#darylxoc

The sun was setting by the time Carol slipped out of the house. Merle and Daryl were sitting on the porch steps like bookends, smoking stale cigarettes and sharing one of their last beer.

“They’ve decided.” The short haired woman spoke slowly. “Rick wants to speak with the boys.”

Merle stood immediately but Daryl looked to Grace first. She nodded and he hauled himself up, following his brother into the house. Grace sighed.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what their decision was?” Carol wondered and Grace shook her head.

“Rick’s going to kill him.” Grace sighed. “They can’t lose us. Daryl and Merle are the ones who hunt, all three of us can use a weapon and I’m the only one who has medical experience with people. I shouldn’t have pushed it but everyone needs to stop being so stupid.”

Carol nodded, dropping into the rocking chair beside Grace. “I don’t like it,” Grace gave her a sharp look and Carol raised her hand for quiet. “I don’t like it,” she repeated, “but it’s our only choice. We’re not living in the old world any more. It’s not about saving that boy’s life. It’s about saving our own. Rick wants to do it tonight. He says we’ve held on to the boy too long and it’s cruel to make him wait for death any longer.”

“He’s right.” Grace agreed. “Did they decide how? He was talking about hanging this afternoon but I don’t like that. It’s slow and cruel. I’d say overdose him if we still had Merle’s stash. Dope him up on meth and he wouldn’t even feel the end.”

“Well there’s none of that, so do you have a second pick?” Carol questioned.

“I’d say probably shoot him. If it’s point blank then he’d be done with completely. Less hassle that way.”

“I think that’s what he wants to talk with Daryl and Merle about. Just to find out what they’re comfortable with helping clean-up after.” Carol shrugged. “I didn’t stick around after Dale stormed out. He’s furious.”

“With me?”

“With everyone,” Carol corrected. “He’s said he’ll take first watch and walk the fences to clear his head.”

Grace nodded and chewed her lip. Looking out across the front field she could see the cows they had managed to wrangle back into the field silhouetted by the fading light. “Once this crap is done we need to start working on getting us all out of here. I want those subdivision walls keeping all this bullshit out.”

-break-

The group gathered on the front porch to wait for the deed to be done. Carol and Lori read the kids a story, tucked them into bed and closed the door for the night. Claire, Beth and Jimmy were instructed not to set a single foot out of the house and they were to either be in the living room or their beds. For the adults though, the silent vigil in the dark started. Grace hadn’t gone inside again after the meeting, and once the kids were in bed Carol and Lori joined her. Then there was Maggie and Glenn, slipping away from the teens to join the watch on the porch, and T-Dog who settled himself on the steps with a lantern and their small collection of well-oiled rags to take his gun apart and clean it. Patricia took up one of the wicker chains and knit by the lantern of another lamp. Long after everyone else, Hershel slipped out of the house, holding his father’s flask but never drinking from it.

Andrea was the final member to join them on the porch. She’d been sitting outside Hershel’s office and listening to the plans for what the men would do with Randall. Her face was pale and pinched; the suntan she had developed from all the time she’d spent outside was barely visible under the worry. She sat down on the steps beside T-Dog, picked up a scrap of oil cloth and slid her own gun out. Everyone was curious about the execution plan but no one wanted to know how it was actually going to happen, that made it all too real. The group wanted to stand together united, but they didn’t want to discuss that they were about to be responsible for a man’s death.

The situation was eating away at all of them. Each of them knew that it was going to cause guilt they would carry for years. Tonight was another gruesome reality, another decision in the string of terrible things they had done to survive. Weighing heavily on them all was the the fact that even with this boy gone, there was no guarantee that this other group wouldn’t find them.

Grace thought longingly about Wiltshire Estates. That subdivision would be exactly what they needed: thick walls, plenty of space and a way to defend themselves from what or whoever wanted to get at them. Without that they were sitting ducks. With the creek drying up and the fences breaking they were losing all the existing defences this place had against walkers and people.

It was only a matter of time until the walkers made it this far. The creatures weren’t conscious enough to really think out strategies for catching their prey but they knew enough to go looking for it. How long would it be before all those walkers in Atlanta realized the city was empty and that they had to look elsewhere for dinner? A few weeks more? Maybe only a few days? One would start walking and the rest would mindlessly follow. They would make it out of the city and eventually there would be a more even spread of walkers instead of such high concentrations. Sure there would be pockets where the walkers would pool together, trapped or attracted by something, but they’d spread out thinner eventually. Like a water spill moving away from the source and covering everything. Little isolated places like this farm would be just as likely to contain walkers as bigger urban areas could.

The bodies would rot though, exposed to sun and precipitation and temperature. Already they were falling to pieces, the skin peeling back from the faces first, eyes drying up, blood turning to tar. One day, a long way away, there would be no more. The corpses will all have turned to slime and dust and gone back to the earth.

If the group survived that long, they would be able to start over. New villages made of the groups of people who had survived this harsh new world would spring up. There would be new trade routes and they would start innovation again. The world would be different, partly because human numbers were so greatly decimated. Who knew how long it would take before the world started to look the way it had before this mess? They had to remain positive, they had to think if they made it through this and made sure to deal with their problems now, they could make it to a time when things would be easier. Safety wasn’t a given, but without walkers, they would only have to focus on human threats.

It was never too early to start making the world safer from human predators, though. Taking care of Randall was the first big step to doing more than just going along with what the world threw at them and instead surviving it and coming out on top.

Andrea had barely started to take her gun apart when the front door opened and Shane lead the way outside, Rick close behind him and the brothers right behind Rick. The interruption had quieted everyone to a tense silence but they made no effort to communicate. All four wore matching somber expressions and walked with determination, heading past the anxious stares across the porch and down the stairs. The quad walked across the front lawn in the dim lighting until they were just barely silhouettes against the shed. There, one of them - it was almost impossible to tell at this distance which one but Grace figured it was Shane - unlocked the door and they vanished into the dark of the shed.

Grace’s stomach ached. For the first time, Daryl hadn’t looked to her. He’d purposely avoided eye contact. It was like the four men had walked out onto an empty porch. He’d always sought out her approval but he was distancing himself, making himself cold and cutting himself off. It was strange to see Daryl so standoffish, he’d always been closed but he watched everything around him constantly. This was the first time she’d seen him so focused on his task that he ignored his surroundings.

No matter what Dale thought, no one wanted this. It would have been much easier on everyone’s conscience if Randall could be trusted to join their group and become another contributing member. They didn’t want to lose another human life when what little was left was so precious. He’d made his choices though. He’d lied to them and hidden things. Even if he wasn’t guilty of the physical crime, which Grace was very doubtful about, he was guilty of standing idle and then not trying to make amends. They would never be able to trust him and thus they had to do what was best for everyone, no matter how difficult.

The shed door popped open with a long groan, breaking the still of the night. One by one, the men slid back out into the dark, walking a protesting Randall across the grassy space between the shed and the barn. The prisoner twisted and thrashed as they frogmarched him. He wasn’t happy to be walking but that was perfectly alright. There was a twisted part of her that was pleased to see him panicking. Let him feel just the slightest bit of what those girls must have felt. The other half of her wanted him to go quietly, to accept his fate so it wasn’t such a difficult task for the men who had to kill him.

Merle and Shane were a little bit cooler than Daryl and Rick when it came to necessary action but it would have an effect on all four of them. Taking a life always did. She’d felt it herself while killing walkers. Even though they weren’t alive, it was hard getting over the instinct to preserve human life on some sort of deeper level. You had to block out the part of you that thought of walkers as the people they once were. Maybe dealing with walkers were just preparation for this moment.

She could hear the whispered words between Andrea, Maggie and Glenn on the other end of the porch. The three were turned slightly away, trying to hide their conversation from the others.

“What did they decide?” Maggie had squished her chair right up next to Glenn’s. His fingers reached out and brushed across the back of her arm, just enough to rub away the worry in her voice.

“Gun,” Andrea shrugged, nervously fussing with her hair. “They’re taking him to the barn.”

Glenn’s forehead wrinkled. “We just got that place cleaned up. Dale and I were going to move the RV there for the winter. Better than keeping it out in the elements right?”

“We’ve got bigger problems than scrubbing brains out of your parking space, Glenn.”

Maggie’s mouth popped open into a little “o” of surprise. “They’re going to shoot him in the head? Like a,” she looked to Glenn for confirmation and whispered the word, “walker?”

“Can’t exactly have a firing squad. Too much gunfire and it’ll draw everything in the area right here. A shot to the head will make sure he’s not going to be getting up anytime soon.” Andrea flinched at her own unintentional joke.

“They won’t leave a mess, Glenn.” Grace leaned over and reassured him. “All part of the process. They’ll take care of the body too. That,” she pointed to Randall and the four figures walking into the barn. “will be the last time we have to see that bastard.”

-break-

The night seemed eerily quiet as they waited for the gunshot from the barn. Everyone was on high alert, sitting in the tense silence.

T-Dog whistled low, pointing out across the field. “Look at that fog. Won’t be able to see too far tonight.”

“It’s a good night for everyone to stay inside. Anything could sneak up on the house in weather like this.” Maggie shivered. “Feel bad for those stupid cows out there. We’re still missing a couple.”

Glenn tried to reassure her that they would find the missing animals in the morning but no one was really paying attention. It was all small talk to fill the night and keep their fears at bay.

“Who’s that? Carol pointed down to the yard toward two figures, the shortest one wearing Rick’s Sheriff hat.

Beside her, Lori sat up straighter, squinting out at the fog, “Carl?”

“Jesus,” Glenn muttered as everyone watched Rick hauling his son across the yard.

“What happened?” Andrea called out as Rick gave Carl a push towards his mother.

Rick glared, stepping closer to his wife. “We’re keeping Randall in custody for now.”

Trying not to seem excited, Andrea jumped up and started moving off the porch. “I’m going to go get Dale.”

“Carl, go inside.” Lori directed her son towards the house, her eyes never leaving his father. “Now, please.”

Grumbling about being sent back into the house, Carl complied, the screen door falling shut behind him with a slam. Rick moved closer to Lori and she reached out to touch his arm. Grace blinked and looked away. It was too intimate a moment to be spying on. She didn’t want to pry but she was sitting so close it was difficult not to hear. Everyone else was moving their way off the porch and into the house, the show was over after all, and there she was alone listening to Rick’s broken voice. Daryl was nowhere to be seen though. Merle and Shane either. If they had taken Randall back to the shed then she wanted to be there for when Daryl got back. She knew that both he and Merle would kick her ass if she went out after them in the dark but she wasn’t letting herself into the house either.

“He followed us. He wanted to watch.” Rick was stumbling over his words, eyes giving Lori a look full of remorse. “I couldn’t.”

“That’s okay,” Lori assured her husband. “That’s okay.”

Grace shifted a bit further down the stairs as the couple beside her embraced. Her stomach twisted with how much she just wanted to see Daryl. He would be furious and frustrated and need someone to keep him from doing something stupid. Merle, as well. If she could intercept the two of them and convince them to wait until tomorrow to take out their displeasure at keeping Randall around, maybe she could keep the peace.

Far off, a cry of distress broke through the night. The screen door of the house snapped back open as Glenn shoved his head through. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.” Rick had pulled back from Lori and was scanning the fields looking for signs of movement.

Lori followed the path of her husband’s eyes. “Who’s not here?”

“Daryl,” Grace found herself blurting. She followed up her too quick answer with rattling off the other names, “And Merle and Shane. Andrea went to look for Dale. Have they made it back?”

Glancing back towards the house Rick caught Glenn’s eye and both took off at the same time. Maggie shot out of the house calling after Glenn and then she, Lori and Grace all sprinted off the porch and across the field after them. The night was cold. It was weird but Grace hadn’t really noticed it being that much colder during the day or even in the early evening. Tonight though, as she felt the night air burning her lungs and the sting of the wind against her cheeks, she realized that she could see her breath. Somewhere someone was shouting and in the distance there were silhouettes on the horizon. One waved its arms, signalling for the others, the other was hunched over something on the ground.

The closer she got the easier it was to identify the voices, Merle’s grunt as he swung his arms and Daryl’s hushed reassurances to the person on the ground. There was another sound, low and pitiful, a cow torn open at the gut was crying out. The stench of rotten flesh told her all she’d needed to know. A walker had stumbled on to the farm, somehow managed to take down one of Hershel’s cows and now, Grace stopped, staring down wide-eyed in the darkness, the walker had attacked Dale.

Dale’s gasps were less mournful than the cow. He was still fighting, struggling to stay alive as his blood seeped out across the ground. Daryl’s hands were red from pressing them into the gaping stomach wound, loops of intestines gushing out from between his spread fingers. “It’s gonna be a’right. Way Merle was hollerin’ e’eryone’s gonna come running.”

“Holy shit.” Glenn choked out.

“Lurker got ‘im.” Merle’s eyes shot around the group wildly as if another would jump out at any minute. “Nearly took us out when we were tryin’ ta get ta ‘im.” He held up his hands as a display. His brothers fingers were stained red but Merle’s were brown and black, the thick walker sludge showing on the knife he was holding and running down his wrist. “Fuckin’ thing’s covered in mud. Musta got over the crick. Stabbed the fucker right ‘tween the eyes.”

On the ground, Dale choked, spluttering on the liquid filling his mouth.

“Jesus,” Daryl gasped, instinctively pressing down harder which only made the man cry out more. “Grace, look at him.”

“I don’t…” she didn’t know how to respond. Even if it had just been an animal attack. Even if there had been a hospital to bring him to. Even if there were still doctors and nurses and medicine. Even if she had every resource in the world. The scenarios flashed through her mind, adding up figures and survival rates and staring at the blood that stained Daryl up to his elbows, Dale’s chances were slim. “He’s not going to make it.” Grace found herself admitting, pushing Daryl’s hands aside to get a better look. “I can’t do anything.”

“Doc?” Merle called out to the old man approaching.

Hershel had moved as quickly as he could down from the house, Patricia fast on his heels. He stopped short of the scene though, looking down at the bloody scene before him and taking it all in. “I’m afraid that Grace is right. He’ll bleed out before…”

“I can carry ‘im.” Merle shouted, staring down at Daryl. “Daryl an’ I can git ‘im up ta tha house, right?”

Daryl was nodding, already moving to shift the fatally wounded man. He stopped though when Grace shook her head. “Let him go.” She whispered, sniffing. “There’s nothing we can do.”

As if in agreement, Dale gave a shuttering breath, his eyes closing for a minute before snapping back open. He groaned low in his throat, staring at each member of the group somehow as his eyes rolled in his head.

“So tha’s it.”

Grace nodded, lips pressing together as the first tears started collecting in her eyes.

“He’s in pain.” Andrea must have just arrived or maybe she had simply found her voice after the shock of seeing Dale. Grace’s heart shattered at the tone in the blonde woman’s voice. An image of Andrea cradling Amy’s lifeless body as she waited for her sister to reanimate flashed in Grace’s memory. The younger girl had died quickly because her throat had been torn clean out. Dale was fading fast but Andrea was right until he actually died, Dale would be suffering. No matter how insufferable he’d been in the past few days trying to give save good-for-nothing Randall, he didn’t deserve to suffer. No one deserved to suffer.

“He’s suffering.” Andrea collapsed next to him, taking Dale’s clenching fingers in her own even as he tried to get purchase on the dewy grass. “We’ve gotta do something. Someone do something!”

Rick choked back a groan and pressed his palm to his forehead, sliding out his sidearm and turning with determination towards the man thrashing on the ground. No one said anything more but the air was full of sobbing. Grace could feel how wet her own cheeks were as she scrubbed them with the back of her hand, smearing muck and blood. Her stomach turned as she looked down at how stained her palms were. There was Dale all over them, a physical sign of her guilt. If she’d been less forceful or more understanding about why he’d wanted to try and save the kid tied up in the shed, maybe he wouldn’t have walked out. Maybe Dale wouldn’t have been walking these fields alone. After all, he’d only separated from the group because of their disagreement. He’d have never done so if he hadn’t gotten so worked up.

Grace’s mind jumped to all kinds of scenarios - how easily it could have been anyone of them laying on the ground now. Her insides gave another twist when she thought of the two children up at the house. Carl and Sophia had been hiding with Merle’s gun in the trees not too far from here. Carl had just snuck out of the house to watch the execution.  It could have been one of them that the walker stumbled upon.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the crack of the gun but it took longer to come than it should have. She slowly opened her eyes and peered through her lashes at Rick. Daryl had moved to stand beside him, slowly sliding the gun out of the former sheriff’s hand and kneeling down. He’d been forceful back at the quarry about putting Jim down, but Daryl was coming true on his promise now. Not that he took any sort of pleasure in the task. His face was stony, jaw clenched, eyes locked on his target. Merle was close behind but he made no move to stop his brother as Daryl knelt down next to Dale, leveling the gun with the old man’s forehead.

Dale gurgled on the ground, red foam flecking the corner of his mouth, eyes rolling wildly in his head. He was lost in the pain coursing through his body, blinding him to everything going around him. Andrea had muffled her crying by curling herself completely over Dale’s unopened side, enough to be close but not enough to get the bath in it that Grace and Daryl had in their initial panic over the attack. Behind her the rest of the group had frozen, waiting for the final act. Just as they had with Randall, no one wanted to be the one to make the final choice but they all wanted someone to do something.

Slowly, Daryl knelt back down next to Dale in almost exactly the same place he’d been when his hands were pressed into the man’s stomach. The blood was drying already, not as shiny as the gun in his hand. It may have been a spasm, the dying man’s body protesting the agony he was going through but as the barrel drew closer his eyes locked with Daryl’s, head rising off the dirt and pressing upward against the muzzle. It looked as if he was giving permission, telling Daryl that he was okay with what was happening. The tendons stood out on Daryl’s neck now, his hand never wavered. Grace pushed herself backwards, giving them both room but mostly making sure that Daryl knew she was nowhere that she could get nicked accidentally. For a moment, Daryl’s eyes rested gratefully on her but were back to Dale’s so quickly that she almost missed it.

“Sorry, brother.” He whispered, fingers tightening.

The gun echoed for a moment in the still air before the sobbing and panic rushed back in. Grace found herself rocking back on her heels, realizing with a sickening twist of her gut that the top of Dale’s head had spattered outward and some of it was quite close to her. Patricia and Carol bent down to pull Andrea off of Dale to get the other woman out of the blood and gore which was still seeping out of the body. Someone had sent Jimmy running back up to the house and the boy returned now with a faded floral sheet to wrap it in. It wasn’t Dale anymore. That was hard to remember, his eyes were still staring upward.

“Hey Gracie-girl,” Grace flinched back at Merle’s voice so close to her ear. She hadn’t even noticed him bend down next to her. “Le’s get ya outta here so we can move him.”

Numbly, she nodded as Merle helped her backwards, passing her off to Daryl, who’d silently given Rick the gun back. Rick slid the gun back into the holster on his hip, taking the spot where Daryl had knelt to help Shane bring the sheet over Dale’s body. Grace swallowed hard as the little blue and grey flowers started to disappear as the blood seeped through. Daryl wrapped his arms around her turning her face into his chest, completely ignoring that they were both covered in blood.

“He’s gone, ‘kay,” he murmered.

“I know.” She nodded, sucking in a shaky breath of Daryl’s shirt, the smell of smoke and outdoors comforting. It was calming to just be this close to him. She twisted to look at their group, resting her cheek against the blue button up he was wearing. “Thank God it wasn’t longer.”

Merle reached over Rick, taking the corner of the sheet and pulling up over Dale’s head. Before he tucked the floral fabric in tightly though, the slid his fingers down, closing Dale’s eyes. “Peace, brother,” he slid the sheet into place, completing the transformation from their friend to the body of their friend. To not even see his face made it much less real. He was gone, erased completely. Just gone.

Grace had never seen Merle so calm, so sure of himself as he stood and brushed his hands on his jeans. Looked up at Daryl and nodded, giving his brother permission to take Grace away from all of this the same way Andrea was being led to the house. She found herself planting her feet though, shaking her head and he snaked his arms around her waist and tried to force her towards the house. “I’m alright. We can wait while they move him.”

“We can put him in the barn, Rick.” Shane mumbled, hands on his hips staring out over the farm. “Can’t have him in the house like this.”

“We’ll need a place for him.” Rick shook his head. “Can’t leave him for too long.”

“He’s good though now.” Shane patted his friend’s back. “Daryl made sure of that. We need to secure this place, make sure there’s nothing else around here. We need everyone in the house tonight. We can dig tomorrow.”

With an air of uncertainty, their leader nodded. “Everyone in the house now. Someone get Andrea something and get her into bed. Everyone who’s not willing to check the perimeter needs to be in the house. If we see anything tonight there’s no hesitating and we don’t need another accident.”

Glenn pushed Maggie towards Patricia, giving the farmer’s daughter’s hand a squeeze before letting it go and turning to Rick. “We need guns.”

“Go, Daryl.” Grace planted her hands firm against the man’s shirt.

His eyebrows rose for a moment before his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Ya sure?”

“No one else from our group needs to get hurt. That kid is still alive and Dale’s dead.” Her voice stung even her own ears and Daryl flinched away from it. “He shouldn’t be dead.”

“We’ll take care uh ‘im. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

“Just make sure there’s nothing else out there.” She leaned up, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Her lips caught the side of his mouth, brushing more against his stubble than the dry smoothness of his lips.

“Grace…”

“Just go,” She shook her head, still holding onto him tightly. Her fingers had caught themselves in the back of his shirt and even though she had told him to leave, she really didn’t want him to.

“Come on, darlin’. Merle can handle it. I’ll walk ya up ta the house, then I can do shit.”

Over Daryl’s shoulder she could see Shane help Rick and Merle balance the shrouded body between them comfortably. They were ready to leave. T-Dog and Glenn were going in the other direction to scout the rest of the fences. Already everyone else was making their way back to the house. It had to be now, or she really would need Daryl to walk her back, and that would mean he’d be walking to find the others alone in the dark. Trying to shake off the sick feeling in her stomach she slipped her fingers loose and carefully released him. “I don’t want you walking alone tonight, not after…”

Daryl grunted that he understood and started to release her as well. “Don’ worry ‘bout me.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot, not quite sure of walking away.

“They’re going.”

“I know.” He pushed his hand through his hair, squinting against the dark. “Jus’ don’t go doin’ nothin’ stupid.” He leaned in, grabbing her face roughly with both hands and tugging her up for a deep kiss. When he pulled back, Grace’s lips were stinging and Daryl was frowning hard, a new set of worry lines slashing through his forehead. Without further comment, he turned away from her with determination, as if not moving right then would make him rethink his choice.

Grace turned the other way, Dale’s blood caked deep into her nail beds, fingers shaking, stomach twisting, knees weak. She jogged to catch up with the others and when she reached them Carol cast a mothering glance over her blood soaked clothes and grey appearance. “I’ll boil up some water. We can run you a bath.” The older woman gave a concerned smile. “Get you all cleaned up and into a nice warm bed.” Carol put her arm carefully around Grace’s shoulders, trying not to touch anything she shouldn’t.

“We’ll get through this?” Grace hadn’t meant for it to be a question, but it sounded like one to her.

“Of course we will.” Carol’s voice was determined. “We just need to get back to how things were.”

Grace nodded like she understood, but she didn’t. They were strangers, forced into becoming a ragtag family constantly having to fight for their lives worrying about food and water and their safety and the future. There was no going back, though; no going back to the old world, no going back to the delusions that this farm was safe, no pretending that everyone that they met would be a friend and that everyone they loved would stay safe. They couldn’t just go back to how things were. They had to keep moving forward because if they wanted a future, they were going to have to make it themselves.

-break-

Grace dumped her clothes to soak in the second bucket of water Carol had provided. The first was sitting ready next to the bathtub, it was warm enough to be comfortable but had cooled enough so it wouldn’t burn. She found herself scrubbing, washing every inch of her skin down, wanting to get the feel of Dale’s warm blood pulsing through her fingers out of her mind. She wouldn’t let Daryl into bed until he did the same.

She just wanted to forget it had happened at all but everything kept turning over and over in her mind. Dale dead. Randall alive. There were so many people to still protect.

Rick’s face as Daryl had taken the gun from him. Shane’s growing rage. Hershel’s naïve approach to keeping the farm protected. Ash, Amanda and their dad attacked and left for dead. Carl and Sophia playing with Merle’s gun. Beth and Claire sleeping in the next room. Jimmy with no family alive to speak of. Lori carrying her baby. All of the Halverson children. Sarah, Jessie and Max left behind by their group because they were weak.

Everyone needed something stable to stand on. There didn’t need to be any more choices about if Randall deserved to die or if it was even safe to keep him alive. There was no more time to waste arguing the pros and cons.

She grabbed an elastic off of the bathroom counter and pulled her hair into a braid. Drying the remaining water on her body with the towel she’d been left, Grace started making plans. She could do this. There was still left over mashed potatoes and gravy from supper. Carol had made a list of the medications they had and Grace had read it all. The other woman didn’t know what half of those pills could do. If there everything went right, no one would suspect a thing. It could all be over in just a few hours.

“Feeling better?” Carol was letting herself out of the small guest room she shared with Sophia, Andrea and Patricia when Grace left the bathroom. Grace jumped with surprise and Carol gave a small laugh. “Sorry, guess you weren’t expecting anyone.”

“I figured everyone would be in bed.” Grace tried to force a smile on her face. She was far too nervous to be startled like that though. Seeing Dale after he’d been attacked and all the thoughts spinning around in her mind had her on edge. “I’m gonna go down and get something for my head and then get some sleep.”

“Headache?”

“The worst.” Grace nodded, palming her forehead and hoping to pass it off.

“Well, feel better. I’m just getting Sophia a glass of water. She woke up with all that shouting going on outside and now she’s having trouble getting back to sleep.” Carol sighed. “I’d really like to know when they’re planning on moving us out of here. We can’t stay here after that happened. It’s not…” She tossed her hands in a noncommittal gesture.

“We’re not safe here anymore.” Grace offered and Carol wrinkled her nose.

“Were we ever though? It feels like we’ve been lying to ourselves for a long time.”

-break-

Carol had done an amazing job of neatly lining up their stash of looted medical supplies. It was strange how casually they used that term now, looting. It used to be right up there with scavenging and stealing but now looting was just something they did. Maybe it somehow brought them closer to their hunter-gatherer roots because no one seemed bothered by saying it anymore. Even Andrea had slipped up and instead of saying “gathering supplies” she’d mentioned going “to loot the rest of town”. They already managed the pharmacy so why not get everything else while they could. They could organize it the same way that everything here was; only they would need somewhere to store it all. There just weren’t enough shelves and storage cubbies for everything.

The medication was neat enough, though. Grace tried to remember what things were most plentiful of and what they would easily be able to do without. Heart medication seemed a safe bet. Anyone who really needed it would have already made that known. If they met someone down the road, then she could feel guilty about it then. For now it would do as no one in the group would be looking for the drugs and they wouldn’t be missed.

Flipping through labels she pulled down the ones she needed. Metoprolol, Sotalol, Propranolol and a bottle of long-acting nitroglycerine. It would have been a lot easier with a mortar and pestle, but a rolling pin and a bunch of Ziplock bags would have to do instead. Thankfully the lights were out in the kitchen and she snuck out the back door with a room temperature bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy to mix with her deadly combination of medications.

Randall had to be hungry by now. She knew they hadn’t fed him anything in anticipation for his execution but now that he wasn’t dead and so much distraction, she was sure that no one had thought to bring him even some water. She could feed him, get him a glass of water and sneak back to the house in less than twenty minutes. He’d already tried to suck up to anyone he thought might take pity on him. It wouldn’t be difficult to play off that. Just pretend that she felt guilty for everything Daryl and Merle had done. After all, Randall knew that she was with them.

It would be easy, so simple.

She wouldn’t even have to be there when he died.

-break-

Grace could hear Daryl coming in the front door as she made her way through the back. She’d washed the bowl with a jug of water that was outside beside the chicken shed and just barely had enough time to sneak it back into the dish rack before Daryl headed for the stairs.

“Hey,” she slid out of the dark kitchen and called out to Daryl quietly.

His filthy socks were already on the first step of the staircase but he turned around. “Why ain’t ya in bed?”

“Couldn’t sleep. My mind’s racing. I figured I could get a glass of water and head back to bed before anyone noticed.” Grace put on the most confident look she could muster up. Deep in the pit of her stomach, somewhere between her rib cage and her belly button, there was a stab of discomfort. It was killing her to lie to Daryl. Not in a literal sense, of course, just in the sense that everything they had between them was about being honest with each other. No lies, no playing games, no misdirection. Not anymore, not since the end of the fucking world.

“Where’s yer cup?” Daryl narrowed his eyes, examining her carefully for any sign of a water vessel. They became thin slits when he found no sign of one and leveled his steely gaze on her.

Shifting under the scrutiny, Grace wracked her brain for a second lie. “In the kitchen. I, uh, heard you come in.”

“Ya heard me?”

“Yeah, didn’t want you to go upstairs and find the bed empty. Don’t need the whole house woken up.” Mentally she crossed her fingers, hoping that Daryl would accept it. It was sort of the truth after all. If he had found their bed empty and she hadn’t intercepted him then he would have hollered loud enough to alert every walker in a thirty mile radius and have them all crashing down on the house in a matter of minutes. She was just sparing everyone the temper tantrum that she would have caused by being “missing”.

For a moment she thought Daryl was going to question her more but he took in the sweat pants and hoodie she was wearing and then seemed to buy it. He stretched one arm across the space, pulled her into him and gave her a quick squeeze. “I’ll get yer water. Go up an’ get back inta bed. Don’t need ya catchin’ a cold or somethin’. It’s gettin’ damn freezin’ out.” Daryl ran his stubble across her hair in an awkward attempt at a comforting forehead kiss and turned her gently toward the stairs.

The tension didn’t leave Grace as she left Daryl behind and climbed the stairs up to their bedroom. Luckily, she didn’t meet anyone along the way, because she wasn’t sure if her nerves could handle more questions. She’d gotten herself stuck up shit creek without a paddle and now she was starting to notice the holes in her boat. In the morning there would be another body to deal with and they hadn’t even buried Dale yet. Her fingers started shaking as she untucked the blankets to crawl into bed. The sheets were cold, adding to the trembling that started somewhere in her fingers and ended with her knees knocking together. The reality was starting to hit her. Dale was dead. He’d been torn apart and then Daryl had shot him in the head. Then Grace had come up with a spur of the moment plan and taken out her pent up rage and fed a lethal combination of medication and homemade mashed potatoes to a prisoner whose blood pressure was probably dropping as they spoke.

Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Grace gasped, trying to catch her breath. She’d killed a man. Or she was in the process of killing one. Randall was going to die and it was her fault. She was killing him. He was going to die. She was taking another human’s life.

The door creaked open, just as the first tears were hitting the pillow under her head and Grace curled herself tighter into a ball. The little nest of blankets she’d wound around herself as armour were still cold against her skin. She pulled the blankets up further.

“Got yer water,” the slight clink of the glass being set down on the nightstand made Grace roll away from Daryl. There was a moment of quiet before Daryl leaned over the bed and whispered, “Grace?” clearly thinking that she’d fallen asleep. When he couldn’t see her face he knew something was wrong though and he repeated her name a little louder. “Grace.”

Grace whimpered in response, not meaning to make a sound at all. She didn’t want to see him. Not after this. They’d both killed tonight. What sort of world was this that it would turn them both into murders? Was Dale right? He’d tried to say that the group was broken and was resorting to savagery. Now he was dead and soon another man would be as well. She could almost feel Randall drawing his last breaths and it was all her fault. She’d just wanted to make everything easier but she’d never thought that she would feel so much guilt after. He was a horrible person, he would have brought his group down on them in a heartbeat. They would have raped, tortured and killed everyone. She should have felt relief. She was just protecting the group after all.

Try as she might though, it was hard not to see the same fear in Randall’s eyes that she had when they’d first tried talking to Ashley and Mandy. He was just as young and scared as they were.

And she had killed him.

Was she any better than a walker? One of those mindless killing machines who simply attacked without reason? Had she really been protecting the group? Was it possible that Randall had just been dragged into this the same way everyone else had? Was he just trying to survive by going along with what the bigger, scarier people wanted him to do.

“Wus goin’ on?” Daryl’s voice was rough, his concern for her obvious. She found herself flinching as he reached to pull back the blankets.

“Don’t,” she twisted out from under his touch. The heat of his hand pulled back as he jerked away from Grace’s harsh tone. That shot the guilt level up another couple of notches and she began to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Daryl, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I,” she shuddered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Tha hell?” Daryl grunted a sharp response but he seemed almost frightened. Still he didn’t reach back out to comfort her and Grace’s heart plummeted. She was breaking apart at the seams but Daryl didn’t even know why. That was her own fault, because she’d snuck around instead of waiting for Daryl to get back inside to tell him what she planned to do. She's tried to take everything on to herself, the same way she'd watched Shane and Rick make choices for the group and take the burden of guilt onto their own shoulders.

“I killed him,” Grace whispered, peeking through the covers at Daryl.

His face contracted, eyebrows scrunching together as Daryl crawled back onto the bed. Fighting with the blankets, he pulled almost viciously until he finally yanked her free, wrapping Grace up into his arms and squeezing hard. It was an almost aggressive form of comfort, which suited her well given that the force of his roughness made her snap out of it a little bit. She started to cry in earnest as Daryl rocked her. His fingers searched her, petting her back, her arms and trailing back up to twist and comb through her hair. Each touch released the tension she’d been holding in in rolling tremors.

When her breathing had finally slowed down again, Daryl rubbed his cheek against her head and mumbled, “Dale ain’t yer fault. Weren’t nothin’ any uh us coulda done.”

“I can’t believe he got bit. He’s… gone.”

“That ain’t yer fault though, ya hear me? Took a good look at im’ an’ that walker tha’ got ‘im tore ‘im to bits. Nobody coulda fixed tha’, not even wit’ fancy medical stuff.” Daryl gave her a little shake to make her look at him. “There ain’t no way ya coulda fixed him. Don’t take tha’ on ya. I pulled tha’ trigger but he was dyin’ before tha’. We did what we had ta. Protected the group. It weren’t us who killed ‘im.”

Grace gasped in shock. She needed to explain. It wasn’t Dale that she was worried about and she had broken down before finishing her explanation. “I’m not talking about Dale.” She closed her eyes, pressing her face into Daryl’s shirt again and squeezing her eyes shut. It was about the honesty now. She needed to be honest with him because if anyone understood that she was just trying to protect them it was Daryl. “I wasn’t downstairs because I wanted a drink.”

“Wha’d’ya mean?”

“I was outside in the shed.”

Daryl’s body locked, his arms not letting her move away from him. The low growl of his voice sent goose bumps down her spine. “Wha’ were ya doing out there?! Got no business goin’ ‘round there. Figured ya’d know more ‘en anyone what that kid is capable of. Ya stayed up more than one night wit' 'em girls. What’d he do ta ya?”

Grace struggled to push herself back to look at Daryl. The irony that Daryl thought that Randall had done something to harm her only made her more certain. “Daryl, he didn’t touch me. It was me. I did something to him.” She licked her lips. “You were going to kill him anyway before Carl got in the way. We couldn’t wait any longer. It was splitting us apart. It got Dale killed. He took off on his own because he was being stupid and foolish about what sort of place this is and now he’s dead. Randall got Dale killed. So I,” she swallowed, “I killed him.”

“Huh?” Daryl squinted down at her, eyes confused as he tried to figure out what she was saying.

“I went through the pills they brought back from the pharmacy and overdosed him. He’s probably out there dying of heart failure right now.”

Daryl’s entire body locked, fingers digging hard enough into her arms to leave imprints on her skin. “How’d ya get ‘im ta take it?”

“No one fed him dinner so I brought some leftover potatoes out. They would have been gross by morning anyway. Just crushed up the pills and put them in that. He never suspected a thing.” She sighed, closing her eyes and pressing her cheek into the buttons on his shirt. “No one else will either. There aren’t exactly autopsies any more. The best they’ll be able to figure he could have died of blood infection or a brain injury that no one noticed. No one is going to think it’s me.” Grace gave a hollow laugh. “There’s not going to be any proof that I was involved at all and Randall will be too dead to care.”

“Jesus Christ, woman.” He squeezed her as if he was trying to take everything that had happened on to himself. The only thing he managed to do though was pinch her ear and make it even harder to breath.

Grace gasped, tears welling up under her eyelids again. “I think I’m done this time Daryl. I really think I’m done.”

The discussion had been short. Rick, Shane, Daryl, and Merle seemed to ignore Grace after she’d recounted to them what Randall had said. She sat in the driver’s seat of the RV as the men discussed in hushed tones what they would do with the prisoner now. He was more than just a threatening presence, if his group found them it was for sure that they could do harm.

And all Grace could think was that she hadn’t meant it. She’d just been talking to Randall and said the wrong thing. That had been all it took to make him snap. The boy was unhinged. Shane had punched him a few times but he hadn’t stopped shouting, spouting off bullshit and lies to cover up the truth he’d let slip out. “I wasn’t with them. I barely knew them. They just took me in.”

Shane had left him crying before locking the shed and dragging Andrea and Grace away from it. He’d sent T-Dog back to keep watch, pushed Andrea into the house, and gathered this small group together to figure out what happened. The former sheriff’s deputy didn’t understand what exactly had been said but he did know that it was more than just a threat from how Grace had reacted. This was exactly what he had warned Rick about and he was making it abundantly clear that he was damn proud that he knew to be wary of this guy.

“Told ya something like this was gonna happen.” Shane leaned against the useless sink and raised an eyebrow at his best friend. His arms were folded, the damn muscles in his arm twitching with tension.

“Nothing happened, Shane.” Rick repeated, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

Daryl snored, sneering. “Yer fuckin’ lucky that kid didn’t do more.” Pointing at Grace in the driver’s seat he snarled, “Jus’ fuckin’ look at her!”

Grace didn’t like having her shitty mood pointed out to everyone in the damn room. She was shaken enough as it was and hearing Daryl scream about it for the past forty minutes hadn’t helped. He was furious. Hadn’t touched her since grabbing her wrists hard enough to bruise and making sure that Randall hadn’t so much as breathed on her.

For once, Merle was the calmest one in the room. While his brother screamed at Rick and Shane, Merle simply watched quietly, calculating his next move. He’d barely said anything other than to settle his brother and keep him from walking in there right away and snapping Randall’s neck.

“Easy brother.” The older Dixon stepped firmly in-between Rick and Daryl. “Ya ain’t exactly givin’ Gracie a good time ‘bout this either. She’s been sittin’ there listenin’ ta ya ramblin’. That ain’t gonna make her feel better.”

“Tha hell would ya know ‘bout her?” Daryl shoved his brother away.

Standing his ground, Merle pushed back at Daryl. “More ‘en ya’ll do. Ya ain’t never been good wit’ women.”

“Stop it.” Shane laughed. “Are ya two really fighting over Grace?”

“Ain’t fightin’ over her,” Merle mumbled. “Fight ‘bout her.”

“Same difference. She ain’t our biggest problem right now.” Shane turned back to Rick who was still holding his face in his hands. “What’re we doin’ with the kid now. Can’t exactly let him go like ya wanted to now can we. He hooks back up with his boys and leads ‘em straight back here. We don’t know how many men he’s gonna bring back. We’d be over run.”

“So what we kill him and abandon the farm?” Rick protested. “We need this farm until we get something more permanent set-up. I’m not taking Lor- I’m not taking my wife and my son out on the road.”

“Between walkers and this other group, someone’s gonna get killed.”

Grace had had enough. Merle and Daryl were still glaring daggers at each other, Shane was trying to force Rick’s hand, and nothing was getting solved. “I want to talk to him again,” she whispered, clearing her throat to make her voice a little louder. “Merle was right when he said he’d admit things to someone he didn’t think was a threat. I want to try talking to him, find out just what we’re up against.”

“No!” Daryl stopped her dead in her tracks with the holler. “I ain’t lettin’ ya near him. Anyone talks to him it’s gonna be one uh us.”

That was how she knew exactly where Daryl was when she woke-up alone on their bedrolls. The den wasn’t exactly the most private place to sleep but Hershel’s house hadn’t been set-up to hold so many guests and the large majority of people had been crammed in wherever possible. No one had spent the night away from the house last night except the people keeping guard. Every last bed was full, every nook and cranny someone’s personal space.

The sheets were cold next to her and most of the other bed rolls had been tucked away for the day. She’d been left sleeping, probably on express orders for someone. When Grace pulled a sweatshirt over her tank top and went to find Carol in the kitchen, it wasn’t really to find out where the Dixon’s had gone. She already knew they were having their talk with Randall.

“Where’s Daryl?” she questioned, watching Carol dodge her eye contact.

Carol was rolling out dough on the counter. They were using up all of Hershel’s baking things. It wouldn’t be long before there were no rolls with dinner or bread for lunch. “I uh, I uh, I guess he went out.”

“With Merle?”

“No, I uh, I don’t know. I-I mean he could be.”

Grace frowned and sighed. She already knew and the other woman avoiding and lying to her was just making things worse. “They’re out talking with Randall, aren’t they?”

Her hands stilled on the rolling pin but Carol gave a little sniff and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Which one put you up to lying to me?”

“No one, I just figured, I just figured it would be better if we could all pretend it wasn’t happening.” Her voice dropped to a nervous whisper. “Do you know what they’re out there doing?”

“I have a good idea from how pissed off Daryl was last night. Thanks for letting me know where he is.” Grace moved toward the back door.

“Where are you going?”

She licked her lips as she turned back to Carol. “To wait for the boys to be done with him.”

“Just like that? You’d forgive them for this?”

Grace found herself shrugging. Did she forgive Daryl and Merle? No. They weren’t guilty of anything to be forgiven. If anything she wished she was in there with them. The memories of caring for the girls were burned into her head. Counting the tally marks on their legs, the carvings on Ashley’s skin, the fingerprints and bruises, rope burns, and black eyes and split lips. If they had one of the bastards responsible for even one of those marks, she wanted a swing at him. “Do you know if they’ve eaten yet?” She asked, changing the subject. “They’ll probably be hungry by the time they’re done.”

-break-

Grace could hear them inside the shed. The Dixons weren’t exactly being subtle about what they were doing. Rick and Shane had seemed well aware, both had tried to dissuade her from going anywhere near the shed but Grace had insisted. Eventually, they gave up, probably because she hadn’t even bothered to respond to their arguments.

There was no guard posted outside. The lock on the door was hanging ominously and inside the sounds of heated conversation were quite clear. She wasn’t sure how long they had been in there, not long enough to get the information they had wanted from Randall apparently. She wasn’t going inside. She was content to wait against the outside of the shed for them to be done. Maybe content was the wrong word. She wasn’t happy to be there but unlike everyone else she wasn’t content to not know. Ignorance would get you nowhere fast.

If they were going to let Merle and Daryl lower themselves to torturing a kid, then she owed it to the brothers to stand by and acknowledge what they were willing to give up for the group. By torturing this kid, no matter what he had done, they were losing a piece of civilization. They were no longer just civilians trying to survive. This was a calculated act of violence against another human being and that made them into soldiers. That made this a war.

It wasn’t fair to ignore that sacrifice, not matter how willingly they gave it. She knew this group too well. It was all smoke and mirrors and lies. No matter what happened in that shed, Daryl and Merle would be treated exactly the same when they got back. They would be just as ignored and belittled as before. It was okay to have them get their hands dirty but it wasn’t alright to openly admit what was happening. The group would just sweep this under the rug like a dirty secret.

What happened with Randall?

We don’t talk about it.

Carol had even said they were pretending it wasn’t happening. Shane and Rick had made it abundantly clear that this was a necessary evil, something that needed to happen but they would never hint at happening. Everyone knew- hell even Carl was clever enough to figure it out- they were just all ignoring it.

The same way no one brought up leaving Merle on the roof.

The same way no one questioned what happened to Otis.

The same way no one wanted to admit that Rick had shot two men in cold blood in a bar.

They were all things that would never have happened in the old world and so they ignored them. It was as bad as Hershel keeping the walkers that had been his family and friends. Pretending that they were still living in a world where everything was normal and safe, where it wasn’t okay to kill people, even if they were threatening to kill you. But that wasn’t being honest to themselves. If they kept pretending that everything was going to be okay, then someone they loved was going to get killed. That had been how she and Sophia had gotten separated. They’d gotten too comfortable at the pileup and instead of staying close together they separated and found themselves unprepared.

Why was it so much easier to deem the walkers a threat than it was to admit that people were just as likely to kill them? They could keep guard and practice shooting to kill walkers but people were still innocent until proven guilty.

Randall was part of a group that would probably kill them and if not beat and rape them within an inch of their lives, take the farm and their supplies, and leave them as walker food. He wasn’t someone they could safely keep alive, no matter how baby-faced and coerced he seemed. He might be just one more victim in all of this but so were they and they had every right to defend themselves.

Inside the shed one of the brothers was shouting obscenities at the boy. Demanding to know information about the group. Grace dropped to the ground, leaning her back up against the shed and waited, gun pulled out of her waistband and sitting on her knees. Just in case.

Behind her the sounds of work boots pacing the floor stopped suddenly.

“Ya ready to tell us ‘bout yer group?” It was Merle sounding as confident as ever.

Randall whimpered in response, “Tol’ ya,” his voice was slurred, maybe he’d been crying or maybe one of the boys had hit him directly in the jaw, “I don’ know  nothin’.”

“Ya ain’t tol’ us shit.” Daryl growled and the sounds of skin colliding with skin filled the air. Randall groaned again and Grace fought to cover her ears. She owed it to him though to listen. He was doing this for her after all; to help protect her, to keep her safe. Her and the rest of the group.

“I barely knew those guys. I met ‘em on the road.”

“See,” Merle cackled, “ya do know somethin’. Got a road in particular or were ya lost?”

Randall coughed, let out a wet gasp and sobbed. “I dunno man, jus’ outside uh town I guess.”

“How many of ‘em?”

“I dunno, man, I dunno.”

Someone hit Randall again. The boy cried out gasping against the pain. Something shook the shed and Grace braced herself.

Merle’s voice came low and dangerous, sending a chill up her back. Goosebumps broke out even in the heat. “See, I think ya got a pretty good guess. Ya spend time around people, ya get ta know ‘em. Even if ya ain’t talk ta ‘em, ya know who ya’ve seen ‘round before. Might not get on wit’ all the folk here but I know ‘em. We got more ‘en jus’ what ya’ve seen here. See this here’s jus’ one bit uh our group. This ain’t our only camp. This here’s our town an’ yer group is impedin’ on our territory. And ya know what the penalty is for tresspassin’?”

There wasn’t any sound to let Grace know what they had done or which brother did it but a high pitched cry pierced the air.

Sobbing hard, Randall struggled to speak through the pain of whatever had been done to him. “We didn’t know man. It’s jus’ a town. Lived here before all this. I worked at the gas station. I was leavin’ town an’ they found me.”

“So they needed some place ta stay fer a couple a days? Longer?”

“I dunno. Jus’ wanted a place ta rest I guess.”

“How,” Daryl grunted, seeming to smash something into Randall. “Many.” Another wet compacting sound. “Are there?”

Someone spat, maybe one of the Dixons or maybe Randall clearing blood out of his mouth. “Th-thirty. Maybe.”

“See, that weren’t so hard, now was it?” Merle laughed again.

Daryl sounded much less comforted. “Where were ya stayin’?”

“I dunno, man. Outside uh town. Never stayed anywhere more than a night or two.”

“Ya bes’ gimme more ‘en tha’! Where’s tha last place ya stayed?”

“I dunno!”

There was a moment of Merle and Daryl’s boots shuffling as they moved around the shed. Grace clutched the gun in her hand. It didn’t do anything to help what was going on in the shed behind her but it was a comforting weight. If somehow that other group did find them, she knew how to help protect herself and others. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t defenseless.

“D’ya know who was in here las’ night feedin’ ya? That woman who was in here tryin’ ta make nice ‘fore ya threatened her.” Daryl was quiet but Merle was talking loudly. Grace turned then, sucking up the courage to peer through the gaps between the boards. Merle had knelt down beside Randall, close enough to breathe right in his face. Daryl hung further back, playing with his pant leg on the opposite side of the shed from her. Grace couldn’t see his face as he faced Randall and his brother.

“I weren’t threatenin’ no one.”

“Heard all ‘bout it. That there was my brother’s woman. Ain’t blood but that makes her muh family. She was pretty shaken up. Mentioned knives. See we heard some stories from some folk we met along the way. Stories ‘bout a group uh men run by a guy who likes to cut up little girls. Ya wouldn’t know nothin’ ‘bout that would ya?”

Grace watched as Daryl slid a knife from the sheath on his leg. So that was what he had been fiddling with. He held the blade up so Randall could see it clearly. The boy skittered backwards like a crab, crashing into the shed wall.

“I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry ‘bout yer girlfriend. I didn’t, didn’t mean nothin’ by what I said.”

“See muh brother’s kinda sensitive when it comes ta his girl.” Merle stood, making room for Daryl to crouch next to the boy. He patted the younger man’s shoulder as Daryl poised the knife above the bandages on Randall’s leg. Realizing what was about to happen, Randall began to chatter nervously.

“I didn’t mean nothin’, I swear! Was jus’ talk! I didn’t mean it.”

“Best start tellin’ us ‘bout yer group then.” Merle pointed out.

Slowly Daryl slid a finger under the wrappings on the boy’s leg, tugging to pull the ratty fabric free. “Ever pick a scab off?”

“Oh shit! Oh shit, man!” Randall squealed even though Daryl wasn’t yet doing something that would hurt him. “I’m trying to cooperate!”

Daryl pressed the knife to the wound, ignoring the boy’s pleas. This time Grace had to turn away, pressing her back to the shed once again and holding the gun tighter. “Start real slow at first,” Grace clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut as Daryl continued to taunt the boy into confessing. “Sooner or later ya gotta just rip it off.”

Randall howled and Grace felt her breath catch in her throat. “OKAY! OKAY!” The boy wailed. “They got guns. Heavy stuff. Automatics. Bu-bu-but I wasn’t with them long. I don’t know.”

“YER LYING!” Merle hollered and Grace could feel the blow as it connected with Randall, the sound was eerily loud. “Ya know more ‘en jus’ tha!”

“Yer boys shot my boys.” Daryl hissed. “They tried to take this farm.”

“See these here are our people.” Merle’s voice was sing-songy, brutally mocking. “We don’t take lightly to people threatening our own.”

“Ya really think we’re gonna believe ya jus’ went along for the ride? Tha’ yer innocent in all this?”

“Yes!” Randall shouted back.  “Those – those people took me in. Not jus’ guys. A whole group of ‘em. Men and women, kids too. Jus’ like you people. They were jus’ like you!” His voice was frantic now, begging to be listened to. “Thought I’d have a better chance with them, ya know? Safety in numbers.”

It was quiet inside. Grace slowly opened her eyes and turned back, her cheek pressing against the wood grain. Daryl and Merle had backed up now, eyeing their prisoner warily. Randall seemed to understand that he’d said the right thing to get their attention. He couldn’t have said anything that would have stopped them more in their tracks. If there was one thing the Dixons wouldn’t do, it was go after women and children. There was a fine line to their moral grey areas and that was where it crossed over into downright wrong.

“But – we go out, scavenge,” Randall was continuing, spurred on by the pause in threatening behaviour from the brothers. “Just the men. One night we found this little campsite. A man an’ his two daughters-teenagers, you know. Real young, real cute.”

Daryl growled, low in his throat and glared at Randall, his brother seemed more reserved. Daryl had always been the quicker tempered. When he was sober, Merle was more content to taunt from a distance and wait for the other person to strike. Even Merle was twitching now though, reaching for the sheath on his own belt, finger drumming on leather.

“Their daddy had to watch while these guys – they… And they didn’t even kill him after,” Randall looked up, his eyes focusing on the two men in front of him. He wasn’t making any attempts to hide himself. “They jus’ – they jus’ made him watch as his daughters – they jus’ left him there.”

“Bet ya didn’t think he would live,” Merle slowly released his knife, opting to clench his hands into fist instead. “Bet ya thought walkers’d come along. Eat up all the pieces. Clean up yer mess.”

“I – I didn’t touch those girls!”

“Ever wake-up ta someone havin’ a nightmare. Screamin’ out about somethin’ ya can’t even help them wit’ jus’ ‘cause they remember it so clearly they think they’re livin’ it over an’ over every time they close their eyes?” Merle reached forward and grabbed the collar of Randall’s shirt, making sure the kid couldn’t turn away from him, couldn’t hide from the ugly truth.

“Please, ya gotta believe me, man. I’m not like that.”

“They didn’t die. Ya left ‘em out there but they didn’t die. People we know, they found ‘em and those girls cry e’ery fuckin’ night an’ there’s nothin’ I can do ta make ‘em feel better. Next time I see ‘em though, ya know what I’m gonna tell ‘em?”

Randall shook his head trembling and Grace turned away again. Merle’s response was quiet but she heard him clearly enough,

“I get ta tell ‘em we caught one uh those bastards and he’s gonna pay e’ery day fer tha res’ uh his life.”

-break-

It was Merle who stepped out of the shed first, rubbing the sweat off his forehead and blinking into the bright morning light. It was through the second or third round of blinking that he noticed Grace, still sitting against the shed on the hard ground, knees pulled up to her chest, and the shiny silver handgun perched on top of them. He raised an arm and caught Daryl in the chest, stopping his brother from walking out any further.

“Shit, Gracie.”

“Carter?” Daryl choked back the name, “Grace?”

“How long ya been out here?” Merle grunted, face pulling into a scowl. It was more worry than anything else though, she could see it now. He was worried that she’d been in there to see something he’d rather her not. The thing was she wasn’t sure which of the things she had seen that he was worried about: the beating he had given Randall, his avenging attitude toward Ashley and Mandy, or the fact that he’d implied not only that everyone here was part of his group but everyone at the Halverson farm. Those statements had meant to be kept between himself, his brother, and the boy that would be dead in a very short time.

“Long enough.” The response was cliché and more than a little overused but Grace couldn’t think of anything better to say. Carefully she stood, sliding the gun back into her waistband, feeling very much like a child for having taken it out.

“Ya were suppose’ta be in tha house.” Daryl mumbled, eyes searching the ground and the tips of his boots.

“Rick and Shane tried to stop me but have you ever known me to do what I’m supposed to.”

“S’how she ended up wit’ yer sorry ass.” Merle gripped his brother’s shoulder, gave him a little shake and shoved him towards Grace. Daryl took a few shaky steps forward and managed to catch himself before stumbling right into her.

“Ya weren’t supposed ta hear that,” nervously Daryl sucked the inside of his cheek, looking up at Grace through his lashes, waiting for her to reject him, to turn what he’d done against him, to turn him down and walk away.

Gently she slid her hand down to pull his out from behind his back. His knuckles were bruised and split open in more than a couple of places from beating on the kid. She brushed a gentle finger along one of the deeper cuts. Daryl flinched, more at the contact than the pain from his injuries. “We’ve gotta clean these out. God only knows what sort of bacteria he’s got growing on him.” It was easier if she ignored Daryl’s reservations. He had nothing to be ashamed of. If anything he should be proud for taking care of the group and stepping in where no one else was willing. Even Shane, who was forever talking about taking care of business, hadn’t stepped in to help get the information they needed from Randall.

“S’fine,” he pulled his hand back, crossing his arms and sticking his hands in his armpits to hide the injuries. “Gotta go tell Rick what we found out.”

Smiling at him, Grace shook her head. “It can wait,” she leaned up and pressed a timid kiss on the lip he was busy chewing. “We’ll get you cleaned up first.” Behind his brother, Merle was busy locking up the shed and trying to get out of the way as soon as possible. Grace threw him a stern look over his brother’s shoulder. “And you too. I bet yours are just as bad as his are. Soap and water at least. You don’t have to wrap them if you don’t want to.”

“Come on, Gracie!” Merle protested. “Ain’t nothin’ broken.” He held up his hands in demonstration, stretching out his fingers and showing off the blood running down his knuckles.

Grace just raised a warning finger. “None of that. You best be letting me take care of my family,” she mocked him with a smirk.

Merle’s expression transformed from incredulous to amused. He nodded, a slight smile twisting up the corner of his mouth, “Yes ma’am.”

-break-

The group was gathered around the cook fires and having breakfast when Grace and the Dixons got back. The tents had been all taken down but there wasn’t enough room for them all to eat inside, no matter how risky it was with so many fires burning. Everyone looked up the moment they approached. Like Carol had said, they knew what was happening but it was better to pretend that Daryl and Merle had sat down and politely asked Randall some non-invasive questions about his group.

The boys both went over to Rick and Shane to talk about what they had found out. Everyone was listening in though, waiting to find out the details.

“S’tha same group.” Merle hissed, trying to keep his back to the eavesdroppers. “One who went after them girls.”

“You’re sure of it?”

“Damn sure. He spouted tha’ off by himself. Stupid little fucker.”

Daryl nodded in agreement with his brother. “Boy says they got thirty men an’ they’re armed, heavy artillery. Ain’t lookin’ ta make friends.”

A nervous chatter broke out among the group, some of them looking at the Dixons, some at Grace. Carol caught her eye and Grace just shook her head. It wasn’t good news, no matter how they looked at it. If they ran into this group, it wouldn’t be a matter of polite conversation. People would end up dead on both sides.

Purposely Daryl looked around the group now, making it clear he was talking to everyone. “They roll through here, our men are dead… an’ the women, the gonna wish they was.”

Carol’s eyes went wide, turning between Grace and Sophia. Grace just shook her head again. She didn’t know. If they were looking for prisoners, Sophia was about the right age to be broken in and Beth and Claire might stand a chance but Carl could already pose too much of a threat and Jimmy was done for. The rest of them were fair game. If the other group was just looking to loot and pillage then none of them had even a little chance.

“No one goes near that guy.” Rick announced to the group, seeming firm in his decision. Grace breathed a sigh of relief. They’d be through with Randall soon then. Once he was dead, the opportunity for the other group to be led back to them somehow shrunk.

Lori didn’t seem to be catching on or maybe she was just more in denial than Grace had thought. “Rick, what are you going to do?”

Rick sighed, scrubbing at his cheek. “We have no choice. He’s a threat. We have to eliminate the threat.”

His wife seemed panicked, “You’re just going to kill him?”

In his best no nonsense voice, Rick answered, “It’s settled. I’ll do it today.” He turned away from the group, walking off to the big barn. Dale followed. The whole time Rick and the Dixons had been talking, Dale had been looking horror stricken at the conversation taking place in front of him. Though it was impossible to make out the words, by his body language alone, it was easy to tell he wasn’t happy with the choice being made. For a moment, Grace tried to put her feelings of vengeance and fear aside.

Maybe Randall hadn’t been a participant or a willing participant. Maybe he was just a kid who’d gotten mixed up with bad people. Maybe he was just trying to survive like they were.

In the old world she might have advocated locking him up for life. A lifetime prison sentence for a young kid was enough of a punishment. This wasn’t about punishing him for his crimes though. He was partly responsible for attacking at least two girls and their father and he was wholly responsible for lying to them. That was enough for her to say that he was a danger to them all. Rick was right; they had to get rid of the threat.

There was no guilt though. He hadn’t admitted anything to them. Were he really innocent, would he not try to escape his old group? Would he not be thanking them and trying to show his remorse? He could have tried to use knowing Maggie to get an in with them. He could have warned them that his old group was full of terrible people. He could have told them about the attacks and that they were heavily armed, but instead he kept that information hidden. He had to know that this group was better than his last one. They’d saved him after all, pulled him off of the fence, fixed his leg, fed him, and helped him heal. They were willing to let him go.

An innocent man wouldn’t act so guilty. He’d known though. All along he had known that he was going to try and get back to his old group. He was high on power and freedom. If he had ever once been a nice guy that part of him was long gone. They would never be able to trust him.

If they let him go they’d be allowing him to lead his group right back to where they were. How long would they have before he made it back to the farm? A day, two days tops after he found his group. Even if he didn’t, Randall had proven himself willing to come up with elaborate threats. It was just one small step to start acting upon them. He’d come back and wait in the forest until he could catch someone alone. He could pick them off one by one on his own. Or maybe he’d find another group and lead them back here. No matter what, unless they could be sure he was out of the picture, they’d always be looking over their shoulders to make sure he hadn’t come back.

“Ya okay?” Daryl nudged her shoulder and Grace gave a startled jump. “Sorry,” the redneck muttered, seeming worried that he had startled her. “Ya don’t look so well.”

Grace reached up and rubbed at her eyes. She was tired of all of this bullshit of worrying about walkers and humans alike. She just wanted one day without imminent doom. “I’m fine.” Daryl stared at her hard, as if trying to convince her to tell him what was going on. He looked painfully worried, as much so as when he had walked out of the shed and found out that she’d heard the entire conversation they had had with Randall.  “I am.”

Daryl snorted. His expression clearly showed he didn’t think she was telling the truth. “Okay,” he snipped sarcastically. She could almost hear the ‘fine don’t tell me’.  Her mood cracked at his attitude and she reached to brush his bangs off his face.

“Your hair’s too long.”

“I’s fine.” He repeated mockingly, turning his head away from his fingers.

“You need a haircut,” Stepping forward to invade his space further, Grace properly ran her fingers through his hair. “Unless you like it this long.

He squinted at the contact, swiftly catching her hand, stilling it. “Yer jus’ makin’ it worse by messin’ wit’ it.” Turning toward her hand, he kissed her palm and then dropped it down to her side. “Le’s get outta here, ‘kay?”

She nodded. The last thing she wanted to be around was the moment Rick got far enough away for the group to burst into flurried conversation about Randall. Her mind was set and there was nothing that anyone could say about it that would do anything but piss her off.

-break-

Daryl and Grace walked quietly together along the outskirts of the property, just along the treeline. It was quiet the farther they got from camp, away from all the hustle and bustle. There was no drama this far out; no reminders of everything that had happened. It was easy to just pretend that they were out walking the back roads back home, having pulled the truck over, and just gotten out to see where walking would take them. Hershel’s property was beautiful. Had he not been so picky about guests and the end of the world not put a stop to holidays, she would have suggested he start some sort of bed and breakfast. People would have paid good money to pretend to be country folk for a weekend.

When they reached the southern pasture near the duck pond, they skirted silently around the Greene family, Claire and Jimmy who were herding loose cattle back to the main barn. There was a sizable hole in one of the fences and Grace could only suspect that something had startled the cows and they had run headlong into it to break free. They were skittish animals, all of the animals on the farm seemed to sense that the weather was getting colder and that the threat was getting higher.

“Do you think they saw something?”

“Like what?” Daryl grumbled, squeezing her fingers tighter. He’d taken her hand when they walked past the old barn and hadn’t let go. The simple action had formed a warm ball of comfort in her stomach that continued to give her butterflies the longer he allowed the contact. It was protective sure, he didn’t want to think of when the building had been full of walkers and they were nearly overrun, but it was also possessive. Anyone who saw them, even at a distance, would know they were together. Not just good friends or fuck buddies, an actual for real couple.

How many times had she wondered what he would do if she took his hand one night at the bar or when they were out around town? She’d never done more than play with his fingers as they lay together in bed or reached across the middle seat in the truck. Sometimes if she was lucky, he was horny and they were sitting together with a table between them and anyone else he’d run his fingers against her thigh. Here they were now, practically parading around for the whole world to see, or at least the majority of people who mattered to them. Daryl had never held her hand if it wasn’t for a good reason.

“Maybe a walker.” Grace shrugged, swinging their hands lightly in the cool air. It was comfortable today. No need for a jacket yet but they weren’t sweating to death either. Maybe that was a sign that they were on the right track and everything would work out from here on out.

“Don’cha think if there were a walker runnin’ ‘round then someone woulda seen it.”

“Well they don’t really run. Maybe it snuck up on the fence in the dark, scared the cattle and then followed them when they bolted. It wouldn’t have been able to catch one so it could have lost interest.” She shrugged again. “Just thinking out loud.”

“Could be,” Daryl squinted into the trees, searching out for movement in the shadows. “Anything could stumble on this place. Hell, they found the quarry didn’ they? An’ I ran inta a few of ‘em when I was in the middle uh fuckin’ nowhere laying in some random stream. Would make sense if one uh them were what scared them cows.”

“Stop staring so hard.” She had to laugh at him, he was glaring at the trees like the plant life was going to jump out and bite them. “I’m sure if something were running around in the trees we’d have noticed it.”

“Like tha’?” He raised the hand that wasn’t holding hers, pointing towards two small shapes half hidden by the trees. From where they were standing it was easy to make out Rick’s sherriff’s hat perched on top of Carl’s head and Sophia’s blonde locks. “Stupid fuckin’ kids.” Daryl grumbled, turned to stalk after them. “Who’s s’ppose ta be watchin’ ‘em?”

Grace hurried with him, distracted entirely by the two preteens being out on their own. “I don’t know. Carol and Lori were both cleaning up breakfast, Rick’s handling the Randall nonsense, Claire is with the Greenes, and I’m here. That’s pretty much everyone who usually keeps an eye on them.”

“Bet’cha e’eryone else thinks someone else got ‘em. I outta hide ‘em both. Take ‘em right over my knee.”

“That won’t solve anything. We’ll bring them back to their parents and let Lori screech at them for a while. Much better punishment.” Grace felt herself smirking and Daryl gave out a snort of agreeing laughter.

“D’ya really want to be tha’ mean to ‘em?” Daryl chuckled, shaking his head with a raised eyebrow.

Grace laughed back, “No, but Carl will panic if he even thinks his mom will find out. We’ll tell Rick and Carol. That’ll be embarrassing enough for the both of them.”

Smirking now, Daryl gave her fingers a squeeze of agreement and a small tug to get them going again. He didn’t drop them though. Rick was right in his own way, this farm had been a miracle for them.

The two children were completely engrossed in what they were doing to be aware of the adults approaching them. Carl hunched over, clutching something in his hands that he turned over as he showed it off proudly to Sophia. For her part, the little girl looked more nervous as she crouched in the grass next to Carl. As the got closer, Daryl put a finger to his lips and Grace nodded. The only way to drive their point home was to scare the piss out of the children and surprise them. The way they had their back turned and were hiding, anyone or anything could have snuck up on them.

It wasn’t until Grace and Daryl were a few feet away that Daryl sucked in a breath and hollered, “HEY!”

Sophia shrieked and toppled right over, falling onto her backside, and landing hard in the dirt. Immediately she began to scramble backwards until she looked up and saw who it was. Daryl had dropped Grace’s hand and reached out to grab Carl’s collar when the boy spun around, gun clutched between his fingers and whole body trembling.

“Daryl?” He huffed, panting with the adrenaline coursing through his tiny frame.

“Where’d ya get the gun, kid?”

Carl spluttered and Sophia blushed brightly. “He took it!” She blurted out and her friend scowled at her.

“I borrowed it,” Carl amended. “Was gonna put it back.”

Daryl reached down and snatched the weapon out of the boys hands. He turned it over a few times, checking the weight and examining it carefully. “Ya took this offa Merle’s bike. I’s his gun.” Nervously the boys swallowed and nodded. “I oughtta march ya right over ta him an’ let him deal wit’ ya.”

“No-no! Please don’t, Merle’ll kill us!  Please!” Carl squirmed under Daryl’s hand and Grace fought back a grin as Daryl pretended to consider the begging for a moment.

“A’right. But ya best start explainin’ real quick jus’ wha’ it is ya’ll are doin’ out here.”

Sophia started crying, big gasping sobs, “It’s all my fault. I wanted to go for a walk. Momma’s got these white flowers and I was gonna try and find some so Carl said he’d come with me. We were just going down to the creek, promise. I didn’t know he took the gun from your brother, Mr. Daryl. I promise I didn’t! He said it was his.”

Carl hung his head, bottom lip stuck out in a scowling pout. “I was just borrowing it.” He scuffed his foot in the dirt. “Sophia needed someone to protect her. Mom took mine after practice and made Dad put it back in the gun bag. I’m old enough though! I can shoot.”

“‘Course ya can shoot.” Daryl snorted. “Ain’t hard ta pull the trigger. Ask Andrea. She could shoot too.” He lifted up the fringe of hair on his forehead that covered his half-healed gunshot scrap. “Shot me right in the head.”

The boy swallowed, “I wouldn’ta done that.”

“She didn’t mean to either, Carl.” Grace stepped in. “She was trying to protect the farm, just like you’re trying to protect Sophia. The problem is, guns don’t have brains. They just hit whatever you point them at. You’re the one with the brain. You could have shot Daryl or me or even Sophia, and it would have been an accident, just like Andrea shooting Daryl was an accident. But accidents can kill.” Sophia was still crying and Grace couldn’t help but step over to her and pull her into a hug. “What you both did was stupid. No one even knows you’re out here. Anything could have happened.”

“I’m sorry.” Carl mumbled, sniffing and rubbing the back of his hand under his nose.

“Don’ jus’ say ya are, be sorry.” Daryl slid the gun under his shirt and into his waistband. “Come on. Yer both goin’ back ta yer folks.”

Both children started to panic again at that, Carl especially begging and pleading as Daryl turned him by the shoulder and pushed him back towards the farm. They saw Carol first and Daryl left Grace with Sophia and her mother as he hauled off the boy, who had finally quieted and was dragging his feet in the dirt as if they were planning his execution for tonight instead of Randall’s.

“You’re lucky someone didn’t get hurt.” Carol shook her head at her daughter. “I’m very disappointed.”

“Sorry, Momma.” Sophia licked her lips. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“It had better not.” Carol was frowning deeply but she looked far more worried to Grace than angry. “What do you say to Grace for having to bring you back all this way.”

“Sorry, Grace.”

“Just don’t do it again, hun.” Grace pressed her lips together. “There’s more than just walkers out there and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Carol sighed and turned her daughter towards the house. “You can come with me and get the laundry now. I’m sure Lori wouldn’t mind if I took you and Carl to scrub clothes. T-Dog’s going with us.” She added as an afterthought when she caught Grace’s questioning look.

“Daryl went to take Carl to Rick.” Grace corrected. “I think the both of them could use some chores until they learn a little bit of responsibility.”

“I do too.” Carol gave the girl a stern look. “There will be no more running around and getting herself into trouble. Sophia can help out around camp just like everyone else. Now go,” she pointed at the front porch, “into the house and go get your things. You’ve got five minutes and you do not step off that porch until I say so. I’m going to go get Carl from his father. Rick and Lori have enough on their plate right now without you two running off playing soldier.”

-break-

Rick told them that Daryl had gone off to find his brother. Rick was busy trying to figure out the best way to get rid of Randall and he happily passed Carl off to Carol, telling the woman that Carl was willing to do anything he needed to do to make amends for his stupidity. Carl and Sophia dragged their feet as they followed Carol. Both were carrying baskets of laundry. Carol had asked if Grace wanted to come with them but Grace insisted that she was fine going to find Daryl and Merle.

She’d waved them off and headed in the opposite direction, up towards the ruined chimney that the brothers had first set their tents up at. They would be there. Talking quietly together about what was going on, figuring their own way they thought that it should be taken care of. She and Daryl hadn’t eaten breakfast so when she got him they could go get some food. There would be something in the house, maybe even enough for his brother to tag along.

Across the grass a figure moved towards her, the white hair and bucket hat not belonging to either of the brothers. “Hello Grace.”

“Dale.” She tightened her lips. Dale was one of the last people she wanted to see or hear from right now. The only thing more off-putting would have been Randall himself strolling around the farm.

“I was just talking with Daryl and Merle.”

“That’s where I’m heading.”

“I figured as much. Do you have a minute though? Won’t take long, I promise.” The old man stood like a little tin soldier, a rifle over one shoulder and his back stiff. Grace had never seen Dale carry a gun and she was already uncomfortable with his personal mission of saving Randall’s life.

She shook her head, trying to move past him without causing a scene. “Not really, Dale. Haven’t eaten breakfast and I’d like to make sure the boys have something before it gets too late in the day. You know how they are.”

Dale nodded wisely. “They’re good men. Both of them.” He gave her a serious look as if trying to point out how compassionate he was being, how much of a chance he was giving both of the Dixons and that she should be giving Randall the same chance.

“They are and I’d rather not having them starving for the good of the group. So, if you’ll excuse me.”

“He’s just a kid.” Dale called after her as she started to storm away. “He made a mistake running into the wrong people but that’s no reason to kill him.”

Grace felt her eyes widen, her shock clear on her features. She spun around quickly, voice raised, counting off Randall’s crimes on her fingers. “He’s threatened us Dale. And he lied about his group. He’s lied several times about things that would have made us trust him more, not less. If he would have been honest, maybe I’d give him a chance but he lied right to our faces. We sheltered him and fed him. There was no reason to distrust us.”

“Randall is a human being. People make mistakes Grace. We’ve been through a lot, all of us. I’m sure you can find it somewhere in your heart to allow the boy a chance to prove himself.”

She felt the first few tears before she even knew they were falling. “Screw you, Dale. He helped rape those girls and if he wasn’t an active or willing participant then he sure didn’t come clean about it when he was in a safe environment. I sat outside that shed and listened to him lie even while they were giving him chance after chance. He’s not the innocent kid you seem to think he is. I sat with those girls long enough to know that the people who touched them are monsters. We’ve got Claire and Beth who are almost the same age as those girls, Carl’s barely supervised and he takes Sophia out with him, and we both know Jimmy wouldn’t stand a chance against them. We almost lost Sophia once to walkers. Do you really want to let some sick in the head bastard lead his perverted friends back here? We wouldn’t survive it. Then there’s the group with Etta, she’s got a full house of babies over there too. You might not want to lose your humanity, you might think this group is better than killing a man but that’s bullshit.” Furiously she scrubbed at her face. “If he’d even done one little thing differently then maybe my answer would be different but I hope to God they kill him tonight just so I don’t have to wake-up another morning worrying about him.”

Dale stood stock still as he looked at her with a pained expression. “I didn’t know you felt like that about Randall. You sat with him. You fed him.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t hate him. I’m not a cruel person, I’m not saying that we torture every last piece of information out of him and starve him to death. I’m just saying that we need to get rid of the threat he’s posing to this group. There’s no prison, Dale. We’ve got to get rid of him somehow and a quick death is the best way to do it.”

“But you do feel that he might…”

“This conversation is over,” Grace snapped, throwing her hands up and heading straight for the chimney. If she got anywhere near there and Dale was still bothering her, both Dixons would crack him in half. Dale seemed to realize this and he hung back. She didn’t look back as she stormed the rest of the way to where Daryl and Merle were. She was furious and frustrated that Dale seemed to be campaigning to save the bastard that wanted them all dead.

-break-

Grace didn’t go into the house until the last minute. She didn’t want to hear Dale moping or whining over Randall and his impending execution. Her mind was beyond made up. As Rick spoke, she snuggled back into Daryl’s arms as they leaned on the farthest side of the room from everyone. Daryl was more comfortable over here anyway and it kept them out of anyone else’s direct line of sight. She’d know for sure if someone was looking at her because they would have to do it on purpose.

“We’ll see where everyone stands.” Rick was saying, standing in the middle of the room, and somehow facing everyone at once. “Then we can talk through the options.”

Shane had his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, “The way I see it there’s only one way to move forward.”

“Killing him, right?” Dale was practically shouting at everyone in the room. “Why even bother taking a vote? It’s clear which way the wind blows.”

Grace couldn’t believe him. After everything she’d mentioned that afternoon, after all the reasons she’d given for why the old way wasn’t going to work any more, how could he still be so stuck on keeping Randall alive? Grace could admit that it wasn’t fair he had to die when they weren’t sure of proof and there was no guarantee but there were a lot of clues to what this guy was like. They weren’t just making shit up, he was a real threat!

She must have tensed because Daryl drew his hands up, rubbing the tops of her arms, whispering “shhh” in her ear.

Across the room, Rick dropped his hands to the chair in front of him, bracing himself. “Well if people believe we should spare him, I want to know.” Their leader looked up, glancing around the room, waiting for someone to say something.

“Well it’s a small group. Maybe just me and Glenn.”

“Look,” Glenn hung his head, twisting his hat between his hands. “I think you’re pretty much right about everything all the time – but this…”

“They’ve got you scared!” Dale threw his hands up, stepping toward the Korean.

Glenn held his own, “He’s not one of us and we’ve, we’ve lost too many people already.”

“How about you? Do you agree with this?” Dale pointed across the room at Maggie and her father. Hershel was refusing to look up but Maggie had stood and crossed her arms nervously.

“Dale,” Grace found herself hissing out, “You need to stop. It’s not as black and white as you make it out to be and you know that. Tell me there’s one person in this room whose life you’d be willing to trade for Randall’s. Tell me that you’d be willing to risk any one of those kids sitting upstairs to give this kid a chance that we’re sure he’s going to screw up. He’s not just some hard done by guy we found on the road. He admitted to being there for a ridiculously vicious attack that ended with three people left for dead, two of those were teenage girls who were repeatedly raped and worse. Do I need to go into details?”

“I think everyone is well aware of the risks associated with keeping Randall at this point.” Rick raised his hands in defence. “We don’t want him here.”

“Even if you let him go, he’ll find a map. Find his way back here and you and I both know, Rick. He won’t be alone. You talked to his men in the bar. I’ve talked with the girls about what happened to them. We’re not inviting these guys over for afternoon tea. If he doesn’t get taken care of in a way that makes us sure he’s not coming back, then I’m not going to be here when he shows up on his doorstep.”

“You’d leave?”

“Yeah,” It was Merle who spoke up, for once not boasting about his opinion. “if Gracie wants to go then Daryl and I walk wit’ her. We take our girl, our gear and we hit tha road. Invitation is open for anyone with the good sense ta get the hell outta Dodge.”

Rick looked just over Grace’s shoulder and Daryl nodded back to him. “Wha’ muh brother said.”

“So that’s three votes for kill him. Do it quick and clean but either he goes or we do.” Grace slipped herself out of Daryl’s arms, heading for the door. “You can fight amongst yourselves about it.” Behind her, following her outside, was the echo of two sets of boots.

“Carol tells me you think it’s okay leaving my son alone with Merle.” Lori’s eyes were flashing red, her face a nasty snarl of judgment. Grace looked up from the shirt she was curled up sewing and blinked trying to keep her calm.

“They’re on the porch.”

“I know where they are!” Lori spat back. “I just don’t know why you think it’s OKAY!”

Grace sighed. When they’d gotten back to the house, Rick and Shane had already pulled out with Randall, not wanting to make a scene of it. Grace could understand that. If you didn’t say goodbye that meant for sure you were coming back. They’d drive the boy 18 miles out, find somewhere good to drop him and then be back in time for dinner. “He’s fine.”

“He’s with Merle.”

“I can understand why you’re upset but he really is fine.” It was a struggle to keep Lori calm but if she wanted this plan to work, then Grace needed to keep her own temper. No one was going to give Merle a chance on their own so she’d force them. It was a little bit brutal to use Carl and Lori as her first test subjects but it would come as the biggest shock to the group and hopefully become the start of something.

“That man is dangerous! It’s one thing that you subject yourself to him but Carl is my son, my child, and you have no right making choices for me. You don’t get to do that. That’s not your right!”

“Lori, it’s been half an hour that they’ve been out there.” Even with trying to keep her calm, Grace needed something to show Lori just how ridiculous she was being. “What took you so long?”

Lori stuttered to a halt. “I, uh, I...”

“You didn’t even know he wasn’t with Carol anymore, did you?” The question was gentle but held just enough force to make Lori hang her head in shame.

“No,” the dark haired woman admitted softly. There were tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m a horrible mother aren’t I?”

“You are not!” Grace protested, putting her sewing to the side and pulling Lori down on to the loveseat beside her.

“His father’s out there dragging some dangerous man all around the back roads of Georgia and I’m in here moping and pregnant. I don’t pay enough attention to him. I’m so distracted.”

“It’s alright Lori.” But the other woman was already on a roll.

“You watched out for Sophia and she’s not even yours. You brought her back safe and sound and I can’t even watch my own son when he’s right here on the farm.” Lori reached up and wiped the tears streaming down her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Ugh, I cried like this when Rick and I sat down to tell Carl about the baby. I’m such a mess. Stupid hormones!”

“You need to start taking care of yourself. Carl’s fine. We can go out and watch if you want. I’ll go with you and we can sit on the porch but he’s really fine. I promise.”

“There’s a meth-head babysitting my baby and showing him god knows what,” Lori scoffed. “That’s not fine.”

“I just checked on them. You can see them through the front window. Merle’s showing Carl how to pluck and gut a chicken and Daryl’s cleaning a second one. Honestly, come see.” As softly as possible Grace lifted Lori’s hand and pulled the other woman to her feet. She led her over to the window and pulled the curtain back just enough to show her. Merle had started a small campfire on the front lawn and borrowed a large pot from Maggie to scald the chickens in. While Daryl made quick work of the first animal, Merle took his time patiently showing the preteen how to take care of the second chicken. He’d even let the boy cut the head off, much to Carl’s delight and Grace’s disgust. But they really were fine. The chickens pretty much just looked like regular store bought chickens now, coupled with the pile of extra meat and a small brown sack of feathers. The three were outside cleaning off the porch now.

Lori’s face scrunched up in confusion. It was clearly not the scene she’d expected. Merle wasn’t out there teaching the boy to make moonshine or find a good vein or something equally disturbing. Obviously she hadn’t even looked outside before flying at Grace. “What are those?” Finally Lori pointed to the plastic tray of others that was sitting neatly on the table beside the prepared chickens.

Grace winced. Lori sounded so totally disgusted that she almost didn’t want to tell her the truth. Still, it was better to explain than to have her wonder. “Extra parts. Daryl’s probably going to make soup stock out of it. That’s what he does with the wild birds. I guess it’s the same thing.”

“Extra parts?”

“Necks, backbone, gizzard, feet... heads...” Yup it sounded disgusting but that was the truth of using the whole bird and not letting anything go to waste. They couldn’t afford to be wasting good meat when food was so scarce.

Lori groaned, looking a little bit green. “And Carl...”

“Well he’s not inside, which means he was obviously being helpful. I can’t see either of the boys letting him stay around if he was in the way.”

“And I thought it was bad when Shane was getting him to catch frogs.” Lori groaned again, shaking her head slowly.

Just then Carl spotted them staring at the window and began waving wildly. Scooping up one of the chicken he held it up for his mom to see. His voice was muffled through the glass but Grace could hear him clearly enough, “MOM, MOM! LOOK! Look what I did! Merle helped! This is my chicken! Look at it! MOM!”

Daryl rolled his eyes at the boy’s over excitement but Grace could see that both of the Dixons had small shy smiles on. They were proud. Merle especially kept looking at Carl with a sort of dazed look. “Let’s go out and see.” Grace suggested.

Nervously Lori nodded her head in agreement. “I guess. It’s better than cooked meat. That still makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Maybe the baby will be a vegetarian,” Grace joked.

“Not with...” Lori paused, “not with this group.” She gave a forced laugh. Grace was sure that the other woman just caught herself before saying something about Shane being the baby’s father.

Grace laughed along, pretending she hadn’t noticed the slip. “I don’t even want to think about how Daryl and Merle are going to influence my future kids. I’m going to end up with crossbow wielding, squirrel chasing, foul mouthed rednecks.”

“You’re not endearing me to the idea of them being around Carl,” Lori pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“Guess not,” Grace shrugged, giving Lori a cheeky smile, “let’s go outside before I put my foot in my mouth anymore.”

The two women let themselves on the front porch and were greeted by Carl, who bounded up to them waving a chicken foot around. Lori gagged a little but plastered on a grin for son. “Wow honey.”

“I pulled the yellow stuff right off of it.” Carl boasted. “Daryl showed me how on his and then I did my own.”

“That’s great, honey. Are you going to make soup with them?”

“Yeah,” Carl’s eyes went wide. “How did you know? I didn’t even know. I just thought we’d throw ‘em away ‘cause who eats feet right?”

“I’m a mother. Mothers just know these things.” Lori nodded.

“Wanna help us cook it?”

Lori looked torn between helping her son out and knowing that she was going to end up sick from the smell of cooking meat. “I don’t know, Carl...”

“I don’t think the baby likes meat too much.” Grace offered.

Carl nodded wisely. “It’s going to make you sick isn’t it? Just like at breakfast. That’s okay. You can just try some at dinner instead of helping us cook it. Maybe Carol will help out. She can show Sophia and me how to cook it. It looks just like it came from the store now. I bet she’s cooked chickens from the store before.”

“I bet she can.” Grace smiled, down at the boy before shooting Lori a look. “Maybe your mom can go with you to find her. I’ll help Merle and Daryl clean up the rest of the porch.”

“Cool! Come on Mom. Let’s go find Carol. She was gonna get some vegetables from the garden to go with supper. Maybe Hershel has some potatoes. We can have mashed potatoes.” Carl dragged his mother off towards the garden. “You could help peel them. That won’t make you sick right?”

“Tha’ kid’s got too much energy.” Daryl shook his head. “Gonna get himself in trouble.”

“You was the same way at his age. How old’s he Grace? Ten? Eleven.” Merle rubbed his pen knife clean on a towel.

“Twelve. He’ll be thirteen by the time the baby is born.”

“He’ll start settlin’ down soon. He already ain’t as quick ta take off as he was back at the quarry.”

“He’s trouble.” Daryl rolled his eyes again. “Always gettin’ in ta somethin’.”

“Ain’t so bad,” Merle shrugged. “Sorta nice havin’ a kid ‘round here. Kids ain’t fucked up over this shit like adults are.”

Grace shook her head, “He’ll grow up fast if things don’t change around here. He’s lucky he had most of his childhood. Just look at JJ. He’s only a year older than Carl. Carl is luck that he’s been sort of sheltered from everything but give him a few months. People will start forgetting to treat him like a child once that baby comes, maybe sooner. He’s already protective of Lori.”

“I was younger than him when Daryl was born. Tha’s jus’ what big brothers do.” Merle reached over and grabbed Daryl in a headlock, messing with his hair and letting the other man struggle to get free.

“Fuck off! Ya was a shitty big brother.”

“Course I was shitty, I changed yer damn diapers. Ya didn’t hol’ still. Not even then!”

“Git offa me!” Daryl flailed helplessly and Merle laughed loudly.

“Struggle all ya want baby brother. I’ve seen yer junk. Ya ain’t got the balls ta take me.”

“Got bigger fuckin’ balls ‘en you!” Daryl pushed off of Merle, finally twisting himself free. He took a swing at Merle’s face which his brother blocked. Not to be dissuaded, Daryl tackled his brother, the two of them hitting the porch rail. They bounced off, arms locked and bodies twisting.

“What the hell?” Glenn stuck his head out the front door, bewilderment clear on his face.

Grace laughed and shrugged, “They’re fighting over who has the bigger balls.”

“What?!”

“Merle said Daryl didn’t have the balls to take him. Now they’re wrestling.”

“Maggie’s worried they’re going to kill each other. She saw them through the window and sent me out to check up on them.” Glenn scowled. “Not sure what I was supposed to do if they were going to kill each other.”

Grace picked up the tray that held all the chicken parts and passed it to Glenn. “If they wanted to, nobody could stop them. Here take this to the kitchen.” She picked up the second tray that actually held the two plucked and gutted birds. “Boys, when you’re done, finish cleaning up,” she called over her shoulder.

“’Kay.” Daryl grunted as Merle’s fist connected with his chest. “Son of a bitch!”

“Tha’s yer mother too, Darylina.”

“An’ she was a bitch.” Daryl punched Merle’s arm as they separated, panting and shaking themselves out. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that.”

“I’m going inside.” Grace said a little louder.

“Maybe tha’s where ya got it from.” Merle shoved his brother. “Whiney little bitch, I barely touched ya!”

“Just go,” Grace told Glenn who was looking at the took brother’s with concern. “We can bring this into the kitchen.”

“Are they going to be alright?” He nodded toward Merle and Daryl who were now shouting at each other about who was the bigger bitch.

“Yeah, that’s pretty normal. They won’t hurt each other too badly and nothing will get solved but it’ll die down in about ten, fifteen minutes. Then they’ll both go off to nurse their sore egos. Happens all the time.”

“Okay,” Glenn bit his lip, forehead wrinkled with worry. “If you say so.” Then he looked down at the tray he was holding for the first time. “Uh Grace, are those chicken feet?”

-break-

The chicken roasting in the oven slowly started to fill the house. There would be chicken, mashed potatoes, garden vegetables, and gravy to slather over everything. Grace hadn’t eaten that well in weeks, not since the fish fry at the quarry and that had ended horribly. They were safe now though, or as safe as they could be, the thick walls of the farmhouse and an armed guard on duty 24/7. Even the afternoon was still warm. Warm enough for them to eat on the porch which meant no one had to be left outside to eat alone as they kept watch.

As safe as they felt, the threat of walkers was higher now. The swamp at the edge of the property that used to suck walkers in like a glue trap was slowly drying as summer drew to a close. What was once a murky bog was slowly turning into a sand pit and would stay like that until the spring melt the next year. It meant that a whole side of the farm was much more exposed now. Luckily everyone was slowly moving into the house. In town, Glenn and Maggie had said there were more walkers too. They’d gone for a run a couple of days earlier to clear out the rest of the supplies from the pharmacy for the winter. Much of it wouldn’t survive without proper storage and they knew now that anything they left could just as easily be used by people who would try to hurt them. It wasn’t just a matter of  looking out for their own. They needed to learn to be downright selfish.

Grace had sorted through the supplies sitting down with Carol to explain patiently the things the other woman didn’t understand. They’d stripped everything from the pharmacy; from bandages and Advil to lip balm and day planners. Some of the medication was packed right into boxes to be taken out and dumped. Without refrigeration it was useless and well beyond expired. A bunch of the other “good stuff” was missing, taken by looters in the long weeks following the outbreak. Though Carol hadn’t known what everything was, she’d patiently sat and documented everything in tight neat lines in a spiral bound notebook; an inventory of everything they had stored in the house for medical supplies, including the remains on Hershel’s veterinary supplies.

As she slowly flipped through the pages Grace was more and more impressed. “This is amazing!” she repeated for what felt like the 100th time. “We should have one of these for food and weapons as well.”

Carol shrugged, “Not really enough food to do it and everyone keeps their own weapons.”

Grace shook her head in agreement. “That’s true. When we’re all settled in the subdivision we can start bringing supplies back and gather a stockpile. Then we’ll need an inventory. We can gather everything we need and just store it in an empty house. There’s more than enough houses for it.”

“Wouldn’t that be a target? All anyone who finds us would have to do is head straight for there.”

“We’ll be too well guarded for anything like that to happen. There’ll be forty of us all together and that’s if we don’t pick up any more stragglers. It’ll be a certified Fort Knox. We’ll even be able to send the kids out and not worry.”

Carol stared at Grace for a silent moment. “You’re thinking of trying again aren’t you?” Grace started to shake her head but Carol stopped her with a knowing grin. “Don’t lie. I can see it.”

“We’ll have to see how Lori’s pregnancy goes. She’s our biggest risk right now. Carl was breech and they couldn’t turn him.”

“Yeah but once we settle, we can set up a little clinic and everything. I know you’ve thought about it. I would too. Ed and I tried for years and all we have is Sophia. It was enough for me, she’s my little miracle baby, but if I didn’t have her, I’d probably still want to try.” She reached over and patted Grace’s arm. “Just don’t rush things. It wasn’t easy on you or Daryl and you need to give yourself time to heal. I didn’t and wonder if I didn’t cause more trouble for myself in the long run.”

Grace swallowed hard. It was strange to feel so transparent but Carol had been there before, at least where the miscarriage was concerned. No one had tried to start a family in the middle of Armageddon. A walker infested world was no place for a baby and as much as Grace wanted to forgo contraception and tell Daryl that they should just let whatever happened happen, they weren’t in a secure place. This farm was short term. There were no walls or barricades to keep anything that wanted to from just wandering straight up to the house. It wouldn’t be long before either someone or something made an appearance on the farm. Until they were settled for sure, it wasn’t right to start thinking of a family. There were enough children to worry about that already existed. “I can’t help but wonder what if.”

“It only makes sense. A baby is a promise for a future. You started thinking about having a family.”

“No, that’s not quite it. I think I wonder what if because I’m guilty that I’m not more sad. I wouldn’t want to be in Lori’s shoes right now. We still thought we would be rescued when I was pregnant. There wasn’t the fear of what if something went wrong. We were wondering when we would find safety. I’m glad in a way that I’m not pregnant. It’s… it’s not the right time for a baby and I wouldn’t want to have to worry. I’d feel selfish for putting everyone at risk but whenever I think about being okay with losing the pregnancy I feel selfish for not being willing to risk myself for my child.”

“It’s a vicious cycle,” Carol reached out and hugged Grace, who had suddenly found her eyes watering.

“I just wish it was easy,” she sniffed. “I wish we could just be safe again.”

“Things are never that simple. There would have been something even if the walkers had never happened. Life isn’t about taking away one bad thing. If you want a child, it’ll happen. Not today or tomorrow but one day we won’t have to live like this. We’ve got a plan and we’ll figure ourselves out.”

“I suppose so,” Grace laughed, wiping her eyes. “It’s hard to do anything but imagine.” Across the yard, headlights danced along the fence. Shane’s car drove down the road a little faster than it had left. “I guess now I won’t have to imagine supper. It smells amazing. Now that Rick and Shane are back we can get everyone served.” Carol didn’t respond right away though. The short-haired woman’s expression was hard to read. “What’s the matter?” Grace questioned.

“There’s a third person in the car.”

“What?” Grace looked closer. As the car drove up to the house, Grace counted Rick in the driver’s seat, Shane riding shotgun and a bound person sitting up in the trunk, wedged between gas cans. “Is that Randall?”

“I don’t know.” Carol stepped down off the porch, calling out to Rick as she did. “What’s going on?”

“Ran into some trouble.” Shane slammed his door hard. “Stupid bastard nearly got us killed.”

“What?”

“Ran into some walkers.”

“And?”

“And the fuckin’ kid came back with us.” Shane spat out, face contorted with aggression. “Ya wanna talk about it, ya can talk with Rick. I’m gonna to lock the bastard back up.” He threw open the hatch, grabbing Randall by the arm and heaving him out of the back of the car roughly, half dragging the boy as he stumbled to his feet. The kid grunted under his mouthful of fabric.

“Shane!” Grace found herself gasping. “Jesus Christ, have a heart.”

Shane’s face contorted into a twisted smile. “Ya say that now,” he chuckled. “Bet ya sleep really well all safe and snug next to Dixon. Thinkin’ ‘ain’t nobody gonna find this place. We’re safe here.’ Well we ain’t. Buddy-boy here knows exactly where we are. Right down to the little painted sign out front and the flower patch next to the mailbox.”

“Easy, Shane.” Rick scolded darkly. “Let’s not think more of this than it is. Randall is still right here. He hasn’t told anyone anything yet.”

“It’s only a matter of time.” Shane shook the prisoner by the arm. “Come on, fuck-up. Let’s put you back on the chain gang.” Yanking hard on the kid, Shane dragged and pulled Randall away from the car. The whole while Randall tripped and stumbled over the uneven farm ground. Shane hadn’t even bothered to pull the earbuds they’d duct taped into his ears out or take the blindfold off.

Beside Grace, Carol brought a hand to her mouth, gasping quietly into it. Grace had to admit, it was a terrible sight, especially after tending to the rope burns on the sisters and their father. There was no need for Shane to be so rough with the man they were already holding prisoner.

Rick seemed to be thinking the same thing as he sighed and shook his head. “Show him a little mercy.”

“Tha’ what yer gonna say when his crew rolls up here, rapes your wife, and slits your kid’s throat all because Randall went to school with Maggie and he knows exactly where this farm is?”

Carol’s eyes went wide at that one and even Grace had to raise an eyebrow but Rick held his ground. “Not here, not now. What happened to our little talk?”

“That was before the kid starts shouting that he has class with Maggie. That he knows where the farm is. That not sound like a threat to ya? Bet his groups’ the one that raped those girls. We were gonna leave him and suddenly he was shouting about how he knows where we are. Why’d he keep that quiet? Wouldn’t put it past big mouth here to spill everything the moment he got back to his people.”

“He knows Maggie?” Grace questioned. She’d been following the back and forth between Rick and Shane but she still didn’t quite understand. “When did he say that?”

“As we were about to leave him.” Rick raked a hand through his hair. “We brought him to this station, see; it had been a safe zone. Guess there was a hole in one of the fences though because pretty soon we got swarmed. Shane and I were running for the car, figured we’d just leave Randall and be done with him.” Shane snorted and Rick gave him a cold look. “Next thing we know though, he’s shouting about Maggie. How he went to school with her. How he’s from town and knows exactly what farm we’re on. Now, unlike what Shane would have you believe, he didn’t say anything about coming back for revenge but…”

Shane gave the prisoner a shake for good measure, “Little bastard implied it loud and clear. Can’t take the risk, Rick. Think about it.” The bald man’s voice hit an almost pleading note but then his mask fell back into place. “Gonna lock him up. Then we’ll get some supper and get everyone in on a nice long talk about it.”

“Shit,” Grace shook her head. “Why now though? If he knew where this farm was, if he knew Maggie, why wouldn’t he have said something? Hershel fixed up his leg. We gave him food and water and let him wash up. We were good to him.”

“Maggie brought him his meals most days.” Carol pointed out quietly. Her brow had wrinkled with confusion and concern. “If he knew her, why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t she?”

Rick scratched his beard, his eyes were tired. “That’s what we’ve gotta find out.” He sighed again, long and low. “I don’t like it though.”

-break-

“I found him!” Beth held up the yearbook in triumph. Carol and Grace had gone up to the house and asked Maggie for them. The oldest Greene daughter had no recollection of Randall at all from her high school years. She’d racked her brain for boys who she’d seen on sports teams or at dances, even pulled out her old study notes to see if maybe he’d been in her chemistry or biology classes and had shared notes with her.

Beth passed the book over to her sister eagerly.

“This is my senior yearbook,” Maggie looked down fondly at the hard cover book full of signatures and pressed momentos. “He was a sophomore.”

“You’re twenty-two?” Grace asked Maggie quietly and the woman confirmed with a  nod. “So he’d be maybe nineteen? Did you know him Beth? He’d have been a senior in the past few years.”

“Maybe,” Beth squinted down at the photo. “I can go get my yearbooks. Maybe he’s in them. He could’ve hung around with the stoner kids. We didn’t exactly chum around. Mostly I just saw them when I was getting off the bus seeing as they spent more time in the parking lot than the classroom. Come on, Claire. They’re in my room.”

The two teenagers slipped up the stairs, leaving Grace, Carol, and Maggie alone in a pile of books and memories. Grace started to put together some of the photos into their little paper sleeves again until she noticed Maggie was still staring hard at the yearbook. Her face was twisted into an almost unreadable expression, somewhere between guilt and anger.

“What’s the matter?”

“How could I forget him?” Maggie hissed, her eyes welling with tears. “He’s been here a whole week. My high school was 400 people. I must have seen Randall Culver at some point. And if he’s local how come I don’t remember seeing him around town. Even the name Culver doesn’t ring any bells. Did he not have parents? Siblings? I must have known him so how come I can’t remember?”

Carol leaned over and patted Maggie’s arm, slowly slipping the book from her hands. “It was years ago. You ran with different circles. Beth doesn’t remember him either. No one is blaming you.”

“I am.” The oldest Greene sister let out a startled laugh. “We’d have never gotten here if I just recognized him. It’s a small town. How could someone be so forgettable?”

“Maybe he wanted to be. It’s pretty easy to miss a person if they want to be missed.” Grace shrugged. It was true. She’d nearly missed becoming well acquainted with Daryl. The younger Dixon was almost invisible in Merle’s shadow when he wanted to be and he did a fair job of hiding even when his brother wasn’t there. She wasn’t even sure how long he’d been ordering breakfast at William’s before she recognized him. If Daryl didn’t want someone to see him, they could usually look right through him.

“What’d you mean?”

“It’s a lot easier than you think to make yourself unnoticeable. I bet he had a rough time in high school. Just look at that haircut. He wasn’t popular, he probably didn’t do sports and if he was in activities, he was a minor part. Teenagers are self-centred. It’s pretty easy to just miss someone when you’re wrapped up in your own friends, and homework and activities and life.”

“She’s right,” Carol voice was quiet but strong. “Before all of this you probably missed seeing dozens of people every day, even ones you knew.”

“He’s one guy,” Grace agreed, “and he was younger than you. It’s no wonder you don’t recognize him. He probably didn’t give you a reason too.”

“It just creepy. Him knowing me. Why would he keep that a secret?” Maggie wrung her hands together, fingers cracking with worry and tension. She sighed, reaching to pick her cup of tea off the table. Holding it with both hands, she used the mug to steady herself. “That’s weird right?”

“Very. I think we need to find out why he didn’t try to use that as leverage right away.”

-break-

Randall Culver must have graduated on time because he made no more appearances in Beth’s yearbook. There was so little to go on, just a name on the slippery paper and a black and white photograph as the only proof that he hadn’t been lying.

It was just like Maggie had said though, why now? Why wait until they were leaving him behind to own up to knowing them. If Grace had been in his shoes and found herself injured, kidnapped, and tied up in a shed but recognized a familiar face, she would have tried to make contact. Anything to gain some sympathy from her captors.

They hadn’t been mean to him, he got food and water regularly, was guarded twenty-four hours a day so there was always someone there when he needed to pee, he even got a bucket of hot water and a hard bar of soap so he could sort of sponge bathe. That was after Rick, Hershel, and Glenn had pulled him off the fence and then Hershel had led the operation on the boy’s leg. He had been treated well. Very well for someone whose friends had tried to kill members of their group twice and threatened to come back to the farm.

They didn’t have to give this boy the benefit of the doubt.

“Come on, Rick.” Shane leaned against the door frame of the farmhouse. He was ready to do something. They needed to find out just what was going on after all. “You know what we gotta do, man. We’ll just sit down, talk with the kid, find out what’s up.”

Rick shook his head, the long shaggy ends of his bang falling into his eyes. He needed a haircut but there hadn’t been time. His hair was starting to look like Carl’s. They could start a post-apocalyptic boyband. The Grimes Boys. “No. We don’t need to act quickly.”

“We need to do something.” Shane’s voice came out a rough bark. Then he sighed, realizing just how forceful he sounded.

Scowling, Rick shook his head again and looked around the room. “What if he doesn’t talk? Then what?”

“We think of something then.”

Everyone’s eyes were on Rick now. Shane poised in the doorway ready to leave the second he got the go ahead, Andrea perched on the arm of the couch, Glenn and Maggie in the doorway of the kitchen, Dale and his worry lines next to the fireplace, Daryl chewing his thumb against the dining room table, and Merle reclining at the head of the table.

“Should send one uh the girls in. Send Gracie,” the sound of her own name made Grace turn away from Rick’s pained expression and stare at the older Dixon.

“What?” Several of them gasped out the word at once but Merle didn’t seem fazed.

Merle scraped his tongue with his teeth and shrugged. “She don’t look like she could cause no harm. Kid might talk ta her. Send her in ta check up on his leg. Anything goes squirrelly an’ Daryl an’ me’ll be right outside.” He pushed his right fist into the palm of his other hand. “Take care uh him if he gets outta line.” His lips creased upward as Grace caught her jaw dropping.

“That’s insane.”

“Nah, ya don’t look like ya’d hurt a fly an’ if yer lookin’ af’er him tha’s reason ta be there.”

Shane snorted, “The hell’d ya get a plan like that from.”

Merle shrugged, stiffed in his chair a bit, crossing his arms in defence. Beside her Daryl shifted, stifling a laugh. “They tried it on him once,” Daryl mumbled past the hand he’d brought up to cover his chuckle, a memory seeming to come back to him. “Wanted to see who started a fight in the prison yard. Had both of the guys in private rooms to keep ‘em from causin’ trouble while they healed up. Sent this nurse in to check his blood pressure an’ Merle couldn’t keep himself from braggin’. Could ya?” Daryl grinned mockingly at his brother. “You got one weak spot an’ it’s a blonde with a nice rack so they got one ta get ya ta confess.”

“Shut it.”

“Naw, i’s a good plan,” Daryl reassured his brother, glancing over at Grace to make it clear that he was on her side on this, “if it weren’t so stupid. We ain’t sending Grace in there with‘im.”

“Fuck ya,” Merle sunk into his chair further. “Don’t see ya comin’ up wit’ a better plan.”

“Don’t need one. Kid like tha’ ain’t gonna talk. He don’ trust us none. No reason too. So he’ll keep his trap shut ‘less he thinks it’s gonna help him. Same way he kept his trap shut ‘bout knowin’ the farmer’s daughter ‘til he needed savin’. Fuckin’ aces up ‘is sleeve.”

Rick sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “That’s all well and good but what do we do with him then.”

Daryl shrugged, leaning back against the wall. He’d spoken up enough for now. It was one thing to shut down Merle’s plan when it threatened Grace but to step-up and actually give his opinion? That was another story all together.

“Can’t send him back out,” Shane growled, rolling his eyes and throwing a challenging glare around the room. “Can’t keep him here. Seems we only got one option, man.”

“And what’s that?” Rick barked back, dragging himself to stand straighter and stare right back at Shane. Whatever had gone on between the two of them while trying to flee from the walkers that afternoon had brought them a whole lot closer to the breaking point. There’d always been a moment before when one would back down and simply let the other have their way, a sort of compromise of this one’s yours but I’ve got the next one. Now there was no stepping back, no give in their argument.

Shane shrugged, his shoulders rising just briefly enough to prove he’d done it. “Kill ‘im.”

“That’s it?” Rick scoffed. “It’s not that simple, Shane.”

“Should be.”

“Don’t see why it ain’t,” Merle flicked his nose with his thumb, giving a small snort of disbelief that he was actually agreeing with Shane. “String him up in tha mornin’ ‘fore anyone else gets up. Don’t gotta worry none uh the more delicate folk ‘round camp.”

“No!” Dale’s startled exclamation broke through the quiet room. “This is a man’s life we’re talking about. We can’t just, just string him up like a criminal. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Okay, Professor,” Merle tossed his head, “What’d ya suppose we do wit’im then? Load him up with sweets an’ make him our god? Maybe we can elect him Miss Universe. I’ll make a sash.”

“We give him a chance.” Dale clenched his fists, eyes flashing. “What happened to civilization? Morals? Innocent until proven guilty?”

“Dead things ate it.” The blank look in Merle’s eyes was enough to send the old man spluttering. “I’s dog eat dog, or a’least walker eat the dumb guy who ain’t defendin’ his own. Can’t afford to make exceptions just ‘cause he makes ya weak in the knees.”

“Stop it, Merle.” Grace found herself saying, stepping away from Daryl who reached out and grabbed one of her belt loops. “I’m fine.” She assured him with a whisper, turning back to his brother. “I think we all need to back away from the situation for a while. Nothing needs to be decided tonight.”

“I’d say so.” Dale harrumphed, folding his arms in displeasure.

“There’s food in the kitchen, a nice meal for everyone to enjoy. And we should enjoy it. We deserve that. In the morning we can revisit this.”

“There’s an idea.” The tendons stood out on Rick’s neck as he looked toward the dining room. “We forget about this for right now and go have supper.”

Shane gave a snort of disgust and slammed his hand into the screen door. “Guess that leaves me to take first watch.” He stomped out onto the front porch, door slamming shut behind him. Andrea had jumped at the door slamming, She looked torn, or at least ready to follow Shane if he’d asked her to. But he hadn’t and instead when everyone else chose to ignore the outburst, she slunk behind them into the dining room where everything was neatly set out on two long tables.

-break-

Andrea was still moping as everyone else finished dinner. While the dishes were cleaned off the table and being washed and put away using the assembly line method, she scooped up the extra place setting off the table, neatly wrapped the cutlery in one of the cloth napkins, and began to put together a plate. Grace had offered to fold up the table cloth, wipe down the table, and sweep the dining room and she was almost finished as Andrea started heading for the back door. Alone.

“Wait, Andrea.” Grace found herself saying before she was even sure of her plan. Andrea couldn’t walk through the yard alone at night. She still hadn’t earned back the privilege of carrying a firearm since she shot Daryl in the head and if she were to come across something in the dark it would better for her to not be alone. “I’ll come with you.”

“Really?” The blonde seemed confused as to why Grace would be offering to go with her. Grace wasn’t sure herself. She wasn’t close with Andrea. Still the fight about Randall and finding out he knew where the farm was had her on edge. She was already worrying about Mandy and Ash back with the Halversons. The sooner they were all safely behind the walls of the housing development the better.

“Buddy system,” Grace shrugged. “You don’t have a gun anyway. The swamp isn’t going to hold walkers off forever. Better safe than sorry, right?”

“For sure!” Andrea smiled genuinely. “Thanks. I didn’t want to ask anyone to come with me. No one really seems to like Shane too much right now.”

“He’s… rough. Bit like Merle really. He deserves supper as much as anyone else though. We should have brought him a plate before we all sat down and started eating. Sort of mean to leave him out there without food. We can bring something for Randall as well.”

There was a package of plastic cutlery and plates in one of the hutches that lines the walls of the dining room. It might have been paranoid but Grace felt a lot safer giving that to Randall than something he could use as a weapon. She even cut the turkey into bite sized pieces the same way you would with a child. For a moment she had considered offering a plastic fork and knife but he could do less damage with a spoon and so that was what he got along with room temperature water in a red solo cup. Andrea carried Shane’s meal wrapped in foil and Grace took Randall’s the same way. They told Carol where they were going and slipped out the back door, cutting across the yard to get to the shed.

Shane was sitting on a white plastic lawn chair, shotgun against his knees, and one foot jiggling with anticipation when they got there. To make sure he knew it was them and not something more sinister, the two women called out to him quietly in greeting and Shane stood to welcome them.

“How’s he been? We brought food.” Andrea offered out the plate she was holding. “That’s Randall’s. His is on Styrofoam, just in case.” She added and Grace hung onto to the dish as Shane casually reached out with one hand to take the plate from Andrea, the other catching the back of her head so he could pull her in for a quick press of his lips to her forehead.

“Thanks, damn quiet out here.” The tops of Andrea’s cheekbones had gone pink but Shane didn’t seem to think he’d done anything out of sorts. He lifted up the foil and gave an appreciative sniff at the food. “That smells good.” He shifted, sighing. “Hate to ask after you ladies came all the way out here with food but do ya mind keepin’ watch for a few. I gotta piss somethin’ awful an’ it ain’t like somebody’s gonna be here to switch shifts for a while.”

“Sure thing,” Andrea was already setting down his plate, arranging the napkin and cup neatly.

Grace didn’t have a problem with it. She had her gun and Shane was offering his rifle to Andrea. It would only be a couple of minutes and she could see poor Shane shifting uncomfortably like he’d been holding it for a while. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“Thanks,” he sighed in relief, “back in a few.” Quickly he hurried off to the tree line, disappearing into the shadows at the edge of the property.

Andrea slumped down in Shane’s chair, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face. “He’s calmer now.”

“Yeah, extreme bladder control does tend to make one reassess their priorities.” Grace shifted the plate she was holding for Randall. It was hot, the gravy and potatoes making little spots of lava on her fingertips. If the plate had been paper it would have folded in on itself already. She might as well take it into the kid now. Andrea was alright to keep watch and if it meant she didn’t have to hold the hot plate any more then Grace was all for it. “Lock the door after me.”

“What?” Andrea started shaking her head as Grace was undoing the combination lock on the door. She knew the four digit code because Hershel had given it to her after the surgery so he could have another person to go in and check on Randall’s leg. Of course she had never gotten a chance to go in and see him on her own before because so much had happened so quickly. “Where are you going?”

“Just to feed him. I’ll leave him tied up.”

“How’s he going to eat then?”

“I’ll spoon feed him, I guess.” Grace lifted the plastic utensil casually. It wouldn’t be difficult if the kid co-operated but she didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t. He wasn’t at full strength, still healing from his injuries and the day had been a busy one from what Rick and Shane described. He’d be tired, hungry, and thirsty.

Andrea seemed ready to protest further, but Grace was already letting herself into the shed and closing the door behind her.

“Heh-hello?” Randall was sitting, slumped up against one of the shed walls in a way that reminded Grace of a passive walker. Just like one of those creatures he’d turned toward the sound as she came in. “Who’s there? Let me go please, man. I won’t do no harm, I promise. Just let me loose. I’ll tell you everything.” His voice was high and frightened. Grace was shocked into standing perfectly still. She hadn’t expected him to sound so vulnerable. So young. So much like the girls did when they cried out in their sleep. Randall wasn’t that much older than Ash or Beth after all.

Grace cleared her throat, fighting back the lump that was forming. “I’ve brought food.” Her voice seemed too loud; it bounced off the walls causing the prisoner to jump.

Randall shook his bound arms as if to make a point. “Mind letting me out? I can’t see nothin’.” He tossed his head, the light from the small boarded up window near the ceiling barely enough to see by but Grace could see that even though Shane removed the headphones and the gag from the kid’s mouth, his eyes were still covered by a ratty black hat, which they’d pulled far down over his eyes as a form of blindfold. He seemed to have managed to push it up to his nose, or maybe it had just ridden up but he still couldn’t see anything.

“Here,” Grace sat the plate down on the small work bench next to the door and stepped cautiously over to Randall. She gave an experimental tug on the chain that held him to the wall and even checked the bindings on his hands before returning his vision. Better to be safe than sorry but he was securely held in place - able to stand and sit but not much more than that.  “Better?” she questioned.

“Ya thanks” Randall sniffed, breathing in the fresh air unrestricted by the hat. His hair was matted down with sweat in the most serious case of hat hair Grace had ever seen and he was even dirtier than Shane and Rick had been when they first stepped out of the car. He probably hadn’t had a chance to wash up at all since he’d come back, not with all the arguing to they did about him and him still be blindfolded. He huffed again almost seeming out of breath somehow. “Got something to drink?”

Grace shook her head in affirmation, walking back to the workbench and grabbing the plastic cup. “Head up.”

“Huh?” he stared at her blankly.

“Your hands are bound. I’m not undoing them so your options are let me help you or wait for Shane to get back.” She shrugged and shook the cup at him. “And I think he’d be less willing to undo those than I am.”

Randall seemed to consider the situation for a moment. That worried Grace. The boy was clever. He thought about each move he made. The initial desperation that had made her pity him was gone, replaced by a calculating that she wasn’t used to seeing. He was sneaky. Sly. Manipulative. She couldn’t help but wonder if the whining had just been an act to get sympathy. Randall was just finishing his second swallow of water when Shane’s voice came from outside. His words were brisk and raised, followed soon after by the shed door being thrown open.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” He wasn’t shouting, not quite yet at least, but Shane’s voice had a dangerous edge to it.

“Feeding him. Why did you want to do it?”

“Feeding him?” Shane scoffed.

“Yes,” Grace rolled her eyes. “Just because he’s a prisoner here doesn’t mean that he can’t be taken care of. Your food’s outside. don’t worry, Andrea fixed one for you as well.”

The former sheriff’s deputy clenched his jaw. “And I’m just supposed to leave you two alone?”

“Stay here, go back out there, whatever. I’m going to spoon feed him and then I’m going back into the house, hang out with the kids a bit, and go to bed. This isn’t a social call.”

“I wouldn’t mind it being.” Behind them Randall was grinning. “She’s nicer than you are, man. Prettier too.”

“Shut-up,” Shane snarled. “Yer lucky she came around. I’d made ya wait until breakfast. Instead you’re getting chicken and potatoes. Better watch it or tomorrow when I do feed ya, yer gonna accidentally choke on a dinner roll.”

The boy squeaked and slunk back against the wall, deflated. Grace couldn’t help but feel a little relieved by Shane’s outburst. Randall moved so quickly between scared little boy and overconfident man that it made her head spin. Just who was this lying boy? Maybe Merle was right. They wouldn’t get anything out of him without brutal force. Just maybe though she could get him to slip up.

“Play nice, Shane. No need to be rude to him. Poor kid’s probably just lonely.” She dragged over a wooden chair that had been sitting in the corner too far away for Randall to even use it. “Locked up in here all alone with a beanie pulled over his eyes.” She gave the boy the most pitying look she could muster and reached out to grip Randall’s elbow. Carefully she helped him into the chair. “That’s better.”

“Yer all fuckin’ nuts. Last thing this guy needs is a comfy chair.” Shane spat out, throwing his hands up and storming out of the shed. He left the door open, enough so that Grace could see him slam his butt into the plastic chair outside the door and yank his own plate off the table.

While Shane was outside wolfing down his food, Grace settled on a wooden crate next to Randall and chatted, light small talk that wouldn’t make the boy nervous, after all, she wanted him to share just where he had been since the world went to hell. In between bites he talked about his mom and the friends he had in high school. They were right, he hadn’t been one of the popular kids or even really big in the geek crowd. The boys he described seemed to be the sorts of people that didn’t make it far in life. They were the sorts that Merle had been friends with, the losers that Grace tried her best to stay away from but always found herself running into as they came hunting down Merle because he owed them money for one thing or another.

She found herself pitying the boy more than anything. Maybe Dale was right and he just needed a chance. He was sneaky, yes, but that maybe had something to do with being wary of the strangers who had picked him up off a fence, operated on his leg, locked him up in a shed, and then nearly abandoned him with walkers. He was sort of justified in that. It was halfway through him chewing a bite of chicken that Grace made a joke about having cut it into bite sized pieces.

“Couldn’t exactly bring a knife in here.”

Randall swallowed and winced, “Nah, I guess not. Don’t like ‘em much myself so I can see how you’d see giving me one would be a bad call.” He flicked his head at the door. “Guess he wouldn’t want me to get one. I can see that. People do weird things, right? It’s a fucked up world now.”

“There are dead things walking around. We’ve gotta protect our own. We’re family here.” Outside Shane shifter his chair, turning it away from the door. Grace ignored him but spoke a little louder. He needed to hear it too. “Some of us knew each other before this but some of us were strangers a few months ago. I just don’t want anything ruining that.” It was almost more threatening than she wanted it to sound. She’d meant for it to come off as them being a strong united group but instead came off as Randall being a threat to that.

“You’re lucky.” Randall whispered quietly, hanging his head. “People change. This world changes people.” His voice wasn’t embarrassed or worried, he just seemed honest.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You tied me up. That’s old world illegal.” He grinned. “You’ve got a cop with you right?”

“Two of them.” Grace corrected. “Sheriff’s Deputies.”

“Whatever. You’re keeping me against my will, bound in a shed. Threatening my life. You ain’t so innocent as you think you are. We all got our way to survive out there.”

She set the plate back down on her legs, the spoon dropping out of her hand, holding the last bit of mashed potatoes. “So you survived out there? That’s all?”

“What are you getting at?”

“You worry people here. Those men you were with, they talked about some things that got people here thinking that you might be dangerous. We don’t need dangerous. We’re trying to survive just like you say you are.”

Randall looked up at her, eyes calculating. He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “I wasn’t with those men.”

“Didn’t seem like it. You begged them for help before they left you behind to die.”

“Yeah, I was just running with them ‘cause they found me and said they’d take me in. Told ya I don’t like knives. See there was this one guy, he really liked them.”

“He liked knives?” Grace’s stomach began to churn.

The boy shrugged, unaware that the woman sitting across from him knew a whole lot more about people who liked knives than he thought she did. “He had all kinds. Think he was some sort of collector before it all but he picked up some along the way.”

“So he killed walkers with knives?”

“Walkers,” Randall rolled the word around in his mouth and shrugged again. “Sure. We all killed a bunch. They were everywhere. People’ve got all sorts of demons. They’re closer to the surface now.”

Grace knew. Her heart was racing, palms slick against the Styrofoam she was clutching like a lifeline. She kept waiting for Shane to come racing in the door to stop this but she knew he didn’t know. He couldn’t have known. When they first found out about the girls getting cut up, it was decided that the girls, especially Ashley, deserved the privacy of keeping the details secret. The women at the Halverson house knew and Merle knew because Grace had told Daryl and he didn’t keep anything from his brother, but no one at this farm knew about the girls getting cut. Still, she could see how Shane had twisted toward them, staring through the door. Grace caught his eyes, he was looking at her with a mix of concern and revulsion.

The bound boy didn’t notice the other man was paying much closer attention now. He looked up at Grace, almost smirking at her through the hair matted down on his forehead. “He woulda liked you. See you’re really pretty. He liked ‘em like that.”

“Enough!”

Grace jump as Shane threw himself into the shed  and launched himself at Randall. She’d dropped the plate on the floor. Even without knowing about the girls, there was no hiding the threat in Randall’s voice. She hadn’t meant to set him off but clearly now he was sending a message.

That group I was with, they could fuck you up.

“I got her Grace.” Mandy stuck out her bottom lip and pushed herself closer to her sister, the other girl half laying on her and sobbing. It wasn’t the first time Grace had been in to check on the girls when one of them woke-up screaming from nightmares. Mandy seemed more and more determined to care for her big sister, especially as their father didn’t seem to be improving much. The fourteen year old seemed to have pushed all thoughts of her own attack to the back of her mind. Grace watched from the doorway as Mandy shifted Ashley.

“It’s okay, Ash. I got you.” Mandy whispered, petting her sister’s hair. There were four solar lamps glowing brightly in the room throwing shadows around, but the girls felt safer if they could see. No one felt comfortable with the idea yet, but Grace hoped in the next few weeks to slowly replace the lamps with knives or some other small weapon. Something the girls could take with them and use to defend themselves. Something that wouldn’t leave them feeling like victims any more.

“Are you sure?” Grace wondered. She’d stayed plenty of times before. Someone was always willing to wake-up and run to the girls just in case it was more than a nightmare. They needed to feel safe in this house after all.

Mandy nodded, her black eyes had almost faded now. She was stubborn, that was for sure. Once the girls had been put into the same room they clung tightly to each other, protecting one another. Still this was the first time either had given permission for someone to leave them before the situation was resolved. “Go back to sleep.”

“I’m just down the hall.” Grace offered, just in case the girls needed reminding. “Come get me if something changes.”

“It was just a nightmare,” Mandy spat out almost bitterly and Grace grimaced.

“It’s okay to come get me though.” Just a nightmare. There was no unseen group of attackers chasing them. No one planning to rape and beat them to death.

A week didn’t seem like a long time but as she collapsed onto the mattress for the fourth time that night, Grace could feel just how long those seven days had been.

Daryl was right; Rick didn’t want to leave the farm now. There were the girls on this farm and they had Randall to contend with at Hershel’s. Even though Grace had conflicting emotions on the Randall front, she agreed with Rick that the kid probably just got caught up with some crazy fuckers. After all they had Shane and he tended to slip further and further from the man he’d once been. This world, it changed people. It brought out all their best and worst points with a vengeance. Shane seemed to flip back and forth between being a warm, caring man and being a total prick. You never knew which Shane you would get.

She was lucky that Daryl and Merle had both leaned toward the light side, a single wrong move and they could have gone the other way. If Merle had stuck with drugs or Daryl hadn’t been given a chance to prove himself, they could have easily become as twisted as Shane.

“She’s gonna scream down the house one uh these days.” Daryl groaned, rolling Grace closer to him, arm wrapped firmly around her waist. It was reassuring to know that even in the dark Daryl sought her out. Their “bedroom” was nearly pitch black without the keychain LED flashlight Grace kept on a stretchy band around her wrist. It helped to not have to find it when one or both of the girls woke-up screaming in the middle of the night.

“How’s ‘bout ya keep it down yerself over there,” Merle grunted from his own bed. There wasn’t much room in the office. Enough for their two beds after the useless computer desk and filing cabinets had been moved out to the shed. There was little need for tax records and insurance papers when those that enforced them were too busy eating road kill to knock on your door. There wasn’t even enough room for the mattress and a bed for Merle. Instead, Grace and Daryl shared a pile of layered sleeping bags and blankets while Merle shared a smaller pile in the opposite corner. If he wanted to, Merle could usually throw something, socks and pillows being his favourite choice, and hit them with remarkable accuracy and enough force to usually quiet any sort of disturbance to his beauty rest.

Grace pressed herself closer to Daryl, resting her lips next to his ear so she could whisper to him and hopefully save herself a nasty sock to the side of the head. “They’re doing better.”

Daryl gave a snort, “Tha’s better?”

“I was barely gone. The girls seem to want to take care of themselves. I’m starting to worry that they think they’re a burden.” Grace sighed. “Now let me get some sleep. It’ll be sunrise in a few hours and I wanna head over to see everyone.”

“You still wanna go?”

“Of course I do. It’s been a week. They’re sending that Randall kid out and I’d really like to give his leg a look over.”

“Don’t know why yer helpin’ him.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“We’ve got no clue who he is. Should jus’ let Shane take care uh ‘im. Get him outta our hair.”

“He’s been perfectly well behaved from what Merle’s come back with. Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to judge him.” The impact of a crusted ball of cotton hitting Grace’s back made her jump, lurching in Daryl’s arms. “HEY!”

“Hey yerself. This ain’t a fuckin’ slumber party. Ya wanna chatter, take it somewhere else.” The older Dixon grumbled from across the room.

“How’s ‘bout yer the one who heads somewhere else? This here’s our room. Lucky we’ve been sharin’ so long.”

“Thought ya loved me Darylina?” Merle teased his brother. “Ya use ta make me sleep on yer floor ‘cause ya was scared uh the monsters. Ya didn’t even have a fuckin’ closet for them to hide in.”

“Shut it, Merle.” Daryl grabbed the sock and chucked it back across the room. “We ain’t bein’ tha’ loud. Ya’ll was up ‘fore we started talkin’. I know how ya sleep.”

“No one sleeps through a girl screamin’ like that. I got a heart.” Huffing, Merle shuffled around in his corner. “I’m headin’ downstairs. Gonna take a shift on watch seein’ as I can’t sleep none in here.”

The door cracked open and the light from a small lantern spilled into the room as Merle let himself out into the hallway. For just a moment Grace could clearly see Daryl’s amused grin but when the door closed, the room went dark again. With his brother gone, Daryl relaxed back into their bedding, rubbing his face against Grace like a cat.

“Go to sleep, Daryl.” She pushed lightly against him.

“Come on, how long’s it been? We ain’t been alone in a damn long time.”

Sighing, Grace gave Daryl a light kiss, which he immediately tried to deepen. He even went so far as to try and chase her lips as she pulled back from him. “You haven’t seen the girls.”

Daryl exhaled and flopped back down. “I’d never hurt you. I ain’t like that.”

“No, you’re not, so I’d really appreciate if you didn’t push this.” She pressed her lips quickly to his cheek, snuggling into him so he didn’t think that she was somehow scared of him or that she in anyway doubted that he would never hurt her. She had never been more grateful that Daryl was who he was. He had been nothing but gentle and sweet with her, even around all these strangers. He and Merle were both uneasy but still Daryl was always there just when she needed him to be. Even Merle seemed to understand the seriousness of the attack. He and Daryl would wait until Grace was awake, go out hunting for the morning and then split the meat between the two camps. It was usually Merle who drove back and forth between the Halverson house and Hershel’s farm, leaving once their kills were gutted and skinned, making it back just as dark was falling.

Grace didn’t know what Daryl did during his free time in the afternoons his brother was gone. She spent most of her time with the girls. He hunted with Merle sure, but since getting thrown from the horse it was decided that the no one would walk the woods alone any more so he wasn’t out during that time. While Merle could outrun anything he ran into on his bike, when they went out on foot there was little to no escape route. She hadn’t asked Daryl what he did when he wasn’t hunting and his brother was gone. Her life seemed to revolve around sitting in the bedroom Mandy and Ash were sharing with whichever of the other women decided to join them. Mostly it was the moms who took the time; Joss, Sara, Meghan, even Etta struggled her way up the stairs to sit down with the girls for a few moments. They all felt a sort of responsibility to the girls. It was pure maternal instinct. Their mother was long dead and their father slipped in and out of consciousness. He hadn’t even been awake long enough for them to tell him that his daughters were still alive and slowly recovering.

The other woman would stray upstairs to the bedroom occasionally, but they came with a nervousness of saying or doing the wrong thing. Something that would set the girls off and make a scene. Charlene avoided the room completely, taking full responsibility for the children when their mothers were busy. She was determined that the kids would be able to play outside and no matter what she was doing when they asked her, she would drop it to stand guard while they kicked a ball around the yard or played tag. Hide and seek was an inside only game, they couldn’t have the children hiding somewhere where they might find trouble. She could barely even acknowledge that Ashley and Mandy were in the house.

Grace on the other hand couldn’t seem to forget they were in the house. Her nightmares had switched from walkers in the barn to being alone at rest stops and being attacked by faceless humans. Humans seemed to be a much worse threat now that she’d seen what a group of them could do. The worst part of it was not knowing when or if another group would even find them. There was no sign of Randall’s group or the one who had attacked the girls. The boy wouldn’t tell them much about his group other than that he’d only gotten caught up with them because he had no one else to turn to. Merle said the kid kept pretty quiet about things.

“Ya still ain’t sleepin’, are ya?” Daryl whispered, startling Grace.

Tiredly she shook her head. “Thinking.”

“Well stop it. Ya wanted to get some sleep didn’t ya?”

Grace exhaled, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “Too much on my mind.”

Daryl gave a small chuckle. Flattening his hands out on her back, he rubbed her shoulders gently.  Grace gave a small whine at the contact and sank further into the bedding. Back rubs were just another one of those things that Daryl was good at but he never advertized. As he continued to work out the tension in her muscles, Grace felt her eyes drooping. Just as she was starting to drift off she heard Daryl chuckle again and whisper. “Was hopin’ this would get me laid.”

“Keep hoping,” Grace smiled, absently kissing whatever skin lay next to her mouth.

“Ya sure?”

“Pretty sure but if you leave a message I’ll get back to you when I’m conscious again.”

“Fine,” Daryl snorted but kissed Grace’s hair and kept his fingers working their magic until she really did fall asleep.

-break-

When Grace woke-up the next morning she was alone buried in their bedding. Outside the window the sun was bright and outside the door the sound of people moving around the house was clear. Daryl had gotten up before her, leaving her to sleep. The blankets beside her were cool to the touch so she had definitely slept well though him leaving. Grace shrugged on a sweatshirt and wrapped one of the blankets around her shoulders. Because the days were still warm enough they only left a fire burning at night for some extra warmth. It meant they slept comfortably at night but waking up in the early morning was sometimes a chilly affair.

Quietly, Grace let herself out into the hall, nearly running straight into Joss.

“Morning,” Joss smiled sleepily. “Heading out?”

There was no indoor plumbing in the house. They hadn’t lucked out the way Hershel’s people had with extra fuel for the generators to keep the wells pumping water inside. There was a hand pump outside but it was easier to dig a latrine rather than to keep full buckets on hand to flush the toilet. Not to mention it was a waste of their clean water. That meant that the only bathrooms were the ones outside and with everything that had happened trips needed to be made using the buddy system.

“Was thinking about it.” Grace smiled back. “Figured I’d just find Daryl.”

“I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve really lucked out with him. He’s been great to have around here the last week.” Joss was grinning but Grace felt a tug in her stomach.

She’d heard it all week. Daryl this, Merle that. For whatever reason the Dixons brothers were starting to gather a really cult following here. It made Grace’s stomach flip sort of half pleased, half uncomfortably. She’d always known that Daryl was a good person, rough around the edges but all around good. In the past little while she had seen Merle start to fill in the rather large gaps in his conscience. He wasn’t Daryl, but in his own way Merle had settled into himself. This group had never seen an angry outburst or heard one of Merle’s drug fuel tirades. The way Merle and Daryl were seen here was a lot closer to how Grace saw them. She never had to defend her choices or the men. A certain respect came from being willing to hunt and protect for them. It almost made Grace uncomfortable how much second-hand praised she received on their behalf. Very few people at the other camp seemed to realize just how far they had come. Everyone still walked on eggshells and expected the worst, especially from Merle.

That judgment hadn’t made an appearance here though. The disconnect between the two groups allowed for almost a perfect fresh start. It would be interesting to see what really did happen when they came together finally but for now, Grace got to be embarrassed receiving all the praise she knew Merle and Daryl weren’t letting anyone give them.

Sucking up the courage to act normal, Grace smiled back. “Well no matter how great he is, if you want privacy, we’d better go outside quickly before he finds out I’m up. Otherwise he’s going to want to come and protect us.” Daryl didn’t let Grace out of the house on her own very often and Merle didn’t seem too pleased about the idea either. Since finding out about the girls and the father getting attacked, they’d both been extremely cautious when watching where the women went and if they were able to defend themselves.

-Break-

“I wonder if the cold nights are starting to keep them away.” Grace stomped her boots as she came back into the house, leaning down to untie them.

“We don’t see a lot of activity until later in the morning or even afternoon now.”  The other woman slid her own boots off and  set them neatly in line, Grace noted both Daryl and Merle’s. At least she knew the boys were inside. They had respect for Etta and her house, neatly leaving their grubby work boots at the door when they came in and even on occasion leaving them on the porch when they were really muddy. It was a respect that Grace had seen the brothers give rarely and only with great caution. “What do you think that means about winter?”

“If we get a cold year it’ll be hard on us but just maybe it’ll be hard on the walkers as well.”

“Hopefully  cold for everyone else too.” Joss whispered. “I just hope wherever that other group is, they’ve moved on. No one’s seen anything...” She got quiet as they stepped into the kitchenbut Grace knew exactly which other group she was talking about – the one that had attacked the girls and their father.

Meghan was standing at the counter and fixing a couple of bowls for her son and nephews, who were sitting quietly on the bench at the kitchen table. JJ and Owen sat off to one side while the younger boys, Caleb and Darius crashed action figures together. Grace had wondered more than once about asking Rick if Carl could spend an afternoon with them. It would be good for him to be around some boys his own age and JJ and Owen seemed just about ready to be done with having to play with their younger cousins.

“Hey, are you two just coming back from the hole?” Meghan smiled, adding dry cheerios to the bowls and chopped up peaches.

“Yeah are the little girls not up yet?” Joss asked about Keira, Alicia and Seanassy, while kissing a protesting Owen on the head. Owen swatted his mom and whined in complaint. She just laughed though, brushing a hand over the tightly cut curls.

“Not yet. Seany was up last night and I think she might have woken them up. I figured I’d just let them sleep if they need it. Surprised to see you up, Grace. I hear you coming in and out of the room last night.”

Grace shrugged, “I don’t think anyone sleeps well anymore. I envy them being able to sleep in. I feel like I’m up at the slightest sound.”

“Tell me about it. Between everything going on, I’m up half the night and there’s no time to sleep during the day.” Meghan stifled a yawn, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. You want something to eat. There’s plenty here.”

“Are they Honey Nut,” Merle’s chipper voice came from the doorway, “Gracie don’t like the plain ones.” Merle’s frame filled the kitchen doorway. Propped on his hip supported by his good arm was little Seanassy, thumb tucked in her mouth and her head resting against Merle’s shoulder. Grace’s jaw went slack but no one else seemed to notice anything out of the odd.

“Morning Merle,” Meghan grinned widely at the man holding her toddler. “Hey there baby-girl.”

“Was upstairs gettin’ dressed an’ she was fussin’ in there so I figured I’d bring her down with me. Other two are still sleepin’.” Merle shrugged, almost timidly.

The mom opened her arms to her daughter. “Hopefully it’ll save us having cranky girls this afternoon. Come see mama, I’ll get you something to eat.”

“I got her.” Merle offered, dropping into one of the empty chairs at the table. “Go on an’ finish that.”

It was like the Twilight Zone. A well-mannered Merle Dixon snuggling not only a toddler but a half-black one to boot. Grace couldn’t help but find herself staring. A few months ago she wouldn’t have believed it if someone had brought her photographic proof but there it was, clear as day in front of her. As she watched, Merle leaned over and scooped up a Jessie doll from the Toy Story movies that the boys had discarded for their action heroes. He offered it to the little girl who grabbed it firmly, twisting so she could look at it, her little lips quirking up around her thumb.  

“Go on and grab a seat, you two.” Meghan offered to Joss and Meghan starting to put bowls down on the table. Grace twitched at the sudden voice breaking through her focus. As the four boys thanked Megan, Grace gave herself a shake and sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the table so she could watch Merle. Was there a metaphoric opposite to a car accident because this wasn’t so terrible that she couldn’t look away, it was more surreally wonderful.

She’d watched Merle with Claire and knew that one of the reasons he went back to the farm was to check up on her. He was protective in his own way. Offhandedly she had mentioned one night that maybe a visit from Beth and Claire would help the two girls in their care here feel normal again but at that point they hadn’t known if the girls would even pull through. Merle had been quite firm on keeping them separate until they were better able to figure out Ash and Mandy. His excuse was that it was bad enough that Grace put herself in harm’s way, and that they didn’t need anyone else to be at risk. To tell the truth, Grace was sure that Merle felt responsible for the girl. She’d heard him talk about taking care of Daryl when his brother was little but Grace was sure that Merle was exaggerating. Now she could see that there might be a shred of truth under those tall tales. Given the opportunity Merle was, apparently, able to step outside of his typical distrust of strangers and intolerance of people in general to go well above and beyond.

And he was doing it all with a smile.

The bright sort of ear to ear grin that someone didn’t even know they were given. The smile of someone truly enjoying themselves. Not a smirk or sneer. A warm, inviting smile. With his free hand, Merle had grabbed, appropriately, the bright green Hulk and was bashing away on the boys’ toys as they fought back against him laughing the whole time. Just a few months ago, if Merle had grabbed a child’s toy it would have been to break or take it. Now apparently, he not only snuggled toddlers, he played with action figures as well. Would wonders ever cease?

“Here you go.” Meghan passes a bowl to her and Grace snapped her eyes away from Merle.

“Thanks,” she managed to choke out.

The other woman smiled softly, “He’s great with them isn’t he? You’d never think it looking at him. I thought for sure he was a Hell’s Angel or something; with the wings on his vest and that bike. He’s been good though. They love him.”

“I wish I had a camera.” Grace muttered. “I’ve known him for years and I wouldn’t have even thought to let a child near him.”

Meghan nodded, “When Carol was here she was talking about some of the people at your camp. I can’t see the man she described when she was talking about Merle. Daryl’s a little standoffish but they’re really good around here. How long have you known them exactly? I’ve been wondering how Merle was when Claire was younger.”

“What’d you mean?” Grace was confused. She had talked about Claire a few times but she hadn’t realized Merle had as well.  “I don’t know if Merle even really knew her when she was younger.”

“That makes sense. He doesn’t seem like the settle down and get married type. I just assumed that he must have been in the picture from how much he seems to pay attention to Seany in particular. He’s forever carrying around whenever she asks him too. I’m surprised his arms haven’t fallen off.”

“You know that Merle isn’t Claire’s father, right?” Grace’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“What?”

“He’s not her father. She’s the daughter of one of Merle friends from back home but she’s definitely not his daughter.”

“Really?” Meghan seemed completely shocked. “I just assumed from how he talks about her. I mean he calls her “my girl” all the time and I know she’s far too young for it to be anything non-platonic. I guess I just figured that he hadn’t been around much or that she lived with her mother. I never would have guess she wasn’t even related to you. Wow!”

Wow was right. In the past five minutes, Grace’s entire perspective on Merle Dixon had been flipped around so many times that thinking about it was sort of making her dizzy. Merle good with children? Merle a father? More specifically a good father who checked up on his child? Was that what Grace was seeing when she worried that Merle was getting too close with Claire? Was it a paternal sort of affection and worry?

It brought into sharp focus the relationships she had formed with everyone in the group, how difficult it had been to be separated from them after being stuck together for so long. Though she was more concerned about the mental state of the two teenagers upstairs, Grace thought daily about how Lori was coping with her pregnancy, if Carol still blamed herself for Ed’s death, how Sophia was adjusting to her the new freedoms she and her mother had, how Claire was doing without them, how Carl was healing, if Beth was coming to terms with the new world, if Shane had started to return to his old self, if Rick was adjusting to having his family back, how Andrea was handling missing Amy… the list went on. She worried about each of them in turn and all at once sometimes. It was the same sort of responsibility she had felt to Merle when Grace was starting to realize that she really did want a relationship with Daryl. She’d used the word there before and it was no different now.

They were family.

Each and every member of that group and, now slowly, this one as well. These were people she loved and cared and worried for. Ones she wanted to help keep safe and fed and happy.  She’d never had siblings, only a few cousins that she saw on special occasions. Grace had never been part of a large, multi-generation family but that was what they seemed to be becoming. There were no titles for them, no aunts and uncles or cousins and there it was only rarely that there was blood shared but after watching the Halversons interact for a week, that was how Grace saw their own group. Together they were one big family, responsible for each other, and if she could convince Hershel and Rick that then maybe there would be less of a struggle to come together. After all it was hard to say no to family.

-break-

“I missed everyone,” Grace admitted as she and Daryl were getting into the truck. Merle had gone ahead already, driving down the road to draw any walkers that might be wandering it away with the sound of the bike before they were attracted closer by the more difficult to manoeuvre truck. They’d tried to make the road more difficult to navigate by someone in a vehicle by moving wrecked or abandoned cars and making the area seem as if it had been completely abandoned.  On foot it was fairly simple though there was always the threat of something lurking in the shadows. Merle had no problem navigating the mess on his bike. He’d been the one to construct most of the staged mess. He showed a remarkable ability to actually work together with the group. Merle had been a leader to them, a teacher, explaining the best ways to make it seem like the cars were left by accident.

“Ain’t so bad here,” Daryl shrugged, hauling himself into the truck. “Glad we found more decent folk. You couldn’ta run inta better people if ya tried.”

“When do you think we’ll start clearing out the subdivision? It’d be nice to have a place for everybody before winter. We don’t have too much longer before it’s too cold to move around like this.” The mornings had been staying colder longer, it was noon most days before Grace was warm enough to take off her sweatshirt. Everyone stayed closer to the houses and buildings as well. The brothers had started complaining that there were fewer and fewer animals as the forests slowly shifted to winter.

“Dunno why Rick’s so stuck on that farm. Hershel’s a vet, not a fuckin’ doctor. Yer better off than him ain’t cha?”

“While I appreciate the vote of confidence, I’d have to give him the credit there. As far as human complications I’m not sure how much either of us can do but he’s most definitely been to more births than I have. Between him, myself and Carol I think we’d actually be able to manage it. Rick might have a point in wanting to stay on his good side.”

“But ya’ll could do it without him. Not sayin’ it would be pretty but ya could, right? I mean ya was gonna have a baby yerself without a doctor.”

Grace swallowed. What Daryl was saying was sort of true but they’d also still sort of hoped that someone would rescue them at some point. After everything had happened with Jenner and the CDC, that hope had gone away. Grace knew that Lori worried about there not being doctors and nurses in a proper hospital instead of the couple of women with almost no experience and a veterinarian in an old farm house. “I guess.”

“Shit,” He muttered sucking in a breath. “Didn’t think. Shouldn’ta brought up the baby. Yer in rough enough shape.”

“It’s not that,” she insisted. “I just keep forgetting that there’s a future. I don’t even think of down the road because I know we’ll handle it when we get there. I just want everything to be alright now instead of giving it time to happen. I don’t like not knowing. What if the group that attacked those girls is still around here? With us so far away, we’d never know that something was happening until it was too late.”

“The girls are healing?” Daryl asked quietly, staring out at the road, driving carefully to avoid the cars.

“Physically. I can’t even start to imagine what they’re like emotionally. I’m not a therapist, Daryl. I just don’t know what else I can do to help them. And their dad, he’s barely there. I don’t know if he’s shutdown as a coping mechanism or if he has brain damage from everything that happened. I’m worried about leaving them but I hate not knowing with everyone else. If we weren’t all in one place I wouldn’t have to pick.” Even to Grace, her voice sounded strained. It was just too much worrying and stress over everyone else and she felt caught in between her family and doing the right thing for these girls.  

“Dunno what to tell you,” Daryl cleared his throat. “Can’t say it won’t be hard or that it’s gonna get fixed...”

“I don’t need that. I just, thank you for putting up with me right now. I know I’m not doing the best job paying attention to you or what you need.” Suddenly Grace was overcome with guilt. She should have just slept with him last night. She would have enjoyed it, Daryl always made sure she got off at least once even if he was just looking for a quick fuck to release tension. She was ignoring him over these girls. After everything that he’d put up with and helped her through, she owed it to him to give a little instead of just taking all the time. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to just sleep with him. “I’m sorry about last night.”

“What’d ya mean?”

“We should have had sex. I shouldn’t have been so selfish. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“Carter,” he growled, “stop it. Shit. That ain’t what I was tryin’ to do last night. Weren’t tryin’ ta guilt ya inta doin’ somethin’ ya didn’t wanna. I jus’, ah fuck it.” Daryl slammed on the brakes and put the truck into park. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’ anymore.” He admitted, turning to her with a pained expression. “Ya gotta help me some ‘cause I’m lost over this relationship stuff.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong though. I could have given a bit. It’s been forever.”

“Tha’s jus’ it. It ain’t been tha’ long. Not really.” Daryl dragged his hands through his hair, turning it into a stuck up mess. “Ya always came to me before. Ain’t been doin’ much uh that lately. Guess I was feelin’ left out. You’ve always had more friends than me but ya always took time out for jus’ us two. I see ya an’ I knowng yer busy and freakin’ out over everythin’ but I jus’ missed ya coming ta me is all. There’s always someone else, yer a people person an’ I ain’t. Yer always keepin’ someone nearby an’ last night when Merle walked out I jus’ grabbed at tha’ chance for it to be us two again. Shoulda known ya woulda come to me if ya’d wanted it.”

He was miserable, that was easy enough to see, and it only made Grace regret the night before even more. She knew that Daryl doubted everything between them no matter how often she told him that she did need him. He needed to be shown and by focusing her own worry into caring for the girls, she’d completely forgotten to reassure Daryl. Grace slid across the seat, her hand stretching out to rest over the one Daryl was gnawing on nervously. “I love you,” she whispered kissing his knuckles and then the little star. “It’s always going to be you and me. Even if I seem like I’m not into things right now. I could never forget about you. I couldn’t live without you.”

“Don’t say that!” Daryl scolded, his voice harsh. “I ain’t always gonna be here. Shit happens, Carter. There’s fuckin’ dead people walkin’ ‘round. Somethin’ happens to me I wanna know yer gonna be alright. Ain’t no opting out.”

“Shhhh,” Grace leaned over to kiss him gently. “Didn’t mean anything like that. I guess it’s not so romantic in this world. Just know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If we get a week or if we have fifty more years, I will always want you. I just need to stop taking you for granted.”

Daryl’s lips quirked up, “Ya can take me however ya damn well please.”

“Shut-up,” lightly Grace smacked his arm. “I just have to remember that you aren’t a mind-reader any more than I am. If I want you to open up about things like this then I’ve gotta talk to you about stuff that’s bothering me as well. That’s what relationships are about. Next time I seem distracted and you get me alone, try asking me about it. Knowing us, we’ll end up having sex any way. Just don’t open with it.”

“Tol’ ya’ll I weren’t no good at relationships.”

“We both need practice. It’s strange enough that we’re trying this without everything else going on. There’s going to be a learning curve.” She smiled up at him cheekily. “I’m prescribing more alone time for the both of us, when we can manage it, for whatever it is we need, if that’s talking or sex or both.”

“Merle can sleep somewhere else tonight,” Daryl pointed out. “Fuckin’ cockblock he is.”

“Or we spend the night in the truck. We’ve just got to make it work.”

Daryl nodded, tugging on her arm and pulling her against his chest, “Agreed,” He gave her a quick peck. “More us time when we can get it.”

“Dare,” Grace warned, but Daryl had already dipped into scrape his teeth against her neck. His stubble traced a path up to her jaw as Daryl attempted to devour her. Grace found herself pressing closer, suddenly all her reluctance was gone. It would be quick and messy but they could do this here like horny teenagers. Careful not to knee anything, she swung a leg over his lap to straddle him, pressing down enough to show him exactly what she was thinking. Daryl hummed in appreciation, grinding up into the seam of her jeans. The hand that had been holding hers, slid up her arm and over her shoulder to the back of her head. Then suddenly both of Daryl’s hands were tangling in her hair, pulling her head down to his. His mouth was insistent, tongue sweeping into her mouth to twist and slide against hers. Grace whined and pressed back just at hard into him, hips rocking.

One of Daryl’s hands wasn’t holding her in place against him anymore. Instead it had trailed downward to cup her breast, tweaking her nipple through her shirt and bra, rubbing and kneading. The space was tight, Grace was a lot closer to Daryl than she usually liked to be, the steering wheel ghosting against her back if she shifted wrong, but they both needed it.

She really had been wrong to turn him down the night before. Sex may not fix everything but it sure as hell made the difficult things a lot easier to handle.

Grace worked her hands down between them trying to find Daryl’s belt buckle. All she had to do was get it undone then work his pants down enough. She’d have to figure out a way to shift her own off. It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, for sure, but usually they were coming home from a bar and she was wearing a skirt. There weren’t many reasons to wear a skirt anymore but Grace was missing them right now.

Daryl was panting hot against her cheek now. Roughly he lifted Grace, dumping her onto the seat next to him and practically throwing himself on top of her. Her breath rushed out with the force but Daryl wasn’t letting up. He grabbed her shirt pushing it upwards, pressing his face into the skin between her breasts, biting at the fabric holding the two cups of her bra together and liking at the skin under it.

“Can’t take everything off,” she warned. “Not enough time and we’re exposed out here.”

Daryl mumbled something that Grace only half caught as “I’ll show ya exposed” before he popped the button on her jeans with well practiced ease and shoved her jeans down. They stopped at her knees as they bunched, fabric stopped by her boots.

“Boots,” she reminded him as he seemed to have completely forgotten them.

“Fuck,” he growled pulling up first one leg, then the other, taking the boots and pant legs off at the same time. His own pants were sliding now, the light grey briefs underneath showing a good couple of inches above his waist band. Grace lifted her hips and shimmied out of her own underwear, completely naked from the waist down now on the bucket seat of Daryl’s truck.  Daryl’s smirked as he brought leaned across her, reaching to open the glove compartment and pull out a couple of stashed condoms. He took one, leaving the rest for another time and slammed the compartment closed again. Working his own pants down to his knees, Daryl push his underwear down, grabbing his dick eagerly as it bobbed out.

His tongue poked out in concentration as Daryl ripped open the package and rolled the condom down over himself. The moment it was in place, Grace pushed him back into the driver’s seat, sliding a leg over him to settling in his lap. Daryl groaned as they bucked against each other.

“I want you,” Grace panted, voice rough.

Daryl growled back, “Lemme figure this out then. Fuckin’ tight.”

“Me or the truck.”

Daryl snarled then, yanking her hard against him and pushing himself into her roughly. Grace gasped at the intrusion. Whatever he had been talking about, it was a tight fit. He’d always been pleasingly above average but somehow Daryl seemed larger than usual. There was a satisfying ache that she was sure would remind her for a while that they had fucked in the truck. Grace’s mind tried to sort through when the last time they had actually had sex. Between everything that had happened, Grace and Sophia’s separation, Daryl healing from his fall and now the girls, it had to be close to three weeks.

Daryl’s head rested against her shoulder, tongue darting out to lick at the space behind her ear. “Too much?” He whispered, stubble harsh against her cheek.

Grace sighed and shifted, pushing against his shoulders so she could lift up, “OH!” she moaned as she slid back down around him, “I’m good. It’s been way too long though. Gotta remember how to do this.”

“Yer doin’ pretty well right now.”

“Oh really?” Grace rose up on her knees and slid back down trying to squeeze his dick as tightly as she could.

“Fuck,” Daryl spluttered, “yeah, I’d say ya ain’t forgotten too much.”

“Forgot how good you feel,” she gasped, meeting the buck of Daryl’s hips. Grace moaned and Daryl snaked an arm up to twist in her hair, tugging her mouth down on to his and nipping almost viciously.

“Less talkin’, more mmmm,” Daryl groaned into her mouth. “Can’t stay out here forever. Ain’t safe.”

She caught his fingers, leaned back against the steering wheel and guided his hand down between their bodies. “Better be quick then.” Daryl pushed his fingers against her, rubbing furiously against her clit as she rode him. Already her muscled were tensed and ready, her breath catching in her throat with each twist of Daryl’s fingers. She only had to drop herself down onto him a few more times before the first waves of her orgasm rolled through her. As soon as he felt her cumming, Daryl twisted their bodies, flipping her to the side and laying her back on the passenger seat so he could pound into her, snapping his hips. With a few more uneven thrusts Daryl came with a grunt, face pressed into her neck.

Grace wrapped her legs and arms around him, holding Daryl tight to her body as they both came down from their high, panting heavily. A quick, messy fuck in the front seat of his truck that ended with Daryl pressed hard into her was exactly what they’d needed. It was odd how in the middle of some much craziness a simple quickie just made everything seem less urgent. Daryl rubbed up against her shifting and grumbling but holding on tightly as if he didn’t plan on moving.

They had to get going though. Not that anyone knew when they were supposed to be getting to the other farm but they were waiting for them and somewhere up the road ahead of them was Merle. Fuck, Merle. He knew about when they had planned on leaving and would no doubt start to wonder if it took them too long to show up. What if he wondered what was taking so long and circled around? He’d laugh his ass off if he found them stopped in the middle of a deserted back road covered in sweat, still half dressed and well fucked.

“Merle,” Grace gasped, pushing at Daryl.

Daryl looked down at her, his expression wounded. “M’Daryl.”

“No, fuck, I know that, Dare,” she struggled to sit up.

Daryl grimaced as he slipped from her, his forehead wrinkled in confusion, eyes squinting. “Tha hell ya talkin’ ‘bout?” He slumped back into his seat.

“Your brother is waiting for us.”

“So?” He spat back, clearly frustrated.

“So when he shows up here and your pants are around your knees it’s not going to be pretty. I’d rather avoid that.” She bent down and picked her underwear off the floor turning it the right way around so she could slip them up her legs.

Daryl scowled, tugging the condom off and rolling down the window to drop it outside. “Coulda said it different. Ain’t right you shoutin’ ‘bout Merle after we...” he grumbled, lifting his hips so he could tug his pants back into place. Harshly he tightened his belt.

Grace couldn’t help but bite back her smile. He was being such a crank about it. She got why he was upset but she hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly. It just came out. That he even thought for a moment she would shout Merle’s name in passion rather that frustration was hilarious. “Hey,” she crawled over to him. Resting her cheek against his shoulder she snuggled her face against his neck. “I love you.” She purred. “Only you.” Trying to distract him she licked along his ear. “It’s not my fault I can’t think straight after you fuck me like that. That I cum so hard my brain scrambles and I can’t put words together. Whose fault would that be hmmm?”

Daryl swallowed hard and reached for the keys in the ignition. “Put yer pants back on.”

Ouch, that hurt. Complete rejection. “I really didn’t mean it.”

“Fuck, Grace, put yer pants back on before we end up doin’ it again.” Daryl snapped, hands grabbing out for her to pull her in for a harsh kiss. When he pulled back and licked his lips, he was grinning. “For the love of God, put ‘em back on.”

“Fine,” she leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, falling back into her seat and struggling to get her pants on as the truck started to move forward again.

They were almost past the pile-up when Daryl spoke again, eyes still straight ahead, “Yer damn lucky I love you.”

-break-

Merle was sitting on the front porch when they pulled into the yard. As they were getting out of the truck, he jumped down off the stairs and hollered, “Took ya damn long enough!”

“I’s a truck Merle. Can’t go flyin’ ‘round way ya do.”

“Let Gracie drive. Better driver than you anyway.”

“Fuck off, Merle.” Daryl flipped up the back of the truck pulling out the tarp he’d rolled around the meat he was bringing with him. “Where’s Rick?”

“In the house with the good doctor.” Merle chuckled, “I’m gonna take Gracie to see the kids a’right? Carol’s got ‘em out looking fer eggs in the chicken shack, kay? They wanna see her.”

Daryl gave Grace a quick glance to make sure she was okay with it before he nodded. “Meet ya there?” he asked.

“Yeah sure. I wanna see them too. See you in a bit then.” Ignoring both Merle and Daryl’s discomfort, Grace gave the younger Dixon a quick peck and shoved him gently away from her. Daryl’s cheeks were pink as he turned toward the house.

“Come on Gracie-girl,” Merle smirked, “le’s bring ya ta see the kiddies.” He glanced over his shoulder at Daryl’s form as his brother carried the tarp up to the house. “Glad ya finally made up.”

“What’d you mean?”

Merle looked at her confused, “Ain’t ya been fightin’? Daryl’s been a little bitch tha past few days. Figured he weren’t gettin’ none.”

Grace’s eyes went wide. “Merle!”

“What? Can’t tell me he ain’t whiney when he ain’t gettin’ laid.”

“That’s none of your business.” She kicked a rock out of her way. “No, we weren’t fighting.”

“Weren’t fuckin’ neither,” Merle pointed out cheerfully.

“It’s none of your business, Merle.”

“An’ yer cranky no matter what,” he raised an eyebrow in smug challenge.

“I hate you,” she gave him a hard shove, but she was laughing. He was wrong about her being cranky. Suddenly she was a fantastic mood, which she would not admit to him but probably did in fact have a lot to do with getting laid finally. A little bit of intimacy went a long way.

Her push must have caught Merle off guard because he actually missed a step and stumble a bit. “Hey!” he protested, “Ain’t gotta be so rough!” As if she had actually hurt him, he rubbed his arm with a pout.

“Baby,” she teased, walking on toward the chicken coop.

“Bitch,” he shot back, catching up with her in a few short steps.

“Speaking of children,” Grace mused aloud, “what’s your game?” It wasn’t accusatory, she was honestly just curious about what she had seen.

“Huh?” Merle looked at her with a confused expression that almost perfectly matched Daryl’s from earlier in the truck.

She just shrugged, “This morning with Seanassy. You don’t even like kids.”

“I like some kids,” He protested forcefully. “Ain’t playin’ no games. They’s good people Gracie. Like being ‘round there ‘cause they treat me damn well better than mos’ folk here do. Weren’t for tha condition uh those girls I’da moved Claire-girl over there the second we started stayin’ there. I don’ like it here.” He lifted his hand. His wrist was healed enough from the cuffs that he didn’t need to wear a bandage anymore but the skin was still pink and new. More than likely he’d have another scar there. “These people don’t think I’m worth shit. I fucked up too much”

Grace bit her lip. It was true really. While she was coming around to accepting Merle and all his faults, few people in this group were. He was still a loose cannon to them, ready to blow at any time. “You could try fixing things.”

Merle chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “Reputation like that dies hard, Gracie. I’ve been worthless my whole life. Dixon name is garbage. Why else ya think Daryl’s always followed ya ‘round like a puppy. Ya never listened ta the shit people said ‘bout him.”

She shook her head, “People change. You’ve changed a lot. I always thought you were a good for nothing asshole but you’ve managed to turn that around. Other people will see it!”

“Nah, too much damage done. It’ll always stick in their minds tha’ I was methed out an’ locked up on tha’ roof. Can’t go makin’ new first impressions. Bes’ if I jus’ keep ta myself ‘round here ‘till we gotta move on.” He shrugged but Grace could tell it bothered him. She’d never seen Merle bothered by something someone thought about him. Hell, she’d never seen him try to make a good impression but clearly he was trying. He reminded her of Daryl when she had first meet him, how nervous Daryl had been about how people looked at him but stubborn enough to not let it show. All he had needed was a friend willing to give him a chance. Maybe if she’d started paying a little bit of attention to what was going on around her, she would have noticed that Merle was trying a lot harder than she’d ever guess he could and that Daryl was feeling rejected.

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” Merle froze, absolutely confused. “Ya’ll get hit on the head or somethin’?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just... I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to make them accept you. If I hadn’t have been so stuck in the past, maybe I could have seen how much you’ve changed. I should have given you another chance instead of judging you all the time. It just made things worse. You’re right, they won’t forget who you used to be easily but you’re not that man any more. You can be better than that.”

Like he hadn’t quite heard her right, Merle shook his head slowly. “The hell, Gracie? Didn’t know yah cared that much.” He gave a forced laugh as if he was trying to keep his calm. Merle’s face stretched into his typical lecherous grin. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say ya liked me or somethin’.” He raised a sneaky eyebrow.

It was fake though, a show to put her off her game and get her off of this topic before Merle was forced to talk more about his feelings or how out of place he felt in the group. He was doing it for her, for Daryl, for Claire. Merle needed his people to be safe and the best way to do that right now was to keep them all together and to do that he needed to keep his own insecurities in check. “Like you?” Grace shook her head, the same fake lying smile on her face that Merle had on his. “Who said I like you? I fuckin’ hate you!”

Merle laughed, tossing an arm around Grace’s shoulder. Pulling her into his side for a one armed hug, he gave her a crooked grin. “Feelin’s mutual, bitch.” The half-a-hug was short, a barely there reminder of how far they’d come. He’d never shown her affection like that before. It had always been a mystery to her why Daryl kept his older brother around through all the bullshit but if this was the Merle that Daryl had known was underneath that entire time, it made a lot more sense why he fought for him. It would have been nice to know him before all the drugs and hard living had worn him down, though she doubted that there had ever been a time when Merle was an innocent child.

They walked side by side the rest of the way to the shed. Inside, over the sounds of displeased chickens, Carol and the children were talking quietly. Grace knocked lightly on the door and pushed it open, “hey you guys, find anything good?”

“Grace!” Sophia dove at her. The little girl hit Grace’s midsection and knocked her backwards a step. “You’re back!”

“I am. Did you miss me?”

“Uh-huh, Claire’s no fun anymore. She just plays with Beth and Jimmy.” Sophia rolled her eyes, flipping her head in a way that said she was turning quickly into a teenager.

Carl shook his head, “they don’t play. They hang-out. Anyway, we play.” He threw her a look of defiance that clearly said, am I not good enough anymore?

“I know that. You’re not a girl though!” Sophia protested, tossing her hands up into the air.

“S’nothin’ against ya, kid. Jus’ how women are.” Merle leaned against the side of the shed. “We stickin’ ‘round here or we gonna talk somewhere that ain’t got shit on tha ground?”

“Merle,” Grace scolded lightly and Sophia looked down at her shoes with disgust. “You’re fine,” the woman reassured her before turning to the girl’s mother. “An how’s Carol?”

“Getting alone,” Carol gave her a gracious smile. “Not the same not having you around here,” she chuckled. “Sometimes I used to go days without out seeing friends. Between Sophia’s afterschool activities and,” Carol swallowed, clenched her jaw and stuck her chin out, “and Ed, I just didn’t seem to have the time.”

Sophia was staring at her mom with a look of betrayal, as if even mentioning her abusive father would bring him back. Grace ignored the comment. “Tell me about it. Sometimes I think I was lucky to work at a bar because at least I saw people all shift and it made me feel like I socialized when I got home and just crashed. I don’t know how you managed it with a kid. I never seemed to have time.”

“We’re so used to spending every spare minute with people or at least knowing where everyone is.” Carol nodded with a chuckle. “I wish we had facebook or something. At least we could see updates when you’re... at the other farm.”

“Not much different there than here.” Grace ignored the pause. She knew what Carol wanted to ask but wouldn’t in front of the children. “Looking out for people, finding food, laundry. Same thing, different day.”

“Carol, can we pick one now?” Carl interrupted, his eyes darting around the barn half with excitement and half with nervous energy.

“Pick one what?” Grace wanted to know.

Carol frowned a little, “Hershel says we can have chicken tonight. Celebration for your visit and Randall being well enough to leave. We’re going to cook it while Shane and Rick are gone.” Delicatly she wrinkled her nose. “I just don’t like the thought of choosing which one. Seems cruel. We feed them and come in here and take their eggs and then we eat one.”

“An’ i’s damn tasty. Go on boy,” Merle ran his tongue over his teeth. “Pick one an’ I’ll show ya how ta pluck it an’ gut it.”

“Really?” Carl jumped with excitement. “I get to help?”

“If ya ain’t in the way.”

“I don’t know,” Carol started shaking her head. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

This was it. The chance Grace should have taken weeks ago to help Merle fit into the group. And damn was he ever trying, offering to take Officah Friendly’s son out plucking chickens.  It figured he would start small, the children were more forgiving, they’d barely seen him after all, and Carol would be too once she realized that he was changing. Grace hated to say it but if Carol could stay with Ed, was it really such a far stretch for her to see the potential good in Merle? “I think it’ll be fine.” Grace stepped in. “I don’t want to be the one picking my fingers raw! If you want to do it, you two can sit on the porch and pluck chickens. We’ll need at least two with everyone here.”

“YES!” Carl pumped his fist in the air.

Merle shot Grace a brief, grateful look before turning back to the boy, “gotta be quiet though. Ain’t no need ta scare ‘em. Jus’ mean tha’ way.”

“Yes, sir.” Carl nodded, head bobbing quickly.

“Come on, Carol. I’ll help you and Sophia bring those eggs up to the house. I want to see everyone else.” Carefully Grace led the two away from the shed leaving Carl and Merle alone. As she pulled the door she gave Merle a stern look. This was his chance. Who knew how long it would be before Lori realized her son wasn’t with Carol any more. Who knew what would happen if Rick and Shane realized what was going on. Don’t be stupid, Grace mouthed before latching the door. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping silently that she hadn’t made a really stupid call. “So did you get a lot of eggs?”

“Yeah,” Sophia held out her basket, not aware of the daggers her mother was shooting at Grace. “Look!”

“Wow,” Grace grinned. As long as she played it cool, hopefully no one would cause too much of an argument. “Let’s get them into the house.”

Chapter Thirteen

A year and eight months since the call. How quickly the time seemed to have gone past and yet it seemed like only yesterday that Grace was sitting in the waiting room of Bobby's office building to tell him that she needed to go home. That her mom had cancer and she was leaving Atlanta to spend the weekend with her.

A year and six months since she moved back into her mother's house, into her childhood room, her new furniture too big for the space. A year and a half since she unpacked her things and settled back into the routine of her hometown; familiar streets, teenage grocery store clerks that she'd babysat for and the ladies at church who used to change her diapers. Her world narrowed down to a population of 1,500 give or take a few dozen doctors, nurses and specialists for out of town doctor's appointments.

She had a year and three months longer than the doctors' first prediction. They had been so sure that the pneumonia on top of the cancer treatments would have been the end. They had two hospital Christmases though, the last one only three short months ago. There was a small cactus on the kitchen table marking the occasion. All the flowers were in her house now. Little potted plants and arrangements wishing a speedy recovery. The ones now weren't so cheerful. The sickening smell of cut flowers, starting to wilt the moment they were trimmed.

The past five months the plants had been getting fewer and further between. After the first year, cancer became routine. The questions came less often and with the casual air of "looks like rain today and how are your mother's treatments going?" There were the lies, the ones she told everyone and the ones she told herself. Twenty months of false smiles and lies.

"We're waiting to hear back from General but the initial signs are good."

"They're talking about sending her home for the weekend. We'll be in church on Sunday. She's excited to see everyone again."

"Her lungs are looking better. Not so much fluid."

"This really is for the best. She's getting the care she needs."

"She rests a lot. They're managing the discomfort well. I couldn't be more grateful for everything."

"It seems like a good day today. Mom likes to sit in the green room. She loves the plants there. It's so nice that they offer that to the patients. It really seems to help."

But what was a glass room filled with greenery when outside the reality was a cold, cold winter? It was a lie and in the end, the truth would hit hard.

Eleven months ago, the doctors had convinced her and her mom to sit down with a booklet called, 'Next Steps: Funeral Planning for Terminally Ill Patients'. There had been spaces for hymns and verses. Casket selection and burial garb. Open casket or closed. Cremation or burial. The pall-bearers. Who was going to speak. What church the service would be held at. Who would manage the wake. They'd even taken Grace aside and had her create a plan for informing the distant relatives of her mother's passing. That was the beginning of the end. Not that they had known it then. Her mother had recovered, come home for another six months before plummeting downhill.

They'd had four more months at home before it was decided that hospital care was probably the best term of action. Then one month of hospital before a hospital stay became one in a hospice. The last of Grace's meager savings went to pay for a private room. The space was cramped, the pale blue paint and heavy plastic curtains distorting the view of the park and gardens. Had she made it until spring, her mother would have seen flowers blooming and the garden coming back to life.

Instead she'd had vases and pots on every available surface, making up for the slow decline in visitors. After so long, visits got forgotten, pushed aside for more pressing matters. Biweekly visits become weekly, weekly became monthly and pretty soon you just didn't see them anymore.

There had been a few constant companions. Winston and Elaine Williams. Mary-Kathrine Gary, Susan Peters, and the rest of her mom's church group. Amber, Becky, and her other close home friends. Jen and Vanessa from college kept up with things and Jen had visited just a few weekends ago. Most of her work friends from Atlanta had forgotten her. The phone calls and cards from relatives had mostly stopped after the yearly Christmas cards and New Years well wishes. It was not that they didn't care, the cancer was just old news and with the diagnosis so grim, most people would rather be kept in the dark.

In the end it was better to be alone. They'd made all the arrangements beforehand. Her mother was brain dead. In all senses of the words she was dead-dead except for the machines that still pumped her blood, filled her lungs, and kept her heart beating. On the selfish side of things it was too expensive to keep the machines going. On the compassionate one, her mother had suffered enough and it was time for her to be at peace. They'd called everyone earlier in the week. Family and friends, old work buddies, and distant cousins had all known by Thursday night that if they'd wanted to say goodbye, there was a time limit.

The past ninety-six hours had gone by so quickly that Grace couldn't even remember the funeral. Her house had been packed of relatives as early as Friday night. Those that were close enough to drive in, did so as soon as she started calling. It should have been comforting but it just felt like they were infecting her. Every nook and cranny had people in it. Those that didn't fit in the house were staying at the Motel 6 on the highway.

Her fridge and freezer were so full of food that Amber had taken some of it to her house to put in her deep freezer. There was even a fruit basket on her nightstand for god's sake, probably put there by one of her well-meaning aunts who didn't seem to understand that she just needed some space. Already the guests were starting to leave though. The few that were staying over until Monday morning were in hotels. Her house was growing quieter and quieter. Just her Aunt Pam and Uncle Joey were still wandering around. They only lived forty-five minutes away and Pam was too busy arranging condolence cards and making lists of people to send out thank-yous to be persuaded to leave before she needed to.

It had been one year and eight months since her life started to spiral downward.

As Grace lay on her back in the middle of her bed she noticed that a second light bulb had gone out in her ceiling lamp. There were two burned out now. Another one and she'd be in the dark. She'd been meaning to replace the one for such a long time but now it just seemed to not be worth the effort it would take to get up, leave her bedroom, and risk having to talk to her aunt and uncle. She'd do it once they left or maybe in the morning. In the past few days she'd woken up far too early. It would give her something to do at four thirty when she felt too restless to sleep.

"Grace?" A gentle knock on her door and the sound of Pam's voice made her jump.

"Yes, Aunt Pam?"

"That boy's here to see you again."

Daryl. He'd been so good to her in the past week, sticking close even though her hoard of relatives disturbed him. He'd taken the awkward questions, curious stares, and confused looks with his chin up for the most part. After the funeral itself he'd vanished into the crowd, barely pulling her aside for a moment to tell her that he was leaving. Too many people crammed into the little box of her childhood home. Grace had understood. She wanted to leave with him. It would have been easier to run than to stick around and make small talk about how great her mother was and how sad it was that she was dead now.

"Come in."

The door creaked open slowly, Daryl's head just barely peeking between the crack. "Hey."

"Hey," she mumbled back, pulling herself halfway up to sit with her back against the headboard.

"Holdin' up?"

"I guess."

"Uncle Joey and I are going to head out now, sweetie." Her aunt pushed into the room, past Daryl, and right to the bed. She leaned down over Grace frowning a little. "You call us if you need anything, ya hear?"

"Thanks," Grace tried a wavering smile.

"I'll be back on Thursday alright? Help you clean up things."

"Okay." Her aunt seemed to be lingering so Grace added, "I'll be fine. Just go."

"Alright," Her aunt frowned deeper and rested a hand on Grace's shoulder. "Take care of yourself."

"I will."

"Alright," Aunt Pam repeated, lifting her hand and giving Grace light pat. She leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Call me." Quietly she slipped out of the room.

Daryl had taken up residence against the dresser. He'd picked up a tube of mascara and twirled it between his fingers until they heard the door shut. "She's nosey."

Grace gave a snort of startled laughter. "Yup. She's always been like that though."

"Ain't even gonna repeat what she said to me."

"I probably don't want to hear it."

"Nah," he took two steps toward the bed and hesitated. He'd been in her room plenty of times. He'd never done it when her mom was staying there, a Dixon sort of respect, but since her mom had been admitted to the hospice, he'd been spending a lot more nights with her. It was comforting, waking up to a warm solid frame in the middle of the night. She'd always gotten back to sleep much easier when he was there. The same could be said for the nights she slept at his trailer. Somehow she just slept better in general when he was near.

Dropping lightly on the mattress, Daryl twisted to rest next to her against the pillows. His arms came up to fold behind his head, far more relaxed now that the house was empty except for them. He didn't move as she rolled over to him, only slid an arm down to clasp her shoulders and pull her tighter to his body. Grace rested against his chest, following the rise and fall of his breathing. Suddenly she felt like crying, the itching of fresh tears at the backs of her eye sockets. She hadn't much all weekend. Mostly she just felt too tired to, as if actually letting go of tears would exhaust her completely.

"Came home from school an' there were cops in my driveway." Daryl's voice startled her so much that she almost didn't catch his words. She kept quiet, not quite sure of how to respond to the random statement. "Driver wouldn't let me outta my seat 'til he talked to the cops." He sighed, shifted his arm and continued. "They took me down ta the station. Tol' me ta play quietly in this room. I'd heard though. I heard every word sittin' right behind the driver like I was. That bastard always sat me there ta keep an eye on me. No one said nothin' ta me though. They brought in a counselor to talk to me. Someone from children's services or some shit. Took me to a foster home. Had dad in lock-up 'cause he was so wasted and they couldn't get a good story out of him. They all knew though, 'least they guessed something was wrong."

He didn't need to explain what story he was telling. Daryl was pretty quiet about his childhood but it was common knowledge around town that his father was abusive. The rumors varied from there. Something she'd picked up from accidental admissions that he'd tried to cover up.

"There weren't barely anyone at the funeral. Couple of family members. No one wanted me. Merle was crashed on his friend's couch. Anytime anyone got close he'd bolt so they didn't take him in too. I wore a suit. First time ever."

Grace nodded, rubbing circles on his stomach as encouragement. She couldn't say anything for fear he'd stop talking. She wanted to hear.

"It smelled. Not bad or anything, just strange. Belonged to tha kid uh the house I was stayin' at. Good people. Treated me well. I was mad when the worker tol' me Pa was gettin' custody back. Coulda stayed with 'em forever. Didn't. Pa was sober when they dropped me off. House was clean. Think my aunt did it. She weren't there when I got home though. Jus' me an Pa. He got the bottle out quick once the worker pulled outta the driveway. It started with him glaring, then he got mouthy, then he was all an out shoutin' at me. Made me take off my new shoes. They'd bought 'em for me an' Dixons don' take charity. Threw 'em out into the yard. Started slappin' me, boxin' muh ears. Did this," he pointed to his chest where Grace knew a large jagged scar was, "an' couple uh others. Passed out af'er a while. When Merle came home he found me curled up in tha broom closet. I'd taped a towel on it with electrical tape ta stop the bleedin'. He dragged Pa onto the couch, patched me up, made me a bowl uh Campbell's chicken noodle, and tucked me inta bed. We didn't talk 'bout Mom. It was like she just up an' vanished."

"I'm sorry."

Daryl's eyes narrowed like he hadn't expected her to comment on the story. "Me too." He grumbled, voice thick. "Ya eat somethin'? M'sure we could find somethin' half decent in all this food ya got."

He brought her into the kitchen and sat her at the table while he rummaged first through her fridge and then through her cupboards. Grace couldn't bring herself to help him. He just seemed so determined to get the food himself, almost like a small child. Maybe it was partly him trying to show her how comfortable he'd become in her life.

When he set the dishes on the table it was a plate of chicken casserole, not a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle. The sentiment was there though. "Hey," he said after she'd taken the first few bites. "Ya can talk if ya need to, 'kay?"

Grace nodded, "I'm good right now." And took another bite.

"Right," He gave a stiff shake of his head. "Jus' offerin'."

-break-

The farm was dark, barely enough light to see across the field. It must have been later than she thought because there were no signs of anyone else. Daryl must have still been on watch. She found herself walking out towards the RV but when she got there, no one sat on top. He'd probably gone to do rounds. She waited a few minutes before trying to circle around the farm. She had no way of telling how much longer his watch was. Really she should just go back to the truck and wait.

Up ahead the barn loomed in the dim starlight. It seemed haunting. Dangerous.

"Hello?" She called at the unexpected creaking. "Daryl?"

The barn creaked again, the walls starting to rattle, the chain clanking against the wood.

Why was the door chained shut again? They'd purposely left the doors open to air out the space. It was Shane's idea but it was a smart one. There were hooks on either side that fastened them to the walls so they didn't fly closed. Someone must have locked the barn. But who?

The doors rattled again, seeming to quiver. The hinges protested loudly. The sound echoed across the field. "Daryl?" Grace called again, louder. "Daryl!"

The chain gave way with an ear splitting crash. The doors flying open with enough force to smash them back into the walls. She couldn't see inside because of the shadows in the barn. Suddenly the air was filled with groaning. The first sets of glowing yellow eyes appearing. One by one, the walkers began to step out of the barn. Shambling towards her with lurching steps.

"Oh no!" Grace gasped, turning on her heel and starting to run.

There were more walkers in the stable though. Even more pouring out of the house. The forest was thick with them. It seemed as if the trees themselves were moving towards her.

She found herself screaming as she pushed through the living sea that threatened to engulf her. Sometimes it was pleas for help, other times profanity as she ripped herself free from the grasp of one cold set of cold dead hands, usually only to stumble into another.

There was no escape. The walkers were everywhere now, so thick that she couldn't see in front of her past the rotting skin, sunken eyes and gnashing teeth. Everywhere she turned there was another body, another snarl. "Oh god, Daryl! Help! Please, someone help me! Get off!" She pushed back a walker. "Help! Please, help me! Oh god. Oh god. Oh god."

The crowd seemed to part around her as she ran, staggering against the walls of decaying human flesh. Her foot caught as she ran, the ground rushing up to meet her. A root, maybe a rock or stick had gotten caught on her boot and she came crashing to the ground. The crowd fell on top of her as she rolled over and tried to get back to her feet. The bodies were so thick that she couldn't tell which way was up or down any more. As she pushed forward she came across a solid unmoving wall.

The eyes she looked into were watery, yellowed, and sunken but they were familiar. Her mother stood in front of her. She was wearing a yellow dress. Her head was missing chunks of hair, like they'd been ripped off her scalp. Her tongue lolled, drooling down her shirt and catching on her teeth.

A startled gasp caught in her throat. In the distance someone was screaming. The voice was terrified, feminine, wordless.

Her mother reached down, caught her around the wrists and jerked hard. Grace pulled back, struggling against the restraint.

"Grace!" A voice grunted. "Grace, i's me. Fuck, girl. I's me!"

"Daryl?" Grace stopped thrashing long enough to blink her eyes open. She was in the truck still, the blankets tangled around her and soaked with sweat. The back of the truck was still open and Daryl had his boots on. "Oh god!" she groaned.

"The hell was that?"

"Nightmare."

"Got that much. You were freakin' out when I got here. Surprised no one's runnin' over here tryin' ta figure out what happened." Slowly he released her wrists and pulled her into him. Grace found herself snuggled into his lap. "Jeeze, ya was hollerin'."

"Dreamt the farm got overrun. I was all alone. My mom was there. She was a walker and she was going to eat me."

"Shit..." He gripped the tops of her arms a little tighter. Daryl's hand reached up to stroke her hair. "S'alright now. No walkers. Not lettin' nothin' on this farm." He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to hers. "Shhhh." He soothed, hissing against her skin. "Shhhh, s'alright now."

-break-

Rick, Glenn and Hershel still weren't back by morning. Lori had thrown a temper tantrum when Shane had brought her back to the farm and her husband still wasn't there. It was wrong of Shane to lie but clearly Lori was either hormonal or just plain crazy. She couldn't have brought Rick back by herself if he had run into trouble. Apparently she'd actually brought a gun though, which helped because she'd crashed Maggie's car into a walker and then had to defend herself until Shane picked her up on the side of the road. She'd dissolved into furious tears after her shouting match and lay on the Greene's couch pouting until Carol had convinced her to go to bed. The exhaustion and strain of the night was easy to see on her face. She hadn't even checked in on Carl, who slept soundly through the whole ordeal of his mother coming home. Grace checked Lori over, prescribed a good night's rest and tucked her second Grimes into bed for the night before heading to bed herself.

Grace had woke early the next morning after a restless sleep. Daryl was snoring softly beside her, his arm still around her shoulders. He'd been like that every time she'd woken in the night, often waking with her as she struggled to escape from whatever horrors were chasing her. Several more times she dreamed about her mother as a walker, though that seemed impossible. A few times though she dreamt of being locked in the barn with Sophia and all the walkers they had released. The walkers always got Sophia first who turned and came after her. Once the doors had opened and she'd stumbled forward only to realize that she was a walker and facing the barrel of a gun. Daryl had whispered sorry as he shot her between the eyes.

She had woken to Daryl shaking her awake, with a worried wrinkle between his brows. When she'd told him through sobs about the dream, he'd held her even tighter and kissed the salt water on her cheeks.

Her face was still cushioned on his chest, the smell of him all around her and the soft flannel under her cheek like a security blanket. As carefully as she could, she slipped from his arms and let herself out of the truck. She had to pee something fierce and she didn't feel like going all the way to the house. It was easier to just scoot behind the shed where a hole had been dug and a little seat made. The plastic was cold on her ass and she held her gun in her lap the whole time. Next to the makeshift toilet was a bucket of fresh water and a bowl for hand washing. The soap was rock hard and the water freezing. It was getting too cold for camping. Soon they'd have to be inside somewhere. She just hoped that they'd manage to get into the subdivision before things really got cold.

Carol was up and starting a fire when Grace got back to the circle of tents and cars. "Getting cold in the mornings." She offered as way of greeting.

Grace nodded, "Maggie showed me a handheld coffee grinder inside. She says no one in the house drinks coffee but her stepmom did. She offered us the beans they have and she says we can check the chicken coop for eggs for breakfast."

"That would be amazing." Carol smiled. "Have you been up to see Beth yet?"

"Not yet. Just got up and I wouldn't want Daryl to find me too far from the truck without telling him. I had a rough night sleeping last night and I'm sure he's worried. Not that he'd ever say anything to may face but I try to keep him happy."

The zipper of one of the tents rasped and T-Dog crawled out. "Mornin'." He rasped, rubbing his eyes. "Damn, it's cold out here."

"Grace and I were just saying that," Carol laughed and pulled her sweater a little tighter. "Apparently we can have coffee this morning. That should warm us up."

"I'll say. Gonna go see who's on watch. Save me a cup if ya'll do get some java."

Slowly the rest of the camp began to stir. When Daryl woke, Grace went up to the house to check on Beth. The teenage had fallen asleep sometime the night before and Grace added another small dose of sedative to the IV. Better to keep the girl medicated than have her wake-up in a panic state. Grace had come back to find Carol and the kids getting ready to go get eggs. She'd tagged along, grateful to have something to do. By the time they were back, Merle produced three rabbits to be skinned and gutted. He'd found them running along the far edge of the swamp. They would make a nice stew for dinner.

"I'm goin' af'er Rick." Daryl mumbled when Grace brought him his plate of eggs.

She raised an eyebrow, "Really?"

"Yeah," he nodded, more determined this time. "Shane's goin'. And T, and Blondie. Four of us should be able to make it inta town an' back no trouble."

"Alright," She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Stay safe."

Daryl looked shocked for a moment before nodding again and sinking into his chair to eat. There wasn't really any room to protest even though Daryl seemed prepared to accept it. It was a good strong group of capable adults that wanted to go of their own free will. She couldn't act like Lori and take a fit when things didn't go her way. The group needed more stability, not less. They would be safe with each other, everyone in that group would watch out for everyone else. Even Shane seemed quieter than the day before without Hershel around to argue with him or Rick to stir up feelings of betrayal for taking his wife back. He was more like the Shane that had pulled into the driveway at the cabin all those weeks ago.

The group leaving got to preparations for their trip while everyone else cleaned up. Finally awake, Lori slipped from the farm house and joined them. She seemed ashamed by her attitude the night before. Everyone gave her space as Carl spotted his mom for the first time and took off at a run.

"MOM!" He gasped, hugging her tightly.

"Hello Carl. Did you sleep well?"

"I had a sleepover with Sophia in her tent. I was worried though. Why did you leave? Shane could have gotten Dad."

"Carl," Lori scolded her son, looking up to catch Shane's eye. He was watching them closely, holding his rifle to one shoulder.

"It's true!" The boy protested.

"That's enough. Now did you eat breakfast?"

"You too, then. Carol saved you a plate." Carl pointed to a spot at the picnic table where Carol had rested a second camp plate on top of the first to keep the food from getting cold too fast.

Lori nodded. "That was nice of her. I'll eat that and then we can go over some school work. It's been too long since we did lessons.

Carl wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Aw, Mom."

"Don't 'aw, Mom,' me, young man. Go get your books."

The boy scrunched up his face but turned to go toward their car where his school books were being stored. Sophia followed him, talking about how she would do lessons too if he was going to have to do them. Lori watched her son and his friend as they got further and further away. When they were out of hearing distance, she turned and glared around the circle of people surrounding the fire. "Not one word about the baby to him." She hissed. "Not from any of you. Rick and I will tell him when the time is right."

"Ya really think that's a good idea. Kid's gonna hear it from somewhere." Shane probably should have kept his mouth shut. The dark haired woman was already furious, a combination of his lying from the night before and left over disappointment about the most likely paternity of her child.

"Shut your mouth, Shane. I've heard just about enough from you. This is none of your business. NOT ONE BIT!"

"Lori, I think that's enough." Ever the voice of reason, Carol kept her voice even as she stepped towards the other woman. "Let's go in the RV for a bit, hmm?" Carefully she lead Lori away from the fire, shooting Grace a quick look that asked her without saying anything to distract the kids for a little while.

Almost as soon as the RV door was shut, Carl and Sophia returned. Carl dragged his feet through camp for a moment before looking around. "Where's my mom?"

"Went with Carol for a minute," Grace brushed off. "How's about we go into the house and see if we can't get some peaches for them to bring your dad? If he's been out there all night, he might not have gotten anything to eat."

"Okay," Carl quietly agreed. He and Sophia dropped their books on the picnic table and followed Grace toward the farmhouse. They weren't halfway up the driveway though when the sound of tires on gravel made all three turn around.

Grace's face split into a grin as she recognized the truck pulling into the driveway. "Well I'll be."

"Dad?" Carl whispered before breaking into startled laughter much like when his father had climbed out of the box truck back at the quarry. "Dad!" He whooped breaking into a run. The other survivors made their way from camp to the driveway as well, gathering around the vehicle to welcome back the search party. Rick, Glenn. and Hershel seemed exhausted, covered in dried sweat, dust and blood. Carl didn't seem to notice as he grabbed his father in a crushing hug. Rick hugged back with just as much intensity but his eyes scanned the group with nervous tension.

"You're back!" Maggie must have spotted the truck from the house because she seemed to have run the length of the driveway. Her father looked at her with relief but instead the young woman tackled Glenn, who seemed too exhausted to hug her back. Instead he walked toward the RV with a rifle in each hand, almost in a daze.

Lori and Carol appeared from the RV, Lori's face finally relaxed. As Rick greeted his wife, he paused to look over the bruise on her cheek. Quietly the two talked together, mostly likely about the car accident as his eyes went wide with shock and he squeezed her shoulder tightly, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Uh, who the hell is that?" T-Dog pointed toward the backseat of the truck.

Behind the glass was a person, hands tied together in his lap and a red blindfold of scrap material covering his eyes. The young man's head was lolled over, either sleeping or passed out. His skin seemed almost grey.

"That's Randall," Glenn sighed.

"We don't know a Randall." Grace pointed out, sarcastically.

"We do now." Rick grimaced. "He was in town with a group. Got hurt. They left him behind for the walkers."

"That's terrible!"

"Which is why he's here," Hershel scowled, walking towards his house. "Patricia, prepare the shed for surgery. Grace, I'd like your help as well."

"What happened to him?" She wondered aloud what everyone else was thinking. "He's not..." Grace clipped her teeth together to illustrate biting.

"Not so far as we can tell," Rick patted Carl on the shoulder. "We'll discuss this once we see how he pulls through surgery."

-break-

There was blood embedded right into the beds of Grace's fingernails. Her skin stained with this strange boy's blood. His leg was repaired though, as best as they were able to given the conditions and the extent of the damage. Grace had never liked surgery, she'd avoided it like poison after she'd finished school. Now as the cool water stung her knuckles she'd found herself almost sick to her stomach. They'd been well over an hour with Randall in the shed. The boy had been given a strong sedative but probably not enough anesthetic. He'd kept flinching, the muscles in his limbs jumping in shock as they tried to repair where the fence had gone through his leg.

Thinking about watching her fingers against his open skin sent another roll of nausea through her. Grace turned, took several big steps to the edge of the forest and as far away from the pump as she could manage. Holding her hair back with one hand, she gagged once, before it finally caught and she emptied her stomach.

What a waste of food.

She was busy wiping her mouth with the back of her hand when a deep voice startled her.

"A'right there Grace?" Shane sauntered around the corner of the shed but he seemed genuinely concerned.

"Mmm-hmm," she nodded wordlessly. It was easier not to talk for risk of bringing everything up again.

"Everything go alright with..."

Grace interrupted Shane with another wave of nausea, throwing up a second time into the low shrubbery at the edge of the woods. "Uh," she protested, the sticky sour taste still stuck in her mouth. Hoping to clear it away she spat thickly into the woods.

"Here," he offered, holding out a small tin cup of water. "Just swish and spit. Ain't been boiled."

"Thanks," she mumbled, taking the cup from him and following instructions. "I should have told Hershel it would make me sick."

"Dunno, think ya'll did pretty okay if ya made it this far." He offered her a crooked grin. "So how's the patient?"

"Still knocked out. We repaired as much damage as we can but Patricia nicked an artery so we had to stitch that too. Hopefully he didn't lose too much blood. If he did," Grace shrugged. "Well let's just hope he's not infected. He's already locked up in the shed so I'd rather not tempt a hoarder."

Shane gave a startled laugh. "S'that what Hershel is?"

"He some sorta crazy keeping the corpses of his family locked up. I'd rather not have to find out just what type. At least hoarding is reasonably harmless."

"'Less it's walkers." He pointed out.

Grace shrugged again. "I guess. We handled them well enough though. Fucking barn of horrors." She took another sip of water and spat it out on the ground angrily. "That's just wrong."

"So is bringin' that boy back here."

She tipped her head to the side and regarded Shane carefully. It was hard sometimes to know where Shane was coming from. He was so good at getting what he wanted out of people. He knew just what buttons to press. "Are you looking for me to agree with you?"

"Well, d'ya think it's right to be using up our medicines on some strange kid who may not even live? That's our stuff. We got it an' we should be the ones to use it."

"We did use it. We used it on Randall. It wasn't stolen."

"Close enough. Kid's not one of us. He's a threat. He's got a group somewhere and they threatened us. Rick told me what the said. Was talkin' 'bout comin' back here to get the women and kids. Take our supplies, our food, our weapons. Do who knows what to you lot."

"But they're not looking for him. As far as they're concerned, Randall was a good as dead. Doesn't that seem like he might be a little pissed at them? Maybe when he wakes up he'll be on our side. He owes us a life debt after all."

Shane snorted. "Like that changes anything. They shoulda just left him there. He wasn't our problem."

"Just like Daryl said about you when you showed up at the cabin? This guy could be just a regular kid who got mixed in with some bad people to survive this crap. We give him the chance to survive without making any judgments. When he wakes up we can talk to him."

"Nah," Shane tossed his head back and forth. "Good guy's gonna tell the truth. Bad guy's gonna lie. No matter what yer gonna get a good story out of him. How life's been rough an' he jus' wants a chance. How are we supposed to tell if he's lying or not? Hmm, gonna hook him up to a lie detector out here?"

Grace closed her eyes slowly, running her fingers through her hair. "Do you like it here Shane?"

"Wha'?"

"I said 'do you like it here'. You seem to be pretty adamant about keeping the group together, not getting separated. All I want to know is if you like it here. Not the farm per se. Here though. With us."

"S'all this about? We ain't talkin' 'bout me. We're talking 'bout the kid." Shane seemed frustrated. He was pacing now. Scuffing his big heavy boots in the dirt and clomping back and forth. "Don't matter none if I 'like it here'."

Grace gave him a soft smile. Her eyes were gentle, concerned. "If you don't shut the fuck up about Randall you're going to destroy what's left of your friendship with Rick." She narrowed her eyes now, more serious. "How much do you want to see your baby?"

"I don't know what you're…"

"Shut-up. Everyone knows. Everyone intelligent that is. Don't you think you're going to have enough trouble seeing that kid grow-up not knowing that you're their biological father? How are you going to feel if you don't get to see that at all? Knowing somewhere out there there's this kid that's yours and you won't ever see them. Wondering if maybe they're hurt, sick, scared, hungry, dead. How are you going to live with yourself then, huh? You need to start watching yourself. You make a lot of stupid choices just because you think you're doing the right thing." Somehow she'd found herself stepping into Shane's space. Usually it was just Merle she mouthed off to like this and she hadn't felt the need to do that in weeks. Here she was though, pressing her finger into Shane's chest. "How about you man the fuck up and stop acting like a spoiled child when things don't go your way. We don't need any more conflict around here!"

"Whoa…" he huffed, taking a step backwards. "Grace?"

"I'm just… I'm tired of all this shit! There's constantly some battle over who's right and who's wrong but you know what? No one fucking knows what's right. We kill things. Things that used to be people. Like real people. And you're busy worrying about not getting your own way? If Randall really is a threat, then we need to stand together. What happens when his crew stumbles on this place? There won't be time for your bullshit. We need you here Shane, on our side. We need strong people willing to do what it takes. We don't need you fighting us every step of the way. You're always implying that you want Merle gone but you know what? He's doing a help of a lot more to not be a burden than you are. I told Merle when he was using drugs that he needed to stop because it put us all in danger and you know what, he did! He's trying and he's pitching in. He hunts, he stands guard, he's even looking after Claire for god's sake. And even though he's still rough as hell around the edges, at least he's trying not to start shit. If you're not helping then you're a burden. How'd you feel about that?"

"Grace?" Shane and Grace both looked up to see Daryl standing beside the shed, his hand already reaching for the gun tucked into his waistband. "Ya'll 'ight."

"I'm fine." Grace took a quick step back out of Shane's personal space. "Just think about that, huh? Think about it!" She hissed, but her voice was hollow. A few more steps and she made her way over to Daryl. Carefully she lifted his hand from his gun and twisted their hands together. "Come on. I want a shower to get this crap off of me."

"Wha' was 'at 'bout?" Daryl kept looking over his shoulder to where Shane was still standing, frozen with shock in the middle of the open space.

"Shane being his usual asshole self." She sighed. "He's upset about Randall."

"Oh," Daryl nodded, mouth set in a hard line. "Merle's pretty pissed off 'bout tha'."

"Just Merle?" Daryl shrugged in response and Grace squeezed his hand. She exhaled, the tension from shouting at Shane easing out of her body. Leaning closer to him she whispered, "I would have left him." She pulled back, frowning a little. "Does that make me a terrible person?"

"Nah, I'dda done tha same. He weren't our problem 'til Rick brought him back here."

"I don't know why Rick's willing to take the risk that this guy could try something." Grace sighed. "I'm covered in this guy's blood and all I can think of is how we're going to make sure he doesn't try to kill us all in our sleep."

"Ya really think I'd let someone kill ya in yer sleep?" Daryl raised an eyebrow and gave her a challenging smile.

"He'd kill you first because you're the bigger threat." Grace shrugged, giving him a light shove. "You're going to have to fight. Save me from the big scary men."

He growled, tugging her against his chest. "Ain't no one allowed to touch you but me." Daryl hand slid into her hair, cupping the back of her head and leaning into her. Gently he rubbed his cheek against hers, the stubble scratching against her skin. "Yer fuckin' mine ya hear?" His teeth caught her earlobe almost harshly, tugging hard then relaxing. The tip of his tongue slid between his teeth, licking the shell of her ear. "Yer mine!" Daryl slid downward, his open mouth hot against her jaw, lips and tongue against her neck, face pressing into her shoulder as he squeezed her too him. "An' Dixon's don't share."

"So I've heard." Grace's stomach jumped up into her throat then settled somewhere below her rib cage but definitely not where it was supposed to be. She found her fingers twisting in the heavy material of Daryl's shirt before she could even be quite sure where this was going. "Dare?"

"Mmm-hmm?" He hummed back against the hollow of her throat.

"Don't you think we should maybe take this inside somewhere? At least to the truck. There's a lotta people around."

Daryl locked up, freezing with tense realization against her. "Shit." He sighed, dropping his head to her shoulder and giving her a squeeze. "Go take yer shower."

"I thought..."

"Yeah so did I, 'til I remembered ya was covered in some guy's blood an' tha' I'm supposed to take watch for Rick so he can talk things through wit' Shane. Guess he's sorta dealt with already though, hmmm." Daryl tipped his head up, peeking at her through the hair flopping in his eyes.

Grace reached up to brush his hair back, her hand settling on his cheek. "Hopefully your watch won't be long then, hmm?" He other hand slid up underneath his shirt. "If you've been managing all this activity around camp then maybe you're up for something a little more vigorous."

Daryl nodded and licked his lips. "Been too fuckin' long." He leaned in a nuzzled her cheek, planting feather light kisses along her jaw. Slowly his hips ground against her, the bulge in his pants beginning to press heavily into her thigh. Daryl jerked back suddenly. "Gotta stop," he sighed. "Go see Rick 'fore I can't think straight anymore."

She smiled, kissing him softly. "I've gotta check over Lori too. After my shower. Didn't see anything more than a couple of good bruises and some pulled muscles but Hershel's letting me into the medical supplies they've got. I'm going to see just what they've got while we have the chance. See you in a bit? I'll bring you something to eat around supper time if you're still on watch."

"Thanks," he nodded again and Grace moved to pull away from him, starting to turn toward the house. At the last second, Daryl caught her wrist turning her sharply towards him. "Love ya, hmm." He grunted, eyes watching her carefully, the thumb of his other working its way between his teeth.

Grace squeezed his hand hard. "I love you too," she grinned back.

Daryl nodded seriously, gave her hand a quick tug and then dropped it. "A'right then. See ya at supper time."

-break-

Randall was still unconscious when Grace brought Daryl his supper an hour and a half later. Maggie had offered Grace up a loaned outfit of cleaned clothes while Carol tried to scrub the blood out of hers. The oldest Green daughter insisted it was the least she could do after Grace's help with Beth. Unlike their prisoner, the teenager was awake and taking visitors for short amounts of time, much to Claire and Jimmy's pleasure. Grace had warned them though that once she finished eating, she'd kick them right back outside to let Beth rest some more. She didn't want to put a lot of pressure on the girl before she'd fully recovered. It would be several days of bed rest and carefully monitoring her before Grace felt comfortable leaving her on her own.

"When's he supposed ta wake up?" Daryl flicked a careless hand at the barn. His mostly empty plate was balanced on one knee. There were roasted potatoes, mixed garden veggies, and some sort of wild fowl which Merle had caught. He'd been grinning like a fool when he brought it to them, gutted and plucked. The damn thing had even been missing its head and feet. Grace figured it was just safer not to ask.

"When he's ready. Hershel knocked him out with horse tranq and I think he might have overdone it a little bit out of panic. Then there's the blood loss." She shrugged. "Might not be until tomorrow. Hell, he might not even make it through the night."

Daryl bobbed his head and snuck another bite of potatoes. "Guess we'd just bury him then, huh?"

Grace shook her head, "I'd stab him first," she pointed to the back of her neck, dragging her finger up the back of her skull, "right in here. Just to be on the safe side. He's not running a fever now but who knows what he was exposed to with those people. Better safe than sorry. The other's will probably have a problem with it though. Desecrating a body or whatever."

"They gotta get over tha'." Daryl rolled his eyes. "When bodies can get up an' start chasin' ya, we gotta protect ourselves."

"It would be a good habit to get into. Just once, clean in and out with everyone who dies. A precaution. Either way, if he dies in his sleep, Rick's got him so trussed up, I'm sure he wouldn't be able to move."

"Should get some chains for when he does get up an' about. Rope can get worked away. If he's in chains he can't spend his day rubbing his wrist on somethin' ta get free."

"Rick's still got handcuffs. We could use..." From out of nowhere, an engine blasted down the road causing them both to jump. Daryl was on his feet in seconds, his crossbow raised. The truck sped into view, spinning its tires as it turned from the paved road to the gravel driveway, little rocks flying in a cloud of dust behind it.

"Stay the fuck here." Daryl snarled. "An' keep yer gun out."

Grace had already pulled out the gun and she showed it to him. He grunted a response, heading toward the truck. Shane and Rick were already standing on the porch, their own rifle's pointing at the truck. Merle met Daryl halfway there as whoever was in the truck was climbing out. The two brother's circled, the truck. The window rolled down but Grace couldn't quite see who it was. There was a muffled conversation that involved much snarling on Daryl and Merle's part but slowly the weapons were lowered.

"What's going on?" Lori called from behind the two men on the porch. She was cowering behind them, only peeking out to see what was happening in the front yard.

"He's from the other goup." Merle shouted back. "One tha' took in Gracie an' Carol's girl.'

The door of the truck popped open and Merle stepped back to let it, his weapon still held tightly but not nearly as aggressively as before. Cautiously a man stepped out of the truck and Grace caught a sight of him. Eli looked shaken, his face worried. When he caught sight of Merle and Daryl though he started talking in a rush, his hands waving. The brothers just nodded along until Eli stopped.

"Grace," Daryl called to her. He was still staring hard at the other man but his expression was unreadable. "Get over here."

She hurried to do just that, curiosity getting the better of her. "What's going on?" she repeated Lori's earlier statement.

Daryl frowned. "They have a bit of a problem."

Grace looked from Daryl and Merle to Eli who was still holding on to the door handle like he was ready to jump back into the truck and speed away. "What sort of problem?"

"They need you to check up on some people they've found."