When I awoke this time, it wasn't like the last time. My Dad wasn't hunched over my sickbed, worried about me. He was no where in sight and I was alone. I looked around. I was lying on the bed in Dale's RV and I was alone. I looked down at myself, still wearing the tank top, crusted with dried snot and vomit. There was vomit in my hair, even. I pushed myself up from the bed and saw where someone had left me a clean shirt and some soap. Then I walked down to the water pump.

I pulled off my shirt and stood there in only my bra and shorts and went about washing my hair. When I was sure that all traces of dirt, blood, vomit, and snot were out of it, I turned off the water and straightened up. I was surprised to see Shane standing there. He wasn't looking at me, not really. His face was slightly red and his eyes were lowered.

"What?" I asked, wringing out my long hair. "Ain't you never seen a woman in her bra before?"

"A woman I've seen." He said. "You're just a kid."

I snorted. "Then why do I feel like I'm a hundred fucking years old?" I put my still wet hair back in a loose braid and pulled the clean shirt on. "I'm decent now, Deputy Do-Right, you can look."

"I just ain't aiming to have your Daddy find you like that and think I'm some pervert." He said. "I don't want my head bashed in."

"I don't even know where he is." I said. I reached in my pocket and pulled out Sophia's bracelet, and tied it on. "You were the one who got this for me, weren't you?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah."

I looked up at him. "Thank you."

I walked away from Shane and the pump then, my dirty shirt crumpled in my hand and my hair dripping down my back.


When I got back too our little campsite, I was surprised to find our tent gone.

"Where's our tent?" I asked Dale.

"Your Dad came stomping in here about a little bit ago and took it down." He answered. "He moved it out by that old chimney."

"Thanks." I said. I sighed and headed out to where I could now see he had put it.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked him when I walked up.

"Makin' a sandwich." He replied sarcastically. "What's it look like I'm doing? I'm sick and damn tired of being surrounded by all these damn people."

"Why?"

"Don't worry about it!" He snapped. "Stop askin' a bunch of stupid damn questions and help me."

"No." I shook my head. I'd never bucked him before; I'd always done what I was told. But not this. Never this.

He turned his head to look at me. "What did you say to me?"

"I said, no." I told him raising my voice. "I know what you're doing and I'm not going to be a part of it."

"You'll do what I tell you to do." He replied. "Now get your ass over here and help me."

I shook my head again. He dropped what he was doing and grabbed my arm.

"Don't you tell me no!" He shouted. "I'm your damn father! You show me respect!"

"You're hurting me!" I shouted back at him. I'd never raised my voice to him before. "Let me go!" I managed to wrench my arm from his grasp. "What's the matter with you?"

"I'll tell you what's the matter with me!" His voice had a deadly, hoarse sound to it. "I'm sick and fucking tired of playing errand boy to everybody else! That little girl wasn't my problem and I almost got myself killed for it!"

"Yeah, well, I am your problem!" I snapped at him. "I'm your daughter, remember?"

"I didn't ask for that!" H snapped and it hit me like a slap in the face.

"I know." I said. "You think I don't know what I am? An accident? A mistake? I didn't ask to be born! Why didn't you cover it up before you fucked my mother behind Merle's back?!"

I turned then and I ran away. I ran past the campsite, past the house. I ran until I couldn't run anymore, and then I sat in the tall grass and I cried.


It was dark by the time I made my way up to the campsite.

"Honey, were you out there alone?" Carol asked me. I nodded.

"Yeah. Me and my Dad got into a fight." I looked up into her kind face. She'd lost her daughter today, her only child, and here she was worrying about me. "I don't wanna move out there with him."

"Let me talk to him." She said. "I'm gonna try to get him to come back here with the rest of us."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then you can stay in my tent." She answered. "For now."

I sat down in an empty chair. No one else was around; I wondered what was going on now. I watched as Carol walked across the dark field to look for my Dad. I sighed, content to sit there and stew in my own misery, but I didn't get to. A car pulled up and I realized it was Shane's. He and Lori got out of it and everyone was hurrying from the house towards them.

"I'm fine." I could hear Lori say. "Just an accident. Where's Rick?"

Everyone kind of looked at her. "He's not back?" She asked. She looked to Shane.

"I had to tell you something to get you back here." He said. She glared at him.

"You asshole."

"Lori, I had to look after you and the baby."

This caught my attention. A baby? Was Lori having a baby?

"You're having a baby?" Carl echoed my thoughts. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Let's just make sure you're okay." Dale told her.

I sat there for a few minutes and then walked over to Carl.

"Hey." I said. "Heard you were getting a sibling. Congrats."

He grinned. "Thanks." He said. "Where were you? I was looking everywhere."

"I just wanted to be alone." I said. "But I feel better now."

And we went into the house together.

I sat with him on the front porch a little while later, after the adults practically ran us from the room.

"Can I ask you something?" He said. I shrugged.

"Sure, I guess. What?"

"My Mom says we never had 'The Talk'." He said. "Have you already had it?"

I nodded. "Yeah, me and Skyla had it last year after I got my period for the first time."

"Well, can you explain it me?" He asked. "I have a feeling my Dad is gonna gloss over the details and I wanna know."

I sighed. "It's like this, Carl. A man and woman have sex, his sperm fertilizes the egg in her body and that makes a baby."

He blinked. "That's it?"

I shrugged. "Well, I guess when you actually do it, it's more complicated than that, but that's the basis of it."

"Oh." He said. "So my Mom and Dad, they….?"

"Yeah."

"Ew." He giggled at little. "Gross."

And I giggled too. "I know, right? Like I don't understand the appeal of it. Why would you want someone doing that to you? It seems so nasty."

"I guess…when you love someone…" He trailed off.

I thought of my parents. My mother, sleeping with her boyfriend's younger brother, just to get back at him, and my Dad, sleeping with his big brother's girlfriend, trying to fill some kind of need in his life.

"But what about when you don't love them?" I asked. "What makes you do it then?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

I squeezed his hand. "Me either."


I did sleep in Carol's tent that night. I walked out to where my Dad was to get some of my things. He saw me coming and he stood.

"Libby…"

"I'm not talking to you." I said. "I'm staying the night with Carol and I'm not talking to you."

I gathered a few things and walked away from him. I was trying not to cry, trying so very hard not to cry. He didn't come after me and I didn't expect him to.

Early the next morning, they had decided to go get Rick, Glenn, and Herschel. I was surprised, when I came out of Carol's tent, to see my Dad was in on it. Some of my anger at him had cooled overnight, but I still wasn't ready to give in yet.

I was sitting in an old camp chair, pretending to read a book when he came over and knelt in front of me.

"Still not talking to me?" He asked.

"Nope." I said.

"Then what was that?"

I glared at him over the top of my book. "That was me telling you that I'm still pissed."

"You're gettin' a little loose with the cusswords, ain't you?" He asked. I shrugged.

"Don't see why you care." I said. "With me being a mistake and all."

"Now, I never said that, Liberty!"

"You didn't have to."

He snatched the book out of my hands and threw it in the dirt. "Put that goddamned thing down and talk to me!"

"I don't think there's anything to talk about." I told him. "You made it pretty clear that you never wanted me."

"Oh yeah?" He asked. "If I never wanted you, then why'd I stick around? I could've left soon as I was eighteen and I didn't. I stayed…for you. I spent fourteen damn years busting my back at a job I hated in a town where everyone looked down on me, to make sure you was takin' care of right. You just remember that, girly."

He walked away and I looked to see Andrea, standing there awkwardly.

"Guess I just got told, huh?" I asked. She nodded.

"I'd say you did."


Authors Note's: I'm not overly crazy about this chapter, but there's more to come. I think that this story has less than ten chapters to go before its done! And then: on to the next one!