Season 1:

Separation

As the group that investigated the basement, Glenn, Rick, Shane, T-Dog, and Clary, entered Zone 5, Clary could hear Daryl interrogating Jenner about the lack of lights. "Rick?" Lori called, hearing the footsteps.

"Jenner, what's happening?" the leader asked.

"The building is shutting itself down, dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. It started as we approached the half hour mark," Jenner said. He looked up at the clock, which was nearing thirty. "Right on schedule." Daryl took the bottle of vodka from Jenner's hands, spilling some on the floor. The doctor looked at them, then said, "It was the French. They lasted the longest, as far as I know. They stayed in the labs 'til the end. They thought they were close to the solution."

"What happened?" Jacqui asked.

"It's the same thing that's happening here, isn't it?" Clary realized. "Facility wide decontamination, whatever the hell that means."

"No power grid," Jenner said. "Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. How stupid is that?"

"Clary," Daryl said, nudging her towards the door that led to their rooms. "Get your shit. I'm right behind you."

Shane started to go after Jenner, but Rick stopped him. He turned to his wife and son, telling them to go get their things. He told the same to the rest of the group, but the Dixons were already on it, pushing around the others and making their way towards the door. As Rick issued his orders, an alarm started blaring. "The hell is that?" Daryl exclaimed, nudging Clary towards the door.

"Doc, what's going on?" T-Dog asked.

"Clary, go!" Daryl barked. She was a few seconds ahead of him, having chosen to jump over a railing instead of going around it like Daryl. Clary just barely made it through the doorway when the doors suddenly closed, Daryl nearly slamming into the door. Clary got out, left in the hallway alone, while Daryl was trapped with everyone else in the computer lab. Clary turned as she heard the door closing, crying, "Daryl!"

"No," he breathed, then hit the door with a hand, yelling, "Clary!"

"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn questioned, the fear palpable in his voice. "He just locked us in!"

"You son of a bitch!" Daryl shouted, turning and running towards Jenner.

"Shane!" Rick shouted, seeing as he was the closest and strong enough to stop the hunter. Daryl got to the doctor first, trying to drag him away from the computer he sat in front of, but Shane pulled him off as T-Dog ran to help. T-Dog shouted at him to stop, while Shane lifted Daryl off the ground in an attempt to get him to stop. The only thing that did, however, was Clary's shout from the door. "Daryl!"

Everyone turned at Clary's voice, realizing for the first time that she wasn't with them in Zone 5. Daryl tore away from Shane, pushing around people as he made a dash for the door. "Clary!" he shouted. "Clars, I'm here!"

Rick took one look at the door, the Dixon, and then the doctor. He made his way down, a look in his eyes that no one there had seen before. "Jenner, open that door now," he commanded.

"There's no point," Jenner told them. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."

"Well, open the damn things," Dale called.

"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door is closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that." Jenner paused a moment. "It's better this way."

"What is?" Rick inquired. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?" Jenner didn't answer, so Rick shouted, "What happens in twenty-eight minutes!"

"You know what this place is?" Jenner exclaimed, standing to face Rick. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff!"

Daryl tuned the doctor out as he went into a rant, turning to the door. "Clary, you listening?" he asked.

"All ears," she replied.

"Look for anything that could open the door. I'm gonna do the same from over here. If we can't, I'll break the damn door down. I ain't lettin' you die today."

They were both silent a minute, searching every part of the door. "Daryl," Clary said. "I got nothin'. This door ain't openin'."

"My ass it ain't," Daryl said shortly. "I'll make it open."

Down at the computers, Jenner composed himself after his outburst, taking a seat again. "In the event of catastrophic power failure, H.I.T.'s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"H.I.T.'s?" Rick questioned.

"Vi, define."

Vi, the automated computer system, launched into a long description, and most of the group didn't understand most of it. Other than the only thing equivalent to the power of a H.I.T. is a nuclear bomb. "It sets the air on fire," Jenner said simply. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret. Everything."

Daryl, who had turned when he heard Vi speaking, turned back to the door. "Clary? Could you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Clary questioned.

"Could you hear Vi?"

"No, why?"

"No reason," Daryl said with a shake of his head. He didn't want her knowing that. He didn't want her to be even more scared in her last minutes that she already was. As he turned towards the others, he shouted, "Shane! Where's the axe?"

Shane tossed him the one he was holding, T-Dog handing the other one to Shane. Daryl turned to Jenner, yelling to him to open the door before he broke it down. Jenner ignored him, and Daryl turned back to the door. "Clary!" he shouted. "Get back! We're breaking the bitch down!"

With that, he swung the axe, but it didn't leave a dent in the door. Shane yelled, "Get out of my way!"

He ran to the door, axe in hand, and arrived swinging. Still, nothing happened, even as the two repeatedly swung for at least ten minutes. In that timeframe, Clary ran through the halls, getting everyone's bags and looking for another way out. She didn't find one, but she did get everyone's stuff in case Jenner let them out, something that Clary seriously doubted would happen. Daryl didn't stop, didn't give up, even as the clock dipped past the twenty minute mark. Shane made his way down to to Rick, informing him, "We can't make a dent. Even with Dixon's determination."

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner helpfully told them.

Daryl, as soon as he heard Jenner beginning to speak, started making his way towards the doctor. As he finished the statement, Daryl had enough with the doctor, and raised the axe, exclaiming, "Your head ain't!"

"Daryl!" Rick shouted, and it took three people to hold him back, Glenn running to help. Shane wasn't lying when he said Daryl was determined. Daryl only stopped when he heard Lori saying, "Carl? Carl, where are you going?"

They all turned to watch as Carl made his way up to the door. He placed his hand on it, near the middle, asking, "Clary? Hey, it's Carl."

"Is everyone okay?" Clary asked.

"Yeah."

"Are you?"

Carl paused, leaning his forehead against the cool metal door. "I'm a little scared."

Clary raised her hand, resting it against the door, on the opposite side of Carl's. "Me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I, um, I'm alone, out here, and it's kinda creepy. The lights are mostly off. They're flickering. It's like a horror movie in here."

"It's a horror movie outside, too."

"I know. Carl?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's Glenn? If we only have fifteen minutes left to live, I wanna talk to him."

Carl turned, yelling, "Glenn!"

The Korean ran up to the door, while Carl said what he thought was his final goodbye to his best friend before leaving the two alone. "Glenn, if these are our last minutes, I wanna thank you," Clary said, leaning against the door. "You know, for taking care of me. You didn't have to. You didn't even know me."

"It didn't matter, Clary," he replied. "You saved my life. I owed you."

"So, um, I've only trusted a handful of people my entire life, and I wanted to say that I consider you my brother."

"Clary, we're gonna get out of this," Glenn told her.

"How do you know?"

"Glass half full kinda guy, remember?" Glenn said with a grin, and he was rewarded with a chuckle from Clary. He turned as he heard Daryl approaching, then watched as he stopped next to Shane, saying, "What we talked about, I think it's time."

Shane nodded, skulking into the shadows, while Daryl continued up to the door. "Hey, Clary," Glenn said. "There's someone that wants to talk to you."

"It's me," Daryl said as he slid down next to the door, leaning his back against it. "I'm sorry, Clars. I can't get it."

"Well, this is the CDC," Clary said, mirroring his position. "You'd think they'd have strong doors."

"I'm not over there with you," he stated. "I can't forgive myself for that. You're all alone."

"I'm not, not really," Clary said. "I can still hear you, if you're at the door."

"Can't you just go?" Daryl asked her. "Just run, get out? Survive."

"No."

"Why do you have to throw away the rest of your life for us? You could do great things, Clary. If you'd just run. Just go, Clary. Get out."

"Not without you. We're in this together, Daryl. Where you go, I go. And if that means that you're staying, then I'm staying."

"Wouldn't it be kinder?" Jenner questioned from the workstations. "More compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"

"Then why'd you close the door?" Daryl called. "My baby sister's out there. Alone." His eyes drifted to Carol, who held on tightly to Sophia, and to Lori, who sat with her arm around Carl. "You hold 'em close, while you still can. 'Cause I can't hold mine."

Everyone except Daryl turned at the sound of a gun cocking, looking to see Shane returning with a shotgun. "Shane, no!" Rick shouted, running to stop him.

"Stay outta my way, Rick," Shane told him, shoving him away. "Stay outta my way!" He put the barrel of the gun to Jenner's head, threatening, "Open that door, or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?!"

"Brother, this not the way you do this," Rick said. "We'll never get out of here."

"Shane, you listen to him," Lori ordered.

"He dies, we all die!"

Rick tried to wrestle the gun from Shane's hands, but he put up a fight. With a yell, he shifted his aim away from Jenner, firing into some computers directly to Jenner's right. Rick managed to take the gun from Shane, shoving him to the ground. He stood over them, nearly using the butt of the gun to hit Shane. He questioned, "Are you done now? Are you done now?"

"Yeah, I guess we all are," Shane replied.

Rick let him go, stepping away and handing the gun off to T-Dog. He turned back to Jenner, saying, "I think you're lying."

"What?" Jenner questioned.

"You're lying," Rick repeated. "About no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when the others ran. Why?"

"Not because I wanted to," Jenner finally said, turning to face Rick. "I made a promise." He pointed to the screen that they had watched a vigil on earlier, one of the test subjects as they died. "To her. My wife."

"Test Subject Nineteen was your wife?" Lori questioned.

"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying."

For Daryl, all he had to do was replace the word "she" with his sister's name, and he found himself in the exact same spot. With renewed vigor, he picked up the axe, swinging once again.

"It should've been me on that table," Jenner continued. "I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this? Not me."

"Your wife didn't have a choice," Rick said. "You do. That's all we want. A choice, a chance."

"Daryl," Clary said. "Daryl, stop."

"No!" he shouted, and the others turned, realizing that he was talking to Clary. "No! I won't give up on you! I can't!"

"Daryl, listen to me!" she barked. "You and Shane, y'all always said I had a way with words. Let me try. Let me get us outta here."

"The others, they can't hear you."

"That's why I need you to do it for me. Nineteen was Jenner's wife, right?"

"I thought you couldn't hear."

"I can't. It was a guess, a theory."

Daryl paused. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just repeat what I'm sayin', alright?"

"Alright."

"Daryl?" Glenn called. "What's going on?"

"Clary's got somethin' to say," Daryl answered. "Alright, Clary, you're our shot. Make it count." Daryl repeated, "Your wife wanted you to go as long as you could, right? That's what we want to do… We want to go out there and go as long as we can… Try as hard as we can… We want to try to live as long as we can… It's what your wife wanted you to do… So c'mon, give us our chance."

Jenner was quiet for a long moment, then shook his head, saying, "I told you, topside's locked down. I can't open those."

He made his way over to a desk, swiping a card. The door suddenly opened, and Daryl dropped the axe. Clary threw her arms around her brother, burying her face in his shoulder so the group wouldn't see her red eyes. So they wouldn't see that she had been crying. "I'm here, it's okay," he whispered to her. To the others, he shouted, "C'mon! Let's go!"

Glenn echoed his yell as he was the first one to run up, ducking around Daryl and wrapping Clary in a hug. The others ran for the door, noticing all of their bags in the hallway, and looked to Clary as she stepped away from Glenn. Sophia suddenly wrapped her in a hug, whispering, "Thank you."

"There's your chance," Jenner said, looking to Rick. "Take it."

"I'm grateful," Rick said.

"The day will come when you won't be," Jenner replied. He shook Rick's hand, then whispered something in his ear.

"C'mon, we got four minutes!" Glenn shouted.

T-Dog tried to pull Jacqui up the ramp with him, but she had already decided that she wanted to stay. Andrea decided to stay behind as well, but Dale tried to persuade her not to. "Dale!" Clary shouted.

"Just go!" he yelled. "Go!"

Everyone grabbed their bags, looking to Clary as they ran for the lobby. "You just saved us a hell of a lot of time," Shane told her. "Maybe even saved us."

Clary went red, murmuring, "Least I could do."

They reached the lobby within a minute, T-Dog and Daryl trying the doors with no luck. Shane and Daryl took off for the large windows just a few feet away, trying to break open the windows with their axes. It didn't cut it, didn't break it, just scratched it. T-Dog grabbed a chair, trying to use a chair to bust the windows open. Clary looked down at her watch before shouting, "Three minutes!" She grabbed a handgun, putting a clip in it. "Outta my way, boys!"

Shane, Daryl, and T-Dog jumped down from the windows, and she unloaded half a clip into the window, but it was useless. She let out a stream of curses, causing Lori to cover Carl's ears, as if he hadn't heard them from Clary before. "The glass won't break?" Sophia questioned.

"I'll break the fucker if it's the last thing I do!" Clary barked.

Carol started forward, digging in her bag as she said, "Rick, I have something that might help."

"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it," Shane deadpanned.

"Do what you're gonna do, and do it fast," Clary said. "We're down to two-fifteen." Instead of producing a nail file, Carol produced a grenade. "Holy shit, Carol's packin' heat!"

"The first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket," she said, handing it to Rick. Everyone dove for cover as Rick pulled the pin, setting it by the window. He ran for cover, the blast throwing him into the air. But the window shattered.

They climbed out of the window, taking out the walkers that stumbled towards them after being drawn out by the blast. The group hurried to their cars, Daryl taking his sister's hand and pulling her towards his beat up Ford truck. They climbed in, tossing their bags and the axe in the bed before climbing in the cab. Daryl cried, "Get down!"

"Wait!" Clary said, seeing two people exiting the building. "They made it! Andrea and Dale!"

The horn of the RV was blown by Rick, Lori shouting out the window for Dale and Andrea to get down. Daryl grabbed Clary's wrist, looking at her watch, and saw that they had less than ten seconds. He pushed her down, covering her body with his. The CDC exploded, the explosion rocking everyone in the cars. Even though they were far away, they could still feel the heat from it. Everyone slowly sat up in their vehicles, checking to make sure the others were okay over the CB as Dale and Andrea climbed in the RV. Daryl slowly exhaled, his arm still around his sister as he looked down at her. "You okay?" he questioned.

Clary leaned into her brother, closing her eyes as she breathed out a sigh of relief that they got out alive. "So that's what you didn't want me to know."