Chapter Seven~ Don't Give Up

A/N: I am currently working with a cat laying on my arms, so I apologize if this take too much time and for any mistakes in the writing.

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Night came and went, dawn broke as Diane continued to keep watch from the hay loft, thoughts chasing one another in her mind. As the sun crested the trees, she took a deep breath of the new day's air. It was crisp. Summer would soon give way into fall. She looked down at her watch, which gave the date. September 16th. Her birthday was in a month. And by extension, her daughters. The thought made her sad. Her girl was only five and a half years old when she had died. It had almost been four months since then. The next breath she took was a shaky one. There was so much she had meant to do with her previous life.

Swiping her hands over her face, she sat up straight. There was no point thinking about it. It would only make her feel worse.

When was the last time she'd taken her medication? Had it been the day before, or before that? She tried to spread it out so it would last as long as possible, but it was taking a toll on her, she could feel it. There was a feeling in her bone, a weight, a pain, that made her feel like she was dragging a ten-ton stone behind her with each step.

Shaking her head to clear the thoughts, she stood from her position of sentry, stretched, popping what seemed like all her joints, and made her way down from the hay loft and back towards camp. No one else was up yet, except Dale, who she waved to when she saw him watching her. He was nice enough to smile and wave back. She unzipped her tent and went to dig through her bag until she found her medications.

She had long ago run out of the one that stabilized her bipolar, and had suffered for it at first. The withdraw from antipsychotics was rough, especially when water was scarce. Restlessness and muscle spasms were bad enough, vomiting and diarrhea were even worse. More than once she almost hadn't made it to the designated restroom area in the woods. And they had needed to keep a bucket by her bed for several days until the withdraw passed. Her mother had been healthier then. Or maybe she hadn't. She remembered her mother had already started having dark circles under her eyes at that point. Either way, it wasn't a good time for her.

She quickly grabbed her water and swallowed a mouth-full with her pills. It wouldn't be long until she was out of those as well. She had been lucky enough to grab a three-month supply before the world ended, but now she was dangerously low. Hopefully they could find somewhere that had a pharmacy, one that had antidepressants in stock before she ran out. And maybe some albuterol. That would be good.

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Diane was coming back from relieving herself in the very edge of the woods, tightening her belt as she walked back to the main camp, when she heard a car pulling up. Everyone was running towards the driveway, so she took off, too. It was the car that Rick and Glenn had taken to get Hershel. The three men in question exited the car, and Diane was relieved to see they all looked relatively ok. That was when she spotted the man in the back seat. She stopped dead in her tracks. She heard talking all around her as people tried to make sense of what was going on. It all quieted when T-Dog exclaimed, "Who the hell is that?!"

That brought a whole new round of questions, all of which were eventually answered.

Everyone had gathered in the living room of the house to hear the explanation of what had happened the night before. Diane couldn't deal with the idea of people coming to take back their man, but then again, they didn't know where the farm was. They had left their man, Randell, to die with his leg impaled on a fence. Diane only half listened has people argued around her about what should be done. Obviously, Shane was all for killing him on the spot. Rick and Hershel were vehemently against that. Looking around, Diane couldn't help but notice the gloomy looks all around her. They were scared, just like she was. And yes, she was scared. What if the men that shot at their people did come back? She doubted they would, but still. She locked eyes with Daryl. She wished she knew what his take on the everything was, but he had been characteristically quiet the whole time. Not one word had passed his lips. As they stood there in a small staring match, something changed in his eyes. It wasn't something she could quite understand. It was a small shift of facial expression, maybe the lift of an eyebrow or edge of a smile, but it was subtle.

Eventually, it was decided. They would take him out once he was healed enough to walk. Once all that was finished, Diane walked outside with most everyone else. Michael pulled her aside again.

"There is no way we can stay here. Those men know there's someone else in the area, and they'll be looking for us."

Diane scoffed. "I highly doubt it. If what Rick said was anything to go by, they were just passing through. Probably looking for another pipe dream to follow, just like we are. Anyway, even if they were, would you really leave these people here to die? Are you so heartless?"

Michael took a step closer, towering over her 5'6" frame. "We. Are. Leaving. End of story."

From how she had been almost bent over backwards, she straightened up. "Who died and made you king? This is an equal group, and we will decide as a group."

"This isn't up for debate, Di."

Pushing against his chest to get him out of her bubble, she said, "No. I am done listening to you and your bullshit theories, Mike. This is a good place. If you leave, you leave alone. The boys will listen, and so will Mom. You may end up with Tammy, but that's it."

With that, she turned and went back to their camp to talk to her brothers. On the way there, she saw Daryl walking the other direction, from doing what, she had no idea. She intended to walk right on by him and continue on to her camp, but he apparently had other ideas. He stopped walking as she got closer, and as she passed him, he caught her arm.

"You alright?"

She gave him a strange look, looked down at his hand, and then back at him. "I'm fine," she told him, extracting her arm from his grip. He let go easily, only having been holding her tight enough to get her attention. "Michael just seems to think he's God right now. Every word out of his damn mouth makes me want to just-" she threw her hands up, stalking away a few feet, then turning back to him. "I wanna knock his fucking teeth in sometimes."

"I know the feeling." He mumbled.

Her eyes found his, and she narrowed them a little. "Shane?" He nodded ever so slightly. "Yeah. I want to knock his teeth in all the time." She gestured with her head for him to follow her, and she turned back towards her camp. Unlike she thought, the boys were not there, so she sat down beside the fire pit. Whatever Tammy had been cooking was still in there from before the excitement of the men coming back. She lifted the lid and smiled when she saw that it was venison stew from the deer they had killed. "Sit. Knowing you, you probably haven't eaten."

"Whatta you know about me?" his voice was quiet, almost like he was talking to himself.

She smiled to herself as she poured some of the stew into a bowl and handed it to him. "Not much, but I do know that you have a tendency not to eat until someone brings you food. Carol has told me as much." She sat down in the camp chair beside him with a bowl of her own. Settling down, she said, "Anyway, why do you care."

"Bout what?"

"About what happened between me and Mike."

"Someone's gotta keep the peace." He told her as he dug into the stew. "This is good."

"Yeah, Tammy's pretty good at cooking deer. Kenny used to go hunting every year, brought it to Michael for processing. He's the one who taught me how to skin and gut. Funny enough, the first time he had me out there with him while he did it, I was about a month pregnant, had just found out. And for some reason, it didn't gross me out." She hung her head back over the chair. "But, eggs...eggs were the only thing that made me sick. I couldn't even look at egg yolk without puking." She lolled her head to the side to look at him. He had stopped eating.

"Why you tellin' me this?"

One shoulder raised in a shrug. "Don't know, really. I just figure, if we're gonna be hanging around y'all for any length of time, we might as well get to know one another."

They sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own thoughts. After a bit, Daryl spoke up. "About last night-"

"Don't worry about it. Thanks for saving me."

He eyed her for a moment. "Why you so clumsy all the sudden?" Her head lowered as she scratched at her hair. "You've been walkin' easy since I met you, then out of nowhere you start stumbling over yourself."

Diane didn't say anything. She knew why she'd been clumsy...at least now she did. But, she didn't want to say anything about that. It wasn't as if anything would come of it anyway. "I'm always a klutz. Just sometimes I'm a little more sure-footed than others. Besides-" she stopped. She didn't want to tell anyone about what happened with Beth. So she opted for a half-truth. "I was tired from helping with Beth, and all the excitement all evening. One of these days it may end up killing me, but it hasn't yet, so..." she trailed off.

"That's a shitty way of lookin' at things."

"What? That I'm gonna die one day? I don't think it is. I think knowing that I'm gonna die one day makes me live a little more. I'm happier doing everything I can to survive, every day I continue to walk this earth, it's a gift. A gift I work fucking hard for."

Daryl seemed to be taking that in for a moment. Then he asked, "But are you really happy? You said you take meds every day. Rick told me what they were for."

She sighed. "I am happy to be alive, though I have moments where I wonder why I am. Sometimes I think that it would be simpler if I had died when my daughter did. But then I think of my family. If they hadn't had me, they wouldn't have made it as far as they have. Well..." she stopped to think. "Maybe they would have. The boys are smart, and Mom is strong, despite her medical issues. When I start getting down, when my brain takes over and I start to sink, I remember them and remember that I have to live for them, if not for myself." At that moment that she finished her spiel, Colin and Robert finally appeared.

"Hey, Sis," Robert greeted as Colin bypassed the two of them and went straight for the pot of food.

"Sup?"

"Mr. Hershel says that Mom might be up walking around today."

Diane's face brightened. "That's great. She's gonna love walking around this place."

Colin, with a mouthful of food, asked, "What's he doin' here?" he gestured to Daryl.

The man in question immediately became visibly uncomfortable and set down his now empty bowl. "Was just leavin'. Gotta go hunt."

"Oh, cool. Let me get my bow," she made to get up.

"Nah," Daryl waved her off. "I got it." Then he was gone.

Diane fixed her brother with a look. "Good going, jackass. I'm tryin' to make friends over here and you just ran one of them off."

"Why would you want to be friends with him?" Robert rolled his eyes. "He's not the most sociable of people."

"Maybe not, but that's why we gotta try. These people will never trust us if we don't try to be a part of them. Daryl is one of the inner circle of people that make decisions. If he trusts us like Rick seems to, we'll be one step closer to being welcome. Besides, he's a nice guy, he's just a little gruff about it."

Colin started chuckling, "Ooooh, Sis's got a cruuuush," he taunted.

"You shut the hell up. Don't act like you haven't been eying Beth the whole time you've been here."

"She's got Jimmy, Daryl's got no one."

Diane just rolled her eyes and went to clean out the bowls she and Daryl had used. Damn those boys and their innate ability to find things to rile her up with. "So, what do you guys think about this place?"

Robert looked up from his own bowl. He took his time to finish chewing before he answered. "It's a good place. We can live here. Not just survive, but actually live."

"We already decided we want to stay," Colin added.

Diane nodded. It was now or never.

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The next day, Diane decided to do something slightly crazy. She cornered Michael in the barn as he was looking for a tool for the Humvee. He was bent over in one of Hershel's toolboxes, not paying attention.

"Hey."

He jumped, putting a hand on his gun and hitting his head on the beam above him. "Jesus Christ, Di, don't do that. What the hell are you doing?"

"We're staying."

Michael stopped, "What?"

"We're staying on the farm. Me, Colin, Robert, and Mom." He started to say something, but she stopped him by holding a hand up, "No, you listen now. We decided. We need this as much as those people out there need us. Now, you can either stay here with us and live peacefully, or you can leave. Take Tammy with you, because she'll probably follow you to the ends of the earth. But us, we are putting our foot down, Mike. You are no longer in charge."

"And who is, Di? You? You don't know the first thing about leading soldiers."

"That's just it, Michael! They aren't soldiers! They are civilians. I'm a civilian. We haven't been hardened by war. And it doesn't matter who's in charge. We're all working together. Us and Rick's group." Diane turned to leave, but was stopped by a strong grip on her upper arm. She hissed at the pain, "Ow, Mike, let go of me."

"No. I am not leaving without you."

"Well, then you're fucking stuck here, aren't you?"

"You don't get it, do you? I made a fucking promise to Tom."

"What could you have possibly promised to that asshole."

"I promised him I'd take care of you."

Diane looked at him, then started laughing. "Oh, that's rich."

"I'm serious."

"Mike, Tom and I had been at each other's throats for years. The only reason he was at that house with me was because I thought Dawn should have her whole family. We didn't love each other. I know he sure as hell didn't love me. He told me as much many times over the three years after we split. He wouldn't ask that of you. If anything, he would have asked you to make sure I fell in front of a herd."

"He didn't have to ask me. I told him, swore, that I would make sure you stayed alive for Dawn. Because he sure as hell wasn't going to take care of her."

Diane narrowed her eyes at him. "And why the hell would you do that?"

He scoffed. "Isn't it obvious?" She made a face that said not to me. "I love you Di. I always have. How did you not realize that?"

"I'm your brother's ex-wife. You shouldn't love me."

"And yet, I do." Michael sighed, then pulled her towards him into a hug, but she pushed him away.

"Stop it! This is not the time or place for this!"

"Then when is?!" his voice began to rise. "What? You just expect me to stay silent? We're at the end of the world, sweetheart. It's been just you and me ever since we found each other after Tom and Dawn died. Come on, you don't believe in coincidence, Di. You've told me that time and time again. Everything has a reason."

"Yeah, and that reason was to survive. Not so you could shack up with me. And stop calling me 'sweetheart'."

Michael grabbed her again by both arms to fully face him. "Why are you fighting this so hard? Is it that guy? That hunter dude?"

"Daryl has nothing to do with the fact that I'm not in fucking love with you, you dick bag. Just because a girl isn't interested in you, it doesn't automatically mean there's another guy. It just means she's not into you. So, fuck off!" She shoved against his chest, trying to get away from him. "Get off of me!" She thrashed against him.

"Hey!" they both turned to see Daryl at the entrance of the barn, crossbow raised and aimed right at Michael's head. "You let go of her." He took a few slow, measured steps forward, like he was stalking a deer through the forest.

Michael straightened up. "This doesn't concern you."

"Come on, man. Girl's had enough trauma the last couple days. Leave her alone."

"Now you listen here, you motherfuckin' redneck piece of-" Michael was cut off, face contorting in pain when Diane expertly placed her knee right in his groin. His hands released her as he grabbed himself and fell to the ground.

Diane felt another hand, gentler, pulling her away. Daryl placed her behind him, crossbow still pointed at the man on the dirt floor. "The lady said to leave her alone. Come on," he took a step back, eyes never leaving Michael, leading her out of the barn. Once they had passed the threshold, he turned and led her away by the elbow.

After a moment to let her brain catch up with what had just happened, she shook him off. "I was fine."

"Didn't look like it."

"Michael wouldn't have done anything."

There was a soft snort behind her. "Sure, whatever you say."

She turned on him. "I don't need you coming to save me, Dixon! I can handle myself. Next time, keep on walking." Then she spun on her heel and all but ran back to her tent.

At some point in the night, she heard Michael return to the camp. She could hear him when he stood outside her tent. Even in the stifling heat of Georgia summer, she had closed all the windows on her tent. She didn't want to see anyone. Eventually he left. She had only just stopped shaking when he did.

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A week or so later, Rick and Shane had left to go drop Randall somewhere far enough away that he wouldn't be able to find his way back. In that time, Diane had kept her distance from both Daryl and Michael. The latter had tried several times to talk to her, but she always found a reason to walk away. Daryl on the other hand, stayed well away. That was fine by her.

She'd been embarrassed.

How could Michael spring something like this on her? After everything they had been through. He should have known that she didn't care for him like that. He was...at best, like her brother. At the worst of times, they were at each other's throats about where to go or when to stop. It had taken her cussing him out to make him stop for a nearly a week so that her mother could rest before they came to the farm.

Even worse, she'd had to be saved. She'd managed to go through most of the time since the fall not needing anyone to help her. Sure, Colin had had to pull her back onto a roof at one point because she lost her footing, but for some reason this was...it was different. This wasn't her brother saving her from her own clumsiness. This was a man she barely knew saving her from a man she'd known for years.

She knew Michael, and she knew he didn't take rejection well. There had been a time when a girl told him off when he was flirting with her and he came home, grabbed a rifle, and went out to hunt. He came back bruised and bloody and carrying a rather large buck that he dumped on the kitchen counter. He had fallen out of his tree stand, knocked himself out for a few minutes, and still managed to kill a deer when he climbed back up. That wasn't to say that he was strong, just that the force of him anger was so strong that he continued doing something stupid long after he should have gone home and nursed his wounds.

Daryl on the other hand...she didn't hardly know anything about him. Sure, she had her suspicions about his character. She had asked Carol about him, and the woman was all too happy to explain that, despite his rough exterior, he was really very caring. And, if the way he was hunting for Sophia, a child who wasn't even his, was any indication, then surely he was at least a little good. Then there was the way he had stepped in with Michael. He could have completely ignored them, saying it was between them. And yet, he didn't. He had stepped in, going so far as to threaten a man who already didn't trust Daryl's entire group. He had some sense of right and wrong, even though he looked the part of a rough-around-the-edges redneck who didn't care about anyone but himself.

Either way, she was in a shitshow of a predicament. She wanted to apologize to Daryl, tell him it wasn't his fault that she went off, that she was just upset from the previous moments.

Damn her pride.

Diane had never exactly been one to admit when she was wrong. She had only started telling her mother she was right about Tom when everything went to shit. She was more apt to just tell someone to shut up if they tried to say 'I told you so', or if they even looked at her with that face.

She was walking towards the house when she saw Lori running towards the Rv.

"Andrea! Have you seen Hershel or Maggie?"

"Haven't seen Hershel, but I saw Maggie and Glenn walk by, maybe twenty minutes ago. Why?"

"Can you go find her? I've gotta get back up to the house!" She didn't even wait for Andrea's response before she took off running again.

Diane ran after her. "Lori," the older woman stopped when she heard her name being called, "what's going on?"

Lori looked around, then grabbed her elbow and pulled her into the house. Once the screen door was closed, she took a shaky breath, running her fingers through her hair. "Beth wants to kill herself."

"What?!" Diane's eye widened, eyebrows nearly disappearing under her fringe. "What are you talking about?"

"I took her some food up, she didn't eat it, so I brought it back down. But when I was clearing the tray, I noticed the knife was missing. I went back up to try to find it, but it wasn't anywhere. I told her to give it to me, and she pulled it out from under her blanket. We have to find Maggie and try to talk some sense into her. Come on."

The two of them pounded up the stairs and threw open Beth's door. She was sitting up, staring out the window across the room. Diane and Lori shared a look, before Diane moved slowly to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Beth, sweetheart, are you ok?" At first, she didn't answer. Just continued staring out the window. "Look, hun, I know it's a bad time. Things aren't great right now, but-"

"There's just no point."

Diane looked up back at Lori, shaking her head slightly. Then she turned back to the young girl. "Beth, will you look at me?" It took her a bit, but she did eventually. "I know what you're feeling."

The girl rolled her eyes. "How could you possibly know how I feel?"

"Because I've been where you are right now. It feels hopeless, like a big black hole in your chest pulling every ounce of happiness or joy out of your soul. It's a weight on your heart that feels like your suffocating." She watched as Beth's eyes filled with tears. "But you can't let it win, sweetheart."

Maggie chose that second to rush into the room. Diane chose to leave, allowing Lori to explain things, as she could probably do it better and without making things worse. Andrea was pacing the living room when she came down the stairs.

"How is she?" she approached as soon as she saw Diane.

"Not well. She's suicidal. Can't say I blame her. If I had just gone through something like that, I probably would be, too."

Andrea seemed taken aback. "That's not was I was expecting."

"What?" Diane was confused.

"Most people would say she needs to get over it, that they can't understand why she would want to end things."

Diane shrugged. "I've been there. I still don't think she needs to give in, but at the same time, I understand it."

Andrea scoffed, "You?"

"Me what?"

"You were suicidal?"

"Meh, not completely. I was in a bad place for a very long time. There were times the thought crossed my mind, but I never attempted. I'm a weanie. I don't like pain. The idea of causing something that might do me pain, or even my family never agreed with me." Lori walked down the stairs. "Are they ok?" That's when the screaming started. The sisters were in a heated argument. "I guess that answers that question. I'm gonna go see if I help the others with anything. Y'all call me if you need anything." The women nodded and she left the room. She heard them start discussing what was going on, but she didn't listen long enough.

)0(

It was not very long before Diane heard the news. Beth had slit one of her wrists. There was a sense of slight disappointment in the girl, but she understood. It seemed, at the last second, she had decided that she wanted to live and had not continued with her plan. Diane was waiting on the porch for someone to tell her how the girl was doing when she saw Andrea coming up to the house. Maggie stormed out, followed closely by Lori.

"Where were you?!" Maggie venomously asked the blonde-haired woman.

"I just heard, is she ok?"

"She would be if you had stayed with her. Where were you?"

"How bad is it?"

Lori sighed. "It wasn't deep."

Andrea face lit up with what seemed to be a sense of pride. "She wants to live. She made her decision."

Maggie's face contorted, "She tried to kill herself!"

"No, she didn't." Andrea smiled.

"My father is stitchin' her wrist right now!"

"But, she'll live." Andrea made to go up the stairs. Diane stood, moving to block her, as did the other two.

"You stay away from her. From both of us. Don't you dare step foot inside this house again." Andrea huffed and stalked off angrily.

Lori sighed again, "Listen, honey. I'm not gonna say she was right, but Beth has made her choice. She wants to live, and now she knows it." She looked away for a second, trying to figure out a way to say the next part. "And sometimes...you have to cross the line.

"Maggie," Diane put a hand on her shoulder, "She's alright, just focus on that. She wants to live, so let's help her do that. We'll find a reason to keep living. Come on, let's go see how she's doing, yeah?"

)0(

As she was laying in her tent, trying in vain to read her book, she heard a car on the dirt road to the house. She hopped up, marking her place in the book before she took off. She and the others all gathered around the vehicle that Rick and Shane had taken. Diane was about to take a sigh of relief that they were back safe (or Rick, at least), when both of them got out of the car looking like they'd gone three rounds with Muhammed Ali.

"What the hell happened to you?" Lori gasped when she saw her husband.

He waved her off, going to the back of the car. "It's nothing. T!"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Get this asshole back to the shed." Much to everyone's disappointment, he pulled Randall, bound, gagged, and blindfolded, out of the trunk. "We'll figure out what we're gonna do with him later." Once everyone had gathered in the living room, including T-Dog after he had secured Randall in the shed, the truth came out. "Randall knows where we are. He went to school with Maggie."

There was a collective gasp around the room. Diane had disappeared for a moment, and come back with two damp rags for the men to wipe off with, but she had still been listening. To be honest, she all but threw one in Shane's face, not to anyone's surprise. "What are we gonna do, Rick?" she asked as she handed him his rag.

"We can't let him go. If he manages to hook back up with his people, there's no telling what could happen," Shane told them.

Diane stood thinking for a moment while everyone else started discusing what should be done. The voices all around her made it hard, as people were getting louder and louder as they continued. "Hey," everyone continued talking over her. "Hey!"

Rick, who seemed to be the only person who heard her, gestured for everyone else to be quiet, then waved a hand at her. "Go ahead."

"If the kid went to school with Maggie, then he's not very old at all. He probably had no one else after the fall. No one wants to be alone right now, it's not a good idea. Strength in numbers. What if he was only with them because he had no other choice."

"He shot at us!" Glenn stepped forward.

"Wouldn't you?" She asked. "If you were in his position? You come to a town to resupply, two of your guys get shot. Whether you are with a group solely for help, or if you actually care about the people in the group, you'd want to get back at the people who killed yours, wouldn't you? And what if, just a thought, his people aren't all that bad? What if they were only shooting at you because you killed two of their own? All I'm saying, is...maybe we give this kid a chance. We bring him into the fold, let him become part of something better. Isn't that better than just killing him straight off or leaving him for walker bait? Let him prove himself."

There was silence. She looked around, Dale, her brothers and mother were all nodding. There were a few solemn faces in the crowd, most of them in fact. Rick walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "We may not be able to take that chance. I'm gonna think about it tonight. Daryl?" The hunter straightened from his leaning position at the door. "Can you get him to talk, see what we can learn about his group?"

The other man only nodded and left the house, everyone else eventually trickled out. Most of them congregated over in the original group's campsite, waiting for Daryl to come back to tell them what he had found out. Dale walked over to Diane.

"that was an awful brave thing you did in there. Not many people would have stood up for someone like that."

Diane sighed. "I don't like unjust killings, ones with no meaning."

There was a moment of silence. "How many people have you killed?" Dale finally asked.

"Too many." She said. "Then again, I think any amount of killing is too much." She looked around, making sure that no one else was listening. "There was a group we met, before y'all. Back halfway through Alabama. Huntsville, I think. They had found us one morning while we were getting ready to leave. It was just three of them, and they didn't have any weapons on them, so we didn't think they'd be any danger. We were wrong. They were just the scouts. One of them had snuck off 'to pee', he said. Michael was the first one to notice something was wrong, obviously. The guy had been gone too long, and he said something to me, told me to go look for him. I went a different way than the guy had. Roundabouts, you know? Anyway, I found the guy with six or seven others converging on the camp. Michael and I developed a system of sounds, three owl screeches for danger. He knew immediately something was wrong. Him and the boys tied up the other two so they could use them as leverage. I stayed in the woods, climbed a tree with a line of sight to the camp." She stopped.

"What happened?" Dale encouraged.

"There was a fire fight. I'm a pretty good shot at long range, so I took a few of them out easily. The boys did the rest. When I climbed down, I was on my way back to the camp when I found a girl hiding in a bush, gun still in hand, getting ready to put a bullet in the back of Robert's head. Put a gun to her head and told her to drop it. She did, immediately. I brought her to the others. She blubbered the whole time about how she was just with them because she was alone, how she didn't want to hurt anyone, and just wanted to survive. Michael didn't believe her. He dropped her right there, bullet between her eyes. No mercy. He claimed his intuition on the subject are better than mine, as he's been in the position a couple of times. He apparently saw some deception in her eyes."

"But you don't think he was right?"

She straightened up, "No, I don't. I think that he was in the wrong to kill that girl without giving her a chance to prove him wrong. But, he kept telling me that there's no point in taking chances in this world, because people will always do what they think is better for them. He seemed to think there was a bigger group somewhere." The others were asking Rick about the plan for Randall, but she barely listened. "We got the hell outta dodge, ASAP." She looked up towards the shed, and seeing Daryl coming towards them, she said, "Hey."

When he was finally close enough, he said, "Boy's got a gang of thirty men. Heavy artillery and they ain't lookin' to make friends." Her eyes landed on his bloody knuckles. "If they roll through here, our boys are dead. And our women...they're gonna wish they were."

Diane's heart dropped out through her ass. They were that bad?

Carol asked the thing that everyone what thinking. "What did you do?"

He glanced down at his hand, moving so it was less visible, then said, "Just had a little chat."

"That's it," Rick said. "No one goes near him. He's a threat, and we have to eliminate the threat."

"You're just gonna kill him?" Dale asked as Rick walked away. He chased after him.

"I'll do it tonight," the cop said.

Daryl had left back to his own little camp. Diane sighed. "Boys," she called to her brothers. "Do me a favor. Take watch. Make sure no one goes near the shed. Carl especially. Robert, you first. Colin, relieve him in about three hours. We'll figure out at schedule in a bit. And don't listen to anything he has to say." The boys nodded.

She left, moving to her tent and grabbing her bigger first aid kit that she kept with the group when she went hunting. It had a mess of typical first aid stuff, as well as a few more specialized pieces of equipment. Daryl would be staying close to the farm for a while, at least until the threat of Randall had passed, so she followed his footsteps to his little area by the forest. It was built around what appeared to be an old fireplace, with a string of walker ears tied up on a line.

When he saw her, he huffed and went back to making arrows. "The hell do you want?"

"You hurt yourself." She stated plainly.

"Nah," he didn't look at her, just kept running his knife along the sticks. Diane plopped down beside him and grabbed his wrist. "The hell?!" he yanked his arm away, eyeing her with a look that probably would have sent anyone else packing.

"I'm just trying to help."

"Don't need no help. 'Specially not from you."

She sighed, grabbing his wrist, harder this time as he tried to pull away again. "Would you stop being such a baby. Give me your damn hand." Something in her voice must have clicked, because he hesitated, then relaxed his arm. "Thank you." She placed it across her lap as she unzipped the large bag, then rummaged around in it for a moment. She looked closely at the marks on his knuckles. "You did a pretty good number on your hand."

With a small, gruff chuckle, he murmured, "You should have seen the other guy." Diane smiled a little at that. She finally pulled out a small bottle of vodka, the cheap kind in a plastic bottle. "What's that for?"

"Everyone cleared out most of the cleaning supplies when shit first hit the fan. But what most people don't know is that high proof alcohol works just as well as rubbing alcohol. I tried to find some moonshine. Y'know, the legal kind. It would work better, since it has higher alcohol content. But all I found were a bunch of the cheap stuff. I guess when people looted the liquor stores, the figured they could finally afford the good stuff, huh?" She cracked it open.

Daryl hissed as she suddenly poured it over his hand, trying to pull away. "Shit, woman!"

"Oh, stop. It's just a little alcohol. You act like you haven't had worse than this." She put the bottle down, and pulled out a couple of napkins. The kind you get from fast food places. She dabbed at the blood, getting as much of it off as possible. "Some of this isn't yours. Is it?"

"Like I said, you should see the other guy."

They were quiet for a moment, as she worked to clean his hand up before wrapping it. "Look...I'm sorry about the other night."

"Ain't gotta apologize." He said quietly.

"Yes, I do. I shouldn't have yelled at you. All you did was try to help, and I was an ass about it."

"I get it."

"No, you don't. You don't know how it feels to have someone that you've been friends with for years suddenly spring it on you that they have feelings. You don't know how it feels to be almost assaulted and only get out of it because someone else comes to save you, when you've been depending on yourself for so long. You don't know what it is to be scared of someone you trust."

"Yeah, I do." She looked up from the bandages. "My older brother, Merle...he was an asshole. But my pops, he was even worse. Used to beat the shit outta us. Merle especially, until he left."

"Then he turned on you?" Daryl nodded. "You're scars?" Another nod. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I kinda know how it feels." She stood up and pulled the edge of her shorts up to her butt. There were lines running horizontally across the backs of her legs. They were faint, old. "My mom's first husband was a sorry piece of shit. Used to get a kick out of putting welts on my skin," she sat back down and finished wrapping his hand. "He'd come outta nowhere with a switch. I learned to watch the shadows of the house for him." She leaned back. "So, you need any help with those arrows?"

The sudden shift made his head spin. "What?"

"I need to make some more anyway. I'm running low." Packing her stuff away, she pulled out her knife from her hip and grabbed a stick.

Not knowing what to say, Daryl just went about it. They worked together silently, for a time. After a while, Diane started asking strange questions and launching into the most random ass stories. Daryl would occasionally answer her, but there were sometimes he'd just level her with a look and she'd shut up for a while. Then it would start all over again.

It was nice, peaceful even. He was distracted from the things that had been said, the pain they shared.

Something thumped in his chest.

)0(

A/N: Woohoo, over 7,000 words. I am on a roll, my dudes. Excuse me while I do a little dance.

Read and review, let me know what you think.

Also, yes, I know the thing with Beth was a little strange, but I thought it would give a better depth than the original did with just randomly spouting that she was...wiccan, spiritual? Either way, I like it.