ON THE ROAD AGAIN

It was the worst winter since after the farm, by a real damn long shot. They were back on the road again, moving aimlessly from place to place in search of even a moment of safety, desperately scrounging and searching the dilapidated homes and hunting the barren woods for a scrap of food. And fighting walkers. And running. Always running, with no finish line in sight.

In some ways, though, it was even worse than that winter after the farm. Eugene's truth weighed heavily on all of them, though they had all known, on some level, that there was no cure. There would be no miracle. This was life now, and walkers were walkers, and it was a truth they all had to face.

The group was different, too. Noah had joined them, and was a useful member in spite of his injured leg. Abraham was brooding and silent, keeping to the periphery and all but unresponsive to Rosita's frequent attempts to reach out to him. Eugene was eager to prove his worth to the group, almost to the point of overcompensation. He did all he could to contribute, but otherwise he stayed mostly silent. He never complained, which was enough to be thankful for. Sasha was stoic, but the sniffles and quiet cries she tried to smother in the fabric of her pack each night seemed to indicate that Bob's death had finally hit home. Carl put on a brave face, and had become a kind of guardian for the meek and nervous Father Gabriel, but he was reeling from the final loss of hope and from Beth.

Beth.

Beth was dead.

Beth was dead, and they all missed her. Maggie had now lost the last of her family, apart from Glenn, and that reality seemed to have knocked the stuffing right out of her. She marched along mechanically, poked disinterestedly at what little food they could find, and barely spoke to anyone. The only thing she showed any enthusiasm for was killing walkers, which she did with more gusto than was probably healthy.

But Rick would leave that situation to Glenn. He had his hands full trying to keep what remained of his family alive, to care for Judith and bring Carl around, and to look out for Daryl.

Daryl's response to Beth's death concerned Rick far more than Maggie's. Beth was Maggie's sister, and the last kin she had left on this earth. Maggie had Glenn, and Glenn was solid. But Daryl…who did Daryl have? The bitter and harsh Carol, who seemed more jaded than ever after the death of the girl who had saved her life? Rick himself?

Rick didn't know what had happened between Daryl and Beth in the weeks after the fall of the prison. He knew they had grown close, he had heard the depth of the bond in Daryl's voice when he spoke about Beth during the days they had been trapped at Terminus (Or was it weeks? Time had seemed to drag on interminably and yet the days had blurred and run together until none of them knew how long they had been stuck in that damned box). Rick assumed Daryl's attachment was a natural sense of protectiveness and responsibility for Beth, developed as he had guided her through the wilderness, the way an older brother would look out for a younger sibling, the way Carl looked out for Judith. But the way he reacted to her death… The desperation on Daryl's face when the bullet had pierced Beth's skull, the shock and disbelief and devastation that had twisted his features when her blood had splattered across his face and her body crumpled, the sheer rage with which he had slain Dawn, and the tender way he had cradled Beth's lifeless body made Rick realize there was much more to the relationship than he had thought.

Daryl Dixon had loved Beth Greene.

The notion shocked Rick at first, but the more he considered it during the endless hikes over icy terrain, the more it made sense. For all Daryl's gruff exterior, he was a good guy with a soft heart, and Beth had become far tougher than she looked thanks in no small part to Daryl's tutelage. Beth was open and sweet, full of light and hope; the perfect balance for Daryl's brooding pessimism. It made sense that Daryl would fall for Beth, and she for him.

Not that it mattered anymore. Beth was gone. This world was void of happy endings.

It wasn't as though Daryl had said much, or even acted overtly different. As usual, he played things close to his winged vest. But he was Rick's brother, and Rick could see the devastation he tried so hard to conceal. It was the way he stared into the flames of the campfire, watching something visible only to his eyes. It was the way he failed to respond to the others' attempts at conversation, not even offering a trademark smirk or a grunt in reply. It was the way he went off hunting—always alone—for twice as long as was customary, and returned with half the haul. It was the way he kept shooting angry, resentful looks in Maggie's direction. He never had an opinion about where to stay or which way to go, never spoke up or offered Rick his unique brand of council.

So Michonne was Rick's right-hand these days while Daryl hung back, lost in his own world. Rick had no problem with Michonne backing him. She was every bit as capable as Daryl. But Daryl was Daryl and Michonne was Michonne. It was just different. If Rick had his druthers he would have both of them, but that didn't seem to be an option right now.

He had to get Daryl—everyone in the group, really—back on solid ground. But solid ground required food and shelter and some sense of safety, and he didn't know how to find that. It was times like these when Rick really felt the burden of Hershel's absence.

If Hershel could see him now…

They had been wandering around for several weeks (three? Six?) when they stumbled across the herd. Quite literally stumbled, unfortunately. Father Gabriel tripped over a rock and slid down a hill, and at the bottom of that hill was a herd. He screamed, the loud, high-pitched sound shattering the stillness, and the group scrambled down to his aid. The group moved into formation and immediately began putting down walkers with practiced efficiency.

It was a relatively small herd, and they were making quick work of it. Everyone in the group, apart from Gabriel and Judith, had grown quite skilled in the walker-killing arena, and though Michonne and Daryl and Glenn and Maggie and Abraham and Rick still put down more than their share, the group worked well together.

Until Gabriel panicked.

Rick wasn't sure, at the time, exactly what happened. Rosita said later that a couple of walkers had closed in on Gabriel, and he bolted. All Rick knew was he looked up after burying his knife in a walker's skull to see Gabriel get taken down.

"He's gone!" Rick shouted to the group. "Don't break ranks!"

But Abraham was already gone. Rick heard Rosita call his name, desperately and repeatedly, but he and those around him—Daryl, as usual, and Michonne and Carl—were too buried in walkers to go to Abraham's aid. Several more minutes passed before the herd was thinned and the only walkers in sight were several hundred yards away.

Rick ran to where he had seen Gabriel fall, the others at his back as always. Rosita was already sprinting past Gabriel, with Tara and Noah hot on her heels.

"Abraham!" Rosita shouted. "Abraham!"

Abraham's red hair was nowhere in sight, there were only walkers. Most were dead, and Rick and the others were able to dispatch the rest with ease. It looked as though Abraham had made quite the dent before he went down.

Rick arrived at a pile of walkers, all gnawing on Gabriel's mangled corpse. Rick put the walkers down, and then put a bullet through Gabriel's battered skull.

"Abraham!" Rosita shouted, this time in relief.

Rick heard Abraham's groan, and went to Rosita's side. Abraham had hidden beneath a couple of dead walkers, camouflaged by their stink and rot. He was somewhat the worse for wear, bloodied and bruised and favoring his right shoulder when he scrambled to his feet, but there was no sign of a bite.

"You okay?" Rick asked.

"Seen worse," Abraham muttered.

None of the group had been particularly fond of Gabriel. He was cowardly and simpering and more or less useless. But they buried him as one of their own, with a small cross marker fashioned from sticks. They lingered by his grave for only a few moments before more walkers approached, and, as ever, they move on.

It wasn't so much that Gabriel's death affected the group deeply, in and of itself. In Rick's estimation he had been more or less useless, and he had never earned Rick's trust. Of all of them Carl had been the closest to the priest, and that was more the protective instinct he had developed over those weaker than himself than real fondness for the man. But Gabriel's demise was a painful reminder of past traumas, and a reminder of how fragile their current existence had become. They were in constant danger. Something as simple as a loss of footing could mean the loss of their lives.

Rick himself could find no sympathy in his heart at all for the preacher. No sadness, no pain, not even a shred of disappointment. As was more and more frequently the case, he felt nothing.

It was a few days after Gabriel's death when Michonne first suggested they head to DC anyway, fake cure be damned.

"If there's a safe haven," she said one night as she and Rick sat a short distance from the rest of the family, keeping watch while the others huddled together for a semblance of warmth and uncomfortable rest on the frozen ground. "If there's any kind of compound or sanctuary, that's where it'll be."

"How do you figure that?" Rick asked.

"They were doing everything they could to keep the government running," Michonne replied. "Who do you think ordered the Atlanta bombing? Or had all those people shot? The government was still operational for a long time after everything fell apart. Maybe they still are. But you know that all of those politicians sent their families somewhere. And I did hear rumors. Before we met."

"What if you're wrong? What if we go all that way and DC is just like Atlanta? Bombed out, overrun with walkers, and no safe zone."

"It's a chance. It's a better chance than we have now."

"Maybe," said Rick.

"Do you have a better plan?"

Rick didn't, so he decided to pose the question to the rest of the group as they huddled around the campfire the following evening. Predictably, the question raised a fair amount of debate. Carl's eyes had brightened for the first time in weeks at the hope of sanctuary, and Tyreese, Glenn and Sasha were on board with the idea immediately.

Carol was more skeptical. "It seems like a good place to get trapped to me. And it's not just the walkers we have to worry about. Think what we just escaped from."

"Not everybody's like the Governor, Carol," said Tyreese. "Or like Gareth."

"You're kidding yourselves," said Abraham. "Ain't nothing in DC. Eugene lied. Ain't no reason to go up there."

Eugene scuffed his shoes against the earth and looked down in shame, but said nothing.

"Maybe not," said Rosita, taking Abraham by the hand, "but I don't see much reason not to try."

"Daryl?" said Carol. Daryl just grunted and shrugged, leaning against a tree.

In the end they put it to a vote. Carol, Abraham, Tara, and Noah were against the trip, while Tyreese, Sasha, Glenn, Maggie, Carl, and Michonne were firmly for it. Eugene seemed reluctant to vote, but in the end joined the majority. Rick had already decided to leave his input out of the group's decision, but was a bit concerned when Daryl didn't even bother to raise his hand.

"Don't see how it matters," Daryl said, when Rick asked him about it later. "We can die going nowhere, or die heading somewhere."

The response did little to ease Rick's concern for his friend.

So they headed north. The hunger and cold and exhaustion were still very much present, but Rick had to admit it felt good to have a destination. The rest of the group seemed to feel similarly, as everyone's spirits were notably lifted.

At first.

Because there was one factor they hadn't fully considered: the cold.

The further they traveled, the colder it grew, and the colder it grew the more scarce the food supply. The group's mood, which had brightened slightly when they first started out, soured more than ever. They were weak and cold, and some—Carol and Sasha and Maggie and Carl, in particular—had begun to appear dangerously thin. Houses grew fewer and farther between, and each day they were able to cover less ground.

And just when Rick thought things were as bad as they could get, they got much worse. They were somewhere in the hills of northwestern South Carolina when Judith started coughing.