CHAPTER ONE — PLAIN AND SIMPLE
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     IT WAS IRONIC HOW GRACIE GRIMES NEVER DID A SPORT AS A KID. She never had an athletic bone in her body. Yet ever since the world went to shit she sure has been running her ass off like some Olympic track star. Though the Irony was there, given the circumstance Gracie was in no mindset to scoff about it. Her eyes often drifted to the blood on her brothers hands as he ran with her nephew in his arms.

"Hey! You move shithead, come on get us there!" Shane yelled at the man, the man holding the very rifle he'd shot Carl with.

Rick turned around to face the man. "How far! How far!"

"Another half a mile. That way! Herschel, talk to Herschel. He'll help your boy." The man said bending over letting out pants. Gracie didn't have the patience or sanity to wait for Shane to drag the man back to the farm house, so she ran with her brother. When they got closer to the house the door swung open and five people walked out. "Was he bit!" The older man in front asked.

"Shot. By your man."

"Otis?" A lady questioned.

"He said find Herschel." Gracie spoke. "Is that you?" She asked facing the old man standing in front everyone. The older man walked further down the stairs.

"Help me, help my boy." Rick cried.

"Get him inside." The man ordered. Everyone hurried inside listening to Herschel's demands. As they all got to work, Gracie stood in distress feeling useless. Rick continuously asked the man if Carl was alive. Herschel didn't answer, he just told Rick to put pressure on the wound, while he took out a Stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat.

"I've got a heartbeat."

Gracie let out a huge sigh, she stepped closer to her brother but the lady Herschel called Maggie told the two to give some space. After asking for the two siblings names, he assured them they were going to do everything they could to save Carl.

Gracie's heard that before. The young woman tried to find peaceful memories of her nephew to stop her mind from going to dark places. Yet she couldn't find any memories. None that stuck to her, considering she'd barely been around to watch Carl grow up.

The sound of shallow breaths snapped her out of her thoughts. Gracie didn't have time to dwell on how she never spent much time with him, how she was always miles away and too busy trying to distract herself from her own grief to call. She had to be there, in the present, for Rick.

She took her brothers shoulder and led him into the next room. "They're gonna do everything they can Rick." She told him.

"W-why'd I let him' come with us?" Rick rested his head in his hands not bothering to hold back any more sobs.

"Rick!" The two heard Shane yell. They turned to the window to see him running towards the house with Otis not far behind.

Gracie followed her brother out of the house to greet Shane.

The man Otis asked if Carl was alive, Gracie could see the tremendous amount of guilt he felt. Rick nodded, wiping sweat off of his face but only leaving more blood behind. Shane stepped towards his best friend, pulling out a rag to wipe the blood off. "Where is he?" Shane asked, it was low and only intended for Rick to hear, but the man was in no condition to even speak.

"Inside." Gracie told Shane. She gestured for him to follow her. The four walked back into the house and into the room Carl was in.

"You know his blood type?" Herschel asked.

"A positive. Same as mine." Rick replied.

"That's fortunate. Don't wander far. I'm gonna need you. What happened?"

"I was tracking a buck, bullet went through it, clean through it." Otis stuttered.

"The deer slowed the bullet down, which certainly saved his life, but it did not go through clean. It broke up into pieces. If I can get the bullet fragments out and I'm counting six." Herschel explained. 

The sound of the screen door opening and a whistle tune echoed through the house. "Otis! You find us some food?" The voice called. A man with golden blonde hair entered the room, eyes immediately going wide from the sight. "I see we got company." His hand tightened on his rifle at the sight of the three adult strangers.

Rick turned to face the man, revealing Carls body laying on the bed and Gracie noticed his grip on the gun loosen. "What the hell happened?"

"He shot him." Shane said, scolding Otis.

Otis began explaining to a woman on how he didn't see Carl until his body was on the ground.

"Lori doesn't know." Rick spoke. "My wife doesn't know, my wife doesn't know." He repeated, until he was crying into his hands. Shane and Gracie took Rick out the room, the man was a mess, flooded with guilt for letting Carl join them instead of heading back with the others. Now sat on the a sofa, big enough for just the three of them to sit down, both Gracie and Shane rubbed Ricks back.

"Why'd I let him come with us?" Rick asked. "I should've sent him with Lori."

"You know you start that, you'll never get that monkey off your back." Shane states.

"He's right Rick, you couldn't have known, okay?" Gracie attempted to reassure. Rick didn't acknowledge the 'okay?' at the end of her sentence.

"Little girl goes missing, you look for her. Simple. You said call it, head back."

"Doesn't' matter what I said." Shane whispered.

"Carl got shot because I wouldn't cut bait. It should be me in there."

Shane chuckles at the remark. "You've been there partner. Right? And you pulled through, so will he."

Gracie believed every word coming out of Shane's mouth, Rick was strong, and Carl basically inherited everything from his father. Bravery, selflessness, his insanely blue eyes, every single one of those traits both the Grimes boys shared.

"Is that why I got out of that hospital? Found my family for it to end here like this? This some kind of sick joke?" Gracie and Shane shushed Rick, and all his doubts. The world was cruel, it always had been. It's just lately it's been more challenging.

"A little girl goes missing, you look for her. That's plain and simple." Rick repeated his phrase from earlier, still not getting his point out. Before he could even get the chance the woman named Maggie came in urgently.

"He needs blood." She told Rick as they walked back into the room to find a whining Carl, groaning from pain, sweat beads along his forehead.

"You hold him down." Herschel ordered. Shane obliged kneeling beside Carl while he cried out for his dad.

"Stop you're killing him!" Rick shouted.

"Rick do you want him to live?" Herschel replied.

"He needs blood!" Another lady repeated urgently.

"Do it now!" Shane yelled.

Carls cries stopped as the boy titled his head to the side and soon passed out.

"W- what's happening?" Gracie questioned. Her words were rugged and wobbly.

"He just passed out." Herschel informed putting ease to their minds.

Gracie sighed and played with the locket around her neck as the old man Herschel did something with an air machine.

"Pressures stable." He said when he was finished.

"Lori needs to be here." Rick said all of a sudden. He was right of course, but it wasn't like he could do anything about that because they needed him close by for blood transfusions. "She doesn't even know what's going on. I've got to go find her. Bring her back."

"You can't do that." Herschel said.

"She's his mother." Rick exclaimed. "She needs to know what's happened, her sons lying here, shot."

"And he's going to need more blood. He can't go more than fifty feet from the yard." Herschel said looking between Shane and Gracie.

Rick stood, he struggled and the lady held him up. Gracie moved to take her place. She nodded at the lady and muttered a low 'thanks'.

She, Shane and Rick left the room to be greeted with the man Otis and the other young lady who looked about her age. Shane informed them that he was stable and they let out relieved sighs.

"Lori has to be here, she has to know." Rick said.

"Okay. We get that. I'm gonna handle it." Shane said. "But you've got to handle your end."

"M- my end?"

"Your end is being here for your son. Even if he didn't need your blood to survive, there's no way I'd ever let you walk out that door. Man I'd break your legs if you tried. You know that, right?" Rick looked down from his seat and wiped his nose. "If something happened to him and you weren't here... if he slipped away, while you were gone, you would never forgive yourself for that. and neither would Lori, man."

You would like that wouldn't you?

The sick thought crossed Gracie's mind at Shane's last sentence. She wanted to slap herself across the face for the intrusive thought and remind herself that it wasn't the time for it. Gracie was aware of Shane and Lori's affair when they thought her brother was dead, and it made her sick to think that Shane would ever do it again, because she knew he loved Rick and they'd been best friends since forever.

The door opened and Herschel exited. "He's out of danger for the moment. But I need to remove those remaining fragments."

"How? You saw how he was." Rick asked.

"I know that was the shallowest one. We need to go deeper to get the other ones." Herschel continued. "There's more. His belly's distended, his pressure is dropping, which means there's internal bleeding. A fragment must've kicked one of the blood vessels. I have to open him up, find the bleeder and stitch it. And he can't move while I'm in there and I mean, at all. If he reacts the same as before, I'll sever an artery and he'll be dead in minutes. To even try this I have to putt him under, but if I do, he won't be able to breathe on his own. Same bad results."

"What'll it take?" Rick asks, something everyone was wondering.

"You need a respirator." Otis cut in. "What else?"

"The tube that goes with it, survival supplies, drapes, sutures."

"If you had all that you could save him?" Rick asks. Hope evident in his voice.

"If I had all that I could try." Herschel responds.

"Nearest hospital went up in flames a month ago." Otis paused and seemed to realize something. "The high-school."

"That's what I was thinking."

Herschel explained that they set up a Fema shelter there, so they'd have the supplies. But then they explained that it was overrun by walkers.

"I said, leave the rest to me." Shane recalled. "Is it too late to take that back?" He joked with a dry laugh.

"I hate you going alone." Rick said.

"I could go with Shane-"

"No, no, you should go get Lori, if it's just them the group won't trust anyone." Rick told her.

"My boy Sterling will ride out with you." Herschel said.

"I wanna help too." The younger lady stood up, she walked over to Gracie and held out her hand. "I'm Maggie."

"Hi Maggie, Gracie."

Herschel looked as if he wanted to protest, but Maggie looked like she wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Okay, you and your brother will go with Grace here."

Gracie nodded, ignoring how he called her Grace, even though that wasn't her name as Otis said he'd go with Shane instead.

"Otis no." Otis's wife protested.

"Honey we don't have time for guesswork and I'm responsible. I ain't gonna sit here while this fella takes this on alone." Otis told her. "I'll be all right."

The decision was made. Herschel called for his son Sterling and the same man with blonde hair entered the room, except this time with a blonde little girl in his arms.

"You'll go with your sister and Grace here to find Ricks wife."

Sterling nodded, putting the girl down. "I'll go get the horses."

Maggie and Gracie followed him out, and left to find the others. Gracie Grimes prayed and hoped that when they got back Carl would still be there.

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Author speaks ~

It's about time I made a the walking fic and this has sat in my drafts for way too long.