REMEMBER ME HAPPY | r. grimes

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"Sure." Emerson nodded.

Rick followed her out of the house and onto the porch. "Hershel's giving us a chance to stay." Rick told her.

"That's. . . That's great." Emerson smiled.

"We just gotta follow his rules." Rick told her.

Emerson put her hands up in defeat. "You know I don't have a problem doing that."

Rick just looked at her. The two of them were standing less than a feet apart. Emerson stared right back at him, testing him.

Rick sighed. "I can't. . . That stunt you pulled today, I don't want that to happen again. You can't be puttin' yourself at risk. Silas needs you, Carl needs you–"

"What stunt? We needed water, Rick. Someone had to go down and finish the job."

"Why did it have to be you?" Rick challenged. "It doesn't always have to be you. Why can't you just stay in one place?"

"Who the hell are you yelling at, Rick? I am a person. I deserve to be treated like one and spoke to like one." Emerson argued.

Rick stared at her.

"Lori wants to try again. For Carl." Rick told her.

Emerson almost laughed. "What are you gonna do?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." He answered.

Emerson wanted to tell him how much she cared about him. How hard she had been falling from him from the moment they met.

She wanted to ask him if he felt that spark that she felt every time he touched her. Whether it was brushing up against her arm, or patting her back. Or even how every time he looked at her, her knee's grew weak and her heart started pounding faster and faster with each passing second.

But she didn't say any of that. Instead, she thought of Carl. What would Carl want?

And she thought Carl would want his parents together, instead of apart.

"I don't think I can answer that."

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

The next morning, Emerson was helping Carol with the laundry. Silas went off to look for Sophia with Nathan again and promised to be back by this afternoon.

"You know how nice it is to just. . . Breathe?" Emerson asked Carol.

The woman chuckled, "Oh yes. This land– it's beautiful."

"Need a hand?" Lori asked, approaching the two women.

"Sure." Carol smiled. "We we're just talkin' about how beautiful Hershel's farm is."

"That's what I thought when I first got here. Except, we all slept in the barn." Lori answered. "Not as warm as the house."

"What do you mean?" Carol asked.

"Uh, well, in the beginning, there was a lot of us. Maybe a dozen or so. Lot of them left and eventually, I was the only one here. I was the only one who didn't even know where to begin looking for my family." Lori answered. "I've been here ever since."