A/N: Wow, this has been a long time coming and honestly it is a short chapter that I am not so happy with, it has just been a drag to get past the set up really and I've had a lot of things keeping me from writing, but after this chapter we get into the tv show so I just wanted to get this out and move on.
Cassie was hiding in her and her mom's tent in the hopes of avoiding the other people at camp, though mostly just the other kids in camp. Her mom was eager to get involved this morning and contribute to the camp so Carol suggested she could help her out with some of the daily chores such as washing clothes and gathering whatever fruit and mushrooms they could find near camp.
Before she left, she told her some of the adults had an agreement to keep an eye on the kids while their parents were busy so if she left the tent then she was to keep within eyesight of Dale, Amy, Carol or Lori at all times. Not that she could just get up and wander off yet anyway, with her feet still healing.
"Cassie?" A voice called from outside the tent.
She recognised the boy's voice from yesterday, it was Carl probably come to show off his comic books that he mentioned yesterday.
"Are you in there?"
She kept quiet, hoping he'd think she was off somewhere else if she didn't reply. There was a sound of awkward shuffling then footsteps leading away.
Cassie relaxed, letting out a relieved breath. She was not ready for awkward interactions with other kids.
It wasn't much later that another voice was calling for her outside the tent, this one softer and feminine though Cassie couldn't quite place it. She crawled over to the entrance and poked her head out, the sun blocked her vision temporarily until the figure stepped over slightly to obscure it behind her revealing one of the sisters from yesterday, Amy she thinks, the one who was excitable and bubbly.
"Hey! Your mom wanted me to check in on you and make sure you weren't spending the whole day hiding away." She smiled kindly.
"Hey!" the sound of running got closer as Carl skidded to a stop next to Amy, "You must have been really tired because you slept in super late!"
She glanced over at Amy who looked amused but kept her mouth shut.
"Ah yeah, I haven't slept much since… everything." She murmured.
"I didn't either for a few days but the camps safe, so you don't have to worry here!" he seemed almost bursting with enthusiasm, his grin splitting his face.
She made a generic noise of agreement, unsure of what to say.
"Why don't you go get your comics to show Cassie, Carl? You guys can hang out for a while and get to know each other while the other kids are busy so you don't all overwhelm Cassie."
"Yeah!" he practically shouted before bolting off.
Cassie glared at Amy slightly but she just smiled down at her with a mischievous glint in her eye, "Better to get to know them bit by bit than having them all crowd you, either way they're going to bother you so you might as well get it over with now."
She sighed and crawled fully out the tent, awkwardly making her way over to one of the camp chairs and pulled herself onto it being careful not to put any pressure on her feet.
"Well, I'll leave you and Carl to get to know each other but I won't be far if you need me or there's also Dale who'll be by the RV."
There was a brief, beautiful silence left in her absence before Carl returns smiling widely again, without bothering to ask he moves the other camp chair so it lines up right next to Cassie's, pressing against her own and plops himself down onto it.
He spends the next hour or so showing her all of his comic books that he brought with him and talking her through every single one of their plots and characters, barely stopping to breathe. He seemed content with Cassie's hums and grunts of acknowledgement as her participation to the conversation for the most part although sometimes he appeared disheartened at her lack of enthusiasm for something he loved and that he was excited by. He never stayed upset for long though, quickly bouncing back to being smiley and excited again.
She knew she was giving off an impression that she didn't like him or maybe even was annoyed by him but that wasn't really the case. Kids in the past who had attempted to befriend her and met the same responses had quickly given up and moved on but Carl seemed determined, maybe it was only because the options for friends at camp was severely limited but still, he could have more fun hanging out with the other kids than her surely. Yet he persisted with her despite how one sided the conversation was.
Honestly, she actually liked his enthusiasm and ramblings about his comic books, even though she couldn't say they were her kind of thing, it was still amazing to her how happy talking about them made him. She enjoyed watching the way he lit up as he spoke, though the words he was spouting went in one ear and out the next without her really registering what he was saying.
Cassie couldn't remember a time when she was ever so enthusiastic about anything. She enjoyed reading but it was a quiet sort of enjoyment, gotten from the escape it affords her from her life at home and her loneliness at school. It was not something that made her light up when she spoke about what she was reading like Carl does with his comic books.
Eventually, even he seemed to run out of things so say though and his voice petered out to an awkward silence. He looked around the camp, his eyes darting back to her and away often, clearly searching for another topic of conversation to rid them of the awkward silence when his eyes fell on her bandaged feet.
"My mom said your feet got hurt really bad so you can't walk for a while…"
His voice rose slightly at the end like he meant it as a question despite the fact it was a statement. Cassie tilted her head questioningly at him, trying to get him to ask what it was he really wanted to ask without having to speak up.
"How'd they get so bad? What happened?"
Cassie shrugged before taking a breath and quietly muttering, "We were walking a really long time."
Carl nodded at her, accepting that as an answer without prodding her for more of an explanation.
It was then that she noticed Daryl walking off into the woods with his crossbow on his back. Carl watched her as her brow furrowed, "Daryl seems kind of scary, but he must be alright if he helped you and your mom and brought you guys here."
"I don't think he's scary." Cassie's voice came out clear and strong this time.
Carl stared at her in surprise before smiling widely at her, "Yeah, he's alright, isn't he?"
"Hello." The timid girl's voice startled Cassie who hadn't seen her come up on her other side as she and Carl had been talking.
"Hey Sophia!" Carl called out.
Cassie recognised her, the girl with the father who reminds her of her own, who she wants nothing to do with. An awkward silence descends over them, Sophia shuffles her feet while looking uncomfortable and Carl keeps looking back and forth between Cassie and Sophia as Cassie avoids looking at either of them.
Talking in front of Carl was bad enough, she couldn't bring herself to speak in front of both of them. She spent her life trying her best to keep attention off of her, having two inquisitive kids give her their full attention was nerve wracking and not something she wanted. If she could walk still she would have gotten up and walked away but she was stuck in this chair unless she wanted to get down and crawl away, which she kind of wanted to do she was that desperate to get out of this situation but that would look stupid and probably draw attention from everyone close enough to see.
"Hey kids!"
'Oh thank god.' Cassie thought as she slumped in relief at the interjection. It was a teenage Asian boy that Cassie thinks she may have met yesterday but she can't remember his name.
"Hey Glenn!" Carl called back.
'Ah, so that was his name.'
"Just came by to see if there was anything you kids needed; I'm going on a run into Atlanta."
"You're going into Atlanta?!" Carl yelled in surprise.
"But my mom says it's full of those things." Sophia added in a small, worried voice.
Glenn smiled at her, ruffling her hair. "I'll be alright. I'm going to stick to the back streets and get in and out as quick as possible. Plus, I'm super-fast so even if I see any of those things I can just run in the other direction and lose them, so no need to worry about me okay?" Sophia nodded and smiled shyly at him before he left.
The next few days continued on in the same manner, the other kids coming by to keep her company and chat at her while she nodded along silently. Sophia was quiet herself and Cassie found herself enjoying the companionable silence when it was just them, though Carls chatter was also nice even if she often found her mind straying while his chatter became a sort of white noise in the background.
Glenn and the Dixon brothers came and went multiple times over the days, the Dixon's on hunting trips and Glenn into Atlanta for supplies. Cassie found herself uncharacteristically worried about them, Glenn and Daryl anyway, Merle Dixon mostly made her uncomfortable.
Due to Cassie's father and her quiet personality she never really made any friends or connected with people, she was used to only caring and worrying for her Mom but whether it was the close proximity of the people in camp or that the looming threat of her father was gone, she found herself opening up more to the people in camp.
Glenn was her favorite easily, he was kind and funny and didn't mind stopping to chat with 'the kids' that were mostly overlooked by the rest of the camp excluding than their parents, also he made sure to come and ask them if there was anything they wanted him to look out for when he took his trips into the city.
Her feet healed slowly as the days went by and she grew closer with the children in camp, not that she began being much more vocal, but the others got used to her silences and didn't seem bothered by her quietness as they got used to it. She would still join the other kids in their games like tag but tended to fade into the background more often than not, preferring to watch a lot of the time.
She didn't really understand why herself that she wasn't comfortable speaking aloud to anyone but her mom, maybe it was how long she spent in the woods not speaking then being in a new place full of strangers after what she saw but she just couldn't bring herself to properly open up. Though she would try if Daryl ever came back around, she had seen him from across camp, knows even that he has noticed her watching him whenever he's with sight, but he refuses to come close enough for her to actually speak to him.
The only people she interacts with at all are her mom, Glenn, Amy and the other kids. The majority of adults in the camp are not people she wants to pay her any attention, Like Ed, it did not take long for her to confirm he was just the same type of man as her father was. She went completely out of her way to ensure she did not bring herself to his attention though it hurt to watch Sophia and her mom have to be near him knowing what kind of man he is.
Despite wanting to avoid Ed and going out of her way to stay off his radar, she couldn't help but like Sophia. She reminds her a lot of herself, probably in the worst ways, but it still had her feeling a connection to her. They were both quiet, but it didn't make their interactions awkward anymore, it was a comfortable silence between them now.