AFishNameSushi - Ehehehe, Lost reference...Andrew Lincoln is the best choice I think they could have ever made for Rick. He's so fucking wonderful...(love me some Rick!).

Lilone1776 - Merle is never up to anything helpful to anyone but Merle...maybe Daryl, but mostly Merle. ^_^

MollyMayhem84 - May I just begin by saying your rambling retro-reviews made me laugh. You are indeed the Crowned Princess/Prince of the ramble. I quite enjoyed them! Mostly I enjoyed your fractured French (I never took French in school, but being Canadian some of my French knowledge is through osmosis. Example: Zesty mordant isn't a flavour of chip, it's both the English and French word for 'zesty' this I learned from the Trailer Park Boys, but I digress). Don't worry about your French, I can't speak it fluently, but I can read some of it (comes from bilingual signs). As for your recent review, I thank you, I know I skip a lot of OC rambling crap too. I wouldn't blame people for skipping mine (I wouldn't have written the chapter except that some people were curious about the Old Missy's decision and I have to elaborate for them). Wow, writing you a book that you neither asked for, nor probably would appreciate. Sorry.

Axelrocks - No, but I have watched Mallrats in which Michael Rooker's bare ass is on display...it was kind of nice...it was kind of really nice. Made my day. (I love how you're talking about a beautiful character who was bad but didn't want to be and I'm all 'bare ass'). You just know I'm full on class.

spygrrl99 - I'm glad I could make your lunch break enjoyable. Usually my lunch break is made enjoyable by the lunch lady actually being pleasant instead of the raging mega beast that she is...but that's neither here nor there. I'm glad you enjoy my OC's. I really didn't intend for the dirty buggers to take over most of the story...I'll have to start dialing them back...or maybe killing them off...

GG - I couldn't see a woman of God giving up her faith so easily. Besides the Old Missy seems like the stubborn sort that wouldn't go down without putting up one hell of a fight.

LampPostInWinter - Thanks for your review!

Surplus Imagination - Oh no, my story is getting predictable! *loads shotgun* well there's only one thing to do now...kill someone off...(is Spy kidding...who knows). As always, thanks for the review! ^_^

Brazen Hussy - Ah, a fellow Merle (and Michael Rooker) fan huh? I just can't see him being a one dimensional monster, I want my Merle to be a good guy wrapped in a layer of hurt, wrapped in a layer of protective brick wall, wrapped in a layer of Southern redneck, wrapped in a layer of scruff, because this is how I believe he is. The show does a good job of giving him both good and bad qualities and I just want to bring out some of his good qualities in time through this work. Thanks for your review, fellow Merle fans get a special place in my heart. ^_^

Anyways, I noticed over on tumblr that a follower of mine whatluulikes was a little down the other day and I thought 'mah that's horrible'. I don't know if you read this story, whatluulikes, but if you do this chapter is dedicated to you. Because I hope it makes you a little happier even if it's only a wee bit happier.

Chapter Seventeen: Tremp Deux

**Daryl**

"Carol had a little girl," Daryl began suddenly, eyes on the raging rainstorm outside. "Named Sophia…"

He had no idea where the decision to share had come from. Daryl wasn't big on sharing, but the Cajun talked so damned much that it felt natural to share his own story.

Now Daryl didn't have many stories. He wasn't interesting enough to have yarns to spin or tales to weave. Merle was the one with the stories and Merle loved to tell them. Unfortunately all Merle's stories ended with someone getting their teeth knocked out or kicked in or broke off.

But this story? This one was Daryl's and Carol's and the Cajun, for as odd as he was, could be trusted with it.

It was something sacred, something one should rightly share around a warm campfire in the hopes to guide or inform, or maybe just to impart, but it was something Daryl unconsciously decided to reveal to the strange soldier.

Not much of a talker, Daryl suddenly threw his mind into overdrive, struggling to find a way to explain the story in as little words as less, without blathering on like a little bitch. He fidgeted with his hands, crossbow set on the counter at his side as he figured a way to proceed.

Thankfully during this time the Lieutenant was quiet, watching him patiently.

"I don't know just how old she was," Daryl went on. "Never thought to ask. But she was young, maybe ten, eleven? Twelve, could have been. And one day we were on the highway, heading for Fort Benning when the rad hose in Dale's RV went.

Dale was this old man, don't know where he was from or where he was heading when the world went to hell, but he was good guy. Knew everything seemed like."

Thought I was decent. He thought to himself, not daring to add the bit that it was Daryl who put the man down.

"Anyways, while we were stopped to fix it, I had gone ahead to scout the road, while the others went through abandoned vehicles for things we could use.

Suddenly this group of walkers was upon us, big herd, maybe fifty, sixty of them.

I had gotten caught up helping this black guy named T-Dog who had cut himself open and was basically chum in shark infested waters and then Sophia was just…gone."

Picking at a hangnail on his thumb, Daryl eyed the rain filled sky outside quietly.

"She was this lanky, blonde thing. Big blue eyes, freckles and quiet. Most kids with daddies like hers are. The day she went missing she was wearing this bright blue shirt with this…rainbow or some shit on it and…I thought I'd find her, you know? Like the world had gone to shit, but there was still hope that it didn't take youth and innocence like it did all the sinners, but…Carol cried herself to sleep for about a week after Sophia went missing.

Everybody these days are so caught up in their own little world, no one really cared for Carol or what she was going through.

Carol's a nice woman. She had finally gotten that asshole of a husband in the ground where he belonged and she was kind of becoming this other thing, this…

You know how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly? She was kind of like that.

And I wanted to find Sophia for her. For her, maybe a little selfishly for me too, but…

I thought that day I found the Cherokee roses, that it was a sign. That maybe Sophia was out there, just…hiding under a front porch or in a car, waiting for someone to come along and scoop her up, take her back to her mama.

Carol was a good ma, too."

"How were they a sign?" The Lieutenant broke in softly as Daryl trailed off into a dead silence.

"What?" He snapped a little.

"Those roses, how were they a sign?"

Not wanting to share the story with the Cajun, Daryl glared a little at him. "They just are."

"Alright, I get you, petit cabri, go on."

Waiting for a moment to gather his thoughts, Daryl watched as a walker passed by the window, tensing, hand halfway to his crossbow.

But in the rain it was confused and ambled off into the woods, away from the gas station.

There was no point going out in the wet and rain to get sick, so he went on.

"Herschel had this barn," he began ominously, "on his property that was filled with walkers. He thought they could be cured or something, like they had a chance.

So one day Shane flips out, opens the doors and all these shuffling bastards pour out.

We took down every single one of them.

After the shots stopped, this sound, like the angry mewling of a puppy, came out of the barn and she stepped out into the sunlight on unsteady legs.

One of those ugly son of a bitches had chewed on her neck.

I guess Rick put her down, I can't really remember, I was too busy holding Carol back. Fool woman would have run right to her death if I hadn't stopped her.

After that I knew we were all fucked. Seemed like Sophia was that one piece of the dam that was holding reality back. Without her things really went to shit. Herschel fell off the wagon, Rick changed a little for the worse, Randall showed up, Dale died and we lost the farm to walkers."

He cleared his throat. "She would have been real pretty if she lived to grow up." He confessed. "Like her mama, I suppose."

The gas station was quiet, the sound of the rain and the idle tap of the drops on the windows the only sound.

Finding it uncomfortable, Daryl began to chew on his hangnail, watching the skies for a sign that the rain was going to end.

"Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality." The Lieutenant said suddenly.

Daryl pondered this for a moment, before looking over at the soldier, pinning him with a hard glare. "That's the dumbest shit I ever heard."

The Cajun laughed jovially. "That's Emily Dickinson, couyon!"

"I don't care who she is, she probably never had walkers waiting at every turn to chew on her ass," Daryl replied. "Talking about immortality and love…fuck."

..-~-..

..-~-..

It wasn't until the next morning that the rain stopped.

By then both Daryl and the Lieutenant had napped on and off in the gas station, so both men were ready to get back on the road.

They headed back towards the area on the highway where the RV had broken down, where everyone met up after the farm fell. It seemed a safe place to attempt to start looking anyways, considering the others might get it in their heads to meet up there, or at least leave a note or a sign of where to go.

Driving down the damp highway in companionable silence, Daryl pondered the Lieutenant's story about Eloise and his words from the previous night.

He wasn't sure what he and Carol had. The woman was friskier than a mare in season lately and the way she looked at him was a little disturbing. Not because it was unwelcome, but because she looked at him like he held the answers to the entire mess they were in, like somehow he'd make things better or get them out of it.

It put just a little bit of pressure on a man.

Suddenly he understand why Rick did so much for that harpy of a wife of his whenever she had screeched at him to make changes or decisions.

Not that Carol would ever screech at him, she was a gentle kind of woman who never asked for much.

But it was that anticipation of her needs that drove him.

Carol needed protection, Carol needed Sophia with her in her arms, Carol needed to be happy and well fed, Carol needed to be warm and loved.

Carol needed love.

It burned down to that.

The woman needed someone to keep her safe and warm from the cold when winter came and they were suffering the change in temperature. She needed someone to give her a reason to smile and to go on in a world gone to pot.

But.

But Daryl couldn't be that man. He wasn't built like that. Men like Rick or Glenn or even the Lieutenant were built to hold and caress and reassure. Daryl was a work horse, nothing more and nothing less.

He did what he had to do and he may not have any grace or flair while he did it, but the job got done.

That wasn't to say that Daryl could bear the idea of a more deserving man being with Carol. Someone like Rick or the Lieutenant wouldn't appreciate her the way Daryl did.

And he did. He appreciated her more than she'd ever know.

He liked that she would think to bring him food on watch, or that she would seek him out in a crowd if only to stand near him, he liked that she seemed to gravitate to him, despite how cruel he had been to her in the wake of Sophia's death.

Those days hadn't been his best. He was miserable and not just because he failed the little girl, but because he felt like an asshole keeping Carol's hopes up when her baby was already dead and gone. He loathed the Cherokee roses he had brought her, he felt like somehow he had been torturing her with flowers while Sophia stumbled around in a barn with other rotting corpses.

Maybe he needed her more than she needed him. She made him feel human.

"You ever find it funny that it's the end of the world and yet you're still driving on the right side of the road?" The Lieutenant asked suddenly.

Daryl snorted.

"I mean, you could pull over onto the left, put a posh accent on and pretend we're in England. Make it feel like a vacation." The man chuckled. "Hell, it's the end of the world, I could walk around with no pants on and no one would say a damned thing."

"I'd say a damned thing. Keep your goddamned pants on around me, dumb ass." Daryl growled, lips twitching up ever so.

The Cajun laughed. "Ooh-ye! Could you imagine walking around a convent with no pants on?"

"That woman of yours would tan your ass with a broom," Daryl pointed out.

Sobering a little, the Lieutenant coughed. "She would that. Tough little thing, isn't she?"

"Sure is. I saw her eyeing my scruff the other day, thought she was going snatch me bald headed. That your doing?"

The Cajun laughed again and began pawing through the glove compartment. "Naw, came that way. Pre-packaged deal." He pulled out a couple of condoms. "Hey, Texian, safety first, yeah?" Tossing the condoms onto the bench seat between them, the Cajun kept going through the little stowaway cupboard. "Must have been the sons truck," he pointed out, pulling a lacy thong out from under the heavy, fake leather bound driver manual. "Or the American Gothic life is a lot kinkier than I imagined."

Daryl glanced over at the thong wielding Cajun with a sneer.

"Hey, wanna see something?" The Lieutenant asked, rolling down the window as they approached a curve ahead sign. "I'll make you a bet, Texian. I hook these drawers over that sign, you have to tell me a story."

"What kind of story?" Daryl growled.

"Any story I want."

Pressing his foot hard against the accelerator, Daryl smirked a little as he coaxed the truck up to ninety. "Deal, but if you miss you have to tell me something."

"You're on, Texian."

Stretching the waistband, the man let the underwear fly as they blew past the sign and Daryl slammed on the brakes, reversing the truck so that they could inspect the results.

As they pulled back to view the sign, Daryl snorted. "I win."

Looking from the bare sign to the ground where there was no sign of the underwear, the Lieutenant shrugged. "I didn't take the air suction velocity of the truck into account…"

"Yeah, right." Daryl put the truck into first and pulled away from the side of the road.

"Well, what do you want to know, petit cabri?" The Cajun asked.

Daryl chanced a quick glance at the man beside him, taking his eyes off the road long enough to study the soldier.

"Where was your daddy when you were growing up?"

"Doing eleven to twelve at The Farm for rape." The Lieutenant said, staring out the window. "After that? I don't know...don't much care."

Sneering at the road, Daryl regretted asking. This was why he never spoke, he sometimes said or asked dumb assed things.

"The thing was, my ma didn't like to see me much, never visited her at the hospital because she said I looked like him." Rolling the window back up, the Lieutenant sighed. "Once I learned what happened, when I got older, I suddenly realized that I was half the reason my ma was always trying to escape. My Mamere said it wasn't my fault, that if my ma really wanted a life without me, she wouldn't have given me to my grandmother to raise. Said I was one the best things in her life, but that I just happened to remind her of darker times."

The Cajun continued digging absently through the glove compartment as he continued his story. "Imagine going your whole life wearing the face of your mother's rapist. Knowing that every time she saw you, she was reminded of the worst moment in her life to date and that it really wasn't anybody's fault but the man who did it to her."

Daryl's grip tightened on the wheel as he turned off the secondary highway onto the main highway, heading towards the pile up of cars where the RV first broke down.

"I used to worry, when I was a young man, that I'd become my daddy. Used to keep my distance from women almost like I was already guilty of the crime. But then I read this book on 'nature versus nurture'. Is man born with the urge to hurt or does he learn it through experiences and actions? And I decided then and there that I wasn't a monster. That just by worrying about hurting a lady, meant I had the conscience of a good man. I'm not a rapist, I never could be one. Those women back at the convent, they're my women. I love them and I'll do anything for them, even on days when I do miss the warmth of a lady in my bed, I'd never think to even think of them in any way but the pure creatures they are. I would never hurt those women, any woman, all women. We men are not our daddies, as much as we seem to think we have to be, we're our own man. We can choose our own path, choose life or death or good or bad. We can be lovers or fighters or good cooks and creative artists. But we are not our fathers. And that's for true."

Daryl squinted over at the man. He wasn't sure if he should add an 'amen' or a smart assed remark, but he somehow knew that what the weird Cajun soldier had said meant something. That it was something to ponder.

Seeing the mash up of cars rising on the road ahead, he knew he'd have to ponder the Cajun's words later. For now they had a trail to pick up before it went cold.