Rick was staring at Daryl; this morning Lori had told him about Daryl being married and while it was easy to believe all Daryl had was himself, hearing that he had a life before this humanized him. Rick could sympathize- he thought he would never see Lori again.

Daryl was skinning a rabbit as Rick approached. "Need a hand?"

"Ya' know how to skin?" Daryl asked without looking toward Rick.

"I can learn?" he offered.

"Then I don't need the help."

Rick kind of laughed, rocking back and forth a bit. He finally sat down next to Daryl. "So I wanted to talk to you."

"I figured."

"There's been talk." Rick continued, looking at Daryl. "About you."

Daryl scoffed. "Andrea can't keep her mouth shut."

Rick laughed. A moment of silence passed. "I know how you feel. I felt it at one point. And I found Lori."

Daryl scoffed again. "Well my ol' lady was in Atlanta and we both know how that went." He shook his head and threw the rabbit down. For a moment, nothing was said. Then Daryl showed a rare bit of vulnerability. "She was fun. I miss her." He pulled himself together and stood up. "Not like it matters one damn bit now. I'm goin' to look for Sophia."

Rick sighed and stood up. Today, him and T-Dog were going to go by some of the local swamps and see if Sophia was there. Rick just hopped they would find the girl alive.

It was early in the morning, and Charlotte was to take the man before her and cut his throat. "So, I'm going to keep asking; where is your group hiding out at?"

"Fuck you." She spat.

He took his knife and let it sit on her shoulder. "Come on baby, don't make me beg."

"We have children." She said desperately. "Just leave us alone." She yelped as the knife cut into her skin, and he dragged it down to her cleavage. Tanner was yelling and swearing. Charlotte kicked him in between the legs and he dropped to his knees, cursing. He grabbed her by her hair and punched her in the chest several times. His knife was cutting into her but she was fighting to hard to notice where. A gunshot went off and the commotion stopped. Charlotte looked to Tanner and he was lying on his side, crying as blood spilled from his arm. Charlotte couldn't hear her yelling, she struggled against the men. The man with the beard grabbed her and started to unbutton her shirt. She refused to cry. She struggled and fought, screaming at Tanner that it would be okay, and not too watch. "Maybe we should take them back to Crawford."

Before she could think about what Crawford was, everything stopped. The men were still, looking over her head. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a handsome man with a five o'clock shadow wearing a sheriff outfit standing with a built black man. The cop had his gun raised. "What the hell is this?"

"Who the hell are you?" her capture asked, holding his gun.

"Please help us!" Charlotte yelled. "They shot him!" something struck her in the stomach and lost all her air. The other men shouted. Charlotte laid face down in the dirt.

"What the hell is going on here!" the black man yelled. "Rick, what do we do?" she whispered.

The other man, Rick, was looking into Charlotte's eyes. She hoped her eyes screamed what she felt on the inside: help me.

Then they heard moans from the woods. Everywhere, Biters were shuffling into the area. The Bandits had taken off. Charlotte sat up and struggled to get off her restraints. "Help!" she screamed. Rick ran toward her and cut her bandages off. She crawled to Tanner in pain, turning him onto his back. "Tanner! Tanner!" she was screaming, she could hear gun fire in the air, the other two men shouting.

"We got to go T-dog! Grab her!" she felt arms around her.

"No, no! You need to help him!" Rick grabbed the man, shooting his gun and taking out walkers. "Go, go, go!" she ran as best as she could, Tanner tried to keep up but he lost a lot of blood. They eventually lost the Biters. Charlotte slowed down and put her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

"We need to get you back to Hershel." Rick said. "I'm Rick, this is T-Dog."

"I'm Charlotte, this is Tanner." She panted.

"Who were those guys?"

"Bandits." She puffed as they began to walk again. "They have been fucking with us forever. And they will be back."

Rick glanced at T-Dog, they were both worried. They never thought of having to worry about bandits, or had even heard of them. "Can you make it?" Rick asked.

Charlotte glanced at Tanner. "I think we'll make it."

"Hardly." Tanner sneered, holding his arm.

Charlotte was amazed at the farm. Rick hurried her in to an old man named Hershel as he separated her and Tanner into different rooms. Of course she was worried, she didn't know these peoples and if she learned anything in the past few months she learned not to trust anyone. But the presence of women around numbed any of her suspicions. "We're going to have to stitch these up." The women said.

"Help him first." Charlotte pleaded.

"The bullet only grazed his arm, we will have him stitched up in no time." Hershel said, grabbing some thread. "We're running low on supplies." He added, sending Rick a look. Charlotte got it; supplies were limited and he was using them on people he wasn't responsible for. Strangers.

"I really appreciate ya'll coming in when you did." Charlotte said, looking Rick in the eye. "I can't imagine what they would have done to us." To me.

"There's no way we could have left that and minded our own." Rick said.

"Thank you." She said again.

"I can't knock you out." Hershel said. "You're going to feel all of this."

Charlotte nodded. "I'll be fine." But half an hour later she was crying in pain. Tanner didn't do well either, he grinded his teeth and groaned, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the bed sheets.

"We'll get you guys fed and hydrated." Hershel said. "Give you time to heal up." It was an obvious answer to a question they didn't ask; They weren't welcome to stay. But Charlotte needed to get back to her group, to make sure they were okay.

Rick climbed down the stairs to fine Andrea, Daryl, Lori, T-dog, and Shane. "What happened out there?" Lori asked.

"We ran across a situation." He answered. "Trying to look for Sophia." He looked to Shane. "Bandits."

"Bandits?" Shane asked. "What do you mean bandits?"

"From what the girl told us, they go around taking what's not theirs and pillaging and looting and killing." The room got silent, everyone looking to each other. "That's what I've heard so far."

"Are we in danger?" Lori asked.

Rick didn't know the answer, but if the answer wasn't a for sure no, then they knew they had something to worry about. "What are we gonna' do about this?" Shane asked, his tone serious. "We can't have these guys passing through here."

"We'll have to talk to them, get more information." Rick answered. "I want to know what these guys are capable of. We are going to get them healed up and fed and get some information, then send them on their way."

"More mouths to feed." Daryl added, irritated. "We are wastin' supplies on them. Send them off now."

Andrea shot him a look. "It wouldn't kill you to be humane." Daryl didn't respond, but it seemed as if her comment had just rolled off his back.

Maggie was holding a plate of food. "Ya' want to bring it up to them?" her voice was sarcastic. "Or will that just make it too human for you to see them up there beaten to shit, God knows what those men did that girl." She stared him down.

Daryl glared back at her before he stormed out of the house.

"Thank you." Charlotte said to Maggie, taking the sandwich in her hand. She laughed a little as she bit in. "I didn't realize I was so hungry."

Maggie smiled back. "We haven't went hungry here yet." The door opened as an Asian man brought in a glass of orange juice. He made eye contact with Maggie, stuttered and turned bright red before her left. Charlotte looked to Maggie, grinning.

"What was that?" she asked.

Maggie smirked, glancing into her hands. "Between you and mean, I went on a run with him and things got a little heated." Both women laughed. "He don't know how to deal with it."

"You like him?" Charlotte pressed. Their group was so solemn and quiet, she hadn't had gossip or girl talk in months. She craved that primal interaction.

Maggie smiled about and lifted her shoulders. "I don't know. It's weird, with all of this going on. Hard to believe love could happen after the world ended."

"The world didn't end." Charlotte pointed out. "Civilixation did."

Before Maggie could comment back, Rick walked in. "I was wondering if I could get a word."

"Is now the best time?" Maggie asked.

"I'm fine; my body is useless but I can talk." Charlotte assured Maggie. Rick sat down but Maggie stayed, looking protective.

"I need to know about these bandits." Rick said.

Charlotte thought for a moment. "They're assholes, they'll take anything and everything by force. They don't care if you have sick, or children, they will take. At any cost."

"Would you think they'd come here?"

"No. They want to stick to town; this place is pretty far out. But you can never be too safe." This seemed to satisfy Rick, to an extent.

"I hate to bring it up, but we expect that as soon as you two can get on your feet-"

"We will be gone." Charlotte stated. "I have people to get back to." Rick nodded, standing up and leaving the room.

"Can I get you anything else?" Maggie asked.

Charlotte shook her head. "I'm thinking I'll be going to be now." Maggie left and Charlotte leaned into the sheets, and drifted off.

AN: I like to incorporate the video game into this story a little bit. But this Crawford is a lot more dark. Please review :)