told us what you did for him and Daryl." I raised an eyebrow at her. "How you took a bullet for them, made sure they got home."

I nodded and flipped the meat over. "I told you I would."

"We didn't realize you meant… It just means a lot that you'd do that for us."

"It was the right thing to do." The right thing to do, my new obsession, I guess.

"Carl here told me about you offering to teach him medicine."

I interrupted her, "If I was out of line, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm glad you did. Would you mind teaching me some stuff too? Hershel's been busy with the crops"

"Of course not." Once it was cooked I sat down to eat with them. "It will be nice to be of some use again."

I spent the next few days hanging out with whoever was around the house, or up on my perch. I taught Lori and Carl together, and even though seeing them together made me miss my Mama, I was happy to get to hang around them. It only took a little under a month for me to be healed up and good as new again, or close to it. My shoulder was stiff now. It would take a while to get its flexibility back again. All of that time I felt the group let me in more and more. There were moments when I even felt like I belonged, but they passed quickly still. Once I was healed enough I was back to chopping down trees and keeping watch. Lori had gotten into the habit of letting Carl hang out with me while she did her chores, and I enjoyed the company. The best days were when Carl and I would be sitting on the roof on watch, just telling stories and laughing, just like I used to do with my brother. We were joking the day away, doing occasional sweeps with our binoculars when Carl said the strangest thing.

"You like Daryl, don't you?"

I looked over at him and smiled, hiding how taken back I was by the question. "I like all of you guys."

"You look at him different than you do the rest of us. I noticed."

"You are one observant kid." I laughed, "Don't tell anyone. It doesn't mean anything. " I pointed the knife I was using at him in a fake-menacing way.

"I won't." We sat in silence for a while before he broke it, "What was your life like before all of this?"

I sighed, not wanting to think back. With Carl around, my surrogate brother, I didn't have to think about it as much. I couldn't. Not yet. I spoke in abstracts, "It was nice. I was happy."

"You aren't happy any more, are you?"

I looked over at him. This kid was asking too many questions, and each one kind of cut at me in places I didn't want to be cut. "I am sometimes," I lied. It felt more like a half-lie, really. To be honest, the best I could do emotionally was be okay at this point, even if there were moments of gladness. Happy would come some other time, and I was fine with that. "What about you?"

"I don't know. I don't think this is what happiness feels like."

"Happiness is a warm gun," I laughed to myself.

"I don't get it."

"The Beatles."

"Beetles? Bugs?"

"No, it's a band, my brother's favorite. I know, how original. They were extremely popular. Tonight after dinner I'll play you some of their stuff. I bet your mama's heard of them, too."

"That will be fun." We read some more. "What are you gonna do about Daryl?"

"I wasn't planning on doing anything. Why?"

"If you like him you should."

"Have any ideas?"

"You should try going hunting with him. I know that you don't like hunting because of what happened when you were younger, but he always goes alone now."

"I'll think about it."

And I did. I thought about how to ask, or if I should even ask, or if I should just not try. He was different now, and I wasn't even sure the residual feelings I had for him were legitimate. I put it off for a few days, but eventually I came to the conclusion that small risks like this were part of being human. If I wanted to feel more human, I needed to take a risk every so often. Tomorrow was the day, I decided as I went about my activities. That night I even washed myself with the special anti-scent soap I got from the gun shop that I wasn't entirely sure actually worked. Then I went to the garage to get my hunting bow ready.

"You going hunting in the morning?" I looked up and saw Carol.

"I thought I might like a try, yeah. I need to get back in fighting form." She sat down in the other chair and stared at me for a few minutes in silence as I continued to get things ready. "Did you want to talk?"

"No wonder that he likes you," was all she said before getting up and leaving the garage. Cryptic. I sat there for a second trying to figure out what she meant. Was she talking about Daryl? Or Carl? Or my newfound friendship with any of the other male members of the group? Definitely Carl. We had become fast friends, and it was almost like a was a babysitter of sorts now. I liked it. Annie the babysitter: what a perfectly normal job. Finally I went to my room. I decided to sleep in my clothes for tomorrow so I would be ready to go in the morning, just some sturdy jeans and an old tank. Would this look good? I didn't want him to know that I was trying to be decent looking. Shit. Was this a mistake? No. Oh, the joys of being a single girl during the apocalypse. Regardless of how I may or may not have felt about him, it was nice enough just to get a change of pace.

I woke up a bit early and took the opportunity to brush my teeth, put on my shoes, put on my weapons, and relax in bed for a while until I heard the familiar knock. I got up and opened the door. "Can I go hunting with you today?"

I couldn't read his face as his eyes scanned me. "Just don't go getting yourself shot again."

I agreed and followed after him, a slight skip in my step.