A Life Worth Living || Daryl's daughter/Carl grimes X OC

29. "I ain't her Daddy."

Season 3.

For the most part, Nell has successfully stayed quiet with only a few mishaps of yelling at Carl or talking to Daryl, but once she realized, she quickly shut her mouth. Not speaking got easier as time went on. She got used to being silent, or "mute", as Daryl called her all the time. The group began to think that maybe nothing is wrong with her after all, and maybe it's "just the way she is."

The group had changed since the farmhouse.
Carl got taller, Maggie got tougher, Lori's tummy got bigger, and Rick got even more scary and dangerous.
Everyone, including Nell, was starting to become unfazed by the horrors around them. Walkers were an everyday occurrence— so was death. Luckily, no one from their group died, but when they ran into a group a few weeks ago, Rick had to do what he had to do to keep everyone alive.
There are no taking chances, no playing nice anymore. Or at least that is the way Rick wants it to be.

They have been constantly on the move, searching for food everywhere they went, still without a home. Finding food is rare, so everyone got used to the hunger.

The group had also begun to accept Nell as one of them. They always made sure she was safe and told her to stay back with Hershel when the rest went to clear out a house. Nell doesn't understand why Carl gets to join the rest of the group and kill walkers, but she has to stay back. She may appear small and weak, but she is much more capable than everyone thinks.

Most of them don't talk directly to her because they know she won't answer. Carol and Beth talk to her sometimes, and Carl does too, but it usually sounds something like "Why don't you ever speak? Weirdo..." and then Nell would kick him in the shin, so he quickly stopped talking to her.

Daryl and Rick are out hunting and T-dog went to the creek to fill up buckets of water to boil later.
Along with hunger, boredom also became a familiar feeling. Nell sits down on the side of the road, feeling the gravel press into her thighs. Her shorts and T-shirt are beyond dirty. They rarely have time to wash their clothes. Hopefully, T-dog will bring back enough water for a laundry day.

Nell takes her backpack off of her back and plops it down in front of her. She unzips the biggest pocket and digs through it for anything that might pique her interest. Sometimes Beth or Daryl would bring back something that they thought Nell might like from a house they cleared.
She pulls out a book with the title Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone. Nell was never smart and never did good in school, but lately, she has been doing a lot of reading in her free time. Plus, Beth always talked about the books she loved when she was Nell's age, so she decided to give them a try.

She opens the book to the very first page, but Rick and Daryl come storming past her which grabs her attention.

"We found a place," Rick says as he places his gun back into his holster. "A prison."

Nell stands up after she puts her book away and walks up to the rest of the group.
She decided that it was okay to go near them, she just couldn't make friends with any of them.

Maggie looks to Glenn, uncertain of holing up in a prison.
"There's a few walkers, but it shouldn't be that difficult to clear them," Rick says.

Nobody rejects his idea, so they all follow Rick to the prison. Nell has her knife in her hand, which she copied from the rest of the group— they always have their weapons withdrawn whenever they are on the move.