Hellllloooo~ everybody! Long time no see. It's been a long wait but I am finally back! As of today, uploads will resume as normal(every Monday). Thank you so much for your patience, support, and amazing comments. You guys rock and I am so grateful for every single one of you, I couldn't do this without you, but enough talk.

Enjoy!

I heard Carol's steps, mindlessly running toward the small girl; her pathetic cries for the dead girl, fracturing my soul.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daryl catch the woman, and take her to the ground beside me as gentle as possible.

"Sophia" Carol cried in desperation, reaching for her child even from where she was in the dirt.

My vision blurred as I looked at her, and Daryl. Blue eyes caught mine as Carol cried out again, sobs wracking her whole body.

I tried to shake my head and bring back my control over my body, but all I was able to do. Even as Sophia— the walker, started towards us; stepping over the other bodies on the ground between us.

Carol's excruciating voice cut the silence weighing thick in the atmosphere.

I know what needs to be done, I know. But by the time I mustered the will to reach for my gun, and my dry lips parted for the shaky breath, Rick moved forward.

I blinked, my shoulders pulling towards the ground with the weight of what I had to let happen now. My teeth biting into my lips, while I watched as what used to be the little girl I played tag with, reached this side of the field of bodies.

I wanted to look away, I don't want to see this happen but looking at Sophia's eyes… Cautious, scared Sophia reduced to ashen skin and sunken, empty, twisting veiled hazel; but they're still her eyes. Still her freckles. Still her.

I shouldn't have been grateful he moved first but watching Rick raise his Python, the gun weighing heavily in hand, I knew.

I couldn't have done it.

I took my final look at the little girl I once knew. The girl I vowed to find, and closed my eyes as the shot rang.

I turned away, to the dirt between me and Carol before forcing myself to look at the outside world again.

My hearing cleared to a painful crispness. Carol's strangled breaths between cries, ringing in my ears.

I forgot.

I forgot why I don't make promises I can't keep. Why I always plan for the worst. Why I don't let my hopes get up. Why I don't believe in a higher power. At least not one that is merciful and kind; nor cruel and twisted.

"Don' look." Daryl lifted Carol to her feet, as I turned my eyes to them. "Don' look."

Carol swung around, pushing Daryl off before staggering to a weak run towards camp.

I drew the back of my trembling hand to my cold lips; trying to calm the shake. I knew it was on my skin but I didn't feel it.

My hand fell, my lips parted, the muscles in my throat contracted as I swallowed. I knew the acrid taste on my tongue but it wasn't there.

The build of a shiver on my spine was there but never came. My chest hurt and my nose burned from inhaling the sharp scent of gunpowder and dirt, but even the pain of my physical state settled as a mirage on the surface of my mind.

The aches, stinging, nothing did anything to slow the hollow spreading through my bones.

I wasn't aware my vision hadn't been in focus up until the moment I found my eyes drawing to the black handgun in the dirt beside my foot.

I stood staring at it for long seconds. The vaguest question of when I had dropped it swayed across my thoughts, but wisped away like a spiderweb in the wind.

I crouched, reaching for the piece. Fingers coming to rest on the cool metal.

"A timid little girl in a dark forest, full of flesh-eating monsters… She never stood a chance. Did she?" I muttered so low, I barely heard myself.

A bitter smile twisted the corner of my mouth.

We were never gonna find her. Everything we did, all the blood we shed, the risks we took. None of it mattered.

I clamped my jaw shut; erasing all trace of any emotion that ever bled through, and squeezed the grip of the gun in hand.

Rising on numb feet, I forced myself to tune back into the world in front of me.

Hoarse desperate sobbing, hot tears, empty or grief & pain stricken faces on everyone in sight.

I tucked the murderous tool in my hand into the waistband of my black jeans, and put the numbness throughout me to use; schooling every part of my being to that distance.

There are things we need to do; for the dead, and those of us left behind. I can feel later. When the dust has settled, and they're put to rest.

I turned my gaze to Daryl, watching carefully, trying to gauge where his head is at.

He stood tense. His entire body rigid, watching Carol flee.

I can't even hope to imagine what Carol's going through. What it's like to lose a child, and god I hope I never do.

My ribs are cracking apart at the sternum, already and Sophia wasn't my baby.

Carol needs someone to lean on right now; someone who won't try to make it better.

It took me a few seconds to separate the different emotions in Daryl's face; most of it being dominated by that hard scowl he's mastered. The one that sometimes seems almost permanent, but when I managed, I walked to him.

Slow in my movement as not to startle, I set a light hand on his tense shoulder, squeezing with barely enough pressure to be considered pressure at all.

He looked at me, without hesitation; though the slightest stiffening of muscle under my fingers until he registered my face, didn't go unnoticed.

I lifted my chin towards camp.

Daryl looked confused— uncertain for a moment, glancing between me and the camp.

I squeezed his shoulder. "She doesn't need to be alone right now."

He nodded, and I let my hand slide from his shoulder as we started.

I walked with him until we past Carl and Lori, sitting in the dirt at the back of the group.

"You comin?"

I glanced at Daryl, not realising I had stopped. I opened my mouth, glancing back at Carl's back; slumped over. His shoulders looking so much heavier than any child should.

I looked back to Daryl, blue eyes searching me the same way I had before.

"I'll catch up."

He nodded, glancing at Carl and went on ahead.

My eyes followed his back for a few moments, before I returned my gaze to the boy who somehow looked smaller than usual, curled in on himself like that.

I sat beside Carl on his right, and as soon as I sat down he looked at me. Tears in his eyes, the pain on his face wrenching that hole in my chest so far I could feel it tearing.

I moved my arm around him and almost immediately he was buried in my chest. I wrapped my arms around him tight. Small shoulders shaking, and tears soaking through my shirt, but he wasn't sobbing.

The only sound coming from him being sniffles, and the gasps he took between silent cries.

Lori moved to rub his back but I moved my arm from Carl's back and held it open. She moved closer, giving me the slightest tight smile before wrapping her arms around Carl and leaning against me shoulder as I closed my arm around her as well.

I rubbed Lori's back, as Carl held onto my shirt and his mother's hand.

I caught Rick's eyes as he looked back at his family before they redirected to I assume Lori.

He moved to come towards us but crying turned to screaming, and I pulled my knife without hesitation, pulling Carl and Lori behind me.

Before I even registered what I was doing, my leg was in front of me, prepared to launch me onto my feet at a moment's notice.

Half the group darted forward to Beth, where she was in the midst of the bodies on the ground. Where a walker in her lap, had its hands pulling her hair.

Shane and Rick both grabbed Beth from behind. Rick shouting, "Pull her away! Pull her away!"

Glenn grabbed the walker's arms from the front as it tried to keep hold of Beth.

I pushed into a run as they pulled the girl and the walker apart, the other's stampeding around them not knowing what to do.

The walker turned its attention to Glenn, while T began kicking it in the head. "Head down— head down!"

It snapped for Glenn's hand and I slid on the dirt, shooting my leather-clad arm out, between it's mouth and his fingers.

"Eve!"

I grunted, clenching my teeth as it's jaw clamped down on the leather with a bite force no human should possess.

T and Rick scrambled to pull the walker off but Andrea thought fast and grabbed a sickle leaning on the barn.

T-Dog and the others stumbled back as she swung, planting the rusted tool straight through the walker's head; the tip piercing out of the forehead.

Glenn dropped it's arms, separating the walker from me as fast as possible.

He went straight for my arm not a second later. "Are you okay? How bad is it?"

I grabbed his frantic hands on my forearm, making him look at me. He calmed if only by a fraction, letting me slip my sleeve off.

I pulled my pale arm from the sleeve, looking at the thickest part of my forearm right before my elbow, where the teeth had landed.

It didn't break the skin. A wicked bruise is already forming but no blood, and no teeth marks.

A chorus of sighs erupted from those around. Bringing acute awareness to the fact no one —not even myself— had been breathing.

"Oh thank god" Dale broke the silence.

Note to self, leather is my best friend.