Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead.
AN: So I know I'm not finished with my other Walking Dead story, and it is far from finished, I was just having a bit of trouble getting motivated and getting a bit of writers block on how to continue with what I had planned for it. So as I was coming up with ideas and failing miserably, this little gem popped into my head!!! As far as I can tell, there isn't many other stories like this one and I hope you all enjoy it!!! Let me know what you all think!!!!! I promise what I have planned for this one will come along a lot sooner than expected. But if you have read any of my other stories, you know that this is kind of how I roll. Let the story drag on a bit before I start paring. Sooo read and review! I'm looking forward to see what you all have to say!!!
Jo rolled her deep blue eyes as she looked around the camp she and her brothers had stumbled upon. Each and every one of them seemed to be trying to hold on tight to any shred of normal society they had left. In a world on the verge of apocalyptic chaos, the people in the camp had been given jobs, had the children studying and even had somewhat of a leader. The man wouldn't have been Jo's choice, but as she had just recently turned eighteen, she really didn't have much of a say in the matter. She couldn't stand the overly muscular life sized ken doll. At one point, she thought he had potential of becoming a great leader, and then he opened his mouth and ruined any chance of winning her favor. It was his way or the highway and with no one to challenge him, the power seemed to go to the mans head. He acted more like a self-absorbed senior football captain who was only awarded the honor because he was the only senior on the team.
Jo sat back in her lawn chair with a long drawn out yawn, knowing the so-called leader was eying her from atop of the RV. She stretched back and her grubby once white tank top lifted just enough to give the man a bit of a skin show. She hadn't done it on purpose. Her naive mind had never thought of her affect on the older man. Not just because of the age difference. But because Jo's two older brothers never left her by herself before. Their over protectiveness had, for years, kept men away from her. So much so, that the girl never expected to attract a man at all. She hadn't even thought the man had noticed much about her, until he climbed down off the RV and was towering over her.
"Where's Daryl?" The man asked and Jo crinkled her nose and sneered at him.
"How the hell am I to know?" Jo snapped at him. "If ya wanna keep tabs on him, you baby-sit him."
The man rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his head. "Wasn't trying to make you mad. Just never see you with out him or Merle close by. When I didn't see him I kinda got worried."
"No need to worry bout a Dixon." Jo said with a smirk as she placed a pair of sunglasses over her eyes. Mostly so he wouldn't see she had closed them in attempt to block the man out. "Don't ya got some sort a important job to do Shane? Beat it. You're blocking my sun."
"You could help out a bit you know." Shane said smirking down at the girl. "Every one has a job. Even Merle and Daryl."
"Good for them." Jo said with a bored sigh. "I do my job. Just cause it aint one you picked for me don't mean I don't do it. who else you going to find, that can skin and gut what ever game Daryl brings back? I also got other uses I pray we aint going to need. Now I'm going to ask nice once more. Get out of my damn sun light."
Shane chuckled and walked away from the girl. He was still trying to figure out how this young beautiful girl could be associated with the Dixon brothers. They all said they where siblings, but the huge age difference was a bit of a red flag to the cop. The youngest couldn't be more than mid thirties. The girl just barely eighteen. There had to have been at least a twenty year age difference between the two. and possibly closer to thirty with Merle and Jo. Either man could have easily been the girl's father. That would have been a more believable story for the three of them to come up with. But all three stuck to the story that they where siblings. Never going into details. Avoiding the conversation on the rare occurrence that it was mentioned. Shane was determined to get the story out of one of them. His first attempt with budding up to the girl had obviously failed. But she was the easiest target for his questionings. The Brothers clearly didn't like him. There was no chance of breaking down the high walls of the brothers. The girl however seemed a bit more easily persuadable.
"Any luck?" Lori asked when she spotted Shane walking over from the young girl. She eyed her. Taking in the girl's slender form and long thick dark brown hair. She could see a bit of a resemblance with her and Daryl. They both had the same eyes. Those eyes that could look right through you, yet could tell a whole story with one glance.
"Naw, she doesn't seem to keen on talking to me." Shane said glancing over his shoulder at the girl. "She's not as willing to talk as I thought she would be. Maybe a bit of girl talk is in order."
"Shane I haven't girl talked with a teenager since I was one." Lori said a bit amused by her lover's attempt. "You'd have better luck sending Carl over to talk to her, but you are not getting my son involved."
Shane smirked at her. "Don't think I have too. He's finding his way over on his own."
Jo sighed when she heard the soft footsteps of the young boy. She had noticed him coming around her a lot in the short time she had met him. That is when his mother released him from her over protective claws. He seemed very interested in her and even possibly Daryl. Why, she had no clue. They weren't exactly the most interesting people in the camp. Let alone the most people friendly. But the young lad found his way over to Jo's chair and sat down next to her. He didn't talk at first. Maybe he was waiting to see if she noticed he was there. Or maybe he was being a bit creepy and thought she was sleeping.
"What do ya want squirt?" Jo asked hoping the boy would catch on to her annoyance of being bothered by him.
"How many tattoos do you have?" the boy asked and Jo smirked. She knew the one on her chest and inner forearm was easy to spot. And young minds always seemed interested in the mysteries of tattoos.
"A few." Jo replied trying not to give in to the young boy. It had been the first time he had spoken to her, and she was wondering if he had been trying to build up the courage to ask such a simple question all this time. Jo lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head and looked over at the boy. He was no older than twelve. Still young and innocent which Jo was a bit glad for. Even though she herself didn't have that rough of a child hood until she was a bit older, she knew there where kids his age that knew too much of the world already. His innocence was a bit intriguing to her. Making it harder for her to dislike the boy.
"Why the sudden interest?" Jo questioned and the boy shrugged.
"My parents don't have any." Carl replied. "Did they hurt?"
"Like hell." Jo replied seeing the boy's eyes widen at her language. "And I'm stuck with them all my life. Your parents are smart not to have them."
"Then why did you get them?" Carl's curiosity only growing at Jo's answer.
Jo sighed heavily and sent a quick glance towards the boy's mother. She saw her eying the both of them as she and Shane stood a short distance away. They almost seemed ready to attack, thinking they would soon have to save Carl from an outburst from Jo. Something all too well known from the other two Dixons.
"Cause I thought it would make me cool." Jo replied. "It didn't."
Before Carl had the chance to bombard Jo with more questions, Jo sat up in her chair. She could hear a faint siren in the distance, and it was heading their way by the slow increase in volume. Shane seemed to get unnerved by the girl's reaction, until he realized what she was hearing.
"Every one get to your tents." Shane called out. The camp erupted in panic. Every one rushing to their tents. Knocking into each other, abandoning what ever chore they had been working on. one even dumping a pot of soup that would have been their supper that night. Shane glanced over at Jo who sat back in her chair, not giving a damn that he had ordered every one to safety. Not knowing that if the siren was meant for harm, she could have saved multiple people with her strange hearing ability. Instead, she went back to sun bathing.
Carl had to be forced from the girl's side as Lori took his arm to lead him away. He defiantly pulled against her at first, until the young girl lightly pushed him away from her and gave him a stern look. The boy sighed and allowed his mother to take him to the safety of their tent.
As the siren got louder, Shane got out of the RV, realizing that it was heading straight for them. He took out his gun and looked over his shoulder at Jo. The girl has still not moved. Almost statuesque. "Would you like to get your ass up and help me out here, or keep pretending like nothing is happening right now?"
"It's a car alarm genius." Jo simply replied. "The only danger that could possibly come from it, is some idiot behind the wheel. And my guess is if they are dumb enough to drive a car with an alarm, they aren't smart enough to be of danger to us."
"You really are a pain in the ass you know that." Shane growled as he walked up to her and pulled her out of her chair roughly. He was a bit shocked by the girl's short stature. He knew she was a tad bit on the short side when he had first seen her, but standing next to her, he realized she wasn't much taller than Carl. She couldn't be any taller than 5'2. "You either help or get to your tent."
"Alright. Damn." Jo said pulling her arm out of his grasp. She rolled her eyes and pulled a small handgun out from behind her back. Shane looked at her in surprise. He had never known the girl was armed. "Happy now. I'm armed."
"Where the hell did that come from?"
"My ass crack Shane." Jo growled back at him. "Does it really fucking matter?"
Jo and Shane kept up their argument until a red sports car came to a halt only feet from them. When Shane saw Glenn hop out of the driver's seat he was fuming. Jo threw her hands up in the air and went back to her lawn chair. She didn't need to listen to the argument. She knew how it was going to go. Shane was right, every one else was wrong.
She let her mind wander; not paying any attention to what the rest of the group was doing until an unknown man was standing over her. He was tall, with dark brown hair and dressed in a sheriff's uniform. Jo shifted uncomfortably in his presence.
"You Josephine?" The man asked.
"Uh it's just Jo." The girl replied nervously. The man took his hat off and kneeled down to her level. She instinctively sat up in her chair. "Why do I have the feeling you aren't here to brighten my mood any."
The man looked over his shoulder at the small crowd of people who had stood back to watch the interaction. "I'm Rick Grimes."
"Squirt's dad, no shit." Jo said a bit amused by the look of guilt plastered across Shane and Lori's face. "I expected you to be short and fat. Man was I wrong."
Rick gave her an odd look and seemed to shift uncomfortably by the girls words. "I need to tell you something about your brother."
Jo's instant thought went to Daryl. She looked around at her fellow campers and derived a conclusion. Every one from the run had returned except for one. "Let me guess, Merle was a jerk."
Rick bowed his head. "Yes, he was. I handcuffed him to a pipe on a roof of a building and he got left behind when we tried to escape from the dead."
Jo took a minute to let the words sink in. They had just left her oldest brother on a roof to be eaten alive.
"Well I knew he was going to get himself killed with his mouth." Jo replied with a heavy sigh. "Just figured he'd go out in a blaze of glory and not left to die."
Rick was taken back by the girl's reaction. He looked back at the others and saw the same shocked reaction on each and every one of their faces. From what Rick had been told, Merle and the other two Dixons where very close. Never reaching out to the others in the group, but sticking together.
"Merle and I weren't exactly on the best of terms till all this end of the world crap went down." Jo said with a slight smirk. "But when Daryl finds out you better pray he's unarmed."
_
Jo sat back from the others that night as they all sat around the fire. Lori had offered to let her sit with her, but Jo refused. She had a feeling Carl and Rick needed some well-needed bonding time after thinking they had lost one another. She hadn't really paid much attention to the conversation, she barely noticed Shane confront Ed about adding another log to the fire. Her mind was elsewhere until she heard Dale mention her brothers.
"I'll tell him. I dropped the key. It's on me." T-Dog said gazing deep into the fire. Jo stood and quietly made her way to the group. She wasn't going to miss this conversation. Not when her brothers where the main topic of conversation.
"I cuffed him. That makes it mine." Rick replied. His arm wrapped around Lori's shoulders in a lazy yet comfortable way.
"Guys, its not a competition. I don't mean to bring race into this, but it might sound better coming from a white guy." Glenn replied looking up to see Jo standing not to far behind Dale. He wanted the conversation to end before things got complicated. Or violent. "
"I did what I did." T-Dog said still not taking his eyes off the fire. "Hell if I'm going to hide from it."
"We could lie." Amy suggested and Andrea quickly shot her down.
"Or tell the truth. Merle was out of control. Something had to be done or he'd have gotten us killed. Your husband did what was necessary. And if Merle got left behind, it is nobody's fault but Merle's."
"And that's what we tell Daryl?" Dale asked in disbelief. Jo couldn't help but smirk at the fact that the group seemed a bit scared of her brother. In a way, they had a right to be. Daryl had quite the temper when she or Merle where involved. It was the protective nature of a Dixon.
"I don't see a rational discussion to be had from that, do you?"
"I sure the hell don't." Jo said causing most of the group to jump. "Either way, who ever tells him had better hope he's unarmed like I said before. I may not have been that close to Merle. But Daryl was. No matter how you tell him, my suggestion is you leave it to me, he wont take it well."
"I stopped long enough to chain that door. The staircase is narrow." T-Dog said as he took his eyes away from the fire and looked over at Jo. "Maybe half a dozen geeks can squeeze against it at any one time. It's not enough to break through that. Not that chain, not that padlock. My point. Dixon's alive and he's still up there, handcuffed on that roof. That's on us."
T-Dog got to his feet and walked away. Jo looked over at the new cop in shock. Her brother was alive. She could see the wheels turning as he contemplated that fact. She wasn't sure how. But she knew he was going to go after him. And she was going to go along for the ride. If any one could keep her brother from killing this cop, it was her.
_
The next morning Jo woke up to the sound of kids screaming. She jumped out of bed, not caring that she was only wearing her tank top and underwear. She grabbed her gun from under her pillow and exited her tent. She looked around for a few seconds as she got her bearings and her eyes adjusted to the sudden bright light of a mid morning sun. Shane ran past her and lifted his hands in the air. He seemed to be overly annoyed with her that morning. Maybe it was for the fact she had slept through most of the morning. But at the moment he didn't have time to scold her. He followed the sound of the screams and Jo followed close behind him. Jo saw Carl and Sophia race to their mothers as the men raced past them. All equipped with some sort of silent weapon. Jo slowed her pace as she followed behind. She was sure the men could handle what ever was a head of them.
"You ok Squirt?" Jo asked as she walked past Carl and his mother. Carl just buried his face into his mother's shirt. Jo felt anger well up inside of her. She hated to see the boy so frightened. She headed around the bushes just in time to see Dale cute the head off a walker with an axe. On the ground next to the rotting corpse was a partly gnawed on deer. Three arrows sticking out from its back hip. Jo recognized the arrows at once. She walked up to the deer and started to take the arrows out as the men had a panicked conversation about how close the walker had been to camp. Jo knew it was a matter of time before one of them walked into their small camp. No matter how hard every one tried to make it a safe area, the dead where growing in numbers. There would always be the threat of them. A rustling sound caught Jo's attention and the men at once raised their weapons.
"It's human, dumb asses." Jo said as she rolled her eyes and held tightly to her brother's arrows. Shane took a hold of her arm and roughly pulled her behind him. He raised his gun and Jo quickly pushed his arm down. "If you kill my other brother, you better be prepared to eat a bullet."
Shane glared over his shoulder at her, but soon whatever was making the sound came in to view. Sure enough, it was Daryl Dixon. Jo smirked over at Shane with a smug look in her eye.
"Son of a bitch. That's my deer!" Daryl growled at the looks of his prey. "Look at it. All gnawed on by this filthy, disease-bearing, motherless poxy bastard!"
Daryl kicked at the headless body. Every one took a step back from the man but Jo just shook her head and rolled her eyes at her brother's attack.
"Calm down, son. That's not helping." Dale attempted but that just seemed to anger Daryl even more. Jo knew it was because of him calling Daryl son. It's what their father used to call him when he was about to go off.
"What do you know about it, old man?" Daryl said as he walked around the body and headed for Dale. The older man took a few steps back and Jo quickly took a hold of her brother's arm. Daryl looked her up and down. "What the hell are you wearing? Go put some damn clothes on. What are you thinking walking around like that?"
Jo just rolled her eyes and handed the arrows to him as she headed back to camp to at least find some pants. She didn't need to stick around for Daryl's out burst. She knew he was more upset about losing his deer than he was at the members of the camp. A hunter and his prey where something you just didn't mess with. Jo knew he would calm down in a few seconds.
Jo walked to her tent and lazily went through the clothes left in the tent. Surprisingly most of them belonged to her brothers. The only clothes she had, where what she had left her house in and an extra sweater she had picked up on the road. When everything had gone down, Daryl and Merle had gone to her one bedroom apartment that she had gotten only a few days after she had turned eighteen. There wasn't much in the place. A few clothes, a mattress and a few packs of roman noodles in the cupboard. Everything else was still back at their father's house, and the three Dixons had no interest in going back there. Not even to see if their father was still alive. Considering Jo had been pretty much taking care of him since the day she had been dropped of on his door step, and no one had heard from him since she had left, they all gladly assumed that the man was already gone.
Jo heard Daryl calling out for Merle as he entered the camp. She sighed heavily, knowing that he was going to have a mental break down when he realized the group had left Merle behind. Just like she would if something ever happened to him. They had had an instant bond when they had first met. Something that Jo and Merle never really had the chance to get. They had only met a few times before the world came to a screeching halt, but Daryl had made a point to stick around more. Making sure she didn't go through what he had. Since the moment he had walked into the house and saw her for the first time, a young timid girl no older than twelve, and demanded what his father was doing with her, he had become her protector. When his father told him that she was his younger sister, the man didn't believe him. He still wasn't a hundred percent sure if he believed it still. But she was family. And if Merle had taught him any thing, it was that they protected their own.
Jo stepped out of her tent, now dressed in a pair of cut off shorts, and headed towards Daryl. He knew something was up the moment he saw the look on her face.
"He dead?"
