There was another funeral, of course. Every single member of the group was present, apart from Carol, and Cassia had suspected that Shane was also MIA, at first, but after some brief scouting of the surrounding area, he was found to be lurking nearby, under the shade of a tree. Cassia really wished he wasn't there. It felt wrong to have him there. It felt disrespectful to Sophia's memory to have him there - the man who'd constantly bugged at the group to leave her for dead and move on and give up on her. Shane was that man. The man who'd forced the group into countless decisions they hadn't completely agreed to. He didn't understand the value of a life, so why should he be present to mourn the loss of one?
There were a lot of us who would never have given up on you, Sophia. Never.
Daryl shifted about uncomfortably beside her. He wasn't good at staying still like this for long periods of time. The way he twitched and bristled every time there was a slight rustling amongst the leaves of the trees, showed just how ready he was to grab his crossbow off his back. Each time, Cassia laid a hand on his bare arm and stopped him. The revelation of Sophia's fate had made him more paranoid, if that were even possible. Doubtless he wouldn't be able to sleep that night. Cassia couldn't blame him. She was wondering the same for herself.
Cassia didn't have time to worry about herself, though, as her attention was quickly caught by Beth Greene, who looked like she'd covered herself in white paint in an effort to dress up as a ghost, and was shaking and trembling and sweating. The girl looked as if she could collapse at any given moment, and it was clear that Maggie was thinking the same thing, because she stuck to her sister's side like velcro and only tore herself away to whisper to Glenn every now and then. Beth's gaze wasn't really settled on any one thing, that much was clear, but Cassia couldn't figure out what Beth was trying to look like she was staring at. It couldn't be the ground because she was visibly unable to bring herself to look anywhere near her mother's grave. It was her bump. Beth was doing her best to stare very determinedly at Cassia's baby bump. A chill ran up her spine. It was disconcerting to say the least. Daryl somehow picked up on her unease as he nudged her with his forearm, brow furrowed and eyes a little narrowed and searching. She gave a slight shake to her head, not willing to break the respectful silence of the ceremony.
Beth, impressively, managed to stay on her feet for the entirety of the gathering, even during the words in memory of her mother and Sophia, even when the majority of the group had dispersed. Only Cassia, Daryl, Maggie and Glenn were around when Beth collapsed. Which was lucky, as it took all of them working together to get her up the stairs to her bedroom. Cassia assisted with making sure her head didn't hit anything on the way, because she couldn't do heavy lifting, obviously.
"Poor kid," Daryl murmured, but it was clear he didn't quite understand Beth's reaction to her mother's death. In his eyes Mrs Greene had died a long time ago and the bond Beth had shared with her had been something he couldn't quite get because he hadn't experienced anything like it in his own life. Cassia could somewhat sympathise, seeing as her mother had been an environmental lawyer and hadn't been home often while Cassia was growing up. Her bond was with her father.
She really missed her father.
There was a discussion about what should be done about Beth. Searches for Hershel had proved fruitless and a group set off to search in the nearby vicinity to find him. Cassia stayed with Beth the whole time, patting at her face with a damp cloth and stroking her hair. Beth had attended to Cassia when she was still recovering from the-
She still couldn't think about the Ross thing. If time heals all wounds then she would need a lot more of it.
Cassia shuddered but wasn't deterred from her post at Beth's side. Instead she stroked at the girl's hair - it probably would have been soft and fluffy if the toils of the zombie apocalypse hadn't made it all greasy and rough to the touch. Cassia didn't care. She'd stabbed her ex boyfriend in the head and passed out in his blood - she could touch anything from now on and not be affected by it.
Although - that thought in itself was probably a jinx.
Like she needed to damage her luck any more than she already had.
While Cassia stayed by Beth's side, and with Maggie's help - tended to her and generally just did a lot of stroking Beth's hair - the others went on a search for Hershel, who was just... not anywhere. It wasn't something Cassia had been surprised to hear. This was a very common reaction to loss, she found. A disappearance. The need to get away was overwhelming for some and seeing as his farm was occupied with a troublesome group of strangers that he barely knew, Cassia really couldn't blame Hershel for his absence. Back before Alexander had been born, Basil and his wife, Cynthia, had suffered the loss of a child. She had been a promisingly healthy baby girl, but had never lived to see the world beyond her mother's womb. The baby had been stillborn and Basil had gone missing for a week to deal with his grief. That was just his way of dealing with it. Cynthia was the kind of person who needed the support of her loved ones, though, and so she stayed at home with their family while Basil ventured out to find the will to carry on as if it were just another day. The space had probably been beneficial for the couple, too, because they'd been stronger than ever when Basil had returned. Unstoppable. Until the apocalypse struck, Basil and Cynthia had been the...
Cassia had to stop that thought in it's tracks. It was too painful and she was so caught up in it that she'd stopped stroking Beth's hair. The action in itself was not only meant as a comforting gesture for Beth, but an anchor for Cassia herself. She used to sit around and stroke her nephew's hair just like that for hours at a time...
She tried to imagine doing it now, but couldn't shake the image of his beautiful brown curls all matted with blood and guts the way she'd envisaged it in her many, many nightmares on the subject. Cassia bowed her head. She was too emotionally exhausted for this. The loss of Sophia had obviously triggered a much wider impact than she'd expected.
They returned around noon, the group that had gone searching for Hershel. Even from her position on the porch swingseat with Daryl, Cassia could see that there were already too many bodies in the little group. It had been Rick and Glenn initially, right? So with Hershel returning with them as the best outcome... that only amounted to three, so who was the third person? Cassia nudged at Daryl and gestured towards the vehicle. Even without words, he knew what she was trying to tell him. Cassia knew this because he uttered a rushed "Shit-" and jumped up, crossbow ready in hand. The whole thing was oddly calming for Cassia, and wasn't that just all 50 shades of fucked up?
The boy's name, as it turned out, was apparently Randall, and apparently it was impossible to leave him. As Andrea pointed out, it was as easy as leaving him to die (apparently). Cassia didn't have a stance or an opinion on any of it yet. She was tired and her wrist was all stiff from stroking at Beth's hair all day and her back was now also stiff simply because she was pregnant. The list of pains and aches didn't stop there, either. It was difficult being a pregnant woman in the middle of an apocalypse, surprisingly. A few members of the group looked to her for input but she was too agitated with her own body to think of anything else, and so she shrugged. This earned a disapproving look from Dale and a rolling of eyes from Andrea - but honestly, what did they expect? Not everybody formulated an idea of how they felt about things the very moment they happened. It takes time and sampling of other ideas to get a grasp of one. It was like that for Cassia, anyway.
Randall was exiled to the (recently cleaned out) barn, and Hershel was escorted upstairs to attend to Beth.
Author's Note: I know it's been a while since the last update, but honestly I've had the absolute WORST luck with my writing as of late. I've had multiple chapters to write up for multiple fanfictions and (this has happened at least three times for both fanfictions) I've been in the process of typing up the chapters, and I'll get into it and forget to copy and paste everything, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, and with no warning, my laptop will decide to shut down! Again and again I've lost everything I've written and now, FINALLY, I've managed to type it up successfully. So I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'm sorry that it's been a long time coming. This chapter will act as a kind of filler, I suppose? There are so many things I want to do with this fanfic, but I needed to put a filler in so that I can separate events in my mind and dedicate more time to writing up the coming events. It will be worth it. I promise. Anyways, enjoy!
