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

Twenty-Eight

It was nightfall by the time Daryl and I made it back to the prison. We had enough baby tuff to keep the baby going for a couple weeks until we could go out and find some more. The baby was crying when we got back to the cell block, Carl was doing his best to stop her from crying but she was hungry as hell and had a set of lungs on her.

Jade ran over to me and latched straight onto my leg as I tried to walk my way over to Carl.

"How's she doing?" Daryl frowned, using that same voice that he used when he attended to Sophia and Jade. I emptied the bag of supplies as Daryl took the baby from Carl. It was certainly a weird picturing seeing Daryl with the baby.

"Aunty Jay," Jade whispered, tugging on my shirt.

"Yeah rabbit?" I asked as Beth helped me sort out the bottle.

"Are you and Uncle Daryl gonna get married now?" she asked me.

I burst out laughing and Daryl turned all different shades of red. "What?" I laughed. "Jade, why on earth would you think that? The baby isn't ours, its Rick and Lori's." Beth took the bottle off me and ran it over to Daryl, the girl couldn't look the two of us in the eye after what Jade had said.

"But Lori isn't here," Jade pouted, "and you're looking after the baby. You and Uncle Daryl are always together. Mummy's and daddy's should be married."

I sighed.

Oh dear.

"She got a name yet?" Daryl questioned once he had her sorted and taking her formula.

Carl shook his head. "Not yet. I was thinking maybe Carol," he started, rattling off names. "…or Andrea, Amy, Jacqui, Patricia, Ebony…or Lori. I dunno."

Daryl paused whilst he watched Carl than turned back to the baby. "Do you like that?" he asked her. "Little Ass Kicker."

I kissed Jade on the head and fixed the strap on my quiver before heading for the cell block door.

"Where are you going?" Glenn asked me in a hushed whisper.

"After Rick," I replied.

"You don't even know where he'll be," Glenn argued.

"I know," I nodded. "He's heading to where Carl and I left Lori's body." I turned, "don't you open this door for nothing."

Glenn nodded. "I know the rules PJ."

"Whilst I'm gone I want you and Maggie to search the armoury and see if you can find me some .30 calibre rounds for the Remington," I told him. "And organise a car, the three of us are going to go on a supply run, we need more food and clothes for the baby as well as Jade and Sophia. We need some dog food for the dogs and if we can find it we should start stocking up on baby food in the tins. I'm hoping no one has swept through that place on 74 that was full of walkers. Can you do that?"

Glenn nodded. "Sure," he answered. "I'll let Daryl know."

"Thanks, G," I smiled. I slipped out the cell block door and just simply followed the bodies. There wasn't a live walker anywhere in the prison. When I finally found the room where Carl and I had left Lori, there was a large bloodstain on the floor and a dead walker with a bloated stomach, its face was absolutely shredded to bits-most likely by a knife. Rick had been here, of that I was one hundred percent sure. I knelt down and cut open the walker's stomach, sorting through the pieces of human flesh until I found what I was looking for.

A gold wedding ring.

I cleaned it off as best I could before I stuck in in my pocket and got to my feet to continue with the search. Carl needed his father, and the unnamed baby needed him as well…I needed him…Rick, despite the challenges that we've all faced in the past seven months, had kept this group together and alive. It was about time for someone to do the same for him. When I came around the corner I stopped dead in my tracks, Rick was standing in front of a work bench littered with tools, holding a phone against his ear and was talking to someone on the other end.

That was completely impossible.

I came up behind him and snatched the phone off him as gently as I could.

Rick spun around holding and axe out, he swung it at me and just missed me by a couple of centimetres.

"Jesus Rick!" I snapped, grabbing the axe off him. "You could have killed me!"

"What are you doing her PJ?" Rick growled.

"Looking for you," I answered. "The baby needs you, Carl needs you. They've both just lost their mother. I've gotta get you back."

"I have to find Lori," Rick argued.

I sighed and dug the ring out of my pocket. "Rick-" I held it up and waited for it to register. "I found it in the walker you killed…we have to get back Rick."

Rick snatched the ring from my hands. "PJ you need to go…"

"Why?" I asked him. "I have to bring you back."

He grabbed my arms and started roughly pushing me away. He was shouting at me, yelling and screaming, some words I could pick out, others I couldn't. Rick slammed me up against the wall near the walker, knocking the bow out of my hand. "YOU'RE NOT LORI!" he screamed in my face. He wrenched my tag from around his neck and threw it at me. "GET OUT OF HERE! GET OUT!"

I stared at him. "Ok…that was just the wake-up call I needed. Thank you, Rick." I picked my bow up off the floor and walked backwards towards the door. "Carl and the baby need you. She doesn't even have a fucking name yet. The rest of us will take care of them until you can get your shit together. We need you." I wrenched open the door and killed the walker that was in the hallway before I slammed it shut and started on my way back to the cell block.

"Where's Rick?" Herschel inquired when Beth let me in. "You've only been gone an hour, did you find him?"

"Rick didn't want to come back," I answered. "He's armed and almost took my head off. Maggie and Glenn?" I asked, changing the subject.

"They found the supplies you wanted," the old man answered.

I headed up the stairs towards my cell and stuck my head over the side rail. "Daryl? Was he ok with us going on a run?"

Herschel nodded. "If I give you a list of things can you have a look out for them?"

"Sure," I nodded. "I'm gonna get some shut eye, if anyone needs me I'm sleeping." Spirit was sitting on my bed curled up and sleeping. I unstrapped all my weapons and lay down on my bed to listen to the sound of Sophia crying in her sleep and the baby grizzling for more food or possibly a diaper change.

Who am I kidding?

There's no rest for the wicked.