The next day they left early in the morning. Dog was joyfully running in front of the group. Daryl walked next to Henry, who was asking him out about hunting and fishing, Connie and Lydia were walking behind them. Connie was teaching Lydia some ASL signs. Lydia asked her what the sign for I like you was and Connie showed it to her. Lydia was a quick learner and Connie had taken a shine to the girl already.
Connie always wanted to have children of her own, but either the time wasn't right or she didn't have the right partner for that. It seemed like timing was never on her side regarding this and she finally accepted that she would probably never have children. At least she had her sister, who she always took care of. Connie had maternal feelings towards Lydia and Henry too, but she still missed her sister and felt like she had forsaken her.
She noticed that Henry turned around a couple of times to glimpse at Lydia and each time he turned his head, Daryl turned his head too, glancing mostly at Connie. Once she even thought his eyes went quickly up and down. Was he checking her out? Or was she imagining it? If he did, she certainly didn't mind. She was eyeing his body too, while walking behind him and couldn't complain about the sight.

The group came across a beautiful big farmhouse. It was afternoon already and all of them were slowly getting hungry. Daryl turned around once again and pointed at the house, Connie nodded and so they went in its direction. There were a couple of walkers around the house and the group killed them easily. Being together for some time, they learned how to work together and they became a good team. Connie noticed an apple tree with apples on it, as they were passing by.

When they arrived at the front door, Daryl made a stop sign with his hand and knocked several times on the door. Lydia and Henry were checking the windows in the meantime and Connie was standing in front of the door with her slingshot out, ready to shoot. But they didn't see or hear anything, so they went inside.

The house was untidy, there were a lot of spider webs and dust. The dirt indicated that the house was abandoned long ago and it's former inhabitants didn't seem to have taken much care of it. Beautiful on the outside, inside it was a complete mess. The floor was covered with garbage and all of them had to watch their steps. It stank abominably and Connie had to cover her nose, feeling a wave of nausea rising in her throat. Dog on the opposite, was delighted and searched the garbage for something to eat. He was making too much noise and was interrupted by Daryl who told him: "Dog, out!"

They searched the house but didn't find much, only a couple of tools. There was not even a little food left.

Connie went off to the bedroom. The door made a creaking noise when she opened it slowly and the smell coming from there, was even worse. She saw a grotesque picture before her. A man was hanging from the ceiling, his corpse was dried out and he was literally only skin and bones. The rope across his throat was attached to a lamp. Suddenly he awakened almost like he had slept for 100 years. His eyes opened and his dry mouth was opening and closing.

At the table next to him there was another corpse, a female one, sitting in a chair, with her head on a table. She was wearing a dress and she had long hair, that was dirty. A gun was lying under her bony fingers, it was the weapon, that probably ended her life.

Connie didn't know, why this scene shocked her so much, she had seen things far worse, and still…

Daryl approached her from behind and scared her a little when he lay a hand on her shoulder. His touch felt warm and comforting. He turned her slowly so she would face him and told her "C'mon" while he was shoving her out of the room. Then he quickly checked it and returned with the gun in his hand. Connie looked at it with sadness in her eyes.

"Could be useful," Daryl said and shrugged.

"Nothing else in there?" Lydia asked.

"No," Daryl answered firmly.

"C'mon, we're leaving."

Connie couldn't wait to leave the house, it made her sick.

Outside Connie slightly touched Daryl's arm and pointed to the apple tree.

"Yeah, we should get some of these," he agreed. Henry volunteered to climb up and get some apples, but he was clumsy and fell off the tree before he could reach any of the apples. The others from the group managed to catch him. They were all lying on the ground, laughing. Lydia had definitely more luck. She climbed the tree with quick, skillful movements and threw some apples down, where the others collected them, putting most of them in a bag, to safe them for later. Then Lydia came down with four apples in her hands She handed everyone one and threw one to Daryl, who was standing furthest from her. But before he was able to catch it, Dog jumped up and caught it with his teeth.

"Dog, out!" Daryl shouted, but Dog didn't listen. He probably thought it was the right time to play a game. Daryl chased him and Dog always let Daryl come closer just to run away again. The others were laughing tears, watching this. Finally Daryl came back with the apple he retrieved from Dog. It was full of biting marks and covered in Dog's saliva. Daryl tried to clean it on his pants.

"You're not really going to eat that?" Henry asked disgusted a little bit. Lydia laughed and Connie offered Daryl her apple.

"Sure, it's still good," he said and took a bite. Then he cut off a piece with his knife and gave it to Dog. Dog sniffed at it for a while. Apples didn't seem to be Dog's favorite food and playing with the apple must have been funnier, but finally Dog took the apple piece cautiously and ate it.

"Still can't believe you ate that apple, after Dog chewed on it," Henry said when they were on their way again.

"Why? Wasn't anything wrong with it."

Henry still looked disgusted.

"You should get used to it, You ain't going to have warm dinner on your table every day. Sometimes you'll have to eat whatever you find, to survive."

"Like worms?" Henry grimaced when he remembered he ate a worm to impress Lydia.

"Better than nothing," Daryl said dryly. Henry sighed

"You'll get used to it" Daryl gave him a pat on the back.

They battled their way through thick bushes and came to a meadow. Suddenly Daryl stopped and caught his breath. Not far away he saw somebody, looking painfully familiar to him. The person was standing with his back to him, but Daryl thought he recognized the body type... the clothes ... the hairstyle.

"Rick?"