Sink Into the Underground

The duo limped along for several miles, Darly dragged his savior along through a Georgia forest thick with underbrush. They both knew that they had to get as far away as possible from the town before the storm hit, to prevent the residents from cutting off their escape. Daryl was certain that the little blond he supported was in the same boat as he was now; she would get the same treatment he did if they were captured. They were running for their lives.

But then, when was the last time he hadn't been running for his life?

Suddenly, the wheezing blond stumbled over a palmetto root. Only Daryl's arm kept her from falling into the underbrush, but her gasping told him that the pair needed to find shelter for the night.

"Stay here." It wasn't like she had a choice, Daryl mused as he glanced around the clearing. She couldn't move very well without him and he wasn't going to drag her along until he found shelter. The blond nodded and sunk into the brush, pulling her bow from over her shoulders and hissing like the movement hurt. It probably did, she had just taken a bullet and walked for miles.

Making a walker-safe shelter was an easy task for the forest-hardened redneck, making something that would stand up to the imminent rainfall was not. Daryl climbed an enormous, forked oak tree and stacked branches between branches, creating a roof above the fork of the tree.
Finished, he clambered down and back to where he had left the wounded blond.

"See anything?" His question was gruff, he hadn't been gone for that long. But her quiver was two arrows short.

"Walker, 200 feet due south. Get my arrow?" Daryl wasn't a big fan of fetch, but he did understand the importance of even a single arrow in a world like theirs. Grumbling, he paced to the south. Sure enough, there lay a walker with an arrow through its nose. Hell of a shot in the dark, he mused as he braced his foot against the walker's forehead and tugged the arrow free of its putrid flesh.

Then, he heard the familiar moan of another walker approaching from his left. Before he could pull his bow over his head, he heard an arrow whistle past. This shot wasn't as dead center, through the female walker's right eye. Still a hell of a shot for an injured woman.

He retrieved the other arrow and paced back to where the girl stood, leaning on a tree with her bow loosely grasped to her injured side. She knew what she was doing, that was for damned sure, maybe she would be worth keeping around. The redneck slipped his neck under her free arm, taking her weight so they could get to the shelter.

"I need to get this stitched. They're coming for me." That was for damned sure, Daryl grunted his agreement. The walkers could smell humans even when they weren't bleeding.

"How bad? You got thread?" She nodded as he leaned her against the tree. "We're going up. I can lift you or I can pull you up."

"Its a cut. Pull. I can't lift myself." She shouldered her bow as he clambered up the tree, and offered his hand from the lowest branch. The blond had to jump to reach him, buf he was able to grasp her worst firmly with one hand and yanked her off the ground. She was far too light for her size, he mused as the first drops of rain began to fall on his shelter.

"Let me see." The little girl had settled into her branch, and began to strip her backpack and jacket off, hanging them with her bow from the stump of one of the branches he had broken off to make the shelter. She dug through her bag and handed Daryl a small first aid kit, and he sat down on the branch uncomfortably close to the stripping girl. In reality, there was nowhere to be in the fork of the tree that wasn't uncomfortably close.

She had her shirt off now, and in the dim remaining moonlight he could see the crusted cut the bullet had caused when it grazed her skin. It didn't look that awful, but it was certainly painful for her to draw a bow. Daryl inspected his tools; he poured alcohol from a tiny bottle onto a square of gauze and began to clean the blood away from the wound.

"Campbell Kavanaugh." He looked up from his task when she spoke through clenched teeth. "My name." He realized she was trying to distract herself from the sting of the alcohol with conversation.

"Daryl Dixon. Where were you from, Campbell?"

"Kentucky. My family raised horses." That explained her getup, the hairdo, the laced leather boots - which were certainly not riding boots, he realized.

"Came a long way, didn't you?" He carefully threaded the needle, a virtually impossible task in the dark.
"Heard of a safe place. Turned out to be a lie." Campbell gasped as the needle pieced her flesh. "You?"

"Grew up here. Nearer to South Carolina, really." She nodded. Daryl attempted to finish stitching the wound as quickly as he could, mindful of her pain, but it was a long and deep cut. And it was never good to rush stitches. Especially when they were so close to the bones - Campbell, like most people who managed to survive, was thin as a rail. "How long were you in Woodbury?"

"Couple months. I helped them start their breeding program for livestock. I was gonna make a run for it myself, until your brother put the gabash on that."

"Did he?" The mention of Merle stung, his brother's death was so fresh in his mind. It was a wound. One day it would heal, and it wouldn't hurt any more, but there would always be a scar.

"Forbade anyone to leave without an escort," She gasped through her teeth as Daryl tied off the string that held together the gaping maw in her flesh. He tried not to watch as she put her tank top back on, but it had been a long time since he had been close to a woman as nearly-naked as she was. It had been a long time for anytng like bodily contact.

"I think I'll try to sleep for a bit," The girl broke his train of thought as she pulled a blanket out of her backpack. It was but more like a bed sheet than a blanket, but it seemed warm, and she managed to wrap it around herself and offered the other edge to Daryl. The rain was fall harder now, masking their trail and making them impossible to track but also dropping the temperature a good five degrees.

He accepted it awkwardly, mentally berating his penis for the potential hard on he was all to painfully aware of as Campbell practically straddled him in the tiny space of the fork. She laid her head on his chest, her hands folded between their stomachs.

"You're getting mighty comfortable with a stranger there, Campbell..." His voice was hushed. He didn't want to frighten her warmth off his chest, but the question remained. Women never got close unless they wanted something. She lifted her blond head off of his chest, her light eyes met his and were piercing, even in the dark.

"It's the end of the world. And I just saved your life. I think I can take some liberties."