Cherokee Rose
Daryl
Every time he'd been in to the woods and come back without Sophia in tow, Daryl had felt a fresh sense of failure. She wasn't his responsibility he kept reminding himself, but it didn't do him any good. He wanted to see the way Juliet and Carol's faces would light up when they saw her, how they'd all probably run to each other like a scene from one of those old movies they played sometimes that he watched still drunk from the night before if he couldn't be bothered to locate the remote.
The truth was, he blamed himself. He'd held Juliet back when she wanted to barrel after Rick and her sister, and he hadn't gone himself. He hadn't wanted anyone else in danger, and had trusted Rick not to do something as stupid as leave her.
He wasn't making that mistake again.
As they pulled up outside the house the next morning Juliet came over to meet them with a younger, blonder girl in tow. She gave her mother a tight, quick hug and checked she was okay before saying anything.
"This is Beth. Her Dad owns the house, he's the one who's been taking care of Carl." Beth might have been pretty if not for the bloodshot eyes complete with heavy shadows underneath and the pale face she was sporting along with it. She looked like she'd spent a large proportion of the night before crying, and Daryl wasn't interested in knowing why. Juliet had probably been up with her, although she had perfected the art of looking presentable after a night awake.
"Hey. Daddy wants y'all to set up over there, close by the house." she instructed them. She excused herself to go back inside, and suddenly, Juliet was in business mode.
"Okay, these people lost a man yesterday. He happens to be the guy who shot Carl but he was out with Shane fetching the respirator which saved his life, so he is both redeemed and someone to be mourned. They're all taking it pretty hard – You'll meet his wife Patricia later. We're all attending the memorial as soon as you've driven over and got settled in, I want that to be no more than half an hour from now, and there's to be no arguments – Hershel is letting us stay on his property, we will be respectful of his wishes and his people, but the sooner we start the sooner we can be out looking for Sophia. Am I understood?" Daryl had honestly never seen her so abrupt before, but he decided quickly that he liked this side of her. "They're all coming out in a minute, be prepared."
Sure enough the rest of the ensemble joined her. Juliet took a step backwards, allowing the floor to anyone who wanted to take it.
"How is he?" Dale was the first to speak, addressing Lori and Rick. Lori was pale and clearly hadn't slept, but a smile lit up her face.
"He'll pull through, thanks to Hershel and his people." Lori answered him.
"And Shane." Rick added. "We'd have lost Carl if not for him."
Dale and Carol walked forward to give Rick and Lori hugs respectively. Carol told Lori quietly how worried everyone had been. He thought that was big of her considering Lori had an injured son who was certain to survive now, and she had a missing daughter who was just as likely to turn up dead as alive, though he planned to go to whatever lengths he could to ensure it turned out to be the latter. Carol easily could have been jealous of Lori getting off with this so lightly, but she wasn't that type of malicious person. It was one of the reasons Daryl liked her.
"Hunting accident. That's all. Just a stupid accident." Rick told Dale when he asked what exactly had happened. Daryl doubted Rick would be so flippant about it if his son had died. "I don't know if Juliet told you, but we're having a memorial… One of Hershel's men was lost getting something for Carl." The older woman who had come out of the house choked back a sob, quickly identifying herself as the wife whose name had already escaped Daryl. "Shane couldn't do it alone… Carl and him… They'd be dead if not for Otis." Rick, unlike Juliet, left out the part about how it was him who'd shot Carl in the first place. "I hope you'll come and pay your respects to him."
Unseen by Rick or the others from the house, Juliet flashed them a warning look.
"We'll all be there." Andrea assured him. "Won't we?" The rest of the group, including Daryl, murmured their agreement.
"Yes ma'am." Dale said with a curt nod, and Juliet smiled.
"Okay, drive over. I'll come and get you when the service is starting, until then I'm going to help out with some stuff in the house." Juliet instructed them. From the way Hershel and Beth smiled at her, Daryl understood that she had already integrated herself with their side of things. It would probably be good to have someone close to them, make them seem more like one group. She turned on her heel and was entering the house quickly. Everyone else bid them goodbye, all except Rick who volunteered to show them where to go.
"We should probably do as she asks. I don't think that she's in the mood for nonsense." Andrea said with a small smile playing on her lips. Daryl was the first driving over, but the last to stop. He waited to see where they would park themselves and deliberately separated himself from them. He could see Juliet coming out and rolling her eyes, loudly commenting on how antisocial he was, setting up her own tent close to it simply to irritate him or moving it closer every time he left it for a few moments and he almost did it just to get a little rise out of her. He thought then that he was probably overestimating how much she'd care. Maybe he wanted her to – after all she was the only one who'd care at all.
He managed to pitch his tent before she came back out with Hershel behind her this time.
"Really?" was all she said to him upon seeing it, pushing her hair back from her eyes. "Well, we're ready when you are. Please don't hold things up." Daryl almost smiled before he caught himself in the midst of it.
The funeral was an oddly morbid feeling affair considering few of those in attendance had actually known Otis. Hanging in the air was the unspoken feeling that it could be Sophia they were all gathered round to mourn. He stood close to Juliet and Carol, catching Carol's eye at one point and trying to look reassuring, something which didn't really work for him. Juliet kept her eyes fixed on the ground and didn't look up once throughout it all. After it was over she stayed put until Andrea walked up to her and took her hand.
Her head snapped up rapidly like she had been woken up from a nightmare.
"Come on, it's over now." Andrea told her quietly. Juliet looked at her like a helpless child, and allowed herself to be guided away back to their makeshift camp.
"It's going to be hers next." He heard her say as he followed them. "I don't want you to tell me that it won't be, don't reassure me, don't say anything. I just need to be sad for a minute, and then I'll be fine." Andrea removed her hand from hers and instead put an arm around her shoulders. The pair stopped and Juliet rested her head on Andrea's shoulder. Daryl passed them without a word. They were having a moment; they didn't need him interrupting.
He hoped she wasn't crying.
Most of the others – the capable others at least – were gathering around the hood of a car.
"Daryl, over here." Rick summoned him. He was reluctant to do as he was told, but also the feeling that he would be useful in whatever this was made him want to go. As he wandered over he saw Andrea leave Juliet to go inside the house with Beth, and she came over. He gave her a questioning look which she pretended not to see. "We're just planning what we're going to be doing about the search. Will Juliet and Carol want to be here for this?"
"Carol's with Lori, and Juliet needed a moment. Funeral got to her a little." Andrea explained, in a way providing a little detail as possible.
"I said it would, didn't I?" Shane questioned Rick. "She can handle the walkers, I'm not disputing that, but the kid's got to learn to toughen up." Rick gave him a warning look. "Don't give me that look, she's been at breaking point since her sister got lost. I say we tell her to get on with the chores with the rest of the women. Don't need her out there ruining our search."
"How about you shut your damn mouth?" Daryl snapped at him before he could stop himself.
"Daryl's right. She's allowed to grieve Shane, her kid sister is lost out there. I'd shut the attitude off before she hears you because I'm not going to stop her if she goes for you. Right now you're as good as any punching bag would be for her." Rick warned him sternly, Andrea nodding along.
"She's coming out today." Daryl said firmly.
"And if you find that little girl's cold corpse, or worse, her stumbling around those woods a walker? What are you gonna do then? You think she could shoot her sister? Bullshit she could." Daryl didn't answer. He would never let it get to that situation, he'd shoot a Sophia walker before the thought could even cross her mind. He'd rather she blamed him than herself.
"Juliet can go if she wants to. She's as capable as any of us." Andrea said firmly. She glared at Shane when it looked like he might speak again.
"I'll go get you a map." a young girl, part of Hershel's group, not theirs, told them.
"That's Maggie, she's Beth's sister." Andrea told him quietly when he looked at her questioningly.
"Oh yeah, she was that chick on the horse." Andrea nodded.
They were silent until they saw Maggie approaching again, which Hershel decided was the time to ask how long Sophia had been gone. Daryl let Rick take that question, oddly mindful of seeming too involved with the proceedings. He wished he could be a little more clinical about it, go out, look, find her, not find her, and have it not matter either way, but he couldn't seem to distance himself from it. Hell, Carol crying the night before had been enough to send him out on what could have easily been a suicide mission.
"County survey map." Maggie explained, laying it on the hood of the car. "Shows terrain and elevations." Daryl had been mentally mapping the place out since they began searching, something he was actually very good at, but this was without a doubt the better option. There was a lot of ground they had missed, places Sophia could easily be, and the assurance that they had barely scraped the surface of the place reaffirmed in his mind that they would find her somewhere.
"This is perfect. We can finally get this thing organized. We'll grid the whole area, start searching in teams." Rick said gratefully.
"Not you." Hershel said suddenly to Rick. "Not today. You gave three units of blood. You wouldn't be hiking five minutes in this heat before passing out." He turned to address Shane. "And your ankle. Push it now, you'll be laid up a month, no good to anybody." Both of them had to agree. Shane was debating whether or not Juliet would be of use, and it amused Daryl that even if she was the most hopeless shot in the world she would still be more use to the search today than Shane.
"Guess it's just me. I'm gonna head back to the creek, work my way from there."
"You should ask Juliet before you go, see if she wants to. It's unfair to bypass her and Carol completely, it's their family you're searching for." Andrea reminded him, less spitefully than she usually would have. Despite his reluctance to see her in anything resembling an emotional state, he had been planning to anyway.
"Yeah, I'll go now." Daryl said, excusing himself from a discussion about guns he didn't want to be a part of anyway. If they were taking guns he'd make sure they didn't get his, and tell Juleit to keep the one he'd given her hidden. He understood Hershel and his reluctance for them to carry guns on his land, but this was a necessary precaution.
Juliet was sat at the table in the kitchen with Beth. They were talking quietly, drinking tea, and neither noticed him when he came in. He cleared his throat. Juleit looked up with a smile.
"I'm goin' out in a minute. You can come if you like." He told her.
"Of course, just give me ten minutes, I have to find Carol and tell her and then I'll be out." Daryl nodded and left quickly, not wanting to stand awkwardly waiting for her making her think he was getting impatient, which of course he would be if she took forever.
He waited on the porch initially, then took a sweep around the house, bored of standing still. Rick caught him as he came past the porch again with a call of his name. Daryl tried not to look too exasperated with this.
"You okay on your own?"
"I'm better on my own." He didn't mention that Juliet was coming, he couldn't be bothered having that discussion with Rick too. "I'll be back before dark." He tried to continue walking but Rick caught him with another shout.
"Hey! We got a base. We can get this search properly organized now." Daryl knew immediately where this was going – Rick was going to tell him that he didn't need to help if he didn't want to. It irked him for a reason he couldn't put his finger on.
"You got a point or are we just chatting?"
"My point is it lets you off the hook. You don't owe us anything."
"My other plans fell through."
Rick let him keep walking after that.
Juliet
Juliet combed her hair, tied it back out of her eyes, and said a quick goodbye to Beth before she made her way out of the back of the house to explain where she was going to Carol. She gave her another hug – two in a day definitely felt excessive no matter what the circumstances, and gave a little wave to Andrea when she passed, pretending not to hear the remark Shane made about her not being able to hack it out there. She was late meeting Daryl anyway and didn't have time for that argument. She'd plan it while she walked to keep her mind off Sophia and let him have it later.
She cut through the house in time to see him talking to Rick and walking off. She took off after him without a thought.
"You better not be leaving me behind." she scolded him once she'd caught up.
"Course not. Just getting away from whatever that was."
"And what was that?"
"Just Rick playing the Good Samaritan, letting me off the hook. I don't think he's a huge fan of me being the only one out looking for your sister."
"You're not the only one." she reminded him firmly. "I'm here too, and I'm not letting you off the hook whether you want to be let off or not, I've spent far too long cultivating you into a good friend for you to up and leave now." She left out the part where the thought of him leaving made her want to throw up. She put it down to missing Sophia and not being able to stand losing anyone else that close to her, but silently she knew she'd feel exactly the same even if Sophia wasn't gone.
"Wasn't planning on it." It was clearly meant more as a brush off, an indication that the conversation was closed, but it was enough of a reassurance for her to breathe a sigh of relief. He noticed the look pass over her face and said nothing about it. She thought it was probably better if they left stuff like that unturned anyway.
Whether from stress, exhaustion or both, Juliet was finding herself growing more and more irritated with the terrain she was having to traverse over. There were too many branches, leaves, far too much mud, even the occasional large spider web for her to almost walk in to. She was doing a good job of not letting on how much it was bothering her when, distracted by something Daryl was saying in one of the longest monologues she had ever heard him enter into as he recounted – exaggerated – how awful spending time with Andrea had been the night before, she tripped over a log.
"I fucking hate forests!" she yelled, unable to stop herself. He looked like he was trying not to laugh, and she glared at him. "You're such an asshole." He offered his hand to help her up. She was almost too proud to accept it, but not quite.
"Look where you're goin'." She rolled her eyes.
"I was, just not at the floor."
"Outdoors we call it the ground."
"You're the worst. You're worse than the outdoors. Carol's Aunt Rosie, she used to take me and Sophia out one a month to go hiking round woods, sometimes up a mountain when I was still living at home. I never liked it, but when I got to about fourteen it was hell on Earth getting me to go. I remember Carol not letting me go to this party once 'cause I was supposed to go out with her. I screamed about it for like two hours before they could force me out the door, I'm not kidding you. I think Ed must have been away because he wouldn't have put up with it. Anyway, I ended up going on this hike in the outfit I was going to wear to the party, this little sequined mini-skirt and heels, complained the whole time, but she didn't give in. She made me walk like ten miles that day, I swear to God, I didn't speak to her for the rest of the month. I was such a brat." Juliet recalled it with a fond smile on her face. If they found Sophia she'd have to remind her of that day, they always had a good laugh. It was one of those things that had seemed universe-destroying when it happened and was now just hilarious.
"You're still a brat." Daryl assured her with a smirk. She elbowed him hard in the ribs.
"You're still an asshole."
"Did she still live in Georgia when all this happened?" Juliet knew what he was asking without really asking.
"Actually she died before all this happened. She and Carol fell out right after I left, something to do with Ed I always assumed, Aunt Rosie always hated him. We stayed in touch, she passed away maybe two months before the outbreak? I went for the funeral. I think I was kind of hoping I'd run into Carol, Sophia maybe, but they didn't go. I got really angry, then remembered Carol probably had wanted to go and Ed hadn't let her."
"You've never mentioned her before."
"It never came up. Besides, there's a lot I haven't mentioned to you before. I think some things are best left in the past, don't you?" She let her words hang in the air, and a kind of unspoken understanding passed between them as she met his eyes. Daryl nodded and cleared his throat awkwardly, and she suppressed a smile.
"So, I'm thinking we had back down to the creek today, different angles and such. We'll split up at some point if you're good to go on your own." She nodded firmly.
"Of course. I don't want to be stuck with you all day." He pretended not to hear the last part, she knew if he said anything about it they'd become immersed in an amusingly petty squabble, and though she'd set it up, she would rather avoid it too, for the sake of looking for her sister.
"Good. When we find something we can both easily find again you can go on your way."
And Juliet planned to find it again. In fact she was already taking note of anything she saw that might help her find her way back to the farm if, for some reason, Daryl couldn't. It seemed a morbid necessity, to plan what she might do if she lost him out here. She had an excellent memory which she planned to use to its full extend. She was terrified of getting lost even before walkers had been a threat, and now they were she would be even more vigilant about where she was going. She'd count her steps if she had to, she wasn't staying in the woods alone past dark.
They found a little cabin not long after, and Daryl declared he would search it before going any further. She was to head west, he would go east, and they'd meet in three hours, more or less. She had a watch and he swore he could tell the time from where his shadow was on the ground. She was dubious, but wanted to stay in the woods rather than go inside – the woods provided a clear three-sixty view of threats, in a house they could be behind any closed door. That seemed like more of a risk to her.
She didn't call out while she looked. She didn't want to draw anything to her that wasn't Sophia. She wasn't sure what she was looking for in the way of clues in all honesty, and she hated that. She felt useless even when she was out looking and no-one else was. That didn't seem fair.
She took out a walker, quietly, with a knife, no reason to attract more over. Daryl had told her that they should cut open any they found, just to make sure. She wondered if she should just keep a mental note of where it was and ask Daryl to dissect it later, but it was far and getting him to walk here might take hours and she was pretty sure she could. She hadn't watched the other day, but she remembered cutting a frog open in Biology class (and fainting when she left the room to get some air, but that was beside the point). She could probably imitate the method.
She threw up half way in to it. It smelled like a corpse. It was, technically, just one that walked.
The stomach was almost completely empty. She was glad. Half digested walker food would have set her off again.
It was quieter than she thought it would be. She thought she'd take down more than one walker before she needed to head back. She remembered the herd they'd seen and wondered where they were. Luckily, she hadn't run in to them, though if she had she would have climbed the nearest tree and stayed quiet. No way walkers could climb trees.
Daryl was twenty minutes late, enough for her to be concerned, but not considering leaving. He returned as she had – empty handed.
"Thought I had a lead." he said by way of explanation. "Wasn't her. It was some boy who'd turned a long time ago." That did nothing to ease the concern she felt. She was glad she hadn't been the one to find the boy. That would have killed her.
"I took the stomach out of one." she said, almost proudly.
"I took the stomach out of him." Juliet said nothing to this. He didn't realise that the mental pictures dancing around her head were of someone else doing the same to Sophia. That boy had been someone's child too. Maybe he had an older sister out looking for him once. Maybe she couldn't bear to put him down so she'd just left him.
Juliet had said once that she could put Sophia down if it came to it. She no longer stood by that declaration.
She decided to focus on something else. Anything else.
"What is that?" she asked, finally noticing that he was carrying a large white flower in his hand. He actually blushed and twirled it between his fingers.
"The other reason I was late. Found 'em round the back of this place. I want to give one to your mom, there's this story that goes with it... Doesn't matter. It's stupid."
She could have teased him about it, and easily for that matter. Could have snorted about how soft he was or jested that she should be the one getting flowers from him, not her mother but instead she just smiled at him warmly, awestruck.
"It's not stupid." she assured him gently. "She'll love it."
There was a glint of pride behind his eyes. She closed that already small gap between them and put her arms around him, just for a moment until he reciprocated, then pulled away, and if anyone asked, she'd swear it had never happened. She didn't know what compelled her to do it, the influx of emotions which had accompanied her sisters disappearance that she didn't quite know how to deal with seemed a safer bet than her simply being grateful he was doing something kind for her mother. She wasn't fond of the idea that she might just need someone there. Admitting that, even just to herself, seemed a lot like weakness.
They walked back without a word to each other, the odd look aside they didn't even acknowledge each other. Silence with him always felt comfortable, a choice on both their parts. There were things they could say to each other, but neither wanted to. They were both tired and frustrated that another day had passed and Sophia was still gone. Voicing this seemed unnecessary, and saying anything else seemed like avoiding the elephant in the room, so they simply didn't. The single interaction they had was when Daryl picked up a beer bottle and filled it with water from the pond nearby. She raised her eyebrows in disgust, but to her relief he didn't drink it, instead put the flower inside. She turned away with a smile on her lips, pretending she didn't see or care.
She let Daryl go to her mother on his own. She didn't want it to seem like something she had encouraged when it was his own kindness that had thought of doing it. She looked briefly for Andrea and, realising she wasn't there, she went and sat on the porch steps on her own, angling herself so she could stare at the forest, thinking of her sister, in the somewhere, alone, hungry, cold and scared. Her nails dug in to the wood leaving tiny crescent marks when she realised what she was doing and rapidly moved her hands. She wished she still had her iPod to drown out the noise coming from camp not too far away, but she made do by pressing her eyes shut and pretending that warded noise away from her.
By the time she opened them again the sun had finished setting, and it was another night that Sophia had to spend alone.
She debated internally going back out there and telling no-one, because they'd stop her if they knew, but another fruitless search without a few minutes of sleep to recover seemed a little much to handle. She wondered if she should go and see her mother, say something to her by way of an apology for failing again, swear she'd try harder tomorrow, but she'd be met either by reassurance, crying, or Carol shifting the blame to her again, and she was reluctant to deal with any of them. She considered going to Daryl and crying about it because he was the only one who she knew would say nothing but she quickly dismissed it. She didn't want to move.
In the end she simply stayed put, resilient, silent, and alone.