It was just as she looked up that a ripple of hope flushed through her. At first, she was unsure what she was looking at. She knew it was a person, she wasn't that stupid. However, the state they seemed to be in gave of the immediate feeling that walkers had finally learnt to climb. Had they? Learnt to climb that is. Had the dead managed to use the brain they overtook for something that could be of use to them? Surely not.

She stared and stared, watching as the form clutched branches to use to pull themselves higher. She watched the way the boots slipped and slid on the mud, waiting for the inevitable fall to happen. Her heart soured however, when the form spoke. It spoke. "Yeh' were never there for me!"

"D-Daryl?" Molly stuttered, looking up at him as she watched him look over his shoulder, his eyes squinting down at her.

"Goddammit!" He growled, clearly clutching at his side with one hand. "You too? Can't catch a fuckin' break!"

She was sure she was seeing things. There was no possible way Daryl Dixon was mere feet from her, looking the way he did and acting like he was. No, that was a lie. She could believe the last one. The way he was acting wasn't to far off the real Daryl Dixon. Only, he was like that to other people. never her. Molly couldn't quite wrap her head around the simple yet needed fact.

"Susie!" Sophia had spoke, forcing Molly from her thoughts.

Molly frowned, looking over her shoulder at Sophia to see her pointing up at Daryl, her eyes clearly focused on something. It took Molly a moment to work out what Sophia was talking about and when she did, she knew she wasn't seeing things and it was in fact, Daryl Dixon failing to climb the creek side.

Looped around his belt was the very thing that had brought them back to the creek in the first place. Sophia's doll, Susie.

"Shit." Molly found herself breathing out, a crooked sort of smile taking over her face. "Daryl? Hey Daryl!" She hollered out, trying to stop the man from climbing anymore. "Would you stop, you're going to fall!"

"I've 'ad enough of both yer' shits!" He seemed to growl, ignoring her words and continuing to grip at the roots that were close to being pulled from the earth.

"D-Did we do something?" Sophia spoke, clearly unsure why Daryl was mad at them.

Molly didn't speak. She eyed where Daryl was currently looking and swearing as though he was physically talking to someone. Her mind was brought back to what they had heard earlier, clearly understanding that it had been Daryl who had spoke when she was inspecting the blood on the log. It had been him.

"I... I don't think he means you." She found herself saying. If what she thought to be true was right, then he was seeing things. Merle most likely and he had clearly caught sight of her and assumed she was apart of his mind as well. "Soph, come here." She muttered out, reaching out to pull the girl towards her. "Hey, Daryl! Missing something?"

Daryl grumbled, breathing heavily and looked over his shoulder. He eyed Molly for a moment before looking down to where her hands rested on Sophia's shoulder. He stared for a moment, not saying anything. Molly watched him blink and squeeze his eyes shut. She watched as he looked the pair over, noticing the mud that covered their bottom half.

Molly watched and watched until finally, she watched him realise what he was actually seeing. "Molls?"

She nodded, tilting her head as she looked at his face, noticing a patch of dried blood. "You hit your head?" He nodded slowly, not taking his blue orbs from hers. "Merle? He the one you seeing?" Once again, he nodded. "You need me to help you down? You're not going to make it that way... We made a little trail just off that way." She pointed in the direction she was talking about. "It's much easier to get up and down." For the third time, he nodded, clearly shocked to see the two of them stood where they were but still not entirely sure he was seeing what he hoped he was seeing.

"Stand back abit Soph." Molly muttered, handing the backpack on her back to the young girl and beginning to use her hand to dig small holes in the earth to put her feet in and get a better grip to climb up to Daryl.

She climbed and climbed, careful of where she put her feet in order to not go tumbling back the way she came. When she reached Daryl she looked him over, a frown coming to her face again. "You look like shit."

Daryl stared at her face, looking as though he was taking all her features in from the freckles littered across her nose to the small scar above her left eyebrow. "Thanks." He snorted.

"Let's get you down, yeah?" She didn't bother waiting for a reply and instead, reached out to grip his forearm and began helping him climb back down. He did most of the work, she was there to steady him from falling backwards, which happened more times than she could count.

It took longer than she would've liked to get Daryl back on flat ground. He was clearly slight disoriented and the cut to his head didn't help that. Once both his feet were in the creek, Molly released his forearm and took a small leap off the side, her boots splashing in the water as she landed. "You wanna sit down for a moment?" She asked, reaching out to steady the man when he swayed on the spot.

Molly could clearly see that Daryl wanted to say no and so as quickly as she had asked, she changed her mind and all but dragged him over to the log and forced him to sit down. Molly herself crouched down in front of him. "Soph, grab my water from the bag." Sophia did as she was asked, pulling the zip open and rummaging through the backpack. "Merle, you still see him?" She asked, watching Daryl look around over her shoulder.

"Nah." He mumbled, eyeing Sophia.

"You know he's not actually here, right?" Molly told him, raising a brow as she thanked Sophia who handed her the half empty bottle of water.

"Know tha'." Daryl muttered, taking the opened bottle she held out to him and taking a large mouthful. "He 'ad both hands." He said as though that was the only thing he needed to know to tell the difference between if Merle was really here with him or not.

Molly internally shivered. She had tried to force that memory from her mind. The night on that store roof when Merle had cut his hand off was something Molly really wanted to forget. The only thing that had happened that night that she was thankful for was Merle sending her down to checkout the store that wasn't locked up to see if there was anything they could use to get him out.

At the time, she didn't want to leave him alone in fear of a walker somehow getting through the chained door and Merle having nowhere to run. However, he had all but berated her and told her that he was a big boy who would be perfectly fine. She had returned to find Merle leaning on the door, a rag wrapped around his hand and a continuous strain of blood falling from said hand. Or rather, stump.

"At least you know." She muttered, her eyes catching onto a rag of Daryl's own that was half in half out his pocket. She sighed and reached out, pulling it free. "We may be a minute Soph... May as well take a seat." She told the girl who was still stood beside her, Molly's bag on her shoulders. Sophia nodded, taking a seat at the end of the log and watching the two adults.

Molly grimaced when she opened the rag, noticing just how filthy it was. She bent down, using both hands to try and scrub some of the oil and blood from the rag in the water at her feet, watching some of it drain away as she did so. Molly rubbed it together in both hands, trying to copy the way she had seen Carol clean some of the tougher stains from the clothes back at the quarry.

Once she was happy with how much dirt she had got out, she raised it from the water and squeezed as much as she could out. Molly turned back to Daryl to see him already watching her. "What?" She asked, suddenly feeling slightly self conscious. He shook his head slightly, clearly not having anything to say. "Let me get some of that blood off." She reached out and gripped his chin, surprised he had nothing to moan about as she began to clean the trail of blood, wincing when she saw the damage he had done to his head. "I think this might need stitches or something..."

"Feel's like it." He mumbled, a wince of his own falling on his face when she rubbed abit to hard at the skin surrounding the cut. Molly was quick to apologise.

"What happened?" She found herself asking, sitting back on her heels as she looked his face over, her eyes falling down to a disgusting chain around his neck. "Is that?" She nodded towards it, frowning as she suddenly realised what was missing from the walker she had seen dead but couldn't picture.

Molly didn't bother waiting for a reply. She reached out and gripped the lace, pulling hard and watching it untie from around his neck. She threw it to her right and watched it sink in the water, glad Sophia was to busy looking at their surroundings to bother with them in that moment.

"Horse got spooked, fell down over there." He told her, nodding towards the creek cliff. "Hurt like a bitch." He added as though he was playing back what had happened to him.

"Horse?" Molly found herself asking, wondering what the hell had happened in the time she and Sophia had been gone.

"A brown one?" It was Sophia who spoke up, indicating that she had in fact been listening to every word the two had spoken. Daryl eyed her for a moment, probably shocked that she had actually spoken to him. He nodded slowly, watching her look over to Molly. "Maybe it was the one we seen?"

"Shit, yeah." Molly nodded, looking back to Daryl who was already looking at her. "We found a horse or rather, it found us like an hour or so ago. Had a saddle and everything. Came running at us through the trees. We let it go, had no use for it."

"That'd be tha' one." Daryl scoffed, shaking his head. "Damn horse better 'ope it's dead... Or it will do when I get ma' hands on it." He sighed when he saw the look on Molly's face, clearly seeing the amusement behind the slight worry.

"Daryl..." Molly tailed off, a sudden look overcoming her features. "Is... Is he alright?"

It didn't take a genius to work out who she was talking about and for a split second, Daryl wondered why she hadn't mentioned him sooner. "He's fine." He told her, thankful that those two words seemed to ease some of the worry that had suddenly filled her eyes. "At least, he was when I left the farm."

"The farm?"

"Is my mum okay?" Sophia had quickly asked, understanding that they were allowed to ask about their loved ones.

"She's fine too." Daryl told her with a nod. "Worried sick 'bout you though."

"We're glad their safe, of course we are." Molly spoke, happy to have some closure at last. "But go back to what you said about a farm. Is that where you've been this whole time? A farm?"

"Not tha' whole time." Daryl said, not knowing exactly how to put everything into words.

"Start from the beginning. What happened after we left?"

Feedback is always great, loved in fact. I'm bringing back the old comment for more so I know people are even reacting with this.

3+ Comments for more.