"We can't take care of a baby Lilly! What are we supposed to feed it? It's going to cry! The dead are attracted to noise. I swear you're absolutely fucking crazy."
"Tara, we couldn't just leave her there. She's an innocent child. Not that innocence matters at all to you."
"What the fuck you just say to me?!"
I can't hold it in anymore. I set the baby girl on the ground next to a rock. I sit on the rock and bury my face in my hands, shaking my head. "All those people Tara, all those people…"
She sighs. "I told you, once I realized Brian was a crazed lunatic I refused to fight. I didn't fire a shot."
I look up from my hands, tears forming. "How could we have been fooled so easily?"
"Don't do that, please don't cry, I don't know how to handle it."
"I can't believe I actually thought I could love that guy."
"What I can't believe is how I didn't figure it out. I can normally see right through people, you know that."
"It isn't your fault. He fooled everyone in the camp. Everyone. He's a master manipulator, he knows how to talk to people."
I look over to check on Judith and she's pulling weeds out of the ground by the rock.
"Seriously though. What are we going to do with her?" Tara asks me.
"I don't know."
She hasn't asked me about Megan. I can't say I'm surprised. She knows it's a sore point and she hates seeing anyone in pain. She feels responsible for everyone else's pain, partially why she's so bitter, I think.
I haven't made my peace with it? How could I? You never get over the death of your child…you just…find a new normal. But after seeing so much loss, maybe I'm kind of numb to it all. Maybe killing Brian is masking my pain with the sweet feeling of revenge. Maybe I've just lost my mind. Or maybe, I know wherever she is, it's so much better than this place is.
Another reason I took that little girl. After I shot the governor I went off looking for Tara, but heard a baby's cry. A walker was getting close to her, and more were hearing her cry. What was I supposed to do? Way I saw it, my options were either to kill the walker, and walk away hoping someone, from her own family or group, would come and get her, or take her myself.
Her life was at stake. I put myself in her mother's shoes, whoever she may be. If Megan's life were in danger and a stranger could take her away from it all, I'd want her to. So I took her. She's real young, can't be more than eight months or so.
Which means she was conceived after this all happened, the outbreak. Selfish, I think, but then sometimes it can't really be prevented.
"So what do we call her? It's a shame she doesn't have some kinda nametag or something."
"She's not a dog, Tara."
"I'm just saying if I had a baby I'd make sure I left something on the tag of her outfit or something with her name, in case I ever got separated from her."
"Maybe they did." I check her tag and see the letter "J".
"Not sure what it stands for," I tell Tara.
"Let's call her Jay."
I nod in agreement.
"We gotta go."
I pick the baby up, and make a point of getting one of those things you wear on your chest that you can strap the baby into, should we pass any kind of store that would have it. Gonna be hard to run with a baby in your arms all the time.
