Lanterns to the Sky

"Jamie," Lori called suddenly, waking the dozing woman. Jamie's neck was stiff as she pulled her head up to look over to where Lori was approaching her, looking rushed. She supressed a groan of pain and rolled her neck, trying to alleviate the discomfort. "Can I talk to you?" she asked once she was a couple of feet away, rubbing her palms on her jeans nervously.

The blonde knew that wasn't a good sign. "Sure," she agreed immediately. Pulling herself onto her feet, she motioned for Lori to lead the way and began to limp after her slowly. Her knee was stiff from lack of movement, but at least it wasn't throbbing anymore. If only she could have some ice for it, that would make thing so much better.

Lori led the way toward the house, keeping her pace slow so that Jamie could keep up with her. She didn't say anything as she walked her along, her mind far away in her thoughts. Jamie watched her from her corner of her eye carefully, unable to help herself from wondering just what was going on inside the other woman's head. Lori had been drawing away from everyone recently and it was slightly concerning for most parties.

"What's wrong?" Jamie asked when they reached the house, taking the back steps up onto the porch. Lori hesitated as she paced on the spot slightly, continuing to rub her hands on her jeans. "Lori-"

"Did you have an affair with my husband?" Lori asked as she cut off Jamie's words, looking up into the hazel eyes of the other woman. Jamie looked shocked for a moment before her features dropped into a dark frown, her hazel eyes seeming to deepen. Lori was fearful of the look because it was nearly identical to the one that she had given Shane that morning outside the barn.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Jamie growled out after a moment, her voice eerily calm. "Be lucky that even if you weren't pregnant I wouldn't hit someone weaker than me. Yea, I know about the bun in the oven." Lori felt her blood turn to ice as Jamie stepped closer to her, fighting against the urge to back away in fear. She knew that it wasn't a good idea to ask Jamie, but she figured that it was better to do when she was injured and slowed down. After her reaction with Andrea, she feared what the blonde could do. "I don't know which is worse, the fact that you just short of called me a whore or that you have such little faith in your own husband. He risked everything for you and your son and you have the audacity to ask if I was sleeping with him?"

"Please, just answer-"

"No," Jamie snapped, "I wasn't sleeping with your husband when I was desperately searching for my fiancé." Lori eyes diverted to the ground, feeling like a reprimanded child. "You'd know all about affairs, though, wouldn't you? Shane, right?"

Lori's head snapped back up with fearful eyes, trying to stop what Jamie was saying. "You don't know-"

"Oh, bullshit. He's got only puppy eyes for you, Lori. Rick told me all about Shane, his best friend, and yet all they seem to do is disagree. Why would Shane suddenly have such a hate for someone he used to care so much about. And then I realized; he's got it for the best friend's wife. And you didn't waste a fucking second after you thought he was dead, did you? Was that what made you think it was okay? 'The world ended, my husband's dead so I'm going to bang his best friend'?" Lori flinched at the menacing words that Jamie was saying, feeling each one cutting deep.

"I'm sorry, but with the way that he's been looking at you, it's concerning me."

"We're friends, Lori. I saved his life, he saved mine. It's an 'I got your back' kind of thing," Jamie nearly yelled, "Fuck." she couldn't stop herself before she turned and kicked the stairs with her good leg, wanting to get out some of her frustration. "God damn it, Lori, why did you do this? Everything's already going to shit and you go off and ask that?"

"It's a fair question!" she defended.

"For who?" Jamie asked back, looking at Lori like she was insane. "I love my fiancé, I would never cheat on him. Just because you cheated on your husband, whether you thought he was dead or not, doesn't give you any fucking right to assume anyone else would do that." Lori didn't say anything more, leaving her eyes on the ground as Jamie glared at the top of her head. She scoffed after a moment and turned to leave, her strides long and her body tense. "Un-fucking-believable."

She made her way around to the front of the house, seeing that several others were hanging around there as well. Glenn was sitting with Maggie, looking comfortable. He smiled to her when he saw her, dissipating her dark mood slightly and allowing her to smile back. At least someone was happy. She looked over to the barn, watching as Andrea and T-Dog began to make their way back toward the house.

"What's going on here?" she finally asked, looking down to Glenn and Maggie. She hadn't really had time to get to know Maggie, but she trusted her.

"Well, Shane and Dale are off somewhere, Rick went with Hershel for a while and Andrea and T-Dog are on watch at the barn. Where's Daryl?"

"Talking to Carol," she explained easily, looking off toward the distance as the sun began its descent toward the horizon. Now that she knew of the walkers in the barn, she dreaded night time more than she ever had in her life before. She always used to love the night; she loved the air that cooled down and the quiet that came with everyone else in the area going to sleep. It was her own time and now she didn't even have that.

"How's your leg?" Maggie asked suddenly, watching as Jamie continuously leaned off her bad leg and shifted where she stood.

"As good as can be with a four inch cut," she answered honestly, twisting her leg slightly to try and move the joint about. "Never did get to thank you; I heard you helped a lot. So, thank you." Maggie smiled faintly and nodded her head. Jamie was someone that seemed to bounce around a lot, never having one specific place, job or person to be with. She knew the relationship between her and Daryl, but she also knew that Daryl wasn't the type to be tied down to one place. He moved around, too, just in a different way. Daryl moved about to try and get away from everyone, but there was almost some kind of gravitational pull that brought him back to Jamie—and inevitably, the group.

"It's no problem."

Jamie turned her attention to Glenn, seeing that he was watching Maggie the entire time. "Nice hat, Glenn," she teased, seeing him blush once more and pull the fishing cap off his head. It was clearly Dale's hat, one that she had seen him wear constantly while sitting up on top of the RV on lookout. She couldn't stop herself from laughing softly at him, knowing that it was embarrassing and that it was also the fault of the woman beside him that he didn't have his own cap.

"Why don't you go get your baseball hat, I'll wash it for you," Maggie suggested, also smiling in amusement. Glenn grinned and nodded before rising to his feet.

"Hey, what's going on?" T-Dog asked loudly as he and Andrea approached, drawing everyone's attention to them. Jamie turned to face them when she noticed that neither looked happy about something. Glenn stopped walking toward the camp to answer.

"Where is everyone? Rick and I were supposed to leave a couple of hours ago to look for Sophia," Andrea answered, looking between Glenn and Jamie. Jamie frowned at her words and wondered what Hershel could have been doing that made Rick hours late. Rick was one of the few that wanted desperately to continue looking for Sophia, he wouldn't slack off voluntarily.

"Yea you were," Daryl called, nearly making Jamie jump when she hadn't heard him behind her. "What the hell?" She looked over her shoulder to where he and Carol were approaching, the woman looking much better than the last time she had seen her. Clearly, the talk between them had helped to lighten her spirits somewhat.

"Rick told us he was going out," Carol added on, the upset of the news clear on her face and in her voice.

"Damn it, isn't anybody taking this seriously?" he demanded, looking back around the property for any sign of the other man. Jamie looked back from where they had come and felt her heart sink at the sight that met her.

Shane was marching up the path with the bag of guns over his shoulder, looking aggravated and motivated. It wasn't rocket science to know that he was about to do something very stupid and it included guns, walkers and a rickety old barn. She wasn't sure, however, if she disliked the idea of shooting down all of the walkers or not. Yes, it could put them on bad terms with Hershel, but she wanted the ability to sleep without fear.

Daryl's attention turned to Shane as well, "Ah, here we go. What's all this?" he asked once Shane was next to him, holding out a shotgun.

"You with me, man?" Shane just asked, waiting for Daryl to take the gun. Jamie straightened up in attention as Daryl's hand closed around the gun. Things were about to start. "Time to grow up!" He declared, moving over to Jamie next and pulling out her sniper rifle. She looked at it for a moment, unsure. Before he had a chance to move it away, she hooked her hand in the strap and pulled it back to herself. It was strange, the immense sense of security that came to her immediately once the gun was back in her grasp. She hadn't realized it until that moment, but the lack of a gun had a deep feeling of unease constantly swirling about inside her gut.

"I thought we couldn't carry?" T-Dog asked, taking the gun that Shane offered him.

"Yea, well, we can and we have to. Now, it was one thing standing around here pickin' daisies when we thought this place was safe but now we know it ain't," he said loudly, making sure that everyone could hear him. Jamie's stomach tightened in worry and anticipation; she knew what was coming. It was time to take care of the walkers in the barn. Either the dead went, or they did.

"My dad will make you leave tonight," Maggie warned, raising her voice at Shane.

"Daryl," Jamie started cautiously as she approached him, keeping her sniper pointed at the ground. He looked to her with just as much emotion in his eyes. He didn't want to leave the farm yet, but he also knew that it wasn't right to leave the walkers alive. "Things are about to get completely fucked up, aren't they?" she asked softly, nearly pressed against his body so that no one else could hear.

"I have a feelin' things already are," he answered, watching her carefully.

Jamie sighed softly, looking over her shoulder to where Lori was walking across the porch from the back of the house. "Lori asked me if I had slept with Rick earlier," she explained, having to keep a hold on his arm when he moved to step away in shock and to—no doubt—confront Lori. "I may have cussed her out pretty badly, so things aren't exactly going to be pretty around here. Walkers or no walkers."

"She called you a fuckin' whore?" Daryl growled out in low tones, looking feral.

"Oh, shit," T-Dog swore, all conversations going silent. Jamie turned around in order to look at what the problem was, her blood freezing in her veins when she caught sight of the guys on the other side of the field, pulling walkers along by poles. Shane ran passed her suddenly, making a mad dash toward where Rick was helping Hershel and Jimmy to pull a couple of walkers along toward the barn.

Jamie wasn't able to run like the others but watched carefully as Shane ran right up around Rick and Hershel, Jimmy standing between them, and started yelling. The others all ran right behind him, Daryl included, and stopped short of where Shane had forced the others to a stop. She tried to make her way over quickly, but it was a bit of a distance to cover and she was limping at best.

Jamie jolted to a stop as Shane starting firing off rounds at the woman that was at the end of the pole Hershel was carrying, yelling out about how she couldn't have survived it she had been sick or alive. It was not good, she knew, and she just wished he would shoot it. She didn't feel repulsed at the sight of walkers anymore, but she felt a deep rooted fear for her life whenever she was so close to one. Without further hesitation, Shane marched right up to the woman and shot her through the head. Unlike the rest of the shots, this time she collapsed.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" he finished, looking directly at Carol as he yelled out. Jamie felt the urge to slap him again and sped up her pace until she had walked passed Carol, Lori and Carl and was standing next to Daryl. "Enough living next to a barn full of things trying to kill us; enough! Rick, it ain't like it was before."

"Shane, stop!" Jamie screamed as he began to beat against the chains that were holding the barn doors closed, trying to move past Daryl. He held his arm out, though, and prevented her from moving any further. "Stop!" This was not the way things should end; Hershel should not have to watch, on his knees, as the people that he cared about and loved were massacred.

The doors began to open, though, and she knew that it was too late.

A male walker was the first to emerge, pushing opening the doors with a determination to eat. Jamie couldn't bring herself to raise her gun, and instead was left to stand and watch as Daryl, Andrea, T-Dog, Glenn and Shane began to fire at the walkers that rushed free, one by one taking them all to the ground. Maggie held onto Hershel's shoulder as they were forced to watch them all go down, falling to the floor as corpses should be. Dead.

Her eyes strayed to where Rick was standing, helpless to stop it. He could do nothing more than watch as all that he had tried to prevent took place, tearing apart their chances of remaining on the farm. It seemed like forever before the firing stopped, guns lowering to point to the ground as no more walkers stepped out of the doors. Bodies littered the ground as blood oozed from bullet holes in their heads, bite marks marring every one of them with their flesh rotting off their bones.

The rasping continued, though, and guns were raised again. Jamie's eyes lifted to the darkness of the barn doors, watching for the next walker that would come out. It would meet the same end as all of the others, destined to meet the fresh air with a bullet in the brain before it laid with every other dead body upon the ground. Her hand clutched the sniper, even though her skin was slicked with sweat.

Small hands grasped at the door, balancing shaking limbs as dirtied feet came into view. Jamie nearly dropped the gun at the sight of the familiar little girl that appeared, her blue shirt torn and bloodied with dead eyes looking up to them. She snarled at them, baring blackened teeth. For the first time in a while, she felt sick to her stomach at the sight of a walker.

There was no movement from anyone to fire their guns as Sophia stood in the opening of the barn.

"Sophia!" Carol cried out, cueing Jamie to turn just in time to catch the woman around to waist and stop her from running any closer. She continued to struggle against her, prompting Daryl to move over to them as well and wrap an arm around the trembling, crying woman. She fell to her knees, taking Jamie down with her, as she reached out toward her daughter. "Sophia!"

Sophia began to limp forward, manoeuvring around the bodies of the fallen and toward the living. Jamie wrapped her arms around Carol's shoulders to keep her in place, wishing that she could block it all out. She didn't want Carol to have to see Sophia in such a state, and she definitely didn't want to see her get shot in the head. She looked up to Daryl, searching for an answer, but he was watching Sophia with remorseful eyes.

"My baby," Carol cried softly, reaching passed Jamie as though she would be able to touch Sophia, as though she would have her daughter back. Jamie eyes burned with tears for the second time that day, but it was not out of pleasure and happiness. Her arms tightened around Carol as she tried to take all of her pain on as her own, wishing to end the suffering that the woman was feeling. There truly was no forgiveness in this new world.

Rick moved first, breaking the stillness of the group. Her eyes moved over to him instead, knowing that it was over. Sophia looked at him, almost a child again, but it was known not to be true. Jamie wrapped her arm around Carol's neck to try and cover her eyes.

"Don't watch," she whispered, her own tears beginning to course down her cheeks and leave clean trails through the sweat and dirt. "Close your eyes, hun."

The gun fired, and Sophia fell. The only sound that remained in the clearing before the barn was Carol's sobs, the shock too much for anyone else to completely understand. Carol fell against Jamie, no longer able to keep her form up as she called out her dead daughter's name, over and over again, a prayer to have her back. Jamie remembered the day that they had found the church and Carol had prayed to God for him to forgive all that she had wished for in the past; she just wanted her daughter back.

She looked up to Daryl again, watching as he kneeled down behind Carol and wrapped an arm around her waist, carefully trying to pull her up and onto her feet. "Don't look," he ordered, trying to get Carol's attention away from the corpse. "Come on, get up. Don't look." Jamie remained sitting on the ground, her shirt soaked with Carol's tears, and watched as Carol pushed herself away from Daryl harshly and stumbled off toward the camp as her sobs echoed back to them.

Rick tried to stop Hershel's other daughter, Beth, as she ran over toward the bodies, trying to find one specific person. Jamie bowed her head as she heard the sobs of the young girl, hating the moment that was going on. The last time she would ever see her mother was in such a gruesome state, dead and half rotted away.

Her screams breached the air as the woman grabbed at her, not yet dead, and forced everyone into action. Not one person could keep themselves still as the woman tried to pull Beth down and bite her. Jamie pulled herself to her feet and stumbled forward, raising her gun as Glenn tried to pull the walker's hands away from Beth without getting bitten himself. She lifted the scope to her eye, took aim for the temple and fired.

The woman dropped back to the ground, releasing her hold on the young girl and leaving a corpse behind. Glenn quickly jumped back and looked over to Jamie in surprise, as did many others, before they watched as she lowered her gun and limped away, making her way slowly back to camp.

She didn't make it very far, not even to the campsite before she had to collapse against a tree and throw up the contents of her stomach. The acid burned her mouth and left a vile taste on her tongue, but she knew it was better than remaining sick. There were many things that she had seen since the outbreak, but to watch a once innocent, young child be shot through the head because she would have eaten them was something that pushed her too far.

"Hey, are you okay?" Rick's voice called carefully before a hand lay out on her back gently. She shook her head in answer, not trusting herself to speak so soon. "Come on, let's get you some water," Rick encouraged gently, taking the sniper from her hand and slowly leading her back toward the house. She had to stop at one point when she felt that she was going to be sick again, but he was patient and soon guided her up the steps.

"What's wrong?" Glenn asked in surprise when she was led in, immediately moving over to sit down.

"She threw up. Can you get her a glass of water?" Rick asked. Glenn nodded quickly and moved away, Maggie following after him. "Jay, I've got to go and talk to Hershel. Will you be alright?"

"Yea, just nausea. You go, straighten some things out. Good luck," she mumbled back. Rick looked at her in concern for a moment more. Her face was pale, nearly as pale as when she had been in immense pain back at the camp because of her back, and there was a cold sweat breaking out over her skin. She was shivering beneath his hold and he knew that it wasn't a good thing to leave her by herself. Glenn soon appeared again, carrying a glass of water and quickly giving it to her. Her hands shook nearly too much and Rick had to place a hand over hers as she took a drink to keep it still.

"Maggie, can you stay with her; Glenn, please go get Daryl for me," Rick asked as he placed the water aside on the table. Glenn didn't hesitate before he rushed from the house, heading straight for the RV. Rick reluctantly left Jamie in Maggie's hands, heading out to find Hershel. Jamie leaned her head against Maggie's side, shivering, as Maggie pushed the sweaty strands of her hair away from her face.

"I imagine you've seen a lot of people die…why did this affect you so much?" she asked softly, looking down at her.

"All of the other people I knew that died were adults; they had had some semblance of life before they died. They had lived through experiences already. Sophia…she was just a child that hadn't even explored the world yet. I've had to kill children before when they tried to eat me, but I didn't know any of them before this. Sophia," Jamie's voice cracked as tears threatened to start falling again. "She loved to draw in colouring books and wanted to meet new kids at a safe haven that we never found."

Who that is reading this has also read the graphic novel? I just read the first Compendium, which is a really thick book of volumes 1-48, and I highly recommend it. It doesn't have Daryl in it—which is just heartbreaking—but it's really good. Also, if you like the story line of the show but want something different, it is almost nothing like the show. The storyline is different, there are different characters. Everything.

I know that Jamie and Daryl didn't really get alone time in this chapter, but I have a plan. ;)

Please review! I would love to hear from all of you! I feel like I haven't been getting as many reviews as I usually do for this story…

Chapter 31 – Pandora

"She told me she loved me," he finally admitted, immediately drawing Jamie's interest enough for her to lean forward in her seat to put herself between the two front seats. Glenn's eyes flickered over to her quickly before he looked up to Rick again. Ah, she thought, man talk.

Leaning back once more, she just listened to what Rick had to say, nodded her head along with everything along the way. He was right; Maggie was smart enough to understand her own feelings. It was amusing, though, to hear a man's point of view. Even with Rick trying to calm him down Jamie could see that he was concerned and knew where he was coming from—being a girl herself—but she also knew that it wasn't all that much to worry about.

"Dude, this isn't a soap-opera. Women don't flip out when a guy doesn't say 'I love you' back the first time. I told Daryl it dozens of times before he finally got to balls to say it back. Words don't always mean a whole hell of a lot; you've told her that you want to keep her safe and protect her. You've shown that. That's really what counts," Jamie explained, keeping her eyes closed and leaning back against the seat.

"When did Daryl finally tell you?" Rick asked curiously, looking back at her through the rear view mirror.