⟴

Jay has always loved camping with Danny. The happiest memories of her late adolescence are all early mornings and mosquito bites and rushing out the house on weekends.

She remembers long car rides out of the city filled with music and jokes with the Castillo family. She remembers being taught how to skip stones while the boys chased each other with sticks, and giggling at Danny's screams after she puts a frog in his sleeping bag.

She especially remembers how nice it felt pretending she had a good dad, because no amount of therapy takes away a kid's memories of there mom's bruised face.

⟴

When Jay wakes up sweaty and sore for the second week in a row, she remembers how they never stayed out longer than a weekend (and how she and Tony could overpower and bully Danny into keeping the tent clean). Opening her eyes to a mess he somehow left without waking her makes her quickly decide that camping has lost its appeal.

She curses him while trying to stretch the stiffness out of her back. When she inevitably fails, she throws on yesterday's pants and stumbles out of the tent, immediately searching for her friend.

⟴

"Good morning, Jay!" Dale yells out to her from the top of the RV when she gets close enough, he smiles sweetly and Jay can't help but smile back. "How are you doing?"

"Looks more like a good afternoon." She replies a little sheepish, "I'm doin' alright, how are you?"

"I'm great! Living like a celebrity up here!" He says and gestures to his chair and umbrella,  making her giggle. "You eat anything yet? I think there might be some chips in the RV if you'd like."

"Nah, I'm good." Jay answers, mostly because the last chips she got from Dale were stale and partly because she'd feel bad taking away anything after accidently skipping out on chores. She walks a little further, and finally spots Danny messing with Shane's police scanner.

"You sure there ain't nothing you can do with that C.B?" Shane says with crossed arms, he's watching Danny fiddle with some wires. "No military channel you can tap into or nothin'?"

"I'm trying but we're too high up for good reception, the most I can do is make the connection to whatever we do hear less spotty. Especially since these ain't the right tools." Danny huffs, moving his hands away from the machine and frowning.  "I usually only work on regular civilian wiring than complex things like this anyway. It's probably for the best I can't fuck something up."

"Damn," Shane says and rubs the back of his head, "Thanks for tryin' though, man."

"No problem."

Jay awkwardly stands next to Danny and does a weird finger-salute-wave to acknowledge Shane, he nods as a much cooler greeting than whatever the hell she just did and starts to walk away. She immediately kicks Danny in the lower back when the officer is gone.

"Ow." He pouts and rubs at the spot. "What's that for?"

"Cause you're an asshole. You let me sleep in again!"

"There was no point, ain't shit to do but sweat."

"Maybe I wanna sweat." She says and helps Danny get to his feet. He raises his eyebrow at her as he stands because no, she thinks A.C units are the best modern invention since toilets. "Well, I woke up sweaty anyway."

He sighs and rolls his eyes at her. "I promise you, nobody cares if you sleep in during the end of the world."

"I just want to be useful." Jay starts, "I can't keep waking up when everyone else is working."

"You are useful." Danny says, "Don't get all..." He trails off to think of the right words, "Jada on me."

Her face twists up in mock offence, "Danny-"

"Alright, okay. If there's stuff to do I'll get you up." He sighs, defeated and tired of arguing. Jada smiles to celebrate her victory while he tries to push his hair out of his face. It's messier and longer than normal, the sides are stuck awkwardly between being too long and too short.

"I can borrow them scissors from Lori." She offers as she eyes it.

Danny snorts, "And walk around with a bald patch and half my ear missing?"

"That was college! I was hungover!" She defends and crosses her arms, "Not my fault you went and spent all that money tryna' impress that rich girl."

"I looked so stupid," He complains at the memory, "I was wearing a beanie the whole night!"

They go back and forth for a bit, trading college memories. For a moment, Jay can pretend theyre out here in the forest because that's the type of crazy shit they do and not because it's currently their only safe option.

It's nice until Jim steals Danny away to look at something, then he's mouthing a 'sorry' and leaving her to actually be useful. They only get to really joke like that at night nowadays.

Jay looks around aimlessly to find something else to do post-abandonment. The Dixons are by the campfire with some type of small animal, she looks away before she can tell what it is when the younger Dixon notices her staring and makes a face at her. Morales' kids and Lori's son are running around with sticks close by, she looks up and sees Dale's got a careful eye on them. She's having an internal debate on whether or not she should awkwardly insert herself into whatever Amy and Andrea are doing when Carol walks up to her.

"Jay, would you mind watching Sofia for me." Carol asks meekly, completely unaware she's saved Jay from wandering around camp. "I can't find Lori and Sofia doesn't want to play with the other kids."

"Oh. Of course I can." Jay nods and glances over to where Sofia is sitting down.

"Thank you, I really appreciate it." Carol smiles before speedwalking to the tents. An uneasy feeling sits at the back of Jay's mind when she sees Ed is waiting for the older woman, but she tries to push it down and goes to sit with the little girl instead of listening to it.

"Hey Sofia." Jay says when she does actually sit. Her eyes catch on colored pencils and printer paper, Sofia is drawing with her doll clutched under her arm, Jay can't quite tell what the drawing is from where she's sitting.

Sofia waves at her but avoids eye contact, instead focusing her gaze where she's coloring, the whole thing is very reminiscent of how Jay acted around her age.

"What you drawing? If you dont mind me asking."

"A person." Sofia shrugs, and now Jay's glad Danny's too busy to point out how this little girl might just be her in a smaller, white, package.

"Okay. You mind if I draw too?"

Sofia shakes her head and pauses her drawing to pass Jay a piece of paper. She gives Jay a couple colored pencils she doesn't seem to need right now and then continues her work.

The two of them sit in comfortable silence for a little bit, and it's easy for Jay to remember how much she likes the sounds of nature and the breeze on her skin. Her paper slowly turns into a messy collection of drawings, there's an attempt to draw the edge of the creek from memory that slowly bleeds into a messy sketch of Dale on his RV and sloppy portraits of anyone else she can see from where she's sitting. None of it's perfect, the eyes are a little too big and the noses are a little too long– but when she's starting to finish the hair on Sofia's head she looks up and sees the child staring in awe.

"Woah! You're really good." Sofia excitedly whispers, sitting up straight so she's not so hunched over, "How did you do that?"

"Thanks," Jay says as her cheeks get warm, "It took a lot of practice. It's like, muscle memory at this point."

"Do you think you could teach me?"

"Um– sure. I'd love to."

Sofia's picks up her pencil and swipes to a new piece of paper, handing Jay a new piece too. Jay attempts to teach her what she can remember from art classes, making things up as she goes. It doesn't take long for the two to start giggling– because Jay's drawn a picture of Merle Dixon with shrek's ears and Sofia's given a stick figure with his clothing  and dirty face some buckteeth.

"Pssst! Sofia." A voice pops out from behind Jay suddenly, making her jump. She turns around and sees Glenn standing over her with a bag in his hand. He's smiling widely as he begins to take some candy out of it and displaying it to Sofia.

"It's only fair you get first since last time those animals left you with the old people stuff." He gestures towards the group of kids swordfighting with sticks close by.

Sofia inspects the candy for a second before picking up some colorful ones. "Thanks Glenn." She unwraps one to pop into her mouth and starts smiling again.

Glenn nods and shoves the rest back into his bag. "No problem." His eyes trail down to the drawings spread across the table and he finally seems to notice Jay sitting there. "Oh wow, these are sick! Did you draw these?"

"Yeah," She nods, "Me and Sofia."

"They're really good. You both are crazy talented!"

"Thank you." Jay says and tucks a couple locs behind her ear, theres a beat of awkward silence before Glenn tries to fill it.

"So, do you um—do art stuff a lot?"

"Kinda. I did before–y'know." Jay hums, she hadn't really drawn anything for months before the dead came back.

"Did you have the cool things? Like the fancy pencils and everything?" Sofia pipes up, "My art teacher let us use the oil pastels before school got cancelled."

Jay nods before answering, "Yeah, I had pastels and pencils and all the expensive paints and everything." She pauses and sighs, her mouth forming into a line. "I wish I thought to grab that stuff before we left, its just collecting dust now."

Glenn nods and smiles thoughtfully. There's another gap of awkward silence before he claps his hands together.

"Well, I better get the rest of the candy to the kids." He says and walks away, leaving Sofia and Jay to draw some more. The girls spend the rest of the day drawing until Carol comes back to collect Sofia.

⟴

Jay's blankly staring at the Peleteir family's campfire from her by the group. Sofia's staring down at the ground quietly, huddled into her mother. Deep down she's hoping that she's making things up and being overly cautious, but watching Sofia and Carol sit quietly opposite of Ed makes her stomach queasy and a familiar sense of dread fall over her.

Jay's brought back to the chatter of the group by a nudge in her shoulder, she blinks and looks up at Danny raising an eyebrow at her.

"You good?" He tries to say discreetly, concern present in his face. She nods and forces a smile, they both know eachother too well to think this will be the end of it.

"Just thinking." She answers truthfully, Danny nods and goes to speak again when hes interrupted.

"How long have you two been together?" Lori asks suddenly, an attempt to distract herself from the fact she's chewing a particularly tough piece of squirrel. Jay and Danny blink a few times before they immediately start laughing.

"W–We're not together." Jay gets out through her giggles.

"She wishes." Danny says at almost the same time, the rest of the circle chuckles.

"Oh– I'm sorry, you two just seemed– sorry for assuming." Lori apologizes, embarrasment written plain across her face. Shane's started snickering beside her.

"We get it a lot." Jay tries to reassure her through big breaths, she's trying to bite down her giggles but Danny's cackling makes it hard. She elbows him in the side to shut him up.

"Coulda had me fooled." Shane says with a quirked eyebrow, bits of the group murmur in agreement. "You share that tent, and you're always 'round eachother."

"So? I can say almost the same exact thing about you and Lori." Danny's voice is high-pitched and wheezy from laughter. Jay catches the way Lori almost chokes on her food out the corner of her eye.

The conversation dies back down after that, switching to Andrea and Amy teasing Dale for yet another hawaiian shirt and Glenn getting praise for bringing back 3-ply toilet paper. After a while they finish up and separate to go eat.

⟴

"What were you thinking so hard about? Before all of that at dinner." Danny asks later when they're in the tent. He's comfortably on the cot a foot away from her.

"I don't know. Talked to Carol today and something was off." She starts, "Do you remember how anxious my mom was all the time? Before she left that bastard."

"Yeah. " Danny gives a knowing look, theres a pause as he chooses his words carefully. "Do you think Carol is–"

"I dont know. I might just be projecting." Jay says quickly, "I've never even spoken a word to her husband. She just– it don't feel right."

"Shit. I'll keep an eye out." He says.

She spends the rest of the night staring at the roof of their tent, thoughts wildly flying through her mind about why she feels so uneasy about Ed, why Sofia's behavior gives her déjà vu. When she finally closes her eyes and relaxes her mind, she dreams of her childhood, of her mom when she was younger and still breathing, of men with fragile egos and short tempers.

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