Chapter: Searching and Bitching
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….. Hours Later: …..
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The hours past and few of the men, including her husband, went out in the woods to go find any signs or find Sophia because she has been missing for most of the day. If the men come back empty handed, the group had already decided that they would group up and search the woods. More sets of eyes are better than just one or two, thus, the idea of a group search.
As of now, Nakkita takes the spare time to feed Xavier. She has a smile on her face as Xavier was kicking his feet around, eagerly eating the mush up squash.
"I can't believe the luck you had on finding jars of baby food and some non-perishable food." Andrea says as she steps into the RV to get herself a bottle of water, watching with a small grin as Nakkita tickles Xavier cheeks causing him to giggle.
"Yes, I was lucky. Hopefully some of my luck rubs off on the guys that are in the woods right now." Nakkita says, glancing over at Andrea, who simply nods her head.
The backstory of this whole incident was that after that herd of walkers went through the highway, there was a few staggering behind that Sophia didn't see when she slid out from underneath the car. She ran off into the woods with two walks going after her to which Rick ran right after her. When Rick came back, Sophia wasn't there. Now, for the past hours, the men of the group, except the injure T-Dog and Dale, were in the woods.
"Yeah, that is all we can do now is hope for the best." Andrea mutters, shaking her head and leaving the RV.
Nakkita stares after her disappearing form, feeling that Andrea was turning into a morbid thinking person. She knew that Andrea was hurting from her little sister from behind killed and she tried to stay back at the CDC, but her attitude shouldn't be one in this situation. It will start to effect people. Nakkita shakes her head to get her mind off it and looks down at her pride and joy, Xavier once again.
After about ten more minutes, Nakkita left the RV with Xavier in her arms. She looks at the rest of the group that stay behind to see them scavenging through the vehicles still. But also, takes note that most of the men were back, except Rick and Daryl. Her eyes glance over to the guardrail to see that Carol was still standing there, staring out at the woods with her hands clasps together against her chest.
Nakkita walks near the guardrail, putting about fifteen feet between the sadden mother and her. Xavier was fiddling with her necklace. She stare in the woods, but glances to her right when she feels Carol glancing at her.
"It's getting dark."
"I know. They'll be back." Nakkita lowly says, not saying anymore as she doesn't want to say the wrong words.
The rustling of leaves from the woods causes them to look forwards to see an emotionless Rick and Daryl appear. They steadily walk up the hill, Rick staring right at Carol was an emotionless expression. Daryl didn't look up, but just turn a bit another away to head towards Nakkita upon seeing her standing near the guardrail.
Nakkita stares at Daryl, who shakes his head a little before she looks over at Rick, taking in the blood that was across their clothes. Her eyes went to Carol, who couldn't stop fidgeting in her spot now, her eyes showing unshed tears upon seeing the two men not having her Sophia with them. That the little girl was still out in the woods by herself.
"You didn't find her?" Carol lowly croaks out.
"Her trail went cold. We'll pick it up again at first light." Rick pulls himself over the guardrail telling her in a soften voice.
Everyone soon sees that Rick and Daryl were back, thus, making their way over and stop around them to see what words were being exchange.
"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own, to spend the night alone in the woods." Carol waves her right hand towards the word, staring straight at Rick.
"Out in the dark's no good. We'd just be tripping over ourselves. More people get lost." Daryl calmly states, hoping over the guardrail to stand beside Nakkita.
"But she's twelve. She can't be out there on her own. You didn't find anything?" Carol says, she appear to be trying to keep a strong face, but it was easily breaking down into a sadden look.
Stepping forwards towards the desperate and heartbreaking mother, Lori gently places her right hand on Carol's shoulder while taking a glance at Rick.
"I know this is hard. But I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there." Rick reaches out to Carol, trying to reassure and calm her down, but his hand doesn't reach her.
"And we tracked her for a while." Daryl lowly adds in, moving back and forth on his feet.
Daryl steps even closer to Nakkita, brushing his arm against hers just to feel that see was there with him. He could never image what if it was Xavier that gotten lost in that woods if he was Carl or Sophia age. Daryl couldn't image what Nakkita would be like, but then again, Daryl already planned in his head that he was going to teach Xavier how to survive in the woods, tracking and hunting. Nakkita had already agree for him to do this, since he taught her those skills.
Back to thinking about if that happen to Xavier, Daryl glances at Carol then Nakkita and knew that there was definitely a difference when it comes to what their reaction would be. For Carol is having a mental and emotional breakdown as she stands back and waits. As for Nakkita, Daryl knew that Nakkita would grab her hunting bow, guns, knives and she will be out in that woods searching high and low for their son. That was Nakkita's advantage over Carol, Nakkita would be out there and tearing everything up around her to find what she wants.
"We have to make this an organized effort. Daryl knows the woods better than anybody. I've asked him to oversee this." Rick tells Carol, but also was trying to inform everyone else.
By telling everyone this, it meant that they were going to be going out as a group into the woods early tomorrow, searching the woods for anything.
After hearing this comment, Nakkita couldn't help but look at her husband, feeling that a lot of responsibility was being put upon his shoulders for the search group tomorrow.
"Is that blood?" Carol whispers, pointing out as she sees blood stains on Daryl's pants and then some on Rick's shirt. Seeing this, Carol begin to breathe heavily, visibly shaking as she didn't want them to deliver her any bad news.
"We took down a walker." Rick looks away, not wanting to see the sadden mother's expression upon this information.
"Walker? Oh, my god." Carol steps out of Lori's grasps on her shoulders and she begins to shake her head.
"There was no sign it was ever anywhere near Sophia." Rick steps forwards, kneeling down beside Carol as the woman sat herself back down on the guardrail. He was trying as hard as possible to keep a calm and strong face, but seeing Carol sadness and her getting an accuse look upon her face towards him, Rick knew his calm personal wasn't going to work.
"How can you know that?" Andrea speaks up as she was standing near Lori and Carol with her arms cross over her chest.
"We cut the son of a bitch open, made sure." Daryl answers.
With these answers and all that was happening to her, Carol was shaking her head as she sat on the guardrail and having a look of helplessness expression. The group mostly bow their heads or look away, feeling a sense of pity for the woman.
"Oh, god…how could you just leave her out there to begin with? How could you just leave her?" Carol fires right at Rick, masking her sadness with anger. Her right hand was waving and gesturing to the woods as she glares down Rick.
Nakkita head tilts a bit to the side as she stares at Carol becoming piss off at Rick now. She can understand what it is to be a mother, she just never face the experience that Carol was in and Nakkita sure as hell hopes that she never does. However, Nakkita was starting to become annoy with the way that Carol was acting now, especially toward Rick. In Nakkita eyes, Rick was doing everything possible to maintain this situation from getting out of hand. But with Carol pointing out at Rick's mistake, it was tearing the poor man apart.
"Those two walkers were on us. I had to draw them off. It was her best chance." Rick was still kneel down near Carol, still trying to reassure her of his reasoning and actions.
"Sounds like he didn't have a choice, Carol." Shane steps forwards, beside Rick and putting his two cents in, trying to back him up.
"How was she supposed to find her way back on her own? She's just a child. She's just a child." Carol whispers to Rick, leaning forwards to make him stare her in the eyes, but he bows his head, staring at the ground before glancing up a little at her.
"It was my only option. The only choice I could make." Rick replies.
"I'm sure nobody doubts that." Shane lowly says, sitting himself down on the guardrail too.
"My little girl got left in the woods." Carol meekly points out, trying to hold back the tears that were already in her eyes.
Nakkita looks away, but when a hand lands on her lower back, she looks back to her right to stare at her husband, who was glancing at her in the corner of his eyes.
The Dixon couple with the rest of the group watch as Rick stands up from his kneeling position with an upset look of his own and he walks away from all of them, needing to be by himself to think about things
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….. The Next Morning: …..
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With a loud bang, Rick dropped a large bag down and then he pushes it open. It rolls out to show all sorts of sharp and various designs of knives. For today, they were all going out in the woods to search for Sophia or any signs of her.
"Everybody takes a weapon." Rick says, stepping back as Lori steps forwards to take a short machete type knife.
With a lot of debate last night, Rick had managed to persuade Daryl into letting Nakkita go because she was just as good as a tracker than Daryl was. It was going to be interesting because Nakkita has to take Xavier with her; thus, she has the baby harness on and Xavier was pass out sleeping in it.
Nakkita steps forwards next, grabbing a machete style blade that has a slightly curve to it. On her, she has a black belt harness around her leg that was holding black, sharp looking throwing knives.
"These aren't the kind of weapons we need. What about the guns?" Andrea points out with her right hand on her hips with the bitch face on full mode.
Nakkita couldn't help but roll her eyes, knowing this was going to be an interesting and long search party group. Nakkita steps up beside her husband, who brushes his hand against hers and did a check over of her and Xavier.
"We've been over that. Daryl, Rick and I are carrying. We can't have people popping off rounds every time a tree rustles." Shane answers Andrea while pulling his handgun out of his backpack and tucking them in the back of his jeans.
"It's not the trees I'm worried about." Andrea retorts, looking away with a slight disapproval face.
"I should bring aspirin with us for this." Nakkita mutters underneath her breath while looking at the sky. Daryl got an amuse smirk at his wife's comment, but at the same time, he couldn't help but agree with her suggested idea.
"Say somebody fires at the wrong moment, a herd happens to be passing by. See, then its game over for all of us. So you need to get over it." Shane shoots back, ending that debate.
"The idea is to take the creek up about five miles, turn around and come back down the other side. Chances are she'll be by the creek. It's her only landmark." Daryl begins to explain their game plan.
Once finish, Daryl gently hip bumps Nakkita and nods his head for her to follow him as he begin to make his way towards the guardrail. She follows after him, taking his hand as he helps her over the guardrail.
"Stay quiet and stay sharp. Keep apace between you but always stay within sight of each other." Rick tells everyone.
"Stay close to me." Daryl lowly tells Nakkita and he reaches out to gently caress the top of Xavier's head. Daryl looks at her, seeing her grinning at him.
"I know."
"Just making sure beautiful."
"I'm a Dixon, I'm good."
Daryl smirks at her, stepping up to her and laying his lips against her forehead. When they pull back, they stare into each other eyes before their eyes snap over to the RV to see Andrea and Dale going at it with one another. However, they realize Andrea was mostly doing the talking and blaming Dale for his actions of getting her out of the CDC building before it blew it.
"And another thing."
"What's that, Daryl?" Nakkita pulls her eyes away from the scene and to stare up into her husband's eyes.
"Stay away from the crazy blonde bitch."
Nakkita gently laughs, nodding her head while Daryl gives her a boyish smirk.
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They were all going through the woods in a fashionable follow the leader—Daryl—line. Though, Nakkita was walking beside him and scanning their surroundings for any evidence of Sophia or something else passing through the woods.
Nakkita eyes venture over to the right to see something yellow causing her to tap Daryl on his right forearm to get his attention since he was looking off to the left. His eyes glance at her with raise eyebrows, but when she makes a pointing gesture at what she is seeing, Daryl looks in that direction that she points at and sees what she had caught.
Daryl gently pats her forearm as a 'good job' gesture and they begin to walk in that direction. Coming about thirty feet from it, Daryl holds everyone up with a halt of his hand and he motions for everyone to get down. They all stare at the white and yellow tent that was set up from them.
"She could be in there." Shane lowly says.
"Could be a whole bunch of things in there." Daryl replies, slowly getting up but staying in a crouching position.
He moves forwards with his crossbow up and ready for anything that might be around their surroundings or within the tent. Slowly, Rick and Shane follow after Daryl to the tent while the rest stood back, watching as Daryl takes the role of checking the tent with his hunting knife out and ready, dropping his crossbow on the ground.
Daryl looks at them, shrugging his shoulders as he sees no sign of movement or anything. Thus, Rick turns around and waves Carol over. Nakkita makes a gesture for all of them to follow her as they move forwards too.
Though, Nakkita stops them as they watch Rick lead Carol over to the tent where Daryl was standing at the entrance with his hunting knife poise in the air and ready for anything. They didn't know if Sophia was in there for sure or instead, a walker might be in there.
"Call out softly. If she's in there, yours is the first voice she should hear." Rick instructs Carol, who nods her head.
"Sophia, sweetie, are you in there. Sophia, its mommy. Sophia. We're all here, baby. It's mommy." Carol kept saying, over and over again but nothing was happening with the tent.
Seeing nothing happening, Rick moves forwards and makes a slight nod of his head to Daryl. Daryl readjusts his grip on his hunter's knife and slowly opens up the tent flap with Shane and Rick standing beside him. Once the flap open up, Daryl enters the tent.
Both Rick and Shane begin coughing, gagging and spitting on the ground. Their hands over their mouth and nose making them to know that something disgusting was inside.
"Daryl?" Carol asks, wanting to know what was taking Daryl so long in the tent.
Nakkita steps forwards, wanting to see her husband and what the hell was taking him so long within the tent. Her eyebrows rose when Daryl steps out while sheathing his knife and bending down to pick up his crossbow.
"It's ain't her." Daryl tells them.
"What's in there?" Andrea steps forwards, asking.
"Some guy. Did what Jenner said. Opted out. Ain't that what he called it?" Daryl tells them, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder and takes a few steps away from the tent. He begin to make moves towards Nakkita, but stops and looks up with the rest of them.
There were bells ringing, echoing throughout the woods.
"Church bells." Nakkita blurts out making them to look at one another and then around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.
They quickly ran forwards in a direction that they were sure of where the bells were coming from.
"What direction?" Shane asks as they came to a stop on a hill.
"I think that way. I'm pretty sure." Rick points forwards as he felt like the sound was getting louder as they move in the direction that he pointed in.
"Damn, it's hard to tell out here." Shane steps up on a log, looking around with his shotgun across his chest.
"If we hear them, maybe Sophia does too." Carol quickly says with desperation in her voice.
"Someone's ringing those bells, maybe calling others." Glenn suggest.
"Or signaling that they found her." Andrea adds in.
Nakkita glances at all of them, not wanting to suggest anything because what she would suggest would most likely shut them up. Because she wants to tell them to stop suggesting things because it is bringing them too much hope in the matter. But mostly, they were building false hope up for Carol and that wasn't exactly a good thing.
"She could be ringing them herself. Come on." Rick says, jogging forwards causing them to follow his lead.
They jog for a good five minutes until they came to a clearing that had stones appearing out of the ground. That is when they realize that they were in a graveyard and a white church was about a good fifty feet from it.
"Let's get through this quickly. I don't like standing on a graveyard with dead people, especially with walkers already after us." Nakkita blurts out, quickly jogging ahead of them with her right hand resting on the baby holster that was holding Xavier.
"That can't be it. Got no steeple, no bells." Shane says once he has step out of the woods.
The men quickly sprint forwards and went right up to the red doors that led into the church. Rick pushes open the doors with his gun ready, but slowly puts it away as Lori hand him a knife instead.
They all stood on the steps of the church, watching as Rick, Shane and Daryl went inside with the weird ass knives and took out the three walkers that were sitting at the benches. They watch as the men took their anger out on the walkers, mostly Shane and Rick.
"SOPHIA!" Rick shouts, showing clearly frustration as he walks to a door and open it, only seeing that it was an exit for outside.
Nakkita slowly walks forwards, stepping over the dead walker body that Shane had killed and she moves towards her husband. Daryl was standing at the front of the church, staring at the cross.
"Yo, JC, you taking requests?" Daryl asks, turning around and seeing Nakkita standing there.
"Kissing noises to get a walkers attention?" Nakkita ask him with raise eyebrows.
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Yes, it did." Nakkita replies with a slight smirk as Daryl steps right up to her, looking her up and down with this look of mischief coming into his eyes.
"Unless you're jealous." Daryl mumbles to her causing her to roll her eyes and turn from him. She looks over her shoulder at him as he looks her up and down again.
"Oh, how did you know that I was jealous of a rotting, cannibal body." Nakkita sarcastically says causing Daryl to snort and shake his head at her, clearly amused by the comment.
The bell starts to go off again making all of them to run outside and to the side of building. They watch Glenn step up to this outlet and rip out this plug.
"A timer. It's on a timer." Daryl waves the knife towards the speakers that were on the corner of the building.
"I'm gonna go back in for a bit." Carol quickly says, walking back into the church.
Nakkita just sits herself on the steps, placing her left hand on the back of Xavier. He had finally woken up and was staring around at his new surroundings with curious eyes. Nakkita looks up to see Shane and Lori standing there, glaring at one another with tension. Thus, Nakkita slowly stands up and moves herself back into the church and sits herself down at the back of the bench. Daryl comes walking over and he stands behind her, resting his right hand on her shoulder.
They watch as Carol was up front and she was beginning to pray to the cross.
Xavier reaches up, waving his right hand to Daryl, to which, Daryl reaches down and caresses his son's face. He bends down and let Xavier grab his nose, playing with it with a smile.
Soon, they were finish up inside the church and they move outside where they would make up a new plan.
"Y'all gonna follow the creek bed back. Okay, Daryl, you're in charge. Me and Rick, we're just gonna hang back, search this area another hour or so just to be thorough." Shane explains, glancing a bit to his side as Rick comes up beside him.
"You're splitting us up. You sure?" Daryl asks, a bit unsure about this.
"Yeah, we'll catch up to you." Shane replies with a nod of his head.
"I want to stay too. I'm her friend." Carl steps forwards, staring in between his Dad and Shane with pleading eyes.
Both Rick and Shane glance at one another before Shane looks away with a joking smile as if he couldn't believe that Carl even suggested this. The two men look over at Lori and clearly showing they were looking for her answer.
"Just be careful, okay?" Lori tells Carl with a small grin.
"I will."
"When did you start growing up?" Lori says, cupping his face before bending down and giving the top of his head a kiss.
Daryl and Nayla walk away from them but glance back as Rick held out his gun to Lori, shaking his hand a bit for her to take it.
"Take it."
"I'm not taking your gun and leaving you unarmed?" Lori slowly replies.
"Here, got a spare. Take it." Daryl walks back over, handing the spare gun he found in the tent before walking back over to Nakkita.
"Let's move." Nakkita begins the walk back towards the woods with Daryl and the rest of the group.
As they walk through the woods, everyone stay quiet and on guard. Daryl and Nakkita were leading the pack through the woods. They soon come to a part of the woods were there was some large tree that had fallen for everyone to sit on and take a few minute break.
Daryl stands on guard with Glen; both were staring around for anything that might be around.
"So this is it? This is the whole plan?" Carol asks, sitting herself down on the fallen tree.
A sigh escapes Daryl, he turns around to stare at the group with frustration in his eyes. He rests his back up against the tree that was to his right while Nakkita came to stand on his left side.
"I guess the plan is to whittle us down into smaller and smaller groups." Daryl says, shrugging his shoulders a bit.
"Carrying knives and pointy sticks. I see you have a gun." Andrea sneers, giving Lori this snobby facial expression.
"Ah, here we go." Nakkita shaking her head, not carrying if they all heard her.
"Why, you want it? Here, take it. I'm sick of the looks you're giving me." Lori looks at Andrea while reaching into her backpack and pulling out the gun.
"Whoa! We are getting feisty now." Nakkita couldn't help but say. Daryl shakes his head with a slight grin, knowing that his wife was getting just as annoyed of Andrea then Lori and all of them
"Shut up, Dixon." Andrea snaps, clearly hearing Nakkita.
"Bite me, Goldie locks." Nakkita shoots back.
"Is that the best you got?"
"No, I held myself back from calling you a snobbish bitch." Nakkita steps forwards saying.
"Nakkita—"Daryl was saying, reaching out for her as Nakkita kept stepping forwards with a glare.
"Me a bitch? Please."
"Yeah, you're the bitchy one of the group. Whining about how you don't have a gun. Do you want to know why we and I mean all of us don't want you to have a gun? It is because we all don't trust you with one. What Dale said back at the RV before you shut the poor man down and broke his heart, was all right. And I hate to say this, but so is Shane too. For one, you sure as hell are not train to handle one, you probably would most likely shoot at random ass shit that moves, such as the wind, and we sure as hell don't know what you might do with it. Until you and probably all of us are well train to handle a gun, you are not going to use one." Nakkita blows up, her eyes were sharp and darkening in color.
"So, shut the fuck up and drop the fucking Ms. Whiny-hey everyone looks at me I'm helpless act and fucking grow a pair! Good Lord!" Nakkita shouts, turning away and storming off a bit away from the group to get some air.
Wide eyes and mouth drop a bit, Daryl stares after his wife in shock then looks back at everyone else, seeing that their expression was just like his. Their faces were shock and a bit fearful for seeing how wild up Nakkita can get. They all looks like fishes out of the water with the way their mouths were agape.
Glancing back at his wife, Daryl couldn't help but find her sexy for being this riled up.
"My god! I'm carrying a seven month old child and out here doing this. Do you see me fucking whining. Noooo, I'm not…Jeesh, didn't anyone ever think that the loud gunshot can echo out to the highway and draw a herd of walkers attention." Nakkita was still ranting, sitting herself down on a stump about twenty feet away from them.
They all sat there in silence, but they did glance over at Andrea, who has a look of clear shock, fear, and disbelief that Nakkita had just blew up on her. But after listening to her words, everyone takes note of how Andrea was getting this look of guiltiness across her face.
"All of you." Lori begins.
Nakkita glances back at the group as she hears Lori speaking out after a good minute of deafening silence. Daryl makes a gesture for Nakkita to get back over to him causing her to sigh and make her way back over. She leans on the tree he was on, her back against it as she stares off into the woods. She didn't feel like staring at the group after that wonderful moment.
"Honey, I can't imagine what you're going through. And I would do anything to stop it. But you have got to stop blaming Rick. It is in your face every time you look at him. When Sophia ran he didn't hesitate, did he? Not for a second. I don't know that any of us would have gone after her the way he did or made the hard decisions that he had to make or that anybody could have done it any differently." Lori explains, staring down Carol but would glance up at everyone to get her point across.
"Anybody?" Lori says, looking away from Carol and at everyone else, who stay quiet.
"Y'all look to him and then you blame him when he's not perfect. If you think you can do this without him, go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you." Lori snaps at the end, lifting her bottle of water to her lips and taking a gulp from it.
"We should keep moving." Andrea lowly says, stepping up to Lori and handing the gun back over.
Nakkita eyebrow rose at that then smirks as she push herself off the tree, her left hand resting against Xavier's back. Xavier had to manage to get a good hold on Nakkita's necklace and was shaking it about.
Daryl turns away and starts to lead the group through the woods again, but he would occasionally glance over at his wife as she walks beside him. He looks around to see that everyone wasn't close to them; thus, he bends his head down and put his mouth near her ear.
"Was that the best you got? And you call yourself a Dixon." He jokily says in a husky tone.
Nakkita scoffs and playfully shoves him away, glancing at him and smile as he sends her a wink.
They were both staring at one another with slight amuse expression when a gunshot echo throughout the woods.
They all halt to a stop and frantically look around from their spots, trying to figure out what direction that gunshot had come from.
Birds flew from the trees, squawking loudly and causing a ruckus. The other creatures that live within the woods seem to quiet down making it seem like someone has press the mute button.
"And that is why we don't carry guns." Nakkita lowly states, looking up at her husband as his was frantically looking around their surroundings.
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HI!
Wow, it has been a while since I last post a chapter up for this story. Crazy!
Anyways, here you go!
Disclaimer for all chapters: I don't own anything about the Walking Dead Series. I, however, do own my original characters, Nakkita and Xavier.
Thanks and Enjoy!