Breakfast the next morning was a rather moody event. Daryl sat near enough to get to her if he needed to but also far enough that conversation couldn't comfortably be had - she'd have to raise her voice and disrupt the quiet, and Cassia knew that Daryl knew she was too awkward to do something like that. It irked her that he still glanced at her every five minutes or so, too. It was like he'd sat up the night before and wrote up a list of things he could do to further annoy and upset the woman he'd impregnated a couple of weeks before an apocalypse. Cassia mumbled incoherent ill wishes as she placed the vitamins in a smart line along her palm. The three she had there were the only ones left, as Hershel had warned her - the only pre-natal pills anyway. Hershel had explained they were leftover from when his wife was pregnant with Beth. Cassia wasn't sure how she felt about using up what she assumed to be the pills of a dead woman, but she'd already been sleeping in tents and eating food and wearing clothes that had all belonged to someone else, so why was this different? She supposed it was because she was living in her home, eating with her family, accepting help and hospitality from her daughters and her husband. A wave of nausea hit her and she was glad to realise it was just morning sickness. She wouldn't survive if she didn't allow herself to use the property of the dead to survive. They were dead. They didn't need it anymore. She was alive. Her baby was alive. Her group was alive and they all needed it, whatever it was.
She'd spent too long overthinking everything again, and hadn't realised Glenn was pacing back and forth infront of everyone and seemingly had been doing so for a while. Daryl had even stopped staring at her to watch him in something that was alarmingly close to concern. Cassia herself narrowed her eyes and held her breath. It wasn't bound to be anything good because it never was.
Glenn's pacing and fretting reached almost Lori level, and just as it looked as if he was going to burst, he blurted,
"Guys... the barn's full of walkers."
Just as expected.
Shane was the one to lead the miniature mob up to the barn doors, he was the first to peer through the tiny hole in the wood and he was the first to level his gun at the padlock.
A barn full of walkers. An entire goddamn barn full of walkers right on their doorstep. Cassia stepped forward to take a peek through the hole just to see for herself, even though the ominous snarling and occasional groaning and thumping against the aged wood was more than enough proof. There's always something in seeing something to really believe it. A cloudy, pearl-like eyeball peered right back at her and she almost threw herself backwards, away from the door and away from the entire barn as it's creaking and the paint is peeling and everytime a walker thumps against the walls or the door it just doesn't sound sturdy or reassuring or strong in the slightest. Cassia had no confidence in this barn, and clearly neither did Shane as he started up his whole routine of blaming Rick (which is hardly surprising) and accompanied it with his jumpy pacing about as if he were wearing moon shoes, or something. Lori was doing her usual dithering about just on the outskirts of the space Rick and Shane were taking up with their one sided showdown. Cassia ventured to peer into the hole once more just to reaffirm what she was seeing but was immediately yanked back by a firm hand around her forearm,
"Death wish, much?" Daryl murmured to her and moved to put himself between her and the barn door. Cassia gave him a look and then turned to assess what was happening with their leader(s). Shane was circling Rick the same way a wolf would an injured deer and the whole thing reminded Cassia so much of a documentary she saw once about the hierarchy of the jungle that she considered the possibility that she was living amongst the occupants of a zoo instead of a group of apocalypse survivors.
There was something that came across as being off to Cassia about the walkers in the barn, though. They would advance towards them and bump into the walls or the doors whenever the humans outside were loud enough or in sight through the hole in the door, but they weren't mad with hunger the way Cassia had expected them to be. This coincided weirdly enough with the chickens that sometimes went missing from the coop over by the stables - which Cassia figured must have been the explanation for the oddly sated walkers, but the thing was that there was no way any of the chickens could just wander across to the barn and find it's way inside, and even if that had been the case - there was absolutely no way it could happen again and again the way it clearly had been. But that was the problem, the issue, the thing - because that meant someone had been taking the chickens to the walkers and someone had been feeding them, and when Cassia really though about it, she recalled seeing Patricia heading towards the barn a few times with seemingly no reason to do so.
God, this thing had got complicated. Rick was saying something about it being Hershel's home. How it was their home. Shane, of course, disputed it with, "And this is our lives, man!" - all very dramatic.
Cassia could hear the sounds of walkers scratching against the wooden walls of the barn and suddenly her skin felt itchy.
"We either gotta go in there and make things right, or we have to go. Now, we've been talkin' about Fort Benning for a long time," Shane hollered, continuing with his moon shoes type pacing. The commotion caused the banging and occasional thumping against the barn door to pick up and grow more insistent, and Daryl placed a hand just above the jut of her collarbone and pushed her a little further away from where he stood between her and the barn. Cassia sighed at his over-protective insistence but was mostly glad for it. She knew it was all for the baby, and the thought had her hand soothing over the very noticeable bump. The baby would be the size of a passion fruit at this point, she knew from all she'd heard from the parents in the group. Lori had been staring at the bump all morning, and even remarked that it had become a 'true baby bump'.
Cassia knew this would be about the time she would be breaking the news to her family and friends, because this was when it was official and safe to say the pregnancy was going forward. She tried not to think about it too much, because she knew it would only result in her own misery to think about everything she'd lost. It wasn't as if she could properly focus on thinking about it anyway, as the others were arguing. She'd zoned out for only a few seconds, and hadn't missed much - only that everyone had turned to Rick. It was a natural thing, the pack turning to their alpha and leader for guidance. Cassia would have turned to him on instinct too if she had been properly invested in the conversation, and she knew that Shane was seeing what she was seeing, and she knew that it was sending him right over the edge - especially when he turned to glance back at Lori, only to find her staring at Rick as if he were the saviour and the messiah and the salvation and all that. Cassia could see even out of he corner of her eye that a tick had gone off in Shane's jaw.
"We can't go!" Rick hissed at Shane, clearly appalled at his suggestion,
"Why not?"
"Because my daughter is still out there," Carol stated defiantly, and Rick actually winced while Shane merely dragged a hand down his face as if he were a supply teacher who was sick and tired of covering for the class and putting up with their shit. Daryl's arm brushed against Cassia's and his shoulder met hers as he came to stand next to her. The atmosphere had turned hostile and thick and the tension that surrounded and intercepted them reminded Cassia of a bull that had been taunted and pushed around and manipulated again and again, only to be locked away and hidden each time it was about ready to fight back. It had reached it's breaking point and now there was no hiding it away or stifling it or ignoring it - because it was furious and insistent and would not take it any longer. The tension oozed of the finality of it all. This had all been a long time coming. This was a leadership struggle.
Cassia took Carol's hand, squeezing it tight as a sign of solidarity. Carol squeezed back, a little harsher than maybe she'd intended - but that was no doubt due to Shane's tactless dismissal of her only child lost and scared in the forest.
"I think it's time to maybe just consider the possibility..." Shane voiced like he trying to teach an unruly child how to read,
"How about you consider the possibility that we might be on the verge of finding her!" Cassia protested, and angled herself to stand just that bit infront of Carol, "What if we give up right now, today, and we just move on when she's just about to be found? What if that were Carl, huh? You'd be out there right now and you'd be out there until the end and we all would! You're only talking like this because it doesn't directly affect you, Shane. You don't know her that well so you don't care so much, but we do! Sophia has a significant number of people who are willing to go out day and night to look for her, and being one of them, I know I'm not going anywhere until that little girl is found." Cassia's chest rose and fell with the fury building in her stomach. She was certain she'd never said so much to anyone in the group before. Her tone had been firm and damning and fierce, but she knew she had wobbled at some points with how strongly she felt on the matter. Daryl made a distinctive noise of approval from beside her.
Shane narrowed his eyes at her but didn't respond straight away because, just like everyone else had been, he'd been too shocked by the outburst to think of a quick comeback - which was good, because it meant he had to think about it instead of hitting her with hasty insults and claims.
"You gonna put a dead kid above your own?" He asked in a low voice, and Daryl lunged at him. T-Dog and Rick struggled to hold him back and Shane just stood there staring straight at Cassia past everything else.
If she'd had her knives with her she really didn't know what she would have done.
Carol was the one standing in front of her now, shielding her from Shane's harsh words,
"Don't talk to her like that." Carol spoke with her chin held high, though the hand she had still tucked in Cassia's was still trembling. Shane ignored her completely.
Having given up on throttling Shane, Daryl went back to stand by Cassia, placing a hand on her shoulder to communicate he was there. He licked his lips and finally spoke up himself,
"Listen, we're so close to findin' this girl, I just found her damn doll two days ago!"
"You found a doll, Daryl, that's all you did, you found a doll!"
"Shane..." Rick warned, holding a hand up to try and caution him off from doing anything rash,
Shane ignored him entirely and pointed at Daryl, "And let me tell you somethin' else, man, if she was out there and she saw you comin', all methed out with your buck knife and your geek ears 'round your neck she would run screamin' in the other direction!"
Daryl's hand disappeared from her shoulder and he went for Shane once again. T-Dog and Rick were expecting it this time, it seemed, because they had him secured in a safe grip between them immediately.
"Back off, Shane!" Cassia yelled, and he turned on her once again,
"Don't see why you're actin' all heroic and courageous when you're useless in tryna find the girl! What, you gonna waddle 'round the forest just hopin' and prayin' that she'll come runnin' towards your maternal instinct?" Shane bit at her.
"Shut your damn mouth!" Daryl roared from where T-Dog and Rick had him, and started to struggle and jerk about again. Merle had only ever taught him to resolve his disputes with insults and actions.
Shane threw his hands up in the air as if exasperated with the whole thing - that most likely meaning the damn apocalypse itself.
"Waddling around the forest and hoping and praying is a lot better than driving off with Andrea to search for a little girl, only to return hours and hours later with nothing but satisfied needs," Cassia shot back, and this time Shane started as if to lunge towards her, but Daryl said something like 'don't even think about it' at the same time Rick said 'step down, Shane' - and Shane backed off accordingly, only to glower at her from where he stood. Andrea had turned a bright shade of scarlet and everyone else generally looked appalled - Lori included, though she looked a little angry too. Cassia couldn't bring herself to turn to see Carol's reaction.
Rick glanced back and forth between Daryl, Cassia and Shane, trying to anticipate an attack from any side, but Lori latched onto Shane and tugged him away from the conflict at the same time Daryl pushed T-Dog away from him (but not roughly) and made his way back over to stand near Cassia, hand hovering down by his knife.
"Just let me talk to Hershel! Just let me figure this out!" Rick shouted to Shane, who scoffed and roared back,
"What are you gonna figure out?!" Spittle flew and Lori still held him back, keeping him back from Rick.
Cassia put a hand to her chest, trying to measure the rate of her heartbeat. None of this could be good for the baby, none of it. She glanced up to Daryl, only to find him already staring right at her, his eyes not giving away anything, but the downwards curve of his mouth demonstrated his displeasure. Cassia tore her gaze away from him, still reeling from the events of the day before. Things could not be forgiven and forgotten so easily - not that she was delusional enough to think she would get an apology, or anything.
"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it! This is his land!" Rick argued, throwing his arms up to express himself further,
"Hershel sees those things in there as people," Dale interrupted, "sick people. His wife, his stepson."
"You knew?"
"Yesterday, I talked to Hershel."
"And you waited the night?" Shane asks petulantly,
"I thought we could survive one more night," Dale snapped, "and we did! I was waiting 'til morning to say something, but Glenn wanted to be the one."
"The man is crazy, Rick! If Hershel thinks those things are sick or no-"
The walkers started to bash even more insistently against the doors and the walls of the barn, making everyone take a step back - Daryl drew out his knife and half crouched down into his hunting stance in front of Cassia and Carol.
"Something needs to be done," Cassia whispered to him, hand placed over her bump as if a habit by now. Daryl did no more than duck his head in agreement. There was no further discussion on what needs to be done or how it would be done. The barn was clearly just not capable at all of keeping the walkers captive in there for much longer. The wood creaked and even wobbled in parts, the peeling paint doing the structure no favours in reassuring the group that the barn could withstand the combined strength of the walkers and their need to feed. Everyone inched back slowly, eyes locked on the red building before them as it struggled to maintain it's solidity before them.
No real plan was formed beyond Rick talking to Hershel about what would be done, and Shane grew very noticeably more antsy and agitated by the second. Daryl was pissed, too, but his way of expressing it was next to non-existent. The mood barely existed beyond a change in tone when he spoke (a rumble that ventured even deeper than his usual monotone) and the look he would get on his face every now and again. Cassia sometimes caught him staring pensively (although he looked a little paranoid too) at the barn. Other times he would stare out at the surrounding forest, and though Cassia was pretty well versed in the slight changes and alterations in his expressions, even she struggled to identify the look of worry and hopelessness as it crossed him. He twitched and fidgeted about a lot, too, like a man who had an itch he desperately needed to scratch but couldn't because someone had handcuffed his hands to a nearby radiator. Eventually, though not all that much time had passed since the incident by the barn, Daryl voiced his frustrations aloud,
"They're all actin' like she's dead already."
"There are more of us who believe in her being out there than there are who think she's dead. It's not that they're the majority it's just that they make a hell of a lot of noise about their opinions. They shout louder," Cassia responded, picking through Carl's shirts to wash the ones he wore the most often first. Daryl shook his head, a deep sigh leaving him, he altered the lining of his gaze from her to the forest. His arm rested across his knee, his leg bent as he propped his foot up on the bit of log by his chair,
"Nah, that's not it..."
"What is it, then?"
"It's her own mother jus' givin' up on her... jus' like that. Jus' 'cause Shane says so."
"... Carol said what?"
"She's done. She's givin' up."
"That's not..."
"It's true, Cassie. Her own kid. She's jus' like-" Daryl had been about to say something, but abruptly cut off; glaring at the trees now. Cassia knew better than to prompt him for more information. He was the kind of person who needed to absolutely trust someone and feel like he wanted to share something about himself with them in order to do so. Cassia herself was probably the only person besides Merle and possibly even potentially Carol, who he was prone to talking to about how he felt about things or his past. She had a good idea of who Daryl had just been about to say Carol reminded him of. She knew Daryl needed to find Sophia not just because he was a good person, but because he'd been in her position before. Maybe it hadn't been so dangerous for him, but he had been too young and lost and far too alone. He had survived and no-one had looked for him. Not one person. He was far more invested in Sophia's fate than it seemed, because he had been Sophia. He couldn't let it happen again and when the stakes were so much higher.
"I know, Daryl. But she's not. She's not him."
Daryl bowed his head, picking at a scab on his hand, "I know," he uttered gloomily. It seemed a lot of the anger had left his system.
"We'll find Sophia. We're so close."
Daryl nodded, actually looking like he might just believe it, "Yeah."
Cassia went for a walk by the fences a little later, knowing Daryl needed some time to himself. He'd ventured off into the outskirts of the forest, before it became real forest and before he could go missing for days on end following a trail. He'd promised he wouldn't go looking too far - he just didn't like sitting around wondering if Sophia was close enough but lost in the forest. Cassia herself had decided to keep herself even closer to home. She wanted to join Daryl out there but he never let her go looking for Sophia alone. Any time she did, he was always with her. Just in case, he'd say, crossbow in hand.
Oddly enough, though, she'd thought she'd seen Sophia a few times. It always ended up being a figment of her imagination or just something that was shaped like a human girl or was as vaguely blonde looking by the trees, but nonetheless her heart skipped a beat every time and she had to stop herself from breaking out into a run. She made herself stop with the ridiculous way she was getting her hopes up. It would simply be too good to be true for Cassia to just randomly come across the little lost girl while out on a leisurely walk by the fences. But then again... wasn't that the same shirt Sophia had been wearing the day she went missing?
No. It couldn't be.
Cassia broke out into the run she'd promised herself time and time again on this walk she wouldn't do because there was no hope of Sophia just randomly turning up at a time and place like this. If she would be anywhere it would be the woods.
But what if...?
"Sophia!" she cried out, the desparation so clear and palpable as it coloured her tone.
Yes. Yes that was the same shirt. And the girl had... roughly the same length hair. It would have grown, right? It would be longer.
There was hope. This could be her.
The walker snarled at her, ambling mindlessly towards the gate. It had started to waste away already, the holes in it's oh so familiar shirt revealing no fat or substance. It was just leathery, grey skin and bone.
This couldn't be...
It wasn't. This girl had definitely been much older, definitely taller... She even had a nose ring.
It wasn't Sophia.
Cassia wanted to just drop to her knees and sob. This was too cruel. She was pregnant. A missing child was doing her no favours. Suddenly, she pitched forward and threw up, retching and sobbing. She wiped her mouth off on her sleeve - glad she'd opted for a long sleeved top that day. Trembling and shaking the tiniest bit, she made her way over to the Sophia doppelganger; just taking her time with it. She didn't approach it too closely, not trusting her weak state, and instead brought out a knife and threw it so that it hit the walker dead centre in the middle of her forehead. She took her time again to retrieve the knife, wiping it off on her dungarees. Numb, she made her way back, hoping to see Daryl and speak with him about mundane things and just let his broody company comfort her. There was something so treasured about a comfortable, easy silence. Just being around someone you trust and know well and care for. It's like nothing else.
As she approached the small camp set-up outside the farmhouse, however, there was no-one there. Lori wasn't over by the tent she shared with Rick and Carl, pacing, and Shane wasn't hanging around somewhere nearby. Carol wasn't desperately trying to busy herself with washing everyone's clothes and Andrea wasn't reloading guns next to the RV while Dale sat atop the vehicle on watch. Everyone was just... gone. For a heartbreaking split second, Cassia truly believed they'd abandoned her. That they'd decided she was too much of a burden and had left without her - left her alone to deal with her pregnancy and the barn full of walkers. But then again... everyone's stuff was just laying around in the same place it had all been when she'd left 20 minutes prior for her walk. The realisation of that eased her frantic heart a little, just when the gunshots started. Immediately she was panicking again, rushing towards the barn, she knew what was happening before she even saw it. Shane, of course, was right at the front, his aim and shots were confident and consistent and righteous. It looked as if everyone else had either been in on the decision, or had been forced to take part in the madness due to association or proximity. Daryl was firing, too.
Cassia was the first one to see her, the first one to call out her name in horror and despair. She clutched at her chest, trying to contain the heartbroken sobs that rattled around, ready to tear free.
Sophia Peletier ambled forward, weak and skeletal and just as small (if not smaller) as the day she'd run off into the forest to escape the walkers. She was almost clumsy in her movements, struggling in the sunlight, her eyes were no longer the lovely big windows into her soul that shone when she was interested in something or when she got the answer to a question she was hoping for. She was so fragile and frail and breakable that it was terrifying to Cassia. A gust of wind that was just too strong could rip her in two, it seemed. Finally, she adjusted to the sunlight, her eyes able to pick out the members of the group. The living, breathing, heartbroken members of the group who had spent a week searching for her day and night, only for her to simply be right there - under their very noses - on their doorstep, even. Carol darted forward, lunging towards her daughter to try and get to her, but Daryl caught her around the waist before she could sentence herself to a death born from a rash decision caused by grief. No-one seemed able to comprehend the long awaited answer to the question that had hung over their head for the past week. There she was, right there before them. She had been the last walker in the barn. There was complete silence surrounding them and smothering them, broken in places only by Sophia's hungry snarling and Carol's anguished sobs. Daryl was murmuring something to her, trying to console her, Cassia assumed. He was a good, strong man. Cassia wouldn't know what to say to someone who had just lost their only child.
Eventually, Rick staggered forward and shot Sophia once, straight through the head.
As the gunshot sounded, Cassia fell to her knees, trembling with the grief that wracked through her.
No. It was not the time. Carol needed support.
Cassia refused herself the time to grieve. There was time for that later. More immediate things needed to be taken care of - or, rather - people. Cassia collected Carol up from where she was sobbing into Daryl on the floor, her hands securing her below her upper arms and lifting her as if she were a toddler who had hurt herself. Carol fell into her when she was on her feet, clinging and letting the grief and the sleep deprivation and the shock and the horror get to her. Cassia had never felt or heard someone deal with grief like that before. She'd never been in the presence of such grief. She rubbed at Carol's back, trying her best to keep herself together and to keep the thoughts of what horrors could await her own child in a world like this.
A world where sweet, little, curious, young Sophia Peletier had died and become a walker.
