it was hot outside. but then again, when was it not hot in georgia? sweat trickled down the back of glory's neck, and she slapped her palm against a mosquito landing on her knee. she had just gotten scolded by shane walsh for touching the radio set, which was totally not fair because all the grown ups could touch it! she had only just met shane about a month ago, when her parents left her under the police mans watchful eye while they went back to their car to grab their things and come back to camp. well, sucks for glory, because they dipped and never came back. sure, they were a sorry excuse for parents-who had always preferred to get high as a kite and neglect their only kid-who was six years old, mind you. but glory had gotten used to doing things for herself-like heating up leftover instant mashed potatoes on the stove for dinner even though she could barely reach the burners. she had to stand on her tiptoes, but she wouldn't admit that to anyone at school. 

she was usually in her own imagination, as kids left to their own devices often are. she was a daydreamer, her daddy would say on the rare occasion he was lucid enough to talk to her. her mother would laugh with her high pitched shriek that grated on glory's ears. 'she gets it from her mama', the blonde ditzy woman would say. 

needless to say, a child who had grown up with neglectful avoidant parents was 𝘯𝘰𝘵 fond of suddenly being helicopter parented by a cop with an ego. she hated the picture-perfect apocalypse family he was trying to make out of himself, lori, carl, and glory. it made her insides feel all weird, like she maybe she had missed out on something special and real with her parents. like life should have been different for her. 

when shane had realized that the little girls parents were indeed not coming back, and that they had fooled him into being responsible for her, he took it in surprising stride. hell, he was already basically playing father and husband to carl and lori, why not add another person who needed him into the mix? 

in the present, glory sat back on her heels, sulking over the fact that she indeed was a small child and was not allowed to mess with the radio set. she was seven now, as she kept reminding everyone. but apparently it still wasn't old enough for half of the things she would like to do-like climb on top of the rv and sneak up on dale, or go into the woods by herself, or even go swimming by herself in the quarry. it was extremely embarrassing the first it was time to bathe and shane told her he wasn't going to walk away-instead just turn his back. it wasn't as if he was watching her bathe, but still-it felt weird to undress and scrub herself clean with him standing there, even if his back 𝘸𝘢𝘴 turned. in fact, glory wished she didn't have to bathe at all. back home, before dead people started roaming around, she had showered only once or twice a week. they didn't have a bathtub, just a single shower. and hot water was always gone by the time it was her turn for a shower. mama and daddy always took way too long in the shower, making weird groaning and grunting noises. when glory had mentioned it to shane the second week of coming under his care, he had gone still, and shook his head to himself. when she asked what the noises meant, he had coughed into his bicep awkwardly, cheeks turning slightly red and told her to go play with carl, or sophia. 

glory didn't like either of them-sophia was stupid, she still carried a doll around with her, and carl only cared about comic books and yapping 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 about dumb stuff. it honestly gave glory a headache. she would 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 rather be in the woods by herself, collecting acorns, leaves and sticks to build a fairy house. and okay, maybe sophia wasn't stupid for carrying around a doll-maybe glory was just deep down jealous that she didn't have one for herself. but she would never admit that, no way! 

she was pulled from her thoughts when the radio crackled to life in front of her, a man's voice trickled out-rough and raspy-it sounded like he hadn't drank water for a whole day at least. the only words glory could hear was 'hello', and some other mumbled phrases she couldn't make out. she stood up, about to kick the radio to maybe make the sound come out better, when shane barreled over, coming behind her from seemingly out of nowhere. 

"what'd i tell you?" his brows were drawn together, and he put his hands on his hips-classic disciplinary shane. 

"you said don't 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 with the radio, and i wasn't playin' with it. i was gonna fix it." she defended, crossing her arms over her dirt streaked t shirt. he cocked one brow, leaning forward.

 "oh, yeah? you mean to tell me kickin' it was gonna fix it?" damn it. so he had seen what she was about to do. she clamped her mouth shut, eyes flicking down to the dirt. shane straightened up again.

 "that's what i thought." he half turned to some of the others who had come over to tell him that they too had heard weak crackles coming from the radio. but, when shane tried to signal out for whatever it was they heard-they got no response. glory decided her time was better spent finding shade under a tree than arguing with shane, so she did just that. she had only about fifteen minutes of peace before carl grimes attempted to sit down next to her, showing off one of his comic books. he always tried to make her jealous, and he was a sore loser when he lost during thumb wars because he would run to his mother lori and tell her that glory cheated. and those were just two of the reasons glory didn't like him. 

"go play with sophia. i'm busy." glory sniffed, raising her nose in the air. 

"you don't look busy. you look like you're doing a whole lotta nothing to me." carl responded sassily. glory glared at him, giving him the middle finger. 

"i dunno what that means." carl shrugged, mimicking her actions. 

"i bet you don't, cause your dumb. it means fuck. f-u-c-k." glory spelled it out for him, grinning. 

carl's eyes widened. "that's a bad word. my mom said kids can't say that word." he had that look about him where glory just knew he was going to go tattle on her as soon as this conversation was over. 

"wel your moms obviously wrong, because i just said it. fuck, fuck 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬!" she said the last swear a little louder, and dale twisted around in his seat atop the rv, pointing down at her.

"young lady, that is not a nice way to talk." the old man scolded. glory went quiet, although she wanted to keep cursing. 

when she turned back to carl, he was already getting up off the ground, comic book dangling in one hand as he brushed dust off his pants and ran to find his mother. 

𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵. now she was definitely in trouble. she glanced up to make sure dale had gone back to staring out at the horizon for walkers instead of watching her, and a quick scan around the camp assured that nobody else was watching her-for now. she scaled the tree she had been sitting under, finding a shaded branch where she was mostly hidden. 

sure enough, a few moments later, lori came stomping over, carl right behind her with a triumphant grin on his face. 

𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦, she thought from her spot on the tree branch. carl was older than she was, but a lot dumber and more annoying. 

"i can see you up there, glory. get down this instant and apologize to carl. those were very nasty words you said." lori's face was turning pink with frustration. 

instead of doing what the bossy grimes woman said, glory climbed around to the other side of the tree, all sharp angled limbs hanging onto the trunk, fingers digging into the bark as she lowered herself to the ground. as soon as her boots hit the ground, she took off running. 

she ended up in the dixons camp. it wasn't exactly in the woods, so she couldn't get in trouble for that, right? she was out of breath, kneeling over with her hands on her knees as she gasped in air when the dixons noticed her. 

"the fuck you doing, sweetheart?" merle guffawed, like her existence was hilarious. daryl just blinked at her, before going back to skinning squirrels-uninterested in her. that was fine, she liked it that way. she wished everyone was more like daryl-no questions, just letting her be and do what she wished. 

"i'm hiding from carl and lori. they got me in trouble." she said, still panting. 

"they're pansies, is what they are!" merle said, motioning towards the camp with his pocket knife. glory didn't know what a pansy was, but she decided she was probably going to call carl that at some point, seeing as merle had clearly used it as an insult. 

"merle, shut up." daryl grunted. 

foot steps crunched on leaves behind her, and suddenly the scruff of her shirt was grabbed in a bunch by a large, firm hand. 

"there you are." shane gripped her shirt hard, pulling her close to him. 

"god damn it!" she spat out. 

merle laughed again, like this was all some big fucking comedy show that he had scored free tickets to. 

 shane ignored the laughter, yanking lightly on glory's shirt. 

"you watch your mouth-what have i told you about swearing? quit talkin' like that in front of carl. i ought to wash your mouth out with soap." he chided, pulling the girl along with him through the shallow strip of woods back to camp. 

"we don't have any soap." she shot back, and shane just scoffed in response, too pissed off to say anything. also, she was right, so what was he supposed to say? supplies were running short in days like these. glory just hoped that all of this would be over soon-that the government or whoever would come up with a cure and fix everybody, and she could go...well, where would she go? she decided to stop thinking about where she would go when things went back to normal, because it sort of made her chest hurt. and she didn't like feeling hurt, because that made her feel weak. 

"you're gonna sit by the campfire and think about your actions for the rest of the afternoon. but first, you're gonna apologize to carl for speaking to him that way. and to lori for running away from her." shane said, finally letting go of the girls shirt, his eyes all serious in that way that meant he was talking business, and she better listen. 

"but-" she started out, ready to protest just about a billion reasons why she shouldn't have to say sorry. 

shane held his palm up. "i don't wanna hear it. i gotta job to do, protecting this camp-protecting you-and i can't do that when you're misbehaving like this, causin' trouble. you hear me?" his dark brown eyes bored into her blue ones, and her shoulders slumped. she knew there was no getting out of this. 

"fine." she stomped over to carl, who was bent over math homework, lori kneeling next to him. 

"sorry." she mumbled, and lori put a hand to her ear, and motioned for her to speak up. 

"what was that, glory?" lori asked, carl looking up from his work book. 

"i said i'm sorry." she said again, trying really hard not to roll her eyes at lori. she scuffed her shoe in the dirt, waiting for a response. 

"okay. me too, i guess." carl said at his mothers prompt for her son to do the same. glory could tell carl didn't want to apologize just as much as she didn't want to either. 

"thank you, glory." lori said, nodding to her. glory sighed, turning back around and sitting on one of the logs near the fire pit. lori could keep her approving nods-glory didn't want them. 

she kept her chin in her palms, shooting daggered glares at carl when lori wasn't looking. sophia was kneeling in the dirt, making mud pies with the morales family. glory huffed and puffed, kicked her feet in the dirt, threw stones into the fire pit, and finally decided to draw in the dirt with a stick. she was setting about trying to draw a cartoonish, ugly looking carl when a vehicle slowly rumbled into the camp entry. she dropped her stick, watching with interest as some of the camps folk who had volunteered to go help on a run to the city returned. 

there were cries of glee and happy tears as families reunited, but carl looked forlorn-as if he was missing out on something. glory knew his dad was missing-she knew because she had assumed when she first met carl that shane was his dad-but he had said no, his dad died. she figured that must be why he looked so sad now, and for the first time probably ever, she felt a tiny pang of sadness for the boy. she herself felt a twisting feeling in her stomach, watching parents hug children and siblings embracing each other. her parents had never done any such thing to her. 

but carl's long face didn't last, because there was a newcomer who stepped out of the vehicle. he had a police officers uniform on. 'great', glory thought. another cop who would probably boss her around. 

"dad!" carl called out to the newcomer, and lori's face went white as a ghost. no shit, glory thought. how in the hell rick grimes was alive and kicking, glory had no clue. she stood from her spot at the fire pit, walking over to shane to tug on his shirt and ask, but shane didn't look down at her, didn't even scold her for getting out of her timeout spot. his hands were limp at his sides, and then it's like something clicked, like he remembered that rick was his friend and lori's husband and carl's dad, and it was a good thing that he was back. he met his friends eyes and grinned, before stepping back and letting lori hug her husband. 

but glory didn't miss the look shane and lori shared-stone cold fear.