Chapter Seventeen

Summer's POV

When I woke up the next morning Daryl was already gone and Hershel came in to check on the baby and I and he said I should be fine to walk around and rejoin the camp. I thanked Hershel for everything he's done. I gathered Harry and the things Maggie had grabbed for him in town and went out to the camp. Everyone was more than thrilled to meet the baby. Carol helped me put our things into Daryl's tent and brought up cooking for Hershel's family to thank them for everything they've done. Lori and I agreed that it would be a great idea and we went about our day trying to set the camp up. I saw the men over by one of the trucks setting up a search for Sophia and went over to see what they were up to and say goodbye to Daryl before he left.

"I'll take one of the horses and go up on this ridge, I should be able to get a birds eye view of the whole valley from there," I heard Daryl said.

"That sounds like a good idea," Rick said.

"What if you come across that chupacabra of yours?" Dale said as I approached.

"He's going on about that chupacabra again?" I said with a laugh.

Daryl shook his head.

"You believe in a blood sucking dog?" Rick asked.

"You believe in dead people walking around?" Daryl shot back.

Daryl kissed me and the baby goodbye and promised he would come back safe and headed to the stables to find a horse.

Daryl's POV

I saddled one of the horses and headed off into the woods to find Sophia. I shot down a squirrel and tied it to my belt figuring I would probably get hungry at some point on this search. I stopped the horse when I reached the ridge and looked over the valley. When I looked down at the creek I saw what looked like Sophia's doll. I started to back the horse up to take a different route to get down to the creek and before I knew it the horse reared up and I was thrown down the ridge. I felt a sharp pain and let out a scream and looked down, one of my arrows had pierced through my side. Fuck. I ripped off a piece of my shirt and tied it around the arrow before bending down and picking up Sophia's doll. I tied it to my belt and decided I should probably try to climb the ridge and get back to higher ground. I started climbing and got pretty far up before slipping and losing my grip and falling down the ridge again.

I woke up and saw Merle standing over me. He starts telling me that I need to kill Rick for what he did to him and I told him Rick was a good man.

"No one cares about you baby brother," he said, "no one will ever care about you like I do."

"Summer cares you prick, she's always cared about me more than you have," I told him.

I felt something tugging on my foot and woke up again to see a walker biting on my shoe. I fought the walker off and killed the walker with my knife. There was another walker coming from the far end of the creek and I pulled the arrow from my side while trying to scream. I loaded it into the crossbow as quickly as possible and shot the on coming walker in the head. I pulled the arrow from the walkers head and noticed my side was bleeding pretty bad. I took off my shirt and tied it around my waist as tight as possible to try and stop the bleeding. I pulled the squirrel from my belt and ate it before cutting the walkers ears off and stringing them on to the rope that was holding the squirrel and hung it around my neck. I made it to the ridge and went to climb it again. As I climbed I saw Merle again. He was calling me names and telling me that Rick turned me soft. I told him to shut the hell up and Rick was better than he would ever be and I wanted some place safe for Summer and the baby. I made it to the top of the ridge and headed back to camp.

Summer's POV

To keep my mind off of worrying that Daryl hadn't returned yet while everyone else had I fed the baby and went into the house to help the other women cook dinner for Hershel and his family. As we were cooking I heard Andrea yell something about a walker and Lori, Carol, and I ran outside to see what the commotion was all about. We see Rick, Shane, and Glenn run over with weapons to take care of it because Hershel doesn't want guns on the property. Andrea aims and shoots and I heard Rick screaming.

"NO! ANDREA! IT'S DARYL!" Rick screamed.

My heart stopped. I handed Harry over to Carol and started running.

"DARYL!" I screamed as I ran.

Tears were streaming down my face when I reached them. I was panicking, he seemed to be ok, but he was passed out. He looked like a mess. He was covered in blood and had a necklace of walker ears around his neck. I was confused about what happened to him.

"Is he alright? Was he hit?!" I asked Rick and Shane.

"He's fine, it just grazed his head," Rick said, "we need to get him to Hershel."

Rick pulled the walker ear necklace off of his neck and put it in his pocket. T-Dog picked up something Daryl had dropped and we noticed it was Sophia's doll. Shane and Rick brought Daryl into the house and I walked over to Andrea.

"YOU!" I screamed, "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST LET THE MEN HANDLE IT!? THEY WOULD HAVE REACHED HIM AND HE WOULDN'T BE SHOT AND PASSED OUT IN THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW! THANK GOD YOU'RE A TERRIBLE FUCKING SHOT OR MY HUSBAND WOULD BE FUCKING DEAD AND MY TWO DAY OLD SON WOULD BE FATHERLESS! I hope you feel like shit about this."

I didn't even wait for Andrea to respond. I walked over to Carol and Lori and took Harry and went inside to check on Daryl. I went into the room I was occupying yesterday and sat down. Daryl was awake and Hershel was stitching his head. I noticed he also had a bandage on his side.

"What happened to you?" I asked and started crying all over again.

Daryl explained about finding Sophia's doll and the horse throwing him and how he fell down the ridge and impaled himself with one of his arrows. We went on to tell us about the walkers that attacked him and that he managed to climb back up the ridge and make it back here. Hershel tells Rick that Daryl needs his rest and puts his hand on my shoulder before walking out. Daryl laid back on the bed and I stroked his hair trying to get him to fall asleep. Not long later there was a knock on the door and Carol walked in holding two trays of food and a bottle.

"Figured you wouldn't eat if I didn't bring you any," Carol said putting the trays down on the end tables next to the bed, "you did more today for my little girl than her daddy did in her whole life."

"Didn't do anything Rick or Shane wouldn'ta done," Daryl replied.

"You're just as good as them," Carol said.

I smiled up at Carol as a thank you and she left the room saying goodnight closing the door behind her. I picked up the bottle she left and fed Harry while trying to convince Daryl to eat something. Once I had gotten them both to eat I ate the dinner myself and climbed into the bed next to Daryl, hoping I could actually find sleep with everything that had happened.