Humanism

Jamie leaned against the driver's door as Rick and Hershel worked on the kid in the back, pulling a blindfold over his eyes so that he couldn't see where they were going. She wrapped her arms around herself to try and fight off the chill that was descending over Georgia as the seasons grew colder. She leaned heavily against the door and looked down at the ground, ignoring the fact that they were off in the middle of nowhere.

Rick stepped over to her and lowered his voice, moving in so that he was whispering. "We'll drive in the opposite direction for now so that we can't be followed; find a place to bunk down for the night. It's too dangerous to head straight back to the farm."

"Alright, should I look for a house?"

"No, just somewhere that we can park out of sight. We're sleeping in the van," he answered back and moved over to the passenger side while Jamie pulled open the driver's door and hefted herself back in. Their newest addition was gasping in the back, clearly left in pain from having his leg nearly ripped to shreds when Rick pulled it off the fencing. Jamie felt sorry for the kid, but at the same time was so angered with him for associating himself with men like Dave and Tony.

"Everyone ready to head out?" she asked finally, looking at Glenn and Hershel in the back before she shifted into drive and pulled away from the side of the road, heading into the back roads that would take them around the town in a circle so that they didn't have to drive back through the same way and then could continue in the loop come morning.

"Is your leg okay, Jay?" Rick asked after a couple of minutes.

"Never felt better; I think it's the adrenaline," she answered back honestly. "Hey kid! What's your name?" she called back to the boy, looking briefly in her rear view mirror to try and get a look at him but it was dark and all she could make out was pale skin.

"Randal," he answered weakly.

"Look, Randal," Rick started, turning in his seat slightly so he could be heard more clearly. "I know it may seem like a lie, but we're not going to hurt you, alright? We'll get your leg fixed up as best we can, after that…well, we'll figure things out."

"Just…just don't kill me," he gasped out, wiggling against the binds on his wrists. The red material covering his eyes stopped him from seeing everyone around him and Jamie knew that it was disturbing. He would never know if they were pointing a gun to his head or if he truly was safe. To lose a sense of sight and movement while injured was a frightening thing. Especially since the outbreak.

"You're not going to die tonight," Jamie assured quietly. Once she was sure they were far enough away from the town she pulled a bit into a field and turned the van off, looking over to Rick to make sure that he was okay with where they were. "This is as far as we go tonight. We'll start moving again come dawn. Anyone needs to pee, you're not allowed to leave alone."

"Seriously, buddy system?" Glenn asked from beside Hershel, looking appalled.

"After the number of walkers seen in the town, do you really want to take the chance out there alone?" Rick asked as he turned to look over his shoulder. Glenn swallowed thickly before he shook his head and leaned back in his seat. "Get the sleep you can and stay quiet," Rick ordered, getting comfortable in his seat and beginning to reload his revolver. Jamie just leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, knowing that no sleep would come.

"Can you take the blindfold off, just for the night? Please, it's not like I can see anything," Randal begged from the backseat, causing Jamie to sigh and lift her head to look at Rick. It wouldn't really hurt to let the guy sleep without a blindfold—whatever sleep he would get. Before he could make a choice she had turned around in her seat, leaning between the two front seats and reached back to gently untie the blindfold from over Randal's eyes.

"Be good, or I'll shoot your good leg, got it?" she asked softly, lowering the blindfold. He opened his eyes and blinked, finally able to see, and looked shocked when he saw her clearly for the first time.

"Holy shit, you're hot," he stuttered out, his eyes wide. Jamie scowled and her hand snapped forward, her fist connecting with his nose. There was barely any force behind the punch, not even enough to give him a nose bleed, but it got the message across.

"Jay," Rick hissed out in warning, pulling on the leg of her pants to get her to sit back down in her own seat.

"I barely tapped him, don't worry."

For several hours they sat in the cramped space of the van, listening to Randal groan in pain the odd time before he passed out. Jamie leaned her head against the glass and tried to forget the day, imagining herself back at camp in the tent that she shared with Daryl. It was roughly an hour after they had parked themselves in the field that it started to rain lightly, waking Jamie from the semi-sleep she had begun to fall into. It was pitch black outside and inside the van, so she decided to just lean her head back against the glass and try to fall asleep again.

She was being carried, that much she could tell. Someone was holding under her arms while someone else had her legs. It was a sad way of carrying a person and was slightly embarrassing for all parties involved; but Jamie wasn't aware enough to entirely care. She tried to speak and ask who was touching her and what they were doing, but all that came out were groans.

"Holy shit, is she alive?" a female voice gasped near her feet, nearly dropping her legs.

"You didn't check?" another snapped above her head. "For fuck's sake, what if one of the guys had shot her? They'd have killed an innocent woman; you stupid bitch." Jamie coughed lightly as she choked out a laugh, wanting to know this woman better. She already liked her. "Hey, lady, can you open your eyes."

Jamie tried, and was surprised to find that it was actually very hard. It felt like someone had put glue underneath her eyelids and let it dry, fusing the skin to her eyeball. She was finally able to open her eyes, only just a crack, and was met with a fogged figure of someone leaning over her head. It was fairly light outside so she was left wondering just how long she had been out.

"Ah, there you are. We've got to get you off the streets, there's dead people all over the place," the second woman explained. Jamie didn't even have the strength to nod her head before she fell unconscious again, the two women still carrying her along. Her head was starting to throb and her entire body felt like it had been hit by a semi.

Jamie stirred only when she felt the faint movement of the truck, drawing her attention to the knowledge that someone had gotten out. Her mind jolted awake at the realization and she quickly bolted up into a sitting position again, looking first to Rick's seat and realizing immediately that he wasn't there. A quick look back confirmed that Randal was still passed out in the seat behind hers, Glenn and Hershel dozing beside him.

Looking out the front windshield, she spotted Rick walking through the fields toward where a lone walker was stumbling toward him, hands reaching. He easily used the knife that she had never gotten back from him to stab it through the eye, killing it and letting it drop. He didn't move away, though, and instead let his eyes rest on the dead, still figure that had once been human. Sighing softly, she popped open the driver's door and slipped out of her own seat, closing the door as quietly as she could behind herself.

Her leg pulsed in pain as she walked, but she refused to show it and began to walk calmly to where Rick hadn't moved. He glanced over his shoulder to her once before returning his attention to the walker that he had dropped. No words were exchanged as Jamie moved to stand beside him, looking down at the body. It wasn't as decayed and rotten as the others they saw, proving that this one had been turned fairly recently. A bite on the exposed forearm was what had killed the teenage boy, the blood from it staining his otherwise clean clothes.

"He must have been hiding out around here somewhere. I wonder if he was alone," Rick said as he looked up toward the tree line instead. "Like Jim," he added on at the end. Jamie licked her lips as she tried to think of something to say, but nothing that could held was coming to mind.

"There's no way I can help you, Rick. I can't say 'I'm sorry for your loss' like in the past if someone died. You didn't even know him," she started softly. "I…don't know what to say anymore; it's not like in the past when you hear someone young and innocent died in the hospital. There's not going to be a funeral or a memorial, he's just going to sit here and disappear over time."

Dead is still death.

"I know that things have changed," Rick finally answered back. "I'm not under the illusion that things will go back to normal someday, like this never happened. Sometimes it's just comforting to realize that I can still feel guilt and I can still grieve over a death." His blue eyes turned to look at Jamie, seeing that she was watching him carefully with concern in her golden hazel eyes. "I'll be fine."

"I know it," she agreed right away. "It's good to remember what it feels like to be human, Rick. No one's going to condemn you for it, I'm sure that we all have our own ways of remembering what it's like to be who we used to be. If we forget who we are and who we are supposed to be then everything falls apart, we're not survivors anymore."

"We kill people every day to survive," he whispered remorsefully, looking down at the body again.

Jamie smiling sadly as she shook her head, placing a hand on Rick's arm and beginning to turn away from the dead teenager, because she didn't want to look at him. "They're already dead, Rick. They die and come back, but they aren't them anymore. I don't want to use the words 'freeing them' but we're not exactly taking anything from them. I try to think of it that we're preserving the people they used to be by preventing their bodies to be doing such things against their will."

Rick didn't say anything more, but he was thinking over her words silently. "It's hard to think about how just a short while ago I was waking up in a hospital, meeting Morgan and Duane and you," he finally said, changing the subject and turning his attention away from the body. "Everything fell into place so quickly it's almost like things were destined to go bad for us. I found my family, you found Daryl and then everyone was dying and the CDC, now Sophia. Things just can't stay good."

"I wouldn't quite say that," she denied quickly. "In the past, I might have said that, but now I just say it is life. Things are going to go bad, people are going to die and loved ones will be lost. We're just going to have to move on and survive." Turning her eyes toward the horizon, the sun was beginning raise higher and was nearly visible over the trees. "We should be getting back; we've been gone a lot longer than expected. They need Hershel and we need to do something about Randal."

The group stood at the back of the van, ready to head out to the town in search of their lost ranks. Daryl stood with them, his crossbow and new arrows strapped onto his back. Andrea, Shane and T-Dog completed the group. Each had their own respective weapons, knowing that there could be anything in that town that they could be walking in to.

"You guys ready?" Andrea asked as she looked over them, but T-Dog was distracted by something else. She turned to look over her shoulder, wondering what had brought about the distraction, and caught sight of the read van that was driving up the road to the farmhouse. But there was only one van, not a van and a car like they had been expecting. Only Hershel's vehicle was returning up the long driveway.

"Why's there only one?" Daryl demanded, beginning to walk toward where the vehicle was bound to stop.

"They're all in one," Shane grumbled out as he followed after more slowly.

The others were soon standing on the porch at the sound of the van coming up the drive, watching as it pulled to a stop before them. Daryl's heart was racing as he tried to look through the windows, but the sun was reflecting off the glass and he couldn't see much of anything aside from the fact that there were several people inside; he couldn't tell who. The condition of the van left them all worried; blood was smeared and splattered all over the exterior, the largest amount around the wheels.

The engine cut off and the driver's door popped open. Jamie stepped out from inside, drawing Lori to a stop from where she had been rushing forward. Her eyes widened, as did everyone else's, at the sight of her. Her blonde hair was pulled back onto a tight pony-tail, revealing the blood splatter that showered the left side of her face and neck, more of the red liquid on her once light grey shirt. The way that she held herself had changed, or reversed, back to the way it had been in the beginning. Her hazel eyes looked black from the distance they were at, shadows beneath them telling that she had not slept well the night before.

She wasn't limping.

Rick pushed himself out the passenger side and Glenn and Hershel stepped down from the back of the truck. Hershel had blood smeared on his shirt and all of them looked like they had been awake all night. Glenn was carrying two shotguns in his hands, Rick's gun was freshly loaded with bullets in its holster and blood was smeared along the handle of Jamie's sniper with a new handgun tucked into the back of her pants.

"Oh my god," Andrea muttered at last, looking over each of them.

"Patricia, prepare the shed for surgery," Hershel instructed as he made his way toward the front door. Daryl marched up to where Jamie was standing at the front of the van, Hershel's command spurring everyone into movement. He didn't seem to mind the blood that was covering her as he wrapped her in his arms, pressing his lips against hers quickly.

"You hurt?" he demanded, pulling back and looking down at her.

"No, I'm fine. Blood's not mine," she answered back, smiling to him. "Sorry that I was gone so long, we ran into a bit of a road block." He looked pissed and serious all at once, but the relief that swam in his eyes had her arms wrapping around his torso and pulling him in closer to her, pressing another kiss against his lips before resting her clean cheek against his shoulder. Her heart swelled and eased at the feeling of him, dearly missed.

"Who the hell is that?" T-Dog called out, breaking through all of the conversations. Jamie looked back to where he was pointing to the blindfolded, pale man in the back of the van. She sighed softly and looked away from him again, remembering what had happened that morning.

"Everybody, meet Randal," she called around, drawing eyes to where the teenager was sitting. Randal was moved inside so that Hershel could work on his leg, the guys being as careful as they dared to be with the teenager. Jamie was given new bandages for her leg and ordered to go and take a shower in the upstairs bathroom by Hershel, allowing her to wash Dave's blood off of herself.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror as she looked over her flushed cheeks with blood splattered on it, the shower turned on and heating up, Jamie finally let the night before sink in and had to repress the urge to throw up. The sight of Randal's injured leg, the walkers that had flooded the town and the death of the other men all flooded her mind and she had to duck over the sink as she heaved on an empty stomach.

"Jamie," Daryl called through the bathroom door calmly, rapping a knuckle on the wood. He didn't wait for a reply and stepped inside, closing it behind him and deciding to lock it this time. Jamie's forehead was resting against the tap as she breathed in and our evenly, her hands shaking where they were clasping either side of the sink.

Stepping up behind her, the blonde woman didn't move as his hands slipped under her bloody shirt and began to rise it up to reveal her back to him. She released the sink and allowed him to pull her shirt over her head, leaving her top nearly completely bare. Marvelling her tattoo, he was beyond relieved to see that her tattoo was fully visible again with the bruise nothing more than a yellow shadow. He stepped right up to her back and wrapped his arms around her to looking at her face in the mirror over her shoulder.

"Your hair is getting darker," she whispered softly as she lifted a still shaking hand to his hair. It was true, as well, that his hair had begun to lose some of the blonde look as the colder months approached and the weather cooled. Daryl turned into her palm and pressed his lips to it, the short hairs of his goatee prickly against her skin. She smiled and leaned back against his chest, letting out a sigh. "I missed you," she admitted.

"I was worried about you," he returned, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pulling her back against him. "You need to wash this blood off," he whispered into her ear and began to pull the hem of her sweat pants lower on her hips to reveal her underwear, the subtle hint that she needed to get into the shower. She nodded her head in understanding and turned around to press a kiss against his lips before she stepped to the side, out of his arms, and pulled her boots, socks and pants off.

"Lori hunted me down yesterday," Daryl announced a moment later, thinking it best that he let her know that he'd confronted her before she found out some other way. She paused and looked up to him in surprise before letting out a huff of a laugh.

"I'm sure that was a wonderful conversation," she drawled out as she stood up and pulled her sports bra off, chucking it into the pile. "What happened to her anyway?" she asked curiosity, looking over her shoulder as she was checking the temperature of the water.

"When she came looking for me she wanted me to go and get Rick and Hershel for her, I told her I'm not going to be her fuckin' errand boy anymore. Stupid bitch went off on her own and crashed a car," he scoffed, getting an incredulous look from Jamie. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him, lifting a hand to stop him from continuing.

"Let me get this straight," she began, "She got into a car accident…on an empty road?"

"Swerved not to hit a walker," he explained. Jamie snorted in disbelief before she disappeared into the shower, leaving Daryl to lean against the sink as he watched her form move around behind the curtain. She poked her head around the corner after a moment and smiled to him, her hair wet and the blood gone from her face. "There ye are, Angel," he smirked and stepped forward to draw her into a long kiss, the water on her lips slickening them.

"Care to join me?" she offered softly, her hand reaching out and taking hold of his leather vest to draw him closer to the entrance of the shower. He looked ready to refuse and that was when she remembered that he was supposed to be meeting with the others to decide what it was that would happen with Randal and also explain to him what had happened exactly while inside the bar. "You can't," she said before he could, looking downcast.

"I'll make it up to ya," he whispered against her lips before pulling back and offering her a smile that was reserved only for her. "I'll see if I can get you a change of clean clothes; we're going to need to find you some new things."

Nodding in agreement, Jamie pulled him forward for one more lingering kiss. The familiarity that he offered calmed her down and did better to wash away all that had happened throughout the day and night before than her shower. "We'll go down to the highway soon," she offered before closing the curtain and letting him leave to return to the others.

Wow, a lot of you are getting riled up from the Rick and Jamie thing, huh? I'm glad, means you're paying attention! Lol, don't worry this is a Daryl romance, not Rick—as much as everyone seems to hate Lori. She's just as bad in the graphic novel, if not worse. Always with the 'Rick, don't go! Let whoever it is you're trying to save die and stay with me!' Odd one, she is.

Randal's not off to the best start, either. Daryl beat the shit out of him as it was in the show, I'm going to have fun with this… ;)

As always, please review! I look forward to hear from any and all people that are kind enough to leave me a comment.

Chapter 34 – Family Substitution

Without further hesitation her hand connected with his cheek and a loud crack filled the air. The memory of the last time she had slapped him came back, thinking of Jim and the bite that he had received. As his cheek was stinging and his heart hammering in his chest, Jamie stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his torso, proving him with the soothing comfort after the pain. "I think that Carol is just looking for someone to care for; she knows that her daughter is never coming back and is trying to find someone else to take her place in a way. She knows that you aren't close to the group and believes that is the perfect opportunity to try and help you," Jamie explained, running her fingers through the hair at his nape and feeling his hands move to her hips.

"I don't need nobody mothering me," he replied gruffly, clearly put off at the slap he had received.

"I know, Daryl," she insisted, "But please just give Carol some time. You lost someone that you were determined to find, but she lost her daughter, her blood. She's going to need someone to lean on for just a little while," she tried to reason, pulling back to look into his eyes again. "When Sophia was gone and I was still stuck in the camp after giving blood she was always there, acting as a nurse to me. She was trying to fill the space that Sophia had once taken up; she needed someone to take care of and keep her occupied."

"I deserved the slap, huh?" Daryl asked, resigned. Jamie glared at him for a moment as her eyes moved briefly to look at the reddened skin that had been left behind from the connection of her hand.