I do not own the Walking Dead.

Previously:

The tone now light, the two children's conversation went on a little longer before they both separated to do different things. Faye went to find Carol, surprisingly to help with chores as she was tired of sitting around.

Carl, however, went into the woods.

By the time Faye realised where Carl had gone, it was too late to stop him.

She was in the middle of folding some clothes with Carol when she saw the disappearing figure of the boy, it was too short to be anyone else.

He was heading towards Daryl's camp, and as far as Faye knew, Daryl had left to go hunting again. Besides, why would Carl want to see Daryl? Something was wrong.

Quickly making an excuse up to Carol, Faye debated on running to get her gun from the backpack. After gun training, Faye had refused to hand over her gun to Rick, but agreed to a compromise of keeping it in her bag instead of on her person.

Thinking about it with a nod, Faye went to her tent and slung the rucksack over her shoulders before hurrying to the fence. She clambered over to the field clumsily before taking the usual sprint over to Daryl's camp, not without checking to see if anyone was watching her.

Panting heavily, Faye looked around the empty camp.

Where the hell was he? He had to be here! If this was some kid of practical joke, Faye did not find it funny.

"Carl!" She called out, but wasn't too loud. She couldn't forget that she was on the edge of the forest. "Carl?"

There was no reply. However, Faye was sure she could hear scuffling from beyond the treeline. He couldn't be that stupid, could he? What would make him go to the forest?

If he had though, she wasn't about to leave him there alone. Faye walked towards the forest as she brought the bag off her shoulders and unzipped it. Like hell was she going to do this without her gun.

Stepping into the trees, Faye held the pistol at her side and flicked off the safety with a click. "Carl? You out here?" She called softly, not wanting to draw more attention to herself than she had to.

Then, she heard the rustle of sticks and uneven, heavy footsteps. If she was going to get jumped by a walker over Carl, she was going to kill that boy. "Carl!"

Suddenly, a figure came crashing through the trees and Faye swung round and pointed the gun in what turned out to be Carl's face. "Woah, Faye! Come on, we need to go!"

Faye blinked at him for a second and lowered the gun. When she didn't move, the boy grabbed her hand and dragged her back through the trees as fast as his still injured self could take him. Finding her feet again, Faye pulled her hand away and ran next to him. "What the hell's wrong with you, Carl? I could've shot you!"

"Let's just get out of here!"

Faye's eyes widened. "Are we being chased?"

"No," Carl shook his head. "I don't think so. It's stuck in the mud, but I think I made it really mad!"

The two children burst back into Daryl's camp, Carl looking behind them to make sure they weren't followed. The gun was still in Faye's hand. "You can put that away, now. Let's just go ba-"

"Let's just go back?! No, why don't you tell me why you thought this was a good idea? You could've died!"

The boy frowned. "But I didn't!"

"You got have got eaten, you could've got bit, I could've shot you!" Faye hissed at him as she put the gun back in her bag. "Why were you out there?"

Carl looked at the ground guiltily. "I wanted to see if I could kill a walker."

"With what, you're knife?"

He shook his head. "I took Daryl's gun."

Faye stared at him in disbelief. Then, she turned and stormed away, back to the farm.

"Please, I'm sorry!" Carl called after her, jogging to catch up.

"No wonder your parents think you're immature, do you know how stupid you've been today?!"

"I-"

Faye turned her head round to look at him and glared. "You go to see Randall, you snap at me and Carol, you steal a gun and wander off and try to kill a walker! I can't believe you, you just can't listen to anything anyone tells you! What happened to thinking things through?"

"I was thinking that I have no experience killing walkers."

Faye turned back around and continued to walk at a faster pace. "You're an idiot."

Carl complained a little more as they walked back to the house, but he was ignored. Faye was so mad at him. Carl just couldn't see how stupid he'd been and she decided she wasn't going to talk to him until he did.

When they finally arrived back at the house, the adults were gathering for the meeting over Randall. "Come on, Carl. I want you to stay with Jimmy." Lori was stood waiting for them and seemingly didn't noticed Carl's mud covered trousers. "You too, Faye."

The girl simply nodded, not bothering to protest. She knew when she wasn't going to win. Carl had other ideas. "But, I wanna listen!"

Lori shook her head. "Not this time."

As she headed up the stairs, she knew Carl wasn't following her immediately, probably hoping his parents would change their minds. She was already at the top of the stairs when he begrudgingly came up. No words were spoken as they walked in the door.

Apparently, Carl could play the silent-treatment game too.

Jimmy clearly had no idea what to do with two moody twelve year-olds. A board game had been set up, but they'd barely got through a few rounds before both children became silent, refusing to look at each other. The older teen sat awkwardly scratching his chin, unsure how to diffuse the tension. Eventually, Faye decided there were better uses of her time.

Standing up, she moved towards the door.

"Hey, wait, where are you going? Lori said I should keep you two-"

Her excuse was poor, but Jimmy believed it. "I'm just off to the toilet, you don't need to watch my every move."

"Oh. Err, okay."

Glancing a look at Carl before she left, she found he was still avoiding eye contact. With a heavy step to hopefully show her annoyance, Faye left the room but did not slam the door.

After all, if she was going to eavesdrop, she didn't want to be caught right off the bat.

Faye crouched down by the top of the stairs, hoping it would be close enough to hear the conversation. At first, she thought it was Daryl speaking, but then a loud voice shouted. It was unmistakably Dale's.

"This is a young man's life! And it is worth more than a five minute conversation. Is this what it's come to - we kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with 'em? You saved him!" Faye guessed he was talking to Rick. "But now look at us. He's been tortured, he's gonna be executed. How are we any better than those people we're so afraid of?"

There was a pause. Faye leant her head against the wall and looked downwards sadly.

"We all know what needs to be done." Of course, it was Shane.

"No, Dale is right," Rick spoke up. "We can't leave any stone unturned."

Andrea interrupted him. "So what's the solution? We haven't come up with a single viable option yet. I wish we could-"

"So let's work on it!" Dale shouted again.

"Stop it!" Faye was surprised to hear Carol talk. "Just stop it! I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this, you can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide, either of you, both of you, but leave me out."

Faye understood Carol's point. Who would want to choose whether a boy lives or dies?

"Not speaking out or killing him yourself - there's no difference." Dale continued but was stopped by Rick.

"Alright, that's enough. If anybody wants the floor before we make the final decision has the chance."

Faye knew no one would speak up anymore.

No one did.

"What about the kids?" Oh. Faye didn't like where this was going. "Think of the impression we're leaving on them! You know what Faye told me when I asked her about this mess?"

Oh no. She was going to be in so much trouble.

"You brought the children into this?" Lori asked, obviously not approving.

Dale continued anyway. "I asked Faye what she thought we should do. You want to know what she told me? She repeated your words, Rick. 'He's a threat, and we have to eliminate the threat'. Word for word. "

She'd actually said that? Faye had tried to push their conversation from her mind.

"She said that what you did was right. Whether you like it or not, Daryl, you're influencing that kid. We all are, on both of them. We've pushed it into a child's head that killing this boy is right."

This was bad, now she was getting Daryl in trouble.

"Faye told me killing the boy is what her old group would do, and they were lead by someone not in their right mind. Is that what we've come to? What kind of a world is it where our children are brought up thinking killing someone is okay? It's an ugly world, it's harsh, it's survival of the fittest! That's a world I don't want to live in and I don't believe any of you do. I can't!"

Faye was stunned by Dale's words.

"Please." He was begging now. "Let's just do what's right! Isn't anyone going to stand with me?"

Dale was so right, Faye knew, but no one would. They should, but they wouldn't. That was just-

"He's right. We should try to find another way."

Andrea. It was Andrea.

"Anybody else?"

Faye gave a little hopeful smile. Now maybe, what, Glenn? He'd stand up with Dale, right?

There was an agonizing pause.

The silence said that no one would speak. Oh no, no one was speaking. He was going to die anyway.

"Are ya'll gonna watch too? Nah, you'll just hide your heads in your tents and try to forget that we're slaughtering a human being. Oh, I won't be a party to it."

The were footsteps before one final sentence was spoken.

"This group is broken."

Broken. Dysfunctional. Collapsed.

It didn't matter what word you used.

This group was it.

Faye acted like she'd never heard anything when she went back to the room. Jimmy didn't question what had taken her so long.

When the adults finally let them downstairs, Carl was dying to know what happened. Faye didn't want to hear their excuse so told them she felt sick sand went back to the tent.

The fact that she did actually made her feel ill as she remembered Dale's words about hiding in their tents.

Carol had come to make sure she was alright, but Faye pretended to be asleep. She didn't want to talk about it. There was a difference between assuming the execution and knowing it was going to happen.

Then it got late, and the three men left to collect Randall and take him to the barn. Dale really had been right, everyone hid in their tents or at least avoided even looking in the barns direction.

Faye waited. And waited some more.

But there was no gun shot.

After a while Carol came in to see the girl, a light smile on her face. "Faye, you up?"

Sighing a little, Faye hummed a reply. "Mhmm?"

"Randall is being held in custody. He's not going to die."

Wait, what?

Faye sat up and gave the woman a confused look. "Why?"

Carol shook her head before speaking in a soft tone, Faye could tell she was choosing her words carefully. "Because Rick decided it was wrong. We're probably going to choose another solution, but he'll live."

"But-"

"Faye, executing him was the wrong decision, killing someone isn't right. I'm sorry, we should have figured this out sooner."

Faye couldn't tell if Carol was just saying this because of what Dale had said about her or if she genuinely didn't want to kill Randall. At the meeting, she didn't want anything to do with decision. "Alright." The girl replied slowly. Faye was unsure about this. What happened to Randall definitely dying?

Carol smiled warmly and tried to lighten the mood. "I think it's about time we get some normalcy back in our lives, hm, Birdy?"

Faye frowned. "Is the nickname really necessary? Like, seriously, it's just, why?"

Carol sat by her and patted her head. "Because it's adorable. I like giving people nicknames."

"I'm the only person you've given a nickname." The girl pouted.

"Maybe you've started me off?"

"People are gonna hate me for starting-"

Their conversation was stopped by a scream. Both women stood and hurried out the tent as Rick shouted for T-Dog to get a shotgun. "Faye, sweetheart, stay here. We don't know what's going on."

The adults all ran down to the field while Faye and Carl were left standing alone. Despite their current argument, the two children shared a determined look before sprinting down to the adults.

She heard the crying first. Then there was Rick's shout of anger. Finally, as they stopped the run, Faye heard the gurgled moans of pain from Dale.

Dale - who wore the funny fishing hat.

Dale - who had stood up for a stranger's life.

Dale - who was lying on the floor bleeding with his stomach ripped open.

Andrea was kneeling by the old man's side, Carl was crying into his mother's lap, Daryl was pointing the gun at the dying man's head.

Faye simply stood watching, numb to what was going on around her. There were no tears as she stared at the shaking figure on the ground. People around her were breaking down while she stood watching the scene in silence.

This was all wrong. Dale shouldn't have to die! He's the good guy in all this, he's just, he's just-

"Sorry, brother."

A shot rang out.

Author's Notes:

Hey! Nearly at ten chapters! Thank you to the reviewers, I always love reading your comments.

So, I'm an idiot. I was so worried I wouldn't be able to see the brand new episode of the Walking Dead for ages, and then I see it online the day after it airs. I'm stupid.

Aside from that, I loved After! It was very enjoyable and had plenty of Michonne, who's pretty damn cool, and Carl, who is obviously one of my favourite characters in the whole show.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I hope to see you soon for Chapter 10.

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

Thanks.

Cobalt Flame.