AN: Here we go, another little chapter. This brings us in a few new elements for when we keep moving along in the story.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"So what's the story there?" Alice asked Daryl. "With the police dude?"

"Go ta sleep, Al," Daryl responded.

"I'm going to sleep," she responded back. "You know there's a story there. Did you see the way they hugged each other? I mean it's pretty fucking obvious the dudes know each other hardcore. Are they just going to pretend that the whole damn time we've been there Barney hasn't been porking Thelma Lou?"

Daryl snorted.

"Helen," he said.

"What?" Alice asked.

"Helen," Daryl said again.

"Was Thelma Lou that was goin' with Barney," Merle piped up. "Helen was Andy's piece. Figure that's what you meant."

"Well…whoever the fuck it was," Alice responded, "do you think he's going to tell him?"

"Go the fuck ta sleep, Al," Daryl responded. "Ain't none a' our damn business no way."

"You're no damn fun," Alice responded.

"You so damn interested in talkin' about pieces," Merle piped up, "you tryin' ta work somethin' up with that fresh ass widow?"

"That's me," Alice said, "scoping out the widows…shut up, Merle."

Merle chuckled and there was some thrashing around in the tent near Daryl that suggested Alice might have given Merle a smack for being a smart ass. He snorted in response.

"She ain't bad," Daryl commented.

"I didn't say she was," Alice said. "But dickhead husband or not, she needs her grieving time, don't you think? And besides…there's that whole straight thing."

"That's a bitch, ain't it?" Merle muttered, obviously trying to start sleeping once more.

Alice muttered something, but Daryl didn't really hear it. She rolled and he waited to see if she'd start up again, but it seemed that her chatter was over. She would sleep now which meant that he could finally get some sleep.

When the group had come back from Atlanta earlier that day, they'd had a few surprises for everyone back at the camp. Daryl and Merle had still been hunting, but Alice had very nearly busted her ass herding them off to the side after they'd dropped the deer they'd gotten off to tell them everything that had happened.

Apparently the group had to make some kind of grand escape from Atlanta. In their hurry to get out of there, they'd still managed to take two delivery trucks from a wharehouse store near where they'd, in their words, very nearly been trapped to the point of no escape.

So their first surprise was one they discovered upon return…they had two trucks, and both of them were loaded absolutely to the brim with assorted boxes that Alice had commanded she should get to go through first to make sure that medical supplies ended up where the hell it needed to be and no one "took anything" that would be better suited to someone else.

Apparently they'd fought her on that until she'd pointed out that she was the only one with medical training in the group and then they'd decided that the following day, when daylight was in their favor, she could begin the process of unloading the trucks and separating medical supplies from anything that could simply be handed out to whoever wanted it.

The other surprise, though, was the one that most interested her gossipy side.

They had found a person while in Atlanta and brought them back to join the group. But it wasn't just any person. It turned out that the person they'd brought back happened to be the "assumed dead" husband of bird woman and father to her kid.

Daryl didn't know how one was assumed dead when they weren't dead, but he supposed it had to do with some sort of separation. It would be just the same as if anyone they hadn't been around when the shit hit the fan just popped up in the woods one day.

Except everyone in camp knew that the bird woman and the police officer had been doing their best to scare away any wildlife in the area…and Alice said it was clear that the two men knew each other and knew each other well. The husband had been wearing a uniform.

Daryl didn't know much about it, though. He'd focused his attention after her story on cleaning the deer and then it was time to wash off the blood and prepare to eat with Merle at the tiny fire off to the side where they were welcome…away from everyone else. Alice had chosen to eat in the RV with Carol and her daughter.

He imagined, though, if there was something going on there then it wouldn't take too damn long before someone spilled the beans about what the hell had gone down in the cop's absence. And he didn't want to be in the way when that happened.

Daryl lie in the tent and tried to sleep, but he simply wasn't getting there. He wasn't sleeping at all. He was listening to Merle and Alice snore at this point, but he wasn't sleeping.

So he got up and let himself out of the tent, telling himself that he was going to take a piss when he really just wanted to get out of the tight space.

Outside the tent, the night was a nice one. The camp spot that they had was actually a nice spot and Daryl thought that, at that hour, it hardly seemed like they were living in the hell that they found themselves in now. Right now it was serene enough to seem like he was just out hunting with Merle and they'd somehow acquired this strange extended family that they didn't know well.

Daryl wandered down to the water with his crossbow and sat down on the bank, his crossbow within reach for any possible emergency. He peeled his boots and socks off and dipped his feet in the water that was much cooler than he would have ever expected it to be with the heat surrounding them during the day.

He sat there a while, his eyes closed, listening to nothing but the peace around him. He was finding it almost impossible to believe that there were, just out of sight, probably thousands of the flesh eating corpses that they seemed to keep stumbling and falling into constantly.

But he remembered it all too suddenly when he heard crunching and shifting dirt.

He picked up his crossbow and looked around in the darkness, the space only illuminated by the light of the moon reflecting off the water, trying to find out where the sound was coming from and be prepared to protect himself from an attack if one was imminent.

"It's me," a voice whispered as though Daryl would know who "me" was in the darkness. The presence of a voice and the ability to reason that he might be startled by their approach, though, at least let Daryl know that it was a reasoning human being and not a flesh eating monster.

He put his crossbow down and turned back to look at the moon's reflection in the water until he heard the steps get closer.

And then he realized "me" was Carol, the widow.

She sat down on the bank with about a foot and a half of distance between them.

"I slept all day," she said. "I couldn't sleep now. Is that what happened to you?"

"I was huntin'," Daryl offered. "Tent's tight."

"I get claustrophobic," Carol said softly. "I understand. I feel bad staying in the RV when everyone else is in the tents. Tomorrow Sophia and I can move back to…a tent."

"Stay in the RV," Daryl offered. "Might as well. Old man don't seem ta care. More comfortable for the kid."

Silence fell between them just as the woman hummed at him, it sounding neither like she was agreeing with him nor like she was rejecting what he was saying. The hum was likely more to feel like she'd responded to him.

And when the silence fell, Daryl appreciated it. He wasn't one for small talk, at least not until he knew someone well, and it was making him uncomfortable to try to think about what he should probably say to the woman. He didn't know what the hell the protocol was for talking to the wife of the man you'd had a hand in killing because everything he'd demonstrated to you reminded you of most of what you hated in the world.

It was Carol that broke the silence, first with another sort of hum and then with the words blurted flat out.

"I haven't thanked you," she said. "I didn't thank you…for what you did."

Now it was Daryl's turn to hum. He figured that she might have a lot to be thankful for now that the man was beginning to decay beneath the dirt in the Georgia heat. But he hadn't expected her to be forward enough to admit that she was thankful for the death.

And Daryl never knew how to take thank yous very well.

"Did what needed ta be done," he said, getting to his feet to keep the conversation from going any deeper. He gathered up his crossbow and threw it over his shoulder. He picked up his boots, not wanting to bother at the moment with trying to get his wet feet back into them. "You really oughta not be out here alone. I'm goin' back to my tent. You oughta go ta the RV."

The woman reacted to his suggestion by getting to her feet and it was only once she was standing that he thought that the nice thing to do would have been to offer a hand in getting up, but he hadn't thought that far.

He started toward the tent and she walked silently along behind him in the darkness, the crunching of her steps matching his as they went along.

He figured he should probably say something else to her…he should probably say a lot of things, but he didn't know what to say to her. He didn't know here well and he didn't feel like engaging in anything of conversation about her husband simply to cover the ground between the two points.

So he guarded his silence until he neared the tent and then he stopped.

She stopped too and seemed to be waiting on him to either say something or dismiss her to the RV. He combined the two.

"I'ma wait," he said, "'til you inside…don't want no Walkers comin' around."

"The camp's surrounded," Carol replied. "We put up wire."

Daryl chuckled to himself.

"Chicken wire," he responded. "Might slow 'em down…but I suppose they might get on through if they had a mind to."

As soon as he said it, he realized he really hadn't thought about it before. Maybe they weren't as safe as they let themselves think they were when they slept at night. If a Walker could bust through chicken wire it might be smart enough to smell a meal just beyond the cloth covering of a tent.

They hadn't had any problems so far, though, so maybe the wire deterred the creatures in some way. It was difficult to tell when no one had any real knowledge of the things beyond their own personal experiences, and those were limited if you were alive to tell about them.

Carol didn't move, though, from her spot and he wondered if he'd concerned her with the statement about the chicken wire.

"Prob'ly safe in the RV," he said. "We slept in the truck right in the middle of 'em an' they ain't done nothin' but rock it a little…"

"Goodnight," Carol offered softly, after a moment. "Daryl," she added.

"Yeah…same," he muttered.

And then she did direct her steps toward the RV. Daryl waited outside the tent until he heard the door close behind her, promising that she was inside safe…even if he wasn't entirely sure why he cared so damn much if this woman was safe from Walkers. Her abusive husband, he told himself, he couldn't tolerate on principle, but the woman wasn't his problem. She wasn't anyone's problem.

He crawled back into the tent, tossing his supplies into the corner with everything else they crammed around their tight sleeping quarters, and settled down into the bed that they made for themselves.

The woman wasn't their problem…but no one really wanted to be alone, or so he figured, and they probably wanted it less now than ever.