A/N: I don't know if anyone's noticed that I've been updating every three days and I didn't this time. It's because I've hit a snag with a couple of chapters and it's been slow going. I want to try to keep regular updates for as long as possible so to accommodate my slower progress I'll be updating every four or five days until I get back up to speed. If things had gone better I was actually hoping to do a double update this time but that's life. As always, thank you for the follows and the favorites and for continuing to read.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead.

Chapter 7

Rick was having a bad day. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell Daryl about the unconscious woman he was carrying through the forest as fast as his tired legs would move. He tried his best not to jostle her around. He didn't know how seriously she was hurt but he couldn't not move her. Rick wasn't going to leave her alone and helpless.

He briefly looked down at her face and noticed his shirt was stained with her blood. Right when he looked back up, he heard a groan. He stopped and looked down at her again.

"Marianne?" But she didn't respond so he kept going.

He was almost at the highway. All that was left was to climb up the small hill he had earlier rolled down. Everyone was gathered at the metal railing but that quickly changed as Daryl jumped down from the hood of a car and leapt over the railing. He ran down the hill towards him.

"What the hell happened?"

"I don't know. I found her like this." Rick was trying to catch his breath.

"What do you mean you found her?"

"I left her with Sophia but Sophia was gone and Marianne was lying on the ground next to two dead walkers."

"Give her to me." Rick reluctantly handed her over, not wanting to move her head more than necessary, but Daryl would be able to get her to the RV faster.

The two men climbed up to the highway. Rick struggled and even Daryl slipped a couple of times but managed to stay upright. They reached the top and Rick looked at the group but didn't spot the person he was searching for. Before he could ask where Sophia was, questions were being thrown at him.

"Oh my God. What happened?"

"Is she all right?"

"How bad is she hurt?"

"What's wrong with her?"

"Did a walker get her?"

He tried his best to answer but he couldn't wait any longer. "Where's Sophia?"

The group stopped talking and stared at him.

"She's not back?" Rick's heart sunk. Carol dropped to the ground, sobbing. His son was getting ready to cry, realizing his friend was still gone. He had failed.

Rick was having a really bad day.

Daryl gently put her down on a bed in the RV. It looked like her head had stopped bleeding, so that was good, but she hadn't regained consciousness and this worried him. He cursed under his breath. This was the second time in less than week that his baby sister was injured. Before all of this she'd never had accidents. Not even a single one in all the times they went hunting. Not once had she accidently cut herself or sprained an ankle. The worse she'd got were some bug bites and a sunburn.

"How's she doing?" Dale asked from behind him.

"How do you think?" Dale ignored Daryl's hostile tone.

"I've brought you our first aid kit and a fresh towel to put her head on, to try to keep the wound clean. We don't have much in the way of bandages."

Daryl took the items without thanking him. He was too worked up for pleasantries and it's not like he was that polite when in a good mood anyways.

He did the best he could. He knelt next to the bed and cleaned the gash with an antiseptic wipe and put some antibiotic cream on it but it looked like it might need stitches. He gingerly pressed a small square of gauze to cover the wound but didn't tape it since it'd just pull her hair when they needed to take it off.

Someone else came into the RV and he turned around to see Lori and Rick.

"Daryl, I know this is a bad time but we need your help to look for Sophia. I'm headin' back to where I left her and maybe you can track her from there."

Daryl couldn't say no. He wanted to stay with his sister but a little girl was still missing and there wasn't much left to do for Marianne.

"I'll go."

Rick gave him a strained smile. "Okay, let's head out."

"Don't worry. We'll take real good care of her while you're gone," Lori said sympathetically.

Rick led Daryl and Shane to the creek where he'd last seen Sophia and found Marianne. Close to their destination they came across a dead walker.

"They must have tried to make a run for it. Looks like it got in their way," Daryl said.

"But then why was she back at the creek?" Rick asked. Daryl studied the ground and saw a jumble of footprints and shrugged. He'd need more than that to come to a conclusion he'd be willing to share.

Arriving at the creek they saw two more dead walkers. "This is where I found her. In between those two." He pointed at the walkers. There was space between them just big enough for Marianne to fit. Her knife was still in a walker head and Daryl retrieved it. It was her favorite one.

Daryl looked around at the scene. "My guess is Sophia ran back here when Marianne was dealing with that walker back there and she followed Sophia and they met these two bastards. Sophia must've run off again. It shouldn't be too hard to find her tracks."

Someone wet was carrying her and breathing hard. She could feel a pounding heartbeat just out of sync with her own. Her head. Oh God, her head.

The bruised side of her face was leaning against a shoulder. It was throbbing again but now the back of her head hurt even worse than getting hit with a baseball bat. She groaned in pain but before she could open her eyes she was out again.

The next time she woke up she was on a somewhat familiar bed.

Her eyes fluttered open and she found Lori smiling down at her. The woman then promptly disappeared.

"She's awake," Lori called out of the RV door. Marianne heard quick footsteps and Dale appeared looking as happy as Lori did.

"Well, thank goodness for that."

"How are you feeling?"

"Like crap." She tried to sit up but winced and Lori gently pushed her back down.

"Don't get up. You've got a big cut on the back of your head and we don't have it wrapped up. We're trying to find something clean."

As if on cue Glenn ran into the RV. "I've got it. I think it's clean. At least, it smells like it is." He held up a wife beater that was long enough to tie around her head. Glenn spotted Marianne and smiled. All of this smiling was annoying the hell out of her. She closed her eyes.

"Marianne, you need to keep your eyes open. We don't want you falling asleep yet," Dale said. She groaned in protest but opened them anyways.

"Can you at least close the blinds? I've got a splittin' headache." Lori closed them and pulled the curtains shut. "Where's Daryl?"

"Him and Rick are out looking for Sophia."

This got Marianne's attention. "She didn't make it back?"

Lori shook her head sadly. "No, but I'm sure they'll find her."

"It's my fault," she said. "I should've just run instead of taking on those walkers."

"It's not your fault. You did what anyone else would've done. You didn't need walkers chasing after you and Sophia so you dealt with them."

"More like they dealt with me." Her eyes closed of their own volition but she forced them open. "Carol must be devastated." She couldn't imagine what it would be like to have a lost child.

Lori gave her a bottle of water and left her alone. T-Dog came to keep her company and make sure she didn't fall asleep but both of them were too listless to hold any kind of a conversation.

It was a little over an hour before Rick and Daryl returned. When she saw him, he was filthy and tired and smelled like walker guts, but she could tell that he was relieved to see her awake. She smiled weakly at him.

He didn't waste any time on a greeting and got straight to the point. "What exactly happened out there?"

"A giant ass walker fell on me. Forgot to yell timber and get out of the way. Guess I hit my head pretty hard." For the second time.

"Ya don't need'ta make a habit out of it."

"Believe me, I'm not plannin' on it." She wondered if Daryl had noticed she was injured both times while trying to help somebody.

"Here, I got you these from Merle's stash." He dug two pill bottles out of his pocket. "One's for pain and the other's an antibiotic."

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see Merle's drugs," she said as she uncapped each bottle and fished out the pills, swallowing the painkiller first. Daryl smirked.

"Me neither."

The pain pills knocked her out for the rest of the evening and all through the night. When she woke up that morning everyone, except for Dale and T-Dog, had left to search for Sophia. She was frustrated that she was rendered useless again. It was her fault Sophia was still missing and she should be out there too.

Marianne wasn't a big fan of being bed-ridden. She managed to at least convince Dale to help her to sit at the dinette table. If she sat with her back against the wall she could face the open door and get a view of the outside but this didn't satisfy her.

"I could've sworn I saw a camping chair out there."

"No, it's out of the question. You're staying right where you are. You'll be safer in here if more walkers wander by. And if you feel like things are startin' to go downhill, just holler and I'll come help you back to bed."

She grumbled and Dale laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Sometimes you and Daryl look exactly alike. It's uncanny. You have the same scowl," he said which made Marianne scowl which, in turn, made Dale smile wider.

Dale left to keep an eye out for walkers. She could hear his occasional footsteps on the RV roof. T-Dog went half-heartedly through a nearby car that had already been picked over but that didn't last very long.

"Ain't you supposed to be fixing that radiator? What if they come back with Sophia and Rick wants to move on right away?" T-Dog asked as he paced by the side of the RV.

"I had it fixed yesterday." Marianne heard Dale say from above her and she set her book down on the table.

"What?" T-Dog was puzzled. "What was all that rubbing and sanding for then? That's just bullshit?"

"Yeah, that's one word. Another word would be pantomime, just for show. No one else needs to know. You hear that Marianne?"

"Loud and clear. Not one word about your bullshit."

"Pantomime." T-Dog scoffed.

"If the others know we're mobile, they'll want to mobilize and move on." She didn't know why it hadn't occurred to her that anyone in the group would want to leave without Sophia. She was usually so good at seeing the worst in people.

"So you don't think they're gonna find Sophia, that it?"

"I'm just guarding against the worst. Sooner or later, if she's not found, people will start doing math. I want to hold off the 'needs of the many versus the needs of the few' argument as long as I can."

"That is one tricky hose, huh?" From that statement Marianne knew T-Dog agreed with what Dale was doing and so did she. There was no way they were going to abandon a twelve year old, especially not with the way the world was now.

"Very," Dale said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

A few hours and too many games of solitaire later Marianne had migrated to the RV steps against Dale's wishes. The pain in her head felt distant but she wasn't too groggy, having only taken half a pill when yesterday she'd taken two. She wanted to keep as much of her wits about her as she could under the circumstance.

Dale had moved on from keeping a lookout to tinkering with the cars around them. The pile of spare parts was growing by the hour.

"Shouldn't they be back by now?" T-Dog asked Dale.

"Oh, it's still light. Let's not worry just yet."

"They'll want to cover as much ground as they can today," Marianne said.

"How are you two feeling?"

"Could be better," Marianne answered but T-Dog only vaguely nodded.

"T-Dog? I asked you how you were feeling just now. Please don't blow that question off."

"It really, really hurts. It's throbbing something awful."

Dale took a look at T-Dog's arm and the man cried out in pain.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Listen, your veins are very discolored. You got a hell of an infection there. You could die from blood poisoning."

T-Dog laughed. "Wouldn't that be the way? World gone to hell, the dead risen up to eat the living and Theodore Douglas gets done in by a cut on his arm."

"Yeah, that would be—that would be stupid. I've been saying since yesterday, we've got to, we've got to get you some antibiotics."

"Dale, you haven't been sayin' that to me. I didn't know his arm was that bad. I've got some on me right now. It's Merle's. Daryl gave them to me yesterday."

"Do you really?"

"No, I don't. I was just sayin' that to make y'all feel better through the power of positive thinking." She huffed. "Of course I do. The pills are on the bed. Give him some for pain too, while you're at it."

"Marianne."

"What?"

"I think you're my new best friend," T-Dog said.

Marianne was more than a little disappointed when they didn't come back with Sophia and more than a little shocked when Daryl told her Carl was shot.

"Shot? But by who?"

"I dunno." He shrugged a shoulder. "A stranger. Ain't you supposed to be in bed? And why did you take off your bandages?" He asked, referring to the strips of cloth from the cut up wife beater.

"I heal fast," she said as a matter of fact.

"Uh huh, sure you do. Are you bein' a dumbass again?"

"No, and stop callin' me that."

"Whatever… dumbass."

The siblings migrated to where the rest of the group was and started a discussion on what to do next. It was suggested they pack up and leave for the Greene farm before dark.

Carol shook her head. "I won't do it. We can't just leave."

"Carol, the group is split. We're scattered and weak," Dale argued.

"What if she comes back and we're not here?" Carol asked, looking around at them all one by one. "It could happen."

"If Sophia found her way back and we were gone, that would be awful," Andrea said and Marianne nodded her head in agreement. She could only imagine what the girl would think if she found herself abandoned by the group, let alone her mother.

"Then we'll stay. At least some of us," Marianne said.

"Okay. We got to plan for this. I say tomorrow morning is soon enough to pull up stakes. Give us a chance to rig a big sign, leave her some supplies." Carol looked at Daryl gratefully. "I'll hold here tonight, stay with the RV."

"If the RV is staying, I am too," Dale said, changing his tune about leaving.

"Thank you. Thank you both," Carol said.

"I'm not goin' either," Marianne stated, crossing her arms.

"Me too." Andrea half raised her hand.

"No, Marianne. You need to get that head of yours looked at. Glenn will take you and T-Dog to the farm. Use Carol's Cherokee."

"Me? Why is it always me?" Glenn asked.

And at the same time Marianne said, "No way. My head'll last another night."

"Glenn, you have to find this farm, reconnect with our people and see what's going on. But most important, the two of them need medical attention," Dale said in a no nonsense voice. "And Marianne, you've got a head wound for crying out loud. You were unconscious. There isn't a question of whether or not you're staying. If it was my decision you wouldn't even be walking around right now."

"I need to stay. I can't leave Sophia." Not again.

Carol put a hand on her arm. "It's okay."

But it wasn't and it wouldn't be until Sophia was back, safe in her mother's arms.

A/N: I know not a lot happened in this chapter and the next one is a little slow too. That's why I wanted a double update. But I promise it'll pick up.