Torn Apart • TWD

Chapter 10 - are you stupid?

It is dead silent after Tessa's revelation. No one dared to even breathe. Rick is speechless and his knees are close to giving out beneath him.

The girl is shuffling her feet, waiting for the group to get over their perplexed expressions and start bombarding her with questions, maybe even accusing her of lying.

But nothing, no one speaks, no one moves, no one breathes. It's annoying the girl, she managed to get over it faster than them and she's the one who had to rip the infant out of its mother's uterus.

The brunette standing closest to the fence is the first to clear her throat and ask, "Is the baby okay?" Grabbing everyone's attention, anxiously waiting for her to tell them of the baby's health.

"If she had died I would have said that," Tessa rolls her eyes while the tall one that brought Rick out shoots a biter that came close to the girl, Daryl's still trying to process the information, how he had tracked Lori's footsteps and lost them, trying different directions for months, how all this time the baby was alive. No one in the group admitted it, but every time they came back without Lori, they all lost more and more hope for her and the baby's survival.

Though Carl had lost hope the day he saw his mother run out of the prison, he had been reminding them all of how she was dead and that they should stop looking, the boy became defiant and cruel, saying things about chasing ghosts.

Rick's mind is speeding with a million different thoughts, he has a daughter, his wife is dead, how will he tell his son? Why did this girl come now? Has the baby been taken care of? Is the girl part of a group? What is she here for?

While Tessa is thinking about how Lola has probably woken up by now, waiting for the child to cradle her in her arms and give her a bottle. Itching to get home, she decides to try to speed this up.

"Look, I'm here because Lori told me she wanted the baby to be with family, and it was pretty damn hard to search for this place while taking care of the little thing. So if you don't want her then tell me now so I can go home," that instantly snapped Rick into his right mind, and he shook his head with such ferocity she thought it might fly off.

"No, no. I want her, please, I want her," he breaths out while a single tear plummets down his face.

"Okay..." suddenly not knowing how to continue this conversation, she trails off, but luckily the old man with the crutches took a step forward while beginning to speak.

"Can I ask some questions about how to baby is doing?" With a clear look of hesitance on her face, the woman with short grey hair steps in.

"He's our doctor, he just wants to ask some questions about her health," Tessa nods and finally after so much begging from her arms, puts the crossbow down, she's still holding it just to piss off Daryl, but it's no longer pointed at him.

"Before I begin, would you like to step inside?" The old man gestures to the gates to the left, but before someone can run to open it Tessa shakes her head, she's close enough to them as is, she doesn't need to be trapped with a chain fence locking her in.

"Alright. How much formula is she getting per day?" Everyone is listening with an uneasy feeling, not knowing the girl's past with babies, they didn't expect much from how well the infant is doing.

"Five bottles a day," she answers with ease, since it was only her caring for the baby, she knows everything from how many shits Lola takes to her most mellow time of day.

"Has she been growing?"

"She's heavier now," she shrugs while the old man smiles.

"Has she become unwell?" Tessa freezes before she can answer, almost not wanting to tell them about those three hellish days, but she's doing it for Lola since he's a doctor and maybe she can finally know what she did that made the baby like that.