A/N: Thank you for the follows and the favorites.

Thank you so much to Dead girl sophie for the review! I loved to hear that you love it.

Chapter Twenty-five

For the next week Marianne kept herself as separate as possible from the group, offering to take extra watches, volunteering for chores that could be done in solitude, and spending her free time away from the main living area where everyone else congregated even if it meant being away from the warmth of the fire.

Marianne hadn't opened up to Daryl any further than telling him about Julia and she didn't talk much to anyone except for Daryl and T-Dog, the latter only because they took turns driving the truck and even she couldn't stand hours on end of uncomfortable silence.

And then there was Hershel, who she would talk to in sentences of four words or less when he changed her bandages and checked on her injury, which according to him was healing nicely.

The burning sensation that was always there had lessened, taking the bandages off became less painful, and she could bend over more without any further discomfort. In two weeks or so, Hershel predicted she'd be back in fighting form. Although, Marianne very much doubted that. She might be physically fine, but mentally she knew she was a mess.

In the beginning of the second week after her second sleepwalking episode Carl and Beth had contrived a way to ride in the truck for one of their moves and Carl bugged Marianne, who wished she was driving instead of T-Dog, until she played a game of Go Fish with them.

After that, she began interacting with the group a little more each day until it was almost back to normal. It helped that she hadn't sleepwalked again.

But the more time she spent with the group, the more times she ran into Rick. Whenever he entered the same room as her, she'd leave and when she couldn't do that Marianne would turn her back on him and ignore him. And when she wasn't ignoring him she was making things difficult for him.

Marianne found his buttons and pushed them.

"I don't think we should leave tomorrow," Marianne said, looking at their maps along with Rick and Daryl. They were able to spread out a few of them on a dining table that seated ten and one of the maps was the one Marianne had used when she had been on her own. Her penciled markings were still there, reminders of a lonely trip.

"I've told you this already, we need to stay ahead of the herd," Rick said, tapping his finger on the biggest map.

"What herd? We haven't seen one in over a week. We need a breather." Marianne crossed her arms. "We haven't been in one place for more than a day for almost two weeks. At this rate we'll run out of places to stay by the end of spring."

Rick straightened up and put his hands on his hips. "We haven't seen a herd because we've kept ahead of it. If you haven't noticed, I'm tryin' to keep us safe." He gave her a warning in a hard stare that Marianne ignored.

"It's not safe to have us all dead on our feet. We need to rest while we can. I have a feelin' we'll have plenty of time to flee walkers later." Rick didn't look convinced so Marianne went in for the kill. "Lori needs to rest. She hasn't been sleepin' good the past few days. "

Rick gave her a sharp look. "How do you know? Did she tell you?"

"Does it matter?" It did in fact matter. The only reason she knew Lori kept waking up several times a night was because she was usually staring at the ceiling of wherever they were staying, only sleeping three hours at the most. Maybe she could finally get some rest at this new place. "It's comfortable here. We can fish, Daryl can hunt, there's plenty of water."

They were staying in a house, obviously someone's vacation home, nestled in the bend of a river. It was only one story but of a comfortable size, with three bedrooms, a large living room featuring a big fireplace, and a den. According to Carol and Lori, the appliances in the kitchen, now completely useless, were high end.

"Whoever owned this place had money," T-Dog had announced after he'd made a circuit of the house.

The place was almost too good to be true and maybe that's why Rick was wary of staying there. Only an hour after they'd found the house in the late afternoon, he was already planning on leaving.

Marianne could see Rick's jaw clench. She knew he hated going back on his decisions. How could his word be final if he kept changing it because of another person's opinions? But, nine out of ten times he didn't change his mind because of Marianne and seven out of ten times Marianne ignored this and did what she wanted anyways. So far, Rick hadn't done anything about it other than glare at her but she knew she'd eventually push him past his limit and that it would be any day now.

Rick let out a sigh of frustration and shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he was about to say. "Fine, we'll stay. But on a day by day basis. I'm not guaranteein' we'll be here after tomorrow," Rick said and Marianne smirked.

"Fine by me," Daryl said before he left, heading out to try to catch dinner with what was left of the day.

Rick began folding up the maps and Marianne was about to leave when Rick spoke. "I want a word with you."

"A word? You just had six."

"Don't start. We need to have a serious talk." Rick finished folding the last map and stacked them on the table.

"Okay officer."

"Let's go to the kitchen." Rick motioned for her to follow and Marianne pursed her lips. The dining room didn't have a door separating it from the living room, but the kitchen had one and she didn't like that he wanted privacy for their conversation. After a few seconds delay, she followed him.

They walked into the kitchen and Rick closed the door behind them. Marianne hopped up to sit on the counter opposite of the window above the kitchen sink. No one had bothered to close those curtains and she got a nice view of the outside, which Marianne gave her attention to instead of Rick.

"This needs to stop."

"What does?" Marianne asked, still looking out the window. A small brown bird flew by.

From the corner of her eye she could see Rick put his hands on his hips. "I've been easy on you because of the circumstances."

Marianne quickly turned her head to look at him. "Circumstances? You mean that one time you left me on the farm to die?"

"I've tried to apologize but you won't listen."

Marianne slid off of the counter. "I don't want an apology. I want my life back!" An apology was useless to her. It didn't change what had happened and she wasn't inclined to forgive Rick. As far as she was concerned, he didn't deserve her forgiveness. "Unless you can go back in time and change it, I don't want a thing from you." The conversation was over for her. She didn't want to hear anything else he had to say so Marianne stormed out of the room and slammed the kitchen door before Rick could try to follow her.

She ignored the looks of surprise and curiosity of the people in the living room as she headed outside onto the back porch. She briefly thought about taking a walk in the woods but she didn't feel like going back into the house to retrieve her bow. Instead, she made do by sitting on the porch swing.

She was fully aware the anger ever present inside of her was exhausting but she didn't want to let it go. Lately, it was one of the only things that kept her going. For a little over a month, finding the group had been her drive to survive but now that they were found it was Daryl and her anger that gave her a purpose.

Marianne heard the back door open but didn't turn to see who it was. She didn't think Rick would dare seek her out at the moment and even though she wanted to be alone, as long as whoever it was didn't ask her about what had just happened, she would tolerate them.

"Mind if I sit here?" Glenn asked. She was a little glad it was him. He wouldn't ask her any personal questions and she had to admit, he almost always amused her when he was around.

"If ya want, S'not like I can stop you."

"I'm pretty sure you could. You could look at me and I'd run away." Marianne stared at him and Glenn looked away nervously. "I mean... it's not like you're only scary."

Marianne continued to stare for a few more seconds and then let out a short laugh. "Like that?"

"Oh God, don't do that. I almost had a heart attack."

"I'd say sorry, but I'm not." Marianne smirked. "You really think I'm scary?" Glenn opened his mouth but nothing came out and he furtively looked around.

Marianne snorted. "I won't make you answer that."

Glenn looked grateful and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Marianne let her gaze wander, enjoying the scenery as much as she was looking out for signs of trouble.

"I think we missed Thanksgiving," Glenn suddenly said.

Marianne shrugged one shoulder. If he wanted to commiserate he was talking to the wrong person. "So what? It's not like we have much to be thankful for."

"How about that we're alive," he said incredulously.

"You call what we're doin' livin'?"

Glenn tried again. "Well, we have each other."

"And most of our friends and family are dead," she pointed out.

"There's a roof over our heads," he countered.

"For now."

"We have something to eat." He sounded determined to convince her that they could be thankful for something.

"Our food supply is almost gone."

"You're a real bummer, you know that?" Being upset seemed to make him forget to be afraid of calling Marianne names.

"Call me what you like, I'm just tellin' the truth Glenn."

"Yeah, well, the truth sucks."

Marianne felt a little bad for Glenn. What he needed at the moment was a distraction and so did she. "Hey, you wanna check out the shed?"

It stood behind the house and earlier she had to pick its lock so Daryl could check it for walkers because the doors were too sturdy to kick in and the windows were too small for even Carl to squeeze through.

Although, calling it a shed was misleading. When Daryl exited it he mentioned it was nicer and bigger than the Dixon's house.

"There's gotta be thousands of dollars worth of fishing poles in there," Daryl had said.

Exploring the shed had been put aside for later so they could do their usual routine of setting up camp in a new place but after that was finished they still hadn't gotten around to it. A chance to rest beat out curiosity.

Neither of them bothered to ask anyone else if they wanted to have a look and went straight to the shed, Marianne in the lead. She opened the door and entered first, Glenn close behind her. The windows let the evening light in which was enough to see by.

There was a work table with myriad of tools to the left, a lawn mower, two kayaks, a few stacks of storage containers, gardening tools, fishing equipment at the back, and a safe in the far right corner.

Glenn and Marianne stood in front of the safe, which was almost taller than they were.

"What do you think's in it?" Glenn asked.

"I think it's a gun safe."

"Really?" Glenn's face lit up. "You think there are guns in there?"

"Probably. And nice ones too." Marianne examined the keypad. It looked like it still had power.

"Too bad we don't know the combination," Glenn said, now sounding disappointed.

Marianne took a few steps back and bit her lip as she stared at it. Being Merle's little sister meant you learned certain things, like how to hotwire a car or break into safes. "We might not need a combination. Let me see if I can find..." Marianne walked back to the work table and hoped whoever owned the tools actually used them and that there were scraps leftover from whatever projects they worked on.

"Find what?" Glenn asked as Marianne began rummaging through the tool chest and then under the work table.

"This." Marianne stood and held up a long, thin piece of sheet metal.

"That?" Glenn sounded skeptical.

Marianne began walking back to the safe. "Sometimes there's a reset button for the combination on the side of the door." Glenn followed her and watched as she inserted the piece of metal into the crack on the side of the door where the hinges were. "If we're lucky, this will have one." She slid the metal up and down. "If not, we'll try something with a little more force." Suddenly there was a beep. Marianne let go of the metal and punched in a new combination. She turned to Glenn. "Go ahead and open it. It's 1,2,3,4,5."

Glenn put in the new combination and pulled the handle. The door opened without a problem. "No way. It can't be that easy." Glenn looked at her with wide eyes.

"Home safes only keep out people who follow the rules and Merle didn't follow the rules. Now let's see what we got."

Glenn opened the door all the way so they could both see in. The safe wasn't completely full but it wasn't empty either. There were two hunting rifles, one handgun, and four boxes of ammo.

Marianne picked up each box of ammo and found that they were unopened. "That's 200 rounds."

"Holy shit. That's a lot of dead walkers."

"We could start shooting practice again. Carol and Beth need it and Carl could use some more and Lori's probably a little rusty." Marianne wanted every member of the group to have the ability to protect themselves. Now that she was thinking about it, Carl needed to learn how to kill a walker up close and without a gun. They couldn't always rely on somebody being there for him.

"Do you think Rick will go for it?" Glenn asked, looking at Marianne now instead of the guns.

She nodded. "Yeah, we just have to be careful about the noise." Marianne frowned. They'd have to drive away from where they were staying which meant using gas they might not be able to spare. They'd figure something out. She turned to Glenn. "You should show Rick."

"You're not going to?" He asked as if he hadn't heard her yelling at Rick earlier.

"No, it's not a good idea."

"But you're the one that got it open." Glenn gestured at the safe.

Marianne shook her head. "Still not a good idea. You show him while I see if I can help with dinner. Daryl might be back with somethin'," she said knowing full well that Daryl would be gone for at least another hour.

The two of them left the shed together but parted ways at the back porch. Marianne went around to the front of the house while Glenn went inside to get Rick. She exchanged a few words with T-Dog, who was on watch, while she waited until she was sure Rick was outside before she went back into the house.

Marianne entered the living room as if nothing had happened and nothing was wrong. She found that if she acted that way people asked fewer questions.

She looked around the living room. Carol was tending the fire and Lori was sitting on one of the couches, her eyes closed and a hand on her growing stomach. Hershel was reading and it looked like his daughters were taking inventory of their food. They wouldn't be starting dinner until Daryl returned. Depending on if he caught anything and how much, they wouldn't be dipping into their food supply that evening.

Marianne was about to walk over to Carol to ask her if they needed more water from the river when Hershel closed his book and stood up. "Marianne, let's check that bandage."

Marianne sighed and wondered if Hershel was getting as annoyed as she was by this daily task. She dutifully followed him into the closest bedroom and sat on the box spring. The mattress, along with two others, had been dragged into the living room since no one wanted to sleep in the cold bedrooms. They had two of them leaning on a living room wall to free up floor space during the day.

The chilled air made her shiver as she took her jacket off and lifted her shirt. She began taking the bandage off while Hershel stood aside patiently.

"We heard you yelling at Rick earlier," Hershel said suddenly and Marianne stopped moving. "You blame him for what happened to you out there."

She felt ambushed and cornered which made her angry. She didn't want to talk about her and Rick and she definitely wasn't in the mood to hear any fatherly advice. Was this a spur of the moment thing or had he planned this?

Marianne looked up at Hershel and scowled. "Yes. I blame him for the consequences of his decision that I had to endure."

"I know it's hard but you should think about forgiveness."

Marianne scoffed. "You don't know what you're askin' me to forgive."

"I can tell your constant animosity is wearing on you. And it's hard on the rest of us," Hershel said and Marianne thought that last part was a low blow. She hated that he was right to think that her doing anything to hurt the group would make her feel bad, but at the moment it didn't make her feel bad enough to bury the hatchet.

"Whatever you're tryin' to do here, you can stop. It's not gonna work."

"You understand, I had to try." Hershel sounded weary so Marianne ignored it by focusing on the bandage again.

When it was off both of them examined her stomach. There were already patches of skin that were completely healed, the new skin paler than the rest of her. It only hurt now when she moved the wrong way and there weren't as many wrong ways to move as there used to be.

Hershel straightened up. "You don't have to wear the bandages any longer. There shouldn't be any problems."

Marianne felt a small surge of happiness. Not having to deal with bandages made it feel like she could finally see the light at the end of this very tedious and inconvenient tunnel. She yearned to be able to hunt again and not to have her injury limit what she could do.

Hershel left the room while she rebuttoned her shirt and put her jacket back on, feeling much lighter without the extra layer.

When she went back into the living room she noticed Glenn was back and Rick was sitting at the dining room table with the two rifles and the boxes of ammo on the table. He was so focused on taking apart and inspecting the handgun that he hadn't noticed her enter the living room which was just fine with her.

Marianne was teaching Carl and Beth how to play Hearts when Daryl returned with less than an hour of daylight left. Everyone was happy to see him carrying two rabbits and three squirrels.

"Run into any trouble?" Marianne asked as she took the rabbits from her brother, appreciating their weight.

"Nah, just animals," he said. Marianne was relieved. After convincing Rick they should stay she didn't want to be proven wrong so soon. She knew they'd eventually leave but she hoped to put that off as long as possible. Winter wasn't going anywhere for awhile and it would only get colder in the next couple of months.

Marianne joined Daryl on the back porch, handing him one of the rabbits while keeping the other and began to skin it. "These rabbits are so fat I don't think Carol's gonna have to make that watered down vegetable soup tonight. We don't have that many cans left." Worry stabbed at her heart making her pause. "Hershel said I don't need bandages anymore. Maybe I can start huntin' now." She expertly pulled the skin off of her rabbit.

Daryl looked over at her, tossing aside his rabbit's skin. "You sure that's a good idea? You ain't completely healed yet."

"Good enough. I don't think there's a choice. We need more food."

"We can fish tomorrow mornin'," Daryl suggested. "Bass fishin' should be good around here."

"Sure you remember how? Last time we did was, what, six years ago and Merle got so drunk he fell into the water and scared the fish away." Marianne scowled at the memory but the corner of Daryl's mouth lifted. Marianne wondered how Merle was faring without drugs and alcohol, assuming that he was still alive.

Daryl carefully pulled out his rabbit's intestines. "I remember just fine. We'll leave before dawn."

A/N: If the ending seems a little cut off it's because it is. This chapter was supposed to be longer but I cut it short since I wanted to get it posted so the ending will just be next chapter's beginning.

I wish everyone a great rest of the week. And good luck to anyone who had finals already or who still have them coming up.

Any thoughts? Reactions?