Sorry to upload this so late. I've been mourning the death of someone who I think a lot of, Ned Vizzini. but, instead of wallowing in my misery, I decided to finish up this chapter for you guys. :) however, I need to address a few things.

For those of you who don't like the whole Jemma/Joel thing, you should know, I originally wrote this story with Jemma being his love interest. So, whatever. More people seem to like them together, than not, so they shall be together (or something of the like).

To the anonymous person to wrote all the mean reviews, if you can't say anything decent to me, don't say anything at all.

Lastly, thanks a mega ton for reading! You guys definitely keep me going! I hope you enjoy!

...

When Joel went to bed that night, Ellie slipped into Jemma's room.

"What're you reading?" She asked, taking a seat on her bed.

Jemma set the book down. "It's called Catcher in the Rye, and I hate it so far. The main character is so annoying and self-centered."

"Sounds like something I wouldn't read."

Jemma tossed the book on the floor. She noticed Ellie looking at her. "What are you staring at?" She asked.

"Oh," Ellie looked away. "I like your earrings."

"You can borrow them if you want," she said, and started taking them out.

Ellie smiled. "It's cool, I won't. Thanks."

Jemma stopped. "Are your ears not pierced?!" She leaned in for a closer look.

"Yeah, it's not really important to me," Ellie mumbled.

She stood. "It's a rite of passage. We are going to pierce your ears tonight."

Ellie covered her ears. "No, it's fine, I don't want them pierced. I prefer the natural look."

"'The natural look' my ass. It's not even going to hurt."

After much convincing, Ellie gave in. Jemma found a needle, and some ice from the balcony outside. She drew small dots on Ellie's ears with a pen, and gave her a mirror.

"How does that look? You happy with that?"

She sighed. "Sure."

"Okay, hold this ice on your ear."

Jemma held the needle between her thumb and finger, and steadied herself. "Don't move, or it's gonna be all fucked up looking."

Ellie held her breath, and Jemma leaned in. "Okay," she whispered, and leaned back.

"Whoa, is it over? That was easy."

Jemma rolled her eyes. "Ha, no. Move the ice." She held Ellie's face with her hand. "Don't scream. Whatever you do, don't scream, or yell."

The pain was sudden, and it wasn't the worst she had ever experienced, but the sound of it going through her skin made Ellie sick. Her ear throbbed, and it felt like it was bleeding. Jemma pulled the needle out, which hurt worse than it going in. Ellie cringed, hoping it would be over soon enough. Jemma put a small black earring in.

"Next ear," she whispered. Ellie put the ice on it, and they repeated the same process. It didn't hurt like the other one did, and Ellie was glad it was over.

Jemma held up he mirror. "Look at the new and improved you!"

Ellie didn't see much of a difference, but her hair wouldn't cover up her ears. They were beet red, like a bad sunburn, and she was beginning to regret it.

"It looks like shit." She said, closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at them anymore.

...

"Get up, we're going out to find some missing cattle." Joel pulled the sheets off of Jemma, and she shot up immediately.

"Asshole, you could have just asked," she mumbled, stepping on the cold floor.

"Hurry up," he said. "We need to get going."

She rummaged through her clothes. "If I smell like a dead llama, don't complain!"

"Ellie's going to school, so it's just you and me," he announced, when she had emerged from her room.

"How convenient."

The two hurried to the town gates, where Tommy was waiting for them. "Here's some supplies for you two." He handed Joel a small canvas bag. "Some rope, if you need it." he handed that to Jemma.

"So, what are we doing exactly?" She asked.

"Thigs morning, the fence holding all of the cattle had been torn apart. We're only missing three or four, but if it's a group that stealing our stuff, we'll need to take care of that. I'm assuming you two can handle that."

Jemma was hesitant. "What if the cows are dead?"

"Don't touch them," Tommy said. "If it's a couple of guys, no problem. But, if it's a small settlement, get back here."

"Do you think there's another town 'round here?" Joel asked.

"No, but here are some guns." Tommy handed a pistol to Jemma.

"I don't need one," she said. "I have two."

Joel took it for her.

"Do you have a shotgun? I'd like that," she said.

"Can you handle it?" Tommy asked.

"Please. I'm not six."

...

It had started to snow again when they were about a mile out.

"Why couldn't we take one of the trucks?! Why are we going, anyway?!" Jemma complained.

"Because you ain't got nothing better to do," he said.

"Haven't."

"What?"

She sneered. "Haven't, not ain't. Use your English, Joel."

"I'm gonna say whatever the hell I wanna say, and you ain't gonna do a damn thing about it," he retorted, emphasizing the ain't.

"Asshole."

"Bitch."

She smiled. "Douchebag."

"Dipshit," he countered.

They laughed.

"You know, I like you, Joel," Jemma said, looking at him.

"Well," he hesitated. "I like you, too."

"You're just, I don't know, I think you're hilarious. And so stubborn. It's endearing," she said.

"I'm stubborn?! Have you ever looked at yourself?" He asked.

Jemma rolled her eyes. "We're all stubborn."

"We?"

"Yeah, you, me, and Ellie. I think that's why we all get along so well. We are the biggest bunch of assholes. Family of Assholes."

"Family of Assholes. I'm not sure how I feel about that." He said, stressing the 'family' part.

"Well, I didn't really like Family of Killers better, so, take your pick." She said, half serious, half playful.

"Yeah," he paused. "You made the right choice."

They were quiet for a while, still tramping forward, with no sign of the missing cattle. The snow fell heavier, and a slight breeze started to pick up. Jemma bumped into Joel, as a joke. He started to fall down to the ground, and he grabbed her coat, so she came down with him.

"You suck, I have snow down my shirt," she whined.

"Here, let me help you," he said, and shoved a handful down the back of her coat. She jumped up, and ran a few yards away.

"Stop laughing, this isn't funny," she muttered.

Joel walked over to her. "Don't worry, I'm empty handed," he said, and held them up for her to see.

"If I get sick, I'm blaming you."

"You won't get sick."

Jemma pouted. She folded her arms over her chest, and held her chin up high. She closed her eyes, and raised her eyebrows. "You better hope not."

Joel stepped in closer to her. He could smell her perfume, probably something she snatched from an empty mall. He could count every one of her freckles.

"We should get going," she said, and started walking.

They came upon a small neighborhood. There were several small stores, and a large warehouse. A few residential streets surrounded it. It was pretty quiet, and Joel assumed it was empty.

"Did you hear that?" Jemma asked. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"No, what the hell are you talking about?" He asked, and kept walking.

"Stop!" She hissed.

Joel heard a faint scream. He looked back at Jemma, who was taking her gun out. He heard a scream again, and looked around for the source. The snow muffled noise, and he wasn't sure how far it was.

"Believe me now?" She whispered, and moved closer to him. He could see her shaking.

"Get back behind me," he said, motioning to her.

Joel could feel her breath on his back, and it made him shiver. He was listening, waiting to hear if whoever or whatever was coming. The whistling of the wind made it nearly impossible for him to pinpoint anything.

Glass shattered down the street. They turned, just in time in see a crouched figure run behind a car. Clickers, Joel mouthed, a held a finger to his lips. They slowly moved to the car, guns raised.

Jemma hid behind a cement block, and Joel checked out the back of the car. The clicker had disappeared, and wasn't anywhere to be seen. He started to walk back to Jemma, but she was gone.

"Jemma?!" There was no response, and he feared the worst.

"Where the hell are you?!" Joel's voice caught in his throat.

There was a blood curdling scream, and a few gunshots. Joel ran to the source, and found Jemma standing over what he thought was the clicker.

The corpse didn't look like a human, but it wasn't a normal infected. It was emaciated, and its back was twisted and hunched. He could see that Jemma shot it in the head, but its face had been pulled back.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. That scared the fucking shit out of me, though."

...

The warehouse was filled with more of those creatures, but they were all dead. The building had been fashioned into a mass shelter, with several rows of beds taking up the space. Their belongings had been untouched, as though they had all left, suddenly.

"Wow, this is pretty scary," Jemma said. "I wonder what the hell happened."

Joel went to the back of the warehouse, where an office and some closets were. He went through one of the closets, and Jemma looked in the office.

"Hey," she called. "Dead guy in here. Hung himself."

When Joel came in, she was looking though a notebook. Sure enough, a man was hanging by the rafters, and, by the looks of it, he hadn't been there over a month or two.

"What's that?" He asked.

"Some sort of catalogue... This guy was running this place. He kept track of the people here... I don't know, it's weird."

He went to look through some of the shelves, while Jemma kept reading the book.

"Oh, wow." She walked over to Joel. "Look at this," she held it out for him to see. "He was feeding them infected meat. Those things, they were people."

"I can't believe that."

"I know, it's so strange that eating the infected has a different effect than breathing spores, or whatever."

He watched her read on, and noticed blood on her neck. "Did you get hurt?" He asked.

She touched her neck, gingerly. "Um, no I'm fine."

"Let's get out of here," Joel said, and crammed some batteries in his pack. She kept the notebook, and they started to head out.

Three more of the infected were scuttling around the warehouse. Joel took them out easily. Like the first one, the skin had peeled back where the bullets had hit them. It was strange, but he didn't have the time to keep looking.

"Shit, what time is it?" Jemma asked.

Joel instinctively looked at his watch, even though he knew it was broken.

"I have no idea," he said. "Probably one or two. We aren't going to find those cattle. It's time to go home."

Jemma went ahead of Joel down the front steps. They creaked under her weight. Joel followed her. As he took his first step, the wood gave out underneath him, and his foot fell through. He started to fall back, and he flailed his arms. He hit his head on the cement floor, and blacked out.

...

After a few minutes of trying to drag him with her, Jemma started scanning the neighborhood for something to carry Joel. A wheelbarrow, a sleigh, anything would work. Everything she did find was either too small or broken.

She spotted a wheeled trash can. It was shit brown, but only dust gathered on the inside. It had a hinged lid, so she brought it over to where she left Joel.

"Sorry, buddy," she whispered, as she laid the can on the ground. She held his legs by the knees, and slid it underneath him. Jemma shoved him in as far as she could, then pulled it up. "You're fat," she muttered.

Jemma could barely drag it, but it was easier than having to carry him the rest of the way. Sunset would be in less than four hours, and she hoped she could make it home before night. The can made a lot of noise, but it drowned out soon enough. She listened for the sound of another infected, and she jumped every time a bird took flight.

Joel's head hung on the lip of the trash can, and the lid rested on top of his forehead. When they went over a hole, his body would fall back into the can, and Jemma would have to fish him out so he wouldn't suffocate

She took the highway, even though it would be longer, but she couldn't risk going through another town. Joel wouldn't be able to watch her back, and she didn't want both of them to end up dead.

The sun started to set, and she was at the end of her wits. She wasn't near Jackson, and Joel's weight seemed to get bigger and bigger. The bites on her shoulder were killing her, and they kept splitting open and bleeding. The snow was hard, and she slipped a few times.

"You owe me one," she said to the trash can. "I want breakfast, lunch, AND dinner in bed. And you get to do all of my laundry. You'll never wake me up early again, and I get to choose the movie for the next year."

About a mile away from town, one of the wheels broke off. Jemma tried to shove it back on, but it instead busted the other off.

"FUCK!" She screamed. The sound echoed, and it rang in her ears for a few moments.

Jemma looked around, but couldn't see any way out of it. She'd have to carry Joel the rest of the way.

"Come on, wake up." She shook him by the shoulders, a little. "You can't do this to me." Joel was still limp.

Jemma managed to get him out of the trash can, and was barely able to hold him against her body. She wasn't sure how to carry him, so she thought back to all of the movies she had seen. Jemma decided for the "Jesus Carry," and squatted down. She positioned Joel on her shoulders, even though she knew she probably wouldn't be able to carry him the whole way.

She stood, and immediately her knees tried to buckle. "Oh, Father in heaven, help me get his guy home,"she muttered.

The only way she could hold him was to keep moving forward, so she kicked her pack behind a tree, and headed off toward town. She could see the lights on the gates, but Jemma knew they weren't close yet. She started crying, because she couldn't handle it anymore. The day just kept getting shittier and shittier.

They were about a hundred feet away, and Jemma started yelling for help. "Hey!" She heard one of the guys say something.

"Help me!" She said, and started letting Joel down. She fell to her knees out of pure exhaustion.

A sea of white fell down on them. Jemma started slipping in and out. The white were flashlights, and four men had come to get them. She could hear one of them talking on a radio.

"Get Tommy," she blubbered. "I need to talk to Tommy."

"Yeah, sister," one of them said. "You can talk to him soon." He helped support her weight, so they could head back to town. He smelled like ash and pine.

...

Jemma wasn't sure, but it seemed like she closed her eyes, and when they opened, she was at Tommy's house. He was talking to the men who had met her at the gates, and she was leaned up against the wall. Joel wasn't in sight, and she started to panic.

She lifted her head so she could see herself. She was covered in mud and blood, and her boots had an inch of ice on them. She tried to kick her shoes off, but she was too weak. Jemma managed to stand up, and Tommy noticed she was awake.

He walked over. "Are you okay? Anything broken?"

She motioned for him to come in closer. "I got bit a couple of times," she whispered. Her eyes drifted over to the other men. "Didn't want anyone to freak out."

"Hey, I'll talk to you guys later," he said, and slipped his arm around her waist, to support left quickly, and Tommy brought her back to the guest bedroom. She recognized it as the one she had stayed in before, but she tried to forget that.

The bed had been replaced by a couch and a cot. Maria was sitting on the couch, but stood when they came in.

"Bites," he said, and helped her sit down on the cot. Jemma slowly pulled off her coat, while Maria rummaged through the bathroom. She came back in with gauze and a few bottles.

"Take off your shirt," Maria said. Jemma did, very slowly. Tommy stood in the corner, but Jemma didn't care if he saw her in her underwear. She felt like shit, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

"It's not that bad," Jemma muttered. Maria wiped a warm cloth over her shoulder.

"Is all this blood yours?"

"I have no idea."

She could hear one of the bottles being opened. Maria dabbed another cloth against the bites, and it burned. Jemma dug her nails into the palms of her hands, trying to keep as still as possible.

The stench of alcohol flooded the room, and Maria kept dabbing.

"You still with me?" She asked.

"Yeah," Jemma mumbled.

She rubbed some kind of cream on the wound. Tommy started shuffling around.

"Jemma, are you okay?" Maria asked.

"Um," Jemma moved away from her. "I don't feel so hot." She got off the cot, and went into the bathroom. After closing the door, she looked at her reflection. She looked awful, and very dirty. Where there wasn't blood, there was dirt. Her fingernails were caked with grime, and Jemma immediately started washing her hands.

She felt so weak, as though, at any moment, she would fall over. If Jemma closed her eyes too long on a blink, she'd start falling asleep.

She washed her face, in hopes that it might wake her up. It didn't, so she returned back to Maria, who bandaged her bites.

"You have so many scars," she said, and lightly touched a few of them. "I didn't realize."

"Where's Joel?" Jemma asked.

"He's at your house. He came to a while after you guys got here. Ellie's watching him." Tommy said.

Maria got Jemma some new clothes, but she still put on her old shirt.

"What happened out there?" He asked.

Jemma sighed. "There was a small settlement, maybe forty people at the most."

"Where was it?" Maria asked.

"I don't know, southwest from here. They were living in an old warehouse. Not for very long, probably a couple of months.

"We got attacked on the way there. It was like an infected, but unlike anything I've ever seen before. They were human-like, but not like a runner. They were all very skinny."

"Was everyone there infected?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah. When we shot them, their skin would peel back, and you could see their bones. It was awful. And the stench..."

"What are you talking about?"

"They looked liked they were starving. Almost all of them were bald, and they scuttled around, with their backs hunched. When they would open their mouths to bite, their jaws would crack, and they opened them really wide." Jemma made motions with her hands.

"But, when we would shoot them, wherever the bullet hit, then skin would pull back. Usually we hit them in the head, so there were a bunch of corpses with their skulls showing. And they reeked of death and decay. It was disgusting."

Tommy stopped her. "How did that happen?"

"I found their leader's journal. They had been eating infected meat. As in, going out, and finding runners, and cooking it. They didn't turn immediately, it took around a week for them to start showing. Their mouths would start bleeding, and then their hair would fall out..."

"What happened to their leader?"

"He killed himself. He had been eating regular food, so he saw everything go to shit."

Tommy and Maria exchanged nervous glances.

Jemma continued. "Joel hit his head on the way out. He had fallen from a broken stair, and he passed out right there. I was so scared he had died.

"I actually drug him here in a garbage can. But, it broke, so for the last mile, I had to carry him. I thought I was going to keel over."

Tommy smiled. "You should probably get some sleep. Did you pick up that journal?" He asked.

"Yeah, it's in my pack," she started. "But I left it on the road a ways. It's on the highway, near where I had left the garbage can. Behind a tree."

"We'll go get it for you," he said. "Don't worry. If you need anything, just give us a holler. Get some sleep."

"I'm sorry, we couldn't get the cows, I'm sorry, don't be mad at me."

"Don't worry about it, Jemma. Just take a few hours."

He turned out the light, and they left. Jemma closed the door, and laid on the cot. She could overhear them talking about her, but she was too tired to care anymore.

...

Thanks for reading. :) if you have a moment please leave me a review! if you have amy questions/comments, you can tell me either here, or on tumblr. (The links are on my page.) anyway, have a great night! And, check again soon!