Chapter 11

Going on runs wasn't really my thing. Glenn knew that, Momma knew that, I'm pretty sure Rick and Daryl knew it too. I didn't have anything against it, I just preferred staying at camp and helping out, being with Momma most notably. I thought back to this morning, trying to figure out how I had let myself end up on this rank horse that was doing its best to drag me back to the farm.

Glenn had sent Momma (he knew what he was doing I'll give him that) to Daryl's room to convince me to go out with him and Maggie to the pharmacy.

"Oh, it'll be fine baby girl, we just need some more medical supplies." Momma said nonchalantly, waving her hand while she tidied up Daryl's room.

"They went by themselves before, I don't really understand why they need me."

"Old man Hershel probably won't let Glenn go alone with Maggie." Daryl piped in.

I looked between him and Momma trying to figure out how much they each knew about Glenn and Maggie. Probably everything if we're being honest here. I swear they're both psychic.

"I don't even have a gun, I lost pretty much everything back at the CDC". Even my Braves cap, I reminisced forlornly.

"There's a knife in my bag," Daryl motioned to the pack lying next to the bed. "Dammit woman, you gotta poke at that?" He turned sharply on Momma who had moved on to checking his stitches.

Momma just hummed, ignoring the outburst completely. I sighed resolutely and dug into Daryl's bag. I pulled out wax, oil, and extra cabling, all things for his crossbow. My hand finally found purchase on a large well worn Bowie knife in a leather sheath. It was…mostly clean. Taking care not to worry about what the brown spots on the handle were, I held it up to show them.

"Say 'Thank You' to Daryl, baby girl." Momma said condescendingly. I gave him my most stone-faced look.

"Thank you Daryl." I say monotonal.

"Goes on your belt." He said pointing at my waist without even bothering to look at me. Momma was unwrapping the bandage on his head now. I restrained myself from stomping my foot like a child and fumbled to get the sheath on my belt. Once it was situated, I presented to them for approval.

"Ta-da." I said holding one hand out and resting the other on the knife handle.

"Yeah, I'm into it." Daryl said with a bit of a wicked gleam in his eye. "Ow, Christ woman, I was kidding!" Momma had given him a particularly solid jab to his head wound.

And so I found myself here - on "Peaches" the horse, who was no peach I quickly realized, with Daryl's knife at my hip and Maggie and Glenn riding in front of me. It was a struggle to ignore the gaga eyes Glenn kept making at Maggie.

"So…." I called, forcing Peaches up next to Glenn's (very well behaved) mount. "How much farther?"

They both remained silent. Glenn looked a bit like a kicked puppy.

"Alright, anybody want to talk…about anything?" Still silence. "Ok, that's cool." I might as well be talking to a wall.

"Maggie, I –" Glenn started. That seemed to light the fire.

"I asked for your trust and you betrayed it!" She erupted. "Now my daddy's pissed at me!"

"Maggie he –" I started.

"Don't you even!" She whipped at me. "He's a big boy, he can speak for himself." I shut my mouth quickly and dropped back a stride.

"Your turn." She said to Glenn acidly. Glenn took a deep breath and turned to me first.

"Hershel thinks they're sick and can get better." I didn't have a response to that. He turned back to Maggie. "You agree with that? Even after what you saw at the well?"

"I'm not sure what I saw at the well." She said.

"Wait, the cow well you closed?" I questioned, thinking of the bloated walker Glenn told me they tried to pull out. I gave a little tug on my reins and a soft kick to Peaches when she made to turn back (again).

"Look, if you'd seen Atlanta, you would not have a barn full of walkers." Glenn finished.

"Maggie," I said, "regardless of their health that barn won't keep them locked up. They'll get out and hurt someone, what if it's your dad, or Beth?"

Maggie turned sideways in the saddle and spoke to us both. "Stop calling them walkers. They're people. They're Mom, and Shawn, and Mr. and Mrs. Fischer, and Lacey, and –"

"—and they're dead Maggie." I said forcefully. "They're dead and they're not going to get better."

"Enough, Jenny." Glenn said quickly. "We're here, let's just forget it for now and we can talk about what we're gonna do on the way back." Maggie and I stared at each other across Glenn.

"Fine." Maggie said, swiftly dismounting her horse. Glenn and I followed suit. We tied the horses up and convened outside the pharmacy door. Maggie was all business as she said, "Jenny, you go grab whatever bandaging and wound material you can find, last aisle on the left. Glenn, you and I will head to the pharmacy. I'll grab the antibiotics, you head to the right and grab the pain killers. Everybody got it?"

"Yeah." Glenn and I responded in unison. Maggie nodded. I reached to my belt and pulled the knife. As we slowly moved through the shattered front door, Maggie turned back to Glenn.

"What did Lori need?" She asked him. Glenn shifted nervously.

"I can't say." He mumbled, looking back at me. It was clearly something baby related.

"So when one of them asks you to keep your mouth shut…" Maggie sniped, trailing off as she headed back to the pharmacy counter.

"Real smooth, Glenn." I said.

"Shut up," he hissed back at me, before marching after Maggie into the back.

I took a cautious look around, didn't note any corpses about to lunge for me, tucked the knife back in to my belt, and bent down to grab a forgotten shopping basket. It was slim pickings in the first aid aisle. I tossed a tube of antibiotic cream, some medical tape, and some steristrips in the basket, but passed over the torn open boxes of gauze (that may or may not be bloody) and microwaveable hot pack.

I wandered in to the next aisle and grabbed a couple ace bandages.

"No!"

"No! No!" Maggie and Glenn hollered. I threw the basket to the ground, whipped the knife out, and practically threw myself across the pharmacy counter.

"Guys! Where are you?" I called, frantically scanning each aisle of pills one at a time.

"Here!" Glenn called.

"Glenn! Help me!" Maggie called again. I followed the sound of scuffling past jugs of mineral oil to see Glenn working to pull a particularly ambitious walker off Maggie.

"Get it off!" Maggie half yelled, half sobbed.

"Glenn!" I shouted. He looked back just as I lurched towards him with the handle of the knife held out.

He grabbed it and in one quick motion shoved the blade into the back of the thing's skull. Breathing heavily, I helped him haul the body off Maggie. I dragged it the side, pulling the blade from it's skull and wiping it clean on the things clothes. I heard Glenn behind me frantically checking over Maggie.

"Did it get you? Did it bite you?" No response. I turned back to them to see him hugging her tightly.

"I think we should get out of here." I said quietly. "The noise will draw more out." Glenn nodded.

"I'll get her out," he said. "Can you grab the bags?"

"Yeah." I replied, already moving to load my arms with everything Glenn had dropped. A box mixed in with everything caught my eye. It caught Maggie's too.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Maggie said, plucking the box of abortion pills out of the pile. "This is what she needed?" She snatched a bag out of my hands and shoved the box in with the other things. "Let's get out of here."

I looked at Glenn who had the sense to look embarrassed. I gave him a pat on the shoulder as I walked out of the pharmacy, grabbing the basket of first aid supplies on the way. It was going to be a long ride back to the farm.


I don't want to say I ran away from Glenn and Maggie when we got back, but I will admit to offering to untack all three horses. Maggie stormed off after handing me her reins and Glenn sheepishly moved to go after her carrying the supplies we had picked. If there was going to be a domestic, I wanted nothing to do with it.

I took my time putting away the horses. It felt so normal, so familiar to be taking care of them. I lost myself to the rhythm of brushing each one down, checking their feet, and turning them back out to the pasture. A feeling of needing to do more came over me, being hands on with the animals was putting some life back in me. I'd been stagnant in our little community, using Momma as a bit of an excuse if I was being honest. It was time for me to support the group with more than just watch duty. I would commit to helping Maggie get the farm up and running again, and maybe, that would help out the group somehow, help me out somehow. I shut the gate and headed back to camp, hoping that Glenn and Maggie would be hashing it out far from my tent.

I settled down in my tent to freshen up and put some clean clothes on. Momma, Dale, and Carol were milling around the RV waiting for Shane and Andrea to get back. Momma knew I was back, but I hadn't given her the full run down yet. As I was pulling on some clean pants I heard the rumble of their car tires on the gravel drive.

They were just out of earshot for me to hear their search report. That was fine, Momma would catch me up when we sat down for supper. I let my eyes drift closed and I tried to sort through and compartmentalize what happened on our run.

Hershel thought walkers were just sick people, that could be cured. He was keeping them in hopes that they could be fixed. He was keeping them, like livestock, thinking they would get better and be able to go about their lives. And Maggie clearly either shared that opinion or didn't think the danger was high enough to fight it.

Boots crunched on the ground outside my tent.

"Shane, Shane, I've been thinking, you've got that nice new ride of yours." It was Dale. "Plenty of fuel, more than enough for you to get far from here."

"What, you telling me to leave?" Shane scoffed. I stayed deathly still, not wanting them to know I was laying just a few feet from them.

"I know you've been planning to." Dale accused. "Maybe now is a goodtime."

"Is this about Andrea?" Shane questioned precipitously.

"I'm just looking out for the group." Dale said. I wish I could see them, wish I could know what Dale was thinking.

"You think the group would be better off without me, Dale?" Shane argued. "Why don't you tell that to Rick, or Lori? Their boy would be dead if I hadn't put my ass on the line." I could imagine Shane the bully getting right up in Dale's face.

"And Otis's." Dale retorted. Clearly Dale shared Glenn and mine's feelings about that night too. "You've been vague about that night, about what happened." He continued.

"Otis died a hero." Shane said resolutely.

"So you've said."

"A little boy lived because of what went down that night. I think you ought to show some gratitude." Shane's voice was becoming steadily more aggressive.

"I wasn't there." Dale put simply.

"No man, you weren't."

"But I was," Dale said smoothly, "that time you raised your gun on Rick."

Well then. So something was going on with Shane after all.

"I know what kind of man you are." Dale stated boldly.

"You think I'd shoot Rick?" Shane questioned. "That is by best friend. That's a man I love. I love him like he's my brother. You think that's the kind of man I am?"

"That's right." Dale said. He was playing with fire.

"Well, maybe we ought to just think that through. Say I'm the kind of man who'd gun down his own best friend. What do you think I'd do to some guy that I don't even like when he starts throwing accusations my way. Hmm? What do you think, Dale?"

I could see it now in my mind. I could see Shane leaning over Dale like the bully he is, the brim of his police cap nearly brushing Dale's forehead. Silence. Heavy boot steps thudded away.

"You can come out now."

Busted. Slowly I unzipped the front of my tent and came out.

"It's fine, I knew you were in there."

I stood there awkwardly in response.

"I figured it was good to have a witness in case he strangled me."

"I've felt the same way Dale. Glenn too. And probably Momma but she hasn't said anything to me." I gave him a pointed look.

"She may have mentioned a couple things to me."

"Now what?" I asked him. "We just wait for Shane to go on a murder spree?"

"Wish I knew." Dale said sadly. "Just watch yourself around him. That's all I can say for now."

I hesitated before asking my next question.

"Do you think Andrea is okay around him? She's been spending a lot of … time with him."

Dale looked unsure of how to answer.

"Let's just take it one step at a time." He said. "I'll check in with Andrea. Just keep doing what you're doing."

"And that would be?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Watch him, keep an eye out. And for God's sake don't start anything with him, I honestly don't trust him to restrain himself." He looked out past our camp.

"I trust you to figure it out Dale." I said simply, leaving it at that.


A/N Woo! Chapter 11! Barely proofed this, so apologies. Another batch of chapters coming in. I seem to have committed to the fact that my writing schedule centers around school vacations where I teach. That'll just have to do! Your reviews and adds keep me going :) This ones short and sweet but the next few will be longer.