A searing pain high up in his left arm had Daryl cry out in surprise. The little son of a bitch had actually shot him!

With a vicious growl, abandoning all attempts at being quiet, he slammed the door all the way open, making sure that nobody else was hiding behind it, and stormed into the room. Yanking the rifle out of the boy's hands, still aimed at him but not reloaded, he smacked him in the temple with his crossbow. Furious as he was, he didn't care to catch the boy as he slumped to the floor.

Nor did he care enough to do something about the bleeding gash in his temple as he tied him to one of the chairs in the main room with a length of rope from his backpack, making sure to tightly secure his hands behind his back. Once he'd ensured that the little motherfucker wouldn't creep up on him from behind, he went into the back room again to check for hints on who the kid might be.

A crumpled backpack was lying on the ground where the boy had been cowering, and he snatched it up, all but ripping it open right there on the bed. He swore when his arm stung in response. Strewing the pack's contents across the bedspread, he examined his find. Round, nerdy looking glasses in a case. Matches. A dozen or so bullets for the rifle. A can opener. A pocket knife, which made him laugh harshly - a POCKET knife? When some walker heads were almost too hard for his own huge buck knife if he hit them at the wrong angle in the heat of the moment? What did the kid think this was?

The things he didn't find struck him as forcefully as those he did. Any other weapon. Food of any kind. Water, or at least an empty container to prove that he'd had any. Medical supplies. Daryl wasn't famous at the prison for taking good care of himself, but even he didn't venture out without the most basic of supplies. This kid had nothing, not even the means to hunt for food or set traps. He had to be starving, and dying of thirst.

An idea hit him and he quickly snatched the boy's stuff back up before grabbing the bedspread and the covers beneath it. Next, he went back upstairs while it was getting darker by the minute. He got all the spreads and blankets from that soft, fluffy bed as well and then did a round of the house, covering up all the windows. Lastly, he locked the front door, not without a pang of regret that his bike was so far away from the cabin. Only then, with this night's shelter as secure as he could make it, did he dig out the flashlight, switch it on and return to the chair to which he'd tied the boy.

He must have hit the guy pretty hard because he was only just coming around, and it had to have been at least half an hour since they'd met so explosively. This thought reminded him that the little fucker had taken a shot at him and he looked down at his arm. The sleeve of his jacket felt slick against his skin and he became aware again of the dull pain just below his shoulder. Maybe it wasn't just a graze? Carol was going to tear him a new one for this. Surely she had to be getting tired of patching him up again and again.

But first things first. With the kid coming around, he needed to get some information out of him before he could play doctor. Setting his crossbow down next to himself, the stock leaning against his leg, he reached out and judiciously applied pressure to the nerve bundle on the boy's back just below his shoulder blade. The kid jerked up with a strangled yelp. "Ow! What! Get off me!"

"Yeah, you wish", Daryl said darkly, thinking back to Hershel's shed, to his knife turning in the wound the fence had left in Randall's leg, to his knuckles, split and bleeding from beating information out of that first kid he'd tortured. To Carol's disappointed face, her sad eyes, when she'd brought him the bandages for taking care of his hands, ostentatiously refusing to do it for him this one time because of what he'd done to hurt them. He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present.

The boy looked around wildly. "What's with all the blankets? What are you doing, you creep?"

"So I'm the creep here for makin' this place safe?" Daryl sneered. "When it was you who lurked in that room and shot me when I was tryin' to talk ta ya?"

"You had that crossbow aimed at me!" the boy protested.

"An' did I fire? Unlike someone else I could name? Speaking of which - what's yer name, dickhead?"

The boy moved against the rope now, unsuccessfully trying to free his hands. Testing the waters, he snarled: "I'm not telling you anything unless you untie me, you hear that?"

"I heard ya", Daryl snarked, "but your bargaining position is ... let's say a little weak right now. Got yer rifle, yer pack, got ya tied up. All o' that says you answer me first, what'cha say?"

The boy glared at him sullenly, and it struck Daryl how young he was - about Beth's age, give or take a year. Nevertheless, if he was with a group, as Daryl believed he had to be because of his total lack of provisions, he could ultimately prove to be as dangerous as that asshole Blake. There was absolutely no way this kid could have made it alone so far without any supplies.

Daryl reached out for the boy's shoulder blade once more and he tried to pull back, with little success. "Answer me", Daryl said in his meanest voice and with his fiercest glare, his index finger resting on the nerve bundle again, digging into it ever so slightly, "an' I jus' might feed ya."

The longing in the kid's eyes at the mention of food nearly undid him. All of a sudden, he was a child, looking incredibly harmless and innocent. "You've got food? Do you have water? Anything to drink? Please ... I haven't had a sip of water in two days ..."

With a disgusted snort, more at himself than the child sitting in front of him, Daryl got his backpack from the table behind his back and grabbed one of the plastic bottles of water that he was carrying. He'd topped it off shortly before his noon break after drinking his fill directly from the creek and it was still almost full. Unscrewing the cap, he held it to the boy's mouth who took in a few greedy gulps before getting some into his windpipe and starting to cough.

Daryl pulled his bottle back and said coldly: "Your name?"

"Patrick, sir."

Sir. He almost laughed out loud. Not an hour before, this kid had ambushed him, and now he was calling him 'sir'. "You with a group?"

"I was, but the other two guys I was with just left me behind two days ago." He looked as if he were about to cry, his face the picture of misery, his eyes full of tears. "They said they were looking for food, and left together. They had all our stuff, I only had this ..." He vaguely nodded toward his own backpack on the table lying next to Daryl's. "I waited for a full day, but they never came back, and I was afraid I'd never find anyone again ..." He WAS crying now and Daryl started to feel like a piece of shit. Everything about this kid struck him as sincere where Randall had come across as an accomplished liar.

"Ya realize they prob'ly didn't leave ya behind on purpose", he mumbled. "Musta run into somethin', they're likely dead now. Ya had a camp?"

"No, sir, we were just ... moving around from one house to the next. When they left to scout they wanted to find one again." He was sniffling, trying to regain his composure and failing miserably. "I thought ... I thought I was going to die out here all alone." The look he gave Daryl was half fear, half gratitude.

"Yeah, and ya would have, if ya were a better shot", Daryl growled at him. His arm couldn't wait any longer. Sitting down opposite the kid, he slipped out of his jacket and the boy ... Patrick ... gasped. Looking down, Daryl saw that his left arm was covered in dried blood that had run down from a wound just above his bicep. Cursing, he reached for the medpack in his bag and opened it. Carol was definitely going to kill him for getting hurt again. And it looked as if she'd get to dig the bullet out of his arm as a bonus. Jeez, what a waste of space he was.

"Can I help?" Patrick asked.

"You've done just about enough fer one night", Daryl mumbled, getting out a small bottle of Jack. He unscrewed the cap, filled it and poured the capful of the pungent liquid directly into the hole in his arm. Patrick stared in horror as Daryl's face drained of color and contorted with pain. Screwing the cap back onto the bottle, Daryl got out a bandage, ripped it open and quickly bandaged his arm. While he was at it, he rolled up his right pants leg to inspect the bandage there. There were small red stains dotted across it, resembling freckles, but all in all it didn't look bad. He sat down to take off his boot and sock.

His ankle looked slightly swollen, which was in keeping with the dull throb he'd been feeling in it for the past two hours or so. He took off the bandage with practised ease, got the dressing unstuck from the gash which had scabbed over nicely, and tightly bandaged only his ankle before putting on his footwear again. When he was done he looked up to find Patrick watching him intently.

"Whatcha starin' at?" he snapped.

"You've got everything you need in there", Patrick said, sounding awed. "Are you also moving about from one house to the next?"

"Naw", Daryl said, shaking his head. Squinting at the gash his crossbow had left in Patrick's temple, he got out one of the disinfectant wipes that Carol had discovered, cleaned the wound and then put a band-aid on it. After packing his medical bag again he got out two hunks of bread, a few bits of jerky and a rare treat - a bar of chocolate. He stepped behind the chair to untie his captive. Turning his chair around and sitting down with his arms draped over its back, he shoved half the food and the chocolate across the table toward Patrick and started digging in himself.

"We got this place", he began, chewing on his mouthful of dried meat. "If ya want, I could take you along, might be able ta take you in."

.-.

As usual, she'd been hovering about the gates on and off since morning whenever her chores allowed, waiting for the roar of his motorbike. When it came, shortly after noon, she sagged with relief. Her hand briefly went to the back pocket of her pants before she turned toward cell block C to get Rick and Hershel - just in case.

They were all surprised to see someone riding behind him as he approached - a boy, from the looks of it, with his arms tightly wrapped about Daryl's waist, looking absolutely terrified. It seemed the kid was carrying Daryl's full backpack while Daryl, for space reasons, with the kid riding behind him, had a much smaller one on his own back.

After giving his customary half nod to Carol to tell her he was okay, Daryl waited for Rick to step up to the bike after closing the outer gate again. "Need ta decide what ta do about this kid", he said. "Found him out there, all alone, thought we might, ya know, take him in?"

Given Daryl's reclusive nature and the fact that he felt the prison was already way too crowded with all the new people from Woodbury, saying that this surprised Rick would have been putting it mildly, but he nodded. "Take your time", he said, patting Daryl's shoulder, which for some reason made him wince, but Rick let it go. "I'll get our gang together, you bring your man", he nodded at Patrick, "and we make a decision together. It's good to see you, Daryl."

"Daryl?" Patrick asked from behind him.

"Yeah. Daryl Dixon. That was our leader, Rick Grimes." Daryl nodded up toward the cell block, looking at Carol as he carefully eased off the clutch to get the bike moving again at a snail's pace, and she smiled at him and started walking back up next to Rick. He slowly made his way up on the bike, right up to the entrance, where he let Patrick get off, climbed off himself and put it on its stand. "I'll lock him in our welcome cell", he called down to Rick who nodded in reply.

"Cell?" Patrick asked in a quavering voice.

"Well, whaddoyaknow, it's a prison, it's got cells. You're a stranger, we don't know you from Adam. Until we've decided one way or another, you'll stay in a cell. Won't be long. I'll even get ya some more food", Daryl promised. Making their way in, they passed by the kitchen where Daryl indeed picked up some shrivelled apples and a plastic bottle of boiled water and handed them to his charge before taking him to the cell that had held Michonne and Merle before him. "Won't be long", he repeated.

.-.

After riding all day the previous day, sleeping with one eye open during the night and speeding back to the prison with Patrick snuggling up to him today, Daryl felt as if his feet were made of lead as he once again made his slow way up to his perch. Carol, he knew, wouldn't be far behind. Maybe he could get himself cleaned up and change his bandage before she arrived and get Hershel to dig out Patrick's bullet later without her ever knowing about this most recent injury. He felt like shit for having this idea at all, but he also knew that seeing him hurt once again would upset her. Damn, this had to stop!

Dropping his bedroll, he all but collapsed on it, closing his eyes for a moment and allowing his head to fall back. Just then, he heard her quick, soft steps approaching on the ground floor. With a rueful glance at the hole in his jacket sleeve he resigned himself to the fact that he'd have to admit to getting shot. There was no way she was not going to spot this, with the sun illuminating his perch like a fucking theater stage just now.

He looked up to see her standing right before him, concern all over her face. "Who is he?"

"Jus' a kid. The people he was with musta gotten themselves killed, got left behind with nothin' to his name 'cept for a rifle and a can opener", he muttered, shaking his head. "Thought we might take 'im in - won't make it on his own. Don't know the first thing about survivin' out there."

She smiled proudly at this, but her smile dimmed again right away as she took in his appearance. "You've had a rough time of it", she stated.

He mumbled something unintelligible. "Pardon me?" she asked. "I didn't catch that."

"Jus' wanna thank ya for not makin' a scene at the gate", he mumbled, his thumb going to his mouth, betraying his insecurity. His chest and throat constricted with anxiety, making it hard to breathe. He had no idea how he was supposed to behave right now. He had revealed his feelings to her, and apparently she felt the same for him, but ... Surely they were not supposed to jump each others' bones right now, the way Glenn and Maggie did upon reuniting whenever they'd been separated? And surely he was not supposed to follow his childhood example either?

"I won't make you uncomfortable like that", she assured him, taking one last step toward him to close the distance between them. Right at that moment she noticed the hole in his sleeve. Her face turned white. "What happened?" she asked in a tight voice. "How bad is it?"

"Not bad, not at all", he mumbled, blushing furiously. "Kid was scared, got me in the arm with his bloody rifle. Bullet's still stuck in it, but I cleaned it, bandaged it, 'm fine."

Two minutes later, she was back with her medical kit. She'd practised on him under Hershel's supervision all too often and he knew she could do this easily, so he held still while she got the bullet out and properly cleaned and bandaged his arm. He declined when she asked about painkillers, and knowing him all too well, and with the wound not deep and likely to heal fast, she accepted his answer. She carefully packed her kit back up again and put his discarded bandage and her bloodstained antiseptic wipes aside to throw away later.

"Now", she said, turning toward him with a brilliant smile. He was back, and more or less in one piece. He had brought back a kid who'd been out there alone, probably saving his life. He hadn't gone ballistic at the boy for shooting him. She was so happy, and so proud of him. "I'm glad you're back home", she said softly. "And I'll never make a scene at the gate. We're not a damn show", she quoted him and winked.

He heaved a sigh of relief. "Glad 'm back, too", he mumbled, a weight lifting off his chest. "For a while there, when I thought there might be several people hidin' in that cabin ..." He trailed off, knowing she'd understand. Just then, he saw her hand wander toward the back pocket of her pants, and he felt his cheeks growing hot. She was carrying his letter with her. His blood sang.

"C'm here", he mumbled, reaching out with his good arm and tentatively pulling her into a hug. "Glad we have this, have each other", he managed once she could no longer see his face because he was crushing her against his chest, his scruffy beard grazing her cheek. "This ... feels kinda good", he had to admit.

Then he pulled away for just a moment, looking down at her. "I got no fuckin' idea what I'm supposed ta do here", he admitted. "But ... You waitin' at the gate ... Without makin' a scene ... Could we do that? For a start, while I figure this out? Always? Or, ya know ... for however long we have?" She nodded wordlessly, tears running down her cheeks. He gently wiped them off with one hand before pulling her close again. The world shrank down to the space the two of them were occupying, to her breath on his collarbone and his heartbeat in her ears.

They were still sitting on his bedroll with him hugging her when Rick came to get them.