JINX
Carol tracked her down that morning while she was dragging the bodies out of the tombs ready to be burned. She waved for her to come over, but Jinx ignored her until she walked over and physically stopped her.
"Jinx, I need to speak to you." She told her solemnly, following Jinx back inside the building.
"So speak," she told the other woman, "can't guarantee I'll hear it though." Jinx was self-aware enough to know the state she was in; she just didn't care enough to do anything about it. She'd shut down and it was easier that way.
"We need you," Carol's voice was almost pleading, and Jinx glanced over at her as she grabbed the next body, the other woman picked up the feet making it a little easier to move, "Rick's out chasing ghosts and with Daryl gone, Glenn's struggling to keep everything going. He's stepped up, but he can't do this alone." She looked at Carol, there was no emotion in her gaze which seemed to throw the other woman a little. "We need you; people listen to you when you speak up, you should be helping Glenn lead this group until the others are back."
Jinx startled her by barking out a laugh, "Lead?" she laughed harder, "Lead?" she asked again when she caught her breath, "Carol, I am fully aware that I can't get my shit together enough to sleep more than two hours, this, right here, is all I am good for right now. Killing and burning and killing again.", she waved a hand around at the collection of bodies surrounding them. "I couldn't lead if I wanted to." She shook her head and turned away, chuckling to herself as she disappeared back into the tombs.
___
DARYL
As they finally neared the prison Daryl could hear machine gun fire and he broke into a run. By the time the broke through the treeline the shooting had calmed a little, but Daryl could see that someone had driven a truck full of walkers through the main gates. It took no guesses as to who, but he didn't have time to worry about that.
For some reason Rick was outside the fence, rather than on the inside with the rest of their group and he was pinned down by two walkers, obviously out of ammo. Daryl nailed one straight through the skull and Merle stabbed the other with some metal rebar as Daryl reloaded the crossbow. When he looked up, he could see the silver pick up swinging through the field back towards the prison yard, but Jinx was nowhere near it.
His eyes landed on her, and he stared at the girl on the other side of the prison, she was almost surrounded, but keeping the dead back by a reasonable distance. There was something different about her, but Daryl couldn't put his finger on it. He took out another walker and risked another glance back over at her.
The difference suddenly dawned on him, the way she fought had changed. Before she'd always been fighting on the defensive, she held the knives pointing forward, ready to throw and run back any second, but now she was holding both knives pointing away from her and she span forwards towards the walkers. It was almost like watching someone dance as she easily took out four, five, six of them without stopping.
He saw the truck finally pulling around to her, but a walker was almost on her, and he fired an arrow to take it out before it got too close, his arrow hit at the same time her knife did and he watched her whirl round to look at him as she jumped into the truck bed. He couldn't see any expression on her face at all, but maybe that was just the distance.
They'd taken out the walkers that were an immediate danger to them outside of the fence, and now they could stop, Rick, Daryl and Merle stood still, staring at the state of the field between them and the prison, they could see their people doing the same looking out at them. The field was filled with walkers and more would join soon, drawn towards them by all the gunfire.
___
When he walked in most of the group hugged him, but there was one person obviously missing. He walked over to Carol, she and Jinx had always gotten on well and they'd grown closer after Lori's death. He didn't even have to ask; Carol knew who he was looking for immediately.
"She'll either be in D block or the tombs." Carol told him, he opened his mouth to ask why, and she continued, "that's not the girl you left behind, I don't know what happened to her there, but I can guess, she's not been the same since she left."
"Mm" he nodded thinking back to the state she'd been in when he opened that door. A fresh wave of guilt rolled over him for leaving her that night.
"Maybe you can get through to her" Carol told him, she paused, "I hope you can." He nodded but didn't say anything else. He walked straight towards D block to go find her.
When he walked in, she was sitting on one of the metal tables with a small surgical kit spread out in front of her. She'd taken her top off and was wearing a sports bra, she was biting her lip as she looked down, bending her body at a strange angle to sew up the cut on her ribs. A small piece of hair escaped the bun she had it in and fell in her face and she used her forearm to push it out of the way with a huff.
The gate made a clang as he opened it and she looked up, the light that had been missing from her eyes when he'd last seen her was still absent. Her face showed no sign of any emotion as she quickly dropped her eyes back down to what she was doing.
"Hershel could do that for you..." he suggested. She said nothing, just continued to tie off one stitch and move onto the next. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her he was sorry, he wanted her to know that she was all he'd thought about while he'd been gone. He walked towards her but stopped a small distance away. Carol was right, it only took one glance at this version of Jinx to see that.
She finished stitching and packed the medical supplies back into a small box which she took into one of the cells. She re-emerged with a clean top on and walked straight past without even glancing at him. She picked the belt that held her knives up from one of the seats at the table she'd been sitting on and wrapped it around her waist again before disappearing out the door without a backwards glance.
He sat down on the table she'd vacated and looked down at his hands. A small furry shadow passed under his legs, living up to its namesake. The little cat wrapped her tail around his leg before jumping up to sit beside him and he scratched its head with one finger. He knew Carol had said she was different, but this was unrecognisable. She'd acted like she didn't even know he was there.
___
"We're not leaving." Rick declared. It was a little while later and they were all in Cell Block C debating what to do next.
"We can't stay here." Hershel pressed. Daryl was standing on the second level with Carol and Beth, leaning over the railings to where the others were standing downstairs, except Hershel who was sitting on the stairs. He saw a look of surprise cross Carol's features and followed her gaze to see Jinx walk in.
"What if there's another sniper? A wood pallet won't stop one of those rounds" Maggie added.
"We can't even go outside." Beth pointed out from beside him.
"Not in the daylight." Carol added.
"Rick says we're not running. We're not running." Glenn agreed. Daryl watched as Shadow slunk out of one of the cells and wrapped herself around Jinx's leg. The girl patted her shoulder and the cat jumped up in a single fluid motion, hanging around the back of her shoulders like a living scarf.
"No, better to live like rats." Merle chimed in from behind the door of the cell he was locked in.
"You got a better idea?" Rick asked him.
"Yeah, we should've slid out of here last night and lived to fight another day." Merle continued. "But we lost that window, didn't we? I'm sure he's got scouts on every road out of this place by now."
"We ain't scared of the prick." Daryl told him, walking towards the end of the balcony closest to where Merle stood below.
"Y'all should be. That truck through the fence thing, that's just him ringing the doorbell." Merle told him, "We might have some thick walls to hide behind, but he's got the guns and the numbers. And if he takes the high ground around this place, shoot, he could just starve us out if he wanted to."
Maggie suggested putting him in the other cell block, but Daryl stopped her, "No, he's got a point."
"This is all you, you started this!" Maggie yelled at Merle, wrapping and unwrapping a roped from her hand.
"What's the difference whose fault it is?" Beth asked, "What do we do?"
"I said we should leave." Hershel repeated himself. "Now Axel's dead. We can't just sit here." He continued.
Everyone's heads swung round when Jinx spoke, her voice cold. "We kill them all." She told them with a nonchalant shrug. Even her voice had changed, Daryl realised. In all the months they'd spent together, he hadn't realised how much her accent had changed, picking up the American twang of the people around her, but when she spoke now her English accent was the strongest he'd ever heard it.
Rick went to walk out the room, quickly distracting everyone from what the girl had said, "Get back here!" Hershel yelled at him and he paused as the older man caught up to him, "You're slipping, Rick. We've all seen it. We understand why. But now is not the time. You once said this isn't a democracy, now you have to own up to that." Hershel told him. "I put my family's life in your hands. So get your head clear and do something."
Rick walked out anyway, and Jinx followed shortly after, the cat jumped down when she reached the door and disappeared back into one of the cells.