Guys... I had to stop and take a moment after writing this chapter. I think I was focusing too much on the things that weren't said in the show, that I dot a little too... well focused... now, I think I wrote myself into a corner...

~Loner

"Did you know that guy was bitten?" Arron asked Daryl the day they stopped to drop Jim off on the side of the road.

Daryl turned to Arron from where he was watching Rick and Shane dragging the ragged, delusional man to one of the millions of trees nearby. "I had heard," he said softly. There was a fear there, in his eyes, Arron noticed right away.

"Is that why you have been avoiding the RV?" The man asked, voice almost humming with his thoughts. Arron hadn't heard, nor seen, any of the drama that came with having a bitten amongst the group. He did notice the constant ins and outs of the people in the RV, but, honestly, at this point in their malnutrition states, Arron had assumed it was the diarrhea stage kicking in.

Arron reached out a hand, touching Daryl's wrist lightly. The situation explained the clinging at night, too. Daryl clung, yes, but he didn't cling the way he had been. They hadn't even been able to play their normal game of hide and go seek, not that they had any real time, what with being on the road and everything, because Daryl was constantly making sure there was a skin on skin contact at all times at night. The other man even went as far as putting his head on Arron's shoulder. That wasn't Daryl. It was too Darlina to be Daryl (and God forbid Darlina make an appearance, Arron thought). Arron didn't have a problem with it. No, the scared man really secretly enjoyed it. It was the constant reassurance Daryl had been needing? That was bothering the man. Somehow, the system had turned into 'Arron first,' when the RV came into focus, 'then Daryl'. Almost like the kid was hiding from it. Daryl didn't hide from anything (though Darlina did). Arron had at one point thought about calling the kid out on it, much like Merle would have, but decided against it.

Rick was saying some shit to the sick man, then passing over a hand gun (the same one that he was constantly using to threaten his Daryl with, Arron thought, despite Arron's efforts to keep the gun away from his head), like he was expecting the weak man to be able to do something with it. Jim didn't look like he could lift a finger, let alone pull a trigger in the right direction.

Afterwards, there was a moment of silent or quiet, depending on the person, good bye to the old man (Arron just flicked the guy off, because , why not? He was dead the moment he was bitten anyway). They all crawled back into their respective vehicles driving away from the dead man.

Just as they were passing the mile mark, a gun shot resound through the quiet air. Daryl jumped in the passenger side seat, banging his knee on the dash board. Arron's hands tightened around the stirring wheel, jaw clenching in effort not to press on the gas, for the most part succeeding (he was a hair short of ramming the tail end of Rick's car). A silent moment later, Daryl was scooting over to the middle, almost in Arron's lap, ignoring the bags on the foot of the truck, and Arron was sliding his right hand from the steering wheel to slide over Daryl's knee, up to mid-thigh, squeezing it hard enough to bruise.

Hopefully, Arron thought, glancing into the rear view mirror, he didn't miss, 'cause that would suck. Both men watched as a small squad of walkers turn their attention in Jim's direction, slowly shuffling towards the sound with one or two breaking off to follow the caravan. Big time.

Nothing was said for the rest of the drive. Arron and Daryl just took comfort in the fact that it wasn't one of them.

"Fucking shit," Arron threw open the truck's door, hopping out with a stretch that popped bones he didn't know he had. "Finally," he sighed in relief when the day the journey was finally seeing an end. Just a few more miles around the bend and they would be at their destination. Though, Arron suspected, looking around the clearly dead area, ignoring the few distasteful eyes that glared at him for daring to use his voice and remind them of his existence, there wasn't anything to find.

The group had this unspoken rule of stopping every 2 to 3 hours for bathroom breaks. It had developed when Jim was still dying in the back of the RV, evolving from stopping to check up on the man to letting the kids go in to do their business (which the 'well mannered, civilized' adults, eventually, started taking advantage of). The breaks usually ended up being 30 minutes to an hour long, depending on how stir crazy the population of 12 or so people were. People idled about; some waiting in the unspoken line to the bathroom, some, like Arron and Daryl, disappeared into the tree line (because, fuck that line, Arron thought as he peed on the tree), others hung around each other quietly whispering to each other. It was all really not interesting for a people watcher like Arron. Some people said society was dead. Arron disagreed as he watched the humans do what humans did, which is to say, breaking off into smaller groups of 2 or 3. During these times, the children, (Daryl was included in this category for Arron) actually stayed close to their family unit (It probably helped that the family units stayed within 3 feet of each other during this time).

Arron for his part used this extra time to run slow laps around the caravan of cars to get his blood flowing properly again. There really wasn't much else to do really, besides wait to move out again, and, at the moment, Arron didn't feel like sitting down or idling anymore.

"Sofie," a quiet voice called out to the only little girl left in the group, "would you like a snack?" The older woman was pulling out some stale animal crackers from the box the group had called 'the children's box.'

"Yes, please," an equally quiet voice answered politely.

"Can I have some, too?" Carl asked, perking up and following the girl over to the old (what? Arron thought she was looked old with that silver hair) woman.

The woman reached back into the box of children's snacks, pulling out another bag. "Sure, Carl," she said with a gentle smile as she handed the kid the bag.

"We're out of toilet paper, again," a blond woman was saying, annoyance in clear as day, as Arron was passing. The group waiting in the line next to the RV all groaned at once.

"I swear, someone must be using way too much," someone said, Arron didn't pay attention who. "This is the second time today." Someone broke off from the group to go searching through the cars for another roll.

Rick and Shane were arguing in the corner, again, where they thought no one could see.

It was all pretty monotonous to Arron. Everything was exactly how it would have been if this was a normal day in society, a normal camping trip.

Arron didn't like this. They finally packed everything back up about an hour ago and started moving into the city. The city smelled dead. Reaching over, Arron started the long process of rolling the window up. He couldn't crank it fast enough to keep the smell out. Too little, too late.

"There isn't anything here," Arron stage whispered to Daryl as the other man pulled over with the rest.

Daryl nodded grimly as he threw the truck in park. There was a moment where Daryl reached out to Arron as he took in what little he could see from the wind shield, fingers ghosting over Arron's own. This place gave him the creeps. Arron's fingers twitched under his, jumping to capture the shy fingers with his own for a few moments in a tight twist around Daryl's. Neither said anything more, just waiting for the others to work up the courage to open their doors, before pulling apart and grabbing their own weapons. Both men threw open their doors, trying to shake off their body's jerk reaction to stay in the truck.

Arron could practically hear Daryl's heart beat spike in panic with his breathing. Not that he blamed the man, Arron was struggling himself too, trying to at least pretend to be calm. This wasn't like the department store in Atlanta. In Atlanta, there was a goal, a reason for being there. Here, outside the CDC (not even in the parking lot, but on the outer edge), there was no clear goal, no reason, nothing to distract them from the life or death situation. Daryl whimpered low in his throat, and Arron could feel his own pupils narrow to pinpoints.

Still, they followed the group lead by the man named Rick Grimes. Arron was moving first with Daryl clinging to the bottom hem of his shirt. This was such a bad Idea!

Daryl and Arron circled around each other, both paranoid and cautious, eyes darting to and from. Everyone in the group ran in a decently straight line. Lori was clinging to Carl's hand. Carol practically curled around her daughter, Sofia. Shane was on the outer edge of the line in an attempt to protect the right side of the line. Daryl and Arron were on the left side, clearly not to protect the line but themselves. Rick in the lead, acting, at the moment, as a guide for the rest. T-dog and Glen brought up the back, constantly glancing back over their shoulders. Everyone else spaced out between the others in line, running to keep up with the person in front.

This was a bad idea, Arron kept thinking over and over like a mantra. A really, really, really fucked up idea. If Merle was here, the man would have shot Arron himself for going through with this. Hell, the man would have shot Arron for even thinking of it. If by some miracle, Merle had agreed to go to the CDC, the man would have turned the truck around the moment it became clear there wasn't a way through the huge parking lot, except on foot. There was no way, Merle's paranoid ass would go into a clear hot spot without the protection and speed of a vehicle.

Arron did curse out loud and voice his thoughts, with everyone else, when the shutters over the windows of the CDC came into view. Fuck!

Then, Rick was banging on the shutters loud enough to wake the dead. Double FUCK!

"Walkers!" someone's panicked voice rang out from the side.

Arron spun on his heel, katana flashing in the dying light, ready for a fight. Daryl, beating him, was pushing people out of the way to shoot the fucker in the head. "We have to go!" His boy's voice rang out as the body fell.

"No!" Rick shouted, turning to bang on crazily on the shutters, "There is someone here!"

At this point, there was so much going on Arron couldn't keep up. People were going back and forth between trying to get Rick to walk away. Mothers were trying to herd the children to the middle of the group. Others trying to fight the oncoming flesh eaters drawn to Rick's constant banging and yelling of "Let us in! You're killing us!" Arron spared a moment he didn't really have to wonder if Rick was having a break down in the worst moment ever known to man.

Just as they were about to be over run, there was a grinding noise echoing through the panicked screams, and the slow ass shutters were lifting.

"Go!" Arron roared at Daryl, pushing the man towards the newly formed exit (entrance to the CDC), even as he jammed his katana into the too close flesh eater's forehead. "GO!" He snapped when he saw Daryl daring to idle after the man regained his footing. Daryl took a step back, mostly from the shock of being yelled at by the one person who never raised his voice. Arron growled, desperately pulling his blade free from the head, taking a few steps back, roughly shoving his boy further, just inside the doorway, blade already pushing its way into another head. Too much. Too many. Arron was sure he wasn't going to make it in. The doorway was already being overrun. Arron's heart skipped a beat in his panic. The shutters were already whining out in their movement downwards. There was a distance voice yelling "PA!" in such devastation it was cutting Arron from his fight or flight induced panic. His head turned sharply over to Daryl where the others were switching from pulling the boy back from the moving shutters and pushing back the flesh eaters.

Arron did the only thing he could think of, which admittedly was probably not his best plan, stop, drop and rolled.