heartsinsync:

Caroline Forbes appreciation post.

Stella had drawn night watch. She liked it better, oddly enough. It was easier to sleep during the day and it was especially calm and quiet then. When there weren't walkers straying too close to the fence, pacing back in forth in the darkness could be strangely therapeutic. She could clear her head then. 

Stella was one of the few people for whom life was better after the apocalypse. It had been a fresh start, a clean slate and most of the people in her group didn't even know who she had been before and, if they did, they didn't seem to care.  

It was getting close to 4AM now and someone had come out to relieve her. As she walked back up towards the prison from the fence, she saw someone sitting at the tables in the dark. This wasn't uncommon: people at up odd hours. No one was on a fixed schedule here, anymore. Plus, it was hard to sleep anyway: sometimes closing your eyes meant stepping into a world even more horrible than this. Moving closer, she saw that it was Julianna. "Can't sleep?" She asked. 

Quiet. It was completely quiet and that made Julianna feel on edge. Her entire body tensed on her cot. She hated when it got like this, usually when it got quiet. She was waiting for the attack, she could never dream of sleeping. So with that in mind she was out of her bed and walked out. She probably couldn’t get on a watch, but she could probably just walk around. Strapping her knife to her waist while she walked, she passed the occupied cells with people sleeping inside of them. Trying to walk as quietly as possible to not listen to bitching about her waking them up. Walking out of the prison doors she closed it securely behind her so the security of the prison wasn’t compromised. Glancing around the barren grounds not seeing who was on security for the night she released a slow breath into the night air before she took a seat on the picnic table her eyes staring angrily at the walkers that were lazily walking around the fences. She wanted them dead. She wanted them gone, she would rather it be in the worst way possible.

"I'd say that's actually a really good thing," Stella replied, "Because we have lots of them left before they're gone." When they had gone out on a raid once, they'd found a delivery truck that had been in an accident on the side of the road that had been hauling canned beans and they'd brought back as many crates as they could pile into the car. "Wanna take a break for a second? I can run up and get some." 

Turning herself to see who had spoken to her, she let go a small smile and chuckled “Is it bad that I’m not even tired of beans yet?” turning herself back to Bamse for a second she continued to hold the smile she had. “Though, the peaches do sound quiet welcoming!” glancing back over her shoulder laughing softly. With a small grunt Shia lifted herself up, feeling as if she shared the joints of an elderly versus her 22 year old self. She was glad Stella had approached her first; for she found it hard to approach people even though she had been in the group for a while. 

Stella laughed, "Yeah, they definitely are in need of some skin care advice and fashion tips. As well as just basic hygiene in general." She smirked. 

"But since they are more interested in eating brains than self improvement, I think maybe most of this sounds like we could use it as kindling and that's about it?"

"I just got three regular tabloids but I found a magazine about pets and one about skincare." Daphne wrinkled her nose. "Maybe we should give that one to the undead. They could use some help with those faces." Daphne was never really interested in the things the tabloids wrote. For her it was a whole different universe. "If you want to, you can have them."

"Oh my goodness, yes! I used to love those movies and watch them all on repeat and drive my parents crazy. I loved Cinderella, but I think my favorite was probably The Little Mermaid. It's too bad gas is too scarce anymore, otherwise we could hook all kinds of stuff up to a generator. But maybe someday we'll have a way of watching all of those old things again. In the meantime, at least we have books and campfire songs."

"Yeah, I think anythin’ runnin’ with electricity is gon’ be a lot harder to find. Probably impossible. But, the good thing is we still have our voices and that’s music enough."

"I did see her collection! It’s so great! It has Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, that was my favorite Disney movie growing up. Did you watch Disney movies?”

"Good," Stella replied. Strangely, she did trust Summer more than any other psychologist she had ever had in the past. Maybe it's because she didn't feel like Summer was going to manipulate her. That didn't mean she was ready to show all her fears, her secrets, her insecurities -- but she did trust Summer to keep anything said in confidence to herself.

"So I have at least heard of all those, so I don't feel as uninformed as I thought I would," She said, with a slight smile. 

"You know I've never read any of them though? Not even Harry Potter? I think I'm the only person my age who hasn't read at least one Harry Potter. I have seen some of the movies though. Not in order and not all of them, but still."

"My lips are sealed," Summer spoke, briefly putting her hands up in the air in defeat. Summer never really spoke with Stella in the past, just a mere hello here and how are you there. Maybe a ‘do you need anything’ here and maybe a ‘could you help us out?’ there. But Summer had never actually sat down and talked with the blonde haired beauty. Because of this, Summer kind of felt like she was slacking at her job as ‘unofficial lady’; she should have known everyone and spoke in depth with anyone in the group.

Briefly thinking about Stella’s question, Summer nodded. “Yeah, I have a quite a few novels in my collection. I started collecting books as soon as I realized what this world was turning into - and novels were always my favorite kind of books.” Marking her page, Summer closed her book and set it beside her. “Weird enough I have a few teen novels in there as well like Twilight … not one of my favorites. But I do have Harry Potter, a few Lemony Snicket books; even some Sarah Desson.” Summer knew her age and knew well enough she probably would have been better off reading ‘adult’ novels, but Sarah Desson was an amazing author.

"It's all part of starting the day right, apocalypse style," She said, teasingly, "Well, that and a bath from a bucket followed by canned beans for breakfast."

Nothing like hearing moans in the morning to start your day…

"Music is going to be hard, but books -- books I can help with. I just found out that Summer has a pretty impressive collection. I'm not a huge reader, so I don't know if they are any good, but you should really check them out, if you haven't yet." 

Sadie tilted her head upwards a bit, trying to remember back to a time before the world was ending. What had she done for fun? It seemed so long ago, and so hard to think back to.

"It’s so hard to remember. I mean, it was only like a year ago but it seems longer. I used to read a lot, listen to music… normal teenage stuff."

Stella's duties started and ended with watching the fence. It wasn't that she was against helping in any other way, she was just good at this and that was it. She had zero domestic skills and trying to help with the gardens would be just as helpless. But she could kill zombies and she was determined to do her part to keep everyone here safe. 

She had eaten a quick breakfast and then headed down to the fence, where she spotted Shia with her horse. "You're up early," She said, "You hungry? There's some canned peaches someone brought back from a raid that were amazingly good -- especially because they weren't beans."

Shia was always up at dawn regardless of how little she had slept the previous night. Being out with Bamse calmed her nerves more than anything. After making sure he had everything he needed, she’d sit in the long grass and multi-task. It was a mix of watching over Bamse’s movements and watching over the walkers near the fence-line. Staring out into the line of snarling, drooling, dead corpses she winced slightly at the sight of them. It wasn’t that she was scared of them, just rather disgusted. She was snapped out of her sights by Bamse who had turned to gently breathe into the side of her face. Closing the eye his nose was on she rose a hand and patted his cheek. “Yes, hello to you too handsome” she spoke quietly, smirking as she turned her face to plant a kiss onto the horses nose. 

She saw some of the others from her group gathering around the fence-line, she only glanced over for she wasn’t much of a talker when it came to the others.  Before any of the others could notice that she was looking over she focused her attention back onto her beast. 

I Learned Everything from George Romero

"You've got to be kidding me." Stella dropped what remained of her belongings onto the tiny cot inside the prison cell. "This is disgusting."

Not that the things Stella had seen (and done) in the last few months didn't fall into that, but when looking for a place to settle, a prison would have been her last choice. She couldn't see it then, like she saw now, all that the prison could give them (and all her prefered choices would not). 

Somehow, Stella think thought this might be like the movies where they could live comfortably over some department stores in the mall. If Stella had been in charge, she would have opted for holing up in the Hilton Hotel off the highway, where they'd probably end up treeing themselves and dying from starvation (but at least there'd be comfortable beds). 

Luckily for everyone, her complaints hadn't lasted long. Any place was better than running, she decided after waking. She had slept soundly that first night, without waking to every little sound as she had so many times before. 

Why don't you look on the bright side once and awhile? She asked herself. That's all you could do anymore: look at the good things you still had and be thankful for them. You couldn't compare life to what it had used to be. And besides, didn't she want nothing more, before all of this, to escape who and what she had been? 

This place could be home. This place could be a fresh start.

"And I thought we were enjoying the view," She said, smirking, "You've been down here for awhile," She commented, "You hungry? Someone brought back some kind of meat, so there's soup. It's slightly less gross that whatever that snake stew-thing we had last week." 

Sitting at the edge of the prison, on the field Donte looked outside the fence. There were a few zombies, as he watched them trying to helplessly get through the fence, he started to think about all the zombies he had killed the last year. He bit down on his lip, before he noticed somebody sit next to him. After a few moments of silence, Donte looked up and asked “Are you gonna just sit there, or are you going to say something?” before, placing his head back in his hands.

"You know, that's not really the same thing," She said, her eyes narrowing for a moment, but she relaxed into a smile. "As long as you keep your professional assessments to yourself." Stella wasn't a stranger to psychologists: her agent had made her see so many it was almost a blur. That was back when her behavior first started and her agent thought she could turn Stella's career around and make her into an award winning actress (ha). 

"Maybe that was part of my problem," Stella mumbled to herself, glancing down at the book in her lap again -- she'd read the first sentence about three times over and that's as far as she had gotten, "I never really had the attention span for reading. Plus, I hated it because I it was always for school, which I couldn't have cared less about." She paused, "But everything's so different now ... maybe I'll actually be able to get into it. So ... thanks. So what do you have up there, besides academic journals? Anything you'd suggest to someone who's completely clueless about the literary scene?

The woman couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle. Those who did know her past profession most often would say the same thing. But she couldn’t help it; it was Summer’s natural instinct to analyze and diagnose those around her. “I promise I won’t do it out loud,” she voiced, jokingly.

"Though we’re always in this impending dangerous, I believe we should keep reading part of our every day life. Helps us escape from our lives and jump into a new world." Summer loved reading, that was no secret. It helped her throughout college and even the years afterward when she was finding a job. "I have a great amount of books in my cell from collecting all this time - you’re more than welcome to look through them and pick some out."

"You did? Oh god, please tell me you won't save any tabloids or anything." She said. Her face had been a staple on the covers of those magazines. If it was a slow day for gossip news, Stella Gingrich was almost always up to something they could use.  "Because nothing in those is worth saving. That aside, find anything cool?" 

"I keep finding all these old news paperarticles about life before all this chaos and I can’t believe what kind of crap used to entertain us."

Stella hadn't given much thought to fun since this whole thing started, but then she had already had enough fun for two lifetimes, while Sadie was still just a kid. Or supposed to still be a kid. "Hell, yes there's fun stuff to do around here." She said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically especially since nothing came to mind.  

"I mean, there's gotta be, right? What'd you used to do for fun before?"

There’s gotta be a better way to entertain myself other than washin’ clothes.

Any ideas?

"Sounds good," Stella said, "Just as long as your promise not to psycho-analyze me," She added, attempting a smile because it was supposed to have been a joke, right up until the moment realized that was the last thing she would want: she'd be terrified of what Summer might find.

She plopped down into the grass next to Summer, eager to change the topic, "God, I can't remember the last time I read a book," She said, fingering the worn pages of a book she had found back in the prison a few weeks ago. She wasn't even sure what it was, the cover was torn off, but it would serve it's purpose. It'd be a distraction. 

Beautiful day out. If anyone needs me, I’ll be reading a little bit about psychology by the garden.