Thanks for the reviews guys. I'd post more if I had it but I'm posting as I write it. Not something I'd like to do but I need to keep cranking this out or I will stop...

Lily is mine and everything else belongs to Frank.

The next morning most of the entire group went out to search for Sophia while Dale, T-Dog, and Lily stayed behind to hold down the fort.

Most of nothing happened all day with the exception of T-Dog talking about being the weakest link along with Dale and herself. Dale couldn't have told T-Dog he was wrong any better than she could have.

Through the persuasion of Dale, Lily moved outside to read her book. Upon stepping out the door, a faint gunshot echoed through the trees.

"You heard that, right?" she asked Dale.

"Yeah..."

"Gunshot." She tapped her good foot against the hood or a car until the group returned, but before they came back, screams filled the air.

"What was that gunshot?" Lily asked the group. Rick Carl and Shane were not with the group. They'd branched off on their own to search a little longer.

"Was that you screaming?" Dale asked Andrea.

"Some girl comes riding in like Zoro on a horse and took Lori away saying that Carl had been shot," Glenn told her.

"Shot?"

"Their farm is two miles back down the highway. We need to circle back around to get there."

It was decided that Glenn and T-Dog would go to the farm. Andrea, Daryl, Dale, Carol, and Lily were going to stay with the RV.

"Why didn't you go to the farm?" Dale asked her.

"I took care of my injuries."

"Could you help T-Dog?"

"Judging from what I heard earlier today, there's nothing I could do without the proper tools."

"Proper tools?" he asked inquisitively. "What do you mean? I've got first aid supplies in the RV..."

"Dale, he's beyond my help. We need medicine. Not bandages."

"How do you know?"

"I'm a doctor."

"And you didn't think it was important for us to know that?"

"No one asked!" she snapped. "There have been some other more pressing matters on my mind lately!"

He held up his hands in and apologetic manner. "I'm-I'm sorry. It's just if we could have had your help earlier, T-Dog might be in better shape."

"My injury was from a smooth surface, T-Dog's was from a jagged piece of metal...If we washed it...I don't know. Frankly, I don't want to look at it because I will think of all the things I need and don't have, get stressed, and mess up. I'm afraid of intervening. If I do, it might kill him."

The look in Dale's eyes said he understood what she was thinking but was disappointed she wouldn't try.

"Carl is also at the farm. Don't you want to be with him."

"Dale, you know I love that boy, but he needs his family, not some stray human Daryl found on the side of the road. If I was there, I'd want to be helping Carl, I'd want to be doing something. I don't know if he's ok... He might be dead already for all I know. I just need to stay away from him for as long as I can."

"Why are you avoiding everybody that's hurt?"

"Because if they die, I will have that guilt on my shoulders! That's why I am afraid to help anybody."

...

That night, Lily slept on the bench at the table again. The five of them made their way into the RV to settle down for the night. Andrea was working on her gun some more. Carol was sobbing in the back and Daryl was in the aisle.

Her feet were dangling off the end right over Daryl's head. Sleep hit her hard and she woke to find herself sliding out of the bench with her feet ready to kick Daryl in the face.

She threw her feet up to stop her from falling and her feet caught on the cabinets under the sink with a resounding thud. His head snapped up at the sound and a sharp pain shot through her ankle. She slumped to the ground right where he'd been sleeping and doubled over in pain.

"Son of a bitch," she hissed through her teeth at the pain in her ankle. What was really upsetting was the pain had gone away before she went to sleep.

"Let me see it," Daryl offered crawling over to her, but she held up her hand stopping him. If her ankle had made her cuss then he only assumed that it had to hurt.

"I can deal with it."

"No, it could be broken or sprained-"

"It's just twisted."

"How do you know? Let me see."

"No. Don't touch it!"

He moved closer. "Just lift your pant leg..."

"I said no!"

"Damn it, Lily! Why won't you let me look at your foot?"

"Because I'm a doctor. I can take care of this myself."

He breathed before responding. Many things had crossed his mind about what she did before this, but a doctor had never been one of them. "Being a doctor doesn't mean you can't feel pain." His stride was long as he stepped over her. There was a rustling of a plastic bag outside before he entered again holding a prescription bottle. "For the pain."

"Thanks." She laughed at the irony of the situation taking one of the pills. "The pain had gone before I went to sleep. My ankle would not have been a problem as long as it didn't suffer any trauma before morning. Good thing you respond fast otherwise I'd have ended up on your face."

"How come you didn't help T-Dog?"

"Yeah," Andrea realized. "How come you didn't help him? He had a wound just like yours."

"He had blood poisoning by the time I got to it. If sewn shut...it just wouldn't be smart. And we had no known medicine to stop it from getting bad until a few hours ago. It was just better not to touch it."

His nod was enough of a response for her. "Keep my spot. Don't want you falling again. I need my clip." Andrea handed him his gun.

"Where you headed now?"

"Gonna look for Sophia."

It was at that moment that Lily realized Carol had stopped crying momentarily. She'd been crying most of the night and it was one of those unconsolable fits of crying. It was just better to let her cry it out. Besides, there was no way to sooth a mother's tears when she'd lost her child. No words could describe her tears.

Andrea sat in the bench fiddling with the pieces of her gun for a few more seconds before grabbing some things and bolting out the door after Daryl to help him search. Lily couldn't blame them for leaving. Carol had been crying most of the night and it was all they could do to not get mad at her.

Carol dried her tears before speaking to Lily.

"You said you used to be a doctor before all this happened?"

Lily didn't want to answer but Carol needed someone to talk to and Lily knew that. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose a child. "Yes, I was."

"What did you do?"

"I used to work in the ER, but got bumped down to something more low key like regular surgeries."

"Why?" Carol asked before Lily could continue.

"I was bumped down because my sister moved in with me and the transition was more than we were able to handle, so for the safety of the patients I agreed to be moved down to less traumatic and urgent patients. It was a great suggestion on my colleague's part. Once she settled in, I tried to move back to the ER but found it too traumatizing to return to now. Ironic considering where the world is now."

She continued to answer Carol's questions into the night because if she had learned anything by being a doctor it was not only that people needed to be kept busy, but they subconsciously needed to be kept busy.