C A R O L

I didn't know what exactly happened, but when I woke up and heard Daryl screaming, I knew something had to be wrong.

I quickly got changed into some new clothes, slipped and tied on my boots, and headed outside to all the sudden commotion. Everyone was scattered and looking for something, so I walked up to Jesus and asked, "What's wrong? What's going on?"

He looked up at me and countered, "H-Have you seen Tess?"

"Tess?" I breathed out her name in question. "Not today, but I did yesterday. Why? What's wrong?"

"She's missing," he claimed and walked away, but I was hot on his trail by following him.

"Missing? How?" I demanded to know, as I tried my best to remember every little detail from our last night's conversation. "Honestly, how is that possible?"

In one swift motion, he spun around on his heels and placed his arms in the air. "I don't know. It just is. She's gone!"

I knew that he didn't mean to blow up on me since he has always been such a subtle and calm person. He was just probably very sad and heartbroken that his twin sister was missing, and he didn't have any clue where she was. She could be anywhere at this point, and this probably scared him half to death.

"Where is she?!" Daryl exclaimed, probably for the hundredth time this morning.

I noticed Tara, who was running towards Daryl with some papers in her right hand. "She's gone..."

"What happened?" Jesus ran up to her and asked his own questions while I followed his steps. Morgan ran up as well, along with Maggie and Rick.

Tara gulped and wagged the stack of papers in her hands. "I just found these," she tried to explain, through breaths from having to run over here in a hurry. "In our shared trailer. She wanted me to find these. She wanted us all to read them, too."

Without saying a word, Daryl snatched the papers from Tara's hands and flipped through them, reading a little of what was on each page. Damn, I thought to myself after seeing the three sheets of paper that were written on front and back. She had a lot to get off of her chest.

"Well?" Rick asked, looking to Daryl in question about what's on the sheets of paper. "Did she say where she was going?"

Daryl shook his head and spat out, "Of course not! She doesn't want to be found!"

I sent a glance over at Jesus, who looked almost emotionless in hearing this new news, but I knew that there was something much more and deeper going on his head. He was looking out, like he was looking into space, and she was waiting for him there.

"She gonna kill herself?" Maggie deadpanned, eyes trying to connect with Daryl, who held the papers in his hands. Her question made Jesus look up with wide eyes and gulped, placing a hand over his heart, almost like he was going to fall out dead right here and now.

"Don't know," Daryl replied, hurt by his own answer. "She only said she was really sad about Carl and everyone else dying."

To reassure Jesus, I peeped in, "Doesn't mean she ran off and killed herself!"

"Can't rule it out," Rick suddenly said, and that's when Paul slowly turned his back on everyone, walking away before he finally disappeared into his trailer. "So, what we gotta do is go out there and look for her in teams. Daryl and Tara, you'll be one group. Then, it'll be-"

"She's doesn't want anyone coming after her," Tara claimed since she had already read the letter. "Nobody, Rick."

"We gotta at least try," Rick countered, not taking 'no' for an answer. "We can't lose her."

"What did you talk to her about last night?" I suddenly found myself asking Rick. He looked back at me and gulped. "I saw you. What did you two talk about?"

Everyone turned to Rick in question, even when I didn't mean to put the third-degree on him. "Carl... He wrote her a letter, and I gave it to her."

I slowly nodded, now understanding why Tess did what she did. "She left because of that letter, most likely," I claimed, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. "You gotta understand that she was already sad. She had just lost Carl before Dwight took off again. She was going through the motions... But, you handed her that letter, and for whatever was in it, she probably thought that it was too much and she needed to leave before it was too late."

"And?" Morgan choked out in question before anyone else could.

I gulped, looked up at everyone, and concluded, "She doesn't want to see anyone else die." It took everyone a moment to take that in, even if it didn't give Daryl and Tara any satisfaction. "She is depressed and she doesn't want to stick around for the bitter end when she's the only one left. She probably would rather be alone than with us when everyone slowly gets picked off until there is nobody left, but her. It's why I left Alexandria before."

Again, it took everyone a moment to digest this until Rick (again) spoke up, "We have to find her... Before the Saviors do and, then, they kill her."

I signaled for the letter, and Daryl handed them over while I glanced through them and picked out some key-words.

I have to leave so that I can pretend that he's back there at Alexandria and living like a normal kid again.

I haven't really been able to sleep since Abraham and Glenn.

You are a great leader to these lost people of Alexandria and to the rest of the world, too. It wasn't YOUR fault for what happened to Carl.

I hope that Maggie has a beautiful baby that reminds her of Glenn. I hope that he can imagine the hero that he was.

She kept me going, even after Glenn was gone - as Daryl did, too.

I hope that Judith remembers her fallen hero - her big brother, Carl.

I'm going to miss that kid more than I ever thought that I would.

He's always kept me alive, and that's why I can't and won't face him. I won't say goodbye to him. He'll know something is up, and then, he'll try to stop me.

I'm not going back to the ruins of Alexandria. I'm not going to hide away within the Kingdom, either. I'm going somewhere, where no one will find me at.

"Okay," I gulped after I looked through it. "I'm going to go after her."

"You don't know where she's going or where she's at," Tara yelled, obviously frustrated. "She didn't say in her letter and, trust me, I read it a few times!"

"I'll start at Alexandria," I claimed, and they all looked at me in question. "If Tess was really going to leave once and for all, she would go back to her home and to say goodbye to Carl once and for all. Don't you think?"

"Still, she doesn't want anyone coming after her," Daryl claimed, shaking his head as he faced me under his layers of hair.

"Doesn't matter," I stated and shrugged. "She doesn't get to come in our lives and check-out when she doesn't feel good. She needs somebody to tell her that. We need her if we're gonna win this war against Negan."

"I'll come with you," Morgan suddenly said, followed by Maggie adding, "So will I."

"No," I squeaked out, and they stopped in their places. "She doesn't need a crowd of people to ambush her. I'll go by myself." Then, I faced Maggie and almost whispered, "Look, I know you probably feel guilty, but don't. I'm going to get her and bring her back here. She's gonna be just fine."

With that said, I turned my back on all of them and headed to my trailer, where I would collect my things and head out to find Tess, bringing her home.

-

IT didn't take me long to figure out Tess's path of destruction, coming from the Hilltop to the ruins of Alexandria. I found a runway of freshly dead Walkers and, approaching Alexandria, one of the trees not far from the entrance had a T cut into it, like somebody had used a machete or knife to carve it into there.

I walked through the ruins, realizing that the fire had gone out, and noticed a new makeshift grave not far from me. I didn't have to get close to realize that it was Carl's, where Rick and Michonne had buried him at. Coming closer, I had to squint my eyes together to notice the flowers across it, but they were more like pulled-up weeds than actual flowers. They were very small and yellow, and I already knew Tess had left them there for him.

I gingerly walked inside, hoping not to trip over any Walker bodies or maybe even some booty-traps that Tess could've sat out. However, the place doesn't look like it's rigged with anything, so I kept on walking until I saw the house that Tess had always shared with Daryl since she moved here, the same one that she showed me once upon a time. The front door was ajar while half of the roof had been destroyed.

I started to second-guess myself of Tess being here until I softly walked onto the stairs and peeked inside, seeing a body sprawled out on the couch with a blanket draped over the body.

Not knowing what else to say, I squeaked out, "Tess?"

The head to the body perked up behind the book that it was buried in, and, in total disbelief, it was definitely Tess. I was shocked but walked in further.

"Carol?"

"Hey," I breathed out and opened the door even further to give myself more room to step inside. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She sat up, tossed the blanket off of her, and slammed the book onto the coffee table in front of the couch. "I told you all not to come after me," she growled, eyebrows together in anger, before she began to walk away, going into the kitchen area. "Should've dipped out of here when I had the chance."

I followed her and replied, "I know what Carl's death means to you..."

She faced me with wide-eyes when I said the kid's name, and she growled out, "You don't have the right, but you should..."

"Look, I know," I tried to pick right back up where I left off. "My daughter died. I could've stopped it, but... I was so weak." Tess slowed her pace of packing up her stuff in her bag and seemed to now be listening to my story. "She was just a little girl. So innocent. She just... simply got lost in the woods."

I noticed that she had gulped, and she had stopped what she was doing altogether, with tears freshly in the bottom of her eyes. "What?"

"She got bit," I tried explaining once more, in more detail. "Tess, don't let it get you down. If every death affects you like this, then you will always be depressed."

"What was her name?" Tess asked, and I was sort of surprised that she did. Her voice was gentle and hoarse.

I slowly shook my head, almost terrified to say her name, until I finally confessed, "Sophia. Her name was Sophia. She was only twelve years old when it happened."

"I'm... I am so sorry, Carol," she decided to apologize, which was surprising in her own grief. "It hurts, y'know? We're losing them so young now... It hurts to think about if I were to ever bring a child into this world. I would constantly be worried."

"They're never too far away," I whispered without meaning to, taking a step closer. "You get to visit them all the time. I don't have that same luxury with my daughter. Only in my dreams, do I see her."

She slowly nodded her head before looking back up at me, with tears now streaming down her face. "I'm sorry," she apologized again, sniffling. "I'm sorry that you lost your daughter, Carol."

"So am I," I said before I brought her into a hug, my arms around her neck and her arms around my body. We embraced, through common ground, over losing those who should still be here right now. I lost my young daughter, but she lost someone who was like a little brother to her.

I sniffled before we let go of each other, and, looking deep into her eyes, I said, "Now, Tess... We need you, for whatever comes next. Carl wants us to fight back. Don't you think that Abraham and Glenn would want you to fight back, too? Are you in?"

She looked away before she walked out of the grip that I had on her shoulders, shaking her head, but I think that she was really thinking about it.

Finally, she glanced over her shoulder with glassy eyes and replied, "For our family."