"𝐜𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞„

thirty six, what?

Searing light pierced through her eyelids as the sun came into view. The group scurried behind a smashed up car, ducking from gunshots that came from every direction. Daryl held out the baby towards Jane, and she looked at him with a horrified expression.

"I can't take a baby!" She whisper-yelled. The prospect was almost impossible to her, she couldn't be trusted with a child, how could Daryl suggest such a thing?

"You're gon' have to." He said, handing it over to her. She took it awkwardly, having never been taught how to actually hold one. Sure, she'd held Judith but, Judith was around two the first time she did, so, she could already hold herself up by then. The thing was swaddled in blankets and sniffling silently - not really paying attention to the war of words around her.

Her free hand added an extra measure of cradling to the child as her elbow held it's head. She tried to remember how Carl had held Judith, but all she knew was that his help would've been great right about now. He was so good with kids, she'd always been jealous of that.

Still, as the group sat in the middle of a crossfire, she couldn't help but look down at the girl with an immense amount of sympathy. She brought one bloodied finger up to her face, placing it on the tip of her button nose - marking a small crimson dot on the point of it. The baby smiled briefly, and Jane smiled back.

Soon enough, they were up and running again, although this time everyone else was shooting and Jane just followed - sheltering the young thing in her grasp so carefully.

"Daryl, cover Jane, we've got to get over to the car," Rick yelled, throwing his hands over his head as bullets flew past them. Jane turned her shoulder then, shielding the baby one step further by covering it with her own body. It started to wail, and thrash slightly, it's little hands grabbing on tightly to her hair and tugging. She flinched a little, but stayed composed as more shots fired.

Daryl stood beside Jane and the kid, shooting walkers and people alike. Negan knew they were here now, but hopefully, the others were keeping him busy back at outposts one and two. A group of the dead was making their way over slowly, yet they didn't seem like such a threat today.

"Hey, walkers!" Jane said, alerting the rest of them. Rick whipped his head around and nodded, realising how far they actually were from them. She shimmied her free hand into her right holster and whipped out her pistol, shooting a few down that were crossing her boundaries a little too far.

"Jane! C'mon girl!" Daryl called, ushering her over to the car and almost pushing her and Gracie in the backseat. He didn't close the door until aaron came into view, clearly hysterical about something. His eyes were scrubbed raw and red, and tear trails snaked and coiled round his face like a badly stitched scar.

About a minute later, Aaron was getting in the car and placing his hands on the wheel. Jane whipped her head to the window, where Rick was waiting, and gave him a bewildered look. Her eyebrows furrowed angrily at him, and his eyes seemed to twist into the shape of a 'sorry'.

Once Aaron was buckled in and the ignition started up, he spoke only a few words before swearing to silence.

"We're going to hilltop."

Jane didn't even think to question it out loud but she certainly did in her head. There was no doubt Daryl and Rick had ordered this, but why? To take care of the baby she hardly knew how to hold?