⌜ chapter twelve ⌟

It's the next morning now, and the group has to clean up the camp. They have to fix what was destroyed and get rid of the walker bodies. Most importantly​, they have to bury their dead.

They have a fire going and they're putting the walkers there to burn. Daryl's making sure that none of their people become like the walkers. Andrea's still sitting next to her sister on the ground beside the RV.

The others are trying to figure out what to do about Amy. She was bitten last night, and they don't want her to turn, but Andrea won't leave her side. And they can't just shoot her. Well, they could, but it wouldn't be right.

Jack and Jess still haven't left MJ. He's not hugging her anymore, but he hasn't let go of her hand. Jess is just staying close, never more than a foot away. All of this is still so new for her. It is for everyone beside Jack and MJ, but she's still trying to wrap her head around it. Plus, MJ's the only person she has from her old life. And Jack's seen a lot before this, but none of it compares to what happened last night. He's more scared now than he ever has been before.

"Our people go over there. We don't burn them!" Glenn yells, gaining the attention of the rest of the camp. He's stopping Morales and Daryl from burning one of their people in the fire with the walkers. "We bury them. Understand? Our people go in that row over there."

They then start dragging the body in the opposite direction. "You reap what you sow." Daryl says as they leave the body there.

"You know what? Shut up, man." Morales says.

"Y'all left my brother for dead!" He yells as he walks away from him. "You had this coming."

"Shut the hell up, Daryl." MJ says, and he looks at her.

"I see you didn't lose anyone." He says, and ​she clenches her teeth as she turns to face him. "So why don't you shut the hell up?!"

"Screw you."

"No, screw you!" He snaps, and Jess pulls Jack back a few steps. "I saved your little blonde friend, and you left my brother to rot!" He moves to walk past her, but she punches him in the face.

He stumbles backward and then falls onto the ground. MJ kneels down before placing her hand on his chest and resting her weight there, keeping him in the dirt. He glares up at her.

"I lost all three of my brothers, both of my parents, my best friends, my entire family — everyone that has ever meant anything to me." Her voice is low as she leans over him. "Jack lost his parents. I'm sorry that your dickhead of a brother is gone and I'm sorry for my part in it. But I'm not sorry that I didn't lose the only two people I have left. You reap what you sow? Your brother was wasting ammo and attacking members of his own group. He got what he had coming." She tells him, and he grinds his teeth.

"You done?"

MJ scoffs as she shakes her head. "Children lost their parents last night, and you're throwing a tantrum. You reap what you sow?" She shoves hard on his chest as she pushes herself up. "Get bent, asshole."

"Whatever." He pushes himself up and walks away from her.

"A walker bit him. A walker bit Jim." Jacqui gets everyone's attention, and they all turn to look at them.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." Jim insists as the guys start to walk toward him.

"Show it to us." Daryl says, and Jim quickly goes for a shovel.

T-Dog grabs him from behind and holds his arms behind his back. Daryl lifts Jim's shirt as he repeatedly says, "I'm okay." There's a big bloody bite on his stomach.

"MJ." Jack grabs her. They've seen what happens to people who are bitten.

They then quickly get Jim separated from the group. MJ has Jess take Jack over to the fire to sit down. A bunch of the others — MJ, Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, Morales​, Glenn, Dale, Jacqui, Carol, Shane, and Lori — try to decide what they should do about Jim.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head." Daryl says. "And the dead girl's, and be done with it."

"Of course that's what you say." MJ shakes her head.

"Would you rather use your whacked out knife? Where'd you get that thing anyway, Assassin's-R-Us?"

"You think I'm an assassin?" She questions, amusement evident in her tone.

"You're the one who was saying that you were itching to shoot the vato." He shrugs.

"He cracked my rib and busted my lip." She argues. "Are you telling me that you wouldn't want to shoot him after that? Oh, wait, that's right. You did."

"Whatever. I'm just proposing a solution here."

"You're suggesting that we murder Jim."

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asks Daryl.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it." He tells him.

"Well, we'll keep that in mind for when you get your ass bit. In the meantime​, we're talking about Jim." MJ says.

"I hate to say it — I never thought I would — but maybe Daryl's right." Dale says.

"Yeah, and maybe a unicorn's gonna come prancing out of the woods and shit out lollipops." She says sarcastically.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog." Rick says.

"I'm not suggesting—" Dale starts.

"He's sick. A sick man." He continues. "We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or them-to-be." Daryl says.

"What if we get him help? MJ told me she heard the CDC was working on a cure." He says, and she nods.

"I heard that too." Shane says. "I heard a lot of things before the world went to hell."

"What if the CDC is still up and running?"

"Man, that is a stretch right there."

"Why?" He questions. "If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the CDC at all costs, wouldn't they?"

"I don't know, Rick." MJ shakes her head.

"I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection—"

"Okay, Rick, you want those things, alright? I do too, okay?" Shane says. "Now if they exist, they're at the Army base. Fort Benning."

"That's a hundred miles in the opposite direction." Lori says.

"That is right." He nods. "But it's away from the hot zone. Now listen to me. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there."

"The military were on the front lines of this thing." Rick argues. "They got overrun, we've all seen that. The CDC is our best choice, and Jim's only chance."

"Whatever we decide, we have to get on with it soon." MJ says. "We don't have long before he gets sick and the fever sets in."

"You go looking for Aspirin, do what you need to do." Daryl starts as he turns around. "Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!"

MJ goes after him and grabs the top of the handle on the pickaxe in his hand. He tries to swing it at Jim, but she yanks it down. The force of it turns him around and he looks down at her, his jaw clenched as they both hold onto the ax.

"We don't kill the living." She tells him. His chest is puffed out as she glares up at him — he's only a couple inches taller. "We start doing that, we're no better than they are."

"Come with me." Rick walks past them and pulls Jim to his feet.

"Where are you taking me?" He questions.

"Somewhere safe."

"Who was the guy back in Atlanta?" Daryl asks, just trying to piss her off, and MJ scoffs as she looks into his eyes.

"If you're lucky...nobody you'll ever see again." She tells him and then turns around and walks away.

—

"These people need to know who the hell's in charge here, what the rules are." Daryl's saying as everyone walks up to where the graves have been dug. He's mad because the original plan was to burn all of the bodies, not just the walkers. But now they're burying their people instead.

"There are no rules." Rick tells him.

"Well, that's a problem." Lori says, earning everyone's attention. "We haven't had one minute to hold onto anything of our old selves. We need time to mourn and we need to bury our dead. It's what people do."

"If you don't wanna do the work, then don't." MJ says as she climbs out of the grave she just finished digging. "But shut the hell up about it already. You're getting on my nerves."

"What is your problem with me exactly?" Daryl questions, and she looks over at him as she rests her arms on top of the shovel.

"You bitch about everything, you're rude." She starts. "Oh, and, uh... Glenn already told you that he's Korean. Quit calling him a Chinaman before I bitch slap you." She says, and Rick and Shane both stifle their laughter as she then walks over to talk to Morales.

After they bury all of their people who were killed, they head back down to the camp. MJ sits with Jack and Jess, and Carl walks over to them. "Can I sit with you guys?" He asks, and they all look up at him.

"'Course, kid." MJ nods, and he sits down next to Jack.

"Thank you." He says, and she leans forward so she can look at him. "For saving my dad."

She smiles. "Glad I could help."

Jack and Carl start talking, and MJ looks over toward the RV. Shane and Lori are having what looks like a rather heated discussion in hushed tones. Things get visibly awkward when Rick walks out of the RV. MJ shakes her head and looks away from the three of them.

Rick, Shane, and Dale go out to make sure that the woods are clear, and the others all stay in the camp. By the time that they get back, the others are all doing their own thing.

Andrea's sleeping in one of the chairs. MJ's resting against Jack with her eyes closed and he's got an arm around her, but she's not asleep. Jack's talking to Carl quietly, and Jess is sitting next to MJ with her chin resting on her knees. Lori's sharpening a stick into a point, and Carol's sitting with Sophia. Jim's in the RV, he's trying to get some rest.

"I've been, uh..." Shane starts. "I've been thinking about Rick's plan." That immediately catches MJ's attention, and she opens her eyes to look at him. "Now look, there are no, uh... There are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first one to admit that. I've known this man a long time. I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning. Okay?"

Everyone looks around at each other, each trying to decide what's the best thing for them and their respective families. Later that night, MJ, Jess, and Jack are in their tent. He looks between the two girls.

"What are we gonna do?" He asks. "Are we gonna go with them?"

"That's what I was figuring." MJ nods. "Is that what you want to do?"

"You said we'd stay with Rick."

"We can still do that, if that's what you want." She tells him, and he nods. "Okay."

"I have nowhere else to go." Jess says. "You two are the only family that I have left. I mean, who even knows what happened to my pa..." She clears her throat as she looks down.

"I'm glad you're back, Jess." MJ says. "I wish the circumstances were better, but..."

"Yeah, me too." She agrees, lifting her gaze to her best friend. "On both." They all lay down then, and Jess rolls onto her side to look at MJ. "What was Sam like?" She asks.

"Still smart, and strong. Independent as all hell, and stubborn too." She chuckles. "God, but when they fought... It could get really bad. And it was for awhile. Sam left and...it sucked. But things turned around eventually. We put our own personal crap aside, tried to do what was right for everyone. And now he's just gone." Her eyes are on the ceiling of the tent as she tries to keep from crying. "I miss him."

"I do too."

"When we were in the car... Dean would turn the radio up, he'd start blasting his music as loud as it could go." She wipes a tear from her face. "It drove Sam nuts, he hated it. I'd start singing along, and then Dean would too. It'd take awhile, but eventually​ Sam would start singing. And for a little while, we were just three siblings having a good time. And nothing else mattered... I miss that the most when I think about them.

"But things changed after our dad came back. We joked less, sang less. Everything was more serious. It was one job after another, after another — we hardly had time to catch our breath, let alone have a life of our own." She says. "It was always the hardest on Dean. He just wanted to be with Addy and Dana, but we couldn't let our dad down. We always had to be our best, that came second to nothing."

"That's why Sam left?" Jess asks. "Why he hardly talked about his life before we met?"

"Sam always hated it the most, he didn't want to be there. He wanted to go to one school, have a home, be normal. Dean called it the apple pie life." MJ sighs. "I always wanted it too, but I never had it in me to do what Sam did. I just couldn't leave Dean behind, you know? He was my big brother, he gave everything for us."

"Sam said that Dean raised you more than your dad did." She says. "He said that you both looked up to him since you were kids."

"I always thought Dean was the strongest of the three of us, especially after Dana was born. He was so young when he and Addy had her, but he did the best that he could by her." She says. "He did what our dad wanted, but he always had time for Dana. And if he didn't, he made time. He was a good dad, and not just to her."

"You said you thought he was the strongest?"

MJ sighs. "Looking back... He spread himself so thin. He'd eat barely anything if we didn't have much so that Sam and I got enough. He'd sleep on the couch or on the floor. He was the first one awake in the morning and the last asleep at night." She sniffs as she wipes away more tears. "It wasn't just that he was strong, he did what he did because... He was broken. He turned into this shell and he just didn't care anymore. Not enough to take care of himself the way that he took care of everyone else, and that included our dad."

"Hey." Jess reaches over and grabs her hand. "Are you okay?"

"What if he's dead?" She asks. "What if he died trying to save Sam? Or our dad? What if he was trying to find me and it got him killed?" She starts crying, and Jess scoots closer to her to try and comfort her.

Jack looks over at MJ and he sighs. She never talks about this stuff and this is why. She doesn't like crying or feeling weak. And that's exactly how she feels right now.