This Night

Chapter 252

Author's Note: Insomnia means I start on another chapter, doesn't mean I'll finish another chapter, just means I start another chapter. So, we all know our Jes is one to notice things, it's what she does. I set her up like that when I (I mean she created herself. Sorry Jes!) and things that others would just let go, she wouldn't. Reviews make me happy! Thank you!

Joey and Jes's POV:

Jes bent down and inspected the body on the side of the road then looked at the spray painting on the wall. "Joey is there some reason you're burning a whole through me by staring at me right now?" she questioned as she turned around and looked at him.

"I wish I could be more like you," he responded.

"More like me?" Jes questioned.

"You know, not feeling, able to hold in your feelings, so disappointments like this doesn't effect you," Joey answered truthfully.

Jes looked at him and stood up. "You don't want that Joey, because all the things that you hold in, that you don't think about, they just don't evaporate into thin air. They stay locked in a little box, far deep in your head, crowding each other, piling up on one another like the walkers' in the pits at Woodbury. Then one day, something happens that starts to break down that box. It could be anything, it could be seeing a teenage boy on the brink of man hood crying over his mother and sister's bodies and his dad not doing a thing to comfort him. But you ignore that feeling, because you don't have those things called feelings. But then it starts to happen more and more. Then one day you're ordered by a monster to take out a woman and bring her head back to him. You know it's wrong, you know you have to do what you have to do, but it's different then duty. You actually start feeling something. Then the next thing you know, a blond spit fire is forcing you to hold a cute little baby, and that's when you know, you're just entered a place that's unfamiliar to you and you want to run. But you can't because you care about these people, every single one of them. So every emotion you've ever suppressed comes up to the service and overloads your senses. So no Joey, you don't want to be like me, because letting yourself feel is always a good thing," she told him.

Joey blinked. "So you aren't some kind of robot?"

Jes rolled her eyes as she ignored him. "Wolves not far, that doesn't sound good."

Joey glanced at her. "So you're just going to ignore that comment?"

"Basically yes," Jes answered. "Heads have been cut off some of the corpses, and some of the bodies have been rammed through."

"Well we know that walkers' didn't carry a grandfather clock through the streets," Joey answered.

Jes glanced at him again. "You're going to make me regret caring about you here in a moment," she informed him. "We're going to have to be alert, especially out on the road. They could be ahead of us, or coming straight towards us."

"Neither option sounds appealing," Joey told her.

"We're vulnerable, we're going to have to be on the alert," Jes informed him.

"When aren't we on alert Jes?" Joey questioned.

"We've got two liabilities, and I'm not talking about Judith and Hope," Jes told him as she turned her attention to Tyreese yelling at Noah to stop. "Go, I'll wait for the others," she told him.

Tyreese, Noah and Joey's POV:

Joey saw Ty chasing Noah and calling his name. He sprinted after them and cut Noah while Ty came in front of Noah also. "Hey, Noah, look at me," Joey told him as he put his hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"This is my house," Noah told them.

Ty looked back. "You don't want to go in there."

"Yes, I do," Noah said as he brushed Joey's hand off his shoulder. Ty put his hand on Noah's chest to stop him from going in. "Let me see it."

"You don't need to see what's inside there, Noah. Your family, if they are in there, you don't want to see them like that. Trust me, you don't. You need to remember what they were like, and not what they are now. You don't want to be the one to have to put them down, Noah. I did it, with my mother and sister, right at the beginning, and it still haunts me. I've done it with friends and this family. I know you think you have to see it, that you have to see them, but you don't. If they are inside, we'll bury them but you don't need to be the one that does it," Joey told him.

"Let me in," Noah repeated.

Ty and Joey looked at each other, as Ty took out his knife. "Me first," Ty said as he went to the door followed by Joey and Noah.

Ty pounded on the door and waited. When nothing happened, he did it again, before going in.

Joey stepped between Noah and the door. "You should really let him check it out first."

"Let me go," Noah told him.

Joey sighed and stepped aside. "Alright," he answered as Noah went inside and he followed him. Joey and Ty looked at each other as they saw the body of a woman with a big piece of her head missing. Joey watched as Noah walked over to the body and took a blanket to cover her up.

"I tried to come back, sooner. But I did what you told me to do," Noah told her softly.

Joey went over and bent down next to Noah as Ty looked down the hall way. Joey put his hand on Noah's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he told the younger boy.

"You tried to stop me…." Noah said as he tried to hold back the tears.

"Yeah, I did. But I knew you wouldn't listen, but I had to try, for me. Because if I didn't and you saw this without being prepared, well, then I'd feel a whole lot guiltier then I do now," Joey told him.

"How do you prepare for this?" Noah asked.

Joey ran his hand through his unmanageable hair. "You don't. Wrong choice of words on my part. It doesn't get easier, and if it does, well then you aren't human anymore. Whatever happened here, it wasn't done by the dead, it was done by savages. You know from Grady, that sometimes the human's can be worse then the walkers'. Some are worse then others. You have a choice, Noah, right here right now," he told him.

Noah looked at him. "What choice?"

"You can live, remember her, your family, let them live through you," Joey responded. "Let us help you, you help us. Trust me when I say finding this group was one of the best things that happened to me," he told him.

"Or?" Noah asked.

"You can let it eat away at you, let it get to you, bringing you down, like it is with Sasha over Bob's death. I know it's going to hurt, that's what makes us human," Joey told him as they heard Ty scream. "Tyreese!" Joey yelled as both of them took off to where the scream came from.

Noah and Joey both reached the door at the same time as Noah saw one of his brothers growling and reached up and tore down a toy airplane and stabbed the walker with it.

Joey ran to Ty. "Ty, hey look at me, shit, you're going to be alright," he said as he stood up. "Stay with him, I'm going to get the others."

"I'll go," Noah told him. "You're closer to him then I am."

"I don't have a bum leg," Joey pointed out. "Stay with him!" he said as he ran out.

Jes, Summer, Michonne, and Rick's POV:

Jes looked up as the others came up with trash bags. "Find anything?"

"Some," Rick answered. "You?"

"Nothing good," Jes answered.

Michonne walked up. "We could put some of the garage doors together against the break. Park a car against them until we can back it up. It can work," she insisted.

Rick looked at her as the four started walking. "This place is surrounded by a forest. There's no sight lines. Whoever, whatever would be on top of us without us even knowing it. That's probably what happened," he told her.

"That's what happened at the prison, that's why the Governor was able to come back without us seeing him," Summer pointed out.

Michonne looked at the group. "We could start taking down the trees. We use them to build the walls up. Look," she said as she led them out the broken gate.

Jes sighed as she followed them to see lower parts of body with torsos cut off and arms and legs spread out. "Michonne this place has already been taken over by monsters. Joey and I found signs, Wolves not far. So the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we get back to the group and move on, the safer we'll be."

Summer shook head. "So we keep on running? If it's not this group, it'll be another, and another after that. It's never going to end, Jes."

Rick put his hand on his daughter's shoulder but didn't say anything.

Michonne turned around. " Eugene lied about a cure, but he thought of Washington for a reason," she told them.

Jes looked at her. "There's no cure though, he lied about it. He lied about all of it," she pointed out.

"About the cure, but he did the math and realized that Washington was the place where there'd be a chance. We're close," Michonne told them. "What if there are people there? Huh? What if it's someplace that we can be safe? We're 100 miles away. It's a possibility. It's a chance. Instead of just being out here. Instead of just making it. Because right now, this is what making it looks like. Don't you want one more day with a chance?" Michonne asked, as she was getting emotional.

Summer took a breath and looked around. "I want more then this for Hope, Judith, Carl, Mitch, Mika…all of us," she told them as she looked at Rick. "I'm willing to believe in one more thing….one more pipe dream."

Jes shrugged. "Always wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial," she answered.

Rick nodded. "We should go, we're only 100 miles away. We should go," he repeated.

"Rick! Need some help!" Joey yelled from further away.

The four of them ran toward Joey as they found him battling walkers'.

"Joey! Watch out!" Summer said as one came from behind as she took her bow and arrow and shot it.

Rick grabbed another one from behind and stabbed his knife into it.

"You alright?" Jes asked.

Joey nodded. "Ty's been bit at Noah's house!" he told them as they all started running.

Rick ran in with the rest of the group. "Where is he bit?"

"Arm," Noah told him. "He's been talking to someone that's not there. He's stood up, yelling at someone called the Governor, telling him he's not giving up."

The group looked at each other as Rick bent down. "We've got to get this arm off," he told them as he held up Ty's arm.

Ty looked at Summer as she held him up. "Lizzie and Molly…they're here, you see them?"

"Come on, Ty hold on!" Joey yelled at him.

"Yeah, I see them, Ty," Summer told him.

"One hit, clean! Go!" Rick yelled at Michonne as she brought her sword down to cut off his arm.

"You aren't giving up, Ty, you hear me?" Joey yelled at him. "You aren't leaving Sasha and Lexi! You aren't joining Lizzie and Molly, or the Governor, or anyone else. You understand me Ty? You hear me?" he yelled at him as Rick and him helped him up.

Summer stood back and wiped the tears away. "This is going to destroy Sasha."

Jes looked at her. "He's not dead, not yet. Come on! They are going to need some help getting through the back," she told Summer.

Author's Note: Well I tried to write the whole hallucination thing, but it wasn't working, so this was my best try. Poor Ty. Poor everyone. But I had to do it. Please review.