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It had been a total of three weeks. Three weeks since Rick woke from his coma, three weeks since everything had fallen apart. Three weeks of silent torture, the silent decay of her husbands' sanity. Three weeks since any sense of normality had even dared to creep up her spine with welcoming arms. Everything she once knew to be true had been proven false, every tale she had been told backfired and slammed into her with no thought of slowing down. Adeline Grimes had never felt so afraid, fearing that every day she lived might be her last - or even worse, the last one for someone she loved. There was a sense of hope that hung on by a torn thread, hope that she could save her husband from the spiraling tornado of insanity. She needed him - she wanted him to be okay, to tell her he loves her without her mind tricking her into believing that he only said it to have her on his side.
Three weeks of destruction and mixed with another week full of endless arguments and a feeling unsettlement. Randall had spent his last day inside of the barn, his leg healed as best as it could before Shane convinced Rick to throw him out. They had returned from their trip to retrieve Hershel a week ago, and ever since the group had become unhinged at the thought of Randall's group coming to the farm in search of him. But like the teen, they had no clue where they were. And Adeline was sure of the fact that they weren't even sparing a second to search for the boy, seeing as the last time they saw him his leg was impaled by a fence and left for the walkers. They thought he was dead - she better than anyone, knows exactly how it feels. To be left behind, to have the person you love think you're dead. Or even worse, walking among the dead.
When her husband and brother left together to drop Randall off, and returned with bloodied faces and bruised knuckles - she knew what had happened. It went south, like it always does. The teen was still with them, unable to let him go on his own due to him knowing Maggie. Shane told his wife what happened when he left - he told her everything Rick said and everything he did. The fight, the nearly leaving him to die, and the sacrifice for the many. They all came back but in scattered pieces, scattered minds and scattered truths. Rick knew what had happened at the school with Otis, but Shane was the one to take all of the blame. He made sure that Adeline was in the clear, and from her brothers perspective - she didn't know a single thing about what happened. She wasn't in on it, she didn't have a say in Otis dying.
But Adeline was burdened with the truth. The nightmares that reminded her of what she had done, the sins she had committed. She made her bed and now she was forced to lie in it. Outcomes and consequences; something that had always been there but now become their new normality. It was a thing you couldn't escape, if you did something then you would have to suffer for it. The day her brother and husband left to drop Randall off eighteen miles out, she stayed. Adeline helped look after Beth, she helped Hershel clean up his barn and she took watch for an hour until Glenn came to relieve her from it. When the blonde teen slit her wrists, Adeline helped stitch the cuts up. She felt guilty, a blameful remorse laying restlessly upon her shoulders. She could've stopped Shane, (at least that's what Rick said to her) but she didn't. And for that, the blame was not just on her husband but also herself.
