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Writer's Notes: Hope everyone enjoys!
[HWY 49; Two Days Later]
Bella surveyed the piled-up cars in front of them. They hit a snag. Cars were lined up and down both sides of the small backroad highway where people abandoned their cars or they were attacked by the dead and became the dead themselves. "Well, we'll have to clear a path." She said, her hands perched on her hips.
"We could try backtracking to a different highway." Jake suggested.
Bella shook her head. "If this backroad highway looks like this, there's no telling what the other roads look like. Seems like a lot of people were trying to escape the city and fled out this way." She said and then looked around them. "We're surrounded by trees. It's not very safe because we don't have good visibility."
Rick joined them. "Alright," he said, carrying a map. He laid it out on the hood of a car. "The next highway isn't for another sixty miles that way." He said, pointing on the map. "This is our best shot. We should raid the cars and load supplies we could use and then push these vehicles out of the way. We're running low on gas. The gas station barely had gas for the big RV. We should consolidate."
Bella agreed. "Alright. Put everyone in the biggest RV and ditch the camper and the smaller RV."
"Dale's camper is overheating right now, so it's probably best we do abandon it." Rick said and then nodded to Daryl when he walked up. "Hey, gather the others and start searching the vehicles. I'll grab Paul and Jake to see if we can start making a path." He said and folded the map before walking away.
Daryl glanced at Bella, studying her a moment. "Hey, you good?"
Bella looked at Daryl and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." She said and offered a small smile. She watched Daryl walk away to gather the others to help dig through the vehicles. She blew out a breath and then started searching the cars too.
After a lot of struggles and determination, they got a good amount cleared to drag the RV through. They still had more to clear, but they still had daylight left to work. Carl and Sophia were working hard too. They helped with loading the bigger RV. Carl liked to help as much as Sophia, because it made them feel more grown up. Sophia was only ten, but she was smart and mature.
Bella paused for a moment to rotate her shoulder a bit. It was stiff still and sore. She caught shuffling movement from her pieripheral and she whistled, gathering attention. A large herd was shuffling through the cars. "Get down, under the cars." Bella said and everyone moved, getting under the vehicles and waited nervously while the dead marched through, banging into the cars and continuing on their way.
Carl and Sophia were under two separate cars. Bella could see Sophia crying, but she had her hand over her mouth as she tried not to make a sound.
She looked across the way at Rick, who looked back at her. It was clear that he was worried and she was too. After a few long moments, it seemed like the herd had passed, but Bella wanted to wait a moment just to be sure. Sophia slid out from under the car before Bella could motion for her not too and five biters appeared. Sophia screamed and started running off into the woods.
"Shit." Bella cursed and she rolled, getting to her feet and sliding her knife from it's belt and she started taking out the small group of biters that had been slower than the rest.
Daryl, Rick and Jasper were out from under the cars and helping. Carol was screaming for Sophia and soon it felt like chaos.
"Rick! I'm doubling into the woods, I have to find Sophia!" She said and took to the woods, running in the direction Sophia had ran. She heard movement behind her and she glanced back at Daryl.
"I can track her. Let's just move." Daryl said as they rushed through the woods, trying to track Sophia's movements. They came to a creek and Daryl cursed. "Fuck, this isn't good. Her footprints end here. She took to the creek and I have no way of telling which way."
"Okay you go one way, I go the other, circle back around and-"
"Bella… it's getting dark. There's no way we can physically search this radius without being caught out here at night."
Bella didn't like this. "We can't… we can't leave her out here alone. Daryl she's a little girl."
Daryl didn't like it any more than Bella did. He looked around. "We don't have a choice." He said and looked back at her. "I have no tracks to track her with this creek. We have to go back, come back with daylight and just try to… try to recover her."
"Fuck." Bella knew that Daryl was right. She only hoped that Sophia would be smart enough to just hunker down somewhere safe and not make noises.
Bella and Daryl returned to the wreckage on the road and Carol sobbed when she saw that they were emptyhanded. "It's getting dark. Um. We lost her trail, she found the creek and the water… the water makes it impossible to trace her. We'll have to go back in the morning and create a search radius and spiral out grid by grid until we find her. Carol… I'm so sorry."
Andrea put her arms around Carol and held her to her to comfort her.
Bella couldn't stand there anymore. She swallowed and she walked towards the big RV, trying to reel herself back in. She wanted a brief moment alone, but Rick was there. He set a hand on her shoulder, but she moved away from his touch. "Rick… I-"
"Hey, we'll find her. Sophia is smart." Rick said, trying to convince himself at the same time. He couldn't imagine what Carol is going through. If the roles were reversed and Carl had run out there into the woods, it would be maddening to sit and wait.
"Rick, what if we don't find her?" Bella stared up at him with her misty eyes. "No mother… should have to feel the way she's feeling."
"You're right. They shouldn't." Rick's voice was gentle now. He reached up and brushed hair back from her face and he wasn't sure why he did it. He saw the pain in her eyes, the regret that she wasn't out there searching for Sophia anyways. "We can do more good when morning comes. We need to rest. We have been working hard to move these vehicles out of the way so we can keep looking for our home. We rest and then we go out there and look for Sophia and bring her back."
Bella nodded, feeling oddly better from Rick talking her down. Usually Jasper was the one to do that.
Jasper walked up then, seeing how gentle Rick was with Bella and that made him smile a little, but he had bad news about Merle. They discovered that he was bit during all of the commotion. "Hey."
Rick dropped his hand and looked at Jasper. "What's wrong?"
"Um. It's Merle. Daryl is upset about it, but Merle got bit after Sophia ran off." Jasper said.
Bella frowned. "Oh no, that's terrible." She moved away from Rick. "Let me-"
"No, Merle wants to be alone." Jasper said. "He's locked himself up in Dale's old camper since we moved everything out. He has a gun and he said he knows what he needs to do before it's time. Daryl won't leave the door." He said his voice low.
Rick nodded. "I'll go talk to Daryl. You get everyone calmed down and inside the RV for the night." He said and left Bella standing there with Jasper.
Bella ran her hands over her face. She was tired, hungry and she knew her stress levels were high.
"Everything is going to be okay."
"No it won't Jasper." Bella said and looked up at him. "Everything is not going to be okay. It's not going to be okay for a long time. Sophia is lost in the woods, Merle got bit. We're losing people left and right." She shook her head. "It used to just be me and Jake out there. When this all started…"She shook her head. "When this all started, we met bad people like Shane and we almost died for it. I never wanted to be around people again, but then…"
"But then you met Rick. He needed help and you helped him."
"I could have let him die in that street. I wouldn't be standing here right now, worried about a little girl if I had just… kept to myself." She looked down at the ground.
Jasper tilted her chin up to look at him. "You are not that kind of person. You are Bella… you help people. You were trained to do that. You are beating yourself up for circumstances out of your control. Everything will be okay, you just have to get through these rough parts first. Survival isn't for the weak and you are strong, so strong." He reassured her.
Bella wanted to believe that, but right now she felt useless… weak. She just sighed and leaned against Jasper and he hugged her. She closed her eyes, thinking about the events of the day and everything she could have done to prevent it.
[The Next Morning]
Bella barely slept in the night, which wasn't abnormal. Merle shot himself in the middle of the night and Daryl was grim this morning, but he was standing next to her, looking at the map to figure out a good search radius for Sophia.
"You know, you can stay here with Dale, Glenn, Carol and T Dawg. We can handle this." Bella said, looking up at Daryl.
Daryl shook his head. "When Merle finally talked to me last night. He told me to make sure I find Sophia, so that's what I'm doing." He said. "I need this Bella. I can't… I can't sit with my thoughts."
Bella understood that more than he knew. She nodded and looked at the others as they walked up. "Alright, Rick, you Carl and I will head out to the East of the creek. Daryl will lead with Andrea and Jake to the West. Jasper, Paul, head north of the creek and spiral down until we meet back here at the wreckage. We have all day. Glenn," She turned and looked at him. "Keep working the wreckage. As soon as we get back with Sophia I want to get moving from this area. The dead walk through here more and I don't want to be caught again in the streets." She said and he nodded. "Let's move." She said and the three groups started into the woods.
Carl wanted to help and he was thirteen. He was capable of doing the little things. Rick thought it would be okay for him to tag along, especially with him being there with him and Bella. Bella was silent as they moved East of the creek, following the creek bed, searching for Sophia's tracks.
They saw an old church building and they went towards that. Bella looked at the outside structure. "This is definitely dated." She could tell by the worn boards on the outside. The church had been there for quite some time from the looks of it. They wandered inside to take a look around, hoping that if Sophia did go this way, that she saw the church and went inside. There was no sign of Sophia and that made Bella's heart hurt a little more. They left the church and walked around the outside. There was a small clearing in some trees and some deer were there.
"Look dad, deer." Carl said, in awe of the deer. He hadn't really seen a deer alive before, so he found them interesting.
Rick smiled a little at his son. It was the small things in life that seemed so important. They were constantly moving at a fast pace, getting from one place to the next. "You can get closer." He said with a nod.
Bella watched Carl, the childhood wonder on his face. It was a good point to rest anyways, they had been trekking for a couple hours now. She grabbed the water bottle from her backpack she had with her and she took a drink and handed it to Rick. Rick took the water and took a small drink and handed it back to her.
"Seeing him like this…"Rick murmured. "It reminds me of all the reasons why we have to keep fighting to survive." He said and looked at Bella.
Bella's blue-green eyes swept up to Rick and they stared at each other a moment. They were studying each other and somehow Bella felt a little lost in Rick's stare.
Suddenly, a shot rang out and it snapped Bella's attention back to Carl as she saw Carl's body jerk and go down to the ground.
"Carl!" Rick yelled and he went to him immediately. Bella reacted quickly too, going to the ground to assess the damage.
"Rick he's breathing, I need you to-"
"OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY! I DIDN'T SEE HIM!" A man was jogging up. He was winded. He was a heavier man, a baseball cap on and overalls. He looked like a farmer. He was carrying a rifle with him.
Bella got to her feet, her crossbow pointed at the man. "Drop it."
The man dropped the rifle immediately and put his hands up. "We have a doctor! He can fix your boy!"
Bella was a doctor too, a surgeon precisely and an Army combat medic. But she did need supplies if she was going to fix this. "Show us. Now."
Rick carried Carl's unconscious body to the large farm house that the man, they knew now was Otis. Another man walked out, he was older, white hair, and beard and a woman, with darker brown hair that brushed her shoulders, her eyes were wide and her face seemed youthful enough that she wasn't thirty yet, but she wasn't younger than 21. "Your man shot my son." Rick said, his voice hoarse from emotion.
"Get him inside on the bed. Maggie show them." The man commanded.
Bella left Otis's side now. "I'm a surgeon, I just need supplies to fix him." She said, letting her crossbow fall to her side. The man nodded and Bella rushed past him inside the house and went to where Rick had brought Carl to the bedroom. She set her crossbow down completely then she went to Carl on the bed and she pulled open his shirt to see the gunshot in his stomach. "Oh no." Bella murmured, when she saw how massive the wound was. "Buckshot." She murmured, but she didn't hesitate to jump in. "Alcohol for my hands."
The woman that the man had referred to as Maggie was dumping the alcohol on Bella's hands and Bella rubbed her hands together and she went to work.
Carl's consciousness came and went as Bella painstakingly pulled bullet fragments out of him with the man's help. His name was Hershel and he was the owner of this farm with his family. "He needs blood." Bella said and looked at Hershel. "Tubing? Jars?"
"Yes, Patricia, go and get some tubing and the mason jars."
"Do you have a large bore needle?"
"I do." Hershel said and he got up and walked out of the room.
Bella was stitching Carl up now that they had dug out all the fragments. Carl's body was pale from the blood loss and it was important that they got him transfused.
Rick sat by the bedside, his eyes red from crying periodically, but he sat back now. "Um, I think I'm a match to Carl."
Bella shook her head. "I'm O-Negative. It's fine. I'll do it." She said and Hershel returned with the needle and Patricia, who was his other daughter, but she was older, probably somewhere in her forties, appeared with the other half of the supplies. Bella took the items and then ran a line to herself and then she set Carl up. Rick moved from the chair he was sitting in, so Bella could sit next to the bed while she gave Carl her blood to save his life.
Bella looked at Hershel. "Thank you."
"Otis… he didn't mean to shoot your son." Hershel said to Bella.
Bella shook her head and looked at Carl. "I know. He was shooting at the deer. The bullet tore through the deer and went into Carl." She looked at Rick, who wouldn't leave Carl's side. He was sitting on the side of the bed, holding Carl's free hand. She looked back at Hershel. "I have people back up on the road."
"Where that pile up is?" Maggie asked, her green eyes seemed to sparkle in this lower lighting.
Bella nodded. "Yeah. We were out there searching for a little girl. Her name is Sophia. She's ten years old. A herd came through that wreck and she got scared and ran into the woods. We couldn't find her before dark, so we went back out looking for her. I have two other groups searching the woods still, but our RVs and vehicles are up there clearing that wreckage so we can keep moving through." She explained.
"I'll go get them." Maggie said. "I'll go on horseback. Tell them where you're at and direct them here."
Bella nodded. "Thank you. I really appreciate that."
Maggie smiled a little and nodded before she left to go saddle a horse to go find Bella's group.
Hershel walked out of the room to give Bella and Rick privacy and to calm Otis down, who was feeling really upset about shooting the boy. He knew that Otis would never forgive himself if the boy hadn't survived.