Since finding Sophia everything around the farm seemed dark. Moods especially. Though, who could really say they shouldn't be. Zoey cried for a better part of a day and from her tent she could hear Carol sobbing as well. Though she didn't understand why Carol refused to go to Sophia's funeral. She saw Daryl talking to her about it, but she didn't bother asking him. She hadn't spoken to him in days and she wasn't about to try. She figured she wouldn't even bother since he wasn't talking to anyone anymore anyway. Since finding Sophia as a walker he'd turned himself out of the group. He even went so far as to move his tent away from the others. When he caught Zoey staring at him he glared at her, then his eyes moved suspiciously down to her stomach so briefly Zoey didn't even notice, then he shook his head and finished moving his tent.
He had wanted to talk to her about it, but now he couldn't. They weren't on speaking terms before he decided to separate himself from the group and he wasn't about to mend any bonds if he was going to continue to distance himself.
Zoey was tired of trying to work things out between her and Daryl. She never really liked relationships that required work so why should she keep putting herself through this? She knew the answer, it was always nagging at her, but she didn't want to acknowledge it anymore.
Daryl often wondered if he shouldn't at least talk to her anyway, distancing himself from the group or not. He knew what Merle had done, Carol all but told him outright, and he wondered if Zoey was fighting for more than her own life nowadays. But he couldn't ask. He should, but he couldn't. He knew he wouldn't be able to actually do anything about it, anyway, so he figured he should just get himself some distance.
By this time everyone knew Lori was pregnant, but the only person who knew about Zoey's pregnancy was Carol. Zoey was thankful that she hadn't told anyone when Lori's big secret came out. But when Rick, Hershel, and Glenn didn't come back from town and Lori went missing and everyone got even more worked up Zoey couldn't help but feel more worried for Lori than anyone else. After all, if something happened to her than the baby was lost.
Dark thoughts kept into Zoey's mind about her own baby. It wouldn't be the first time Zoey had thought of ways to terminate the pregnancy she hadn't wanted. But every time these thoughts came up she did her best to shut them right back down. She didn't want to think of it, but yet she couldn't stop.
Lori was back, Glenn, Hershel, and Rick were back. And then there was Randall. A scrawny kid with a gaping wound through his left leg that Rick had insisted on saving. Zoey soon found out that the group of people who weren't opposed by Randall's presence in the group was very small. In fact, it consisted of only her, Dale, and Glenn. The others all figured he would get them all killed and wanted to take him out before any harm could be done because of him.
Finally it was decided that Rick and Shane would drive him out and leave him far enough away from the farm so that he wouldn't be a threat.
Sometime after they left Zoey took to her tent. She'd been hiding herself away for a while now. It wasn't because she didn't want to be around anyone, really, she would have loved to keep watch with Dale or talk to Glenn about video games, or even ask Lori about what's normal and abnormal in a pregnancy. She'd been feeling sick and had been having cramps so painful that sometimes she couldn't even get off the makeshift bed in her tent. She didn't know the first thing about being pregnant so she wasn't sure if any of this was normal. She'd just resolved to ask Lori about it when the cramping came back. She grit her teeth and tried to ride it out as she had been, but this time it was different. She felt it this time. Blood. Too much blood.
She screamed. She couldn't stop herself.
Andrea was the first one to come to her aid.
"Zoey? Zoey you okay? What happened?" She pushed aside the tent door and went wide eyed.
"What are you screaming about? It's just your period?" Andrea asked incredulously. But when she saw that Zoey was crying she added, "Isn't it?"
Daryl showed up next and behind him shortly was Carol. Zoey heard Dale shouting "Is she okay?" as he started running over to her tent from the RV.
Zoey covered her lap, there were way too many people heading for her tent now and she was more than just a little embarrassed.
"Can everyone go, please?" She cried.
Carol pushed passed Andrea and pulled Zoey in close to her. Dale had just arrived at the tent and was trying to ask Andrea what was happening, but she had no answers for him.
Carol took control of the situation. "Everyone needs to go." They stared at her. So she pressed on. "You all need to leave, now."
Andrea and Dale looked at each other with more confusion than anything else. They listened to Carol, though, and they turned and left. Zoey heard Andrea telling the others, who had probably heard her scream from the house, to go back to the house and that they had no answers other than it wasn't a walker.
Zoey couldn't stop crying. She wasn't even sure how she felt, but she just couldn't stop crying. No, she hadn't wanted the baby but she wasn't sure she wanted this to happen either. Carol just sat there and held Zoey in her arms until she had calmed down and stopped crying. She then helped Zoey clean up and offered to ask Hershel for help. Zoey wouldn't let her, though, she knew what happened, and Hershel was a vet, what could he do besides cause her more embarrassment.
"If there's anything you need you know where to find me." she said once she'd taken the soiled clothing and blankets to throw out and replaced them with new ones.
"Thanks, Carol." Zoey whispered.
"It's no problem, sweetheart." she said as she turned and left.
It had to have been only minutes after Carol left that Daryl came back.
"What happened?" he asked, not even asking her if it was okay that he enter her tent.
"Nothing." Zoey said not even turning on her now clean bed to look at him.
"Oh fuck you, nothing's wrong." He snapped. There it was again, anger he didn't mean to show but that he couldn't help.
"If you're here to snap at me just fucking leave!" She did turn to him this time. "I can't handle this."
"What can you handle then? Huh? Keeping secrets, obviously. You mind fuckin' tellin' me somethin'? Like maybe what my brother actually did to you?"
Zoey went wide-eyed. "How do you know about what Merle did?"
"I know my brother." was all he said. He didn't want to betray Carol by telling Zoey that's who had told him.
She went to scoff but it turned into a strange sort of sob. She meant to be cold and turn him away, but she just cried.
Daryl sat down next to her and asked, "Are you pregnant?"
Zoey shook her head. "Not anymore."
Daryl didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to handle friendships let alone know how to handle this situation.
He settled for giving her an awkward hug and muttering "Sorry." before heading back to his own tent where he could think.
