Chapter 4: TS-19

Daryl spent most of the night drinking and thinking about Merle.

It was a strange feeling, being apart from his brother, not really knowing whether he was alive out there or not, despite all his bragging in Atlanta. It had been Daryl and Merle for so long now that it was difficult for him to adjust to the absence. He imagined his brother wandering the roads, his hand missing, only a bloody stump left, fighting off Walkers and scavenging for food. Daryl should be out there looking for him. He should be thinking up some kind of plan for finding him.

But in the semi-darkness of his personal room, with only the alcohol and his own thoughts to keep him company, Daryl had to admit that while he was genuinely worried about his brother, pissed as hell at Rick and T-Dog and the others for leaving him chained to a roof, it was also a little bit of a relief not having Merle there. He could relax without worrying that his brother was too high, too pumped up on pharmaceuticals, pushing the boundaries too far. He didn't have to babysit his big brother for the first time in so long, Daryl almost didn't know what to do with himself. Without Merle to drag him into hairy situations, without Merle to continuously need his backup, Daryl was at a loss.

He thought about his brother. His violent, corrupted, and mostly uncooperative brother. He thought about all of the things he had been put through over the years. The nights he had sat in dingy jail cells, the nights he had spent sleeping in the back of his truck while Merle entertained diseased hookers in their one room shack. Daryl always went along with it. Never questioned, never put his foot down even when he didn't feel right about something.

Merle had wanted to rob the camp blind, and Daryl had agreed to help him, though the decision had sat like an acid lump in his chest. But it had never been the right time. Merle was always high, always saying, "After the next run, baby brother. Gotta get more than this dog shit to eat."

And so they'd waited. One week, two. Soon they had settled right in to the little camp, and even if Daryl didn't give a shit about those people, even if they didn't mean as much to him as Merle or himself, he didn't like thinking about taking their means of survival away from them. It had become pretty obvious that they weren't the self-sufficient sort. Mostly a bunch of city people with no experience hunting or fending for themselves. It was an ugly world, and he didn't think it needed to get any uglier.

Daryl swigged the bottle of whisky back and just let the amber liquid burn down his throat, burn away his conflicting thoughts. What was done was done, no point ruining his buzz by thinking about it.

Instead, he kicked off his boots and took off his shirt to enjoy the blessed breeze of air conditioning on his bare skin. Only when he was alone could he do this, be so exposed. The scars on his back stretched tight when he bent to place the liquor bottle on the ground. They were a constant reminder of just how ugly the world was, even before the dead starting walking. He didn't let anyone touch them, didn't let anyone see them. Not even Merle. They were a shameful reminder of his past, and he couldn't stand the thought of anyone knowing and looking at him with pity.

Daryl pulled the cushions off the couch and spread them on the ground before lying down. It was a more comfortable bed than he could have hoped for. He reached for the bottle lying nearby and took another drink, dribbling a little down his neck. He could still hear the others moving around, settling in. They were all so useless, he thought. Burdens. Walker-bait.

Except that girl. Jack. She wasn't much use with a weapon, that was for sure. But she could walk with the dead. She could sneak in amongst them to scavenge. With a bit of training, she might even make a good front line. Send her in first to clear a place of Walkers.

Daryl didn't think there was much hope in finding a cure. What had happened to the girl seemed more like dumb-luck than anything else. Just a special situation with all the right variables, nothing more. But that didn't mean they couldn't make use of her.

He thought about her then. Tiny, too thin, weak. Against another human, she didn't stand a chance. He thought about her large grey eyes, the way they darted around uncomfortably whenever an argument arose. A pushover.

Merle would eat her alive.

That thought, and its various implications, made Daryl frown and tip the bottle back one more time.

When Jack awoke in the morning she felt better than she had in years. Not since before the tumor had she felt so free and safe and well-rested. She stretched and kicked off the blanket she had found folded over the couch.

She had stripped down to her underwear last night, and now she had to scramble around to find her jeans. The cool air coming through the vents made her legs break out in goose flesh, and for a brief moment she wished they could still grow hair, to keep warm if nothing else. That thought quickly fled her though, when she remembered all the times she had cut her legs or armpits shaving or woken up on hot summer days with too much stubble for shorts. At least, at the end of the world when there were so many other things to think about, like surviving, she wouldn't have to worry about shaving anymore.

She finally found the jeans crumpled onto a chair and pulled them on. They were a little long and she had to roll up the cuffs to keep them from dragging the ground, but she was thankful to have them. It was crazy how all the little things she had always taken for granted now seemed so precious: jeans, hot showers, her hair brush. Luxuries now when before they had just been part of her everyday routine, nothing extraordinary.

She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and pull her short hair back into a stubby bun at the nape of her neck. Already the girl reflected back in the mirror looked a little better, healthier, less pallid and weary. Her stomach rumbled then and she thought she better go find the others and get some breakfast.

She grabbed one of the remaining sodas on her way out the door, and slipped her feet into her shoes as she walked down the hall and toward the kitchen.

It seemed like everyone was already up and about. The table in the break room had been spread with eggs and even bacon, and there was orange juice sitting in a pitcher. With the warm smell of breakfast and the pleasant chatter of voices, it was easy to forget for a moment that the world had ended and just outside this building were endless rows of dead bodies, and even more undead ones.

Jack chose a seat next to Glenn, who was groaning and cupping his head in his hands.

"Kill me," Glenn muttered.

"Hangover?" Jack asked.

Glenn moaned and Jack sniggered. She would tell him that it serves him right for letting Daryl control the amount of alcohol he drank. All night during dinner the loud redneck had goaded Glenn into drinking shots, and now he was paying the price. Daryl, on the other hand, seemed no worse for wear as he chased some eggs around his plate with a strip of bacon.

Jack loaded a plate with food and slid it in front of Glenn. "You'll feel better with something in your stomach."

"Yeah," Glenn said. "At least now I'll have something to throw up."

"That's the spirit," Jack said as she made her own plate.

Glenn groaned and then gagged. "Please don't mention spirits."

Dale, who was sitting on the other side of Glenn, chuckled at this. "Bit off a little more than you could chew, eh Glenn?"

Jack shoveled some eggs into her mouth, enjoying the relaxed, carefree atmosphere in the room. Everyone was eating and talking, and even smiling. It could have been an ordinary morning in an ordinary world. It had been a long time since she had felt like she was part of something happy, something good, and she wasn't naïve enough to think this could last forever. So she ate breakfast, she laughed and talked with the other survivors, and she let herself just enjoy this moment for as long as it could last…which, as it turned out, wasn't very long at all.

When Dr. Jenner stepped into the room, the mood shifted immediately. Jack saw Andrea and Dale shoot a meaningful look at one another. Rick shifted in his seat. Everyone looked to the doctor with expectation.

"I analyzed the blood samples last night," Jenner began, pouring himself a glass of orange juice and taking a sip.

"And?" T-Dog prompted. "Find out anything new?"

"Yes," Jenner said, and everyone looked around hopefully. Jack fiddled with her fork, uncomfortable with the way eyes were turning to her once again. Jenner looked directly at her.

"So what is it?" Jack asked. She hated the tension that had suddenly fallen over the group. She hated being part of it.

"It looks like a mutation. Whenever you were bitten, you were directly infected, by what, I'm not sure. That's the thing, whatever this is, it's indefinable," he looked toward all the others as he said this, trying to drive home some important point. "I can't tell you if it's a virus, bacteria, prion, some hitherto unknown microbe," he looked at Jack again, "but whatever it is has attached itself to your white blood cells, and mutated. Instead of attacking your body, breaking it down, it is protecting you. I tested it, added Staphylococcus to the sample of your blood. The mutated white blood cells attacked it, completely eradicated the bacteria. It appears that whatever it is that is killing everyone else, is actually keeping you alive."

"So getting bit actually saved her life," Dale asked incredulously.

"What do you mean keeping me alive?" Jack asked.

"I mean that the infection, the pathogen, has mutated inside your body to create a sort of super-cell. Your white blood cells are like none I have ever seen. They might be capable of fighting off any disease, any virus or bacteria."

"Is there a way to, I don't know, bottle her blood?" T-Dog asked.

Jack cringed at his word choice and T-Dog sent her an apologetic look.

Jenner shrugged. "Perhaps, if we had more resources, more people to work on it, then we might be able to replicate her immunity. It certainly seems like a possibility."

"But there's nothing you can do? Nothing we can do?" Andrea asked.

Jenner didn't rise to the accusation in her voice. Instead he gave her a weary look. "I don't have all the necessary resources to even attempt something like that. And none of you are scientists or doctors."

Shane looked at Jack, and in that look she could see exactly the sort of bitterness she had feared. He shot his eyes to Jenner then and asked, "So you're saying you haven't even tried. You haven't been working on a cure this whole time?"

Jenner shook his head. "I've been working on one, but there's nothing to be had from it. I can't define the origin of this pathogen, or even what it is. All my attempts to create a cure have been fruitless."

Shane jabbed a finger toward Jack. "We brought you the cure. You just need to figure out how to make it viable."

"Shane," Rick said. "This isn't accomplishing anything."

"This was your idea," Shane said, an echo of the previous night. "This is why we're here."

"Shane's right," Andrea said, turning back to Jenner. "What more do you need? What sort of resources?"

"Equipment," Jenner said. "Research scientists. Time."

"Time?" Jack asked, a sinking feeling in her gut. "What do you mean?"

"Seems like you should have nothin' but time now, doc," Daryl said, speaking up for the first time.

Jenner sat back in his seat and quietly appraised the group. "There's something I'd like to show you," he said, standing up. "Please follow me."

Jack rose to her feet to follow, but found that her knees were weak. She braced her hands on the table. It was happening, just what she had predicted when Rick had first mentioned the CDC. Jenner couldn't create a cure from her blood. Now everyone, not just Shane, was going to look at her like a freak. They would always see her for what was in her blood, not who she was, not any of the other qualities that defined her. How could they accept her now? Now that it was clear her immunity couldn't be transferred to them. How could they move past a disappointment like that?

A hand clamped onto her shoulder then and Jack looked up to see Dale staring down at her with kind, knowing eyes. "Remember what I said? You're a part of this group now, for as long as you want to be. Whether or not Jenner can make a cure is irrelevant to that fact. You're a part of this now."

"The others…"

"Aren't going to crucify you for something you can't control. It was never your responsibility to find a cure. It was a shot in the dark, and we all knew that."

She stared into his wise blue eyes and nodded. Then, before he could walk away, she said, "Dale, I'm scared. What Jenner said about needing time makes me think there might not be much left."

Dale nodded. "I was wondering the same thing. Come on, we'll ask him about it."

They left the kitchen and followed the sounds of people until they reached zone five. The lights were down and on the large screen at the back of the room, a video was showing. It looked like an X-ray, showing a person lying down, their labored breathing, the spikes in their brain activity. Jenner asked Vi to fast forward.

The body on the bed had stopped breathing. The brain had gone dark. And then there was a spark of light right at the base of the skull. The body started moving again, and then something came into the screen. Something pressed against the person's skull. A gun, Jack realized just as a bullet lodged into the brain and all movement ceased again.

"It invades the brain like meningitis," Jenner said, detached. "Everything you ever were or will be…gone."

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked quietly. Jack turned to see Carol pull the little girl close, and her heart broke for them. She hadn't known Jim, but seeing that, seeing the body reanimate on screen and knowing that nothing of that person remained, it was disturbing.

"The resurrection times vary wildly," Jenner said. "We've had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest was eight hours."

"It restarts the brain," Lori asked.

"The brainstem," Jenner corrected. "Basically gets them up and moving."

"But they ain't alive," Daryl said, staring hard at the doctor.

"You tell me," Jenner said.

"It's not like before. That brain is dark," Rick said.

Jenner nodded and said. "The neural cortex, the you part, doesn't come back."

Jack looked away from the image still frozen on the screen. She stopped listening to what the others were asking the doctor. It was clear to her now: there was no hope. There was no miracle cure out there. These dead people, these Walkers, were not who they used to be. They could never return to who they were before.

Suddenly Dale's voice broke into Jack's thoughts. She looked up in time to see him point at the clock on the wall.

"I noticed that clock is counting down. What happens when the time runs out?"

Jenner looked placidly toward the clock. "The basement generators run out of fuel."

"What happens then?" Rick asked. But Jenner didn't elaborate, and the foreboding of his silence seemed to settle over all of them. "Vi, what happens when the generators go out?"

Vi's robotic voice came on. "When the generators go out, system wide decontamination will occur."

They all rushed from the room. Rick, Shane, T-Dog, and Glenn ran for the basement. The rest headed back to their rooms, and Jack went for the kitchen.

She couldn't say exactly what drove her there, whether it was intuition or just weeks of building survival instinct, but she pulled boxes and bags from storage and started rummaging through the cabinets and pantry, throwing in anything edible. Most of it was dehydrated food packages, light-weight, but there were plenty of canned goods and bottles of water that weighed the bags and boxes down significantly.

She managed to get a couple of reusable tote bags filled up with food packets, and in the boxes she had stacked the water and cans. She pulled the bags over her shoulders, but the boxes were too heavy for her to carry on her own. She would need help.

She ran for the offices where everyone had slept the night before, and paused. Who should she ask for help? Most of the men had run to the basement. She could ask Dale, but the boxes were heavy and she would feel terrible if he hurt himself. Besides, saying, "I just have a feeling," would probably warrant a barrage of questions from him.

She looked at one door in particular, weighing her options. She could knock, ask for help, and then probably be told to go to hell, or she could just stand out here until their time completely ran out. She approached the door, swallowed back her nerves, and knocked.

Daryl had been drinking again. It occurred to him that the future was still uncertain. With the generators going out, that meant that the electricity was also going out, which meant no more AC, no more hot showers, and the possibility that the center's defenses would go down too. That would mean a mad struggle to escape if any geeks found their way inside. So Daryl drank and enjoyed the final moments before this safety net of comfort came withering down.

He thought about Jenner, his evasiveness, his trickery. He thought about all of the idiots that had placed their faith in finding a cure. He hadn't believed it was possible so he never felt the stab of disappointment that the news brought. But he had seen the looks on the others' faces. Devastated, most of them. Even Jack had been crushed by the news. He thought about the look that had come over her face, the way her eyes had gone big and sad, the way her mouth had strained into a thin line and her eyebrows had pulled together. He hadn't liked that look on her face. It was the look of someone who had lost hope.

In that moment he had felt the overwhelming urge to punch someone. Rick or Shane, maybe all of them. They had placed a hell of a burden on that girl's shoulders. Made her carry the weight of their hope and disappointment. He wasn't sure why he cared so much, but something about the situation truly disturbed him.

There was a knock on the door. Daryl looked up from his place on the floor. No one ever approached him, and that's the way he liked it. He enjoyed his space, his solitude. And now someone was intruding upon it. He stood up, still holding the bottle of whiskey, and stormed to the door, ready to tell the person off for bothering him.

Daryl swung the door open with a glower, but paused before the profanity on the tip of his tongue could escape. Standing in the hall outside was Jack, wearing two stuffed sacks over her arms and fidgeting with the straps nervously. He looked up and down the hall and, when he saw no one else was in sight, leaned against the doorjamb.

"What?" he asked, and frowned when she jumped at the sound of his voice.

She looked up at him and her large grey eyes were full of anxiety. "I need your help."

He didn't move from the doorway. Instead, he lifted the bottle and took a swig. "Wit' what, exactly?"

She indicated the bags on her shoulders. "Gathering supplies from the kitchen. What Jenner said, about the generators going out, doesn't sit well with me. I just think it's a good idea to gather what we can…just in case, you know?"

"In case a' what?"

She shrugged. "Not sure, really. I just have a bad feeling that I can't explain."

Daryl could understand that. He knew firsthand the benefits of listening to your instincts. It was a means for survival. He looked her over closely; she didn't seem like the type to be in tune with her baser side. She was too soft. "An' what do you expect me to do about it? You want me to rifle through drawers gatherin' up snacks?"

"I already have it all boxed," she said. "I only need help carrying it all."

"An' you thought you'd ask me to play bag boy? Think I'm gonna do the heavy liftin'?" It wasn't that he didn't agree with her about having the supplies handy, but he didn't like the idea that she might think of him as a brainless hillbilly whose only use was shooting things or carrying stuff. That seemed to be the general consensus around here, and he'd be damned if he played the part for them.

"I'm not asking you to do it for me," she sounded exasperated. "I'm just asking you to help me."

"Why didn't you ask someone else to help? Dale or your little boyfriend, Glenn." He hadn't meant for that to sound as petulant as it did, and he took another swig of alcohol.

"Boyfriend?" Jack muttered, momentarily floored. She shook her head and said, "They're down in the basement. I came to you first."

"I'm touched you thought a' me," he said mockingly. Daryl couldn't say why, but he enjoyed messing with her. When she had first found them on that rooftop he hadn't paid her much mind, he was too interested in finding Merle. But he noticed her now. When they returned to find their camp overrun with Walkers, he had seen her leap onto that geek's back and beat its skull in. There was a feistiness to her, it was just buried beneath miles of passiveness. He wanted to see that spunk again, see if it would ever make a return.

Jack gave him an annoyed look, readjusted the bags on her shoulders, and was about to say something else when the lights began to flicker and go out. She looked up at the emergency lights in astonishment, and Daryl cursed.

Other doors began to open, people emerging from their rooms. Then Jenner rounded the far corner and walked down the hall, ignoring everyone that tried to talk to him.

Daryl pushed off the door frame and stepped past Jack. "Hey," he called to Jenner, "what's happenin'?" Jenner grabbed his bottle of whiskey and took a swig.

"Energy use is being prioritized," Jenner said, and just kept walking.

"Air isn't a priority?" Dale asked.

"And lights?" Daryl asked.

"It's not to me," Jenner said. "Zone five is shutting itself down."

"Hey what the hell does that mean?" Daryl yelled and ran after the doctor, Jack and the others following close behind him.

Jenner ignored his question, which only aggravated him more.

Daryl didn't like being ignored, so he ran after the doctor with Jack and the others just behind him.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you," he yelled. "What do you mean it's shuttin' itself down?"

"How can it do that? How is that possible?" Jack asked.

"You'd be surprised," is all Jenner said.

They all ran after Jenner into the room with the computers, where they'd watched TS-19 take a bullet to the brain. Rick, Shane, Glenn and T-Dog caught up to them on the bottom level.

"What's going on?" Rick asked.

"System's shutting down all non-essential uses of energy. It will keep the computers running until the last possible second," Jenner said. His tone was clinical, cool, and did nothing to make any of them feel at ease.

Daryl felt a jolt of warning in his body. It was the same feeling that alerted him to potential danger on a hunt. The same feeling that, as he had gotten older and better able to navigate the shit-storm that was his home life, had saved him from some brutal confrontations with his old man. He'd had to learn to trust his gut, follow his instincts, or he'd never have survived this long. And now his instincts were telling him they were treading dangerous ground.

They stopped at the base of the stairs that led up to the computer platform. Jenner went still and quiet and everyone waited for him to say something. He turned and looked directly at Daryl and offered the bottle of whiskey back to him. Daryl snatched it angrily.

Jack barely listened as Jenner explained that the French were the last to hold out and keep up research. Her eyes were glued on the clock, with its digital reminder that only 30 minutes remained before the power went out and they were thrown into darkness…and decontamination. That word kept playing through her mind now…what did it entail, exactly?

Suddenly Rick yelled for them to grab their things and everyone started to turn toward the doors. But before they could reach them Jenner entered something into one of the computers and the doors slammed shut, locking them inside.

Hot acid fear bubbled up in Jack's throat. She turned toward the doctor wildly, as did the others. Disbelief and absolute terror warred within her and for a moment, Jack couldn't force herself to speak.

"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn asked. "He just locked us in!"

Suddenly Daryl rushed the doctor, yelling and ready to attack him with the bottle of booze still clutched in his hand. It took both Shane and T-Dog to pull him away.

"Open the door now," Rick said.

"No point," Jenner said. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency doors are sealed."

"Well open the damn thing," Daryl yelled. Jack wanted to yell with him.

"It's not something I can do. I don't control it, the computers do. I told you that once that door was closed it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that." Jenner looked around at all of their scared faces and said, "It's better this way."

"What is?" Rick asked. "What happens in 28 minutes?"

"You know what this place is?" Jenner said, suddenly as enraged as Rick and Shane. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff. Weaponized small pox, Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country. Things you don't want getting out ever!" He stared around at them all, composing himself. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, HITs are deployed to keep any organism from getting out."

"HITs?" Rick asked.

Jenner asked Vi to define, and overhead they heard the robotic voice spell out their doom. Explosives that would destroy the entire building with them trapped inside. Jack's knees went weak and she had to clutch a guardrail to keep herself from falling down the steps.

"It lights the air on fire," Jenner said, almost reverently.

Jack couldn't listen to any more. She blocked it out, his ramblings about how he was doing them all a favor, the enraged screams, the terrified sobs. Her ears pounded with the sound of her own pulse….

Alive, alive, alive. I'm still alive, she repeated like a mantra inside her own head. She had never thought she would make it this far, never thought she would walk out of that hospital. Never thought she could survive something as horrible, as ugly as the world ending. But she was here, she was alive in this moment, and she was going to have to fight to live from now on.

So she straightened up. She turned toward the frightened group with a resolve that she had never before been able to muster, and she walked toward the doctor. Past Rick and Shane and T-Dog, who probably never thought they'd have to restrain her. Hell, she had never thought she would need restraining. She had never been one for confrontation. Just the thought would make her tremble, make her sweat. But now she felt like there was steel running through her veins, like there was nothing more powerful than her.

She walked right up to the doctor who was still trying to sell the idea that this was the best way, the only way. She pulled her hand back and slapped him hard across the face. A shocked silence followed, and before anyone could stop her, Jack had grabbed the doctor by the collar of his shirt.

"You keep saying that there isn't any hope out there. That we're all doomed to die," she said. "And that's bullshit." She didn't curse very often and the word felt almost foreign coming from her mouth, but it had the desired effect. The doctor, and everyone in the room, hung on her words.

"A month ago I was lying in a hospital bed, dying from a brain tumor. The doctors told me I probably wouldn't survive the week. But here I am, alive. You say that there isn't any hope, but I know there is. As long as there is a desire to live, people will keep on surviving. It will be hard, and eventually, we will die. But that would have happened anyway. We all have an expiration date; it's just not your right to choose that for us. We have the right to keep living, we have the right to keep hoping, and we have the right to defy death again, and again, and again. It's one of the things that separates humans from other animals. As long as we keep fighting, this will not be our end."

Jenner blinked up at her, and Jack released his collar and stepped back. "Now open the door. Give us our chance."

Everyone stared at the doctor. Carl, Sophia and Carol with tears streaming down their faces. Glenn, Dale, Lori and T-Dog with lingering horror. Rick, Daryl, Shane and Jack with anger. Only Andrea and Jacqui seemed complacent, maybe even content.

"I told you I can't unlock the doors topside," Jenner said, but he turned and keyed something into the computer. The doors opened.

Everyone but Andrea and Jacqui ran for the door. Jack paused in the doorway, about to call back to them, but she could see from the looks on their faces that they had made their minds. And just like she had said to Jenner that it wasn't his place to decide for them, she knew it wasn't her place to decide for them either. So she ran.

Jack still had the bags of food strapped on her shoulders, but didn't think it was wise to waste the time to get the boxes from the kitchen. She ran to the front where Daryl, Shane and Rick were trying to break through the front windows and out to safety. But nothing was working. The windows were bullet proof.

Suddenly Carol ran up and handed something to Rick. He took it from her, yelled for everyone to duck, and then threw something at the window. A few seconds later the glass blew out, and they were running again. Out of the building, through the parking lot filled with dead bodies, and toward the vehicles.

Jack jumped into the RV behind Glenn, Lori, Rick and Carl, her heart beating fast and hard against her chest. She looked around and asked, "Where's Dale?"

Glenn looked at her and said, "With Andrea, I'd guess."

"He stayed?"

"I don't think he'd leave her," Glenn answered.

Rick pulled the keys to the RV from the visor, but then Lori yelled for him to wait. Jack looked up in time to see Andrea and Dale leap from the broken window and run toward them. Her chest filled with relief so sweet she could have cried; she did not want to lose Dale, who was so much like a father.

They almost made it to them, but had to duck when the CDC exploded. Jack fell to the floor of the RV, which rocked with the impact. When it was over, Dale and Andrea filed onto the RV and they drove off, with Shane, Carol, T-Dog and Daryl driving their own vehicles behind them.

Jack had to sit down. She watched the burning building from the window and couldn't believe how close they had come to being destroyed with it. Her pulse ratcheted in her throat and her limbs shook with the aftershock of the whole experience.

"Hey," Lori said, coming up from behind her.

"Yeah?" Jack asked, her voice wobbly.

"I wanted to say thank you for what you did for us back there," Lori said. "What you said. I think you saved us all."

Jack looked up at the older woman, at the sincerity and hope in her eyes, and said, "Maybe. Or maybe I've doomed us all to something much worse."

"You can't think like that. It's like you said, we have the right to find out what lies ahead of us."

"Yeah," Jack said, and she wondered just what, exactly, did lie ahead for them all.

Sorry for the long wait on this. I was taking so many classes over the summer and then started a new job, but here it is! The relationship between Daryl and Jack will have to move slowly, but there was a little interaction again in this chapter for you. ;)

Please review!