The Other Daughter

by Rachel975

Juliet Peletier, Carol's daughter, had not seen her family since she left for college, but after coming home is trapped with them and old resentments during the apocalypse forced to juggle both her tense relationship with her mother and the fact she may or may not have feelings for the crossbow wielding man teaching her to defend herself. (Some major plot deviations, DarylXOC)

5. Chapter 5

Wildfire

Daryl

The aftermath of what had happened was difficult to comprehend. At least half the camp was dead, bodies littered all over the ground, illuminated by the fire which continued to burn. He cursed Merle or whoever exactly it was that took their van. They should have been there to help, to stop all those other people dying.

He was sat beside the fire, staring in to it. No-one really wanted to sleep tonight. Anyone left alive was too busy thanking some higher power that they and their loved ones had survived. Well. Not Andrea, who was crouched over her sister's body.

"You saved my life." The tone was almost accusatory as well as grateful, and he looked up to Juliet, standing beside him. She had a jacket on over her dress now and her hair loose instead of tied up in the bun she often kept it in. He motioned for her to sit. She probably would have even if he hadn't invited her to. He could see her mother and her younger sister sitting with Rick and his family, drinking something warm. Her mother kept looking out to the devastation and back to her youngest daughter, still in slight disbelief that they had both managed to save themselves.

"Glenn helped." he mumbled.

"I already thanked Glenn."

He looked at her closely. He hadn't expected her to cope so well under pressure. He'd thought that after only killing one of them, so many would overwhelm her, and she'd get all philosophical about killing them again and knuckle under pressure, getting herself and several others killed. He felt bad for assuming the worst of her. She was good with a gun, better than he'd ever thought she was going to get when he offered to teach her. Time consuming as it was, he was glad he had offered. He was sure she'd be useful now, if anything else happened to them, and they didn't need someone else like Rick's wife or her mother who'd stand there screaming and not doing shit to help.

"You still haven't thanked me." She looked at him, trying to scope out whether he was serious or not. His glare softened a little and she grinned.

"Thanks."

"'S fine. You're just lucky we got back when we did." She nodded.

"I know. If you guys had been a minute later… I'd just be another body right now." Her voice was distant now, sad, a little scared. She shook her head, banishing away the thoughts that had crept up on her. "I guess you didn't find your brother then?"

"No, he was gone. Cut his own hand off to get off that damn roof. Tough son of a bitch. No patience, not that he'd have realised we were comin' back for him."

"I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"I'm sorry for you. No matter what kinda person he was, he was your brother, and I'm sorry that you lost him. Do you know if he survived, I mean, was there any evidence that he might have?"

"Well, we're damn sure he stole our van, so there's that."

"One-handed? That's quite impressive. It's not great that we lost the van but points to Merle for ingenuity."

"That's why we rushed back." Daryl admitted. "We thought he'd taken the van and he was gonna come up here and… y'know. Kill y'all. That's what we thought was going down when we heard all the gun shots. Guess he just used it to get away from the city."

"Are you gonna search for him?"

"Wouldn't even know where to begin. Obviously I'll keep an eye out, but he had lost a hand and a fair bit of blood. Likelihood is that he didn't survive very long."

"You think he's dead."

"Until I'm proved wrong, yeah."

She lay one hand on his shoulder and gave him a sad smile when he looked up at her and took her hand away. She didn't say anything else. She'd been around him enough to know when he could put up with people talking and when he needed silence. He was glad he and Glenn had saved her. If there was anyone at camp he liked, it was probably her, and her mother actually. He hadn't spoken much to the older woman but she always had a soft smile for him, and she always thanked him when he brought food back for them all from a hunt. She hadn't, unlike most of them, done much to annoy him. He'd say the same about Juliet's little sister if she didn't keep following them out to the forest when he took Juliet for her shooting lessons.

"Juliet?" Daryl wasn't sure how long they had been sitting there for when he heard her mother calling her name, tentatively, and only loud enough that her voice carried to Juliet and no further than that. She looked over and smiled. "Could you go back to our tent and get Sophia a sweatshirt, she doesn't want me to leave." Juliet nodded and got up, picking up the bat she had been using earlier from the ground beside her feet.

"Wanna come with me?" she asked. He looked up at her and frowned before he shook his head. "Are you sure? It'd give you a chance to stretch your legs."

"You're scared to go by yourself." It wasn't a question. She looked down at the ground.

"Okay, yeah, I am… But there might be some left on the outskirts of camp. I don't think it's an unreasonable fear. Forget it, I'll be fine." She didn't sound sure. He sighed deeply and got up, checking his gun was at his side. Juliet smiled gratefully at him before she began making her way over to her family's tent.

The tent was half opened and Juliet came to an immediate halt. Daryl drew his gun, and the two approached slowly.

To her credit, she didn't scream. She just looked down in horror at the body lying there. He could see her trying to breathe slowly. She looked like she was about to faint. He tried saying her name but still she stood there staring. She wobbled slightly, and with the hand not holding his gun he grabbed her arm, steadying her. Finally, she looked away from her fathers mutilated corpse and over to him.

"What am I supposed to tell Carol?" she asked quietly, as though he had any idea what she was supposed to do. "And Sophia… Why hasn't Carol been back here yet? She must have realised he wasn't down there… What do I do?" She was hyperventilating now.

"Breathe less fast." he suggested. It was really all the advice he had right now.

"How helpful. I don't know how I'd struggle through this ordeal without you around me." Juliet said, glaring at him.

"Well what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know! Something fucking helpful!"

"You brought the wrong person with you if that was what you were hopin' for." The ghost of a smile crossed her face and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"Could I just leave it alone and let Carol find it later?"

"You could, but she knows you came up here. 'Sides, ain't that kinda cruel?"

"I'd best go talk to her then." Juliet said defeated. Before she left she walked over to where they kept their belongings and found a sweatshirt for Sophia. Daryl looked at her and she nodded, and in silence the two made their way back.

Juliet walked over to her mother and handed her what she had brought for her sister. She took Carol aside.

"Carol… It's, uh, it's Ed. I think some walkers came in past your tent, and he was like, getting out, and he… uh… he was bitten. Badly. I think he… I think he died before the worst of it even started." Juliet said to her. She was usually so good with words, what little she said anyway, but she seemed completely lost now.

"Oh God, I should have gone up when it all ended, but I was so worried about Sophia…"

"It's okay. You couldn't have done anything." Juliet said softly as her mother choked out a small sob.

"I… I have to go up there."

"You go, I'll talk to Sophia for you, if you want." Carol nodded.

"Please. I wouldn't know where to begin."

She put a hand on her mother's shoulder for just a second, and watching her he realised it was probably the only way she knew to convey reassurance. He had noticed that she tended to avoid physical contact, but he had assumed that she'd just read him well and knew he wasn't the touchy-feely type. Daryl realised now it was just how she was with everyone, even her family. The only person he had seen her get close to was Sophia.

As Carol left he watched Rick's wife go after her and Juliet gave him a small smile before she went to sit down with her sister, too far away for him to overhear. Rick and Carl left soon, and Rick gave a nod in his direction before guiding his kid away from them, who was protesting loudly about why he couldn't stay with Sophia.

Sophia

"Do you understand what I'm telling you, sweetheart?" Juliet asked, stroking a hand through her hair again. She knew that Juliet liked people to touch her hair when she was upset too. It was something they had in common, one of very few things actually.

"Dad's dead." Sophia's voice was cold, emotionless. She knew she should feel upset, but she couldn't quite bring herself to. She could see Rick and Daryl now up at the tent hauling her father's body away. Her mother had probably been crying. She wondered why she had sent Juliet to tell her instead of doing it herself.

"Yeah, that's right." Juliet did not sound surprised that Sophia wasn't upset. She probably felt a very similar sense of relief at what had happened.

"Will he come back?" she asked her. The prospect worried Sophia. He might be even worse if he came back as one of the walkers than he was when he was alive.

"No, they'll… deal with it before that can happen. You don't need to worry about that."

"Are you sad?"

Juliet looked at her for a long time, pushing her hair out of her face. She wasn't wearing her glasses, Sophia noticed, they were sat on top of her head. Knowing Juliet in a few minutes she'd panic about where they were, assuming she'd lost them and it would take her at least twenty minutes to realise they were on top of her head. She looked away from Sophia's eyes before she slowly shook her head and looked back up.

"You don't have to feel sorry if you're not sad either." Juliet told her firmly. "Carol won't be mad if you don't cry. She'll understand."

"I don't wanna cry."

"That's okay. I don't either."

"I'd cry if you died. I'd cry if mom died." Juliet smiled sadly and stroked through her hair again, pulling her a little closer.

"I know you would, sweetheart."

"Would you cry if I died?"

"That's not going to happen."

"But if it did?"

"It won't."

"Just answer!" Juliet laughed softly.

"Of course I would. You're my little sister."

"Would you forget me?"

"No, Sophia, of course I wouldn't. But like I said, it's not going to happen, so stop worrying about it."

Sophia was quite happy to just sit there for a little while in silence with her. She was just glad, as she so often had been over the last few weeks, that Juliet was there with her. She couldn't imagine what she would have done if Juliet had still been in California. She wondered if she would have tried to get to her, or if she might have died after a few weeks, or been focussed only on saving herself and whoever she was with.

She couldn't see her mother, but she saw Rick and Daryl carrying her father's body to the pile they were making of all those who had died that evening. It was sad, Sophia thought, that they had all been so happy a few hours ago, Juliet and her mother talking properly for the first time in months, eating around the fire with everyone. It had all fallen apart so quickly.

She voiced this to Juliet who just smiled sadly again and said:

"It's just what happens nowadays."

Sophia wished it wasn't. Things before had been pretty bad, but at least then there were no walkers to worry about, and she'd been able to have a proper night's sleep in her bed rather than lying on the ground in a cold tent.

"Juliet, I'm tired."

"You can come sleep in my tent for the night, I'm not sure you should go back to yours. Go get set up in there, okay, I'll be in there in a minute. I'll just find Carol and make sure she knows where you are so she doesn't worry."

Juliet's tent was set up next to Amy and Andrea's, close to the RV. Andrea was still by her sister's side; she hadn't moved since the attack. Sophia went in without causing too much fuss. The tent was a lot smaller than hers was. A small lantern was in the corner on top of a stack of books, some novels, some notebooks which Sophia knew Juliet would be writing either her own stories or her diary in. Sophia flicked on the lantern. Bedding lined the floor to make it comfier, and a single pillow was on top of it. Her stuff was mostly outside, still in the suitcase she had brought home with her.

Juliet entered the tent after not too long, carrying another pillow with her.

"Carol thought you might need this." Sophia took it and lay it beside her pillow.

"Will you stay with me? I don't wanna be by myself." Juliet nodded and lay down beside Sophia. "Tell me one of your stories."

"I can read to you from a book if you like."

"I hate books. Well, I hate your books."

"'The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.'" Juliet had said this to her a lot when Sophia complained about books. Juliet's stories were always much more interesting though. And shorter.

"And I hate Jane Austen most of all." Juliet laughed.

"Okay, which of my stories do you wanna hear?"

"A new one!"

Sophia knew she was far too old to be being told stories by her older sister, but she found it to be of great comfort to her. The last night Juliet had been at home she had told her a story. Sophia hadn't realised she was leaving for college the next day. Juliet hadn't told her. She explained in a letter that she would have cried if she'd had to say goodbye to her, so she had just left. Sophia knew she felt guilty about it, Juliet had said as much. She wished she could have left as easily as Juliet had. Sometimes she wished she was the older one.

What Sophia didn't realise of course was that Juliet could never come up with a story suitable to tell her. The ones she wrote were too dark for her younger sister, so she was in the habit of taking books she knew Sophia hadn't read or historical events and changing the names of characters or people so that she wouldn't catch on. Because of her outward contempt of Jane Austen, today's reworked novel was Emma. It was a pretty long book, and Sophia fell asleep not too far in.

Juliet

Juliet awoke next to her sister, and saw that it was light outside. Careful not to wake the younger girl, she emerged from her tent and stretched.

It had taken her that long to remember exactly what had happened the night before – The fish fry, Amy, Ed, everyone else, it all came back to her like a ton of bricks being dropped on top of her. Looking over to the RV she could see Andrea still there beside Amy, and awful as it was she was thankful it was not her and Sophia in that position. She was devastated about Amy though; she made a note to pay her respects to Andrea as soon as she was ready to receive them. For now, Juliet thought, it was probably best to leave her undisturbed.

Juliet approached a small group which had gathered. She could hear them discussing Amy.

"Tell 'em we can't just leave her, Juliet." Daryl said to her. She looked over and realised no-one had taken care of Amy yet. She frowned. She had just woken up. She was not in the mood for this.

"He's right, we can't leave her like that." Daryl looked triumphant. "But her sister needs time to grieve her, and it's not fair if we just run in and put a bullet in her brain before she's ready." Now Lori looked triumphant. Daryl rolled his eyes.

"Fine. Y'all can deal with what happens when she comes back then, I ain't doin' shit." He walked off away from them.

"How are you and Sophia doin'?" Lori asked her as the rest of the group dissipated. She handed Juliet a mug of tea and took her over to sit down, giving Juliet enough time to form an answer which didn't sound like she was rejoicing because her father had died.

"We're okay. How's Carol?"

"She's doing pretty well. Told us to leave the two of you to sleep this mornin', especially Sophia. It was a hard night for her."

"Must've been pretty hard on Carl too." Juliet said, veering the conversation away as best she could.

"Yeah, but they're both tough kids with all they've been through. They'll be okay."

Juliet might have thought of something else for them to talk about so they weren't sat together awkwardly if Jacqui hadn't started shouting.

"A walker got him! A walker bit Jim." she shouted. The pair ran over quickly, hearing Jim claim to be okay repeatedly. Lori looked over worriedly at Carl, as if by being in proximity to Jim the same might happen to him.

"Show it to us." Daryl said. Jim backed away from him. "Show it to us." he said louder. Juliet watched on in horror.

"Easy, Jim." Shane said to him, calming him the way you might calm a horse or another wild animal, not a person. Jim was still slinking away from them when Daryl quickly gave Shane the order to grab a hold of him. In a strange, twisted pantomime of the day before, Jim picked up a shovel off the ground, brandishing it at the men. Shane, still trying not to spook him calmly told him to put it down. To Juliet it simply felt like the most horrific déjà vu.

T-Dog managed to catch Jim and held him steady. Over and over as Daryl lifted his shirt he repeated that he was okay. The deep wound on his chest said otherwise.

Jim was sat by himself, quietly. The others discussed him. Jacqui, who Juliet knew was close with Jim, looked worried.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it." Came Daryl's blunt suggestion.

"Let Andrea grieve." Juliet hissed at him.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asked him, glaring. Until that point Juliet had been firmly on his side, but she knew that if it was her, in either Jim or Amy's position, that she would want them to put her out of her misery. She would never want to become one of those things, not even for a few seconds.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it." Daryl glared at her. They had spoken about this a few times on the long walks away from camp. He knew what she would have wanted.

"I hate to say it… I never thought I would… but maybe Daryl's right." Dale said. The group looked genuinely shocked that Dale was agreeing with him.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog." Rick said firmly. Not yet, Juliet thought, but he might be soon.

"I'm not suggesting…" Dale began, but Rick cut him off.

"He's sick. A sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear." Daryl said. "Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be."

Having had enough of the arguing now, Juliet walked away and went in to her tent. She had forgotten that Sophia was in there, although she found her awake, reading one of her notebooks. She was just glad it wasn't her diary.

"Morning!" Sophia said brightly, as though she had completely forgotten the night before.

"Morning." Juliet replied with a lot less enthusiasm, although it was probably afternoon by now. "Why are you still in here?"

"Because in here is quiet and safe and if I stay here then I don't have to deal with everything outside." she replied, sounding a lot older than she was. Juliet laughed softly and kissed the top of her head before she took her hand and took her outside. Honestly, Sophia had no idea how chaotic it still was out there.

"Go find Carl and play with him, okay? He's been looking lonely all day. We had to keep telling him not to wake you up." Sophia grinned at her and ran off to find him.

Juliet went back in to her tent to make her bed a little tidier. She looked over the notebook Sophia had been reading. It was just full of plans for books she wanted to write, one in particular, some fantasy series that she would never have the patience to draw out of planning. Several pages were filled with names of characters and creatures, some sketches she had done to accompany them sat on the opposite pages.

She took a few minutes to read through it again, smiling at the for once detailed plans. She usually dived straight in to writing a story, but this one had needed time. She'd probably never get the change to write it properly now.

After a little while she left the comfort of her tent and went outside. She wandered over, for no reason in particular, to Daryl, who was stood with a pick-axe ensuring none of those who had been bitten would come back again. He looked over at her when he heard footsteps and nodded towards one of the people on the ground, one whose head looked even more mutilated than the others.

"If you've come over to drive somethin' sharp into your daddy's head then you're too late." he told her before he swung the pick-axe down to some other poor bastard's head.

"I hadn't. Did you…"

"Your mom."

She looked at the head and thought how her mother, stronger than she looked, must have swung it down on him. It hadn't been just once. She must have done it over and over, taking out all those years of abuse on him. Suddenly, Juliet wished she'd gotten there first so it could have been her.

"I'll clean up after you." Juliet looked at him in confusion. "If you wanna… do what your mom did. There ain't much of his head left, but there's plenty of the rest of him."

"That's sick."

"You don't gotta feel bad 'bout it. I'm not gonna tell no-one."

She held her hand out for the pick-axe before she could think the better of it. Looking down at him she shook her head, resting the axe on the ground. She folded her arms over herself. Through the thin material of her shirt she felt the long scar along her hip. Her eyes darkened a little as she picked up the axe again and swung it down, first in to what was left of his head, then his neck, and repeatedly in to his stomach, thinking of everything he had done to her, Carol, and Sophia most of all as she kept slicing in to him. She knew her mother would have cried as she did it. Juliet never shed one tear. He wasn't worth it.

She felt her hand being grabbed before she could swing again. She didn't know how long she'd been doing it for, but her arms ached, and there wasn't a whole lot left of Ed.

"Damn. I was gonna ask you to help with the rest but I'm not sure you've got in in you." Daryl said. She looked up at him and swallowed, not smiling.

"I can handle it."

"Get to it then. Just the heads, and just once, mind, nothin' like that again. Better bag him up 'fore anyone else sees this mess." He might not have been happy about having to clean it up but he looked as though he understood, and didn't blame her for what she had done.

Juliet didn't feel good about it, nor had it brought her the relief she hoped it would. She had some peace of mind now, knowing that she had done something. Doing that was far better than doing nothing at all, of course it was, but he had already been dead. It was sicker than just doing it in the first place, but she wished he had been alive the night before when she found him, wished that he had taken Jim's place as being alive but bitten, dying slowly, painfully. Jim didn't deserve that, but Ed did. It would have given her a lot more of a sense of relief if he had been alive when someone drove an axe in to his head, preferably her or Carol.

There were only about five left to take care of, and Ed was in a bag by the time she was done.

"How are you gonna explain that?" she asked him. He shrugged.

"I'll say he was bit badly and you didn't want Sophia to see it. They'll believe what they wanna believe."

"Thank you for getting me to do that."

"Wasn't like you had to. I just thought it might help."

"It has a little." she admitted.

"Not a lot else you can do."

"You're being worryingly nice to me today."

"Figured I could give you a break, just today."

"What, 'cause my beloved father just died?" She stared at him for a few seconds before she looked down at the bag and laughed. "Oh God, I should not be laughing. I should be sombre and sad or at least try to look it. But damn that felt good. I'm a terrible person."

"I've met worse."

"Your kind words are what keep me going through these troubled times."

"I'm just glad to be helpin' out."

"Was that a very poor attempt at copying my sarcastic humour? Because if it was, wow. I wasn't sure you even knew what a joke was."

"Shut up."

"Oh please, I've kept talking after scarier people than you have said that to me."

"You've really got no common sense, have you?"

"Nope."

He just looked at her and shook his head, a very faint smile crossing his lips, one she would have easily missed on anyone else. It passed quickly but she kept looking at him. It would have been less odd if he'd just started doing cartwheels around her.

"Help me load these on to the truck." He motioned towards the bodies. She kept standing still.

"You smiled at me." He ignored her.

"Help me with the bodies, Glenn wants 'em up somewhere we can dig graves."

"You actually smiled at me."

"Help me with these."

"You actually like me!" He stopped ignoring her.

"No, I really don't."

"Yes you do! We're friends!"

"We're definitely not."

"Be as grumpy as you like, I got a smile outta you and it only took me two months, which I would estimate is probably about three years less than it takes most people."

"I'll like you even less if you don't get your ass over here and start helpin'."

She looked at him, knowing she could tease it further but aware that it probably wasn't the best idea, grinning at him before she started lifting the legs of the bodies he was loading on to the truck. There was nothing for her to find humour in but she found herself having to stop herself laughing. She knew Daryl was noticing. It was awful, and there was nothing funny about what she was doing, but she couldn't help herself.

"Stop glaring at me." Juleit said after a while.

"Stop laughin' at nothin'. They ain't gonna be too pleased back at camp if you're laughin' about their friends dying."

"I'm not laughing about that."

"Then what?"

"I'll tell you when I figure it out." He sighed.

"Sit on the back of the truck, keep 'em from fallin' out. I'll drive slow."

Not wanting to irritate him any more than she already had she jumped on to the back and sat sideways with her legs out, forming a barricade. There were too many in there for the door to work, and suddenly she was very aware of the fact she was sitting by the bodies of people she had known. She had eaten with them, spoken to them, known them, if not all of them particularly well. She recognised one woman beside her, a little older than Carol. She remembered on one of their first nights there she had brought Sophia over to her because she was scared and Ed was yelling at Carol. Susan, her name had been, and it didn't matter now. No matter what kind of person each of them had been, sweet like she was or deserving of this like her father in the body bag, they'd all ended up like this anyway.

She wondered, as she was tossed around in the truck, if they had somehow gotten a better deal out of all this than she had. They weren't miserable any more, they weren't scared. They got out of all this misery, didn't have to see the destruction their own deaths had caused.

"'Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.'" she whispered softly to herself.

Daryl stopped the truck where Rick and Shane were digging graves, and pushing all thoughts of death out of her head, she grabbed a shovel and started pitching in.

"I still think it's a mistake not burning these bodies." Daryl said warningly. "It's what we said we'd do, right? Burn 'em all, wasn't that the idea?"

"At first." Shane said.

"They won't come back, we took care of them. And this… It can only be passed through bites, right? It's not gonna spread to us through some bodies in graves over a hundred yards from where we sleep at night." Juliet said with a shrug. Her arms still hurt from using the pick-axe, but she wanted to help, to keep busy.

"The Chinaman gets all emotional, says it's not the thing to do, we just follow him along? These people need to know who the hell's in charge here, what the rules are."

"There are no rules." Rick said.

"Well, that's a problem." Lori chimed in. "We haven't had one minute to hold onto anything of our old selves. We need time to mourn and we need to bury our dead. It's what people do." Lori looked over to Juliet like she expected her to agree wholeheartedly, and then over to the bodies in the van. Juliet sighed. Lori expected her to want to mourn and bury her father, cry while someone said nice things about him that weren't true, when in fact she would like nothing more than to throw his corpse on a bonfire and never have to think about him again.

She wasn't sure if her thoughts were too morbid and twisted to be justified or not, but she had stopped minding them the moment she sunk the pick-axe in to what little was left of her father's skull, and started to welcome them when she chopped at the rest of him.

"I heard a gunshot earlier." Juliet said, deflecting Lori's attention. "Did Andrea…?"

"Yeah, she did." Lori said sadly. "She came back, Amy, and Andrea looked like she believed that she might know her but, in the end they always lose who they are. It wasn't her sister, it was some parasite in her body. Andrea put her down, nice and gentle. I think she was glad it was her, not someone else."

"If it was Sophia…" she lowered her voice a little. "I'd do the same. I'd want it to be me."

"It'd be different for you." Daryl said assuredly. "Amy was an adult, Andrea knew that, knew that she'd at least lived some of her life. Sophia's a kid. You'd never be able to look at her at this age and pull the trigger on a gun when you can barely kill some walker you never knew." Her mind flitted back to at the forest.

"She tripped yesterday, it's not her fault she couldn't kill them." Lori defended. She smiled weakly; no-one apart from she and Daryl knew what he was actually talking about.

Juliet wondered if he was right, if she really didn't have it in her to raise a gun to her little sister if this happened to her and put her out of her misery. She asked herself what other option there would be. Letting Sophia live as a walker would be cruel. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind. She wouldn't have to worry about that, she told herself. She'd keep Sophia safe.

They held a mass funeral for all their dead. Juliet debated not going, but as Carol reminded her, she needed to say goodbye to Amy. She had stayed, watching bodies being lowered in to grave she had helped to dig. Her arms really were killing her now.

"Why is he in a bag?" Carol had whispered to her as Ed had been lowered.

"Daryl said that he looked pretty bad. I didn't want Sophia to see, so I suggested we bag him up." she replied as nonchalantly as possible. She saw Carol whisper this to Lori, who had obviously asked the initial question. She looked unsatisfied by the answer, but she accepted that it was the only one she was going to get and said nothing else.

Juliet cried silently, unashamed, as Andrea put her younger sister in one of the graves. She held Sophia tight to her. Sophia turned away and closed her eyes. Juliet knew she would have done exactly the same thing at twelve.

"Juliet, could you watch Sophia for a while, I'm gonna take over from Jacqui and watch Jim for a bit." Carol told her. She nodded. Honestly she'd rather not – she just wanted to find somewhere quiet to sit by herself in the shade for a while a mull things over, but she knew Carol liked to keep busy in times of crisis so she let her go.

"Juliet, wait up!" She turned to see Shane.

"Go on ahead Sophia, I'll catch up. Stay in shouting distance." Sophia ran off and she turned to him. "What's up?"

"Have you heard the plans yet?" She shook her head. "Didn't think so. Rick's convinced we need to head to the CDC."

"Really, why?"

"He's convinced there's gonna be some magical cure waitin' for us there. For Jim, y'know? He doesn't see it like we do. He doesn't see that's bullshit." She wondered why it was suddenly even Rick's call as to where they went. "I personally, well, I think we need to be headin' down to Fort Benning, the army base. If there's anything left, near here, anyway, it's gotta be there."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I need people on my side so I can make my case."

"Look, Shane, I don't care what happens right now. All I care about is keeping my little sister safe. I don't care where we go, or what you do with Jim. Ask someone whose opinion people will actually listen to, like Dale, or try and reason with Daryl. This isn't my call, and it's sure as hell not my problem." With this she marched down the path after Sophia.

"You okay?" Sophia asked when she found her back at camp.

"Yeah…" I just yelled at Shane for no reason and before that I was chopping our father up like an insane person, but sure, I'm fine. Juliet realised that she was going to have to try very hard not to snap at Sophia the way she just had with Shane. She was sure what she had done was unwarranted but she wasn't in the mood for big group debates today.

It was quite late afternoon when Shane, Rick and Dale all arrived back from their sweep of the surrounding area. Juliet was sat on the ground letting Sophia braid her hair over and over again, trying to get it perfect. She liked people playing with her hair when she was in a bad mood. Sophia was talking to her about nothing in particular, but she really wasn't listening. Sophia didn't care if she answered or not, she just liked being able to talk at someone without them telling her to be quiet. Carol had come over a few times to check on them before heading back to Jim. Every time she did, Sophia would ask another unanswerable question about what was going to happen to him, and why they couldn't help.

"Listen up!" Shane announced as he walked back in, and Sophia stopped talking immediately and let her hands fall out of Juliet's hair. "I've been, uh… I've been thinking about Rick's plan. Now look, there are no… There are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first one to admit that. I've known this man a long time. I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning." CDC it was then. Juliet was just glad she didn't have to listen to anymore arguing about it, though she probably was obliged to apologise to Shane for snapping at him earlier.

"Okay?" Rick asked. There was general agreement around camp. Of course, if Carol didn't want to go then she wouldn't either, she couldn't leave Sophia, but she didn't think that would be a problem. Her mother would probably just go along with the plan.

Later that evening, after a dinner eaten in silence with the overwhelming feeling of emptiness around camp, Juliet had taken some of the plates down to the lake to wash them. It had been her and Amy's turn, but that wasn't something she had mentioned. With fewer mouths to feed, she was more than capable of doing it on her own. Daryl was sat not too far away, trying to catch fish from the lake side. She had noticed his absence at dinner.

"So are you coming to the CDC?" she asked him after a little while. He didn't look surprised that she was striking up a conversation. He was silent for a moment before he looked over to her and shrugged before answering.

"Well, I ain't really got anywhere else to go since them idiots handcuffed my brother to a fucking roof, have I?"

"You could go off on your own."

"That's a death sentence if I ever heard one."

"If you hated us all as much as you pretend to you wouldn't care."

She was rewarded with another very small smile which lasted half a second longer than the one earlier had done. This time she didn't say anything, just smiled to herself and carried on with the dishes. He might not want to admit it but she knew they were friends. It was no longer a case of him just putting up with her. He actually liked and welcomed her company.

"Do you agree with me 'bout Jim yet?" Daryl asked her after a few minutes.

"I'm terrified he's gonna turn overnight. I mean, it was a pretty big bite, right? I know it takes longer if a person's left alive, but do any of us know how long exactly? Maybe it would be best… 'If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive'."

"That's one of the better stupid quotes I've heard you say."

"How'd you know I didn't just come up with that?"

"Because whenever you're being all profound and shit you're usually talkin' the nonsense you read in them books. And whenever you have these little moral crisis's you come up with one." She had to smile at how well he already figured out. She didn't class herself as a particularly complicated person, but not a lot of people paid enough attention to really get to know her. She reckoned that Daryl was just a very good judge of character.

"You've really been paying attention enough to have me completely figured out?"

"Wasn't a lot else to do while we were walkin', was there?"

"Guess not. You could have actually talked to me."

"Didn't want to encourage us talkin'."

"And becoming friends."

"See before you mentioned that I was gonna offer you a ride to the CDC, but you can forget it now." He looked more amused than annoyed and she grinned at him.

"Because we're friends."

"I'm definitely not offering now."

"Too late, you've mentioned it now."

"Nope, no way."

"You have to, or I'll be stuck in the RV."

"Not my problem."

"It is. Please?" She hadn't wanted to go in the RV anyway considering it meant she'd have to spend the whole journey with and ill Jim and Dale and Jacqui worrying about it, and Glenn, who would either be silent or talking nonsense that she didn't have the patience to listen to, but there wasn't room for her anywhere else apart from with Shane, and since she hadn't apologised for her outburst she doubted he was going to offer her a ride. Rick had suggested she asked Daryl but she had just laughed it off. Now the idea was very appealing to her.

"No."

"Daryl!" she whined. He sighed deeply.

"Fine, but you keep quiet."

"I win!"

"I can reject the offer."

"No you can't. I'm going back to camp before you realise what a horrible idea it is."

"I already know what a horrible idea it is."

She collected the plates and cutlery in the bag she'd brought them down in, careful to pack them in a way that meant nothing would break. She got up and stopped as she was passing him.

"Thanks for offering."

"I didn't really."

"Hey, you thought up the idea, not me."

"Better you than anyone else." Juliet smiled to herself and shook her head as she made her way back to camp.

"What took you so long?" Carol asked as she made her way back in to camp. She shrugged as she knelt down and began to unload the plates from her bag. Without even thinking, Carol knelt to help her with it, and she smiled warmly at her.

"Befriending anti-social people takes time."

The next morning, after another night where very few people slept, this time including her, what was left of the camp packed away, those who had been left alive after the massacre of the other night gathered around the cars. Juliet was sad that Morales and his family had decided to take a car and head in another direction, but not shocked. The CDC wasn't a sure thing, and if there was another viable option which seemed safer she would probably take it too. Sophia cried as she said goodbye to Eliza, who gave her the doll that she carried everywhere. Sophia took great pride in showing it to Juliet.

"You sure you've got all your stuff?" Carol asked her.

"Carol, you're making me paranoid. I've checked like fifteen times, I have everything I'll need immediately in the backpack, and all mine, yours, and Sophia's stuff in the suitcase which is going with you in the car. Stop making me worry!" Carol laughed and put her arm around Sophia.

"Right, we'll see you when we stop. Sophia, say goodbye to your sister."

"Bye!" Sophia said happily.

"Bye kid." Juliet said with a grin, ruffling her hair before she got in to the passenger side of the truck and watched the two of them get in to the car with Rick and Lori.

"Got all your stuff?" Daryl asked her. Juliet knew full well he'd been listening to the exchange so she pulled a face at him.

"Fuck off."

"I can still kick you out."

"I know you won't."

Juliet managed to be quiet for about five minutes before she remembered that reading in cars gave her headaches and she had to stop. Daryl needed to learn some conversational skills, because looking over to check she hadn't died every few minutes was not really going to keep her entertained for any of this journey.

"So what is this game?" he asked her after she proposed they play something.

"Zitch walker. Like zitch dog, but with walkers. Every time you see a walker on the side of the road you say zitch walker and whoever says it first gets the point. You usually play it with dogs in other cars but it seems kinda morbid to look in the cars we pass for dead dogs." Daryl looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"Why are you making me play this?"

"I'm bored."

"Should've gone in another car then." She frowned. "Zitch walker." She grinned.

"Not fair, we hadn't started yet."

"Too bad, I'm drivin'; we play your dumb games when I say we do. You're just gonna have to catch up. And zitch walker. You suck at this."

"Because you're talking to me! And if it's a dumb game why are you playing?"

"I'm bored too, even if this is stupid and childish."

What started off a rather calm game quickly escalated so they both yelled each time they saw a walker and argued fiercely over who saw it first. Daryl had been smiling faintly since about the sixth one they'd seen, and again came the feeling of pride that he actually smiled when she was around.

"Hell no, I called that one first!" he told her firmly. They were still arguing about one that they had seen at least two miles back.

"Bullshit, I called it like five seconds before you did!" she argued.

"If you think I'm lettin' you take that point then…" Daryl stopped as he saw the cars in front grind to a halt. He put the brakes on the car and frowned. "C'mon, let's go see what's up."

The pair got out of the car and walked down to where everyone was gathered around the RV. Lori explained quickly that the radiator hose was shot and that Shane and T-Dog had just left with the hope of finding some way of fixing it. Juliet could see them walking up ahead towards what looked like a gas station.

Jim was getting worse, as she understood. Rick spent a lot of time in the RV. Sophia was busy playing with Carl so she just stood with her arms folded against the RV, braiding her hair.

Shane and T-Dog came back quickly and as she understood it, they had managed to find a way to fix the RV radiator hose, not that she understood the slightest thing about cars, having never owned one herself and therefore never having had to know anything.

"Jim wants to be left here." Rick announced to everyone as he exited the RV.

"He said that?" Lori asked, dubious of this. Rick nodded.

"It's what he says he wants."

"And he's lucid?" Carol asked, also sceptical.

"He seems to be. I would say yes." Rick replied.

"If it's what he wants, it not out call." Juliet said with a small shrug. "We have to do as he asks even if we might not want to." Dale nodded.

"Back in the camp when I said Daryl might be right and you shut me down, you misunderstood. I would never go along with callously killing a man." This was accompanied by a quick glare in Daryl's direction who shrugged. Juliet shook her head. "I was just gonna suggest that we ask Jim what he wants. And I think we have an answer."

"We just leave him here? We take off? Man, I'm not sure I could live with that." Shane said quietly.

"It's not your call, either one of you." Lori said decisively.

"It's his. It has to be his." Carol agreed. There seemed to be a murmur of agreement throughout everyone there. Some looked upset at the prospect, Jacqui especially, but no-one outwardly disagreed, so Shane and Rick headed in to the RV and carried him out, up a slight hill, and propped him up against a tree.

"Hey, another damn tree." Jim said, chuckling to himself. Juliet smiled sadly at him. It must be awful to know you're going to die imminently.

"Hey, Jim… I mean, you know it doesn't need to be this." Shane told him. She wondered what other options there were though. Jim, in this condition, would never make it to the CDC. There was only this, or suicide, or, if he wanted someone else to do it, an odd and inhumane seeming euthanasia.

"No. It's good. The breeze feels nice." Jim said. She was blinking away tears.

"Okay. All right." Shane sounded defeated, sad that he hadn't been able to do anything for Jim, sounding like he thought he had failed as a leader.

"Just close your eyes, sweetie. Don't fight." Jacqui said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Jim, do you want this?" Rick offered him a gun. He shook his head.

"No. You'll need it. I'm okay. I'm okay." Juliet didn't understand how anyone could want to turn. Surely death was better than knowing you would completely lose yourself, but of course, Jim wouldn't see it that way, not since his wife and sons had been turned.

"Oh. Hey. Thanks for, uh, for fighting for us." Dale for once seemed lost for words.

As the group departed one by one she found herself stood there, not knowing what to say. There was nothing. She hadn't been close enough to him to say a profound goodbye, but she'd also known him too well to just not care that it was happening. They'd lived together for two months now. It would be odd and unfamiliar not to have him stood helping Dale with the RV every day and never seeming to get much done in the way of fixing it.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up at Daryl. She looked at Jim one last time and gave him a very weak smile which was all she could muster up, and let Daryl lead her back down to the truck.

"Cry if you like." Daryl said, softly for once, not pitying, more sympathetic. "I ain't gonna judge you or tell no-one."

"Thanks, but I think I'm okay."

She was quite happy to spend the rest of the journey in silence, which probably would have suited Daryl just fine if he hadn't been worrying about her because of it. She just stared out of the window, willing it to be over soon. After what seemed like a long time but probably wasn't, she fell asleep leaning against the glass pane of the window.

"Hey, wake up. We're here." Daryl shook her softly and she opened her eyes. It took a moment for it to all come back to her, where they were, what had happened. She savoured the moment of ignorance every morning as she awoke, that moment when nothing was real and she didn't remember any of what had happened, who she was, where she was. They were the only real times now that she felt safe, and so she enjoyed them as best she could.

She got out of the truck a little groggily and was simply met by a lot of people telling her to be quiet. The courtyard they had stopped in was full of bodies, but since none of them were walking around trying to eat her, she didn't see this as too much of an issue.

As they approached the building Shane pounded on the shutters. They were met by silence. There was no-one there, no-one to help them. T-Dog voiced this immediately.

"Then why are these shutters down?" Rick asked. Someone might have answered, or at least taken the time to think about it had Daryl not then yelled:

"Walkers!" Everyone turned around and saw them approaching. Lori and Carol looked frightened, and exchanging a look both told their children to stay close. They looked ready to head back to the cars. "You led us into a graveyard!" Daryl accused Rick as he shot at one of them. Juliet remembered very quickly that she was unarmed.

"He made a call." Shane defended his decision.

"It was the wrong damn call!" Daryl screamed.

"We should have listened to you in the first place." Juliet said to Shane, shaking her head slowly, looking to Sophia as more walkers were shot, checking she was okay. She was clutching Carol now, sobbing quietly.

They all argued for too long about what to do next, but as more walkers approached it seemed to only option was to head back to the cars and drive as far as they could with what little gas they had left.

"All right, everybody back to the cars. Let's go. Move." Shane told them. Everyone seemed to oblige fairly quickly.

"The camera… it moved." Rick said quietly. Everyone stopped.

"You imagined it." Shane insisted, anxious to be getting back to the cars.

"It moved." Rick said. "It moved." he repeated.

"Rick, it is dead, man. It's an automated device. It's gears, okay? They're just winding down. Now come on. Man, just listen to me. Look around this place. It's dead, okay? It's dead. You need to let it go, Rick." He wouldn't listen to Shane, He began banging on the shutters helplessly. She heard Sophia sob louder. Shane and Lori tried to cajole him and drag him away.

"Everybody get back to the cars now!" Shane instructed.

"Please, we're desperate." Rick said to the ghost of a camera. "Please help us. We have women, children, no food, hardly any gas left."

"Rick. There's nobody here." Lori told him again. He was acting like a madman. Even if anyone was there, they would probably never let someone who seemed than unhinged in. Rick kept pounding on the door.

"Come on, buddy, let's go. Let's go."

"Please help us." Rick begged. "You're killing us! You're killing us! You're killing us!"

They were finally going to leave, walking away, Juliet by Sophia's side now, one hand in her little sister's hair when the shutters opened, and they were drowned in light from inside the building. She could say or do nothing but stand with wide eyes, staring, hoping that finally with this, their luck was going to begin to turn.