So, I'm hoping that my pace with the writing keeps up like this. I have a general idea of where I want the story to go, though some people are going to probably flip tables with some of the things I do. But tough shit. That's just how it goes. I have a friendship I absolutely must build and save and a damn ship I absolutely must see happen. I'm not about to change these things just because I might lose readers. After all, isn't that the point of fanfiction? Okay, author's rant over now that she's setting shit in stone for the future. Happy reading everyone!

"I think we got about a day's worth of water left," Rick said as he walked down the tracks. "We're lucky it's cooled off a little bit, but-" he looked back to find Carl, Sophia, Michonne, and Merle carefully traversing the tracks, not on the boards like he was, but trying to balance on the tracks themselves. "What are you doing?" he asked completely entertained.

"Winning a bet," Carl said.

"In your dreams," Michonne answered.

"I'm just seein' if I can go farther than Pops. If I do, I get my bow back!" Sophia chimed in.

"Yep," was all Merle had to say about the matter as Carl started talking.

"I'm still on!" he proclaimed right before losing his balance and flailing his arms to regain it.

"You spoke too soon, wise guy," Michonne laughed, Sophia chuckling behind Carl.

"This might go on a while," Rick said, walking back towards the four idiots playing a game even though he was smiling and chuckling himself. "Maybe there's a way we can speed this up?"

"Yeah, you're right," Michonne said as she kept walking, "We shouldn't be fooling around. We should probably—CARL!" she yelled really loudly trying to throw him off guard; she only lost her own footing as a reward, thus losing the bet.

"I win," he gloated, "Pay up."

Michonne sighed and rummaged in her bag as Carl got out of the way, Merle and Sophia picking up their paces now that no one was in front of them. As Carl complained about the candy Michonne handed over being the last Big Cat, Rick turned around and watched as the two hunters with them played around. Sophia was now taking leaps down the track, apparently showing off how Ani had taught her how to jump root to root using the ball of her foot. Unfortunately, that caused her to trip and Rick thought it was going to be bad until Merle's arm shot out to catch her.

"Should be more careful, girly. Practice more on trees, less on tracks," he chastised as she smiled brightly.

"Okay!"

"The four of you are somethin' else," Rick commented as Michonne held the candy out to Carl.

"Oh, come on!" she whined as Carl went to take the Big Cat.

"But you said," he teased.

"Go ahead, take it. It's yours," she said, throwing the other candy bar back into her bag. "You won it, fair and square."

Carl opened the candy, took half, and handed the other half back to Michonne who looked at it with desire, "Come on, we always share."

"Should share with Sophia," Michonne commented.

"She likes the other kind," he told her. "Besides, I don't share everything with her."

After a moment's contemplation, Michonne looked at him and smiled brightly, "Fork it over."

Handing her the candy bar, he smiled as he took a big bite of the candy bar while looking towards Merle and Sophia. It was nice, having someone who wasn't a parent yet still older but could still relate. He was happy that if Sophia lost Ani, she still had Merle. Finding Michonne had given him some more hope about finding the others, but her story about her son had him hoping that, if Judith had been lost at the prison, at least Judith wasn't alone wherever she was. Sophia was so sure they would find both Ani and his sister, but all he wanted was to make sure the four people he had around him now stayed safe.

"Hey, Sophia!" he called out to the girl, causing her to look back. "You want some?"

"No thanks," she called to him as she and Merle walked back to them. "I don't really like Big Cats. I was always a Creamy Way girl."

"You and Ani both," Merle commented. "Girl always says she don't like candy, don't like sweet things, yet find anythin' with caramel and she's all over it."

"Well, caramel is creamy goodness!" Sophia defended.

"Sure," Merle said noncommittally.

"Can we just," Rick paused to shake his head and chuckle, "can we just get goin'? Or is there another round of games you want to play?"

"No, best we get a move on, Officer friendly," Merle joked. "'Sides, find a place to hunker down for the night, me and the girly can go huntin', maybe get us some meat for the night."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

~x~

Daryl was surprised by the ingenuity of the group of men that he'd found himself with. They wrapped trees with barbed wire at face level while strings of cans and hubcaps were strung lower down. They slept in close quarters with each other, barely having enough space to lay down before someone else's feet were in your face. It was smart, but he still felt disgusted by them. When they'd settled for the night, they'd remained relatively quiet for a while, but when night actually settled in, they got a little raunchy. The one called Len, especially, had been talking about what he was going to do when he found the girl he'd claimed the night before last. Nothing else was said about this mystery girl, instead talking about other things they'd done over the months. As they settled down to sleep, three of the men were sent out to scout the perimeter and the way ahead while Daryl wondered why they were so hung up on this girl they wanted to find.

He got his answer as the moon rose high overhead. He'd barely managed to get an hour or so's worth of sleep when he got woken up by the warning system being triggered. The sight that awaited them had several of the men cussing up a storm. It was one of the other men, the one that should have been on patrol. He was a walker, but that wasn't what horrified Daryl. The walker wasn't groaning or rasping like they normally did; it's mouth was bloody as it chewed on the thing that hung from it. Judging by the large bloodstain coming from his crotch, Daryl knew exactly what it was that the man was chewing, damn near causing him to puke like one of the other men did. One of the men killed it, pushing it back away from camp as the others continued their cussing.

"Fuck, so that's where the hell Donny went last night!" Len said. "Little bitch is still out here somewhere. I told you we shouldn't have stopped huntin' her in the woods!"

"Hold on now, Len," Joe said. "Last time we went huntin' her in the dark, we lost two of our members to walkers. Might have been worth less than shit stains, but they were still a part of our group. She can't get any farther than we can in the dark and already has a day's worth of travel ahead of us. Might as well get a few more hours of shuteye and stay in camp the rest of the night. We know she won't try anything when we're in a group. Besides, Jacob and Elliot are still out there. They'll either chase her down and bring her to the check point or meet us there."

"Who's this 'she'?" Daryl asked, trying not to sound hopeful as he thought about what the man had said.

"Oh, some wild child we've been chasing for a few days now. First encounter with her, just like this one," Joe said, gesturing to the now dead walker, "she did this to three of our men, Len's brother included. Some good trackers and hunters right there. Mighty fine people. But the thing is, she cuts off their members, stuffs 'em in their mouths so that they wake up with something to eat. Well, it's not like we're going to be playin' nice with her when we catch up to her anyway, so I suppose anyone she catches until then is free game. She just better hope we don't all catch up," Joe told him. "And we are. Only a couple days away if my guess is any good. You're welcome to stick with us and have a piece of the pie, so to speak. Of course, you'll have to wait your turn. Not every day we get somethin' warm and wet to keep us company."

As the men settled back down to sleep, Daryl became restless. Even if it weren't Ania out there, what if it was someone else from the prison? It could be Maggie or Sasha. But they'd used the term 'wild child,' a term that Daryl had come to solely associate with Ania because of how often she was called one by one of the members of the group. Could he really have fallen in with a group that was chasing after his wife with the intent to pass her around like a common whore?

As the sun began to peak over the horizon, Daryl left the group. Heading to the woods, he began wandering in an attempt to see if he could find any kind of trail. The only one he found was a rabbit's, though that wasn't a terrible thing. He hadn't eaten since the funeral home and he hadn't exactly stopped to eat anything when he'd been chasing after Beth. Daryl couldn't help but scoff to himself as his mind brought up the numerous times he'd gotten onto Ania about eating for her to simply say she'd forgotten. He'd never known how someone could forget how to eat until now, having told her many times not to use excuses to get away with not eating. Now he felt like an ass for assuming that's what she was doing as he'd forgotten to eat himself in his chase for Beth. Following the trail, he dropped to one knee and lined up his shot, pulling the trigger and hitting the rabbit right before a second arrow did. Looking to his right, he saw Len standing there with his bow, looking smug.

"What the hell you doin'?" Daryl asked him angrily, rising to his feet.

"Catchin' me some breakfast 'fore I look for that wild child," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"That's mine," responded Daryl as he trudged after the thing.

"My arrow's the one that hit first. Cottontail belongs to me," Len argued.

"Like hell it did. Been out here since before the sun came up," he said, pulling the arrows out of the rabbit.

"You see, the rules of the hunt don't mean shit out here," Len said as he began slowly stalking towards Daryl. "Now that rabbit you're holdin' is claimed, boy. Claimed, whether you like it or not. So if I was you, I'd hand it over, now. Before you start to wishin' you never got out of bed this mornin'."

"It ain't yours," Daryl growled at him, standing damn near toe to toe with the man and refusing to back down from his challenge.

"You know, I bet this bitch, the one you were lookin' for, got you all messed up, hmm?" Len said not so cautiously. "Am I right? Walking around here like a dead man. Must a lost a piece a tail actin' like that. Must've been a good'un. Tell me somethin'. Was it one of the little-uns? 'Cause they don't last too long out here. Then again, I see you got a ring on. What? Lost your wife? You know, if we find her, we can all help keep her warm at night. I mean, might as well share, right?"

The more he ran his mouth, the more Daryl wanted to kill the man, but it was what he'd said about Ania that had him primed to attack. Unhooking the sheath of his hunting knife, Daryl pulled it out and whirled around. Just as he was about to attack Len, Joe popped up and grabbed his arm.

"Easy, fellas, easy. Let's just put our weapons down," he told Daryl. "See if we can't really figure out what's the problem here." Assessing the situation and seeing the rabbit in Daryl's hand, he turned to Len, "Did you claim it?"

"Hell, yeah," Len told him.

"Well, there you go," Joe said. "That critter belongs to Len."

"So let's have it," the man said while smirking.

"Looks like you may be wanting an explanation," Joe sighed as he looked down. "See, going it alone? That ain't an option nowadays. Still, it is survival of the fittest. That's a paradox right there. So I laid out some rules of the road to keep things from going Darwin every couple of hours. Keep our merry band together and stress-free. All you gotta do is claim. That's how you mark your territory, your prey, your bed at night. One word, claimed."

"I ain't claimin' nothin'," Daryl said, refusing to go against everything he'd come to believe in with Ania, especially since she could be their prey, if she was actually alive.

"We gonna teach him a lesson, right?" Len said as he got up in Daryl's face. "The rules say we gotta teach him."

"It wouldn't be fair to punish you for breakin' a rule you never even knew existed," Joe told Daryl only for Len to get angry and storm in a circle before putting his hands on his hips.

"There are no rules now," Daryl argued back, watching Len; not only was he a jackass for trying to steal his hunt, he was disgusting with what he'd said about Beth and Ania, hell, little ones in general. How little'd he mean? he couldn't help but wonder as he stared the man down.

"Oh, there are. You know that," Joe countered. "That's why I didn't kill you for the crossbow."

Seeing Daryl was preoccupied watching Len, he slowly reached down and grabbed a hold of the rabbit's front legs seeing as Daryl was holding the hind. Daryl's protestations were cut off as Joe assured him before raising the rabbit to lean against a tree. He took his knife and cut the thing in half, leaving Daryl to hold onto the back end as he handed Len the front.

"Claimed, that's all you gotta say," Joe told him as Len stormed off, a look of disbelief on his face. "Hey, an ass end's still an end," he gave as he shrugged his shoulder and held his hand up in mock ignorance before walking away.

Upon getting back to the camp, he stuffed the half rabbit in his bag as the others began taking down and packing up their defenses. What meager supplies they had on them were packed away, too, before they headed back to the tracks. Daryl didn't know why they were traveling the tracks, but at least they were an easily identifiable marker if he decided to cut his ties with this group. These were the people he was used to being around; his brother's drinking buddies and dealers all acted like these men. Hell, they could have been some of them and Daryl wouldn't know any different. Except now, both he and Merle were different. Claiming shit like it belonged to you? That wasn't something Daryl was even remotely comfortable with anymore.

"So what's the plan, Daryl?" Joe asked as they moved down the tracks.

"How so?"

"Well, you're with us now, but you ain't soon?" Joe inquired.

"Yup."

"So what's the plan?"

"Just, lookin' for the right place is all," Daryl said, not really wanting to admit anything to this man even though it would be easy to.

"Oh, we ain't good enough for you, huh?"

"Some of you ain't exactly friendly," Daryl admitted.

"You ain't so friendly yourself," Joe countered. "You know you need a group out here."

"Maybe I don't," he said, thinking about how he'd lost Merle, Ania, and now Beth. Might be better alone than looking for a random 'she' that they knew nothing about.

"No, you do," Joe said, stopping and turning towards him. "You should be with us. People don't got to be friendly. We don't have to be nice. We don't have to be brothers at arms. We just gotta follow the rules. You claim. If you steal, you keel. I know that sounds a little funny, but nobody laughs when somethin' goes missin'. And you don't lie. 'Cause that's a slippery slope indeed."

"What happens if you break 'em?" Daryl asked, thinking that they were simple enough rules for the time being.

"Oh, you catch a beatin'," Joe said nonchalantly. "The severity of which depends on the offense and the general attitude of the day. But that don't happen much 'cause when men like us follow rules and cooperate a little bit, well, the world becomes ours." He whistled to the group as they passed a worn-down building on the train tracks. "This is our abode for the evenin'. First buildin' on the track. The boys'll be here if they aren't dead."

"Hey," Daryl said. "There ain't no us."

Joe walked back up to Daryl and looked him straight in the eye, "You leavin' right now? No? Then it sure seems like there's an us. Are you a cat person, Daryl?" Joe asked, turning around after walking a few paces away. "I am. Loved 'em since I was three years old. Vicious creatures. Anyway, I'll tell you, and this is true. Ain't nothin' sadder than an outdoor cat thinks he's an indoor cat."

"Know someone who'd say different," Daryl responded without even thinking.

"Oh yeah?" Joe asked, intrigued. "Who's that?"

"Don't matter," he said with a shake of his head.

"It does. What'd they say?"

"Just some dumb story about a cat bein' a cat whether it's indoors or out," he huffed. "Still got the same instincts and all that, just one's more battered and bruised, the other's pampered. Pamper the battered and bruised, they become pampered. Just some stupid shit like that."

"Must've been a woman," Joe chuckled with a nod of his head. "Only women think like that."

"Yeah," Daryl admitted.

"Your wife?" When Daryl didn't respond, Joe said, "Ah well, in this world, who wants to be tied down anyway, right?" The hard look Daryl gave him sobered the man, who said, "Recent loss, eh? Well I'm sorry. Seems men like us don't just get our happy endings, we have to fight tooth and nail just to get the scraps. I'm sure she was a good woman."

"The best," Daryl answered without thinking, staring at the tracks and off into space as images of Ania flooded his mind.

"Well, let's get this place cleared, see if the other two we sent out on watch are here or come back. Never know with that wild child," Joe said, clapping Daryl on the shoulder before leaving the man to stand on the tracks by himself.

Daryl didn't have much choice but to either keep going, most likely to be stabbed in the back by members of this group, or keep their company for the night. There was no guarantee shelter would be available further down the track, let alone that he would find anything worthwhile. He figured he might as well stay with the known threat in a relatively safe environment than risk an unknown threat out in the open. Walking up to where Joe was standing, he entered the building behind Len and closed the door before looking around.

"They ain't here," one of the men said. "Nobody's been here for a while. Whoever it was got all the gas."

"That don't matter," Joe said as Daryl uncovered one of the cars, looking inside. "We're gettin' closer. I can feel it. Jacob and Elliot might be comin' back, too. We wait the night, then head back out."

"Claimed," a younger guy said as he walked up to Daryl, indicating he was claiming the car Daryl was inspecting.

That started a round of people claiming the available vehicles, Daryl not even bothering with trying to claim one. Instead, he just found a corner of the room where he got as comfortable as he could on the cold concrete. He knew both Len and Joe were watching him, but he didn't give two shits. He didn't have it in him to feel hopeful anymore or to bother with Joe's stupid ass rules right now. Almost as soon as he closed his eyes and covered them with his arms, a banging on the door alerted everyone to the fact that someone or something was on the other side. Most of the men took up arms, Daryl included, as Joe went over and tapped on the door twice. It was responded to by two raps before Joe opened it. Two men came in, one severely limping and the other holding onto him.

"She got the jump on us. Donny got it. Chased her half the night 'fore she disappeared up into the trees. Tried climbin' up after her, but she threw a damn knife at me and started just hoppin' away," the one with the wounded leg said. "Got me in the damn thigh. Don't think she's headin' this way anymore, Joe."

"Well, dammit, Jacob! We can't track two groups! We were countin' on them workin' together to catch 'em!" Joe said angrily before sighing with a shake of his head. "Oh well, we'll cut our losses and keep searchin' for the ones we know're on this track."

"Cut our losses?!" Len yelled. "My brother was one of those damn losses!"

"And that's just shit, ain't it?" Joe asked. "But unless you want to go hunt her on your own, we're stickin' to the tracks and the ones we know we can find. Not some Rambo-woman with a death wish."

"Can always have this," the other man, Elliot, told Len, tossing something at him.

"What the fuck is this?" he asked, holding up the dagger.

"It's what I pulled out of Jacob's leg," Elliot said with a shrug. "It's all we got that we know is hers."

Len threw the dagger down, it skidding to Daryl's feet, "I don't want no damn dagger! I want the woman!"

"Well, we aren't getting the woman, and unless Daryl claims that dagger, that's all you can get," Joe said, noticing the way Daryl was staring at it.

"Claimed," came the word as before Joe even finished talking, not from Len, but from Daryl.

Swooping down, he grabbed the dagger up and held it in his hands, inspecting it as if he was just intrigued by the fact that it was an honest dagger and not a knife. The truth was that he was making sure there was no blood on the handle, just splash back. He knew exactly who's dagger this was and what it meant if it'd been thrown. Down to a dagger and still alive, he thought, trying hide his shock and elation.

"What the hell you want that dagger for anyway?" Len asked.

"Just don't want you to have it," Daryl snarked, earning a chuckle from a few of the men before he laid back down.

The evening passed quickly after that, Daryl getting very little shut-eye, but clutching that dagger behind his head all night thanking whatever Ania believed in that they'd kept her safe. Even though he felt hopes and prayers were useless, he still hoped and prayed that whatever was watching over his wife would keep doing so until they could be reunited. The only problem was, they were heading in the opposite direction of where she was. He was half tempted to cut out in the dead of the night, but knew that doing so would only prove deadly to him. Instead, he got up to take a piss before laying back down and chewing on a piece of burdock root he'd grabbed while he was out. It wasn't until a while later, when Daryl was almost relaxed, that any kind of commotion began to be made.

"You've got to be kidding me," he heard Len say before he heard him cuss and throw something down. Sitting up quickly, he looked over at Len as the man stalked up to him and said, "Give it here."

"You step back," Daryl said quietly.

"My half was in the bag. Now it's gone," Len insisted as Joe walked up. "Now ain't nobody here interested in no half a damn cottontail except you. Ain't that right?"

"You're the only one still thinkin' about that crap!" Daryl told him with a flail of his hand towards the man; the only thoughts that'd been on his mind was that Ania was still out there somewhere.

"Empty your bag," Len said, stepping forward to grab it.

"I said step back," Daryl said as he grabbed the bag.

Joe snatched the bag out of Daryl's hand and asked him, "Did you take his rabbit, Daryl? Just tell me the truth."

"I didn't take nothin'," he told him.

"Well, lets see what we have here," he said before emptying the bag on the ground. "Come on." The last item to fall out of the bag was the first half of the rabbit. "Well, look at that."

"You put that there, didn't you?" Daryl accused Len, his voice growing louder with his next accusation, "When I went out to take a piss?!"

"You lied," Len said, getting in his face.

"Didn't you?" Daryl repeated, pushing him away.

Len only took two steps back before coming back and poking Daryl hard in the chest as he said, "You lied. You stole. We gonna teach this fool or what, Joe?"

He got ready to attack for Joe to get between them and calm Len down, "Now, Daryl says he didn't take your half of the rabbit. So we got a little conundrum here. Either Daryl lied, which is an actionable offense, or..." Joe chuckled before turning to Len, "Or you didn't plant it on him like some pussy, punk-ass, cheatin' coward cock, did ya? 'Cause while that wouldn't be specifically breaking the rules, it'd be dissapointing." Daryl stared at Len with a critical eye throughout the entire interaction, even as he agreed with Joe, stepping up into his face and denying yet again that he planted the rabbit in Daryl's things. "Good," Joe said. "Well..." he turned around and sucker punched Len right in the face. "Teach him a lesson, gents. He's a lying sack of shit. I'm sick of it. Teach him all the way. I saw him do it," he turned around and told Daryl quietly as the other men began to beat Len.

"Why didn't you try to stop him?" Daryl growled at Joe, trying to ignore the sounds of his childhood being played out in the same room.

"He wanted to play that out. I let him," Joe said simply. "You told the truth. He lied. You understand the rules. He doesn't." He bent down and picked up the top half of the rabbit before tossing it at Daryl, "Looks like you get the head too."

Daryl said nothing, just turned his back on the men beating Len and collected his things. He threw them into the bag he was carrying his things with, meager as they were. Laying down with his back to the group, he closed his eyes and gripped the dagger for dear life, cutting into his hand as he tried to block out the sounds behind him. Only after the noises had stopped did he bother to address the cut, wrapping it with a piece of his dirtied shirt that was in the bag. Laying down once more, he tucked his injured hand under his head while keeping the death grip on the handle of the dagger he had with his other

Morning came too soon as the door was banged open, startling Daryl from his unfitful sleep where the sounds of last night plagued him along with images of the same being done to him and Ania. He rolled over and groaned as he sat up seeing all the blood on the concrete as the men prepared to leave. When they did leave the building, Daryl stopped to see Len's body, arrow through his eye, thrown outside half haphazardly. For a moment, he considered covering him, grabbing a tarp and shaking it out. Then he thought about what Len had wanted to do to Ania, what Ania herself had done to the others. Deciding to say fuck it, her threw the tarp down and grabbed up his bag, stomping off in the direction the rest of the Claimers were heading. Somehow, he and Joe wound up together behind the rest yet again.

Joe took a drink from a flask he procured from his vest before offering it to Daryl. "White Lightening," he said as Daryl took it. "Easiest thing to make with the least amount of supplies. I'd start slow if I was you. You're stomach's probably emptier than you think."

"Mmm," Daryl said after taking a healthy swig and handing it back. "I ain't been lit at dawn since before everything fell apart."

"Fell apart?" Joe asked. "I never looked at it like that. Seems to me like things are finally starting to fall together. At least for guys like us. Livin' like this, survivin'. We've been doin' this from the start. Your wife. She anythin' like that? Like us? Or did you find her after?"

"Both," Daryl admitted. "Was like us, but better. She got out. Made somethin' of herself, but didn't forget who she was at the end of the day. Didn't need me around to protect her. Kicked my ass once or twice when drinkin' shine."

"Mmm, really sounds like you got it bad," Joe said with a nod of his head. "I had an old lady once. She was gone long before all this happened. Cancer. She tried makin' somethin' of me, but I knew who I was. End of the day, that's all that's left. Who we are."

"Getting closer," one of the men said as the rest stopped to look at a map.

As Daryl saw it, he remembered the car ride to the veterinary college and put two and two together, asking Joe, "You seen this before?"

"Oh yeah," he said, honesty shining from his eyes. "I'll tell you what it is. It's a lie. Ain't no sanctuary for all. Ain't gonna welcome guys like you and me, gals like your wife, with open arms."

"So is that where we're headed?" Daryl asked as they continued walking down the tracks beside Joe.

"So now you're askin'?"

"That's right."

"We were in a house, minding our own business the night after we lost three of our men to that wild child. This walking piece of fecal matter was hidin' in the home. Strangled our colleague Lou and left him to turn. Lou cam at all of us. He lit out. We tracked him to these tracks and one of those signs, and thus we've got a destination in mind. Caught tracks of that girl too, which had led us to that house in the first place. Figured they might be together, but after the other night, well, that theory got blown to hell."

"Have you seen any of their faces?"

"Only Tony, and that's enough for a reckoning. Though, we suspect there are others with him, a couple kids and another man and woman. Not entirely sure, was busy fighting Lou to get a good look."

"And the girl?"

"Len saw the girl's back; she was carrying a couple of bags and has some crazy long hair, but that's about all he could say about her appearance. As for her ability, well, damn, he said it was almost like tracking an animal how well she could move at night. We tripped over ourselves for miles lookin' for her in the dark before callin' it quits, only getting one clear shot at her in the very beginning before she took off. Never caught up to her. Don't think we will now."

Daryl watched as the man in front of them was stopped and went to take a look at something on the ground. Turning his eyes to what it was, he shouted, "Claimed!" before walking over and tearing the small vegetable plant out of the ground and plucking the produce from it. He had to keep up appearances until he knew who they were chasing. Even without a description, if there were kids involved, with what Len had said that first morning, these people didn't give two shits about age. Ania would kill him if he abandoned those people to these monsters. Wait for me a little longer, baby girl. I'll find you yet, he thought as he ate.