A.N.: So this prologue is a snapshot into the future of the story. Anyone who's read my other stories knows I'm a massive fan of denial, and most of all of happy endings and keeping characters alive that I love. But considering the genre, I will put my OC through the mill a few times to make sure she's earned it, just like the rest of the group has.

So, my character was heavily inspired by Ree Dolly, Jennifer Lawrence's character in The Winter's Bone. Watch it. Ree's personality, and her uncle, really inspire where my character came from, what she went through early in her life, how that moulded her later on.

Does Baby Grimes/Shane have to be a girl?

Our Deepest Fear

Prologue

"I've been thinking about what Pony-Boy said." The voice was quiet, and young. She knew it instantly, and for a moment she didn't respond. He shouldn't have been out wanderin' by himself but that seemed to be his way – and his mama having conniptions every time she realised her son was missing. The sun threw his shadow across the glittering water. That oversized hat and the gun holstered at his hip, distorted on the water, made him look like some kind of character from a messed-up Disney movie, but glancing up at him there was a grim set to his mouth now that hadn't been there even just a couple hours ago. There were tear-stains on his cheeks and he looked wan and pale, and he had his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans.

"What'd Pony-Boy say?"

"In that book you gave me, The Outsiders," he mumbled. Collis licked her lips, gazing out over the water as it rippled with tiny splashes glittering in the sunshine. It didn't seem real, that it could be so beautiful, so tranquil. Quietly, she recited,

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

Carl nodded quietly to himself. "That's what he said. I get what he means now."

"Do you?" she asked, glancing up at Carl. He had seen far too much, had experienced worse than she had ever had by the time she was his age, and he was maturing. But he was still a kid, and it was easy to overlook that. He could carry a gun all he wanted, wear his daddy's sheriff's hat, but he wasn't an adult yet. But he was learning to understand what was going on around him…

"He's talking about Sophia. 'Her early leaf's a flower', that's Sophia," Carl said quietly. "And the gold, that's…pretty things, right? They don't last. Sophia was pretty. She was sweet."

Collis sighed heavily, nodding to herself. "Poems can mean lots of things, to ever'body. I got no idea what Robert Frost was thinkin' when he wrote it, but you're right… 'Nothin' gold can stay', he's talkin' 'bout innocence, least to my mind. Sophia…she was sweet, she was…too gentle. Despite everythin' she was still innocent. She's gone, but none of us will ever forget. She's changed us all too much."

For better or worse, they had all changed in the last few weeks. A few more drastically and noticeably than others; the changes in some were subtle, like low-burning coals working up heat and power, and subtle glimmers of fire could be seen occasionally. Others were a hellacious inferno she could see miles off, rushing closer, destroying everything in its path.

"I should've gone after her. I'd've kept her safe." The deep, world-weary sigh made her glance up at her little friend. She'd met him when he was quiet and grieving his daddy, coming out of his shell with Shane and behaving real good for his mama while the world around him turned to shit. Sweet kid, good instincts.

"I don't doubt that," she said honestly. He may be young, and he didn't even know how young he was, but Carl Grimes was growing up into a kid who was kind, courageous and conscientious. Sophia's fate would always haunt him. "Didn't work out that way, though. Does nobody any good dwellin' on it."

"How do I stop?"

"I'll let you know when I figure it out." She sighed, watching the water, then glanced up at Carl. "Did you like the book?" For the first time, a ghost of a smile flickered across Carl's pale face.

"They didn't have to eat squirrels… I miss bologna sandwiches." Collis smiled sadly.

"My brother used to have bologna and grape-jelly sandwiches," she said wistfully. Carl crinkled his nose.

"Ew!"

"Yeah, ew," she agreed, still smiling sadly, despite the pang that shot through her chest. "But he loved it. Ever' day in his lunchbox, when he was your age, grape-jelly and bologna sandwich, plain potato-chips, and tomatoes. And he'd trade our cousin's cigarettes for candy-bars and Cheetos."

"He traded cigarettes? When he was my age?"

"He was enterprisin'. Good kid, though," she said, squinting at Carl behind her shades. She gave him a tiny smile, knocking the rim of his hat with her fingertips so that he smiled, reaching up to grab it before it could fall off his head into the water. "Go back to your mama, 'fore she has a conniption."

"'Kay," Carl smiled, and he startled her, flinging his arms around her shoulders suddenly, before darting off back toward the camp under the trees. She turned back to the water, glittering away, and pinched her eyes, her throat burning.

A.N.: Just a snapshot. The first chapter goes back to the beginning.