Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead or any of its characters. Woo, yay.

Author's Note: This chapter seems really short to me, three pages on Word, but I couldn't put anything else in without screwing up Sophia's POV in chapter 1... Oh yeah, this is Pan's POV of Chapter 1, because my brain and hands felt like writing it. Read and enjoy!

Review it please, it will make me giggle rainbows.

Pan stared down at the blond child curled at her feet. The kid had been sobbing for the past five minutes. Surely she didn't have enough water in her tiny body to sustain that kind of fit. She was crying enough to flood America.

That wasn't good. Pan already had to deal with a zombie apocalypse, she didn't need a 'Noah and the Ark' situation to sort out.

Pan turned slowly, scanning the woods around her. She really needed him right about now. He should be back soon. He was better at this emotional crap than she was. She was just the one who beat the shit out of people.

Pan had a funny feeling her usual tactic wouldn't work on the shivering wreck below her. It'd probably just make her cry more.

The older girl was completely out of options. How the hell was she supposed to stop the child from bawling her eyes out. Poke her with a stick? Give her a lollipop? Scratch that idea, if Pan had lollipops, she wouldn't be handing them out. Hell no.

To pass the time, Pan walked around the clearing, pulling her arrows out of the corpses' decomposing heads. The squelching noise produced provoked a quiet wail from the small blonde blob in the grass. Pan rolled her eyes. Why were kids so wimpy these days? It was the end of the freakin' world, with the dead rising up, walking and itching to gnaw at flesh. If there was ever a time to down a pint of man-the-fuck-up, it was now.

Sitting on a worn log, Pan began to clean the arrows with a blood stained cloth she had pulled from her waistband. She wiped each arrow carefully, removing the blood and brain matter from the wood. Finally, after each shaft was clean and returned to her quiver, Pan stood and stretched. She looked again at the kid. She was still in a ball in the centre of the clearing, but at least she wasn't sobbing anymore.

"Kid? You still with me?"

The girl flinched at the sound of Pan's husky voice. Her little head raised and the older girl saw white skin peeking through the grime on her face where her tears had run down, but the kid looked quickly away, hiding her face from the stranger. Pan edged closer to the girl.

"Are you okay?" Pan ventured to ask the kid another question, eyebrow raised.

The girl nodded, sitting up and scrubbing her eyes with her knuckles. Sniffling, she drew her knees up to her chest defensively. It was obvious to Pan that the little girl was terrified of her, she was shaking enough to start an earthquake. Yet another natural disaster that Pan didn't need to sort out.

"Did you get bitten or scratched?"

A shake. Pan offered a hand to the kid and after a while it was taken by the girl's quivering fingers. The older girl yanked the child to her feet. It took Pan by surprise how soft the girl's hands were. Had she done nothing to protect herself from the dead? Had she done nothing to earn calluses on her hands? The child scuttled over to the log where Pan had sat previously.

An awkward silence descended on the clearing. The redhead sat with the back to a tree, facing the little girl, picked up a large stick and began to whittle it down with the blade of her hunting knife. Every now and then she looked up at the blonde perched on the log. She was skittish and ready to run, eyes fixed to the floor.

Minutes passed and the pile of shavings beside Pan grew. The stick was beginning to take shape. She switched from using the edge of the knife to the tip of it, carving patterns into the wood.

Pan lost herself in the gentle scratch of steel against wood, feeling the forest thrum around her with life. The dead hadn't taken everything away from the world. Not yet anyway, Pan thought to herself.

A slight breath took away all the wood dust. She held it up in the dappled light falling through the leaves, chipping a few more bits away to complete it, smiling at the finished sculpture. Looking past her knife, she saw the kid staring at her, awe in her eyes.

"Can I… Can I see that, please?"

"Sure." She tossed it over to the blonde with slow, exaggerated movements so the child wouldn't frighten. The child cradled it in both of her hands, stroking it.

It was a miniature owl, with large eyes and a smooth, curved beak. Each wing had tiny feathers etched into it. The small feet peeked out under its round belly. The kid seemed enchanted with the wooden animal.

"Can I k-k-keep it? It's so cute…" She trailed off, glancing at Pan.

The older girl nodded. Maybe that would shut the kid up. A grin broke over the little blonde's delicate features. She carefully put the sculpture into her jeans pocket and resumed staring at the ground, noticeably calmer now with a hint of a smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

At least Pan had made one person happy.

Where the hell was he? He should have definitely been back by now. This was getting ridiculous. He wouldn't have gotten lost, he'd be able to find his way out of the Amazon with a paper bag over his head. Maybe he got overwhelmed by a herd or something. Pan seriously doubted his intelligence daily, but surely he wouldn't have let himself get eaten by those freaks.

Aware that the kid was staring at her, Pan carefully schooled her expression. She let the child carry on with her examination of Pan's features, clothes and weapons. She'd rather have the child have her eyes fixed on Pan than her annoying high-pitched questions. She'd always hated how kids yapped like tiny little dogs. Put a muzzle on the kids and the dogs, that would solve everyone's problems. Perfect.

The kid was still staring at her. It was beginning to get weird now.

"What's your name anyway, kiddo?"

The blonde girl gulped, obviously inwardly debating whether to tell Pan or not.

If she didn't tell her, Pan would just have to make up a name for her. What girls names were there?

"Sophia."

That was a pretty name. Better than anything she could have come up with.

"I'm Pan."