Author's Note: Some of the dialogue said by Carol or Tyreese in the television series has been altered to fit Georgie into the mix.
"The pain comes from knowing that we have never been safe, and therefore will never be safe again. It comes from knowing we can never be so ignorant again. It comes from knowing we can never be children again. Losing innocence. Remembering heaven. That was the essence of hell." – John Jakes
Two days of following the tracks was exhausting. It felt like they would never reached Terminus and the entire while, Georgie couldn't shake the onset feeling of foreboding. She wasn't sure if it was the imminent discovery of the safe haven they were in search of or if it pertained to something else entirely. She spent most of the time taking care of Judith. Tyreese was their muscle and Carol primarily kept her eye out on Lizzie and Mika since they looked up to her as their mother figure, so that left Georgie with the main responsibility of the baby, which she was more than happy to undertake. Granted, there were times where both Tyreese and Carol took turns with Judith as well, when Georgie's arms needed a rest or she needed to duck away for a minute or two to go to the bathroom.
The first night as a group of six, they slept in the woods, with each adult taking turns to watch for walkers, but the following night they had slept on the tracks under a bridge. Tyreese and Mika lay nearer to each other, asleep, with Mika using his legs as a pillow. It was extremely uncomfortable, but Georgie used one of the wooden planks to rest her head upon while letting Judith sleep on her chest; her arms wrapped protectively around the child. Carol and Lizzie were up the incline a bit, keeping watch. Tyreese's mutterings in his sleep woke her up and she reached an arm over to pat his head. She couldn't tell if he had woken himself up, from the angle she was positioned away from him, but she felt the gesture may have helped slightly; that he knew people were there and they were all okay.
When morning broke, Georgie kept Mika entertained by skipping around on the tracks with her, while holding Judith at the same time. The baby girl seemed amused enough by the movements, so it was a win-win. Carol and Lizzie were up on the incline above the tracks again, looking for tree sap, which they brought back so Carol could use it to take care of the cut in Tyreese's arm, to fight the infection and help bring down his fever.
Later on, they were once again back to walking along the tracks. Tyreese reiterated a belief he had shared with Carol, that they might be a few days out from Terminus. Since they hadn't seen any more signs, it was hard to know for sure.
Carol was now taking a turn carrying Judith in the baby carrier on her back. Mika was at her side, asking if Tom Sawyer had a happy ending, so Carol gave the cliff notes version of how it ended and then the sisters determining which one of them was more like Tom and which was more like Huck Finn.
"I forgot you used to read to 'em," Tyreese had remarked with a smile.
"I did," Carol confirmed.
Georgie smiled, bringing up the rear, just behind Tyreese. She kept a wary eye on the trees on either side of them and occasionally threw a glance over her shoulder behind them to make sure no walkers were following.
So far, so good.
A short time later, there was a strong smell of smoke in the air.
"You smell that?" Carol questioned.
"Yeah, there's a fire somewhere," Tyreese deduced, stating the obvious.
"It must be a big one if it isn't anywhere around here," Georgie spoke up. She began tapping the handle of her hunting knife; her nerves getting antsy. The feeling inside her, that something ominous around the figurative corner, had returned and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end because of it.
"We should stop here," Carol suggested. "We need to look for water."
They had used up what was left in the canteen the day before and it went without saying their palates were dry.
"I could do it," Tyreese offered.
"No," Carol looked at him. "No, you need rest. Rest your arm. Mika will help me."
Ducking off the tracks and into the woods, Carol gestured to Georgie to take Judith. The younger woman pulled the child out of the carrier first and wrapped her in her small blanket and passed the carrier to Tyreese while Carol and Mika disappeared in a separate direction with the canteen.
Sitting among the trees, with Judith swaddled in her lap, Georgie stared at Lizzie who had her eyes closed, and then opened them slowly.
"I spy trees and leaves," she muttered, and then looked to Tyreese. "Your turn."
He smirked and then looked to the left, Georgie's right and a frown took up residence on his face rather abruptly.
"What is it?" Georgie asked, following his gaze and noticing a walker stumbling along the tracks up ahead.
Casting a brief glance at her, he then looked at Lizzie. "You stay here with Georgie." He then stood up and went back up onto the tracks himself, grabbing up his hammer.
As he approached the walker, Georgie held Judith tight in her left arm while she gripped the handle of her hunting knife and unsheathed it. She caught Lizzie's curious look at her and then turned her attention back toward Tyreese as he ducked around some overgrowth that stuck out onto the tracks. When Lizzie suddenly jumped to her feet and took off after Tyreese, Georgie sighed heavily.
"Lizzie, Tyreese said to stay put here with me," she spoke firmly, but the girl ignored her, so Georgie was left with following after her.
Tyreese was about to bring his hammer down upon the head of the walker, who had somehow fallen into a hole in the tracks and gotten stuck, when Lizzie called out to Tyreese. He stopped and looked back at her.
"Sometimes we have to kill them; I know that," she informed. "But sometimes we don't."
It was in that moment that Georgie felt there was definitely something off with that girl. She could've very well stepped around the pair and stabbed the walker in the head with her knife, but by the way Lizzie was so adamantly standing in the way of that being done, and how the walker really didn't pose a threat to them, she stood down.
The feeling in the pit of Georgie's stomach twisted even more at that moment.
Eventually Carol and Mika returned to where they had left Georgie and the others and informed them of a cottage in the middle of a pecan grove they'd come across, suggesting it would be a good place to stay put for a couple of days. It was definitely a good place to stay. There were plenty of pecans to eat, Carol had seen a deer they could hunt and eat, there was a well full of water and a barbed wire fence, which wasn't too big but it would suffice.
Once they were within the fenced in portion of the property, Lizzie pointed out a plume of grey smoke beyond the trees in the distance, which was clearly what they had smelled earlier. Once they approached the home, the sisters were given the task of looking after Judith while the adults went up onto the porch to check for walkers inside.
They banged on the door and Carol spotted one walker, but it wasn't moving much. She suggested they take it slow, stay close, and go room to room. She then told the sisters to sit tight and for neither of them to come inside the house until the adults came out; no matter what the girls might hear. Mika was tasked with taking out her gun and keeping watch.
Georgie, Carol and Tyreese weren't inside the house for one minute when they heard Judith crying, Lizzie screaming and a gunshot. They came running back out to see a walker on the grass, trying to crawl after the children, just as Mika shot it successfully in the head while Lizzie held tightly to Judith.
"You girls okay?" Georgie questioned, as Carol helped Lizzie to her feet and Tyreese then took Judith and went up onto the porch to console her.
"Mika, lower the gun," Carol demanded. "You did it; you saved 'em. Why are you upset, Lizzie? You scared?"
Georgie went up onto the porch and stood next to Tyreese, giving Judith her finger to hold onto. It had helped during the two previous days when the baby girl got cranky and cried. Georgie looked down at Carol speaking with the girls and how visibly upset Lizzie was and couldn't understand what was going on in the girl's head when she claimed she didn't want to say why she was upset and crying. Tyreese exchanged a look of worry with Georgie, who then reached to take Judith from him.
She was a mother. Even though her daughter was dead, and whether or not her son was, Georgie was a mother and her natural instinct was to care for these three girls who were not hers. However, being around Lizzie for the last two days and watching her reactions to walkers, and how she just seemed to overall function, Georgie found herself growing increasingly concerned and even a bit uncomfortable around the twelve-year-old. She hated to admit such a thing, but Georgie was starting to feel as if Lizzie could eventually become a threat to the others.
Georgie didn't feel it was her place to mention her opinion to either Carol or Tyreese, though. Both knew the girl and where therefore attached to her and might take offense, even if they seemed to share the same looks of concern on their faces.
That night, they had found a crib in one of the bedrooms that they could use for Judith. It was empty and Georgie had remembered seeing the small grave outside with baby shoes around the cross as the grave marker. Images of burying her own daughter entered her head and she became a little upset and had to excuse herself for a moment, shutting herself momentarily in the bathroom. She heard Mika asking Carol what was wrong, and Carol reply simply that Georgie had children too before; that her little girl had died and her son was lost. Georgie listened to Mika ask if her son was dead too but Carol admitted the truth, that neither she nor Georgie knew for sure, but hoped he wasn't.
Georgie was certain Tyreese was listening to Carol speak as well, because when he knocked on the bathroom door and asked if she was alright.
"I'm fine," Georgie insisted, wiping a tear from her face and bracing herself on the sink while she stared at her dirty reflection in the dirty mirror. Gathering her composure, she inhaled a breath and exhaled a breath, and then straightened up. When she opened the bathroom door, Tyreese was standing there still.
"I don't know it doesn't compare to what you've lost, but I know how it feels losing someone you love," he spoke quietly while Carol cracked open pecans in the other room with the sisters, and Judith who was asleep in the crib. "I lost my girlfriend recently; she was killed. And then, when this man, The Governor, attacked the prison and we all scattered, I lost track of my sister, Sasha. I don't know if she's alive or dead. But there's hope that she's alive, and there's hope your boy is, and I think hanging on to that is a good thing. We all in this together, and if we can, we'll keep a lookout for your boy together as well."
Georgie smiled appreciatively at the man. "Thank you."
She suddenly felt bad, knowing and keeping the secret that Carol had killed his girlfriend from him, especially with how sweet he was being and how kind he clearly was, despite the way he could look imposing. He was really just this big teddy bear. However, Georgie had made a promise not to say a word to Tyreese. It was not her secret to tell.
The night progressed after that into a happier atmosphere. Mika found a ragdoll to play with, they had a fire going to keep warm and Tyreese had determined they had plenty of water and, if they could bag that deer Carol saw, they would be all set.
When he just stood there, and was asked what was wrong, he just smirked.
"I'm not used to this."
"Used to what?" Lizzie wondered, looking over her shoulder at him.
"Being in a living room, in a house," he replied.
"Yeah, so relax," Mika spoke, which made Georgie chuckle from where she sat on the couch, next to the crib.
Tyreese sat down in the wingback recliner and found an old magazine beside it, flipping through the pages, and everyone just seemed to fall into a peacefully content silence. Georgie looked upon Judith, whose little hand was sticking out toward the wooden bars of the crib. Reaching her own hand out, Georgie once again gave the baby girl her finger; a gesture that, even in her sleep, Judith was able to sense and gripped tight out of comfort.
"We should live here," Mika suggested.
The adults looked among themselves and simply smiled.
It was a nice thought, but for Georgie, she couldn't see herself staying long there if she ever wanted to find out for sure if her son was still alive in the world.
Following an incident with Lizzie and a walker the next day, Carol had gone off with Mika to go hunt the deer. They came back empty-handed and soon after, Carol went with Tyreese to get water from the well, while Georgie stayed with the girls. She had been taking care of Judith earlier in the day when Lizzie had been playing with the walker and Carol killed it, which didn't sate Georgie's nerves in regard to the older sister. Mika, on the other hand, was warmed up to more and enjoyed having around her.
Georgie was feeding Judith some baby food when Mika ran out of the house calling after her big sister. The ginger-haired woman carried the infant over to a window to see Lizzie disappearing around the dilapidated work shed and then Mika going off to pursue her.
Frowning deeply, Georgie hoped those girls stayed safe. Mika had taken her gun with her, so she felt a little better about the situation and came to the conclusion that perhaps Lizzie was just going to sulk somewhere as most pre-teens usually did.
She finished feeding Judith and then sat down with her on her lap on the couch, making faces and kissing that little face.
"You're such a pretty little girl, aren't you?" she murmured, coaxing a smile out. "My, what big blue eyes you have." Then in a gruff voice, she added, "The better to see you with, my dear."
Judith smiled and cooed, which made Georgie smile, but the good mood was quickly cut off when she heard Lizzie and Mika screaming.
Gripping Judith firmly against her in one arm, she stood up and, on instinct, ran to the table where she'd left her gun. She picked it up and burst out the front door to find charred walkers chasing after the sisters. Mika tripped and fell on the barbed wire fence and Lizzie had run back to help her.
Focusing on the killer instinct she had relied on for the last year and a half, Georgie hurried down the porch steps, aimed her gun, which she had since reloaded with extra ammo Carol had on her, and fired a few shots into the walkers, occasionally missing. Carol and Tyreese came upon the scene as well, and fired their weapons as well. Most surprising of all was Lizzie who had picked up her own gun and shot the approaching walkers.
All three adults and both sisters were all standing together, shooting the remainder of the walkers dead, and when it was over with, the returned to the house; the adults quite proud of how the sisters handled themselves when push finally came to shove.
Another night had come and gone and, unbeknownst to Georgie, Carol and Tyreese had been talking between themselves about not going to Terminus after all and staying at the house instead. Had Georgie been let in on this idea, she might have left then and there. It wasn't winter, where she needed the shelter for an extended period of time. She had a goal. She had to keep moving; to keep searching any possible path that may lead to the possibility of her son's survival, even if she had her own doubts, of which she hated admitting to herself.
Considering both Carol and Tyreese had claimed they would help her in searching for her son, had Georgie known of their other intentions, she would've felt deeply betrayed. She would've hated to leave Judith behind, because she knew the baby girl should stay where it was safer, but Georgie would definitely have gone off alone at that point.
That next day at the grove, Carol and Tyreese had gone off to hunt together and Lizzie and Mika took Judith with them, wanting to play "picnic" by the barn. They were in earshot and Georgie could see them well enough from the house, so she had given them the okay.
Alone in the house, she went about crushing the toasted pecans, which Carol had toasted in the oven the night before with the sisters, into a powder with the mortar and pestle she had found in a cupboard. She then adding some vegetable oil, brown sugar and vanilla extract she had found, that was still good, into a larger bowl to mix. She was going to attempt to make some sort of pecan butter; something, anything, that could be more of a homemade food for them, and maybe something Judith could eat since she wasn't at the age where she could really handle solids. She hoped maybe they could find some berries she could puree as well. She used to make her own baby food for her kids many a moon ago, but that was with the correct foods and tools in her own kitchen; not making do with whatever was lying around.
Occasionally, she stole a glance out the window at the girls to check on them and all seemed fine for a while until the very last time she checked.
Georgie looked toward the barn and saw Lizzie standing up on the blanket and in her hand was a bloody knife. Where the blood came from terrified Georgie since she couldn't see either Mika or Judith from where she was standing in the kitchen.
Tearing out of the house like a bat out of hell, the screen door slammed behind her as she ran down the steps and through the grass toward the girls.
"Lizzie!"
Had walkers shown up? Were Mika and Judith okay? Were they bit? Was Lizzie bit?
The older sister turned when she saw Georgie approach and the girl wore a pleased smile on her face. "It's okay, I promise," she expressed, still gripping the knife. Even her hands were covered in blood.
"Oh, god…Lizzie."
Just as she noticed Judith perfectly alright, lying on her stomach on the blanket, she spotted Mika, off to the side in the grass, on her back, and dead. Before she could advance on Lizzie, Carol and Tyreese came rushing over in her peripheral vision.
"Don't worry, she'll come back," Lizzie said. "I didn't hurt her brain."
Tyreese and Carol wore the same mix of shock, horror and devastation on their faces that Georgie had, while also keeping their cool. Lizzie still held a knife in her hand was stood between the adults and Judith. When Carol reached for the knife, Lizzie dropped it and whipped out her gun, pointing it at Carol.
"No, no, no, we have to wait! I need to show you, you'll see, you'll finally get it. We have to wait."
Right now, Georgie only wanted to grab Judith and run. She knew there had been a reason she felt a sense of foreboding days earlier and why there was something about the preteen that unnerved her. She just wasn't right in the head. She couldn't understand how the world worked anymore and she was definitely a danger to her own self and others, as was now very obvious.
"Put the gun down," Tyreese commanded, quietly and calmly.
"I just want us to wait," Lizzie pleaded, looking over at him.
"We can wait. We can wait," Georgie's voice cracked, forcing herself not to be cry and look to visibly upset.
"You just give me the gun," Carol added as she reached her hand out toward Lizzie. "We can wait, I swear."
Lizzie hesitated for a few moments before passing the weapon off to the older woman, and all three adults let out a subtle sigh of relief.
"You, Georgie and Tyreese should take Judith back," Carol continued. "It's not safe for her."
"Judith can change, too. I was just about to—"
"She can't even walk yet," Georgie cut in.
Lizzie looked at her, considered, and then nodded. "Yeah, you're right."
"So, you three will take Judith back to the house and we'll have lunch, and I'll just…I'll just tie Mika up, you know, just so she won't go anywhere," Carol lied.
"Promise that's what you'll do?" Lizzie asked, bringing her attention back toward her 'adoptive' mother.
"Mmhmm," Carol nodded. "I promise. I'll use her shoelaces."
It was so painfully obvious Carol was lying through her teeth, but Lizzie didn't seem to understand that. She didn't seem to understand a lot of things at this point. Georgie glanced at Tyreese who looked as if he breathed the wrong way the shit would hit the fan even more than it already had. He actually looked quite terrified of Lizzie in a way. Georgie wasn't scared of the girl in general, just the threat she posed to Judith now, and all she wanted was to get that baby girl far away from Lizzie by any means possible. Lizzie just wasn't right in the head.
Carol looked to Tyreese, and then she looked to Georgie; the latter seeming less likely to turn into petrified stone. Tyreese was this big, strong man but he was clearly uneasy to go near Lizzie and looked like he wanted to bolt as far away from her as possible. Slowly, he took steps toward Judith and picked her up and Georgie made the wary approach toward Lizzie, placing a hand on her shoulders to lead her away toward the house.
"C'mon," Georgie spoke, as motherly as she could to the girl, while throwing a brief glance back over her shoulder at Carol. "Let's go, Lizzie."
A short time later, Carol returned into the house, wiping her knife off and it was obvious to both Georgie and Tyreese that she had taken care of Mika so she wouldn't come back as a walker as Lizzie had hoped. Tyreese had still been too unnerved by the older sister, so Georgie left him to hold onto Judith while she had taken Lizzie to her room. The girl had sat down on her bed, which she had been sharing with Mika for the last couple of nights, and gave the room a quick but thorough search for any other weapons. When it seemed safe, she asked Lizzie, with a smile, to stay put for a while. Tyreese had gone into the room afterward to give a second look around.
They really couldn't afford not to play it safe.
Now, in the kitchen, Carol sat at the table and Tyreese handed Judith off toward Georgie's waiting arms. Carol was shaken, with dry tears stained to her face.
"I brought her some food," Georgie commented quietly, rubbing Judith's back soothingly. "I cleared out her room; I made sure she didn't have any knives or anything like that." No one was saying anything else and Georgie felt she needed to tell them about what she had found. "She has a shoebox full of mice." This was something she had mentioned to Tyreese before Carol returned.
"I asked if she was the one that's been feeding the walkers back at the prison," he spoke. "That was her." Carol looked defeated at this revelation. Tyreese continued, "At the tombs, I found this rat; pulled apart and nailed to a board. That was her, too. She said she was just having fun."
"Jesus," Georgie muttered.
"I was thinking, maybe she killed Karen and David. But I don't know how she could drag them away."
Georgie and Carol made eye contact. Carol shook her head, "She would've let them turn. It wasn't her."
"So, what do we do?" Tyreese wondered, looking between both women.
Georgie placed her lips against the side of Judith's head. "Well, we can't leave her out of our sight. No matter where she goes, one of us needs to be with her at all times. And she should not be near Judith."
Carol looked back up, casting her eyes toward Georgie, and then to Tyreese. "I could leave with her," she suggested. "Georgie's right about keeping her away from Judith. We can't sleep with her and Judith under the same roof."
Tyreese almost looked hurt. "You wouldn't make it…out on your own."
"She could," Georgie insisted, eyeing him. Then, to Carol, "But we don't want you to make that choice."
"She can't be around other people," Carol asserted.
Tyreese wasn't convinced with the idea of Carol going off with Lizzie. "Maybe we could try and help her; talk her back somehow."
"This is how she is." Tears were welling back up in Carol's eyes and Georgie found herself feeling overwhelmed by emotion as well. "It was already there. I didn't see it."
"How could you?" Tyreese questioned gently; there was no accusation in his tone. It was merely sympathetic.
"I should have seen it," Carol cut him off, angry at herself.
"So maybe we go." He looked between himself and Georgie. "Me and Judith."
"No, you won't make it either."
"I could go with them," Georgie offered. As much of a friend she saw in Carol and no matter how indebted she felt toward her for showing up on the road when she did, she felt, aside from hoping to find her son out there in the world still, that Judith had now become her priority. If that meant leaving Carol behind to help protect Judith with Tyreese, then that was the path she was willing to take now.
Carol didn't respond right away. Nothing seemed to sound like the right solution. "She can't be around other people."
Looking between both Tyreese and Georgie, Carol seemed able to get them on the same wavelength as her. They realized what Carol meant and what had to be done, though Georgie was less accepting of it. Georgie shook her head, muttered 'no' at first, and turned her back on the other two to walk over to the window.
It all looked so peaceful outside, as if everything was fine.
The sky was blue, the sun was shining; it was a beautiful day. Only aesthetically, though. No amount of peace and quiet and picturesque pastoral scenery could change the fact that the day was one of their worst days in a long while. Not even losing their respective adult counterparts – their lovers and/or friends – compared to losing one child and the prospect of having to end the life of another because she was a danger to herself and others; who could no longer survive in this world.
"I can't…" Georgie trailed, tears rolling down her face. She hadn't known Lizzie but a few days, not even a week, but didn't feel she could be party to killing a child; one who wasn't already dead and due to reanimate as a walker. "I'm sorry. I just…"
"You don't have to," Carol assured, standing up and wiping the tears from her eyes. "She's my responsibility."
Tyreese frowned. "She's all our responsibility now."
"No," Carol shook her head. "I made a promise to her father before he died that I would take care of his daughters and I failed at that." She pushed her chair into the table and ran a hand through her short hair as Georgie turned around to look at her. "I have to be the one to take care of this."
Carol left the kitchen then. Tyreese and Georgie could hear her open the door to Lizzie's room. The older female was in there for a few moments and when she returned Lizzie was with her, looking none the wiser. Georgie couldn't look at her. She couldn't face the girl, despite what she had done and the threat she still posed, and watch her go off unknowingly to her own death. Instead, Georgie looked out the window, pretending to entertain Judith.
"We're gonna go for a nice walk," Carol announced. "We'll be back in a little while."
"Be safe," Tyreese spoke. He obviously didn't dare to say something like 'have fun' and 'bye' was too funereal, even if Lizzie was unaware of Carol's actual motive for the walk.
"We will," Lizzie smiled.
She and Carol walked out of the house, down off the porch and began to head across the property toward the thick of the trees beyond that dilapidated barn. Tyreese joined Georgie at the window and took her hand in his, giving it a comforting squeeze.
Neither said a word.
Even when they watched as Carol pointed her gun and fired a shot at the back of Lizzie's head, neither said a word.
Tyreese turned and stepped away from the window.
Georgie just stood there, holding Judith close.
Carol and Tyreese buried the girls later one while Georgie remained inside with Judith, feeding her some of the pecan butter she had made earlier. Judith seemed to like it, probably because of the sweetness added from the brown sugar she'd used. All kids love sugar and doubted the baby girl had ever had any before; having been born after the world had fallen to hell and whatnot. Judith was sat on her lap and Georgie was staring at the fire in the fireplace that Tyreese had started after he had left the window. The flames licked at the wood, crackling and popping. Despite the heat outside, the heat from the fire was soothing and staring at them was a welcome distraction.
When the pair outside came back into the house, Georgie told them she was going to bed early and was going to pull the crib inside there as well to keep Judith close.
Carol nodded, as did Tyreese and both bid Georgie goodnight.
However, Georgie could not fall right to sleep. Neither could Judith it seemed. Georgie laid on her side, staring at Judith who was looking up at the ceiling, sucking the fingers on one of her hands.
Georgie smiled.
It was something as simple as that that made her heart ache less.
Scooting closer to the edge of the bed, closer to the crib, Georgie reached a hand out and stuck it through the wooden slats, offering a finger to Judith. The baby girl turned her head at the gesture and reached out. Wrapping her tiny, chubby fingers around Georgie's one, Judith held on tight.
It was almost as if she could sense something had changed; as if she could sense the loss of the sisters and holding Georgie's fingers was comfort for them both.
The next morning, Georgie woke to Tyreese giving her shoulder a gentle shake. She rolled onto her back and looked up to see that he was holding Judith in one arm.
"What's up?" she asked groggily.
"Carol and I talked last night, about a few things." He seemed solemn, and not just because of what happened with Lizzie and Mika not even twenty-four hours before. "We agreed we can't stay here any longer."
Georgie sat up and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, okay. No, I don't think we should be her anymore either." She looked out the window which, in the light of daybreak, had a clear view of the three small graves outside. "This is a graveyard now."
"We packed up the food and filled the canteen and some other containers with water from the well," he continued. "Some clean dishcloths Carol figured we could use as diapers for this one." Tyreese gave Judith a slight bounce in his arms. "We think it's best to continue on and look for that safe haven."
"Terminus," Georgie uttered.
"Yeah."
"Okay. Let me just…gather my knife and my gun. I had hid them yesterday from…" She trailed off.
"I know." It was sympathetic, his tone, once more; again proving he was just a big ol' teddy bear. "It's on the table, waiting for ya. We'll be outside on the porch waiting for ya…when you're ready."
Georgie nodded and Tyreese left the room with Judith. Getting up to her feet, she wandered over to the dresser on the other side of the room and picked up the brush that had been left there by the house's former occupants. Her thick, red curls were more unruly than usual, so she used the brush to try and reign those curls in somewhat. Scouring the top of the dresser, she opened what she thought was a jewelry box, but inside found hair ties and bobby pins instead.
She couldn't help but smile.
Georgie took all the hair ties out and put them on her wrists except for one, which she used to pull her hair off her shoulders and tie it up into a haphazard bun. Picking up the brush again, she walked out of the bedroom with it and went into the kitchen where, sure enough, her hunting knife and her handgun were sitting upon the table. She stuck the knife back into its sheath, the gun back into her back pocket and then walked out of the kitchen without a second thought. Carol was standing at the porch railing, looking down at the ground and holding Judith's diaper bag in one hand. Georgie shoved the brush into the bag and then removed the baby carrier from Tyreese's back, and put it on her front so that Judith was facing her when she also took the baby from him.
The three looked at each other and with a silent nod of their heads in agreement, walked off the porch together and left the grove behind.
On the tracks once more, the walker that had fallen into the hole, who Lizzie had been feeding mice to, was still there; still groaning and struggling to move to no avail. They could've killed him and put him out of his misery, but Lizzie's words echoed in their ears.
Sometimes they had to kill them.
Sometimes they didn't.