Okay. I really hope you guys like this. My major concern here is making Jamie too awesome and making a Mary Sue out of her, which I TOTALLY want to avoid. So please tell me if you think the things she's doing are crazy and/or unrealistic.
I know you're thinking it was crazy for her to lead the walkers off from Daryl, but she's grown up running from walkers on the road with Ryder, and I believe this is realistic since she wants to save Daryl desperately and knows how to make split-second decisions. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for the world championships for martial arts for the next week or so, so I'll try to update when I can, but I can't promise anything. I love you all so much for the support and care you've shown for both me and Jamie. Thanks again!
Rick looked up, uneasy. "The should've been back by now." he said. It was almost dusk, he was worried. It wasn't like Daryl to stay out late, especially when they were in new territory...
"I'm just going to make sure they're alright." Rick said in response to Lori's glare, before heading into the woods. He sucked at tracking, but it was spring, the ground was wet, and he easily followed the foot-prints. He stared, horrified, when he saw all the footprints melding... like a horde had come through here.
The trail went cold at the brush pile, and Rick stared feeling his stomach drop. It WAS dusk, now, and he felt dread settle in the pit of his stomach...
"Daryl? Jamie?"
He heard Daryl moan and was instantly starting inside, finding Daryl unconscious on the ground.
"Daryl. Hey buddy..." he stared at the bloody rag tied around Daryl's leg, tapping his friend's cheek, shocked...
"Jamie... Jamie, no..." Daryl muttered.
"Daryl." He looked outside. It was getting to be night, now.
He pulled out his canteen, splashing some water on Daryl's face, and his eyes flew open.
"Jamie!"
Rick had his hand over Daryl's mouth in a second. "Daryl. It's night. We have to get back to the prison."
Daryl shook his head. "Jamie. Where's Jamie?"
"She came back to camp." Rick lied, knowing if he didn't say it, Daryl would insist on staying, looking for her, and get himself killed.
Daryl, bleeding and exhausted, didn't question him until they stumbled back into the prison. Everyone stood outside, by the campfire Hershel had started, waiting.
"Where's Jamie?" Daryl asked hoarsely.
"Jamie never came back..." Carol said, looking confused.
Realization hit Daryl like a ton of bricks.
"You said she came back!" He'd slammed Rick against the fence with surprising strength, considering his condition, and was seething at him...
"You needed medical attention. If I told you she was still out there, you would've gone and gotten yourself killed."
Slowly, Daryl pulled back, stumbling on his bad leg. He clung to the fence wall. "Jamie! Jamie!"
"Daryl, stop." Everyone listened to Hershel, he was the voice of reason. "Let me fix you up, and then we'll search for her in the morning."
Daryl shook his head. "A herd was coming through... She was gonna lead them away, I tried to stop her, but she knocked me out... She led them away."
"We can't worry about that now. It's up to her if she makes it or not." Hershel untied the bloody rags, and Daryl didn't react, looking off into the night. He looked over at Rick.
"You were there. How bad was it? How many came through?" he asked, looking at Rick with all the hatred he could muster. The man had LIED to him, and now as a result, Jamie was alone in the wood.
Rick shook his head. "It didn't look good."
"Daryl, this leg... you won't be able to walk for awhile." Hershel said.
"I'm GOIN' to look for her tomorrow." Daryl said firmly.
"No, you aren't." Carol said.
"So you're just gonna make me leave her there? Leave her out like this, alone? Until one day she turns up on the fence, just like Sophia..." Daryl looked off into the darkness, something none of them had ever seen in his expression- it was despair.
"Come on inside." Lori said, trying her best to be comforting. But she, too, was dreading the day when Jamie would turn up on their fence, a walker...
"No. I'm gonna be here if she makes it back." Daryl said, staring at the fire. "She's still alive."
Rick sighed. "Daryl, her chances... it really didn't look good."
"She had her bow with her. She's gonna come back here, alive, somehow."
She was running, tearing through the woods, still. She'd been leading them away from Daryl, but as night fell, they grew more ravenous, and seemed to speed up. She'd thought she could outrun them, but she was wrong. She was exhausted, now, stumbling, she needed to find cover...
Finally, she came across a tree with branches low enough and swung up to it as the walkers came. She climbed out of reach, leaning her back against the trunk, staring up a the sky, gasping for breath.
The walkers below clawed at the tree bark- with the noise they were making, it would attract every walker in the forest to join them...
She had seven arrows, and was facing more walkers than that. She took aim down below and missed, sinking one in the shoulder. She took a shaky breath. Six arrows. She was exhausted.
She wondered if giving up was such a bad thing, there was no guarantee Daryl had made it out of this, either...
Don't be a pussy.
She remembered Daryl's words and smiled.
She hung her bow on a tree limb. There was no way she would shoot worth shit while she was this shaky and tired, anyways. She grabbed an arrow, clinging to a branch for support, waiting for the right moment as they clawed at the tree bark, before stabbing one through the head, pulling out her arrow in one swift motion . Blood splattered on her face, but she didn't care. She smiled. One down, a bunch more to go.
Finally, she sat, panting, in the blessed silence, crumpled walkers all around the base of the tree. She'd found different branches to hang on, different places t lure them into, every had hole, every crevice, and they were dead. Well, dead-er, anyways. She fond a forked branch and clung to it. She had an hour or two before dawn, she could finally get some damn sleep.
Hershel, Rick, and T-Dog had elected to stay up with Daryl, and he sat by the fire. He put his hands to his lis in an intricate way and let loose a bird call.
"Man, why you keep doin that?" T-Dog asked, looking over at him.
"She knows my birdcall." Daryl said absently stared off into the darkness, and they faded into silence once again, only interrupted every so often by Daryl's bird calls, which went unanswered.
She awoke in the gray light of dawn, wondering which direction to go in. The ground had eased from soft mud to rocky soil, so there were no tracks, and she'd been too busy running for her life yesterday to draw up a map.
The prison was to the North, if she remembered right, and she looked at the fading stars desperately. She swore the big dipper was up there, and the North star had pointed... that way. Plus, the sun was rising in the east, so that was west, and North and south...
She grabbed her bow and jumped down, smiling when she landed on a walker carcass with a satisfying thud.
Daryl stood at dawn. "I'm going after her."
"Son, you're in no condition to..." Hershel started.
"I ain't your damn son. Piss off, all of y'all. If you don't care about Jamie, fine. But I'm going for her." He tried to shoulder his crossbow, but his injured leg gave out, and he barely caught himself on the fence.
"Daryl!" Carol rushed to his side, but he pushed her away.
"Get away from me! Dumb bitch..." The others had come out for breakfast, now, and were watching it play out. Daryl didn't care if they saw him weak like this... He could just imagine Jamie out there, alone, scared...
He knew there was no way he was going to take his crossbow, but he didn't need it. He started limping towards the gate.
"Daryl, you can't be serious..." Glenn said. "Think this through!"
"Fuck off!" Daryl said.
"If she's so redneck, why are you so anxious to go find her? She should be fine on her own." Lori said, trying to appeal to logic and comfort Daryl.
"From what she said, a herd was coming through. More walkers than she thought her and I could handle TOGETHER. She knocked me out and led them off. Now she's facing more walkers than we could handle combined, on her own. Fuck yes, I'm worried!"
"And what if she's already killed them off? Maybe she climbed a tree and picked them off." Rick said.
"If she managed that, then she's probably headed back here..."
"How many walkers were there?" Lori asked, looking at Rick.
Rick studied he ground. "Judging by the footprints, at least a dozen."
"She's dead, then." Lori said flatly. "We lost another one."
"She's gone?" Beth looked horrified. She started to cry, and Hershel hugged her. "And Daddy, you shouldn't be up..." she looked at his leg stump, and Hershel shrugged. "A man has gotta do some things, Bethy." and she cried harder.
Maggie was blinking hard, and Glenn came and hugged her, as well...
Carl looked into the distance, blinking hard. He'd had more feelings for Beth than Jamie, true, but she'd been there, constantly, like Daryl... She was one of those people you thought it impossible to loose. But here they were.
"Fuck." Jamie swore when a walker emerged from the brush, pulling back and firing, hitting it in the head.
Cautiously, she approached it. She noticed the cross necklace it wore... it looked like something T-Dog would like, and she fumbled with the clasp.
A walker came from the brush to her right, no big deal, she could outrun it...
And another walker to her left. She gave up, pulling her knife and hacking the whole head off the damn walker, getting the necklace and racing into the brush, away from the walkers. She pocketed the necklace. If T-Dog didn't like it, then Carol might, or Lori...
She lost the walkers, finally, finding a stupid rabbit that had hopped into her path and putting as arrow into it. She gutted it as she walked, when another walker came out of a tent to the right. She barely had time to react, putting the knife she'd been using for gutting through its head.
It was harder traveling when she had no one to watch her back, but she was pissed off, now. She reached into the rabbit, pulling out some bloody meat and fairly painting her face in blood before eating it, blood trickling down her chin. No more fucking around. She was getting back to the prison if it killed her.
Daryl didn't go out to look for her. He didn't search. The others wouldn't let him. That was one part of it. And he was also afraid of what he'd find. But he wanted to know, and as soon as his leg healed enough, he'd go out and look. But part of him still expected her to come running over and tackle him, to wrestle like they'd done at the farm, to share a rabbit kidney with him, or to crack some racist jokes because she knew that even though he wasn't racist, they made him laugh.
She'd saved him, running off, leading the herd away... Why'd she have to be so damn brave? He'd spent the day walking the fence line, letting off bird calls, praying each time for the answer that never came.
As afternoon turned to dusk, he noticed the others giving him pitying glances. He returned them with all the hatred he could muster, until they'd be forced to look away...
Daryl let off another call when dark was finally setting in.
Jamie had been looking for a tree to hole up in when she heard it. The birdcall in the distance.
She put her hands to her lips, letting off a reply, running towards the source of the sound, hoping it was the right direction...
"Daryl. You need to eat something." Rick said, coming over with a plate of food. Despite having the cell block, they gathered in the yard to make a cooking fire every night, it reminded them of the farm.
Daryl stared. He'd heard it.
"Open the gate!" He yelled. Carl stared, shocked, but saw the fierce expression on Daryl's face and hurried to obey...
Walkers were coming now, they'd heard her birdcall, but she ran to the bridge across the little moat, coming face-to-face with a walker. She put her foot nit's chest and shoved it into the water, then kept running for the gate...
"Carl, close the gate! Are you trying to get us killed!?" Rick demanded. Carl kept the gate open a little, daring to hope...
"Jamie! Where are you, kid!?" Daryl yelled.
Rick was about to chalk it up to insanity when he heard the reply in the distance.
"Here!"
"Get to the gate!"
She was sprinting towards it, now, and Rick stared, shocked. Daryl grabbed the sheriff's pistol, laying down cover fire on the walkers following her by shooting them through the fence, stealing their attention with the loud gun.
Carl fairly grabbed her, pulling her in, slamming the gate on the walkers and chaining it closed.
"You're... alive?" Carl asked, staring at her, shocked.
"No shit, Sherlock. Good to see you." she smiled, before heading towards Daryl.
She hugged him with all her might. If she'd come back to find he hadn't made it, she'd have been lost...
Daryl stared at her, reaching out to run his knuckles down her filthy cheek, as though making sure she was real.
"What? Have a little faith, man..." But she was smiling. Everyone sitting by the fire stood, shocked, as she walked up.
"What? You guys are looking at me like I just came back from the dead." Jamie said, looking from face to face. Daryl laughed slightly, and Beth ran forward, hugging her.
"How'd you do it?" she asked.
Hershel came over on his crutches to stare at her.
Jamie shrugged, sitting down, but Hershel grabbed the arm she'd cut. She winced, pulling away, and everyone was so fixated on her no one noticed the concern etched onto Daryl's face.
"Better let me bandage those cuts, young lady..." Hershel said. His crutches on the concrete were the only sound for a moment as he went for the first aid kit.
Glenn spoke first, grinning. "Great to have you back..."
"I never left." she said, looking confused.
She looked at Daryl, then back at the group. "You guys thought I was dead?"
"Well, we didn't really have any other options. I mean, all those walkers after you, we just figured..." Carl, too, was staring.
"I'd be dead?" Jamie asked, looking at Rick, who sheepishly nodded. She shrugged. " 'S all right. I thought I was dead for a bit, too, when I climbed that tree..."
"Mind starting from the beginning? I want to get this all down..." Beth had her diary out, now, and was looking excited. Everyone stared.
"What? This is huge. My earlier entry said she was dead, I want to clear it up, and the story... it's one for the history books. When they write about us, after this is all over." Beth said.
"Beth, honey..." Lori said, trying to be gentle. "It might NEVER be over."
"It has to end somehow." Jamie said quietly. "I mean, those walkers... They have to eat. Eventually, they'll run out of people and starve, right? I mean, they have to die sometime. There has to be a point where they decay so much..."
"There most likely is." Rick said. "But that doesn't mean it'll be in our lifetime, or yours..."
"But there's hope. That's what matters. That's all we need to keep going." Beth said, smiling. "Now, Jamie, why don't you start out from the beginning?"
Hershel had come, and was scrubbing the blood and grime away from the cuts. Jamie nodded.
"Alright... Daryl's knife went through his sheath and stabbed him in the leg, we were trying to get back. I scouted ahead and found a herd of walkers coming toward us, I knew with Daryl's leg messed up we couldn't fight them..."
She waited for Beth to catch up. She was writing furiously, but she couldn't write as fast as the words were spoken. Beth looked up and nodded for Jamie to continue when she was ready.
"Daryl was settled under a bunch of vines around a fallen tree, they gave him cover. I told him I would lead them off, but he was being a dumb ass..." she eyed Daryl at this point, who rolled his eyes, and the others laughed a little. "He was all, 'no, you can't, you'll die!'," everyone smiled slightly. Her impression of Daryl's voice was just a deep, odd sounding one.
"And I was all, 'Ain't nobody got time for dis!'" she said, using the same tone of voice Sweet Brown would've used. Rick laughed.
"That is not what happened." Daryl muttered, though he was looking mildly amused.
"Basically, it is. I edited the dialogue. So anyways, Daryl was being stupid and we couldn't run or fight, so I knocked him out, ran out from the cover, and slit my arm open so they'd smell the blood. I started screaming to attract them, and took off, leading them away."
"I take it that's why I'm cleaning these cuts?" Hershel asked, and she nodded, wincing when Hershel moved to the one on her palm.
Daryl unconsciously stepped a little closer, making sure Hershel hadn't screwed up that badly...
"There's rocks in the cut. Maggie, bring me the forceps." Hershel ordered.
Rick stared at the fresh blood trickling down her hand and arm.
She took a breath. "So... I just led them on as long as I could. I got tired, started stumbling, around dusk, but I found a tree and climbed... I shot at one, but my hands were shaking, I couldn't aim right..."
Everyone was on the edge of their seats, now, though they tried not to show it.
"Then what?" Beth asked gently.
"I thought about giving up. I had six arrows left, there were nine walkers. I wondered if Daryl made it out, and I wondered it if would hurt much if I let hem tear me apart..."
The firelight reflected the horror on everyone's faces, except for Daryl. He was watching her intently, unbeknownst to her, seeing what she would say next.
"And then I remembered something Daryl told me."
Everyone looked over at Daryl for a moment, before Rick looked back to her.
"What'd he say?" Rick asked.
"Don't be a pussy." Jamie said.
Rick chuckled, and Daryl shrugged. "What? It worked, right? Words of wisdom, right there..."
"So I grabbed an arrow and stabbed the hell outta them. I got a few hours of sleep and left in the morning, used the stars to find where North was, and came back this way. I killed some walkers on the way here. Got this off one of 'em, figured you'd like it, T." she handed the necklace to T-Dog, who smiled.
"How'd you get all the blood on your face?" Carl asked.
She shrugged. "Got pissed, walkers kept bugging me. It's not blood, it's war paint."
Rick chuckled. "You eat anything all day?"
She nodded. "Some rabbit."
"How come we didn't see the smoke from your cooking fire?" Lori asked.
Jamie smiled. "Cuz I ate it raw. Wanted to get back by dark, didn't have any time to cook." she laughed at the expression on Lori's face.
"These will need stitches. And we don't have any painkiller." Hershel said.
"Aspirin, maybe?" Maggie suggested.
"Won't get rid of the feeling."
"Fuck, just do it." Jamie said. "Or I can. I had stitches before, Ryder had to sew me up a few times. Get it over with."
Hershel nodded. "It might be best if you don't watch..."
"I killed thirteen walkers and gut a rabbit today. I don't think it'll hurt me to watch." Jamie said, sighing.
"What did you do after you got the necklace?" Beth asked.
"I kept heading North. I was looking for a place to settle up for the night when I heard Daryl and came in."
She looked down to see Hershel starting to stitch. Carol brought her a bowl of turkey Chili, it'd been on the shelves of the pantry, and it'd been what they were having for dinner that night.
"Thanks." Jamie nodded to Carol, who smiled, ruffling her hair. "It's just good to have you back."
"Weren't you scared? I mean, alone in the woods..." Beth said.
Jamie shrugged. "Meh. Not really. Harder without Daryl to watch my back, but I've been lost in the woods before."
"In New York, or South Carolina?" Rick asked.
She smiled. "Both. I get around. Once in New York, in a blizzard, and for three days in a state park in South Carolina when my school field trip to a state park went to hell."
"Nine days while Merle was in juvie. Got poison ivy all over my ass." Daryl said.
Jamie laughed. "Yeah. All the kids at school made fun of me, calling me a hick after that state park incident. But oh well. They're all dead, now, being a redneck is the only thing that saved me. And you." she looked up to Daryl, smiling, and he felt shock hit him hard.
"You did that. And you saved my ass out there." Daryl said, and she shrugged. "Nothing you wouldn'ta done."
"So you just... go out in the woods?" Maggie asked.
Jamie nodded. "A lot better than staying in this zoo. Everybody all caged up like animals..." she looked disgusted. Just then, Carol walked over with a wet washcloth, sighing.
"Let me get all that grime off your face, and that blood..."
"No. It's warpaint." Jamie said firmly. Hershel smiled, but didn't look up from where he'd been stitching.
"Daryl, talk some sense into her. It's filth." Carol said.
Daryl shrugged. "Let the kid keep it on if she wants to. She worked hard to kill that rabbit, she can cover herself in blood if she wants to."
Carol gave him a withering look and Daryl shrugged. "What? I'm the official Jamie keeper, remember?"
He caught a cold glance from Jamie. "What?"
"I ain't nobody's bitch."
"I never said you were my bitch. I'm the only one here that gets you." Daryl said, shocking everyone.
"Better..." she growled.
"Done. Done stitching, anyways. But knowing you, you'll come back covered in dirt. We have to keep these cuts clean. Maggie, bring me some gauze..." Hershel ordered.
He taped it around the wound. "Better?"
"Hurts like hell, but at least I ain't bleeding all over the place." Jamie said, nodding to him. "Thanks."
Everyone still stared at her, shocked.
She looked around her. "You guys really thought I'd go off and die that quietly? Hell no. I wanna go out like my grandpa, screamin' all the way. 'Get this damn satellite dish off me!'" she imitated it, and everyone burst out laughing.
"Yeah. He shouldn't have tried to install that satellite dish in the middle of a wind storm." Jamie said, sighing. She was still smiling, though.
"Wait. Aren't you sad, though? I man, you grandpa DIED." Beth said, looking shocked.
Jamie nodded. "Yeah. I wish he hadn't suffered for those few hours in the hospital, but I'm glad he died when he did. Otherwise, he'd be a walker somewhere."
She finished the bowl of chili, licking the sauce off the bottom. No one reprimanded her, since food was in such short supply, table manners were the least of their concern.
"Well, anyways, 'm gonna hit the sack. I'm dead ass tired." she stood, walking inside the cell block. There was the clink of dishes in the sink, she was depositing her bowl, and then silence.
"I'm goin, too." Daryl said.
He smiled when he entered to find Jamie curled up under the staircase.
"Hey. Don't you ever save my ass like that again, you hear me?" he said, brushing the raccoon tail that dangles from the cap away from her face.
He smiled when he realized she was already asleep.