AN: Yes, it's another fic. I know, shameful of me but I wanted to try my hand at something a bit AU—and this is it…kind of. This will actually end up venturing into the Walking Dead world as we know it, with a few alterations, and will probably get the Quarry faster than I would have liked but it can't be helped. This fic is dark from the outset. It shouldn't make you feel sick from it being so dark, but unpleasant things happen right from this first paragraph. Please don't read if you're overly attached to Sophia because she's not in this.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Walking Dead. Duh!

Part One

The frenetic activity around her barely registered as more than a dull murmur in her head. People rushed past her, back and forth, smeared together as an ugly blur of white and neutrals. Carol allowed the numbness to sink as deep as her soul, feeling nothing but the cold on her face every time the Emergency doors whooshed open and another calamity descended. Another haze of people trying to save lives. It washed over her like it was nothing—like other people facing life and death had little to do with her, not when her own heart was pounding deadly fast in her chest. Not while an officer of the law sat beside her, the kind woman holding her frozen hand between the warmth of her own—trying to feed some of her life into Carol who knew without being told that she was as dead inside as a woman could ever be.

A tall, lean shape swathed in white appeared directly in front of her, his words a dull hum in the air. The effort to raise her head was overwhelming and Carol felt such weakness in her neck that the weight of her head lolled around like a giant Bobbleheaded doll. The doctor waited patiently as she tried to decide how to do this—how to will herself to look up into those eyes that would confirm the nightmare that her baby girl was dead.

"Mrs. Peletier?" The voice was gentle yet firm but still Carol attempted to resist, tried to banish the reality of this person in front of her, this bearer of bad news and while her emotionally exhausted mind struggled to make her do what she had to, tears flowed thick and fast down her frozen cheeks. The officer beside her squeezed the hand warmly tucked in hers and stood, trying to encourage Carol to find her feet with gentle reassurance. The distortion of movement she sensed around her zeroed in suddenly, her hand tightening around the young officer's as her husband Ed came screaming into her line of vision.

"The hell you doin', you stupid bitch? Get up off your ass." He clutched her around her bicep and yanked her to her feet, giving her a rough shake and forcing her in front of the Emergency Room doctor.

"I don't think that's necessary, Mr. Peletier," the officer said in a hard tone as she tried to intervene but Carol was up now, her legs shaking as cold dread splintered deep into her soul.

Ed reared back, and Carol sensed rather than witnessed his barely suppressed rage at the audacity of some uppity bitch cop telling him what to do, and a great, selfish bubble of laughter burst from her lips. Before she could release more than one round of it, her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor.

The doctor immediately sunk to her level, compassion clear as she finally gathered the courage to look him in the eye, but not before she saw the well-worn black shoes he wore, the tatty, frayed hem of his pants. She wondered if his clothes were ragged because he hated to shop or if his life was mired within these hospital walls that barely contained myriads of pain and loss.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Peletier. There was nothing we could do. The damage was done before the ambulance could get her here."

Carol nodded, struggling to process the words. Too late. They'd been too late—the ambulance, her getting home from work, Ed from dragging his useless ass from in front of the TV to check on his own daughter. Broken, animalistic wails clawed from her throat as she collapsed completely to the floor, the last of her cares in this world broken free. There was nothing anyone could do now but leave her to die on this floor, to join Sophia in a world that was free of this life—free of hate and violence and pain. Free of Ed.

Shiny black shoes stopped in front of her face but Carol shrunk back from them. Grief gripped her hard, her body shaking uncontrollably as she sobbed and buried her face into the floor, hands clutched tight to her chest trying so hard to keep it all in, keep from allowing all the ugliness of her life and her sorrow from spewing out all over this bleached floor for all of them to see.

Words and movement flowed around her, then the sharp discomfort of a needle penetrating her skin. She felt the rush of calm as it ran through her veins, icicles settling along her fingers and toes, the throbbing truth of her daughter's death fading fast, too fast and then…nothing.

XXXXXXXX

There were already tears on her cheeks when Carol opened her eyes. The room was dark, but not too dark that she didn't see the police officer sitting patiently beside her bed. She thought it was the same woman who'd held her hand while they waited for news of Sophia, and as that memory hit her, new tears flowed faster and settled more bitterly on her heart, her stomach clenching spasmodically.

"Mrs. Peletier?" The officer leaned forward in her chair, taking Carol's hand and rubbing her knuckles gently with her thumb. "Carol? Is it okay if I call you that?'

Carol nodded, words dead in her throat…dead like Sophia.

"Carol, there's going to be an investigation into your daughter's death. It's standard procedure in a case like this."

Nausea rose to Carol's throat and she wretched, sitting up just as the officer shoved a hospital sputum bowl under her face. Her stomach contracted violently, relieving her of everything she'd eaten at lunch and probably more besides. An investigation—their private lives laid bare. Carol didn't care anymore. Didn't give a shit. The profanity made her sick, but made her feel high as well. Pushing herself up on the hospital bed, she struggled to escape the tight coverings and swing her legs over the side to stand unsteadily. The officer placed a hand against Carol's arm, halting her progress toward mobility.

"I need to ask you some questions surrounding your discovery of Sophia. It might be best if you stay on the bed for now."

Carol nodded, passive and pathetic as usual and anger at herself started a slow burn. Hadn't she always been passive and pathetic, silently accepting of every punch and slap her husband gave her? Every bruise he'd imparted on her flesh, every broken bone he'd felt necessary to inflict on her? She'd thought she was doing what was best for Sophia, taking the brunt of her husband's anger and hatred so that he'd leave their daughter be, but if this was the result—if this was the outcome—she'd made a fatal mistake. It was too late now, but anger erupted inside her like a new force ravaging her normal calm.

"What do you want to know?" She stared unblinking at the window in the quiet, dark room and could see various sets of headlights bounce off the glass. The night outside was inky and terrifying and all of a sudden Carol didn't want to go back to her house—didn't want to set foot into the place she shared with her husband and now the ghost of her daughter. Her precious Sophia.

"Take me through your day."

Carol nodded absently, the automatic machinations of preparing for work and leaving the house running through her head.

"I went to work like normal. Sophia said she was sick so she didn't go to school. Normally I'd drive her, drop her off before heading to the school I'm working at now."

The officer took out her notebook, took dot points then held her pen aloft as she looked at Carol thoughtfully, the sympathy in her eyes making Carol sweat.

"Your husband was at home today?"

"Ed? He was injured at work about a year ago so I had to go back to teaching. It's what I was doing before I met him. He's on strong painkillers for his back…that's what Sophia took…" The words dried up and the pain multiplied, Carol trying desperately to space her breathing so she didn't lose control, gasping rapidly as control slipped stubbornly through her fingers and the breaths started to burn her throat. Darkness started to punch out the lights behind her eyes and she was swimming in a world with no air, her body starting to slide rapidly from the bed until the officer dropped her stationery and roughly held Carol up. She spoke, loud and with authority and gradually Carol resumed a normal rhythm of breathing. She shuddered, wrapping her own arms around herself as the officer stepped back, retrieving her dropped notebook and pen and Carol tried to come to terms with forever seeing her daughter's cold body positioned on top of her neatly made bed, an empty bottle of pills with Ed's name on it lying discarded on the floor.

"Why?" Carol cried, the question slamming into her and bouncing around in her head. "Why would she do this? Things weren't great but I tried so hard to protect her from most of it. She was my little girl. My little girl." Sobs erupted from her and the officer handed her bundles of Kleenex, her hand settling along Carol's shoulders as she offered her comfort Carol knew she wouldn't be getting from anyone else.

"Too often we never know why. Sophia didn't leave a note. She hasn't made it easy for us, that's for sure, but most times it isn't your fault. Kids have a unique way of seeing the world and sometimes it's in such a negative way there'd be nothing you could do."

Carol appreciated the other woman's efforts, but she didn't believe it for a second. Whatever this was, whatever choice Sophia had made, Carol was the cause of it. She'd done nothing—too little, too late. Whatever it was, Carol knew she could have prevented it. If she'd only sent Sophia to school, if she'd left Ed…if she'd once fought back.

"Carol, was Sophia's bed made when you went to work?"

Carol blinked stupidly. "No, she was still tucked up in bed telling me she was sick."

The bed was neatly made beneath Sophia's little body when she'd walked into the room and found her.

"Can you think of any reason why Sophia might not have been wearing any underwear?"

Carol stared at the woman, shocked and inexplicably afraid, something shadowy and hateful teasing at her edges of her mind until she firmly pushed it out. "No."

The officer nodded, added to her notes.

"And where was your husband when you got home?"

Carol re-lived her return, walking in the front door to find Ed sitting in his La-Z-Boy recliner in his undershorts and wifebeater, watching some game rerun and swilling beer like the pig he was. He'd barked at her commands for dinner as soon as her heels clacked on the tiles, and she'd straight away seen the stack of dishes on the counter beside the sink where he'd not bothered to do a thing to clean up after himself. She felt old and tired, like she was coming down with something, and her first thought then went to Sophia, who'd been sick that morning and who she'd allowed to stay home in bed. Carol had smiled and almost bounced up the stairs to go and see her little girl, the one and only bright light in her days. What she'd found had instead shaped her worst nightmares, filled her mind with dark, shapeless horrors and killed her more thoroughly than any gun ever could have.

It was too much and finally the officer gave her arm a soothing, parting pat and she was left to weep for her tremendous loss in peace.