The grass was damp beneath her bare feet, the sky clear gray. It had rained all morning and, for once, she hadn't woken to the smell of death and decay. After her watch ended, she'd lain awake in her sleeping bag, listening to the raindrops hit the canvas. Lee had snuck out at the break of dawn. She assumed he was at the quarry.
As she lay there, the lyrics to one of her father's favorite songs drifted through her head. And when the flood is gone, we still remain. Eventually, she braved leaving the tent. The song kept repeating as she sat by the fire and stirred last night's ashes with a stick. Amy and Andrea were arguing nearby, but not near enough to hear.
Shane sat down beside her. "What's with them?" she asked.
"Andrea volunteered for the Atlanta run," said Shane. "Amy's not happy. Can't say I blame her."
"Who else is going?"
Shane eyed her sideways. "Not you," he said. "So don't even think about it."
"I wasn't," said Jo. She wasn't in the mood to run off and play hero, especially when she knew quite well that she was the villian.
Shane counted off who all was going, "Jacqui, T-Dog, Morales, Glenn, and Merle."
"Merle?" She winced. Her whole body ached from last night. She hoped he was hurting just as much.
"I asked him to go," said Shane. Jo waited for a better explanation. She knew if she glowered at him long enough, then he'd give it to her, and he did. "I asked him about last night. Figured it might be easier than getting the truth out of you. Now I get why you went after him, but it was stupid, Jolene."
She winced again at the use of her full name. "Was I supposed to do nothing?"
"You should've come to me," said Shane.
"I ain't running to you every time I scrape my knee. You're not my damn father," she snapped. As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. They rang too closely to what Lee had said last night. Shane's shoulders drooped. He looked beat. He didn't deserve a lashing from her, not after everything he'd done. She didn't have parents anymore, but she still had him. "Sorry," she muttered.
"I care about you," said Shane. "You and Lee."
"I know." She went back to stirring the ashes. After a minute, she added, "Why did you ask Dixon to go?"
"Thought you could use some time to cool off," said Shane. "I don't like the Dixons much, either, but we need them. They can fight. Even better, they can hunt. You won't catch me turning that blessing away unless you and Amy think you can keep us all fed on fish."
"Not likely," said Jo.
Shane chuckled. Jo studied her bruised knuckles. She didn't regret going after Merle, but she saw Shane's side of it. She looked to the children doing their homework in the shade of an oak tree and remembered her threat to Lee about leaving if she caught him anywhere near the Dixons again. It was an empty one. Where would they go?
The RV door slammed behind Amy. Andrea lingered a moment before joining the other volunteers gathered by the cars. Merle Dixon caught Jo's gaze and flashed a cocky grin. She turned her head from him.
"Will you play nice?" said Shane.
"I'll try," said Jo. "No promises."
Amy refused to leave the RV.
"How is she?" said Jo, as she climbed the outside ladder to join Dale on the roof.
"The same," said Dale. "She still won't talk."
Andrea and the others had been gone half a day, leaving a solemn mood in their wake, and an unanswered question hanging over the camp. Will they come back? "Glenn knows the city better than anyone," said Dale, as if convincing himself. "Andrea has her gun."
"Yeah, but does she know how to use it?" said Jo. Dale's brow furrowed under his floppy fishing hat.
From where they were standing, Jo could look straight down the cliff to the lake below. Heat shimmered on the water. Sweat collected in buckets between her skin and clothes. "I miss air conditioning," she said, fanning herself. "What do you miss the most?"
Dale considered the question for a moment. "This is our world now," he said. "It's beautiful, isn't it? When was the last time you just stood still and enjoyed the view?"
Jo shook her head. She couldn't deny that the sunlight on the water was beautiful, but that didn't change the fact that she was sweaty, and gross, and missed the feel of hot water running over her. "I'm going for a swim," she said. "Tell Amy if she ever comes out of hiding."
Jo slid down the ladder and landed with both feet in the dust. She found the path and made her way to the quarry. Day by day, this place was becoming more familiar. She stumbled less. She was growing attached despite her better judgment.
Jo scanned the shore to make sure she was alone, before she stripped down to her underwear, and set her clothes on a rock to keep them dry. She waded out until the water was up to her waist, and then filled her lungs with air, went under, let her body sink to the sandy bottom. Everything fell away. She stayed under as long as she could, until her lungs burned, before coming up.
She drifted on her back. If she kept still long enough, the fish came to nibble her toes. With the water rushing in her ears, she could forget for awhile, she let it all wash away, but the fantasy couldn't last forever. As she was wading back to shore, she caught sight of Daryl Dixon in the sand. He had four squirrels spread before him and another, half-skinned, in his lap. He looked up when she walked past. Their eyes met a second before he turned back to his task.
Play nice, Jo reminded herself. Once she was dressed, she went back to Daryl, not because any part of her wanted to be around him, but because she owed it to Shane to try. "It's easier if you wet them first," she said. Daryl ignored her. She sat down, drew one of the squirrels into her lap, and held out her hand for the knife. "Look, I'll show you how it's done."
"Don't need no crazy bitch telling me how to skin a squirrel," said Daryl.
"I'm only trying to help."
"Don't."
Jo watched him for awhile. He was doing it all wrong. She snatched up the knife when he set it down. "Just watch," she said, flipping the squirrel onto its back. She made an 1 ½ inch incision under the tail and four little cuts at the joint of each leg. Then, after dropping the knife, she stuck her fingers through the holes she had made, pushed the muscle and fat against the skin, and then stripped the pelt, just like taking off a glove. "That's how you skin a squirrel."
Daryl took his knife and went back to doing things his way.
"Suit yourself," said Jo.
"You hunt?" he said as she was standing up.
"Not really." She looked down to brush the sand from her jeans. "My dad did."
"He teach you how to skin a squirrel?"
"No." Jo shoved her hands deep into her pockets. "Mama taught me that."
"Hmph." Daryl stroked the squirrel's tail with the tip of the knife. "It true what Merle says? About what you did."
Jo turned her back on him. She didn't have to answer that question or any others. Everyone had something to regret, something to hide. It had always been that way, before and now.
Amy had left the RV by the time Jo returned. She was hanging the laundry.
"Guess what's for dinner?" said Jo, coming up behind her.
"Cotton candy," muttered Amy.
"Squirrel," said Jo.
Amy nodded. She bent down for the basket at her feet and plucked one of Andrea's shirts from the top. Her blue eyes glazed over with tears. Jo hated when people cried. She never knew what to do. "It's alright," she said, taking the shirt from Amy and pinning it to the line.
"What am I going to do if she doesn't come back?"
"She will," said Jo.
"She's all I have left." Amy touched her sister's shirt. "My birthday's coming up. She always misses it."
Things like birthdays didn't belong in the world anymore. Jo had already forgotten about them. To turn the topic from Andrea, she asked, "How are we gonna celebrate? Might be hard to bake a cake without an oven, but we got all the ingredients for some mighty fine mud pies. Shane and Carl can bring the frog legs."
Amy scrunched her nose in disgust. "I'll draw the line at squirrel, thanks."
Together, they finished hanging the laundry, and then joined Dale for a lunch of canned sardines. To keep Amy distracted, they kept up a steady stream of party ideas for her birthday. All the while, Jo kept glancing to her tent, waiting for Lee to come back and not daring to consider what she'd do if he never did.
The shade offered no respite from the boiling heat. Jo and Amy swung in the hammock, hoping to make their own breeze. It was past noon. The others should've returned by now.
"Do you want to go fishing?" said Jo.
"Not today," said Amy.
"I saw some berries around."
Amy dug her heels into the dirt to stop the hammock from swinging. "You can go."
Jo leaned back in the hammock and watched a bluejay giving itself a bath in the tree above. She was running out of things to do to distract Amy. What had girls done together for fun before the apocalypse? Growing up, Jo never had many friends. She was on the verge of suggesting they make daisy chains, when a whistling sound caught her ear. She shot up so quickly the hammock lurched and Amy nearly tumbled out.
"Do you hear that?" said Jo.
"No, what?" said Amy. "Wait…"
The sound was growing louder. It ricocheted off the quarry walls, making it impossible to tell from which direction it was coming from.
"What is it?" said Amy. Jo shrugged. She spied Shane making a beeline for the RV, slid out of the hammock, and hurried to join him. Amy followed close behind. Everyone was flocking to the RV, to Shane.
"What is it?" Shane called up to Dale on the roof.
"It's a car," said Dale, looking towards the road through his binoculars. "Stolen by the sound of it."
"Is it Andrea?" said Amy. She gripped Jo's arm as if she might faint. Jo barely noticed. She was looking for Lee and she couldn't find him. Even if he was down by the lake, he must've heard the car alarm by now. By the time a flaming red Charger zipped into view, the sound was unbearable. Shane and Jim ran to the car before it came to squealing, tires spinning, gravel spitting stop. Glenn grinned at them all from behind the wheel.
"Turn it off!" Shane shouted, slamming his hands against the hood of the car. Amy let go of Jo to sprint to the car. She flung open the driver's side door and practically dragged Glenn from the car by his collar.
"Where's Andrea?" she said. "Where's my sister? Is she alright?"
"Pop the damn hood, please!" said Shane. Glenn untangled himself from Amy, reached into the car, and popped the hood. It took Jim less than two seconds to cut the alarm. A moment of absolute silence followed. Jo stuck her pinky in ear, which did nothing to stop the ringing.
"Is she okay? Is she alright?" said Amy, breaking the silence. "Why isn't she with you? Where is she?"
"She's fine. Everybody is," said Glenn. "Well, Merle not so much."
"Are you crazy?" said Shane, rounding on Glenn. "Driving this wailing bastard up here? Are you trying to draw every walker for miles?"
Glenn wrung his baseball cap in his hands and looked to the ground. "I think we're okay," said Dale, coming to the kid's defense. "The alarm was echoing all over these hills. Hard to pinpoint the source."
Shane's jaw twitched. He was not satisfied. Having been on the receiving end of one of his lectures more times than she could count, Jo took pity on Glenn. "What about Merle?" she said, intervening before Shane had a chance to carry on.
Glenn looked up at her. Before he could answer, a white van rounded the corner into view. "That's them," he said. Andrea was the first to leap from the back of the van. Amy raced the Morales children to the vehicle. Jo looked again for Lee and found him this time lingering by their tent, watching the reunions, almost as if he was waiting for a particular someone, a dead someone.
"What took you so long?" said Shane. "We thought you were all goners."
"We would've been," said Morales. He had one arm around his wife's waist and the other around his children. "If it wasn't for the new guy.
"New guy?" said Jo, coming to stand beside Shane.
"Yeah, he's a cop too." Morales looked to the van. "Hey, new guy, come meet everyone."
Jo turned to the man stepping out from behind the van. She thought she was imagining things until she looked to Shane and saw the same wide-eyed disbelief on his face that was surely slapped across her own. "But he's dead," she said. Shane didn't seem to have heard. He was staring at the new guy and the new guy stared back.
"DAD!" screamed Carl. "DAD!" He broke free of Lori's hold and ran. Rick Grimes dropped to his knees, opened his arms wide, and caught his son. Apparently walkers weren't the only ones who could come back from the dead. She looked to Lee again and caught him smiling. As soon as he realized she was watching, he turned his back on the group and disappeared into the tent.
Jo had volunteered to fetch more kindling. From where she was crouched at the edge of camp, shining her flashlight over the ground, she heard the others talking and laughing. Carl had fallen asleep in his mother's lap awhile ago. It was late. No one wanted to go to bed after hearing Rick's story. Jo still couldn't quite believe that he was here. When she looked at him, she kept expecting him to be gone. When she glanced to the firepit and saw he was no longer there beside Lori, she began to panic.
"Need any help?" said Rick, startling her. She scooped up the pile of twigs she'd gathered and stood.
"I got it," she said. "You're not doing any work tonight."
For a bit, they stood side by side, watching the happy scene around the fire. Jo wanted to touch him, make sure he was real, not a ghost, but she also didn't want to ruin the illusion if he wasn't real. "I'm glad you found us," she said. "Shane could use your help."
"He's in charge?"
"More or less. He thinks so, at least." She waited for Rick to ask where her mother was, but he didn't. "There's going to be trouble when Daryl gets back."
"I'll deal with it when the time comes," said Rick, now staring off towards Atlanta. No doubt he was thinking about Merle Dixon cuffed to the roof of the department store.
"Serves him right," said Jo.
"I heard y'all had a disagreement. You the one that messed up his nose?"
"Got him good with a flashlight," admitted Jo.
Rick smiled. "Sounds about right." His smile quickly turned to a frown when he looked to Atlanta again.
"We'll worry about the Dixons tomorrow," said Jo. "Alright?"
Now wasn't the time to be worrying over the Dixon boys. After everything Rick had gone through, waking up alone in the hospital to a world of shit, he deserved one night to simply be with his family. They were about to return to the fireside, when Rick held her back by putting a hand to her arm. "Your mom?" he said.
Jo had never been any good at lying to Rick Grimes, but now wasn't the time for this talk, either. "Gone," she said, summarizing the truth. Rick opened his mouth. She smelled an apology coming, so she hurried on with, "It's okay. We got you back. That's one more miracle than I ever saw coming my way."
One more miracle than she deserved. Then again, she doubted God had sent it for her.
