A/N: WARNING: does contain slight spoilers for Sunday's mid-season finale. please don't say i didn't warn you.
It was right around sunset when I let myself cry inside the safety of the RV. Daryl had spoken to me only once since this morning, and his simple sentences still echoed in my mind.
"You changed. I don't like it."
My elbow knocked over a pile near the door. "Shit," I hissed. As I bent down, scrambling to pick it back up, I noticed the bottle of Southern Comfort. I picked it up slowly.
One drink wouldn't hurt.
It was hours later, the bottle half empty, when the door to the RV opened. I didn't know who was coming in, nor did I particularly care.
"Y'know," I slurred, my voice sounding slower than my lips were moving. "Haven't had a drink in couple years."
"Years, huh?" It was Daryl. Of course it was.
"I used…to party a lot." I downed another swallow. "A lot. Couldn't stand being home with Dad being the way he was. Then Mom got sick and I stopped drinking."
"Why're you drinkin' now?"
"Why the hell not?" I offered him the bottle as he sat opposite me at the table, but he shook his head to decline. "Suit yourself."
He took the bottle from me after a few more swallows. "I don't think that's the kind of comfort you want, girly."
"Who knows?" I snapped. "I've changed, haven't I?"
I don't remember the rest of it. It passed in a blur, reminiscent of my party days, but when I woke up alone in the morning with a blanket and no clothes, I knew I'd slept with Daryl again. I got up and dressed myself, and when I went outside, head pounding and stomach shifting, everyone was doing their own thing. I found Lori, apologized to her shortly, and asked where Daryl was.
"With Carol by the pond," she said. She gave me a suspicious look that blossomed into a smile. "Are you and Daryl…"
"No." I knew what she was going to ask me—Are you and Daryl together?—and the answer, from what I gathered from him, was no.
I found him a few hours later after downing some pain pills for my hangover headache, just as he and Carol were coming back. I'd left the group when Shane started rambling about clearing out the barn and Hershel took Rick on some hush-hush mission out in the woods.
"Do you like Carol?"
It sounded like such a childish question when I said it out loud. Like we were in high school or something and I was passing him a note. I wasn't even sure why I asked, or if the answer mattered. That's a lie. It matters.
"Like Carol?" Daryl repeated. "The hell do you mean 'like Carol'?"
"I know you care about her, I know she cares about you," I said, licking my lips. "I know you've risked a lot looking for her little girl. What I want to know is—"
"Oh, I know what you wanna know," he interrupted, standing from where he was sitting against a tree. "Which I find odd for two reasons. One, 'cuz you're the only one in this group I slept with, and two, 'cuz you made it pretty damn clear you don't want nothin' to do with me."
"You wouldn't understand—" I avoided his gaze, my headache returning.
"Like hell I won't understand!" he shouted. Why are you so angry? If he had something in his hands, I'm sure he would've thrown it. "Cut the shit, Jane, I think we understand each other better than anyone else in this fucking camp." He grabbed my face, forced me to look at him. "You think I don't understand losin' someone 'cuz I'm a big tough country boy? You think I don't understand wanting to kill my pop? Huh? You don't know shit about me, Jane."
"What use is it knowing someone in this world?" I asked. "No one's permanent. One way or another you'll be taken from me—"
"Sounds to me like you've already given up without even botherin' to ask what I want."
"Can you give me a reason not to give up?" I asked exasperatedly. "Please, I'm begging you, give me a reason to wake up in the morning."
"How 'bout enjoyin' the time you got left?" he suggested in a gruff voice. "When was the last time you just enjoyed?"
I couldn't think of one.
"Tell you what," he said. "One day, I'll tell you all about myself."
"What if you—" I bit my lip. What if you die before then?
"You think about 'what if' too much, girly. Stop thinkin'. Start enjoyin'."
There was silence as I absorbed his words. I thought he was going to leave. Instead, he still stood in front of me, broad shoulders moving up and down as he breathed after yelling at me, his eyes boring into mine, and suddenly I wanted him to kiss me.
"How'd it feel?" he asked. "When you killed your old man?"
"Empowering." My voice cracked. "At first."
"At first?"
"I didn't…want to be like him." I looked him in the eyes and he stared, stern, right back. "I didn't want this world to change me."
"Bit late for that now, huh?" He shook his head. "Thought you were different, girly."
Daryl sounded oddly…bitter, and without another word he walked away. Well, more like stomped. That's when I realized that the answer to Lori's unasked question wasn't 'no'. It was 'never'. Especially now. I'd never let someone get as close to me as Nolan had been, and at this rate this thing with Daryl was becoming dangerous.
Not to mention the fact that I probably didn't have a choice in the matter. As far as I could tell, Daryl resented me for what I did to my father.
Why, Daryl? You're a gun-toting racist who shoots people—walkers mostly, but still—all the time. What's so wrong about what I did?
"Thought you were different, girly."
My heart stuttered slightly. Was he…Could he be right?
Well, you haven't made a pop-culture reference in nearly a week, you just had a drink for the first time in two and a half years, and you killed your dad. I dunno. Does any of that entitle change?
I guess some things hadn't changed. I was still a smartass.
It was just a few hours later when I heard shouting. I recognized Shane's hoarse, thick twang, heard a mix of other voices, and headed cautiously towards the source. Everyone—and I meant everyone, the only one I couldn't find was Dale—was surrounding the barn, watching as Shane passed out guns before running like a madman and breaking down the locks that held the barn doors shut.
Hershel had fallen to his knees. T-Dog, Andrea, Glenn, and Daryl were all holding guns, aiming it at the doors.
If they killed the walkers, wouldn't Hershel make them leave? Make all of us leave?
"Daryl," I said, stepping forward. "What's going on?"
"We're clearing out the barn!" Shane yelled. "I'm not sleeping one more damn night with these things here!"
He strode up to the line Daryl and co. formed, aiming his own gun with a furious expression.
"Daryl, don't." I hesitated, and then touched his arm. His head snapped to me. "He's wrong, this isn't the way to handle it. Won't Hershel—"
"Step back, Jane," he said coldly.
"Daryl—"
"Step back."
"Now who's being hypocritical!" I demanded.
He sighed, and seemed to soften a little bit. "Still a spitfire, girly." The walkers slowly began to filter out of the barn. "Just get behind me."
Shane fired first. Andrea was nearly grinning as she followed his example, but Glenn was struggling a little to hit their heads. They all went down fairly quickly. When the last hissing, slow zombie emerged from the shadows, the shooting abruptly stopped. It was a little girl, with short hair and a rainbow on her shirt. I could understand their hesitance—hell, I wouldn't want to shoot a little girl—but what I didn't understand was the sudden appearance of tears in Andrea's eyes.
"Sophia!"
My heart sank with Carol's cry, and I spun just in time to see her running for the girl. Daryl reacted quicker than me, dropping his gun and grabbing onto her. Lori was crying, holding onto Carl and telling him not to look. Shane, the tough guy, wasn't moving. I watched Rick as he strode forward, his gun to the little girl's head, and it was ages before he pulled the trigger. A little part of me died inside as I flinched at the girl's limp body falling beside the other walkers.
Carol was weeping uncontrollably onto Daryl, who had now fallen to the ground in his attempt to hold the weak-limbed woman. My gaze gravitated slowly back to the barn doors, and the unthinkable happened.
My father walked out.
Crawled, actually, would be a more accurate term. His arm had been torn off at the shoulder, there were chunks of skin missing from his neck, and nearly all of the flesh was missing from his legs, so they dragged behind him lifelessly as he pulled himself forward with one arm. His face, however, had been surprisingly spared by the flesh eaters. Maybe he'd died and gone cold before they reached his face.
The atmosphere of the people around me changed in an instant. Andrea turned to glare at me. Daryl cursed under his breath. Glenn stared, slack-jawed, and uttered my name as a question. Dale had showed up behind the group at some point during the shooting, and he didn't say anything to me. Shane lifted his gun, shot my father in the head, and then whirled on me with a snarl.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked slowly, dangerously.
"That," I said, "was, at one point, a man named Owen Bishop."
"How—"
"Simple." I licked my lips. Cat's out of the bag. "He must have fallen into the barn."
"Must have." Shane didn't buy it for a second. Not that I really expected him to. "Stop shitting me, girl. You know exactly what the fuck happened to him."
"You're right." I met his gaze back. "I do."
Glenn stepped toward me, shock filling his features. "Jane? You killed him? Why?"
"I'll answer that," I said, "but first I have a few questions of my own. For all of you."
Shane took another menacing step in my direction and I stepped back, pointing at him. "Hold on there, tiger, keep your damn distance. Before you all fucking condemn me, because I can see it in your faces, let me clear the air."
It didn't look like anyone was going to hear me, but Rick inhaled slowly and said, "Alright, speak your piece."
None of them were on my side. Daryl had been at one point, so had Dale, so had Glenn, so had Carol. Carol was too upset to pay any attention, her face holding a look of betrayal, Glenn still looked like he didn't believe it, Dale was stunned, and Daryl…Daryl was Daryl.
"First question," I said. "Which of you actually know my last name?"
There was silence until Andrea said, "You're kidding me right?"
"No, I'm not kidding, and none of you know the answer." Daryl does. He did, but for some reason he wasn't speaking. "I'll inform you, since some of you don't even know my first name. Bishop, Jane Bishop."
I waited patiently as it sunk in, and then, just for added emphasis, I said, "Owen was my father."
A/N: review? :D
