Rick's POV:
At first light, I was up and getting everything together. I was antsy to start working on clearing the prison. Daryl was already up before me though, I don't know if I had seen him sleep since Aspen's death. Slowly, the others began to wake up. I finally allowed Hershel to start a fire, but I didn't see Thomas anywhere for him to make a snarky remark.
As we packed all of our stuff into the vehicles, he was still no where to be found. He wasn't the most liked person in the group right now, so I bet if I said anything, no one would pay much attention. I just hoped he made it into a vehicle.
I kept packing my stuff up and helped Carl and Lori into the truck. We began to drive to the prison, and Thomas slipped my mind.
Once we reached the prison's gate, I stopped the truck and motioned for everyone to get out.
"Glenn, Daryl, T-Dog, Thomas, and I will go in there and try to clear as much as we can, the rest of you stay here and wait for our signal."
Everyone began to mutter after I finished. "Is something wrong?" I asked.
"Well, it's just that Thomas isn't here." Maggie finally spoke up.
"Well where is he?!" I shouted. This kid was on my last nerve, and now he's gone?!
"I guess he was left behind when we drove off." This time it was Glenn speaking.
"He deserves it." Daryl mumbled.
"We'll deal with this later." I sighed, rubbing a hand down my face. I didn't totally disagree with Daryl at this point, but I didn't need this group to fall apart right now. We were all under stress and we were all depressed from Aspen's death. This was the moment we needed each other most.
"Okay, Glenn, Daryl and T-Dog come with me." And with that we took off into the prison.
Carol's POV:
I watched the men take off into the prison, clearing walkers. I sighed and sat down in the truck. It could take a few minutes to a few hours depending on how many walkers there were. Everyone followed my suit, finding seats to rest their legs in. Lori came over to me and crawled into the drivers side door. She didn't have Carl, so I assumed she left him with someone else.
"Can I ask you something?" Lori finally asked, breaking the silence.
"You just did." I muttered. I was sick and tired of everyone stumbling around because of Aspen's death. People were going to die, that's the way it was. No one cared this much when my Sophia died, did they?
"Well, I think something needs to be done about the group."
Now she had my attention. "What do you mean?"
"It's just that everyone is moping around because Aspen died. One of these days someone isn't going to be paying attention and more people are going to die because of their mistake. I have to worry everyday about this baby being born, and now the group is just focused on her death, not their safety." She sighed, looking out the window.
"No, I agree with you. We need to figure out someway to make the group just forget about what happened to Aspen. That's all that's on anyone's mind and you're right, it's going to get someone killed eventually." I heard an intake of breath and I swung my head to face Maggie who had heard the conversation.
"How could you?!" She yelled, tears in her accusing eyes. "She was a part of this group as much as you and me! And you expect us to just forget about her?! How could you?!" She stormed off, hearing Rick's signal to follow them.
Maggie's POV:
After hearing Lori's and Carol's conversation, I took off after the men. I saw they had cleared out the entire first two rows of walkers, and had made it to the actual prison building but had not entered.
I ran up to Glenn and wrapped my arms around his waist, trying to keep myself from breaking down in front of the other members of the group.
"What's wrong?!" He asked quietly, worry filling his eyes when I looked up at him.
"I'll tell you later." I said softly. He just nodded and wrapped his arms around me as Rick began speaking to the group.
HOURS LATAER, THE SUN IS SETTING
We had managed to clear out a prison block that was safe enough for us to stay in. We each got a prison cell except for Daryl who said he wouldn't sleep in a cage.
I told Rick I was going down to the catacombs where we still hadn't managed to clear out all of the walkers.
I stormed down the halls until I found my first group of walkers. I made quick work of them. I continued for hours killing walker after walker until I couldn't see straight. I felt my body dragging with exhaustion, so I turned around and began head back to the block the group is staying in when I heard a noise.
I stopped moving a listened. It sounded like someone was banging, trying to get out. It was a soft and slow bang though, like whoever it was were too weak to move much.
I slowly crept towards the noise, soon seeing it was coming from a door blocked by a walker's body. I stabbed the walker in the head to make sure it was dead before dragging it away from the door. I opened the door slowly and saw a person crumpled up on the floor. It looked like the walkers chased them into this room, trapping them.
I slowly reached down to flip them over and I recognized their face immediately.
"Thomas?! How the hell did you get in here?" I sighed, knowing he was probably too tired to answer me. I picked him up, forcing my tired body to carry him all the way back to the main block where the group set up.
I finally reached a cell and set him down inside. He immediately fell asleep and his breathing soon became heavy. I walked back down the stairs and found Rick.
"I found Thomas." I said.
"Where?"
"In the catacombs. It looked like he was chased by walkers into a room and was trapped in there until I cleared out all of the walkers. He's sleeping in the cell up there now."
He sighed and rubbed his hand along his chin. "Alright, I'll tell the group in the morning. Get yourself some sleep Maggie. You did well today."
"Thanks Rick. Try to get some sleep yourself. This group needs you now more than ever." I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I'm here for you if you need anything."
"Thank you Maggie." His mouth was smiling slightly, but his eyes just looked tired. He put on a shell while he was the leader, but when it was just him and someone he trusted, that shell fell away.
I turned away from him and headed to the cell that Glenn and I claimed. When I walked into the room, he was lying on the bottom bunk, with an arm over his head.
I slipped off my shoes and climbed in next to him. When he felt my presence, he moved his arm and wrapped it around my waist. I could tell he was about to doze off but I needed to talk to him.
"Glenn, wake up baby." I shook him gently. "I need to talk to you."
He finally moaned and opened his eyes. "Yes?" He asked, his voice groggy with sleep.
"You asked me what happened earlier and I wanted to tell you."
With that, he immediately sprung up, wide awake. "Yes, please tell me honey, what happened?"
"Well, I was walking past the truck and could see that Carol and Lori were in there. I walked up to them, wanting to talk to someone, when I heard them talking. Neither of them saw me, so I just kept listening." I paused. "Glenn, they were saying that the group needs to forget about Aspen! They said we were all moping around and they needed to do something to get us all to forget about her because sooner or later it would get some of us killed!" I finally broke down into Glenn's chest.
"Shh. It's okay. They had no right to say that. They are just trying to look out for the group. They didn't actually mean that we should forget about her, but they just wanted to try and help the group. I'm not saying what they said was right, it was so far from right, but they're just trying to help." He rubbed my back as my tears dried up.
I looked up at him. "She's just gone Glenn. She's gone. And she's never coming back." I felt the tears stream down my face again as Glenn slowly laid me down and turned me around so my back was to him. He rubbed my back slowly until it lulled me to sleep.