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Today was the day of Otis's funeral.
His body had never returned to his family.
He'd forever be stuck at the high school.
It had been two day's since Carl's operation and he was recovering remarkably well.
The sun was beating on everyone's back as they stared at the stacks of rock that should've been covering Otis's body.
More of the group had joined them on the farm. They even bought Natalie's car with them.
Each person went forth to place another rock on the stack as Herschel said a prayer.
Together, Natalie, Emilia and Isabel placed it on top of the stack. The two younger girls fell back in line with the rest but Natalie still stood by it.
She rested her hand on it and closed her eyes making a tear flow down her cheek.
She sighed heavily before turning around and making her way back to her girls. She picked up Emilia, who was also crying and placed her on her hip, as Isabel rested her head against Natalie's bicep.
Natalie kept her eyes on Patricia as she sobbed for her husband.
"Shane?" Herschel said once he finished his prayer, "will you say a few words on Otis?"
"I've never been good at that sort of thing." Shane quickly responded.
"You were the last one with him," Patricia cried, making Natalie trail for her. "Please, share his final moments." Natalie rubbed her hand up and down Patricia's arm as she begged Shane to speak. "I need to know if his death had meaning."
Shane looked down, struggling to get his words out, "We were about done," he started avoiding all eye contact, "we were done to pistols by then, I was limping, 'we gotta save the boy' that's what he said." Shane said, his voice breaking up. "He gave me his backpack n' sent me ahead, 'run' he said, and I did, but when I looked back..." he said finally looking up at Patricia, "If not for Otis, I never would've made it out alive and that goes for Carl, too." he persuaded. "It was Otis. If any death ever had meaning, it was his."
The group all head back in one by one, Patricia stayed the longest out.
Natalie sent her girls in with her sisters as she accompanied Patricia out longer.
Eventually, Patricia, too, went in. Sending a long trail of her cries to the house.
"How long has the girl been missing for?" Herschel said as the group approached the hood of the car.
"It'll be the third day now," Rick responded as Maggie came forth.
"This is the county map," she spoke setting it out in front of everyone on the hood, "shows all-terrain and elevations."
"This is perfect, we can finally get this thing organised," Rick spoke impressed. Natalie leaned up against the car, trying to get a good look at where he planning for us to go. "We can start searching in teams."
"Not you," Natalie spoke, pushing herself off the car to stand up straight. "Not today at least. You gave three units of blood, you won't be able to do anything in this heat."
"And your ankle," Herschel spoke up defending his daughter. "You won't last long out there either."
"Guess that's just me then," Daryl said.
"Alright, then tomorrow." Rick urged.
"That also means we can't just go out with knives," Shane stated, "we need to start gun training."
"What happened to not using weapons that could attract a herd?" Natalie said unimpressed, "the day before last you against using guns, now you want to start training?"
"She's right," Herschel spoke up again, "I'd prefer you not to be carrying guns on my property."
"We're guests here," Rick said understandingly, "and we will respect that." He placed his gun on the car.
"What happens when we find Sophia?" Shane said, "What if she's not alive?"
"You do what has to be done."
"And her mother?" Maggie started, "what do you tell her?"
"The truth," Andrea responded.
Herschel, Maggie and Natalie all shared an unimpressed look with eachother. Slightly outraged by their ruthlessness. Herschel shook his head at his girls, not wanting them to interfere.
"We need to get some more supplies," Maggie stated to Natalie, Rick and Herschel. "We're running low, I'll head into town."
"You see that man, in the baseball hat, that's Glenn, I'd want him to accompany you just to be cautious." Maggie looked to her father who nodded.
Natalie was walking back to the house, when Dale approached her, "Natalie, what's the water situation here?"
"We've got five wells on the land, number one is on the left and number two is over there," she said pointing to each one. "Take what you need," she said smiling.
One of the wells had a fallen walker in it. Half of the group went to the well in order to sort it out.
"I say we put a bullet through it's head," Lori said.
"Woah, woah, guys, no," Maggie interjected.
"It's a stupid plan if that thing hasn't contaminated the water yet, blowing its brains will do the job," Natalie said also agreeing with her sister.
"So it needs to come out alive - how we gonna do that?" T-Dog asked.
The first plan was to lure down some bait, in an attempt so the walker could grab it, but that didn't work out too well, it didn't go for it.
Probably something to do with the fact it doesn't scream and squirm when it's bitten into.
"We need live bait," Andrea said, then looking up to Glenn along with the others, except Natalie and Maggie. Who, instead looked at eachother in shock, at how at ease they were about sending Glenn down there.
Glenn himself obviously didn't look too excited to do this.
Natalie and Maggie both stood to the side watching Shane secure a rope around Glenn as he tried to flatter him with compliments to get out of this predicament.
"How are they okay with sending one of their own down there?" Maggie whispered crossing her arms over her chest and scowling.
"I don't know, but something tells me this isn't the first time they've done this," Natalie concluded.
"Who's that girl? The one you bought with you?" Maggie said looking over her shoulder at the two girls who were sitting in the grass playing.
"Isabel, she's Emmy's babysitter, her family's gone, so I bought her with me, she's like my daughter," Natalie informed staring at the girls. Maggie nodded and smiled. "I'll introduce you all after this fiasco," Natalie smirked.
"Dad told me about Chris," Maggie said, "I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about," Natalie replied giving her sister a small smile, "It is what it is."
"Please, nice and easy," Glenn asked looking worried, grabbing the two sister's attention.
"You people are crazy," Maggie said scared.
"Come, give us a hand girls," Dale said.
They both gripped the rope tightly and helped lower him down.
Maggie kept looking down keeping an eye on him. "A little lower," Maggie guided.
They continued to lower him very slowly, but as they did, Natalie's gaze was suddenly caught on the pipe, in which the rope was tied to. It was slowly giving out. "Guys wai-" Natalie stopped in mid-sentence as the pipe came out from the ground and the rope became loose.
Everyone screamed and scrambled for the rope, everyone missing the skinny object except for T-Dog.
Everyone surrounded him and helped him keep hold of the pipe. Glenns cries could be heard as he begged for them to get him out of there. Eventually, he was pulled out.
"And back to the drawing board," Dale grumbled.
"Says you," Glenn replied handing Dale the rope. Dale pulled on the rope to see that Glenn has successfully managed to tie it to the walker.
This time they had a horse helping them pull out the walker, "Come on," Shane urged as the walker was emerging from the well. "It's stuck!" Shane yelled as the walker struggled to come up the last bit.
The group still pulled harder, however, the rope wrapped around the walker started to slice through it's body. Guts splashed around as the bottom half of the body fell to the bottom of the well.
"Brilliant." Natalie said sarcastically still holding onto the rope.
"Now what?" Andrea said before T-Dog went over and started to destroy its head.
Maggie looked at the scene mortified before pulling Natalie's arm and dragging her away.
"Good thing we didn't do anything stupid," T-Dog started, "like shoot it."
Maggie led Natalie to where Emilia and Isabel were who had only just been joined by Beth. "Hey, mama!" Emilia said when noticing them.
"Hey sweetie," she replied before crouching beside them. "Maggie, Beth, this is Isabel, she was Emilia's baby sitter," she said introducing her, "she's family."
"Any family of my sisters is a family of mine," Maggie said sitting on the grass beside her, "nice to meet you," she said pulling Isabel in for a hug.
Isabel looked up at her and smiled widely, "you too, thank you for letting me into your home."
"We've got more than enough room," Beth smiled.
"Hey, um... Maggie?" Glenn said coming over, "shall we head out for that run now?"
"Yeah, sure thing."