Cassidy, Glenn, Rick and Carl had been squashed into the dinner booth of the RV, a pile of old playing cards between them as they partook in a game of Go Fish, something easy for the young Carl to play. Dale and Shane were in the front cab as the older of the two drove, while Lori had retreated to the back room to check on Andrea, trying to comfort and coax the woman out of her spiralling depression. Every so often, Rick, Shane and Dale would glance at the back bedroom, trying to spot Lori as she was whispering to the blonde woman, hoping that Lori was doing more good than bad. Rick had his attention ripped away from his wife and Andrea when Glenn let out a massive groan in defeat. Cassidy had taken another card from the Asian man, allowing her to be the first to be left with no cards in her hands, making her the winner of the current round.
"Come on!" Glenn stared at her, a clear look of annoyance on his face. "You must be cheating." She blinked back at him, her confusion obvious on her face, making Rick and Carl laugh at her. In front of her were five pairs, faces up to show that she wasn't lying. Cassidy slowly glanced down at her cards and then back at Glenn, showing her confusion further.
"I think you forgot about her being the maths genius." Rick chuckled, fiddling with the cards in his own hands.
"Yeah…no…I know she's a maths genius, what does that—" Glenn's head snapped back to her, his eyes wide as he pointed acquiescently at Cassidy as the thought finally registered in his head. "You're using maths to cheat?!" She was still blinking at him. "You are!" He yelled, making Rick and Carl laugh even harder.
Cassidy's brows furrowed as she thought about his statement. "It isn't cheating if I am using observation and deduction skills to determine your cards." Glenn just stared her down, a deep frown on his face, clearly not impressed with her reasoning. Cassidy looked harder at him, noticing his eye twitching. "Glenn, are you well? Your left eye is twitching."
"Yeah…I wonder why…" He snapped. Glenn turned away from her, silently seething as he faced Rick and Carl, who were sitting on the opposite side of the booth, ready to continue the current round. Rick was doing his best to look calm as he fought back against the chuckle that was still tickling his throat, yet his son, Carl, was happily snickering away, enjoying having watched the two adults interact like children. "Carl…" Glenn spoke, his voice coming out rather strained. "Got any threes?"
Carl glanced from Glenn to Cassidy, the woman gazing lazily in his direction. Smiling cheekily, he looked back at Glenn. "Go fish." The answer caused the Asian man to slam his hand down at on the stack between them, aggressively grabbing a single card and bringing it to join the others in his hand. Cassidy's brows just creased further at his actions, not understanding his motive or the reason being his anger, while Rick was hiding a smirk behind his playing cards. Carl's eyes shifted between the adults sitting at the booth, watching how each one was emoting with curious eyes.
"You're all out to get me," Glenn muttered shamefully, his eyes downcast to his cards as he slumped in his seat.
"Okay!" Dale yelled out, stopping the RV and the convoy just outside the city limits. Rick had wanted them to get a safe distance outside the city before having to abandon Daryl and T-Dog's vehicles, as he hadn't wanted them to risk any lives harvesting the last of the fuel from the cars with the infected so close. "Let's make this quick." Dale cut the engine to the RV, standing up from his seat. Everyone moved with him except for Andrea, who stayed in the bedroom, stepping outside the RV. T-Dog, Daryl, Carol and Sophia had already exited their own vehicles, with T-Dog in the process of helping Daryl get his brother's motorbike out of the bed of his pickup truck. Shane had two shotguns in hand, handing one off to Glenn as the two men stood watch for infected.
"Move quick, everyone. We can't waste time." Rick advised, guiding his wife and son over to Carol's car.
"Cassidy, give me a hand here," Dale spoke, gaining the younger woman's attention. She moved to his side, helping him pull out two empty red fuel canisters and some cut-off hose, with the plan to sue them to siphon fuel from the soon-to-be abandoned cars. "Thank you." Dale smiled at her as she took one, heading straight for T-Dog's car while Dale went to Daryl's truck. Just as she had gotten the fuel cap of T-Dog's car open, the dark-skinned man was kneeling beside her.
"I got this." He muttered, holding his hands out for the hose. "Be hella rude to make you do this shit." Cassidy didn't argue with him, handing over the hose and observing how he stuck one end into his car's fuel tank while bringing the other end up to his mouth. T-Dog paused briefly, grimacing before he sucked on the end of the hose. Cassidy's hand shot out, immediately crimping the hose to stop the fuel from quickly running back up. As he finished sucking, T-Dog shot her a look. "What ya doing?" He asked her.
"If you do not crimp the hose, it poses a risk for the fuel to speed out, meaning you could accidentally swallow the fuel." She advised, not looking at him as the fuel ran through the hose, stopping where her hand was crimping the hose shut. With her free hand, she moved the red canister closer, angling the end into its top and letting go, the fuel flowing freely into the canister. Smiling, Cassidy stood up, casually dusting off her pants. Her green eyes travelled to Daryl's truck, where she assumed she'd see Dale, but instead, she found Daryl himself, the man having taken over for the ageing male, smirking as he was observing the the pair.
"T-Dog," Daryl rasped out, causing the man to turn towards the redneck. "You don't know how to siphon fuel?"
"Guess that makes me a bad stereotype." T-Dog retorted back. Daryl just shook his head.
Cassidy watched the two interact, unsure if there was intended racism or if the two men were joking around with one another. "T-Dog. I will finish up. Move your belongings to the RV."
"You sure?" He asked her, still kneeling beside his car. When she nodded, he stood, shrugging as he fetched his bags from the inside of the vehicle and took them over to the RV, climbing into the motor home. Cassidy's eyes stayed glued to the canister at her feet, watching as the last of the fuel was pulled from the white car. Once the last of it dripped out, she knelt back down, shaking the hose dry and pulling it from the car's fuel tank. It was as she was finishing securing the cap onto the canister Daryl came over, picking it up in one hand, as the fuel canister from his truck was in the other.
"Where ya learn to do that?" He asked her suspiciously.
"My brother Austin," She answered, looping up the hose in her hands. "Back in high school, a friend owed him money. I was with him when he siphoned gas from his friend's car as payment. He thought it would be appropriate for me to know how."
He raised a brow at her. "Did his friend know?" When she shook her head at his question, Daryl snorted, a small smile on his lips at how the brunette's brother got his revenge. The two made their way over to the RV where Dale was waiting, the old man taking the canister from them and storing them in the underside compartments of his RV. All three of them turned their heads to T-Dog, who was standing outside the RV's door beside Glenn, the dark-skinned man laughing comically as Glenn was frowning at him. "What the hell?" Daryl muttered, glaring at the two.
T-Dog faced the trio. "Cassidy, did you seriously count cards to win at Go Fish?"
"It was deductive reasoning." She stated, making T-Dog only laugh harder. Daryl groaned, rolling his eyes as he moved past the two men at the end of the RV, making for his brother's bike, both his and his brother's gear stowed in the bike's rear bags. Cassidy and Dale ignored the redneck's departure, their attention on the two other men. Dale just sighed, shaking his head.
"Absolute children…" Dale stated, fiddling with the strap of the sniper rifle he had over his shoulder. "Get inside, you two." He lectured the men. T-Dog, still chuckling, nodded, climbing into the vehicle as Glenn mopingly followed behind. "Maybe next time, let the poor boy win." Dale glanced at Cassidy, the woman's brows skewed in thought.
"I can." She stated, making Dale smile.
"Okay…" Rick spoke, making his way over to the pair just as Daryl was riding over on his bike. He held up his hand, waiting for the redneck to stop, which he complied with, turning off the bike and leaning forward on the handles. "Cassidy, I want you in the passenger seat beside Dale. You know where we're going." Rick smiled when the brunette nodded. "Daryl, you take up the lead, move up ahead if need be, keep us alert to any danger."
"You got it." Daryl rasped. Rick nodded to him, muttering 'good' before stepping back to Carol's car, his wife waiting for him in the front seat while Carol took up the back seat with her daughter and Carl. As Rick was getting himself into the driver's seat, the sounds of Carl complaining that he wanted to stay in the RV with Cassidy could be heard, making Dale and Daryl chuckle. Cassidy didn't respond to it, only turning on her heel to return to the RV, the two men watching her go without a word. Daryl restarted his bike, slowly edging ahead.
"Son!" Dale called out to Shane, the dark-haired man having been focusing his full attention on Rick and his friend's family rather than keeping a lookout for walkers. "Let's saddle up!" Dale pointed to the doorway of his RV, to which Shane promptly responded with a nod, making his way over, stepping up and inside after Dale and shutting the door behind him. Dale took his spot in the driver's seat, turning the key in the ignition and bringing the old RV to life. Daryl led the convoy, the motorbike allowing him to manoeuvre ahead and faster to scout the roads ahead. Cassidy took up the seat beside Dale, as she had been instructed to by Rick, the older male offering her a comforting smile. "What do you think you'll find there?" He asked her hesitantly.
Cassidy breathed deeply, her gaze on the world passing by outside the window. "I know what I'll find there." She stated, still not looking at him. "Death." The word rolled off her tongue with no emotion, like she simply stating a known fact. Dale grimaced, turning away from her and focusing on the road ahead, his eyes on the back of Daryl as his hands tightened on the wheel. He wanted to comfort the woman but knew it would be useless. Cassidy was a woman who focused on facts and logic, emotions being a foreign concept to her, yet he couldn't help but be worried about how she would react upon seeing her family, the ones she loves, dead, or worse, as flesh-eating walkers. Behind them, Glenn, T-Dog and Shane had been watching them interact. While Glenn and T-Dog shared the same sentiments as Dale, it was Shane who was watching with a hardened jaw, his mind running with calculated thoughts about the scientist, most of all, whether their group could even trust a woman he deemed as useless.
Daryl had led the convoy down the twenty-three out of Atlanta, moving along the fifty-four through Morrow, the one-thirty-eight Jonesboro and lastly, back onto the fifty-four into Woolsey. The entire length of the journey had almost taken an hour to reach the small town, built along Highway 92, with three roads branching out. They had been fortunate that the drive had been seamless, having encountered zero issues, which only had the group more on edge. They had all come to realise that nothing good lasted for long in this new world. Daryl had pulled up alongside Cassidy's side of the RV, signalling to wind down the window, the woman complying with his gesture.
"Which road we want?" He asked loudly, having to yell over the roar of the bike.
"Last one. Hampton Road." Cassidy yelled out to him, looking further down the central road through Woolsey, which, besides residential houses, had the gas station, local grocery and town hall. "You'll see a sign for Frosty Eggs by the gate." Daryl nodded, turning around on his bike and riding down the stretch of highway. The convoy followed along, turning down the appropriate road. When Daryl spotted the large sign, which was adorned with a cartoon hen wearing a scarf being followed by three chicks, the name 'Frosty Eggs' painted on in thick white brush strokes. Stopping his bike by the front gate, he kicked down the stand as he cut off the engine, glancing behind him where the RV and Carol's car were waiting. Daryl moved over to the gate, opening it up for the two cars to pass through before guiding the motorbike through and shutting the gate closed behind him. Getting back on the bike, he trailed up behind his group, only to stop when he saw the large white Victorian Georgian farmhouse.
"This is your family home…?" T-Dog asked. His mouth was agape as he studied the property. Everyone was standing outside the cars. Cassidy was standing next to Glenn, her eyes taking in her childhood home. It hadn't changed since the Wildfire virus went global; only the grass had become overgrown with grass and weeds. Her father's truck, which had been parked off to the side of the entrance, was far more dirtier than she remembered it being.
"Yes," Cassidy stated, her eyes still tracing over the home. "It's been in my family since 1893. However, the interior has been updated with a more modern aesthetic." Daryl moved over to join them, the strap of his crossbow strung over his shoulder. He was frowning. While the brunette woman had referred to herself and her family as rednecks, her family home was anything but that. The sounds of an infected growling made everyone on edge, reaching for their weapons.
"Walker!" Glenn yelled, clutching his shotgun closer to himself as his eyes darted around, trying to spot it. The added sound of a thumping made them aware of where it was. The front door. The main wooden door was open, allowing the walker on the inside of the house to pelt haphazardly against the fly screen door. Cassidy moved forward towards it, even as T-Dog reached to stop her. Climbing the porch steps, Cassidy met the face of her mother, or what was once her mother. In life, Mary-Anne Frost had been a woman who shared many similarities to her daughter in appearance, but now, her face was sunken and greyed as she slowly decayed away, her eyes a milky white. The infected hissed and growled as it fought to reach past the fly screen to get at the brunette woman on the other side.
"Cassidy…" Rick mumbled, moving up beside the scientist, his gun out of its holster and by his side. "Is she…?"
"My mother." She answered, not looking away from the walker. "Or…she was." At the added person, the walker became more aggravated, lashing out harder against the door, desperate to sate its unending hunger. "Your knife." Cassidy spoke.
Rick's head snapped to her. He knew what she wanted, what she felt like she needed to do. "You don't have to. I can—"
"No." She cut him off, outstretching her main hand to him. Rick swallowed, glancing back behind him where the rest of the group was watching. Nodding, he took the knife from his belt, placing it in her hands. Rick and everyone else watched as the brunette didn't hesitate to slam the knife through the fly screen of the front door, impaling the walker in the forehead. Just as quick as she lodged the knife into its skull, she slipped it out, using her free hand to wrench open the front door, the walker's lifeless body crashing to the floor of the porch between Cassidy and Rick. Her eyes were on the body as she held the blade back to Rick, the man taking it as his eyes stayed on her in concern. And it wasn't just Rick. The group couldn't grasp what they had witnessed, that the woman had been so easily able to kill the walker that had once been her mother.
"There could be more…inside…" Rick muttered. Cassidy only nodded, crouching down low beside the walker, looking at it as if it were some science experiment. Yet she reached a tentative hand out, slowly guiding its eyes closed. Rick released a breath he didn't know he'd be holding in as he watched her. It was a rare moment of emotion for her, in Cassidy's own way, that despite what she'd just done, there was grief and remorse in her. Something human. Rick turned to the group. "Shane, Daryl and I will head inside. Make sure it's clear." Before the two men could even join Rick on the porch, Cassidy was already stepping over the corpse and heading inside, ignoring Rick's yells of protest. He bolted inside after her with Shane and Daryl quick on his heels, trying to stop the woman and, at the same time, taking care not to step on what remained of Cassidy's mother.
"Stop, woman!" Daryl yelled, his crossbow raised and ready to shoot. The main entrance of the Frost family home had a living room on one side and dining on the other. Cassidy moved further in, passing those rooms and a staircase into an entertainment room. Her head snapped left, and she went down a hallway that led to her father's study. The men followed her, watching as she stopped outside the door. They could all smell it. Rot. She opened the door. On the far side of the room, in front of two large windows that overlooked the coops in the backyard, was a desk, the father's corpse slumped sideways in the chair. Daryl bypassed her, and his aim focused on the body as he came around to Wyatt Frost's side, seeing the hole that was in the side of his. Daryl lowered his crossbow, his gaze landing on a revolver that was on the ground. "He took his life…" Daryl rasped, looking at Cassidy. She was staring emotionlessly at her father's corpse, taking slow steps towards the desk.
"He lost his wife…his sons…me…" She spoke. Her eyes landed on the bottle of scotch sitting on the desk in front of her father's body and the empty glass. Her lips twitched into a small as Shane and Rick moved further in. "Grandpa Ellis bought him that scotch on his wedding day. He never opened it."
"Guess he wanted to make his last drink memorable," Shane spoke, reaching for the bottle and opening it, giving it a whiff. Daryl frowned at him, finding the man's words and actions offensive at the given time, treating the death of Cassidy's father like a joke.
"Shane…" Rick hissed, having shared the same thoughts as Daryl. Shrugging, Shane recapped the bottle and placed it back down. Rick's attention turned to the gun safe that was standing in the corner of the room. He wanted to access it with the codes Cassidy had written down earlier but didn't want to offend the woman.
Daryl took notice of Rick's hesitancy. "Come on, woman," He rasped, grabbing the brunette roughly by the arm and pulling her out of the room. "Don't need to be seeing 'im like that." Cassidy didn't fight against Daryl's grasp on her arm as he pulled her back into the entertainment room, only for him to drop his hold as soon as they were in the clear. "You good?" He asked, chewing on his bottom lip. She was staring off in that lifeless look she always seemed to have, but her brows were furrowed like she was thinking. Cassidy only nodded, making Daryl scoff. When he lost his brother, he screamed and cried, threatening to harm everyone. That was the type of mourning Daryl expected to see, but Cassidy was calm. "Anyone else here?"
"There shouldn't be." She answered. "Beau was in New York. Deacon was camping with friends somewhere and never told us where he went. Austin was living with his wife and son on the other side of Woolsey." Daryl nodded, moving around the room. He took notice of all the family photos that lined the walls, not just of Cassidy's parents and siblings but photos going back generations. It made him frown. To see all of those smiling faces of strangers relishing their happy lives made him mad. Daryl and Merle never had any of that. Daryl and Cassidy jerked, their heads turning to the ceiling above them when they heard a thump.
"You sure?" Daryl asked, eyeing her tentatively as he raised his crossbow back up, heading towards the stairs. Cassidy followed him, the pair moving silently up the straight staircase, reaching the second floor.
"Yes." She whispered. Cassidy almost slammed into Daryl's back as the man stopped. He knelt down, having noticed a faint trail of blood coming from a closed door to the left. "That's Austin's old room." There were faint sounds of thumping against the door and the groans of a walker, and they could see a shadow moving under the gap of light under the door. Daryl signalled for Cassidy to stay back, hoping the woman would listen for once, as he stepped towards the door, crossbow still raised in his main hand as he reached out for the door handle with his left. Opening it just a fraction, Daryl froze. The hand of a young child appeared in the gap, moving wildly as it reached out. "Ellis…" Cassidy muttered, stepping closer. Through the gap, she could see him, her once vibrant nephew now a mindless, infected corpse. She felt like she was choking, struggling to breathe as she bolted to the bathroom that was opposite Austin's room, wedged between the bedrooms that had belonged to Beau and Deacon.
Daryl's jaw tensed. He could hear the sounds of Cassidy throwing up over the growls of the walker-fied toddler who was still reaching out for him through the gap in the door. Turning to face the blonde-haired child, Daryl positioned his crossbow to fire. "Sorry…" he muttered, just as the bolt launched into the walker's skull, sending its small body backwards. Daryl waited, listing for more groans before opening the door. He frowned down at the body of the boy who'd been Ellis. His eyes then turned to another body lying half on the double bed, a man who resembled Cassidy. Daryl figured that that was her older brother Austin. Stepping closer, Daryl could see the bullet wounds fired into his chest, counting three, before the kill shot, which was to his head. Behind the bed, in front of the windows that overlooked at the back of the property was the remains of a woman. Daryl studied her. In life, she had been a pretty blonde, and now, her insides had been ripped open and her skull crushed in.
"Daryl?" Rick spoke, looking into the room. The man was grimacing as he took in the room, his eyes traversing over the three bodies in the room, as the sounds of Cassidy struggling to control her stomach. "I've had Shane take the guns to the RV."
"Good," Daryl scoffed. "Don't need him making any more rude comments." The statement earned him a hard stare from Rick, but he didn't care. Placing his crossbow down on the bed beside Austin's body, Daryl picked up a loose throw blanket. Making sure to remove his arrow from Ellis' skull gently, he covered the toddler's body, not wanting the woman to have to see her nephew again. "We should bury 'em."
Rick nodded. "I'll get Glenn and T-Dog on it. Shane and I are going to take Carol's car out to the neighbours that Cassidy suggested. Get their guns and the fuel. Daryl just grunted, stepping over the toddler to gain access to the wardrobe that was in the room, pulling out another blanket that he planned to use to cover the remains of the blonde woman. Rick turned around, his gaze landing on Cassidy as she finally left the bathroom. Pale and shaky, she went towards a room at the far end of the second floor, shutting the door behind her. He debated going to check on her, speak to her, but something in the back of his mind told him it would be useless, that the brunette had done what she did because she wanted to be alone. It was one thing to know your family was gone, and it was something worse to see their rotting corpses. Rick didn't say anything to Daryl as he retreated back downstairs, the redneck simply watching him from the corner of his eyes as he continued to cover up the bodies best he could.
When Daryl stood back up, reaching for his crossbow, he spotted the discarded teddy bear at the blonde feet, slightly tucked under the bed by a bedside table. Gwen Frost had died trying to keep her son alive. She let herself be ripped into by her husband, a walker, to save her child. Daryl reached for the bear, holding the plush creature in his hands as his mind began to piece together what had happened. Austin had bit his son and devoured his wife, only to be taken down by his father, a father who then took his own life. As for Mary-Anne, Daryl assumed that she, too, had been bitten by her son and possibly died from the attack. Wyatt had killed himself, thinking he was alone and failed to protect his family. It was enough to drive anyone to suicide. With his crossbow strung back over his shoulder, Daryl approached the door of the room Cassidy had fled into, opening it to find the brunette woman sitting on the edge of a double bed, picking at the cuticles of her nails.
"I warned him." She spoke, not looking at Daryl. "Austin had taken in a friend who had fled Atlanta after being bit. We were conversing over the phone when his friend reanimated. The screams. I made the educated guess that they all died that day." She looked up towards the windows that faced her. "But I was incorrect. He came here. Brought his family here to be safe." Daryl felt awkward, unsure of how to respond to the woman as she explained. He glanced down at the bear in his hands. Rolling his jaw, Daryl placed the stuffed animal on a dresser to his left before shutting the door, leaving her alone. It was all he could do. Daryl didn't know how to comfort someone or any of that emotional shit. It wasn't the Dixon way. Heading back downstairs, he almost bumped into T-Dog and Glenn, the pair carrying the body of Wyatt Frost.
"Daryl." Glenn smiled meekly, pausing as he faced the redneck, making T-Dog wince as he didn't enjoy having to lug around a dead body. "Where's Cas? Is she okay?"
"Mourning." Was all Daryl responded with, quickly moving past the two men and heading outside to where Dale was already starting to dig five graves. Placing his crossbow down, he decided to help, grabbing one of the spare shovels. Dale looked at the younger man, the sadness evident in his eyes, but he didn't speak to Daryl. They worked in silence as T-Dog and Glenn brought each body out of the home, having not removed the blankets from Gwen or Ellis' bodies, knowing that their remains had been covered for a reason. The two men slowly lowered the bodies into each grave, the holes having been dug just deep enough to stop them from being dug up by wild animals.
"This couldn't have been easy for her," Dale spoke after a while, the comment directed at no one in particular. "Seeing her family like this…poor girl."
T-Dog scoffed. "She rammed a knife into her mother's skull. Didn't even pause. That ain't normal."
Dale paused as he was working on the last grave, staring down the dark-skinned man. "And who's to say what is normal?" He asked T-Dog, shaking his head. "Cassidy isn't your everyday person. I know it. You know it. Hell, even Carl can see it. She might even see us as abnormal." Dale continued to lecture, feeling a bubble of pride in his gut as T-Dog avoided looking at him, signs of shame on his face. Daryl's lip twitched as he listened in. "Cassidy is a woman whose mind is based on logic. Facts. I'm sorry if you see that as not normal." Glenn and T-Dog shared a look as Dale continued to lay out his lecture with words that seemed to have been spurred on by his own raw emotions and made his friends question just why Dale was so protective over the brunette woman. Once he was done speaking, Dale frowned, going back to digging while an awkward silence fell over them.
Cassidy wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting on the bed before she finally stood, walking over to her childhood dresser and picking up the stuffed bear that had been placed on top by Daryl. She stared down into its patchwork face before bringing it close, holding it close to her chest and embracing it. There was a deep frown on her face as she was still struggling with how she was feeling. Not knowing how to feel. She had never experienced the death of a family member, and today, she had officially confirmed the loss of seventy-one point forty-three per cent of her family. Stepping over to the windows opposite the foot of her bed, she glanced outside, spotting Dale and Daryl in the process of digging five graves and Glenn and T-Dog lowering the bodies of her family into the finished graves, and noticing that two of the bodies, were covered in blankets, one being her nephew.
Backstepping slowly, she sat back down on the foot of the double bed and released the bear from her embrace. "These events were never meant to transpire…" Cassidy muttered to herself, gazing ahead at nothing. Her mind began to race with thoughts of what could have been. Austin and Gwen having more children. Ellis and his siblings growing up. Her parents growing old together. Deacon marrying his girlfriend, and the two starting their own family. Even thoughts of the possibility of Beau getting married to a man he could love openly with fear of persecution from his parents. "But this is how it is…" She finally looked back down at the bear in her hands, contemplating what to do.
Her eyes shot back to the windows when she heard the sound of a car rolling up the driveway and Glenn yelling out. Squinting at the window, she strained her ears to listen, hearing Rick's voice. He and Shane had returned. Standing, Cassidy knew it was time to move on, that the group couldn't waste any more time. Gently putting down her nephew's bear on her bed, she went to both the closest and dresser, pulling out some clothes and work boots that she had kept stored at the family home for when she'd end up standing for long visits and stuffed them into a backpack that had been toss on the floor of her closet. Pausing briefly, she decided to change, getting out of the clothes she'd been wearing for the last couple of days. Once changed, she zipped up the backpack and hooked it over her shoulder. Cassidy picked up the bear again, planning to leave the stuffed animal on his grave.
As she made her way back to the first floor, Carl and Sophia spotted her from the dining room at the front of the house, the two having been sitting at the table. Andrea was sitting with them, but she didn't bother to look at the brunette, her head downcast as she was deep in thought, her mind still reeling over her younger sister's death and her attempt at ending her life at the CDC. Carl waved at Cassidy, a gesture the older woman returned, while Sophia smiled meekly as she hugged the doll in her arms closer. The noises in the kitchen alerted Cassidy that Carol and Lori were looking for non-perishables. She continued on outside, and the men all turned to look at her. She stared back at them, yet she felt her hands instinctively tighten around the bear in her grasp.
"Cassidy…" Rick greeted her, his lips in a thin line as he stood facing her, his hands on his hips. "You doing alright?" He asked her, and Cassidy only nodded. "We check out the properties you suggested. Some of them had fled with their guns, including the one with the fuel. He took his stores."
Cassidy frowned. "Apologies—"
Rick held up a hand, silencing her. "It's fine. Shane and I got a few guns and even brought back some food." Nodding, he moved past her, heading inside to find his wife and son. Behind him, Shane was scowling as he loaded up the weapons from Carol's car, which the men had used to visit the neighbouring properties, into the RV. Glenn and T-Dog went to assist him while Dale and Daryl stood near the freshly dug graves.
Swallowing back the uncomfortable lump in her throat, Cassidy approached the graves and dumped her backpack down. She eyed the five graves, her eyes settling on the smallest one. Stepping around the freshly unearthed dirt, she placed the bear down at the large branch that had been stuck into the earth as a makeshift grave marker. Dale and Daryl were watching her.
"I'm sorry…" Dale spoke, breaking the silence. Cassidy didn't respond as she stepped back from her nephew's grave. The older male understood. Dale approached her discarded backpack, deciding to pick it up and take it to the RV, leaving Daryl and Cassidy alone.
"Daryl…" Cassidy finally spoke, making the man look at her. Her gaze was still on the graves in front of her. "I appreciate…for Ellis…" She didn't know what to say. It was strange. Cassidy was known for always knowing what to say. Her brother Deacon used to always offhandedly comment that she didn't have the potential to shut up.
"It's fine." Daryl muttered, his jaw tense. It was minutes of silence that was soon broken when Cassidy asked Daryl a question the man hadn't been expecting her to. 'Do you believe your brother, Merle, is alive out there somewhere?'. The question shocked him. Daryl hadn't mentioned to the woman that he had a brother or that he was missing. His gaze slipped over to the RV, landing on Glenn, before moving back to the woman. She was staring at him or at least staring in his direction, her eyes focusing on something past him. "Merle's tough. He's out there. Why you asking?"
"Deacon and Beau." She muttered. "I know that I have no evidence that they're alive, and with the state of everything, it would be correct to assume them dead. But I still can't help but wonder."
Daryl looked down at his feet as he thought, remembering how Dale described her as someone who acted and thought in logic and facts. "If you want them to be alive, then they are alive." He answered, looking back up at her. What Daryl said made her brows crease, like her mind was having trouble making sense of his words.
"I do," Cassidy spoke, the faint traces of a smile on her lips. "Thank you."