Distant Dreamers

It was sunny when morning came around, a sharp contrast to the morbid tone that was darkening the hearts and minds of those within Hershel's home. With new bandages covering Jamie's busted temple, fresh arrows notched in Daryl's crossbow and additional ammo in everyone's guns, the group sat down to begin a strategy on tracking down where Shane could have gone. They at least needed to find out if he had taken the chance to go for Randal's group or not. He would be much less of a threat if he didn't head in the direction that Randal's group had gone that night in the town. It was Daryl's job to try and follow his tracks as far as he could.

"If Shane killed Randal, it's more than likely that he's just trying to survive solo now," Andrea said in the place of an introduction. "I don't think that he'd be welcomed into Randal's group if they found out how he got there."

"You said he wanted to do that a couple of times," Jamie mentioned, looking up from where she was curled up against Daryl's side, one of his shirts pulled on over her own clothes to keep her warm in the cooling weather.

"Yea, something always made him stick around."

"What do you mean?" Rick asked, looking up with a furrowed brow.

Andrea looked uncomfortable talking about it, but answered anyway, "He had been planning to leave just before Carl was shot, so he stayed."

"Well, he's gone now. At this point, I'd rather it stay that way," Jamie said in a calm, solemn voice. The others looked over to her, some only briefly before dropping their gaze at the thought of what Shane had done. She had every right to wish the man gone, at the very least. They were surprised that she wasn't cussing him out and threatening to kill him if she ever saw him again.

"Would he really chance coming back here?" T-Dog asked from where he was tucked away in the corner of the room, looking as though he was trying to remain small and unseen.

"I doubt it," Rick answered, looking depressed as the reality of the situation finally set in completely. He had to hunt down his best friend, or at least make sure that he was driven away with no intention of coming back. "But now isn't a time to take chances."

Hershel refused to allow Maggie to help, though she wanted to, and so Glenn instead agreed to be one of the ones that stayed back at the house in the case of Shane getting around the people searching the woods and returning to the farmhouse. Though Rick and Daryl adamantly tried to change her mind, Jamie refused to sit back and made sure that she was going to be traveling out with the others. Hershel cleared her, though reluctantly, to go out even with her head injury.

"You know that if anythin' happens out there, I'm locking you in a room till you're fifty," Daryl grumbled out as he double checked the hand-gun she had just slipped into the back of her jeans, double-checking that it was loaded and the safety was on and moveable until a time she might need to shoot it.

Rolling her eyes, the blonde snatched the gun back, clicked on the safety and tucked it back into her belt before covering it with her jacket. "Daryl, I'm gunna be just fine. I'm going with you and Rick. With the both of you with me, I'm sure Shane wouldn't even try anything if he had the chance."

"Ready to go?" Rick asked as he stepped into the doorway of the room that the couple had stayed in the night before, wearing his jacket with his revolver strapped to his belt. "Andrea and T-Dog are heading out now, they're going to search from North to South on the West end of the farm and we got the East end because that's where we found Jamie and Randal."

"Alright, let's get a move on then," Jamie said quickly and moved from the room before the two had a chance to try and gang up on her again. She wasn't about to spend another minute in that house more than necessary. Having to sit around and baby sit while the others looked for the bastard wasn't on her to-do list for the day and there was a strong chance that she'd go bat shit crazy and kick Daryl in the nuts if he tried to keep her inside anymore.

Immediately she wiped the thought of a knock to the family jewels since she liked the sex so much that she wouldn't want him out of commission.

Stepping outside she was warmed by the direct glare of the sunlight on the leather jacket she had snagged on her run to the highway with Daryl. Andrea and T-Dog were almost to the end of the field to the far North end of the property's fields. She and the guys would be heading to the South end before they slowly made their way around to the North side; when they reached where Jamie had been found, they were planning on following the tracks for as long as they could.

Rick and Daryl emerged from the house behind her, followed by Glenn and Maggie with Lori creeping in the background. "Are you sure you guys won't need me?"

"No, you stay here and help Dale watch over the house. It's a longshot, but Shane might still come back. If not to do damage than at least go get some supplies or the things he left behind," Rick sighed, looked around the properly. It seemed to all of them like a waste of a perfectly good day; the sun was out and it wasn't too chilled to the point of discomfort. On an ordinary day, they'd be doing as much work outside before the real cold set in as they could.

Daryl stepped up beside Jamie as Rick was speaking quietly with Lori one last time before they all took off.

"What are we going to do when winter hits?" Jamie asked curiously, looking around at the vast yard. Whenever she and Daryl would have gotten married, she knew that this would have been the kind of property that she'd like to own with him. He'd love the space and the distance from a town, as well as the chance to hunt without heading out to a disgusting hunting cabin.

"Wish I knew," Daryl mumbled as he pressed a kiss against her good temple and drew her close to him with an arm around her shoulders. "We'll figure something out." Letting out another soft sigh, Jamie leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes against the bright sunlight, basking in the warmth or the sun and Daryl's body heat beside her. "How's your head?"

"It's fine right now, but sunlight makes it a bit harder. Makes me glad we're going into the forest, whether most the leaves are gone or not."

"Hope you're ready to spend the entire day there," Rick joked as he came up beside them, patting Jamie on the back as she made a face just for the humour. The three didn't hesitate a moment more and made their way across Hershel's vast fields. It felt like a death march, making its way slowly through the property. Jamie wasn't sure what to say, or even if she should say anything. So, instead, she remained silent, flanked on either side by her fiancé and her new dear friend.

The forest was filled with the sounds of animals as they prepared for the winter, though there was a distinct amount of birds that were becoming scarce with the approaching frost. They would have to struggle along even more when winter finally arrived, but there was also a strong chance that the walkers would be slowed down significantly from the cold and snow. If the sub-zero temperatures didn't freeze them, then the thick drifts of snow would.

"Keep an eye out for any sign that someone's been lingering around the edge of the forest. If Shane did come back, he'd stay far away," Rick began as soon as they reached the treeline, his eyes roaming the Earth to see if there was any sign or compressed bushes or mussed dirt and leaves that didn't appear to have been caused by an animal.

"In your personal opinion, what do you think Shane would do?" Jamie asked curiously, moving to walk around a grouping of trees to check the other side.

Rick caused a minute to look around, more than likely just an excuse to think. "Shane's not the person that I use to know, so I'm not sure I can answer that in completely honesty."

"Try," Daryl threw in, his tone bordering on a challenge.

"I think that Shane would have taken off the second he got the chance. I don't know exactly why he killed Randal, maybe just 'cause he wanted him to bite Jamie, but he wouldn't risk going to meet up with his friends. Going from one group with someone in charge to another is entirely contradictory."

"I was wonderin' that," Daryl admitted, his crossbow slung up on his shoulder. "Doesn't seem like the type to fall in line. Why go to a group that would just treat him like a soldier?"

"He's still here," Jamie growled out, both men turning to look at her. She wasn't staring at any kind of evidence that could have shown he had been there, but there was a darkness to her eyes that made them appear more brown then hazel. "He wanted us to think he's gone to Randal's group."

"Why?"

"To scare us."

The sun was easy to see through the dying trees, as well as the later and later hours that were coming upon them. Jamie's knee was beginning to aggravate her, but she kept quiet because of the two overprotective men that she was travelling with. Her luck would probably have them sending her back so that she didn't need to hurt herself more. They didn't hold a conversation for most of the day, though there were random moments of communications, but instead spent their time making sure that they didn't miss a single sign that could lead to Shane.

"This is where we found you," Rick said as darkness began to reach the distant sky. The trees began to create shadows that reminded her of when she was a child and she used to have nightmares of the shadows caused by trees, dreaming that they were long dark fingers reaching for her. She always had to close thick curtains over her window so she didn't see the shadow of a tree against her window caused by the streetlamp out in front of her house.

Looking around, Jamie could see the mussed up leaves and dirt from her scuffle with the Randal walker, as well as where they had kneeled around the body the day before when they came to inspect it for bite marks while she and Daryl had been resting. "So you didn't find any bite marks on 'im?" Daryl asked as he nudged the dead man's leg with his boot.

"Nothin'," Rick sighed in confusion, frowning down at the dead man's mangled face. There was blood splattered all over one half from where the bullet had exited one side of his temple.

Jamie focused on Rick carefully, noticing his tensed posture and his reluctance to speak of it. Though he may have seen confused, she could see nervousness and concern in his face as he looked at the deceased young man. The ex-cop looked wearier than she had seen him since they met, and it had something to do with Randal's lack of bite or scratches.

"You're not telling us something," she accused in a gentle, calm voice.

Both men's attentions turned toward her, before Daryl noticed who she was looking at and he glanced over to Rick with a darkened stare of confusion. Rick didn't seem surprised that she had called him out, but he did look down at the ground in something akin to shame.

He spoke in a husky voice, sounding choked, "Before we left the CDC, Jenner told me something."

The three of them stood in a triangle around Randal's fallen form, their weapons lowered as they allowed themselves a moment to forget about the threat that they were hunting. Dark shadows stretched along the ground like the hands of death, reaching to claim the remaining life upon the dying world. Rick's words spilled forth like a dam had been broken, allowing everything that he had been holding back from the group to spill forth, leaving the couple dumbstruck and speechless.

Jamie felt the sickening discomfort of nausea as she lifted her hands to her mouth in shock and turned away from Rick and Daryl, her hazel eyes widened in disbelief.

"The fuck were you thinkin'!" Daryl yelled a moment later, staying exactly where he was but facing Rick in an aggressive manner. "You can't keep this shit from us-"

"Don't start arguing," Jamie interrupted in a quiet voice, still loud enough for them to hear her in the small clearing of trees. "We have better things to do and it'll be dark in less than an hour. We should track Shane's direction while we still have daylight."

Daryl's nostrils flared like an enraged bull before he scoffed and turned toward where Shane would have had to be in order to tie Jamie to the tree. Jamie and Rick locked eyes from across the space before they turned their attention to the third person in the group, who was circling around the cluster of trees to see which was Shane had gone after he left Jamie to be eaten by Randal.

"Should I have told everyone?" Rick asked with pained eyes, trying to read the expression on Jamie's face.

"I'm not really sure," she answered after a brief pause, "In complete honesty I think that telling everyone the truth would have ended badly, all things considered. Things were taken in a pretty nasty way when the infection first started; to tell them that we're all fucked might defeat the purpose of trying to survive." Smiling sadly, Jamie shook her head as she glanced over to where Daryl was beginning to wander in a specific direction, watching the ground carefully. "I don't know—guess it depends on the person."

"You think they'd actually commit suicide?"

"Jenner did. Jacqui did. Andrea almost did. I suppose…you never really know until faced with the situation, or the chance."

From up ahead, Daryl called back, "He went this way, looks like he was hurt, too. He kept stumbling."

Jamie sneered. "Maybe I head-butted him at some point. Sounds like something I'd do, right?"

"You do that in your sleep if your dreams are bad enough," Daryl grumbled back, getting a dry chuckle from Rick as they two joined the tracker along the path of mussed up leaves and broken sticks upon the ground. Glancing over her shoulder, Jamie felt her stomach tighten in apprehension at the sight of the sun bringing the light pinks to the horizon that told her it was setting quickly.

Daryl continued to track Shane's movements for a while through the woods, turning in several different directions. He must have expected that they'd get Daryl to try and find where he's gone, because there was the distinct feeling of him trying to shake someone following him. They twisted and turned through the trees, following the other ex-cops clumsy trail throughout Hershel's property, until they came to a stream.

"Damn it," Daryl cursed as he crouched at the edge of the running water, trying to see if there was anything left of his footprints to tell him which direction Shane had gone. The stream of course had two directions: one direction led away from the farmhouse, while the other led right back to it. "The mud's settled by now, and he could have gone on for a while in the streams so it'll take too long to check both directions."

Placing his hand on the gun at his hip, Rick was on edge. "I wish I could say that I think he's gone the opposite way, but I can't be honest with myself about what I think anymore."

"Andrea and T-Dog should be back at the farmhouse by now," Jamie threw in, leaning against a tree while she rested her injured knee. "They'll be sure to keep things safe if Shane did go back to the house. Considering that direction is the biggest concern, I think we should go that way."

Daryl straightened up to his full height once more. "We got other problems," he said in a low voice, taken steps back from the stream. Jamie and Rick to turned their attention to where he was staring in time to see at least five walkers stumble past a cluster of trees. There only appeared to be the one group of them, but they could cause problems if left alone.

Rick pulled his knife from his boot carefully, trying not to draw the dead's attention. "They're heading in the direction of the farm."

"Let's not let them get that far," Jamie answered in a voice even quieter than his. The dead weren't too perceptive, but they could still hear and the sounds would draw them in and give the three no time to plan a way to take them out. "I'll go around and draw their attention and let you guys sneak up on them-"

"Like hell I'm letting you do that," Daryl interrupted in a gruff voice, sounding rough as he tried to keep in below a certain level.

Jamie gave a grim smile. "Since when do I ask permission?" she asked in a low voice before she ducked behind a tree and began a wide circle around the group. Daryl shared a look with Rick who looked like he was trying to drown his concern for the injured woman with the amusement that he wanted to feel for her words.

"Bitch," Daryl cussed in an annoyed voice as he and Rick carefully stepped over the creek and began toward the stumping cluster of walkers.

Jamie gave a simple whistle when she was in position, far enough away to give the two men time but still in view of the walkers. Several fallen trees separated the group from her and gave her a small bit of assurance that took the place of what her knife would usually give her. Just as expected, the group turned toward her in something akin to confusion before they recognized living flesh and began to rasp as they desperately moved for her. It looked like they hadn't eaten in a while and were left to wander around as they grew weaker and weaker.

Rick and Daryl didn't hesitate as soon as they weren't facing them and charged forward with their knives out, driving them up into the back of the skull that belonged to the nearest walker. The dead weight went down hard but wasn't spared a moment more of attention before the men were on the next one, taking that down just as quickly. Jamie watched carefully from her place behind the fallen branches and trees, making sure that nothing was able to sneak up behind them.

However, she wasn't watching to make sure nothing snuck up on her.

The sudden cold feeling of metal on her throat causing the blonde to tense up in fear, fighting the urge to swallow the sudden thickness in her throat so that she didn't end up cutting herself on the blade pressing into her skin with just enough pressure not to cut.

She watched as Rick froze after pushing a fully dead woman aside, Daryl kicking the last walker off of the knife he had driven into its forehead. The sickening sound of the blade pulling from the remains of its brain and softened bone made Jamie shudder for a moment. Daryl's eyes flicked in her direction to make sure that she was okay before his full attention snapped to her and the blade at her throat.

"Didn't have to be this way, Rick," Shane's voice drifted from behind Jamie and she felt the intense urge to buck her foot back like a horse to knock his knee out the other way.

"Let her go, Shane," Rick tried to persuade, but Daryl looked as though he was ready to completely tear Shane apart. If it hadn't been the knife pressed over Jamie's jugular, he would already have jumped over the fallen foliage to get to the ex-cop.

"You decided to bring her out here; can't you even keep your bitch on a leash?" Shane snapped, directing his question to where Daryl was tensed and outraged.

"Watch it," Jamie sneered in annoyance.

In response, Shane took a firm hold of her hair and pulled her head back sharply, jutting her throat out further and causing a trickle of blood to begin pooling around the sharp blades edge. She pondered briefly if it was her own blade that he was threatening her with. The thought only served to anger her further and make her want to injure him deeply. Her kick must have left something of his balls intact if he had enough to threaten her in front of Daryl with his own hunting knife.

"Come on Rick," Shane started again. "Aren't you going to try and bargain for her life or something? My freedom for the cunt's?"

"Don't you fucking call her that," Daryl growled out, his hand tightening reflexively on the knife still clutched in his hand. Jamie couldn't see him anymore, the hard pull on her hair leaving her to stare up at what was left of the canopy of trees, watching as the wind blew more dying leaves from their places. The sky was darkening further and it would soon be full night.

"Strike a nerve?" Shane taunted, pulling Jamie more securely against his front in case they decided to pull their guns. Jamie knew that he was aware of the gun tucked in her belt.

Rick took a slow step forward, the knife that he had been using dropping to the ground so that he would show he wasn't a threat to the other man. Shane still tightened his grip on Jamie's hair, however, and stopped the other man cold. "Why are you going after Jay, Shane? We all know that I'm the one that's really in your way."

"That's just how it's gunna have to be," Shane drawled out. Jamie took note of the loosening grip on her hair and paid careful attention to any opportunity that she could get to escape.

"You're never going to get what you wanted, Shane. Screw my wife, have my children call you daddy? They'll never take you back; she'll never take you back. You've ruined your chances of ever being close to any of them ever again-"

Jamie felt her hair was loose enough and quickly elbowed Shane in the ribs while stepping back on the top of his foot with her heel where the steel toe didn't protect. The knife came next when she jabbed her elbows into the nerve in his arm to make his finger lose feeling momentarily. Diving for the knife, Daryl had his gun drawn the second Jamie was out his sight, but when he fired Shane had already ducked behind the nearest tree and taken off at a dead run in the other direction.

"Go!" Jamie yelled from the ground. Daryl tried to protest, moving closer to her. "I'm fine, you two catch up with him," she ordered, waving them off as she picked up the hunting knife that Shane had been holding to her throat. Daryl hesitated a moment more before he turned and ran in the direction that Rick had chased Shane. "Be careful! He took my handgun!"

Wiping at the droplets of blood on her neck, Jamie looked down at her knife. Of course he had been threatening her with her own knife.

Never thought I'd say it, but I miss Merle. Just thought I'd get that out in the open. Anyway, I didn't have a lot of free time but I made sure that I used what I did have to continue with some of my stories and this was one that I made sure so update. I'm going to be moving to a new place that won't immediately have internet, so I made sure to get one more chapter out before I left this internet behind. I've already got the next chapter written up, but it hasn't been edited. It's the longest I'm ever written, and it's the last in this story. Don't worry, there'll be a sequel!

Chapter 44 – Scream Once For Me

The gun went off and the bullet imbedded in the dirt instead of Rick's head, but Shane was quick to react and Jamie was pushed back onto the ground when her knee gave out from the stain it had been under all day.

"Bitch! You stay out of this!" Shane ordered, turning to point the gun at her. But even on the ground, Jamie was not defenseless and was not going out without fighting. She already had her rifle pointed at his chest, her core muscles keeping her half sitting up while her knee throbbed in pain when it was finally rested.

"You aren't going to walk away from this, Shane. They'll have heard the shot, and they'll come to investigate."

Shane barked a laugh, looking over to where Rick stood with his Colt Python aimed at Shane's head, a sure kill, but Jamie actually had the doubt that he would be able to pull the trigger. Only for a moment, however, because she could finally see his face and there was something there that just wasn't Rick anymore.

"Who, Jamie, your fiancé? Is your precious knight in shining amour's gunna come riding in an' save your sorry ass again? It's pathetic! You're always in the way, always getting yourself in trouble and needing to be saved," Shane spat out, reaching up to reload his gun, Rick taking a threatening step toward Shane in reaction.