T-Dog

T-Dog opened his eyes and winced. His head was pounding and his mouth felt dry. He looked around the room and took in the empty bottles and bodies lying around. Adele was lying in front of the couch on her side Georgie and Daryl on it. Miao was lying across his chest, and he realised he had his arm around her. He wondered if he should move it or not. A stirring noise from the sofa made him sit up. Georgie was stretching and sat up. She looked at Daryl and pulled a face.

"Urk." She placed her hands on his side and shoved him none too gently off the couch and onto the floor, before lying back down. Although his body missed Adele, his hand flailed out and wacked her in the face. Adele woke with a start and then moaned.

"Oh my Gooood. Why did we think this was a good idea again?" She looked at Daryl on the floor. "Jesus. We're lucky we weren't attacked by walkers. This one sleeps through anything." She turned to T-Dog, and broke into a big smile upon seeing Miao across his chest. "Morrrniiingg T-Dog." T-Dog decided to ignore her, and spoke to Georgie instead.

"Hey Georgie, you wanna check on Daryl?" Georgie rolled onto her side and peered over the couch edge at the hick.

"He's alive. I can hear him breathing. Bastard kept twitching in the night." She sat up and swung her legs over the couch. "Get up Daryl," she said, prodding him with her foot. Daryl grunted and woke up.

"How'd I get on the floor?" He looked around, apparently trying to figure out the means by which he had gone to sleep on the couch and woken up on the floor. "An where's the kid?"

"Ben's in there," Adele slowly moved to her feet. "Or do you mean Matthew? Well, he's...gone?"

"Probably went back to his room." Georgie rubbed her face. "I think I will too. I need water. And a wash."

"Same." Adele walked unsteadily to the bedroom door. "I'll just check on Ben." As the three started to make a move, Miao stirred on T-Dog's chest. She lifted her head and looked around her.

"My head hurts. And I'm really hungry." T-Dog grinned.

"Eggs?"

Half an hour later, the party goers were sat around a table eating plates of T-Dog's, by this time famous, powered eggs. All except Ben, who sat at the table, his head in his hands moaning.

"This looks familiar." Glenn, Rick, Carol and Dale walked in the room looking at Ben in amusement. Glenn helped himself to eggs and sat himself down by Ben. "Try to go head to head with Daryl when drinking?" Ben hiccupped and nodded mutely. "Been there friend. Oh well, lesson learned." Glenn tucked into his eggs with gusto, as Ben slid his head down onto the table.

"Not that I'm against letting loose a little," Dale started, "but what if walkers had come? I mean four out of the six real fighters would have been drunk last night." Daryl scowled and looked ready to snap at Dale. T-Dog responded before Daryl could.

"Don't worry. We had a system. No walkers would have got in the room." Adele and Miao sniggered into their breakfast and shot each other conspiring looks. At Dale's confused look, T-Dog smiled. "You had to be there. Inside joke."

"Mmmmm." Carol looked amused. "We need more firewood. I think I'll go out this morning."

Georgie looked up. "Want me to come with you Carol?" Carol smiled.

"I'll be ok. Anyway I think you need to recover." Georgie nodded.

"Well take my jacket. The black one. It's somewhere under my bed I think. And a gun. The weather's getting milder, you can't be too careful. Where's Sophie?" Carol laughed.

"You'd think you were the parent here. Sophie's with Maggie so she's fine. And I'll be careful." She went to leave the room.

"Aren't you having breakfast?" Carol laughed.

"It's midday. You mean lunch."

After eating, Ben and Adele went back to their room, so Ben could curl up in bed. T-Dog, Miao, Daryl and Georgie went and sat in the reception area. T-Dog leant back on the couch next to Miao and reflected. It was a nice feeling, just relaxing with friends, not worried about walkers or where the next meal was coming from. He casually stretched out his arm along the back of the sofa. After a moment Miao shifted into his body. He grinned. They'd had a good time last night; a good lie in; eggs; his friends were here; Miao was here and there was no sign of danger anywhere. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt actually content like this.

He was listening to Miao and Georgie discuss the various feminine products they had liberated from the bathroom cabinets in the hotel rooms, when Daryl swore under his breath. Katie was coming towards them, or rather towards Daryl. Daryl made to get up, but it was too late, she had seen him.

"Daryl?" Katie smiled a dazzling smile that seemed to be totally lost on the man. "Hey. How's your head?" Daryl grunted in response. T-Dog was amazed that Katie was still after him. Surely he had made his lack of interest clear? But apparently not to Katie who pressed on.

"So...I was thinking...we haven't spent much time together in like, forever." She crouched down in front of him and leaned into him. "I know a really good hangover cure, if you know what I mean." Georgie and Miao looked uncomfortable. T-Dog squirmed inside. Was she really being this obvious in front of them? He looked at Daryl, who had no expression on his face, and noticed that Katie's hand was resting none too lightly on the upper part of his thigh. Katie's face moved closer to Daryl's and then the hick lost his temper.

"Get off me ya skank!" Grabbing her by the upper arms, he pushed her away so suddenly that she fell on her behind, looking at him in shock. "What does it take to show ya, I ain't interested in ya. Ya complain all th time, ya don't do anything to help, ya follow me around ev'ry where. I wish I'd never laid hands on ya. Ya desperate slut, go find someone else to screw, cause once is enough fer me."

Katie's eyes opened wide. She looked on the verge of tears. She opened and closed her mouth and then got up and walked away. T-Dog suddenly felt incredibly sorry for her. Georgie obviously felt the same. She frowned at Daryl.

"Bit harsh Daryl." She scrambled to her feet and walked after Katie, catching up with her and placing her hand on her shoulder. Katie turned her head and took in Georgie for a nanosecond. Then, she reached her hand back and slapped her around the face so hard that the sound echoed around the room. T-Dog and Daryl jumped to their feet. The slap was so hard that Georgie had taken a step backwards, clutching her face in shock. Before she could recover, Katie was attacking her, not in the way that T-Dog had seen Georgie train her in the complex, but the way he had seen women fight outside night clubs after one too many. Scratches to the neck and eyes, slaps around the face, and hair pulling.

Before T-Dog and Daryl could separate the two ladies, Georgie had recovered her composure, and landed a hard punch to Katie's stomach. Katie reeled backwards. Georgie stood ready to defend herself again, but there was no need. With a loud sob, Katie rushed upstairs, without as much as a backwards glance. T-Dog rushed up to Georgie, who had a nasty looking scratch on her neck.

"Lemmie see that." Daryl went to examine the mark, but Georgie moved away.

"Oh no, I think you've done enough don't you?" She moved to the kitchen. "I'll sort myself. There's a first aid kit in the kitchen." Daryl turned to T-Dog.

"What did she mean? I ain't done nothing!" T-Dog sighed. Daryl wasn't as much of a redneck as they had all first though, but he was pretty stupid sometimes. T-Dog considered him his closest friend in the complex-something that he still couldn't quite believe-but even he got exasperated with him sometimes. Suddenly, he was too tired to explain to him what had happened.

"I don't know. Girl stuff I suppose." He walked back to the couch and Miao. Maybe he could still salvage that good feeling he'd had before Katie turned up.