Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

Chapter 51

Author's Note: Happy Thanksgiving (for those who are in the United States) I watched Season Five Episode 1. Carl have you ever heard of locking a car door? And I discovered that I don't have episode 3 DVR'd. SO…I'm going to try and get it on demand tomorrow! Damn these people get crazier. Seriously, walkers are a walk in the park! Since Carol didn't lose Sophia, I think she would need a wake up call to get the way she is. Momma Jewel to give it to her! Reviews make me motivated? I'm not going to do every month on the run, but I'm thinking month two should be December and I want to do that one, in the next chapter or the chapter after. May skip after that to month five or six. Of course we're going to go visit Merle at some point.

So this is month One (not all time frames are mentioned)

"We're not teammates. We're friends. We're family. We're brothers. It's always going to stay that way-Glen Davis"

Jewel turned just in time to see Sophia freeze and walkers' coming close to her. "SOPHIA! Use the bat!" Jewel screamed as she used her knife to take out the eye of the walker coming close to her.

"Sophia!" Summer screamed to get the girls attention. "Run," the teen told the younger girl as she stepped in front of her and fired her bow.

"Summer!" Beth yelled as she ran up and killed the walker and put an ax in it's head.

Daryl stood at the doorway of the building as Maggie, Hershel, Rick and Glenn came out. "Clear," he called.

"This side of the streets clear," Rick called as he looked at Jewel. This was the second time in a matters of day that Sophia had froze. Carl, Summer, Beth and even seven year old Mitch did there part, but Sophia would freeze when a walker came close. The first time it had endangered T and Beth who had ran to get the young girl. Now it was Summer and Beth. And it didn't seem that Carol even noticed, just coddled the child. Rick knew that he was going to have to talk to her.

"This side of the street is clear," Jewel said with T Dog and Lori. Jewel shook her head as she watched Carol hug Sophia telling her it was alright. She glanced back at Daryl. Daryl knew that she was losing her patience with Carol, and he didn't blame her.

"Are we staying here the night?" Glenn asked.

Rick nodded. "It's noon, we got day light to scrounge gas and food. Just need a place for the night."

Summer gave a small grin as she turned to the library. "The library is safe…and we can clear it out."

Daryl shook his head. "You do not see a library, it is a figment of your imagination," he told his niece.

"No, there it is," Mitch said as he pointed.

Summer grinned. "That's my buddy!"

"We could use some books about C sections and helping with births," Beth suggested.

Jewel glanced at Rick. "I've never done a C section, never saw one done before, Carol and I could use some books about it, even though Hershel is teaching us."

"We could use some maps too," Maggie said.

"And comic books," Carl told him.

Rick tried not to smile. "I guess we're cleaning out a library," he told them. "Let's do this smart, Daryl, Glenn, Beth and Summer, clear it out, row by row. Let's not have any surprises. Lori, you stay with Sophia, Carl and Mitch, keep an eye out for T while he's getting gas from the cars. Hershel and Maggie we've already cleaned out the pharmacy, go see what supplies you can get. Jewel, Carol and I will go to the food bank we saw on the way in. It looked like it hadn't been touched, or if it had, it still may have some things in it. Need someone to volunteer to be guard tonight, Daryl, Jewel, Glenn, Maggie and I have done it since we've been on the run. Some one else needs to do it. The library has windows on the 2nd floor, we'll barricade the doors. Summer, find the plans to the library, identify all the doors," he instructed.

"Got it," Summer answered.

"We'll barricade the windows, and have a guard by one of them. That way no one needs to be outside. So volunteers?" Rick asked.

"I can do it, Rick, I don't mind," Jewel said.

"No. You and Glenn have taken the last two towns. I took the two before with Maggie. And all four of us plus Daryl took the hotel a week ago. Carol you and Hershel are on duty tonight," he asked.

"Not a problem," Hershel answered.

"I've got Sophia," Carol said.

T looked at her. "Don't use that single parent bull, Carol. We all take care of each other. I'll take guard duty, Rick."

"No, Carol's doing it," Rick said. "Now everyone's got there jobs, let's go. We'll be back by five. Hopefully with something other then fruit cocktail. Let's plan on all of us being settled in before night fall."

"We going to stay for a couple days?" Lori asked.

"We'll see how tonight goes. If it's safe we can stay for a couple days, we all could use some down time. We need to decide our next move anyway, at least need to find some where we can dig in for a week or so, away from the migration patterns. We got a snow storm coming, temps are dropping. Hoping that we can find somewhere away from migration for a week or so," Rick answered. "Carl, keep an eye on everyone for us, alright?"

"Yes dad," Carl answered.

"Carol in the front seat with me," Rick said as he glanced at Jewel who grabbed her knives.

"Sophia listen and stay out of sight of walkers," Carol warned the girl.

Rick kissed Jewel. "We're going to talk to her," he assured her as she got in the back seat.

Summer's POV:

Daryl nodded as Glenn, Beth, Summer and him walked into the library. "Summer with me, Beth with Glenn. Each row, up and down meeting on the ends. Summer, where would they keep local maps?"

"Some old libraries like this have map rooms, hopefully they didn't all go to digital," Summer responded.

"We should be able to find some, on walls. I worked in a library like this one summer, they always had hard copies, in the offices," Beth said.

Glenn sighed. "Offices always means walkers'," he pointed out. "Might as well clear those first and just get it out of the way."

"That's where they would keep the maps of the library in there too," Summer said.

"Well, let's go little Miss Bookworm," Daryl said.

"Do you think Rick is going to talk to Carol about Sophia?" Beth asked.

"He has too, it's endangering us all at this point," Glenn answered. "Though I would think it would come better if it came from you Daryl."

Daryl glanced at him. "Why?" he asked gruffly.

"Cause Carol likes you?" Summer answered.

"She'd do anything' you say," Beth said.

"Enough of this damn romance novel, let's stay on track," Daryl said as he stopped at the office door. "Go be rude to some Walkers' Summer."

Summer slammed her hand on the door. "Hello in there? Sorry, I may have a few over due books! You know with this ending of the world and stuff, I didn't have a chance to return my books. They were for school anyway," she said as she pounded on the door again. "Come on bastards."

"Five, four, three…" Glenn started to count as they started hearing moans from the office.

Beth laughed. "Think you got there attention on the overdue books thing."

"Sounds like three…." Summer said.

Glenn nodded as he turned the knob on the door and let it open and jumped back as the walkers looked up. "Four. One for each of us," Glenn said as he took them down.

"Now that was just being greedy," Summer said as Glenn killed them all.

"We should check the bathrooms too," Beth suggested.

Daryl nodded. "Let's throw these over the steps, so we can drag them down later," he instructed.

Jewel's and Rick's POV:

Carol looked at Rick as he drove the car. "Why did you bring me? This is usually something you and Jewel do, or Maggie and Glenn."

Rick glanced in the rear view mirror at Jewel before responding. "That's why I'm bringing you Carol. We all have things that we need to learn to do out here to survive. Everyone needs to be flexible. I know that some of us are going to be better then others."

"I'm pulling my weight," Carol started to protest.

Jewel leaned up from the back seat. "You are getting better, Carol. We're not saying that. But, Sophia….this is the second time she's frozen when a Walker got close. And this is the second time that other people have risked there lives to rescue her."

"She's just a little girl, doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She's not like Summer," Carol told her.

Jewel looked at her. "What's that supposed to mean Carol? Not like Summer?"

Rick sighed as he looked at Carol. "Carol, I understand that you want to keep Sophia a little girl as long as you can. I want to keep Carl a kid as long as I can. We want Mitch to be a little boy. But out here, we can't. We are always goin' to protect the younger ones, we always try to keep them with us. But sometimes that's not goin' to be enough. Sophia had a walker right there, she had a bat. She froze. When she froze, Summer and Beth both got distracted and went after her. Summer almost had a walker get her shoulder, and if it wasn't for Beth, we would have lost her. This is the second time Beth has been put in danger cause of it. It can't happen again, Carol. She can't freeze. I don't expect her or Mitch to be able to fight as well as Summer or Beth. Carl can shoot, and I still expect him to stay by us. We'll always keep the children surrounded by us, but she needs to step up. I know it sounds harsh Carol, but we can't let it happen again. She's going to get one of us killed, I don't want that. I don't want her to die either. Summer's going to give her knife lessons, you're getting good at it too. This isn't up for discussion."

Carol looked back at Jewel. "Are you up to this? You told me to leave."

"You are the one who wanted to leave, don't even start," Jewel told her.

"Carol, if you want to leave, you can. But don't blame anyone else," Rick said as he pulled up. "Let's be aware of our surroundings."

That evening:

"Pass the pork rinds, lil' sister," Daryl told her.

"No, you want first dibs, you go on food runs the next time," Jewel told him as she leaned against Rick.

"How'd it go today? With Carol?" Lori asked as she ate some pork and beans.

"She argued, threw out blames, then got quiet," Rick told her as he ran his hand down Jewel's arm.

"Where's the chocolate bars?" Jewel asked. "Summer! Did you steal the Reeses?"

"Shh…it is a library," Summer giggled from the second floor. "I'm sharing with Carl, Mitch and Sophia."

"Thief!" Jewel yelled up at her.

"And proud of it!" Summer yelled back.

"We should try and clear out the Urgent care tomorrow," Jewel suggested.

"You think that's such a good idea?" T asked.

"We need medical supplies, they always have things hidden," Jewel told him.