Author's Note: I didn't realize how long it's been since I updated. There'll be no witty banter here as there usually is. I'm tired, so here's the finally updated chapter, about 18 months, give or take, late. As always, please Read & Review!

xoxo —Holly

"Though all we knew depart,

The old commandments stand:

In courage keep your heart,

In strength lift up your hand."

— Rudyard Kipling, 'For All We Have and Are'

At the last minute, before leaving the trailer, Charlie had decided to see if her mother's truck still ran. She had no clue if any of the gas had been syphoned or if any stray bullets had struck something vital, which would prevent it from working, but she figured it was worth a shot. With one last look around the inside of the trailer, she swiped the car keys that where hanging on a hook by the door, attached to a green rabbit's foot keychain. When she was sitting behind the wheel of the truck, she knew Rick and Maggie were waiting on her, but they were patient and not trying to rush her through any of this. She could see out the rear window that Rick was leaning against the driver's side door of Otis' truck and that Maggie was sitting inside, on the passenger's side, with the door open.

Her view straight ahead was that of the trailer and in her mind, for a moment, it almost felt like it was still about a week ago, when she was driving back here, after scavenging that cul de sac. Her mother had been sitting on the front porch then, smoking one of the last cigarettes she had on her and a glass of sugarless Kool-Aid on the table beside her. Charlie had found a package of unopened sugar, so she knew her mother would be content not having to drink bland, cherry-flavored water, and could instead have something to sate her sweet tooth. Charlie smiled at the memory; at how she'd climbed out of the truck, having parked it in its current position, and pulled the sugar from the backpack she'd been carrying around. She had held it up as if in a show of victory and her mother had mimicked the gesture, sort of, by pumping both fists in the air.

"That's my girl!"

Charlie could still hear her mother's voice in her head.

She smiled at that memory, and that was what she wanted to take away from this place, if nothing else.

Shoving the key into the ignition, she turned it forward and after a second it purred to life without a single hitch. Letting out an elated chuckle, Charlie could almost see her mother pumping her fists in the air, cheering her on for still surviving in this world without her. Turning to look over her shoulder, she glimpsed Rick nodding with a smile at her through the rear window, and then watched as he approached the passenger's side.

Yanking open the door, Rick stood there with beads of sweat along his hairline that rolled down his temples. "You wanna drive this back? Follow behind Maggie and me?"

Charlie considered the suggestion, and then nodded. "Yeah."

"Does it have enough gas?"

Stealing a peek at the gas gauge, she nodded again. "It's got more than half a tank," she replied. "We still stoppin' in town or bypassing it?"

"We should probably hit it up. I think Maggie still wants to check that pharmacy there, and I suppose she deserves a full explanation about the bodies of those men and what went down. To put her mind at ease, at least."

"Yeah, okay."

With a nod, Rick shut the door and walked back to Otis' truck. A couple of moments later, Maggie climbed out of it and shut the passenger door behind her and walked over to Charlie's passenger door instead, where Rick had just been. She tapped her knuckles on the window and smiled before opening the door and climbing up in beside Charlie.

"Uh, what's up?" Charlie wondered with a raise of an eyebrow.

"I'm gonna ride with you, if that's okay."

"Sure. Alright."

"I told Rick we'd lead the way," Maggie added. "I know the way back to town better than he does. He can follow."

Charlie smirked. "Okay, then."

Shifting the gear into reverse, Charlie backed her mother's truck up behind Otis' truck, turning it so that Maggie's side was perpendicular to the back bed of Otis' truck, and then turned the wheel to the left to pull forward back out the gravel driveway toward the road. She slowed at the property fence, watching Rick turning around and eventually coming up behind the ladies. Checking on him from the rearview mirror, she saw his nod to go ahead, and Charlie did.

Just like getting to her mother's trailer, leaving it proved uneventful. That abandoned truck in the road they'd come upon was still abandoned in the road; forcing both of their own trucks to slowly and carefully drive around it before continuing onward without further issue. They crossed over one set of train tracks, and passed a few walkers on the road, but they sped on by too fast for the walkers to catch up and by then they were out of sight and out of mind for the undead. Those walkers would likely be distracted by the next movement or sound to come along. Maybe a rabbit or a bird.

Part of Charlie felt a little bit anxious when they got nearer to the little town. There was still that worry that more of those thugs were nearby, just lying in wait for her to return so they could avenge the deaths of their befallen buddies. However, it was just as they had left it when they drove past earlier that morning. The only difference now was that the body of the last man Charlie had shot was now further down the road, ambling along to join a couple other random walkers that had come out of the theoretical woodwork.

Charlie frowned at that, though; a million and ten questions fumbling about in her brain.

Pulling up alongside the tavern where she and Rick had taken temporary refuge, Charlie put the truck into park and turned off the engine. Rick parked across the road, parallel to them and directly in front of Steve's Pharmacy. All three hopped out of both vehicles and gathered in the center of the road; looking around to see that there was no immediate threat from the undead approaching.

"Y'all are still gonna give me the lowdown on those lowlifes, right?" Maggie questioned without missing a beat.

"We will," Rick confirmed with a nod. He removed his hat and wiped his brow and then tossed the hat into Otis' truck through the rolled down window.

"Do it before we get back to the farm. I feel like it might be something daddy won't be too keen on hearing."

Rick shot a look to Charlie and sighed. With a small gesture ahead of him, he let Maggie and Charlie go first in heading around the truck and into the pharmacy. Inside felt oddly cooler than it was outside and Rick welcomed any reprieve from the rising heat. Inside the building, countless shelves lay in disarray, having been nearly picked to the bone. It hadn't been from any sort of looting, just survivors taking what they needed. After all, the cardboard sign in the window did let them know to "Take What You Need and God Bless."

"I spy some pads and tampons," Charlie quipped, crouching down to grab up some boxes.

"And with that I'll be in the back looking at meds we can use," Rick muttered awkwardly.

Both women looked at each other and snickered as he walked toward the back counter and climbed over it. Reaching for a gift bag off the opposite wall, Maggie handed it down to Charlie.

"Use this for now. I'll see if I can find some plastic bags."

Holding up a box of something else, Charlie smirked. "That boy Jimmy—he a relative of yours or is he your sister's boyfriend?"

"Why? You interested?" Maggie asked jokingly as she moved around another shelving unit.

"Nah, too young for my tastes. Probably all peach fuzz down there anyway."

Maggie let out a hearty chuckle. "Eww. Now I have that image in my head."

"Sorry. Just think about that well walker an' you'll be fine in no time at all."

"He's Beth's boyfriend. He lost his parents and didn't have anywhere else to go, so daddy took him in," Maggie finally answered. "Why you asking?"

Charlie stood up and held out the box in her hand with a smirk on her face. "They might need these."

Staring down at the box, Maggie shook her head and gave a brief laugh. "Condoms? My daddy would sooner castrate Jimmy. Ground rules were laid down when Jimmy moved in. Rule number one: no sex."

"I don't know if you know this, but teenagers are horny lil' shits. And when I was a teenager, I didn't take too kindly to bein' told not to do somethin'. If anything, it made me want to do it more." Charlie gave the box a shake. "It'd be playin' it safe to have these, just in case. Because, despite whatever rules your dad has for your sister and her boy toy, rules get broken. Teenagers always find a way. Sooner or later, kissin' is gonna lead to heavy pettin', and heavy pettin' is gonna lead to babies gettin' made."

Maggie smiled and shrugged. "Okay, but I'm not bringing them back with me. You can. If I bring those in the house, I can only imagine the third degree my daddy will give me."

"Fair enough." With a nod of acquiescence, Charlie sandwiched the box of condoms into the gift bag, between the box of pads and tampons, like a game of Tetris. "How you doin' back there, Rick? Find anything good?"

"You mean like your condoms for Maggie's baby sister?" Rick called back.

Charlie rolled her eyes and tutted. "You ain't a prude, are you?"

"If I was a prude, my son would've never been conceived."

Charlie shrugged. "Bein' sexually active with your wife doesn't mean you can't be a prude."

"Can we maybe not talk about sex and focus on cleaning this place out of anything worthwhile?"

Flashing Maggie a grin, Charlie sauntered up to the pharmacy counter where she saw Rick crouched down at a shelf toward the back; turning bottles around to read what they were. "Prude."

Rick shook his head and let out a sigh. Turning his head in her direction, he gave Charlie a smirk. "I am not. I just like to keep certain topics private."

"Which is basically the definition of bein' a prude or, at the very least, prudish."

Standing upright, Rick walked over to the counter; setting down three pill bottles and one tube of some kind of ointment. The ointment he pushed forward, closer to her. "Here's a tube of over the counter vaginal itch cream. Set that aside with your condoms." He held her gaze as if they were in the midst of a contest to see who could hold out the longest before someone blinked. "Call me a prude again."

Spotting the sparkle of distant mischief in his eyes, Charlie bowed her head in respect. "My apologies, kind sir. You can say 'vaginal' without batting an eye. Clearly you can't possibly be a prude after all," she teased. Taking the itch cream, she slipped it into the gift bag, and turned back toward the front of the pharmacy without another word.

Maggie wandered over to him instead, setting down a few supplies and a single plastic bag. "Here," she offered.

As she backed away to join Charlie, Rick watched as both women fell easily into a new change of subject. He gave a shake of his head and smiled at the interaction that had just past, and then began to place the pill bottles and other items into the bag.

"Your father was a veterinarian before, right?" Rick called over to Maggie.

"Yeah."

"Maybe we should've asked him to give us a list of the kinds of meds to look for that we could use."

"Don't take too much if you're not sure," she remarked. "We can always come back."

"What if someone passes through this town and really cleans this place out?" Charlie questioned.

"I've been back and forth here, once a week, sometimes twice a week, since the beginning and the initial rush this place saw. Since then, I haven't noticed much movement in products and supplies going missing. Everything always seems to be as I left it from the week prior."

"Maybe we just take it all, have your dad look it over, and anything we can't use we bring back?" Charlie suggested.

"What if a family passes through and needs something we took and haven't brought back yet?"

Charlie shrugged. "You said it yourself. You haven't seen much movement around here."

"We'll come back with a list," Rick decided, climbing over the pharmacy counter. "That list will come in handy down the line anyway. When Charlie and I start heading out to look for my family, we can use the list to look for other meds that we might be able to use and bring back to the farm with us. Two birds, one stone."

"Alright."

As Rick and Charlie continued to busy themselves with finding anything else of use, Maggie all but stood as still as a statue, looking between the pair on opposite sides of the pharmacy counter. "So, the guys you had some trouble with that are clearly very much dead—what's the 411 on that?" she questioned, bringing them back to that topic like a cowboy with a lasso. "What happened while ya'll were holed up in the bar across the street?"

Charlie stood up straight, removing her focus from a pump bottle of hand sanitizer sitting lonely on a shelf. "Those assholes killed my mama. Then they chased after me through the woods when they realized I was runnin' away." She gestured over toward Rick. "Dudley Do-Right here was trottin' on by on a horse and came to my rescue like a knight in shinin' armor. He pulled me up and off we went with those assholes tryin' to shoot after us when they made it out of the woods, but we had speed on our side, at least for a while. The others were still on foot and, by the time Rick and I had made it to the bar, they'd all split up lookin' for us. Four of 'em made their way here. Rick and I devised a plan to take 'em out all sniper-like, 'cause there was no way we'd be able to sneak away unnoticed without a shootout. We needed the advantage of surprise."

"We waited outside, alongside the bar, behind some bushes, but then I doubled back to the street out there to cause a distraction," Rick continued, placing one hand on his hip and the other upon the countertop. "We took them out, one by one. I shot two, and so did she. But that first guy…"

She and Rick shared a concerned look. Maggie looked between them again, trying to figure out what was bothering them.

"What about him?" Maggie wondered.

"I shot him through the back. He bled out and died," Charlie replied, letting out a sigh. Her brow furrowed, and cast another look at Rick, as if silently trying to put the pieces together with him.

"When we left here on horseback, I saw him sit up," Rick added.

Charlie hadn't known that. Rick hadn't told her. "I saw him when we passed through this morning, and when we got here a little bit ago, I saw him again, only this time staggerin' around with a few other walkers down the road. He'd turned. He died from a gunshot wound and came back as one of 'em. I didn't think that was possible. People got sick in the beginning, died and turned or they got bit, and then got sick, died and turned."

"Maybe the guy had already been bit prior to you shooting him?" Maggie suggested.

Rick shook his head. "No, he was too fit and healthy. If he'd been recently bit, there would've been a bandage or some blood somewhere on him denoting a bite mark. There wasn't anything like that."

"Maybe he was bit after he was shot?"

Charlie seemed to consider that for a moment, but for only a brief moment. "We did head back into the bar to gather our supplies and get the horse. If somethin' like that would've happened, it would've been then, but there weren't any walkers around that were close enough to the bar to have bitten that guy. And, anyway, that's not how it works. Once you're dead, bein' bitten or chowed down upon after the fact ain't what's gonna turn ya. It happens before."

"Maybe…" Rick began, a thought rolling around his head as he lifted a hand to scratch at his stubble. "Maybe people don't have to be bit to turn. Maybe we turn no matter what once we die, no matter how we die."

Charlie grimaced, her mother popping into her mind again. "Except if your death came by way of a bullet to the head. That seems to keep both the livin' and the dead completely dead."

"So, by that theory, in sixty years when I'm an old lady on her death bed, and once I take my last breath, I'll still end up like one of them?" Maggie frowned. "Lord, I hope not."

"Who knows—maybe scientists somewhere are working on a cure to inoculate the surviving masses as we speak. Those already turned will be eliminated and the rest of us can start to rebuild the world," Rick offered up, trying to be a little bit hopeful. "I'd like to think there's a chance for us all to somehow get back to how things were."

Charlie was the one to shake her head this time. She looked Rick right in the eye. "There won't be any gettin' back to how things were."

"Well, no—not exactly like how things were…"

As they stood there in silence for a couple of moments, they each seemed to give the interior of the pharmacy the same final onceover with their eyes before turning their attentions back to each other. Neither of them said it out loud that there was little left to take to bring back to the farm, so they wordlessly nodded at one another and made their way toward the door with the bags filled with those items they had gathered up. The sun greeted them almost immediately once they were outside and the fresh air was a welcomed change from the stale dustiness from inside the building. A few yards up ahead on the main road was that same walker; that shambling corpse of the man Charlie had killed days prior. He had turned toward them when they'd first arrived, due to the sound of the trucks and their voices. When they had disappeared into the pharmacy, though, the lack of further noise outside didn't draw him any further toward them. Something else might've drawn his attention away and kept him at a considerable distance. But that changed again once they emerged with bags in hand and opened up the doors to their trucks.

Maggie took the bags from Charlie's hands and placed them on the floor of the truck along with her bags, where her feet would rest while they drove home to the farm. While Rick set his bags on the seat beside him in Otis' truck, he stole a glance up the road at the walker that was slowly making its way toward them; one arm outstretched as if it could somehow reach them from where he was and the chomp of his jaw at flesh it couldn't bite into was unmistakable.

"Let's get going," Rick announced; pulling the keys from his pocket and giving them once jingle. He didn't have to bother alerting the ladies to the newer development that he'd noticed, because Charlie and Maggie had noticed it, too.

A few more walkers had seemed to step out from the woodwork. There was a small house nearby and that's where they seemed to all be generating from, or at least from that vicinity, and were starting to head in the direction of the pharmacy to join the other walker in reaching noise of the trucks Rick and Charlie were driving. And as soon as the vehicles had started up, they left no time for dilly dallying. The only thing they left was the walkers in their rearview mirrors and the dust and dirt the tires kicked up in their wake.

With Charlie driving and Maggie as her navigator, they led the way back to Greene farm, making it back somehow faster than they had left that morning, even though they were traveling at the same speed.

"Do you know when you and Rick will start heading out to look for his wife and son?" Maggie asked as her house came into view after they turned onto the property's dirt road.

Charlie shrugged. "If not tomorrow, maybe the day after at the earliest," she replied. "I haven't asked him yet, so I don't really know."

Maggie nodded. As the truck slowed close to Charlie and Rick's little encampment, she added, "Do you think you'll find them?"

"I hope so," the older brunette sighed as she put the truck in park and turned off the ignition. "We don't both need to be without our families."

From the front porch of the old farmhouse, there stood an expectant Hershel whose shoulders seemed to visibly lift with the relief that his daughter had been brought back safe and sound. Rick had brought Otis' truck closer to the house and had climbed out with a nod to Hershel.

"I trust everything went well?" Hershel inquired, walking down the steps.

"No hiccups," Rick replied simply, tossing the keys to the older man. "Thanks for letting us use the truck."

"Well, it's Otis you should really thank."

"I will."

"Maggie was okay out there with you two, right?"

Rick nodded. "She was a big help. And we stopped at the pharmacy in town. We plan on making a trip back there at some point with a list of meds we can use. All those pharmaceutical names are a little confusing if you don't know what all those bottles of pills are for."

"I'll write something down later." Hershel drew his focus away toward his approaching daughter and Charlie; though primarily upon his daughter. "Everything okay out there?"

"No different than last week," Maggie responded. "Just a few extra bodies walking around, but they didn't get close enough."

"That's good, that's good."

"Rick," Charlie spoke. When he turned and looked at her, she continued, pointing at Otis' truck, "We should get some of the stuff unpacked."

"Right," he nodded. Looking at Hershel, he gave the older man a nod. "If we have anything extra you can use, we'd be glad to share."

Hershel smirked appreciatively. "We're fine with what we have right now. Just make sure you have yourselves squared away first."

Maggie gently touched her hand to her father's arm and looked up at him. "Maybe they can join us for dinner tonight?" she suggested. "They've been through a lot lately and deserve a real family style meal."

Hershel didn't necessarily look his daughter back in the face, and he didn't have to. He was easily wrapped around her finger and they both knew it. She had put him on the spot and saying no would be quite unkind. With a sigh, he turned his gaze back toward Rick and Charlie. "Of course. You're more than welcome to join us tonight."

Rick could easily sense the subtle reluctance in Hershel's voice and he could understand. They were still new people; just one step above strangers. Their arrangement with staying on the farm, and helping out when and where they could, had only just been solidified the day before. Neither side truly knew the other yet. For all Hershel knew Rick and Charlie could secretly be criminals. The uniform Rick wore could've been stolen and his identity as a sheriff deputy could've been made up. Considering that point of view and with Charlie having just buried her mother, he felt she might want some time alone.

"Thank you," Rick replied, "that's a generous offer. But maybe we can take a rain check for now." He gestured between Charlie and himself. "We really should get our supplies sorted out and figuring our next steps for looking for my family."

Hershel seemed to a little relieved. His shoulders lowering like a weight had been lifted was a bit of a tell. His smile even seemed to convey appreciation for the decline to dinner. "Well, the offer still stands for a later time, then."

"Thank you," Rick repeated.

The older man responded with only a nod as he placed a hand to Maggie's back and turned to lead them back inside of their house; leaving Rick and Charlie there, outside, at the base of the porch steps. The pair looked between each other, with Rick catching a knowing look from Charlie.

"What?" he wondered, his back to the house. "Should I have not declined?"

She shook her head. "No, thanks for doing it," she corrected. "I'm not exactly feeling the whole touchy-feely homespun meal at an actual table sort of thing right now. I just wanna get our shit sorted, grab a bite to eat and call it a day."

"I figured as much."

Charlie smirked. "I like Maggie an' all, but you're the extent of company I care to deal with tonight."

"So you gotta deal with me?"

Turning away from both Rick and the house, Charlie nodded and let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, you're a handful."

"Oh, I am, am I?" he questioned with a grin as he began to follow her to their tent.

"Of course you are. You're still new to this world and learning the ropes. You're a virtual babe in the woods and you can thank your lucky stars you happened upon the likes of me to help you along so you don't die."

"I happened upon you and you're helping me? Huh." Rick placed his hands on his hips as they walked and raised an eyebrow. "I seem to recall you're the one who came hobbling out of the woods, asking me for help so you wouldn't die."

Charlie shook a hand in his direction. "Pfft. Semantics." Reaching the tent, she unzipped it first before stepping back away from it and heading over to her mother's truck which, by inheritance, was now her truck. She didn't bother to banter any further with him as she went about lifting some of the supplies out of the back bed.

Rick, mere steps behind her, began to lend a hand. Any and all toiletries they'd grabbed from her mother's trailer were brought into the tent. Lucky for Rick that her mother had always preferred using men's deodorant, so the two unused sticks of Old Spice were given to him to put to use. Anything they had grabbed from the pharmacy they decided they would definitely share with Hershel's household since Maggie had helped find some of the stuff. With the exception of a 500 count of Ibuprofen that Rick and Jo were going to keep in the tent with them, the rest of the medication they were going to give to Hershel, considering he would better know how and when to put them to good use, having been a doctor, even if he'd only been a veterinarian. Food supplies they also kept mostly for themselves, stored away in small totes inside the tent at the foot of Charlie's sleeping bag because her legs didn't reach far enough to the base of her sleeping bag like Rick's did.

Charlie's old school backpack was filled some clothes and she had set that near her sleeping bag, close to where her head lay, but first removed the framed picture of her and her mother; angling it so that Charlie could roll over each morning and that would be the first thing she saw. Rick had pulled the three-drawer storage cart from the back of Otis' truck and brought it inside the tent just as Charlie had headed back inside. He took it upon himself to set it up between where they both slept and place the toiletries inside each of the drawers, including the feminine products Charlie would come to need in due course.

After barely an hour of fiddling about with their supplies, Rick took the rest up in a few plastic bags up to the house. He waited politely at the door after knocking and it was Jimmy that answered and took everything off of him. Hershel had come to the door then as well, thanking Rick.

"Are you sure I can't convince you and Charlie to come in for dinner tonight?"

Rick smiled appreciatively. "I don't know that we're there yet, and I think you feel that way, too." With his hands on his hips, he let out a small sigh. "We're merely tenants. In exchange for letting us stay on the farm we agreed to earn our keep when we're here. We don't expect handouts."

"Don't think of it as handouts, then," Hershel quipped. "You can pay off the debt of the free meal by cleaning up my tool shed whenever you have the time." As he smirked, so too did Rick. "I will admit that the offer came mostly from my daughter, but I can tell you're good people with good intentions, and it is the Christian thing to do to help those less fortunate than myself. How about we meet halfway then?"

"How's that?"

"I'll have two plates put together of food and Maggie can bring it out to you. That way you get a home-cooked meal but can eat it in the privacy of your camp."

Rick nodded. "I suppose that's something we can do."

"Alright then." As Hershel watched Rick move to head back down the porch and toward the direction of the tent, he cleared his throat to get the younger man's attention again. "The shed is just over there."

Rick turned back around and followed to where Hershel was gesturing and chuckled. "Right. I'll get right on that."

Hershel gave a sort of mock salute before disappearing back into his house while Rick continued on toward the tent, where Charlie was tying a plastic bag closed and setting it down behind the privacy curtains for their bathing area.

"We gotta earn our supper," Rick remarked with a small smile on his lips.

"Is that so? Because we have several canned goods in that tent with our name on it and the only work required to earn it is the very easy handling of a can opener."

"Hershel's having two plates of food made up for it. I told him we didn't want handouts, and so I agreed to clean up his tool shed."

Charlie just stood there, staring back at him. "You heard yourself, right? You agreed to clean his tool shed in exchange for dinner. I buried my mother today. I get a free pass." Stepping over toward one of the folding chairs, she sat down and then threw a smirk over her shoulder at him.

"Alright, fine." Stepping up beside her, Rick gave her shoulder a quick grip and then let his bowlegged gait lead him in the direction of the tool shed around the side of the house.

She hadn't meant to, but Charlie couldn't help but watch after him; the casual sway his hips made with each step. It was just like that morning, when he had come out from behind the privacy curtains without his shirt on yet. It was hard not to look and admire a good-looking man, even if he was just her friend. There was that feeling where she could see him become more to her, but that was a dead end; a road she couldn't dare think to travel on. He had a wife and a kid, and their goal was to find them. Maybe they would find his friend Shane. From what little Rick had told her about the man, she would either love him or hate him. If he was good-looking, she probably wouldn't mind sharing a sleeping bag with him, so to speak. In a world like this, after all, beggars couldn't be choosers.

Shaking any further thoughts of coupling with anyone from her head, Charlie leaned forward and clasped her hands together between her knees. She glanced at the dry embers in the fire pit, the remnants of last night's fire, and then back over in the direction Rick had gone. She had no desire to clean out a tool shed right now but was suddenly feeling guilty for not helping him. She knew neither Rick nor Hershel would care if she sat this task out, and she had just made her case to Rick that she had every right to sit it out, but everyone had lost someone lately. Why was she any more special?

Letting a long sigh seep out of her mouth, she pushed herself up and headed over toward the house and then veering off to the left. She spotted the tool shed easily and approached silently when she saw how absorbed Rick already was with whatever it was he was doing. Realizing he didn't even know she was closely behind him, she made the choice to fuck with him.

Reaching a hand out, she touched a hand to the back of his head and did her best to mimic the snarl of a walker.

As she expected would happen, Rick almost jumped out of his skin. He fell forward into the riding lawnmower in front of him and spun around as quickly as possible while simultaneously attempting to grab for anything to be a weapon. Rick succeeded in snatching up a 3-tine hand cultivator used for gardening that had been hanging on the wall and arching his arm back in preparation to strike the undead assailant he thought had been coming for him. Taking a step back, Charlie let out a laugh and held her hands up in mock surrender while he let out a visible sigh of relief.

"Easy there, Quick Draw McGraw," she teased.

"Don't do that to me," he asserted; releasing the built up tension from his shoulders and replacing the hand cultivator. "I could've hurt you."

"Not really." Charlie gave the interior of the shed a quick onceover before returning her focus to Rick and his amusingly soured expression. "You were so engrossed with reorganizing or whatever. If I'd been an actual walker, I would've been on you like white on rice before you could shove something sharp and pointy into my skull." Off his petulant gaze, she added, "Rule number one of this new world: always be aware of your surroundings."

"I was a sheriff deputy. You don't need to school me in being aware of your surroundings."

"Didn't you get shot by a criminal and end up in a coma and miss the end of the world all because you weren't aware of your surroundings?"

Rick's gaze at her turned from petulant to mild annoyance. "No one knew there was a third guy in that car. Dispatch told us there were only two armed suspects. Had we known there were three—"

"Rick," Charlie cut him off. "I'm just fucking with ya. Unbunch your panties."

He gave a shake of his head and placed his hands on his hips. "Alright, so is that the only reason you're here? To keep my on my toes and tease me?"

"Nah," she shrugged. "Guess I felt the need to help you clean out this damn shed after all. Fucking with ya was simply an added bonus."

"I wouldn't consider it an added bonus."

"Well, no. It was an added bonus for me and it did put a smile on my face. Considering the earlier part of the day for me was no picnic whatsoever, I'd say I'm allowed some fuckery."

"I thought you weren't going to clean the shed with me because of the earlier part of today…"

Stepping up beside him, she gave him a playful shove to his shoulder and began reaching for can of WD-40 that felt like it was empty or close to being empty. "As a woman I am allowed to change my mind."

Rick smirked and nodded knowingly. "I have a wife. I'm aware of how that goes."

"So, then it's just your surroundings you're not aware of?"

"I'm gonna take that cultivator and finish what I started with it."

Charlie simply chuckled in response.

With a shake of his head, Rick moved around the riding lawnmower to assess his next move in cleaning up the shed. "How about we just get some of this shit done in silence, with little as little fuckery as possible. Maggie will probably be bringing food to us from the house soon anyway."

"Yes, officer."

The pair looked briefly at each other and both smirked before turning their attention to opposite sides of the tool shed.