A/N Hey all! Now I know I missed a few days here and there, but come on, we all know how season 2 goes. A little more character interaction here. Let me know how you guys like it.
Daryl leads the way up the long drive to the farm house. They left a sign and supplies for Sophia on the hood of a car before they left the highway. Carol is still reluctant to leave the area, but he and Dale were finally able to convince her.
Sam comes out to greet him as soon as she hears the bike, "Carl's gonna be ok, and T-dog too, they're all still inside."
"Good." he says, glad to have her close by again.
"We, uh, have to do a memorial service in a little while, one of their men died getting all the supplies that Hershel needed to help Carl. Shane said the place was completely over run." Sam explains.
"Shane, huh?" Daryl questions, "Sure that's how it went down."
Maggie leads the group over to where they can make their new camp and they get started. Sam is in the tent organizing the last of their stuff when Daryl comes in behind her. She goes over to him and smiles.
"I missed you lat night. It was hard to sleep without you." She takes his hand, he doesn't pull away, but he doesn't return the affection. "You want to go out and look for Sophia more, don't you?"
"The more we look the better chance we have of finding her, ya know, alive." he says "I snagged a map last night, we can actually get this organized."
"Ok, we'll work out a plan with Rick and Shane." Sam wraps her arms around him "I'm sure we'll find her."
Sam watches as Daryl heads into the woods with the rest of the search group, wishing she could be part of it.
"You could have gone with them." Carol says, following her gaze.
"There's a lot of work that needs to get done around here. If Andrea's not going to pull her weight, someone has to do it." Sam tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice "We can't just leave all the work to you. That's not fair."
"I don't mind the work. Honest." Carol reassures her "It keeps me busy."
"That's still a lot of work for you. Lori already spends most of her time taking care of Carl." Sam tries to justify her staying
"I told you, I don't mind the work. Next time, you go with them. An extra set of eyes never hurts." Carol gives her a soft smile and keeps walking with her laundry basket.
Sam follows with her own basket "Carol, um, what do you think of Daryl?"
Carol smiles at her over the clothes line "He's a good man. So different from his brother. Not that Merle was all bad." she laughs at Sam's raised eyebrow "Now Ed, my husband, he was all bad. I didn't get that feeling about Merle, or Daryl. It's obvious that you care for Daryl."
Sam gives an uncertain smile "Yeah, but it's hard to tell if he feels the same way. There's almost no way to get him to open up."
"Give it time. You gotta realize, he's damaged, honey. He's got a lot to process right now." Carol hangs up the last of the laundry, pats her on the shoulder and heads into the RV.
Sam continues to hang the laundry, thinking over what Carol said.
Daryl steps out of the RV after giving Carol the Cherokee rose and walks over to the fire near his and Sam's tent.
"How did it go today?" Sam asks, handing him a plate of food.
"Found this little farm house not too far away, looks like she mighta spent a night there. There's a ridge I wanna check out tomorrow, get the lay out of the land from there. Maybe borrow a horse, cover more ground." he accepts the plate of food.
"Any signs of walkers?"
"Nah, I ain't seen or heard any in a few days."
"This place seems untouched. It's amazing." Sam stares at the starry sky.
"It'll be better when we find Sophia and can move on." he tosses the paper plate into the fire and watches it catch.
"You don't like it here? You wouldn't want to stay if we can?" Sam asks, focusing on him from across the fire.
"What's the point? We'd just have to move on anyway. Why get attached to a place? We'll never be able to stay in one place forever." he shrugs.
"You really don't think we could settle down somewhere, like our own little town? Keep it safe, rebuild life." she asks him.
He can hear it in her voice, the need for stability. A picture flashes in his mind of the kind of life she is describing. A sheltered town, farms, food, kids. He shakes the image out of his head.
"I dunno. It would be a lot of work. Maybe too much for right now. Then people would get too secure an forget what's really goin on outside their little walls. End up dead." he shrugs it off again.
"That's an awful grim way to think about rebuilding society." Sam says, a little disturbed.
"Why would you wanna go back to that anyway? The whole world was all sorts of fucked up before this. Maybe this was just a long time coming."
Sam is quiet for a long time. Daryl starts to wonder if she fell asleep, or he upset her too much.
"Sam," he says quietly.
"No, you're right. The world went to shit long before this, maybe, in some sick way, this is a new beginning." the fire flickers over her face and she hastily wipes a tear off her cheek "But this new world is so harsh, if any kids survive, they're gonna grow up to be hard, brutal people. Because those are the only kind of people that can survive like this."
"Aw, shit. Now you're crying." Daryl says, feeling guilty "I didn't mean to make you cry. I was just tryin to tell you not to get yer hopes up, ya know? Things might not ever go back to normal, least not in our lifetime." he waves her over "C'mere. What's with your idea that one place, one building has to be home?"
Sam laughs a little bit at that, and how crazy that idea is right now, since only an idiot would die defending a building. She sits down next to Daryl, he puts him arm around her shoulders and looks at her.
"So what's with the home obsession?"
"I would hardly call it an obsession." she says, then scoffs "The more I think about it, the sillier I realize it actually is. I mean, it would be nice to have somewhere stable again, but if I go down fighting, it won't be for a building. It will be protecting someone, not something." she gives a quick smile and glances down.
Daryl tightens his arm around her "That, I get."
Sam hides her face against his neck to try and keep the smile from coming out too much. She notices there is no stiffness in his posture, he doesn't pull away from her when she touches him. She's been spending most nights in his arms, she doesn't even have to ask anymore.
Sam starts the chores early the next morning with a knot in her gut. Daryl borrowed a horse and left to look for Sophia early this morning. The knot only gets worse as the day wears on. She tries to ease it by talking to Carol some more.
"What's wrong hun?" she asks as soon as Sam comes over.
"Just feeling a little uneasy. It started when Daryl left this morning. I havent been able to shake it."
"Try not to worry about him too much. He knows how to take care of himself." Carol tries to reassure her.
"I know, and I've never felt like this any of the other times he's gone out on his own. I don't know what it is."
Sam decides to throw herself into her chores, hoping to at least distract herself from the feeling in her stomach. She finishes all her normal chores and, needing more, walks over to T-dog, who is struggling to split wood with his still healing arm.
"I'll split, you stack." Sam says, taking the axe from him.
"You sure you got this?" he asks when she misses the first log.
She stares at him for a second "Yeah, I got this."
It takes a few more times, but eventually she gets into a rhythm,, and before long they have a nice stack of firewood. The burning in her muscles successfully distracting her from the feeling of unease. Before she can split the next log, Andrea starts yelling from her post on the RV. Sam can see a figure coming out of the woods. Walker.
T-dog takes off at a run, joining Rick, Shane and Glen. Sam can see Andrea taking aim, even though the sun is right in her face, and Dale talking to her.
Sam hears the shot, the figure drops to the ground, and Rick's yelling reaches them, Andrea's face falls and Sam drops the axe and breaks into an all out run towards the edge of the field.