"Waiting hurts. Forgetting hurts. But not knowing which decision to take can

sometimes be the most painful..."
― José N. Harris, MI VIDA: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love

The next morning I woke up after Andrea and Michonne, who were eating breakfast by the bed. As soon as I sat up on my bed and stretched I could feel the tension in the room. They weren't talking, they weren't even looking at each other. Andrea looked very uncomfortable and she had all the right to be; Michonne had been glaring the whole time, she's so scary sometimes. If looks could kill we would all had been gone by now.

"So cheerful," I said sarcastically, Michonne only turned her glare to me.

I sat in front of them and grabbed some toast and some pieces of fruits. I was dying to get some eggs again but we didn't have a stove here.

"So, what's the matter?" I asked them, knowing pretty well why they were so angry. None of them replied, making me sigh. "You two remember me of my parents, you know? Except my mum wouldn't look angry, she would look scared and weak and would even tremble sometimes."

And it was the truth. I went through so many similar situations in my life. Sometimes we would sit down to eat together and my father would look so intimidating while my mother would shake with fear right next to him and a beating would follow if it hadn't happened already.

Andrea looked a really more uncomfortable when I mentioned my parents. The mention of my father probably made her feel like like that because she remembered how abusive he could be to us and that time by the lake when Andrea and him got into a fight and I ended up with a concussion and my mother, because the group and her had always been a sensitive topic to the both of us since they left us behind.

"I was thinking about helping Merle..." I started but Michonne interrupted me.

"You want to help that bastard?"

"He's not as bad as you think. He can be a really good person," I told her. "Anyway, I was thinking of showing him where the farm is."

"Why?" Andrea asked him.

"I've got my reasons to help him but also because I know what he's feeling. I remember when Sophia went missing and all I wanted was to find her, I understand him so I want to do something nice for him."

"He pointed a gun to us, tied our hands and brought us here against our wishes!" Michonne exclaimed.

"You won't make me change my mind," I said as calmed as I could.

The three of us continued to eat our breakfast in complete silence. Not only Michonne was already upset but I made her even angrier and that was really scary. I had known this woman for around eight months and she saved me and I trusted her with my life but she could be extremely intimidating and if wanted, lethal, just not to me, I knew she wouldn't kill or even harm me or Andrea.

I decided it was better not to mention that I wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. That would make Andrea upset at me as well and the three of us would argue and get upset at each other so I thought it was just the best to keep my mouth shut for now.

"I'll go for a walk," I told them as I stood up. "If you need me just look for me in the streets."

I put on my pair of jeans, another T-shirt, and my tennis shoes very quickly and walked out of the room.

I wasn't very fond of the idea of walking around Woodbury but I couldn't spend another second in that room with those two there, I couldn't take it. We would just end up killing each other sooner or later.

"Cici!" I heard my name being said almost immediately after walking out of the building, I turned around to see a redhead walking towards me.

"Hi, Chris!" I said smiling at the guy. "How are you?"

"I'm really good, and you?"

"Perfect," I exclaimed, and somehow he didn't notice my sarcasm.

"Why don't you come with me, my siblings are here and they are dying to meet you."

Before I could agree, Chris grabbed my hand and pulled me with him, thing I didn't really appreciate, I hated when people touch me and I wasn't in the mood to meet people and socialize as usual but I couldn't find a good enough excuse.

"Cici, these are Amanda and Wayne," Chris told me, pointing to a young girl with bright, curly red hair and a boy with short brown hair. "Guys, this is Cici."

The boy was more reserved, he only shook my hand but the girl wasn't. She pulled me into a tight hug which made me to get tense almost immediately, I awkwardly patted her back until she pulled away.

"Nice to meet you, Cici," she told me with a big smile. "How old are you? You seem to be around my age, I'm sure we could be really good friends. I could show you around, where have you been staying? I could visit you or you could move in with us or..."

"Woah, Amanda, calm down!" Wayne told her. "You are scaring the girl."

"Besides," Chris added. "She says she won't stay."

"Aww no, why not?" Amanda asked with a frown.

"I want to look for my mother." I used the same excuse I told Chris when I met him. "I'm realistic and I know it might be impossible to find her but I'll be satisfied if I at least try, you know?"

"Of course," Wayne said nodding.

"I do hope you find her, we lost our mother so we know how that is like," Amanda said to me, putting a hand on my shoulder and rubbing it in a supportive way. I couldn't help but tense again since I wasn't used to all of this contact, especially with strangers.

"Is the other blonde woman your sister?" Wayne asked me.

"Oh no," I said smiling. "We just are in the same group, but I love her as a sister."

After that the siblings took me to their house, it had two rooms. One for their father and the other for the three of them. Amanda was very kind to give me some coffee, I almost hugged her for that. I hadn't drunk coffee for almost a year and I used to drink it every day before, at least one cup daily.

"Oh my God," I muttered as I drank the last bit of it. "This was so good, I'll love you forever Amanda, not more than coffee, though." The three of them chuckled at me.

"If I had known your reaction I would have given you coffee before," Chris told me with a wink, which I decided to ignore, maybe Michonne wasn't that wrong about him liking me.

"One of the things I miss the most is my morning coffee and just coffee in general," I told them with a sad smile.

"I miss casinos," Wayne told me. "I was very good at it, always left with more money."

"Oh really? I only went once and I lost about fifty dollars," I told him. "But it was fun."

The siblings told me more about their life before all of this. Amanda was just about to finish school and move to Scotland (their father was Scottish) for university there, Wayne was extremely smart but he never studied further than high school, he said he was going to crack casinos' methods and earn million of dollars one day, from what I heard he was good but who knows how good. Chris had already graduated from law school and worked as a lawyer, he told me he had gone to Yale University.

Then they asked me about my life. As usual I didn't say much. I just said I was in university and shared my apartment with my two best friends, I didn't tell them lots of details, I even left out why I moved to New York, I just told them I was visiting my family when the outbreak happened, and that's how I ended up here.

Well," I said to them, standing up. "Michonne and Andrea might be looking for me, I better go."

"You can come later," Chris said quickly.

"Sure, thanks."

I was enjoying their company but as soon as they asked about me I knew I had to leave. My past was something I didn't like to talk about and it's better if people don't find out much about it.

I almost jogged back to the building where our room was. I went up the stairs and opened the door to find Michonne and Andrea on the bed. Michonne was intensively looking at the map between them.

"About time," Andrea said. "We were about to look for you."

"Yeah, I can see that," I said sarcastically, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"If we leave soon, we'll got a few hours on the road before dusk," Michonne told us, barely glancing at us before looking down at the map.
"Oh, where are we heading?" I asked excitedly.

"I'm thinking the coast," Michonne told me. "We have the water completely on one side, maybe we can find a boat, best thing we can do is find an island."
"And if the coast isn't safe?" Andrea asked.

"Keep moving."
"Let's suppose the coast is safe, then what do we do? Just grow old, live off the sea by ourselves?"

"It doesn't sound that bad," I said with a smile. "Does it?"

"I'd rather take my chances out there than stay here," Michonne said to Andrea.
"Because your gut tells you there's something off about this place, about the Governor?"

"It's kept us alive this long," Michonne told her as she glanced at her.
"That's true, Andrea," I said nodding. "Besides, I don't want to be here either."

"Alright." Andrea sighed in defeat while Michonne and I felt victorious. "When do we leave?"

"As soon as possible."

"In that case, I'll go out and look for Merle and..."

"Speaking of that," Andrea interrupted me, sitting up. "I've got you this." She handed me a big map. "I circled the area where the farm is, I'm sure Merle will be able to read it better than us."

"You saved me a lot of time, thank you Andrea," I said smiling at her. "I'll be right back."

I went out into the streets and tried to spot Merle, which thankfully wasn't hard. He was close to the entrance of this town, just walking from the scaffold.

"Exactly the man I wanted to see," I said smiling when he approached me.

"Woah, I had no idea you were that crazy about me but I won't complain," he told me with a smirk. "I'm all yours, sweetheart."

"Oh shut up!" I exclaimed, grabbing him by his sleeve and pulling him behind a tall building, there were lots of flowers around, so if people walked by they wouldn't see us that easily.

"Kinky, huh? You are full of surprises, sweetheart. I never expected you to like doing it in public, hard against a wall, Blondie."

"Here," I said, rolling my eyes and putting the map against Merle's chest so he could grab it. "Andrea circled where you can find that farm we were staying at with Daryl."
"Ah, you were right off Route 9 right before it becomes Dahlonega Highway," Merle exclaimed after he took a good look at the map. "And you're saying that the farm is only about a day's walk from there?"

"Around a day, it could be a bit more. Here," I said pointing to an area on the map. "Is where Sophia and I got lost, or that's what Andrea told me. They looked for us even all the way here."

"You got lost?" Merle asked me, looking from the map to me. "How?"

"We were in the highway when we saw a herd coming, we hid under the cars, one spotted Sophia and me. We had to run into the woods," I said, at the end my voice was just barely above a whisper. "I lost her after the first night."

"How long were you lost?"

"Four days," I told him.

"And you survived on your own for four days in the woods?" Merle asked with an impressed expression.

"I did but barely. I couldn't find water or food anywhere. Sophia, she, uh, she was bit and we found her later but I survived."
"A girl that can take care of herself, that's sexy. How come we never hooked up?" Merle asked, making me roll my eyes but smile at him too.

"Maybe because you are at least twenty-five years older than me," I said in a duh tone, trying to ignore the fact he was eyeing me up and down with lust in his eyes. "And if I remember correctly you said back on that roof that you weren't into girls as young as me and..."

"And the fact that you preferred my baby brother."

"I did not prefer him," I said, feeling my cheeks going red.

"You slept with him" he pointed out with an eyebrow raised.

I stayed quiet, wondering what exactly Merle meant by that. Did he just mean we shared the tent and slept right next to each other or did he mean that plus us having sex?

"If you are implying Daryl and I ever did something, we didn't, ever. We barely even talked," I told him. "He was the first to offer me a place to sleep and to be honest you were a bit intimidating and rude to people, you called me a rugmuncher when I refused to share the tent with you." He chuckled.
"Got a way with words, don't I?"

"Oh, yeah."
We chuckled once again but then Merle's smile disappeared and he looked at me with a serious expression, in return my smile was also gone.
"Why are you doing this?" He asked, lifting the map so I could know what he meant.

"Well, there are a few reasons. Firstly, I know what it is like. As soon as I woke up that morning to find out she was nowhere to be seen, all I wanted to do was look for her and find her. Secondly, I owe it to you as much as I owe it to Daryl. Thirdly, it's not hard to do something nice for people."

"What do you mean? Why do you think you owe us?" Merle asked confused.

"When I got lost, Daryl put his life in danger to find me and my sister. He almost died, Merle, and he never gave up on us even when my own mother did," I said honestly to him, tears filled my eyes as I remembered what happened to Sophia and how my mother lost hope, but I didn't allow myself to cry, not in front of Merle. "And I always remember the time my father was hitting me and you stood up for me. All the people back at camp noticed what he was doing to us but you were the only one brave enough to stop him and I appreciate that. That's why I wanted to go back to Atlanta for you, you didn't deserve to be left behind."

"You didn't either."

"But it happened to the both of us anyway," I said shrugging, looking at the ground.
"You sure you don't wanna come with me?" Merle asked me, making me look up at him once again.
"It's tempting," I admitted. "But I can't abandon Michonne and Andrea. If it wasn't for Michonne I would be dead right now."

"It's not abandoning, we will just go on a run. You could go back with her after it," Merle told me. "You ain't curious about the old gang? About your mum? Or are you still upset that they left you? If it helps of anything if they really did go back for me I'm sure they went back for you."
"Well, I'm not too sure about that but I didn't stick around long enough to find out," I said shrugging.
"Ain't that a big ol' pig sack? We got something in common, Blondie," he told me, getting a bit closer to me. "We got left behind by the same people and saved by another."

"I've got a bad feeling about this place, about this Governor," I said emphasizing the last word. I knew I could trust Merle with this.
"I wasn't in the best of shape when he found me," he told me. "He should have just kept on going but he didn't. He's a good man."
"I hope you are right about that."

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll let you think about it, about going with me to this farm. You don't have to answer me now, just think about it."

"Alright." I nodded. "If I don't go with you and you find them, can you tell my mum and all of them that I'm alive and well?"

"Sure thing," he said. "If you find Daryl, tell him I'm alive and looking for him."

"I will," I promised.

After that Merle turned away and left me there. It took me a while to react and go back to our room because I kept thinking about Merle's offer. Michonne wanted to go to the coast but if I went with Merle I had a chance, a minimal one, but still a chance to see my mother, and Carl and Daryl and everyone else again and that was very tempting.

When I got back to the room, Michonne was on her own, packing the little stuff we have. She turned to look at my direction when she heard the door and actually looked relieved it was me.

"Where's Andrea?" I asked.

"Went to thank the Governor for his hospitality." she scoffed. "I actually wanted to talk to you before she comes back."

"What is it?" I asked, getting nervous. By the look on her face I could assume it was serious.

"Went for a walk earlier, came across the vehicles from the National Guard. There were bullet holes all over them and there was blood as well, still fresh blood."

"So, you think the Governor and his men killed them?"

"I'm sure of it," Michonne told me. "We need to go as soon as possible."

"Why don't you want to tell Andrea?" I asked her.

"I will but later. She will be in denial and might want to stay here. I knew you would believe me." I nodded at her.

"I always felt like something was off about this place."

At that exact moment, Andrea walked in. She smiled at me when she noticed I was back. I smiled back at her before grabbing my bag and putting my belongings inside.

"How did it go with Merle?"

"Really good," I said, not looking her in the eye. "He appreciated it a lot."

"But you are not telling me something," Andrea said instantly and I sighed.

"He offered me to go with him."

"And you will go with him?" Michonne and Andrea asked me at the same time, making me turn around to face them.

"To be honest I'm not sure. I don't want to go back there because it brings bad memories, really bad ones and I don't want to leave you two but I also am tempted to go because it's my chance to see them all again."

"We both know they won't be there, Cici," Andrea told me.

"I know but we could stumble on them, with a lot of luck, but it's a possibility, you know?"

"If you feel like you need to do this, Cici, then do it, even when I don't think it's a good idea, especially if you are all alone with Merle."

"He's not like that, Andrea!" I exclaimed.

"Daryl told us he got the clap a lot, you can have an idea of his lifestyle before this," Andrea pointed out.

"Look, we are not discussing that right now."

"You are right." Andrea nodded. "Well, Michonne and I could stay here until you get back, it won't be more than two, three days and actually I was going to tell you guys that we should stay another day or two, so it would be perfect."

"I thought we had an agreement," Michonne said to her.
"We can always leave tomorrow or the following day," Andrea said.
"The following day?"

"We don't want to walk into trouble that we can't get out of," Andrea said. "And that could give Cici time to go look for her mother."
"Tell me about it," Michonne muttered.
"Michonne, it is just a day or two."
"I heard you the first time," Michonne told her. "And we stayed but I can't stay any longer. If Cici wants to go look for her family, fine, but I won't wait for her in here and you can't make me," she said the last part, looking at me.

With that, Michonne angrily left the room, leaving me and Andrea. I was feeling guilty and like a traitor for even considering going with Merle.

"Do you think it is right?" I asked Andrea.

"I'm not sure about that but if we were talking about Amy, I would do anything to find her," Andrea told me with a shrug and after that she also left the room.

I sighed and let myself fall down into the small bed. I was so confused I didn't know what to do. I felt like I was backstabbing them, but mostly Michonne, and I didn't want to leave her or Andrea. We were a team, we were... the three musketeers or something like that. We were strong and we somehow worked well together and I had gotten so fond of both of them.

I just hoped they could understand. Andrea seemed to be okay but of course Michonne wasn't and I understood her because I wouldn't be okay either if I was in her place. First, Andrea didn't want to leave this place and now I want to go on a run with someone that pointed a gun to us and brought us here against our will and she knows what this place has done, she knows the Governor can't be trusted, so yeah, she has all the right to be furious at us.

I decided to leave the room as well, if they wanted to leave they should find me quickly. I would just be walking around, clearing my head but it seemed like that wouldn't be happening because Merle spotted me and walked to me.

"Blondie! Hey, Blondie!" he called but I didn't move from my spot, I just stopped walking. "Hmm, I just realized I call you both Blondies, I think I should call one of you 'Rubia' or at least Blondie number two."

"What do you want, Merle?" I asked him.

"Straight to the chase, huh? Well, I talked to the Governor and he won't let me use a car or anything but I was thinking we could find a car somewhere and use it so we could get there faster and that way I could get you here faster to your two girlfriends."

"When did I even agree to go with you?"

"You didn't say it with your mouth but your eyes gave you away, Blondie, besides," he said, taking a step towards me as a smirk grew on his thin lips. "I know you can't resist to spend a night with me, all alone, cuddling close to me in the woods to keep your body warm." He winked at me and I just rolled my eyes.

"That just makes me not want to go with you," I told him.

"Oh come on! You know you are just playing hard to get but once we are there you won't be able to keep your hands to yourself, ain't I right, sweetheart?"

"Can't you just focus on Daryl, instead? If I agree to go and you try anything, I promise I'll shoot your friend down there." Merle just chuckled at me. "Did you just come here to talk about that or what?"

"Actually, there' something else," Merle told me. "We can't leave today or tomorrow, we have to wait until the day after tomorrow."

"Why so long?"

"There's a party tomorrow and you can say I'm something like the guest of honour!"

"A party?" I asked in disbelief. I spent almost a year out there trying to survive and this people hold parties?

"Yeah, so even if I want to leave right now, we can't. I have to get some things done now but I'll see you around, yeah?" I just nodded at him before he left me once again.

Michonne, Andrea and I ended up not leaving that day, I wasn't even sure if I was going to leave with them or Merle.

That night dinner was extremely awkward. No one said anything. Michonne wasn't talking to us and I didn't know what to say and I assumed Andrea didn't know either, so, without a word, the three of us went to sleep that night.

Hello guys! I know it took me a bit to post this chapter but I didn't want to update until my video of Daryl/Cecilia was ready. So please check it out :D And just so you know there are things in the video that WON'T happen in the story, it was so hard to fit the clips together and I couldn't find scenes that are in the story so I had to improvise a bit but I hope you all like it! :)

Link: Daryl & Cecilia

QOTD: What do you think of Chris and his family (Amanda & Wayne)?

And what do you think Cecilia will do? Go with Michonne or go with Merle?