𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
"𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐘, honey, get out of of the tree! I don't want you getting hurt!" Lori shouted to her daughter who was sitting up on a tree branch.
"Why? Daddy let me climb trees!" She stated, Lori sighed, running her fingers through her brown hair.
That was the excuse Casey had been using. Daddy let me do this, Daddy let me do that. Lori didn't want to think about what Rick let her do and didn't allow her to do. She didn't like how she would bring that up as an excuse, mainly because she didn't want to bring up Rick.
Then she'd sweep whatever Casey was doing under the rug, or she'd just get even more stern if she'd hurt herself. Lori walked over to the tree she was in, looking up at her.
Casey's hair was down for once, but two pieces were pinned back. She'd washed her hair the night before, so, it was slightly frizzy but clean. Lori also put a bow in for her own personal happiness. She loved having a daughter to put bows in, even if it ended up being taken out by the end of the day...Sometimes she thought putting a bow in Carl's hair would be better because of how Casey would immediately take it out of a bow...
She was sitting up there with her shark, her legs dangling off the branch as she sat there. "Let's go," Lori stood her ground, Casey looked down at her, shaking her head.
"Why?"
"If you fall out you'll break a bone." Casey rolled her eyes, letting out a loud, over-dramatic sigh. She slowly climbed out, and Lori put her hand on Casey's head, smoothing out her hair.
"What's with this attitude?" Lori asked, walking back over to the middle of camp to finish up laundry.
"I'm eight years old now, mom. I can roll my eyes if I want." She sassed, her mother raised an eyebrow at her daughter.
"Not under my roof." At this point the two were joking around, Casey knew that by the smile on Lori's face.
"What roof?" Casey retorted, Lori laughed at her daughter.
"Not under my tent then, I'll leave you outside with the wolves." She kissed the top of her head, and Casey just stood there as she started to do the laundry again.
That was until the C.B. was heard. Her head turned over, and how quickly it did you could've sworn she got whiplash. "Hello? Can anyone hear my voice?"
That voice.
Casey knew that voice, of course, she did. She worried about forgetting her father's voice, and what he looked like...but by how she immediately knew who it was, the worry suddenly escaped.
With Walter in her un-bandaged hand and her hair on her shoulders, she went sprinting to the C.B. Amy Harrison was already there, the walkie-talkie to her mouth.
"Yes, I can hear you-you're coming through. Over." She said, a smile growing on her face.
"Mom!" Casey yelled, jumping up and down. "It was daddy! It was Daddy! I heard him, I swear!" Lori went slightly pale, seeing her daughter with that type of excitement over a dead man. Rick Grimes was gone, he was dead. There was no way he could just magically come back.
Though the voice was patchy still, Casey could still hear the southern drawl of her father. Then it went to nothing. Amy tried to answer, but, nothing was working. They couldn't get the guy on the other end back..."We're just outside the city...damn it." She whispered, getting nothing but glitches from the radio. "Hello? Hello?" Dead silent.
Casey took the radio and started saying his name. "Daddy! It's Casey! It's Casey!" Lori ran over, shaking her head. She was now worried, worried for her daughter. The anxiety was flooding through her like a hurricane. Her hand went on Casey's shoulder as she tried to get him back on.
Shane had jogged over, hitting the axe he had in his hand on a piece of wood, getting it stuck there. He snatched the radio from Casey and then answered. He knelt next to her, looking up at Lori who hugged her daughter close.
It wasn't good, he could tell.
"Hello, hello is the person who called still on the air?" He asked, getting nothing. He tried yet again, knowing nobody was going to answer. "This is Officer Shane Walsh broadcasting a person unknown, please respond."He placed the radio back down, letting out a sigh.
"He's gone." Casey shook her head no.
"I heard him! I swear I did!" She grabbed the radio, turning it back on.
"There are others, it's not just us." Lori tried to be positive as Shane slowly brought the radio away from the little girl.
"We knew there would be, that's why we left the C.B. on," Shane said in an obvious tone.
"A lot of good it's been doing." She snapped back, and Shane looked away, nodding his head.
"Okay."
Lori continued talking to him, trying to get him to listen to her. "And I've been saying for a week we ought to put signs up on 85 to warn people away from the city." Shane never listened to her because it was too dangerous. He couldn't risk anyone getting hurt, especially not Lori.
"Folks got no idea what they're getting into." Amy continued to say, Shane's hand went on Casey's shoulder, pushing himself onto his feet. He tussled up her curly hair, trying to get that spark back. But now Casey was just staring at the radio, her blue eyes holding back the tears that desperately tried to come out. Her cheeks were reddened, and she was trying not to burst into tears at that very moment.
She knew she knew that she heard him. Casey Grimes knew that she heard her father, and there was no changing her mind.
"Well, we haven't had time." He was coming off as a jerk to Lori, who didn't care what he had to say about it.
"I think we need to make time."
Shane rubbed his head with his hand, able to quip right back at her. "Yeah, that's-that's a luxury we can't afford. We are surging here. We are day to day." Casey rubbed her eyes, small droplets going into her wrists.
"And who the hell would you propose we send?" Asked Dale, who was staring at Casey. He didn't believe what she had to say, not at all. There was no way her father could've survived, but if she told him, he'd probably entertain it just so someone would believe her.
"I'll go. Give me a vehicle." Lori spoke with attitude in her voice.
Shane rubbed the back of his neck, talking about all of the rules that he made up. He never broke them or took advantage of them. So, that was a plus. "Nobody goes anywhere alone. You know that."
"Yes, sir." Lori didn't seem to put up a fight with that. She walked off, annoyed by the man.
Carl went to follow by, but Shane quickly stopped in front of him. "Hey, hey, hey. Go on, take a seat, bud. Go take care of your sister, you're all right." Carl turned around, walking over to his sister who had her head in her arms. She had the radio in her one hand, and her shark in her lap.
"Casey, I don't think he's there anymore," Carl said softly, she looked up. Her eyes were red, making the light blue more vibrant than ever.
"I heard him, I swear." She says softly, rubbing her eyes again. Carl sighed, shaking his head.
"No you didn't, Casey-"
"Yes, I did!" She cut him off, knowing what she heard.
Carl shook his head at her, not believing her. He just thought she was delusional, or going crazy. Maybe she missed Rick so much that she needed something to bring her comfort, or she wanted attention. He wouldn't say it to her face though,
so what he did was run to his mother and Shane, trying to tell them that she was going crazy or something.
So when she was sitting there, still talking into the C.B., repeating her father's name, Carl was telling them. They both rushed over after hearing it, well, Lori stayed back with Carl since Shane had told her to reassure him that she was gonna be okay.
Shane had the hard part.
When he came up behind Casey, she didn't even bother to look. "Uncle Shane, I heard him! I swear I did!" She cried, he shook his head no, his hand running through his dark hair on top of his head.
"Come on, Case, away from the C.B." She shook her head no at him, she wouldn't leave. She had to get him back! "Casey-"
"No! I heard him!"
She'd stay there all night if she could listening for her father, so, Shane didn't have much of a choice here. He quickly picked her up, making her drop the radio. The shark in her lap fell onto the grass, and he quickly carried her away.
"No! No! I heard him!" She sobbed, fighting him off. It was like they were at the hospital again, except Rick was dead. "Stop!" He put her head into the crook of his neck, hearing her sobs. Her tears drenched his shirt, and he continued walking to the Grimes part of camp.
"He's gone, Casey." He says softly, his thumb rubbing against the back of her head. She shook her head.
"I heard him," her voice cracked when she said it. He shook his head at her. She looked at him, hot tears still running down her cheeks.
"No, you didn't Case. He's gone. You have to accept that." He wasn't angry when he said it, not annoyed, not sad, he was just nice to her.
She shoved her head into his shoulder.
"I heard him..."
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐘 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐔𝐏 𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 that afternoon. Lori was next to her for a while. No matter how hard she tried to convince them, they didn't listen to her. Now she was awake and eating lunch later than usual.
She was sitting next to her mother as she did the laundry. She sat criss-crossed and eating her sandwich with nothing but peanut butter on it.
Shane was across from them, teaching Carl how to tie a knot, well, knots. He was teaching him different ones. "Wanna learn how to tie knots with Shane?" Lori asked, the eight-year-old shook her head taking a bite from her sandwich.
"I wanna hang out with you." Lori smiled down at her, bending down to wipe peanut butter off her cheek.
Casey was always a daddy's girl. So, when Lori was her first choice, she was flattered. She was able to be with her daughter more. She loved the idea of having her little girl as her best friend.
It was quiet for a few seconds before Casey asked an interesting question. "How come you and Uncle Shane were out in the woods?" She asked curiously. Lori's eyes widened, looking down at her daughter.
"He was helping me look for some mushrooms."
"I thought Amy was getting mushrooms."
It was almost as if Casey was interrogating her, though she didn't even mean for it to sound that way. She was just curious! "I had to get some more, and Shane was helping me," Lori told her, Casey nodded her head, letting it at that. "How's your hand?" Lori changed the subject as quickly as she could. Casey held it up, showing a slightly bloodied bandage over her hand.
"Amy helped me change the bandaid this morning."
"That was nice of her,"
"Mhm."
Their conversation ended when the C.B. radio started to squeak. "Base camp, this is T-Dog. Anybody hear me?" Everyone ran over, Casey took her time because she knew that it wasn't her dad. It didn't sound anything like him.
"Hello? Hello? Reception's bad on this end. Repeat. Repeat." Dale spoke into the radio. He was in the RV, listening to T-Dog.
"Shane, is that you?"
"Is that them?" Lori asked, staring up at him. Dale started toying with the radio, trying to get it to work better.
"We're in some deep shit. We're trapped in
the department store."
"He says they're trapped?" Shane asked, Lori brought both of her kids in close, her arms around both of them.
"There are geeks all over the place. Hundreds of 'em. We're surrounded."
"T-Dog, repeat that last. Repeat." Everything was static, and they couldn't hear anything anymore.
"He said the department store," Casey told everyone, looking up at Lori with big blue eyes.
"I heard it too."
"Shane?" Lori questioned, looking at him. He immediately shut her down like how he had before.
"No way. We do not go after them. We do not risk the rest of the group. Y'all know that." He told everyone calmly.
"So we're just gonna leave her there?" Amy asked angrily, you could hear it in her voice.
"Look, Amy, I know that this is not easy..." Shane tried to tell her. His hat was in his hands as he looked down at her, trying to say this in the best way possible.
"She volunteered to go to help the rest of us.-"
"I know, and she knew the risks, right? See, if she's trapped, she's gone. So we just have to deal with that. There's nothing we can do." Amy stared up at him, hatred written all over her face. She didn't appreciate any of what he had said, not at all.
"She's my sister, you son of a bitch." She cursed at him, Casey looked up at her mother, who quickly blocked her ears. Casey heard bad words all the time, so, she didn't get why Lori covered her ears like that.
Amy stormed away after she said that. Lori stared at Shane for a moment before walking after her. Casey had let go and stood right next to Carl. "It's alright," He told both of the kids, his hand going on top of Casey's head, ruffling up her hair. "Feelin' better?" She glanced up at him, shrugging her shoulders.
"I never felt bad."
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
a/n
STOP CASEY IS MY QUEEN ASF AND I LOVE HER. she's the cutest little gal.