Arrowbound

7. The Loudest Sound

The next morning Astrid woke up slower than usual, she had spent most the night laying awake in bed. Daryl had tried to ask her what happened but she just said Shane was helping her do something and kept denying anything so eventually he gave up on finding out.

"Ash, get yer' ass up, breakfast." Daryl grunted, rubbing his forehead, the hangover from all his drinking starting to affect him now. Astrid groaned and got up, rubbing the sleep out her eyes, holding onto her bunny teddy that her mom gave her when she was 2. She left the bunny in the cot than headed down to where everyone was having breakfast, Daryl said he would join soon.

A few people were around the table, Glenn had his head in his hands groaning from hangover pain. T-dog gave everyone eggs as Astrid took a seat down next to Sophie who was eating toast and holding a doll.

"Do you want eggs, Astrid?" T-dog asked as he reached her, she was hesitant since sometimes scrambled eggs made her tummy hurt, but she nodded anyways and he put some on her plate. He next offered to Sophie, she declined since she had toast already.

"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn muttered as Jacqui rubbed his back, Astrid barely noticed as Shane walked in since she was looking down at the table with her head in her hands.

"Hey," Shane said as he approached.

"Hey." Rick replied, "Feel as bad as I do?"

"Worse." Shane replied, Astrid looked over at Lori who was now looking down at her plate.

"The hell happened to you?" T-dog said concerned, looking at Shane. "Your neck?"

"Must've done it in my sleep," Shane lied, he glanced at Astrid who quickly looked back down at her eggs.

"Never seen you do that before," Rick added, more concerned now as he looked at his best friend.

"Me neither, not like me at all." Shane replied, glancing over at Lori.

Astrid shuffled uncomfortably in her seat and kept looking down until Sophie tapped her arm, "Astrid?" she asked in a gentle tone.

"Yeah?" Astrid replied with a short nod, finally looking up from her plate.

"Where's your mom?" Sophie asked carefully.

"Oh," Astrid replied and swallowed a lump in her throat, she didn't like talking about how she lost her mom, she didn't really like talking about her mom in general. Astrid loved her mom, she was always with her and they did almost everything together, up until her mom killed herself 2 years back, overdose.

"She died," Astrid finally replied, using her fork to poke at the now cold eggs.

"Oh, was she bit?" Sophie questioned hesitantly, Astrid shook her head, "Mine was." Sophie added with a frown.

"Overdosed, that's how she died." Astrid finally said, "Bout' 2 years ago."

"Oh," was all Sophie replied with, they both had dead mothers apparently. "What was her name?"

"Celia." Astrid said before falling back into silence.

Dr. Jenner walked in and ruffled Sophies hair before going over to get some coffee before Dale spoke up, "Doc, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..."

"But you will anyway?" Dr. Jenner cut in with a sigh as he poured his coffee.

"We didn't come here for the eggs," Andrea added, Daryl walked in the room shortly after that and got something to eat before the doctor lead them into the room from yesterday with all the computer screens.

"Give me a playback of TS-19" Dr Jenner said to the robotic women who repeated that and did as he said. Astrid stood by her dad as the screen lit up with images of a human brain. "Few people got to see this, very few."