When Sophia climbed out of the tent that she stayed in she walked over to Daryl and I's. She knows how much I hated to sleep alone, I shared a room with her until I moved in with Daryl. When she came in Rocket perked up and his tail started to move a mile a minute. Sophia noticed that I had been crying. She came over and laid on the bed with me. I slowly ran my fingers through her hair and Rocket moved over to lie on her legs. "Do you think Daryl will be here soon Soph?"

Sophia looked up at me. "I think so, he'll be here soon. I bet his misses Aliyah."

Suddenly we all heard an alarming sound. I got out of the bed as fast as I could and grabbed Aliyah, running over to Dale. He was posted on the roof of the RV, looking through his binoculars, like always. Sophia ran out behind me, followed closely by Rocket and I grabbed onto her hand with my free one. Sophia let go and grabbed Rocket's collar and sat with him, stroking his dark brown fur.

Shane came running over. "Talk to me Dale."

"Can't tell yet."

Amy ran over and grabbed my arm that Sophia had let go of, putting one of her hands on Aliyah's back. "Is it them, are they back?"

Dale raised his eyebrows and put the binoculars down. "Well I'll be damned." He put them back up to his face.

"What is it?" Amy yelled.

"A stolen car is my guess."

I instantly perked up. Merle flashed through my mind, stealing a car seemed like something that he would do. "Then they're back, it has to be them, Merle is pro at hot-wiring cars." I wrapped my arm around Amy and held onto her as the car finally pulled up.

Glenn's face flashed through the windshield, it may not have been Merle but it meant that everyone was okay. I let go of Amy. "Glenn!" I ran over to him and flung myself into his arms; Rocket ran over and jumped up, barking at him. He knew who was a threat and who wasn't. Glenn kissed Aliyah's cheek and then mine.

"Holy crap, turn that thing off." Dale hollered over the sound of the alarm.

Glenn let go of me and flung his arms up. "I don't know how."

Glenn was surrounded by Amy in seconds. "My sister, Andrea."

Shane kept trying to speak over Amy. "Pop the hood."

"Is she okay?"

"Pop the hood please."

"Is she alright?"

"Pop the damn hood please."

"Is she alive, is she alright?"

Glenn was overwhelmed and reached into the car, popping the hood. "Yea, yea, she's okay, she's okay."

"Is she coming back?"

"Yes." Glenn was definitely getting annoyed.

"Then why isn't she with you? Where is she? She's okay?" Amy was full of questions, Glenn could barely speak.

"Yea, yea, fine. Everybody is… well… Merle not so much."

My eyes grew wide and I grabbed his arm, spinning him around to look me in the eyes. "Woah, woah, woah, what? What happened to Merle? Where is he?" They all completely ignored me.

Shane cut me off. "Are you crazy driving this wheeling bastard up here? Are you trying to attract every walker for miles?"

Dale looked over at Shane. "I think we're okay."

"You call being stupid okay?"

"Well an alarm like that echoing all over these hills, it's hard to pinpoint the source," Shane gave him a dirty look. "I'm not arguing, I'm just saying." He looked over at Glenn. "And it wouldn't hurt you to think things through a little more carefully next time now would it?"

Glenn hung his head. "Sorry… I got a cool car tho…"

I turned around and walked toward the camper, I needed to figure out how I was going to tell Daryl that his brother didn't come back with the rest of the group. I sat in one of the chairs and called Rocker over. He sat in front of me and I set Aliyah onto the ground. Rocket let her climb onto him and pull him to the ground to cuddle with and I held my head in my hands until I heard Carl yelling.

"Dad!"

I looked up from where I was sitting to see a man standing across the way, holding onto himself as well as he could as Carl made a beeline for him, Lori was right behind him. The man lifted up Carl and let himself fall to the ground, crying as hard as I had ever seen anyone cry. The man lifted Carl into the air and grabbed Lori, I had never seen her so happy. When I looked over at Shane I saw him let a few tears escape from his eyes and I walked over, resting my head on his shoulder.

The fire that night was a little tense. The man was named Rick, he was an old cop, Shane's partner. He was shot and put into a coma and had woken up to find himself in this mess. "Disoriented, I guess that comes closest… disoriented...fear, confusion, all those things. But disoriented comes closest." Rick was telling us about what it was like to wake up in this.

"Words can be meager things, sometimes they fall short." Dale had his arm around me and Aliyah in his lap; I was leaning into his shoulder.

"I felt like I had been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else, for a while I thought I was trapped in some coma dream, something I might not wake up from… ever."

Carl looked up at his father, he was laying on his lap. "Mom said you died." He stroked Rockets head, he was lying in his lap. Everyone at the camp loved him.

"She had every right to believe that, don't you ever doubt that." He kissed Carl's forehead.

Lori looked over at Rick. "When things started to get really bad they told me that they were gonna evacuate you and all the other patients to Atlanta and it never happened."

"Well I'm not surprised after Atlanta fell, and from the look of it the hospital was overrun."

Shane looked up. "And looks don't deceive, I barely got them out."

Rick's eyes got watery. "You know, I can't tell you how grateful I am to you Shane, can't begin to express it."

The boys didn't speak and Dale broke the silence. "There go those words fallen short again."

We all looked over when we saw my step-dad get up and add another log to the fire that my mom, sophia, and him were surrounding.

Shane was always the one to hold down the fort. "Hey Ed, you wanna re-think that log?"

Ed looked up. "It's cold man."

"Cold don't change the rules does it? We keep our fires low, just embers so we can't be seen from a distance, right?"

"I said its cold, mind your own business for once."

When Shane stood up and walked over I rolled my eyes. "Here we go."

It was silent until we watched my mom take out the log and Shane stamped the fire on it out, crouching down in front of my mom and Sophia to say goodnight. He looked back at Ed. "Appreciate the cooperation.

Shane sat back down and Dale looked around at all of us. " Have you given any thought to Daryl Dixon?"

I snorted. "Oh, I've given plenty of thought on that, he's been gone three days and no one has given a damn enough about him to go searching."

"I'm talking about regards to Merle, he won't be to happy to hear his brother was left behind."

T-dog sighed. "I'll tell him, I dropped the key, it's on me."

Rick looked up. "I cuffed him, that makes it mine"

Glenn put his head in his hands and raised his voice. "Jesus Christ, it's not a competition, I don't mean to bring race into this, but I think it might sound better coming from a white guy. I know him."

"I did what I did, hell if I'm gonna hide from it."

Amy put her hair behind her ears. "We could lie."

Her sister, Andrea, spoke up. "Or we could tell the truth."

I was beginning to panic, something I was very good at by now. "We're not going to lie about Merle, that's bad karma and if he found out we were lying, we're all in deep shit."

"Merle was out of control, something had to be done or he'd have gotten us killed." Andrea looked over at Lori. "Your husband did what was necessary and if Merle got left behind it is nobody's fault but Merles."

I snorted again. Andrea and I didn't always get along. "Right." She shot me a dirty look.

"And that's what we tell Daryl? I don't see a rational discussion to be had from this. Word to the wise, we're gonna have a hands full when he gets back from his hunt." Dale looked over at me.

"If he comes back…" I choked on my last words.

Shane shot at me. "This negative crap isn't helping matters any Ashley."

There was silence for a few minutes and then T-Dog spoke up. "I was scared, I ran, I'm not ashamed of it."

"We were all scared, we all ran. What's your point?" Andrea looked over at him with intense eyes.

"I stopped long enough to chain the door. The staircase is narrow, maybe a half a dozen geeks can squeeze through at one time. That's not enough to break through there… not that chain, not that padlock. My point… Dixon's alive and he's still up there, handcuffed to that roof, that's on us." T-Dog got up and walked slowly to his tent.

"Then we've got to go and get him!" I practically yelled it.

"The place is surrounded Ashley, how do we get in and out without losing people?" Shane looked over at me and rolled his eyes when he saw my face was completely dead.