'Crazy' is the Medical Term
Once more in the shower, Jamie leaned against Daryl as the hot water cascaded down on them. His fingers were steadily running through her hair, removing all knots and tangles from the strands. Sitting on the bottom of the shower and not doing anything aside from basking in the warm water was probably one of the worst things to do in an apocalypse, considering they were wasting power and water, but Daryl wouldn't dare move and he didn't think Jamie had any intention of speaking up as she almost dozed against him.
"I think I'm starting to grow webs between my toes," Jamie finally said against Daryl's chest, feeling the rumble of his laugh more than hearing it. Reaching over his shoulder, Daryl pushed the nozzle down and turned off the torrent of water, leaving only the steam in the room to warm them. "Out in the forest all night, no problems with my knee," Jamie started as she pulled herself up to her feet, hissing when she rested her weight on the bad joint. "Come back here and within an hour Shane's fucked it up again."
"That bastard's going to get his own," Daryl promised as he rose up to stand at her side, his arm wrapping securely around her waist and helping her to step carefully from the shower. Jamie snorted as she threw a towel over Daryl's head to cover his dripping hair.
"He already got it, remember?" she asked slyly before leaning against the counter and beginning to rub at her own hair with a towel, trying to dry it as best she could. Daryl could tell that, even though she tried to hide it, she was still greatly shaken from what had happened only hours before. The anger was still eating away at Daryl but he didn't want Jamie to see it, because she could feed off of it and probably do something without thinking it through.
When Jamie straightened up and moved to begin towelling down her body, Daryl was standing directly in front of her with nothing but his own towel wrapped around his waist, riding low on his hips. His hands came to her sides, large and warm, and Jamie arched her back until her stomach nearly touched his. "He won't get it 'till he's dead," Daryl growled out, resting his forehead against hers. His lengthened hair dripped water down onto Jamie's cheeks and she shivered at the chill that accompanied the drops.
Reaching up, Jamie's arms wound around Daryl's neck as she pressed herself close against him, her towel dropping discarded to the floor. His arms tightened on her sides a moment before he embraced her in return and pressed soft kisses against the skin of her neck. Slipping her hands up into his hair, Jamie smiled to herself as she felt the nauseous feeling of fear dissipate inside of her stomach.
Daryl didn't really want to let go of Jamie, but he knew that they couldn't spend the rest of their time in the washroom.
Things had to be decided and both of them knew that they would be vital in the decisions that were to come. Not only did they have Randal as a threat, but now there was Shane to worry about. He had snuck up on Jamie, held her at gunpoint and told her that she needed to be put in her place. She was shaken to the core and angered to the point of homicidal all at once. Rick and Daryl were showing no mercy, either, as they stood firmly on Jamie's side. Shane had to go.
"We're a part of this group," Jamie said suddenly as she softly, steadily ran her fingers through the ends of Daryl's hair. "We're broken, too."
Daryl hummed in agreement as he pressed a kiss against her bare shoulder. "We're just gunna have to be the one to fix it, then, aren't we?" Jamie smiled to herself and rested her head against his with a smile before she began to pull back and retrieved her towel from the floor once more.
Lori sat across from Rick as he stared out the window to where the Shane was sharing a shed with Randal. She wasn't sure how to act or react with everything that was going on; the thing that she hated the most, even more than Rick's attention to Jamie, was the biting guilt that was welling inside of her. Jamie had been pissing her off, doing nothing in the process, and she had wished she would just leave. Instead, Shane nearly kills her.
"What are you going to do?" she finally asked in a low, meek voice.
"He's dangerous, Lori. He doesn't care who he hurts, he just wants things to stay the way he thinks they should be," Rick snapped back. "Now, what the hell is going on with you and Jamie? Shane kept going on about you and her when we were locking him up."
Lori's head fell as she let out a long breath of air, unsure of what she was supposed to say. "I asked Jamie a couple of weeks ago if she had slept with you," she blurted out, her shaking hands moving to cover her mouth as she refused to look up and watch Rick's reaction.
"Lori," Rick started, the anger evident in his voice. He stopped though, trying to calm down as he took a deep, relaxing breath. It didn't work. "After everything that happened with you and Shane, you accused Jamie of that?" he snapped, leaning forward and getting in her face, causing her to flinch and lean backward. "She saved my life, she helped me to find you guys and you reward that with accusing her of the same thing that you did?"
"I didn't know, Rick," she tried to defend, lifting her eyes so she could finally look at him as tears made them appear glassy. "I saw you two together, like best friends, and I panicked. I thought that she was taking you away from me and I had only just got you back. Carl only just got his dad back-"
"You had no right, Lori. The next time you think that I cheated on you, come to me instead of the innocent party that you're accusing. The belief that Daryl was alive was the thing that kept Jamie alive, kept her going no matter what. And then you go and say she threw that away to have a one night fling with someone she knew for less than two days?"
"I'm sorry," Lori sobbed, Rick angrily stepping away when she reached for him. "I know I did wrong, Rick. I know that I hurt her, she and Daryl have both made that very clear, but I didn't think that Shane would go and try to kill her. He thinks she's a threat to me and…I don't know, decided to fix it." Rick kept his back to her, his shoulders tense and his back pole straight. "Please, Rick. I'll fix things, I promise you. I'll make everything better-"
"Shane threatened her at gunpoint, Lori. Not only is that traumatizing enough, but she was in the shower, completely exposed to him. She probably feels more than just frightened, but violated," Rick stressed, keeping his voice down so that none of the others could overhear. They all knew that Jamie wasn't taking things well, at least on the inside, and they didn't want to outright say what the biggest problem was. She was probably, in some way, fearing a sexual beating from Shane when he had ripped the shower curtain open.
Lori bowed her head as tears dripped down onto the jean pants she was wearing, leaving little dark specs. "Please, I'll make it right."
"You can't," Rick stated bluntly, turning and leaving the room without another glance back. Lori remained on the couch, the very couch Jamie had slept on after giving Carl her blood the first night at the farmhouse, crying silently.
Rick encountered Jamie and Daryl on their way down the front stairs, relieved to see that Daryl was able to bring a smile to her face as he exaggeratedly scrubbed at her wet hair with a small hand towel, nearly throwing her off balance as she laughed and swatted at his arm. She finally stopped and turned to smack him in the stomach, the towel pulled away from her hair when he moved to guard his abdomen, and Rick laughed at the mess of her hair.
"Hey, you shut it," she snapped, turning and pointing at him. Her blonde hair was still damp and sticking up in just about every direction it could manage because of Daryl's ministrations. "Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to untangle this?" she hissed as she swatted at Daryl again, but he only ducked aside with a deep laugh and began down the stairs.
"Hershel and Maggie are cooking the venison right now, it should be finished soon so you two might want to go and get yourselves sorted out. Are you staying in your tent or the house tonight?" Rick asked as Jamie limped down the rest of the steps, making sure not to stress her still raw knee.
"The tent," the both answered immediately. Rick looked concerned.
"Are you sure you should be stressing your knee with that walk?"
Jamie grinned in response and looked to Daryl. "He promised he'd carry me there and back when I needed him to," she answered evilly, getting a scoff from Daryl as he turned away in minor embarrassment. While he had his back to her, Jamie carefully—using the power in only one leg, her good one—leapt onto his back and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep herself up. Daryl stumbled slightly while he was trying to keep himself standing, glaring at Jamie over his shoulder.
"Fuck! Woman!" he snapped, amusement laced in his tone as Jamie laughed into his shoulder.
"Come on, man, let's go brush out this lions mane you created," Jamie teased, nudging his sides like he was a horse. Had she not been injured, Daryl would have, as he had in the past, dropped Jamie on her ass. But, seeing as he did promise to carry her, he just shook his head with a huff and started toward the door, a silently grinning Rick left behind to go and check on the food.
The sun was beginning to set along the horizon, darkening the world while it simultaneously lit it up in golden and red hues. Jamie admired the view as she watched the golden yellow leaves as they were blown forcefully from their place in the trees. The air no longer held the heat of summer, the autumn chill fully setting in. They would need to start sleeping with their clothes on if they were going to remain in their tent.
"I feel like I'm carrying you more than you're walking lately," Daryl mumbled as they made their way along the path that they had walked into the field through the many trips to and from their own little camp sight. Jamie bit him gently on the neck in retaliation, getting another bark of 'stop!' from Daryl as she laughed simply.
Rick watched them through the window for a moment before he moved into the kitchen to join the others. Andrea looked sullen while Dale had a permanent concerned look on his face, Hershel and Maggie busying themselves with cooking dinner. "How is she?" Maggie ventured to ask first, Glenn slipping into the room at the sounds of conversation.
"She's acting like nothing happened," Rick said quietly, even though she wasn't in the house. "She'll deal with it in her own way, in her own time. I think we should just act as natural as we can; don't constantly ask her if she's alright. Until we decide what to do with Shane, it's best just to avoid the topic with her." Everyone nodded silently, looking anywhere but at one another.
Hershel finally sighed and wiped his hands off on a towel. "Having both Shane and Randal on the farm is two threats too many; I don't want either or those two around my family. They're a threat to all of us," he began kindly, even though his words bit deep into everyone. "Now, I understand that that man is a friend of yours, but he's not the same person you used to know. For the sake of your group, he needs to leave. I let him stay after he broke into the barn, but this has gone too far."
"Hershel's right," Glenn said softly. "Shane…he's always been really protective and everything, but ever since you and Jamie joined the group he's been just plain violent."
"He wants things to be the way they were; when his word was law," Andrea agreed. "With you here, people follow you before they follow him. And Jamie doesn't give a damn about what he says; she'd go against his words just for the fun of it and Shane hates her because of that."
"I think…it's time Shane left," Glenn said in a meek, quiet voice.
"Both Shane and Randal know where we are; if we just drop them off somewhere then they could come back with a serious revenge complex," Andrea added on, glancing between Glenn and Rick. Dale remained completely silent through the entire conversation, his eyes on the floor as she listened to the words of those around him, absorbing everything bit by bit.
"Let's not concern ourselves with this right now," Maggie said suddenly, quickly, as she stopped washing the vegetables. "Just get through tonight, and then tomorrow we can worry about those two. Jamie doesn't need to have to listen to this for the evening."
Not a moment later, the front door opened and Jamie and Daryl stepped inside. Jamie was walking on her own, but was still cautious about her knee. Her hair was pulled back into a horse-tail once more, brushed through until all of the tangles were gone and the strands hung in clumped wet locks. She had retrieved her rifle, not surprisingly, and Daryl's crossbow was slung over his shoulder with fresh arrows clipped in place.
"Dinner's almost ready," Dale finally said, saying the first thing since Rick had entered the kitchen. "Who wants to help me set the table?"
"Glenn's on plates, I'll get glasses for everyone. Jamie, mind putting out the napkins?" Andrea asked, moving toward the cabinet that had the glasses. Jamie nodded and turned to where she remembered the drawer with all of the napkins and tablecloths were stored. Daryl and Rick began to help bring out the food while Dale went to get everyone else for the meal. Beth was still assigned to bed rest, so Maggie began making a plate for her younger sister.
"You guys don't have to act like you're walking on eggshells around me," Jamie said a couple of minutes later, causing everyone to either pause or flinch briefly. "I know you're trying to help, but I don't want you all to act as though I'm going to snap at any moment." Tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans, she leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen and looked to Rick. "Has anything been decided?"
"Not tonight," he said immediately, looking over her shoulder to where Daryl was standing with a darkening expression. "We're going to make the decisions tomorrow, when everyone's thinking clearly. We'll have the night to think things over."
Jamie nodded her head, not in the least upset over the conversation. At least, that was how she appeared. Rick knew that she was only trying to show a strong front so that she wasn't seen as weak, but he didn't call her out. Daryl would be there for her, he knew, so Jamie was in good hands. Lori walked into the room silently with Carl, the small boy none the wiser aside from that Shane had done something very bad and wouldn't be joining them for dinner. Jamie gladly accepted a glass of wine from Hershel, taking a sip of the expensive tasting Merlot.
"Careful, Angel, you haven't had that stuff in a while," Daryl forewarned as he watched her continue to steadily sip the cool drink. She childishly pulled away from the glass and stuck her tongue out at him, causing Glenn to snort as he held back a laugh before he focused on his own food.
Lori ate silently, not saying a word and refusing to look toward where Jamie and Daryl were. Rick was sitting on Jamie's other side, on the opposite end of the table as Lori, with Carl beside his father. She felt blocked out completely where she was sitting, everyone avoiding looking in her direction.
"I want to thank Jamie and Daryl again," Hershel said as he lifted his own wine glass toward the two, "For bringing us such a wonderful meal at the risk of their own lives." Daryl blushed red and ducked his head down while Jamie smiled and lifted her own glass to tap his gently. She nudged Daryl, who lifted his water glass but didn't move to do anything else before he took a deep gulp.
"I still don't know how you guys carried back that deer," Glenn said in awe as he looked between them. "I mean, on top of being injured and sleep deprived, that thing was heavy!" Jamie chuckled as she rubbed the shoulder of the arm that had carried the deer most of the way.
"Didn't come away without sore muscles."
"She wanted me to carry the damn think back myself," Daryl threw in, getting a swat on the leg from the woman to his left, only laughing in response. "Ya know it's true." Jamie didn't answer but instead took another sip of her wine, causing the others around the table to laugh or grin at her obvious surrender in the argument. It wouldn't surprise them if she had jokingly asked for him to do all the work.
Jamie was forbidden from helping with dishes because of the work that would put on her knee, so she sat at the table for once, a glass of water in her hand to wash away the effects of the wine. Daryl had actually taken a couple of the heavier dishes into the kitchen, something that was surprising when he had never done that before. With the combination of fatigue and wine, she was soon yawning broadly and falling asleep in her chair. Daryl smiled softly, unknowing that he was doing so, and moved over to whisper in her ear.
"Time to get you to bed, Angel," he said, the prickle of his facial hair causing Jamie to laugh tiredly and turn her face away. "We'll see you all in the morning," Daryl said, only looking to Rick as the older man nodded his head, before he carefully helped Jamie to stand up and began walking toward the front door, interrupted by another of Jamie's enormous yawn that nearly popped her jaw. Daryl only found it tremendously amusing, even though he was trying to stop his own yawns, as he shoulders his crossbow while opening the front door.
"I might just fall asleep on the walk over," Jamie jested, leaning against Daryl. This time, he didn't laugh, but the smile was still present on his face. Walking along through the fields toward their tent, Jamie reached down to lace her fingers through his, feeling the warmth of his palm press against hers. Daryl leaned to the side and pressed a kiss against her temple, the hairs of his goatee making her smile at the familiarity. In the beginning, she wasn't sure how she would feel about the facial hair, but it had become something that helped assure her that it was truly Daryl. In the past, when he would use the spare key to get into her apartment, he would kiss her shoulder or her neck or cheek as he slipped into her bed and she would always know that it was Daryl even in a dazed, sleepy state. Now, those kisses brought back the good memories and it made her so happy that she could still feel happy.
Sorry that it's taken such a long time to get this chapter out! This is my Christmas gift to everyone out there! Merry Christmas and—in case I don't update before then—Happy New Year. I will try my best to get another chapter together by then, but I'm trying to get a couple of new chapters done for other stories as well.
As for as Guest Review that I got, asking if I was just going to rewrite the show word for word; yes, because there is a woman named Jamie that is Daryl's fiancé. You're right, I totally just wrote the Walking Dead exactly the same way. Can you note my sarcasm? No? 'Cause you clearly can't read.
Chapter 40 – Personal Death Squad
"I was trying to protect your wife," Shane yelled back at last.
"Jamie'd sooner protect Lori than you would," Daryl growled from the background, still looking as tense and pissed off as he had when punching him in the face. "I bet you'd turn a blind eye the second your life was on the line."
"'Cause you'd go out of your way, right Daryl?" Shane mocked, meeting Daryl's dark stare.
"If I remember correctly," Rick interrupted, "it was Daryl that warned us of the walkers after the CDC blew up and saved your life." Looking back at Daryl, Rick pretended to actually have to think it over when it was glaringly obvious. Daryl had been the one slamming on the horn of his truck when Shane was out in the open, warning of a herd of walkers on their way. It was the same day that he had outsmarted Andrea and left the blonde pissed and annoyed at having the supposedly stupid and slow redneck make her look like a fool.
"Biggest mistake of my fuckin' life," Daryl snarled, looking directly into Shane's dark eyes. Turning on heel, he slammed the door of the shed open and strode out into the bright sunlight, Rick hesitating a moment more before following after, leaving Shane and Randal alone.