The Dead World

Eight ~ Never Lost, Always Found

On night four Phoebe was considering trying to find her own way back to the highway with the young girl however, around noon on the fifth day up the tree just as Phoebe was going to tell Sophia they were going to try finding their own way Phoebe heard a noise and she saw Daryl.

On the fifth day Daryl woke up and asked Rick who was going out today seeing as he found not only fresh tracks by the girls bag but Rick had said the others needed gun training so it was just going to be Rick for a few hours as Glenn and Maggie were going on another on a run at the Pharmacy and the others left were just doing things around the farm. 

Daryl actually couldn't believe it, day five of these two girls being gone and everyone apart from her brother and her little nephew who had just managed to get out of bed for the first time since his wound had given up looking for them.

Well fuck em, he was going to go out. The old man had said for him not to but he didn't plan on being out there for long and Andrea had only grazed the side of his head, no one else was looking so he had too.

So that's how he found himself about three hours from the farm searching for the two staring at four dead walkers on the ground, three of which were lumped almost on top of each other, two had arrow wounds where the thirds head looked like it had exploded.

The one walker on its own had a knife wound to the side of it's head, he wasn't sure it was Phoebe's because there was no arrow but he hoped it was, he'd been looking and other than the slashes in the trees and the footprints by the river he'd found nothing new.

Phoebe couldn't believe her eyes and for a moment she thought she was hallucinating until Sophia gripped her hand eyes pinned on Daryl below.

"Up here" Phoebe muttered weakly not being able to raise her voice as she was very dehydrated but Sophia took that as a sign so she calls out.

"Up here" she called to the man she knew was called Daryl.

"Phoebe! Sophia! Are you alright?" Daryl calls up having spotted them high in a tree he didn't want to focus to the fact that his heart had sped up and he had to try to control the smile that wanted to break out across his face.

"Sophia I need you to slowly climb down ok, Daryl will help you" Phoebe gently whispers and she looks scared so Phoebe gently gripped the girls chin "hey look at me, you're ok I promise, let's get you home to your mother" Phoebe smiled gently seeing tears gather in Sophia's eyes, she climbs down very slowly and once she's at the bottom Phoebe started lowering herself down.

"Easy Phoebe" Daryl warns when her foot slips scraping against the trunk but she didn't fall, at the bottom she hugged him as tightly as she could, daryl pulls back and checked her for bites just like he had Sophia.

"Are you ok?" He grunts and she nodded weakly but he couldn't understand why she was moving so slow, she looked like herself but something was wrong. He pulled her back into the hug he'd cut off and she gripped him tightly while he used the hug to ground himself.

"Just tired, knew you'd find us" she smiled tiredly into his chest taking in the scent of cedar wood and smoke.

"You did good...With the marks on the trees and wet tracks, you did good Little Dove" Daryl says softly cupping her face trying to hold himself back from doing anything more and she nodded not having the strength to reply but she couldn't help the zoo of butterflies that roared up from the compliment.

It always happened back at the quarry too, when she'd notice his appreciative look when she arrived back from her hunt or the nod of approval when she skinned her game.

Sophia moved into Phoebe's side already missing her warmth "She's hasn't eaten since the highway and only had sips from the water we have" she dropped Phoebe into it to Daryl, completely throwing her under the bus, Daryl looked at Phoebe disappointed almost furious and her butterflies died a fast, sad death while her stomach churned at the glance.