— ZOE AND NATE WERE SAFE TO say that the group knew about the two of them, and how they had become extremely close. Most of them had even predicted it would happen the second the two started talking back at their camp in Atlanta.. As they sat on the porch of the farm house, Zoe leaned into Nate comfortably, as he played with strands of her hair, trying to keep her relaxed. She had always been restless and stressed out when her father went away from the group for a long amount of time, and today was one of them days. He couldn't do much to make her feel better, as if he would have gone with, that would mean that Zoe would be worried about two people in her life, and she didn't need that right now. Zoe was glad to see that Maggie had forgiven Glenn for outing the walkers in the farm, as she noticed her best friend really liked the Greene girl.
When Maggie cracked a joke about Glenn's hat, and offered to wash his other one for him, she and Nate exchanged a look when Glenn blushed. They both wanted the two to finally get together, and were waiting for that day. It was quite ironic, as the two knew that people thought of them the same way - although, now they were actually taking that advice, and expressing their feelings, and it was the best thing they could have done.

Even Rick had seen the two of them together throughout the days of them living on the farm, and hadn't said anything that hinted to the fact that he didn't approve. He gathered that since the world has such little happiness left in in, that anyone who made his daughter smile like Nate did, was worthy in his eyes. Zoe's smile faded, along with Nate's, when they saw T-Dog and Andrea approach, when they should be out with Rick, looking for Sophia. If they weren't doing that, then what we're Rick and Hershel doing out there? "Do you know what's going on?" T-Dog asked, as he approached Glenn. Zoe and Nate instantly stood up and made their way to the front of the house, wanting to know what was going on.

"Where is everyone?" Andrea then asked. Knowing that this couldn't mean anything good, Zoe sighed.. It looked as if their peaceful afternoon had now ended. What she didn't understand, was where her father was, and what he was doing..

"You haven't seen Rick?" Glenn asked the two.

"He went off with Hershel this morning." Zoe cut in, jumping down onto the grass, Nate close behind. "He should have been back by now, though." She added.

Andrea sighed at the girls answer, "We were supposed to leave a couple hours ago." She informed everyone. Zoe shrugged when Andrea looked towards her, she didn't know where her father was. She knew that they were supposed to have left to search for Sophia, but the fact that they haven't, meant something was obviously wrong.

"Yeah, you were." Daryl cut in, as he approached the others with Carol by his side. Everyone turned to face the guy, wondering where he had been also - whereas Nate and Zoe knew that he was out with Carol. "What the hell?" He asked Andrea and T-Dog. He didn't even glance at Nate as he approached everyone, still quite annoyed that he had refused to search for Sophia with him, not wanting to leave Zoe alone at the camp. Although the two had been going out on their own hunts, Daryl was still pissed that he hadn't had Nate's help in a while, a part of the reason as to why he had injured himself a few days back.

"Rick told us he was going out." Carol said, also not happy with the fact that no one was searching for her daughter. Zoe felt awful for her, she did, but their life couldn't revolve around the searching parties, they did have other things to do in order to keep this farm up and running.

"Dammit." Daryl cursed, "Is anybody taking this seriously?" He asked, as everyone stood around in silence, not knowing what to say. "We got us a damn trail!" He mentioned, remembering that he had found the girls doll when he had injured himself on his search for her. "Ah, here we go." He said.

When Zoe looked to what Daryl was looking at, she sighed heavily, "Oh, god." She mumbled, loud enough for Nate to hear. After earlier on in the day, she didn't think that Shane should be anywhere near Hershel's property - but, then again, it wasn't her call, and she was defiantly not going to say anything to him. Shane seemed to be out of control lately, and any little thing could set him off. He was dangerous, and she could now see it. Nate, on the other hand, had been seeing it for a while now, and it's why he didn't like the guy. Daryl, on the other hand, didn't care, he just wanted to find Sophia. He was different to his brother, in so many ways. It seemed as if everyone else had the same thought, as everyone grew stiff when they saw him approaching with multiple guns in his bag and hand. Zoe knew that this couldn't be good..

"What's all this?" Daryl asked, pointing to the guns in Shane's hands.

"You with me, man?" Shane asked Daryl, holding out a gun for him to take. The second that Daryl took the gun, Nate sighed, knowing that he would have to follow suit. As much as he disliked Shane, he did think that the barn shouldn't have walkers, but the question was.. Did Zoe? Shane didn't even think twice to throw a gun at Nate, who caught it easily, and Zoe didn't even know what to think at the moment - she thought they had both agreed on Shane being reckless, but maybe she didn't know Nate as much as she thought she did.

"Time to grow up." Shane told everyone, walking further into the group, as Nate stood frozen at Zoe's side. He looked towards her for an answer, silently asking if it was okay to join Daryl and Shane - Zoe wasn't the kind to disobey her fathers commands, and when he told the group to leave the barn alone, that's what she was going to do. But, then again, she didn't want to be the kind of person to boss someone around and make decisions for them; and knowing that it could cause a larger dent in the brother's relationship, she nodded at him, and nudged him to join his brother. That didn't mean she would join in, though.

"Where's Dale?" Andrea asked Shane, knowing that the two had gone out searching together.

"He's on his way." Shane replied, almost sounding evil as he said so. It wasn't a secret that Shane didn't like Dale that much, Zoe couldn't understand, as he was one of the most loveliest man she knew.

"I thought we couldn't carry." T-Dog voiced out, wondering why the rules had suddenly changed.

"Yeah, well we can, and we have to." Shane replied, "Now, look. It was one thing standing around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it 'ain't." He voiced out. Zoe moved away from Nate and towards her brother, standing next to him on the porch as Shane spoke - she was sure that Shane would try something with Carl, she had seen how he was acting with the boy lately, and it was if he was trying to prove something. If her mom said Carl couldn't have any guns, then she was going to carry on that request, wether she liked it or not. Carl was not Shane's son, he was Rick's, and she wanted to make Shane aware of that, as it seemed like he had forgotten.

"How about you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Shane asked Glenn, approaching him with a gun just for him. Zoe honestly didn't know what he was going to do, especially with Maggie standing right next to him. When he grabbed the gun, she was surprised, as was Maggie.

"Can you stop?" Maggie asked, finally standing up for her fathers farm. "You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight." She told Shane.

"We have to stay, Shane." Carl spoke up for the first time, shrugging out of his sisters hold before walking down the porch steps. Zoe snapped her head to the side when her mother finally arrived, she was hoping that Lori could knock some sense into Shane - he was going to get them all kicked off of the farm.

"What is this?" Lori asked, storming up to the group.

"We ain't going anywhere, ok?" Shane reassured Carl, completely ignoring Lori as she walked out. "Now, look, Hershel, he's just gotta understand, okay? Well, he's gonna have to. And we need to find Sophia." He spoke, approaching Carl with a gun, causing Zoe's eyes to widen in shock. "Am I right, huh?" He asked. He crouched down to Carl's height, "Now, I want you to take this. You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother and sister safe. You do whatever it takes, you know how." He said.

Daryl had to grip onto Nate when he tried to walk forwards to get Shane away from Carl. "Not our business, man." Daryl mumbled to his brother, not letting go of his hold.

Zoe instantly reacted and pulled Carl back into her hold, while Lori stood in front of the two with an angry expression, not happy with Shane one bit. "Rick said no guns." Lori snapped to him. "This is not your call. This is not your decision to make." She said. It seemed that in that moment, everyone had truly seen just how much tension the two had. They could all see how much Lori hated Shane..

"Oh, shit." T-Dog mumbled, looking out into the distance. Everyone turned around to see what he was referring to, and what they saw, shocked them all. Rick and Hershel, bringing two walkers back on leads, like animals.

Just as everyone started to make their way to the others, Zoe quickly reached down and grabbed the gun that Shane tried to give Carl, and headed off with the rest of them. She didn't want to take any chances with two new walkers on the scene - it was too dangerous. It seemed as if Hershel wasn't bothered in the slightest at everyone running towards them, and carried on pushing the walkers towards the barn. "What the hell are you doing!" Shane yelled as he ran through the gate, the others close behind.

"Shane, just back off." Rick replied, trying to keep his walker away from him so he wouldn't get bit. Zoe came to a stop besides the others and looked towards her father with complete devastation that he had decided to help Hershel instead of reason with him. The fact that he could be okay with walkers right by them as they sleep, was ridiculous, and she couldn't believe it.

"Why do your people have guns?" Hershel asked, seeing that almost everyone had a gun on them now. Even Zoe had a gun, not that she intended to use it - she didn't want to go against her fathers orders, even after what he had done.

"Are you kidding me?" Shane yelled again, "You see?" He then asked the others, who were all in shock. "You see what they're holding on to?" He asked.

"I see who I'm holding on to!" Hershel replied, not seeing how this is a terrible idea. Zoe looked over at Nate to see that he had the same angry expression as his brother, and she couldn't even be upset about it. She was angry too.

"No, man, you don't!" Shane replied. When Rick pleaded him to just talk to him, Shane scoffed, "What you wanna talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick! They're not people! They're dead! Ain't gotta feel nothing for them, because all they do? They kill! These things, right here! They're the things that killed Amy!" Zoe stiffened when he mentioned her old friends name, as did Andrea, "They killed Otis! They're gonna kill all of us!" He shouted.

"Shane! Shut up!" Rick demanded, wanting nothing but for his friend to keep his mouth shut.

"Hey, Hershel, man. Let me ask you something." Shane began again, "Could a living, breathing person, could they walk away from this?" He asked, as he started shooting the walker that Hershel had a hold on. Everyone flinched when he took the shot, actually scared of how Shane was acting, "That's three round in the chest! Could someone who's alive, could they just take that?" He carried on, ignoring Rick's pleas. "Why is he still coming?" Taking more shots, he shouted again, "That's it's heart, it's lungs! Why is it still coming?" More gunshots.
Zoe felt like her head was going to explode, when Shane eventually shot the walker in the head. Everyone could tell how it hurt Hershel, and no one knew what to do - they still stood, staring at Shane like he was a bomb, just waiting to go off. Nate backed up to be besides Zoe, and held his gun up in preparation in case anything were to go wrong - no one knew what Shane was capable of, not even Rick. "Enough!" Shane yelled again, "Risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" He shouted. This was when Zoe couldn't stop the tear that fell out of her eye and down her cheek - the fact that he could speak so freely about his thoughts on Sophia in front of Carol.. "Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us! Enough!" Shane finally finished, "Rick, it ain't like it was before. Now if y'all wanna live, if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it!" He yelled.

This was when Shane made a line for the barn of walkers, and even with Rick's pleads to get Hershel to take the walker, he stayed frozen on the floor. "No, Shane. Do not do this brother!" Rick pleaded, still holding onto the walker on his lead. With every hit on the barn door, Zoe flinched, and each time, more tears sprung out, hating the man that Shane had become. The man that used to throw her up in the air for fun as a baby, was not the man in front of her now.

The second the barn doors opened, everyone sprung into action, getting their guns ready to protect the group. Carl had run out of his mother's embrace and headed towards his older sister, grabbing ahold of her like his life depended on it - it was then, did Nate turn around and give Zoe a pleading look, to which she nodded at, insisting that it was okay to shoot with everyone else. As he passed, he kissed her on the head and ran to get in position, as Lori ran over to her kids to shield Carl from the gun shots.

Everything went incredibly fast, and before Zoe knew it, the walkers were all gone, and silence dawned on them all.. However, one last walker had made a noise from the barn, and everyone looked towards it once more, Zoe, now crouched down on the floor besides her mom and brother, watched through teary eyes.

What happened next, no one expected..

Sophia.
The second that Zoe saw the shoes that the girl had been wearing when she disappeared, she choked back a sob, and stood up to get a better view in hopes that she wasn't seeing what she thought she was seeing. It didn't help. Everyone had now seen Sophia walk out of the barn as a walker, and they were all stunned into complete silence at the sight. The bite mark on the girls shoulder had caused everyone to fall silent at the sight, except for Carols yells for her daughter. Daryl held her back as Carol fell to the floor into Daryl's embrace.

As Zoe looked back at her brother to see him crying, she couldn't help but break down at the sight, and before she knew it, she was in Nate's embrace, falling to the ground. She was completely heartbroken, at such a young age the girl had fallen prey to the walkers. It had been on everyone's minds for weeks, but no one actually expected it to actually happen. Even Shane had been shunned into silence. Zoe pushed her face into Nate's shoulder as her father walked forward with his gun. And with a single shot, the search for Sophia had officially ended.