All My Secrets

Jamie groaned when she woke up to pounding in her head, even though there was a reassuring cold pressure resting on top of her scalp. It was better than a painkiller could have been and she found herself reaching up to press it more firmly against her skull, trying to transfer more of the cold into her head. It helped, a bit, but she wished more than anything that she could simply remove the pain entirely.

"Glad to see you're awake," an unfamiliar voice said a couple of feet away from her. Jamie jumped, bolting up before she could think it through and her head protested immediately. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," the man continued. Jamie finally managed to open her eyes, seeing that she was in a regular bedroom but the windows had been boarded up and there was next to no light.

"What…what?" she managed, deciding that that pretty much covered exactly what she was asking.

"You were in a car accident, do you remember?" he asked carefully, moving over slowly to place a chair beside the bed and allow Jamie to actually see him. He was a man in his late forties, hair beginning to grey with his lines apparent on his face from years of laughing and smiling. "The girls that live in the apartment next to me got a hold of you before those things did, but they didn't know what to do so they brought you to me. You probably don't have a concussion, but I think we should be careful about letting you sleep in too much more."

"And those things?" she choked out, glancing over at him. He didn't answer right away, instead grabbing a bottle of water and popping the seal and twisting open the cap. He motioned for her to tilt her head back and carefully poured water into her mouth, letting her swallow before it flowed out of her open mouth.

"We don't know exactly what's going on," he answered finally, "but those people aren't people anymore. They are just like you said; things. Out of nowhere, people suddenly starting to get real sick, and the ones that died came back to life, all blood thirsty and shit." Jamie was slightly surprised to hear the cuss come from his mouth, since he looked like such a nice, older man. "As far as I know, you get bit and you're screwed. You're lucky those girls got to you so soon or you'd be dead right now."

"Where are they?"

"Closing up the rest of the apartment," he mumbled, looking away from her and toward the bedroom door. "They're kind of freaked out right now and we're making sure this place is sealed up good. I ain't takin' a chance of letting those things into my place while I'm sleeping."

"Where exactly is this apartment?"

"Fortview," he answered calmly. Jamie recognized the name blearily, remembering when she had passed the sign getting out of the town of her way back to Daryl before she crashed. "You've only been out a day, if you're wondering. They found you yesterday morning. Thought you might be worried about that." Jamie numbly nodded her head, reaching up weakly once more and placed her hand on the ice pack, sighing softly.

"Thank you," she breathed softly.

"What happened to you?"

"Guess there's a reason people have speed limits after all."

Balancing dishes in tall stacks on one arm wasn't something that had come easily to Jamie, but after having to work her ass off to pay for her schooling—which was apparently pointless, considering the world ended—she learned many new traits. She could memorize orders like no one would believe, balance an unimaginable amount of dishes, somehow not scald herself with boiling coffee or water, and manoeuvre around a crowded area without dropping or spilling something. At the time, she had thought the traits were pointless, but after having a meal in Hershel's home with everyone present, things got crowded fast.

"I still don't get how you do that," Daryl commented as he watched her stack four empty plates, eight pieces of silverware, two cups and a saucer onto one arm, using the other to keep it in place. His eyes raked over her body, from the stack of dishes in her arm to along her bicep and shoulders, showing the muscle tone.

"Whoa," Carl gapped, getting a laugh from Jamie. "Where did you learn that?"

"Many jobs that paid for University," she explained, picking up his plate as well and watching the shock and enjoyment dance along his face.

"Oh, I know about that," Andrea agreed, collecting some of the others dishes to take to the kitchen. "Where did you waitress?" she asked curiously, inspecting Jamie as she moved carefully but fluently around Carl's seat and made for the kitchen. The muscles definition was clearly visible with the amount of weight piled onto her arm, and Andrea found herself jealous of the other woman. She was able to pull off such strength and yet she didn't look overly large because of the muscle.

"Just about everywhere," Jamie answered, sliding the stack onto the counter and shaking her arm lightly to get some feeling back into it. "Cafés, diners, fast food places. Anything that was easy, short shifted and paid, I did." Andrea placed her dishes beside Jamie's, watching the other woman's hands as she began to sort through everything, putting all of the utensils on one plate while piling up the rest of the plates, collected the cups and putting everything in a place so it would be easier to clean.

It was when she was putting the cups aside that she caught the glint of gold and jewels on her left ring finger. "Oh my God," she gasped, snatching up Jamie's hand before she even had a chance to jump and bringing her fingers up to see, inspecting the ring that was on the fourth. "Oh my God, he gave you a ring?"

Jamie's face was flushed as she looked at the dishes still, avoiding Andrea's eyes. It wasn't like they were best friends; this wasn't a moment that they were supposed to have. Jamie never imagined that Andrea would be a person she gossiped with about an engagement ring. That was meant for the friends she had back at home; even though her home technically wasn't there anymore.

"A couple nights ago," she finally answered, pulling her hand back and turning to go get the rest of the dishes from the table. Rick and Shane were leaving to drive Randal out that morning and the group had decided that they would have a breakfast in Hershel's dining room together, everyone pitching in. Andrea caught her arm before she could get very far and pulled her back quickly and quietly.

"What happened? Where did he get the ring?"

Sighing, Jamie realized that she probably wasn't going to get out of this very easily. "He found a little silk bag hanging from the rear view mirror of a guy's car when we went to the highway. I guess his wife died because he had the wedding and engagement ring and some other things in the bag." Andrea looked slightly unsettled at the thought of the ring once belonging to a dead person, but Jamie just rolled her eyes before continuing on back into the kitchen. Lori avoided her eyes as she handed her some dishes to take in, several people in the room noticing but no one saying anything. Rick frowned as he glanced over at Jamie, but noticed that she was looking at Daryl, who looked at Lori with a faint glare.

Finally looking down at Lori, she refused to meet his eyes either.

"Are you guys going to be leaving right away?" Andrea asked behind Jamie, looking over to where Shane was reclined back in the chair at the far end of the table.

"Yea, we don't want to take the chance of getting back too late," Rick answered for him. "We'll be heading out in a couple of minutes." He nodded his thanks to Jamie as she collected his plate and coffee mug, turning his attention back to the group. "If all goes well, we should be back long before sundown."

"We'll hold the fort here, then," T-Dog said, rubbing at his face as he glancing around the room. The tension in the room was thick, even though no one was commenting on it. Eyes glanced all around at one another, looking from person to person with different emotions in their eyes. Jamie moved from the kitchen to the dining room, hardly ever stopping in between aside from the odd time of speaking with someone now and again.

She joked around and poked fun with Carl, pretending to balance a plate on his head while making sure that it would never actually fall. Rick smiled at the happiness in his son and how well Jamie got along with him, seemingly without even having to work for it. Carl had been so hesitant and untrusting with people that he was pleased to see him opening up again. Lori, however, hated the relationship that his son had with the woman and didn't try very hard to hide it.

"What do you have going on today?" Rick asked as he looked up at Jamie, who had finally stopped moving around and was standing still behind Daryl's chair, her hand resting on his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around to rest in the curve at the base of her spine, palm at her hip.

"I'm going to be going out hunting with Daryl, see if we can get something big. It's been a while since we've had some good meat and we're going to need it if it's getting colder." Rick nodded along, looking between Daryl and Jamie. He paused when he caught the sight of the ring on her finger, looking up and catching her eyes. She was giving him a discrete look that told him to be quiet for the time. When he inclined his head in answer she smirked faintly and winked, before reaching forward and stealing Daryl's glass of orange juice.

"If we wait too long there won't be anything left to hunt, the weather's driving most game out of the area," Daryl explained.

"You goin' to be back today?" Rick asked carefully, remembering in the past when Daryl had gone hunting he was disappear for days at a time in order to track some of the larger game he could find. Jamie nodded in answer, her cheeks slightly puffed at the orange juice that she was holding in her mouth for a moment. Daryl pinched her hip and laughed when she nearly spat out the juice in shock, hitting him on the head in retaliation.

It was in a large wave of people that everyone dispersed, moving off to prepare for the day and all that they were individually doing. Jamie pulled her hair back as she moved toward the kitchen to help clean up while Daryl went to get some supplies to take with them for the day. She had barely stepped into the room when a hard hand grasped her bicep and spun her around to face them, a glare firmly held on her face.

"What the fuck?" Jamie asked, trying to pull her arm from his grip but only ending up getting him riled. Her shoulder met the wood of the cabinet as he pushed her roughly backward. Her eyes darkened with rage as she glared deep into his eyes, wanting nothing more than to hit him. "Shane, let me go."

"What did you do to Lori?" he demanded, shaking at her arm and drawing a pained grunt from her when her shoulder joint was jostled rather harshly. "I know something happened between you two, she's been avoiding you and looking pissed off since the barn walkers got out-"

"Got out?" Jamie mimicked, finally succeeding in freeing her arm. "You let them out, jackass. Now back the fuck up." Shane just short of snarled in her face, causing her to instinctively drive her elbow against his ribs and force him back in order for him to collect himself. "I didn't do anything to Lori, just a difference of opinion."

"Hey, Shane?" Rick called, appeared in the doorway. His demeanour suddenly hardened when he saw how threateningly close Shane was standing to a very pissed off looking Jamie. "What going on?" he asked darkly, looking between the two. Shane continued to look down at Jamie a moment longer before he stepped away, giving her space. She never relaxed her posture, though, and Rick could see that she had her hand angled toward her knife in reaction, ready to protect herself.

"Nothin', just having a chat."

"Fuck you," she snapped back. Shane glared at her as he walked passed Rick, his shoulders locked back threateningly. Jamie only relaxed slightly when he was no longer in the room, leaning back against the counter and letting her hand drop, heaving an angry sigh. Rick stepped up and placed a hand on her shoulder, getting her to look at him.

"Are you alright?"

Nodding her head, she mumbled out, "yea."

"What was that about?" he asked in a hushed voice, concerned over Shane's actions. If he did something like that with Jamie he had reason to worry about what he might to with others, like Randal.

"Honestly? I don't know," she answered, looking confused and shaken. "I should get the dishes done so Daryl and I can get going." She turned to leave before stopping and placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'll be find, but you be careful out there. We've never travelled out that far and don't know if it's safe. Alright?"

"I'll be fine," he assured carefully. "And congratulations," he added on, motioning down to her hand that was on his shoulder, the new ring catching the light. She smiled bashfully, something that he rarely ever saw with Jamie, and nodded her thanks before turning and moving over to the sink and beginning to pile plates into the water filled sink.

Soon after Rick and Shane left with Randal, Jamie was pulling on another long sleeved shirt to her layers and hoisting her light bag of food and water onto her shoulder. Daryl was snapping the extra arrows for his bow into the small slots on the top, wearing an autumn jacket underneath his leather vest. Jamie completely admitted that he looked incredibly appealing, just as he usually was when he was getting ready to go out hunting.

Carrying her rifle once more was great and it gave her a sense of security that she hadn't fully realized had been missing. Her arm was slightly stiff from Shane's grip on it, but she didn't want to tell Daryl about it encase he decided to get on his bike and hunt Shane down, perhaps take his gun and dump him in the wild without anything to take care of himself. She took a moment to imagine the scene before returning her attention to Daryl, who was straightening up and directing his attention to where Jamie was standing.

"Let's get the hell outta here," she declared, moving over to him and catching sight of his smirk before he rushed up to take lead into the forest. They wouldn't be travelling too far away from the farm, but they needed to get far enough away so that they could make sure that the deer or other large game weren't as sparse. The amount of activity on the farm probably had the animals avoiding the place.

"You sure you're okay to be walkin' around on that leg?" Daryl asked as he looked back at her, seeing that she seemed to be walking perfectly fine. In the time that it had been since she got it cut up in the woods it had healed very well, allowing her to get back into the routine of helping out with more of the physical labour on the farm instead of helping with laundry or watch duty.

She was just glad that she didn't need to worry about bandaging it anymore. "I'll do fine. If I need a break, I'll just jump up on your back," she countered, getting a bark of a laugh from Daryl. The walked in near silence throughout most of the morning, the sun blocked out by the trees that were left covered in leaves, the warmth pressing down on their backs now and again.

Jamie didn't mind the silence, following after Daryl as she watched him inspect the surrounding forest closely, pausing only when he found something that appeared to be a track that they might be able to follow. It wasn't until noon that he was able to catch the sight of deer tracks, pushed into the mud near a creek and almost hidden by leaves. Jamie hadn't seen it, not even thought something was wrong, but Daryl had stopped them almost right away and crouched to inspect the tracks.

Motioning with his head, he carefully stepped over the creek and began moving through the bushes, eyes to the ground. Jamie was silent behind him, years of accompanying him on hunting trips teaching her exactly how to move around so that she wasn't detected by anything in the words. Several times Daryl himself had forgotten that she was behind him, only a couple of meters away.

Daryl stopped suddenly and lifted his hand to signal Jamie to stop, crouching low to the ground as he looked through a cluster of dying trees in front of them. Jamie kneeled down behind him, adjusting her rifle encase it was a walker that had caught his attention. They had agreed that the guns they brought would be an absolute last resort, because if walkers didn't screw up their hunting then the loud gunshot would.

The heady scent of the moist leaves and soil swirled around Jamie, a welcoming embrace that she was used to whenever going out with Daryl to the hunting cabin that his father had abandoned. The thought of the hunting cabin brought a flush to her cheeks as she bit her lip to remain still so that nothing interfered with Daryl's concentration.

Watching carefully, Daryl soon turned around where he was couched. There was a light in his eye that Jamie saw nearly every time she had accompanied him on hunting trips; now, it was the light that told her they had just struck a new form of gold. That could only mean one thing, and it most certainly was not a flashy sports car of an abandoned bag of cash. Jamie grinned back at him, remaining completely still as he ducked forward and stole a quick 'good luck' kiss. It had become a form of ritual whenever she was accompanying him hunting, and if not while they were hunting then she could more than likely have a very long goodbye kiss.

Nodding her head, she motioned him to continue with a reassurance that she would watch his back for walkers. They hadn't seen any while on Hershel's land, and while off of it there had only been one that was stumbling about without any true destination. It had actually, and thankfully, been moving in the direction away from the farm.

"So," Andrea asked as she looked over to where Lori was moving around the kitchen, mostly just trying to think of something to do. "Have you seen Jamie's new bling?"

"What?" Lori asked in surprise as she stopped in the action of stacking the dried plates that were in the rack beside the sink. "Bling?"

"Daryl got her an engagement ring; apparently a week ago. Are we really that ignorant to those two that we didn't notice she was wearing an engagement ring for an entire week?" Andrea asked incredulously. Lori leaned against the counter, looking out the window as she tried to process what Andrea had told her. It didn't help the guilt that she already felt about basically calling the other woman a whore, accusing her of not only sleeping with her husband but also cheating on her own fiancé.

"Well, they do tend to spend their time away from the rest of us. I thought that Jamie would be getting Daryl to move them back by now," she answered at last, resuming her task a moment later. "What does it matter, anyway? It's not like we're going to be invited to the future wedding—if there is one."

"I admit, I didn't expect things between them to ever actually progress. I mean, they've said that they are engaged but she wasn't wearing a ring before the outbreak," Andrea continued on, leaning casually against the counter as she watched Lori move about. She didn't even offer to help for a moment, only stood to the side. Lori didn't allow for her irritation of the fact to show and instead just finished up with emptying the dry rack.

"It's not our business; how they got engaged in the first place is between them." Andrea frowned. She did want to know, especially with the way that they both acted. They were so different that one would think they would always been at odds with one another, but it was the opposite effect. She was probably obsessing, but there wasn't all that much more to do when the world had come to an end. Besides, obsessing over other people helped her to push aside all of the things that she could be obsessing about in her own life.

I am totally liking the new friendship between Rick and Daryl in the show! He's kicking Shane's ass in the friendship department! Sorry this took so long to get out, my professors are all plotting against me and thought it would be fun to have ALL of my tests and projects due at the same fucking time! Gah! Anyway, here you are! I was determined to at least get this episode out before this weekend's episode.

Chapter 38 – Soulless Shell

"Dale-"

"I know that you've noticed it, Rick," Dale interrupted, turning serious. "Shane's dangerous. He laughed when Jamie and Daryl didn't come back. He's going to get someone killed one of these days if we're not careful; and I'm worried that Jamie's on his target list. She and Lori have been at odds recently—why, I don't know—and he's getting protective. If I were you, I'd find out what's going on."

Nodding his head, Rick frowned in through. "I noticed that yesterday. During breakfast, Lori kept avoiding Jamie and Daryl was glaring at her. Afterword, I went looking for Shane so we could take Randal out on the roads and I found him cornering Jamie in the kitchen. I didn't like the way that he was looking at her, he really did look like he wanted to hurt her."

"If Shane hurts her, Daryl might not hesitate to hurt him as well, maybe even kill him. If Daryl got protective over a picture, I don't want to know what he'll do if Shane actually hurts Jamie."