Pixie stuck to Maggie's side like glue. Wherever Maggie went, so did she, and honestly? Maggie didn't mind. She was mostly helping out the people who were going to stay at the farm for a while until Carl fully healed.
"There's a well out there," Maggie pointed it out to the oldest man in the group, Dale. "Technically, we use it for cattle, but even then it's hardly ever used. It's still good to drink, though."
"You sure you want us out here, in the open field?" Dale double-checked. "We could go closer to the barn if you wanted-"
Maggie cut off the old man before he could finish. "No, it's fine for you to stay here. Closer to the house. It's safer, y'know?"
"Oh, and Maggie," He said before she could walk away. "About that little girl that follows you around,"
"Yeah?" Maggie replied. "What about her?"
"You might wanna keep her inside the house. Someone from our group went missing- it'll give you peace of mind that she'll be safe." Dale suggested.
Maggie nodded. "Got it. Pixie?"
Pixie, who was looking up at the clouds as they were spun and churned around in the sky by the wind, shifted her gaze to Maggie. "Si?"
"You wanna go inside the house? If my dad isn't too busy, he might read you a story."
"There's also Lori," Dale added on. "She's probably still inside and is probably more than happy to read to you. Do you know Lori?"
Maggie had to admit- Dale was good with kids, or at least Pixie. He gave off this warm, grandfather-like energy similar to Hershel when he interacted with the girl, except Dale didn't seem slightly on edge when around her.
Pixie nodded, gave Maggie a quick, tight hug, then went running off towards the house.
"She your sister?" Dale asked, starting to think of just where the girl had come from. She had a shaved head and a tattoo on the back of her neck, and the Greene's just didn't seem the type to shave a kid's head and give them a tattoo.
Maggie shook her head as she watched Pixie open the screen door and disappear inside the house. "I found her out in town, all alone, so I took her in and brought her here. This is her home now, and it's a hell of a lot better than where she used to be."
x-x-x-x
Pixie didn't go bug Lori, for she wasn't in the house after all, but Rick was. He was talking to his son, who had recently regained consciousness.
"Did you find Sophia?" Carl asked, his voice weak. He'd been out cold all bight, recovering from the trauma being shot had given him as well as the blood loss and the singular seizure he'd had.
Rick looked away for a second, not able to meet his young son's gaze. Sophia was the daughter of one of the group members, and she had gone missing the day before Carl had been shot. "She's fine," He told Carl. "Yeah, she's fine."
"Hey, we have something in common," Carl smiled.
"Oh, yeah? What's that?" Rick asked, happily getting the conversation off of the missing member of their camp.
"We've both been shot."
It was a grim comparison, but it was a true one. "I'm sure your mother'd rather hear that we have the same eyes. But do you know what it means when you're part of the 'you got shot' club?" Rick amended.
"What?" Carl asked, intrigued.
"You get to wear the hat," Rick removed the brown hat he had worn since he had disembarked from the hospital after waking up from coma, with its sherrif's star taken off, from his own head and placed it on his son's head.
YOU ARE READING
United We Fall
Fanfiction"You look at her and you think, wow, that's one young kid, but then you look in her eyes and you realize... that ain't how a kid should be behind it." The world as it was known has come to an end, but for one, it has only begun.
