It was late October in Georgia and the weather had only just begun to chill. The leaves on the deciduous trees were already well on their way to falling off the slumbering branches. Many had already fallen, others would need another two weeks before they filled the breeze with their fiery presence.
Tyreese had been walking for so long that he forgot he had legs, it was easier that way. Ignoring the pain of traveling on foot for days on end without so much as a couple hours rest each night was taking its toll on him. And then, there were the girls.
"I'm so hungry," Mika whines, crunching through the leaves.
"Me too," says Lizzie, in an equally whiney tone.
Tyreese sighs and shifts Judith to his other arm, his large hands changing her weight easily. She was so light. "I know, girls. We'll stop soon, alright?"
He couldn't count the number of times he had told the girls that everything would be alright, that they'd find some food and someplace warm to stay for the night, that they'd find Sasha and Daryl, Rick, Michonne... Everyone he held dear to his heart. That day had been such a blur, especially after they had to leave the prison grounds. Walkers were everywhere, storming the grounds almost as fast as the Governor and his new clan of sheep had.
They had no weapons other than an empty assault rifle and two handguns that the girls had used to save Tyreese and Judith a couple of times since they left the prison. It had been eight days since the prison breach.
"Ty, can I hold Judith, please?" Lizzie asks, tugging on his tattered shirt sleeve at the elbow. "I'll be careful and I won't drop her. I promise!"
Mika runs a bit ahead of them, holding her arm out. "Shush, look!" she whispers harshly and points through the trees at a shape ambling along, tripping over the underbrush.
"Walker. Lizzie, come here." Ty kneels in the leaves and pulls Judith from his chest. The sweetest cherub looks up at him and makes a face, the one she always makes before she cries out. A second later the shrillest, angriest cry, much bigger than her, breaks the overall silence of the forest. He quickly hands her to Lizzie, who cradles the babe in just the right way, the same way that Beth had shown her. "Remember what she likes?"
Lizzie nods and starts to bounce on the balls of her feet, swaying just slightly from one side to the next. Judith quiets moments later, cooing softly against Lizzie's neck.
Mika holds the gun ahead of her, pointed down. Ty lifts his assault rifle, though it is empty, and walks closer. Whatever had been moving stopped, giving Ty hope that it wasn't a Walker. At this point in his existence he wasn't sure what scared him most: the dead or the living. The dead certainly posed a threat to their safety, particularly when hoards coalesced into super hoards of thousands. Ty liked to believe that the living were better than the Walkers, but after dealing with the Governor on more than one occasion, and then with various other survivors who had become jaded, he wasn't sure that the living were much better than the dead. Both struggled to survive. One of the few differences Ty could point out was that the living survived a bit more gracefully.
Ty looked to Mika and motioned for her to get down as low as possible while he approached the being she had spotted. Obediently, Mika knelt into the leaves, quieter than a turkey making a soft landing during this time of year. He smiled at her, before he turned to the being and walked as slowly and as quietly as possible.
When he got to within a few feet of where the being was spotted, he stopped and lifted the rifle, the stock tight to his shoulder. "Who's there?" he bellowed. The richness of his voice filled the forest, reverberating with authority through the tree trunks, the leaves, the very earth beneath them.
"I'm unarmed!" a female voice returned.
Ty frowned and lowered his gun, "Prove it."
The figure rose to her feet from behind a particularly large mound of leaves. She raised her shaky, dirty hands above her head in submission. She looked familiar. Her dark hair, the shirt she wore, the big, confused eyes that he'd seen shortly after Hershel was-
"Are you following me?" Tyreese asked, straightening his back and sweeping his eyes over her. There were no characteristic bulges at her waist that could signify a weapon. She looked cold, scared, and perfectly harmless.
The woman shook her head, brushing her dark hair behind her ears. The move swept grime from her face, revealing rosy flesh beneath. "No, but I know it's not just you. Ya'll are so damn loud... And that baby is like a biter beacon," she smiled crookedly, looking down briefly before glancing back up, "I know you."
"I know you, too," he replied, his tone a bit short.
"Listen... I want to explain myself and let you know that I don't want any trouble, I just don't want to be alone anymore," her hands were still up, but were lowering by the second as she became more comfortable. "I'm Tara."
Ty nodded, unwilling to divulge his name just yet. She was with the Governor. If memory served, those who kept company with the Gov were not to be trusted. Though, it was quite possible she'd been roped in by his charisma just as he had.
"You guys need me," she whispered harshly, looking down. "I can help with the baby."
"You won't be goin' nowhere near that baby if I have any say."
Her eyes closed and her face contorted a bit. "Please let me explain myself."
He nodded, waving a hand dismissively, "Go on, then."
Tara explained how the Governor had found himself practically at his sister's front door. How he swept them all off of their feet, the death of her father at his hands, the attack on the prison from the Governor's side, her girlfriend who collapsed onto the pavement after being shot in the head by unknown assailants, how the Governor died.
"I saw it all, and I just stood there. I couldn't do anything! I'm not meant for killing, not people anyway. Living people, I mean," she explained, her hands moving to her hips as she stood. "I got caught up in everything he said, it made sense at the time."
Ty adjusted his beanie while the woman started to cry. "And now I'm all alone," she sobbed.
Mika stepped out from behind Ty, her gun tucked into the back of her jeans. "Don't cry, please. You can come with us."
Ty practically hissed at her, grabbing the little girl by the shoulders and holding her back.
"Thank you," Tara mumbled and wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. "What's your name?"
"Mika," Lizzie said from behind Ty, still rocking the baby even as she stepped lightly through the leaves. "I'm Lizzie and this is Judith."
That night Ty and the girls found an empty hotel complex, a spread of a dozen rooms on a single level by the side of a small road. It looked like it had been nice once, the bedding was plush and still clean, albeit covered with a healthy film of dust. Not a soul could be found on the grounds of the hotel. Tara and Mika were practically best friends, talking about their fathers and how they'd managed to survive up to that point, how they both were with the Governor for a period of time. They connected the dots that the Governor Mika knew was the same monster named Brian that Tara knew.
Ty managed to find water to mix some scrounged formula in to for Judith who hadn't cried in hours. The baby stopped crying long ago, resorting to a quiet whimpering. It worried him that she seemed to have no more tears to weep. Her rosy cheeks and pouty bottom lip had lost much of their color.
The fact that she wouldn't take the formula was a bad sign as well. "Something is wrong with her," Ty whispered while he rocked Judith in one arm, sweeping the nipple of the bottle across her bottom lip. It used to work before today. The touch of the nipple to her lip would have had her suckling immediately.
"It isn't warm," Tara whispered and sat next to Ty on the edge of the bed. She took the bottle of formula from his large hand and shook it while covering the nipple, then stuck it between her thighs. "Where's her mother?"
He winced and shook his head, looking down at the baby and running a large finger across her angel-soft eyebrows. "She died in labor. Her son, Carl, was there. It fu-..." he glanced back at Lizzie and Mika, sitting in the center of the other bed. "It messed him up pretty bad."
Tara nodded and pulled the bottle from between her legs, giving it another shake and then replacing it once more. "Understandable," she pulled the bottle back out and tested it. "It's not biting cold anymore."
Ty took the bottle and gave it a squeeze, producing a drop of milk, and dragged it across Judith's lips. Her tiny pout opened, taking the nipple and suckling. He smiled and let out a throaty chuckle, "I woulda never thought of that."
Tara shrugged and slapped her hands on her thighs, "No big deal. She's pretty cute."
Ty nodded, "I kinda like her. I never thought I'd be takin' care of so many girls. Didn't want no kids anytime soon. But they got no one left."
"They have you," Tara says and nudges him. The glare that ensued let her know that he wasn't quite ready for such friendliness, not yet anyway.
The following morning Ty and the girls were on their way again, this time in a car that Tara helped to hot wire. She was proving more useful than he had hoped. He wasn't exactly open to having a newcomer, particularly someone from the Governor's clan. Sure she claims that she hadn't fired on the prison group, that she never fired a single round, but it wasn't enough. He needed her to prove herself so he could trust her. It was dangerous, having her around. He needed the help, though. Ty didn't know how to handle little girls, let alone an 8 month old.
Tara was good with her, though. Judith liked her, as well. She hadn't made a sound since Tara clutched the baby to her chest. Her tiny hands squeezed handfuls of her shirt. They had taken a couple of wool blankets from the hotel, one of which was wrapped around Judith to keep her warm while they traveled. Though Tyreese couldn't stand the thought of being betrayed by another person and Judith needed her. He decided to swallow his pride and accept Tara's help with the girls for as long as she was willing to provide it.
"We need to find Rick," Ty kept saying, driving hunched over the steering wheel of the small SUV. Lizzie and Mika sat in the backseats, sleeping on one another. "Everyone is scattered all over the place and I don't know how the hell we're all going to meet up."
"Where would he go?" Tara asked, rubbing Judith's back in rhythmic circles to keep her calm.
"He would try to get as far away from the prison as possible. There are too many memories there," Ty responded and glanced at the baby just to make sure she was still alright.
He drove until the fuel light came on and pulled into the next gas station that he came across. It was an old Texaco, big and imposing. It looked in good enough condition that maybe there'd be some fuel left. Only two other cars were at the gas station, a dusty blue station wagon and a pickup truck on its' side, the tires removed from their rims, its undercarriage scorched.
As he pulled beside a gas pump he told Tara to wait in the car with the girls, hopping out and looking around the pump to see if there was some sort of a manual override so that he could maybe hand pump some gas into the SUV's fuel tank. There was nothing.
He turned to the car and held up a finger, walking to the convenience store attached to the station. The doors were unlocked and open, to his surprise. There was a handprint, small and feminine, on the handle. Someone was inside.
"Hello?" he called out, the gruffness of his tone reminding him of how long it had been since he had enough water to truly satisfy his thirst.
"Tyreese?!" someone called out from a utility closet.
She walked out of the closet, smiling when it was confirmed that Tyreese had found her. He stared in shock, the corner of his mouth lifting into a full-fledged smile.
"Shit, Carol! I thought you were dead!"