The Place That Remains

There was nothing to do.

Rick, Shane, Andrea, and T-Dog had left to go searching for Sophia again, this time taking her cousin Beth's boyfriend with them, against her uncle's wishes. Daryl had set off on horse to search without asking permission. Carol and Lori were outside by their tents and Maggie was off somewhere, worrying herself to death over Glenn.

Delaney settled herself into a chair in the living room, bored for the first time in months. Who would've thought being bored was even possible in an apocalypse? She half wished Daryl had invited her to go along with him again, even though he barely spoke. It would have been better than sitting in the house, twirling her hair around her fingers.

She got up and walked out onto the porch where she saw some of the group sitting outside, having returned from their trip. She made her way over to them and sat down on the swing next to Glenn, while T-Dog, Rick, and Shane were in a circle talking in hushed tones. Andrea was on top of the RV keeping watch and Dale was sitting in a lawn chair by the door of the RV, reading a book.

"So, Glenn, I heard you guys had a little fun on that run yesterday," she whispered to him.

The younger man blushed wildly at her comment. "Maggie told you?"

"Of course she did. I'm like her big sister. She tells me everything."

Glenn looked horrified at this statement and he swallowed hard. "Um, did she....uh-"

"Don't worry, she didn't say you were terrible or anything," she reassured him with a grin.

Glenn shook his head, running his hands down his face. "Oh, God," he muttered.

Their casual conversation was interrupted when the blonde on the roof of the RV jumped up hurriedly. "Walker!" Andrea shouted, jumping up from her chair. "Walker!"

Rick came running at the sound. "Just the one?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the sun so that he could see better. Delaney jumped up from the swing she was sitting in and squinted her eyes to see what Andrea was talking about.

Andrea grabbed a pair of binoculars to get a better look before dropping them and grabbing her gun. "I bet I can nail him from here."

"No. No, Andrea put the gun down!" Rick told her authoritatively.

"You best let us handle this," Shane added to her, walking out with an pickaxe grasped tightly in his hand. Delaney quickly moved out of his way to avoid him slamming into her with the way he was stalking out of the camp.

"Shane, hold up. Hershel wants to deal with walkers," Rick informed him.

"What for, man? We got it covered." He continued to walk forward despite Rick's protests.

"Dammit," Rick growled as he turned to run to the RV to get his gun. He and Shane took off running across the field with Glenn and T-Dog following right on their heels. Andrea stood on the top of the RV, her gun already aimed at the approaching "walker."

"Andrea, don't!" Dale warned her, looking out across the field worriedly.

"Back off, Dale," she spat, closing one eye to get a better aim.

Delaney watched from the distance as Rick raised his gun to the "walker" but didn't shoot. She squinted again, holding her hand up to shield her eyes and then she recognized him. "Oh my God," she muttered. "Andrea, for fuck's sake, that's not a walker!"

Almost exactly as she said the words, the gun went off and Delaney watched in horror as he fell to the ground. Rick started screaming "No!" over and over at the top of his lungs as the rest of the group looked around to see where the shot had come from.

"What the fuck did you do?!" Delaney screeched at the blonde. "That's Daryl, you stupid bitch!" she growled before taking off across the field after the men. The triumphant smirk was quickly wiped off Andrea's face.

Everyone who was in the house came running out of the house in a panic. Lori screamed for Rick and Hershel yelled loudly, "What on earth's going on out here?"

Delaney reached them just as they were pulling Daryl up off the ground. He muttered something that she couldn't hear from where she was standing before he lost consciousness, falling limp in their arms.

They were already walking back toward the house by the time Andrea and Dale reached them. Rick and Shane were carrying Daryl's limp body between them. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Is he dead?" Andrea panicked, realizing her idiotic mistake.

"Unconscious. You just grazed him," Rick replied.

"But look at him! What the hell happened? He's wearing ears!" Glenn exclaimed, as he hurried to keep up with them.

Daryl had a black string hanging from his neck and laced onto it were a couple of grayish colored ears. Walkers' ears. Rick snatched it from his neck and stuffed it into his shirt. "Best keep that to ourselves," he told them. Delaney got the feeling her uncle might not appreciate Daryl's new necklace from the way Rick acted.

"Guys!" T-Dog called from behind them. "Isn't this Sophia's?" They whole group turned back to him where he held up a tattered old doll that Daryl must've have had with him.

Everyone looked to Rick then and he swallowed hard. "Let's get him into the house and let Hershel look at him. We'll talk to him when he wakes up."

The group followed Rick and Shane back up to the house and took him inside, laying him down on the bed in one of the rooms to let Hershel examine him. Daryl woke up only a few minutes later and Rick and Shane went into the room while Hershel stitched up the hole in his side that he'd somehow received from one of his own arrows. Delaney made sure to remember to ask him later how that happened.

An hour or so later, Carol and Lori had finished cooking dinner and everyone sat down at the table to eat. Delaney found herself more worried about Daryl than she was hungry so after only a few bites, she pushed her plate away and excused herself from the table. Most of the people sitting around the tables watched her as she walked out of the dining room, wondering what was going on.

She quietly made her way down the hallway to the room where they had put Daryl and knocked softly on the door, before slowly opening it. Daryl had craned his neck to look and see who it was, but when he saw Delaney peeking her head in, he turned back over onto his uninjured side.

"Why ain't you in there eatin' dinner with everyone else?" he asked, his back to her.

"I wanted to check on you. See how you're doing." She took in his appearance. His face still bore blood from his wound and he had a bandage wrapped tightly around his head. His shirt was off and she could see the wide bandage across his side until he felt her eyes on him and pulled the blanket up over his body to his neck.

"Why? I ain't your concern."

She rolled her eyes as she walked over to the other side of the bed, sitting down in the open space gently so as to not hurt him. "Because I felt sorry for your ass."

"Well, don't," he grunted.

"I don't give a shit what you say, you know. Doesn't change the fact that you were just shot and you also stabbed yourself with one of your own arrows. How exactly did that happen by the way?"

"Goddamn horse threw me. Straight down a big embankment. Stabbed me on the way down, I guess."

Despite the painful sounding explanation, she cracked a smile. "You took Nellie, didn't you?"

The time, it was him who rolled his eyes. "I didn't know the fuckin' horse was such a pussy or I would took a different one."

"You could've just asked Uncle Hershey," she offered.

"Next time I will," he spat sarcastically.

Delaney shook her head, chuckling to herself as she stood up and crossed back over to the door, his back to her again. "I'll leave you alone, Daryl. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

She left the room then, shutting the door behind her and leaving Daryl to his thoughts.