A/N: Hooray for reviews and faves and follows! Thanks people! :D

First Impressions

A little over a week had passed since Keira was brought to the motel. She held up her end of the deal with Roy, setting out into the woods every day to hunt and bring back a rabbit or a bird or some other animal to skin and eat for dinner. She disliked the birds the most; they were a nice challenge to hunt, but picking out their feathers was a chore. She rarely encountered the dead, and when she did they were dealt with swiftly. It was easier that way.

The rest of her days were spent working, finding anything she could to keep her busy. She had taken to making her own arrows from the wood that Martin chopped down, whittling and sharpening them mindlessly, sometimes for hours. Keira still didn't sleep in the motel at night. She would stay awake on the balcony with weapons in hand, gazing at the edge of the forest and keeping watch. Her only rest came from passing out from exhaustion for a few hours, before her own paranoia woke her early enough to watch the sunrise. On nights that she felt sure that her body wouldn't give out on her, she would wrap herself in a blanket and walk over to the little graveyard to spend the night sitting next to her brother, clutching the little owl totem she still wore around her neck. She pretended that she could still sing him to sleep, that she still had a voice to say "I love you", that she still had a brother to say that to. And when she felt her heart breaking in the early hours of the morning, she would pretend she still had tears to shed.

The others seemed uncomfortable with her behaviour, but for the most part they let her be. Martin was the only one who still tried to get through to her, often talking to her while they did chores. She learned that he had been in the military reserve prior to the outbreak, that he didn't have much of a family growing up, and that he had lost his best friend to the disease.

He still didn't know a thing about her.

Jessica, on the other hand, chose to keep her distance. Keira would watch the woman shuffle around the motel sometimes with the most terrified look in her eyes. She tried to hide it from the others, but she was afraid of the world around her. And when her gaze finally landed on Keira, she would frown and look away, because to her she was just a reminder of how much a person could lose. She knew Keira had seen so many more of the horrors of the world, and so somehow hoped that staying away from her meant staying away from the cruel reality. Instead, Jessica took to staying inside and doing "woman's work", as Wade had put it. Wade; Keira couldn't understand why Roy had kept him around this long. He did nothing save for occasionally helping Martin with the heavy lifting; the man was nothing but an extra mouth to feed. A mouth that would be better sewn shut, she thought. It was no secret that he was racist, and regardless of her value to the group he made sure to remind her every day of what he thought of Indians. Many of her days were spent daydreaming of her tomahawk embedded in his skull.

Keira gathered the last of her newly made arrows and packed them into her quiver. She found Roy in the lobby and alerted him that she was going hunting with a quick gesture towards her bow. He offered a short nod of understanding and went back to looking at the variety of maps laid out before him. To any regular person, it would look like he was trying to plan the groups next move, but even in the short time she had known him, Keira knew he would never leave this place. He could never leave his fortress.

She removed her shoes before leaving the motel and heading into the forest. The grass was cool beneath her feet, and she took a moment to enjoy the sensation. The forest was silent around her as she crept deeper into it, keeping her eyes peeled for any sort of movement. The occasional bird caught her attention, but she continued forwards, not bothering to track their ever-echoing sounds. Rather she found a comfortable area on somewhat high ground, took a deep breath, and listened. At first, there was nothing, but then a small animal made the fatal mistake of making a sudden movement. Keira quickly followed the sound and caught the moving shrubbery in her sights. She nocked an arrow, drew back and fired. She rushed down to retrieve her prize: an Eastern Cottontail. She removed the arrow and tied the rabbit by its hind legs, letting some of the blood drain before attaching it to her waist and continuing on. She had to be careful not to let the blood trail so as not to lead any undead straight to her. The blood would dry soon and they may lose the scent, but risking it was out of the question.

Keira spent another hour or so in the woods, managing to catch another rabbit and a raccoon, before heading back. A squirrel had evaded one of her arrows but she decided against going after it; squirrels were quick and too unpredictable. She was barely 20 steps away from the edge of the forest, the motel sitting just within her sight, when she heard it: the distinct sound of wheels rolling against the paved road. A quick look told her that all three cars belonging to her group were still parked in the lot.

Which means someone else is here.

She crept closer towards the motel but stayed hidden in the forest and watched as a caravan of vehicles rolled to a stop in front of the Welcome Inn. A man in a police uniform came out of one of the vehicles, followed closely by another man with short shaggy hair. Keira strained her ears to hear their conversation.

"What do you think?" the man in the uniform asked quietly.

"Might as well check it out," the other man replied, "look for supplies, grab what we can while we can."

The police officer seemed to agree. The two were joined by a young Asian man and another man wielding a crossbow. They spoke quietly amongst themselves for a moment before preparing their weapons and moving towards the motel. Keira panicked; she either needed to warn one of her own people or get these ones to stop their advance, but both situations ran the risk of them shooting her if she surprised them. Thankfully, luck seemed to have been on her side as Roy chose that moment to open up the front door, brandishing his own shotgun. The men aimed their weapons at him, and he returned the favour.

"Who the hell are you people?" Roy questioned.

The group of men looked at one another in surprise; clearly they hadn't expected to run into another living person.

The police officer spoke up. "We're just survivors, like you."

Roy looked at the men, sizing each of them up, before making his own silent decision. He lowered his weapon just enough to make a point, but not so far that he couldn't draw it up quickly once more. "You can put those weapons away then, officer," he said, noting the man's uniform. "I ain't got a reason to shoot ya unless ya gimme one."

The police officer looked to the shaggy-haired man and nodded, lowering his gun as he gestured to the others to do the same. The man with the crossbow seemed reluctant to do so, but finally consented.

"We didn't mean to threaten you," the officer apologized, "we just thought we'd stop to look for some supplies."

"And I suppose knockin' on the door and askin' like a regular person was out of the question, huh?" Roy said with a bark of laughter, knowing full well that the world just didn't work that way anymore. "You got more people back there?" He asked, gesturing towards the vehicles.

"What's it to you, old man?" the man with the crossbow asked defensively. Keira observed him shift back and forth slightly and adjusted her own crouched stance; she could tell he was just itching to raise his weapon again.

The officer told the man to calm down before returning to Roy. "Yes, we have others."

"How many?"

The officer hesitated for a second. "Eleven in total," he finally answered.

"Eleven, huh? Quite the road trip you've got goin' on there."

The shaggy-haired man stepped forward. "Alright, enough with all these questions. What do you want?"

Roy glared at the man. "If I remember correctly, it was you who came to my door ready to raid the place. If anyone has a right to ask questions, it's me." He turned back to the officer. "I'll make it simple: you've got a lot of people, I've got a lot of room. Night's around the corner; you go drivin' with four sets of headlights shinin' bright as day, yer bound to draw some attention. See what I'm gettin' at?"

The officer looked at him in disbelief. "Are you offering us a place to stay?" he asked incredulously.

"Fer now. Can't spare many supplies, but I could at least give ya a bed to sleep on."

Keira was suspicious. Roy's reasons for keeping her around were clear; she knew how to hunt, he needed the food. But she could not decipher his motives behind taking in eleven strangers.

The police officer and the shaggy-haired man argued quietly, but ultimately the officer seemed to have won. "We'd appreciate that," he said.

Roy finally set his gun down on the porch. "Come on, then," he said, gesturing to the vehicles again.

The officer motioned for the rest of his group to pull the vehicles into the lot. Keira looked on as a several people pulled up and exited the vehicles: an older man, a short-haired woman with a young girl, a Black man, a pretty blond woman.

And a young boy at his mother's side.

She couldn't tell what she was feeling, if it was joy or envy or something else entirely, but seeing the boy sent a shock through her heart.

Keira didn't even notice that she'd taken a few steps closer until she saw the boy look in her direction. For a moment, she could do nothing but stare back as he tried to see her through the trees, and it wasn't until his eyes grew wide in fear that she snapped out of it.

"Dad, walker!"

Every weapon was aimed at her.

A/N: AND THEN ANDREA GETS TRIGGER HAPPY AND KILLS HER THE END! Kidding, of course, Andrea just bothers me. This chapter is significantly less depressing! Huzzah! And I'm really growing fond of Roy and his sarcastic humourous suspicious weirdness. And oh my goodness, I can't tell you how much of a pain it is to have to write Shane as "the shaggy-haired man" and Daryl as "the man with the crossbow". :P

Finally figured out how to properly intro our favourite Atlanta group, and now the fun begins!

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