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SHE DIDN'T know Otis, not at all. She hadn't even met him in her brief time at the farm. But watching all of his family and close friends mourn and cry over him was an experience she felt completely removed from. She was snapped out of any sort of reverie that she was trapped in when she heard the roar of a motorcycle in the distance.
Glancing up from her spot on the front steps of the house, she stood up as everyone gathered around her to greet the others from the highway. Daryl pulled up first on his bike, followed by Carol and Dale in the RV.
"How is he?" Dale asked blankly, gazing between Rick and Lori in concern.
"He'll pull through," Lori answered, nodding furiously looking as though she was about to cry again. Arden swore nearly every time she had seen Lori since she arrived she was practically on the verge of tears. "Thanks to Hershel and his people, and —"
"And Shane," Rick finished, shooting his friend a thankful glance. "We'd have lost Carl if it wasn't for him." Arden trained her glance on Shane a few moments extra — he didn't appear as relieved as all of the others appeared to be.
Dale stumbled forward and pulled Rick into a hug. The others who had newly arrived followed suit with other members of the group and Arden looked at her feet briefly. This is exactly what she had been talking to Glenn about, but this time she chose to ignore it.
Later that day was Otis' funeral and Arden didn't have much to contribute. She stood next to Daryl and they both stared at the ground, trying to respect what was going on, but neither one to show extreme outward emotion — especially to someone they had never known. Shane gave a graphic description of his final moments that made Arden almost want to throw up.
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The next day, she was standing in front of Rick and a map, waiting for his answer to her insistence that she be part of the search party for Sophia. She had to be useful somehow, and this is how she planned on doing it.
"Are you sure?" he questioned her, giving her an unsure glance to match his tone.
"Yes, I'm sure. I just want to help and I can handle myself around a gun," she told him concisely. "Rick, please."
He considered her a moment before grabbing one of the guns off of the top of the truck the map was laying on, handing it to her. He beckoned her over to the map and pointed at one of the squares that they had gridded on the paper. "I only want you looking in this area, got it?"
"Got it," she confirmed, mentally creating a route from where they were to her designated area.
"And I don't care what you find, be back by sundown. If I'm sendin' you out by yourself, I can't risk you out there alone at night."
