Unbreakable threads

Chapter 3 : long lost daughter

Rick took a shaky breath, his mind reeling from the horrors he'd encountered in the hospital. He stared at the figure of the young girl. They both stood metres apart unsure what to do. Ricks heartbeat was loud in his chest. Until she closed the distance between them with a sense of urgency that mirrored the confusion in his own heart.

She stopped just short of him, her breaths coming in quick, shallow gasps. For a moment, neither of them spoke, both studying each other with a mixture of wonder and apprehension. Finally, she broke the silence.

"Are you... are you Rick Grimes?" Her voice was steady, but her eyes held a depth that took him aback, a familiarity that twisted something deep inside him.

"Yes," he managed, his voice hoarse from disuse. "I'm... Rick."

She hesitated, her face a mix of relief and disbelief, then whispered two words that cut through him like a blade. "Alice Foley."

The name hit him like a freight train, and he felt his blood run cold, his mind jolting back to memories from years ago. Alice Foley. She'd been his high school fling, a girl with a sharp wit and a wild laugh, someone he'd cared about deeply before life swept them in different directions. He hadn't heard her name in years, hadn't thought about her since those fleeting days of youth.

But now, looking at the girl in front of him, he felt an inexplicable pull. Her eyes—they were a mirror of his own, that piercing blue that seemed to hold worlds of their own. Suddenly, he understood, the pieces snapping into place with chilling clarity.

"Alice..." he whispered, more to himself than to her, his voice choked with emotion. But the girl held his gaze, her expression guarded, waiting, like she'd been searching for him her entire life.

The silence between them was heavy, filled with all the years of questions she'd kept locked inside, all the lonely nights when she'd wondered why her father wasn't there. And now he was here, standing in front of her, this broken man with eyes like hers.

Alyssa swallowed hard, watching as the truth sunk into him, as he reached for words that seemed just out of reach. For the first time in her life, she felt a strange flicker of hope—a fragile thing, but something real. This was him. Her father. And for a heartbeat, the fear and the loss faded, leaving only the two of them standing in a world that felt, for just a moment, whole.

Alyssa stood there, her gaze locked on the man who was her father, feeling a strange mix of relief, anger, and hope twist inside her chest. She'd come this far on a thread of belief—a desperate, fragile belief that he was still alive, that this one piece of her mother's past could be real. And now here he was, right in front of her, but he seemed just as stunned as she felt, like he was still trying to make sense of it all.

Rick took a shaky step closer, his face pale, a mixture of guilt and wonder settling in his eyes. "What's your name?" he whispered.  " Alyssa" she said softly. Rick held back his tears, his mind reeling with a number of thoughts.

Alyssa swallowed, feeling the sting of tears she didn't want to shed. "She never told you, did she?" Her voice came out harsher than she intended, but she couldn't hold back the years of frustration that suddenly bubbled to the surface. "All this time... you didn't know?"

Rick shook his head, the weight of regret evident in his eyes. "No," he said, voice rough, and it struck her that he looked just as lost as she felt. "If I'd known... Alyssa, I—" His voice broke, and she could see him searching for the right words, fighting to say something that could fill the gap of seventeen missing years.

But the anger simmered in her chest, a resentment she hadn't let herself feel before. "I spent my whole life wondering why you weren't there," she said, her voice trembling. "I asked her so many times. She never talked about you. Not once."