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CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN
Eva wakes when the morning sun starts to poke through the tent. She lays there trying to keep her tears at bay, they lost three more people, who had been family and it hurts.
She struggles to sit up, her whole body drained from yesterday's events. She sits there staring down at her boys, watching their chests rise and fall, as they sleep.
She looks towards the back of the tent into the second room and sees that Charlie is finally sleeping, but the girls are wide awake. Eva pushes through the pain and crawls over to them. She lies beside Mel and wraps her arm around her and Kailee, much like what she did with the boys last night.
With one hand she plays with Mel's hair and the other she rubs Kailee's back, comforting both of them as they start to cry. She lays there comforting them, while keeping her tears at bay, she needs to be strong for them.
After a while the girls finally calm down and Eva gets up to go make them some breakfast, seeing as they haven't eaten since yesterday morning.
When she steps out of the tent she sees only a few people up, seeing as how it is only around six in the morning. She sees Rick and Daryl up sitting around a fire and the blonde woman sitting on top of the RV.
She looks away from the men before turning and walking to the bus, ignoring the small rocks digging into her bare feet. She opens the storage door and starts moving around the bags that they just threw in haphazardly yesterday.
She pulls out one of their food bags and sets it down by her feet and she grabs the girl's bags and Hayden's and throws them over her shoulders before picking up the heavy food duffle bag.
She sets the bags down gently in the tent trying not to wake up the boys and Charlie. She then goes back to the bus and grabs her bag and Charlie's and her hand freezes when it goes to grab Jenna's bright green backpack.
Her breath catches in her throat and tears blur her eyes, as she slowly pulls her hand away from the bag. She slowly closes the door, blinking away the tears, before turning and walking back to the tent.
She closes the tent door behind her and drops the bags off with the others. She pulls out some of Hayden's clothes, seeing as how he is wearing what she guesses is Carl's shirt.
Eva then grabs a onesie and another diaper and some wipes before moving slowly to a waking Warren. She changes his dirty diaper, before getting him dressed.
She hands Kailee and Mel some food and water before making Warren a bottle. She holds him in her lap as she feeds him, watching the carefree baby eat his moaning breakfast, hoping he will be able to be so carefree for a long time.
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After talking with Rick about what to do with Randall, Daryl sits by the fire wedeling some more arrows. Every few minutes he looks up and stares at the new tent, where Eva and the others are.
He can still hear Eva's anger filled scream after she took care of Jenna, it echoes through his head. He won't admit it aloud be he knows how close Rick and them, hell even Shane, have come to be a group, a family, a very dysfunctional one but still.
He knows what they are going through, after losing Merle and the group from the quarry. He knows how hard it is, expectably for those kids. Daryl looks up when the tent doors open again and Eva comes out wearing a faded KISS shirt and some dark blue jeans, with a gun and machete strapped to her waist and thighs.
He looks passed her and sees the red headed teen, holding onto the baby, while the other is handing food over to Charlie. He looks away when she starts closing the tent door, he hears her walking over to him, Rick and Dale.
"Umm... is there someplace where I can get a bucket of water... I need to clean up... the bus." Eva asks them quietly and Rick jumps up and takes her over to the well that they are using.
Daryl watches as she carries a bucket and a bag up towards the bus. He looks away when he sees her having a hard time, trying to get herself to walk up the steps. He looks up to Rick and he shakes his head before rubbing his face, he sits back down in his chair and they sit around the fire, not knowing what else to do.
Not before long everyone is up and moving around the camp, he gives a nod and a small smile over to Carol who is cooking up some breakfast with Sophia by her side.
He thanks Carol when she hands him his plate and he quickly eats his eggs and jerky. He watches as Carol walks over to the tent and ask if they want any, he hears one of the girls politely decline, saying that they have already ate.
Daryl stares over to the bus a little worried, she has been in there for a few hours now and she has only come out to change the water. He looks around for Rick or Carol but Rick is arguing with Shane again and Carol is settling down with Sophia and Carl eating her breakfast.
He leans his crossbow down outside the bus door before slowly walking up the steps not wanting to alarm Eva. He walks through the cage that surrounds the door and he sees Eva on her hands and knees scrubbing away at the floor.
His nose scrunches up when he smells the faint smell of bleach. He watches her for a moment and he starts to get really worried. He kneels down before her and grabs both of her wrists. "Eva it's clean." He says quietly and he sees how red her hands are. She shakes her head while jerking her hands away from his.
"No! I... I still... I still see all the blood... I..." She stutters out while starting to scrub the floor again. "No, Eva! It's clean, it's clean." He says as he grabs her hands again and he tenses up when she burst out full of tears.
He lets her cry knowing that she needs it, even though it is making him really uncomfortable. He grabs the towel she was using and hangs it on the bucket before moving the bucket underneath the table, out of the way. He sits down fully, getting comfortable, as he waits for her to calm down.
"Thanks..." Eva whispers when she finally calms down and he nods his head telling her that it is alright. He stands up and holds out his hand, which she accepts and he helps her up. "Go see to your kids, I'll take care of the rest of this." Daryl tells her and she nods her head before slowly leaving the bus.
He looks around and picks up the dirty, blood soaked towels and the bucket and the bottle of bleach and then he leaves the bus. He dumps the pinkish water where she dumped the others before poring some of the bleach on the muddy ground, covering the scent of blood and as extra precaution he kicks some dirt on the area.
He starts a fire further away from the camp, by an old broken down chimney and he tosses the blood soaked towels onto the flames and he watches them burn.
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When Eva steps off the bus she uses the dry part of her shirt to wipe her eyes and face. She walks over to where the well pump is and washes her hands and face, and as she walks back to camp she sees Charlie and the kids sitting around the fire with the other group.
She quickly changes out of her soaked jeans and shirt. She changes into some baseball jersey that used to belong to her ex-husband, before strapping on her gun and machete again.
When she steps out of the tent she is greeted by Rick. "We will have the funeral for Jenna, Abigail and Cody soon. And there is something else we need to talk about." Rick says before telling her about what happened in town and how they have one of the men locked in the shed, healing from his leg wound.
"I know you have been through a lot, but I would like to know your opinion on the matter?" He asks her and she looks up at him before looking over at her group.
"It doesn't matter to us, we won't be here that long." She says before walking past him and over to the others, Hayden runs up to her yelling mama, she smiles at him, happy that he is talking, even if it is just a word or two.
She sits down in a chair in-between Kailee, who is holding Warren and Sophia. She listens as Sophia introduces the other group to her, as she rubs Hayden's back.
Soon after they all walk over to a group of trees near the barn, where she sees three graves and two small piles of stones. She half listens as Hershel reads from the bible, she is thankful knowing that they would appreciate it.
She stares at Jenna's grave and Abigail and Cody's memorial piles and all she feels is numb. An hour, one hour, if they stayed until nine like they were going to do, maybe she would have been there to save Jenna.
She figured out pretty quickly after finding Cody and Abagail's bodies that they died some time that night but she could have saved Jenna. She wants to be angry at Cody, seeing as he killed Abigail and Jenna but she just can't get pass the numbness.
She hears Charlie thanking Hershel and the others and she thanks them automatically, not even realizing she did. They walk back to camp and after feeding the boys some lunch she takes them to the tent and puts them down for a nap.
After she closes the tent door she turns and sees Carol and Sophia walking towards her with a pile of folded clothes. "Thank you, you didn't have to." Eva says after she sets their clean clothes into the tent.
"It was no problem, I was happy to do It." Carol says and she goes to turn away but Eva lightly grabs her arm. "Umm, is there anything I can help you with?" Eva asks her while letting go of her arm.
"Oh no hun, you should just rest." Carol says after shaking her head. "Please... I need something to do." She pleads quietly and she sees in Carol's eyes that she knows what Eva is going through, needing some sort of distraction.
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"How about you and the girls help me with lunch and then we'll finish the rest of the laundry." Carol says while bringing Sophia closer to herself, needing the comfort of her daughter.
Eva nods and tells her thank you before walking away to go get Kailee and Mel. Carol looks at her back as she walks away, she remembers the feeling, needing something to do, anything to do, when Sophia was missing.
Carol hugs Sophia a bit tighter before telling her to go play with Carl and she watches her run over to where Carl and Lori are sitting, with a smile on her face.
She walks over to the fire and sees the girls giving her small smiles, both happy for the distraction as well. They quickly get started on lunch, Kailee and Mel helping pass around the plates to everyone.
They all sit around the camp eating their lunch, Carol looks away from Sophia's smiling face and over to the woman that saved and protected her baby and brought her back to her.
She gets sad when she sees Eva staring at the fire, while slowly eating her food, wondering why god would save her baby but punish Eva for it. Maybe this is part of her punishment, knowing that since Eva and Charlie were bringing her back her baby, some of their people died and they had to leave their home. How can she forgive herself knowing she caused all this grief for Eva and them.
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After checking on Randall with Hershel, Rick walks back to camp and he sees Eva hanging up clothes to dry, her words ringing in his ears, 'we won't be staying long,' while Hershel was checking over Randall's leg. They talked about the new additions, Hershel didn't even hesitate with agreeing with him about them staying here on the farm.
When he walks up to Eva he clears his throat, getting her attention. "I want to talk you into staying here. It's safe here and you have those kids to think about." He says and he watches her hands tightening around one of Glenn's shirts.
"I trusted Cody, we all were together since the beginning. He got bit and I fooled myself into thinking he was just sick and we lost three people and another home." She tells him and his stomach tenses up, she pins the shirt up before looking up at him.
"How do I keep the rest of my group safe, in another place, with people I don't know, people I don't trust?" She asks him and he shakes his head before taking a step closer to her.
"Because you can get to know us and trust us. It's safer here then going on the road, you know there are bad groups out there, just think about it ok." He says and he hates that he had to hit so low below the belt, bringing up what happened with that other group, but he knows she needs to hear it.
She looks away from him and over to where the girls are washing clothes with Carol, before looking back at him and she nods her head before going back to hanging up the clothes to dry.
He nods his head, feeling his shoulders relax a little knowing she will think about it and that's all that matters right now. He leaves her to it and walks over to Lori, Carl and Sophia, who are playing a card game.
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After finishing with the clothes Eva looks around the camp thinking about what Rick said. She knows he is right but she wants to talk it over with Charlie and the girls first before making a final decision.
While getting out some of their food to help out with dinner, she has a bit of a hard time, seeing as how Hayden is right on her heels holding onto her belt, making her trip every now and then, as she walks back and forth from the bus to the fire.
"You shouldn't coddle the boy so much, it'll make him weak." She hears someone saying so she turns back to the camp. "SHANE!" Rick yells getting angry and Eva looks into Shane's eyes before looking over at Kailee and Mel and then down to Hayden before looking right into Shane's eyes.
"What do you do when you're alone and there is a walker?" She says aloud which makes everyone quiet down and the group stares in mild shock as Kailee and Mel flip out their pocket knives and even more shock when Hayden pulls out his Swiss army knife and pulls out the knife.
"What do you do?" She asks and the girls say in unison 'head or hide!' She nods before looking down at Hayden. "Is it a toy?" She asks and he shakes his head before shouting no. "What is it for?" She asks him and he holds his hands up like claws before bearing his teeth and saying 'Grrr'.
"Like a monkey." She says and watches him as his safely shuts the knife and puts the Swiss army knife back in his pocket. She then looks back staring only at Shane as Hayden climbs up her body without her help, all the way to her back and holding onto her neck and waist.
"Don't tell me how to raise my kids." Eva says before walking over and handing Carol a bag of rice and some seasonings. Shane gets up in a huff and storms off to who knows where, Rick following clearly angry with him.
Eva pats Hayden arm before grabbing both of his wrists, he lets his legs go from around her waist and she bends backwards before letting him go a few inches off of the ground. He comes to her side grabbing her belt and she rubs his head, messing with his hair.
"Good boy, I'm so proud of you." She says smiling down at him and he gives her a big smile in return. They sit around the fire eating their rice and squirrel, everyone giving their complements to Carol and Eva.
They tell her that it has been a while since they had food with actual flavor. After talking for a little while most of them get up and go to their tents, to get ready for bed.
Charlie stays out side talking with Rick, Daryl and Dale, while she takes the girls and boys to the tent. Eva wraps her arms around Warren and Hayden, softly humming their lullaby. She watches Hayden hug his tiger tighter before turning closer to her and Warren.
She listens to their soft breathing, the men's soft conversion and the crackling of the fire. She closes her eyes and waits for sleep to grace her, but she just lays there.
She lays there even after Charlie goes to sleep and the fire dies down, she lays there her mind racing never giving her any peace from the horrifying memories that plague her.