The Sharpest Lives

Ace stood beside Daryl's tent, watching his figure disappear. She wasn't sure where he was headed, but she was too distracted by the petals tickling her fingers to figure it out. She had so many questions, so many things she was trying to figure out in her head.

With the flower in her hand, Ace turned, walking towards the RV to put the flower in her bag. What else could she do with it? Stare at it? Maybe puttin it away will get her mind to stop running around.

When she looked up, she immediately spotted Shane near the RV. He had his sheriffs baseball hat on and had the big bag of guns hanging off his shoulder, his attention on something to his right. Ace followed, seeing he was talking to Lori.. laughing, in fact.

"He's in and out, but yeah.. He'll be all right," she heard Lori say. She must have been talking about Carl, which caused a momentary wave of relief to wash over Ace. Carl will be okay.

Shane and Lori started to separate and Ace tried to divert her attention and keep walking to make it see like she wasn't eaves dropping, but Shane turned back around.

"Did you mean it?" He asked Lori. "You said stay. Did you mean it?"

Ace's attention was completely drawn over again and she slowed her walk. Shane wasn't going to leave anymore, was he? Lori had her ties screwed into him so deep that he would do anything to pull her towards him.

Lori nodded. "I meant it."

"All right then," Shane nodded, turning around and immediately catching Ace's eyes in her unknown presence.

He huffed, slinging the large duffle bag over his shoulder tighter before walking over to her.

"Guess you heard all that," he breathed a laugh, looking down for a moment.

Ace nodded and stopped walking, falling into her silence again.

"I'm thinkin' maybe we can try things here," he glanced back to Lori. "For them, ya know?"

Ace knew fairly well that this was about his passion, craving for Lori and Carl. He wanted them from Rick and if Lori told him to stay, Ace knew that there was no influence she could ever have over that. But maybe that's what she wanted.

"You and Dixon," Shane met her eyes. "Y'all are friends, aren't you? The old man, too. You have got somethin'. Do you really want to sacrifice that? For a chance on the road?"

Ace didn't say anything, just continued looking at Shane, but couldn't help think about the flower in her hand. He was right, she couldn't decide if she wanted to abandon this group, so maybe this is the decision she needed. Daryl seemed to think she was a part of this group, so maybe she can be? For Sophia? Carl? Maybe even Dale?

Maybe this will be best for her. Maybe, they'll help her look for Frankie? Or maybe they will wait for her while she went off? Maybe, as broken as they are, they would be good to have around for her battle of the cancer on her back.

Or maybe they will be bad for her, but it seems like that is a gamble she is willing to take.

Ugh. She can't believe this crazy group might have actually grown on her. She was so set on leavin' in the beginning, and now... Now she has been tied down. How did this happen?

**

After having heard that Carl was awake, Ace decided she'd go and visit him. Spending time with someone who didn't confuse the hell out of her seemed like a nice release from her crazy day. And at least hanging out with Carl was a lot easier than the rest of these people. Plus, she really wanted to get out of the heat.

Ace pushed open the screen door, letting it squeak closed behind her as she stepped into the house. This was the first time she had been in here, and it was completely bizarre to be inside a house again.

And this wasn't just any house, well, at least it wasn't anything like Ace's old house. It was much bigger and much, much fancier. The interior was old-fashioned, made of wood, the walls painted white. There were even paintings of people from what had to be back in the 70's. Ace sure as hell doesn't know. It all seemed overrated to her.

As she stood there, she was confused on which way to go. In front of her there was a staircase leading upstairs and a small hallway on each side. To the right she could see the open doorway to the kitchen, and a dinning room with a really expensive looking wooden table in it. To her left, she saw a couple of rooms down the hall and what seemed to be a living room.

She had no idea where Carl was and doesn't really know how to find out. It's rude to go lookin' through someone else's house, isn't it?

"Hey," she heard a voice next to her, getting her to spin to her right. It was the young, blonde girl she met at Otis' service, one of Hershel's daughters. Ace could not remember her name for the life of her. "Lookin' for someone?"

Ace was a little caught off guard and wanted to apologize for coming into her house unannounced, but just nodded. "Carl," she said lightly, getting the young girl to nod and smile.

"Follow me," she said sweetly, her hands in the pockets of her jeans as she walked, her cowboy boots clanking against the hardwood floor as she walked.

Ace followed, having a quick moment of panic if she was tracking mud into their house, but sighed in relief when she looked down to see nothing coming off of her. The girl led Ace to the left and into one of the rooms that had the door open, Carl sitting up in bed with Rick's sheriff hat on his head.

The girl turned and gave a shy smile. "I'm Beth, by the way."

Ace nodded, trying to store her name in her brain for next time. "Ace."

Beth smiled again, backing up to leave Ace. "Cool, I'll see you around."

Ace watched as she left her, sort of shocked at how kind Beth was. Not a lot of people as sweet and innocent as her left in this world anymore. She almost wished she said more to her, but that was just preposterous for someone like Ace.

With a sigh, Ace turned and knocked on the open door to Carl's room, hoping he'd want to see her. His head shot up, pushing the hat out of his eyes to look over at the doorway. Ace felt nervous, which was completely stupid.

"Hey," Carl said, a slight smile on his face as he pushed himself up in bed. He didn't have a shirt on so Ace could see the large bandage on his stomach from where he got shot. She tried not to think about it.

"Hey," Ace smiled slightly back, stepping into the room.

"What's up?" Carl asked excitedly.

"How are you feelin'?" Ace asked.

"Good," Carl said, poking at his bandage. "Just worried about Sophia."

Ace felt her face drop, but quickly tried to shake it off. She can't let Carl see that, she doesn't want to upset him.

Ace cleared her throat, wanting to change the subject. "Well," she said, reaching into her back pocket. "Being stuck in here, I figured you might need a cure for somethin' much worse than that gun shot."

That obviously was not true, but Ace was trying to put herself inside this young boy's shoes.

Carl's face scrunched as he looked at her, almost worriedly, but when Ace pulled out a deck of cards to show him, his eyes widened slightly.

"Boredom, obviously," Ace sent a smile back.

"Sweet," Carl smiled, snorting a happy laugh.

Carl sat up and faced the side, starting to pull the bedside table closer to the bed. Ace hurried over to help him, not wanting him to hurt his healing wound, and got the game-table set up.

She grabbed a chair from the other side of the room and brought it over, putting it on the opposite side of the table to sit down so they were facing each other.

"We can't play Go-Fish without Sophia," Carl said, the happy atmosphere slightly falling. Ace felt a twinge in her chest, but refused to feel that. For once, she actually was goin' to try to have a good time with a person. Both her and Carl needed it.

"I actually was thinkin' I could teach you a new game, one I'm really good at," Ace said deviously.

Carl's eyes lit up at the challenge like Ace knew they would. "I can so beat you."

"Oh, but I'm really good," she bit back her smile.

"I'll bet you that I will win," Carl put his dad's hat back on.

"Fine. It's a bet." Ace started to open up the deck of cards and shuffle. "What do I get when I win?"

"The winner gets a cookie," Carl looked at her, raising his eyebrows in a tempting way. Ace squinted her eyes at him not sure where he wanted to get a cookie from. Did he have one? "I saw Beth eating one last night. They have some in the kitchen, but my mom said that I wasn't allowed to ask for one."

Ace debated his offer, not sure if it was a good idea to take a cookie from people she didn't know, but she couldn't say no to Carl. It definitely was a good bet.

Ace reach her hand out for Carl, a small grin on both their faces as they shook on it.

Ace knows she has already won, though.