Wow. Play, I'm gogin to try and update everyday before school instead of after, and, because avidreader13 wants me to stop making you guys wait for updates, I'll update when I get home too. I don't liketo publish huge chunks of a story all at once, which I wh I'm spacing this out. But please review!
"Daryl, You said the fence was weak at the west end?" Rick asked.
Daryl nodded. "Yeah. Near rusted out..."
"You and Shane will go repair it. Dale and I will help Hershel around here, and Maggie will go for supplies with Glenn."
Daryl eyed Shane bitterly- he still hadn't forgiven him for hitting Jamie yesterday. There was yet another bruise on her face, and if Rick expected him and Shane to work out their differences while working together, he had another thing coming.
"Jamie- be good." Daryl ordered her, before starting towards his horse. He REALLY didn't want to work with Shane, but that didn't mean he had to let Jamie know that...
It was around noon when she noticed Lori sighing and realized why. They were left to eat a few mint leaves and some other sparse greenery they'd gathered. She remembered walking through the woods with Daryl and seeing blackberry bushes on their hunt, and thought back for a moment or two. It was a mile or two deep in the woods, but she knew she could get there and back by nightfall...
She grabbed a clean looking bucket from the barn and headed off, hopping the fence and ducking into the trees.
She walked along silently until she reached the bush, looking around and finding the berries full and ripe, some the size of nickels. She smiled. While Lori wasn't a favorite of hers, Daryl would be proud to find she'd managed to actually help out.
The berries made a small pinging noise at first when she dropped them into her bucket, but she slowly brought her hand down, and once the bottom of the bucket was covered, her picking was completely quiet. It took a few hours, but around two in the afternoon she'd filled the bucket and she smiled.
There was a shortcut back home, by the hill, and some brush came up to meet her... She nearly stumbled when he foot went down a good foot into the ground. The brush had been covering a hole...
And then there was a flare of excruciating pain. She pulled her leg from the hole and staggered as fast as she could away, breathing heavily, reeling... She fought through the brush, not caring how it scratched her, simply wanting to get away...
As soon as she broke the tree line she set down the bucket, easing herself down, praying the burning pain wasn't a bite...
Porcupine quills. Tons of them all embedded in her lower calf and foot. She'd been wearing sneakers, not wanting to wear out her boots until she had to, and they'd gone through that and into the skin... It felt like hell.
She broke off a branch with one hand, using it as a walking stick as she grabbed the bucket and headed back towards camp.
What was she going to tell Daryl?
"Jamie. I was wondering where you'd gone off to..." Rick said. She nodded, setting the bucket of berries on a tree stump, grateful Carl and Lori weren't here to see her so banged up.
"Rick- has Daryl gotten back yet?" she asked.
"No, wh- holy shit." Rick stared at her leg, eyes wide. "Lori!" he yelled. Lori was off in the distance with Carl, drying the laundry on the line.
"Get Hershel! Now!" he yelled.
"Sit down, Jamie, how badly does it hurt?"
"It's fine." Jamie eyed him coldly. "Leave me alone."
"You got massacred by a porcupine. You need a doctor."
"I'll be fine. Daryl will fix me up when he gets back..." she said, starting towards Daryl's camp.
Rick grabbed her and forced her down onto the log, though. "You're not going anywhere until Hershel gets here." he said firmly.
"And Hershel isn't doing anything to me until Daryl gets here." she retorted.
Hershel came out of the house then, followed by an anxious looking Carl, and Lori had already started to come over.
"Oh my god..." her hand flew to her mouth when she saw Jamie's foot.
"God, people, it isn't that serious..." she said, rolling her eyes.
Carl gaped. "How did she- what would do that?"
"Porcupine." Jamie said simply, sighing. "I don't need an help- I can rip 'em out myself."
"Let's get her inside." Hershel said.
"Nope. Not going anywhere until Daryl gets here." Jamie said, and, to their horror, reached down and pulled a quill from her leg. A bead of blood appeared and she smiled, examining the quills. "This happened to one of my dogs once. Quills all over his face, in his mouth, even in his eyes... Had to shoot 'em." she muttered, pocketing the quill. She turned herself so she was sitting up on the log, knee to her chest, and reached for another quill.
"Stop." Hershel said, looking slightly horrified. "Just, please, don't..."
"There isn't another a to get 'em out, Daryl will tell you, you just hafta pull them out the right way and hope the barbs don't get caught in your skin..." Jamie said. "But I'll wait if you want me to."
"Does it hurt?" Carl asked, looking curious.
She smiled. "Yeah. Just don't think about it. If we thought about all that happened to us, all the things we've seen, we'd go crazy." Jamie quietly, looking down at her foot. And Rick sighed, because he knew it was true.
"I'm telling you, it ain't that big a deal."
Daryl rode in to see Jamie sitting on a log, surrounded by Hershel, Rick, Andrea, Dale, Lori, Carol, and Carl.
"Just lemme rip 'em out and I'll be fine..."
"You need pain medication." Lori said, looking serious.
Jamie scoffed. "You'll need pain medication for when you have that baby. Don't waste it on me."
Daryl dismounted and tied his horse to the fence, both him and Shane walking over towards them.
"Jamie, what did you do?" Daryl asked, praying she hadn't cut herself on something. He'd hate to see Hershel stitch her up...
"Holy shit." Shane muttered when he saw her foot.
Jamie shrugged. "If you say so. Daryl, they won't lemme rip the quills out."
"Tangled with a porcupine, huh?" Daryl asked, smiling slightly. Most girls would be in tears from that- not his Jamie. She sat, cool as a cucumber, refusing pain medication. She wasn't a pussy. Not his girl.
"Why not? The barbs have probably dug in even deeper now..." Daryl said, kneeling to look at her foot. "Hell, it really whacked you. Where'd it do it?"
"Up around those blackberry bushes, It was hidden in the brush and I didn't see it..."
"Least it wasn't a walker." Daryl said. "First you gotta rip out the quills that went through your sneaker, and then take it off and work your way up with the others..."
"She needs a painkiller." Hershel said.
"Jamie, you need anything for the pain?" Daryl asked.
She shook her head. "All I need is them out."
"Right. She says she don't need it, she don't need it." Daryl said to Hershel calmly.
"She's going to need it, Daryl. I know she's tough, but this is going its hurt like hell..." Rick said, eying the quills calmly.
"She said she don't need it, she don't need it. You really going to argue when medicine is in short supply?" Daryl asked. Rick was quiet. "That's what I thought."
He pulled a stick from the small pile of kindling they'd gathered for the fire and handed it to her. She swung her leg up so she was now sitting up, injured leg in front of Daryl, knee to her chest, before putting the stick between her teeth.
"It's gonna hurt, you know. Bite down on that stick and try not to scream too much."
She nodded, and Daryl slowly grabbed hold on the first quill and swiftly pulled it out. Jamie didn't react, her jaw only tightening slightly around the stick. She was biting down hard, but she trusted Daryl more than she did Hershel. Hell, she trusted Daryl more than she trusted anybody.
Daryl dropped the bloody quill on the ground next to the first one she'd pulled out and moved onto the next. By the time he was done pulling out all the ones that'd pierced her shoe, the pile beside him had grown substantially larger.
"Tell me if you feel any barbs stuck in when I pull it off." Daryl said, and she nodded before he pulled off her sneaker.
"Feel any?" he asked, and she nodded.
Daryl pulled out his knife as she pulled of her sock, preparing to let him dig the barbs out.
"Where?" he asked.
"It'll be easier if you lemme do it. I can feel where it is." she said, after removing the stick from her mouth.
Daryl nodded, handing her the knife. Blood was already dribbling down her foot in little red rivers but she didn't wince as she dug the tip of the knife through her flesh, widening the hole enough so she could slowly use the knife tip to work out a broken top of a quill.
Daryl tossed it next to the others and pulled out his bandana, putting it to the wound to staunch the bleeding. "Feel anymore?"
She shook her head, and Daryl moved onto pulling the quills from her calf.
"Got any rubbing alcohol?" Daryl asked, and Hershel nodded grimly. While it would hurt like hell, it was the best disinfectant for all the puncture wounds. He fetched a bottle of it and handed it to Daryl.
"This is gonna hurt like hell." he warned.
She nodded, looking cooly into his green eyes. "I know."
"First wash out any dirt." Hershel ordered. Jamie sighed, scrubbing at it with a wet rag before hopping off the log and settling down on the ground.
"Try not to thrash around too much." Daryl said, before pouring it over her foot and splashing some on her upper leg.
She tried to be quiet, biting her lip until it bled, but the burning only increased... And then a flow of expletives flew from her mouth that made Carol gasp and Hershel gape. She barely thrashed at all, and finally, she laid still, breathing heavily.
Daryl chuckled a the shocked look on everyone's faces. "What? You never heard a redneck in pain before?"
Hershel started bandaging her foot- some parts of it had been so frequently punctured by the quills so close together that the skin looked more like the inside of an aerated candy bar than skin in some places.
"Pretty badass, kid." Daryl said quietly so only she could hear.
"Fuck you." She muttered.
"Aw, come on, don't be like that." Daryl said, crouching beside her.
"She'll have to stay off that foot for awhile." Hershel said calmly.
"Great." she muttered sarcastically. "Stuck in camp AND not allowed to walk away from you people. What's next- I get bit or some shit?"
"Don't talk like that." Daryl said quietly. "And you aren't staying in camp anymore. You almost got bit by that walker and now this just proves you're enough of a troublemaker that I gotta take you with me wherever I go."
"You serious?" she asked, eyes widening.
"Yeah." Daryl said, and she smiled tiredly.
"Thanks."
"No problem. I gotta go mend some more fences, I was just coming back for lunch..." he gathered her into his arms, heading towards his horse.
"Got your bow?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"We'll stop and pick it up. Geez, you can take down a walker in a New York minute but you get laid up by a porcupine..."
"Shut up." she said. But she was grinning as they rode off.