AN: Here we go, another little chapter. I hope you enjoy. As with the rest of the story, I'm keeping a few of the elements from the show, but I'm taking it in my own direction too, so don't be bothered if it doesn't go exactly as you saw it play out on screen.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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A gunshot fired probably wouldn't be the sound that they would use to say that the search was off and Sophia was safe. A gunshot fired so that the crack echoed all around the wooded areas within quite the distant radius wasn't likely the gunshot of the handgun that Rick or Shane either one carried.
A gunshot probably didn't mean that her daughter was alive, but Carol needed to believe that's what it meant.
She needed to believe it because she felt like her heart might actually explode if that's not what it meant. She felt like she couldn't go on another day or even another hour if she couldn't feel Sophia…see her…smell her even.
So by the time they made it back to the highway, panting with the increased speed that brought back them distance that they'd travelled, much farther than she'd actually realized, Carol had almost worked herself into a place of believing that she would be greeted there by Sophia running toward her.
Instead, what they found when they reached the highway was confusion.
Gathering together, slowly coming out of the woods like Walkers themselves, were the people who had gone in various different directions in search for the girls. They appeared slowly, everyone looking at everyone else like they were going to have an answer. No one said anything because everyone was paused in the moment and expecting someone else to be the one to explain the shot that had rang out.
When they'd clumped together, though, all looking bewildered and awaiting explanation, the only groups absent were the Dixons and Rick, Shane, and Glenn who had gone out together.
Carol had felt for some time like her heart was going to pound out of her chest, but in the moment she didn't feel that way. In the moment she actually felt like her heart wasn't even beating and that somehow her body hadn't realized that it was lacking the functioning of what was, supposedly, a vital organ.
When she saw, still caught up in the confused silence of everyone's suspended questions, Merle coming out of the woods with Daryl a few steps behind him, she nearly ran toward them, hoping that the two of them…perhaps the two in whom she had the most confidence…might be able to offer some information on what was happening.
Merle broke the silence, though, having very little regard for anyone else's chosen moments of solemnity.
"Who the fuck fired the gun?" He barked.
At first, no one from the highway cluster answered him. Finally, though, Alice barked back at him.
"We were hoping you would tell us that," she said. "I'm guessing it wasn't you?"
Merle chuckled and pointed a finger at her like he was mimicking shooting a gun. He made a "pow" sound at her and then laughed.
"Fuck, I don't even got a damn gun," he said.
"Only Rick and Shane do," Andrea said. "The rest of us might shoot ourselves in the head…it's better that we go around killing these things with pointy sticks."
Carol heard Alice snort.
She still wanted answers though. She didn't care, honestly, one bit about the gunshot unless it had to do with her daughter. She didn't care if they were having duels with each other in the woods, the way that she'd heard it suggested they might. She didn't care about any of it if it didn't have to do with Sophia.
"Did you see anything?" She asked. "Sophia? Anything?"
She crawled over the guardrail that separated her from the two men, both sweaty and wearing evidence of at least a Walker encounter or two, and Daryl stepped toward her, holding out a hand at first like he meant to try to calm her and then changing to put that hand on her shoulder in something of a gesture of support.
"We seen some tracks," he said, looking at her square in the eyes and speaking to her as though she were a child that needed him to take things slowly. "We seen some tracks and we got some ideas about what mighta happened…where she mighta headed off…but we ain't exactly laid hands on her yet."
Carol looked at him and then at Merle.
"But you know where she is? Where is she?!" Carol said, no longer trying to control the panic in her voice.
"Don't know exactly," Merle said.
He looked at Daryl and the two of them seemed to have some kind of silent conversation with their eyes. Carol felt like it was the kind of conversation where they were trying to decide whether or not they were going to tell her something.
And she broke down before she could even demand that they tell her what it was because the very thought of what it might be terrified her. She might have hit her knees from the overwhelming feeling, but Daryl caught her before she could, an arm going roughly around her, probably much more roughly than she intended. She clung to him, all at once, because she needed something to cling to…and because he was offering himself.
"Please," was all she managed to get out.
"Nothin' to panic about," Daryl declared. "Just…seems them Walkers that Rick run off to play with weren't the only ones down there. We think she run from the ones that was in the woods…we think she took off."
"Was she bit?" Carol asked, choking on the words and the bile rising in her throat from the fact that she hadn't even been able to put anything in her stomach.
Merle shook his head, growling out his words.
"Now we ain't seen nothin' suggests she been bit," he said. "Hell…figure she run from 'em…got a lil' far away…maybe got lost. Prob'ly hidin'. Just gotta figure out where the fuck she's hid."
Carol felt some strange sensation of relief from what he said, or maybe it was from how he said it. It wasn't a guarantee, but it was the closest thing to a guarantee that she'd been given so far. At least it was something.
"We have to look for her," Carol begged, her voice coming out shaky but stronger than before.
"That's what the hell we were doin'," Daryl said. "But we heard someone shootin'…thought maybe someone tripped up on her."
Lori burst free from the group at that moment.
"The shot had to be Rick and Shane," she said. "We've got to find them! They're out there with Glenn somewhere."
She looked around, then, like she'd had a second thought. Her eyes rolled obviously and slowly over everyone gathered there. Then she turned and addressed Dale who had been "holding down" the spot at the highway in their absence.
"Where's Carl?" She asked.
Dale looked confused and then he shrugged.
"He went with Rick, to look for Sophia," he said.
Their group had left after almost everyone. They'd pointed out directions for people to go in and everyone had gone.
"My son is out there?" Lori asked, panic clearly rising in her face.
It was a panic that Carol could understand…it was a panic that Lori had shown very little real sympathy for thus far.
"We've got to find where they are!" Lori proclaimed, suddenly sounding like she was choking.
Carol, taking pity on her…one mother to another…stepped forward and put an arm around Lori.
"Carl's with Rick," Carol said. "We'll find them."
Merle chuckled from where he stood.
"Got no damn idea where they are," Merle said. "Ain't no tellin' how long it'd take to find 'em."
"We have to find them!" Lori declared.
And the conversation might have continued a little longer, or they might have sprung to action and gone as a group into the woods to find the missing members of their group, but no one ever got a chance to see which direction the wind was blowing because Glenn came, huffing and straining to breathe, out of another direction in the woods.
"We gotta go!" He yelled. "Gotta go! Carl's been shot! They're taking him…to a farmhouse…man who shot him knows someone. We gotta go!"
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Alice shoved at Lori to get her sharp fingertips out of her arm as they pulled up to the farmhouse in the Cherokee that they'd taken to get there. She'd come with Lori, Glenn with the address of the farmhouse, and T-Dog and Jacqui in tow to help them find the place that they really didn't know how to locate. The others, supposedly, would be working out things on the highway to keep the search going until at least dark, and then they would decide what to do about their situation.
And Alice wasn't exactly thrilled with the fact that the very same woman who had all but told her that she thought she was dangerous, who had all but told her to keep her hands to herself, was now trying to turn her into some kind of human puppet that would move at her command.
When they spilled out of the car at the farmhouse, no one knew what to expect. They were greeted by several people who appeared on a porch, void of introduction, and asked if one of them was Lori.
Lori confirmed her identity and they rushed her inside, leaving Alice and the others to simply assume that they too were invited into the house.
Once she got inside, Alice followed the sounds to find that there was a bedroom where Carl was already being stripped down in bed. He was shot in the chest and a folded shirt was all they seemed to have at the moment to stop the bleeding.
An old man was attending him.
"She's a doctor," Lori declared, and Alice realized that she was being pointed at and made the center of attention.
"You're a doctor?" The old man asked.
"A surgeon," Alice said, blankly, still trying to take in her surroundings and what was happening.
"Can you save him?" The old man asked.
Alice nearly choked. How could she answer that? How could she say, with absolutely no information whatsoever about what had happened or what she even had to work with here, whether or not she could save the life of this boy?
Alice shook her head, absolutely speechless.
"I…don't know," she admitted.
"That's not good enough!" Rick proclaimed.
And Alice jumped because she hadn't even realized he was there until that moment. She hadn't even fully taken notice of everyone who was moving about in the overly crowded space.
One thing was certain, though, if she was going to try to save anyone, she was going to have to do it with a much smaller audience throwing their opinions down from the gallery.
She snapped out of her stupor for the moment, crossed the room, and checked the pulse of the boy. He was alive and he had a pulse, but it was barely there. The man moved out of her way and she lifted the shirt enough to try to get a glance at the wound that she was expected to magically heal.
"If I can save him," she said, "it's not going to be with nothing…what kind of supplies do you have?"
"Sutures, bandages, disinfectant," the man said. "Basics, but we'll need more."
"Are you a doctor?" Alice asked.
"Vet," the man said.
"Good enough," Alice responded. "Alice."
"Hershel," Hershel responded. "Tell me what you need, and we'll find a way to get it."
Alice nodded her head at him and started calling out a list. If Carl was going to live, if there was even half a chance, she was going to have to do surgery on him…and if she was going to do surgery on him then that meant she was going to have to have more on her side than prayer.
As she accepted what they were bringing into her…people that she didn't even know acting as makeshift nurses…Alice started to drown out the sounds of the people around her, tuning her ears to hear only Hershel because only his opinion mattered to her at the moment.
"And…I'm going to need it fast," Alice said when she'd finalized her list and tuned back in enough to hear them discussing how she was going to become the rightful owner of all the things that she would need to put the boy under and bring him back out.
Some scurried away, but Alice felt Lori closing in on her as she set to doing what she could to stabilize the boy until supplies appeared.
"You're going to have to back up," Alice declared to the woman. "I can't work with you on top of me. You trip me, you slow me down, and it could cost me time that I needed."
"You've got to save him," Lori begged, losing control of her emotions entirely. Despite Alice's request that she back up, Alice felt like she actually closed in on her more, her sharp fingertips finding a place and digging into Alice's arm once more.
"I'm not God," Alice said, maintaining eye contact with the woman long enough to let her know that she was sincere in this.
"Well you're going to have to be close," Lori choked out.