Hey I'm back. I thoroughly recommend Bulgaria as a holiday destination. Hope you like the chapter-took me a few tries to get back into the swing of things and I'm not sure it's my best work :-/

Daryl

Perched on the end of the coffee table in his room, Daryl sighed, and placed his head in his hands. To his left, he heard Harry give a long sigh too. He didn't have to look at him to know Harry would have also placed his head in his hands. Ignoring him, he looked at Georgie, who for the second time in as many nights was curled up on his sofa. Except this time, to his relief, she was out for the count, not sobbing uncontrollably.

The previous night, after they had found the blood covered jacket, Daryl had volunteered to take charge of Matthew, and Georgie had accompanied him. At first, they had sat there in relative silence. Harry had been curled up at the base of the door, his head on a sofa cushion wrapped up in a blanket. It had been decided that it was best he didn't sleep in the room with Matthew, in case Matthew's supposed murderous tendencies urged him to kill his little brother. Daryl snorted at the idea, and heard an echo of his snort to his left. Matthew a murderer? He'd sooner paint Glenn as a pro wrestler. The kid was borderline crazy for sure, but he wasn't a killer. There was too much pain in his eyes. Killer's eyes were empty, like the Governors. He and Georgie had been sat on the couch in silence. Usually this suited the both of them, but even Daryl had felt uncomfortable. The girl had just lost the closest thing to a mother she had had and he had no idea what to say to her. He had examined his nails for an age, and then, unable to take the atmosphere had turned to her to suggest maybe she should be with Adele or T-Dog.

To his horror, silent tears were streaming down her face. She wasn't making a sound, but her breath was uneven. Daryl wanted to climb to the other end of the couch, as far away from her as possible. Hell, he liked Georgie, he liked her a lot, but this was out of his league. What the hell was he supposed to do? This wasn't like the time Susan had come home crying because some guy had stolen her lunch money. That time, he had gone out, found the bastard, beaten him to a pulp and brought the money home. From the looks of that jacket, nothing was bringing Carol home. Not alive anyway. For a few silent panic stricken moments, Daryl had stared at the sight of Georgie doing something vaguely feminine. Then, he'd reached out a hand and gingerly patted her on the shoulder. Immediately, he wished he hadn't. Her silent tears erupted into full blown sobs, and she'd thrown herself into his chest, crying like her heart was breaking. For a moment Daryl sat frozen, hands in mid air as if he was surrendering to a cop with a gun. Then he remembered something his Daddy had said to him a long time ago.

"Sometimes ain't nothing better fur a woman then a good cry. You'll be surprised how much good it'll do em. So don't be scaired of it, jus let em get it out themselves."

He slowly brought his arms around her shoulders and rubbed her back, letting her cry herself to sleep, which she did relatively quickly-or he thought she had. Maybe he had been so relieved that she'd stopped bawling that he'd assumed she was asleep. And then, like the crazy bitch she was, she went back out into the woods to confront who knows what, almost getting herself killed...

He leaned forward, and pulled the blanket up around her arms a little more, then turned to Harry.

"Think ya got some explaining ta do, don't ya?" Harry's head jerked up and he looked at Daryl in confusion. His eyes flicked towards the door, behind which Matthew was still being held captive. Daryl had every intent of opening the door and letting the boy out now that his innocence was proven, but not before he had had a chance to speak to Harry alone.

For some reason, the boy had been following Daryl around almost as soon as he and his older brother had been discovered in the hotel. Daryl had found this intensely annoying at first, but had managed to bite his tongue. At first, Harry just watched Daryl go about his work: sharpening arrows, skinning animals, checking equipment. Nothing too irritating. The few times Daryl had gone to hunt, T-Dog informed him, Harry had sat himself in the reception area and quietly waited there until Daryl had come back, a piece of information that Georgie had declared "sweet, if a little worrying." Then one day, Daryl had been skinning a few rabbits and realised that his knife was too blunt.

Before he could make a move, Harry had run upstairs, and had returned with another knife and the stone Daryl used for sharpening. Daryl had taken the two off Harry, surprised that he knew what he needed. After a moment's thought, he'd motioned Harry to sit closer, and was showing him how to skin a rabbit properly. Harry was a quick learner, and was skinning his second rabbit before Adele felt the need to take the knife away from him. From that moment, Daryl had started to teach Harry the same skills his father had taught him, and that he had been teaching his younger brother Dean before the dead started to walk. And he'd enjoyed it. Hell, it had felt like a taste of life before. He'd even kind of bonded with the kid. He knew bits about his life before, how his mother had died in a car accident when he was very small, how his Uncle had lived on the same street as him, that he really liked baseball, the fishing trips he took with his family. He knew darker things too, like how Harry loved his brother, but was scared of the imaginary man he spoke to, and was scared that Matthew had done 'bad things'.

He knew how to read him too. He knew Harry needed to have either himself or his elder brother in sight to feel safe. He knew he was jealous of Carl for having a daddy that looked so much like his own-it was written all over his face.

And when Rick had repeated the words Georgie had whispered-Cannibals-Daryl knew Harry had been afraid. Not the sort of fear you have of some bogeyman, that deep down you know isn't real. It was a fear brought on by experience. Daryl was willing to bet his teeth that Harry and Matthew knew something about these people in the woods. And dammit, Harry was gonna tell him.

He looked at Harry, trying to remember the look his Daddy and his Ma use to give him and his siblings when they wanted the truth. It must have worked, because Harry started to squirm under his gaze.

"C'mon now. Ya know somethin' about the people out there don't ya?" Harry looked at his feet.

"Don't ya?" Harry's voice came out in a whisper.

"Yes sir." Daryl paused. He tried to think how his Ma would have gotten the truth out of him-not by beating him to a pulp that's for sure. He shifted closer to Harry, looking him dead in the eye.

"What do ya know?" Harry swallowed, looking from him to the door where Matthew was.

"I...Matthew says if we tell you...you might let them get us..." The boy was close to tears. Daryl tried to control his frustration, but he had never had much patience, and not knowing what he was facing outside was making him more angry. He managed to do something he had never done before. He counted to ten before he spoke.

"Look at me. Ain't I the spit of ya Uncle Ed? Ain't we been like kin these last few days? I ain't gonna let nothin' happen to ya an ya brother, but I can't protect ya against somethin' if I don't know what it is. So Imma ask ya one. More. Time. Is it true? Are they really Cannibals out there?"

Harry's face turned up to look at Daryl. Fear was etched into every part of it.

"Yes sir." Daryl leant back. He had hoped that Harry would say no, that it was just something Georgie had imagined. He swore under his breath and looked at Harry, who had started to shake.

"They pretended to be good people. They said they were going to take care of us. Then they tied us up. They cut off my uncle's leg..." Harry's voice was trembling, and Daryl realised he was about to cry. "Matthew untied himself and me. He tried to untie my dad, but they saw him. We ran away, but Matthew went back to get my dad. He was gone a long time and when he came back, he had blood all over him and he was talking to someone who wasn't there." Daryl didn't need to think about what to do this time, he simply placed a fatherly arm around Harry, who sobbed as uncontrollably-although a lot more quietly-then Georgie.

"We kept running for ages until we found it here. We thought we were safe. When you came, we were scared you were them come to get us. But you weren't. We thought we were safe, but they've come for us. They've come to get me and Matthew, for what he did."

Before Daryl could ask Harry what Matthew could have done, the sound of smashing glass from the bedroom made them both start. Georgie jerked awake, her head whipping around to the bedroom. Daryl leapt to his feet and strode over. He pulled away the barricade and threw open the door. Swearing, he turned and raced out of the room, down the stairs.

The window had been smashed open. The room was empty. Matthew was gone.