"My back hurts." She groaned sitting on the leafy ground beside his camping chair.
He played with the food on his plate. "Well maybe you shouldn't be sleepin' on the floor."
"I'm not about to let your injured head sleep on the floor." Rose looked up at him.
Daryl still refused to meet her stare. "Stop sleepin' in my tent then." He brought his food to his mouth and chewed harshly.
She furrowed her eyebrows. "Why are you bein' so rude?"
"I don't know.' He sighed knowing perfectly well why he was being rude. He was getting too attached to this girl. A girl who barely knew how to defend herself let alone anybody else; she was an easy target to pick off. Having contact with a person like that means only one thing…his death. If he got more attached to her he'd be going out of his way to save her resulting in him getting bit. "I'm sorry." The words pooled from his lips before he could stop them. Don't apologize! He screamed at himself. Grow some balls and kick her to the curb! But he couldn't because in some part of his sealed off heart he cared for her. He didn't want to ignore her or be mean to her. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to fall asleep every night to her steady breathing and wake up every morning with her smiling down at him poking fun about how Andrea was lucky she can't shoot. And as much as Daryl wanted her to become brave he enjoyed her cowering against him looking at him like he was safety and nothing could touch her while she had him. "Just crabby that's all."
"It's fine." She smiled. "So you goin' out to look for Sohpia?"
Daryl shook his head. "Doc said to take it easy one more day."
"Good." She said proudly, "Because I can't leave either."
"Why?" he raised his eyebrow at her.
Rose shrugged. "Lori's orders. Says she doesn't want me out there in case I freak out." she shook her head. "I don't even want to go out there anyways. It's so unknown…What if there's a huge herd somewhere out there and we have no idea?"
Daryl opened his mouth to respond but Glenn spoke up. "Um guys." He said rubbing his chin. "So…The barn's full of walkers."
Everyone looked up at him like he had just said he was a walker himself. "What?" Andrea asked acting like she had misheard him.
"The barn." Glenn pointed back towards it. "It's full of walkers. I've seen it."
Shane stood up. "Show us."
The group slowly began to stand up following Glenn as he led the way. "I don't know about this." Rose said quietly grasping Daryl's forearm as she walked down to the barn in an eerie silence. "What if they come out?"
"You and your what ifs…" he mumbled shaking his head. "They won't if we don't provoke them and the barns obviously strong enough to hold them if they've been in there awhile now." He reached his hand higher and grabbed her hand dwarfing it with his. "You're fine."
"We can't just leave them in there." Shane stated
Rick's eyes followed him. "This is Hershel's barn he has his reason."
"Then let's leave." Shane turned to him. "Make our way to Fort Benning like we've been saying."
"We can't go." Rick flatly said.
"Why, Rick? Why?" Shane question annoyed.
Carol stepped forward. "Because my daughter is still out there."
"Okay." Shane rubbed his face with his hands. "Okay I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility."
"I'm close to finding this little girl." Daryl stepped forward. "I just found her damn doll two days ago."
Shane laughed sarcastically. "You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did. You found a doll."
Daryl swung his arm at the cop. "You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about."
"I'm just saying what needs to be said." Shane pointed out. "You get a good lead. It's in the first 48 house. Let me tell you somethin' else man. If she was alive out there and saw you comin' all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears 'round your neck, she would run in the other direction." Daryl jumped at him going for a hit but everyone got involved trying to break up the two who were defending different sides. "You ever come at me again I'll beat your ass." Shane shouted at Daryl as group members pushed him backwards away from Shane.
"Let's me talk to Hershel." Rick calmly said to Shane. "This is his land. If we want to clear the barn I have to talk to him first."
"Hershel." Dale cut in. "See's those things as people-sick people- his wife, his stepson."
"You knew?" Rick asked.
Dale nodded. "Yesterday I talked to Hershel. I thought we could survive one more night before Glenn told you. We did."
"The man's crazy Rick!" Shane hollered. "If Hershel thinks those things are alive or no!"
Behind them the barn doors began to rattle as walkers growled pushing against it to get to their food source outside of it.
"Okay…" Andrea said and stormed out of the R.V. leaving Dale obviously hurt.
Rose looked up at him from the table's seat. "You okay?" she asked eyeing his upset face.
"Yeah." He replied unsure.
She smiled. "I once had this cat. Beautiful thing it was, but every time I try to pet it, it would run away from me. Then this one day I ignored it and she came right into my lap and purred."
Dale looked at her confused. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Andrea doesn't like you hovering around her watching her every footstep. She doesn't know how grateful she should be about it. Don't do it anymore and she'll want you to again." Rose glanced out of the window. "I know I don't know much about you people but I know Andrea and you care a lot about each other. But she is a grown adult and she isn't yours to care about. Let her make her own mistakes so she can learn."
"I don't want her getting hurt." He took a seat across from her at the table.
"She knows that." Rose nodded, "But right now let her do her own thing and realize what she's missing without you looking out for her."
Dale chuckled lightly. "When did you get so smart?"
Rose shook her head. "I'm just watchful."
"What was your cat's name?" he asked.
"Charlotte the Fat." She laughed at the memory. "Its name was Charles but then she had kittens so we had to make her name more feminine. You should have seen her Dale, she was so fat." Then she frowned. "My dad was a high school teacher and named her after Charles III a Carolingian Emperor in France."
Dale sighed leaned back on the table's seat. "When I was little my younger sister wanted to name our dog Cat." He smiled, "but he chose Logan instead."
"You think that's mess up." Rose laughed leaning forward. "My mom's family names all their girls after flowers. My mom's name is Penelope, my aunt's is Ivy who named her two daughters Azalea and Clover, my grandmother's was Flora, and my great grandmother was named Delphinium. How mess up is that?"
"Actually it's pretty smart." He nodded stroking his chin.
She shook her head. "I got lucky with my name. I feel sorry for the child who has to get Goldenrod or Hollyhock. Only if they keep the tradition up that long though."
"Mhm," he mumbled then stood up. "Here comes Daryl, maybe you should go talk to him. He's pretty upset about them talking about abandoning the search for Sophia." His eyes flickered to the bag of guns on the table then back to her.
"Okay…" she trailed off pushing away from the side of the table to get to her feet. "See you later Dale." Rose walked to the door of the R.V. and headed down the steps. She furrowed her eyebrows as he stormed into his tent following him to the zipped on door way. "Hey, why you so mad?"
He flopped down onto his little bed and laid on his side. "All these people are just givin' up hope on findin' this little girl."
Rose stepped into the tent staring down at him. "There's walkers in the barn Daryl people are scared. I'm scared. They're so close to home and we can't do nothin' about it."
He threw his eyes over his shoulder at her. "Doesn't mean we should just leave that little girl out there."
"Imagined how frightened she is out there and defenseless. The only explanation is th-!"
"Don't say that!" he exclaimed. "There ain't so many walkers around these parts. She could be hidin'. Just because she's lost doesn't mean she's bit."
Rose frowned at him. "Daryl, she's just like me. She doesn't know how to defend herself and absolutely terrified of those things. I wouldn't have lasted so long if it wasn't for my brother. She has no one to help her except her own two feet."
He turned on his other side to face her. "What if it was you? Would you want people to stop lookin' for you?"
"If I was dead yes." She nodded.
"You're so pessimistic." Daryl glared at her.
Rose shook her head. "I'm bein' realistic."
Daryl eyed her obviously frustrated by everyone's lack of care to give for lost Sophia. "You're a little bitch who don't even belong here. Why are you even allowed to give an opinion?" he spat.
She took a step back tears welling in her eyes. "Why-how…I-I thought." The tear streaked down her face. Didn't he care about me? She asked herself before she choked on her own words and fled the tent.
"Dammit!" he shouted punching the ground of the tent angry he let his obsessions with isolation get the best of him.