A/N Sorry for the lateness of the update guys. I love that I'm still getting new followers, I love when you guys give me reviews too! I don't know how I feel about this chapter. Let me know what you think. Much loves! 3
Daryl's restlessness increases over night. He wakes at dawn, intent on finding Sophia and getting out of here. Screw bed rest, he heads to the stable to saddle up another horse.
Sam notices Daryl's absence and starts asking anyone. if they've seen him.
"I thought I saw him headed towards the stables." Carol tells her "Isn't he supposed to be resting?"
"Yeah, he is." Sam all but growls, angry that he isn't listening to anyone.
She stops at the door to the stables, he is getting ready to saddle up another horse.
"What are you doing?" she demands "You're gonna hurt yourself more."
"Somebody's gotta be out there, lookin for that little girl. I'm the only one that gives a shit if we find her."
"Rick is taking a group out soon to look for her." Sam reaches out for him, but he jerks away.
"Get the fuck off me. Am I the only one that takes this seriously?" he yells at her.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sam asks as he tries, and fails to lift the saddle and almost falls "Your gonna end up ripping your stitches."
"Just leave me be. Let me do this." he stalks towards her "The hell are you anyway?"
Sam doesn't back down, instead she takes a firm step forward and resists the urge to shove his shoulders, her hands balling into fists at her side
"Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you can bully me into not caring about you? You're dead fucking wrong. I lo…" she bites her tongue and looks away.
Daryl stares at her, eyes wide but turned away from him. Only a foot or so away from her, and he can see tears shimmering in her eyes. The tension between them is palpable. He grabs her by her upper arms, making her look at him again, and just as suddenly, he lets her go and starts to talk out of the barn, catching a glimpse of her bewildered face. He heads across the field, Carol catches up with him.
"Mind if I join you?" she asks.
He shrugs, but doesn't slow his pace for her. They walk in silence along the creek until Daryl spots the Cherokee rose bush, he points to it and nods to Carol.
"I believe your little girl is still out there. An we're gonna find her." he says, Carol rubs the petals from one of the flowers between her fingers "Even if I'm the only one around here who thinks it's worth it to keep looking."
"I know we will. God willing." she leans over and softly kisses his cheek.
Sam approaches the group huddled around the porch. "I thought you guys were gonna go look for Sophia. Where's Rick?"
"We were all set to go, but Hershel needed Rick for something. We were waiting on him but it's been a good hour or so." Andrea explains.
Daryl comes up to the porch. "Damn it. Isn't anyone taking this seriously? We got us a damn trail."
Sam sees Shane come stalking out of the woods, gun bag over his shoulder, shotgun in hand, despite Hershel's wishes that nobody have the guns out on the farm. He starts tossing the guns to members of the group.
"Look, it was one thing to sit around here picking daises when we thought this place was safe. But now we know it ain't. You gonna protect yours?" Shane hands a gun to Glen, Maggie and Carl try to talk him down "We ain't going anywhere. Now look, Hershel, he's just gotta understand. He's just got to. Now we gotta find Sophia, am I right?"
Sam looks around at everyone, brandishing guns. When Shane tries to give Carl a gun, Lori yells at him, telling him it's not his call to make. T-dog calls attention to the woods. The whole group runs over to Hershel and Rick, leading walkers out of the woods.
"You see what they're holding on to? These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gotta feel nothing for them. Cause all they do? They kill. These things right here. They're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us. Hey Hershel, let me ask you something. Could a living, breathing person, could they walk away from this?" Shane shoots the walker in Hershel's hand, demonstrating that no human could walk away from those shots.
Sams heart goes out to Hershel as he watches the walker he thinks in still a person get shot, multiple times before Shane puts a bullet in her brain. Rick is begging Shane to stop.
"Enough risking our lives for a little girl that's gone. Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us. Enough, Rick, it ain't like it was before. Now if y'all wanna live, if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it. I'm talking fight, right here, right now." Shane breaks the lock on the barn, despite begging from everyone in the group.
The walkers start to push their way out of the barn. Sam goes over to Carol, standing back from the group, needing to watch the horror with someone else. When the flow of walkers finally stops, and they are all truly dead on the ground, a small growling sound draws all eyes back to the barn. A child's sneaker appears in the doorway. Sophia steps out of the barn, and Carol breaks away from Sam and runs towards her daughter.
Sam stares at the thing that used to be Sophia, the gaping wound on her shoulder, and before she can stop the, the tears come.
Daryl grabs Carol around the waist when she tries to run past him and get to what used to be her daughter. She struggles against his hold at first, calling out to her baby girl. Her tears drip into his arm and when Rick steps forward, gun raised, he holds her tighter.
He can feel the sobs that wrack her think frame when the gunshot echos through the air. He tries to help her stand "Don't look. Don't look."
She shakes him off as soon as she is on her feet and runs off.
Sam lies on the floor of the tent, exhausted from crying until the rising temperature makes it too hot to stay inside. She scrubs her face with lukewarm water from her canteen and goes back outside to help with the funeral preparations. Carol and Daryl have been in the RV for a while. Sam goes to get them when everything is ready.
"Come on." Carol just shakes her head at Sam.
"That's your little girl." Daryl says quietly.
"That's not my little girl. That's some other thing. My Sophia was alone in the woods. All this time I thought… She didn't cry herself to sleep. She didn't go hungry. She didn't try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago."
Sam steps out of the RV, Daryl follows her, but walks right past her, towards the campsite, his shoulders tense and angry. She looks from the campsite to the funeral site , torn on which way to go.