Harry wandered into the house, it was odd being inside of it, he'd only gone in like two or three times and for only a few moments which was same for this time. It wasn't his home and he didn't like to treat it like it was. That and the others trying to play house made him grit his teeth, they all thought this was it, they could stay here at the farm and live, that they wouldn't need to fight again. That Lori would have her child there, and they would have somewhere to hunker down for the winter.
"I contribute. I help keep this place safe." that was Andrea's voice; Harry thought to himself, Harry frowned at the words, why would she feel the need to defend herself? And the contributions she makes the group?
"The men can handle this on their own." now it made sense Harry thought, Lori, she believed it was a woman's job to do chores around the place and leave everything else to the men. Helped along by the fact that Shane and Rick had been the so called 'leaders' and constantly let her believe they'd always keep her safe. If anything and he meant anything happened to those men and she was suddenly out there on her own, she truly wouldn't last a day. She never picked up a gun and tried to learn to defend herself. He'd never met another woman like her, all the girls and women he'd ever seen were fierce protectors, would do absolutely anything to survive. "They don't need yours or Luna's help."
"I'm sorry. What would you have me do?" Andrea questioned Lori, sounding completely confused as to why Lori felt the need to say such things.
"Oh, there's plenty of work to go around." Lori said defiantly.
"Are you serious?" Andrea asked incredulously. "Everything falls apart; you're in our face over skipping laundry?"
"It puts a burden on the rest of us," Lori told her, "On me, and Carol, and Patricia and Maggie. And you...you don't care about anyone but yourself. You sit on that RV working on your tan with a shotgun in your lap."
"No, I am on watch against walkers! Keeping everyone safe, my sister safe." Andrea protested, "That is what matters, not fresh mint leaves in the lemonade."
"We are providing stability." Lori stated, "We are trying to create a life worth living."
"Are you kidding me?" Andrea said gaping at the woman, the only thing that ran through her head at that moment was that Harry was right.
"I went after Rick, I took down two walkers. Don't act like you're the only one..."
"After crashing Maggie's car. Ever apologise for that?" Andrea insisted.
"Crashing her...you're insane." Lori muttered exasperated.
"No, you are. And you're the one that's self-centred, the way you take it all for granted." Andrea told her.
"My husband is out there for the hundredth time. My son was shot. Don't you dare tell me I take this for granted." Lori snapped Andrea had hit a nerve there.
"You don't get it do you. Your husband comes back from the dead, your son too. And now you've got a baby on the way. The rest of us have pilled up our loses, me, Carol, Beth, but you just keep on keeping on." Andrea snapped in turn, all she had left was her sister, her parents were gone there was no way they would have survived.
"We have all suffered..." Lori tried to explain.
"Playing house, acting like the queen bee, laying down the rules for everybody but yourself. Your husband, your son, a baby... a boyfriend," Andrea stated, and with that she walked away.
Harry couldn't quite wipe the smirk off his face quick enough, so Andrea saw it as she passed. Harry dipped his head in respect, but he knew it wouldn't make a difference, Lori had had it too good all her life, and the apocalypse wouldn't change that not with someone always convincing her she was right. Shaking off his lingering thoughts he passed through the house, making his way to the barn and wandering inside, leaning against the wooden beam, his leg propped up as he crossed his arms and watched Daryl beat the shit out of the kid that Rick and Shane had brought back again.
Daryl paused for a moment, staring at him, as if he was trying to figure something out. Harry couldn't quite figure out what it was that Daryl wanted from him. Approval? Acceptance? Searching for anger? Harry honestly couldn't say, but Harry just stared impassively, showing absolutely nothing. He didn't approve, Rick was already going to kill the kid, he was futilely just hoping that he could get a reason to save him but already knowing he couldn't. It would have been a mercy killing as Hershel had said, if Rick had done what he should have at the start of all this which was kill him. Now he'd been operated on, been in agony and now he was getting the shit kicked out of him, it seemed so pointless.
"I told you..." he spat out the blood that was pooling in his mouth.
"You ain't told me shit!" Daryl snapped punching him again.
"I barely knew those guys. Met them on the road." Randall protested.
"Lies," Harry's voice cut in, cold and hard, "Make this easier on yourself and just tell them what they want to know."
"How many in your group?" Daryl questioned, hoisting the boy up into sitting position. He had noticed 'they' in the words Harry had spoken and for some reason it filled him with dread. Despite that, he removed his hunting knife, figuring he needed more incentive to talk and tell the truth.
"No...no, no, no. Come on, man!" Randall protested heavily at the sight of the knife being unsheathed.
Randall screamed as the blade descended only to be wedged into the wood to his side, "How many?" Daryl asked again.
"Uh, 30. Thirty. Thirty guys." Randall revealed, terrified of being hurt further.
"Where?" Daryl demanded.
"I don't know I swear!" Randall screamed as the plaster was forcefully removed from his barely healing leg.
Daryl looked over at Harry again, silently questioning him, whether Randall was telling the truth or not.
Harry shook his head, Randall was not telling the truth.
"I don't know I swear!" he protested again, his entire leg shaking with the stain of Daryl pressing the tip of the knife into it. "We never stay more than one night at any place!"
"Scouting? Planning on staying local?" Daryl then asked his knife still imbedded in the wound.
"I don't know. They left me behind." Randall explained, praying it would stop soon.
"Did you ever pick off a scab?" Daryl said almost conversationally as if he was talking to Harry.
"Come on, man!" Randall protested. "I'm trying to cooperate!"
"Start real slow at first." Daryl explained. "Sooner or later, you've just gotta rip it off."
Harry arched an eyebrow; Daryl was getting way too much enjoyment out of this for sure.
"Okay, okay." Randall said anything to stop the pain. "They have weapons, heavy stuff, automatics. But I didn't do anything." here is when Randall looked at Harry pleading him to stop this.
Harry froze in place his mind connecting with Randall's.
"Your boys shot at my boys, tried to take this farm. You just went along for the ride? You trying to tell me you're innocent?" Daryl snapped still bent over Randall.
"YES!" Randall shouted. "These people took me in. Not just guys, a whole group of them. Men and women, kids too. Just like you people. Thought I'd have a better chance with them, you know? But we go out, scavenge, just the men. One night, we...we found this little campsite. A man and his two daughters...teenagers, you know! Real young. Real cute. Their daddy had to watch while these guys, they...and they didn't even kill him afterwards!" he proclaimed as if it was something to be proud off. "They just...they just made him watch as his daughters...they just left him there. No, but...but I didn't touch those girls. No, swear I didn't..."
It was only when Daryl kicked Randall again that the connection broke, only then did Harry gag in disgust before slamming the barn door open and promptly lost the contents of his stomach. Bent over, hands on his knees he continued to gag, but there was nothing to bring up, they weren't exactly eating feasts just enough to keep them strong. The memory of what that family had been through forever imprinted in his mind.
"Harry!" Luna called out, swiftly running towards him, Anubis hot on her heels, paling; she could only imagine what had happened in there for Harry to react so violently. Harry had seen a lot in his life and had never once shown weakness like this, it was bad, really bad. Undoing the bottle around her belt, she rubbed at his back and gave him the water. "Just drink, it'll pass." she said quietly, but Harry was already moving to lean against the outside of the barn again. She ignored the screaming and pleading coming from the barn, trying to keep her mind off anything like that, since she knew how it felt. She had been held captive herself for a long time, with people who had no qualms about torture.
"It will never pass unless you Obliviate the last few moments from my mind," Harry rasped out.
"You used Legilimency?" Luna asked surprised, it hadn't been one of his strongest points when it came to magic.
"Not on purpose, just wanted to see when he lied, but he looked at me and I was sucked in," Harry explained, looking straight ahead and drinking the water Luna had given him. Everyone was crowded around the camp, waiting on the verdict. "You shouldn't be here for this Luna," he added, glad when it went silent. A few seconds later, Daryl came out of the barn his crossbow once again across his back.
"You alrigh'?" Daryl asked, he wouldn't meet either of their eyes.
"He lied, he took part in it." Harry muttered, his stomach still rolling, he finished off the water, knowing she wouldn't have trouble getting more.
"I know," Daryl said he knew when he was being lied to.
"Your boys?" Harry quoted teasingly, arching an eyebrow, he was pretty sure Daryl didn't think of Rick, Glenn and Hershel as his boys.
Daryl just shrugged a sheepish look on his face for a half a second before it disappeared behind his inscrutable mask.
"Let's go," Harry said his own mask falling into place, the four of them (Luna, Daryl, Harry and Anubis) made quick work in getting to the others at the camp site. Harry had to refrain from smashing Rick in the face, he was a coward who couldn't even do his own dirty work, and he would leave them all to it if there wasn't a bigger threat to deal with. Although even if he did take care of Randall there were still the group that could still find them.
"Boy there has a gang, thirty men." Daryl explained as soon as they were close enough. "Got heavy artillery and they ain't looking to make friends. They roll through we're dead, and the woman...they're gonna wish they were."
"What did you do?" Carol said.
"Had a little chat." Daryl told her, already on the move getting away from the main circle.
"No one goes near this guy," Rick demanded.
"Rick, what are you going to do?" Lori questioned.
"We have no choice. He's a threat." Rick explained to his wife.
"He was a threat before," Harry pointed out icily.
"We have to eliminate that threat." Rick added, speaking to the group.
"You're just going to kill him?" Dale asked aghast.
"It's settled. I'll do it today." Rick stated curtly.
Rick immediately walked off, Dale followed him.
"How long do you think it will take him to change Rick's mind?" Harry wondered, sitting outside his tent getting a fire started.
"He's a pussy, he's gonna flake out," Merle said, as he skinned the animals the traps had caught earlier.
"He seems determined," Luna pointed out.
"He's changed his mind a dozen times already in the last week, Merle's right, he's going to be talked down," Harry said, flipping some wood into the fire to keep it going.
"Here comes the old man," Merle grumbled, his blue eyes watching as Dale approached them hesitatingly.
"Don't waste your time, Dale," Harry spoke before the old man could open his mouth. "We aren't interested."
"So live or die, you don't care what happens to Randall?" Dale went ahead anyway.
"Oh I do care, I want him dead," Harry stated sharply.
"Why? Because he's guilt by association! He's a kid!" Dale protested.
"No, not by association, he took part in it," Harry grimaced.
"You don't know that. Stand with me and try and save a child's life!" Dale begged.
"Didn't peg you for a desperate son of a bitch." Daryl muttered, as he filled up his quiver.
"Your opinions make a difference," Dale said, knowing the affect Harry especially had on the group.
"Man, ain't nobody looking at us for nothing." Daryl answered when it was obvious nobody else was going to answer the old man.
"I am," Dale stated, gesturing towards himself with his thumb. "And right now you obviously have Rick's ear."
Harry arched an eyebrow, wondering where the hell Dale had gotten that belief from. Because he had asked Daryl to kick the shit out of someone? Oh, hell no, he was using Daryl as a scapegoat; there was nothing to do with Daryl suddenly being trusted. In what world did Dale live in to believe shit like that?
"Rick looks to Shane. Let him." Merle stated, having the same thoughts as Harry in regards to Rick's feelings for his brother - using him just to get answers without getting his hands dirty.
"You cared about what happened to Sophia," Dale said, "Cared about what it means to the group."
Harry's lips twitched, Dale had the Dixon brothers all wrong, and it would have made him laugh if it wasn't so pathetic to see. Dale still continued to see the world as black and white. Luna was watching the scene curiously, wondering how it would play out; she hadn't been with the brothers as long as Harry so she genuinely didn't know.
"Torturing people, that isn't you." Dale continued to try and convince Daryl to help him change Rick's mind. "You're a decent man. So is Rick. Shane, he's different." Harry and Luna both snorted, that was cute, and he thought getting kicked and punched was torture.
"Why's that? 'Cause he killed Otis?" Daryl stated.
Surprise flicker over Dale's face, before he went to Luna, Merle and Harry's seeing no surprise on their faces, he realized they had somehow knew too. "Did he tell you that?" he asked, causing them all to snort, what were they blind? Honestly, it was slightly insulting.
"He told some story. How Otis covered him, saved his ass." Daryl said dryly, watching Dale nod his head, surprise still blooming over his features. "He showed up with the dead guy's gun. Rick ain't stupid. If he didn't figure it out, it's 'cause he didn't wanna. The groups broken, I ain't gonna help you."
"You all knew?" Dale asked them, not sure what to think. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Like Daryl said, Rick isn't stupid, the only reason he isn't saying anything is because he doesn't want to see it." Harry replied, "Let this one go, Dale, you can't win alone, he's a threat, if we let him go and he hurts someone else...rapes them...that's on us," swallowing thickly at the thought. "He dies, whether Rick has the guts to go through with it or not. I'm not putting Carl, Sophia or Luna in danger from a paedophile." and that's exactly what he was, those kids weren't teenagers, not by a long shot, he would guess ten or eleven if he had to.
Dale's shoulders slumped before he reluctantly walked away, ready to hunt down the next person on his list and try and talk sense into them. They were still civilised, this wasn't a civilised thing to do, civilisation might be over but they still had their humanity, they couldn't go through with this. He began his long trek to try and find Hershel, he was a man of conviction, and he wouldn't want this to happen, especially not on his farm.
"I don't need protecting!" Luna insisted indignantly after Dale left. "I'd kick his ass myself!"
"Don't I know it?" Harry said wryly, grinning just a tad at the image of what Luna would put that waste of space through before she put him out of his misery.
Luna just smirked smugly, as she sat back in her seat. "You keep changing your mind about Rick," Luna pointed out seeking an answer for it.
Harry sighed, "I'm not even sure which one's the real Rick, he's trying to be a husband Lori wants, trying to be the man his best friend wants him to be and trying to be liked by an entire group of people with different views. What he doesn't understand is he can't be all those things; he can't try and be liked. A leader isn't always going to be liked for his or her decisions, sometimes they have bad outcomes and you have to deal with it. All you require from a group of people you're trying to save is respect."
"And do you respect him?" Luna enquired.
Merle snorted, he didn't respect officer friendly at all. He couldn't stand anyone in the group, he was just waiting patiently for Rick to do the wrong thing so Harry would actually decide to leave - and he would, they were two commanders, alphas if you will, with two entirely different approaches, sooner or later friendly would mess up.
Merle had no idea just how soon it would happen.
"Good question," Harry said thoughtfully, before slowly replying, "I don't respect him, and a good leader wouldn't go back on his word."
Luna nodded, that was just such a Harry thing to say, and when Harry decided something he went through with it. For better or for worse, he saw it through. It had been a week for her and she still wasn't sure what to make of everyone. She really liked Amy and Beth though, even if they were a little naïve for her tastes. She'd been like that once so she couldn't exactly say much about it. Admittedly she'd been a child when she was that naïve.
----------0
Harry felt a shudder of alarm, "Cover me. Stay!" Harry muttered to Luna and Anubis bolted from the house and Apparating towards the pull. He found Carl struggling with a walker, grabbing his gun firing off a shot he watched it ceasing its struggling as Carl scrambled to get away from the corpse.
"I didn't mean to!" Carl cringed, "Please don't tell my parents!" assuming that Harry had seen everything.
His words piqued Harry's curiosity, and he saw everything after meeting Carl's eyes, he had deliberately riled up a walker, teased it - taunted it. Shaking his head, he grabbed Carl's wrist, obviously the boy couldn't be trusted on his own. He began walking, not too fast - he didn't want to hurt Carl after all, he was also furious with the boy's parents for leaving him on his own. "Give me Daryl's gun, now!" Harry demanded as he continued onwards.
"Please don't tell my parents, Harry!" Carl pleaded, never once trying to get his hand out of Harry's grip despite the fact the grip wasn't all that tight. He did pass over the gun starting to feel guilty and worried as they slowly but surely marched towards the house.
"Do you realize you could have been bitten or scratched?" Harry snapped, "You could have been killed! Where the hell are your parents?"
"They're at the house," Carl answered ashamedly.
"And where were you supposed to be?" Harry asked calming himself down.
"I'm supposed to be at the house." Carl replied once again shame coating his words.
"I'm very disappointed in you Carl," Harry said, "I thought you were mature enough to handle this, to handle a gun, but I was mistaken,"
Carl didn't reply his eyes did fill up with tears that never fell. His mum and dad could never make him feel as guilty as Harry was making him feel, but Harry always treated him like a grown up, and Carl really liked Harry for that, his own parents were still shielding him. What Carl failed to realize was that he respected Harry more than his own parents and disappointing him was like a knife in the heart.