tw: heavy mentions of SA*
edge of seventeen --- stevie nicks
♮♮♮
The group stood under the same tree they held Sophia's, Annette's, Shawn's and Otis' funeral underneath. They were tiring of the amount of funerals they already had to have. Especially the ones who'd been there since Atlanta, the ones who knew Dale the longest.
"Dale could get under your skin. He sure got under mine, because he wasn't afraid to say exactly what he thought, how he felt." Rick spoke. "That kind of honesty is rare and brave. Whenever I'd make a decision, I'd look at Dale," JJ noticed the tears rolling down Carl's cheek, and put her arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a side hug. "he'd be lookin' back at me with that look he had. We've all seen it one time or another. I couldn't always read him, but he could always read us. He saw people for who they were. He knew things about us, the truth, who we really are. In the end, he was talking about losing our humanity. He said this group was broken. The best way to honor him is to unbreak it, set aside our differences and pull together, stop feeling sorry for ourselves and take control of our lives, our safety, our future. We're not broken. We're gonna prove him wrong. From now on, we're gonna do it his way. That is how we honor Dale."
After the funeral, the Greene family and the group conversed, talked of moving everyone into the house. "Gonna be tight, 14 people in one house." Rick said.
"Don't worry about that." Hershel told him, "with the swamp hardening, the creek drying up..."
Maggie interrupted, "with 50 head of cattle on the property, we might as well be ringing a damn dinner bell."
"She's right," Hershel nodded. "We should've moved you in a while ago."
"Alright, let's move the vehicles near each of the doors facing out toward the road. We'll build a lookout in the windmill, another in the barn loft. That should give us sightlines both sides of the property. T-Dog, you take the perimeter around the house, keep track of everyone coming and going."
"What about standing guard?" He asked Rick.
"I need you and Daryl on double-duty."
"I'll stock the basement with food and water, enough that we can all survive there a few days if need be."
Andrea joined in, "what about patrols?"
"Let's get this area locked down first. After that, Shane'll assign shifts while me and Daryl take Randall offsite and cut him loose."
JJ froze, listening more closely to the conversation.
"We're back to that now?" Shane asked.
"It was the right plan first time around. Poor execution."
"That's a slight understatement." Shane smarted, leaning against the truck.
Rick took a step toward him, "you don't agree, but this is what's happening. Swallow it. Move on."
"You know, Dale's death and the prisoner- that's two separate things, right? You wanna take Daryl as your wingman, be my guest."
"Thank you." Rick marched off.
JJ thought about what Daryl had said- if she just fessed up to Rick, all of this could be over, but she continued to keep it to herself.
♮♮♮
[JJ]
I was moving some things closer to the house when Carl walked up to me. "Hey, Aunt J?"
"What's up, kid?"
"If, um, if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell my parents?"
I brushed off my hands and put them in my pockets, "well, it depends. Is this a 'I suck a candy bar before dinner' secret, or an 'I spilt blue Powerade on my mom's $5000 new leather couch' secret?" He shrugged. Whatever it was, it was really bothering him. I sat in the back of the open car trunk and patted the space next to me, "come on. Let's talk."
Carl didn't sit, instead he stood in front of me and handed over a pistol, "I took it from Daryl's motorcycle. If he found out I took it, he'd kill me."
Definitely on the leather couch side of secrets.
I sighed, "Carl, what are you with doing this?"
"It's my fault- Dale. It's my fault that he died." Carl kicked the ground around him.
I shook my head, getting closer to his level, "No, I-uh-" I sighed, "why on earth would you say that? He got bit by a walker-"
"I saw that walker. I was gonna shoot it. It was stuck in the mud. I- I was throwing rocks at it and stuff. But I was gonna do it- shoot it right in the head. And it- it got free, came after me and...I ran away. If I had killed it, Dale would still be here." He admitted.
"Hey, stop it. What happened- it's not your fault." I told him, "Look, as long as I'm around, nothing's gonna happen, okay? But you need to protect yourself."
"No, I'm not touching another gun again." He refused. "Just, please, give it back to Daryl."
I nodded and followed him back to the house.
"JJ, I need to talk to you." Maggie greeted, pulling me aside.
I huffed, "what now?"
"What's got your panties in a wad?" She joked, continuing before I could answer, "look, would you be okay with sleeping downstairs with the group?"
My face scrunched, "wait- why-" She looked to Glenn, "you're evicting me? For a dude? What happened to chicks before dicks?"
She crossed her arms, "JJ, look-"
"No, it's fine. I get it." I went over by the dining table.
"You do?"
"No." I deadpanned, "but if he's really that important to you, I can put up with sleeping in the same room as the rest of the group."
Glenn interrupted, putting his stuff next to the table, so Maggie told him, "you can put your stuff upstairs in my room."
I nodded, "yeah, I've been replaced."
He looked between me and Maggie, "With your dad in the house? I think I'll just put my stuff down over there."
"Woo! I get to stay." I smiled, noticing Maggie's glare, "sorry."
♮♮♮
"Take him out to Senoia- hour there, hour back, give or take. We may lose the light, but we'll be halfway home by then." Rick showed Daryl the map.
"This little pain in the ass will be a distant memory. Good riddance."
"Carol's putting together some provisions for him, enough to last a few days." Rick paused, "that thing you did last night..."
"Ain't no reason you should do all the heavy lifting."
JJ walked out quietly, making sure she didn't interrupt anything.
Rick waved the map, "so you good with all this?"
"I don't see you and I trading haymakers on the side of the road. Nobody'd win that fight." Daryl noticed JJ waiting to speak to Rick and tossed the map back where it was, "I'm gonna take a piss."
"Classy." She crossed her arms. "Hey, uh, look, he asked me not to say anything, but Carl came to me earlier." JJ leaned against the white railing. "He was out at the swamps yesterday and he came across a walker stuck in the mud. He got scared and ran off."
"The same walker that killed Dale?" Rick asked his sister, who nodded. "I'll have Lori talk to him."
JJ took a deep breath, "actually, I think it might be better for you to talk to him."
"Well, I need this Randall thing done already."
She blinked, "no need to catch an attitude. But I think this is more important than the Randall situation."
"It's my call." He snapped.
"Okay, fine, what if I ride out with Daryl, and you can deal with the problems here?" Rick huffed in aggravation at his sister. "What? You think I'm not gonna handle it right, or something?" She half-joked realizing he did think that when he shifted uncomfortably. "You do."
"JJ, are you sure you didn't know him? It's just- you just seemed on edge about it yesterday."
"Yeah, well, who isn't on edge?" JJ huffed, putting Daryl's gun that Carl had on the railing. "Mind giving that back to Daryl? Your son had it."
"Truck's ready, Rick." Daryl came back around the corner, interrupting. Rick nodded, ignoring what JJ had said and walked to the truck. Daryl stood next to JJ. "So, want me to accidentally put an arrow through Randall's skull when we're out there?"
She smirked, "since when do you do anything 'accidentally'?"
"I don't." He told her, "but I would."
"For me?" JJ sweetly joked.
"For the group."
She shook her head, "it's not worth the trouble anymore."
"Really, it'd be no trouble. Just slip up, misfire." Daryl shrugged.
JJ's smile quickly faded when T-Dog came running up from the barn, "Randall's gone!"
"What?" Rick snapped, dropping the stuff he was loading into the back of the truck.
♮♮♮
[JJ]
The group walked down to the barn, examining every inch of it.
"The cuffs are still hooked. He must've slipped 'em." Rick decided.
"Is that possible?" Carol questioned.
Andrea shrugged, "it is if you've got nothing to lose."
Hershel looked closely at the door, "the door was secured from the outside."
"How is that-" I started, looking at the lock.
Shane disrupted everyone, his face covered in blood, "Rick! Rick!"
"What happened?" Lori shouted at him.
"He's armed! He's got my gun."
"Are you okay?" Carl asked.
"I'm fine. Little bastard just snuck up on me. He clocked me in the face."
Rick started throwing around orders, "Alright, Hershel, T-Dog, get everybody back in the house. Glenn, Daryl, come with us."
"T, I'm gonna need that gun." Shane marched over.
Carol's eyes widened, "just let him go. That was the plan, wasn't it, to just let him go?"
"The plan was to cut him loose far away from here, not on our front step with a gun."
"Don't go out there. Y'all don't know what can happen." Carol warned.
Everyone started to go back to the house, except for Glenn, Daryl, Rick and Shane. I took my gun out of the back of my shorts and followed the four. Shane quickly noticed, "The hell are you doing, JJ?"
"I'm coming with you guys." I told him, not slowing down.
"The hell you ain't." He shook his head.
"Shane's right. Go to the house, now." Rick demanded.
"Or what?" I sassed, "I'm not a kid, Rick. I can take care of myself."
"I don't care if you are, you're-" Rick started to protest.
Daryl snapped, "we're gonna lose daylight if we don't hurry up. She's a big girl, she can handle herself."
Shane brushed it off, "I saw him head up through the trees that way before I blacked out. I'm not sure how long."
"He couldn't have gotten far." Rick informed, "he's hobbled, exhausted."
"And armed." Glenn added.
I checked the chamber of my gun, "so are we."
Rick pointed to Daryl, "can you track him?"
"Nah, I don' see nothin'."
"Hey, look, there ain't no use in tracking him, okay? He went that way. We need to pair up. We spread out, we just chase him down. That's it." Shane decided.
"Kid weighs a buck-25 soaking wet." Daryl looked to Shane, "you trying to tell us he got the jump on you?"
"I say a rock pretty much evens those odds, wouldn't you?"
Rick broke it up, "alright, knock it off. Daryl, you, Glenn and JJ start heading up the right flank. Me and Shane'll take the left. Remember, Randall's not the only threat out there. Keep an eye out for each other."
I didn't have a good feeling. Not just about Randall, but about the whole situation. Daryl was right. Randall winning against Shane didn't make sense. And I sure as hell didn't trust Shane.
♮♮♮
JJ split off with Daryl and Glenn, leaving her brother in the hands of Shane. The three trudged through the woods in the dark, weapons at the ready.
"This is pointless." Daryl groaned, "you got a light?" Misunderstanding him, JJ pulled out a small, red lighter. "A flashlight."
"Here." Glenn handed one over, trying not to laugh.
Daryl looked around before leading the small search party in a different direction. "Come on."
"We're just back to square one." Glenn sighed.
"If you're gonna do a thing, you might as well do it right." Daryl looked at the ground, "there's two sets of tracks right here. Shane must've followed him a lot longer than he said."
"Shane lying? I'm shocked." JJ sarcastically mumbled.
Daryl continued to look around, "there's fresh blood on this tree. There's more tracks. Looks like they walked in tandem."
A distant noise freaked Glenn and JJ out, causing Glenn to bump into Daryl and JJ to bump into Glenn, who was apologizing to Daryl.
"Is anyone else getting the creeps?"
"I'm pretty sure I remember someone tellin' you and your precious boots to go back to the house." Daryl sassed as he shined the light on the ground in front of them, "there was a little dust up right here."
"What do you mean?" Glenn questioned.
"I mean something went down."
"It's getting weird." Glenn commented.
Daryl went over to the tie that was used as a blindfold, "had a little trouble."
The three heard rustling behind them and hid behind the two closest trees. It was Randall...just not the living Randall.
Glenn swung at him first, getting startled and thrown to the ground. Daryl shot next but was cornered with his own bow. Seeing an opportunity, JJ unsheathed Glenn's knife and drove it into the walker's head.
"Nice." Daryl stood up. JJ held the flashlight as the two guys inspected the body for bites. "Got his neck broke. He's got no bites."
"Yeah, none you can see." Glenn said.
"Nah, I'm tellin' you, he died from this."
"How's that possible?"
Glenn and Daryl looked at each other with the same thought. It was just too bad that JJ thought of it sooner.
"JJ?" Glenn looked behind him, noticing the two were working off of the moonlight shining through the trees.
"Where the hell'd she go?" Daryl picked up the flashlight, and stood up, shining the flashlight around, "JJ!"
JJ, who sucked at direction, followed the path back to where the two groups had split and followed Rick and Shane's trail to an empty field. Shane had his weapon raised at Rick. "...I'm better for Lori than you, Rick. I'm better for JJ than you. It's 'cause I'm a better man than you, Rick. Cause I can be here, and I can fight for it. But you come back here, and you just destroy everything!" He shouted, "you got a weak boy, you ain't got the first clue in how to fix it. Your sister's just as bad. She ain't got a clue how to handle the real world. She wants to act all tough. She ain't tough."
"The hell you mean?"
"He doesn't mean shit." JJ raised her gun and circled Shane to stand next to her brother.
Shane scoffed, "well, shit, look at JJ thinkin' she's gonna play hero. Just like she did last summer."
"What's he talkin' about?" JJ didn't answer her brother. She stayed steady with her gun on Shane. "JJ!"
"I should've told you. I should've called you that night. Facing whatever consequences of telling you would've been better than what Shane expected from me." JJ kept her gaze on Shane.
"Nah, I let you off easy."
"Rick, your best friend there...he likes to touch things that aren't his."
Rick's eyes went from 'we can work this out' to 'you're not making it out alive'.
"If I hadn't, your sister would've been rotting away in some jail cell for second-degree murder."
"The man in the bar, Randall's brother, he was going- he was going to do- to do things to Maggie. I tried to get him off her, but it didn't-" JJ cried. "I'm sorry, Rick. I should've told you."
"And after that night, that- that's when he started touch- that's when Shane- that's when he assaulted you?"
JJ bit her lip, tears rolling down her face, but she still didn't let down her gun, "it started a week before I turned 16."
"Drop it, JJ. Or I shoot your brother."
JJ shook her head through the tears. Rick looked to his sister, giving her a comforting nod.
Once she dropped her gun and kicked it away, Shane said, "Raise your gun, Rick."
Rick glared, "You're gonna have to kill an unarmed man." He held out his arms. "Watch my hand. Nice and easy." Rick held his gun, slowly moving toward Shane.
"Shane, don't do this, please." JJ wept.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. This'll all be over soon."
Rick's blood boiled, but he remained calm, inching over to Shane to hand over his gun. "Listen to me, Shane. There is still a way back from this. Nothing has happened here. We're gonna lay down our guns and we're gonna walk back to the farm together. Back to Lori. Back to Carl. Put this all behind us."
When Shane took the gun from Rick, he was stabbed in the gut. "Damn you for making me do this, Shane. This was you, not me! You did this to us! This was you, not me! Not me!"
JJ fell to her knees, relieved, upset and angry. Rick sobbed with his sister, in the middle of the open field.
"Dad? JJ?" Carl's voice broke.
"Carl," Rick stood up and walked over to his son, as his sister continued to compose herself. "You know...you should be back home with mom."
Carl raised his gun.
"Rick!" JJ cried.
Rick begged, "please, put the- put- it's not what it seems."
Carl shot right past Rick, hitting Shane, who had turned.
It was the shot that would ruin everything.
a/n: oop, damn jj. thoughts on shane's ending? do we like it? do we think it should've been jj? anyway, hope you enjoyed:)
until next time,
a + n <3