Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing related to The Walking Dead. No copyright intended here.

Warning: This is rated M for language, gore, and suggestive themes.

Note: More about Thao will be revealed in this chapter.

"There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper."
―James Carroll

Remember to Relax

Once they'd stowed the sleeping bags in Dusty's tent along with their belongings, Jenna dug through her backpack, deliberating when she grabbed a box of fifteen Winchester Buckshot rounds. Well, this was definitely a good trade, so she decided that she might as well pay up.

With the ammo under her arm and Thao holding onto her left pocket, Jenna let Dusty lead her around the campsite, showing her where things were, where everyone could usually be found, and rattling off names as she pointed each person out. Jenna was glad that names-and-faces was a game she'd been pretty good at all her life, or else there would've been no hope of telling who was who around here.

She met the two blondes again, this time properly. Amy, the younger of the two, seemed like a sweet girl, but there was something in the expression in the face of her older sister, Andrea, that Jenna just didn't like. But, perhaps she was being too quick to judge.

The Mexican man who owned the Honda turned out to be named Gabe Morales, and he and his wife, Miranda, had two sweet kids; a shy girl named Eliza and a wild little boy named Louis, who smiled up at Jenna from beneath his curly mop of hair, adorable little dimples on his cheeks. Louis invited Thao to play in the dirt with him in front of his family's tent, but Thao, not being accustomed to leaving Jenna's side, declined shyly.

Not far from the Morales family was a tall, thin brunette woman and her sweet ten-year-old son, Carl. Jenna was impressed at how polite he was for his age, and wondered vaguely what had happened to his father—though, she didn't want to ask.

"Cool machete," Carl noted, admiring the blade secured to Jenna's right hip.

She looked down, glad that it had been cleaned just last night, so no remnants of blood and gore stained it currently.

"Thanks," she said with some amusement, but didn't go into any further detail on her trusty blade under the watchful gaze of Lori Grimes.

She was then introduced to Carol, a woman with very short hair and pretty light eyes, and her young daughter, Sophia. Carol was a very sweet woman with an obvious gentle nature, and Sophia was a polite little thing, somewhat shy and lanky, but pretty just the same.

"Watch out for that one," said Dusty in an undertone as they walked along, shifting her eyes toward an overweight man sitting back lazily in a lawn chair in front of a fire pit, smoking. "That's Ed, Carol's husband. Some of us think he beats on her, but we can't really be sure. He's a mean son of a bitch either way."

Jenna gave Ed a quick scan, finding that she wasn't surprised. Note to self—watch out for Tubby, she decided. If Ed truly did beat Carol, that would've been just horrible. How could such a big man have no qualms about knocking around a sweet woman like Carol?

"Who's Roy McFadden?" she wondered quietly as they returned to the camp's center, looking around at the men as they finished up storing away the supplies before returning to their various activities.

"Oooh, watch out for that one too," Dusty advised, scanning around searchingly. "He's just a creep an' don't try to hide it. There he is—the one with the black jacket."

Jenna followed her discreet gesture to see that she'd indicated the man with the gold tooth.

"Glenn tell you about him?" Dusty assumed, and she nodded. "Glenn's a sweetheart," she said fondly. "He's always lookin out for the rest of us. An' he's usually damn good at gettin in an' outta the city like it's nothin. He's our go-to-town guy."

Jenna looked around at the others as they slowly moved through the camp. "What about that guy, with the red shirt?" she asked, pointing to the Hispanic man who'd been checking her out earlier.

"Oh, Tito?" Dusty said, following her gaze. "He's a flirt, but nothin too bad. And there's the Dixon brothers—Daryl's not too much of an asshole, but Merle, the older one…ugh—no one likes him."

"Y'all get settled in?" came a gruff voice from their left, and they turned to see Shane approaching, Mossberg in hand.

"Yeah, they're crashin with me," Dusty told him.

"Here," said Jenna, holding out the box of ammo for him to take. He looked down at it in surprise, and then his eyes rose to hers questioningly. "This buckshot isn't doing my Beretta any good, and I was mostly keeping it for trade anyway. I think it's safe to say that this is as good a trade as I'm gonna get out of these."

He nodded after a moment, accepting the box. "Thank you," he said, sincerely grateful. "Don't have much ammo to go around here."

She shrugged. "That's where machetes come in," she said, looking around the area. "Doesn't look like you get many…what did you guys call them—walkers?" Dusty nodded. "It doesn't seem like many walkers come up here anyway."

"Naw, things are pretty safe up here outta the city," Shane confirmed.

Usually is, Jenna mused thoughtfully, looking around.

"Oh, an' here's Jim, but I think you met him already," said Dusty as the tall, slim man in the blue jumpsuit approached, wiping his hands on an oily rag.

"Hi, Jenna?" he asked, reaching forward to shake her hand.

"Yeah," she said, giving it a shake. "Jim, right?"

He nodded, and looked back in the direction of the cars. "Can I ask you how you knew to check the alternator belt?" he asked, getting right to the point. "No offense, but I never met a woman who even bothered to check the oil once in a while."

She smirked slightly. "The same thing happened to my car when I was a teenager," she explained. "I helped my dad fix it."

"Good thing you remembered," he commented, looking slightly impressed again.

Jenna shrugged. She'd grown up a tomboy. While her sisters were worrying about their outfits and hair, or playing with Barbies, Jenna was playing catch with her dad or watching him make household repairs over the years, assisting him when she could. When she'd gotten older, she'd befriended a boy who was very into cars and motorcycles, and they'd spent most weekends in his parents' garage, tuning up his Harley Sprint or his dad's BMW. Makeup and nail polish be damned—Jenna had just wanted to play with tools and admire her father's hunting gear when she wasn't too busy reading.

Now, looking back, Jenna had never been so glad to have been a tomboy. Learning to French braid and give herself a manicure certainly wouldn't have been any help to her these days.

It was midafternoon, and Jenna had cleaned off in a secluded little corner of the quarry with Dusty while Thao played with his cars nearby. It was good to get clean again—even if it was just water from the quarry. It had been two days since she'd been able to get clean.

Dusty whistled while Jenna pulled on a clean shirt of hers that she'd lent for the time being, and Jenna raised a brow at her inquiringly.

"Damn, that's one hell of a scar you got there," she said, nodding at the jagged scar above Jenna's right hipbone.

"Oh, yeah," said Jenna, buttoning up the blue flannel shirt. This was the first time she'd ever had to lie about her scar. "I've had it since I was a kid—skateboarding accident."

"Ouch—what the hell'd you do? Skate right into a pole or somethin?" Dusty asked.

Jenna laughed under her breath. "Yeah, something like that," she lied. "Actually, I messed up trying to grind on a bench down at the park, and I landed stomach-first on the corner of it."

Dusty whistled again, wringing out her hair before tossing it over her shoulder. "Must be why my mama never gave me a skateboard for Christmas like I asked."

They laughed together as they watched Thao splash around in the water in his shorts, thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Hey, cool—a frog!" he exclaimed happily, pointing at the water in front of him.

Jenna chuckled slightly. "Try and catch it!"

He crouched low, preparing to lunge, and then dove forward, hands grasping in the water for the frog he may or may not have seen. Jenna and Dusty laughed as they watched him reaching around, searching for the water-dwellers.

"He's a cutie," said Dusty, giggling as she watched Thao play. "Is he…yours?"

Jenna shook her head, understanding what she was asking and why she was asking it. Thao was five, and Jenna was twenty-two, meaning she would've had to be a teen mom if he was hers biologically. And, the more obvious reason was that Thao was Vietnamese, while Jenna was mostly Caucasian.

"He's not mine biologically," she explained. "But, I'm all he's got now. And he's all I've got."

Dusty nodded somberly. "How'd you meet him?"

Jenna skipped over the gory details of what exactly had brought her to Colorado so many weeks ago, and gave Dusty the shorter version. "I was travelling through Colorado Springs back in early June," she began. "I was looking for a place to sleep for the night, and I came across a little part of town that wasn't overrun, but abandoned. There was hardly a walker in sight. Anyway, I was looking through windows of the buildings I passed, looking for a good place, and then I came across a daycare center—and I see a little boy inside. He was just sitting there at the little table, playing with a puzzle, and from what I could see, he was alone in there. The door was locked, so I got him to open it and let me in. The place was empty except for him. From what he told me, I gathered that his parents hadn't made it back in time to pick him up, and the staff had just left him behind, probably hoping that his parents would come back eventually. Why they didn't just take him with them, I'll never understand. How the hell could you leave a five-year-old child alone like that?"

She shook her head, recalling the anger and disbelief she'd felt that day.

"It turned out that he'd been living off the snacks in the backroom, waiting for his parents to come and pick him up," she continued after a moment. "He told me that the daycare lady had told him to keep the doors closed and to wait for his mom and dad, and then she locked the door and left him there."

"Holy shit…" breathed Dusty in bewilderment. "How could they just…? What happened to his parents?"

Jenna shrugged. "I'm not sure, to be honest," she said solemnly, watching Thao play in the water. "I pulled his file from the cabinet in the office room of the daycare, and drove to his address when he'd fallen asleep in the car I was using then. I didn't want him to know what I was doing in case I found them…dead…"

"But you didn't," she deduced, "find em dead, I mean."

Jenna shook her head. "The door of their house was open, and from what I saw inside, it had been thoroughly ransacked long before I'd gotten there. There were no cars out front or in the garage. So what happened to them is as unclear to me as it is to you. I'd like to think that maybe they just didn't make it to him in time before they were lost—it's better than the alternative; that they just left him—but I have no idea what led to Thao getting left behind. There was no way in hell that I was gonna leave him behind too, though."

"I couldn't imagine them leavin him," Dusty mused after a moment. "He's such a sweetie pie. How could they leave him behind?"

Jenna just shook her head again, at a loss. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Well," said Dusty eventually. "At least he's got you," she said, giving Jenna's arm a nudge. "Teach him all about cars an' whatnot."

Jenna snorted a laugh, watching Thao dive for another frog.

They stayed down at the quarry for a while longer, and Jenna took the opportunity to wash her and Thao's clothes while she borrowed Dusty's; blue jeans and flannel. The jeans were pretty form-fitting, which Jenna wasn't too sure about with the abundance of men around the camp. But, as long as she was armed and wary, she decided she didn't have much to worry about. The jeans were a lot lighter than the cargo pants, in any case.

Once Thao had redressed and dried off, they made their way back up to camp, cleaned clothes in hand. Everyone seemed to be preparing the fire pits for the night, getting themselves situated comfortably around a pit of their choice.

Jenna and Dusty hung their clothes on the line to dry, and Dusty pulled Jenna over to one of the fire pits where Jacki and T-Dog had already situated themselves.

"Hey, you're that new girl everybody's talkin about," came a young voice, and Jenna turned her head to see two teenaged boys approaching the pit.

"Ugh, sorry—forgot to warn you about these idiots," muttered Dusty.

"Yeah, that would be me," said Jenna to the boys amusedly.

The one with dimples and a trucker's hat over his curly brown hair paused a few feet away, his blond friend at his side, and frowned.

"Where you from, girl—you talk funny," he noted inquiringly, with as thick of a southern accent as Jenna could imagine.

"Boy, watch your mouth," Jacki chastised. "Don't be rude."

Jenna just laughed lightly, unruffled. "Do I?" she asked the boy wryly. "Imagine what you sound like to me, kid."

Shane chuckled under his breath as he seated himself on the ground at T-Dog's right, Carl claiming a spot at Shane's other side quickly as though afraid it wouldn't be vacant much longer. Jenna had wondered if Shane was the boy's father, but had deduced that he wasn't. They looked nothing alike, and Carl's blue eyes had to have come from somewhere, seeing as Lori's were hazel.

The kid with the trucker's hat smirked at Jenna then. "Sup, girl—I'm Tyler," he said, reaching out to shake her hand.

"Jenna," she said, shaking it.

"Dillon," said the other boy more politely, shaking her hand next. "Sorry 'bout Tyler—thinks he's a player."

Jenna nodded and took a seat on a log with Dusty, Thao sitting snuggled between them. Miranda and Gabe came to join their gathering, and it didn't take long for Thao and Louis to fall into easy play down in front of them, making little mounds in the dirt they dubbed "castles."

Dinner was modest—each of them had a helping of cooked beans—but it was also a strangely pleasant affair. Group gatherings really weren't Jenna's thing, especially now in days. But with Dusty's easygoing friendliness, Jacki's warm humor, and Miranda's kindness, Jenna found herself relaxing rather quickly. And, thankfully, the others didn't plague her with questions, meaning she wouldn't have to weave stories whenever their inquiries made that necessary. She liked Dusty and Jacki, and she liked Miranda, but there were just some things that she was not willing to share. With anyone, no matter how nice they were, or how harmless their intentions may have been.

"You never answered me," said Tyler to Jenna eventually, when most everyone had eaten through their small dinner. "Where you from?"

So much for that.

"Up north," she said vaguely, not wanting to give details. Details spurred questions in her case.

"Ah, city girl," he noted, and she shrugged, not disputing that. "Must be pretty rough for you bein out in the sticks, huh?"

"What would you know about bein out in the sticks?" Dusty asked him irritably. "You're from Dalton, and you ain't no urban cowboy."

The others laughed lightly, and Tyler gave her an annoyed glare. "Just makin conversation, Dust Devil," he teased, and then turned his gaze back to Jenna, giving her a smile. "How old are you, sweetheart?"

She quirked a brow. Sweetheart? "Too old for you, kiddo," she replied with a laugh.

Thankfully, his next line of questioning was cut off by Shane, who told him to put a sock in it and leave Jenna alone. It was dark by the time the fire had been put out and the others started heading off toward their respective tents. Apparently, Shane was taking first watch for the night and climbed up onto the top of the RV, settling himself in a foldout chair beneath a large umbrella. Jenna wondered vaguely who would be relieving him as she carried a very sleepy Thao over toward Dusty's tent.

She unrolled the red sleeping bag and got him settled into it, where he nodded off almost immediately. She smoothed his hair back fondly before kicking off her boots and getting comfy in the blue sleeping bag next to him.

Knowing that Shane was up on the RV keeping watch over everything, Jenna was able to let herself fall asleep without having to worry about keeping her guard up. And that was a very welcome change.