I do not own The Walking Dead.

Previously:

Daryl wasn't coming back. Daryl hadn't come back. Daryl was never coming back.

Hands dropping from the wire fence, Faye could see T-Dog staring at her, waiting for her reaction.

Turning around, she walked back to the cell block, senses numb.

She gave nothing away. No tears, no anger, no despair.

Just silence.

It didn't take long for the mask to break.

As the information sunk into her head, replaying over and over, her feet pounded harder against the floor, desperate to escape any prying eyes.

As she unlocked the doors to the cell block, the anger set in. The stares from Tyreese's group were heavily ignored, the slam of the second prison door louder than the first.

As she stomped up the stairs, Faye barely registered the call from Tyreese, his words slow. That was stupid, he didn't need to treat her like a child throwing a tantrum. "Everything alright?"

Faye stopped at the top of the stairs, taking a deep breath before replying heatedly. "Rick's back."

Yes, Rick was back. Good for him.

Not waiting for the man to question her any further, the girl stormed into her cell with a rough shove of the door. When the metal door bounced back towards her, Faye spun back around and gave it a hard kick with a frustrated shout, ignoring the pain left in her foot.

She stood there for a while, unsure for how long, as she controlled herself.

That had been stupid. Now her foot hurt. Darn it.

So, instead of kicking various furniture, Faye let her body collapse on the bed, eyes glaring holes into the top bunk.

The tears threatened to come, but she blinked them away. This had become a habit. Didn't she promise not to cry anymore?

Yes, crying was something Faye Robbins didn't do, not now.

Back then, she had.

After the camp had been overrun, Faye had hidden in a house nearby to wait for the walkers to go away. In the attic of the house, she curled up into a ball and cried herself to sleep. Faye didn't like remembering that, it had been dark and cold up there.

When she found her dad and brother in the road, she... dealt with them. Then, once again, she ran away. Sprinted, in fact, as far away as her legs could carry her. When she was finally alone again, not followed by the reanimated members of her family, Faye was surrounded by silence and the cruel world around her. When one tear fell, the others simply kept coming and soon the twelve year old was a blubbering mess. She was almost glad no one saw her. Almost.

Then, a walker stumbled out of the forest, drawn by the sound of her sobs. Not wanting to fire the gun, Faye ran again, for as long as it took until the walker was out of sight. It was then that she saw the side road leading off into the forest. She'd gone down it on a whim, not wanting to be out on the road. She'd found a walker-less house there, and cried some more.

All in all, there were a lot of tears.

But that was then and this is now, the girl told herself. Crying wasn't an option. Crying over Daryl wasn't an option. She'd find a better way of dealing with it.

...

Screw it, hitting something felt better than talking about feelings.

Balling her hand into a tight fist, Faye lashed out as she punched the top bunk with a thunk, only to reel back with a hiss of pain.

It was sad that she couldn't work out which hurt more, the thinking or the punching. They both left a nasty sting she didn't feel like dealing with.

"What did the bed do to you?"'

Carol's voice broke Faye from her thoughts of cursing the bed. She stopped cradling her hand, moving them both to rest on her stomach. "Gave me a funny look."

Faye hoped the older woman recognised that as an attempt to joke, she was in too bad a mood to add the sarcastic tone.

In return, Carol smiled sadly and raised her hand up motioning outwards towards where the girl was lying. "Mind if I come in?"

Responding with a grunt - which the woman took as a yes - Faye rolled over to continue avoiding eye-contact. She felt the bed sag slightly as Carol must have sat down and Faye prepared herself for whatever attempt at comforting Carol would try to do. What was there to comfort? She wasn't crying, Carol had no signs of her being sad as far as she was concerned.

There was a pause before anything else was said. "Want to talk?"

"About what?" Faye spat back, not caring if she was being harsh on the woman. There was nothing to talk about, Daryl was dead, that's all there was to it.

Daryl had given her his word that he would come back. Daryl had said they would be fine. Daryl had lied.

"Sweetheart, Daryl isn't dead."

Faye dared. Faye dared to let that little bit of hope back, anger seemingly pouring out of her tense muscles.

Finally turning her head to look at Carol, a hand holding her up, the girl replied softly. "Where is he?"

"They ran into his brother Merle. Both of them went off on their own."

What?

What?

Slowly, Faye turned back on to her side, fists clenching again.

"The wall giving you a funny look?"

Are you angry?

Faye didn't reply.

I'm furious.

Daryl didn't die, he didn't give up his life to save somebody. Daryl left. Daryl left.

Knowing full well he had given his word, full well that she was waiting for him, full well that it would feel like her whole world was crashing down withoutanypillarstoholditup!

Hitting something seemed like an extremely good idea. Now, if she could only get rid of-

"Do you understand why?"

"Does it matter?" Faye replied quietly, worried if she raised it any more she would shout. "He left us."

Carol tried to reason with her. "For his brother."

"He abandoned us."

"For family."

"We were a family!" Faye finally raised her voice, spinning her head round to scowl at Carol. When the woman's stern expression didn't leave, she calmed a little. "I- I thought we were a family. What does that matter now?"

There was that sad look again, that annoying look of pity. She didn't need it.

"If your brother walked in, would you go with him?" The woman asked.

If her brother walked in, he'd be snarling and trying to eat her.

But, yeah.

Once again, Carol took her silence as a yes. "So, you understand?"

"I understand, I just don't care. We needed him here!" The 'I needed him here' was left unspoken.

"Don't be like that." Carol replied softly. "Daryl has his code, the world needs more men like that." With a further pat on the leg, Carol was gone.

"Are you okay?"

Faye couldn't see him leaning at the doorway, but recognised the voice to be Carl's. Currently, the girl had switched from lying on her side to being on her stomach, face buried into the pillow. She's heard Carol say that if she was going through the five stages of grief, she had pretty much skipped denial. Faye guessed that was just a fancy way of saying she was pissed.

And, yeah, she was! She had every right to be!

But that wasn't really her main priority anymore. Right now, she was wallowing in her own self pity.

Words muffled through the fabric as she spoke, Faye replied to Carl. "That depends on your definition of okay."

Oh, the sarcasm was back. Always a good sign.

"How about not hitting things?"

When Carol had left she had punched the wall, and Carl had warned her not to under the premise that it wasn't like her and it would hurt a lot. She did it anyway. He didn't laugh, but the girl could see he was a little smug. Faye decided she might see Hershel about the dull throb in her hand.

"Nah. Stopped half an hour ago."

Carl sat on the bed, not bothering to ask like the older woman had. Instead, he waited for her to pick herself off the bed and sit next to him. Reluctantly, she did so, running a hand through her hair to try and straighten it out. It didn't work very well, so the girl simply pushed her bangs behind her ear so as to not block her view of her friend.

They sat in silence for a minute before Faye looked over to see Carl's face, only to see him staring at her. Turning away immediately with what she denied to be a blush, Faye spoke. "I'm kind of waiting for you to say why you're here."

"Can I not visit a friend?"

"I was having some quality me-time!"

"You were moping."

"... That was some quality moping!"

There was another pausing before Carl chuckled quietly, and Faye couldn't help but join him with a smile, bad mood or not. "So, want to talk?" He said.

The girl preferred this approach rather than Carol's. But, still, she didn't really want to. "Do we have to?"

"You got me to talk, so I'm doing the same." He reasoned.

Faye hummed a reply, waiting for him to start, determined to stay stubborn.

"We'll be okay without him." Carl said, the joking tone lost. You'll be okay without him.

"We won't. The group needs Daryl, he looks after us." She replied. I won't. I need Daryl, he looks after me. "The guys that got Glenn and Maggie are gonna come for us, you know. We don't have anything to beat them with."

The boy frowned, now taking the more literal meaning of her words. "There's those other guys?"

"They're just four people. Besides, do you really think your Dad will just let them in? We don't trust strangers anymore, he won't let them in after what happened with the prisoners."

Carl fell silent. The prisoners had ultimately caused Lori's death. Neither Rick, Carl, or any of the group would forget that. They'd almost caused the death of her.

The boy changed the topic. "That's not what I'm here to talk about."

"What's there to say? Daryl left. That's all there is to it." Faye rested her head on a hand. "I want to say it would be easier if he was just dead, but that's kinda mean, 'cause I don't want him to die, but then it wouldn't feel like..." She trailed off.

The boy looked confused. "Why would it be easier?"

"He had a choice. Leave or stay. He left, knowing that we needed him, knowing what he would lose. He did it anyway. If he died, it wouldn't be by choice. But he chose it. He chose to abandoned me." Her black bangs fell in front of her eye as she looked to the ground. "Everybody leaves eventually."

"I haven't left." He said softly.

She paused before replying. "I know." Faye gave him a weak smile. "You're persistent."

Carl then wrapped his arms around her in some kind of awkward-sideways-hug, which was both clumsy and comforting at the same time.

(To anyone walking past, it was adorable.)

Faye let her head rest on his shoulder. "Was I not good enough?"

"I think you're really good."

"What if I was less annoying? Or talked less?"

"You didn't annoy Daryl."

The next few minutes were spent with Carl reassuring Faye that no, if she hadn't asked to hunting, Daryl still would have gone. And no, she plucked the birds just fine.

After a while, the two lapsed into silence, only standing when they heard movement downstairs.

Time to see how Rick would really handle Tyreese.

Author's Notes:

Uh! I'm sorry, this chapter originally had another one or two scenes in, but it's so late now that I just fell asleep and my laptop fell off the bed so that extra bit will have to wait until next chapter! XD

So, I apologise if they are any spelling mistakes, I haven't yet been through the chapter. Tomorrow, I will spell check and you can expect another update extra quick to make up for the loss.

I hope my laptop's okay.

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

Thanks.

Cobalt Flame.