The battle for Terminus didn't go according to plan. The Inhabitants weren't great fighters, but they were well armed and well rested. The group from the prison was used to working as a team and they struck fast, creating a moment of confusion, but they never could have gotten a true upper hand. It was Carl, (whom Rick had insisted stay away from the fighting and make a run for the buried weapons cache,) who found the others. He was torn between wanting to stay and help and knowing they needed the weapons, so he disobeyed his father and skirted inside the fence instead of over it. He dodged between buildings and train cars. A group of Inhabitants came jogging around a corner to join the fray and Carl dropped to the ground and rolled under a train car. As he was lying there, holding his breath, he heard a muffled sound that could only be a voice coming from directly above him. When the group had passed, he jumped out from under his post and ran to the door. The latch was rusty and it took all his strength to move it. When the door screeched open and he looked inside, it appeared to be empty. "Hello?" he whispered into the dark. "Hello?" came the soft reply. A few figures stepped, timidly from the dark.

Rick and Maggie were the first to go down. They were at the front of the line and there were five Inhabitants for each of them. Maggie knew as she lay with her face pressed against the asphalt and her arms twisted behind her that they weren't going to die. Not today. There was something maddening about it, for a woman so used to mortal threats. She watched as they wrestled Sacha to the ground, then Tara, then Glenn, then Michonne. Soon they were all in the same position she was: face down and nothing they could do about it. They waited as each member of their band was tied up, one by one, in a more secure way. The crew from the prison kept quiet, but not Sgt. Abraham. He was hollering the whole time, begging them to listen. "This man's name is Doctor Eugene Porter!" and so on. Maggie was still lying on the ground fifteen minutes later, waiting her turn when she heard a new sound, one she couldn't identify. Then there was a peal of automatic bullet fire. Then more. Then she understood the sound. It was something she hadn't heard in a long, long time. The roar of a crowd.

There were fewer than two hundred people kept for meat at Terminus, but there were only eighty Inhabitants and armed as they were, they had been so carefully trained never to kill one of their prisoners that they didn't react with deadly force until it was too late. Ten minutes after Carl rounded the corner, leading the throng, all the weapons had been collected and the Inhabitants were dead or captured, only managing to wound a dozen or so of their recent captives. Rick's buried weapons were never needed.

It was a long night as the group debated their options. Terminus was clean and spacious and the vegetable gardens were well tended but it was clear to all of them that with their numbers it wasn't quite sustainable. Some of them would have to leave and it would be impossible to determine who. The group met, town hall style, while the sun went down and came up again. By that time, only one thing was decided. Sgt. Abraham and Rosita were going to take Eugene to Washington. There was some discussion of them trying to get one of the train engines fired up, but it was agreed that the tracks would be unpredictable and no one really knew what they were doing with a damn train, anyway. They took a big, armored truck and plenty of gasoline. Seven more volunteered to join them and at dawn, they hugged Glenn and Maggie and loaded in. Tara was among the volunteers, still unable to look Maggie in the eye as she was, and she and Glenn held each other for a couple of minutes before they were able to say goodbye. After that, everyone else dispersed to find somewhere to sleep. Rick, Carl, Daryl and Michonne were left standing, huddled to talk. A woman approached them, carrying a baby.

"I just wanted to thank you," she said to Carl. "We had been in there for…a long time. They took us, you know, one by one. I just wanted to thank you."

"You had a baby in there?" Daryl asked her.

"No," she told him, "they took her from me when we got here. But they kept her safe. I missed most of the meeting looking for her and then when I found her, I wasn't really focused on what people were talking about."

"Sure." Rick told her. "Nobody decided much of anything. We're gonna take a break, get some rest and come back to the conversation tonight."

"I heard talk of the resources?"

"Yeah. Don't worry yourself about it, too much. We've got some work to do figuring out how many we've got here and taking stock of what's available. If we ration it right, we should be able to make something work. There's a lot of good, strong people here. Survivors who made their way here out on the tracks. Everyone's going to be fine. You and your baby go get some sleep."

The woman stayed where she was as the others turned away to continue their discussion. "I can help with the inventory."

"Ma'am," Rick called her, "you've been up all night and you have a baby. Why don't you let us take care of this?"

The woman didn't reply, but she hovered nearby while the conversation went on and when Rick woke up in the back seat of one of the cars that afternoon, she was hovering outside. As he sat up, (slowly from the awkward position where his back had grown stiff,) she saw her chance and opened the door. "Your first problem is beds," she told him.

"What's that?"

"We have room for ninety-two, unless anyone's willing to share a twin. There are a hundred seventy-six people here, not counting the remaining of the original Inhabitants. With them it's two hundred forty two. The most obvious solution is to have people sleep in shifts, which they'll need to do a little, anyway, so some can stand guard, but you're gonna develop serious morale problems and fast."

Rick stared at her, unsure how to respond. He opened his mouth and a little air came out, but no sound until, "what are folks doin' right now?"

"Mostly same as you. Which ain't bad, actually. There are six train cars here. I had the beds from the two sleepers in the count I gave you before, but then there're three coach cars and a diner, all of which have bench seats. There are sixty seats in a coach car, and they ain't terrible with the arm rests down. That gives you another ninety."

"You said three times sixty? Shouldn't-"

"You need two of 'em to lie down on. The diner has room for eighteen more. This is gonna come down to how well you want to treat your prisoners and no matter what you decide, it's a temporary solution."

A lot of folks had already tried to lay claim to certain patches and it was tough to tell them they'd have to vacate. Daryl tussled with one man who insisted that he'd claimed a queen bed all by himself and refused to share it. By the end of the afternoon though, the beds all belonged to couples, (many of whom did wind up sharing twins,) and the rooms in the sleeper were all assigned to families. The prisoners were locked up in two of the train cars and guarded well. There were plenty of volunteers. By the second dusk since the battle, everyone had their own little patch of Terminus.

The woman, whose name turned out to be Martha, was two steps ahead of Rick all day. She tied her baby to her back in a sling and sectioned off what part of the vegetables she was willing to spare and calculated the rough number of calories she was looking at. She got Rick to get Daryl to get a group together to hunt and, working as a team, they were able to track a deer and bring it back. Everyone in the whole camp got a quarter pound of meat, a small pile of kale and a scoop of rice from the dry storage for dinner and it was the best meal pretty much anyone had had in a year and a half. They went to bed with full bellies, feeling safe, but uncertain. Rick knew the survival of the whole camp depended on his ability to get them to trust him in these first few days and delivering everyone a meal and a bed had been a great first step.

As everyone was going to sleep, Martha appeared at his shoulder.

"Hey, you were great today," he started to tell her. There was more gratitude coming her way, but she cut him off.

"There's a big construction site less than five miles from here."

"Okay."

"These fences aren't good enough. We need wall all the way around and double fences at the gates."

Rick looked at her and then to the fences, where Maggie, Glenn and a handful of new people were pushing crowbars through to keep the walkers from building up. "You're right. If there's a surge at any point…"

"And people need something to do! Today they were glad just to be free. Tomorrow if you don't put tools in their hands…"

He looked down and kicked some dust. She was right, but it was a big leap, taking off for a construction site when he didn't know his team and didn't know the area.

"I'll go, then. I'll take people you trust, and you and Carl can stay here and look after everyone else. There's plenty to do." She produced a notebook with a few drawings of floorplans within the station. "There are books in this building and then in this building and these four rooms. There's a great room right…here…for a library. And then, look. There are these four rooms that go down this hallway. I'm thinking classrooms. If you split 'em up into kind of a nursery slash pre-school, an elementary school, middle school and high school, you get just under ten per room." Rick took the notebook from her hands and stared at it. A school? That was the kindest thought he could remember having.

"We'll pick two people for each." He told her. "Two per room. That's a few good jobs."

"And there're plenty of folks here that could give lessons to the older kids. We'll need them to learn math and science so they can apprentice under the doctors. Oh, and speaking of which!" She turned a couple of pages without taking the notebook from his hands. "Here's another project, for you. They had three doctors that they locked up separately. They weren't gonna eat someone like that. They had cells down in the basement that were pretty well stocked. I'd give them the upper floor of this building here," she gestured to it on the map, then pointed to the actual building which stood not far from them, "and turn it into the best sort of hospital we can manage. We can staff them with whoever seems capable. There was a dental hygienist in my train car with me. She's not the best conversationalist, but she can handle tools."

Rick nodded for a few seconds. It wasn't that what she'd said was so revolutionary. These were good amenities that would need to be established, but no matter how matter of fact she was being in her design or how matter of fact he was being in his tacit acceptance, they both knew what it meant. This was it. This was the life they were going to lead. He'd had this hope before, though, and he didn't let himself get too sentimental.

"Thank you, for this." He said, holding up the notebook. "Let's let folks know there's a meeting at dawn. Can we feed people?"

"Sure. Oatmeal from dry storage. We'll send a hunting party long enough before supper."

"Perfect. You seem to know your way around, but my people are very good at the kind of mission you're talking about." He beckoned Maggie and Glenn over. "You're going to have to listen to them." She nodded. He told Maggie and Glenn that they were going on a big run in the morning and that Martha would guide them. They were going to leave at dawn.

With all of that settled, everyone wandered, exhausted, back to their bunks, but Rick would have one more visitor that night.

He was standing beside the door to the little train sleeper room Rick shared with Carl and Michonne. She was with him and they were talking, low. When they saw Rick approaching, they quieted. Michonne looked tense, but Daryl didn't. He looked…sad.

"Hey, Rick."

"Hey, Daryl. What's going on?"

"There's something I gotta do. Y'all are here now, and you're safe. I couldn't have left you before, but now…"

"Beth?"

He and Michonne looked at each other and Rick knew he had guessed right.

"How you gonna find her?"

Daryl's lips twitched. "I don't know, but I've gotta try."

Rick looked at him. He remembered how he had searched for Sophia. He had never let go, never stopped. It ached to think of him going through the same thing again.

"I'm going with him." Michonne announced.

"The hell you are!" Daryl protested. "I got something I gotta do, ain't your concern."

"Of course it is!" She hissed. "Beth is a part of this group. If folks knew where you were going, you couldn't stop Maggie and Glenn from going, either."

"Maggie can't know." Daryl looked straight at Rick, intense, and he understood. Daryl had kept hope alive for Carol for months. He wasn't going to do the same to Maggie. It broke Rick's heart to know that part of Daryl had changed.

"Okay." He nodded, slowly. "Okay, you can leave tomorrow after breakfast."