Shot in the dark (Daryl and Flick)

Daryl didn't share any of the optimism that Beth was showing.

He said 'showing' as opposed to 'feeling' because even a southern hick knew when someone was obviously lying to themselves for some reason. It was troublesome but he was going to keep the girl alive, even if she was determined to try and throw it away on the fantasy that they would find someone from the prison.

Sighing a little bit, he leant down upon seeing some tracks that indicated a large person, presumably male, and two smaller sets of light footprints.

If he had to guess they were the tracks of a grown man with a large build and two small children, probably around ten or so. Either that or very skinny teenagers.

But it was beginning to get a bit dark and he knew that they were going to have to turn in for the night, even if camping in the middle of the woods was a very bad idea. It was their only option since they couldn't risk being too tired to run again. He opened his mouth to tell Beth when a shot rang out through the forest, not too far away.

"Get dow' girl!" he hissed at Beth as he brought up his crossbow and took a look around before nodding, "Com' on... we gotta ge' a bett'r loo' at tis asshol'."

Making their way through the trees to find their mysterious shooter, they arrived at a cleared out area of the forest that surrounded a railway line. Not only that but there was a woman there with a pistol and a few Walkers stumbling towards her,

"Ge' dow' yer dum' broa'!" he declared as he drew the Walker's attention and began to pick them off with his crossbow, "Te fuc' yer doin' jus' standin' ther'?"

Felicity hadn't known what to do when she had come across the man laying on the railway tracks, bitten and almost delirious with the fever. She thought that she might as well just leave him there to die as he hadn't noticed her - yet, as she passed by he rasped out a few words to her which intrigued her enough to get closer to him.

The wish was simple and clear.

It was one that many people who were bitten shared, and that was the wish to be killed before they turned into one of those things, or immediately afterwards. Personally Flick wouldn't want to be a zombie at any point so she would prefer the former.

Biting her lip softly she made to get out her knife but...thought better of it. Perhaps shooting him would be more humane? Even though it would draw more of them she knew she could handle it when she got her sword to them.

The moment of the mans death was sad, as all deaths are, but sickeningly frequent in this world. Flick sighed and rose to deal with the walkers, drawing out her greatsword and beginning to hack and slash at the walkers with it, cleaving them into little bits and all those little bits into no threat. More came however and Flick growled when a Southern Gentleman decided to aid her, insulting her in the process of course. Kneeling down as he took shots, Flick stood up again and jogged over to the duo.

"Hello." she smiled gently "Thanks for the help, more of them came than I would have otherwise expected. Normally it's quite quiet around here. I'm Flick."

Daryl had to admit that out of all the weapons people seemed to be using nowadays, you didn't often see someone with a greatsword. Sure you had Michonne with her katana or whatever it was called but an honest to god greatsword? She looked like she'd stolen the damn thing out of that Mel Gibson movie, what was it called?

Braveheart right?

Didn't matter to be honest; what mattered was the fact that she kicked ass with the thing despite it easily being the length of her entire body and probably weighing about the same as her. It would certainly make for some powerful swings though that was for damn sure. With the last of the Walkers taken care of, he sighed as he went to retrieve his bolts. Beth filled the silence,

"Hi!" she called out to the other woman before looking around, "You've been living around here or something? You weren't with the group that attacked the prison... were you?"

Daryl shook his head a little bit as he cleaned off the last of his bolts,

"Nah she ain' on'a them." he assured Beth while mentally adding that if she had been then he would have shot her first before any of the Walkers. Turning to the woman, Flick, he raised an eyebrow, "Flick huh? Weir' handl' yer go' ther'... min's no bett'r lik'. Nam's Daryl an' tis her' is Bet'. Wha' yer doin' ou' here huh? Noticin' any groups'a peopl' runnin' aroun'?"

Beth jumped on that,

"Ah yes! We er..." she looked down, "We got separated you see..."

Felicity thought that the guy was a lot nicer now that they weren't talking with walkers trying to eat them getting in the way. The stress of the situation could of course rub off on anyone and make them a little bit terse. So she just let that pass and was more than happy to help these guys with anything that they might need, maybe even team up with them for a little while. Who knew?

The young teen, spoke to her and she smiled amiably back at her. She seemed nice enough, if perhaps a little bit too eager and niave in these situations - then again, it struck Flick that she might have been kept out of danger if they had a safe zone. She didn't seem the type to be the one going out gathering supplies, she wasn't hardened enough for that.

"Ah I'm just a simple nomad my dear." she stated with a bow "Travelling from place to place, only way to go in my opinion, you can't make places safe for very long now adays, better to move out of choice than by a herd of zombies knocking at your door."

Frowning when she heard they had been in a little bit of trouble, they were holed up at that prison? The one that was currently on fire right now; "Christ aren't we in enough trouble without other people deciding to top off our mound of woes?" she sighed.

"Ah yeah, it's memorable I'll give it that...but...no I am sorry I haven't seen any groups of people around here. However," Flick hummed pointing to the man that she had just shot, slumped against a nearby rock where he had been resting "This man I came across was bitten, and asked me for a mercy killing, do you perhaps know him?"

Daryl and Beth both just looked at the woman for a moment. Who the hell spoke like that? Daryl thought she might have become a special type of crazy, the kind you got when you went for weeks on end or longer without seeing other human beings. He and Merle used to get like that when they were younger since their dad took them off hunting for months on end and they would be unlikely to come across anyone other than each other during that time.

He shook his head before Beth blinked a few times,

"Erm... what's a nomad?" she asked in confusion, "Is that like... like what the native americans were? Isn't that where you don't live in one place or something?"

Daryl noticed how Beth winced as if physically struck when Flick made a comment about being unable to keep safe places safe. He gave her a small warning look when Beth visibly deflated and looked like she was about to burst into tears. She had no way of knowing but still.

He nodded a little bit as he checked the area around the tracks for, well, tracks,

"Yea' well when yer' go' dictat'r wanna-bee asshol's aft'r yer ass, tha' kin'a shi' happn's a lot." he admitted with a sigh, "Coul'n jus' leav' well 'nough alon'... stupi' bastar' tha' he was."

Beth looked at the man and the others who had been eaten and sighed, shaking her head a little bit. Before she could get too down, Daryl spoke up,

"Got som' trac's leadin' dow' the lin' though..." he paused, "Man... an' ther' are the two sets'a kids."

Beth grinned happily and Daryl paused before turning to Flick,

"Yer wanna tag along fer a bit?"

Flick merely gawped at the young lady who just told her that she had no idea what a nomad was, despite basically just telling her was it was she was ashamed that she had never read such literature that would inform her about nomads and what they were. It probably was not her place to lecture however, there weren't a scarcity of books around however - perhaps several billion relaxing on dusted shelves around the globe.

"Why my young lady! It is exactly that. Nomads move their home around with them, or they simply constantly move houses. I myself confess to a serious case of wanderlust." Flick admitted with a bright grin on her lips.

The warning look from the male, Daryl made Flick bristle a little bit. Well how was she supposed to know anything about their history and adjust her comments accordingly? Honestly did they expect her to be a mind reader or something of the like. Laughing nervously she merely rubbed the back of her head in nervousness;

"Ah well it could just be me and my own inabilities to maintain a suitable stronghold. Travelling on ones own can means you can't have an eye open permanently, I am sure that a group would...well quite be able to create a wonderful place in which to flourish."

When she was asked if she wanted to tag along, Felicity shrugged her shoulders and with a rather bemused smile on her lips thrust her sword back into its scabbard.

"I find myself with precious little else to do, I might as well accompany you on your quest. Would you like some food, perhaps something to drink? I believe I have something here to give you." she hummed, reaching around to her strongly made army backpack and shoving her hand inside, wiggling it around "Ow no, thats a knife...not that...no not you either...ah here! The finest of beverages, Coca-cola."

Daryl wasn't about to stick his neck out and say that the only reason he knew what a nomad was because he had spent some time hunting with native Americans. Well that and the fact that she had been so kind as to loosely explain what a nomad was in the same breath and he was A-Okay with that seeing as it made him feel a lot less stupid than he would have otherwise.

Beth blinked a few times before smiling,

"That sounds like what we were like before, right Daryl?" she commented with a bright little smile that dimmed a little as she continued, "Before we found the prison... before we found a place we thought that we could stay in forever..."

Daryl sighed a little bit and rubbed at his face in annoyance. Why the fuck was Beth still beating herself up about this? There was absolutely nothing she could do about it so she should just calm the heck down about it already,

"Anyway let's tal' abou' somethin' els'." he declared, trying to get them off the rather depressing and rather recent topic of conversation, "Wher' abou's hav' yer bee' wand'rin' aroun' her' Flic'? Yer see any oth'r big grou's all gettin' togeth'r fer defenc' or somethin'?"

Beth jumped at the chance to try some Coca-Cola again and virtually jumped up and down to receive some. Daryl just chuckled a little bit and shook his head, showing a small bottle of water that he had with him,

"This is all I need to keep me going." he assured her before looking around and nodding, "Yea' tey definit'ly wen' tis way... yer ev'r been up tis way befor' Flic'? Migh' be us'ful te kno' wha' we migh' fin' furth'r in yer kno'?"

Felicity wanted to simply crawl away here, everything she said seemed to remind Beth of something sad that had happened and she didn't know what to talk about and what not to. Perhaps it would just be best if they stayed silent? Although...she didn't think that was a good idea either, she tended to hum random songs from the old days when it got too quiet for her liking.

To cover up the sounds of the growling.

"Ah what a hardy group you must have been." she exclaimed with a bright smile "Ah...well I see..." Flick made a face of discontentment when she confirmed her suspicions that they had lived in the burning down Prison not too far away.

Shaking her head Flick thought she had better be honest, she hadn't seen any other groups around here and she had met the most people she had in a long while today. A whole three. It just screamed a Dear Diary moment. Perhaps this was bad news though? That and the fact that she didn't have any knowledge of the other area.

"Ah a magician never tells his secrets." she stated, tapping her nose "Unfortunately I saw no other big groups and I have not been the way you two are going...I got somewhat turned around a mile or so back, too many walkers to make a clean cut through so, I had to walk around the woodland for a good two miles before reaching these tracks again."

Handing the cola to Beth Felicity ripped a small part of her dwindling shorts off and tied it around her hand to stop the bleeding. It was clean, for if there was one thing she detested, it was dirt clothing, walking around covered in blood? No thank you.

"Where are you two making for now, do you have a spot intended to settle down for a day or so? There are perfectly amiable rather clear regions in the other direction."

Daryl and Beth continued down the track with their new friend in the hopes of finding some members of their old group. It was a mostly hopeless endeavour he knew but it would stop Beth from turning into a little brat about it, like he knew Carl had likely turned into. Likely blamed his daddy for all the shit that The Governor pulled knowing that whiny piece of shit.

But now they were with Flick perhaps they might not need to have the old group, maybe they could start a new one,

"We ain' go' no plac' in min'... we trackin' a grou'a peopl' we thin' are from te sam' plac' as us." he admitted with a little shrug, "It's a lon' sho' but it's all we go' righ' now."

Of course as they were moving down the tracks destiny had to come knocking in the form of a sound Daryl had not expected to hear. It sounded like a massive truck or something, coming from behind them. Turning around at the same time that Beth did, Daryl swore and Beth screamed at seeing a green army truck coming speeding down the tracks, following them like they were a road.

Pulling Flick out of the way with him and thankful that Beth had jumped out the way, Daryl gritted his teeth as the truck came to a stop. Raising his crossbow but lowered it when Glenn almost dove out of one of the doors to pull Beth into a tight huh,

"Chinaman?" he blinked a few times before noticing two men and two women exiting the truck too. The leader, someone who looked like he had been a soldier, grinned at Daryl and Flick,

"Now you two... you two look like you could do some damage, am I right?"

Flick growled lightly at the truck as it came to a halt in front of them, glaring hard at it she just waited for some sort of explanation as to why it had been driven down the tracks like there weren't even people in the way! Honestly they could have killed them the way they were driving without any care about them! This was why she never learnt to drive, too many accidents involved with the damn things for her liking.

Watching as the door to the truck opened, and a chinese man hopped out, who seemed to know Beth and Daryl, she felt a little bit of happiness for the two. THey had found someone from their old group which was what they had set out to do. Today had been a good day for them then, if they seemed as close to this guy as it would seem.

Stepping back a little bit from the scene, skulking a little further away, Felicity began to feel a little bit...panicked? She hadn't been around this many people for a long time, and for a reason as well. You couldn't trust many people these days, they would kill you, take your supplies without a second thought. Especially when you were a solo nomadic woman.

Her guard was up and her eyes flicked from the chinese man, to the soldier, and the other man and woman who had appeared;

"You might be correct in your assumption." she stated softly, stepping a little further back "You could have been the death of us, speed kills good sir."

Beth as just so happy to see Glenn that she was crying in happily and Glenn was hugging the teen he called little sister tightly to his chest. Of course Daryl's remark about being a chinaman got Glenn to chuckle weakly,

"Still Korean."

Daryl smirked ever so slightly,

"Still don' giv'a shi'."

There was a light heated air to their exchange that thankfully made their words a lot less heated and a lot more friendly. Of course Daryl frowned deeply when he realised that one of the women Glenn was with was someone who had helped The Governor. He growled as he raised he crossbow again, getting the soldier and two companions to raise their guns at him,

"Yer got'a lo'a nerv' hangin' aroun' aft'r wha' yer grou' did te Hersh'l!" he growled at her, "I ough'a put an arrow through yer nec' righ' her' an' now! Yer fuc'in' lead'r cut te' ol' man's hea' off!"

The soldier laughed a little bit as he held his machine gun at the ready,

"Lil lady you best ask your friend there to put his crossbow down real slow like... or he might just end up full of new holes, got it?"

Flick was feeling more and more like a spare part, she was glad that they had found a new friend and all but did they have to keep excluding her? They probably didn't care and she shouldn't care either, she didn't need anyone else she was doing just fine on her own. True though it may be she didn't NEED anyone else the toll of being alone was definately weighing on her, she didn't know mentally how much longer she could do this.

But were these the right people to commit to? If it was just Daryl, Beth and maybe this new male then she would have done so happily. Something about this soldier having his gun pointed at her new companions made her feel on edge - made her feel on edge about both groups.

Was this a set up?

"We met only a few minutes ago, I sincerely doubt that he will listen to anything that I tell him if his own wits say different." she stated with a frown "We have no quarrel with you, if this woman has done wrong by these people let them be the ones to sort it out, stand back and be neutral. Too many cooks do indeed spoil the broth."

Her hand went to the hilt of her greatsword, and her grip tightened on it.

"I believe I will take my leave, too much merriment here for my liking."

Daryl had to admit that this whole thing had gone to hell in a hand basket faster than he would have liked and even faster than he had initially thought possible. How the hell did it get so complicated so quickly? Now they were in the middle of a Mexican stand-off with the soldier, the other dude and two women pointing guns and both Daryl and Flick and Glenn and Beth too.

Fuck if this hadn't gone bad quickly.

Gripping his crossbow tightly as the stand off dragged out, Glenn decided to try and speak seeing as he was the bridging element here,

"Hey... what the hell you doing guys?" he demanded of the army-led group, "These are my friends, put the guns away."

Abraham shook his head,

"We ain't putting our guns down until the hick here puts his crossbow down." he declared with a small frown, "He's threatening one of us... but I don't suppose you are one of 'us' anymore huh Glenn?"

Daryl gritted his teeth,

"I deal' wit' yer kin' befor'...." he muttered to the soldier, "Even if we do giv' up yer'll jus' tak' our weap'ns an' mov' alon' te leav' us to die."

Abraham grinned a little bit,

"Yeah well we don't kill you, ain't that something to take home?" he teased before turning to Flick, "Hey... you ain't got nothing tying you to them right? Come join us! Or, you know... we could shoot you too."

Daryl frowned a little bit and glanced at Flick,

"If yer wan'..." he whispered to her, "Yer can run... we'll cov'r yer don't worry."

Flick looked between Daryl, Glenn, and the rather sweet girl she had become attached to Beth, and the people she barely knew. The people she barely knew who were threatening an almost unarmed teenage girl and pointing a gun in her face wanting to shoot her dead. To be honest she had already made up her mind about who she was going to kill in this situation.

Growling, Flick snarled, her upper lip raising when he said that the good part of what he was going to do would be to take their weapons and leave them defenceless to die. Like fuck, was anyone, in this world, touching her greatsword.

You know unless she gave them permission, that was a whole different ballpark.

Although her sword was good against walkers it was not good in a quick draw scenario like this one, so, there were a few weapons at her disposal. They weren't going to like this but, she was going to have to do something to end this goddamn stand off. With one fell leap she grabbed the gun of the woman on the opposite side, wrenching it from her grip, before letting her arm go around the woman's throat using her as a meat shield.

Flick growled again;

"You get back in your fucking truck, right now, or I will blow her brains all over these tracks." Flick stated very calmly "I tried being nice, and you did not seem to want to be nice back. Now back the fuck off, or I will shoot every single one of you."

Sending off a round dangerously close to the other male, Flick noticed it just grazed the tree he was standing behind, showing how close she'd come to ending his life.

Daryl was beginning to think that the stand off was going to last forever seeing as they had more guns than they had, technically. Sighing a little bit, he was mentally preparing himself for letting one of the people involved in Hershel's death go free. It might be the only way to get them all out of this without dying very painfully.

Of course something had to go and fuck up the bloodless idea he had been cooking up in his head.

Flick dashed forwards in an impressive display of speed but it was, naturally, not quite enough to stop her from getting shot through the side of the stomach. But even that didn't stop her from taking the damn woman from The Governor's group hostage. When the non-soldier guy tried to take a shot at Flick even then, Daryl fired with his crossbow, getting the man right in the centre of his hand, causing him to howl in pain and drop his weapon,

"I sugges' yer do as te lady says an' ge' yer asses bac' in yer truc'!" he commanded as he pointed his re-loaded crossbow at them, "Yer ge' tha'?"

Abraham looked between the two of them before growling a little bit. Daryl hoped he was smart enough to realise an unwinnable battle when he saw one,

"Fine... fucking it! Fine we'll just leave them." he clicked his tongue a little bit in annoyance and he and his two companions jumped into the truck, "If we meet again... we'll shoot first."

With them now in their truck, driving away, Daryl rushed over to Flick to examine her wound,

"Flick... fuc'!" he muttered as he looked at the wound, "I can help yer wit' yer woun'... stan' guar' ov'r tha' bitc' Beth!"

Helping Flick over to flat ground, he looked into her eyes,

"Yer din' hav' te do tha' yer kno'..."

Flick couldn't stop herself from buckling slightly in the pain she was feeling, her sword was weighing pretty hard on her hips and as such was tugging on the wound in a fashion she didn't feel should be happening at all. Biting her lip to stop herself from making any noises of pain that might attract attention to her weakness, she tried her best to continue looking tough.

Of course when they decided that they were going to back the fuck off and leave them alone she let go of the woman and let her go back to the truck and the other men.

Now she was free to express her pain as they drove off; "Holy fucking mother of god!" she hissed, her knees were shaking with the shock and her body was ice cold to her, she didn't seem to be able to control her body well enough for her liking and the pain was coming in waves every time her body moved even slightly.

Allowing Daryl to help her to the ground, she pulled the fabric of her green strap top up so that he could see the wound better.

"I guess I'm just...one crazy nomad." she laughed weakly, trying to take deep breaths to stop the pain, without permission she gripped onto one of Daryl's hands and squeezed tight whimpering a little bit "Just get this thing out of meeeee! It really hurts." she whined.

Daryl had to admit that out of all of the crazy things she could have done this was by far the most effective... but still the craziest! He sighed a little bit as he helped Flick lay down on the ground. What on earth had possessed her to do this he would never know but apparently she believed what she had done was the right thing to do.

To each their own he said.

He smirked slightly as he ripped off one of the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing under his vest,

"Yea' yer on' crazy pers'n tha's fer dam' sur'." he agreed with a shake of his head, "Ain' nev'r see' someon' so eag'r to giv' a bulle' a hug."

He nodded before reaching into his pockets and pulling out a survival knife. Unscrewing the bottom of it, he pulled out a tiny pair of tweezers. Without warning he plunged into the wound with quick precision and removed the biggest part of the bullet. He threw it away with a small smile,

"Had te mak' sur' yer didn' tens' up." he explained to her before nodding back to her as he took the tiny needle and thread from the hollow handle of the knife, "Tis is gunna hur' lik' a bitc'."

Sewing her bullet wound up was slow, bloody and painful work but when it was finally done he sighed a little bit and proceeded to bandage it with his torn off sleeve. He smirked,

"Ther' yer go... jus' on' thin' befor' I make sur' yer bandag' will wor'." he told her before taking his crossbow and shooting the other woman in the back of the head. He set his crossbow down, "Anyon' who can hel' in te killin' of a defenc'lss ol' man don' ge' mercy."