.・゜-: ✧☾　☽✧ :-゜・.

"Stay still," Carl ordered the girl.

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one that's being tortured." Stella's words were muffled by the wooden spoon in her mouth that she bit down on as Carl did his best to clean the wound. Rick had found some rubbing alcohol and chose to give Carl the job of helping her stop the infection.

"Man up." He told her, deeply concentrated on the wound.

"Remind me why I'm trusting you with this again." She grunted as the towel made contact with her wound.

"You're not. You're just supposed to lay still and stop weeping." Carl grinned putting slightly more pressure on her stomach to which she hissed in pain, spitting the spoon out of her mouth.

"You little shit." She spat at him, grabbing one of the pillows and tossing it on his head making them both laugh.

"Hey, language," Rick said. The man lay on the other couch in the room, trying to get some rest. The two children looked at each other with a smirk before muttering quiet sorries.

"Am I allowed to wear the hat now?" Stella asked jokingly.

"What?" Both Carl and Rick turned to face her.

"Back at the farm after Carl got shot, you told him that since he's is part of the club, he could wear the hat." Stella smiled. "Now, I've been shot just live you two and I think I should get to wear the hat."

"Well, you could have just asked. You wouldn't have to get shot to wear it, you know." Rick said with sarcasm. "Always such a drama queen."

Stella laughed placing her head back on the pillow, grunting slightly as she adjusted the way she was laying. Carl stood up after changing the bandage and grabbed the serif's hat.

"Welcome to the club." He joked, placing it on his older sister's head.

____________

Stella sat with Carl by the dinner table in the house they had found. She was shoving spoons with cereal in her mouth, having to remind herself to slow down before she threw it all up. She hadn't had much to eat in days and eating too much and too fast would only result in it all coming back up.

The two Grimes kids stopped their eating for a moment as Michonne entered the room, wearing a shirt that was several sizes too big for her small frame. They glanced at each other exchanging a quick laugh at the sight.

"Do you two have anything to say about my extremely comfortable and attractive shirt?" Michonne smiled at them.

"No, no it looks great," Carl said, with his mouth full of cereal as Stella hummed in agreement.

"Yeah, you better let me borrow it sometime." She snickered as Michonne sat down next to her and began to pour cereal into her bowl.

"I wish we had some soy milk." Her words made the two kids tear their gaze from their food, raising their brows at her.

"Seriously?" Stella asked in between her silent laughs.

"Yes, seriously. Have you ever tried it?" Mihconne asked.

"Yeah, my best friend's mom used to drink that," Stella answered before turning to Carl. "Remember that one time Lucille came over with cartons and cartons of that shit."

Both Carl and Stella scrunched their noses in disgust as they remembered the taste. "Yeah, I threw up," Carl said.

"Oh yeah right." Michonne rolled her eyes with a laugh.

"Alright, I almost threw." He corrected himself. "But I was like blah!" He proceeded to mimic throwing up over the table making the two girls laugh.

"Yeah, it was disturbing, genuinely." Stella nodded along.

"I mean literally, I would rather have powdered milk than drink that stuff again." Carl chuckled. "I would rather have Judith's formula..."

Stella lifted her gaze from her food, watching the boy's eyes widen slightly upon realizing what he just said. Stella sucked in a breath, blinking hastily at the mention of her dead sister. She was still stuck by his words, staring blankly in front of her when Carl rose to his feet muttering something about going to his room before he left. Stella turned to call after him but he had already bolted through the door.

Stella sighed, leaving her spoon in her bowl of food before leaving the room. She dragged her hands over her face releasing a mixture of exertion and the strong senestion failure.

"Hey," Her father said making her smile at him through puffy eyes when she entered the kitchen where he stood.

"Hi," She joined up next to him, wrapping her arms around him gently. She just needed to feel comforted for a moment. "Am I a bad sister?" She asked after a moment of silence.

Rick unraveled from the hug drastically, baffled by her words. "What are you talking about?" He stared at her with widened eyes. "No! You're the best sister. What makes you say that?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "I just feel like he feels like he can't talk to me. He's always shying away. I don't want him to think that he can't talk to me."

"Hey, come on." Rick lifted Stella's face so that he could look at her while he spoke. "You're an amazing sister and role model. Hell, you're even a role model to me. I don't want you to think that you're anything less. You're his best friend. That kid has just been through so much. but I heard him laughing in there. Almost forgot what that sounded like... He needs you, Stella."

_____________

Michonne and Carl had decided to go look for supplies while Rick and Stella stayed back. Stella had offered to come but Michonne had laughed telling her that she had important duties to stay back and protect the fort since she still was severely injured.

She hated being separated from Carl again. She hadn't even gotten to spend a whole day with him before they had to leave each other. The fear of him heading out there to risk his life was eating her up from inside. The minutes of waiting stretched to hours of worrying despite the fact that the clock hadn't passed the time that they had decided that they were going to return.

Stella sat curled up in the bed in one of the bedrooms with Levi's letter in hand, thoughtlessly reading it over and over again until she had memorized every curve and swoop of the letters. Every miss or right-spelled word.

"I'm gonna go upstairs and finish my book," Rick announced to his daughter as he held up the red cover book.
Stella looked up at him nodding mindlessly at him.

"Everything okay?" He asked.

"Nothing is." She forced a smile. "But I'll manage."

Within a few days, she had lost her sister and the love of her life. She lost her home and her friends. Friends that she considered her family. She had been shot and had experienced the worst pain of her life but it wasn't the scars and wounds that pained her. It was the scars on her soul, every scar for a person she had lost.

Rick sent her a sad smile from the other side of the room pondering what to tell his daughter. But there was nothing he could say to comfort someone who just lost her little sister. "I'll tell you if I find one of those Hunger Games books that you like." Was all he could think of.

"Thank Dad."

The man went upstairs leaving Stella in one of the bedrooms on the first floor. She grunted as she pulled herself from the bed heading into the bathroom. She locked eyes with the person staring back at her in the mirror, looking almost unrecognizable. Her pale skin was stained with dirt and a fresh scar trailed down her cheek. She dragged her fingers on it, where the governor had marked her face to make sure that she never forgot him. Her breath shuddered and she hissed in pain. The wound was semi-new and deep making it throb at the slightest touch.

Her fingers then trailed to her baggy eyes, rubbing them gently. Unbottoning her jeans she pulled them down, groaning as she lifted the bandage that covered her stab wound to examine it. She threw her head back as she attached the rubbing alcohol to it, squeezing her eyes shut as she held back a pained wail. Once she had changed the bandage she took her clothes off, scanning her scared body. A huge and poorly dressed wound hid under the bandage on her stomach where she had been shot. She peeled her shirt off her body before swiftly changing into some new clothes that she had found. Lastly, she wrapped Levi's jacket around her before walking back to the room where she previously had been in.

As she went to sit back down on the bed, she heard distant male voices. Her heart instantly dropped to her stomach and she peeked out the window to see a group of men heading for the house, all arguing and chuckling loudly. Before she had a chance to announce their presence to her father on the second floor she heard the front door open.

The girl threw herself against the wall letting her hand travel over it before she grabbed the nop to the closest. She was quick inside where she pressed herself against the back of it, holding her breath as she peaked through the slots, watching a man enter the room. He shoved open every drawer, emptying the items in them on the floor. Throwing and breaking items as he searched for anything useful, moving through the bedroom, slowly approaching the closet that Stella hid in. She clamped onto a hanger for dear life as it was the only weapon she had as he stepped closer to her.

"Man, get your asses in here!" Someone yelled making the guy stop right before the closet. "Look at this! There must be a woman schaking up in here."

Stella's heart raced as the man finally left the room to go see what the other one was talking about. "She hot?" He asked.

"She ain't here. But her underwear is and let me tell you, they're sexy." One of them chuckled making every muscle in Stella's body tense instantly. She had left her old clothes in the bathroom along with her old underwear and the image of these unknown men being anywhere near them made her blood go ice cold.

"I claim her." A man hollered making Stella stiffen. The same man from before walked back to the room closing the door behind him. Stella pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to muffle her panicked breaths. Her eyes were plastered on the man while he threw himself on the bed and her pulse accelerated as she watched the piece of paper fall from the bed. Levi's letter.

He instantly noticed it, frowning as he sat up again before grabbing the letter from the floor. Her heart raced while he read the whole thing from start to finish, chuckling to himself as he did. "Robin Hood." He grinned at the nickname.

He rose to his feet, heading for the bedroom door to announce his findings to his friends. In a moment of desperation, knowing that she couldn't leave the house without the letter, she undid her belt, tightening her grip around it as she shoved the closet doors open. The man flinched in shock but Stella didn't give him a chance to alert the rest of the men before she kicked the back of his knee. The force brought him to fall, landing on both his knees which gave Stella the opportunity to wrap her belt around his neck, pulling it with all her strength. She heard the man let out strangled noises as he tried to force her off him.

He grabbed hold of her leg but was unable to build enough strength to bring her down. Instead, his finger found its way to her stab wound making her grunt. Taking notice of her weak spot, he pressed even harder and she felt her eyes tear up as his finger deepened itself in her wound. For a split second, she loosened her grip on the belt giving him a chance to push her off him. Both of them fell back landing on the floor with a thud. The noise brought a stop to the chattering outside and Stella realized that the rest of the group had heard it. She crawled off her back to see the man on his way to a stance. She swiftly brought her legs around his neck, locking his head between them as she suffocated him once again. His hand had dropped the letter and was now slamming against the floor to alert his friends outside.

"You alright, Freddy?" A voice got closer to the bedroom. Stella panicked. She needed to kill the man quickly to stop him from making any more noise. Sucking in a deep breath, she squeezed her eyes shut. She gathered all her force to move her legs in a swift action that made the man's neck snap with a horrifying sound.

Stella stared in horror at the scene she had created. She heard the floor creak outside the room, bringing her to a stance, quickly grabbing her letter to tuck it into her pocket. She raced across the room aggressively forcing the window open not waiting a second before jumping outside. She prayed that her father had made it out of the house as well while she moved to the front of the street.

It didn't take long before she reunited with her father, who had managed to snatch a gun off one of the men. Stella's eyes fixated on something moving in the distance and she looked to see Michnne and Carl approach the house with bags of supplies in their hands. Stella and Rick exchanged a nod before ducking as they hurried up to the pair.

Once they had joined up with them, the four started springing away from the house. Stella's body was still trembling from her previous actions. She snapped a man's neck with her legs, all for a letter. For a piece of paper.

The four of them traveled over the train tracks in silence. Stella's hand was permanently placed in her pocket where she held onto the piece of paper tightly.

"Crazy cheese?" Carl asked, holding out a can for Michonne who politely shook her head. The boy then turned to his older sister who sent him a quick declining smile. She noticed Rick picking up his pace as he spotted something. She followed his gaze to see a sign, placed onto a pole.

"Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive survive." Stella read out loud.

"What do you think?" Rick asked.

"Let's go." Stella and Michonne agreed.

Stella hoped that Levi had seen the same signs, praying that she would meet him there.

_____ ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ _____
𝟐𝟓𝟏𝟔 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬
_____ ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ _____

𝐀/𝐍

Stella entering her maniac era is so iconic