NO WAY BACK | carl grimes | ON PAUSE

twenty - four: when it all came falling down

"Fear."

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ELAINA WATCHED WITH FRIGHTENED EYES AS SHANE made his way towards the front of the farmhouse. Everyone was gathered there, except for Rick, Hershel, and Jimmy. Montana took Elaina's arm and walked at a fast pace over to where everyone was standing. By the time they had got there, Elaina was slightly out of breath.

"Hey look here. It was one thing sitting around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe, but now we know it ain't," Shane said in a loud voice.

"Shane, what are you doing?" Montana demanded. "You can't be handing out these guns. Rick isn't back yet."

"To hell with you and whatever you've got to say," Shane snapped. "We got a problem here and we need to fix it. Plain and simple. You got a problem with that, well then that's your issue."

"I haven't got a problem with killing the walkers. It's the way you're handling this situation is where my issue lies," Montana replied.

"Who gives a damn? One way or another those walkers have to be gone. You've got a little girl to protect there. Haven't you?"

"So, once we get rid of the walkers then, where do we go?" Montana questioned. "Hershel will throw us off the land. Aren't we killing these walkers to make this place safer? What's the point if we are going to be thrown off?"

"Hershel will just have to come around to it," Shane said loudly. "He has to. It's just the way it is."

Shane handed Glenn a gun. "How about you, man? Are you going to protect what is yours?"

"Will you stop this?" Maggie shouted. "If you do this, Montana is right. My daddy will make you leave this farm tonight!"

"We have to stay, Shane," Carl said as bravely as he could.

"This is big mistake," Wayne said, shaking his head. "It doesn't feel right."

"To hell with what feels right! What are we doing? Taking the high moral ground? Where will that get us? Killed. That's where! Hershel will just have have to accept this. That is it."

"We need to find Sophia. Am I right?" Shane said, bending down to give Carl a gun. Elaina watched him speak to Carl like a father to a son. In that moment, Elaina thought about Shane's words from earlier. Crying over milk that had already curdled. It was a phrase that Elaina had heard once before, from a man who Elaina didn't know very well at all.

Her father.

"There ain't no point looking for that rabbit! Elaina you're crying over milk that has already curdled, child."

The words had been spoken straight after she had lost her rabbit Dolly, who was later found lifeless in the nearby forest by her brother. Elaina recalled the tears, and the comforting arms of her brother who held her all night. However, that wasn't the only thing Elaina remembered. She thought about how insincere that phrase was when she first heard it and how it had made her feel like the most stupid girl in the world.