A Wise Fool Once Said

Jamie was folded up in the backseat of the car, sitting on her feet in an attempt to warm them up. Daryl had refused to let her ride with him on his bike while she was in her condition, so she was instead ordered to take Carol's place so that Hershel could check her over. With the farmer sitting beside her, there wasn't much that he could for her until they were able to find a place to settle down for the night and perhaps find some medical supplies that could fight off any coming infection on her torn up knee. It was a couple of hours after they had left the farm, riding through the back roads that were left deserted, when a honk came from the van behind them, drawing Jamie's attention up to the back window. Rick was slowing down, pulling over to the side of the road.

"You stay in here," Hershel ordered softly as he piled out of the car, the others doing the same, and leaving Jamie alone even as she tried to protest.

"Gotta be kidding me," she snipped as she reached down to the floor and picked up her discarded boots, feeling around the inside. They were still wet, but they weren't soaked and she'd have to put them back on eventually. Carefully manoeuvring around her abused knee, she was able to slip them onto her already cold feet and pull herself from the car, meeting Hershel's pointed stare.

Daryl was already making his way back to her from his bike, the others crowding up near the front of their line of vehicles. "You alright?" he asked, looking down at her leg. She was leaning heavily on her good leg, preventing her knee from taking any strain.

"Yea, why'd we stop?" she asked, looking around at the others.

"No gas left," Daryl explained, slipping an arm around her waist and allowing her to place her weight on him so that they could slowly make their way toward the others. Knowing that no one was going to take the chance to leave someone behind with the empty van, and not being able to pile everyone into the car, they would have to walk somewhere to find fuel.

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning," Rick declared, looking back at everyone after he had taken a moment to inspect the road ahead for any signs of movement or trouble. Jamie didn't exactly like the thought of staying in one place for too long, considering what had happened the last time, but she knew that she sure as hell didn't want to be the one left behind with the van.

"Stay the night here?" Carol asked doubtfully, moving to stand with Jamie and Daryl.

Carl was shivered in his mother's arms, wrapped up in his sweater as he complained about the cold. They could all feel it, right down to their bones, but he was just a kid and they knew that he would be affected much sooner than anyone else would be. And it was only going to get colder as the day grew toward night, taking with it the last of their warmth.

"We'll build a fire," Lori assured as Rick shucked off his jacket to give to Carl, helping Lori to wrap it around his small frame. Jamie smiled in withheld amusement at the sight of Carl nearly swimming in his father's jacket, before she shifted closer to Daryl as a faint whisper of wind seemed to stab right down her spine.

He turned his head to press his lips against her still damp hair, the smell of moist leaves and dirt still clinging to her even after her dip in the creek. "Anybody goin' out looking for firewood needs to stay close, I only got so many arrows." Looking down at Jamie, he remembered that she had her rifle in the back of the car. "How you doin' with ammo?"

Thinking back to how many bullets she had stocked up with the morning before, she knew that it wasn't going to make much of a dent if they were attacked. "Not a lot, but a good amount. I never fired a shot yesterday," she explained, shivering again. The long sleeved shirt wasn't enough and the thin material allowed for the wind to travel straight through to her skin. Daryl tried to pull her closer, warm her up, but he knew that if he tried to give her his jacket she would refuse it. Jamie was mournful at the loss of his shirt that she had kept for so long.

Daryl looked to Rick as he made his way from Lori and Carl. "Not enough," he answered, his eyes turning to Jamie as she shivered against Daryl. Her lips were so pale they gave a blue appearance and her hair was still damp and clinging to her skull, leaving her to appear more sickly and weak than he knew her to be.

"Well we can't just sit here with our asses hanging out," Maggie threw in, getting scolded from her still present father who seemed content with reverting to the mother hen of the group.

"Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick," Hershel ordered in the same calm and gentle voice that Jamie knew could hold authority if need be. Turning her eyes up to Rick, she saw the same look of strong concentration on his face that had become common since the time that they had arrived at Hershel's farm, even before then when he and Shane had been planning out different routes.

"Set up a perimeter for now," he finally stated, turning to look around at the ground. "Tomorrow, we'll set out and gather some supplies and we'll keep pushing on."

Jamie's good leg was beginning to get tired and Daryl could feel her leaning more heavily on him, so he turned toward the car and helped her to sit up on the hood, her leg limp along the still warm metal. As soon as the warmth came to her attention, she sighed happily and kicked off her boots, getting a look from Daryl at the fact that she had, once again, left her laces untied. Staring right back, she got a huff of near annoyance from him before he gave up and turned to listen to the discussion between everyone else.

"Hey, Carl, come here," Jamie called, motioning the boy over. He looked up to Lori for permission, who seemed reluctant, before she nudged him forward and followed a couple of paces behind. Daryl seemed to understand her thoughts and helped the boy up onto the hood as well, felling the heat from the engine warm him up.

"Mom, it's warm," he said with a smile as he looked to Lori, who smiled back. Jamie directed Carl to place his hands on the metal to warm his fingers, tightening Rick's jacket around him. Lori watched over the other woman's actions, wanting to feel the anger for her that she once had, but she just couldn't bring herself to hate her. She didn't have the energy left in her to muster up the jealousy, not after all that she had seen Jamie go through for Daryl, not after she had watched her with Rick and Carl. She was a part of their family, they all were. She never wanted to replace Lori and the realization of that struck a chord in her.

"Come on, Lori, plenty of room," Jamie invited, drawing a smile from the other woman as she hopped up next to Carl, sandwiching him between the two woman. Lori's eyes continued to watch Jamie, but she was keeping her gaze on Daryl as he spoke with the others, keeping his body angled so that he could always see Jamie whenever he was distracted.

"Thank you, Jamie," Lori said quietly, getting an almost started look from the younger woman before she returned the faint smile and reached around Carl to clasp her shoulder in a soft grip, her fingers cold through Lori's sweater sleeve. Daryl glanced back at them from the corner of his eye before he let out an inaudible sigh of relief, knowing that the tense relationship between those two was dealt with and no longer interfering with their survival.

"We've all be through hell but at least we found each other. I wasn't so sure but we did. Together. We keep it that way," Rick was saying, glancing over to where Jamie and Lori were crowded around Carl, Jamie's pale fingers wrapped around Lori's arm comfortingly. "We'll find shelter somewhere, there's gotta be a place."

Jamie curled her toes to try and get the tops pressed against the warm metal as she looked over to Hershel. "You know this area better than any of us, do you recognize where we are?" Hershel sighed softly, a weak sound, and shook his head. "Well, we'll look for something: a house, a barn, even a damn shack until we have our bearings."

"Look around, Jamie," Glenn started, clutching at his gun like a lifeline. "There are walkers everywhere. They're…migrating, or something-"

Rick interrupted, the gun that Shane had snatched from Jamie's belt still in his hand, "There's gotta be a place. Not just somewhere where we hole-up, but we fortify." He took a moment to look over to Lori and Carl, seeing that Carl wasn't shivering as badly, but with Jamie and Lori slouched on either side of him kept him enclosed in heat and safe from any wind. "Hunker down. Pull ourselves together, build a life for each other."

Jamie looked up as he said this with Daryl turning his attention to her from the corner of his eye. He knew that she had been thinking on it, the fact that they were engaged and living in an apocalypse, but she didn't want that to slow her down. She wanted to keep to whatever semblance of a normal life that she could, even if that just meant a marriage.

"I know it's out there, we just have to find it."

"Even if we do find a place, and it's safe, we can never be sure. For how long?" Maggie asked, posing the question that was in the back of all of their minds'. "What about the farm, we fooled ourselves into thinking that was safe."

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool," Jamie quoted, looking over to Maggie. The brunette looked started to have been quoted Shakespeare at, but it was Daryl that Jamie glared at when he gave her 'the look'. The 'you're showing off your diploma again' look.

"What's that?" Carl asked as he frowned in confusion, looking up to the blonde that was blocking the wind from getting to him.

"It's William Shakespeare, you know, like Romeo and Juliet? I just mean to say that at least we know what we did wrong and we won't make the same mistake. Being wise enough to say you're a fool about something you did," she explained, watching the youthful stare of curiosity in his eyes. He nodded along, but she could still tell that he wasn't quite sure what she had meant by the quote. Lori watched as Jamie smiled in amusement before turning her eyes to where Rick began speaking again, as though they hadn't veered off topic.

"We'll set up camp tonight, over there," he motioned to a set of ruins as he was speaking, the brick walls of what used to be a house still in fairly good condition and definitely enough to block out the wind and keep in the heat of a fire. The lack of a roof made it both easier and miserably sad. "We'll get back on the road at the break of day," he finished, moving toward the ruins to check them out. Jamie fell back against the hood of the car, wanting to absorb the warmth and carry it with her.

"What if walkers come, or another group like Randal's?" Beth asked with her fear written clear on her face. Jamie lifted her head to look, before letting out another sigh and letting her head fall back down, groaning when it connected slightly too roughly with the metal. Carl snickered behind Rick's sleeve beside her, getting a mock look of outrage from Jamie that had him laughing harder and shuffling closer to Lori as his mother smiled in relief that he was laughing again.

"What about Randal?" Glenn asked, finally lowering his gun to only one hand. "Daryl came back and said that you guys checked the body again and found no bite marks. How is it possible that he turned but wasn't bitten?"

Frowning at the knowledge that things were about to get ugly, Jamie pulled herself back into a sitting position and slid down the hood to begin lacing her boots back on, looking up to meet Daryl's eyes for a moment. They already knew the information that Rick had been withholding, and there was no way that the group would take well to the new piece of in-tell from Jenner.

"What the hell happened?" Lori finally asked, crossing her arms in a way of both keeping warm and wanting to show that she was serious about the topic and was not going to give up.

Standing to her full height, although she was slightly off center because of the need to lean on one leg, Jamie spoke to the group, "We know that Shane was the one to kill Randal. We got caught by a couple of walkers and Shane snuck up behind us. Rick and Daryl went after him and we all got separated."

"I tried to find Jamie, when I couldn't I went back to the house to see if she had made it back there," Daryl filled in, looking over to her since she hadn't known about that piece of information either. "It was when I was leaving again that we saw the herd outside."

"I found Rick with Shane after it went dark," Jamie continued, looking over to Rick. "Shane had a gun to him that he had taken from me when he caught me from behind. I tried to sneak up behind them, and I was able to turn his gun away from Rick, but he tried to shoot me. All of the crap that he pulled was just to get us into the forest; to get Rick into the forest."

"What?" Lori asked, her eyes widening as she too stood from the car hood.

Jamie looked over to Rick and could see that he was glancing between Lori and Carl. They had both been close to Shane, Lori more so than she should have been, but for them to know that Shane was killed by his hand could damage them both and their relationship with Rick. For Rick to lose the trust that his son had in him would turn him cold, turn him into the man that had taken Shane's life.

"We're all infected," Rick said quietly, but it was still enough for the group to hear him perfectly. All eyes turned to him, except for Jamie and Daryl who looked to the ground and away from the reactions of the others. With how Daryl had taken the news in the woods, Jamie wasn't sure what would happen with everyone else. Although he was known for his temper, Daryl could also take some pretty shitty news when he needed to and not react in a completely terrible manner. "At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it."

"It happens when you die," Jamie said quietly. "Explains how Randal turned because of a broken neck and no bite."

Lori's attention snapped over to her. "You knew about this?"

Jamie met her hard stare with her own, her eyes appearing closer to brown than hazel, "Rick told me and Daryl when we found Randal's body again. What can we do, if there's no cure? All this time we've been living, surviving, and now things are gunna change? No, we'll still continue on and try to survive for as long as we can. Unless we die or get bitten, nothing will happen."

Carol stepped in front of Jamie, ignoring her as she addressed Rick. "Why didn't you ever say anything about this before?"

"Jamie's right," Rick said, shaking his head. "Would it have made a difference?"

"When I found out about the walkers in the barn I told for the good of the group," Glenn said in a rush, grabbing hold of his gun in both hands once more, needing the comfort that it could give. "Why didn't you tell us, if this whole time you knew the truth?"

Jamie huffed before she snatched the shotgun from Hershel and aimed it at Glenn, watching as everyone backed away from it, Maggie raising her gun on Jamie in return. Lori pulled Carl away from her, but Daryl remained where he stood knowing that she wasn't going to shoot anyone. "Now that you know, do you want to die?" she asked, holding his dark eyes in a demanding stare. "If Jenner had told us all, if Rick had told us sooner, would it have made you give up and want to die? The walkers in the barn were a threat when we didn't know about them; this is a threat because we know about it."

Maggie began to lower her gun, realizing that Jamie had no intention of shooting. She hadn't even loaded it before she raised it on Glenn.

"Are you going to give up?" she demanded and watched as Glenn shook his head. Lowering the gun, she held it out for Hershel to take. "If I had the choice, I wouldn't want to know because it will always be there in the back of my mind. What if it takes hold without me dying? What if something changes? Before, the only thing we had to worry about was getting bitten and staying alive. Now, we will always have this to haunt us."

"This is why I thought it best if people didn't know," Rick finished, his eyes intently watching the emotions on Jamie's face.

Rick stepped away from the group first, Daryl soon placing an assuring hand on Jamie's shoulder before he notched an arrow and headed toward the trees, moving to search for good firewood while removing any walkers that he spotted in the process. Lori followed after Rick, while Jamie watched them carefully. Silence reined over the rest of the cracking family, people shifting unsure eyes between each other and feeling unease about themselves. Rick stopped at a stone dam, man-made, and watched a small waterfall of water that had begun to pour off the edge of the rocks.

Lori stepped up behind him as she tucked her gun into the back of her jeans, her hands free to wrap around him securely. "I'm sure you had your reasons," she finally began, pressing her cheek against his shoulder as she attempted to take in the information. "Is there anything more-"

"Lori," he interrupted, feeling her still as she lifted her head from his shoulder to hear what he had to say.

"I killed Shane."

Turning sharply, Rick and Lori both stared at Jamie with wide eyes. Rick shook his head at her, though she could not see with her head bowed and her eyes to the ground. She was still favouring one leg and her hands were in the pockets of her jeans to keep them warm, her damp hair twisted and pulled over one shoulder. She appeared afraid and weak, not what they were used to, and her eyes would not leave the ground. Rick wanted to protest, wanted to scold her for saying anything, but he knew what she was doing.

"I know that you hate things being kept from you, Lori, so I wanted to tell you before you found out some other way. He was trying to kill Rick, so I killed him. Rick tried to talk him down, and I probably should have given him a better chance, but I couldn't do it. I took the shot that I had before he could kill me. I know that even after everything you and Shane were close, so I'm sorry that it had to end this way."

"You," Lori said, pointing at Jamie with a shaking hand. Jamie raised her eyes to the other woman, full of remorse and grief. "You stay away from me and my son."

"I wanted it over, Lori," Rick said from at her side, causing her to back away from him as well in shock. "He accused me of stealing you and Carl from him, like I was in the way of everything. Whether it was me or Jamie, Shane wouldn't have come back with us that night. Not after everything that he did, to me and you, Jamie and everyone else. Shane wasn't the same man that we knew, and he was too much of a threat. He turned and that's how I knew; I knew that Jenner was right."

Jamie went to speak, but Rick continued before she could.

"Carl put him down."

Lori leaned her hands on her knees, appearing as though she was ready to be sick. Jamie wanted to help her, didn't want her to hate her, but there was no chance that Lori was going to forgive her for anything, not after the lie that she believed. Rick reached for her, but she swatted his hand away and turned her glare on Jamie, accusing them both with the hate in her eyes. She moved away from the both of them, unable to face either at the time.

Jamie limped over to Rick and smacked him on the arm, getting a started look from the man as he flinched back, getting a heated stare from Jamie that proved of her annoyance. "You weren't supposed to say anything. I was going to take full blame!" she hissed.

"Why?" Rick demanded back, keeping his voice low as he lashed out and took a sharp hold of her arms, wanting to shake her but not wanting to hurt her. "Why would you do that? She was just beginning to trust you!"

"Because you are a family, Rick," she snapped, shaking off his hold and pushing at his chest. "You may not want to lie to her but you can't lose her. She'll get over his death and even Carl's part in it. I would rather she blame me, because at least this way you can keep you family intact. Without you, Carl won't have a true family anymore!"

"At the expense of any improvement between the two of you."

Jamie shook her head and moved to sit on the side of the roadway, the gravel biting into her legs but still bearable. "Carl needs his father, Rick. And Lori needs you, we all need you. If Lori's trust in you breaks, it'll strain the whole group. So please, just go along with this. Winter's coming, we have nowhere to go and the last thing we need it further conflict among us."

Sighing heavily, Rick fell to sit as her side, leaning toward her to look into her hazel eyes. They were clear, reflecting her thoughts as she stared right back at him. "Thank you," he managed after a minute, getting a huff of a laugh and a smile from the woman, her hand reaching out to draw him into a loose embrace.

"You'll get through this, Rick. We all will."

As dark fell over them, Daryl had built up a strong fire in the center of the building ruins, the group crowding around the flames to try and keep warm. Maggie and Glenn stayed close together, Beth leaning heavily on Hershel for comfort and warmth. A broken family they were, all of them. Daryl looked out in the darkness, knowing that Jamie was safe with Rick but still eager for her to return. He wasn't sure what had happened, but when Lori had returned without them he knew that she had gone and done something stupid again.

"We're not safe with him," Carol whispered to him as she looked out in the darkness, "keeping something like that from us. You don't need him, he's just gunna pull you down." She kept her voice low so as not to draw attention from the others, but Daryl looked over her with a blank expression. Jamie was with Rick at that very moment, and he trusted him to keep her safe, but here Carol was trying to turn his thoughts against Rick.

"Nah," he settled on saying, snapping some larger sticks in half to add them to the fire. "Rick's done alright by me."

"You're his henchman," Carol accused, bringing pause to Daryl for a second time as he looked up to her. "And I'm a burden. You deserve better."

Daryl remembered a time when Jamie had said that about Merle, but she had never said anything ill of Rick and he trusted her opinion. "What do you want?" he asked in return as her eyes fell to the flames.

"A man of honour." It came out sounding more like a question than a statement and it irked Daryl somewhere deep. This woman was accusing Rick and she didn't even know of what or why. She was simply looking for someone to blame after the events that had removed them from the farm they so desperately trusted.

"Rick has honour," he growled out, his voice rising slightly.

Their not-so-quiet conversation brought doubt to the others, Maggie turning to Glenn with the thought of leaving the group. Hershel diffused the situation before it even became one, continuing to hold Beth close in the cold night. Movement in the woods next to their makeshift camp drew everyone's attention away from the conversation. Jamie and Rick made their way in from the other side, seeing everyone getting to their feet as Daryl pulled his crossbow from off his shoulder in preparation for anything, whether it is food or a walker.

Jamie had her hands tucked deep in her pockets against the cold, her hair finally dried after the hours of sitting in the chilled air. Her weight was still leant more heavily on her good leg, and Rick stood close in case she ever needed assistance. There was a tense air between them, but Rick held a protectiveness toward her that was visible in their proximity.

"It's not safe here; we should leave. What are we waiting for?"

"Which way?" Glenn asked as he looked around for any sign of movement within the light of the fire, but they could only see so much.

Jamie looked around at the group, seeing the very nerves that danced beneath their skin in their heightened sense of fear. The dark brought the same fear to her as everyone else but knowing that she wasn't alone allowed her the peace of mind while night took over. "The last thing we need if for everyone to be running off in the dark," Rick said before anyone could move from the enclosure of stone ruins. "We don't have the vehicles, and no one's travelling on foot."

"Don't panic," Hershel stated not a moment later.

"I'm not," Carol said as she continued to look around like a startled mouse. "I'm not sitting here and just waiting for another herd to blow through."

"Did you ever use to watch horror movies?" Jamie asked suddenly, drawing Carol's confused eyes to her. "Get scared after watching one and suddenly everything makes you jump? Even the things that you've heard or seen day after day? A creaky floor board or a flickering light?" Daryl almost wanted to laugh as he thought back to how Jamie used to react whenever they watched a horror movie. "That's what this is. We've seen what's out there, we've witnessed what scares us most and now we feel like every twig snap, ever whisper of wind is going to turn into a herd of walkers."

Carol turned to her desperately. "But we don't know that it isn't! We need to move, now."

"No one is going anywhere," Rick ordered out, halting Carol before she could take a step.

"Do something-"

"I am doing something!" Rick interrupted, turning to face Carol with an almost aggressive approach. Jamie reached for his arm and tugged him back slightly and tried to show him that he was taking it too far. "I'm keeping this group together. Alive." He allowed Jamie to guide him back, but didn't take his eyes off of the other woman. "I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this!"

"Okay, come on," Jamie whispered softly, tugging on his arm as she glanced over to where Daryl was keeping out of the conversation, but still mindful of what was going on. He nodded to her, as though giving her permission, and she nodded back. Rick pulled his arm from her hold and walked in a loose circle, trying to calm himself down as she remained where she was, knowing that he wasn't finished.

"Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead." Motioning back behind him, toward the road, Rick didn't wait for anyone to react before he continued, "I say that there's a place for us, but maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you go and find out yourself, send me a post card."

Of course he wasn't finished.

"Go on, there's the door. Let's see how far you get." He paused a moment and looked around at everyone, waiting to see if there was going to be any reactions from the group. "No takers? Fine. But let's get one thing straight. If you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."

Jamie watched a moment as he turned and fled from the group, but she soon limped after him carefully, knowing that he was heading for the same clustering of trees near the water that they had sat at before returning to the ruins. "Nice speech," she said after a long silence between them, seeing through the moonlight as Rick looked over to her with a blank stare that bordered on accusing. "Stop that."

"I was going to tell them about Shane," he began instead, turning his eyes to where they could both see the lights of the fire dancing along the stone. "About how I killed him and how I did it for the good of the group. To protect them."

"I suppose it's better that they don't know," she said softly, reaching forward to cup his chin in her hand and guide him to look at her. "I don't care if they hate me, or however they may feel. I will leave them to believe that I killed Shane, and you won't say a thing. They need someone they can trust to lead them, and believing that, no matter the circumstances, you killed your best friend may affect their feelings."

He was silent as he thought over her words, the light of the moon bringing deep shadows to his face. "And what about you?"

"You forget," she began with a sad smile, "I was there. I know how you felt about what you did; I know that you did not do so without great remorse."

Rick turned his eyes to her for a moment, looking over her face and into her darkened eyes. There was not much light to allow him to properly see her, but there was a set of determination on her face that he knew he could not combat. Leaning forward in the same moment that her arms came around him, Rick allowed himself the comfort of another once more, unable to break away from the pain of Lori's rejection and the group's doubts in him. Jamie was softly and warm against him, feminine and welcoming. She knew of the blood on his hands and she didn't push him away.

His hands fisted in her shirt as he pressed his face into her shoulder.

"Everything'll be alright," she assured gently, her voice a whisper in his ear and her breath a ghost on his skin.

Not too long of a wait, right? I struggled with coming up with the perfect title for this story, I had a list of like twenty names that I had thought up and slowly had to weave through. I liked many of them so much I'll probably just use them as chapter titles as some point

I finally have internet and it's much better than the last one that I had so hopefully that means more updating opportunities. I wanted to post this chapter last night so badly, but I hadn't the time to edit it and so today was as good as I could get.