++++++ I do not own the Walking Dead or any affiliated characters apart from my OC's ++++++

Nineteen

I didn't know where to go or what to do so I just drove.

As I drove, the girls in the back of the Jeep slept.

Both Sophia and Jade had cried themselves to sleep, I wanted nothing more than to comfort Jade but…I let her mother's hand go…

I let Ebony's hand go…

Oh god I let her hand go…

I started to cry.

So I drove and so I cried.

Crying was a foreign concept to me.

I'd never cried like I was crying right now.

Eventually I was forced to pull over to get my bearings. I grabbed the map out of the glove box and got out so that I could spread it across the hood. Soon I realised that I was in fact not too far from the highway so maybe…just maybe the others would meet up at a familiar spot like the highway where they'd left supplies for Sophia.

When I folded the map up, Jade was sitting up in the back seat, staring at me with those big blue eyes red raw from crying. "Where's mama?" she asked me.

I slammed the car door shut and leant against the outside of the Jeep.

"Where is mama?" Jade asked in a muffled voice. She hit her little hands up against the soft top plastic window. "Where is mama?" she repeated, now crying.

That I couldn't deal with right now…I couldn't take care of Jade, knowing that I had killed her mother. I closed my eyes, hoping for some kind of reprieve only to play that scene in my head over and over again. I slipped down until I hit the ground and buried my face in my knees, my whole body shook as I sobbed violently and uncontrollably. It could have be seconds or minutes or hours that I sat there screaming into my knees until my throat was sore.

Suddenly someone placed a cool hand on my shoulder.

When I snapped my head up I saw Lori standing above me, concern splashed all over her face. "PJ are you ok?" she asked me.

I shook my head.

"We're heading to the highway," Lori advised me. She knelt down in front of me, "can you drive?"

I nodded.

"Do you need anything?" Lori questioned.

"Take Sophia and Jade," I begged her. "I can't…Lori…I let her hand go…I let Ebony's hand go…I let her mother die."

Lori's eyes flickered for a split second but she hid it well. She stood up and opened the door so Sophia and Jade could climb out. "Come on girls," she smiled. "Get in the car with Beth and T-Dog,"

Jade came over to me and tried to put her arms around me but I held her at arm's length. "Go with Lori, Jade," I told her. "I can't…I just can't…"

Jade burst into tears as she ran towards the pickup truck.

"I'll drive," Lori told me. She did the best that she could getting me to my feet. Jade was sobbing in the seat next to Sophia so I slammed the door to shut out the sound. Each cry was like a knife in my heart.

T-Dog waited until we were in the Jeep before he started driving again.

Lori followed.

Soon enough we managed to hook up with Carol and Daryl on his Harley, then Glenn and Maggie in the Tucson. They were all heading towards the jam on the highway. All of them had the same idea. All that was missing was Rick, Carl and Herschel.

When we stopped the three missing members of the group came out of hiding….everyone had someone to go to. Maggie and Beth to their father, Lori to Carl and Rick, Carol to Sophia…

"What's wrong with PJ?" Rick asked Lori. He stared into the Jeep at me, I just stared out the window.

Lori shook her head. "Ebony's dead," she whispered.

"Where'd you find everyone?" Rick asked Daryl.

Daryl shrugged. "Well, those guys tail lights zigzagging all over the road. Figured he'd have to be Asian driving like that."

Glenn laughed at him. "Good one,"

"Where's the rest of us?" Daryl asked.

"We're the only ones who made it so far," Rick replied.

I got out of the car as Daryl asked about Ebony. "She's dead," I answered.

"Shane?" Lori asked over the top of Daryl's horror.

Judging by the look on his face the tryst in the barn had been more than a one-time thing. Jade jumped out of the car and ran over to Daryl. Judging by her familiarity with him-it certainly was. He picked her up and she cried into his chest…that broke my heart.

I turned around and saw a walker heading toward us. Taking my knife out of my boot I started towards the walker, ignoring what everyone else was saying. I pushed the corpse down to the ground and stabbed it in the head.

Over and over and over again whilst I screamed.

Whatever I was saying was making no sense in my head at all, nor as it came out of my mouth. Rick pulled me up and off the walker.

So I punched him. "LET ME GO!" I yelled. "I have to go back!"

"PJ!" Rick called out. "It's too dangerous!" He rubbed his jaw but refused to let me go. "I'm not letting you go!"

I punched him again.

Rick still wouldn't let me go.

He slammed me up against the side of an abandoned car. "PHILOMENA JOCELYN LUCAS!" he yelled out. "Stop it!"

My eyes widened and I let my arms fall limp by my side.

Rick let me go and stepped back. "We good?"

"Far from it," I replied.

I walked back to the Jeep, ignoring the looks I was getting from the people who were all I had left in the world. Even then I didn't know any of them.

I sat in the passenger seat of the car and waited whilst they all discussed where we were going. Finally they sorted out the cars and after a quick whispering discussion Lori let Rick drive the Jeep with me.

Daryl gently put Jade, who was now asleep, in the Tucson with Carol and Sophia with her for protection. I watched him as he pushed her hair back out of her face and kissed her lightly on the head. He pulled something from around his neck and put it around Jade's-I couldn't tell what it was but I wanted to find out.

Soon the convoy was off.

We continued driving until Herschel's wagon ran out of gas and we were forced to stop. Before Rick got out of the car he turned to me. "Are you ok?"

"I killed my best friend," I snapped back.

Rick put his hand on my shoulder. "I need you PJ. You've got a head on your shoulders that I need. Can you do that for me?" he asked.

I paused.

How could I?

I killed Ebony.

"Philomena?" Rick frowned.

I nodded slowly.

"Thank you," he smiled.

We got out of the car and Daryl turned to Herschel. "You out?"

"Running on fumes," he replied.

"We can't stay here," Maggie pointed out.

"We can't all fit in two cars," Glenn pointed out.

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning," Rick decided.

"Spend the night?" Carol frowned. She looked to Sophia and Jade who were in the car.

"I'm freezing," Carl shivered.

"We'll build a fire, yeah?" Lori asked.

"If you go out looking for firewood, stay close," Daryl suggested. "Only got so many arrows. How you doing on ammo?"

"Not enough," Rick declared.

"We can't just sit here with our asses hanging out," Maggie pointed out.

"Watch your mouth," Herschel told his daughter. "Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick."

Rick paused. "All right, we'll set up a perimeter. In the morning, PJ and I will find gas and some supplies. PJ?"

I nodded. "I've got a spare quiver in the back full of arrows and a couple boxes of rifle ammo for the Winchester."

"Glenn and I can go and make a run now," Maggie offered. "Try and scrounge up some gas."

Rick shook his head. "No. We stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car."

"Rick, we're stranded now," Glenn replied.

"I know it looks bad," Rick frowned. "We've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure, I really wasn't, but we did. We're together. We keep it that way."

Everyone was silent.

"We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place," Rick told us all.

"Rick look around," Glenn argued. "There's walker's everywhere. They're migrating or something."

"Not enough food in the cities," I mumbled.

"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but that we fortify," Rick retorted. There was so much hope in his voice. "Hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other. I know it's out there. We just have to find it."

"I'm game," I shrugged. Anything not to drown in my pain.

"Even if we do find a place we think is safe," Maggie cut in, "we can never be sure for how long. Look what happened at the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that that was safe."

"We won't make that mistake again." Herschel was very sure off himself.

"We should make camp tonight over there," I pointed to the structure off the road.

Rick stared at me.

"You need you needed the head on my shoulders so this is me using my head," I answered his look. "And Rick-I think you should tell them."

"Tell us what?" Lori demanded to know.

Rick's look asked the same.

"About the virus," I answered.

He sighed. There was a long pause as two conflicting sides of Rick did war with each other. "We're all infected," Rick finally blurted out.

This was followed by stunned silence.

Daryl was the first to speak. "What?"

"At the C.D.C.," Rick confessed. "Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it."

"And you never said anything?" Carol gasped.

"Would it have made a difference?" he asked her.

"You knew this whole time?" Glenn snapped.

"How could I have known for sure?" Rick questioned. "You saw how crazy that mo..."

"That is not your call," Glenn argued. "Okay, when I found about the Walkers in the barn, I told, for the good of everyone."

"Well, I thought it best that people didn't know," Rick responded. He turned to me, "how did you know?"

"I'm a marine," I answered honestly. "I knew the moment our commander told us to go be with our families. We watched a woman give herself a bleach cocktail and after she died she reanimated. It was easy to pick after that. I thought you all knew."

My bad.

I headed back to the jeep whilst everyone argued with Rick over another poor decision made by him. I briefly heard mention that Shane had been killed…good riddance to bad rubbish.

Soon after we all set up camp and let me tell you, the dissidence amongst the troops would have been considered treason back when the world was in full spin. It didn't take long for Rick to snap and believe me, when he snapped-boy did he snap.

I watched as I sat atop one of the ruined structures looking down on Jade who was sleeping with Sophia near Lori. Every now and then as Daryl came through the site he'd kneel down to see how she was doing… We could hear sounds in the woods-probably a stray walker or an animal but I hoped we were all safe.

"Don't panic," Herschel and Rick repeated at the same time.

"I'm not. I'm not sitting here, waiting for another herd to blow through. We need to move, now," Maggie snapped.

"No one is going anywhere!" Rick exclaimed.

"Do something!" Carol snapped. "There's children here!

"I am doing something!" Rick snapped. "I'm keeping this group together. Alive! I've been doing that all along, no matter what-I didn't ask for this! I killed my best friend for you people, for Christ sake!"

Maybe I should have been paying more attention to that conversation.

"You saw how he was like. How he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us," he continued. "He staged the whole Randall thing, let me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice! He was my friend, but he came after me. My hands are clean. Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead. I say there's a place for us, but maybe- maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe- Maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't- why don't you go out and find yourself. Send me a postcard! Go on, there's the door. You can do better. Let's see how far you get."

Rick waited for someone to say something.

"No takers? Fine. But get one thing straight...you're staying," he growled. "This isn't a democracy anymore."

Yeah, I snorted, it's a Ricktatorship.