Pretty When I Cry

Family

Daryl's POV

"We can't rob these people anymore man." I tell Merle as he's talking about leaving.

"Why not, Darylina? Not like they gonna survive on their own anyway." He's absently cleaning his gun, and I roll my eyes at his inability to pay attention to what I'm saying.

"Cause of the kid." I say and he immediately pauses.

"What about 'er?" He asks, and resumes his cleaning.

"Cause she cares 'bout these people, 'bout the kids 'ere." I will never understand why, but she has a soft spot for some of these people, and it would crush her if we forced her to rob them.

Merle sighs and puts the gun down and stands up to face me from his log.

"So what do we do? Just take off?" He asks me, and I shake my head.

"Yer forgettin' 'bout the kid." I tell him firmly. He nods.

"We gotta make sure she's on board. Cause there ain't a way in hell we're leavin' 'er with these city slickers." Merle confirms and I nod along.

Guess we'll find out soon enough.

~~~

Carmen's POV

"Ya almost got it Car." He says from beside me.

I've been throwing my knife for about half an hour, and I've been getting close. The past of couple weeks consisted of Merle and Daryl taking me out whenever Dorothy was being aggravating. Not only does she bother me, but she bothers them too.

"Why are you forcing her to always hang around you? You are both grown men, what could you possibly want from a teenage girl?" She asked them a couple nights ago whenever I ate with the Dixon's rather than everyone else. The adults seem to not like me being around them a lot. But that's what they think, and I don't know them, so what they think doesn't matter. It only ever became a problem when Dorothy got pulled onto the "Dixon Hate Train" too.

"We not forcin' 'er to do nothin'. Ya gotta problem with it, take it up with JC." Daryl tells her without even looking up from his knives that he was sharpening. Merle chuckles at Dorothy as she puts her hand over her chest like she had been struck.

"Well, she's my child, so I suggest you leave her alone. Come on, Carmen." She reached out to grab my arm, but Merle stood up to emphasize their point. It didn't take another word for her to glare at the trio of us and to stomp away.

I throw it again, not even an inch off from the X carved in the tree. "Damnit." I mutter, and Daryl takes it of the tree and passes it back to me.

"Don't worry 'bout it. Ya need a break anyway, been out 'ere a while." I put the knife back in a sheath Merle gave me last week. It actually suits the place where it hangs on my belt. And it looks pretty badass.

Daryl looks around at the sound of laughing, and sees the kids talking around the fire pit. I've hung around Sophia and Carl some more, and they seem to like me. I'm glad they do, I've always wanted a little sibling, and now I sort of have two.

"Why don't ya go with 'em for a bit, huh? Can come back later or somethin'." I nod at the suggestion.

"Thanks Dare, come get me later so I don't forget please?" I ask with a sarcastic, sweet smile on my face. He breathes out a laugh and shakes his head.

"Yeah, yeah." He waves me off and I walk to the fire pit.

"Hey Carmen!" Amy calls from where her, Lori, Jacqui, and Andrea are all talking together. They wave as I walk past, and I give a closed lip smile and wave back.