AN: Here we go, another chapter.

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

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Daryl stood almost shoulder to shoulder with Merle while they examined, in the dodgy light of the woods, the area where Rick said he entered the creek with Sophia and where he told her to head back if he hadn't returned for her.

Originally most of the group wanted to be involved in the search for the girl, but Daryl and Merle had both insisted that, at least for an hour or two, they all remain at the highway. They didn't want too many sets of feet trampling the little bit of "information" they might be able to get from trying to read whatever tracks were left.

So they'd come down to the water with Rick and Shane, who would return for some of the others as soon as they had a clear idea of how to organize themselves to start the search, to see what there was to see.

And Daryl was almost thrilled with what they could find there. Close to the creek the ground was muddy and sunk in with each step they took. It was annoying to them to try to walk in it, since their feet sunk down and they had to put extra energy into heaving themselves out of their spots, but it was beneficial because it meant that many of the tracks from the day before were pretty well preserved.

"Clear as day that's where you come in at," Daryl said, leaning down to get a good look at the tracks. "They was two Walkers…both of 'em come down through here…right here…"

He trailed his arm out, tracing what he saw in the air. His musings were more for himself and his brother than anyone else. He was only sorting through the situation so he could figure out how to proceed, but the loud groan and sucking of teeth that came from Shane let him know that he was apparently annoying the man.

"We know how many Walkers there were and Rick just told you where they came from, man!" Shane declared when Daryl looked at him and straightened himself up, his gesture clearly letting him know that the next thing he uttered was going to be "what's your problem?"

"Daryl's just findin' the tracks for himself," Merle offered from where he was standing, his voice showing little interest in the manner. Merle didn't care for either of the police officers at all and he wasn't inclined to pretend that he did. "What I don't understand…is why the fuck ya didn't just kill the damn Walkers an' take the lil' damn girl back up ta the highway?"

Daryl caught something in Merle's voice. It was almost accusatory, though he was evidently trying to soften it. Merle had something said else to him up on the highway earlier and Daryl got the feeling that either Merle thought that Rick had left Sophia down there for a reason, he was entirely incompetent as a human being in this world, or there was something to the story that they just didn't know…there were pieces missing.

Daryl was really leaning toward the incompetent theory and he thought maybe Merle would agree if they were to discuss it in any great detail.

"What the hell was he supposed ta do!" Shane said, his voice booming out far louder than they should have been speaking if they were trying to avoid drawing the attention of any other Walkers that might be in the vicinity.

"You his wife now?" Merle shot back quickly. "Answerin' for him 'cause he can't?"

Merle laughed to himself.

"No…you ain't his wife…are ya…no…look out for her, though," Merle commented. He muffled the last part of the statement, swallowing pieces of it, but still Daryl heard it and he knew that the other two men did as well. The dig wasn't missed by anyone and it wasn't making the "Dixons" any more popular in this group than they already were.

"Shut up, Merle," Daryl muttered.

"I didn't have anything to kill the Walkers with but a gun," Rick said, irritation covering his face. He was evidently going to ignore everything else that was going on, though, and Shane responded to the whole thing by turning dramatically with his irritation and walking off to make a large circle and come back. The whole thing make Daryl's muscles tense…too many loose cannons always had a way of making him uncomfortable.

"You ain't carryin' no knife?" Merle asked.

"I didn't have it on me," Rick said, his irritation growing and his voice coming out as something of growl. Daryl heard Merle suck his teeth with consideration.

"You ain't had no pocket knife? Don't know no self-respectin' man don't carry no pocket knife since he was halfway ta haired over," Merle responded.

Daryl decided then to put a stop to the whole thing. It didn't matter anyway and coming down to blows where they beat each other's faces in and messed up all the tracks they did have wasn't going to find Sophia and it wasn't going to calm Carol's nerves at all.

"Look," Daryl said, "it don't matter. What matters is what the hell happened after you left her. Now you left her here an' the Walkers come this way…what then?"

There was a moment of silence while Rick either tried to get his emotions under control or tried to recreate the moment in his mind…or both. He shrugged finally.

"I went that way," he said, pointing. "Out the other side of the creek. I called the Walkers and got them to follow me until I found a rock that I could beat their skulls in with."

"Then what?" Daryl asked.

"Then I came back here and she was gone," Rick offered. "I thought she'd done what I asked her to do. I thought she went back to the highway. So that's where I went."

"Girl prob'ly followed you," Shane offered.

"No, she didn't," Merle said. "She done what'cha asked her to. Right there's her tracks comin' back out the creek."

"Those are the same ones that go in," Shane said with some irritation.

Daryl couldn't help but laugh when he heard the chuckle rumbling in his brother's throat.

"An' that's why the hell you ain't no tracker," Merle commented. "Them tracks is almost in the ones goin' in, but they headed out the other direction. It's plain as the nose on my face."

"So where did she go then?" Shane asked, obviously challenging Merle.

Daryl thought it was ridiculous. The next thing they were all going to do was start yacking about how damn long their dicks were and how many pieces of pussy they'd talked into letting them test out in their lives.

Merle simply examined the tracks.

"Went up that way," Merle said. "Went right up there, headed right back the hell toward the highway."

He walked as he talked and the rest of them followed him, though Daryl could clearly follow exactly where Merle was heading by looking at the distinction between the two sets of tracks, minor as it might be.

"Ground starts ta dry out up here," Daryl commented. "Gets harder ta follow where she was goin'."

"Veers off," Merle threw out. "Heads in that direction…right over there you can see she turned her ankle or fell or somethin'. Mussed up the ground."

"Why did she turn?" Rick asked.

Daryl looked at him.

"We lookin' at tracks, not readin' tea leaves," he offered. "Somethin' mighta spooked her. Coulda been another Walker? Coulda been any damn thing."

"Mighta been Walkers," Merle commented. "Hard ta tell if these is new tracks or old ones. Lotta damn Walkers passin' through an' they got more or less the same damn gait…walk like drunks…strung out an' staggerin'."

"That doesn't make sense," Shane said sharply. "If she went back in this direction, why didn't she just go back to the highway?"

Daryl and Merle looked at each other and back at him. Apparently he too confused the idea of looking at tracks with some kind of crystal ball magic that was going to tell them a complete story. It just didn't work that way.

"Somethin' musta stopped her," Daryl offered. "Somethin' kept her from gettin' back there. Hell…she mighta wandered too damn far, lost her boundaries an' ended up lost. At least we know where the hell she was headed."

"We'll go that way," Merle offered, pointing in the direction of the tracks that they'd already found. "Bound ta run into somethin' more. Figure out where she went. If she stopped. Find her holed up some damn where cryin' for her Ma an' our day's done 'fore the sun goes down…get our asses off the fuckin' highway an' stop bein' damn appetizers for Walkers."

Daryl agreed wholeheartedly with Merle on all counts at the moment. They'd go where the tracks told them to go and then it was just a case of looking for more tracks and trying to think, at least a little, like Sophia. They had to try to get into her head and figure out where a kid would go…a kid that was lost, alone, and scared.

It shouldn't be that hard because if any of them were honest with themselves that's exactly how they all felt these days.

"That's just leading deeper into the woods," Shane offered. "I say she didn't go that way. Not for long. Rick told her to head for the highway."

"An' she got turned," Merle protested.

"But she could turn back," Rick threw in. "She could have turned back and ended up somewhere closer to the road."

Merle simply shook his head in response.

"She's headed back up toward the road," Shane said. "We're wasting our time if we follow every little step she took to get there. We'd make more sense to comb the edge of the woods closest to the highway and move in bit by bit there. That's how we'd do it if we were organizing a search party for a lost girl. That's how we should proceed now."

They weren't going to reach an agreement. Both Rick and Shane would disagree with Merle and Daryl all day long on the principle of it. The only way that they were going to get anywhere was by simply splitting up. And Daryl couldn't say that he'd be opposed to losing the company of the two men. He didn't particularly like hanging around them and he didn't like the side they brought out in Merle…a side that was only going to get worse as time went on.

"Fine," Daryl said. "You go back up to the highway. Start lookin' there. You take the woods closest to it. She prob'ly ain't gone more'n two miles an' that's if she kept tryin' ta move once the sun was down. You comb the woods closest the road an' we'll keep tryin' ta follow where the hell she went from here. We'll find her or we'll bump the fuck into one another."

Merle snorted, but quickly covered up the laugh by rubbing vigorously at his nose.

"Fine," Rick offered. "We're going to head back up. You want us to send people down to you? To help you start searching?"

"Better you send 'em in that direction," Daryl said, pointing the opposite direction. "Split up combing the woods up there. If she turned back an' headed for the road, mighta missed our camp entirely in the dark. Could be a mile in that direction."

Merle made something of a snorting noise too.

It was possible, of course…all things were really possible until they knew exactly where Sophia was, but it wasn't likely.

And it didn't seem that the police officer had any idea that they were yanking on his genitals right now because he quickly agreed that this was the best way to proceed. And maybe, just maybe, it was, but Daryl wouldn't have bet his nuts on it.

Still, for the time being it was better that it was just he and Merle searching the area together. They knew how to work with one another and they knew how to track together. Anyone who didn't know how to track would just be disturbing them with too many questions, slowing them down, and likely mussing up evidence they could find helpful of the path the girl had really taken. It was better that it was just the two of them for a while. If they wanted someone else later, they could always go back to the highway and find someone.

"Fine," Rick said. "We'll meet back at the highway at dusk if we don't find her. If we do find her, we'll send someone after you."

"Yeah," Merle commented. "Alright. An' we'll just bring her on back ta the highway when we got her."

Daryl bit his lip quickly to hide his amusement at his brother and watched as Rick and Shane started, clearly annoyed but not spending any more time discussing it, back toward the highway to pick up whoever was going to help them in their search.

And Merle and Daryl, not wanting to waste any more time playing with the boys in blue, headed off in their own direction.