It's been three weeks since the hospital, three... long and painful weeks. Turns out Eugene wasn't a scientist after all, he didn't have a cure or a way to save the world. He was just a good liar with the motivation to use others to keep him alive. If he knew what was best for him, he'd stay the hell away from me because I've been fighting the urge to put him down for how many people he got killed getting him here, how many false hopes he fed us. Yet, he still walked as one of us...

We buried Beth outside of the city, from there we went searching for Noah's family. Apparently they had a walled up community outside of Virginia, somewhere we'd be safe. When we got there... it'd been raided... nobody was left. We lost Ty after he got bit there, burying him in an open field. The groups falling apart on itself, I'm afraid if we keep going at it like this somebody else was going to die.

Daryl was bottling up his feelings, barely speaking to anybody about anything. Maggie was an emotional wreck after loosing her sister, her last piece of family she had left after Hershel. Rick was struggling to keep it together, we needed food and water. The weather was scorching and we'd ran out nearly two days ago. The group was at it's weakest, traveling by foot with a baby that cried every few hours.

Who was worrying me the most was Sasha, she lost Bob then Ty soon after, her own brother and wasn't grieving about it. She was coming off the hinges, acting reckless and coming unglued. It reminded me of how Ty had acted when he lost Karen. I've been keeping a close eye on her in hopes to stop her from getting herself killed when she goes off half cocked.

"Anything?" I called up to Daryl, my voice cracking from how dry my throat was. We were out scouting for water, the past several spots we've checked have been nothing but sand left. With this heat wave there wasn't a drop of water in sight besides the sweat on our backs.

"Nothin, it's to dry," he grumbled, his head down low. He was taking Beth's death hard, Carol and I have been worried about him so she gave me something that might help.

"Hey, we're not dead," I told him, placing a hand on his arm. He didn't even look up at me, hair falling into his eyes. "You told me once that... you have to let yourself feel it," I said softly, pushing his hair from his face.

He still looked down at ground as I pulled something from my back pocket. It was a light brown sheath, a small knife buttoned into it. I grabbed Daryl's hand and gave it to him, wrapping his fingers around the sheath.

"This was Beth's," I smiled down at it.

I could see his eyes locked onto the knife in his hand, teeth biting the inside of his cheek. I sighed, wrapping my arms around him in an embrace feeling his arms lazily hug my waist. We started heading back, along the way I twirled my karambit knife between my fingers to keep my mind off things. I stared down at it, the memory of Quinton always bringing a sad smile to my face. Daryl looked down at it as well, we hadn't talked a lot about what happened to us pre-Z. He knew who Quinton was to me, that he died saving me, other than that though not much.

My mind started to wonder on thoughts about family, Daryl's family... Merle... Daryl didn't know and he never would know what happened between us. As far as I know, Merle's ending was enough to forgive him, his last words claiming he never touched me and that he was sorry. Shivers went up my spine as I put my blade away and tried to think of something else.

A few hours had gone by and we'd been getting a decent size group of biters following behind us. With our group this size I was surprised there wasn't more. We stopped on a bridge, sending a few of the others who wouldn't fight or were to weak across why about 7 of us stayed behind to take care of the biters.

"Stick to the plan, push them off the edge," Rick repeated himself as we all stood at the edge of the bridge. Below us was a steep cliff that they wouldn't be able to climb back up, all we had to do was push them down in hopes of saving a little energy that way.

Roughly twenty biters growling at us hobbled over, Rick taking the lead and pushing the first down. Him, Daryl, Michonne and Glenn were on one side while Sasha, Abraham and I were on the other. One of the roamers reached up for me as I stepped to the side and let it tumbled down the cliff. Michonne was next, pushing hers down and getting ready for the next one. Then suddenly, Sasha locked onto a walker and latched onto it, anger seeping into her face as she struggled a moment with it.

"Sasha!" I hissed under my breath. She piked it in the head, looking up for the next one as the walkers all moved out of formation and clumping up on our side.

With the plan off the table, we were forced to take down the still large group of biters. I held my knife out, taking down a few as I covered Sasha aggressively stabbing another. I grabbed her arm, pulling her to the side.

"Just go!" I growled at her, pissed off.

She shrugged me off, slashing her knife and cutting Abraham with it by accident. He looked down at it before getting grabbed by a walker, Rick was fast to turn and pull it off, getting grabbed himself. The walker holding Rick nearly took a chunk out of his arm before I raised my bow and pulled the trigger. Looking back, Sasha was going for the last biter of the herd. I was fuming as she grabbed a hold of it instead of killing it right away. I pushed her out of harms way making her trip and took the walker down before she did anymore damage.

"I told you to stop!" I yelled at her on the ground giving me a death glare. She got to her feet, a bloody knife in her hand as she held her ground a mere inch from me. I didn't back away, staring right back at her waiting for her to say something.

"I had it!" she hissed.

"No, you're going to get somebody killed!" I snapped. Daryl stepped between us, ending the argument as she stormed off down the bridge without another word.

"Calm down," Daryl told me. I flicked my head up in his direction, adrenaline still pulsing through my veins.

I ripped my arm from his grip and walked off to rejoin the others. I don't know why I was so angry, we'd all been running on fumes and it was finally starting to get to us. We'd been out on the road for way to long, we were starting to tear at each others throats.

Another hour or so went by and we walked up to a couple of crashed cars on the road. We spread out, searching through all of them for anything that might be useful. I hoped hard for there to be even a single bottle of water anywhere, the crave for just one drink drove me to look faster. When all the cars came out empty I had to stop myself from slamming the car door. We all sat down in a shady spot, my legs were becoming tingly and weak underneath me, the energy to even think about getting up slipping away from me.

Daryl was out looking for water alone, even if I wanted to I don't think I'd of been much help. I could fall asleep right here under this tree... I shook my head, trying not to doze off as I watched Abraham next to me pull out a small bottle of bourbon from his bag and twist the cap off. He thought about it for a moment, knowing damn sure it would make things worse yet took a swig from the bottle anyways. He looked over at me, holding it out to see if I wanted some. I hesitated a moment before taking the bottle and taking several drinks before handing it back. He gave me a wide eye before taking a second swig.

A breaking branch made the whole group jump as Daryl walked out of the woods across from us. He shook his head no, meaning he didn't find anything. I let out a sigh, leaning my head back against the tree. There was another shuffling of branches and bushes when a group of large dogs stopped in the middle of the road. They snarled at us, bearing sharp teeth as we slowly pulled our knives out for an unexpected fight. I was shocked to see dogs in this time and age, I couldn't recall the last time I'd even seen one. These guys were even wearing collars, old and worn from lack of maintenance.

Silenced shots rang out, the sound of squealing dogs making me jump as they all fell one by one. Sasha stood above everybody, her rifle in her arms as she lowered it, the four large dogs now dead on the pavement. Nobody said a word, everybody in shock for another moment as Rick stood up and grabbed a stick from the ground and breaking it, giving us a sad look. They built a fire as Daryl and I skinned the dogs, slicing off chunks of meat and handing them off to be cooked. I ate my large portion in silence, feeling some energy come back to me. It was only about mid day and we still had more walking to do.

The day felt as if it would never end. The sun seemed like it would never cool down. The road ahead of us stretching endlessly. When I turned and looked back, Daryl wasn't even walking with us still. Abraham looked at me, saying he left to try and find water. I nodded my head at him, a little disappointed he hadn't taken me with him or even said anything to me. I caught up to Rick at the front of the group, baby Judith sleeping in his arms. I frowned, knowing she was probably dehydrated as well.

"See that?" Rick mumbled to me.

He passed Judith off to Carl as I spotted what he was talking about. In the middle of the road, there was a case of water bottles. I knelt down beside it, picking up a piece of paper that had 'from a friend' scribbled on it. I instantly stood up, looking around with a hand on my bow. There was nothing but road and forest all around us. Somebody was watching us, long enough to know that we needed water and that we'd be going down this exact road. Daryl reappeared, Rick handing him the note. I nearly did a double take as I noticed his eyes were slightly puffy and red.

"Now what?" Tara asked.

"Not this... we don't know who left it," Rick shook his head. It was painful to look down at all that water and know you couldn't have it.

"I'm all for quality control-" Eugene cracked, opening one of the bottles and putting it to his lips. Abraham was quick to swat the bottle away, spilling it all over himself.

"It could be poisoned," I looked at him. He frowned, looking down at the spilled bottle all over his shirt.

There was a pause as we all stood there when I felt something land on my cheek. I filched, touching my fingertips to my face and finding it wet. It happened again and again when thunder boomed above us and the clouds opened up, pouring down rain. Smiles started lighting up on peoples faces as it flooded above us, the water cool on my hot skin. I quickly grabbed my empty canteen and took the lid off, trying to fill it as I looked up into the rain. More thunder boomed, a heavy storm starting and Judith beginning to cry. Faint growls of biters coming from who knows where pulled everybody out of the happy rain dance they'd been doing. We needed to find shelter and fast.

"There's a barn!" Daryl shouted over the thunder.

We quickly followed him through the heavy rain, a few minutes later seeing the barn he'd found. A couple of us went inside, clearing it stall by stall until it was safe to bring everybody inside. There was a few leaks and the wind blew in through gaps in the old busted wooden walls, but it would work just fine. The barn doors were chained shut and the few oil lamps laying around were lit. We tried to light a small fire with whatever we could find but most of anything flammable was now to wet.

People started falling asleep until the only ones still awake was Daryl and I. He was over by the door, watching it contently as the wind pushed it open slightly till the chains caught it. I got up, my clothes still damp and cold on my skin as I headed over.

"Hey," I whispered softly to him.

He seemed a little rattled up the way he was pacing in front of the door. I could see Beth's knife strapped to his belt in the faint light. His eyes were still glued to the door, a flash of lightning brightening his face for a split moment. I grabbed his hand to try and get his attention, feeling something weird as he flinched and pull away. I gave him a concerned look as I snatched his hand and held it up, noticing the burn mark on top of his hand. It was so familiar I knew what it was right away.

"Don't," he grumbled at me, pulling his hand from me. I could smell the smoke that laced his breath.

Another boom of thunder rattled the barn, the nasty wind outside pushing the barn door inwards. Daryl set his bow down, walking over to push them shut. He froze before slamming the doors closed and turning to look back at me with fear in his eyes. Growls and snarls could be heard over the thunder as the doors pushed open. I rushed over and slammed my body into it, using all the strength I had to fight against the large group of walkers outside trying to get in.

Maggie was the first to notice us, running over and helping. After her was Sasha, then Rick, Abraham, Gabriel, Rosita, Tara, Carl, Carol, Eugene, Michonne, Glen and Noah. The group as a whole fought against the door, lightning flashing and thunder booming as our feet slipped in the mud. I glanced over at Daryl who was right beside me, seeing the fearful look I had then going back to pushing.

~~~~

I barely slept after the storm passed. The walkers followed the thunder away, everybody else sleeping in a giant group in the middle of the barn. I was in the corner by the door alone. The sun was barely starting to come up through the cracks in the barn, leaving a couple hours before anybody else woke up. Everybody besides Daryl, sitting on the other side of the room still awake. I bit my lip before getting up and walking over quietly and sitting beside him. He had his arms on top of his knees, my eyes finding the small circular spot on his hand that was red.

"You should get some sleep," I whispered to him.

"Yeah," he mumbled to me. I leaned my head onto his shoulder, grabbing his hand in both of mine. I felt him lean into me, kissing the side of my head. He snoozed off not long after, I knew he was exhausted he just wouldn't let himself give into it.

As time went by people started waking up until it was time to go. The rain had stopped and we were all packed up, ready to leave. I undid the chains to the barn, stepping out first with my bow ready. I gasped at all the destruction. Trees were uprooted, walkers torn apart and missing limbs, some even hanging from trees. I was in awe that the storm hadn't tore us apart along with it.

"Good morning," an unfamiliar voice said. We all rose our weapons as a man stepped out from behind some trees, his hands raised in surrender.

"My names Aaron," he introduced himself.

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