Silence reigned over the small room, the only exception being the quiet random mumbles that escaped Rick's mouth. His eyes were clenched tight, his breathing rapid and his eyes moving restlessly beneath closed lids, desperately seeking something that Carl could not see. Rick's hands curled in to tight fists as his frown deepened.

Carl could do little more then delicately place his hand on his Father's shoulder, but it still seemed to do the trick. Rick relaxed nearly immediately, a small sigh escaping his mouth. The world blurred around him as he took in the swollen, purpled face of Rick Grimes, something that he had done more times then he could count in the last couple days. The Governor had really done a number on him, his fists pounding his grief-stricken Father's face into a pulp... Not that Rick hadn't managed to get a few good swings in himself.

Carl really didn't know whose bullet buried itself in to that monsters arm after that swing into Hershel's neck, both he and his Father had reacted at the same time, but knowing it was one of them gave Carl a dark sense of satisfaction. But then he would remember how he had had a clear shot, how he could have ended it before anything had ever happened and they all would have lived. He should have done it.

Sometimes, he imagined himself standing over the man, listening to his gasp and beg. Carl would level his gun at his face, watch the fear come in to that single eye and he would fire.

He knew it was wrong, that he should not think such things. It was exactly what his Father wanted to keep him from becoming. But he couldn't help it.

Perhaps he was crazy.

Then again, they all were now. How could you not be? You needed to be a little unstable to survive in these times, regardless of what Hershel tried to fool himself into thinking.

None of them were the people they once were.

"It must have been scary."

Carl jumped slightly and his face colored when he realized that Beth, of all people, had managed to startle him. He ducked his face, trying to hide the traitorous blush that showed his humiliation to the world. Breathing deeply and willing his face to cool, he looked up to her, proud that he met her eye with steely determination.

"What was?"

Beth tilted her head slightly, her pony tail swinging over her thin shoulders as she gave him a small smile. She always did that, tried to smile and comfort and keep everything that terrified her locked up inside. She rarely cried anymore, or allowed any emotion to show through. It made him uncomfortable at times. It was like looking in to a mirror, he was exactly the same. "Being out here all on your own. I was frightened and I had Daryl, I don't know what would have happened if I was by myself."

"You just do what you have to." Carl responded quietly, rubbing Rick's shoulder absent-mindedly. It fell in to an awkward silence, not nearly as comfortable as it had been before, and Carl wanted to say more but found the words sticking in his throat.

He should tell her how sorry he was for the loss of her Father. How Hershel had been a good, decent man who never deserved what happened to him. How a part of himself still blamed himself over not taking that shot when he had it, clear and precise. He could have ended it before Hershel died. None of it would have happened. He should have done it.

How did you apologize to a girl about allowing her father to be brutally decapitated with a sword? Her father, who had been a loving, wise, honorable man who did nothing but place others before himself. Who had cared about his daughters, about Carl, about everyone at the prison like they were all his flesh and blood.

He did not see an outcome to this situation ending well so he held his silence.

And so did she.

Together, they watched night fall, thinking of their lost loved ones and hoping that Daryl was doing alright.

Sunset had come upon him quickly, darkness beginning to spread its wings across the sky, bleeding the blue with reds and oranges.

He cursed himself for not stopping here before, when there hadn't been a walker in sight. No, when he needed to get in to that damn store it of course had to be after this bunch of random corpses moved in, their moans filling the air and making his blood boil in frustration.

There were plenty of abandoned buildings around Georgia, completely without a walker infestation. Yet, whenever he needed to get anywhere, it was always the one damned building they seemed drawn to.

His eyes scanned the area quickly as he crept around the perimeter, making sure he wasn't waltzing right in to something he couldn't handle. The building was decent size, about what you would expect for a small town shop with three points of entry. The main doors for customers to enter up front, the roll up door where farmers would back their trucks up to pick up product and the emergency exit that was nestled near a large woodpile. Six large windows showed different displays out front, giving him a good way to keep watch outside to see if he remained undetected in the store, but would also make him vulnerable to being surrounded. Not ideal, but he would just have to deal with it.

Two geeks fumbled around inside from what he could see, although the windows were so coated in filth that he couldn't really be sure about that. Outside seven of them stumbled around, wandering aimlessly in search of their next meal. Another corpse lay on the ground, unmoving where some of the logs from the woodpile had fallen and pinned it. Daryl included it in the count anyways, those damn things had a habit of appearing harmless right before they popped up and took a nice chunk out of your thigh.

He breathed deeply, crouching down in the weeds as one of the walkers ambled to his hiding place, seemingly still unaware of the living man just feet away. His fingers clenched over his knife as he patiently waited, sweaty palms making his grip his weapon harder. When he was just close enough Daryl popped out, grabbing it around the throat and piercing the blade up through the back of the creatures skull, ignoring the sensation of the knife gliding through bone and organ. The walker's hiss was cut off nearly as soon as it started and it slumped lifelessly to the ground.

He removed his knife and moved back to the shadows, glancing behind him and listening to ensure that nothing snuck up behind him.

"One down." He mumbled, wiping the blood off absent mindedly in the grass with a frown. "Ten to go."

Taking advantage of a woodpile outside the back of the feed store, he waited till they were facing away from him before creeping forward, crossbow now in hand and bolt in place. Five bolts and a knife against ten walkers. He'd faced worse odds before.

Not wasting any time he plunged his knife in to the seemingly dead man's skull, not surprised to see his eyes pop open a mere second before his blade met its mark. The man had just begun to raise his hands before they slumped back to the earth, once again harmless.

He crept forward, making sure he wasn't visible to the walkers before reaching out and grasping the door handle.

Of course, it was locked up tight.

Sighing heavily and knowing that would have been too easy he turned, seeing that the next nearest point was the roll up door. Part of him was very reluctant to attempt to lift it, knowing it would make a huge racket and most likely alert some of the walkers to his presence. But the front entrance had most of them around it, making it a much riskier move.

He lifted his crossbow, eyeing the two walkers over the logs that were near the door. Taking a moment to aim, he fired, the arrow whizzing through the air before burying itself perfectly through the female's forehead. She fell forward without a sound before landing with a solid thump. The large walker in overall's next to her glanced at his fallen companion for a moment before turning away and shuffling off, none the wiser to the red neck that currently held him in his sights.

With another quiet whoosh through the air, the man fell as well, the green feathered end of the bolt peeking out from his greasy hair, the sharp pointed end buried deep in his frontal lobe.

"Seven." Daryl muttered to himself as he crept out and collected the bolts, relieved that the others had managed to wander a bit further away, approaching the road that lead to the town center. As long as he managed to keep quiet, this was going to be a walk in the park.

He approached the door, kneeling down and grabbing a hold of the handle. Tugging experimentally, he was pleased when it moved with just a little effort. Pulling harder, he flinched when the wheels squealed in protest, the sound ringing through the yard and no doubt alerting the ones who had just been moving along to his presence.

He paused for just a moment before the hisses grew louder, more pronounced. How they sounded when they caught wind of prey.

Cursing himself for being reckless, he put all his muscle into the job of lifting the door and it span up, reaching the end of the track with a loud thud. Daryl had just a moment to rush in and start pulling the door back down before a pair of rotten hands grasped at his shoulders, a vicious snarl from behind making Daryl spin to face his attacker. He had just a second to spot the man a bit shorter then him, his eyes clouded over and milky with his cheek hanging from his face like a piece of flayed meat, before it opened its jaws wide and dove for his shoulder.

"Carl?"

Carl glanced over at Beth from his vigil at Rick's bedside. "Yeah?"

She grasped her hands close together, her eyes pinned on her fingers in an unusually nervous way. Almost as if she was afraid to say whatever she was thinking. She probably didn't realize just how silly that fear was. She truly had no reason to be afraid to talk to him no matter what it was she was thinking.

He vaguely wondered how it could possibly be she had no idea how much he cared about her, about the Greene family as a whole. Sure, everyone at the prison had cared about one another, he'd made a great friend in Patrick and thought of them all as one big community. But there was just a bond between the original group that had spent months on the road together, that had taken the prison, that had lost people and comforted one another through their hardest times, that made them so much closer then with the others. He loved each and every one of them, even though he could never say it out loud.

Like always, he kept his thoughts silent, waiting for her to speak.

"Maybe you should get some sleep." She told him, her eyes moving to Rick. "I know you must be really tired and I'm hear to watch over him. I can wake you if anything happens. I'm not tired, Daryl was always the one keeping watch and I got to sleep plenty." A fond smile came over her face as she shrugged. "You know how he is, worrying about everyone but himself, even if he doesn't want to admit it."

Carl hesitated, arguments on his tongue telling her that he wasn't tired, that he needed to watch Rick in case anything should change in the situation, that they could be discovered by walkers or other threats at any time, that he couldn't sleep because his dreams were plagued with the sound of moans and gunfire and a baby carrier filled with blood.

But he knew his eye lids were starting to droop and his arms felt strangely heavy. He knew that his mind was sluggish and his vision was beginning to blur around the edges. He knew that if he was to stay alert like he needed to be, he did need to rest.

He'd seen what happened to his father, how run down and unhealthy he looked whenever things started to bother him in the night and he went days without sleeping. Carl could not allow himself to get to that point. If there was a situation where he needed to save them, he needed to be alert and prepared.

Beth turning those big blue eyes to his was just the final nail in the coffin.

He doubted he would be getting any sleep, but he didn't want to worry her any more then he needed to. He could at least pretend for her sake, and try for his own.

Carl sighed heavily, nodding slightly. "You're right. Just give me an hour and if he stops..." Carl paused, a lump in his throat cutting him off and he took a second to compose himself. "If anything changes, wake me up."

She nodded, turning her eyes back to Rick as Carl laid down on the floor, bunching up some old blankets as a pillow. He listened to the sound of them breathing. The sound of Beth beginning to hum a tune that he soon recognized as Parting Glass, a song that had been one of her father's favorites. It brought his thoughts back to the very first time he had ever heard her sing it. The night they found the prison and for just a moment, everything had seemed like it was going to turn out for the better.

But T-Dog had been right about it after all. It had become a tomb for more then one of their family.

His eyes refused to close even as he willed them to, waiting the hear the hushed footsteps of Daryl returning or maybe even the moan of a walker that had found their hiding place. Some part of him that had not quite accepted what had happened still listened for the sound of a baby cry, alerting him to Judith needing him. But of course, none of the cries came.

He knew that despite his intentions, he would be getting no sleep tonight. He would pretend to make Beth feel better. So he listened instead.

And if he heard Beth's voice catch slightly as she began to whisper the song's lyrics, a slight sob breaking through the tune, he could pretend he didn't hear that either.

Daryl threw himself backwards, dodging the clacking teeth by mere inches. It was a thin, pathetic thing with its ribs protruding from its sides and its wrists as thin as pencils, although its stomach distended in a very odd manner. Daryl allowed himself a moment of disgust, to digest the fact that this wretched thing was nearly what did him in. Merle would have beat his ass without mercy in the afterlife to know that a Dixon went out so stupidly.

The walker stumbled, twisting around in an attempt to grasp Daryl once more but tripping over its own feet and sending it tumbling under the door.

Daryl reached up, grabbing hold of the handle again and forcing it down, the heavy door rushing with alarming speed only to be met with a sickening crunch when the door smashed on the walker's ankles. The bone splintered, breaking through the skin and covering the ground in sticky brown blood. The creature attempted to stand, waving it's legs around and not even noticing how its feet dangled from a few rotten strands of flesh. Its milky eyes searched without seeing, its nostrils flared as it drew in his scent and sending it in to a frenzy.

It hissed, raising an arm in an attempt to grab and unknowingly pulling its feet out of the way in the process. Daryl slammed the door down and heaved on the lock, sealing off the way in.

Just in time, as seconds later other hands began to beat against the door but it held steady and true. A little to close for comfort, if he ws being perfectly honest with himself, but he had managed just like he always did.

He immediately pulled out his crossbow and turned on the light that hung to the weapon's underbelly, sweeping the room. When there was no further movement or sign of of a corpse hiding away in a dark corner he relaxed only slightly.

He looked around, noting he was in the feed room. It looked relatively untouched, which didn't surprise him too much. He supposed not too many folks had livestock to tend anymore and they had collected their supplies from a small shop that had been closer to the prison. The bags of chicken feed had been torn in to, mostly ground up corn and seeds, as well as a bag of horse pellets. His nose curled slightly when he noted what looked suspiciously like vomit next to the horse bag, the pellets expanded and blended together with stomach acid.

Dried blood caked to the underside of the door as well as the handle, the spray from the arteries making an arc on the door like some kind of children's art project. From the height of it, the man had been attempting to lift the door and get out when he had been bitten on the ankle. The blood trail dragged over to the feed bags, where he assumed the man had laid to die. From how lived in the place looked, he could only assume the man had been in there for some time and desperation to find real food had overriden his fear, driving him out to the geeks.

"Dumb bastard locked himself up in here and starved to death." Daryl mumbled to himself, remembering the way the walkers stomach appeared strangely bloated. Daryl felt his own gag reflex kick in at the stench of the place, from both the waste of when the man was living and the rotten stench of decay afterwards.

On the bright side, there was a small supply of water bottles off in the corner. He filed the information away for later and walked over to the door.

Shadows danced beneath it as the rapidly fading sunlight illuminated the walkers on the other side of it, scratching away and trying to break through. He knelt down, looking at their feet through the crack in the door. He bit down a sigh of relief at only seeing two pairs. Looks like he had been right.

Getting out his knife Daryl went to the handle and prepared his grip, pleased to find that the door had a chain lock. He opened it a crack and the walkers pushed forward, the door stopping abruptly at the end of the chain. They hissed and snarled, broken fingers pressing through the space in a desperate attempt to reach him. He waited from one to push forward as it nuzzled its face in, pressing hard and not noticing the flesh of its cheeks peeling away, too rotten to hold to the bone.

The blade sank deep in to its skull and it slumped heavily, allowing the other walker to push forward.

"Rinse and repeat." Daryl grumbled to himself. It wasn't long till both of them lay against the door, dead for the second time.

Daryl waited for a moment and was met with no further encounters at the door. It appeared that all the walkers had gone to the back rolling door, still beating against it in a futile attempt to get in. It stood firm, never wavering.

Pushing the bodies back and undoing the lock, Daryl stepped over them and entered the room. It was relatively untouched, all things considered. The obvious things were missing from the shelves like hatchets, axes, hammers, anything that could have been used as a weapon, along with other useful essentials like rope, things that would have probably been taken in the first wave of looting.

Holding his breath, Daryl moved to the first aid aisle. Most of it was pretty picked over, the basics such as gauze, wrappings and spray on wound cleaners were gone, but there was still a surprising amount available.

He set to work, passing over the things he didn't need and filing the information away for future gathering purposes. He wasn't going to both with non-essentials now, he needed to move as quickly as possible.

He grabbed syringes, needles, what little wrapping supplies were left and two large bottles of hydrogen peroxide. He moved on to the glass case containing the antibiotics, reading over labels before finally finding a rather large bottle of penicillin intended for cattle. He felt his chest leap when he read that it wasn't even expired yet. It was almost too good to be true. Rick would need a minimum of ten days for it to truly take effect, but there was more then enough doses here. They would have plenty to spare, which was always a good thing.

He then moved on to the small fishing aisle, gathering up fishing line in case Rick would need his leg stitched shut. He hit the area that contained human first aid kits to find everything gone, not that he was surprised. He hit the animal aisle one last time and finding a bottle of something called blu-kote that had rolled under a shelf, he stowed his supplies in to his bag. He ran back and grabbed a few of the water bottles before racing forward and beating on the back door a few times, the metal clanging loudly and riling up the walkers again.

When he was certain they were well distracted he backed up and moved through the front doors. It was dark now but the moon was full, illuminating the area enough for his to see just fine. The dark shapes of the walkers clawing at the door stood out in the night and he smirked to himself as he dashed back in to the trees, his feet remembering just where to go.

Still, worry continued to gnaw at his gut as he ran. He just hoped he wasn't too late.