Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead.

Her Angel, His Strength

13 Pretty Much Dead Already

Carol served them breakfast. It was funny to think that, even though Daryl got them meat, if he wasn't served, he wouldn't eat. Lily didn't understand that. There was a lot about Daryl that she didn't understand.

Glenn caught her eye. Knowing what he wanted, Lily nodded, saying without words that she'd support him.

"Um, guys." Everyone continued eating, except for Andrea, who was sharpening her knife. "So… The barn is full of walkers." Glenn had the tact of an elephant.

Lily got up with everyone to go look at the barn. While she had already known of that, she hadn't take a good look of it.

"You cannot tell me you're all right with this." Shane said to Rick, Lily could see that something was happening between the two of them.

"No, I'm not, but we're guests here." Rick answered his face hard. "This isn't our land."

"This is our lives! We can't just sweep this under the rug. Okay, we've either got to go in there, we've got to make things right or we've just got to go. Now, we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time."

"We can't go."

"Why, Rick? Why?"

"Because my daughter is still out there." Carol answered.

"Okay. Okay, I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility." Lily glared at him. How could he even say something like that to Carol?

"We're not leaving Sophia behind." Lily said, scowling at him.

"I'm close to finding this girl. I just found her damn doll two days ago." Daryl said.

"You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did. You found a doll." Lily could tell that was not going to end well. She started to walk up to Daryl, seeing he still had stiches.

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I'm just saying what needs to be said." Shane went on, ignoring Rick's plea to stop it. "You get a good lead, it's in the first. Let me tell you something else, man. If she was alive out there and saw you coming all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction."

Daryl went for him. Lily went for Daryl with everyone else to try stopping the fight from escalating. She now understood what Daryl meant when he said Shane was loosing it.

"Now, just let me talk to Hershel." Rick said. "Let me figure it out."

"What are you gonna figure out?!" Shane asked incredulous.

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it." Rick tried to reason with Shane, and everyone else. "This is his land."

"Hershel sees those things in there as people, sick people, his wife, his stepson." Dale said, surprising everyone.

"You knew?"

"Yesterday I talked to Hershel."

"And you waited the night?"

"I thought we could survive one more night. We did." Dale said, his face hard as he faced Shane. Apparently, Shane wasn't all that liked anymore on the group. Lily wondered if Dale also thought he killed Otis. "I was waiting till this morning to say something. But Glenn wanted to be the one."

"The man is crazy, Rick, if Hershel thinks those things are alive or not."

They dispersed, with Rick going to find Hershel and asking to everyone to keep calm and don't do anything stupid. Lily thought the last warning was directed specifically to Shane.

"Stay away from that barn." Daryl said to her while they were going back.

"You know, how long for have we been here? We didn't know about the walkers, and we were fine. What changed?"

"Now we know." He said, and walked away without looking back. She frowned, but let it go; it was not as if she wanted to stay near the barn anyway.

She had just finished putting the laundry away when she saw Daryl walk past her and into their tent, a few minutes later, Carol coming into view. Lily frowned when she saw the woman's tears.

"Carol?" She asked quietly, coming closer. "Something happened?"

"Oh, just… Daryl was trying to go look for Sophia again… We had an argument."

"He wants to find her." Lily said trying to understand what had happened between the two of them.

"I know. I just don't want him getting worse… I told him- I told him I don't know if we're gonna find her."

"Carol…" Lily bit her lip. She didn't want to give any false hope, but… "If we lose hope, we may as well quit now." Carol looked at her, but she could see the woman had already lost her faith. "Hey, I'll talk to him, okay? You go clean up and rest.

"Hey." Lily said, stepping into the tent, Daryl grunted in reply. "Look, I talked to Carol."

"Yeah? Dumb bitch couldn't watch for her daughter, now can't care enough ta look for her."

"Daryl." Lily scowled at him. "This isn't Carol's fault. Don't you dare take it out on her. How do you think she's feeling? Her daughter has been gone for, what? Has it been four days now? Five? Before, it was a tough chance of finding a little girl lost in the woods, how do you think it is now? You think Carol doesn't know this? Her hope is scratched thin; she is trying to accept the fact that maybe Sophia is gone for good. And you know what; you can't blame her for this. You can't. You can just give her hope to go on."

"I just found the damn doll."

"And Shane just pointed out, in front of her and everybody else, that her doll was all you found!"

"N ya think he's right? That's whatcha tellin' me?"

"I think we will find her. I do, I just don't know in what estate." Daryl glared at her, and, before he could get up to leave, she tried to amend: "I want to find her alive, Daryl. I really do." Lily sighed. "Just… Just don't take your frustrations out on Carol, all right? She already has too much to deal with without you getting on her face." Walking up to him, Lily pressed her lips to his. It was the first time, ever since their first kiss that she had initiated the contact.

Lily didn't know if he was going to apologise, but she hoped he would. Daryl was a good person with good intentions, but did not know how to deal with people.

She could see Glenn and Maggie walking up towards the house, holding hands. Lily was glad for them, happy that at least someone was having a good time. Glenn smiled when he saw her, sitting next to her on the steps.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself." Lily smiled watching a faint blush tint his cheeks. Maggie sat down next to them.

"You look like you should be in line for the early bird special." She said, taking Dale's hat from Glenn. "Go get your cap. I'll wash it for you, okay?" However, before Glenn could get up, T-Dog and Andrea called out:

"Do you know what's going on?"

"You haven't seen Rick?"

"He went off with Hershel."

"We were supposed to leave a couple hours ago."

"Yeah, you were." Daryl said, coming into view with Carol. Lily was glad to see that there was not any tears in her eyes this time. "What the hell? Isn't anybody takin' this seriously? We got us a damn trail." When Daryl saw Shane, he walked over to him. "Oh, here we go."

"You with me, man?" Shane asked, handing him a riffle.

"Yeah." Lily did not know what Shane was talking about, but apparently, Daryl did.

"Time to grow up. You already got yours?" He asked Andrea.

"Yeah. Where's Dale?"

"He's on his way."

"Thought we couldn't carry." T-Dog said in confusion, accepting the gun.

"We can and we have to. Look, it was one thing sitting around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't." Walking up to Glenn, he asked: "How about you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Glenn accept it, after hesitating. "That's it. Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop?" Maggie retorted. "You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight."

"We have to stay, Shane." Carl said.

"What is this?" Lori asked coming out the house.

"We ain't going anywhere, okay? Now look, Hershel, he's just gotta understand. Okay? He- well, he's gonna have to. Now we need to find Sophia. Am I right? Huh? Now, I want you to take this." Shane replied, holding a fire gun to Carl. "You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes. You know how. Go on, take the gun and do it."

"Rick said no guns." Lori hissed at him, stepping in front of Carl. "This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."

"Oh shit." T-Dog exclaimed and everyone looked as Jimmy, Hershel and Rick walked into view holding two walkers in sticks.

"What is that? What is that?" Shane screamed, running towards them, the rest of the group hot on his heels. "What the hell are you doing? Are you kidding me? You see? You see what they're holding onto?"

"I see who I'm holding onto." Hershel said.

"No, man, you don't."

"Shane, just let us do this and then we can talk."

"What you want to talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gonna feel nothing for them 'cause all they do, they kill! These things right here, they're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us."

"Shane, shut up!" Rick bellowed at him

"Hey, Hershel man, let me ask you something. Could a living breathing person, could they walk away from this?" He asked, shooting the walker Hershel was holding. Lily screamed, but it was lost as more people did. "That's three rounds in the chest. Could someone who's alive, could they just take that?! Why is it still coming? That's its heart, its lungs. Why is it still coming?"

"Shane, enough."

"Yeah, you're right, man." He said, finally stopping the shooting. "That is enough. Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone! Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us. Enough. Rick, it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, you got to fight for it! I'm talking about fighting right here, right now."

With that, he walked over to the barn and broke down the locks. Lily gasped, holding onto Carol's arm. T-Dog, Andrea and Daryl went over to help shoot at the walkers, and, after a while, so did Glenn. Lily stared at them in disbelief. Shane had indeed lost it.

When it finally stopped, everyone was silent. Lily could see Beth crying in Jimmy's arms, Hershel had not moved from his kneeled position ever since Shane shot the walker he was holding onto in the head. When something snarled in the barn, everyone tensed again. A little girl came out.

"Sophia?" Carol asked beside her. Lily didn't have the time to process what happened when the woman freed herself from her hand and started to run towards the walker. Towards her lost daughter. "Sophia! Sophia. Sophia."

The tears appeared in her eyes without her even noticing. No one was making a move to kill that little walker now, not even Shane. No one but Rick.


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English is not my mother tongue, if you find a mistake, please let me know.

Thank you,

Mel.