A/N I'm so glad you are all enjoying the characterization of Sarah and my take on some of the Walking Dead characters. All your words of encouragement really do inspire me to explore each of the character's more – look at aspects of them we didn't see on the show. It's my way of keeping things interesting in this fic as I revisit events you've all seen on the TV.

Story Rated T for graphic violence, swearing and mild sexual situations.

CHAPTER 13

"Can I be honest with you? I am bad fucking news. I'm not your friend. I'm not gonna help you. I'm gonna break you. Any questions?"

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Sarah walked down the lines of empty vehicles.

There was no wind. It didn't even seem like there was any air; it felt like she was underneath one, giant fish bowl. Even the CDC, with its labs buried underneath several feet of earth and concrete, had not felt like this. This was a claustrophobia brought on by a steadily crushing feeling of despair, of wrong decisions made and hopelessness.

You knew what you were doing at the CDC, she reminded herself, bitterly. You were in your comfort zone.

You had friends.

She looked into cars like she was looking into shop windows, sifting through clothes and luggage. Every now and then she would peer in and the whole car would jerk as a walker locked inside threw itself up against the window. Sarah would move on before she could see whether it was a man, woman, or child.

She walked with one hand clamped round the opposite wrist - a gesture she adopted when anxious or nervous. She twisted the skin absentmindedly underneath her palm.

It was difficult getting clothes like this. Clothes had distinct styles. Clothes were personal. Every time Sarah retrieved a different item of clothing it felt – and rightly so – like someone elses. This was not her blouse. These were not her jeans.

After checking over her shoulder to make sure the group was far enough away, she shucked Andrea's now-grimy T Shirt over her head, and, with some hesitation, reached behind her back and unfastened the sweaty white bra. Sarah swallowed heavily, sliding Andrea's jeans down her hips and kicking them off - and then stood there in her underwear.

She ghosted her hands over her bruised rib cage, the scrapes on her arms; hesitantly felt the bruised puffiness round her right eye and touched her split lip. She held her hands up in front of her face and tried to recognize them. She had had scientist's hands. Delicate hands. Hands that manipulated a microscope and held a scalpel with expert precision. She'd had steady hands. Unbroken, smooth, milk white hands.

Those same hands shook perceptibly now.

Her palms had angry strips of raw, red skin from the rope burn the white sheets had given her; there were scratches from where Rick had tackled her and she'd grazed them on the tarmac; the tips of her fingers were bloody from where they'd scrabbled against the ground trying to gain some kind of purchase to stop walkers dragging her out from underneath the car.

Sarah lowered her arms abruptly, realizing with a jolt she was still standing nearly naked in the middle of the highway. She pulled on the new clothes she'd scavenged, sliding into a pair of too-large, boyfriend jeans which she held up with a mans belt and rolled up to mid-calf and then a white vest top under a light, khaki jacket to prevent over-exposure to the sun (already, her chest was sun burnt and peeling). The burn reminded her of how Alex Ramm had tried to coax her out into the sunlight outside the CDC – how she'd complained her eyes couldn't adjust. Sarah'd been down there another two months after he left, and now it was clear her body definitely wasn't used to the outdoors. Skin that wasn't cut open or bandaged was an angry red, and her jelly-like muscles protested against every movement when she'd spent days on end sitting on her ass and hadn't encountered so much as an incline in weeks.

It was ironic that, though being down in the CDC had given her the best understanding of how and why the apocalypse was happening; it had given her virtually nothing in the way of practical skills to deal with it. All theory and no field work, she thought, ruefully.

If she was being honest with herself, Sarah thought, as she packed spare clothes and other tidbits like shampoo and spare underwear into a rucksack carefully and neatly, what she really wanted to do was her fucking job. That was what she was good at. She was useless here. A joke. Shane was pointing out as much. David Shephard - Jace Shephard's brother - had forewarned as much.

With out the search for the cure, with out the laboratories and the fancy equipment, she was nothing.

She may have rediscovered an old life in Rick, but it was the life he had enabled her to have when he sent her away that she wanted back. Sarah yearned for a purpose once more. A goal. This aimless wandering they called 'survival' wasn't it for her, it wasn't enough.

The feeling like she was trapped underneath a giant fish bowl grew stronger. She noticed her hands were shaking again.

Contain this, she thought to herself, picking up the straps of the bag to give her fingers something to do, before it becomes a problem.

Back at the RV, she handed Andrea back her clothing. The other woman took one look at the pile in her arms and dumped it in the trunk of some car unceremoniously. "Seriously?" she asked, grumpily, walking back round the RV to gather up supplies for the search party. "They've got your blood all over them. I don't want that."

"Well I wasn't just going to ditch them – they're yours."

Andrea laughed bitterly, climbing into the van and beginning to sort through the bottles of water in the sink. Sarah hovered in the doorway. "You thought they were mine? I stole the top from some department store in Atlanta. The jeans were my sisters."

Sarah picked at the front of her new clothing. "Kind of weird, that stealing bothers you when…."

"I didn't say it bothered me." Andrea finished sorting the half-full bottles from the full ones and offered one to Sarah. She took it gratefully as Andrea glanced over her shoulder. "It just doesn't sit 100% with me when I've seen people incarcerated for it for eighteen months. Shane's staring at you."

Sarah took a pull of water, trying to ignore the growling of hunger in the pit of her stomach. Another thing she'd grown used to at the CDC: regular meals."Yeah? He's being a dick."

Andrea shrugged. "He doesn't trust you after the CDC. His trust'll come with time - you just need to prove yourself to him."

Sarah smiled as she took another gulp of the lukewarm water. "You reckon I should show him my Ph.D?"

"I don't think those are the qualities he's looking for." Despite her obvious bad mood, the corner of Andrea's lips quirked. "I think he's worried you're insane. Paranoid that we've got Dr. Jekyll in our midst or something."

Sarah's stomach flip-flopped. "Oh yeah?" she asked, trying to keep her voice level. She glanced over her shoulder. Shane was busy in conversation with Rick, no longer looking at them.

How long will Lori keep her mouth shut about the anti-psychotics? Sarah thought, striving hard to keep her face outwardly calm. And who would it be worse to find out first: Rick or Shane?

Sarah tried to keep her voice light as she swung back round the face Andrea. "I don't think I'm the one that he has to worry about going insane."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She shrugged. "He's an intense guy."

"Trust me. He's better equipped for this than all of us. Maybe even more than Daryl."

"Right." Sarah finished the bottle of water and walked up to stand next to Andrea by the sink, leaning her back against the worktop and folding her arms. She looked out of the van once again, this time her eyes landing on Carol. The older woman was standing on the grassy edge of the highway, looking out to the forest. Sarah was glad for the physical distance between them. "So when are we setting out on this search party?"

"You mean when are we setting out on the search party," said Andrea, firmly. "You're staying here."

"Okay, A) this was all my fault and B) why not?!"

"A) no it wasn't your fault and B) because your face has been smashed to shit and you've been through a lot in the past few days. You'll probably pass out again the moment you step into the forest."

Sarah's hackles rose at the reminder of her own incompetence – at how pathetic she had been. She could have caught up with Sophia if she'd just been strong enough. Carol would have her daughter back.

But instead Sarah passes out cold, and hallucinates strangling her daughter instead. Something in her face twitches at the memory and Andrea catches it, tactfully changing the subject and toning down her natural bluntness.

"C'mon little-miss-I-have-a-Ph.D," she said, taking Sarah by the arm and leading her to the bed T-Dog was sleeping on. "What can you do to help his arm?"

Sarah's face instantly turned grave as she took in T-Dog. Not good. His face was coated in sweat: the cut on his arm was clearly infected and causing a fever. Sarah crouched down in front of him and pressed her fingertips to his forehead. Too hot. His eyes fluttered in his sleep and then he opened them, looking up at her deliriously.

"Hey doc," he croaked.

I make an adorable lab rat, huh, doc?

"Shush," Sarah said. She looked at the bandage on his arm and grabbed some scissors from the first aid kit lying next to the bed, cutting through it quickly.

"Don't –" said Andrea, but Sarah silenced her with a look.

"Who bandaged his arm?"

"Dale."

"I think I'm a little more qualified to be doing this than Dale," she said, pulling back the bandage. The cut on T-Dog's arm was puffy and almost clean around the edges, as you would expect an infected wound to look. The cut was also to the bone.

Sarah looked back up at T-Dog's face. Fever aside; he didn't look in any actual pain. She turned her head up to Andrea, confused. "He on painkillers?"

"I think so."

"From where?"

"Daryl. He has a stash."

Sarah turned back to T-Dog's wounds, raising her eyebrow and shaking her head. "A stash," she echoed, rolling her eyes. "Nice."

Andrea's voice was tight with indignation on behalf of her group member. "It's not like that. They were his brother's – and it's a fucking good job he held on to them, Sarah."

Sarah bit down on her tongue but did not apologize. In her mind, it was an understandable conclusion to have jumped to. No, what she was more preoccupied with was Andrea's wording.

They were his brother's. They were my sister's. So many siblings spoken about in the past tense. So many family members gone. If someone asked her about Chris, would she speak about him as if he were already dead, too?

"Okay," said Sarah, trying to be as business-like as possible. "This looks like a pretty standard case of lymphangitis," she said, tracing her fingers lightly over the tell-tale red streaks around T-Dog's wound. "Though I wouldn't be able to tell with out a throat swab and a couple of tests – all of which, obviously, I'm not going to be able to do here. I'm almost certain it is lymphangitis, though."

"Pretty standard case, so pretty standard to treat then, right?" asked Andrea flatly – the pitch of her voice already indicating she was thinking of a more pessimistic outcome.

"That depends on what Daryl has in his miracle stash. If he's got 10 days worth of penicillin and an IV in there then, yeah, pretty standard to treat. If not…" Sarah tailed off, looking up at Andrea meaningfully. She stood, shepherding the other woman a little further back down the RV. It was a pointless gesture – T-Dog's eyes followed them carefully – and he could probably here what they were saying. Even so, Sarah attempted to lower her voice. "Then we need to find a hospital. He needs penicillin." She looked out the door at the assembling group and said, as bluntly as she could. "If we stay here searching for Sophia for too long…lymphagitis has a 25% mortality rate even in hospitals. Out here…I don't know. I'd say there's probably a 75% chance he could die."

"Well then what are we going to do?" asked Andrea, crossing her arms and leaning in further towards Sarah, looking worried. "They're not just going to leave her out there in the forest!"

Her words caused Sarah to understand the often brutal position Rick was put in as leader of the group. These were the kind of calls he had to make – the impossible ones. The ones that people would hate you for making no matter which way you went.

"I'm gonna talk to Rick. Let him know we have a situation," Sarah said.

Unfortunately, Rick was surrounded by almost all of the group. Sarah stuck her thumbs into her belt-loops and stood on the fringe for a second before sucking in a deep breath and marching up to him, slipping past Carol and Dale with a polite excuse me.

"Can I talk to you quickly?" she murmured to Rick, moving in close to him as the others fell silent, watching. "It's important."

Carol's voice came from behind Sarah, invading the sphere of privacy she'd attempted to create between herself and Rick. "What could possibly be more important than finding my daughter?" Her voice wobbled.

Sarah's face flamed. Guilt knawed in her stomach.

She had just pushed past Carol like it was nothing. Like nobody else mattered – like Sophia hadn't gone missing and it was no longer a situation. She had thought these would be words for Rick and only Rick, but to take him aside now would be perverse.

Sarah rarely – if ever - functioned in a group. She was the one people were reporting to. If she needed to confer, she would do so – with a similarly qualified colleague. In her mind that had been Rick – Andrea. In a brash, antagonistic way, maybe even Shane. In Sarah's aloofness, these were the people she had identified as the 'leaders'. But that wasn't how a group worked. There was no hierarchy, where words like Doctor and Director stripped you of your identity so you could all do your jobs as efficiently as possible. There was just Sarah, and Carol and T-Dog; there was just the people around you.

Sarah turned. It felt strange to address the group as a whole and her voice came out weak. "We…have a situation with T-Dog."

"What kind of situation?" asked Glenn, stepping forwards, his eyebrows were drawn together in concern "are you saying that he's worse?"

"I'm saying that he will get worse if we stay here for too long; if we don't get him the medication he needs."

Everyone was silent, absorbing that piece of information. Sarah took a deep breath. She'd relayed the facts. Facts were safe. You couldn't argue with facts….what you could argue with, was someone's opinion. "I think if you don't find Sophia by the end of today, we should split up. Some of us need to head back to Atlanta to find a hospital – he need's an IV at the very least and penicillin at most –"

"Atlanta's overrun with walkers," cut in Glenn, at the same time Shane barked - "What? Suddenly Fort Benning ain't an option anymore?"

"At least we know Atlanta's overrun with walkers," Sarah returned, flatly. "We can't risk a two-day drive to Fort Benning only to find it abandoned – or worse. We can't take chances here. Not with a man's life at stake."

"You know you can call him T-Dog, right?"

Rick spoke for the first time, his blue eyes hard. "Shane set down. Sarah, no one's splittin' up."

Sarah gaped at him. "Rick, we might have to –"

"We might, but we don't get to decide that right now," he said, firmly. He glanced up at the sky – the sun already high up above their heads. Sarah realized he was attempting to measure the time and checked her own watch. It had stopped. She sighed. "Reckon its round mid-morning," Rick continued. "We go now, aim to get back here 'fore evenin'. Dale, Sarah and T-Dog stay behind, everyone else is comin'."

Sarah realized Rick wasn't even looking at her; hadn't looked at her for the duration of the talk.

That is the end of our story, Rick. You do not know me. Do you understand? Do you?

Maybe she had hurt him more than she had thought….but no. He glanced at her now, out of the corner of his eye, and she caught the quick look, frowning. No, Sarah realized, she hadn't hurt him. She had unsettled him; he wanted her to stay behind because he realized what she had said was true: he didn't know her.

"Dammit, Sarah," Rick muttered to himself, as he splashed cool water from his canteen onto his face. They were about two miles into the forest and there was still no sign of Sophia. Behind him, he could hear the group discussing the possibility of a split. The last thing they could possibly need.

She hadn't realized what she'd done. Hadn't realized how fragile everyone was from her outsider's perspective. She'd come out of that van and layed it all out for them. This is how things are - this is what we have to do – this is how things are going to be. It's your choice.

And now everyone was freaking out.

And she probably hated him more than ever. He had to shut her down before she did any more damage than she already had. Shit, she had had to stay behind - not just because she neededto rest, but because there was no way she could be with the group. It was like waving a lighter near a puddle of fuel.

We can't risk a two-day drive to Fort Benning only to find it abandoned.

He dried his face with the hem of his shirt and shook his head once again. The same fear had lurked in the back of his mind. Hell, everyone probably had thought it at some point – but she had just come right out and fucking said it. Rick needed the group to have hope right now. Without hope…they wouldn't go on. They couldn't all be like Sarah and Shane. This is how the world is – now deal with it. It wasn't as simple as that. Hope was a limited, precious and extremely finite resource now.

It could all be undone with the few words. With the loss of a small child. With a trip to a scientific facility the man you trusted to lead you promised would hold answers, but in the end only held death.

You're all infected.

"She's right, you know."

Rick rubbed a tired hand down his face. "Never thought I'd hear you say that about her."

Shane smirked. "Well, I can't be at her throat all the time." He hesitated, moving closer to Rick and angling himself so that he had one eye on his friend and one eye on the others; gathered for a break round a fallen log. "We gotta split up Rick, or we gotta choose. Leave Sophia or stay here and hope she comes back."

"You reckon Sarah's right about Fort Benning?"

"I reckon it's possible."

"But you don't believe it."

"I believe no where's safe. Fort Benning might be overrun, it might not be. And we got a little girl gone missin' here and another guy who could be dyin' back up at the RV. This ain't the time to be puttin' off decisions, man."

"You think that's what I'm doin'? Stallin'?"

"I think you're scared of makin' another bad call after the CDC."

Rick's hands clenched into fists. He studied the ground at his feet and the long shadows cast by the trees. "I told ya," he said, finally. "We wait an' see what happens today. Sophia might still show up. We're not writin' that little girl off yet."

"Didn't say we were."

Rick looked at him. "I think you were."

A bell chimed from somewhere.

Lori watched her husband's back as he walked. His shoulders were hunched slightly, the way she knew they did when he was thinking hard about something. He hadn't spoken to anyone in a good while – not even Carl - just led them towards that noise they had all heard.

For whom the bell tolls, Lori thought, absentmindedly. She didn't like the sound of the bell ringing. It reminded her of a wedding or a funeral; and she didn't want to think about either right about now.

Carl picked his way through the forest next to her, his head down. Like his father, he seemed to be deep in thought – a tiny V appearing between his eyebrows. Lori knew he was upset about Sophia, and upset about Shane ignoring him, though he hadn't said anything about any of it to her. She slipped her hand round his shoulder.

"Watcha' thinkin' about?"

"When I came out of school and you told me Dad had been shot."

A lump lodged itself soundly in her throat. "Why?" was all she could manage.

Carl shrugged, continuing to look at his feet. "I don't know."

"Carl…"

"It scared me."

"I know, honey, it scared me too."

Lori was struck by how intensively she could feel her son's pain; as if hurt was a transmitted sound wave, amplified by those closest to you. She thought how ironic it was that she had resented Carl for being her whole world when he had been born. She pulled him closer to her, giving him an awkward, one-armed hug as they walked.

"I'm scared for Sophia, too," he said, after a while.

"She'll be alright, Carl."

His eyelashes were spiked with tears. "I know, but I'm scared for her."

Carl had always been sensitive. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but he had always been thin skinned.

It brought out the best and worst in him. The numerous 'pet's' he'd brought in from the back garden – sparrow's with broken wings and abandoned puppy's that she and Rick had had to tell him firmly were going to the pound. He'd always been the most popular kid in class, always had friends. But there were other times…Lori would drive to school because there had been an 'incident'. Carl would be sat outside the principal's office with dirt streaking his jumper and twigs in his hair because someone had called his friend fat. If she and Rick had a fight, she would often find Carl curled up on his bed, and he wouldn't talk to her for the rest of the day – wouldn't even look at her. At first, Lori had thought it was him taking Rick's side, but then it had gradually dawned on her that he was punishing both of them because they couldn't get along. If Lori and Rick's moods were bad after they had had a fight, Carl's were always worse.

People always assumed, because of the blue-eyed resemblance and the hero-worship, that Carl would be exactly like Rick. But Lori would have described her son as tender. Easily inflamed. Sensitive. With Carl, nothing was ever far from the surface. Or other words; he wasn't like Rick at all; he was exactly like her.

Day 6

They were in the food-isle of Wal-Mart when Carl threw the mother of all tantrums.

Lori was stressed. This was their first public outing together since Rick had been shot. It felt wrong to be doing normal, mundane family things when her husband was fighting for his life in the hospital, but somehow the world didn't stop just because hers had. Food in the fridge ran out, bill's at home had to be paid – her girlfriends had offered to help, armed with frozen lasagna's and consoling words, but Lori didn't know how to explain to them that she needed to do things like this. She couldn't just sit round waiting for Rick to wake up, because then all she would think about was the possibility that he never would. Or the possibility that he might wake up a year from now, or seven – and Carl would grow up with out his father.

People were wheeling their carts round furtively, looking upset and scared and angry. In everyone's basket you could spot an in inconsistency with the routine shopping list – a couple of cans of long-life food underneath the groceries; more bottles of water than was strictly normal; a strange abundance of hardware choices like reels of duck-tape and hammers and…knives, all stuffed down between the cereal as if their buyers were ashamed to be seen with them.

There were too many people packing the isles, but it was quieter than normal. The pop music coming from the speakers sounded too-loud and echoed eerily round the shop.

By the time they hit the milk and cheese isle Lori and Carl had hit a shopping cart log-jam. Nothing was moving. People who had picked up their items couldn't move back away from the shelves to let other people get to what they wanted.

"We should get some peanut butter for Dad?" said Carl, suddenly. "For when he wakes up."

"Yeah, we will baby," said Lori distractedly, feeling on edge, keeping her eyes warily on the shoppers around them.

"Let's go get it."

"Carl we need to get the stuff we need first. We need milk."

"We need peanut butter for Dad."

She looked down at him for the first time, and saw with a sinking heart the petulant, angry look on his pale face. Please no, she thought, mentally massaging her temples. Not here, Carl, I can't cope with this right now.

He pulled on her sleeve again. "Let's go get some peanut butter."

"Carl I told you –"

"NO! I want to go and get some peanut butter for Dad!" He tried to reach up to take the trolley from Lori. Heads turned in their direction, a muscle twitched nervously in the face of the woman standing behind them. Carl's angry voice sounded through the shop, reverberating off of the walls.

"I can't deal with this right now Carl," Lori hissed at him under her breath.

He turned away from her, and she knew what he was going to do a second before he did it. In her mind's eye she saw him pushing past the mish-mash of trolleys to go to the other end of the shop and get the stupid jar of peanut butter for himself, and terror shot through her as violently as an electric shock. Lori hadn't realized how scared she was about everything until that moment. All those news headlines flashed through her mind, dredged up from her sub-conscious where the rest of her mind had pushed it, unable to deal with anything other than basic day-to-day living.

Unidentified disease breaks out amongst passengers of Russian Airline.

Intensive screening measures in place for air travel between Europe and America.

Disease coined 'human rabies' by social media is confirmed to have been the cause of death of three Chinese businessmen in Atlanta, Georgia.

One doctor and three nurses who tended to Chinese businessman Zhang Wei fall sick.

Lori's arm shot out and she grabbed Carl by the back of his shirt. "Lemme-go!"

She crouched down in front of him, tugging him back towards her - her voice like a whiplash. "Don't you dare leave my side, Carl. Don't even move."

She was aware of a bubbling around them. Like water coming to the boil. Angry words at the end of the isle were building into shouts as two shoppers fought over the last pint of milk. People began to stir uneasily around them.

Lori wished badly that Shane was with them. She had never wished to be with someone more. But he'd been called in by the police department for 'special-measures' training; she could remember the hushed, hurried conversation between them in the kitchen that morning as they tried not to let Carl hear – reading a comic in the next room. What's going on, Shane? Why do they need to train you for this? It's just another super-bug scare. Like swine flu. Isn't it?

He'd taken her by the shoulders and looked right at her. I don't know, Lori. I don't know. But I'm going to find out, I promise.

He'd told her to have her phone on her no matter what, and she slipped it out of her purse now, clutching it in her other hand tightly.

Her words seemed to have struck Carl dumb. Like her, he was pulled out of whatever haze they'd both been under for the past few days – the haze that had blinded them with fear and anger and grief over Rick; blocked out everything until they were both no longer aware of the bigger picture.

Lori's phone lit up with a text. From Casey – one of the mother's from Carl's school that she hung out with at the gates at home-time. Rory gone. Get out of King County.

Lori looked at the text, her heart beginning to beat faster, and then looked at Carl, one of Rory's closest friends. Rory gone? Something told her the boy hadn't run away. Suddenly, running on pure instinct, Lori was abandoning their cart, pulling Carl towards the exit of the shop as calmly as she could – pushing past people. "Hey lady!" someone yelled after her. "You can't just –"

"Mom, why are we leaving all our stuff?" Carl asked, scared, as they made it out to the parking lot. "Mom? What's going on?"

He sounded close to tears and she stopped, crouching down in front of him. "Carl…I don't know what's going on. I don't think we're safe –" Her phone began to ring. Shane. She held up the mobile in front of Carl. "Look. Shane's ringin' us. I'm gonna to take this call, okay baby? And then we're gonna go get back in the car and we're gonna drive home. That's what we're going to do. Okay?"

"Okay."

Lori stood, keeping a firm hold on Carl's hand, and answered the call. People were streaming out of the Wal-Mart with their shopping piled high – others, like Lori, had clearly just abandoned their carts, walking out with nothing. She saw one of the employees exiting a side-door hurriedly, with their head ducked down into their collar.

"Shane? Something's going on. I just –"

"Lori?" He was panting down the phone and instantly she knew something was wrong. "Lori, where are you?"

"We're at Wal-Mart. We're on our way home – "

"No. I'm comin' to get you. Just- just stay there." She could hear the revving of a car engine in the background.

"Shane – "

Something smashed into the store window behind them, sending shattered glass showering over the parking lot. Lori ducked, curling herself over Carl protectively.

"Lori?! Lori, what was that?!"

"I'm fine. We're fine," she said, unfurling herself until she was bent double, holding the phone closer to her ear and pulling Carl further away from the store. There were people running past them now. Both in and out. Cars were swerving off the road and pulling into the lot – not even bothering to find a space, just stopping wherever they felt like it – their owners climbing out and heading into the store at a determined jog. Grim faced. Lori saw someone holding a gun.

This is it. She thought. This was the beginning of whatever it was that was happening.

"Shane where are you?" she said, desperately.

"I'm here." The line went dead.

She lifted her head and saw him in her car, turning viciously off the road and pulling up in front of them. He got out and slammed the door behind him and then just stood there.

"You're okay," he breathed, wiping a hand across his forehead, smearing the blood there. Lori stared, lowering the hand that was still holding the phone to her ear until her arm hung limply by her side.

"What – what happened? What happened to you?" He was covered in spatters of blood. Still in his uniform.

"I was at the hospital –"

Her heart lurched. "What happened?!"

He shook his head, breathing hard. "Lori. There ain't no time to explain. You have to get in the car. We have to leave. Now."

"Leave?" Rory gone. Get out of King County. She clutched Carl's hand, which she could feel trembling in her own. "What do you mean – what – why were you at the hospital? Why are you covered in blood?" She could feel her voice grow louder, angry with him. With herself, for not understanding the situation. "Whose blood is that, Shane?" He wilted, and she realized that he was trembling visibly. "Sh -?"

"Rick's dead."

"No."

Shane's eyes were glazed with tears. "He's gone Lori."

"No," she repeated.

She couldn't cry. Some mechanism inside of her wouldn't let her. She just shook her head. "He's not."

"He's gone."

"No."

Carl was crying.

Lori couldn't comfort him, couldn't do anything. His father was dead. The most good man she knew was dead.

Her husband was dead.

She fell into Shane's chest, her eyes wide and staring into…nothing. Her mind was just blank. Her fingers clung to the front of his shirt and he wrapped one arm round her tightly, wrapping the other round Carl.

She didn't want to let go of him. This was the only way she wouldn't float away – wouldn't get caught up in the rip-tide of people who were running around them; a white-water river crashing round an immovable rock.

"C'mon," Shane muttered into her hair, his voice gravelly. "We gotta go, Lori."

She was nodding.

"C'mon."

He extracted himself from her grip and hoisted Carl into his arms; tucking him into the back seat.

She floated after them, hovering behind him. "What-what about our things?" she asked, trying to think through this strange, alien emptiness in her head. "What about –" What about the life they had had? What about a funeral for her husband?

"I've got it all."

She pictured their home; the empty rooms and the smiling family photos on the cabinet. She imagined the one of her and Rick and Carl at Carl's christening and imagined Rick fading out of it like a ghost.

Shane turned to her next. He popped open the passenger door for her, pushing her in gently. "Get in, Lori."

She clung onto him. "What am I supposed to do, Shane?" she whispered. "What do I do about Carl?"

She could see him in the corner of her eye now. Staring at the seat in front of him, his face an immobile mask of tears.

"You're both gonna be okay."

"We're gonna be okay?" she echoed, her voice hollow, disbelieving.

Shane held onto her hand tight. "I've got you, Lori," he said, throatily. "I'm gonna look after you. You and Carl."

She didn't answer.

"Lori?"

"I know." She looked up into his eyes. It was a strange feeling; her heart was aching, tender with grief, with hurt, but she could feel Shane curling round it like a protective coating. Healing her until it got strong again. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. "I know you are, Shane."

Out in the distance, there was the clatter of machine gun fire and the sound of screaming.

Day 67

Sarah popped the lid of a bonnet open and rubbed sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, careful to avoid the slick coating of oil on her hands.

"How many of these do you need exactly, Dale?" she asked, exasperatedly.

"Well, we're looking for a belt this time."

Sarah leant her cheek against the arm she'd braced against the hood of the car and looked at him standing next to her, raising her eyebrows. "A what?"

"This," he said, pointing to a long strip coiled round the engine. "Help's stuff in the car run, like the air conditioning. The one in the RV's cracked. Gonna need to replace it."

"Right."

"Right," echoed Dale, rubbing his hands together. "Well, this one looks pretty new, so I'm thinking it's a serpentine belt." Sarah glanced at him, non-plussed, and he tapped the wrench she'd tucked into her belt-loop. "You're going to need this, Doctor."

He guided her through how to remove the belt step-by-step, showing her how to push the tensioner back towards the strap by shifting the pin, and Sarah listened carefully. It took a lot longer her doing it than if Dale had just done all the work, but she enjoyed learning about the cars – it reminded her of Chris and the garage – and besides, she guessed Dale was a talker and enjoyed sharing the information with her. It was nice to be on somebody's good side, for a change.

"There," she said, grinning as she held up the strip of rubber triumphantly.

"Wouldn't have pegged you for the car type," Dale said, smiling as he fanned himself with his hat. "- but good job," he added. "Just don't go getting any of that stuff near T-Dog's cut."

Sarah's face sobered instantly as she dropped the belt into the toolbox that Dale was collected the spare parts they'd foraged in.

"You really think we might have to split up?" he asked her, crossing his arms. He was attempting to talk casually, but the forced way he tried to relax his posture – leaning back against the car, folding his arms loosely – had the opposite effect.

Sarah's lips twitched at the old man next to her despite herself. "I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not the leader…it was…a suggestion."

"Listen. I don't know how you see it, but it seems to me like you're the only one who really knows what they're doing round here–"

" – really? –" Sarah muttered, sarcastically, as she rested back against the car next to him, looking at her feet. "Dale," she said, louder now, squinting against the sun as she looked at him "I don't know what I'm doing. I…I just lost a thirteen year old girl!"

Dale ploughed on. "But you're the person who understands the situation we're in. That kind of person – the one who can see the bigger picture - they're normally the person who's calling the shots."

"I'm not a leader Dale. I don't know what I'm doing. I'll fail. Rick's doing just fine as it is."

Dale squinted at his feet. "Rick's a good man. But he's also a very confused one. After the CDC…I don't think he knows how to make a decision anymore. He's scared. He needs someone to guide him. To help him."

Sarah watched a walker struggle down the highway in the distance and peeked out of the corner of her eye at Dale – the shot gun was resting against his leg – and her body un-tensed. If only Dale could see inside her head. If only he could see that she was terrified of walkers. That her mental state was fragile at best. That she couldn't lead anyone, because the moment she inevitably messed up would be the moment that pushed her over the edge.

"You're a 'man of science', Doctor Hannigan –"

" – woman – " she corrected reflexively.

Dale grinned, tilting his head in apology. "All I'm saying is that you have a lot to offer our group. Look what you did for T-Dog. No one would have identified that he would have had lyphin – lypho – "

Sarah exhaled loudly, feeling irritation - hot and potent like a drug - diffuse in her veins. "Lymphangitis."

" – right - you shouldn't be denying that you have qualities that we need. You're not helping any of us by denying it. You're not helping yourself."

Abruptly Sarah raised both hands to stop him talking. She'd heard enough. "Okay just – just stop Dale. I'm not this perfect thing you're making me out to be. I'm not this knight in shining armor that's going to ride in and save your fucked-up little group! You know why? Because I'm pretty fucked up too! Okay Dale? So you can just take your little cheerleader pep-talks and save it for someone who actually wants to go down the long-road-to-self-discovery. I know my limitations, and people are pushing me pretty damn close to them right now." She punctuated the swear with a well-aimed kick at the head of a walker lying at her feet. The head came clean off with the force of the blow, smashing into the car opposite them, cracking the skull open. "Just leave me alone."

She turned. Dale's eyes were wide, his face taken-aback. A savage kind of satisfaction went through her as she stalked back off to the RV. Finally, someone had gotten the message.

Her heart was going fast again and her head was pounding, so she sat cross-legged on the ground by the RV door and focused on old breathing exercises. After a while, there was the slow sound of Dale's footsteps approaching. Sarah hunched her shoulders and pulled her knees up slightly as if to cage him off.

The footsteps stopped right by her, and she cracked one eye open, watching as Dale hefted himself slowly down to sit by her. Sarah almost shook her head. He was persistent. "You know, for the record, Doc, I don't think you do know your limitations." He looked at her, but Sarah stared resolutely ahead. "I think you think they're closer than they are."

"You think that."

"I'm not screwin' with you Sarah. I think that. I do."

Sarah felt the anger being to flow out of her like an open tap. Somehow, Dale's dogged persistence, the reasonable tone of his voice, prevented anger. She sighed. "In a perfect world, Dale, you might be right about me."

"It never was a perfect world," he said quietly. "We just do what we can with what we're given. We step up."

"Philosophical," she said, dryly, but she couldn't help mulling over his words. Damn it, she thought, banging her head back against the RV.

Dale grinned, taking the gesture as a sign that he'd gotten somewhere. "Think on it," he said, as if she could do anything but. He got to his feet, picking up the tool box with the all spare parts he and Sarah had collected buried inside.

Suddenly, his head jerked up. "D'you hear that?"

Her skin spiked, thinking he meant walkers, and she jumped to her feet instantly. "Hear what?" she asked her voice strained.

"Shh." Dale held up a hand, obviously listening hard, and Sarah fell quiet. Through the silence of the highway, she thought she could hear what he had – the sound of trees rustling, a voice yelling.

"Do you think it's them?" she asked in an undertone, her eyes widening. The yelling sounded urgent.

Dale's face was worried. He raised the shot gun in his arms slowly, but it only looked precautionary because he said, slowly. "It sounds like Lori…"

"You sure? Sounds like a horse," Sarah returned, listening to the rhythmic thudding. "What is –"

Suddenly, she realized what the person was yelling, and registered at the same time that it was,in fact, Lori.

Lori was yelling her name.

"Sarah! Dr Hannigan!"

A horse burst through the trees fast, it's rider pulling short on the reins to bring it to an abrupt halt just on the fringe. Sarah squinted. The woman was tall, with short dark hair, and behind her sat…

"Sarah!" Lori called desperately, again. And Sarah ran over, playing a game with herself in her head that she liked to call: expecting the worst. They'd found Sophia and she'd been hurt. Someone had had been bitten by a walker. Rick was hurt.

She tried to go through all the possibilities in her head, mentally preparing herself for what she might have to tackle, but she never could have imagined what Lori said when she approached the horse.

"Carl's been shot," she said, her face white.

"What?"

"Carl's been shot – we need your help."

Sarah blinked rapidly, but the woman sitting in front of Lori was already talking rapidly as Dale jogged up behind her. "He's at our farm. Take a car, it's the second turning on the left. It's a farm marked Greene. My daddy'll be able to help him, but Lori tells me you can help, too."

Sarah's eyes widened. "No. I'm a scientist not – "

"There's not much time," snapped the woman, pulling on the reins and turning the horse round to canter back into the forest. "Go!" she threw over her shoulder.

Sarah stood very still for a second and then whirled round to face Dale. "What car can I take?" she demanded. He seemed to be taking longer to gather himself than she was, gaping after the two woman cantering back off into the trees. "Dale," Sarah snapped.

"I don't know! I would say you could take the jeep but," he faltered, spreading his hands. "Shane might have the keys."

"Then you better know how to jump-start a car," she growled, heading over to the jeep.

"It's called hotwiring," called Dale, hurrying to keep up with her. "And I'm pretty sure you can only do that in films, Sarah…it only works on cars that are…that are at least from the 90s. The jeep's pretty new."

"Shit," Sarah muttered, stopping in her tracks and running a hand through her hair. It felt greasy with sweat, despite the fact she had attempted to wash it last night. By the time Dale had caught up with her again she was already off in a new direction.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm getting a car!"

She was surprised that most of the cars still had their keys in the ignition, making her think that they had been abandoned in haste. In the end, she chose a 1978 Ford pickup with a four wheel drive. There had been a walker inside but Dale shot it – blowing its brains out against the window. He helped Sarah shove the body out the car onto the highway and then she clambered into the drivers' seat.

Dale lent in through the window. "Remember – second exit – "

" – I know. I'll see you soon Dale."

He swallowed. "Good luck."

She drove down the grass verge the whole way – not bothering to risk the minefield of crashed cars on the road. The jerking of the truck as it bumped over tufts of grass caused all the wounds on her body to hurt. Her chest. The palms of her hands. Her ankles. She wasn't even thinking about that; she was thinking about Carl, and how, if he'd been shot, he needed a surgeon. Sarah'd cut up plenty of body's before, but they'd always been dead. They had been autopsies. This wasn't the same. She didn't think she could do this.

The Greene's farm was easy to find. It was down a long dirt road surrounded by acres of land. She couldn't believe a place as idyllic as this existed 20 minutes off the ruined highway. It also made her think about the herd. Surely that would have come through here? She looked at the two cows grazing calmly in a field surrounded by a fence of barbed wire as high as she was. It didn't look like it.

Sarah climbed the couple of wooden steps to the porch and didn't even have to knock before the door was flung wide open.

"You Sarah Hannigan?" a harassed-looking blonde woman asked, not even waiting for an answer as she assured Sarah through the door and down the hall.

"Yes, but –"

She made a clucking sound in the back of her throat. "My name's Patricia. Your boy's down here. He's not doin' too good."

Patricia led her into a downstairs bedroom and all the words Sarah had been about to say congealed in the bottom of her throat. For some reason, the first thing she registered were her surroundings – the Venetian blinds, the turn-of-the-century chenille bedspread, the raw yellow light of a bedside lamp. And then Carl, who was stretched out on the bed – apparently asleep – a sickly looking white. Sarah didn't recognize the only other person in the room; a white haired man whose bushy eyebrows reminded her of a Santa Clause with out the beard.

He was holding an IV in Carl's arm in place, but when he saw her he motioned for Patricia to hold the plastic bag aloft.

Sarah's throat unstuck. "Where's Rick?"

"In the next room with his friend. You must be the Doctor he told me about –"

" – scientist," Sarah corrected, her heart beating fast.

"He told me you'd say that, too."

"How is he - Carl?"

"Bullet missed his liver by about an inch but it's fragmented. We need to get the shrapnel out before it does anymore damage."

"Internal bleeding?"

"A lot of it. I'm going to need your help." Hershel was already snapping on gloves and Sarah swallowed, trying to clear her head.

"I need to wash my hands first, they're covered in oil."

The sink was in the kitchen, and Sarah tried to wash her skin as fast and as thoroughly as she could. Once back in the room, Patricia handed her her own pair of gloves. Sarah was glad to see that the scalpel and tweezers the old man was pulling out of his kit were in plastic bags – new – and therefore sterile. "You're a surgeon?" she asked, kneeling by Carl's bedside as she took in the array of equipment.

He glanced at her. "Vet," he said, levelly, handing her a pair of retractors. "Now I'm going to need you to hold the wound open so I can see what I'm doing."

"Doesn't he need anesthetic first?"

Hershel shook his head. "We don't have any."

Her heart clenched and tumbled. "Okay," Sarah said, processing what he had just said. She looked at Carl and thought, for a moment, she would throw up. "Okay," she said again, taking a deep breath.

She reached forwards, trying to ignore that this was Carl's body, that this was a human being, and tried to pretend she was practicing on a dead body like she had whilst in training. Carefully, gently, Sarah pushed the tools into the wound – amazed at how deep she was forced to go, pushing back layers of ragged tissue and fat until she detected a black, metallic fragment of bullet embedded in the flesh. She cleared her throat, leaning back for Hershel to move in. "I've got it. I can see the first fragment."

She watched as he leaned in, wielding the tweezers with far more skill than she had the retractors. "Patricia, light, please" he instructed, bending intensively over the wound – but as the woman leaned over with the lamp, Carl suddenly stirred.

Sarah jerked her head up at him - all the while trying to keep her hands steady – her eyes wide. Carl moaned.

"He's going to wake up," the man reassure her, calmly, with out looking up from his task. "When he does, he's going to be in too much pain to lie still. We need the two men back in here. We need the father – the boy's lost too much blood already."

Patricia nodded and moved out of the room quickly and silently.

Carl stirred again, an earthquake tremor underneath Sarah's fingers – and suddenly, it was a lot more difficult to keep her hands steady. He moaned more loudly this time as the elderly man pushed around inside his wound, and his legs flew out abruptly, jerking wildly. His whole body bucked into the air, and Sarah forced it back down onto the bed by leaning her body weight onto her elbows.

"Shit."

"Hold still, Sarah," the man instructed firmly. "Do not move your hands. If you do, you could nick and artery and he'll bleed to death."

Sweat beaded on Sarah's forehead, and her heart jumped into her throat. Carl's blood soaked her gloves and smeared the skin of her wrists – hot and sticky. "I can't –" she grit out, as Carl thrashed again. "He's moving too much!"

"Hold still." He said, more firmly now. "Do not move your hand."

There was the sound of movement down the hall and it took all of Sarah's self control not to look up from her task as Rick and Shane burst into the room. As if brought to life, Carl screamed out – a blood curling shriek as Hershel dug in to get the first fragment of bullet.

"Hershel, what are you doing!" Rick screamed.

"You almost had it," Sarah panted to the man she now realized was called Hershel, ignoring Rick as Carl thrashed again. She watched him dig in with the tweezers, scraping at the shrapnel lodged soundly into the ragged pieces of flesh, and it took everything she had not to look away – not because she found the sight disgusting, but because she could connect each movement the man made with the wave of pain going through Carl's body. Knowing that as he scraped the probe this way or that way, the young boy was in blinding, agonizing pain.

Carl screamed out again, long and drawn out, as Hershel lodged on to the piece of flesh, digging in to get at the bullet – pushing –

"You're killing him!" yelled Rick, close to tears as Carl struggled beneath Sarah. Spit bubbled at his lips as he cried out, and Sarah could see tears on his cheeks, leaking out of his screwed up eyes. He screamed again. In her periphery she saw that Patricia had hooked Rick up to transfuse his blood to Carl; he was barely looking at the cannula in his arm.

Just get it out of him, Sarah prayed, wishing she'd tied her hair back as thick waves of it fell by her face. She couldn't move, couldn't even shake her head to move her fringe for fear she'd break her concentration and accidentally lose her grip on the retractors as Carl struggled.

The boy let out one long, agonizing shriek as the tweezers dug into the tissue the fragment was embedded in, in an attempt to gain purchase underneath it, and then he gave a shudder and passed out as the makeshift surgeon opposite Sarah withdrew the impossibly tiny shard, dropping it onto a plate offered by Patricia.

He looked at Sarah as she tried to relax the bunched up muscles in her arms. His sad, blue eyes bored into hers. "One down," he said, "five more to go."

A/N At a little over 9,000 words, this is the longest chapter I've written to date. It is also the most fun I've had writing for Day 100. It's been ages since I've had to do proper, in depth research for a chapter and it was so interesting researching surgery for the scene with Sarah, Hershel and Carl (though, admittedly, it was less pleasant writing it!) or the scene about car parts with Sarah and Dale. And I also loved writing the 'outbreak' scene with Lori and Carl. That's one thing I really wanted to explore – the panic of when it all started. Something that Sarah and Rick both missed, so it was fun to do a scene on it here.

Also, they've finally made it to Hershel's farm! I feel like a mile-stone has been reached.

Please remember to review! I appreciate all your comments.

Last Of The Lilac Wine