Hey guys! Sorry for the delay, as always. University is tough - I'm in third year now, and got a hell of a workload on me. My only consolation is thinking of the fact that I'll be playing Dragon Age Inquisition in a few weeks, when I'm free - then Christmas! THANK THE LORD. Anyway, a note on this chap. It has a...possibly unwelcome character in at the end. Hence the delay, in part. Many rewrites. I found it somewhat difficult writing from that POV, though I feel it went alright in the end. Originally, this chap was longer - but, I thought this was jumbled and chaotic enough as it is, so I cut it for next chap. It's exciting, this one! Enjoy!

Oh, and a note to 'Just a Thought' (1 and 2), that might interest others on the development of the story...never be sorry for constructive crit! I always welcome it! And your comments were so thoughtful. I really appreciate them. I was touched with how much you care for my story, particularly when you say you ship Daryl only with Jeanie. Thank you so much. I ended up slightly changing the Carol bit at the end of the last chap - I agree, it didn't sit well with me either. But you're right about Jeanie's independence, you are! Don't feel bad! Originally, I was afraid of making Jeanie too involved and having people dislike her, so I stuck her to Daryl even more than the setup afforded I suppose. I recognised that a while ago, and have set a plan, of sorts, to get her independent in more ways. Now's the time when Jeanie's character starts branching out, as you will see. Anyway, I hope you like it, and again, please don't feel bad. Your care is very touching! Thanks so much!

DISCLAIMER: Me no own-y; apart from Jeanie!

Chapter 21 – Break Upon Break

"...Daryl?"

A long silence. Carol fidgeted in her spot, hands fiddling over each other, posture falling about exhaustedly. Still, she waited, with no reply. A few crickets sung, the sound piercing the lull as her eyes trailed about and she slowly moved a foot forward, but nothing else.

His camp didn't look like it had been touched for a while, she thought. He could be out; but it was late. ...Very late, now. The moon was out in full tonight, and she was left with only that as light, Daryl's fire lying cold and unlit. Brow furrowing, she reached for her pocket, pulled out a small torch that Glenn had scavenged for her some time ago, and clicked it on – only to be startled.

"Ah, Daryl—"

He'd been sitting away from the camp, behind his tent, on a log. He was fiddling with something in his hands – a knife, Carol realised, the one he used to skin squirrels when he used to bring them into the camp. Sharpening it, then, she guessed. But he hadn't started yet; he was just running his finger over it, wordless, stooped over like some kind of expressionist statue, crooked and weighty. Carol braced herself.

"...I need to talk to you—"

"Don't want to talk."

Another silence. His reply had been sharp, but somehow subdued. Angry, yet uncaring. She didn't know quite how to describe it – it unnerved her. Still, she steadied herself.

"It's important."

"Don't give a shit."

"It's—"

"Fuck off."

His hand had stopped moving over the knife, pushing it away, back tensed. He still hadn't turned to her. Carol tightened her fist, taking a deep, deep breath.

"Daryl—"

"Fuck off."

"Just listen to me—"

"Get the fuck out of here already, y'hear me? Wasn't enough for you for me to be running all round for some dead girl, you gotta fuckin bother me too, just fuck o—"

"It's Jeanie, Daryl."

He turned. Carol stared into his eyes, the anger he thought would be there absent.

"...She's gone."

The first time Jeanie had a moment of consciousness from her walking stupor, it was during a shouting match.

A portion of the group – a loud portion – were gathered in the kitchen, yelling amongst themselves. It'd started as murmuring, quiet and tense – but, after a while, as it always did, it escalated. She wasn't even listening, even as she awakened a slight bit where she sat in one of the cold armchairs, a blanket thrown over her. She hadn't done that, she thought vaguely, even whilst knowing she couldn't really remember much of the past while. The answer for her impending mental question came with a soft brushing over her hand.

She whipped her head round, tensing at the touch, before realising who it was: Dale. He was in the seat beside her, hands over hers, gently wiping a cloth across her palm. She stared at him, not really comprehending much.

He looked up at her movement, staring tiredly back for a moment before managing to scrounge up a comforting attempt at a smile. "You've got grass stains all over you. Didn't see you for a while, 'til you wandered in there...must've been out back, by the trees."

She stared, still. Then, after a moment, she nodded faintly, turning back away, expression loosening back to nothing. He continued cleaning her hands.

After a particularly loud shout came from back behind them, she croaked out quietly, half there, "What's happening?"

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, seeming to think it a bad idea to bring her into the furious debate going on in the next room over when she was so out of it – but, eventually, he answered, gently setting down her left hand and reaching for her right, "They're arguing. About Shane. And Hershel-" another pause, before he hastened, "Nothing to worry about."

Her lip curled, fingers twitching. She wasn't quite sure why. Dale noticed though, and looked up.

"...You think it was wrong too, don't you?"

A brief pause came in the shouting after a door opened and closed on Glenn grabbing a glass of water to replenish what he'd lost working in the sun, before the angry muttering and sniping began again, hissed and tense. As the noise faded back into steady and meaningless background noise, Jeanie realised she didn't even know who was arguing. For a moment she almost awoke her mind enough to attempt to make them out; but then abandoned the effort swiftly. What did it matter, she supposed, who it was? The fact that it was happening was indicative enough of how bad things were.

Dale sighed, deeply and heavily. Jeanie glanced round at him from the corner of her eye, tired and half there. He was staring at the frayed rug beneath their feet, at the scuff marks from decades of use – and from a few weeks of an apocalyptic family moving in. Carl had left a stain in the corner, with some juice from a can of peaches; Glenn'd dropped a biscuit and rubbed in a ball of crumbs without realising; Andrea caught her boot on one of the tassles a week before. The wood out in the hall was dirt-streaked and creaking beneath the heels of them all. A fire was burning outside, a raw odour permeating the air. Hair and meat.

"...He shouldn't have done that. Not like that. It wasn't up to us."

She didn't answer; but her expression stayed the same. That seemed to be enough for him – on that subject only. After a few minutes of silence on their end, with the snipes growing gradually once more, he finished cleaning her up and set the rag down in his lap, shifting in his chair to move closer to her. Then, after hesitantly scratching at his neck for a few moments, he asked her quietly, "How are you, dear?"

She tensed again, eyes shutting for a moment, head turning. She couldn't talk about herself right now – could barely deal with anything else, never mind that, that can of ugly, blackened worms. No. She couldn't.

She shook her head, coughing lightly, forcing herself to loosen a bit as she did so, turning a bit in her chair – away. He wasn't deterred, though.

"Jeanie, come on, now – I'm worried about you. ...We haven't talked in a while." He hesitated again before resolving himself, voice dropping all the more, "If you need help...you need to tell me. Or anyone – someone, so we can do whatever we can."

She didn't reply. Dale, though, instead of giving up at that, waited only a moment more before he spoke again.

"You know, I've never been good with death – never, in my whole life. Not to say anyone is; but I really wasn't. I couldn't stand seeing it on TV, had to leave the room when it happened. I remember losing it when my pet dog got ran over as a kid. ...But then my wife..."

He stopped. Jeanie felt her fingers digging into her arm, brow denting as she couldn't help but look round at him.

"...I didn't handle it well. And I didn't handle it well when Andrea spoke to me in the CDC, and said she wanted to stay behind. Or with Sophia. Or with you."

That caught her. She stared at him, shoulders falling. He was watching her, with the same gaze he'd held before, when he'd brought her and Glenn over to the RV, to work on the engine, to talk a while in the sun. It was nice, that day. Reminded her of someone, his eyes. She tried to ignore it.

"I'm not leaving, Dale."

"Are you sure?" Those eyes again, growing more earnest, more pleading, staring into her own, and she couldn't look away. "Would you tell us if you wanted to?"

He was looking right at her, right in her, waiting. Behind them, the door to the kitchen creaked loudly open, thumping against the wall, and the shouting stopped. Footsteps, and murmuring, and some more footsteps, leaving – people walking out the door past her, without a glance, without faces to her, nothing more than human shaped blobs all of them for how little she cared in that moment. She glanced numbly back to find Shane silently across from Lori, staring at her. Lori met his eyes for a moment before walking out, frame set, off into the night. Ready to get something done.

"Jeanie?"

She looked back. Dale was waiting, still. The door shut behind Lori, her footsteps echoing out into the growing dark of the night, away.

"...I've got to go."

She stood, blanket falling away from her upright legs, and left, door swinging shut behind her as she strode after the disappearing form up the dirt path without a glance back. Dale watched after her, expression straightening, posture falling, rag pulling in his hands. Looking up, he found the pacing form of the man in the kitchen, equally fraught.

His eyes darkened.

Lori awoke with a start.

Darkness, at first. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, lost in all the blackness, mind swimming without a care in the world beyond vague confusion. Then, a little flickering orb of light began to grow slowly over to the side, away from her, sharpening with each blink of her lids. She tried to turn to look at it – and groaned, halting immediately, blackness coming over her again as her eyes squeezed shut at the rush of feeling suddenly overwhelming her senses. Her head – it felt stuffed, with too much in it to bare, just about ready to burst. Her ears were done; seemingly lopped off for all the noise she was picking up, numb and useless. Her fingers twitched slightly against her thigh, toes tingling, torso wriggling. She rolled her head back slowly, swallowing back a wave of nausea as she did so, letting loose a pained sigh that she couldn't hear.

Then, as she pulled herself back up, and her eyes fully opened even as the little light pulsated against her peripherals and she looked around to her other side, she realised something.

A walker was trying to eat her.

With a choked sort of scream, she leapt back, sound returning to her all of a sudden in a rush, like a horrible, deafening wave of chaos that she couldn't comprehend beyond the horrific groans and gnashing of teeth to the side of her head, through a cracked window.

Where – where –

Vaguely, in between the abrupt terror forced upon her, she put the pieces together, and her mind managed to grasp back at her actual consciousness: she was in a car – and a walker had appeared in front, she'd swerved and – what—

A creak from her left and another great gnashing; the cracked window the walker was pressing in on buckled a bit more, safety glass chunks falling over her shoulder and crunching beneath her recoiling form. Lori gave a desperate keen, breath hitching in her chest, and tried to move back some more – but, her leg, it was caught, and she hanging strangely from her seatbelt, pulled off to side like she was suspended over a fall. She was upside down, she realised with great strain – upside down and over a ditch or something, something like that, and stuck in her seat. She had to move, she had to get out somehow, pull free, something quickly before—

A sound in the back. For a horrifying, all-consuming moment, Lori thought that was it: the back wind-shield had collapsed, another walker was in, and she was dead, it was over, the world had ended. But then a string of mumbled gibberish, and she recognised the voice.

"Jeanie!"

A shuffle. No answer.

"Jeanie! Wake up! Please!"

A cough – more conscious sounding this time. An awful pause consumed the tipped-over car, and Lori found herself turning away, breathing coming heavier, eyes darting to the side every few seconds as her hands began to desperately search around for something, anything to defend herself with, to get out of here and get away.

Then, oh thank god, oh thank god, Jeanie answered, "...Lori? Lori, wha—"

A creak – Jeanie had shifted to the wrong side, slipping in her elevated seat and dangling away from her seatbelt, and the car almost tipped. Lori screeched, arms flying up to brace herself against the dashboard, narrowly avoiding snapping teeth.

"Don't move that way! We crashed, we're upside down – Jeanie, there's a walker, help—"

With a gasp, Jeanie began to struggle in the back, legs kicking out everywhere, air expulsing thunderously from her lungs as she tried to untangle herself from her twisted seatbelt. Another creak came from beside Lori: the window was edging in, at a much greater pace than before. The walker's face got at an angle, twisting – and then, horrifically, it was in, right beside her, through a hole, face turning this way and that to get further to her, skin pulling back. Lori couldn't help it: she screamed again, body twisting around as she tried to pull her leg free from whatever had stuck it – her chair, or something, she didn't know, but it wouldn't let go.

The car rocked suddenly: Jeanie had decided to use the leverage afforded by the seatbelt to push herself into a corner, calves pulling back like a coil, and then kicked, powerfully and harshly out at the door opposite her. Lori whipped round, wild-eyed, ready to screech for her to stop again – but then logic kicked in: Jeanie was trying to get out, to help her. But she was taking too long, too long, the walker was moving in.

"Oh god, oh god, oh—"

Lori couldn't feel anything, anything at all around her as her body began to break down, air shivering through her at a heightened pace and leaving her mind struggling – where was the screwdriver, the one Glenn had left in the car, where was it, Christ, please. Another rock; Jeanie managed to land a solid thump on the window with her boots and it creaked ominously. It wasn't quick enough though. Lori's hand shuddered around still, instinctually whipping down to her side to try and release her from her seatbelt - but she couldn't turn all the way, not without leaving her neck open for attack. She keened strangely at the realisation, an awful bubble of meaningless noise leaving her in utter panic. The walker - the walker - oh god, it was gaining, it was gaining.

As the teeth snapped again, an inch from her shoulder, a machete suddenly appeared at her other one. She whipped round again, hyperventilating, to find Jeanie yelling furiously at her.

"Take it, Lori, take it!"

She didn't need to be told twice – her right hand flinched out and took it by the handle, she twisted, and then, without another thought, she smashed the thing into the walker's head.

Gore sprayed her face. She gave a choked, nearly vomiting sob, tugging back on the blade as a sliver of the walker's dilapidated cheek fell onto her breast, pulling it free only to then smash it straight down again, again, again. Finally, after countless, breathless hits, the walker wasn't moving anymore, and Lori was left there beside it, breathing so deeply she almost tasted the rotten flesh slumped against the outer reaches of her body. Her chest shuddered, along with the car, as Jeanie kicked out again, making a definite crack back behind her. Her chest shuddered, along with the car. Barely noticed by her, a sheet of safety glass at the back popped out with a harsh crack, sliding across the oil-slick tarmac, catching on the side of a dented wheel hub that had flown away from them in the crash.

Finally, after too long for Lori's nervous system to handle, Jeanie appeared before her. She stared down at her for a long moment, chest still heaving from the workout of having kicked open the back window – and then she was before her, pulling back on the walker's limp carcass, foot braced in the windshield in front of Lori's face.

After three attempts to pull the thing out of the cracked driver's window and shifting it only a few inches, Jeanie gave up, falling back onto the cement. "It's stuck," she breathed heavily, a hand coming up to press into her face, "I can't move it."

Lori struggled to steady herself enough to reply with great difficulty, "Its face is in the window."

Jeanie's hand fell away, brow furrowing, eyes shutting. Then, fingers squeezing tightly into her neck, she said quietly, "I'll smash the windscreen."

Lori's head whipped up, paling. "It'll fall on me!"

"It's okay, I'll be careful."

"I'm telling you, don't do it, just don't do it!"

Jeanie started a bit, seeming surprised at the force of Lori's words. Even Lori flinched, swallowing tightly after having barked out in anger, face paling all the more. She tried to pull herself together, breaths struggling to calm as her nose was assaulted by rotting flesh.

"...Climb into the ditch, and help me out the side there."

"But your leg—"

"I'll – I'll do it, I'll pull free, just – just get down there. ...Please."

"...Okay. Be careful."

Jeanie jumped down into the ditch, her head poking up over the side from where she stood elevated on a slight ledge and leaning into the passenger's window as she pried the door open. Lori turned to her own predicament, trying to put the impending struggle to crawl away out of her mind as she searched for what had incapacitated her. Her leg – it was caught on...a bag? Her bag, she realised with a choked laugh. Her handbag. She'd dropped it when she was trying to pull the AA map out of it. Must've gotten tangled in the brake pedals, and her leg with it, caught awkwardly to the side in the strap. Just a little faux-leather handle, really, from a cheap, backstreet accessory she'd bought years ago. And it had almost killed her. It took her a minute of bending over on herself awkwardly, face pressed uncomfortably close to the corpse, to free her foot – but then that was that, simple, all done.

She whipped her hand down to her side, shoved a mass of empty food cartons out of the way, and pressed down on the seatbelt release, struggling against the loosened strap for a moment before untangling herself. Then, relief nearly making her sob, she was crawling slowly over to Jeanie's outstretched arms, in them, pulled out, and shoved up onto the tarmac with a great push.

She lay there, in a little puddle of oil, staring at the sky as she heaved with breathing, body sagging heavily into the stable ground, tears she didn't know she'd shed drying on her dirtied cheeks. Jeanie appeared at her side a moment later, silently staring down into the road, on her knees as she leaned back against the toppled car without a care to the creak it elicited at the contact. A few crows flew overhead, as if to taunt them over the fact that they'd nearly died, practically invisible in the scarce light afforded by the moon and the dash light of the car. It was all Lori could do to not be hypnotised by their scarcely tangible circling and pass out.

Finally, after what felt like hours to her but had likely only been a few minutes, a thought abruptly shot through her mind. "...Rick," her eyes opened back from a long, heavy lull of having shut them, "...Rick." She sat up too quickly, head swimming a bit, her long swathe of hair tangling around her face with the movement. "...We need to get to Rick."

She looked over at Jeanie – she hadn't even looked up. In fact, she hadn't seemed to have moved at all in the time since they'd collapsed there, out so perilously in the open. She was still staring down into the dirt, into nothing.

Lori sat there for a long moment, unsure of what to do. Then, a strange pulse of energy overcame her – adrenaline, she supposed, having come much too late to help her when she so desperately needed it , now surging through her like a bullet. She pushed herself up a bit more, then a bit more – and then, all of a sudden, she was back on her feet, upright, looking down on Jeanie.

However, just before she was about to speak, to give a stark, 'Let's go' or 'We've got to go', she stopped herself. Hesitating for only a moment, her hand outstretched, and she bent at the waist.

"...Here. Let me help you up."

Jeanie looked up. A silence fell over them, punctuated only by the crows overhead, squawking with want of carrion. Lori waited uncomfortably, hand pulling back a fraction, brow denting.

Then, just before it got too much and she pulled away, Jeanie leaned over, picked up the machete that Lori had abandoned, stuffed it into her belt, and turned to grasp the awaiting hand. She pulled herself up, barely using the limb at all, not even pulling on it much – but she held onto it for a moment, nonetheless. Lori stared at her after she let go, arm falling, expression falling uncertainly about.

Jeanie turned away, staring ahead to the pitch black road.

"Let's go."

She walked on, without a glance back. Lori hesitated only a moment before following. The smouldering wreck of their abandoned car and the far-off groaning of scattered, undead beasts mingled in the darkness at their backs.

"...Hey. It's okay; we don't need to slow down."

Jeanie glanced up from where she'd been staring down at Lori's leg as they walked – and Lori hobbled a tad.

"...I could make you a splint, from a twig."

Lori's leg, having seemed fine at first when they'd started walking, had quickly degraded with the exercise of heaving her post-adrenaline rush, post-car crash body along an abandoned highway. After half an hour or so, it had been quite apparent that she shouldn't be walking at all – in having caught her foot in her bag, she'd twisted it somehow, and pulled the muscle. Still, even as a fraction of her screeched to just lie down and do nothing for days on end, to just stop moving, she couldn't. They had to keep moving.

"I'm fine. ...Thanks. Let's just keep on."

That was that. Jeanie turned back away, eyes on the road. She barely seemed to even recognise that Lori was there, really. She hadn't talked during the whole time they'd been walking. Lori had to wonder if she hadn't been spending too much time around Daryl.

Her leg twinged. To take her mind off of it and to stop the urge to hiss at the pain, she spoke - and decided that her last thought was as good as any to base a conversation off of.

"...So, what do you and Daryl talk about?"

Jeanie almost stopped. She turned again, an expression taking over her face for the first time that night, really – surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I wonder, sometimes," Lori admitted, unable to stop herself from snorting slightly, "We all do. I can't even imagine what he'd say to you when you're alone."

Jeanie stared at her, silent. Then, she turned back away, brow furrowing. "We just...talk. Why are you interested?"

"Just," another twinge, and Lori grimaced, "humour me."

"I don't know. What do you talk about with Rick?"

That caught Lori's attention, leg forgotten for a moment, pointing out with strained quiet so as not to draw unwanted attention, "Rick's my husband. Is Daryl yours?" No answer. Lori frowned, feeling suddenly vapid in the silence, embarrassed. "...I'm sorry. I was just trying to take my mind off this. And I'm worried about Rick," she swallowed deeply, brow denting, the truth of her words rushing over her. "God. I hope he's alright. Being out here – I'm becoming so used to the farm. It's so...we'll, it felt so safe compared to this. Before..."

A silence. Lori glanced round at Jeanie again, an abrupt need overwhelming her, "Listen – thank you. For back at the car. If it weren't for you," she broke off, eyes shutting against her will, the muscles in her hands twitching. Jeanie looked round for a moment at the movement, quiet and seemingly intent on listening. Lori tried not to look at her, coughing slightly, "I probably would've been killed. You helped me get out alive. So, thank y—"

Jeanie stopped. Her back straightened, frame tightening. For a moment, Lori thought she'd offended her somehow, touched a nerve in some way – but then, she heard it, too.

A car.

Rapidly, their situation changed. Jeanie was no longer supporting Lori – she was pulling her, off to the side, off the road, attempting to sprint them to safety. Lori tried to keep up, fear bursting through her with viciousness – but she kept tripping, kept nearly stumbling, and Jeanie wasn't big enough to support her completely, she was struggling—

A screech of tires, and a flash of light poured over them. Lori froze; Jeanie didn't. Her machete was out, in front of her, away from view. Lori faced the machine head-on, struck; she stayed in place, too late to hide, waiting for something to happen.

After an excruciatingly long moment, the driver's door popped open with a click, and a figure stepped out.

"Shit! Are you okay?"

It was Shane. Unspeakably relieved, Lori stumbled forward, moving towards his quickly approaching form, a torch light dancing around in his grip and illuminating them all the more.

"I'm fine," Lori shouted back at him, croaking really, "I'm fine, we're okay, Jeanie's alright—"

He seemed to have forgotten about her. Arms halting in where they'd been about to enclose over Lori's back, he whipped his head up to find Jeanie staring at them both, silent. He paused for a long moment, Lori's exhausted breathing puffing up in the hot air of the evening, before addressing her.

"...You're okay too, then? No scrapes?"

"Fine."

Her tone matched his own: detached. If Shane was annoyed or disturbed by that, he didn't let it show: instead, he nodded briefly, and turned back to Lori, who was glancing between them, confused, but unwilling to ask about the strange atmosphere. Before she could even begin to discuss what had happened or where they intended to go, Shane began to pull her towards the car.

"Come on, we've gotta get you home."

Lori froze, hands twitching up to grab at his shifting arms, expression tensing.

"What? I can't leave. Rick's still out there."

He stared at her, shocked. Jeanie stayed silent at the back of them, not contributing anything at all. He'd be alone in this, then, he thought as he turned back to Lori and braced himself for a fight, jaw tightening.

"Lori, you can't seriously want to stay out here! You were just in a car crash, for fuck's sake—"

"I don't care! He's my husband!"

"You're hobbling, I can see you right now," she tried to move away, away from him looking, but he stopped her with a hand, "Don't bother pretending you're alright, Christ."

"It doesn't matter; you can drive us into town, and we can bring them home."

"No, I'm bringing you home."

"No, Shane, no, you're not-!"

"Get in the car, Lori, and keep your voice down—"

"No, I won't, I'm not leaving without Rick—"

"Well, that's fine!" Shane had ignored his own command for quiet, shouting, a few birds that had been feeding nearby scattering to the wind. Lori started a fraction, expression tightening, and served as the only thing to bring him back a bit, voice a quiet, blunt mutter. "...Because he's back already, anyway."

A silence.

Lori stared at him, gaze narrow, body shifted at a strange angle, half away from him. "...Really?"

Shane swiped a hand over the back of his neck, sighing deeply. "Really."

Another pause. Lori frowned. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"You never gave me a damn chance, that's why," a strained smile, "So damn set on just telling me what's what, that's why."

Crows in the distance, again. A few groans echoed from far off, atop a series of hills. A cloud passed over the moon. Posture falling, Lori sighed with immense relief, and then she was being pulled lightly to the car, off to the passenger's side, sinking back into the seat. Shane was about to close the door after her – but then she remembered.

"Jeanie?"

She'd moved. Her machete was back in its holster, in her belt, and she was standing out in the middle of the road, looking away from them. Lori stared at her, suddenly struck by a feeling of intense dread – and totally nonplussed as to why.

"...Jeanie, we're going home, now."

No reply. Shane decided to get involved now – impatience overtaking him, as it always seemed to do nowadays. His expression tightened, teeth baring a bit. "Jeanie, come on."

Still, nothing. They stayed quiet for a long moment, waiting, anticipating, formulating what the hell was going on.

Then, quite abruptly, Jeanie was running.

"Jeanie!"

She was pounding forward on the road at a swift pace down an upcoming drop, much quicker than even Shane could run, in all actuality. Even Lori seemed to realise this, footsteps bounding around them, echoing into the night, and shouted in panic and confusion, tugging on his arm, trying to get him to move, "Shane, get in the car, we have to get her!"

"...Fuck."

He sprinted over to the driver's side, jumped in, closed the door, and started the car up. But, before Lori could be inundated with even the slightest hint of relief, a click sounded – the door locks. For a moment, she was so shocked and confused that she just stared at them, mouth gaping. Then, she was roaring.

"Shane, no—"

But it didn't matter, not in the slightest – without a backwards glance, Shane had reversed, turned, and driven off into the night, Lori's furious yelling echoing out of the rapidly shut window, Jeanie's disappearing form melding into the pitch black behind them.

Uh ohhhh. Shane, you absolute todger. Now do you see what I mean about unwelcome POV, with Lori? I hope you didn't get put off because of it. I almost cut a huge portion of Lori out for fear of that - but ended up sticking to my guns. I felt it was important to show the interaction between Lori and Jeanie. I've warmed to Lori a bit; but not much. I still don't much like her. I might go back and change her segment, even. So unsure about it, blech.

Anyway, thanks for reading! And thank you to my anon reviewers - I would've said so above, but there was such a large note haha. I wish I could reply to you all individually! Sorry about that.

Btw, a thing I noticed in TWD this week (this season is badass btw) - a Caryl ep, first of all! YASSSS. And then a machete turned up! JEANIE AHHHHH. I was so proud. My baby was looking over my favs, a guardian angel haha. Wonder if you guys had the same thought? Probs not hahahaha. But still! See you next time, pals.