𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒍𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 ➪ «𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑥𝑜𝑛»

ch. XLVIII - 《the barn》

oOo

In the morning, Felix was exhausted but feverless. Alice had woken up with him clinging to her side in his sleep, and an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness had triumphed over her aversion toward physical contact.

Then she realized why he had cuddled up to her and not Diana, as was usual. The little bitch was missing from her side of the bed.

She appeared shortly after with some kind of oatmeal for Felix, dismissing Alice to breakfast with shifty eyes.

Alice saw but didn't mention the flushed cheeks and braid awfully done in a hurry. She waited until Diana sat on the bed before kneeling behind her to undo her tangled hair and braid the curls into two tight French braids. In a way, braiding each other's hair was for them a symbol of their sisterhood, that they would always be there for one another.

Then she stood, nodded at her sister's smile of gratitude, and left.

She joined Glenn as soon as she saw him sitting by the fire pit outside, and accepted a plate of crisp, almost burned bacon and scrambled eggs from T-Dog. The meal took her back to her family's camping days, and she had to swallow the nostalgia.

She and Glenn had been in the middle of an earnest conversation about childhood cartoons when Carol confronted a newly arrived Rick about their lack of action regarding finding her daughter.

An uncomfortable silence reigned over them as they waited for an answer. Carol had already begun tearing up and sniffling before Lori stood from her chair to put her arms around her.

Rick glanced subtly at Alice, who shrugged back, and then he asked the two women to accompany him. He led them into the RV, and not five minutes later, Carol's sobbing and wailing could be heard.

That generated unrest among the group. Alice heard Andrea hopefully suggest that maybe they'd found Sophia. It wasn't untrue, but not in the way Andrea was thinking.

All you had to do was listen to Carol's sounds of grief to know what had been said because those totally sounded like tears of joy and relief. The inner eyeroll was so strong that it manifested itself physically. Andrea saw it. Alice couldn't care less.

oOo

A knock on the wooden doorframe made Diana turn from Felix to face the visitor. She smiled at Glenn's familiar face, but the frown creasing his brow instantly worried her.

"What's wrong?"

"Rick's gonna- he's gonna tell 'em about..." he trailed off, but it didn't take a genius to understand. "He asked for you."

Diana swallowed thickly. Was he looking for support or a scapegoat? The latter would've been so ridiculously off-character for Rick that it almost made her laugh to even think of it.

She wondered what her parents would say or do in her situation, and could almost imagine her dad's voice saying 'Tell him to go to hell, you got other damn priorities'. It brought a faint smile to her lips, but it weighed on her heart like an anchor.

She looked back to Felix. He was still weakened; the fever had done quite a job on him, he even struggled to hold the spoon and bowl Diana had been feeding him from.

"Tell him... I'm sorry but I can't. He'll understand." She hoped he would. All she asked for was the rest of the day for her brother to recuperate. After all she'd given, it wasn't too much to ask in return.

Glenn nodded with comprehension and left.

Diana returned to her task, stopping only for a second to caress her little brother's cheek. She smiled fondly when he leaned his face toward her hand with a look of serenity.