*Here's the new chapter, I hope everyone likes it! Don't forget to review and let me know what you think!
Rose woke up to the sound of Jamie screaming and she sat up quickly, looking around seeing the tent open.
"Jamie!" She screamed and threw herself off the cot running out the tent, and sighs at the sight. Jamie laughed now, and then let out another scream as she ran from Daryl. Wait Daryl? Rose rubbed the sleep from her eyes, watching as Daryl picked Jamie up and spun her around making her daughter squeal in delight.
"Mommy!" Jamie called out now, hanging from Daryl's shoulder as he walked over to Rose, giving her a small smile before setting Jamie down. "Mr. Daryl was playing with me, you were still asleep." She says and Rose looks over at Daryl as he shrugs.
"She was wandering around camp, Lori's got Carl studying so I thought I'd keep her busy, let you sleep in." He says scratching the back of his head, watching her confused expression fade and turn into a smile.
"Oh. Well thank you." She says quietly, pulling her hair to the side, and looked down at Jamie. "You eat already?" She asks and Jamie nods.
"Mr. Daryl gave me food, and then Glenn gave me a peach." She says grinning just in time for Glenn to walk over, a basket of peaches in hand.
"Moring Rose." He says giving her a smile and let her take a peach, "Daryl, Rick wants to talk to you before you leave." Glenn says, and Rose looks at him confused.
"I've got to go out searching for Sophia." He explains, watching as she nods and brushes some of her unruly curls behind her ear, sleep still clear in her eyes.
"You go all alone? That's kind of dangerous." She says watching as Jamie followed after Glenn, pulling at his shirt to get him to pay attention to her.
"I'll be fine," He says with a shrug, "That's what I was doing the night I ran into you." Daryl hears Rick call his name and he sighs, "Got to go." He says and walks over to his tent, and grabs his crossbow before walking towards Rick, Rose watching as he left.
Rose smiles a little watching as Jamie ran to Daryl when he passes her and latches onto his leg, ignoring his protests for her to get off him, making Rose laugh when he groans and starts walking, Jamie giggling as she got a free ride over to Rick and Shane where she'd only be shooed away.
Rose sighs shaking her head still smiling when she walked back into her tent and pulled her sleeping clothes off, she searched through her belongs, finding some clothes to wear and settled for her denim shirt, a white tank top and a long sleeved blue flannel shirt. She got dressed quickly, and sat on the cot brushing all the knots out of her hair before pulling it to the side and braided it.
She left her tent after she pulled her boots on and headed towards everyone smiling as Jamie ran over to her, a stick in hand, Carl chasing after her.
"Be careful with that stick Jamie!" She said as Jamie ran past her, Carl stopping beside Rose, leaning over some to catch his breath and she laughs. "She can wear you out huh?" She asks patting his back when he nods before he runs off to chase her and she smiles, biting into her peach and made her way to Lori.
"Hey," She says smiling as Lori waves. "Anything I can do to help today?"
"We're on laundry duty." Lori says with a sigh, leaning down to pick up a laundry basket and passed it to her, "Gather up everyone's laundry on that side of camp, and I'll handle this side then we'll meet up at the pond." Rose nods and turns on her heel, heading straight for her tent first, and gathered all the dirty clothes she had, which were only a few since Lori had washed them a few nights prior. She stops Daryl when he walks passed the open tent, and hurries out with the basket.
"I need your clothes," She says and he looks at her confused touching his shirt and she laughs shaking her head. "Not the one's you're wearing princess, your dirty ones." She says and sets her basket down by his tent.
"Bout time you get to doing your womanly work," He says with a chuckle as he unzips his tent, earning a look from her.
"Didn't peg you for a sexist Daryl, of course I could have just assumed, southern accent and all." She says walking into the tent with him, letting out a whistle. "A sexist and a pig." She states seeing the mess of his tent before she sits on his bed.
"You're one to talk sweetheart, with a southern accent like that it's no wonder you're off doing laundry and taken care of the little ones." She rolls her eyes at him.
"Fuck off." She says playfully and he laughs sitting down across from her on his suitcase.
"You know for a momma you sure do have a mouth on you." He says which makes her roll her eyes again, stretching out her legs in front of her.
"Well I haven't always been a mother Daryl." She says with a shrug, crossing her ankles.
"Obviously, not much of a mother, you're more like a toddler yourself actually." He says and she narrows her eyes at him.
"You think you're cute but you're not." She says bitterly, which makes a smug look form across his face before he points at her.
"Liar." He says, and stands up grabbing his dirty clothes, and threw them into the laundry basket. "There you go darlin', now get to doing your job." He says as she walks out of his tent, seeing him walking away towards the stables, off to search for Sophia.
xxxxx
Rose was had been washing laundry with Lori for almost an hour now, mainly working on Daryl's. His clothes were filthy; they were stiff with blood, mud and sweat. She almost wanted to throw the button up shirt she was washing into the pond when she found it was near impossible to get the stain out of the sleeve, but the blood was starting to wash off so she gave the shirt another chance.
"So Rose," Lori started catching Rose's attention and she turns to look at her, pausing her scrubbing of Daryl's shirt. "I don't know if I can ask this but…What's happened to Jamie's dad?" She asks and Rose sighs, leaning back on her heels.
"No, it's okay." She says glancing over towards where Jamie was with Carl, the two laying on the ground and looking up at the sky. "I was twenty when I met him, Ryder." She says with a small smile, "We never got married, but we had been with each other for two years when I got pregnant with Jamie, and he just left, in the middle of the night, no note, no good bye, nothing." She says shaking her head as she remembered, "I was eight months along." She says quietly, and goes back to scrubbing Daryl's shirt.
"Oh wow I... I'm sorry." Lori says quietly, watching as Rose shrugged.
"He was a prick, Jamie was better off without him anyways. He never grew up, I grew out of my party girl ways and he stayed." She murmurs holding Daryl's shirt in front of her, satisfied with it and set it in the pile of clothes to be hung up to dry, and went to work on one of Jamie's dresses.
Lori smiled a little; glad Rose was opening up to her like this. She had honestly liked Rose, she was laid back, friendly, and wanted to help the group, and she'd given Carl someone to occupy his time with. "Well Jamie's a sweet little girl, you've raised her right." She says and Rose smiles.
"Thank you," She says turning to glance back at Jamie and Carl, "Carl's a good boy, I'm glad Jamie's got a friend…It's been so long since we've been with people this kind."
"Were you in a group before this?" Lori asks turning to her, her load of laundry done and Rose nods sighing a little.
"We were, briefly…They were…They were real bad people, they hurt me, tried to hurt Jamie." She says her hand going to her side, the gash still sore.
"We haven't met anyone like that, we got lucky with Hershel." Lori says her eyes following Rose's hand, "They did that to you? I saw it when Hershel was stitching you up."
Rose sighs and stands up, grabbing her pile of wet clothes and headed towards the clothes line, Lori following. "Jamie and I had been on the road for a week, and we ran into this small group, two guys and a girl." She says as pins up the dress. "They seemed nice, and they had food, lots of it. So they took us in." She says Lori listening to her intently, pinning up her own clothes. "But one night one of the guys, Bill I think his name was, he came over to me…wanted me to 'repay' him and his buddy for letting me and Jamie stay." She says letting out a humorless laugh, "The girl I'm sure had been in the same situation I was in, and stayed in her tent…I stabbed the fucker in the leg, and that's how I got cut."
"How'd you get away?" Lori asks, the things some people were capable of doing astonished her, she could never hurt someone like that…not for no reason, she was glad Rose stabbed the monster.
"Held a gun to his head, shot the other dead." She says turning to look at Lori, and shrugged. "I wasn't about to let him hurt Jamie." She says quietly and Lori nods, she would have done the same thing to keep Carl safe.
"Momma," I looked over at Jamie when she called out to me, "When's Mr. Daryl coming back? He promised me he'd take me for a walk." Jamie said and Rose looks at her confused, Daryl had agreed to spend time with her daughter? Normally she'd be pissed someone was doing things without her permission, but Jamie seemed to like Daryl a lot, and she was safe with him.
"I don't know baby." Rose says seeing Jamie frown before turning back to chase after Carl. Daryl had been gone for hours now.
"Daryl normally stays gone until nightfall; he never gives up looking for Sophia." Lori says and Rose nods, trying not to seem so worried.
"Yeah, he's a good guy…he's a prick though." Rose says making Lori chuckle. "Jamie likes him a lot, she likes his voice." Rose says looking over at Lori as she smiles.
Lori got ready to open her mouth when there was a gunshot, Rose and Lori looked at each other before running towards the sound Lori telling Carl to stay with Jamie.
Rose ran as fast as she could, seeing Rick and Shane dragging someone towards camp, and when she saw it was Daryl her head dropped.
"What happened? Is he okay?" She shouted running over to them, following after them as they dragged him to the house seeing Jamie running towards them now.
"He was shot." Rick said through gritted teeth, and Rose heard Jamie scream 'Mr. Daryl".
"Jamie baby come here," Rose said as Jamie started to cry and she picked her up, and sits down on the porch as everyone enters the house, her heart racing. He was shot, there was so much blood…she had just met Daryl, but she didn't want him to die. He couldn't die.
Rose took Jamie inside while Hershel stitched Daryl up, she kept Jamie in the living room with Carl while she stood outside the door, listening to Daryl explain what had happen, how the horse bucked him off here where he fell down a hill, his arrow lodging itself into his side, and where he found Sophia's doll. Daryl had come through for the group, but he had been hurt hell Andrea even shot him. Rose took a step back as Carol walked out of the room, giving her a sad look before leaving the house and Rose sighed. She glanced over at Jamie on the couch before motioning to her to come over, and slowly cracked open the door.
Daryl had been lying in bed, thinking about what Carol had told him, that he was every bit as good as the rest of them. But he really had a hard time believe it and he wanted to be alone. He got ready to snap at whoever was trying to bother him now until he saw it was Rose, Jamie at her side.
"Mr. Daryl." Jamie spoke first and the little girl was sniffling, and her eyes were red and puffy. Daryl let out a sigh and sat up slowly, wincing as he did so and Rose sat beside him, helping him sit up.
"She wanted to see you before bed." Rose whispered to him, her hand resting on his arm as Jamie walked over and set her rabbit beside him on the bed.
"I want you to keep him until you're better." She says and Daryl shakes his head, "No. You have to, whenever I get hurt he always makes me feel better, so you have to keep him." She says and Rose smiles at Jamie, shaking her head.
Jamie never parted with that rabbit, she had had it since she was a baby, carried it around with her everywhere, and she never even let Rose take it. But here she was, loaning it out to Daryl, and Rose knew that her daughter really had a thing for him, which made her nervous.
"Jamie, can you give me and Daryl a minute? I'll be right out." She says and Jamie starts to protest but Rose sends her the mom look and she sighs and climbs onto the bed, pressing a kiss to Daryl's bandaged head before hurrying out to where Carl was.
"How are you feeling?" Rose asks quietly, moving so she could face him giving him a small smile and Daryl shrugs laying back in the bed.
"About as good as I look." He murmurs biting his bottom lip when she trailed her fingers along his arm.
"So you must feel like shit then huh?" She laughs which makes him chuckle while she moves to take his hand in hers and she brings it to her lips. "No more going out alone Daryl." She says softly and he looks at her for a moment, not understand this affection, not wanting to want it like he did. "My daughter has grown very fond of you." I've grown very fond of you she things to herself but she wasn't about to say it, "You don't need to go off getting yourself killed okay?" She asks and Daryl licks his lip, giving a small painful shrug.
"I'll do what I can." He mummers and Rose sighs before letting go of his hand.
"I'm going to go put Jamie to bed; I'll see you in the morning." She says quietly and leans forward pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth without thinking. "Night." She murmurs and pulls back giving him one last small smile before leaving him alone.