So- while they started Tyreese's last episode in SC, I figured I'd elaborate a little more on what happened on the way there, and what happened to the others in camp while Tyreese and everyone went to Noah's neighborhood. This chapter is pretty depressing, but it also holds a bit of reconciliation for Jamie, which results in Daryl understanding her just a little bit more. Please Review!
His arm was aching from being in the same position for so long. He'd lost all feeling in his fingertips an hour ago, and he felt another painful charlie horse winding it's way around his bicep. But he refused to move his shoulder, looking over at the head of chestnut hair that was tickling his neck. Jamie had fallen asleep like that two hours ago, and he hadn't dared move.
He was honestly wondering how she'd managed to get to sleep- out of everyone, Jamie was the lightest sleeper he'd ever known. And they were sitting in the back of a van without a muffler. So needless to say, their ride wasn't exactly quiet.
Then again- they were all pretty tired, and all he could really think of was that she trusted him enough to fall asleep right ontop of him. He knew he shoulder feel touched- and he did. Except Daryl was checking the mirror up front every five minutes to make sure he didn't touch her, and his arm really hurt...
At that moment, however, god decided to smile down upon him as they went over bump in the road and Jamie woke up. She was sitting up, brushing an unruly chestnut lock from her face, when she noticed it was dark as shit outside.
"Mmm... where are we?" she asked quietly, not noticing Carl flex his shoulder greatfully.
"In a van." he supplied helpfully.
Jamie couldn't help but crack a playful smile. "Really? I hadn't noticed..."
"Somewhere in South Carolina, I think." he supplied.
Her features darkened slightly at the realization they were in her home state, but she nodded all the same. Rick had said they'd be checking out Noah's Neighborhood, seeing if the place was still standing...
"How's your arm?" Carl asked, and Jamie shrugged, pulling up her sleeve to stare at it. It's bruised a dark purple with red around the edges, the imprint of walker teeth still barely visible, and it wasn't pretty. But it wasn't through the skin.
"Fine."
Rick and Daryl were up front, with Noah and Carol sitting n the middle row behind them.
"You two awake back there?" Carol asked.
"Mostly." Jamie supplied wiping a hand across her face and smiling. There was a mewling noise, then, and a wail that woke up the entire van as Judith started to cry.
Rick looked in the mirror, eyes meeting Carl's...
"I got it Dad." Carl assured him, picking up the baby and bouncing her slightly.
It did nothing to stop the wailing.
Jamie was looking sideways at him, slightly amused.
"What's so funny?" Carl asked, looking slightly offended as he continued to bounce Judith.
"Nothing. You're just trying to bounce her back to sleep when she's shit herself." her voice was low enough so the adults couldn't hear, and Carl looked surprised.
"How could you...?"
"Diaper's saggy. Plus you can smell it if you focus."
Carl said nothing, simply turning her over and undoing the diaper, revealing it was indeed soiled. He elected to ignore the triumphant smile on Jamie's face as he quickly replaced the filthy diaper with another of their precious few cloth ones, setting the quieted Judith back in the seat.
He stared at the shit-filled diaper in his lap, at a loss with what to do with it. No river to wash it in, no woods to dump it in... He sighed, arms sagging with defeat as he realized he was going to have to sit with this shitty diaper until they stopped. Ah, the joys of brotherhood.
Jamie laughed at his expression, sliding open the back window of the van and wordlessly balling up the diaper, hanging onto the corner and letting it flap outside, shit falling onto the road, before she brought it back inside, tossing it to Carl, who looked utterly shocked.
"You don't have much luck woth women, do you, Grimes?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper. "You've got me- falling asleep on you and getting shot all the time-" her gaze shifted towards Judith, who'd fallen asleep again. "And you've got her. Literally shitting on you."
He couldn't help but grin. "Quiet." he managed, and he looked up and saw Daryl watching them in the mirror again. He made sure he scooted a little farther away from Jamie, who'd moved closer to talk, and Daryl lifted his chin in a nearly imperceptible gesture of approval. Just because his daughter liked the Grimes boy, didn't mean he wouldn't beat his ass if he wasn't careful.
He noticed Carol giving him the eye- she wanted him to give the Grimes boy a break- but he elected to ignore her, damn the consequences, which would no doubt come later. He'd already lost Beth- he had to be extra careful with Jamie. There was danger everywhere- even in a minivan.
Rick- as if sensing everyone's tiredness at being cramped and driving for so long, grabbed the radio and pressed talk, broadcasting to the truck they'd had behind them, with a tailgat filled with everyone else.
"fifty more miles, guys."
They rolled out of the car an hour later- stopping on a dead end road. Carl stretched his cramped legs, glad to be free of the cramped space.
"We set camp in the woods." Rick said calmly, nodding towards the woods beside the road.
Jamie was busy staring at the gnarled, rusty guardrail to the left, blinking... She remembered it. It'd been messed up by a few good old boys in an old impala. She paused. No. That wasn't possible. But a grimy road sign to her left still proudly proclaimed the street's name- Hartfield. She knew exactly where she was.
She took off running, only to be intercepted by Rick as he pulled her into a bear hug.
"What are you..." he was cut short as her eblow nailed him beneath the ribs.
"You ASSHOLE!" she managed to slip out of his weakened hold, shoving him backwards. He didn't expect it and stumbled backwards, landing on his ass.
"You didn't tell me we were going to Sumter!" tears streamed down her face, and suddenly everything was crashing down around her.
"I fucking... hate... this place..." she was choking on her own sobs, trying not to loose it...
Noah's eyes widened. "You lived here?"
"Fuck...this... Fuck all of this." she was turning and running, running for the woods...
Everyone stared for a moment, wondering if what'd happened had really just... happened.
Daryl shouldered his crossbow and stood.
"'Y'all go on ahead. I'll get her."
Noah stared after her, wide-eyed.
"You know where she was headed?"
Noah shook his head. "It's the outskirts- I never really came out here. Only places out here were a few farms..."
"She said she was raised on a farm..." Rick remarked. He'd excused her outburst- she'd just realized she was in a place spattered with so many painful memories...
"You'll know where to find us." Rick said seriously, gaze never leaving his friend. "Come back soon."
She hadn't bothered to hide her trail. It was dry out, too dry fir her to leave bootprints, but he could clearly see the disturbance in the dry dirt, the carpet of leaves- and he knew she'd come this way.
She'd stumbled here- he saw the scuff on the bark on the log, the way the leaves were messed up on the other side- but it was clear she was running blind, not giving a shit about what happened, just trying to get away...
His heart sped up slightly. She wasn't thinking clearly, he doubted she'd be abke to handle herself if she wound up in trouble... His thoughts drifted involuntarily to Beth and he tried to calm himself, taking a breath and speeding to a jog as he continued to follow her tracks.
He clipped his crossbow to his back, forgetting the weapon existed as he cupped his hands and placed them to his lips in a familiar gesture, one he hadn't made in a long time... His birdcall echoed through the woods unanswered.
She'd fallen again here, in the unexpected drop into a dry creekbed. He saw a spot of blood on a rock, couldn't help but feel his heart drop...
Metallic crimson spattered on smooth white tile floors, , drenching the stringy blonde hair...
"Jamie!" Still, no answer. He moved from a jog to an all out sprint, her voice tearing through his throat. He didn't give a shit about any unwanted attention he might be attracting- he couldn't stand it, wouldn't be abke to handle loosing another child...
He could hear crying in the distance. Sobbing, really. It meant she was alive. Still, he didn't slow his pace, careening towards the sound and brusting from the dry, bare brush into a clearing, where Jamie sat among the leaves...
She looked up for a moment when she saw him. Tears streamed down her face, leaving tracks of clean flesh visible amongst the grime, and her eyes held the look of someone haunted.
She was sitting beside the shell of a rusted out chevy- he'd found more than a few rusted out cars abandoned in his days of hunting, and the dilitated car wasn't nearly as sad as what sat before him. She held them in shaking hands, the glove compartment of the old truck, which was hanging open, revealed where she'd gotten them, as she poured over the faded photos.
"Jamie..." he didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. It was becoming a reoccuring theme of being her father nowdays, not knowing what he was supposed to do...
She didn't look up. Wether it was because she didn't want him to see her tears, or because she was preoccupied with keeping a deathgrip on the small group of poloroids held in her shaking hands he didn't know, but either option was enough to make his heart break.
He wordlessly sank to his knees beside her, feeling her entire body tremble as she struggled to choke back her own sobs, still trying to fight it. He stared at her mournfully, pulling her closer to him, so close he could feel her small heart pounding against his own.
"Let it out, baby girl."
She buried her face in his chest and sobbed, sobbed for all she was worth, one hand still desperately clutching the poloroids to her chest and the other flung haphazardly around his neck to anchor her as the sobs wracked her body.
It was times like these when he remembered the girl weeping over her brother's body, following him around the farm like a shadow, as though she were afraid he'd disappear if she looked away. It was times like these when he remembered she was still just a kid.
He let her cry- hell, he was close to tears himself. What kind of a man was he? To loose one daughter to some bitch with a gun, and to be unable to shelter the other one from all the heartbreak this world had to offer.
At some point, she ran out of tears. She just buried her face in his shirt and screamed, screamed for all she was worth. He felt his heart twist painfully at the noises that escaoed her. Almost inhuman sounding, but really, they were just the cries of a lodt child who wanted her family back.
It must've taken an hour or two, but she finally slumped against him, exhausted, breath no longer hitching painfully. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, looking up at him, mournful, still.
A moment later she quietly peeled away from him, instead electing to sit beside him, back against the rusted chevy.
She freed a small poloroid from the group- it couldn't have been more than half a dozen photos or so in her hand, but she held it out to him...
He took it, careful not to get fingerprints on it as he held it and looked. A rag-tag bunch of kids, a boy of about ten with shaggy hair sitting in the driver's seat of the old chevy, flanked by a girl no bigger than a minute, with familiar chestnut hair, a gao toothed grin, and unforgettable green eyes.
The picture was taken from the front perspective, both kids were grinning through where the windsheild should've been, as the boy pretended to drive.
He looked over at Jamie- at the young woman sitting beside him. She was so very, very different from the little girl in the picture.
"That's him. That's Ryder." she said simply, and he nodded, because he already knew. The body they'd buried had been lankier, the features more mature, but he cluld never forget the boy's face.
There were more pictures, of course- Ryder holding a rifle and a dead turkey, standing proudly next to the man who must've been their father. And a summer picture- a sprinkler, Jamie in shorts and a T-shirt aiming the hose at Ryder as a little girl no more than two sat on the grass, clad only in a diaper.
He knew the name- Ryder, Lily, Jamie- it was chilling to look at the pictures and know that out of all of them, Jamie was the only one still alive. But he did, because he needed to.
Finally, they just sat in unbroken silence, until Jamie leaned forward, looking at him desperately, the anxious manner impossible to miss. "I'm scared." she admitted quietly, voice barely above a whisper.
It was then he noticed the dilapitated white house in the distance, barely visible between the bare sticks and branches. Her house.
"You don't have to go back." he said simply. He wouldn't force her to- hell, he doubted he'd want to go back, not after everything.
"I have to." her eyes watered slightly, and she wiped them on her sleeve. "Ryder... him and I, after he shot my Dad, once I'd... put down... Lily... He came back with this look on his face. And he just threw everything in the truck and went into the barn and shot all the horses. We never buried them."
"They're just horses, Jamie."
She turned to look at him with a pain-filled gaze, and he realized what she was saying. They'd never buried her father, never buried Lily, had just lit out like a bat out of hell, desperate to get away. He couldn't really blame them, either.
"I'll do it. You'll be alright if I leave you here?"
"Yeah. I'll be alright..."
He looked over at her, the way her shoulder slumped, defeated. And all he could think of was of the scared twelve year old back at the farm, clinging to his arm.
"No! No, don't leave me, please don't leave me..."
There was no way she was going to be able to fight off a walker like this, and he'd be an idiot to leave her alone.
"I won't leave you. But if you want me to bury them, you have to come with me..."
She stood, stumbling along behind him. The house was situated on a hill, a barn a bit away, and a few pastures over, Jamie eyed the land nervously. He realized her father was out there somewhere.
"C'mon. Think you can help me find a shovel?"
She nodded, trudging forward up the hill, towards the darkened barn. There was a cluck and warbling noise- a few scrawny chickens eyed them anxiously from where they lingered beneath the porch. The barn was dark inside, and he couldn't help but get anxious as Jamie ducked inside, before she emerged a minute later with a rusted shovel and handed it to him.
He saw the small pile of remains and swallowed, walking over. Two years of decay meant it was mostly just bones he was burying- taking earth from nearby and mounding it over the remains carefully. Jamie sat on the front porch quietly, eyes on the ground as the three chickens gave her a wide berth and picked at the ground nearby.
By the time was was finished, he'd noticed the rotting wooden cross to the left and realized Jamie's mother was buried there.
He looked up to see Jamie watching him as he stood idle, and he nodded to her, leaning on his shovel.
"Why don't you head inside. I'll head out to the fields and finish up."
She didn't even argue, opening the door to the old house, ignoring the peeling white paint, before ducking inside, the door closing behind her.
He trudged out to the feild, spending a few minutes searching. The bones were somewhat scattered- animals had gotten to them, but for the most oart, he managed to bring back what he found ti the man skeleton. He looked down sadly at the remains- so different from the man in the pictures. He crouched beside the body, simply looking at it for a moment, before he spoke.
"I found your little girl." he managed, voice rough like usual but also quieter than normal, reverent. "She found me, actually. She's a good shot- I done my best to take care of her." he lowered his head, closing his eyes and remembering all she'd been through, all the times she'd almost been gone. "I ain't always made the best decisions." he admitted, remembering Joe's group and Terminus. "But I tried. I been doing my best to keep her safe. She's bigger now- she's gonna be fourteen soon. She's strong. I ain't gonna ever be half the Dad you was to her- I know that. But I'll do my best."
He sat in silence for the moment, thr only noise the wind making the branches spar one another, before he stod and started piling dirt over the remains. By the time he was done, his hands were blistered, and it was getting colder- a sure sign dusk wasn't far off.
He trooped back towards the house, finding Jamie waiting for him on the front porch, still quiet, hugging herself to ward off the chill.
"We're about a mile or two from the road." he informed her.
She wordlessly nodded- she already knew, he realized, she'd lived here before.
"It's gonna get dark soon. We might not hit the road before it gets dark-" he looked over at her. Pale face, red-rimmed eyes, flanked by the dark circles of tiredness only true, bone-deep weariness could provide. It was clear if they got caught out in the dark tonight, he'd be fighting mostly on his own. She was in no shape to do anything.
"We'll spend the night here. Head out at first light tomorrow- sound good?"
Again, she nodded. He knew she didn't want to stay here, but he'd rather have her uncomfortable here than bit in the woods.
The small group of chickens- two hens and a rooster- had wandered down towards the edge of the woods, and he looked over at her.
"Think you can catch a chicken?"
She gave a wane smile and strode over. The rooster warbled cautiously at her, and the hens backed up, but their demeanor changed the instant she squatted down and held out a hand. They trotted eagerly over, thinking she had something worth eating.
Once they were close enough, she snatched up one hen with her left arm, whirling to seize the fleeing one by the tailfeathers and lifting it up, ignoring how it flapped its wings and squawked, alarmed, as she headed back towards Daryl, a hen beneath each arm. The rooster ran after her, crowing indignantly and trying to no avail to spurr her, and she wordlessly kicked it a few feet away the next time it charged, nodding to Daryl as she climbed the stairs back up to the porch.
"Which one we gonna eat?"
Daryl chose the scrawnier of the two, reasoning the fatter one had a better chance to lay eggs.
He nodded to her. "Put that one inside the house- and see if you can catch the rooster- we'll bring 'em back to camp tomorrow, see if we can't get a few eggs out of 'em."
Jamie wrinkled her nose but complied, managing to wrangle the rooster after numerous failed attenmpts and scratches. She threw the bird into an old feed sack and tied it, tossing it to Darl, who was cooking their imprompteau dinner over a small fire.
"Rooster always was a bastard." she muttered, and Daryl chuckled slightly. He was begining to see a little more of who Jamie had used to be- the way she could catch a chicken like nobody's business, mostly.
It was the best meal they'd had in awhile- while there wasn't must meat, what there was tasted good. By the time they'd finished, the rooster had stopped thrashing around in the bag and laid still, compliant.
Daryl nodded towards the house. "I'll be in in a second. See if you can get some sleep- we head out at first light."
She nodded, a ghost of a smile on her face as she pickdd up the sack with the rooster and ducked inside. She couldn't wait to leave this place behind.