Sorry-I-Wasn't-Listening - Another awesome review LOL. And yeah, I always thought Daryl was completely in the right in the show when Lori basically just . . . demanded that he go get Rick and everyone in town. She really acted like he was Glenn - an errand boy - and he's not. He could kick your ass and then eat it afterwards ha ha. I'm kinda liking writing Beth and Ethan too and I'm still on the fence on whether or not I want to keep them together or create an OC Family with a girl more his age but I don't know - depends on what my fans want, I guess lol. And from what Daryl said, Jimmy didn't throw that many punches at all, although I do like to think he landed one or two ;)

Maddy120296 - I like to think that Tessa is the only one that can semi-keep a leash on Daryl's anger and she does it out of . . . the good will of her heart (I guess LOL) simply for the safety of the person that ill will is directed towards. So, she might have thought Lori would have been completely in the wrong, she's just apprehensive of Daryl's anger, if that made any sense lol

Yeah, hopefully this chapter causes Tessa to turn up her badass meter just a little bit. Its not that much on the badass meter, I guess - not compared to Daryl - but I did have an extremely fun time writing this chapter nonetheless :)

- Nagiana


Favorite Line(s):

"I thank Merle every day for having that much decency, at least, although I doubt it was that much of a good intention so much as Merle only being his normal selfish self!"

"Hey Lori, wait up a minute, will ya?!"

Lori turned around when she heard Tessa's voice quickly coming up behind her, only to see the woman jogging her way over to her, clothes and hair now righted into the near perfect state they always seemed to be in. She smiled when she reached her and slowed to a stop. "I'll come with you." She spoke and Lori gave her a curious look.

"Are you sure? Daryl sounded like he pretty much put his foot down about the whole matter a minute ago." She replied, her voice coming out a little cool, and Tessa shrugged and gave a dismissive wave towards the general direction that Daryl had disappeared to.

"Yeah, but that's Daryl for you. Contrary to what he might think sometimes, he does not control me. I want to go with you so I'm going to go with you – it's my decision! And besides – it'll give ya some company!" She gave her a grin and a wink then and Lori grinned as she nodded and led her to the car, checking the pistol she withdrew from her pocket as she did so. Tessa eyed the gun rather impassively for a moment as she made her way around to the passenger side door, fingering the large knife she had strapped to her thigh underneath her coat as she did so. Good thing she had snuck Daryl's hunting knife before she left. She didn't entirely know for sure if Lori knew how to work that gun and even though she herself certainly did, it was no secret that she couldn't aim to save her life - literally! At least with a knife, she had protection that she could count on – at least for herself!

"You ready to go?" Lori asked her and Tessa nodded as the got in the car, backed up and then pulled into the driveway. "Will ya hand me that map over there?" She asked her once they had been driving for a minute, and Tessa nodded as she reached down into the floorboard and brought up the road map. She handed it to Lori and the woman propped it up against the steering wheel as she began tracing their route to the nearest town.

"So, can I ask you a question? It's been kinda bugging me all day . . ." Tessa eventually spoke up, and Lori nodded as she glanced up briefly before turning her attention back onto the map.

"Sure – shoot." Tessa nodded and waited a minute, finding her voice, before she finally spoke:

"Is the baby . . . is your baby Shane's?"

For a minute after she asked the question, Tessa thought Lori would slam on the brakes and give them whiplash before demanding she get out of the car. But surprisingly the woman kept her cool although her movements had become much more mechanical than they had been.

"How . . .?" She began to ask but then stopped herself when she realized that by how she had acted in their previous conversations, that it had been pretty obvious. She smiled a small, weak smile instead and settled on brevity. "Has it been that obvious from our conversations?" Tessa immediately let out a laugh and a nod of her head.

"Oh honey, I'm sorry, but it's been pretty obvious!" She told her, and Lori grinned and laughed.

"It's just . . ." She began but couldn't finish. She gave her a small smile and shook her head, still at a loss for words, and it was then that Tessa gently butted in.

"You thought Rick was dead . . .?" Lori nodded, gratefully.

"Yes - yes, thank you! I thought Rick was dead and-and Shane was there – he was there for me and for Carl . . .!" She shook her head. "And . . . and I had slept with guys before Rick – of course I had! It's just . . ." She shrugged. "I married Rick so young, Tess, and for the longest time, the only man I had ever slept with was Rick! I guess . . . I guess Shane was also a change of scenery, you know, and as bad as that sounds . . ." Tessa nodded.

"Daryl was my first and he was . . . it was an amazing first for it being his first time too – an amazing first that carried over into phenomenal repeats that only ended up getting better as we progressed as a couple. Then . . . then came Merle and after that I was pregnant and after I had Ethan, then came Sam. And yeah, I had a few affairs when I was with Sam but other than that . . ." She shrugged. "I had never really been . . . never really been that promiscuous, I guess you could say." Lori's eyes furrowed.

"What about that other guy - the guy that was with Merle in the barn?" Tessa glanced at her before returning her eyes onto the road before them.

"You mean Dennis? Oh no, he didn't actually . . ." She trailed off and shook her head, a hard look appearing in her eyes. "He didn't actually fuck me – that was Merle's pleasure and Merle's pleasure only. I thank . . ." She trailed off and stayed silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "I thank Merle every day for having that much decency, at least, although I doubt it was that much of a good intention so much as Merle only being his normal selfish self!"

Lori nodded as they fell into a comfortable silence then as she went back to tracing their route on the map, turning onto another street as she did so. "Dammit, I think we took a wrong turn right there -"

"LORI, WATCH OUT!"

Lori immediately looked up at Tessa's frightened voice and immediately gasped and slammed on the brakes when she saw the walker lumbering out into the middle of the road. The tires of the car screeched on the dry pavement and the smell of burning rubber filled the air as Lori hit the walker head-on.

"Slow down – slow down!" Tessa yelled but Lori wasn't listening. Either she was panicked and frightened over what just occurred or she just wasn't thinking, but the car ended up going faster and when it hit the small hill on the side of the road, it ran up it at an angle, causing the car to fly through the air and roll several times until it was lying on its side on the side of the road not that far from where they had hit the walker.

When everything was over and done with and everything lay still, Tessa found her breathing was tearing harsh and ragged from her chest. Lori was already passed out beside her, blood slowly creeping out from a gash on her forehead, but Tessa seemed to still be conscious. She felt a sharp pain in her leg but passed it by as everything started to fall out of focus and as her vision started to blacken. She moaned out a miserable protest but her body didn't listen to her. She remembered weakly moaning out Daryl's name before her entire vision went black.

The sound of a turn signal caught in perpetual 'On' mode, filled Tessa's senses what seemed like seconds later, even though she knew it had to have been hours since they last sped along that hill and flipped the car. The sound of the turn signal was accompanied by the cacophony of a hissing totaled engine and the squeaking of a wheel as it was caught in a seemingly perpetual rotation. Tessa's mouth felt as dry as cotton as she clawed her way to consciousness, however, when she did so, she immediately regretted it. Pain slammed deeply into her skull, almost like someone had hit her upside the head with a brick, and knives seemed to be clawing and digging their way into her left thigh. The coppery taste of blood hung thick in her mouth and vaguely, she could hear the sounds of low moaning and the scraping of nails on metal.

She ignored that for the moment, and let out a grunt as she shifted instead, feeling a new spear of pain lance through her thigh as she did so which caused her to immediately cease all movements. She slowly opened her eyes instead which turned out to be another bad idea. Her vision was quickly assaulted by flashes of bright white light that faded after a moment before her eyes became flooded by a thick redness that she immediately knew by the smell and thickness was blood. She blinked a couple of times, trying unsuccessfully to rid her eyes of the substance before she gave up and eventually raised her hand to wipe the fluid away instead. She was terrified inside at what she would find, to the point to where her fingers shook violently as they trailed up from her cheek to the gash on her forehead stretching the length of her entire right eye. She immediately let out a laugh of relief when she realized that the gash was the cause of the blood in her eye and not because she was missing one!

The pain in her thigh was starting to grow ignorable now that she was fully conscious, and once she had sufficiently wiped away enough of the blood from her eyes to be able to see, she looked down at the growing patch of scarlet blood that had fanned steadily out on her dark-washed blue jeans. She had to gag to hold back the vomit that threatened to rise, as well as the scream that threatened to issue forth from her lips when she saw what was wrong. She fought to keep herself from passing out at the sight as well.

And of course, it hadn't been so bad until she had looked at it. She could have ignored the pain if only she hadn't looked down and saw the long blade of Plexiglas lodged deeply within her thigh, straight into the muscle.

"Oh shit . . . oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" She couldn't help but hiss, her voice growing more and more panicked as she sat there staring at it. It was at that moment, too, that she finally gave the sound of hungry moans and the scraping of nails on metal, the attention it deserved. After looking up from her hanging position in the passenger side, she saw the two walkers trying to claw and find their way into the car to get to her and Lori. "Oh fuck . . . oh Goddammit - where the fuck is Daryl when I need him?" She hissed before she turned to look at Lori still lying unconscious beneath her. "Lori . . . Lori, honey, you need to wake up right now!"

The brunette woman that had gotten them into this mess to begin with, finally clawed her way to consciousness right when a walker was trying to press his face through a hole in the Plexiglas windshield – the broken Plexiglas windshield that Tessa currently found a pretty decently sized shard lodged deep within her thigh. She let out a mounting scream but Tessa immediately shushed her with a sharp hiss.

"Shut up Lori – do you wanna attract more than just these two . . . gooks?" She hissed to her, thinking up the most racist slur she could think of to let some of her anger out. Lori immediately quieted and Tessa silently thanked Merle for being such the damn racist pig whenever he was around her and for giving her the slur she needed to blow off some much needed steam. Lori's eyes flitted down to the shard of Plexiglas lodged in Tessa's thigh and her eyes grew wide in horror at the sight before they moved back up to her face. Tessa's teeth were gritted with the pain and even her body was tense and hard. Her eyes were closed as if she was trying to damndest to separate herself from the pain. Lori shook her head.

"Oh my God, Tess - I'm so sorry!" She hissed and Tessa shook her head.

"Apologize to me later because right now, we've got to get out of here before these two boneheads figure out that my window is smashed in!" She told her, nodding to the window above her and Lori's eyes immediately flew to it and she nodded.

"What do we do?" She asked and Tessa at first wanted to say, 'Beats me' but quickly decided against it. Right now, she needed to be the smart one – the survivalist – the Daryl. And as soon as those words popped into her head, she immediately began thinking about what Daryl would do if he was in their situation. Not that he would ever have put himself in their situation to begin with, but that was beside the point!

"I can't really . . . I can't really move with this leg," She began, swallowing hard as she did so, her voice coming out as calm and level as she could make it. Lori was a follower - she wasn't a leader. She needed to be told what to do, especially in a situation like this and she certainly didn't work well under pressure. That left Tessa deciding how they would do things and, in the process, left her the decider of their fates too. It wouldn't be good if she lost her cool. No pressure.

"The glass, it . . . it makes my life pure agony whenever I move my leg in the slightest! You need to get out somehow and then kill the two walkers. We'll think about getting me out of this death-trap then. I'm pretty useless until then . . ." Lori nodded and swallowed heavily as well. Tessa saw the slightly apprehensive, totally fearful look in her eyes as she unbuckled herself from the seat and then clawed her way to the smashed open window above the still strapped in Tessa, being extremely careful of the woman's leg as she did so. The walker was still trying to squeeze his way in through the hole in the broken windshield to get to Tessa and Tessa found herself very thankful that the Plexiglas looked like it wasn't going to give any further at that moment.

"Hurry up, Lori!" Tessa grunted and Lori glanced down at her.

"Well, it's kinda hard to do this when I'm trying to avoid hitting your leg!"

"Yes, please don't! If I pass out, then we're both dead!"

Lori didn't bother arguing with her and Tessa knew that she wouldn't – not at that moment, anyway. All she wanted to do was get out of that death-trap, get the shard of Plexiglas out of her leg and then make it back to the farm where Hershel could patch her up. She wanted Daryl and she wanted her son and there would be nothing on the face of the planet that would keep her from accomplishing those things!

She was brought out of her thoughts by Lori suddenly letting out a fearful gasp. She had lost her strength and fell back inside, the heel of her foot hitting Tessa's leg in the knee as she did so. Tessa immediately out a scream as molten-hot agony slammed down into her leg, her eyes squeezing shut until they hurt as well. Her hands immediately moved to tightly grasp her thigh, the limb setting up a pounding pulsebeat as Tessa temporarily saw stars explode behind her closed eyelids. "Oh fucking - Goddammit!" She hissed as she fought bloody murder to will the pain away, her teeth chattering as she did so. Tears stung her eyes but she forced them to stay back as well. She had to keep her cool – she had to be Mrs. Joe Cool - she had to be Daryl . . .!

"I'm fine, Lori, I'm fine!" She quickly assured the woman underneath her and she swallowed heavily as she nodded her head. "Try again . . . and please, for the love of God, be more careful this time! I don't think I could handle that monster again!" Lori nodded, tears in her eyes as she jumped up and grabbed onto the edges of the smashed open window. The walker in the window had his hand partially through the glass and Tessa shook her head, her eyes widening when she saw that the walker was steadily gaining entrance into the totaled vehicle. "Lori, I don't mean to rush you, but until you kill these freaks, I'm kind of a sitting duck!"

Lori dropped back down and looked around for a weapon instead. The walker now had his head and shoulders as well as an arm in and Tessa yelled for her to reach for Daryl's hunting knife she had strapped to her thigh over the snarling of the walker. Lori had just enough time to yank out the knife before the walker sunk a hand deep into her hair, causing her to let out a pained scream as her head was yanked back, pinning her back against the broken windshield. Tessa yelled for her to hurry up as she grasped the knife's handle and drove it into the walker's eye socket behind her. The walker immediately stilled and they both let out a giant sigh of relief.

"I'm so glad I nicked Daryl's knife before I left . . .!" Tessa breathed out and Lori nodded in agreement as she yanked it out of the walker's head. She then gave Tessa a 'hold-on' look before crawling through the back and opening the back door. She screamed when another walker grabbed ahold of her and Tessa yelled her name in panic, her heart immediately beginning to thrum like a wire in her chest. She couldn't see Lori, she didn't know what was happening – all she knew was that, judging from Lori's frightened scream, the other walker had grabbed ahold of her.

Lori allowed the walker to have her jacket before sweeping one of her legs through his, bringing him to the hard asphalt. The walker was steadily crawling up her body as she crawled to the grass and it was then that she remembered the hunting knife she still had in her hands. Grasping it by the handle again, she turned around and stabbed it through the second walker's head, just like she had the first one. She twisted it as she yanked it free and then ran around to Tessa's side of the car.

"I did it – I got rid of them!" She breathed and Tessa nodded, a pained smile crossing her face.

"Great job Lori, but forgive me if we don't dwell on it for long! You still have to get me out of here and very gently! This leg is excruciating to move even the tiniest bit!" Lori nodded as her eyes quickly scanned the car around her.

"I don't suppose you can crawl yourself out like I did?" Tessa shook her head.

"No fucking way! I'd pass out from the pain halfway through. Then you'd have to lug my dead weight out and we both can't afford that time."

Lori cursed under her breath before her eyes landed on the smashed open window above her. "What if you unbuckle yourself and land on your good leg? You could pull yourself out that way and then slide yourself down." Tessa swallowed heavily again as she gazed up at the window above her.

"It's gonna hurt . . ."

"Every way of getting you out is gonna hurt without help and I refuse to leave you alone for that long! And besides, Daryl would butcher me if I even thought about it!" Lori told her stubbornly and Tessa smiled a small smile as she nodded.

"He would, your right!" She heaved a sigh then and shook her head. "Well, if it any consolation, Lori, I'm glad I'm in this shitty situation with you and not someone like Andrea!" Tessa breathed out as she searched for the release latch on her seat-belt. After closing her eyes and releasing an old Cherokee prayer she heard her grandmother say a couple of times, she pressed the button.

"Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind and whose breath gives life to the entire world - hear me; I need your strength and wisdom . . ."

Daryl always told her she was part cat.

And, granted, half of those times had been after their particularly limber nights in bed together, when they had managed to twist themselves and their limbs into mind-boggling positions and scenarios, but she bet if he could see how she landed with that wounded leg of hers, he'd say it again then too.

As soon as she pressed the release button, she felt herself falling. And as she was falling, she somehow re-positioned herself so that she would land on her uninjured side. She let out a grunt as pain shot throughout her body regardless, speaking it hurt her entire body to move even the slightest inch thanks to her leg, but it hurt a lot less than actually landing on the injured leg!

"Tess, are you alright?" Lori hissed down to her, her voice laced with concern, and Tessa nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine! It hurt like a bitch, but I done it! I'm getting to my feet – err . . . foot, now." She told her as she slowly and carefully got up, placing all her weight (or a majority of her weight, anyway) onto her uninjured foot. Taking ahold of the edges of the broken window, she managed to haul herself up and out of the car with Lori's help. Sitting on her ass on the side of the car and trying her damndest to ignore the thumping pain in her leg, she slid carefully down the side of the car to the pavement, Lori helping her the entire way. She wanted to get out of that car and to Hershel's. She wanted this horrible day to be over with -!

However, as soon as she slid down the car and landed on the pavement and put the slightest bit of weight on her injured leg, she knew the one thing that could keep her in that car until Lori got back with help – the excruciating pain that raged on like a marching army in her thigh.

The pain was almost blinding. She let out a scream of agony as she immediately slumped to her knees to the pavement (which caused it to hurt even more upon impact), her eyes squeezing themselves shut and her teeth gritting as she tried desperately to cope with the pain and waited for it to fade. She fell back on her ass to the asphalt and when it finally did, her back moved to plant against the crumpled metal hulk of the car. Lori followed her the entire time, tears filling her eyes and whispering 'Oh God' and 'I'm so sorry, Tess!' over and over again.

She wasn't listening, though. Her eyes were pinned on the shard of Plexiglas sticking out of her leg the entire time – her leg, for God's sake! The chunk of Plexiglas felt like it was on fire and with the slightest motion made by any part of her body that caused it to move slightly, gave her the feeling of knives descending and clawing their way into her flesh and bone. She swallowed heavily at the realization that it would have to come out if she wanted to get anywhere – namely back to the farm where Daryl and Ethan were probably worried sick about her.

She despised the very thought of it, in fact – let alone face the reality that she actually had to do it herself instead of Hershel while she was under some pretty awesome pain pills and with only Lori there to help her if she needed it! But she knew she had no choice. She couldn't stay there - she had to get home and by any means possible! She couldn't do that with a shard of fucking Plexiglas in her leg that threatened to make her pass out from the pain every time she moved!

It would have been what Daryl would have done. Hell, it was what he had done out in the woods when he had found himself pierced by his own arrow! He had yanked that bad-boy out and then it used to kill a walker seconds later. True, that was a level of badassery that she could never hope to reach, but she could at least have the balls to pull out a shard of Plexiglas from her thigh!

Tessa swallowed hard, her breathing running ragged as she turned to Lori. "Is there . . . is there any length of clothe in the car?" She asked, and Lori adopted a look of slight confusion on her face before getting to her feet and heading towards the back. She shifted through the destroyed inside when she saw the thin little workout jacket not far from her. She inched forward and grabbed it before turning back around and returning to Tessa. She nodded in approval and took both Daryl's knife and the jacket from her, where she cut it in half quite easily. She handed the knife back to her and when Lori took it, Tessa wrapped one half of the jacket around her hand so that she wouldn't cut herself while pulling out the shard, while the other she put in her mouth so that she could bite down on it and not her tongue. Lori, quickly realizing what she was about to do, immediately placed a worried hand on hers.

"Tess, are you absolutely sure about this?" She asked, and Tessa nodded. The shard had to come out! Not only would she be able to bind the wound better, but she would also be able to move with a lot less pain. She couldn't do either with it still in there.

Lori shakily nodded as she withdrew her hand and Tessa wrapped hers firmly around the chunk of glass - her heart beating a frantic tattoo against his chest that she knew Lori's matched. Every part of her brain screamed for her to leave it alone – to forget about it the best she could – but she ignored the thoughts as she summoned up the courage she needed to follow through with it.

The gash above her eye stung from the sweat droplets that beaded on her forehead at the prospect of what she was about to do – at the thought of the excruciating pain she was about to willing put herself through - and her hand tightened slightly on the Plexiglas . . .

She could do this . . . she could do this . . .! Daryl had done it after all and she was pretty damn sure that whatever Daryl could do, she could also do to an extent. This was certainly one of those times!

Then, before she could herself time to talk herself out of it and with a powerful yank that Lori flinched violently upon seeing, she pulled. The glass moved upwards with a seemingly excruciating slowness but which Tessa knew had to be only seconds.

Never before in her life had she ever felt so much pain explode throughout her body – not even in childbirth! If she thought putting weight on it had been blinding, then actually pulling the chunk out was pure, unadulterated agony! Tears streamed from her tightly squeezed eyelids and she screamed bloody-murder against the cloth clenched in-between her gritting teeth. It seemed to move by inches, each inch a cross between a searing hot knife pressing against it and then someone actually ripping open her wound before cruelly rubbing salt into it.

Finally, before her body forcibly blacked her out from the pain, she pulled the chunk free with an intensely relieved – almost orgasmic gasp. Her head immediately fell back against the totaled car she was sitting against, her eyes growing wide with relief. Hard gasps pushed themselves forth from her chest as she threw the shard of Plexiglas away from her with all her might. It went whizzing into the distance, only to land somewhere her eyes couldn't perceive. As Lori attacked her with an almost suffocating embrace, she realized that she felt a lot better – that she felt like she could finally move. However, the pain was still there, though, sitting like a hunched animal in the shadows biding its time until it had an excuse to strike again. It was nothing like it had been, though. She was gladder it was over than anything else!

She sat there for a moment with an intensely relieved Lori, resting for a minute, and felt an exhaustion descend upon her that could only have been brought about by her painful ordeal, although she knew she couldn't rest for long. She had to keep going – she had to get back to the farmhouse and to Daryl and Ethan before they started worrying about her too much. When she got back and when Hershel had finished patching her up, then she would sleep. She would go to sleep nestled in Daryl's arms, with his powerful heart beating away underneath her ear, and an amazing warmth bloomed inside her stomach at the thought. In fact, it was that warmth that gave her the strength to carry on.

Once she was sure her lightheadedness had passed enough for her to stop seeing double of everything, she swallowed heavily and picked up the torn length of cloth she had been clenching in her teeth. It had fallen from her mouth onto her lap when she had gasped out in relief and she tied it tightly around her leg then in a makeshift tourniquet, just tight enough to where she was sure she couldn't die of blood loss before hopefully reaching someone that could help them, but not at the risk of losing her leg. The blood still seeped from the wound but hopefully she would be alright. She didn't know how far she would have to go and truth be told, it daunted her a little.

"Come on, help me to my feet . . ." Tessa breathed out and Lori's eyebrows furrowed in concern as she took her friend's hand and helped her struggle to her feet with the help of the car. Tessa nodded, careful not to put too much weight on her wounded leg. She gritted his teeth at the shoots of pain that shot up from the wound, nonetheless, but brushed them aside as she stood there for a moment catching her breath. The slightest bit of exertion exhausted her, which was starting to make her a little bit worried. If she stood or sat for any length of time, she knew she would pass out from the stress or the pain or both, and she knew she couldn't let that happen. She had to get back to Daryl and Ethan!

"Come on . . . let's get back to our boys . . .!" Tessa breathed out with a hard swallow and Lori grinned and shook her head as she slid Tessa's arm around her shoulders and her arm around her waist, supporting her as they began walking.

"Tess, I just wanna let you know that your now officially my role model! No wonder Daryl loves you so much – you're him in female form!"