Hey everyone! Finally got a chapter done! I'm finally on my last legs of my last semester of college! Only seven weeks to go, then off to the real world... Anyway! Sorry this took me so long to get up, but I hope you guys like it! Leave me a review so I know what you guys think and if I should keep going with it. *Disclaimer, I only own my plot and my own characters, I don't own TWD
A moment of fearful dread coursed through the adults before they all sprang into action. Rick and Piper made a beeline for Carl while Shane lifted his gun and searched for the source of the gunfire.
Piper slid to the ground next to Rick, who pulled his unconscious son into his lap. She could hear Shane shouting angrily at someone and turned to see him shoving a hefty man up to us. The man looked distraught at the sight of Carl and rubbed a hand on his face anxiously.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't see your boy I swear! All I saw was the deer!" His voice broke in his distress and Shane shoved his shoulder roughly. The man stumbled and held up his hands meekly. "We can take him back to the farm. He can get fixed up there." Without another word, Rick lifted Carl into his arms and looked at the man with an expectant and furious glare.
"Where's your farm?" Piper asked stiffly. The man pointed and took off running, the other three right on his heels.
It took longer than Piper wanted for them to get close. After a while, the man couldn't keep up anymore and pointed the group in the right direction. "Ask for Hershel, he'll take care of your boy!" He called up ahead to Piper and Rick.
Finally, they leapt a final fence and saw an old man, a middle aged woman, two younger women and a teenage boy standing on the porch apprehensively.
"Are you Hershel?" Rick called out desperately, Piper right on his heels. The old man stepped forward.
"I am. What happened here?" Hershel asked suspiciously.
"My son, you have to help him. He was shot by your man. Otis."
"Otis?" The middle aged woman stepped forward slightly.
"Please, he said you would help him." Piper choked out. Her throat was tight from holding back tears as well as the long run to get here.
Hershel nodded his head and furrowed his brow before gesturing the group forward. "Bring him inside. Patricia I need my supplies. Clean sheets, pillow cases."
Everybody rushed into action, leading Piper and Rick into the house. They turned into a bedroom. Herschel pulled back the blankets, crumpling them up and tossing them off to the side.
"Lay him down here." He ordered, rolling up his sleeves. Rick stumbled forward anxiously, gently placing Carl down on the bed and shifting in place, staring at Carl desperately. Piper stood near the door, slightly off to the side and wrung her hands nervously. The tears were flowing uncontrolled down her cheeks, but she made no noise as she watched Herschel and the woman named Patricia coach Rick through a transfusion.
Shane showed up after a little while, taking in the sight of his best friend and his best friend's son. He sent Piper a glance, but she brushed him off, urging him to talk to Rick. Piper stepped out of the room to give the men a moment. When she stepped out of the room, she saw a young blonde girl standing with a boy, both of which were giving her curious but cautious glances.
Piper forced out a small smile. "Hey, My name is Piper. Do you guys have some water by any chance?" She was feeling drained and parched from her run in the Georgia heat and humidity. The boy sent her a blank stare, but the blonde nodded quickly and rushed off. When she returned, she handed Piper a large glass of water.
When Piper started chugging the water, the small blonde softly rested her hand on her shoulder. Piper was surprised and stopped drinking to look at the girl.
"You shouldn't drink too fast. It'll make you sick." Her voice was soft and sweet, exhibiting her innocent appearance.
"Oh, yeah you're right. Thanks." Piper sipped from the glass as slowly as she took in the house. It was homey. Pictures hung on the wall and the furniture was old fashioned. Piper was looking around the room when she heard someone approach. She turned and saw a girl around her age with short brown hair and bright green eyes.
"Hey there. My name's Maggie, I'm Hershel's daughter." Piper smiled at her in greeting.
"I'm Piper." Maggie smiled tightly at her, shifting her feet.
"I wanna go get the boy's mother. His father, Rick?" She continued after Piper nodded. "He's too upset right now to give me directions. Can you tell me how to get back to where your group is? I'm gonna take a horse and get her." Piper thought for a moment.
"Do you have another horse? I can ride and I think it would be easier to just take you there rather than try and give you directions." She looked at the ground thoughtfully for a moment.
"Let me talk to my daddy and I'll let you know, okay?" Piper nodded and watched as Maggie returned to the room where Hershel and Patricia were monitoring Carl. She turned and saw Shane approaching.
"What did she want?" He rubbed his face, exhaustion obvious in his features.
"She wants to find Lori and bring her here." Shane lifted a brow and nodded his head. "I asked her to take me with her." Shane made a face like he wanted to argue, but let out a sigh.
"I guess that shouldn't surprise me." Piper chuckled and shook her head. He looked at her for a moment before stepping up to her and pulling her into a tight hug. She balked for a moment in surprise, but wrapped her arms around his waist tightly, returning the hug. "Just be careful, alright?"
Piper nodded against his chest and pulled away. "I'll be fine. With two of us, the walkers shouldn't be much of a problem. Especially since we'll be on horses." Shane nodded and rubbed his face.
"I think Otis and I are gonna go on a run. Try to get some supplies for Carl." Piper frowned.
"When are you leaving?"
"Probably pretty quick after you do." Piper nodded and pulled him into another hug.
"Be careful okay?" He returned the hug and nodded his head.
"Always am." He pulled away and turned when Maggie returned.
"Daddy says you can come. Let's get going now though, I wanna get her back here before dark and we don't know how long it'll take." Piper nodded and squeezed Shane's forearm tightly before following Maggie out to the barn.
"I didn't grab much for supplies, I'm hoping this will be a quick trip." She mumbled as she hefted a saddle onto a buckskin standing patiently in the barn walkway. Piper nodded and waited for Maggie to give her a horse.
After she buckled the saddle on her horse, she turned and looked at Piper appraisingly.
"Have you ridden a horse before?" Piper nodded.
"Yeah, I used to ride all the time until a year or so ago."
Maggie walked up to a blue roan who was bobbing it's head as she approached. She stroked his cheek when he poked his head out of the stall.
"This is Tucker. He's got a lot of fire, and he'll test you. But he's a great horse and he has a lot of get up and go. If you can prove to him that you can handle him, he'll be real protective of you."
Piper approached the horse and offered her hand. Tucker sniffed her tentatively and lipped at her fingers. "I think I can handle him." She smirked as he started bobbing his head again.
Maggie chuckled. "Alright. Get him saddled and that will prove it." Piper lifted her eyebrow and grabbed the halter and lead rope hanging off his stall door. She unlatched the door and snuck in, pulling it shut behind her.
Tucker backed up and turned his head to look at her, ears perked curiously. Piper walked up and slowly put the halter over his nose, waiting to see how he behaved. He shook his head once, but allowed her to put on the halter. After she had it all the way on, she slid open the door and led him out.
After about 2 minutes of fighting the overexciting prancing horse, she managed to get him cross tied.
"I can see why he's a handful!" She called over to Maggie, who was attaching a saddle bag to her horse. Maggie chuckled.
"Yeah, he's a spitfire. He's not ridden much anymore, he was my brother's horse." She trailed off quietly. "Not many people can handle him anymore. A lot of people are scared of stallions." She looked over at Piper to gauge her reaction, and was pleased to see that the fact that she was dealing with a stallion didn't seem to faze her.
Piper had almost no trouble getting the saddle on Tucker, but the bridle was proving slightly more difficult. Every time she would get the bit to his mouth, he would tug his head up and out of the way. Piper gave a sharp dug on the halter still attached to his head.
"Knock that off." She said sternly. When Tucker shook his head again to keep the bit away, Piper tugged harder. "Enough!" She said, sternly but without shouting.
Finally the horse cooperated, taking the bit into his mouth easily and standing still so she could fasten the bridle. She pulled off the halter and sat it over the stall. She led Tucker up to Maggie and stopped him next to her.
"You might wanna take him out and get on him for a minute before we leave. Just to make sure he won't be stupid on the trip." Piper nodded and led her horse out of the barn.
Once they were out in the open, she held a rein in each hand and short lunged him for a minute in both directions. When she was satisfied that he was being responsive and paying attention to her, she let him stop and walked up to him, throwing the reins over his neck.
She put her left foot in the stirrup, bouncing a little to test his reaction to her weight. He stood there quietly, so she hefted herself into the saddle. And then hell broke loose.
Maggie wasn't kidding when she said he would test Piper. He bucked and pranced, rearing occasionally as he tried to lose his rider. Piper balanced herself, riding out some of his bucking and waiting for her chance to correct him.
After a moment, he stopped long enough for her to pull on one rein, spinning him around in a tight circle. She did this for a minute before doing the same in the other direction. Then she let him go again. He started bucking again pretty quickly, so Piper repeated this process until he behaved.
Once he gave up, he was the quietest, most obedient horse Piper had ever ridden. She was huffing and puffing by the end, and turned when she heard Maggie laughing.
"I told you he would test you. You did good though. He should behave for you now." Piper shook her head and patted Tucker's neck.
"He sure gave me a run for my money! I've never ridden a horse like that before." Maggie looked impressed.
"Then I'm surprised you stayed on him. Even I have trouble staying on sometimes when he gets like that and I've been riding horses since I was three, and I've been riding him since he was two." Maggie mounted her horse and turned to the fence line.
"Let's get a move on. Lead the way?" She gestured to the open pasture where Piper and her group had entered from.
Piper directed Tucker toward the pasture, urging him into a lope. She heard Maggie cluck to her own horse and led her back towards the church, figuring it would be easier to backtrack that way to find Lori.
They rode in silence for a while before the girls heard a scream very close by. Piper turned Tucker towards the sound and gave him a sharp kick, urging him into a run.
When they reached a clearing, Piper slowed Tucker to a trot, taking in the scene. Maggie had bolted past her, slamming the head of a walker with a baseball bat. Piper saw that Andrea had been on the ground beneath the walker. She hopped off of Tucker, dropping his reins to the ground to ground tie him and ran forward. She heard Maggie talking, but ignored her to help her friend.
"Piper? What happened? Where are the others?" Andrea asked, confusion clear on her face. She accepted Piper's offered hand and rose to her feet. Piper turned in time to see Lori on the back of Maggie's horse, holding tightly as Maggie galloped her horse away.
Daryl stormed forward. "The hell was that about?" He asked gruffly. He gave Piper a quick once-over to make sure she wasn't injured before fixing her with a glare.
"Yeah, missed you too Daryl." Piper said distractedly. Carol approached with Bailey in her arms, handing the little girl off when she reached out for Piper. Piper pulled her into her arms with a thank you to Carol.
Piper waited until the rest of the group was gathered before telling the story. She settled Bailey on her hip and turned to face everyone. Glenn, Andrea, Carol and Daryl all fixed her with curious or annoyed glances as they waited.
"We were walking through the woods when Carl found a deer. This thing was so tame, he let Carl get about six feet away." I smiled at the memory of the look on Carl's face when he got so close to the buck. "But, he got shot." She forced back tears before continuing on.
"A man was hunting and he didn't see Carl. Shot straight through the deer. We took him to the farm the man is living on and they have a man there that's trying to fix him up. That's where Maggie took Lori." Daryl shook his head in frustration while the rest of the group looked thoughtful.
Piper was rocking Bailey gently when the little girl finally spoke up.
"Mama?" Her voice was quiet and nervous.
"Yeah, sweetie?" Piper looked down at the sad look on Bailey's face.
"Is Cawl gonna go to heaven like Gamma did?" Tears built up in the corner of her eyes and her lower lip trembled. Piper hugged her close.
"Listen to me Bailey, Mr. Hershel, the man who's helping Carl, is gonna do everything he can to help him okay?" Bailey nodded her head and rested it on Piper's shoulder.
"I need to get back there. Maybe I can help." Daryl cut her off with a scoff.
"What you need to do, is come back to the RV. We can figure out what to do after that. You ain't goin' back till we talk to T-dog and Dale. Tell 'em what happened." Piper shook her head.
"I can't wait that long. I AM going back tonight and I don't wanna ride back in the dark. It'll be almost dark before we'd get anything figured out. I'll ride back to the farm, you guys go figure out what you wanna do. Either come there tonight or in the morning. You really should get T-dog there though. They could probably help that gash in his arm."
Daryl went to argue, but Piper cut him off.
"I'm doing this Daryl, whether you like it or not." She stared him down as he fixed her with an annoyed glare. Piper turned to Carol.
"Can you take her again?" Carol nodded and took Bailey into her arms. Piper kissed her forehead. "Don't worry Bailey, I'll see you tonight or tomorrow morning, okay?" The little girl nodded, but didn't say anything. She tucked her head into Carol's neck.
Piper felt a nudge and turned to see Tucker had walked up to her. He bobbed his head anxiously. "All right buddy, we'll get going."
She turned to Daryl after she hopped onto Tucker. "Take care of them Daryl. I'll see you later?" He grunted and turned to lead the group away. Piper shook her head, sent the small group one last smile before turning Tucker and loping back towards the farm.