Chapter Ten

"Sasha?" Tara mumbled as she approached the still body leaning up against the tree. Sasha sat motionless staring into the distance unaware that Tara was even there.

She sat down next to her and leant her back against the hard surface behind her. Maybe she just needs someone to sit with her, Tara thought. Just to know someone is there.

"Hey, Sasha..." Tara twisted her head gently around to look at her, but her face was vacant. "I- I'm sorry about Bob."

There was no answer, not even a flinch. Tara remembed Maggie like this, feeling like she wasn't completely there with her. It's like the body was still living but whatever was inside it; her spirit; her soul, it was gone. Gone or crushed and buried so far down it was unreachable. She felt like that herself at times. Sometimes her mind would flash back to all the memories she had with her Father, her Sister and her Niece.

When Tara thought about it, she missed Meghan the most. Nothing made her feel better than to take her out when either one of them were having a bad day and just spoil her rotten. She loved being the cool Aunt, and she was. Meghan told her so. Now she had no one, her family was gone and she could so easily break down but instead she pushed it to the back of her mind. She buried it because she wanted to be there for Maggie and she thought that if it resurfaced it would hurt too much to ever put right again. Maybe if Maggie was here she could put all the broken pieces back together, they could do that for each other. But she wasn't here, so she kept it buried.

Tara cleared her throat and shook the thoughts of her family and Maggie out of her head in a hopeless attempt to move on and comfort Sasha.

"It's okay, you know, to be sad... I mean, it's okay to feel whatever you're feeling." She said as she swallowed hard, the words hitting close to home as thoughts of Maggie resurfaced, but Sasha still didn't blink an eye.

Tara moved her hands over to Sasha's which were leaning on her knee and took them in both of her hands, warming the surface of her skin in gentle strokes with her thumbs. She leant her head back, closed her eyes and let out a heavy breath.

Maybe I'll sleep like this, just for a moment.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed when she blinked open her eyes but darkness had started to fill the sky around them, a gentle fire had been set and Sasha had buried her head into Tara's neck.

She heard soft whimpers coming from Sasha, her warm quick breath on her neck and turned her body round to wrap her arms around her. She needed Sasha as much as Sasha needed her. Both united in grief, but Tara felt so much more sorrow for Sasha. Bob was gone, but at least she still had a chance of getting Maggie back.

No. She would get Maggie back.

After a little while Sasha lifted her head up from Tara's shoulder and looked her in the eye. They both stared deeply, recognising the pain in each other, each feeling sympathy for the other.

"What happened to Maggie?" Sasha whispered. "I heard you talking earlier. What happened?"

Tara looked down at her hands that were now in front of her and started to scratch anxiously at her fingers. She didn't know whether to tell her what had happened or not, since the people that took Maggie were the same people that killed Bob.

"People took her... We- We tried to fight them off... but more came back. I tried- I ran after her but..." Tara let out the words quietly, a few at a time, as the sickness rose in her throat again, making it almost impossible for her to hold back the tears. A single tear escaped her eye and she wiped it away abruptly.

"I'm sorry." Sasha whispered, slightly louder and firmer this time. "But it's okay, we'll get her back. No one else is dying, I won't let them."

"I want to believe that." Tara just about managed to force the words out from under the lump forming in her throat.

Sasha looked at Tara curiously, and furrowed her eyebrows. A question escaped her lips and Tara heard it in slow motion as it hung in the air.

"Do you love her?" She said.

Do I love her? Tara didn't even know the answer to that herself.

"I- I think I do. I don't know. How did you..?" Tara replied.

"I can see it in your eyes. The way I felt about Bob... the way I feel about Bob, it's the same. I can see that." Tears filled Sasha's eyes as she rested her hand on Tara's, returning the comfort she had given her before.

"We kissed. She- She said that she loved me, or that she was falling for me and she felt... guilty."

"Because of Glenn?"

"Yeah, I guess. After she told me that, I was taken aback, I didn't expect it. I held her and wiped away her tears and then... we kissed. I didn't mean for it to happen, it just did. Then all of a sudden everything made sense. I think... In answer to your question: I do love her. I love her and I'm scared I won't get to tell her." Tara let the words out, speaking the thoughts as they built in her mind, and as she said the words she finally came to realise that she did love her. She loved her and she wanted her to know.

"We'll get her back, I promise you that." Sasha said. "You'll get to tell her."

But Tara wasn't listening, she was too busy trying to figure out a plan to leave and go find Maggie on her own. She wasn't going to wait any longer.