Okay, next chapter. Sorry if it doesn't have much Jamie, I have t try and stick to the plot. Please review!
It was the a month later when it happened. Glenn and Maggie didn't come back from a supply run, and a woman showed up with a basket of baby formula. Rick was gruff but kind to her, and Jamie found herself eyeing the sword she carried. She didn't speak much, just studied them, and Jamie sighed. "It'd be a lot easier on you if you answered his questions." she said finally, when she was alone in their make-shift kitchen with her.
She stared. "How would you know?"
Jamie shrugged. "I can have my secrets if I wanna." she really didn't feel like telling her the whole story.
"I'm not interested in staying." the woman said, giving her a hard look.
"Never said you were. Just said it'd go better for you here if you answered them." Jamie said simply. There was a beat of awkward silence.
"What about you? You got a name?"
The woman looked skeptical. "Why you wanna know?"
"So I can call you somethin other than that black lady." Jamie said, and the woman cracked a small smile. "Michonne."
"Well don't fuck anything up Michonne, and things will be nice for you here..."
"Jamie!" there was the sound of wailing, and Jamie turned to see Beth coming towards the door, holding Judith.
"She won't calm down. You'e good with her, right?"
"No." Jamie said flatly.
"Please? I know you don't want to, but I really have to go be with Dad, since Maggie's gone..."
Jamie sighed. "Fine..." she unlocked the door, leaving Michonne behind it and relocking it before taking Judith. Judith grabbed at her coonskin hat, and Jamie sighed, letting the infant hold onto it. She gurgled happily, chubby fingers starting to pet the fur...
"Thanks. You're a lifesaver, Jamie..." Beth said, before hurrying off to find her father.
"Whatever." Jamie muttered, setting down Judith. The baby had grown shockingly fast, and she smiled, waving a chubby hand at her. Jamie resisted the urge to smile, and Michonne looked away. Jamie had promised herself she wouldn't get attatched, Judith was the weakest, and while she wouldn't say it aloud, but her chances in this world weren't good...
"Hey Jamie, you seen Judy..." Carl smiled when he saw Judith curled up, asleep, on Jamie's hat an hour later. Jamie looked up from where she'd been skinning some squirrels Daryl had left strung up.
"Yeah. Can you watch her? I'm dying to get outside..."
Carl nodded, taking her into his arms. Judith still clutched the coonskin hat in her chubby fingers, and Jamie rolled her eyes, trying to hide the smile that tugged at the corners of her lips, before leaving.
"So Maggie and Glenn are in Woodbury?" Rick asked.
Michonne nodded. "I can get you in, But I can't promise I'll get you out."
"Why would you lead us there? What's our insurance this isn't a trap?"
"I have some business to settle with the Governor. You'll have to go eothnme. I'm your only chance at getting them back."
Rick nodded, as though thinking things over. He turned to Daryl. "What do you think?"
"We should go. They have two of our own." Daryl said. And in the back of his mond, he was thinking of Merl...
"It's settled then. We leave at dawn. You try anything." Rick said, pointing a Michonne. "I won't hesitate to kill you."
Michonne nodded. "The feeling is mutual." she assured him.
It was at dawn when they said goodbye. They loaded up the car, and Rick spoke to Carl quietly.
"Take care of the baby."
Carl nodded. "I will. But I've been thinking- she needs a name. Daryl and Jamie are calling her lil asskicker."
Rick chuckled.
"But really, Dad, she needs a name."
Rick nodded, looking pensive. "What do you want to name her?"
"Remember my third grade teacher? The awesome one? I was thinking after her... Judith..."
"Judith it is, then." Rick agreed. "Take care of this place, Carl. And Judith."
"I will."
Daryl walked the perimeter of the inside of the fence with Jamie one last time, out of earshot of everyone else as they talked.
"I might not come back. If I don't, you need to be the one to hunt. Look out for Carol and lil asskicker. Be careful, be smart, and don't be a pussy. Alright?"
"Alright." she hugged him. This didn't surprise him, he'd grown used to it by now, and he ruffled the fur on her cap playfully.
Her bow was once again slung across her shoulder by the string, her quiver was with her, and she was still wearing the coonskin cap. She still looked like Daniel Boone's daughter...
"You better come back." she said with a teasing grin, before they parted ways. Daryl got in the car and looked in the rearview to see Jamie waving. He smiled. She was the one bright spot in this...
"She your daughter?" Michonne asked.
"What's it to you?" Daryl growled protectively as they pulled out of the gravel drive of the prison.
Michonne shrugged. "Nothing. Just wondering. And she acts like you, considering she told me not to fuck anything up. Literally. Those were her words."
Daryl smiled slightly. "Yeah, she's my daughter."
"That's gonna be us, someday." Carl said, as Jamie stared after the car. "We're gonna run this place..."
"If we live that long." Jamie said. Beth nodded.
Carl was staring, they could both see it, staring at Jamie, and Beth felt the awkwardness of the situation and went inside.
Jamie went to go in after her.
"Jamie, wait- please." Carl said. She stopped, but didn't turn around to face him.
"I... I'm sorry. I still think I love you..."
She went to keep walking.
"Please don't." Carl said, voice desperate, so she stood still, back still to him.
"I... I get why you think I'm only in love with you because you were there for me when my mom died, but... I get that you don't want a relationship. I want to be your friend, though- like when we would run around on the farm together, playing hide and seek and stuff. Please, please don't give me the cold shoulder. We're IT now. The convict, Carol, Beth, you, me, and Judy..."
"You named her?" Jamie asked, turning around.
"Yeah. Before my Dad left, we decided. But it's just us. The others might not come back. And we're not gonna survive if we don't work together, so... let's be friends?" he asked.
She nodded. "Friends. But you owe Beth an apology. I saw the way you two were before... your mom... and she thinks you were playing games with her heart. Just so you know."
"What? Thanks for telling me. I never meant..."
"I know. But it really looked that way." Jamie said.
Carl nodded, looking serious, before entering the prison, no doubt to go appoligize.
"Daryl, you better come back." Jamie said to no one in particular, before heading inside again.
"There's gonna be hell to pay if he comes back with us, Daryl. Especially with Michonne, and everyone..." Rick spoke quietly to Rick.
"My brother ain't welcome, neither am I." Daryl said, grabbing his crossbow and his bag.
"Daryl..." Rick was shocked he'd go with Merle instead of the camp.
"We need you." Rick said.
"I need my brother." Daryl said.
"What do you want me to tell Jamie?" Rick asked. He couldn't imagine how devestated she'd be.
"Tell her I'll never forget her. And I'll come back for her." Daryl said.
"Come on, brother. Let's go." Merle put an arm around Daryl, who looked back once, before they disappeared into the woods.
The car pulled back into the drive, and Jamie waited. Carl ran to Rick, who hugged him, Michonne got out, but Oscar, the convict, and Daryl, didn't...
Jamie stared.
"Jamie. He found his brother. He told me to tell you he'll never forget you, and that he's going to come back for you..." Rick said.
She shook her head, not believing what she was hearing.
She turned and ran, ran up to the perch, grabbing his poncho, pulling it on. She was smaller than him, drowning in fabric, but it smelled like Daryl. She clung to it and cried, cried hard. Finally, she stood. She pulled on the coonskin cap, pulled out her bow. She still wore the poncho, heading for the woods.
"Jamie..." Carl said, standing in front of her.
"I need to hunt." Jamie said through grit teeth. No one was stopping her, not Carl, not Rick... Daryl had told her to hunt if he didn't come back. And she would.
"I know. And I'm not going to stop you. I'm sorry, though..."
She nodded cooly to him, ducking out under the fence. She needed to put an arrow through something's head.
Merle was taking a leak on a tree. Daryl was looking around.
"No animal tracks at all. Maybe we should head back to the prison." he said.
"You serious, brother? We go North, try and catch some fish down by the creek."
"And if we don' catch any fish? Look, maybe going it alone wasn't a good idea. At least at the prison we have a pot to piss in..."
"What's the matter? You missing your buddy Rick?" Merle asked.
"No. Forget this, I'm done." Daryl started back in the direction of the prison.
"Woah brother, think this through..." Merle said, catching the back of Daryl's shirt. It ripped and Daryl fell to his knees. Merle stared at he tattoo on the back, and below it, the scars...
"Dad did it to you too..." Merle said, looking shocked.
"Yeah. Yeah, he did." Daryl said, voice thick. "And you left me there with him."
"I didn't have a choice, brother, I couldn't take it, I would've killed him..." Merle said.
"Yeah, well you left. And I'm going back to the prison. It has nothing to do with Rick, either. I left someone behind- and I'm not gonna leave them like you left me." Daryl said, thinking of Jamie. He'd promised he'd never leave her, how could he have made the decision so quickly, and for Merle, no less...
"And even though I'm the one walking away, you're the one who's leaving, AGAIN." Daryl got to his feet, starting back towards the prison, and Merle looked after him for a minute before falling into step beside his brother.
Jamie tossed the three squirrels down on the table, skinning them. Carol was tired, Maggie was traumatized, Glenn was struggling to keep it together, and Rick was on the edges of Crazy Town again, wandering beyond the gates. It was after dark, but they hadn't convinced him to come back within the fences yet. She'd hunted for the rest of the day.
Hershel was busy trying to help Glenn and Maggie, and Carol was feeding Judith. Beth simply looked forlorn, knowing something awful had happened to Maggie...
"Go to bed. I'll finish feeding her." Jamie said.
Carol smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Jamie." she planted a kiss atop the familiar coonskin cap, and Jamie nodded, willing heself to keep it together as she fed mashed carrots to baby Judith.
"You should get some sleep, too. I'll put Judith to bed." Jamie said. Beth nodded as well, before stumbling off to bed.
She finished feeding Judith- it was quiet here, too quiet... She remembered feeding Lily when she was a baby, she was seven years older, she remembered how to change diapers and feed babies...
She gently bounced Judith, patting her back until she burped, before setting her in the little postage box Daryl had decorated in sharpie. She smiled, heading into the prison yard. She took the lantern with her, setting it down a the edge of the fence. She knelt beside it, looking out at the world- the real world- through the chanlink. Daryl was in it now, without her. He was coming back. He'd said he was coming back.
She put her hand up to the chainlink, grasping it, and prayed he would.
Three things. She'd hunted. She'd made sure Carol was taken care of, along with lil Asskicker. And there was no way she was going to be a pussy and cry herself to sleep tonight. Hell, she was so exhausted all she wanted to do was get TO sleep.
But before she did, she got to her feet, cupping her hands around her mouth. She let out a birdcall into the darkness of night and waited. No answer. She picked up the lantern and headed back inside.