WHITE FLAG

chapter nineteen : two secrets
{ season two - episode five & six }

"I FOUND IT washed up on the creek bed right there," Daryl stated. He was laying on his side, holding an ice pack to the graze on the side of his head. He pointed to the creek on the map to show Rick and Kloe while Hershel stitched up his arrow wound. "She must have dropped it crossing there somewhere."

Rick, who was crouched down beside the bed, whipped his head over to Shane. He was sitting, slouched over, on a chair. Kloe only stared at the map the whole time, leaning against the bed frame.

"Cuts the grid almost in half," Rick informed.

"Yeah, you're welcome," Daryl sarcastically replied, wincing as Hershel pushed a needle through his wound.

"How's he looking?" Rick inquired, noticing the pain in Daryl's expression.

"I had no idea we'd be going through the antibiotics so quickly," Hershel commented, stepping away from Daryl. "Any idea what happened to my horse?"

"Yeah, the one that almost killed me? If it's smart, it left the country," Daryl answered, narrowing his eyes at Hershel.

Hershel rinsed his hands in a tub of water, "We call that one Nelly, as in Nervous Nelly." He wiped his hands with a small cloth, "I could have told you she'd throw you'd bothered to ask. It's a wonder you people have survived this long."

Rick only nodded his head, not knowing what to reply with. Instead, he gestured to Shane and Kloe to follow him and leave, so that's what they did. Kloe wanted Daryl to rest so he could get better, she hated seeing people not being able to do anything.

As the Grimes man opened the door, his wife rose to her feet in the speed of light and looked at her husband. "He'll be alright," he softly said, briefly wrapping his arms around his wife's waist.

Rick and Kloe began to walk away, only to be stopped by Shane when he shut the door behind him. "I hate to say it, but I'm with Hershel on this one," he shook his head, holding his police cap in his hands. "Can't keep going out there, not after this."

Kloe's eyes, slightly widened, glared at Shane with disbelief. There was no way she was going to let that happen, especially after Daryl risked his life. The top thing right then was to find Carol's daughter, and that's what she planned on doing, "You're not serious?"

Rick's face scrunched up, agreeing with Kloe's small statement and harshly stepped toward Shane, "You'd quit now? Daryl just risked his life to bring back the first hard evidence we've had."

Kloe stayed beside Lori and observed as the two men bickered. "That is one way to look at it," Shane rested against the wall, a look on his face that could easily build the youngest adult's courage to punch him across the face. "The way I see it, Daryl almost died today for a doll."

"Yeah, I know how you see it," Rick glared at the man before storming off. As the three adults watched him walk away, Kloe pursed her lips at the other two and hastily followed him.

Rick placed himself on the couch and stared at his hands. Kloe guessed he didn't know she was there, so she leaned against the door frame, "You know, I'll always be on your side, Rick."

His gaze shot up to the girl, jolting slightly at her unknown presence. He nodded, "Do you see it the way I see it, or is Shane right?"

"It's not up to me to tell you how you want to think, if you want to think you're right, then go ahead. If you wanna think Shane's right, then like I said, go ahead. But I see it the way you see it," she simply stated, crossing her arms over her chest. "I want to find Sophia. I'll do anything to find her."

Rick pursed his lips, slowly glancing down to the ground, "I want to look too, but I have to stay with Carl."

Kloe bit the inside of her cheek, thinking of one way to search for Sophia. Then an idea popped into mind. She could go look for her tomorrow, but she knew now that Rick wouldn't want people going out alone, so she kept it to herself.

...

Kloe scooped up some green beans on her plate and played with them. She grew up to know that you shouldn't play with your food, but from all the things that happened that day, could you blame her?

Glenn left her on the porch without saying a word, Zayn acted weird, she overheard the conversation with Glenn and Dale and lastly, Daryl returned severely injured. A lot of things happened in just one day.

Snapping herself back into reality, Kloe brought the green beans to her mouth and chewed on them until they were mush. She wasn't a huge fan of green beans, but that was the second time since 'it' happened she'd actually had a proper meal.

Lori, Patricia, Beth, Maggie and Carol had all prepared a meal and spent all afternoon making it. There wasn't enough room on the one big table they had, so Hershel had to bring out another table for six people. And those six people were her, Zayn, Beth, Jimmy, Maggie and Glenn.

That night was meant to be one of those nights when you laugh around the table, share jokes and everything else you'd usually do. But instead, it was awkward and silent. No one said a single thing. The only sound being people eating, or butter knives scraping across the plates.

Since she was in the position where she could see everyone in the room, including the back of people's heads, Kloe noticed Rick and Shane sharing brief glances with each other, and she knew what they were thinking.

They both had different thoughts on how to handle the situation with Sophia. Shane thought they should just drop it and leave her out there. On the other hand, Rick thought they should keep looking. Rick was obviously right.

"Does anybody know how to play guitar?" Glenn asked, a grin forming on his lips as he looked across at everyone on the big table. Kloe stopped chewing, looking at Glenn. There was no point in her answering since he already knew that she did. "Dale found a cool one. Someone's got to know how to play," he laughed.

Kloe's eyes fell on Hershel and Patricia, they both froze, especially the woman, "Otis did." Kloe's heart dropped and her teeth dug into her bottom lip to the point she tasted blood. Now the awkward tension was even worse than it was.

"Yes, and he was very good too," Hershel sympathetically looked into Patricia's eyes to comfort her.

Glenn's grin faltered and he turned back around, his eyes looking at the rest of them on that table. Kloe continued to chew and swallowed the green beans. She stared down at my plate and scooped up some mashed potato.

She glanced up, noticing Glenn looking at Maggie, who was smirking at the pai. After the whole situation at the pharmacy, whenever she saw Glenn and Kloe in the same room she couldn't contain her smirks.

Kloe rolled her eyes away from Maggie and back to Glenn, who was already watching her. She forced a smile, and he nervously smiled back before looking back at his plate.

...

"The hell's up with you?" Kloe asked Glenn, who was super suspicious and would make it plainly obvious that something was wrong. It was the next morning, and he was walking around giving people fruit.

"Nothing. Nothing's up," Glenn instantly replied, causing Kloe's eyebrows to furrow, but she shrugged it off and grabbed a peach.

"Why are you walking around giving people fruit? That's not a 'Glenn' thing to do," she questioned, examining the peach. "Something's definitely up."

Glenn's eyelids sealed shut and he inhaled a deep breath, "Promise not to tell anyone?"

Kloe's body tensed up, knowing now that something was wrong, "Um, it depends."

"Please, Klo," he begged, staring deeply into his best friend's eyes.

She sighed, "Fine. Now tell me what's going on."

"Okay, there's walkers in the barn," he hissed quietly, causing the girl's stomach to drop and her eyes to widen. "I couldn't sleep last night and I went for a walk and I heard something in the barn, I went up the ladder and walked in, and there they were. Loads."

Her lips parted with shock and her eyes drifted over to the barn behind him, "Y- you mean there are walkers in there?"

"Yes!" he whisper-shouted, "And Maggie is buying my silence with fruit!"

She was speechless, she didn't know what to say. Now they had two secrets in their hands, and to be honest, Glenn and Kloe were the worst ones with keeping secrets, Glenn being the ultimate worst.

She immediately spun on her heel, facing the farmhouse and the RV, where everybody was, "We have to tell Rick, Glenn-"

She was cut off by Glenn grabbing onto her hand, spinning her back around, "You can't!"

"We have to, Glenn! It's dangerous, if they break free then they could kill all of us!" she yelled, only to be shushed.

"Please, for me?"

Kloe's chest heaved as she stared into Glenn's desperate eyes. Pity overcame her at the situation Glenn was brought into. He had to keep his mouth shut about Lori, and he now had to beg for his best friend's silence.

Reluctantly, she nodded and bit her bottom lip as hard as she could. "Okay. But what do we do? I feel so guilty for hiding all these things from Rick."

"Me too. I want to tell him too, but I want to see how long it takes them to own up before we do," he gestured towards the farmhouse. "I suck at lying though."

"Clearly. You just lied a minute ago when you said nothing, nothing's up," she mocked, resulting in Glenn rolling his eyes.

"I can't even play poker, it's too much like lying!"

"Look, how about you walk around and offer people the fruit, and leave it to me," she pointed at the basket full of fruit and gestured over to the RV where everyone was. "I'll talk to Lori."

He said nothing, tightened his grip on the basket and nodded in acknowledgment, "Okay."

Kloe watched as he walked over to the group. She whipped her head over to the direction where she saw Lori. In an instant, she jogged her way over to the Grimes woman. When she spotted the girl, she signaled to go into a quieter area.

Kloe stepped closer to her, offering her a supportive smile. "How are things?" she asked, fidgeting with her fingernails.

"Good," Lori answered, eyeing over the young adult's shoulder at the people behind.

She glanced over where Lori was looking, Glenn was in the distance, delivering peaches to the group. She also noticed they were looking at him weirdly, meaning he was being suspicious. Maybe their group wasn't so dense after all.

She turned back around and faced Lori, "What did Rick say?" she earned no reply, meaning Lori didn't tell Rick that she got a pregnancy test. Kloe's expression lowered, "You didn't tell him?" Lori shook her head for a reply, not wanting to speak for an unknown reason. "Lori, you have to tell him," she leaned forward, not breaking away her gaze.

"You have to, Lori," a new voice appeared from behind the youngest Schmidt, and she instantly knew it was Glenn. Kloe spun around, whacking the back of her hand against his shoulder. She turned back to Lori, and the look of betrayal was written across her expression.

"You told Glenn?" she muttered out, disappointment and betrayal in both her eyes and her voice, resulting in the girl feeling even more guilty than she was before.

"I'm so sorry-" she cut herself off, "I just- I panicked and it slipped! Zayn also knows because he was there, but I swear no one else knows. I'm sorry, Lori."

"Lori, you're pregnant," Glenn reminded. "You need vitamins, medicine, a nice pillow," he listed before reaching for some jerky in his basket, "Here. You can have my share."

"Honey, I don't want your food, okay? Eat," she refused, eyeing them both.

"You need to eat!" Kloe urged, hardening her stare at the now pregnant woman.

"You're too skinny," Glenn pointed out while Lori poured water, "And if you're not gonna let Rick take care of you, then someone has to." Lori didn't answer still, instead continued to do her thing. A brief smile formed on Kloe's lips at Glenn's caring self, but it disappeared as Lori didn't notice.

"Lori, you have a medical condition," she reminded her, catching the woman's attention and she looked at Glenn and Kloe skeptically. "I'll make another run into town. Just tell me everything you need, and I'll get it."

Giving in, she nodded and stared at the two of us, "I need you to be quiet about this, both of you. All right? Please."

A whistle then broke through the air, catching their attention. The three looked at Shane, who was the one who whistled, and he was next to Rick. "Hey! Peach man!"

Glenn, who sighed, reluctantly began to walk over to them. Kloe turned back around to face Lori, who had an apologetic look on her face. "Don't worry about apologizing. Just write down a list and we'll get whatever you put on there for you, okay?" Kloe softly said, cutting the woman off from speaking.

Lori gratefully smiled, "Thank you, Klo."

"It's not a problem. But I have one thing to ask. Please tell him soon, it's not right to put this kind of pressure on us and I know that I told Glenn and Zayn when I shouldn't have, but I can assure you that they both will not say anything, I won't let them."

Solemnly, Lori nodded, "I will tell him, I promise. I hate putting you through this. But just- just give me more time, please."

"Of course," she smiled slightly before turning around to let Lori do what she was originally doing.

...

Kloe wanted to find Glenn in case he said anything more to anyone. He already made the girl look like a betrayer in front of Lori. The second she caught sight of him, he was talking with Shane. The group decided to do gun training.

Kloe refused to take part, she wasn't sure why, but she wanted to just stick with her bow and arrow. The last time she touched a gun before the apocalypse was with her father and she learnt how to shoot one within a day. But after she found out he died, she promised herself to never touch one again which she broke the night when the camp got overrun.

"You sure you don't want to take part, Klo?" Shane asked for about the tenth time.

"I'm sure," she confirmed, pursing her lips.

Shane turned back to Glenn, who was looking at Dale awkwardly. Kloe's eyebrows furrowed as to why they were being awkward. But then she got a memory of what happened the day before, so she bluntly walked away.

As much as she didn't want to listen in, a part of her wanted to. So she stood behind a tree, large enough so you couldn't see any part of her body. She heard the sound of three car engines revving, meaning everyone who was going to do gun training was now leaving.

Kloe had already said goodbye to everyone, so there was no point in waving again. The car engines grew quieter and quieter, so now she was just waiting for the others to start speaking.

"Spark plugs, huh?" Dale said. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

"You're old. You're- you know things. So... What if somebody told you something that somebody else should know-"

"Glenn, stop being dramatic," Dale stopped Glenn. "Spit it out."

No one spoke for a moment, and Kloe's teeth dug further into the flesh in her cheeks than they ever had before. She knew it. Glenn was going to tell Dale about the walkers in the barn, or even worse, about Lori's pregnancy.

"There's walkers in the barn and Lori's pregnant." There it was. So much for Glenn not wanting her to say anything.

Instantaneously, she stepped away from the tree and revealed herself. She leant against the side of the tree with her arms folded over her chest.

All there was on Dale's face was shock. She narrowed her eyes at the back of Glenn's head, and fortunately, Dale noticed and his expression changed into something unreadable as he stared at the girl, waiting for Glenn to notice.

Glenn's brows furrowed with confusion as to why Dale wasn't looking at him. So, he turned around to see who Dale was looking at, and that happened to be his best friend.

Glenn's eyes widened as Kloe shook her head and walked away. She could tell Glenn followed her, because he was calling out for her. But now it was her turn to ignore him, just like he did with her the day before.

...

"I'm sorry, okay? Will you please talk to me?" Glenn practically begged. They were on their way to the pharmacy and they decided to leave once everyone returned. The whole time she avoided Glenn like the plague. She wasn't even mad at him, she was just annoyed. Who knew why?

Maggie even found out that Glenn had told Dale, meaning Dale told Hershel. So when Kloe went over to her to ask for two horses for herself and Glenn, she glared at her and shook her head, not saying a word.

So they were walking to the pharmacy.

"Even a few words like 'leave me alone' would make me feel better. Please?"

Kloe pursed her lips tightly, shaking her head, "Firstly, you betrayed my trust with revealing the one secret that Lori trusted me with. Secondly, you betrayed Maggie's trust by revealing the barn, now she won't talk to us."

"I know," he muttered. "I messed up, and I'm sorry."

She sighed, "Apology accepted I guess."

Once they approached the pharmacy, Kloe pushed open the door and the same bells that chimed when Maggie and her were there shook. "What does she want now?" Glenn inquired as Kloe reached for the list in her pocket.

She unfolded the piece of paper and read the writing that Lori had written down with a pencil. She gulped and her eyes went wide as she read the last three words at the bottom of the paper. Emergency contraceptive pills.

"Um, just go grab some hair conditioner and things like that. Hygienic stuff. I'll sort the other thing out," she folded the list and crumpled it into a ball and headed to the back of the counter where all the antibiotics were.

She checked behind her to see what Glenn was up to, and her eyes widened when he was in the exact same section as she was a few days prior, and he was looking directly at the box she had returned.

She turned back around and stepped over to the shelves with endless amounts of antibiotics. She began to scan through them, lifting the tubs up then placing them back down again. She jumped slightly when she heard Glenn dropping items into his basket.

"How are you doing over there?" she asked, causing his attention to fall on her.

"Good so far," he answered, bopping his head. "You?"

"Yeah, doing well," she replied, still scanning the antibiotics. "I never knew how complicated the names are of these-" she instantly cut herself off when she began to hear the all too familiar growling sound.

"You okay? You didn't finish your sentence," Glenn questioned, concern in his tone as to why Kloe randomly cut herself off.

Not wanting to catch too much attention, Kloe didn't bother replying to Glenn as she continued to search the tubs a lot more quietly. Her other hand rested on her knife in her belt loop.

"Kloe?"

As she placed down a certain tub, the creature making the growling sounds gripped onto her wrist from the other side of the shelves. A yelp escaped her lips as the growls turned into snarls. "Shit! Glenn!" Kloe yelled at the top of her voice as the walker pulled her into the shelf causing the antibiotics to fall onto the ground.

"Kloe!" Glenn shouted. As she pulled out her knife, it fell out of her grasp and fell onto the ground. Feeling the adrenaline run through her veins, she pulled herself out of its grip and scrambled onto the floor, gripping onto the knife that she had just dropped. Her heart was racing and then just realized that her body was trembling with fear.

She stood up quickly, turning around to see the walker now treading towards her very quickly. She stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away from it, but it was too late and it got hold of her upper arms. "Glenn! Little help here!" she frantically yelled, the bony hands holding tightly onto her arms to the point it began to hurt.

"Kloe!" she heard Glenn yell again from the other side of the pharmacy. She used all the strength she had to pull away from the snarling walker, but it didn't work. It snapped its teeth together as it got closer and closer to her face.

The walker was only a few centi-meters away from her neck when Kloe managed to drive her knife through its skull, the tight grip releasing from her arms. It lifelessly fell to the ground and just as it did, Glenn came into her view, he was directly behind it with a shelf raised, ready to hit the walker with it.

Her hand flew to her neck and her legs gave way from the amount of trembling that her body greeted. She rubbed her fingers across the spot where the walker was about to bite, but thankfully nothing was there.

Glenn dropped the shelf and rushed over to his best friend, kneeling down in front of her as a quiet sob escaped her mouth. "Did it get you? Did it bite you?"

"N- no," she managed to choke out. She tried her best to hold back her cries, but she wasn't able to. Once Glenn noticed, he wrapped his arms around her. She did the same and rested her head on his shoulder as she took deep breaths, calming herself.

Staying in his arms comforted her, she wasn't sure how, but it was. He rested his chin on her shoulder and kept his hand on the back of her head. Her whole body shook with fear. She had never been that close to death before. "You're okay, you're okay," Glenn repeated, rubbing circles on her back.

Kloe felt the hot tears roll out of her eyes and down her cheeks. The feeling of being wrapped in Glenn's arms was the best comfort she had, and she wasn't complaining. As much as she felt selfish for crying onto Glenn, she couldn't move. It felt like if she had let go, she would've never got that comfort back.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Words: 3763
- 12th February 2022

i worked all day on this chapter and it didn't even turn out good LMAO