Thanks for the continued support you guys :) I know its going a little slow at the moment, but I promise it will be filled with more drama and walkers soon! I'm trying to establish the relationship between Daisy and Shane, but also Daisy's relationship with the other members of the group. Don't worry like I say it will get a bit more exciting soon :) Please stick with me, and let me know what you think of this chapter, my writing, story, etc. Review guys, they make my day!

Chapter 13

"Crap, crap, crap" I cursed as I saw dad and Shane practically dragging Daryl across the grass towards us.

I grabbed my stick from beside me and lurched towards them. God, my heart was hammering in my chest and I was just hoping he hadn't been bit. Although I wasn't really close with Daryl I classed him as a good friend, being all friendly maybe wasn't his thing but he had saved me from getting bit and he always helped me out when I needed him. I cared for him just like I cared for T-Dog and Glenn. I could see blood on the side of his head and staining through his top.

"What happened?" I asked hurriedly as I followed them into the house.

"Andrea thought he was a walker and shot him" dad told me as he heaved Daryl onto a chair "Hershel!"

"What? Is he ok?"

"Bullet grazed him, he's got a thick skull he'll be fine!" Shane assured me, slinging an arm around my shoulder and squeezing me tightly.

I nodded and bit my lip worriedly. Daryl's head lolled headed to the side against the back of the chair. I grimaced at the splat of blood that stained the fabric of the chair. I hoped Patricia had some good stain remover in the cupboard somewhere. Hershel entered the room with his vet's bag in hand. I stood with dad and Shane, watching while the veterinarian worked. As he worked on the wound on his side Daryl woke up. He gritted his teeth and let Hershel do his bit, Daryl explained his wound was from falling on an arrow, how on earth someone could be as idiotic as to fall on their own arrow?

"You'll be fine, son" Hershel sighed as he finished patching Daryl up "just get some rest"

Hershel gave Daryl some pain pills then disappeared out of the room with my dad to give some more medicine to my brother. Holding Shane's hand, I sat down on the arm of Daryl's chair and flicked his arm.

"I'm glad you're alright Daryl" I said before grinning at him "now we can share being the title of clumsiest camp member"

"Pfft…damn horse's fault, I'm steady on my feet, that thing threw me" Daryl protested.

"Yeah whatever you say" I winked.

"You two here just to piss me off or are you gonna help me into a bed?" Daryl grunted impatiently.

"God look who is a grumpy pants…you would have thought you'd been shot!" I joked. Shane chuckled while Daryl just glared up at me.

Shane helped Daryl up the stairs into one of the guest bedrooms. Daryl pushed off his boots before slipping beneath the covers. The sheets were clean, the bottom sheet starched white. Now, I'm not saying Daryl is unclean but we all live on the road, our idea of a wash is a wipe down with baby wipes or a quick dip in a stream; I was pretty sure he was going to leave dirt and blood on those sheets. Shane reached for my hand and we left Daryl to rest. We passed Carol on the stairs as she went to take up a glass of water to Daryl. She still had that haunted look on her face but she gave us a small smile all the same.

"Dinner will be ready soon" she told us before slipping away onto the landing.

We all sat for dinner in the evening, even Carl left his room to come sit with us all. He was still weak but he was getting much better, his gunshot wound was healing well according to Hershel. We were sat round the big table and a smaller separate table. Glenn, Maggie, T-Dog and Beth sat at the smaller table which was shoved up at the end of the larger one. I was sat between my brother and Shane. The meal was really nice, it felt so strange eating with silverware and posh plates and eating actual food cooked in an oven. However, there was most definitely an atmosphere in the room, and it was really awkward and silent.

"So, umm, does anyone play guitar?" Glenn asked, his voice almost pleading with the room to actually swallow him up.

"I can" Otis replied before carrying on with his meal.

We descended back into awkward silence, only broken by the sound of people eating. I rolled my eyes, this was going so badly.

"I used to play the flute back in elementary school" I said.

"Oh did you?" Beth asked, bravely speaking out "were you any good?"

"Yeah…until she wet herself at a recital and refused to go back to classes" Shane laughed, elbowing me in the side.

I turned to glare at him and elbowed him back. I heard the others trying to laugh.

"I was seven and there were lots of people there" I explained to the group.

"She wet herself, tried to run off stage, slipped on the wee, and fell off the stage"

"You know sometimes I hate that your old enough to remember these things so clearly!" I laughed, burying my head into my hands to hide my embarrassment. The others were all chuckling along with Shane.

Despite my embarrassment over the situation, I was mainly just glad that the tension was broken, even just by a little bit. Ok, so it wasn't amazing, we weren't all involved in some great big conversation but at least people were talking. Hershel was speaking quietly with Patricia, Otis, Dale and Carol. I was speaking with mom, dad, Carl and Shane. And the group on the smaller table were all making small talk between themselves. It was definitely a start. I glanced to the side and noticed that Maggie was slipping a note to Glenn under the table. I watched as Glenn read the note; his eyes widened and I noticed him blush slightly. Maggie was smirking. I covered my mouth to stop myself from laughing. I turned away from them and noticed that Dale and Hershel had seen the exchange too. I bit my lip. Hershel would not be happy.

After the meal we sat around for an hour tops before we all started to drift off and go our separate ways. Carl was starting to get tired, I had my arm around him for the best part of half an hour before he finally admitted he wanted to go back to bed. At that point, everyone started to get up and leave. Mom and dad went with Carl. Beth, Maggie, Patricia and Otis disappeared off upstairs. Shane, T-Dog, Glenn and I headed back to the tents together, Shane's arm around my waist helping keep me upright.

We'd downsized on our number of tents when we first came to the farm. Originally I'd had my own tent but as for the first few days I'd practically slept at Carl's bedside it seemed stupid for me to have a tent out here sitting empty. So I'd given up my tent. Plus, the others decided if we had to make a quick getaway at some point it would probably be best to keep a few tents in the cars just in case. So we had to make a few sacrifices. Glenn and T-Dog were sharing. Mom and dad sharing…and if Hershel decided to let us stay then he would share with them too. Shane and I were together, yes indeed my parents were actually ok with this surprisingly enough! Carol and Dale were sharing the RV. The only person who had their own tent was Daryl and that was only because nobody was willing to try and make him share. He was a good hunter and a good guy but he wasn't exactly a social person and he could be a hell of a grump sometimes.

"See you in the morning guys" I said to Glenn and T-Dog, wrapping each of them up in a little hug.

"Night" they replied before shuffling into their own tent.

I manoeuvred myself into the tent, Shane stumbling in behind me. Quickly, I turned away from Shane and changed into a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Sexy, I know. I slipped into my sleeping bag and tried to wiggle to get warm. Shane chuckled and got into his sleeping bag beside mine. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him so that my back was pressed snugly against his chest.

"Do you hate the age thing?" Shane asked me quietly after we lay there for a while.

"Not really, I mean, yeah in a perfect world our ages would be a not so far apart. But this isn't a perfect world, Shane" I murmured "I'm pretty sure I love you Shane, the age thing isn't great, but I'm not chucking what we have away just because our relationship isn't socially acceptable….besides it's my birthday in two days!"

"I love you too" Shane mumbled, pressing a kiss to the back of my head.

We were quiet again.

"Do you hate the age thing?" I countered eventually "I mean, I must seem like a kid to you sometimes"

"Don't think that" Shane told me firmly "I love you. You're young but you're not a child".

I giggled and rolled over to kiss him. One hand wound into my hair the other slid down the sleeping bag to secure me to him.

"No…definitely not a child" he mumbled pulling away from me for a moment.

"You got that right" I grinned before leaning back into him.

I was sat on a camping chair the next day eating a protein bar and enjoying the peace and quiet while the others were round and about the farm. Hershel had pretty much given Carl the all clear so he and mom were helping Patricia feed the chickens. Glenn had disappeared off a while ago with Maggie. Dale was sat quietly atop the RV on watch. I wasn't sure where dad, Shane, Carol or T-Dog were but I guessed they were off discussing the search for Sophia.

I finished my protein bar, stuck the wrapper into the pocket of my shorts, and pulled myself onto my feet using my walking stick. My ankle was feeling quite a bit better today although it was still twinging and sore when I put too much weight on it. I spotted Glenn coming through the trees. He looked nervous and jumpy, there was something up, I could see it in his eyes. I limped across the grass towards him. He tried to turn away from me but I grabbed his arm before he could.

"Hey! What's up?" I asked him, I was confused.

"Nothing, Daisy…I've got to go" Glenn mumbled, shaking me off.

"Oh" I sighed "ok, see you later then"

Frowning, I turned away from him and headed back to my seat. It seemed obvious to me that Glenn was keeping something from me, maybe even the camp. I'm not going to lie it did annoy me a bit, I mean since our group was formed Glenn and I had been good friend. It upset me that he felt he couldn't trust me with whatever was bugging him. I watched as Dale climbed down from the RV and went to speak with Glenn. They started talking amongst themselves. I was tempted to go over there and bug him again till he told me but I set my jaw and clenched my fists and resisted. After a couple of minutes they both disappeared.

When Carl came wandering back into camp an hour or so he helped me onto the ground and we sat for a while doing puzzles in a puzzle book I'd found while searching cars back on the highway.

"How you feeling squirt?" I asked while chewing on the lid of my pen.

"Something's up with mom" Carl sighed.

"What do you mean?" I asked

"I don't know she's just odd, I saw her arguing with Maggie and then she was whispering with Glenn too" Carl explained "she looked upset"

I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze. He was young, he shouldn't have to deal with all this worry. He may have been given a clean bill of health by Hershel but he was still only a young boy.

"Don't you worry about a thing little brother, I'll take care of all this" I told him "mom is just fine, we all are"

"Yeah, until we have to leave again"

"Well if we leave then we'll just have to find a place just like this one, we'll be fine I promise you"

I sat with Carl for a little while longer before going to find my mom. I wanted to find out what exactly was going on around here. It took me a little while to find her but I finally spotted her with dad up by the porch. I limped over but soon regretted it. They were bickering away, just like they used to before the apocalypse. I guess the honeymoon period they had been living in since he found us again was well and truly with. Honestly, that worried me a bit. Before all this kicked off mom and dad had been pretty close to getting a divorce, and that was without the stresses we faced in our day to day lives these days. With a sigh, I cracked my neck, rolled my shoulders and prepared to play the peacemaker.

"Hey! Stop it!" I hissed "you two want to bring the walkers down on us with all this arguing? Or Hershel?"

Dad sighed and wrapped an arm over my shoulder and chuckled.

"You're such a kiss-ass, Daisy!" dad laughed playfully.

"I just don't like seeing the two of you argue" I sighed.

"Oh honey, we're ok, we're just worried" mom explained, reaching for me and sitting me down on the porch, mom and dad sat down on either side of me, "Hershel has made up his mind, he doesn't want us to stay here anymore now that Carl is better"

"Where are we going to go? What about Sophia? We can't just leave her!" I exclaimed.

"We can stay for a little while longer, to search for Sophia, but well, we're going to have to go soon" mom sighed "we'll be ok though, we've survived on the road before"

I nodded and gazed off out across the beautiful, open green fields around us. I had become pretty attached to the place, I didn't want to leave here and go back on the road. Mom might have said that we'd be ok back out there but I knew otherwise. We all did. We'd lost too many people on the road, we knew for a fact that it wasn't safe out there. Seeing my glum expression, dad nudged my stomach and grinned at me.

"Shane and I are gonna put on some gun training if you want to join" dad smiled "give you something to beside sitting on your butt all day"

I laughed and nodded. Over the years I'd nagged and nagged dad and Shane to teach me how to shoot. They used to go to the shooting range together and I'd beg them to take me with them but they'd always just laugh at me and tell me I was too young and I didn't need to know how to shoot. Let's just say that their attitude with guns used to drive me insane But today was the day I'd finally be able to learn to shoot.

"You want to go tell the others?" dad asked.

"You bet" I grinned before hugging him "you're cool dad!"