"Never lose faith in yourself, and never lose hope;

remember, even when this world throws its worst and then turns its back, there is still always hope."

Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

"You sleep, I'll keep watch," I said to Rick and Carl as we helped Rick sit on the ground, next to a tree so he could rest his back against it.

It was already dark and we had no flashlights, everything was so dark we could barely see a couple of feet in front of us, luckily walkers made a lot of noise all the time so if one was close we would hear it.

"But you are tired too, I'll keep watch," Carl told me, standing next to Rick.

"No," I told him firmly. "You rest, I'll wake you up in a few hours."

Reluctantly, Carl sat next to his father and rested his head against the tree, closing his blue eyes, while I stayed on my feet close to them. If I sit I was sure I could fall asleep and I didn't want that, I couldn't fall asleep and making us all vulnerable.

Hot tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about what happened only four or so hours ago, how our home was destroyed, how they got inside, shooting at us and bringing down everything we had worked so hard for.

A lump was formed in my throat as the image of Hershel being almost decapitated crossed my mind. That memory would be on my mind for a very long time, if not forever. All I could hope was that he went quickly and that he didn't suffer as much, same goes to Michonne, she was with them when we opened fire, it was obvious she was dead.

My train of thoughts was interrupted by a sharp pain in my stomach, I had to crouch over and wrap my arms around it. I had been having them since that bitch hit me hard in my stomach when we were fighting.

The pain kept coming and going, it didn't last more than ten or fifteen seconds before it goes again. And it hadn't been that often, so I just kept going, ignoring it but now that it's just me in the dark, I paid attention to it.

Hopefully it's nothing serious, nothing life threatening, hopefully nothing tore inside of me, like a muscle or an important organ. Hopefully it was just the pain itself of the impact, nothing else and that it would go away on its own in a few days, maybe sooner.

As the previous three times, the pain went away in a matter of seconds and it was like it never happened. I tried to focus on other things to not worry about the pain.

I heard Carl's deep and heavy breathing, meaning he had finally fallen asleep, I smiled at him, I was glad he was okay, that Rick was alive even when he was so beaten up.

I started to pace then, it was going to be a long night and I needed to do something to keep myself awake. So, I kept walking in front of Rick and Carl, trying to be as quiet as I could to not wake them up and to not attract unwanted company.

I looked up at the sky but because of the vast trees I couldn't see it, or the stars or the moon, all I saw was darkness. I bit my lip as a lump formed in my throat once again. I closed my eyes tightly as Daryl crossed my mind.

The last time I ever saw him was when The Governor called Rick and me to meet him by the fence. I assured him I was going to be okay and I had kept that promise, I wasn't killed, I made it out.. with some bruises and cuts but I was okay.

"Daryl," I said, trying hard not to look at the ring in my finger, which now seemed like it weighed a ton. If I saw it, I'd break down crying for sure. "If you're out there, I'll find you, I'll do it, I promise."

About two hours later, I heard the snarling of walkers. My head shot up in the direction of the sound and I approached it with my crossbow raised. In the dark I could just make out two thin figures. I shot two arrows at them and they fell down to the ground, making the snarling stop.

I sighed in relief there were no more, at least for now, these woods weren't safe, especially when it was as dark as tonight. If these things didn't make any sound we probably wouldn't see them until it was too late.

And like that, the longest night of my life passed by. I decided not to wake up Carl or Rick, they needed the rest more than I did. Throughout the night I killed twelve more walkers, Rick woke up twice but I assured him everything was fine and that he could go back to sleep, I had everything under control.

About half an hour after sunrise, Carl slowly opened his eyes. He took a deep breath as he stretched and then he rubbed his eyes. He looked okay until he realized it was daytime already.

As he was waking up, I raised my shirt and looked at my stomach, which was all bruised, bright purple bruises covered from my bellybutton to below my chest, it was a very nasty bruise and I considered it that, even when during my whole childhood I was covered in bruises.

"You didn't wake me up!" he accused me as he glared at me and stood up quickly.

"I didn't realize how much time has passed," I lied. I did know when I should wake Carl up but I saw him sleeping so peacefully I couldn't wake him up. "We should leave, maybe we can find a place to stay for now and some food."

Together, Carl and I woke Rick up and helped him get on his feet, Rick was pretty bad. His face was all bruised and still bloody and he even had an eye closed from all the punches from the Governor and he was limping from the shot he got in his thigh.

"Let's go," I told them and then we started walking.

As the day before, whenever we saw a walker I would let go of Rick and shoot it with my crossbow because it was silent and I could reused the arrows and we needed to save all the bullets we had, we didn't know when we could need them.

At the pace we were walking, it took us about three hours to get out of the woods and got on a road, I wasn't sure if here would be safer but we needed to find food and at the moment we could only find it in a house.

"Ugh," I groaned as another sharp flash of pain hit my stomach, I put my free hand over it and stopped in my tracks for only a second but still Rick and Carl noticed.

"What is it?" Rick asked me with his hoarse voice, he still hadn't gotten better from the chocking.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"What is it, Cecilia?" Rick asked me in a stern tone. I sighed and looked down at the ground.

"I'm just having this pain in my stomach for a few seconds before it goes," I said like it wasn't a big deal. "I'm sure it will go away soon, it's nothing, Rick. Don't worry."

Not much after that, Carl let go of Rick and walked a few feet ahead of us, not once turning his head back to check on us. He hadn't said a single word since we woke Rick up, he hadn't even looked at his father since we started walking again. I had tried to get him to at least walk next to us but he didn't even seem like he heard me.

"Carl, slow down," Rick ordered as he struggled to keep up with this fast pace. His left arm was over my shoulders and my right arm was around his waist, even I was having a hard time trying to keep up with Carl.

The young boy didn't react to his father's voice, he just ignored him as he had ignored me earlier. I knew he was upset, I was upset too but he didn't have to act like a little brat, not right now.

"Carl, stop!" Rick yelled, finally losing his patience. Carl finally stopped walking but didn't turned around to look at us. "We need to stay together!"

Rick removed his arm from around me and on his own he limped towards Carl, he kept panting because of the effort he was making but I decided to stay there on my spot, knowing Rick was going to talk to Carl and I had nothing to do with that.
"We got to find a place with food, supplies," Rick told him as he finally caught up with Carl, who just looked down at the ground. "Hey," Rick muttered as he laid a hand on Carl's shoulder. "We're gonna be..."

Carl turned to look at Rick with a glare on his face that could kill anyone, I couldn't see him well from here but still I caught the way he was looking at Rick. Rick just looked back at him completely astonished. Without saying a single word, Carl jerked his shoulder and kept walking forward, leaving a stunned Rick behind.

I looked sadly at the scene before I decided to walked towards Rick. I offered him a small smile before I wrapped an arm around his waist once again and told him to rest his on my shoulders so I could help him walk.

"I'm fine, Cici," he muttered. "You must save your strength."

"Don't worry about me," I told him as we started walking. "I'm good, we just need to find a place and some food."

All around us were trees and vegetation so, that would take a while, especially at this pace. But at least we had found a road which led to civilization and I didn't mind helping Rick, what I mind was that Carl was acting horrible towards him.

"Do you want me to talk to him?" I asked in a low tone so Carl wouldn't hear.

"Not right now, let him be," he told me. "You can tell him something later and I'll have a talk with him after we find somewhere we can stay for a bit. How are you holding up?"

"I'm worried," I admitted. "About the rest, mostly about Mika and Lizzie. I don't know if they are safe or alive."

"I can't assure you if they are okay or not but if you're worrying about Daryl, I am sure he's okay. He's a survivor," he told me. "If anyone got out of there alive and well, that would be him."

"I know but I can't help it, what if...?"

"Don't think like that, it doesn't make you any good," he told me quickly. "Let's just focus on staying alive and then we'll worry about the rest. You still have that pain in your stomach?"

"It comes and goes," I told him, giving it no importance. "That woman hit me really hard there, that must be it. I'm all bruised but nothing to worry about."

As we kept walking the beautiful blue sky above us got covered by light grey clouds, making the day even more gloomy.

The atmosphere was tensed and awkward, Carl was too upset to even look at us, Rick probably wanted to shout at him for his attitude and I really wanted to get Carl into his senses for everyone's sake, it wasn't nice to see him like this.

It wasn't until around midday when we came across a diner, it was called Joe & Joe Jr., in the parking lot there were a few abandoned motorcycles. I felt a pang in my heart when I saw them, they reminded me of Daryl.

"Wait outside, okay?" Rick told us when we reached the door of the place. "Keep watch."
"You keep watch," Carl exclaimed, it was the first thing he had said to Rick all day. "You can barely stand. I'm not gonna let you go in there alone."
"Excuse me?" Rick asked in an angry tone.

"We've done this before. I'm gonna help you clear it," Carl said in a determined tone. "You should just let me do it myself."

"You know what?" I exclaimed, getting sick of the two of them. "I'll go first, if you want to go in, then fine."

I walked past Carl and stood next to Rick, I nodded at him to tell him to open the door as I had my crossbow raised, ready in case I needed it. Rick nodded back, not wanting to argue with me and a few seconds later he opened the door.

We walked in quickly with our weapons raised. We checked the entrance and the kitchen first and apparently there were no walkers or people here.
"Kitchen's clear," Rick muttered as Carl and I had gone into the next room.

This room was supposed to be where the people ate but right now was a complete mess, all the furniture were put together, one on top of another, making a pile. I wasn't sure what was the purpose of it until I heard the snarling.

"That might be all that's left," Rick told us, referring to the food on a shelf on the other side of the furniture. We needed to kill the walker to get those supplies.
"I can get it from here," Carl said, raising his gun.
"No," Rick said firmly. "No, it's weak. I'll draw it out."

"I can shoot him," I offered as I shrugged.
"I got him," Rick told me, grabbing an axe. "Stay back."

Rick quickly brought a couple of chairs down to the ground, the walker wasted no time to walk towards Rick, who tried to hit him in his forehead with the axe but the weapon got stuck in its skull and the walker was still alive and trying to get Rick.
"Damn it!" Rick exclaimed and then turned to look at Carl, who was ready to shoot. "Don't!"

I was about to help Rick and shoot the walker in its head when I heard another moans from behind us, I turned around quickly and saw two more walkers walking in. I made my way to them and shot the first walker quickly, I was reloading the crossbow when I heard a gunshot and a loud thud. I shot the second walker and turned to look at Rick and Carl.

"I said not to!" Rick angrily said to Carl.
"You couldn't do it with the axe!" Carl shouted.
"I had it! Every bullet counts. What if you needed that one later?" Rick told him. "See what you can find, then let's move on."

I awkwardly retrieved my arrows and walked to the other side of the place while Carl went to the shelf to grab what was there and Rick went to the kitchen. There was a small room on the other side of the entrance where I found two bags of chips, some ketchup and a half-empty jar of honey, after I put everything in a bag, I checked behind the counter, where I only found an opened bottle of liquor, I didn't intend to drink soon but it could get handy, even to clean some of our wounds, so I took it.

Then I walked back to where Carl was, followed closely by Rick. The three of us had found some stuff so that was good.
"Kitchen wasn't empty after all," Rick said. "My haul. You?"

Carl glanced first at my bag and how full it was, the two bags of chips, which were mostly air, took some room, though, then he turned to look at Rick's with a very cold expression on his face.

"I win," he muttered before walking out of the diner.

I sighed out of frustration, as before, I just offered Rick a small smile and wrapped my arm around him to help him walk. He insisted he could walk by himself but I told him he needed to save his strength in case we needed to run or fight more walkers, I was tired because I didn't sleep all night but I could keep up.

As before, Carl walked ahead of us, not even once he turned around to check if we were fine. He could at least help with Rick but he didn't.

"Hey!" Rick exclaimed but as before Carl just ignored him. "Hey!"
"Carl!" I said loudly, he glanced my way but didn't stop, and he looked at me so quickly I was wondering if he ever looked at me.

"Hey," Rick repeated as Carl stopped in front of a nice looking house. We had passed a few but all of them had the doors open so they couldn't be safe, this one looked better than those. "That one's as good as any."
This time Rick went inside first, followed by me and lastly Carl. At first sight the house seemed empty, Carl went to the right, Rick to the left and I walked forward, the three of us had our weapons raised.

"Carl," Rick said in a low tone when he saw him. The rooms all connected to each other here, so we all ended in the same place, kind of.

"I got it. All the doors down here are open."
"Just stop!" Rick said angrily.

Carl's arms fell to his side and then he turned around to face Rick, by the look on his face I knew whatever he was going to say wasn't going to be nice. I was about to walk towards him to calm him down a bit but before I could he started shouting.

"Hey, asshole!" he shouted as he hit the wall with his fist, making a lot of noise. "Hey, shitface! Hey –!"

"Watch your mouth!" Rick exclaimed sternly, while I just looked at the boy with a sad look on my face.

"Are you kidding me? If there's one of them down there, they would have come out."
None of us said anything else, instead Carl walked away and headed upstairs, with a sigh I followed him while Rick went to check the kitchen. Carl went inside a room that apparently belonged to a young boy, probably around Carl's age. It was painted dark green and light green on another wall, I instantly liked this boy, whoever he was because green was my favourite colour. He had a lot of toys and video games. When I looked at Carl, I spotted a small smile on his lips.

"Carl," I muttered, making him jump a bit, he hadn't seen me coming. I was leant against the door frame while he was around the middle of the room.

"Leave me alone," he mumbled, his back facing me. I sighed.

"Don't be so hard on your dad, Carl. You don't have to talk to him now if you don't want to but you can't be rude to him, you have to respect him," I told him. "Wasn't you who told me you were going to forgive me because we don't have time to waste on being mad at people? I followed your advice and forgave my mother, you should do the same."

"This is different, Cici!" he exclaimed, turning to look at me. "You don't get it!"

"Then why don't you explain it to me?"

"I just don't understand how you can be so nice to him when Daryl is dead because of him!" he exclaimed, raising his voice a bit at the last part, I bit my lip trying to pretend his words didn't hurt me.

"We don't know that, Carl. He can be alive."

"What about your mum? He kicked her out!"

"He had his reasons, Carl," I told him calmly. "I don't blame him."

"Well, I do and you should do too," he told me. "He got everything he deserved."

"Hey!" I exclaimed getting angry. "He's human, he makes mistakes. And no matter how bad he messes up, he's still your father and you must respect him. I hated my mum but I didn't disrespect her. He loves you with all his heart, all he does it's because of your good, keep that in mind."

With that I walked away and checked the other rooms and they were all empty, then I walked into the master bathroom and locked myself in there and then I looked at my reflection. My hair was all over the place, my clothes were dirty and I had holes on my trousers around my knees. The woman had busted my lip and I had dried blood around there and a cut on my jaw, which was bruised too. I also had a thin cut above my left eyebrow and left cheek.

I removed my shirt and took a look at the damage. My whole stomach was bruised like I had seen earlier but now that I was looking at it on the mirror the bruise seemed even bigger. I also had small bruises on my shoulders, upper back and arms. My knuckles were bloody as well, all of me was a complete mess but we had more important things to worry about, so I just put my hair in a high somewhat messy bun and washed my face with water and some soap that I was lucky to find, cleaning my wounds and removing the dry blood.

The rest of the day until it got dark, we spent it closing all windows and doors and making sure they stayed closed, except for the main door, we left that for last. Carl made a strong and good knot on that door as I checked if the window next to it was locked as well, while Rick was pushing an overturned sofa towards the door.

"I tied the door shut," Carl told him when he noticed what Rick was doing.
"We don't need to take any chances," Rick replied as he kept pushing.
"You don't think it'll hold?"

"Carl!" I exclaimed. "We better be cautious, you know?"
"It's a strong knot. Clove hitch," Carl said, looking from me to his father. "Shane taught me. Remember him?"

Well, that was a new low for Carl.

"Yeah, I remember him. I remember him every day," Rick told him. "There's something else you want to say to me?"

Carl said nothing else, he just walked to the other side of the sofa and started to push, I helped from the other side and Rick pushed from one of it, until it was right next to the door. Then, we turned it again, so it would be in its normal position. When we finished, Rick kept breathing heavy, anything took him so much energy.

"This will have to do for the night," Rick told us.

Rick then went to sit on the edge of the sofa that was next to the door and searched his bag for something to eat, while Carl sat on the opposite edge, leaving me no choice but to sit in the middle.
"You gonna have some?" Carl asked as his father offered him a bag of cereal.

"You should eat," Rick muttered.
"We should save it," Carl told him.

Carl stood up, grabbed some sheets and a cushion from the sofa and laid it on the ground where he was going to sleep. I stood up as well, determined to let Rick sleep on the couch, he was the worst and he needed some good rest, I was going to find somewhere else, maybe even upstairs.

As I was thinking what to do and where to sleep, Rick stood up and walked towards Carl, offering him the bag of cereal again.

"Hey."

"I don't want any," Carl told him. Rick was so sick of his attitude, he threw the bag where Carl was going to sleep.
"Eat it! Now!" Rick said in an authoritative tone as he limped past Carl, towards the bathroom, probably to do what I did earlier, clean his face from the dried blood and check his injuries, leaving Carl and I.

"Ca..."

"Don't," he exclaimed quickly, interrupting me.

"I was just going to tell you that I was going to sleep upstairs," I said, standing up. "Maybe in the room we talked earlier."

"Why aren't you staying here with us?"

"Honestly?" I said with a small smile. "I don't want to sleep on the floor."

"You could sleep with me," Carl told me shyly.

"Do you want me to sleep with you?" I asked as I raised my eyebrows at him.

"My dad and I will sleep here and like you said, there's nowhere else you could sleep besides the floor," Carl said as he played with his fingers. "You shouldn't be on your own."

"Alright," I said with a chuckle. "I'll just go upstairs and bring a blanket."

I ruffled Carl's hair as I passed past him, he finally put his hat down, he hadn't stopped wearing it since the Governor attacked us.

I rushed upstairs and went inside the master bedroom and grabbed two blankets from there plus a big, soft pillow. I was going back down when I got another sharp pain in my stomach. I had to stop in my tracks, hold my stomach like I could, I was still carrying the blankets and the pillow, and closed my eyes tightly as I waited for it to go. I silently counted and this time the pain lasted around the double, which I really didn't like. It was getting worse instead of improving.

Once the pain was gone, I pushed it to the back of my mind and continued my way downstairs. Carl had already put the sheets by then, I threw the pillow at him and set one blanket on the couch so Rick could use it once he was back. Carl helped me put the blanket and together we got under it, resting our heads on the nice pillow.

The cushions of the sofa were too narrow that Carl and I had to lie on our sides so we could both fit, at the moment he was lying on his left side and I was lying on my right, facing each other.

"This is nice, isn't it?"

"Better than a tree," Carl told me. "And warmer."

"And warmer," I agreed with a small smile. "You know, you may think that your dad has the fault but I'm to blame too. Michonne went out looking for him all these months and I didn't. I thought we would never find him or that he was dead. A part of me just wanted to forget him, so I just continued my life like if he wasn't a threat."

"I don't blame you," he mumbled. "And you shouldn't blame yourself either. Cecilia?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you're alive," he told me, looking right into my light blue eyes. "I'm glad that from all the possibilities, you ended up with us... with me."

"Carl," I said with a big smile. "You have no idea how happy I am that I found you in that chaos and that I'm here with you."

"Even when you're not with Daryl?"

"I promised you I'd never leave you again, didn't I?" I exclaimed. "Besides, you need me now."

"Yeah," he admitted. "Thanks!"

"For what?"

"For keeping your promise," he told me with a big smile.

"You don't have to thank me for that," I told him before I kissed the top of his head. "Now let's sleep, alright?"

"Good-night, Cici."

"Good-night, Carl."

Hello guys, I had forgotten I was going to update today, that's why it's this late.
I hoped you liked the chapter, and what do you think will happen when Daryl and Cecilia reunite?
I'm posting twice for Christmas so next update will be on Saturday :)