Happy season 8 premier! We did it guys. We made it to October!
To celebrate the 100th episode and season 8 premier I give you an update! Hope you enjoy it!
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Jo

"Go over it again," I growled. I tightened my hands into fists as I fought to contain my fury. I paced another angry line across the back of the kitchen. It was all I could do not to shove past Rick and Michonne and Daryl and slap Tara across the face. Daryl knew of course, he always seemed to know. He could read my emotions often faster than I could sort them out. He had made it a point to stand between me and Tara while she told her story. Smart man. Tara had selfishly endangered us all and even worse didn't seem to understand.

Daryl was leaning against the kitchen island, to anyone else he looked like he was casually listening. But his arms were crossed over his chest and I could read his tension in the set of his shoulders. He was just as infuriated as I was, he was just doing a better job of hiding it from the rest of the room.

I normally had better control over my emotions, but I didn't really see the point. Tara had done something epically stupid and pretending like everything was fine wasn't going to help anyone.

Tara flinched at my words. Her eyes landed on my face only for a few seconds before she turned her wide eyes back to Rick. Rick cleared his throat and licked his lips but he didn't disagree with my request. Though to be honest he looked significantly more patient than I was at this moment. He nodded his head at Tara encouraging her to tell it again.

So she told us about the woman's colony. She told us about their resources, their food stores, the layout of their huts and their guns. All of their guns. An entire armory fully of guns. More than enough guns to outfit our people twice over plus the garbage people. She explained how they tried to kill her, and how, despite that she still had made a promise. A promise even know she was torn about breaking. Where she got this unfounded loyalty was beyond me. They had tried to kill her, twice. She owed these people nothing.

"I know I screwed up," she said once she was done telling the story a second time. Her eyes turned imploringly to me. "I know that, okay? Just..." she cleared her throat and she looked away from me, back to Rick. "Please, try not to hurt anyone if you can help it, okay? Promise me."

I had had enough. "Promise you?" I snarled, stalking towards her. Daryl straightened. Not exactly stopping me, but making it so I was going to have to step around him to get to her. "Promise you? You and your naive idealism nearly killed us. Do you even understand what's at stake?"

Tara's eyes widened first in shock and then narrowed in anger. It was the first time tonight she looked anything but scared and guilty. "Of course I understand, I'm not an idiot. Our lives are on the line, but so is our humanity! We don't just have to fight The Saviors, we have to be better than them" she argued.

"Save it," I growled taking another step closer. Daryl moved his shoulder in front of mine, but he was facing her, not me. He was providing a unified front with me, but I was also pretty sure he was making it so I didn't do anything rash. "These people, our people, trust us with their lives, we can't afford to think like that," I told Tara shaking my head. "If you aren't prepared to make the hard decisions then go home and hide."

"Jo enough!" Rick yelled and I flinched. Rick had never yelled at me before and I wasn't expecting it. I was too worked up, too blinded by my own anger it caught me by surprise. I flinched back a step. Daryl noticed and he steadied me with a warm hand pressed against my low back.

Rick cast me a quick regret filled look before he turned back to Tara. "Tara, we will come up with a plan that will allow us to do this with the least amount of damage possible," he promised. "Okay?" he asked, and he glanced back and forth between us.

Tara sighed and dropped down onto one of the kitchen stools, pressing her forehead into her hands. "What do you need from me?" she asked, her voice muffled by her hands.

Rick pulled out a pad of paper from one of the drawers and set it a few inches from her. "I need you to start over," he said, motioning towards the paper. "But this time, I need you to draw it out for me."

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Jo

It was another three days before we had a plan in place and the man power to execute it. The morning we planned to leave I was dressed before dawn. Somehow I had managed to slip out of bed without waking Daryl, but Jesus had stayed over and was upstairs sleeping on the couch. I didn't want to wake anyone else so I threw knives at the target in the living room hoping it would help clear my head. It was a good plan, a solid plan, the best plan we could come up with given our limited resources, but there were still so many things that could go wrong. I was nervous, there were a lot of parts of this that were out of my control and I was worried about my family. We were all going, we had to. We couldn't afford to leave a single fighter behind and if something went wrong out there...

I threw the knives over and over until I heard the bedroom door click open behind me. I threw the last one in my hand and stalked up to the target, sliding the four blades away in my thigh sheath.

Daryl was leaning against the door frame watching me. When I turned back to him I couldn't help the small smile that twisted my lips. He was dressed to go, with a backpack over one shoulder. His hair hung down into his face and my fingers itched to brush it out of his eyes. In that instant I was overwhelmed with the need to touch him, to feel him, to know he was alive and with me.

I crossed the room in rapid strides and he must have recognized my intent because he dropped the backpack and caught me around the waist as I pressed my lips against his. I deepened the kiss, pressing myself against him. A low chuckle vibrated through his chest.

"Morning darl'in," he drawled, pulling back from the kiss, but not so far that I couldn't feel him smile against my lips. "You're up early," he commented carefully.

"Couldn't sleep," I told him honestly. "You?"

He tipped his head to the side and looked into my eyes, a small, pleased smirk on his face. "Slept like the dead."

I swatted at him. "I hate that expression," I told him seriously, but I was so relieved he had slept through the night. To my knowledge it was the first time since he came back.

I lowered my arms, wrapping them around his waist and snuggling my face into his chest. I breathed in the smell and feel of him. Today he and I would have to be soldiers. Once we left this basement we would have to put on our game faces and do what needed to be done. But for now I let myself have a quiet moment. A moment where I didn't have to put on a brave face. Daryl reached up and cupped the back of my head, holding me against him. He brushed his lips against my hair.

"Ya don't have to go if ya-" Daryl started to say, but he stopped. I felt him shake his head as he hugged me closer to him. "Never mind," he said. "Forget I said anything."

I chuckled and nodded.

"Ya ready to do this?" he asked and I knew he would stand here and hold me as long as I needed.

"Not really, but let's do it anyway," I said looking up at him with a brave smile.

"Alright Darlin," he agreed, stepping back. He bent down and picked up his backpack. He wound his fingers through mine and we headed up the stairs together.

There were enough of us going we had to take the RV. I stood with Daryl beside his bike, waiting. It was nerve wracking, watching all of our fighters load up into the RV. Rick, Michonne, Carl, Enid, Gabriel, Eric, Aaron, Jesus, Tara, Daryl and I were all going. It left very few people behind to hold Alexandria. And if Negan sprung a surprise visit on us we would be hard pressed to explain where we had all gone.

I rode with Daryl on his bike. It was a couple hours ride but I didn't have it in me to sit in the RV and make conversation. Tara had been a nervous wreck all morning. I didn't think my patience could handle her nervous babbling the entire way.

When we arrived we all gathered together in the woods. Rick sent the others out to their spots in small groups. When it was just Tara, him, Jesus, Daryl and I left he glanced over at Tara. She was leaning against a tree, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. The ability to keep this from turning into a fight was entirely on Tara's shoulders. As upset as I had been with her keeping information from us, I did sympathize. It wasn't going to be easy going back in there and facing them again after she made a promise, and then trying to convince them to just let us walk in and take their guns.

Rick's expression grave as he studied the layout of the huts. "Are you prepared if this goes south?" he asked.

"It won't." She said resolutely, drawing in a deep breath and standing up a little straighter.

I could see the unshed tears in her eyes. "If it does, you don't need to feel bad, it's not your fault." I told her.

She looked at me like I was insane. "I do feel bad, I will," she drew in another breath. "So I guess I better not mess this up, huh?" she asked with feigned lightness.

"Tara, you don't have to. This isn't on you. It's on us. On me," Rick amended glancing over at Daryl and I.

I met his gaze resolutely. He was trying to protect everyone from the guilt and responsibility, but we had all made this decision. We didn't have a choice, and these people had what we needed. We were all responsible if this went south.

Tara just nodded, but I could tell she didn't believe him. "Right, well see you guys in five minutes, one way or another."

I exhaled as Tara walked towards to community. I didn't know if she had it in her to pull this off or not, but this was our only choice. I didn't foresee this going as smoothly as Rick hoped. I knew I wouldn't stand aside and hand over my guns because some group showed up and said we had to. Not without a fight.

"Clock starts as soon as she's in," Rick said unnecessarily. He was nervous and I didn't blame him. "You guys get moving."

I nodded and set off through the trees at a jog with the boys behind me. We had one charge to set near our hiding spot. Jesus buried the dynamite while Daryl and I ran the fuse.

Jesus picked up the crate and followed along behind us as we worked. "I shouldn't tried harder to stop Rosita and Sasha, if I had just waited one more day..." he said.

Daryl shook his hair out of his eyes and kept working. "Well, Sasha's a good shot, and Rosita knows how to take care of herself. Probably back at Hilltop right now. Least I hope so, we're gonna need 'em. There's a whole lot of people still got to die."

Daryl handed me the line of the fuse as he held what we had already run down, it was tangling in his hands and I took it from him, giving him an annoyed smirk. He met my eyes and my stomach tightened. I looked down at the fuse in my hands, and forced myself to stay focused and get back to work.

Jesus looked back and forth between the two of us but I could see that Daryl's words hadn't done much to assuage his guilt.

"Look," I said, looking up from the tangled fuse. "Them leaving wasn't on you. I knew they were leaving and I didn't stop them," I cleared my throat glancing up Daryl. "Sort of the opposite actually," I confessed. "There, that should make a hell of a bang. Let's move." I said leading the way once more through the trees.

When we were in place I glanced down at my watch. Five minutes, she had exactly five minutes, then we were going to set off the charges. I watched the clock, glancing at my wrist obsessively every ten seconds until I thought I was going to go mad waiting. I strained my ears, trying desperately to hear any noise from the huts that would signal something had gone wrong with Tara.

After the longest five minutes of my life I looked up at Daryl. "Now," I told him. He nodded grimly and detonated the charges. They went off one by one, cascading down the line just like we planned, funneling the group away from the huts.

Daryl, Jesus and I ran towards the entrance to the colony. Most of the women were already fleeing into the woods, headed straight for the rest of our group. We heard Michonne's sniper fire ahead of us, preventing two women from reaching their armory. It surprised me that only two would think to protect their weapons. These people were clearly not fighters.

"On the ground now," I called, pointing the rifle in my hands at them. I didn't like it, didn't like the feel or the weight of it, but for some reason guns always intimidated people more than knives. I would never understand.

The first women met my gaze for only a few seconds before she immediately dropped to her knees.

"Those hands," Daryl growled from beside me. "Put them on your head," he said glaring down the shaft of an arrow.

The second woman looked across all of our faces, her chin set defiantly.

"Please." Jesus added, taking a step towards her.

I could see the defeated sag of her shoulders and she followed suit. I handed my rifle over to Daryl who swung it across his back. I stepped forward and searched both woman. When I was satisfied they didn't have any weapons I nodded to Jesus. He stepped up, holding out a couple lengths of rope.

Once we had them tied up Daryl waved his bandana to signal Michonne we had control of the armory. Daryl and Jesus helped both women to their feet and we started walking them back in the direction the main group had fled.

We had only made it ten feet into the woods before the second one tried to make a break for it. Before either men could react I snapped off one of my knives, sinking it into the tree in front of her at eye level. She flinched and fell backwards, unable to catch herself as she tried to avoid the knife that was only inches from her skin. She landed roughly, with her hands tied she couldn't break her fall.

I stalked towards her, letting a tiny piece of that place in my head shine out my eyes. It was all a show, we needed to intimidate them into not resisting. I wrapped my fist around the knife and jerked it out of the tree, sliding it away before I leveled my gaze at her. "My friend said please," I reminded her.

She nodded a little frantically. Now she was clearly more terrified of my knives than the guns. I felt a small satisfied smile break across my face and I suppressed an entirely inappropriate giggle. Jo Dixon converting one person at a time. Jesus pulled her to her feet, pushing her ahead of him. He glanced once at me but quickly looked away. I exhaled, not bothering to contain my frustration. When Daryl passed me he lightly bumped my shoulder with his. He wasn't afraid of me.

By the time we caught up with the rest of the group, they were all huddled on the forest floor.

"Everyone please remain calm," Carl was calling loudly to the group. "We don't want anyone to get hurt. Stay down and please listen to what we have to say."

"We want this to go as simply and as peacefully as possible," Gabriel was saying. "All of you can make it that way."

"Down," Daryl growled to the woman he had been leading. "Get down over there and keep quiet," he warned.

Rick stepped out of the trees, swinging his rifle over his shoulder. "Now we made a lot of noise. We want to wrap this up quick so you can send people to redirect anything coming this way. Tara said your forests are relatively clear, but we don't want to take any chances. No one needs to get hurt," Rick said stepping up to the front of the group. "This is just about what you have, what we need."

"Nobody's taking anything!" an angry voice called from behind us. Daryl and I swung around together and I sighed as I spotted a middle aged woman using Tara as a human shield while she held a gun to her head. "You need to let everyone go and leave right now!"

Of course.

I dropped my hand to the knives on my thigh, letting my fingers glide down one of the handles. I had a clear throw lined up.

"Just walk away," she warned, heading towards Rick. She had target fixation. Hadn't noticed me, and possibly even more surprising was the fact that she hadn't noticed Daryl, pointing his crossbow at her. I was easy to miss, I was small and not holding a gun or doing anything particularly threatening. Missing Daryl however made me uneasy, it meant she wasn't processing everything going on around her. If we weren't careful it would be easy to scare her into shooting someone. "Or this one dies," she warned, pressing her gun into the back of Tara's neck.

Tara winced but for once managed to keep her mouth shut. She was glaring and I could tell she was angry with the woman behind her. I wondered if it was the one she had thought she could reason with.

Rick stepped forward, facing the woman so her attention stayed fixed on him. "Yeah," he agreed and I took one creeping step closer to the woman. "We'll leave you alone. But we are taking your weapons with us, that's not going to change." Rick warned and he let the resolve he felt show in his eyes. "It's Natania, right?" Rick asked, and I was impressed he remembered her name from Tara's story. "Put the gun down, and let's talk about what we can change."

"No," Natania said determinedly. "Leave, right now." She ordered.

Tara tensed at her words, wincing. She lifted her eyes to the trees and I knew she was looking for Michonne like an idiot. What was the point of having a sniper if your own people were going to give away her position. "Michonne, please don't!" Tara called loudly. Then her voice dropped back to the normal level. She kept her gaze forward, but she knew I was there. "Jo, please let us talk about this, we don't need anyone to get hurt."

I tightened my hand around the knife but I didn't move. I wasn't going to fly off the handle and start murdering people. It hurt my feelings more than I wanted to admit that my friends seemed to think I still had so little control.

"We just want to be left alone."

Rick nodded in agreement. "And we'll leave you alone, just let go of her. Now. Or, we'll kill you. None of us want that."

The young woman beside Natania turned to their group. "They want us to fight The Saviors."

"We tried that, we lost. Too much. We're not gonna lose anymore. Not our guns, not our safety, not after everything we've done to get here."

Tara shook her head and I could tell the rising tension was getting to her. "We're going to win," Tara said, addressing the group. "With your guns, with or without your help."

Rick looked over the group, and his eyes briefly met mine. I nodded once to him, letting him know I could end this right now. Rick nodded back infinitesimally. He understood but he wasn't ready for me to handle it just yet. He turned his attention back to the woman in front of him. "Natania, put the gun down now."

"If you kill me, you die," Tara said. "And my people take the guns and nothing changes."

"Maybe we should try," it was the second woman from earlier. The one I had scared. She glanced back at me and met my gaze steadily. "I think they can win," she said firmly. "We should try," she said again, only louder this time.

"Grandma stop," the young woman standing beside Tara implored. "It's over. Just talk to them okay?"

"It's not over!" Natania bellowed "They've forgotten. You've all forgotten. Some of you actually want to fight them? After everything? We can lose our guns, but us leaving this place to fight them? After everything? I have to remind you? Yes, I am gonna do this, and then I'm gonna die. But it's that important. This is your life, all of you. Remember what it looks like. Remember what they did to us! You need to see this, open your eyes!" she screamed with the conviction of a true believer. We were never going to convince her. She actually believed killing Tara was the right thing to do. I drew my knife.

"Rick!" Michonne's voice echoed through the forest. "Walkers!"

Everyone flinched and the young woman used the moment to punch her grandmother. Natania fell and the young woman snatched up her gun. As soon as Tara stumbled away safely I allowed myself to turn my attention to the walkers.

I spun around to face the woods, drawing a second blade. I cracked my neck and stepped up towards the front of our group.

"Everybody up!" Rick was bellowing orders, but I had already turned towards the threat. I could hear them now, just barely over the scrambling people behind me. "Get the children behind us!" Rick was ordering. "They're coming."

My friends formed a line on either side, but I stepped forward so I was the point of it. I blinked as the walkers came into my line of sight. There were at least ten I could count. I could do ten, it could get tricky, but if I had been alone I could still handle that many. I felt the brush of a shoulder against mine and I remembered then that I wasn't by myself and I wouldn't have to face them alone.

"First shift, join them on the line!" an authoritative female voice called behind us. "Knives out. Dead only, dead only." she ordered.

"Everyone, shots within ten feet of the line," Rick ordered behind me. "Jo!" he called my name but it sounded distant.

I turned back to meet his gaze. "Get back into the line," he ordered.

I shook my head, swinging my arms to loosen the muscles. It had been a while since I had fought, since I had been hurt. The muscles were still sore, still tight, but they at least worked now. The dull, throbbing pain was a reminder of what happened to me, what I had lived through, but it wasn't anything that was going to stop me.

"Bullet's are precious," I told him, smirking back at him, excitement glittering in my eyes. I turned back to the forest.

"So are you."

I smiled at the gruff voice beside me, the words spoken too low for anyone else to hear. It didn't change my resolve. We needed to conserve as much ammunition for the coming fight as we could. And we could handle a small herd of walkers.

I stepped up towards the first one, slammed my blade home and then spun to the next. I kicked the side of the knee on the one who tried to get by me, knocking him down. Somewhere behind me I heard the reassuring thwack of Daryl's crossbow and one of the walkers coming at me from the side dropped.

There were other sounds, people shouting, people fighting, but it didn't matter. I let myself go to that quiet place and just moved.

I spun, gritting my teeth as the motion was just a little too much, but I didn't waste it. I slid my blades through their skulls as easily as though they were made of butter. I found it interesting that most of the walkers here appeared to be water logged, and it made them that much easier to kill.

I don't know how long I fought, how many I had killed before I heard the first few hesitant gunshots. When I shoved the latest corpse away from me I saw that most of the people had come forwards and were fighting along the line hand to hand. Twenty? Thirty? The herd was growing with every second.

I stumbled a step as my thoughts scattered. I couldn't do that, couldn't think of anything else, couldn't let thoughts get in the way of my instincts. I surrendered myself to the motion, let myself focus and just move.

When the last one dropped at my feet, I turned towards the trees, holding myself tightly, waiting for the next. But no more came. The forest was eerily quiet. All I could hear was the panting breaths of the group behind me.

"Okay, it's over," Rick called to the group. I heard the rustle of leaves behind me and I knew it wasn't another of them. Knew it down to the core of my bones. But I whirled anyway, unable to turn off the instincts that had kept me alive for so long.

Daryl stood three feet away, his hands were open and at his sides. He waited for a few seconds for me to recognize him before he stepped towards me. "Ya good?" he asked as casually as possible. I turned back to the trees, letting my eyes run over them, looking for anything out of place.

"I'm good," I promised him still unable to look away from the trees.

Daryl bumped my shoulder with his. I jerked and it was like he had somehow broken the spell. "Good," he said and he turned back towards the group.

It was another couple minutes before I could turn away from the forest and go back to the group. I felt a few eyes on me as I approached, but I ignored them. I stepped up beside Daryl, letting my arm brush against his so he would know I was there.

"No," Natania called desperately. "We're not fighting them with you. So take your damn guns and go," she ordered as she stalked away from us.

No matter their feelings, the group didn't seem willing to go against Natania. So, they stood in silence and watched as we emptied their armory. Daryl and I were on guard duty, though I didn't expect anymore trouble. I could see the guilt on the faces of our people and I knew this was going to be tough on morale. It would have been easier if they had fought, but instead just watching somehow made it that much worse.

Once we had everything Gabriel nodded to us as he stepped out of the hut. That was everything.

"Let's go," Rick called to the group and we left, making our way back towards our vehicles. Daryl and I hung back, to bring up the rear.

"Hey," it was the woman I had thrown my knife at, the one who had taken charge of her people when the walkers attacked. "Thank you for what you're doing," she told me holding her hand out to me to shake. "You're scary as hell," she told me sincerely. "You make that bastard pay."

I shook her hand quickly, letting go as though her skin would burn me. I shifted my weight uncomfortably, completely at a loss for how to respond to her words. In a way they hurt, but in another way it was a vote of confidence we needed. I nodded gruffly and walked away.

Tara was standing beside the trail, waiting for Daryl and I to catch up. I didn't know why she would wait, and she gave no clues.

"Hey," I said uncomfortably. Why were people so much harder to deal with than walkers? "You alright?" I asked her after we had walked side by side down the trail for a while.

Tara looked up at me and I couldn't read the expression in her eyes. "Yeah," she responded tightly, and I could tell she was lying I wondered if it hurt her feelings that her friends wouldn't fight with us. "You're right," she said after another moment. "I don't have to feel bad."
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Hope you guys enjoyed the update! Thank you all so much for your continued support. I can't tell you what it means to me!