𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍. not strong enough

WENDY WAS SO STILL. TOO STILL. THE KIND of stillness that terrified Glenn more than anything else. The kind of stillness that lived just on the edge of breath, on the razor-thin thread that separates alive from not.

Wendy lay on the bed like a painting half-finished, one arm slung awkwardly by her side, the other held delicately in his trembling grip. Her fingers were cold. Clammy. Not quite dead, but far from warm. Her hair, dark and matted, spread across the pillow like a river of oil, sticking to the sweat that slicked her forehead. She didn't look peaceful. She looked... undone. Like someone had pressed pause halfway through her life and left her hanging there, between inhale and exhale, between scream and silence.

Glenn sat beside her with his head bowed, hand curled tight around hers, his thumb running circles over her bruised knuckles as if that might coax her back. Tears fell silently down his face, dripping onto her blanket, his jeans, the floor. He didn't bother to wipe them. He didn't have the strength. Not after the shot. Not after she collapsed like a rag doll right in front of him, mouth parted like she might've been about to say his name.

God, if he closed his eyes, he could still see it — the red blossom on her shoulder, the way her knees buckled, the dull thud of her body hitting the earth. His name died in her throat. That memory would live in his bones forever.

"Easy," Hershel murmured, bent over her shoulder now, his weathered hands steady, methodical, stained with the kind of patience only age could grant. A curved needle dipped in and out of Wendy's skin, weaving clean, practiced stitches around the gunshot wound. The bullet had gone straight through, thank God. Clean entry. Clean exit. Still, the bleeding had been fierce.

"She's lucky," Hershel said quietly. "Missed the artery. Another inch..."

Glenn flinched. He didn't want to hear the rest. Didn't need to know how close she'd come. Didn't need the math of almosts and what ifs.

Behind him, Andrea paced near the wall like a trapped animal, her eyes wild and red-rimmed. She kept biting her nails until the skin around them bled. "I — I didn't know," she stammered. "I thought they were walkers. I couldn't tell. I was trying to help Glenn, I didn't know —"

"You said that already," Glenn muttered, eyes still fixed on Wendy's face. "I heard you the first time."

Andrea flinched. Silence rippled through the room like a tremor.

Dale stepped forward, ever the mediator, his voice gentle but firm. "Glenn... she didn't mean to. They were swaying like walkers, barely standing. The light was —"

"Don't," Glenn snapped, sharper than he meant. His voice cracked. "Don't defend her right now, Dale. Just — don't."

Because what if Andrea had been a better shot? What if she'd aimed just a little higher? A little lower? What if Wendy hadn't turned her head just in time? What if their reunion had been a massacre, not a miracle?

What if all that remained of his sister was a bloodstain in the grass?

No. He couldn't go there. Wouldn't.

But as he looked at her, limp and pale against the mattress, her skin the color of paper, her lips cracked, the hollows of her cheeks too deep — he knew she wasn't far from that edge.

"She's malnourished," Hershel muttered, mostly to himself now. He was rolling her arm gently, inspecting each ridge of skin, each bruise like it was a confession. And it was. Her body was a letter written in scar tissue, a journal of survival etched into flesh. Purpled bruises traced up from her elbow to her bicep. Scrapes peppered her wrist. Old, half-healed lacerations lined her forearm in a pattern that suggested more than just happenstance. They were deliberate. Defensive. Desperate.

Hershel's fingers paused as he peeled back the makeshift bandage on Wendy's thigh. The gauze — crudely fashioned from an old t-shirt, tied off with what looked like a shoelace — unraveled with a dry rustle, revealing the raw line of a scar-to-be. The gash itself was healing. Not well, not cleanly, but it had scabbed over, the edges drawn together by dark, uneven sutures. Black thread. Maybe from a button, or maybe a kit she'd scrounged somewhere along the way. The kind of sewing thread no doctor would ever use. No antiseptic in sight. No lidocaine. Just grit, resolve, and hands that probably shook the whole time.

It wasn't infected. That surprised him.

If anything, it was shockingly clean.

Whoever Wendy had been out there — wherever she'd gone, whoever she'd had to be to make it this far — she'd stitched herself up, kept the wound from festering, and kept walking. Through the pain. Through the blood. Through the heat and flies and whatever else the world had thrown at her. Hershel shook his head and let out a long, low breath through his nose.

"Not infected," he murmured, half to Glenn, half to himself. "Healing, even. But..." He trailed off, eyes tracing the ridge of the wound, already thickening, already roping under the skin. "It'll scar something fierce."

Glenn looked up.

The first time he saw it he didn't feel pity. He didn't even feel shock. He felt something deeper, a sorrow with weight, like wet sand lodged in his chest. His sister had always bruised like a peach. He remembered that from when they were kids. She'd fall off a bike or bump into a doorknob and it would bloom purple within hours. He remembered their mother dabbing ointment on her knees, tutting gently, telling her to be more careful.

And now this?

This was something no ointment could fix. This was proof. This was ink on parchment. This was survival carved into her body with her own hand. He stared at the suture, at the tight, coarse thread knotting the wound shut, at the slight shake in Hershel's hands as he smoothed antiseptic over it. There was something sacrilegious about it, almost — watching a man with decades of medical knowledge tend to a wound so intimate, so raw, so desperate, and knowing she had done it with nothing but her own body and whatever was in her bag.

She didn't need saving. She had already saved herself.

And still, Glenn couldn't stop crying.

"She did this," he whispered, the words tasting like copper in his mouth. "By herself?"

No one answered. The others had gone quiet. Even Andrea had stopped pacing, the nervous energy in her limbs stilled by the gravity of the moment. Rick stood near the door, arms crossed, eyes wide but guarded, the way you look at something broken you don't know how to fix. Shane lingered in the hall, not quite ready to look but unable to walk away.

"Bullet wound's clean," Hershel continued, his voice low, clinical, respectful. "No fragments. I flushed it out, stitched it up. With rest and antibiotics, she'll pull through. But the rest of her..." He ran a careful hand down Wendy's arm again, stopping at each fresh bruise, each nick and scar. "She's been through hell."

He looked up at Glenn, and for once, the older man didn't hide the truth behind his eyes.

"She's your sister?" Hershel asked gently.

Glenn nodded. His hand tightened around Wendy's.

"She's strong," Hershel said, sitting back with a sigh. "Stronger than most."

Glenn laughed, but it came out like a sob.

"She always was."

He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, careful, reverent, like touching the wing of a butterfly. Her skin was warmer now. A good sign. Her lips, though cracked, had regained a little color. She didn't look as much like a corpse. Just someone who had fought death to a stalemate and lived to tell the story — if she ever found the strength to speak again.

"Thank you," Glenn whispered, his voice hoarse. He wasn't sure if he was speaking to Hershel or the universe or Wendy herself. Maybe all three.

He leaned forward again, pressing his forehead lightly to her hand. "You're safe now," he said.

She couldn't have been older than eighteen, Hershel thought. Maybe a year or two older than Beth. Four younger than Maggie. And yet her body told a lifetime more. Her body told stories his daughters had never known. Had been protected from. It was in the small things — the way her fingers curled in her sleep like she expected pain, the way her jaw clenched even unconscious, the way she winced when Hershel's needle touched skin, even though she was clearly somewhere far from this world. She was a battlefield in human form.

And Glenn — Christ, Glenn. The boy looked like he was being flayed alive by every breath.

His hand hadn't left hers once. His fingers were shaking, twitching against her wrist like he was trying to will her pulse stronger. His eyes were glassy and red, lashes damp. His whole face looked hollowed out, as if whatever joy had once lived there had been scooped clean with a spoon.

Hershel paused, set his instruments down. There wasn't much more he could do for now, other than clean the wounds, stitch her up, give her antibiotics, and pray.

He put a hand on Glenn's shoulder, firm and quiet. "She's a fighter," he said softly. "Whatever happened out there, she survived it. She's still here. That counts for something."

Glenn didn't answer. He only nodded, jaw tight, and leaned forward, pressing his forehead gently against the back of her hand. He stayed that way, the world spinning in the distance, the room full of breathing and fear and silence, while outside, the sun sank slowly over the fields, casting long, fragile shadows across the walls.

Beside them, the bed creaked beneath Daryl's weight as he sat stiffly, shirtless, his jaw clenched tight as Hershel moved on to the next patient. The old man didn't say anything at first. Just pulled his stool over and crouched, his knees cracking faintly as he inspected the wound on Daryl's side — a long, angry gash from where he'd fallen on his own damn arrow.

Glenn barely registered it. His eyes were still on Wendy, memorizing the exact way her lashes rested against her cheek, the tiny cuts on her lips, the scratch on her neck, the faint bruising near her temple.

He wasn't sure he could ever stop looking.

Andrea was gone now. She had fled the moment she was certain Wendy wasn't dying. Her apologies had rung hollow in Glenn's ears, each one stacking like kindling, dry and bitter. He didn't care.

Shane now leaned against the doorframe like he owned it, arms crossed, face carved in doubt. Rick stood closer to Daryl, the map still in his hand, though the edge had begun to droop like it no longer mattered. Hershel worked with quiet competence, stitching Daryl's side with fingers steadied by years of treating livestock and sick farmhands.

"She found me," Daryl said finally, voice rough, breaking the silence like gravel underfoot.

Rick looked up. Shane didn't move.

Daryl winced as Hershel pulled the thread tight. "Wendy. Out there, deep in the woods. I'd taken a fall. Again. She came outta nowhere. Helped me back up. I wouldn't be here without her." Daryl exhaled. "She didn't even know me. Didn't know any of you. But she'd been lookin' for a kid. Said her name was Sophia."

Rick's face tightened. "What?"

"She found her. Days ago. Said she'd been feedin' her, keepin' her warm. They were campin' out somewhere in a cottage. She gave Sophia jerky, chips, even boiled water for her. She had color pencils, too. Made the kid feel safe, I think."

Glenn's grip tightened.

Rick stepped forward. "She kept her safe?"

"For a while," Daryl nodded. "But then this mornin', Wendy woke up and Sophia was just gone."

"Gone?" Shane repeated, voice flat.

"Yeah. No note, nothin'. Just up and left."

"Bullshit," Shane snapped. "What, a little girl just walks out into the woods alone? When someone's takin' care of her? No way. Doesn't track."

Rick turned to him. "Shane —"

"No," Shane barked. "You're tellin' me this girl, who none of us knew was still alive, shows up outta nowhere with a bullet in her shoulder and a sob story 'bout keepin' Sophia alive, and then the kid conveniently disappears? You don't think that's a little suspicious?"

Glenn stood now, slow and deliberate. "She's not lying."

"You don't know that."

"She's my sister."

Shane scoffed, but Daryl spoke before he could.

"She ain't lyin'," he said, firm. "She had drawings. Papers in her bag. Sophia's. Crayon stuff — y'know, horses, flowers, people. One of 'em was me. I looked like hell, but it was me. Crossbow, vest, everything. She'd drawn all of us."

Rick's brow furrowed, quieting.

"Drawings?" he asked.

Daryl nodded. "Said she brought color pencils back from an abandoned school. That's where she was campin' for a while. When she found the kid she let her color. Been tryna follow our trail since."

"That don't prove she didn't do somethin'," Shane muttered.

Daryl shot him a glare. "She could've let me die. She could've pushed me off the ledge when I was bleedin' and half-conscious. Hell, she should've. I was dead weight. But she didn't. She dragged my sorry ass back here 'cause she thought maybe one of y'all was family. She was lookin' for you," he said, turning to Glenn now. "Didn't even know if it was true. Just that Sophia had said her brother was in our group."

Glenn's throat clenched. He sat back down, his legs trembling. His sister — this stranger who he'd been mourning like a phantom, like an unfinished memory — had been out there protecting a little girl none of them had been able to find.

"So what happened?" Shane's voice cut again. "What made the kid leave? No one just walks away from safety."

"I dunno," Daryl admitted. His jaw clenched. "I asked. She didn't know either. Said when she woke up, the girl was gone."

Shane scoffed. "That's not good enough."

Hershel finished the last stitch and patted Daryl's arm, silent. The old man stood and looked at them all with tired eyes.

Shane shifted first.

"I'm sayin' it because no one else will," he said, dragging a hand over his face. "You all wanna stand around playin' story hour, that's fine, but there's holes in this, Rick. Big ones."

Rick looked up. "She's not even conscious."

"And that's convenient, ain't it?"

Glenn narrowed his eyes. "The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean maybe she don't wanna answer questions," Shane snapped, stepping forward from the doorway now, his voice rising. "Maybe she's got somethin' to hide. You said it yourself, Daryl — Sophia just left. And we're supposed to believe that? After all that? A little girl finds someone in the woods who takes care of her and she just... walks out into the trees like it's a damn field trip?"

"She was scared," Daryl growled.

"She was scared when she found Rick. And he told her to stay put — but she didn't. And now you're telling me she found Glenn's sister, and this girl played campfire with her for a week, and then the moment things go sideways, Sophia disappears again? That don't sit right with me."

"It's not about you," Glenn said sharply. His voice cracked like glass. He stood slowly, trembling from the inside out. "And yeah, you're right — it doesn't add up. But not for the reasons you think."

Shane turned to him. "What's that mean?"

"It means she's a bad liar," Glenn said, eyes burning. "Always has been. When we were kids and she broke the toaster? She tried to blame it on an earthquake. Told my mom the fridge was haunted one time so she wouldn't get in trouble for stealing ice cream. Her lies are terrible. You can see it in her face. Her ears go red. She stammers. She over-explains. If she was lying about Sophia, you'd know. You'd smell it from across the goddamn farm."

No one moved. Rick's eyes had darkened, but he didn't speak.

Glenn continued, more ragged now, like the words were bleeding out of him. "If she did something, she'd say it. Hell, she's done a lot — you saw her leg, right? That stitch? She did that to herself. She sewed her own goddamn leg shut because no one else was there. Because she was alone. And she still protected that kid. Stayed with her. Fed her. You know what that means? She didn't even know who Sophia belonged to, and she still —"

"You sure about that?" Shane's tone was razor sharp now. "You don't know who she is anymore, Glenn. You know what she's been through? Who she's been running with? What she's done to survive?"

"I don't need to know that," Glenn said. "Because I know her. And you don't get to stand there like you've got some badge and interrogate her before she even opens her eyes."

Shane stepped forward. "I'm lookin' out for this group —"

"No," Rick finally snapped, stepping between them now, his voice low and steel. "You're looking for someone to blame." Shane opened his mouth, but Rick didn't let him speak. "You think this makes sense? Of course it doesn't. A lot of things don't make sense anymore. But she was trying to bring Sophia back to us. That's the one thing in this whole mess that sounds right. And until she wakes up and tells us otherwise, we're not gonna treat her like an enemy."

"Right," Shane said bitterly. "Let's just wait. See what she says. Maybe she'll tell us all about her life in the woods with the fairy-tale cabin and the boiling water."

Daryl cut in again, voice dark. "You got somethin' better to go on? 'Cause unless you know where Sophia went or what she was thinkin' when she left, maybe you should shut your damn mouth." Even Daryl looked startled by the force in his own voice.

Shane stared back at him, then looked to Rick, jaw tight, breath ragged.

"Fine," he said. "We'll wait. But I'm tellin' you, something don't sit right."

And with that, he walked out, the door creaking on its hinges as it slammed lightly behind him.

The room fell quiet again.

None of them said what they were thinking: that when she woke up, whatever came out of her mouth could change everything.

And still, the only sound was her breathing. In, out. In again. Fragile. Unsteady.

The kitchen smelled faintly of flour and wood smoke, and something warm that clung to the air like memory. The sun had begun to dip beyond the horizon, and the shadows that stretched through the windows were longer now, gentler, dappled with golden light that swayed slightly when the wind rustled the curtains.

Carol stood at the counter, her hands dusted in white, moving through the motions with the kind of practiced ease that only comes from muscle memory, not joy. There was no joy in it, only necessity. But necessity was comfort, too, in a world that no longer offered much else.

She had started the moment the idea entered her mind — half-formed, fragile, but insistent. A meal. A thank you. A way to honor the man who had opened his home to them when so many doors had closed. It was the least she could do. And perhaps, if she kept her hands busy, kept her focus narrowed down to the sharp knife in her palm and the peel of the potatoes falling in ribbons to the floor, she wouldn't have to think too much about the quiet house. The rooms that felt hollow even when they were full. The weight in her chest that hadn't lifted in days. Or was it weeks now?

Sophia wasn't running underfoot, asking for spoonfuls of batter. There were no giggles behind her, no soft arms wrapping around her waist as she stirred. But still, Carol cooked. Because it was the only thing she could control. And because imagining a dinner table — real chairs, real plates, real conversation — allowed her to flirt, however delicately, with the illusion that they weren't surviving in the remnants of a broken world.

That there were still things to celebrate. That someone might say thank you, or ask for seconds, or even smile.

Lori had joined her soon after. She didn't have to say much. Carol had merely mentioned the idea, and Lori took to it like a lifeline. She stood now by the stove, gently stirring the beans, face flushed from the heat. She looked tired but grateful. Her presence was quiet, unobtrusive, like a long exhale.

And then there was Thomas, moving with casual ease between counters, setting out bowls and measuring sugar like he'd done it a hundred times before. Which, as it turned out, he had. He didn't say much either, but his movements spoke volumes — a soft touch here, a nod there, adjusting the flame under the ham, checking the oven's temperamental heat like second nature. He wasn't there to prove anything. He just liked to cook. It wasn't an escape, more like... a familiar rhythm in a world where most things no longer made sense.

He didn't mind working alongside the women. He didn't feel the need to make it a joke or turn it into some odd performance of masculinity. Cooking had always just been something he did. Something his mom taught him, before everything went to hell. And now, with the sun bleeding slowly into twilight and the smells of starch and butter curling into the air, he let himself feel a moment of quiet pride. Not for the food, necessarily, but for the simplicity of the act.

For contributing something that didn't require a weapon.

They were making the kind of meal that felt Southern in its bones: slow-cooked ham, crispy at the edges and glazed just enough to feel indulgent. Potatoes mashed until soft and silken, clouds of butter and salt folded in. Green beans simmered in broth and onion, tender and rich. And for dessert, a chocolate cake — dense and dark and cracked on top — alongside a pie Lori had taken to assembling with almost maternal precision, like pressing crust into a tin could somehow stitch the world back together.

It wasn't fancy. But it was something warm.

And now, with Wendy upstairs — unconscious, perhaps broken in more ways than any of them could yet understand — the dinner had taken on a second life. An unspoken weight. It would be the first meal they all shared in this house since she arrived. And whether they meant to or not, everyone would be watching. Not just her, but each other. Measuring kindness against suspicion. Gratitude against doubt.

None of them spoke her name. Not Carol, not Lori, not even Patricia or Beth. Maybe it was because they didn't know enough. Maybe it was because the kitchen, for now, was sacred. And they didn't want to taint it with whatever was unfolding upstairs.

Still, when Thomas passed by the hallway, balancing a tray of mixing bowls, he heard faint murmurs through the floorboards above. Someone — Glenn, maybe — speaking low. Another voice answering, rougher, probably Daryl. A few words floated down, not clear, but sharp enough to pierce the quiet: safe... found her... and Sophia.

Thomas paused. He didn't mean to eavesdrop. But the name hit him like a cold wind.

He didn't ask. Didn't tell. Just kept walking. It wasn't his place. Not yet.

The kitchen had filled slowly with heat and the hush of effort — not silence, exactly, but the kind of quiet that spoke of people focused on doing things with their hands. The smell of ham curled around the corners of the ceiling like memory. It was the kind of scent that made you think of autumn afternoons, of a back door creaking open, of childhoods half-remembered. It sat thick in the air, grounding. Heavy, but not unpleasant.

Thomas stood beside Carol, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, palms dusted with flour, his hands moving over the dough she had shown him how to shape. He hadn't said much. He didn't need to. Every now and then, Carol would glance over and murmur a small instruction — "more pressure with your knuckles," or "don't forget the pinch of salt," — and he would nod without looking up. He liked the rhythm. Liked the way his shoulders relaxed without him noticing. Liked that he didn't have to think too hard, or talk too much, or worry about whether anyone expected him to go outside and spar with Shane over some imaginary crisis.

The truth was, he'd always liked cooking. When he was young, he'd watched his mother press her thumb into pie crusts like she was sealing something sacred inside. He remembered the quiet joy in it, the steadiness, the way she handed him a spoon once and said, "Stir until your arms ache, then stir some more."

Carol, beside him now, had that same kind of calm.

She wasn't like the others — didn't need to fill the air with noise to feel real. There was something soft about the way she moved through the kitchen, soft but efficient, like she'd spent her whole life making sure everything ran smoothly for everyone but herself.

"Didn't think I'd miss this," she said, not looking at him, her eyes on the pot she was stirring. "The normalcy. The mess. The dishes. But... I guess I do."

Thomas didn't answer right away. He pressed the dough down one last time and brushed his palms off on a dish towel.

Carol smiled faintly, and that was when Beth wandered in with her hands full of mismatched forks and spoons. She looked barely old enough to drive, and already the weight of the world was settling behind her eyes. Patricia followed a moment later, elbowing the door open with her hip, her arms full of folded linens.

"Y'all look like a Hallmark movie in here," Beth said, teasing, setting the silverware down beside the mismatched plates.

Patricia raised an eyebrow, looking over Thomas with amused curiosity. "It's sweet," she said, and there was nothing mean in her tone, just an honest, weathered kind of affection. "A young man helpin' in the kitchen. Don't see that much."

Thomas just shrugged, drying his hands slowly.

"It's either this or let Shane scream at me for an hour while he plays G.I. Joe in the pasture," he said, tone even but edged with something dry. Not cruel. Just real.

Beth laughed. So did Patricia — not loud, but with a kind of wheezing chuckle that felt good to hear in the deadened world. Even Carol cracked a grin.

Then Lori stepped in through the back doorway, arms folded, eyebrows raised in mock suspicion. She caught the last line and didn't even hesitate.

"Well," she said, "better a cook than a cowboy with a complex."

Thomas smirked, eyes flicking toward her in mild surprise, and the others burst out laughing again — louder this time, fuller, like something had cracked open in the wall of weariness they all carried.

"You're not wrong," Patricia said, grinning.

"I mean, the man treats a walk through the woods like it's basic training," Lori added, with the kind of dry affection only someone who knew Shane far too well could get away with.

Carol wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, still giggling. "God, he does."

Thomas let out a low chuckle, not loud, but genuine. It rumbled out of his chest like it had been buried there a long while, something old and rusted that hadn't seen air in months. He shook his head, brushing flour from his forearms, still smiling.

Thomas smiled a little, ducking his head like he wasn't used to the praise. It didn't sit quite right on his shoulders — too unfamiliar — but he didn't hate it either. He picked up a ladle and stirred the gravy pot, careful not to scrape the bottom.

"You're good at this," Carol said quietly, and again, it wasn't about the food.

He didn't know how to respond to that, so he just nodded, the way his mother had taught him when people gave you kindness you didn't feel like you deserved.

Laughter still lingered like smoke when the screen door clicked open.

Rick entered without ceremony, his boots thudding softly against the old floorboards. The golden spill of afternoon framed his silhouette, shadow cutting across his face like the line between law and lawlessness he straddled more every day.

He looked over them all — the women still smiling, the food nearly done, Thomas standing there with a ladle in his hand like some misplaced ghost of a better world.

Rick didn't speak.

He didn't need to.

He gave a slight tilt of his head, the smallest motion of his fingers — the kind of gesture Thomas had come to understand meant come on, we need to talk.

The warmth evaporated from the kitchen in an instant.

Thomas set the ladle down. Dried his hands on the towel again. Didn't speak, didn't sigh, didn't resist. He just followed Rick out the door, his shoulders squared, the laughter still faint behind him like a story he might not get to finish.

The kitchen sounds faded behind them — the low hum of voices, the dull clink of metal on ceramic, the muffled laugh of someone trying to pull joy from a half-remembered place. Rick led the way, down the narrow hall lined with peeling floral wallpaper and faded family portraits that didn't belong to any of them. The farmhouse had become a borrowed place.

They were intruders in someone else's paused life — walking on rugs that had outlived their owners, touching doorknobs that still held the oils of dead hands. But they walked anyway, because there was nowhere else to go.

Rick stopped near the edge of the front room, where the light slanted through the curtains in hazy strips of gold and dust. He didn't turn around right away, just stood there for a moment like he was sorting through a drawer in his head, looking for the right words and only coming up with torn scraps.

Finally, he spoke — voice low, but certain. "I need you to stay close to Glenn today."

Thomas nodded, no hesitation. "Yeah. Of course."

Rick looked at him then. Really looked. His eyes were sunken, shadowed by exhaustion — not the kind that sleep could fix, but the kind that layered itself in the marrow of a man's bones. "He hasn't said much since we brought her in. Just been sittin' there, holdin' her hand like if he lets go, she'll disappear again."

Thomas didn't ask who "she" was. He already knew. Glenn's sister — the girl who had stumbled in on death's doorstep, dragging Daryl Dixon and the past behind her like a sack of bleeding ghosts. Thomas had only caught glimpses, hushed tones and the way Glenn had bolted when he saw her collapse. It had been a kind of desperation that shook something loose in Thomas' chest, though he wouldn't admit it.

Rick continued. "You're his closest friend here. I think... right now, more than ever, he needs to not feel alone in that room."

Thomas pressed his lips together. "I got him." Rick gave a faint nod, almost a bow, and turned to leave — but Thomas stopped him with a quiet, almost reluctant, "Wait."

Rick paused in the hallway, half-lit in gold, his back a hard line beneath the worn cotton of his shirt.

Thomas shifted slightly, like the question made his skin itch. "What's the deal with her?"

There was no accusation in his tone. Just curiosity, and something quieter — concern, maybe. Or caution.

Rick's jaw ticked. He ran a hand down his face like he was trying to smooth out the fatigue carved there.

"I wish I could tell you everything," he said. "Truth is, we don't know a hell of a lot."

Thomas leaned against the wall, arms crossed loosely over his chest. Rick's voice had the cadence of someone trying to lay puzzle pieces down without seeing the full picture.

"She found Daryl after he'd fallen — bad. Cliffside. He'd been out lookin' for Sophia. Said he thought he was a goner until she showed up. Helped him. Carried him, practically."

Thomas blinked. "She's that strong?"

"She's that stubborn," Rick said, almost smiling.

That silence lapsed again, like breath held underwater.

"She had drawings," Rick continued. "Said they were Sophia's. Had 'em in her bag. Said she recognized Daryl from one. Picked him out from a crayon sketch."

That struck Thomas as absurd, but he didn't say so. Rick's expression had changed — he wasn't amused, he was haunted by the truth of it.

"She'd been takin' care of her. Kept her safe, fed her, even found a place for 'em to stay. But then... she left. This morning. Don't know why. Wendy hasn't woken up long enough to say."

Thomas furrowed his brow. "You trust her?"

Rick hesitated. "I trust what I've seen so far. I trust that she brought one of our own back. I trust Glenn." The unspoken words hung in the air like humidity before a summer storm: But I'm watching her. Rick sighed, glanced down the hallway. "Shane's got his doubts."

"Yeah, he's got a lot of those," Thomas muttered, folding his arms tighter across his chest, leaning a shoulder into the wall as though the structure itself could anchor his irritation. "Man probably had doubts about his own reflection this morning."

Rick didn't smile. His lips twitched — the kind of involuntary movement that didn't quite qualify as amusement — but his eyes remained shadowed, weighted with the kind of weariness that came from bearing too much for too long.

"It's not just suspicion for suspicion's sake," he said. "He's lookin' at the pieces that don't line up. Girl shows up outta nowhere. Says she's been takin' care of Sophia all this time, then Sophia disappears. Wendy's got no explanation, no real answers. Just drawings and half a story."

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Drawings of a kid she didn't even know. And she used those to find Daryl, what, by facial recognition in crayon? Either she's a hell of a liar or she really did care. Personally, I don't think a liar would've dragged Dixon out the woods on a busted leg."

Rick's sigh was the sound of gravel shifting under a heavy tire. "I know that. I'm not sayin' Shane's right. I'm sayin' he's loud."

Thomas smirked. "That's one way of putting it."

"He thinks it's fishy. Sophia was with her, and now she's not. No note, no trail. And when Shane smells blood, he doesn't wait to ask where it's comin' from."

There was a long pause. The farmhouse moaned quietly around them, wooden joints settling like the ribs of something half-alive. Outside, the wind had picked up — not enough to rattle the panes, but enough to remind them it existed.

Thomas tapped his fingers along his arm, thinking.

"She's still unconscious," he said finally. "And when she wakes, maybe she's been through hell and she's not exactly eager to relive the guided tour."

Rick nodded. "I thought about that."

"But?"

"But we don't have the luxury of time or trust," Rick said quietly. "She could be another victim. Or she could be the reason Sophia's gone. We don't know. And until we do, I can't ignore the questions. Neither can Shane."

Thomas tilted his head, looking at Rick with the kind of exasperated disbelief that only a younger man could afford. "You ever think Shane just wants someone to blame? Doesn't even matter who, just... someone." Rick didn't answer right away. His silence was telling. "Guy's walking around like a dog with a splinter in his paw," Thomas continued, warming to the rhythm of his own words. "Snarling at everybody, picking fights with the air. I swear, you could put a basket of kittens on the porch and he'd say they were out to steal our rations."

Rick exhaled through his nose, the ghost of a tired laugh barely forming.

"I'm just saying," Thomas muttered. "The man sees ghosts in broad daylight. And this girl — she might've done something brave. She might've saved Sophia's life for a time. But all Shane sees is that she didn't hand-deliver her to the front porch with a bow on her head."

"You're not wrong," Rick admitted, finally meeting Thomas's eyes with a steady, clear gaze. "But leadership isn't just about what's right. It's about what keeps people safe. If people are scared, if they don't understand — they start pickin' sides."

"And you think they'll pick Shane's?"

"I think they'll pick whoever makes 'em feel less afraid," Rick said. "Sometimes that's me. Sometimes it's the guy with the louder voice and the simpler answers."

Thomas shifted his weight again, jaw working. There was more he wanted to say, but something about the way Rick stood there — back straight but heavy with invisible freight — kept him from tipping too far into sarcasm.

"You want me to keep Glenn company," Thomas said. "Fine. I'll do that." He hesitated, then added with quieter intensity, "But you better get ready to pull Shane back if he starts stirring shit. Glenn doesn't need this right now."

Rick nodded. "I'm watchin' it."

Thomas looked past him, back toward the kitchen, where the scent of something warm and buttery still clung to the air. Back where the women were probably still laughing about his jab at Shane, filling the house with something soft and rare.

He didn't say anything else. Neither did Rick.

Thomas nodded, the motion slow and deliberate, like he was sealing something inside himself — not an agreement, exactly, but a quiet pact he couldn't put into words, one that sat somewhere deep beneath his ribs. Rick's sigh lingered in the air behind him, trailing like smoke from a half-extinguished fire, and Thomas didn't look back as he turned toward the narrow hallway, boots making soft, uneven thuds against the old farmhouse floor.

He didn't know what compelled him to care so much. Maybe it was the way Rick had spoken, weariness tangled in his voice like overgrown vines choking something once bright. Or maybe it was the way Shane's shadow seemed to press against everything lately — not just people, but air, space, silence. A kind of slow, inevitable suffocation. Thomas had spent enough time in its grip to know the shape of that silence intimately, the one that came when someone like Shane stood too close, demanded too much, questioned too hard.

And Wendy — this unconscious girl who hadn't even had the chance to speak for herself — she was already wrapped in it.

He didn't even know her. She was just a face, a body sprawled out on a bed, bruised and stitched, breathing unevenly in the dark. But it felt wrong — viscerally wrong — the way they spoke about her like she was a threat, a liability, a risk to be assessed.

Thomas didn't need the full story to recognize the outline of a scapegoat.

Maybe it was projection. Maybe he saw too much of himself in her already — the bruises, the stitched-up leg, the muteness not by choice but by circumstance. Maybe that was why it sat so heavily on him now, the knowledge that Wendy lay unconscious while her intentions were being debated like she was a problem to be solved. She hadn't even had the chance to defend herself. She didn't know the things Shane had already said. She didn't know how quickly people's minds hardened when fear entered the room. She didn't know how unforgiving it could be, how irreversible.

Would she break under it? Would she shrink the way he sometimes did, defaulting to silence because it was easier than picking a fight he'd lose? Or would she do what Glenn said — what Glenn swore up and down she was built for — and bare her teeth at them, claw her way out of the suspicion they'd already wrapped around her like barbed wire?

He didn't know. But until then, until she opened her eyes and gave them all the answer herself, he would stand beside Glenn. Not just for loyalty. Not just because he'd do anything for the guy who had once sat up with him all night after he'd had a nightmare and couldn't breathe. No — it was more than that.

It was the principle of it.

The door creaked softly as Thomas pushed it open, a sound no louder than breath, but still enough to make Glenn jolt.

The room smelled faintly of soap and linen, of warm bodies and old dust, and something else — something unspoken, like the ghost of sorrow, weightless and suspended in the air. When Thomas entered, the sound of the door brushing open was soft, like paper folding, but it was still enough to make Glenn flinch. His shoulders tensed, and then he turned his head, as if hoping he could beat back the moment before it landed. Thomas saw the red rims of his eyes, the quick motion of a sleeve drawn across his face like an eraser, as though it could undo whatever tenderness had surfaced. As if grief could be made invisible simply by denying it air.

He rubbed his eyes fast, too fast, like he could scrub the emotion right off his face. "Shit," he muttered. "Sorry."

Thomas smiled gently, his voice low and steady. "Don't be. Few days ago I looked the exact same way."

The edges of Glenn's mouth twitched up. It wasn't quite a smile, but it was an acknowledgment, a mutual understanding drawn from the bone-deep terror of almost losing someone who was supposed to be a permanent fixture in your life.

"Yeah," Glenn said, voice hoarse. "I guess we've both been here."

Thomas pulled up the old wooden stool from the corner of the room, its legs scraping lightly against the floor, and sat on the other side of Wendy's bed. He didn't say anything right away. Just looked at her face — still pale, but more alive than the first time he'd seen her. Chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths. Brow twitching every so often like she was caught in some half-formed dream.

Glenn was still holding her hand, thumb tracing a nervous rhythm along her knuckles. "I used to imagine this moment all the time," he said, voice breaking somewhere around the word 'imagine.' "Every single night. After I stopped looking. After I had to stop." Thomas said nothing, only listened. "I used to picture it in a hundred different ways. She'd be at a camp, maybe. With other survivors. Maybe I'd see her across a field and we'd just... run. You know? She'd call my name and I'd call hers and we'd meet in the middle like something out of a movie. Stupid, right?"

Thomas shook his head once. No.

"Or she'd be hiding somewhere, and I'd find her. She'd open the door, and I'd be standing there, and she'd cry and throw herself into my arms, and I'd just hold her for hours. No words. Just... hold her." His voice cracked, and he looked down at Wendy, the warmth in his grip not enough to counteract how cold her fingers still were. "I left her," Glenn said. "And then I found this group. Everything just got so big, so fast. One day I realized I hadn't even said her name out loud in weeks."

Thomas let the silence stretch. Sometimes, silence was the only thing that knew how to hold this kind of pain. "She hasn't opened her eyes. She hasn't said anything. And I keep thinking about what I missed. What she went through. What I didn't save her from." His fingers tightened around hers. "More realistically, I thought she'd be pissed. Crying. Maybe even punch me for taking so long. But she's just... sleeping. Looking like she's not even really back yet."

"She's here," Thomas said at last, his voice low, thoughtful — not an answer, not a comfort, but something truer than either. "She made it back to you. Not the way you dreamed it, not in the perfect image of what you thought a reunion should look like. B that's more than most people get."

He let that settle in the space between them, like silt on the bottom of a riverbed.

"I think..." He paused, trying to find the right edge of the truth, the one that would cut without wounding, that would open something up in Glenn instead of sealing it off. "I think we hold onto the pictures in our heads because the reality's too heavy. You know? Our minds can't bear the weight of what's real, so we paint something softer to look at when the world turns away from us."

Glenn said nothing, just looked at him with eyes that shimmered — not with tears anymore, but with understanding. Or the beginning of it.

"But when that picture cracks, when the moment actually comes, and it looks nothing like we imagined, we have two choices. We can turn away from it, because it hurts too much. Or we can sit with it — just like this, ugly and silent and hard — and try to love it anyway. Because it's what we have." Thomas glanced at Wendy, her body so still, her lips slightly parted in sleep that might as well have been hibernation. "I look at her and I think about all the kids who didn't make it. All the sisters and brothers who never came back."

His voice was quiet now, almost reverent. "And it's not your fault she's hurting. It's not your fault you couldn't find her. You were surviving. That's all any of us can do."

Glenn exhaled shakily, rubbing a thumb along his sister's hand, slow and deliberate, like a ritual. "You sound like Dale," he murmured with a fragile smile. "Kinda spooky, honestly."

Thomas chuckled, a soft, surprised sound that curled at the edges. "God, don't tell him that. His head'll get so big he won't fit through the camper door." He leaned back slightly, the tension in his shoulders loosening for the first time. "Maybe I've been around him too much. Or maybe I'm just starting to get it."

"Get what?" Glenn asked.

"That grief doesn't end just because you get what you wanted," Thomas said. "Sometimes, it gets heavier. Because what you wanted isn't what it used to be. Because now you've got to carry the truth of what it is instead of the hope of what it might've been."

Thomas hadn't meant to stare, but the silence in the room allowed for it, almost invited it — this strange, reverent stillness that draped itself across the walls like something sacred. Wendy lay between them like a preserved memory, not quite alive in the way one hoped a girl would be — radiant and laughing, sun-warmed and loud — but alive nonetheless. Her chest rose and fell with a consistency that had become more precious than gold in a world like this. And as he sat there, Thomas found himself watching her in the way you might watch a small fire after a long, cold night — careful not to breathe too hard, terrified it might go out.

She had been cleaned, that much was clear. Her hair was damp at the roots, the strands tucked behind her ear still slightly tangled at the ends in a way that felt human, not clinical. Not the kind of order you'd find in a hospital bed, but the kind you'd expect from a sister's fingers, fumbling gently through snarls as if trying to brush away not just knots, but memories too. Glenn's touch was all over her, not in any improper way, but in the obvious tenderness of proximity.

The blanket had been tucked around her with too much care to be random. Someone had pressed that corner down just so, like they were afraid she might wake up and feel a draft and think, even for a second, that she wasn't safe.

And Maggie. He could feel her here, too — there was a softness to the way her forehead had been wiped clean, the faintest scent of lavender clinging to her skin, some buried remnant of shampoo salvaged from another life. Maggie would've done that. Maggie, with her practical hands and the way she looked at Glenn when she didn't think anyone else was watching.

Thomas smiled faintly to himself, because of course he'd noticed. The way Glenn stood too close when they talked. The way Maggie's eyes lingered a moment too long when she handed him something. It wasn't a romance yet, not exactly. It was a bud just before bloom, still curled inward with fear and curiosity.

Wendy would pick up on it eventually.

That was bound to be a whole conversation. He wondered what she'd say, whether she'd tease or scold or just shake her head and smile, because even unconscious, Wendy seemed like the type of girl who never let anything slip past her.

And maybe that's what surprised him most — that even now, even like this, she had presence. She didn't fade into the sheets like some people did, dissolving into the background once their eyes shut. She anchored the room without trying. She was still, yes, and quiet, but not small. There was a weight to her existence that made it impossible to ignore, even in this state — maybe especially in this state.

His eyes trailed down her face slowly, without rush or agenda, just honest observation. There were scars across her temple, faint and silvered with time, like the white lines in the grain of old wood. Not grotesque — no, never that. They were more like calligraphy etched in flesh, elegant in their own strange, brutal way. Evidence of survival, of fights both physical and unseen.

He imagined her before them — before whatever caused those ridges, before her skin split and stitched itself back together — but the truth was, he didn't need to. She was already beautiful. Breathtaking, even. Not in a glittering, magazine-cover kind of way, but in the way mountains were beautiful. Steadfast. Unyielding. Formed through pressure and erosion, made to withstand storms.

And maybe that's what made her so hard to look away from. The world had not been kind to her. That much was plain in the bruises that marked her forearms, clustered like galaxies in bloom — some pale yellow, nearly faded, others still an angry purple-black, the kind that seemed to pulse with memory. There was a fresh bandage on her bicep, white and slightly stained at the edge where red had tried to bleed through. Hershel had done that, he was sure. No one else had hands steady enough anymore.

The wound was clean now. But Thomas didn't need to see the injury itself to understand what it meant. Violence had touched her. Deeply. It had reached into her and taken something, left behind pain in its place. And still she was here. Breathing. Unconscious, yes, but refusing to cross that final threshold into death.

His eyes continued their silent inventory. Her fingers — long, slender, and scraped — were wrapped tightly around Glenn's. The nails were short, uneven, bitten to the quick in places. One knuckle was bruised, another split. Not new, but not old either. Wendy had fought recently. That much was clear. Fought hard enough to leave proof behind, but not so hard that she couldn't hold on.

He wondered how many people had tried to hurt her. How many had failed. How many hadn't.

He wondered how many had fallen before their knees for her — before the world ended, before her skin bore maps of survival. Because if she was already this captivating now, bruised and bandaged and half-conscious, he could only imagine what she looked like when she smiled. When she stood tall. When she moved through the world with intent instead of injury.

He wondered if she knew. If she remembered the power she held. Or if it had been taken from her slowly, piece by piece, by the hands of men who never learned how to respect a woman's strength.

He wondered if she'd ever get it back.

The stillness in the room was so complete that it made the sudden gasp all the more jarring. It wasn't loud — barely more than a sharp inhale — but it split through the silence like a crack of lightning in a dry sky.

Thomas flinched, his whole body jerking forward before his brain caught up to his instinct. He turned quickly toward Glenn, whose eyes were wide and glistening, his breath shallow as he gripped Wendy's hand tighter — no, with both hands now, not just the one he'd been cradling since she'd been brought in, limp and bloodied, her pulse a threadbare thing beneath skin that had been far too cold.

Thomas's heart thudded so hard it almost hurt. For a wild moment, he thought Glenn had caught him staring — seen too much of something he wasn't supposed to be feeling. But that wasn't it. Not even close.

Glenn wasn't looking at him at all.

He was looking at her.

Thomas's eyes snapped to Wendy, and what he saw made his breath catch in his throat. Her lashes fluttered once, twice, trembling like the wings of a bird about to take flight. Then, with a slow, almost uncertain blink, her eyes opened — raw and glassy, the color of distant storms and bruised violets and every sleepless night carved into a single stare.

It was such a small thing, eyelids parting, but it shifted the entire gravitational pull of the room. Time, for a brief moment, ceased to be linear. Thomas felt his lungs expand like they hadn't in days, and Glenn — poor, stunned Glenn — looked like he'd forgotten how to breathe altogether. He clutched her hand like a lifeline, as if her soul might still drift off if he didn't anchor it fast enough.

Wendy blinked again, the edges of her vision swimming with light. Warmth. There was warmth on her hand — not just the physical sensation of it, but the emotional weight of it too.

She turned her head slightly to the right, and there he was.

Glenn.

Her brother. Her stupid, loud, reckless, loyal, golden-hearted brother.

Tears sprang to her eyes so fast she didn't have time to question them. They blurred her vision, smudged his face into a watery halo. But she'd recognize him even if the world burned down to ash and started over. That face — cleaner than she remembered, eyes wide with disbelief, jaw trembling — was a face she'd dreamed about in every dark night that she'd spent curled beneath lockers, or behind broken vending machines, or in the caged silence of a school that had stopped being a school the moment the screaming started.

This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

The sun was peeking in through the slats of the window like a gentle hand, brushing its fingers against her cheek. She smelled clean — soap, cotton, faint lavender, maybe. She was lying on something soft. A bed. A real bed. Her body was warm and covered, her skin not screaming in cold or agony. The world didn't smell like death or burnt flesh or mold. She couldn't feel the crusted blood down her spine or the dirt in her gums or the bone-deep ache in her knees.

For a moment — one suspended, aching moment — she truly believed she had died.

But heaven didn't make your heart thump this loud. It didn't sting your eyes or make your throat dry with awe and disbelief.

And it didn't hurt like this.

Her other hand twitched. She wanted to touch him, to make sure he was real and not some final hallucination dredged from her dying brain. She lifted her arm slowly, her muscles creaking like rusted door hinges. Her fingers moved instinctively toward his face.

And then pain surged through her shoulder like lightning — hot, fast, unforgiving.

"Shit," she hissed, teeth clenching as her entire arm seized in protest. She collapsed back into the pillow, breath shaky, eyes watering anew.

Glenn's hands flew to her arm. "Hey, hey, don't — don't move," he said quickly, voice tight with panic and hope, like someone juggling glass. "You're safe. I swear. You're okay."

Wendy blinked at him through the tears that hadn't yet fallen. Her breath was shallow, her pulse racing from the sudden shock. Her voice, when it came, was dry and cracked and low, but still carried that familiar edge of irreverence that had never quite died.

"Okay..." she rasped, mouth curling into a smirk that trembled like her voice, "so which bitch... shot me?"

Glenn stared at her.

And then — like a faucet bursting under pressure — he laughed. Not a small chuckle. Not a polite exhale. A real laugh, ragged and loud and full of disbelief and aching joy. He bent forward, his forehead pressing to the back of her hand, his shoulders shaking with the force of it.

Even here. Even now. After all this time.

She still hadn't lost her bite.

"God," he said, laughing through the thickness in his throat, "You're really back." She blinked again, her eyes searching his face, and he nodded as if answering some unspoken question. "You're back," he repeated, softer this time. "Wendy."

The name hit her like an echo, like something from a time she wasn't sure had ever existed. And yet it settled over her like a blanket she hadn't realized she'd been reaching for. She breathed in, letting it surround her.

Thomas, forgotten for the moment, watched from his quiet post. He didn't say a word. Didn't move. He just let it unfold. He bore witness to something sacred, something few people in this world got to see anymore. A reunion not built on rescue or conquest, but the sheer, miraculous will of survival.

A girl who should've died.

A boy who never stopped hoping.

And the bond between them that no bullet, no time, no hunger or horror had managed to break.

Not too much later, Thomas had slipped out. The moment things had gotten too heavy — Glenn's tears, the way his voice cracked when he said her name, the helpless way Wendy reached out for her brother with trembling fingers — he'd quietly made his exit.

He moved mechanically now, laying out plates on the long wooden table that groaned beneath the weight of more people than it had seen in years. The air was thick with the low murmur of voices and the occasional clink of utensils. The late afternoon sun slanted through the windows, brushing everything it touched with an aching gold, as if even light could sense the fragile peace stretching thin across this house.

Carol was helping set out the last of the food, her hands moving with quiet efficiency. Beth stood beside her, folding napkins that no one would really use, but it felt normal, and normal was sacred. Patricia hovered near Hershel, gently asking if he needed help, and he grumbled something unintelligible as he checked the simmering pot on the stove.

Lori was absent — upstairs with Carl, still sleeping. Thomas didn't want to think about it. The memory of Carl's small, pale face twisted in pain, the sound of Rick's desperation the day it happened — it all lived somewhere in his chest, folded like origami: sharp at the edges, impossible to unfold without tearing.

Some of the group had already taken their seats. T-Dog and Daryl sat at opposite ends, the former quietly observing, the latter tearing a piece of bread and chewing like it owed him money. Andrea leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, mouth set. Dale sat with his hands folded on the table, eyes tired, as if he'd already aged another year since they'd arrived. The energy was a quiet hum, like something building beneath the surface, a collective inhaling that hadn't yet decided if it would lead to a sigh or a scream.

Everyone was here now. Everyone except Glenn and Wendy. And Lori, though Carol had just slipped away to retrieve her. The door was still ajar, letting in the smell of warm earth and woodsmoke.

And then, predictably, inevitably, Shane opened his mouth.

"Well?" he said, loud enough to cut the hum like a blade. "Sleeping Beauty wake up yet, or we still waitin' on her highness to grace us?"

His voice carried across the room, dripping with disdain. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, but there was nothing amused about it. His eyes swept the table, gauging reactions, looking for allies. Seeds of doubt, scattered like birdshot.

Rick didn't even look up from his plate. "She's awake," he said evenly, "but we're not doing this now. Not tonight."

Shane leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Why not? Seems like tonight's as good a night as any. Girl shows up bloodied and bruised and now she's sleeping next to us?"

Thomas froze with a stack of plates in his hands, eyes flicking between the two men. The silence was brittle, ready to splinter. Across from him, Andrea's expression tightened. Dale was already shaking his head slowly.

Shane wasn't done. He never was.

"I'm just sayin', we don't know her. She could be anyone. Could be someone dangerous. Look at her."

It was always the same with Shane — he used fear like a scalpel, knowing exactly where to cut, where to slip under the skin and let the paranoia bleed out. And in this world, fear spread fast. You just needed the right kind of silence to follow it.

And he would've had it, too — he would've sunk it in deep, wedged suspicion between cracks that hadn't even been there a moment ago.

But then Maggie slammed her fork down against her plate.

The sound rang out like a gunshot, sharp and sudden and final. Everyone jumped — except for Hershel, whose hand only twitched slightly, though his eyes darted to his daughter in surprise. Carol froze halfway back into the room, lips parted as if caught mid-sentence.

Maggie stood slowly, her chair scraping across the wooden floor with a long, dragging sound. Her expression was unreadable — calm, almost eerily so — but her voice carried the kind of weight that didn't need to shout to be heard.

"You wanna question strangers, Shane?" she said coolly. "Go question yourself. I've seen the way you act. How you look at people like they're already guilty of something." Shane blinked, clearly not expecting that. His mouth opened, but she didn't give him a chance. "That girl has been here barely a day. She hasn't hurt anyone. She's Glenn's sister. Glenn, who risked his life to get medicine for Carl. Glenn, who from as far as I know, has done nothing but look after this group." Her gaze flicked across the table. "She's his family. The only one he's got left. And if he wants to be with her right now, then that's exactly where he should be."

Her voice trembled slightly at the edges, not with fear, but with something fiercer — resolve, rage, protectiveness that glowed beneath her skin like fire under glass. "And I don't care what scars she's got, or what she's been through. You're not gonna use that against her. Not in this house. Not while she's still healing. So either sit down and eat, or go find a barn to scream into, 'cause if you try to turn this table against them again, I'll be the one kicking you off this farm. Not my daddy."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Even the creak of the house seemed to still itself, listening.

Hershel was staring at his daughter now, as if seeing her for the first time. Not the farm girl who'd been content to take orders and stay out of the mess, but a woman who had lived through a changed world and come out harder, sharper, more certain. Patricia looked down at her plate, unsure whether to nod or shrink into her chair.

Shane's jaw tightened. He stared at Maggie for a beat longer, and then looked at Rick. But Rick didn't say a word — just picked up his fork, dipped it into his mashed potatoes, and began to eat.

The door creaked open with the soft whine of un-oiled hinges, and Glenn stepped inside with a slow, careful gait, like someone who had momentarily forgotten how to carry the weight of his own limbs.

His expression, however, was light, warmer than it had been in days, and entirely unaware of the raw tension that had just dissolved like ice dropped in boiling water. He wore a small, sheepish smile, the kind you carried when you walked into a room full of people who'd been waiting for you but didn't mind that you'd taken your time.

He looked tired, yes. There were shadows under his eyes, bruised with sleeplessness and worry and the kind of grief that doesn't move loudly but instead hums just beneath the skin. And still, there was something about him that had softened — unclenched. The permanent crease in his brow had loosened slightly. The ghost of panic that had haunted him for so long had retreated behind his eyes, replaced by something gentler. Something like hope, tentative and fragile but unmistakable.

He took a few steps in and inhaled deeply, his nose wrinkling slightly at the scent that filled the farmhouse — the smell of warm pie and boiled potatoes, something with garlic, and the rich, heavy AROMA that came from slow cooking on low heat, the kind of food that wrapped itself around you like a wool sweater.

"Damn," Glenn said, glancing around the table with a look of pleasant surprise. "Smells amazing in here."

There was a beat of silence — just long enough for the group to collectively shift, like a flock of birds that had almost taken flight but then decided to stay perched — and then Thomas, still sitting at the far end, raised a hand lazily and said, "All Carol."

The atmosphere shifted like the easing of a clenched fist.

Carol, who had been standing beside the table with a dish towel in her hand and her shoulders drawn up toward her ears like they might shield her from something unseen, blinked. Her lips parted, and she let out a soft, startled laugh, the kind that bubbled up before she had time to stop it. It wasn't loud or sharp — it was quiet, delicate almost, like it hadn't been used in a long time. And in truth, it hadn't.

More voices joined in, all at once: a chorus of half-smiles and nods, murmured praise directed toward her. Daryl muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a compliment under his breath. Dale nodded with his usual slow solemnity and added that it was the first thing he'd smelled in weeks that reminded him of home. Even Andrea gave her a small, genuine smile from across the table.

Carol ducked her head, her hand going automatically to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, and she looked down at the table like the attention might cause it to catch fire. But her face was warm now, tinged with a delicate blush that spread from the tips of her ears to the hollow of her throat. She mumbled something about it not being a big deal, that she just used what was already in the pantry, but her voice didn't carry, and no one asked her to repeat it.

And in that moment — just that small, luminous moment — it felt like the world had curled in on itself in the best possible way.

Because Carol was laughing.

It was a sound they hadn't heard in weeks. Not since the forest. Not since the endless hours of calling Sophia's name into trees that never answered back. Not since Carol had knelt beside an empty highway, her voice raw from shouting, her knees scuffed from falling, her face empty of anything but the numb ache of not knowing.

Thomas watched her now with quiet reverence. She was still the same woman — timid, cautious, always trying to disappear into the corners of rooms — but there was something glowing at the edges of her now, something only visible in the warm light of praise. In laughter. In the presence of people who, for once, weren't asking her to be less or more but simply letting her be.

The laughter that followed wasn't raucous or wild. It was gentle and frayed, a little awkward, as if they were all still remembering how to do it. But it was real. And that made it sacred.

The scrape of a slow, dragging step cut through the air like the turning of a page in a too-quiet room. Then another. Each footfall sounded as though it cost something — small tolls paid in breath and willpower. They came rhythmically, hesitantly, as if the walker were tethered to the shadows just outside the room and fighting with each inch to arrive somewhere warm, somewhere human.

And then she appeared.

She stood in the doorway like a half-finished memory. The softest dusk light clung to her from behind, outlining her in gold that did little to hide the wear she carried like old velvet. She wasn't cloaked in drama or defiance, wasn't seeking eyes or reactions. She was simply there. Tired. Upright. Moving. Her frame was slightly hunched, one hand pressed flat to the wall for balance, the other wrapped protectively around her bandaged body.

Every gaze turned toward her, instinctive and unfiltered. Hershel stilled his fork halfway to his mouth. Andrea blinked slowly, as if she wasn't sure if she was seeing right. Even Shane, seated at the far end like a storm cloud collecting mass, raised his head slightly, some unreadable flicker crossing his face.

But Wendy didn't look at them. She didn't acknowledge their silence, their careful surprise, their reverence disguised as discomfort. She just moved, slow and deliberate, toward the empty chair beside Glenn. It happened to be directly across from Thomas, whose hands, folded loosely in his lap, had gone rigid at the sight of her.

She passed Lori, who offered her a tentative smile — gentle, if uncertain. Wendy didn't return it, but not out of malice or pride. Her attention was singular. She had fixed her gaze on the chair like it was a summit, and she was halfway up the mountain.

The chair scraped loudly as she reached it. She nudged it with her knee, and it shifted a few uneven inches. Wendy winced. Her hand trembled slightly as she reached down for the edge, struggling to pull it out from under the table. It was such a simple, infuriating task, the kind that reminded you how broken your body was.

Across the table, Thomas made the smallest movement — just the flex of his thigh muscle as he prepared to rise. He didn't even realize he'd done it until he felt a swift, sharp jab against his shin under the table.

He jerked, blinking, and glanced over at Glenn, who was giving him a hard, narrow-eyed look. The message was clear as day.

Don't.

Thomas blinked once more, then nodded almost imperceptibly and settled back into his chair. Glenn didn't look away, not even as Wendy finally, after several grunts and an audible huff, got the chair where she wanted it. She lowered herself with the painstaking slowness of someone carefully negotiating a truce with gravity.

And then she was seated, both hands braced on the edge of the table, her face tight with strain but not without spirit.

"Jesus," she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for the room to hear. "I feel like I just climbed a goddamn mountain just to sit in a chair." No one laughed. Not even a chuckle. Not even a nervous breath. Wendy blinked, her brows lifting. She turned to Glenn, one corner of her mouth lifting as she whispered, "Tough crowd."

That got a smile from Glenn — crooked and boyish. His cheeks rounded as he bit back a laugh, clearly trying not to further provoke the solemn stillness that had overtaken the room. Then he leaned slightly forward, his voice pitched just enough for the others to hear as he addressed them all with his usual affable charm.

"For the record," he said, "I offered to help her. About five times. She wouldn't let me." He looked over at Wendy, who simply raised her chin in proud defiance, the bruising at her temple catching the light like ink smudged on skin. Glenn grinned. "She's stubborn," he said simply. "Like — dangerously stubborn. The kind of stubborn that once made her jump off the roof of our neighbor's house because some kid said girls couldn't climb it."

Carol raised her eyebrows. Thomas smiled despite himself.

"She broke her wrist," Glenn added, fond exasperation filling his voice like water in a glass. "Didn't cry. Just asked for a sandwich and an ice pack."

"I remember that sandwich," Wendy croaked, her voice raspy but laced with a smirk. "You made it with American cheese and stale Wonder Bread."

"You're welcome," Glenn replied dryly.

Laughter stirred again — tentative, flickering to life like a wick catching flame. The tension broke like a thin sheet of ice, crackling under the weight of something human and honest. Maggie exhaled slowly beside her father, her shoulders finally lowering from where they'd been braced.

Wendy's fingers curled around the fork like it was a tool she'd nearly forgotten how to use, as though it belonged to a life that had happened to someone else. The metal was cool and slightly dulled with age, mismatched with the rest of the cutlery, and it trembled ever so slightly in her grasp before steadying. She kept her head down, eyes lowered to the plate in front of her: string green beans, mashed potatoes with the faintest crater of gravy in the center, and a modest slice of ham, pink and glistening at the edge, slightly burnt on one side.

It looked like food. It smelled like food. But it felt like a test.

She began to eat slowly, fork slipping beneath the beans, lifting three at a time, not more. She chewed with care, swallowing as though each motion required permission from her body, as if her stomach had forgotten what it meant to be fed gently, without urgency or adrenaline. Anyone watching might have assumed she didn't like the meal. That it was too bland or too unfamiliar. But the truth was much simpler, and also more embarrassing.

She didn't want to look like an animal.

She didn't want to devour the plate in front of her, even though she could have — God, she could have. Her body screamed for it, craved the salt, the warmth, the starchy comfort of mashed potatoes with more butter than she remembered was even possible. But that instinct, the one that said rip and swallow and hoard, had to be tamed, masked beneath slow, steady bites, under the guise of control. Because right now, perception was everything. And she could feel their eyes like heat lamps: curious, calculating, unblinking.

Especially his.

Across the table, seated like a hawk watching movement from high branches, Shane's gaze tracked her every motion. He hadn't touched his food in minutes. His posture was casual — too casual, legs spread wide, elbow cocked lazily against the table — but his eyes were alert. Suspicious. Watching her the way men who'd seen too much violence often watched strangers: calculating what kind of threat lay hidden behind tired smiles and stitched-up wounds.

No one else was speaking. The silence stretched long, knitted itself like invisible thread around their wrists and throats, binding them together in a moment too dense with tension to cut with words.

Until Andrea did.

"I'm... sorry," she said, her voice breaking into the quiet like a stone dropped into water. "For shooting you. I didn't know —"

The words hung there, unfinished and limp, like laundry half-pinned to a line. Her voice didn't shake, but her shoulders had curled in slightly, just a twitch, a posture of someone who knew they'd erred.

Wendy looked up.

In another setting, another version of herself, one that hadn't just crawled through hell and made it out stitched together with only pride and grit, she would've stared Andrea down. Said something cutting. Something unforgivable and sharp. Maybe: "Your aim's shit." Or, "Hope you shoot geeks better than you shoot people."

But not here. She was exhausted. And more importantly, she needed these people to like her. Not because she craved approval, but because she could already see the lines being drawn in the sand. The looks they gave her — strangely reverent, oddly bitter — reminded her of high school, of the days when someone new would transfer in halfway through the semester, stunningly beautiful or devastatingly cool, and suddenly everyone's social position trembled.

Except here, the stakes were higher than popularity. And the currency was trust.

To them, she wasn't just new.

She was unknown.

She was Glenn's sister. The girl who arrived bleeding, unconscious, and now sat among them like some battered monarch returning from exile. There was something disorienting about it, even to her. It felt strange to be visible again. Stranger still to know that whatever status she'd once held — leader of her own ragtag crew, second voice to Enzo, protector of Jade — meant absolutely nothing here.

Here, she was at the bottom of the chain. Not even on it, really. A foreign body. An outlier.

She took another bite of her potatoes, nodding slowly at Andrea's apology, but said nothing. There was no forgiveness, no denial, just a mutual understanding: we both could have died, and didn't.

And yet, even as she sat in the soft hush of dinner, surrounded by warmth and the faint scent of rosemary from Carol's careful hand, Wendy could already see the future unraveling in front of her, beat by predictable beat.

It was like watching a play she'd already read the script for, the kind you attend out of politeness, even though every line is burned into your memory. Rick would give orders. Shane would back him up. Or contradict him. They'd fight — loudly or in murmurs that crackled like live wire.

And then she'd speak up. With a plan. With logic. With something better.

And they'd ignore her.

Not with overt malice, but with that eerie kind of silence that kills good ideas before they're even born. The silence of men who don't know what to do with a woman who doesn't defer. The silence that dismissed women like her before the world ended, and still did, even after.

She could already hear it: "That's not the way we do things here." Or worse: "Let's stick to the original plan."

And she'd smile. Nod. Maybe say nothing. Maybe say something anyway. It would depend on the day, on the stakes, on whether she had enough energy left in her bones to fight the same old war in a brand new world.

She glanced at Glenn beside her, who was now scooping potatoes onto her plate again with all the gentleness of someone trying not to wake a sleeping child.

It started slow. The tension had been simmering beneath the surface like a pot just shy of boiling, the kind of heat you don't see until it hisses over and leaves burn marks you didn't know to prepare for.

The scrape of a fork. The hush of chewing. The occasional sniffle, the drag of a sleeve across a nose, the sound of someone swallowing too hard.

And then Shane leaned forward with the subtle tilt of a predator who'd found something interesting in the long grass. His plate was only half touched, fork idling between his fingers, tapping a soft rhythm like a warning bell.

"So," he said, almost lazily. "Where've you been all this time?"

Glenn tensed beside her, his knuckles whitening around his fork, and Rick — across the table, quiet and coiled like a man balancing between diplomacy and explosion — lifted a hand without looking up.

"Shane," Rick said, his voice tight. "Now's not —"

"It's dinner, Rick," Shane cut in. He kept his eyes fixed on Wendy, never once glancing away. "I'm just makin' conversation."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't curiosity. It was an interrogation wrapped in politeness so thin it could snap with a breath. Wendy blinked slowly. Took a small sip of water from the wine glass in front of her. She could feel the stares now. Not just Shane. Not just Rick. But everyone. Like they'd all been waiting for someone to open the gate.

She set the glass down gently.

"When the world went to shit," she said, "I was at school." There was a pause, just long enough for Shane to quirk an eyebrow, his head tilting with practiced disbelief. "I was stuck there with my archery team. I was the senior captain."

"Archery," Shane said, and chuckled. "Bullshit."

Wendy didn't blink. "You want me to show you my form?"

That caught him off guard — just for a breath. She could see the flicker of surprise behind his eyes, the way he hadn't expected pushback. She leaned forward a little, elbows on the table now, the movement slow and deliberate, not aggressive but deeply rooted in authority.

"We were there when it started. Phones stopped working. People started screaming. Some of the staff turned — some of the students. We locked ourselves in the bathroom at first, then we ran out of food, we started raiding vending machines, then the faculty lounge. There was a closet full of bottled water near the band room. We rationed it."

"They teach apocalypse survival in gym class now?" Shane drawled.

Wendy's brow furrowed — not in anger, but in the kind of slow, deliberate confusion that comes when someone fundamentally misunderstands the depth of what you've lived through.

"We broke down desks. Chair legs. Broom handles from janitor closets. We stripped the bathroom stalls for the metal bars and used the partitions to barricade the doors. Every hallway had to be cleared. Every classroom. You get used to the smell fast, but not the sound."

The words came slowly now, like a story she'd told to herself in pieces, alone, while curled up in dark corners, waiting for something to feel safe enough to say aloud. Her voice wasn't dramatic. It wasn't pleading. It was clean and steady, like she was reading a list of facts carved into her own ribcage.

"There were three of us left. Me, Jade, and Enzo. We got good at it. Cleared the whole school. Every room. We'd drag the bodies up to the roof, burn them. Thought the smoke might signal someone. Rescue. News helicopters. Something."

"And did it?" Shane's voice cut in again, sharp now, loud enough to jar the silence back into motion. "You get your miracle?"

Wendy scoffed, the sound dry and humorless. "You think I'd be here if we did?"

Across the table, Rick shifted in his seat, arms folding, eyes narrowing — not with suspicion, but with the heavy scrutiny of a man who wanted to understand before choosing sides. The next question came quiet, but firm.

"If you had that much control," Rick said, "if you cleared the school, turned it into a stronghold... why'd you leave?"

A different kind of silence followed.

Wendy didn't answer immediately. She looked down at her plate, twirled her fork into the mashed potatoes, not because she was hungry but because she needed a second to settle the storm rising in her chest. She wanted to glare. She wanted to shout, to say you don't know what happened and none of you were there, but she held it in. Let it sink. Swallowed it like a bitter pill.

"Because shit happens," she said quietly. "Things fall apart."

It wasn't enough of an answer. She knew that. But it was all she could give.

She picked up her glass again, sipped slower this time. The taste of iron lingered behind her teeth, though her mouth was clean.

"I left because I wanted to find Glenn," she added, her voice softening as she glanced at her brother. "That was all that mattered by then."

Shane didn't move. He didn't need to. The way he looked at her was enough. A snake circling a flame. He didn't believe her. Not fully. But that wasn't what mattered.

What mattered was that the others did.

They were listening. Really listening.

T-Dog was frowning, his arms crossed over his chest. Dale looked almost stunned. Even Daryl — leaned back in his chair, seemingly disinterested — had stopped chewing.

Carol's eyes were glassy. Hershel leaned forward slightly, one hand pressed to the table, not as challenge but as invitation. Even Rick, to Wendy's surprise, looked less combative, more human.

The air in the room shifted again.

Because Shane hadn't backed down. Not an inch. And you could see it in the set of his jaw, the grind of his molars, the twitch of muscle in his cheek — anger building like a storm cloud over dry land, thunder low and swelling.

He sat forward slowly, planting his elbows on the table, fingers laced together like a man who'd prayed before and found nothing on the other end.

"Alright," he said, voice deceptively calm. "What about Sophia?"

The name hit like a rock to the back of the skull.

Wendy's fork paused mid-air. The clatter of silver against ceramic echoed in the silence as she set it down, breath steady, but something in her chest tightened like it had been waiting for this. For the pivot from skepticism to cruelty.

Shane didn't blink. His eyes were sharp and burning now, and they didn't waver from her face.

"She was with you, right?" he said. Wendy opened her mouth to answer, but he didn't let her. "Then why the hell isn't she with you now?"

There was no gentleness in it. No kindness. Just the deliberate violence of dragging something fragile into the light and holding it there, squirming.

"What happened to her?" he pushed. "Why'd she leave you if it was so goddamn safe?"

A breath. One. Maybe two. Wendy sat still, rigid, the pulse in her neck ticking just under the surface. She wasn't shocked by the cruelty — just the speed of it. The way he'd twisted the knife before she even had a chance to brace.

She scoffed. It wasn't even bitter — just tired, a sound pulled from the base of her lungs like someone blowing dust off an old book.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be welcoming or something?" she said, tone flat but laced with something sardonic.

Shane leaned back in his chair, scoffing loud and hard. "Oh yeah. That's right. I was welcoming you." He jabbed a thumb into his chest with mock sincerity, his voice climbing now, rougher. "But I ain't gonna do it anymore. 'Cause you're lying to me." The words struck like slaps. "You're lyin'," he said. "You sit there with that smug look like we're supposed to just eat up everything you're feedin' us, like it's gospel. Like your name gives you a pass."

Wendy's shoulders stiffened, but then — almost inexplicably — she started laughing. Soft at first. Then fuller. A chuckle that escaped through her teeth and curled up like smoke.

It wasn't joyful. It wasn't cruel. It was disbelieving.

That laugh — so casual, so undeserved — set Shane off like a lit fuse.

"Don't laugh at me," he barked, shooting up from his chair so fast it nearly toppled backwards.

Glenn jolted beside her, hand twitching toward Wendy protectively, but she didn't flinch. She sat there, still. Cool as stone.

"Yes, you are," Shane shouted, jabbing a finger at her. "You're leaving shit out. You're dodging. You think I haven't done this long enough to know when someone's hiding something?"

His voice bounced off the walls, rattled the air between them. Faces around the table froze, slack-jawed and stiff. Beth looked down. Andrea's hand twitched toward her pistol unconsciously. Hershel shifted in his seat, but didn't intervene.

"You want me to welcome you?" Shane yelled. "No. In fact — fuck no." He pointed toward the door, eyes bright with fury. "You don't get to show up here with half a story and expect me to roll out the red carpet because you're Glenn's sister. That don't mean shit to me. Not when you might be gettin' people killed."

That's when Rick stood.

Not rushed. Not dramatic. But the quiet, dangerous sort of rising that made everyone else sit straighter in their seats. A movement not of panic, but control fraying at the edges.

"That's enough," Rick said. "Sit down, Shane."

His voice was low but firm. A man used to being obeyed. A man clinging to leadership by sheer force of will.

Shane whirled on him, eyes wide. "No. It ain't enough. You're lettin' this happen."

Rick stepped forward. "She just got here."

Shane's laugh this time was bitter, choking. "Exactly. She just got here, and you're already actin' like she's one of us."

"She is one of us," Rick bit back. "She's Glenn's —"

"I don't give a shit if she's the Queen of England," Shane snapped. "We don't know her. We don't know what happened to that girl and we're just supposed to believe she wandered off?"

Rick's hands balled into fists at his sides. "You're making assumptions —"

"No, you're makin' a mistake," Shane shouted. "You keep makin' these calls, these soft-hearted choices — bringing in strangers, trusting 'em too fast, actin' like it's still the world we lost."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping into something more venomous. "But it ain't. And you're gonna get people killed thinkin' otherwise."

He turned to her, eyes sharp, unforgiving, and locked onto her like a searchlight zeroing in on a fugitive.

"Did you do something to her?"

And it was strange — how quickly everything dropped away. The low hum of wind outside the farmhouse. The distant croak of frogs and the rustling of branches in the dark. Even the heat of the tension that had been building and building like a boiler about to burst — gone.

Wendy didn't blink.

But her face changed.

Not all at once, not like a crack across porcelain — but slowly. Deliberately. Like the sun being swallowed by a moving cloud. It began at her eyes — those cold, flat eyes she had sharpened like a blade since the moment she'd stepped through their door. They dulled, softened, lost focus. A glint of moisture appeared in the corner of one, just enough to catch the candlelight flickering in the center of the table.

Her mouth remained still, set, but her jaw shifted just slightly — like she'd caught herself mid-swallow and forgotten how to finish. Her shoulders, always so rigid with composure, sagged. Not with shame, not with fear — but with the weight of something long buried pulling itself up from the depths.

She didn't answer. Not because she didn't want to, but because the question had already torn through her. Shane's voice still echoed in the corners of the room, louder than it had been, but oddly muffled now, like it had been dipped in syrup and sealed behind the pressure in her ears.

Wendy had looked at him, expressionless for one breathless moment — the way a still lake holds its surface just before the storm beneath finally ruptures.

It wasn't the kind of question that deserved a yes or no. It wasn't the kind of accusation you could bat away with a quick tongue or a sharp joke. It was a question that rooted into you, snaked down the spine, split into nerves like frost through old pipes.

Wendy's gaze, once cool and unmoved, began to flicker — like glass cracking under heat. Her jaw twitched. Not a wince. Not a smile. Something in between. A fracture forming between the pieces she held together too long.

She had never touched Sophia — not in cruelty, not in anger. She had never raised a hand or let a moment pass without shielding that girl from the sickness of this world. She had pulled her from death. Again and again. She had stayed awake when she should've collapsed, bled when she didn't have to, stolen food when she could've starved. She had been good to her.

But something had happened.

And Sophia had slept with her back to her that night.

So now, when Shane asked the question — when his voice cut across the table like a blade dipped in acid — Wendy couldn't look at him. She stared at her plate, the dull glint of mashed potatoes glazed with gravy. Her fork rested in her hand like lead.

Her breath stuttered once. Just once. Enough to lift her shoulders and let them fall again in defeat.

No one spoke.

But her silence said everything.

She didn't do something to Sophia. But something happened because of her. And sometimes that was worse.

Her eyes began to gloss — slowly, like frost crawling across a pane of glass. No tears yet. Just the glimmer of what might come if she let herself fall apart in front of them. Her mouth trembled faintly before going still. Her tongue pressed behind her teeth like it was trying to hold something in. Her stomach clenched. Guilt sat in her like a stone dropped into water — a cold, unmovable weight.

Her fingers curled tighter around the fork, not because she intended to use it but because she needed something to hold, something to ground her in the present. She blinked once. Twice. The room blurred, the edges of faces going soft, too soft.

Shane didn't stop. He couldn't. Something about Wendy — about her stillness, her composure, that too-calm face like a pond hiding corpses at the bottom — had gotten under his skin and burrowed deep.

Maybe it was the way she held herself like she wasn't afraid of him.

Maybe it was the way everyone else looked at her with that brewing sympathy, like they already knew something about her he hadn't been let in on.

Or maybe it was just because she wouldn't flinch.

His boots hit the wooden floor with too much weight, each step closer loud enough to ring through her bones, and his voice came low and cutting. "Did you hurt her?"

Wendy didn't hesitate. But her whisper cracked. "No," she said, too soft for most to hear, but just loud enough for him to register the tremble in her breath, the quiver curling around the edges of the word like frost forming on a dying leaf.

She hadn't hurt Sophia. Not in the way Shane meant. But her body was beginning to shake now, that familiar tremor that always came just before the dam broke. She'd held it in this long — the tension, the guilt, the spinning carousel of her memory — but her grip was loosening. She couldn't hold the fork anymore. Couldn't even hear the room properly. Everything sounded like it was underwater.

And still, Shane didn't stop.

"Then what?" he demanded, closer now, his eyes boring into hers like nails through soft wood. "What did you do?"

The question opened her like a scalpel.

What did she do?

What did she do?

Wendy's mind was no longer in the farmhouse kitchen. Not in the safe warmth of wood-panel walls or the thick smell of potatoes cooling. Her hands were not resting on her lap. They were gripping the limb of a dead man. The passenger door of a derailed train car. The cold handle of her bow, wet with sweat and blood and shaking fingers that wouldn't line up right.

The silence returned as she blinked — once, then again — grounding herself back in the present. Shane towered over her now, waiting. Hungry for something. Maybe confession. Maybe collapse. But she gave him neither.

Instead, she stood. Her legs shook beneath her, the table groaning slightly as she pushed herself up, and her hand reached instinctively for the wall behind her, fingers sliding along the grain of it like she could anchor herself there. One step. Two. She breathed in. Deep. Steadying.

And then she looked up at him — at Shane, eyes still narrowed with distrust, hands flexing like he didn't know what to do with them now — and her face did something new.

It broke.

Not loudly. Not theatrically. Just one tear, cutting a clean line down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away. She didn't have to. It made its point as it fell. A glint of salt and sorrow catching the lantern light.

"I saved her," Wendy said.

Her voice was quiet, but this time not fragile. It had the shape of something permanent, something settled in her ribs like an old scar. She didn't add anything more. No justification. No defense.

And she turned.

One hand on the wall, her shoulder scraping it softly as she moved past the table, out of the room. She didn't look back. Not at Rick. Not at Glenn. Not at the others who stared after her like she'd just shown them a secret too heavy to hold.

She didn't see Glenn rise, but she heard the scrape of his chair, loud in the silence that followed. He looked around the table — at Rick, at Lori, at Thomas, at Andrea who still hadn't blinked — and his face was tight, mouth pressed into a grim line that didn't suit him.

"I told you she was shit liar," he said. "Can't fake a damn thing. Never could." His eyes found Shane last. "And she didn't lie. Not once."

The room was still. Even the creak of the farmhouse seemed to hush itself.

Shane didn't respond. Not immediately. Maybe he couldn't. Because whatever victory he thought he'd clawed from Wendy, whatever answers he thought he'd forced out, had twisted in his hands like wire. What remained now wasn't dominance. It was doubt. Not just his own. Everyone's.

They stared at him the way people stare at something that suddenly looks wrong. A bad decision. A weapon turned in the wrong direction.

And if Shane had hoped to rally the room, to cast Wendy as the outsider, the threat, the unknown variable — he'd failed. Miserably.

Because now, all they saw was him.

And they didn't like what they saw.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

y'all came in clutch with the comments oh my god. NOT THE GASLIGHTING ACTUALLY WORKING I FEEL LIKE A MAN LMFAOJSXC

i hoped u guys liked this chapter, future chapter will probably look more this, like always in wendy's perspective unless they're separated again then a gif of thomas will be shown at the beginning like before!

not many thomas and wendy scenes but u know the bitch was sleeping.

more to come though hehe

ofc i did boy falls first im a sucker for that trope

much love,