the walking dead: the wife

chapter vii: nothing

To say that her head was a bomb about to explode was an understatement. Sierra's brain throbbed inside her skull, which was good because it was a perfect mental distraction but bad because it was a painful one – and if it was already painful in the silence of her room, then imagine when someone comes in speaking a little too loud.

"Hey, Sierra-"

"Shut. The Hell. Up."

Maggie, the intruder, laughed at her friend's condition. As the good person that she was, she decided to save any teasing for another time and focus now on delivering the message she had been given.

"Your husband's asking for you, apparently you two are going out today"

"Like a date?" the sleepy woman asked raising a curious eyebrow.

"Search party for Sophia"

Shit, Sophia. She had completely forgotten about her.

Sierra jumped out of bed, quickly pulling on a pair of pants as she swore under her breath and tried to comb her hair in the bathroom mirror, though her nervous hands only made her disheveled further. Again, Maggie laughed, but this time she did decide to tease her.

"I think I should've clarified that it is not a date"

She decided to ignore her comment, choosing to leave the room after putting her hair up into a ponytail. Just like Maggie said, Shane was waiting for her on the porch steps, although he forgot to mention that he was accompanied by Rick and Daryl.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" she asked the redneck, covering the sunlight with her hand so it wouldn't hit her in the eyes.

"M'fine" he growled.

As if someone would be fine after a .270 almost went through their skull and an arrow pierced their side.

"We thought that you and Shane could go to the place you saw her last, me and Daryl will keep an eye out around here" Rick explained, straight to the point and without wanting the conversation to go off topic.

"I think someone should be at the highway, she really wanted to stay there" the woman offered.

"Then why didn't you stay?"

"Alright, then T-Dog, Daryl and Carol will go back there" Rick cut off again, at this point obviously tense about something else and wanting this conversation to end "I'll stay here"

All of them agreed to the plan, although Daryl looked a bit unhappy (apparently it was part of his personality). So they got to work - Daryl went to talk to T-Dog and Carol, informing them of what they were going to do; Rick went into the farm with his wife to see his son, who was already healing from his surgery but still couldn't walk; and Shane and Sierra got into a lime green car to drive to where she lost the girl.

The drive to the housing state was in comfortable silence, with Shane driving and Sierra trying to manage her headache. Sometimes he would stop looking at the road to look at her, smiling to himself at the memories this moment brought back – the many times Sierra came home drunk after a night out with her friends, how he was always there to take care of her, and how much he wished he could be taking care of her right now too. Although this time he had to admit that he was concerned about why she had decided to get drunk.

"That's the place, to the left" she pointed out once they reached the small pharmacy almost at the gates of the residential area.

"Wiltshire Estates" he read the welcome sign as he took the turn "Sounds fancy"

Sierra was the first to get out of the car once he parked, immediately with her gun drawn in case some walker tried to attack them unexpectedly – although the place was suspiciously quiet. But that silence was perfectly explained by the three corpses of walkers that were at the doors of one of the houses.