Chapter 5

"Well … it's not a Mercedes, but it beats the hell out of walking." Nick said, referring to the rust bucket of a car they had found on the side of the road. The three of them had bet their stashes of chocolate that Charlotte wouldn't be able to get it going.

Although Charlotte loved her chocolate, she mainly did it to prove them wrong, that and this piece of crap was the best looking vehicle they had passed in a long time. Other than replacing the battery, most of her fixes were Jerry rigged, she wasn't going to spend too much time on it, they could always commandeer another vehicle if this one gave out.

But it hadn't given out, it just kept on fighting, just like they did. Charlotte sighed and looked out the dingy window as they passed through yet another town, its name long forgotten. Then, something caught her eye.

"Hey, hold up!" She said, Nick slammed on the brake, throwing them all forward.

"Wha…?" He started to ask, but he didn't even get the words out before Charlotte was out of the car and jogging up the embankment of an overpass.

Then he saw what she was looking at, an overturned hummer hanging half way off the bridge, more military vehicles were piled around the overturned one … and they were armory vehicles. With any luck, they might have something left.

But that wasn't what caught Charlotte's eye, there was a male walker impaled on a protruding piece of the ruined guard rail, draped over his shoulder was rocket launcher.

"Hey … look at this!" Nick said as he opened the back of the nearest hummer and discovered cases upon cases of missiles.

"Wonder where the launcher is?" Mel quipped.

"It's not that, is it?" Charlotte called over her shoulder.

"Yeah, I'd have to look at it up close to be sure, but it looks like it, son of a bitch, but how are we going to get it?"

Charlotte blew out a frustrated sigh, there was no way to climb out and get it, the dilapidated railing would never support both hers and the walker's weight, even if she was the lightest of the three of them.

Then, it was as if the universe decided to take pity on them, and they heard the sickening sound of flesh tearing, and bones breaking. The walker, who had probably been there since the beginning of this whole mess had started to decay, his shoulder finally gave way and he fell twenty feet to the pavement below with a sickening splat; leaving the rocket launcher hanging where he had been impaled, just begging for them to take it.

"Charlotte, no! you don't know if it will hold your weight, and it'd not worth it!" Mel said as she grabbed her arm.

"Come on, you make it sound like I weigh three hundred pounds." Charlotte replied as she pulled out of Mel's grip.

She slowly began inching her way out to where the weapon hung, swinging gently in the wind, beckoning her. She could hear the aging steel creaking under her weight, she was now close enough to brush the strap with the tips of her fingers ... just a little further.

"Aha! Got it!" She exclaimed as her small hand closed around the strap, just then, the rusted steel gave way with a mighty groan, pitching her over the side of the overpass. She screwed her eye shut, waiting for the impact her body would make on the pavement below, knowing she probably wouldn't survive it, but the impact never came, she opened her eye and the face of Nick came into view, he had rushed forward and grabbed her wrist just in time.

"You're one crazy bitch, you know that?" He said as he and Mel pulled her up.

"I'm just lucky you have such quick reflexes." She said as she tossed the rocket launcher to him. "I'm going to see if I can get this hummer started, it'll be easier than trying to cram all this artillery into the car." She said as she raised the hood and found the engine to be in surprisingly good condition, she might be able to start it.

"Come on, baby." She said as she rubbed the two wires together, the engine sputtered a few times before reluctantly roaring to life.

"Let's see what the other vehicles have and then lets book it before another herd … or other people show up." Charlotte said.

The other vehicles had been well stocked, Charlotte couldn't believe no one had come across them, she figured the place had been overrun before and that was what had kept people away, and the walkers moved on, and people never came back, maybe there weren't any people left to come back. they had packed all they could into the hummer and took off before anyone ... or anything came upon them.

"It'll be getting dark soon, we'd better find a place to stay, I don't think we'll make it to the next town." Nick said.

"Pull off here." Charlotte said, glancing up from the map and pointing to an unmarked gravel road, Nick flashed her a peculiar look in the rear view mirror, but complied.

"Oh!" Mel said as the road led them to an old limestone quarry. The melting snow from the mountains had filled the basin with fresh, clean water, and the surrounding terrain was rugged, and difficult to traverse.

"You know. I think with a few personal touches, we could hold up here for a while if we had to." Nick said as he surveyed the area.

"Looks like someone already did." Mel said as she came across a fire pit, w pretty well built one, too.

'Just like the ones Daryl used to build.' Charlotte thought as a sharp stab or pain pierced her heart and soul, and tears welled up in her eye. Then her heart swelled with hope, if he had built it, it couldn't be more than three months since they used it, so that meant they weren't far behind them.

"Hey, you okay?" Mel asked, noticing Charlotte's sudden change in mood.

"My group, I think it was them who was here." Charlotte said, her eye still on the fire pit.

"My man, this is how he did his fire pits, just like this, right down to the way the rocks are stacked." She said as she knelt down and traced her fingers over it.

"Look, I don't mean to dash your hopes or anything, but this is how I make my fire pits, too. Anyone with survival, or wilderness training knows how to make them like this." Nick said, Mel elbowed him hard in the ribs and mouthed at him to shut up. Let the poor lady have a shred of hope, for god's sake.

Charlotte stood and turned to him.

"You can believe what you want, but I KNOW he made this." She said as she walked back to the vehicle.

"Geeze, you never know when to shut that big mouth of yours, do you?" Mel said as she eyed him harshly.

"What?! All I said was the truth, you know it's true, we both make our fire pits like that, it's the way ANYONE with survival training does it!"

"I know! But you didn't have to TELL her that!" Mel said as she walked off in a huff to join Charlotte, who was readying the vehicle for them to sleep in tonight.

"If they were here, that means we can't be too far behind them, right?" She said, Charlotte met her eyes with a guarded expression, but her features softened when she saw Mel's reassuring smile.

"The REAL question is why they left in the first place." Charlotte replied as she looked around. It was almost dark, but from what she could see there was no sign that anything, living or dead had forced them to leave, it looked like they had just … packed up their gear and left.

SOMETHING had made them leave, and she was determined to find out what.

"Hey, I found something you might want to check out." Nick said as he joined them at breakfast.

"I was beginning to wonder where you got off too." Mel said between bites of her MRE.

"I was out, poking around, come on, when you both are done, I have something to show you."

After breakfast and about five miles of hiking, they peered through the clearing at what used to be a Walmart distribution center.

"I've been watching it for a while, and it looks deserted, but I didn't get near, with all of us we can get a closer look." Nick said as they readied their weapons, both for walkers and the living and crept forward.

There were a few dead walkers along the fence line, they had been stabbed in the forehead, Gavin sniffed at them and backed away from the fence. Thinking for a second, Charlotte rattled the rusty chain link fence and let out a loud whistle.

Sure enough, they heard them, by the sound of it, it was lots of them, a huge herd made their way around the corner, toward the sound.

"Whoever jumped this fence probably didn't think to check first and got trapped." Charlotte said.

"That means whatever is in that warehouse is still there!" Nick said.

"Sure, but you'd be torn to bits before you made it ten feet." Mel replied.

"Look … this place ain't going anywhere, and with this big of a herd in here, the stuff's not going anywhere, either. I say we sit tight." Charlotte said.

Nick blew out a frustrated breath, but he knew she was right, nothing in that place was worth getting any of them killed over.

"Come on, no use hanging around here pining after what we COULD have, I have traps to check anyway." She said as she and Gavin made her way back into the woods.

While Charlotte had stayed with Eastman, he had taught her how to build traps for rabbits and other small animals in order to feed Gavin and herself so she wouldn't have to use her gun so close to the cabin.

The first few traps yielded large, fat hares that they dispatched with a quick stab from their knives, the last one, however posed a different dilemma. Somehow, even though the snare was made for a smaller animal, she had managed to catch a doe.

"How do you want to play this?" Nick asked Charlotte, she furrowed her brow as she tried to come up with ideas. Using her rifle was out of the question, they were too close to camp, and the echo it would make would bring walkers for miles.

Charlotte let out a sigh. "I'm sorry, girlie, but we need the meat." She said as she crept slowly behind the doe, grabbed her by the ear and shoved her hunting knife to the hilt into the base of the animal's skull. The poor deer gave a violent shutter and fell, twitching to the ground.

Thank god she had thought to pick up any glass jars she found along the way, because she was likely going to need every last one of them for this meat.

"Sweet! We're going to eat good, tonight!" Nick said as he rubbed his hands together eagerly at the thought of venison for dinner.

"That's awesome you're so excited about it, because you're going to carry it back to camp." Mel interjected, Charlotte nodded in agreement with her as she wiped her knife clean.

"Wait … why me?" Nick sputtered.

"Because, you're the biggest and the strongest." Mel replied.

Nick grumbled as he slung the dead deer over his shoulders and followed the girls back to camp.

As they approached, Gavin, who was ahead of them stopped, his large ears swiveling around, and began scenting the air. A growl began, low in his throat as his hackles stood on end.

"Oh, shit, we got company." Charlotte said as they all drew their guns.

Sure enough, as they got closer, they could hear voices.

"… Holy shit! Rocket launchers, automatic weapons, the grenades, the works! With this, we'll be set!" they heard a male voice saying excitedly, he was talking about their hummer. Anger boiled up inside Charlotte like a volcano, like HELL she was going to let them take when she and the others worked so hard to get.

She motioned for Nick and Mel to out flank them, while she snuck up on the two men from behind.

"I never thought I would say this, but thank god I was a car thief!" one of them said as he inserted a slim Jim between the hummer's window and doorframe on the passenger side.

He suddenly froze as he felt cold steel press against the back of his neck.

"Move, and you die." Charlotte's voice hissed into his ear.

"Please! Oh … shit …! I thought this was abandoned, I swear!" he whimpered as he turned around slowly, his hands in the air.

"Oh … geeze!" He recoiled at the sight of Charlotte's face, she didn't care, she was quite used to that reaction by now.

"Boy, oh boy, did you ever pick the WRONG vehicle to try and jack." Charlotte said.

"We're sorry, okay?! Look, my name is Aaron, this is Chase, and we're scouts for a place called Alexandria. We go out and find people, people like you who know how to survive and bring them back to our community so they can have a safe place to live, and so they can teach others!

"How many of you are there? And you'd better tell me the truth, or I'll kill you where you stand." She said as she pressed the muzzle of her dessert eagle into the thief's temple.

"It's just us and one other guy, I swear!" He said as he squeezed his eyes shut and looked like he was about to piss himself.

"Where is he?" Charlotte asked the one who called himself Aaron."

"I … I don't know! He went off by himself in the woods, he does that a lot!" Aaron said, he saw a spark of emotion flash in the woman's eye, though he wasn't sure what it meant.

Just then, Nick and Mel came trudging out of the woods to the left of the hummer with their hands behind their heads. A man followed behind them, holding a rifle aimed at their heads, a hunter's mask covered all but his eyes, and he had a crossbow slung across his shoulders.

Daryl was frozen in shock, it was her, it was really her, he couldn't believe his eyes. Somehow, she had survived, he couldn't WAIT to rub Rick's face in this one.

Before he could take another step, however, he was looking down the barrel of her other dessert eagle.

"That's far enough, there, cowboy." She said without taking her eyes off Arron and Chase, the thief.

Daryl chuckled from behind his mask, he had forgotten how fast of a draw she was.

"If you're gonna point that fuckin' thing at me, you'd better be willing to use it." He said as he pulled his mask down off his face.

Charlotte's eye grew wide and she slowly turned to look at him, as her guns fell to her sides in shock. Daryl dashed at her and enveloped her in a crushing hug. He didn't say anything, but he could feel the joy, the relief, and the love in his embrace. Gavin jumped up and down and circled them like an excited puppy.

In turn, all the stress, loneliness and fear finally got the better of her and she collapsed against him, sobbing. Nick, Mel, Aaron and Chase merely stood there awkwardly as their embrace seemed to go on for a fortnight.

"Come on, there's a town, the others are there, I'm sure they'll be glad to see you." Daryl said, his gruff voice husky with emotion as they all climbed into the hummer. Daryl drove, and Charlotte rode shotgun, just like old times.

"So YOU'RE the famous 'pirate girl' everyone's been going on about!" Aaron said, Charlotte blushed a little.

"Yeah, I suppose I am." She said as they pulled up to the huge iron gate, and waved as the person on watch waved them through.

Charlotte looked out the window in awe; it was like this while mess never happened in here.

Deanna came out to meat them.

"What's all this?" She asked as Rick and the others walked up, they stopped dead in their tracks when Charlotte emerged from the passenger side.

"Oh my god!" Maggie said, choking back a joyful sob as she and the rest of the group rushed forward and embraced Charlotte in a many armed hug as many tears were shed.

"You KNOW I'm gonna rub your face in this one." Daryl said as he came to stand beside Rick.

"Alright, Alright, you were right, I was wrong." Rick chuckled.

"Well … NOW I understand why you called her 'pirate'." Deanna said with an amused smile on her face. "Well, if she is part of your group, than her and her friends are welcome here as well. Olivia can assign houses to her companions; I assume I already know where she is going to stay." She said as she winked at Daryl.

Daryl's face remained expressionless, but his coloring cheeks betrayed him.

The members of the group finally released her and clamored for information on how she had survived, and where she had been all this time. Charlotte started to try to answer all of their questions, but she didn't even know where to begin. Rick saw her catch Daryl's gaze from over the heads of the group members and the sexual tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Okay, okay now, I think Charlotte's had more than enough excitement to last her a long time, I think right now all she wants to do is clean up and have a good night's sleep." Rick said as the group backed off, looking downcast. Charlotte bid him a silent thanks as Daryl whisked her away to his house, second to the last on the left side of the street, his arm protectively around her shoulders.

"Wow, this place …! It's like nothing ever happened! It's so …" she started to gush once they were inside his house, she didn't get a chance to utter another word, however, because as soon as she shut the door, Daryl pulled her close and kissed her with all the love and passion he had been burying over these many months.

Without breaking their kiss, he picked her up and carried her to the bathroom.

Notes: Ahhh! Reunited and it feels so good! I hope it was everything you all hoped it would be. This might be it for a little bit, at least until the weekend is over.