The cars stop abruptly in the middle of a clear highway. Everyone gets out to stretch and discuss where they're all headed next after multiple dead ends in the past week or so. Rick and Daryl head out to hunt while everyone else is 'washing their panties'. Lu gives Daryl a look before he leaves with Rick, she not knowing what he said, but it was in that moment he sharpened up again as if she told him he was sounding like Merle (which annoyed Daryl when she'd tell him that).
Allen went to Carol to make sure she was doing fine. She patted him on the shoulder assuring him she was alright and then walked away to do something else. That has been their relationship all winter. Carol has transformed from a timid housewife to a strong mother and friend to everyone in the group; All but Allen it seems.
Allen had changed quite a bit too. After losing Sophia at the farm he only had Carol now to watch over. Carol's doing pretty well for herself and shows it by her attitude and actions now. He's realized he only has to live up to his own expectations and doesn't need to save everyone. Everyone dies. It's life and it happens for a reason.
An hour or so of wandering around trying to look busy passed with little or no effort. He paced around the woods, looked into the trees as if he's looking for a sign when really he should be looking for threats. He smiled at Beth as she handed him a bottle of water and watched her walk away only to look back at the five and a half foot Carl who was also watching her.
Allen gave Carl a look. Not a dirty one but one that two best guy friends would give each other when in the hallway at school when one catches the other checking out their sister. Allen and Beth weren't as close as he was to Lu though. He likes to compare them to how Carl and Sophia were; friends, because they were close in age, that could be something more in the future, that is, if Sophia hadn't died.
The thought of his sister coming out of Hershel's barn gave him shivers again. Even her name still made the hair on his arms raise like when someone unlikely says your crushes name. You just stop and listen to what they have to say about that person you cared so much about.
Carl looked away from Allen and carried on with whatever he was doing. The two young men had become somewhat friends now that she had been gone for eight and a half months now and Allen didn't have Jimmy to chum around with, not that they were every really friends in the first place, Jimmy was always too busy chasing around Beth at the farm before he became walker-bait.
People change though. Carl certainly did for the worst along with Rick and Lori with their thriving relationship. The only ones that showed almost a180 degree improvement since Atlanta was Carol and Daryl. Everyone else has grown stronger since the farm. The only two people who are content with the way they were and have always been since are T-Dog and Allen himself.
Daryl and Rick came back with a plan of action after their little 'hunting' expedition. Everyone thought it was strange until they saw it. A prison. A fortress with walls on the outside of walls. The only problem was that those walls had people coming out of the woodwork.
As others saw it a mighty task at hand, it was Allen who saw it as an opportunity for a new solid chapter in the history books.