Itsi3, Lilly72 and Mellissa - Thanks for the love.

Lilly72 - Yes, Daryl will find out, but try to be patient with him and his reaction. He's a badass not a saint. ;)

melissa - Yes, Daryl is younger than in the show but older than Carol is in this story. I'll get into the details later but for now I hope you like this latest update!

I own nothing.

Chapter 3 - Daryl

We had been walking for the better part of an hour trackin' this damn dear that just wont quit. I put a bolt in its hind quarter near three hours since but it was a fighter. Had to respect it for that. But it was limping and slowing down. The longer I tracked it the fresher the tracks got.

I had to hand it to the girl. She was quiet. Must come from tip towing around her old man.

You wouldn't think it lookin at her.

Black skin tight jeans, black long sleeved shirt, spiked belt, spiked bracelet, spiked hair. Everything about her screamed loud, but she wasn't.

The tracks turned a hard right, back toward camp. Well, that was fortuitous.

"Why did we turn?" she, Carol, asked softly.

"Ain't chu listen? We're tracking a dear."

"I don't see anything," her eyebrows furrowed.

"That's cause you ain't no tracker."

The girl bit her lip and blinked twice, just like she did before asking me to teach her to skin a squirrel.

"Suppose you wanna lear how to track too?"

Her mouth dropped open in surprise.

"Well if another person knew how-"

"Yeah, yeah I know there'd be another person to help lighten the load, right?"

"This world isn't what it was, the things you need to know, they've changed. Most of the people back at camp, all the skills they spent a lifetime learning don't mean squat anymore. But you, your the most valuable person in this camp, you have the skills to survive in this world.

"I'd do anythin'. I promise, I wont be a burden and I know you have no reason to help me but... it's just that I have my sister to look out for and I've already let her down in so many other ways, please I can't watch her starve."

"Ain't no one gonna starve. You think I'd take down a buck, eat my fill, and watch the carcass go bad rather than share? Can't eat the whole thing on my own."

The girl just looked at me.

"Besides, can't see why you're so sure the world has changed. Isn't everyone else back at camp waiting for the calvary to charge in and rescue them."

She just kept lookin at me with those big blue eyes, not sayin a word. Damnmit what did I care, she wasn't no kin to me. None of em, the could all die and it wouldn't much matter to me either way.

Couldn't hurt though, could it. Just wouldn't tell Merle.

"All right, look, see here," I said getting down on my haunches to point the tracks out, surprising myself. Should let the girl figure it out on her own, just like I had to.

Couple hours later, we were just outside the camp with a dead dear at our feet.

The girl was a quick study and she was smiling up at me with what we had accomplished.

"You ready to learn how to skin a dear," I asked.

She smiled wider and nodded emphatically.

Strange girl.

"Here?"

"Here." I said handing her the hunting knife from my belt. She nodded and took the knife, kneeling by the dear.

I talked her through it and she did great.

I kept expecting her to gag or faint or something girls would do but she was focused, determined.

We buried what we couldn't use and wrapped the rest up.

"All right, lets bring our prize back to camp," I said.

She looked up in terror.

"No! You promised. You said you wouldn't tell anyone you met me in the woods."

I just looked at her in a state of disbelief. We'd been tracking the dear for hours. It was close to sundown. Did she really think they would believe she was looking for mushrooms that long.

"Oh, shit, I haven't been looking for mushrooms. I don't have a single one. He's gonna-"

She stopped abruptly, biting down on her lip.

Who's gonna what? I almost asked, but she wasn't my problem.

"I have to go. I'm gonna go walk around, come in from another side of camp as you."

I watched her go off. I almost insisted that she go straight into camp and I'd walk around, but she wasn't my problem.

I got back to my tent and started my fire. I tried not to keep and eye out for her comin back but I couldn't help it.

I saw her approach the main camp quietly, head down. None of the bold forwardness she always seemed to have for me.

She came up to that skinny one, that was connected some how with King Shane, as Carol called him.

He scoffed to himself at that. At least he wasn't the only one who thought that cop was an arrogant, pretentious ass.

"Any luck," the skinny one asked, her voice carrying on the wind.

Carol shook her head.

"Well, let me see if I can try my luck," she said, grabbing the bucket.

"It's almost sun down," I heard Carol say.

"I guess l'll just take care not to be away quite as long as you," she said brushing past her.

Bitch.

Carol's shoulders slouched.

"Where's Sophia?" Carol called after Skeletor.

"With your father," she called back.

That's when I saw it. The terror on her face. I saw her almost get eaten alive and the only look on her face was resignation. Bracing for the pain that would come, but not afraid of it. She hears her little sister is with her father and she's terrified. She runs over to the tent and unzips it.

I guess they weren't there cause her head pops back up again and she looks around wildly.

She runs over to the old coot that keeps a post on his RV and shouts something to him I can't hear. He points into the woods and she runs in that direction.

I debate going after them, but she is not my problem.

I start roasting the venison instead.

A little while later I see the little girl, Sophia, Carol had called her, running like mad, crying I think. She practically dove into her tent and zipped the flap shut.

I looked around. I wasn't the only one who noticed.

Practically everyone in camp saw and I was by far the least qualified to handle a crying little girl. I kept to the task at hand but noticed Skeletor was still gone and King Shane who was always happy to rub his nose in everyone's business was no where to be seen.

I saw the two blonds and the old man talking worriedly, looking in the direction of the little girl's tent.

Finally the blonds walked over to the tent and knelt beside it, I could see they were talking to the little girl, maybe trying to coax her to come out or tell them what happened.

After a quarter of an hour Carol's pa came strolling out of the woods, a smug look on his face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, git the hell 'way from ma tent," he said kicking dirt at them like he was shewing stray dogs.

"Sophia's been in there sobbing," said the older blonde. "She came running out of the woods, we were worried she saw a walker.

"Or worse," piped in her sister.

"My family ain't none of your concern. Now git!"

The blondes backed off slowly, throwing him dirty looks over their shoulders as they made their way back to the RV. That's when the younger blonde gasped and pointed.

I followed her gaze to see little Carol near stumble out of the woods. She was holding her self real stiff but looked wobbly on her feet, like she was trying hard not to limp. Her hands were clenched by her sides so tight, her knuckles were white. Her eyes stared straight ahead but didn't seem to see nothin'.

She walked straight passed the blondes like she didn't notice them, even though I could see they were asking her something. She walked straight up to her tent. Her father was still standing at the entrance and as she ducked down to enter he grabbed the back of her neck and shoved her in.

I almost jumped up, but she wasn't my problem.

Ed ducked in after them and I went back to my venison. When it was finished I kept as much as I thought Merle and I could finish before it turned and brought the rest to the main camp. Everyone suddenly got real friendly with the redneck then. Like I gave a fuck about their gratitude. It was disrespectful to let good meat go to waste, an animal lost it's life over it, the least we could do was make sure it didn't die for nothing.

I went back to my own fire and watched the Peletier tent. I watched as Carol's pa got out. Eat the meat that his daughter helped make possible and then take two more shares, supposedly for Carol and Sophia. I snorted, no fucking way he was sharing. They were too skinny and he was way too chubby for that to be the case.

I gritted my teeth and climbed into my own tent. I stared up at the ceiling wide awake.

She wasn't my problem.