The Dead Walk the Earth

Chapter 14: Life on the Farm

A/N: Though the timeline says that there's no excessive time lap between last chapter/episode and this one, for plot sake I'm going to put a few days in between.

A week on the farm and still no luck with Sophia. Beth's boyfriend, Jimmy, joined the search and was trained with a gun in order to assist. While that was good news, the distance Daryl had taken to put between himself and Charlie was not. He was so dead set on finding Sophia that he pushed her away in the process. Finally, she had had enough.

"Hey!" Charlie called to him when no one else was around. He kept walking, pretending not to hear her. She sped up and got in front of him, "Hey." she repeated. He stopped but didn't meet her eyes. "What the hell?" she asked him.

"What'chu mean?" he asked, though Charlie knew he was playing coy

She scoffed, "What I mean is you hardly look at me anymore, let alone talk to me or god forbid respond when I called after you." He just stared at her, "Look, I know you're trying to find this girl, but Daryl, come on."

He sighed, obviously bored with the conversation, "Look, can we talk 'bout this later? I gotta go." he said and walked around her.

"Yeah... sure," she said softly. He took off for the horse barn and disappeared inside. "No, actually. We can't," she said aloud before following him into the barn. "We're discussing this now." she declared.

"Why don't you go off and play house with your aunt and leave me alone?" he asked as he saddled up the horse.

"Because we actually had a good thing and you're gonna throw it away. For what? Is it because I didn't want to tell my family yet?" she asked. He stayed facing the horse. "I'm trying to understand, Daryl. Don't just shut me out and expect me to leave it. I'll leave you alone, I just wanna know why." she said. She hadn't realized how much he actually meant to her, how much his distance hurt her. He must have heard it in her voice because he finally turned to face her.

"What do you want me to say, Charlie?" he asked her.

"Just tell me the truth, what's going on with you?" she asked, eyes wide and threatened to water at any second. His eyes, typically hard and blank, softened. Before he could speak, voices approached the barn and Daryl took off without another word. She sighed and leaned against the stall the horse just left.

"Hey, there you are. We've been looking for you." Lori said as she entered the far side of the barn. "Me and the girls were thinking of cooking dinner for Hershel and his family; Sort of a thank you for letting us stay here," Lori told her.

"Did you need my help?"Charlie asked her.

"Well I figured you'd want to help," she replied.

"Yeah, just let me know when you wanna start," Charlie told her. She nodded and then left the barn, leaving me alone with the horses. She took a moment before leaving as well and walked to her little tent. She headed for the RV and found the guns that were supposedly 'locked up', found her guns and sat down with them at the small table. She cleaned the silver one first, then the black one and just as she finished putting the guns back into the bag, she heard a knock on the door.

"Charlie? Hey, Carol and I wanna get started on dinner." Lori called through the closed door. Charlie opened it and smiled at her, then followed her to the large house.

They entered the house and found Maggie. After talking with her, she agreed it'd be a good idea and she'd show them where everything was. They started prep, the time rounding on 6:00 when they did, Carol, Lori, and Charlie flitted around the kitchen cooking. As they rounded on finishing up, they heard yelling outside. Immediately, they dropped what they were doing and ran outside right as a gunshot rang out. The women ran for the RV and where everyone was gathering out into the field.