All Hope Is Gone

Annika's lips felt numb as they pressed against her fingers in a pensive stare across the kitchen table in the little house her and her own had managed to keep safe from those damn walkers. She allowed her eyes to close for a second as her lungs took in a deep breath, what the woman now sleeping in the lounge room had told her and Annika's husband Spencer was almost unbelievable.
From her story in Atlanta to the survivor's she'd found herself right up to the house they'd found her in the night before. Truly remarkable that this woman had pushed herself through so much.

"I believe her." Spencer's soft voice floated down to his wife's ears. Never one to take word value it was a bold statement coming from the tall, skinny man.

"I do too." Her calloused hands dropped. "How is she tonight?"

Spencer leaned against a counter to Annika's side and nodded. "Better than when we found her, still exhausted but I dare say the antibiotics we've given her is going to clear up any infection from the nasty mess of her arm. Millie has set it tight in bandages the best she could, but it won't be the same."

Millie, a valuable ember of their crew, had been a head nurse before the world had turned into a pile of rotting flesh. So if Millie said it was as good as it was going to get, that's as good as it was going to get.

"I don't think we can get Anastasia back to where she's come from...it's too dangerous for us all."

A low nasal sigh came from Spencer and he stepped forward to rub the back of Annika's neck, the tips of his fingers tickling the ends of her cropped hair cut. "Right now let's just focus on helping her to get better and taking care of us. When she is stronger she can decide on what she needs to do. In the meantime we need to get some rest. Jess and Jesse are on watch and keeping an eye on our newest, so come to bed and worry about things when the sun is up."

Out of the pair, Annika knew she was the alpha, the strongest and the one that took care of everyone and made the decisions but without her Spencer she would just be lost. He was her right hand man and the one with a logical head upon his pointed shoulders. Her face turned to look up at him and with a weary smile she nodded. "Always looking after me."

The sound of soft steps patted past Anastasia as her aching body was wrapped in surprisingly soft blankets and a pillow under her head. She felt the ace in her arm pump under it's marked flesh but was thankful for Millie's skills and expertise, she doubted she'd have an arm much longer if it hadn't been for the nurse.
She bit the inside of her cheek while slowly forcing her stiff limbs to move with her till she was sitting up with her back resting against the couch. Anastasia hadn't been there for long but already she had been awake long enough to tell a condensed version of her story, leaving out that certain detail, and learnt the names of the small crew there. Looking off to the side her eyes caught sight of Jess and Jesse posting themselves in the lounge room not too far from where she'd been given a spot.
Jess and Jesse were in their early thirties and were a sight! Identical albino brothers each sported a shoulder length show white ponytail and pale skin. Apparently from what she had managed to ask in her few waking hours the men had been training for the army before all of this happened.

"Is there any chance I could have another painkillers, if one is going spare?" Her voice croaked dry.

Jesse looked over his shoulder with a polite smile. "Sure."

Jess stood as his brother left for the kitchen. "How are you feeling Ana?"

Not minding the shortening of the name by the brother, Anastasia managed a slight nod. "Sore, stiff...but better thank you."

Coming back into the room with two while pills and a glass of water enough for swallowing Jesse crouched down next to Anastasia and gently nudged the fetchings into her hands. "We think you should be on your way to being better in a few weeks with your arm."

"I hope it's sooner," she downed the pills and water. "I need to get back to my group."

The twins exchanged looks and their voices chimed in union. "It's too dangerous out there."

"I know, trust me I know. But I have people..." Her voice died down as thoughts of those people became clearer and clearer in her mind's eye. Had T-Dog and Glenn made it back alive? If so what had they told everyone? What had they told Daryl? Oh Daryl...

"We know, we would feel the same way if we were separated from ours as well...but right now you should just focus on getting better." Jess offered up a grim smile knowing that going back to where she had come from was a slim to nothing chance.

* * *

A cool afternoon breeze had picked up around the little house as Anastasia sat beside the sixth member of the group as they both scrubbed clothes in a bucket.

"So two weeks with us and you're already looking much better than the night Spence and An had dragged you in here." Joe was a regular kind of guy who didn't believe in men's jobs and women's jobs, he was happy to help out anywhere. In another life Joe had owned a small building contract business and had a wife and two little kids and Anastasia thought he was the kind of guy that would make all the townswomen swoon.
With his broad shoulders and well carved muscular physique and an unshaven face that was easy on the eyes, she was sure of that.

"I feel better, must be Millie's nursing that has gotten me well so quick. Though my arm could hurry up and mend a little faster." A makeshift bandage still had it lung to her chest as she slopped another shirt into the bucket and rubbed the dirt away against the old metal scratcher as Joe use both his hands.

"Can't rush things kiddo, it'll heal."

She nodded. Itches like crazy though."

Joe let out a low, deep chuckle just as the twins came through the back door with a plate each of food. "Good timing boys." It was his way to reference everyone in that father way and almost rightly so as he was the oldest at the still young age of forty-one.

Jess and Jesse handed the plates to wet hands and each plunked down in a spot either side of Anastasia. Both had become quiet fond of the new addition to their clan, as temporary as she kept saying it was. To them she was almost taking the place on an older sister they hadn't realised they wanted before her arrival. And to her? They were the oddball little brothers she was never blessed to have had. Although she chided herself at the thought and replaced it with the faces of the people she was still sorely missing.

Jesse took Anastasia's pile of washing and began to run it through the water, his milk pale skin working over defined slender muscles exposed by his sleeveless singlet top. For a moment Anastasia thought how funny it was that she'd landed herself in amongst three highly attractive men but soon cancelled that thought in favour of someone else her whole being pined for. For that rough face and timid nature that would never make the first move. She began to wonder how that red-necked bastard Daryl was and if he had recovered from Andrea's idiot mistake.

"Thinking of your own again?" Joe knew the blank stare on her face well, so often he had caught it over his own face in a quick reflection as he mind wandered back to his old life and his beautiful wife, Gabbie.

"Yea..." it was a choke to get that one word out before she gulped it back down. "I need to get back to them."

Nodding Jess and Jesse agreed. "We can see you miss them a lot."

"They were all I had when I thought I had lost everything. I just hope they are all okay."

* * *

It was the first day of the fifth week since Anastasia had gone missing and after things at the farm had taken a turn for the worst and Carol had found her Sophia hidden in Hershel's barn, her pulse no longer giving life to a beating heart...Daryl still kept on searching for Anastasia.
His fears were not going to be realised and she was going to be okay. He knew her to be tough and more than capable of taking care of herself, but still even the strongest of people fell.

"Don't be a dick." His grumble muttered to himself. "You'll find her Dixon."

"Of course you will." It was Carol's voice that had wavered to his ears down at the tent he had moved so far away from everybody else. "You will find her. Alive."

"Yea..."

"Come in for a proper dinner, I doubt Anastasia would want you out here all on your own."

Daryl looked over his shoulder to the older woman and he noticed something new about her. Since they had made Sophia's gruesome discovery, Carol had become a little more harsh and a little more sure of herself. All around him people were changing but for Carol it was a change for the better and this was a person who with each passing day was learning to become even more sure of herself.

"Hrm." Was all he grunted as he followed Carol back towards the house letting her loop her arm around his. He had tried to hard to find Sophia for Carol, wanting to badly to see the mother be a mother again and as they walked through the cool night air e began to think of how much of a maternal figure Carol had become to him.

"What will you do when you find her?" The front door was just in reach as Carol asked him this.

His shoulder shrugged. "Tell 'er not ta do it again and that she ain't gonna go anywhere without me ta keep an eye on her silly ass."

A small smile picked at Carols lips as she used her free hand to pat Daryl arm, "Of course you will."