A/N: Hi everybody! This is the last chapter. Thank you for sticking in there with me and I hope you enjoyed the fic!:)

Part Twelve

"Jesse, hey, are you all right?"

He could hear Daryl speaking, could understand the words. But everything was so blurry that Jesse was having a little trouble putting two-and-two together.

He nodded, slowly, looking up at Daryl with a sense of finality beginning to sink in, at last.

The man they had come to kill was dead. But what did that mean for them? For him?

"These are Carol and Sophia," Daryl spoke again. "My family."

Jesse moved his eyes over to look at the little girl, who was smiling a tiny, terrified smile. The smile of a person who has just cheated death.

How was that something that could be on the face of a girl not much older than eleven or twelve?

"Can we go home now?" Sophia spoke up, and Jesse could feel his heart breaking.

"We're going to go home soon," Daryl promised, reaching out and pulling her gently over towards him. He gave her an awkward, gentle hug. "We just need to drop my friend off at his home, first, okay?"

Jesse thought he was going to break down in tears.

"You don't… I didn't… I can make it home, now that it's done," Jesse stammered. "You should get back to your family. You found them, now. I'll go find mine…"

Daryl shook his head.

"It'll only take a few hours to get you back to them."

"I'll come," Carol said with a shrug. Jesse jolted – it wasn't as if he didn't know the woman could speak, but for her to speak up so suddenly sent him backwards a little.

Maybe he had pictured her as a damsel in distress, but now that he got a look at her, she didn't look like one. She had short hair and eyes that Jesse wasn't sure he was ready to look too long into, for fear that she too would reach out and snap his neck.

Jesse had been afraid of far too many people lately.

"Carol, you should head home and wait for me… Everything's going to be all right, now," Daryl told her. "He's gone. But we all need to get out of here before the cops get here."

"We're going home, Daryl?" Sophia hadn't taken her wide eyes off of Jesse. He wondered what he must look like – would Brock be afraid of him, too? Maybe he should leave them all and go live in the woods or something.

"We're going home," Daryl agreed. "But our first stop… Albuquerque."

The car pulled up in front of Andrea's house, and Jesse couldn't move for a long while. What was he supposed to do now? When they had been traveling, he was able to focus on only putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe he hadn't actually expected to make it out of this alive.

And now, here he was, here and terrified and what was he going to do? What could he even say to them after he had put them in danger?

"They probably miss you," Sophia spoke up, noticing Jesse's reluctance.

"We should go. We should go back, I can't…" Jesse began. He could feel his neck heating up; he was sure that he was about to pass out or burst into tears or something like that.

"Go get 'em," Daryl spoke up, and Jesse looked at him.

He managed a small smile.

He would miss Daryl. That is, if Andrea would have him.

Jesse made his way out of the car, slowly, then shuffled up to the front door. Maybe they had moved – maybe they weren't even there anymore.

He reached out and gently knocked on the front door, ready to jump back as if it could burn him.

He looked to make sure that Daryl was still waiting – to his relief, he saw that he was. The older man was flashing him an encouraging smile, and Jesse wondered again about what was next – was he just meant to never see this man again after all this had happened? Were they just supposed to go their separate ways and Jesse would never think about what all this had meant to him?

About what Daryl had meant to him…

There were so many times when he could have acted but hadn't.

How could he leave him now? Maybe he should just run back there and throw himself into the other man's arms – maybe that was the only "right thing" left to do. But Daryl had Carol and Sophia now, and Jesse had Andrea and Brock.

Maybe, he did.

He could hear footsteps behind the door. He almost turned tail and ran – the world's worst game of ding-dong-ditch, he thought to himself.

Jesse could feel his legs shaking. When he saw her, maybe he would just burst into tears or melt into a puddle.

The door opened, and he found himself starring into Andrea Cantillo's big, brown eyes.

He couldn't speak. His mouth was dry. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach that threatened to bowl him over or throw him into a ball. But he had to speak. He had to tell her something, but what? What kind of words could make anything that had happened okay? What words could erase the poloroid picture from his mind?

What words could make him stop wanting to run back to Daryl, cling to him and never leave?

"Jesse!"

Andrea threw her arms around him, hugging him so tight that he feared his ribs might crack or that he'd stop breathing.

"You're alive. You're alive." She was whispering it against his ears and he must have been whispering it back because she didn't seem real, she seemed like an angel or a hallucination or something he didn't know how to code yet.

Suddenly, Jesse startled. He wasn't sure how long he had been standing there. His eyes were wet; he must have started sobbing at some point, but no one had moved to stop him.

He looked out to the car to see Daryl still looking at him, and he felt every sense in his body telling him what he needed to do.

"Andrea," he whispered. "Grab Brock and come with me. We're going to leave here. We're going… We're… and this is my friend, Daryl. We'll be safe with him."

And looking at her then, he knew she would listen.

And he would too.