Yo.
Thank you to everyone who's recently started following my little fic, and an especially huge thanks to all of you who continue to read. You make my heat go pitter-patter. I played hookie from work today because, LOL I'M ALLEGEDLY AN ADULT.

Okay, so...Onto business, right? This is one of the longest chapter's I've done, and as I'd promised, its more action, tension, and drama. Daryl POV. A little bit of heartache.

I also touched on one part of S2.10 that I don't think may people have talked about or explored. I guess I more than touched on it, it's the main focus of this chapter and the whole reason there's such an uproar. When I watched the scene in the show it made my skin crawl. Carl, to me, seems to be coming unhinged, just like the adults he's around most...And that scene with the walker in the swamp. HOOBOY. RED FLAG. That, to me was the indicator.

Also, there's a bit of a nod to LOL WHERE'S CARL. Because seriously, does that kid ever stay fucking put?

Things that play out after this will play out very similarly,except with a bit of a twist.

I think I've stuck an extra day or two in the story's timeline someplace, too. Oopsy. After this, we all know what's coming, right? After THAT happens, all bets are off, and I'm probably going to take the story in a different direction. So buckle the fuck up and hang on, because shit about to get rough =)

Thanks again for the read, and feel free to review, PM me, or ask me some questions if you like! Have funnnnnnnnnnnnn!

The Walking Dead and its characters, in any form, do not belong to me, and that sucks.

For five days he'd listened to the voice inside his head on and off. Merle's voice was tough to shake, and when he wasn't purposely avoiding her because of the conclusions he'd come to, he was avoiding her because he was too chicken shit to look her in the eye, and now with the events of yesterday playing out the way they had, he hadn't really needed to avoid her. He'd spent most of the evening and this morning in the barn. With Randall.

Before that welcome distraction, he'd finally been able to admit to himself that he was attracted to her. He reasoned that most any man in his right mind would be, and that was his excuse. She had nice, wide hips and round ass, tits that he would fit perfectly in his palms, and she wasn't rail thin like Andrea was. Not yet, anyway. As he sat there now, going back over his excuse, it caused the flood gates to tear open and he began thinking of all the other reasons he found her attractive. Realizing quickly his favorite thing about her was the way she grit her teeth when she lined up a shot.

The normally hyper-aware and skillful tracker wasn't aware of the sound of her light footfalls as she walked behind him. It wasn't until she'd innocently kicked a loose pebble that ricocheted off the stone hearth on which he'd sat that he'd realized someone was approaching. The noise caused him to falter and in doing so, he sliced the heel of his hand with the knife's freshly whetted blade. It wasn't a severe cut by any means, just enough to begin bleeding immediately and be annoying.

"Fuck!"
The next thing he knew Pru was at his side, yanking his hand towards her.

"What happened? Are you bit?" she asked urgently. He yanked his hand back from her, inspecting the cut more closely.

"No, goddammit!" he snapped before he managed to calm himself, "…No. Just. Just cut m'self is all."

She reached for his injured hand again, pushing the sleeve of his worn denim jacket up his forearm and out of the way, presumably to inspect it herself.

See, brother. It's already startin'. She's a fucking distraction! This bitch is gunna be the death a'ya!

He snatched his hand back from her again and stomped over to his tent, reaching in for a clean t-shirt to wrap the injury up with. "I got it." He grunted.
"Ya should let Herschel take a look at that. It's probably gunna need stit-"

"Will you just fuck off?" he growled, interrupting her.

She snarled and threw her hands up wildly and began to go back the way she'd come from. He stared at her angrily for a minute as he sloppily wrapped the shirt around his palm. After a moment he groaned and rolled his eyes at himself, regretting his fit.

"Stop!" he sighed, "I'm…Sorry." He held his hand up, hoping the injury would be a good enough excuse for his unnecessary eruption. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder to look at him before continuing to march away. Without thinking he'd moved after her, pulling her back around to face him.

"C'mon, I said I was sorry, dammit." He groused softly, "Didn't mean nothin' by it."
She turned around to face him and she looked positively annoyed. "Go see Herschel." She ordered.

He snorted, "You ain't my momma."

She made an audible, throaty growl and if he was to be completely honest with himself, it was a bit off-putting and almost, well, scary. He wondered briefly what she'd be like in a fight. She'd probably fight dirty as hell…And he was fine with that.

He swallowed hard and moved his eyes from hers, down to the dirt at their feet, then back to her again. He gestured to her by jerking his chin, "What's with the hair?"
"Dunno. Cut it off." She said quietly. He nodded, not knowing what to say after that and backed up when he realized he was standing a bit too close to her. After a silent moment, she hesitantly reached for his wrapped hand, yet again. The sting of annoyance ran through him as he thought about how absolutely stubborn she was. She looked at him defiantly, and pulled back the makeshift bandage, inspecting, then she flipped his hand over in hers, ghosting her thumb over his raw, scabbed knuckles. He hissed.

"You definitely need stitches, man, or its gunna get infected. Or make a really huge scar that's gunna fuck with how you move your hand." She admonished as she tucked the bloody scrap back around his hand.

He chuckled a bit and turned away, sauntering back to his spot on the dark stones. "What's one more scar?"
He heard her sigh again, defeat in the sound, and followed to taking a seat next to him. He figured she would have left instead, so he ventured a question, hoping in the back of his head that it wouldn't cause her to leave.

"Why ya out here?" he motioned to his surroundings with the hilt of his buck knife upon picking it back up.

She shrugged, shaking her head a bit in response, "Just goin' for a walk, I guess…Why?" she asked sheepishly, forcing a bit of a smile, "Ya want me to leave?"

He turned to answer her, "Naw. You kin stay, if you wanna." She nodded and looked away.

She was acting strangely. He wasn't the best at reading people's emotions, mainly because he never wanted to have anything to do with them in the first place, but this was a very obvious shift in her demeanor. She was quiet and awkward instead of her normal, bold self and it was beginning to make him a bit uneasy. He bent to pick up a new switch and began fashioning it into another bolt.

"So, uh…" she started, "Where ya been the last few days?"

He glanced at her suspiciously. "I dunno. Around. Busy." She nodded, falling silent again for another long, awkward period.

"Randall?" she hazarded. The answer she got was a stiff nod of conformation. Upon Rick and Shane's return from their failed mission the other evening, Rick had called upon Daryl to do what he was best at; being intimidating, menacing. It soon devolved into a torture session, with Daryl alone in the barn with the bound young man, trying to squeeze any information about Randall's former gang he could out of him. He beat the kid mercilessly about the face, kicking him, running the sharp blade of his knife, slowly across his skin.

It wasn't until Randall's story of what the other men in his group had done to two young women in front of their father, that he'd become genuinely enraged. This group that he'd run with…Rapists, thieves, murderers…The lot of them. His mind went directly to this Deacon guy. The one who'd attacked her. It wasn't going to fucking happen again. Not to her or any of the women in their group. He wanted so desperately to kill him, outright, and it took every ounce of strength he had in him to keep from it. He'd have to settle for making him suffer.

As much he generally loved silence, it was currently killing him. He could hear his pulse thundering in his eardrums and her presence just to his left made the air around him hum as he carved at the stick. He watched out the corner of his eye as she tugged at the frayed end of her bootlace and it made him all the more itchy to say something. Thankfully, she'd been the one to open her mouth first.
"Daryl, I…" she choked out.
"Hnm?"
"I wanted to ask you something." She said, timorously.
"Yeah?" he grunted, "Why you so curious 'bout everything all a'sudden?"
He watched her smile a bit and shake her head before she spoke out again. As he began to realize what she was asking, his gut started to burn.
"Andrea said something to me the other morning…About you… And I wanted to know if-"

They'd both heard it and sprung to their feet immediately. Something was making its way through the dense forest to their left, just past them, eventually making its way behind them.
He sheathed his knife and grabbed up the crossbow that sat to his right and she removed one of her guns from their holster, clicking the safety off.
"Let's go. You stay behind me." He urged in a hushed tone as he pushed past her and made his way into the woods.
He could tell by the sound that whatever had moved past them had been about fifty feet in and was moving east, so he turned in that direction, finding the small trail the invader had left almost immediately. He squatted by a damp patch of leaves and mud.

"It's a kid." He whispered to her, noticing a small sneaker track, and he motioned forward, continuing onward.
After about ten minutes of tracking they started to come upon the swampy area that surrounded most of the farm. The same swamp that had kept them safe over the last few weeks. They started to hear movement again as they came upon a slight clearing. There was a low, muffled gurgling, the sound of suction, and a sick, irregular thunk sound that neither of them could identify.

They'd ducked behind an old fallen tree and peered over it. When he looked, it took him a second to process what he was seeing. Another second after that, she was running off towards the boy who'd been standing there, firing stone after stone into the side and back of the walker that had fallen, face first, into the thick mud of the swamp. The walker looked to have been a little old lady at one point. One of her worn, filthy house shoes lay behind her in the mire, and some of her ratted hair still up in curlers.

"Carl! What the fuck are you doing?" she nearly screeched. He hopped over the log and chased after her as she marched over to Rick and Lori's son.
The kid froze when he saw the pair approaching him. Daryl could tell the kid knew he was in deep shit. He used to get that same look on his face when his daddy got drunk and came looking for him with a switch or an extension cord.

"I-I-!" he stammered. Pru yanked the slingshot from the child's hand grabbed him roughly by the arm and shook him fiercely.

"The fuck is wrong with ya, huh? Why would ya do that?" she yelled into the boy's face. She turned without saying anything and stared daggers into Daryl's eyes. It registered to him that she was wordlessly trying to tell him something. What though, he had no idea, too busy being thankful that he wasn't the boy.
When she realized that Daryl had no idea what she was trying to convey to him, she let out an angry growl, dragging the kid with her to the lip of the thick, watery mud. She drew her gun and fired a round directly into the back of the flailing walker's head and its muffled, clay choked snarls grew quiet and it stilled.
He saw her grip on the boy's arm tighten as she started dragging him off, back through the woods in the direction of the camp and the farmhouse. He watched as the boy's face contorted into a grimace.

"We're gunna have a little talk with your mother and father, Carl." She seethed.

"No! I'm sorry for wandering off! I won't do it again! I swear, Miss Pru!" he pleaded with her, tripping over his own two feet as she dragged him.

"That isn't what this is about and ya know it. Now stand up and walk! Move!" she demanded. The kid looked to Daryl, his eyes begged at him for help. Daryl sneered at the boy and spat into the mud. As far as he was concerned, the kid had a good ass whooping coming to him and whether it was by Pru's hand or his father's, well, he didn't care much one way or the other. Daryl stood there for a moment, and watched them pass, sensing the impending shitstorm that was about to rain down on their group. After a second, he moved to follow the woman back through the coppice, crossbow up in case there was more dead lurking in through the trees.

"LORI! RICK! GET OUT HERE!" she bellowed. She was no longer towing the boy by the arm, but shoving him forward in front of her now. Her shouts drew the attention of all the other survivors and they began leaking out of the house and tents camped out front. When Lori saw the rough treatment of her son, she sprinted off the porch running directly for Pru.

"Carl! CARL!" the pregnant woman cried. Pru gave the kid one last forceful shove and he fell to the dusty drive just as his mother reached him. She pulled him up quickly, and Daryl watched as the lioness tore its way through Lori's eyes as she closed the gap between her and Pru with a lunge. He jumped in front of Pru and took the brunt of Lori's assault with his chest, with Pru all but climbing his back to land a swing.

"WHOA! Hey, HEY!" Rick cried, tearing his wife off the two hunters by wrapping his solid arms around her, "What the hell is going on?" the deputy demanded.

"You were 'bout to hit a pregnant chick, dammit!" Daryl scolded.

"She fucking came at me first! I wasn't gunna hit her in the gut, anyway! I was aimin' for her empty head!" she spat. He wrapped an arm around her to keep her at his back. He would have used both, since she was struggling so much, but rather than cast his beloved crossbow to the ground like garbage, he opted not to break the thing and hold his right arm outstretched, as if he was guarding someone while playing basketball.

Daryl watched as Lori stilled and composed herself before she went to her son's side, grabbing his face in wordless askance. The boy was sobbing now and the mother clutched her son protectively to her chest. It was then that he realized every eye in camp was on him and Pru, scowling and judging, having only seen her push the child down. Shane's massive frame lumbered forward, giving Rick, who was hovering over his family, a dirty look, probably for not immediately jumping on Pru and kicking her head in.

"You big and tough, girly? You gunna beat on a little boy and a pregnant lady?" he rumbled menacingly as he reached for her. Without thinking, Daryl drew his weapon up and aimed it directly between the other man's eyes.

"So help me god, man, I will do it if'n you lay a hand on 'er." Daryl hissed. Pru was clawing at his back again, trying to get around him to lunge at Shane.

"ENOUGH ALREADY!" Rick barked, "I want answers! NOW!"

Daryl dug his fingers into her back, in an attempt at stilling her anger and lowered his bow, but only slightly. He didn't trust Shane at all, never had, and he wouldn't put it past the man to coldcock a woman half his size.

He could feel her hot fast panting on the back of his neck and shoulder and heard Pru's breath hitch as she struggled to catch it. He felt her hands still on settle on his side, giving it a bit of a squeeze briefly to let him know she was gunna back off and settle down. He nodded absently and allowed his hand to fall from her waist. As tense as the moment had been, he felt himself missing the heat of her body at his back. He damned himself for thinking about this now.

"Why don't ya go ahead and ask ya son about what we found him doin' out in the swamp?" she rasped. Rick swallowed, looking down at Carl. The boy was still curled into a ball and clutching to his mother. Rick peeled his eyes from his boy and Daryl felt mighty put upon when they found his, asking him for an explanation. Daryl moved his gaze back and forth between the hulking form than still stood in front of him, and the pleading eyes of Rick. He cleared his throat roughly before speaking, "Heard somethin' in the woods. Checked it out. Saw 'em firin' that slingshot at a walker that was stuck in the mud…No intention a'puttin' it down."

Rick blinked for a moment, taking it in.

"So what?" Shane spat, "It's dead."

"That's not the point, Shrek! That boy has no fucking respect for the dead! He was torturing it!" Pru crowed.

The color washed from Rick's face as he took the hand from his son's back and drew it up to his mouth, turning his now empty eyes to the dirt. To Daryl, it looked as if the man was about to be sick.

Shane snorted, "Respect for walkers? RESP- Pru, the damn things try to EAT US. Those things…They don't deserve our respect!"

"Oh? Well what about some of the other people ya've lost…Amy? Jim? Merl-"

He laughed, pointedly. "Yeah, yeah. Respect for Merle FUCKING Dixon. Right."

It was now Daryl's turn to lash out. Pru was sandwiched between both of them, crushing her for a fraction of a second, forced to kick and claw at both of them before T-Dog and Glenn pulled Shane's body backwards, restraining him a bit. Pru pushed her back against Daryl and the fight went out of him immediately.

Without pausing, she went on, and did something no one but he had ever done. She began to defend his brother, Merle. Defending him.
"You know what, Shane? Maybe Merle was a sonovabitch," she said raising her eyebrows, daring him to listen, "Maybe he wasan asshole. I dunno, man, I never met the fucking guy…But ya know what? His fucking brother is here, and he puts food in our damn bellies every night. Stuck his neck out, who knows how many times, for everyone here…Just like you. I think HE deserves that respect then, don't ya? So cut the shit!"

Daryl averted his eyes from the scene, looking off into the distance at nothing. He didn't know if he was about to laugh, cry, vomit, hit someone, or just sit the hell down and take himself out of the whole situation. She continued after a bit of a pause, seeing that the whole thing still hadn't sunken into Shane's thick skull.

"…What if one of us were to die? What if we were bitten right here, right now? Huh? Would ya think it were right if he started shooting pebbles into your sides just to see the blood run out, Shane? Rick's? Andrea's? ...LORI'S BLOOD?" she hollered. Shane pulled his eyes from hers, looking wounded and nervous. She'd struck a nerve, there, and he shut up.

"Carl," Rick whispered, his voice shaky, "S'at true? Is that what you were doin?"
The boy nodded, causing Rick to balk.

"I was mad at the walkers!" the boy began to cry, "I was mad at them for Sophia and Amy! for everyone! Like you all are mad at Randall for trying to hurt you! I wanted to hurt them like Daryl hurt Randall!" Lori let out a pained wail at the child's admission.

…And suddenly that same wave of nausea that caused Rick to look pained a second ago enveloped Daryl and carried him off. He lowered his weapon and stumbled back a step, feeling as if the breath had been snatched from his lungs by Death, himself. Shane averted his gaze from the stricken man, realizing finally, that this was a problem.

"You were up in that barn after we told you to stay the hell out of it?" Rick snapped, at the child. But the man didn't need a verbal answer to know that his boy had disobeyed him. He tore Carl from Lori's protective arms and forced him to stand and look into his own eyes.

"What you saw…What Daryl did. That was for US. To protect us. To keep us safe! Those people out there, Carl, those are bad people…Walkers…They didn't choose to be the way they are. They're sick. They're dead…" He paused, and licked at his dry lips and a deep anger crept into his face and he shook the boy by the shoulders, "They were all someone's family once…"

Apparently, Pru had seen an opening in the lecture and felt it necessary to make a point to drive the message home. He'd felt her step from behind him and saw the back of her head move in front as she crouched.

Her voice was soft now as she spoke, "Carl, you know what Karma is?"

"Don't you talk to my son, you bitch!" Lori ground out. Rick put a hand up calmly to hush his wife, but Lori's words had already fanned Pru's flames again, and Daryl watched her hackles rise again.

"Ya know, Lori, maybe ya shoulda been a bit more concerned with ya kid before this happened. Maybe ya should keep an eye on him instead of dealing the deck out to everybody else…Everybody else who's lost their fuckin' families. We're all just babysitters to ya. And now here you go, getting' ready to shit out something else for us to watch…I've only been here for a few weeks and I'm already sick of it. The only reason ya haven't lost the other one yet is cuz the damn thing's still in there!...Watch ya fuckin' kids."

Daryl was all for Lori getting the wake-up call that she deserved. Everyone in the group was pretty over keeping tabs on their kid because both parents were busy with everything else. In Rick's defense, he was trying to keep everyone alive, but Lori…Daryl was pretty confident that everyone else thought she was too busy playing her husband and Shane off each other. He wasn't the only one who saw it. He knew. But right now, even he felt this was heading in an overly cruel direction. The woman was now crying in earnest, looking as if she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He brought a hand to her should to calm her, but it only enraged her more. She turned to him briefly and slapped his hand away, "No!"

She turned back to Carl, "If that walker was someone ya knew, would ya have done it? What if it was your friend, Sophia?"

Daryl closed his eyes as he was abruptly stricken with the feeling of guilt, and a soft voice piped up from the back of the group.
"That's enough, Pru…That's enough, now." Carol said stoically as she moved to Lori's side. When Daryl looked to Carol, he saw the woman's eyes swimming in a pool of unshed tears and he drew in a deep breath to steady himself.

Daryl saw Pru physically withdraw when she saw the ghosts in the other woman's eyes. She backed off immediately, pushing herself up off the ground and pulled the slingshot out of Carl's back pocket. He watched as she met the every set of eyes in the group, only earning a nod of confidence from Dale. As she began to stalk off, she put a few yards of distance between her and Daryl. He sprang forward after her, catching her wrist and she immediately spun around and pulled her gun on him, sticking it in his face. He froze, bile rising in his throat. Not because of the gun, but because of the pained look in her wet eyes. He bit his lower lip and furrowed his brow, forcing himself to back off by looking away.

She tore off towards the RV and when she reached it and stepped inside she slammed the door shut so hard that it caused Daryl to flinch all the way across the yard. He looked back towards the RV as Andrea came over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll go." She mouthed silently. He nodded, eyes still cast toward the motorhome, and he watched her jog off in that direction. Behind him, he could sense the crowd dissipating, and he felt eyes creeping over him. He could hear hushed words exchanged between Carol and a sobbing Lori, but couldn't make them out, especially under the dull drone of what had become Rick scolding Carl further.

And now his fucking hand hurt. Where the hell had Herschel gone off to?