I do not own the Walking Dead.

Previously:

"You're being too loud."

The man's head whipped round to see her, hand reaching for his cross bow. The two stared at each other for a few moments, him looking up and down her small figure as his hand moved away from the cross bow (Which, although Faye refused to admit, looked scarier up close). He spoke first.

"You ain't Sophia."

She hadn't expected that. A 'Who are you?' maybe, but not 'You ain't Sophia'. Who was Sophia?

"No," She replied, shaking her head. "Who's that?"

"Girl from camp, went missing. You seen anyone 'round here?"

Faye almost frowned. Wasn't he bothered about who she was? She didn't scowl, however, but shook her head again. "I haven't seen anyone in five days. You're the first."

"You ain't got a group? How'd ya survive?"

"Camp was overrun. Got taught." She said, answering in order. He gave a slight nod. The two look at each other. He had brown hair and blue eyes, opposed to her black and green. The sleeves from his shirt were ripped away, and Faye guessed the fabric was helping to cover his wound. Around his neck were ears hanging from a shoe lace and the cross bow was-

He was wearing ears on a shoe lace!

Curiosity and confusion made her question him, but was unsure how to phrase it. "Erm, why are you, like, you know, wearing ears?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, as if it was a stupid question. "Trophy. Why, it bother you?"

"It..." Faye gave an embarrassed look, believing his expression. "It isn't something I've seen before."

He shrugged. "Looks like you're comin' back to farm, then?"

"Farm?"

"The group's there. Had a horse, but it left the country."

She did hear a horse after all! She didn't reply, congratulating herself, and he pressed her for an answer as he turned away. "Ya comin'or not?"

"Oh!" She blinked at him as she began to walk with him. "Okay."

That had gone smoothly, surprisingly so. In fact, she had originally planned to question him more before walking off with the stranger, and expected a lot more questions from his side too.

Then again, she was only a child. He must have thought she wasn't a danger, she supposed. Unsure whether to take that as an insult or not, Faye went along with it.

She started on her questions and realised she hadn't asked one of the more important ones. "What's your name?"

"Daryl." He said.

"Daryl?"

"Dixon."

"Okay. I'm Faye Robbins!" She said, and waited for a reply. When she got none, she continued. "How far away is the farm?"

"Far."

"Who's in your group?"

He gave her a glance. "You want the full list?"

"I'd like to know how much it was worth to ignore the stranger danger rule." Faye expected a chuckle, but he simply answered the question.

"Rick, Shane, Carol, Andrea, Lori, Glenn, T-Dog, Dale, Carl and Sophia." He said the final name with a nod. "We're gonna find her."

That was quite a few people. She nodded a his answer. "Is that Sophia's doll?" She pointed to it.

"Yeah."

The question was nagging on her mind, so Faye blurted it out. "Who were you talking to?"

Daryl didn't reply, but his walking pace increased ever so slightly. She asked again. "You said bro. Was it your brother?"

As a response, he gave her a glare. She got the message and didn't push any further. After that, they walked in silence as Faye imagined what the members of Daryl's group would be like - which helped push the memories of that walker's face to the back of her mind.

Around half an hour later, Faye looked over to see Daryl looking at her back. He finally spoke up. "I got a question."

"What is it?" She replied quickly, not wanting to annoy the man.

"Where'd you get that gun?"

The question startled Faye. She immediately thought of her brother, Dad, the camp and the dead peo-

She shook her head vigorously as an attempt to get rid of the memories, something that was slowly turning into a habit. She gave a glance to Daryl, who was still waiting for her answer. Trying to act casual, she brushed her fringe back behind her ear and put her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "My brother gave it to me."

"Not much of a gift."

She snapped her head towards him and gave him the same glare he gave her. "It wasn't supposed to be a gift!" The words came out harsher than Faye had expected. "He gave it to me so I could get away from the dead people that got in the camp!"

"Alright, alright."

Faye focused on her feet after that. At least, until Daryl asked another question.

"Your brother, he make it?"

Her eye's stayed on the ground. "He didn't. Neither did my Dad." She said, quietly.

"Your mom?"

"Never knew her. Died when I was born."

Daryl obviously didn't know what to say. "I, err, sorry to hear it."

Faye shrugged. "Not your fault."

"I was just gonna say, 'cause Rick'll take your gun away."

The girl gave him 'the look' they had unknowingly developed and he continued. "Owner of the farm don't like 'em. Rick don't wanna upset him - plus he's got his own kid, Carl, who isn't allowed one. Hide it in ya bag before we get to the farm."

Looking at Daryl, Faye decided it had been a good idea to go with him, even if the happiness of finding someone had worn off quickly and Daryl wasn't completely 'right in the head' at the moment. Thanking him for the gun warning, she focused back on walking.

It was then Faye realised that she had trusted Daryl with a little of her story, albeit not much of a secret. She took another breath before speaking again, deciding she might as well finish.

"I went back a few days later," Faye looked over to see if the man was listening. He was. "I hadn't been followed, but I waited a bit so all the dead people could go away."

Daryl waited for her to go on.

"I shot them. I saw them in the middle of the road not too far from where our camp had been. All- all- all chewed up and horrible." Faye was almost in tears, voice trembling, but didn't want to cry in front of Daryl - whether she was a little girl or not. "Couldn't leave them like that. They- they would've hurt someone!" She looked up to see Daryl staring at her. "Right? They even t-tried to get me too!"

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. Faye had done her crying already and didn't want to waste any energy bawling.

"You did the right thing. Walkers ain't people no more. They're, err, in a better place."

"Walkers?" Faye looked up at him, trying to look normal again.

"The dead people."

"Oh, yeah. Makes sense, I guess."

Once again, they walked in silence. Later in the day, Faye asked Daryl whether he wanted some of her paracetamol when he started to walk funny, but he said it wouldn't help and Faye wasn't surprised.

The two made surprisingly good progress throughout the day, and Faye soon worked out Daryl was smart when it came to being in the wild.

She just did what he told her to.

It seemed like the right thing to do.

Like Daryl had said, Faye put her gun away as they neared the farm.

Daryl had started to limp earlier on and really needed to be treated on the arrow wound and was now dragging his cross bow along the ground - he ignored her offer to carry it for him. Come to think of it, they both looked a mess, covered in dirt and, in Daryl's case, blood. In the end, Faye had gone with the he-hurt-his-head-so-he's-a-little-crazy-at-the-moment explanation, and the possible infection he now had wasn't helping.

"There it is." As the trees thinned out, the older man gave a jab in the direction of a house, which Faye assumed was the farm. Suddenly feeling nervous again, Faye moved behind Daryl as they emerged from the tree line. Walking slowly behind him into the light, she realised just how bad Daryl looked. She looked down at her own dirt-covered clothes, and realised she didn't look much better.

Then she noticed the figures approaching them fast. As they grew closer, she definitely didn't miss the weapons the four men were carrying. As they stopped in front of them both, Faye edged closer to Daryl's back.

"Erm, Daryl..." Faye said quietly, almost a squeak. "Are- are they gonna shoot us?"

He turned round and gave her a little smirk as one of the men muttered something. "Nah, they ain't got the guts." He looked at the man with the silver gun. "That's the third time you pointed that thing at my head! You gonna pull the trigger or what? Gonna shoot her too?" He lazily threw a hand back in Faye's direction. "Hell, she ain't Sophia, but I found her out there! Gonna kill us anyway?"

The man put his gun down and Faye relaxed little, ignoring the second comment of her not being Sophia, and looked at the men. There was a dark skinned, muscular man, an Asian boy, the guy with the silver gun, and a bald man with his shirt open. She made a mental note to ask why his shirt wasn't done up.

The silver-gun man took a step forward and raised a hand as if he was about to say hello to her, when a shot rang out.

Faye let out a small scream as Daryl collapsed backwards on to her and she struggled to hold him up.

"No!" The first man shouted as he immediately ran over to help.

Faye was trembling a little, afraid the man who just saved her was going to die. "Oh my God, oh my God, Daryl, you're bleeding, Daryl!"

It didn't occur to her that Daryl touching his own head wound meant he was alive, but then the open-shirt guy and silver-gun guy helped shift Daryl's weight over to them and he spoke.

"I was kidding..." Daryl then proceeded to pass out.

Faye was still freaking out. "You- you shot him! He's your friend!"

Open-shirt guy scoffed, but she got an answer elsewhere. "That wasn't me. Don't worry, he's just unconscious. We can fix him, but we need to know what happened."

The muscular man put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, how about you tell us your name first?"

As the two began to carry Daryl to the farm, Faye awkwardly picked up the dropped cross bow and looked up. "Faye Robbins." She then ran up to where Daryl was being lifted.

Silver-gun man spoke hurriedly, but was obviously trying to be kind despite the situation. "Nice to meet ya, Faye, I'm Rick."

"Introductions can wait." The bald man said. "What the hell happened?"

"Yeah, why is he wearing ears?" The Asian boy finally spoke.

"Oh, so the ear thing isn't normal?" She asked, sounding surprisingly innocent. They shook their heads. "He said it was a trophy."

"Well, let's just keep that to ourselves." Rick said, pulling away the shoelace and stuffing it in a pocket.

Before she could say what the actual story was, two more people ran over. The woman was definitely in distress. "Oh my God, is he dead?"

"Unconscious." Rick repeated. "You just grazed him."

"It was you that shot him?" Faye still found it hard to believe.

The woman frowned. "Sophia?"

Faye frowned harder. "Faye."

This was the third time someone had said that.

The blonde blinked, before carrying on. "Yes, sorry, of course."

"Great, now what the hell happened?"

Faye was beginning to dislike this man.

"Cool it, Shane. Let's just get Daryl dealt with."

Faye was beginning to dislike Shane.

"Guys, isn't this Sophia's?"

"Yeah, yeah! Daryl said it was hers!" Faye said, nodding her head at the other man. "At the creek!"

"He found it at the creek?" Rick asked. He turned to the others. "That cuts the grid almost in half."

"Awesome, the grid gets cut, can you help Daryl, now? He already got shot with an arrow and hurt his head and then you shot him!" Faye said, hoping to sound grown up.

Rick gave the unconscious Daryl another look before speaking. "Let's do that."

Authors Note:

There's chapter two, out nice and quick. Thank you for follows and reviews.

I think I should say, not every update will be out so quickly. Right now, however, I have a few written chapters ready while I work on the next ones.

Hope you enjoyed!

Please review, I love to hear your thoughts and advice.

Thanks.

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