Every Moment // Daryl Dixon

13

A day passed and Carl was already out on his feet. Mia was able to walk around as well, but Hershel made it clear that she shouldn't do so much of it. She sat outside her tent, which she shared with her family, and messed around with her pocket knife, cutting into the jeans she was wearing. Mia was too worried to walk around, so she made sure she'd keep still most of the day. Which was unbelievably boring.

"Thanks," Mia smiled at Glenn when he passed her with a basket of fruit. He looked really stiff, which was weird, but Mia brushed it off.

She watched as Lori sat Carl down and took a gun off him, shoving it in her pocket.

"How the hell did this happen?" She asked.

"Well, it's my fault. I let him into the RV, he said he wanted a walkie—that you sent him for one," Dale explained.

"So on top of everything else, he lied."

Carl bowed his head in shame, focusing on the tree stump in front of him.

Mia listened in on Shane explaining to Rick and Lori that he'd be more than happy to teach Carl to shoot, that was why he stole the gun. Lori, of course, turned down the offer.

"I'm not gonna play with it, Mom," Carl marched over to his mother. "It's not a toy. I'm sorry I disappointed you. But I want to look for Sophia and I want to defend our camp. I can't do that without a gun."

"Shane's the best instructor I know. He taught Mia when she was a little older than Carl, back at the station," Rick lowered his voice to Lori.

She threw her daughter a shocked look. Then gave Shane the exact same one.

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"So, what am I supposed to do?" Mia asked after the incident with Carl, and after she saw that everybody had left for gun training.

"Nothing. You were hurt pretty bad yesterday. You don't need to worry about doing anything today or even tomorrow for that matter," Dale said, nodding towards her. He headed back into the RV.

Mia wasn't too annoyed at the fact that everybody apart from Dale, Glenn, and Daryl were going to practice gun training, just the fact that she had nothing to do.

"You and me both," Mia heard a grumble from the nearest tent.

She leaned forward in the arm chair, slowly to be sure she wouldn't hurt her stomach, and just made out Daryl in his tent, messing around with his arrow and a book resting open on his chest. He gestured for Mia to come over with his hand, and she carefully got up from the chair and made her way over to him to see what he wanted.

Mia sat down on the floor of his tent, gently resting her hand on her side where it was stitched up.

"I just wanted te' say thanks, for yesterday. Helpin' me out and all. I probably wouldn'ta made it if ye' weren't there," he said, twirling his arrow around his fingers.

Mia shrugged, making it out to be not much of a big deal. "We helped each other. It's what we do."

"How did I help ye'?" Daryl asked, unconvinced.

Mia's smile left her face. "Right," she said, her lips forming into a thin line. "But I know you will someday." Mia laid herself down in his tent, her back on the floor. She shoved her hand in her pocket and felt around for the wrapper that was hiding in there and pulled it out, holding it out to Daryl. "Gum?"

Daryl raised an eyebrow at the girl and let out a small huff, taking the chewer out of the packet anyways.

"I like to consider myself cool."

"Oh yeah? Why's tha'?"

"Don't question me. Nah, I don't know. I was before all of this. Hung out with a whole heap of crowds, both good and bad. You wouldn't think me, the sheriff's daughter, would be out doing whatever I did."

"Guess that's wha' made it so tempting," Daryl said quietly. "Yer dad bein' a cop."

"Yeah, maybe."

Things got quiet after this, and Mia found herself fiddling with the cot Daryl was laying on.

"Everyone's givin' up on tha' little girl," Daryl spoke up again, poking the end of his arrow with his finger.

"No one is giving up on her," Mia assured him. "My dad is doing everything he can."

"Wha'? Gun trainin'? That's not doin' everything he can. They're all playing around with guns while a little girl is out there probably scared to death."

A frowned plopped over Mia's face and she opened her mouth to argue with him, but quickly shut it when she figured he was right. She stared down at her fingers, beginning to imagine how Carol felt about this.

Mia snapped out of her thoughts the moment she felt a stare burning into her, and her fingers stopped fiddling around and her breath got caught in her throat. She glanced up at Daryl who was already staring back at her. She didn't think he noticed that he was looking all over her face.

Before she could even think of stopping herself, Mia crawled closer and hovered over him. She narrowed her eyes down at him and without a thought she leaned closer. Just as her top lip brushed against his bottom lip, someone cleared their throat. Mia jerked herself back and looked over at the tent door with a scared expression on her face, calming slightly when she saw it was just Glenn.

"Uh...um," he looked down at the basket he was holding. "Peaches?"

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Later on that day, after everyone had come back from gun training and had some lunch, Mia sat in the armchair but further away from Daryl's tent, watching Glenn chop some wood.

"So, what was that?" Glenn eventually asked.

"Nothing," Mia replied quietly, absentmindedly biting into a peach.

"Are you guys, like, a thing or something?"

"No," Mia exclaimed. "It was...that was...I don't know. It was honestly nothing. Nothing at all. I'm pretty sure you've got something to do with Maggie, though. What's that about?"

Glenn's cheeks flushed but he huffed, thinking it would hide the colour in his cheeks. He went to reply but was interrupted when Lori came over and pulled him aside, talking to him quietly.

Guys were weird, but there was one thing Mia knew for sure. She really didn't know what that was.