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They're surrounded by trees and leaves and dark. Robin's dead and so are the 30 zombies who attacked them just as he'd come back from his run up north.

How did he get so far alone and then… die in her arms?

The walker lying dead next to him retains Faith's best knife in its eye. She retrieves it, cruelly twisting the hilt, as if the dead piece of shit could feel her wrath for delivering its killing bite to the throat of her friend and lover.

But she doesn't have time to grieve.

In an effort to prevent Robin from writhing and rising as one of them, she cleans her blade as best she can, then drives it through his skull.

But he rises anyway, and starts to chase her through the woods.

Vi is suddenly nowhere to be found, but everyone else she knows is there, chasing her, dead.

Even Angel. How did Angel get dead? He's already dead, but not like these flesh-eating creeps. Now, his eyes are milky white and his flesh is hanging from his bones in tatters.

And Buffy's there, too. She's unreasonably fast and stealth as she drags one legs behind herself, her mouth moving as if she's trying to speak through the low moaning and wailing that surrounds them.

Everyone's chasing her until she makes it to a clearing and sees the prison in the distance. She runs through a yard of open graves toward the fence.

She sees the guy with the handlebar mustache, yells and screams for him to open the gate. She's terrified. They're gaining on her. Her legs are like rubber. He won't open the gate. He just watches her as she tries to climb the fence.

Angel grabs a hold of her leg. He can talk, though she doesn't know why, and he tells her that she's left them all to die. She feels his razor sharp fangs sink into the flesh of her calf, but she kicks free with her other leg and makes it over the fence.

The guy with the mustache tells her that she has to tell Rick about the bite. She tells him it doesn't matter because they're all going to die anyway. She tells him that he can't tell anyone, but he calls out to Rick, yelling that Faith's been bitten.

She pulls her knife and guts him in the yard.

Faith wakes with a start. She's sweating and breathing heavy. She has no idea what time it is, and she doesn't know why she's in the top bunk, because Debbie's bunk is the top bunk. Then, she remembers that the dream she was having isn't so far from the truth, and she wonders where's Robin and Vi?

Then the brutal reality of the dream hits home and her body's suddenly very cold.

Robin's dead.

She shivers.

Vi's in the bottom bunk. We're in a prison in the middle of fucking Georgia.

She rolls over and unfolds her limbs, groaning as her muscles and joints stretch and pop and grind. She lays flat on her back and stares at the ceiling, listening to Vi snore softly, thinking about the safe house in Minnesota, over a thousand miles away, thinking we need to get there, tell Angel about Robin, circle the fucking wagons.

"Shit." She runs her hands over her face and through her hair, feeling clumps of dried blood in the thick strands. She decides she could use that shower Beth mentioned, then slips over the side of the top bunk and lands her bare feet on the floor. Her dirty clothes are missing, but her weapons and boots are there, much cleaner than they were before.

She turns and looks to Vi, checking if it was she who took their clothes somewhere and cleaned things up, but Vi hasn't moved from the spot where she passed out the night before; or maybe it's still night, she doesn't even know.

Faith closes her eyes and breathes in deep, calming, thinking. She should probably be pissed that these people took her weapons while they slept—feel negligent for not knowing. Instead, she inwardly jokes about little weapons cleaning elves, like Apocalyptic Merry Maids.

She wraps herself in the towel and snatches the clean clothes and her boots from the floor, and her knife from where she slipped it under her pillow. She heads out of her cell and climbs the stairs to the upper level.

At the top of the steps, she finds a Spartan-like sleeping area. It doesn't take a genius to figure out it's Daryl's space—simple, frugal, away from the others, but overlooking everything. She glances around as she walks, and listens hard for any sign of him, or anyone (or anything) else.

Rick told her and Vi that the place was secure, but she hasn't checked it out for herself, and regardless, the fucking geeks are like rats; they find their way into almost anywhere sometimes.

The only sound she hears, though, is the distant spray of water. She knows she's getting closer to the showers as the sound gets louder and she begins to feel moist heat fill the space around her. She pauses a minute, just outside the door, rethinking her timing and priorities, wanting to avoid a confrontation with anyone, but also wanting to get clean, reset, and think about what to do next.

She decides to brave it, then, and pushes forward. Daryl's there—stripped bare and wet. Without the crossbow—he's propped it against the wall—and all those clothes, he reminds her once again of just how wound up she still is. She stops cold and silently watches.

His neck is thick and smooth, his shoulders are broad and muscled and angular, and his waist and hips are tight and slim. She could easily wrap her legs around him, hook her ankles, and take the ride of her life.

As her eyes slide over his body, she sees that his skin is evenly marked with ink and scars, and Faith recognizes that not all of the scars are recent. She immediately identifies them as the kind of scars left behind by lashes from a belt or whip. She's can relate to that kind of damage.

Then it's clear that she's stared a second too long, because he's suddenly facing her, walking away from the shower and toward her, eyes hard and narrow.

"Take a picture; it'll last longer," he says, combing his fingers through his shaggy, wet hair with one hand and reaching for a towel with the other. He ties the towel around his hips, but not before Faith can see that he's half-hard, and that feeling of want manifests into a sound that lodges in her throat.

He pushes past her and through the door before she can say a word.

Her shower should have been the best she'd ever had—hot and satisfying in every way. There was a small part of her brain that began to think maybe she'd have a little "lady's time"; after finding Daryl, and him being such a fucking bitch, her sex buzz was sufficiently harshed.

Then she had to pass him again, where he slept, before heading back down to her cell to get Vi.

"Vi!" Faith kicks Vi's mattress. "Get a move on."

She doesn't even care if Vi wants to shower at this point. They have no business being there; the dream told her so, and they have to get back to the safe house—every signal points to it.

"What?" Vi groans and rolls onto her side, shoving at the weapons Faith is foisting upon her before she can even sit up. "Where… What are you doing?"

"We're outta this place," Faith says, arming herself to walk through the gates and back out into the dead wasteland.

"What's wrong with you?" Vi asks, standing to meet Faith face-to-face.

Faith is pacing, combing fingers through her wet hair, frantically calculating a plan. They need to travel a thousand miles as fast as possible, and with just the two of them to keep watch; and it appears that Vi may not want to leave so readily.

This is gonna fuckin' suck. Do I leave her? Force her to go? I should just leave her...

"Faith!" Vi demands Faith's attention.

Faith rounds on Vi.

"Listen." Vi's voice is calm yet fierce as she breathes slow and steady, hands out and open, like Faith is some kind of wild animal she's trying to tame. "We've been through a lot the past couple of days—Robin, the herd, and this place… Let's just rest, okay? Can we just rest?"

Faith bristles at her tone and disposition. "This place is everything come to a head." She strains her whispering voice. "Don't you see that? It's fuckin' weird, Vi."

"What's so weird about it?" Vi asks, trying to keep her own voice low, but it's too late; they both can hear rustling outside their cell door. "These people are surviving and more! Why can't we take a little refuge here?"

Faith's mind races with the possibilities, of what could be happening back at the safe house, of what they could be missing when their next order goes unanswered because Robin never had the chance to tell them where and when to take the mystical call.

"We don't even know what these people want from us," Faith says. "Everybody wants fuckin' something, Vi. I just don't trust it."

Vi looks at her like she's on fire or at least has lost her mind. "What don't you trust?"

"It's all too…" Faith grasps for the right words, but Vi could never understand. Vi's always been able to count on someone, she's had to learn not to trust, and Faith doesn't have time to teach her this one lesson.

"Too what, Faith? Normal? Nice? Too good to be true? Well, I'm willing to take that chance if only for a couple of days of rest."

Faith doesn't wait for more explanation or argument. "Fine." She tosses Vi's weapons onto her mattress. "You stay. I'll go."

"Faith, wait."

Faith storms out the door just as Vi reaches for her wrist. The grip on her arm causes such alarm that Faith jerks, feeling Vi pulling her back. She lunges, throws a punch, catches Vi's chin, and knocks them both through the doorway.

They struggle. Faith sees that Daryl's awake and armed, Rick is walking down the corridor toward them. The girls keep wrestling, neither of them able to quickly gain the upper hand. Daryl's bow is aimed keenly on their fight, and Rick is bearing down.

Then they crash into the open door, bending the grate and cracking the cement blocks of the wall behind it. Faith wrenches herself out of Vi's grasp and the two fly apart, each slamming into opposite walls, cracking the blocks further. "Okay! Okay—Jesus fucking…"

Daryl's on the top deck, bow at the ready, keeping both girls in his sight, but focusing on Faith. Rick's about five yards down the corridor with his hand on his Colt Python revolver.

"Problem, ladies?" Rick asks.

The girls stare at each other, slowing their breathing, while Faith thinks of what, if anything, she should tell Rick.

"No problem, officer," she says.

After a few more tense beats, Vi pushes away from the wall and reaches inside the cell to grab the clean clothes and towel. "I'm taking a shower," she mutters before heading up the stairs toward Daryl.

Daryl's relaxing his weapon, but is closely watching Faith. As Vi passes him and heads down the hall, Daryl nods to Rick. He watches Rick approach Faith, speaking quietly, confidentially.

Daryl guesses that Faith took Rick aback with the "officer" comment. They hadn't told her that Rick was a deputy sheriff, but she's a quit-witted little thing, and fuckin' mouthy as Hell, for sure.

Still, Daryl knows he didn't make a mistake bringing the girls into the prison, even if he needs to keep reassuring Rick that they're safe and on the right path. He watches Faith move slowly and stiffly—always so guarded and on. Once she rests her small, lithe frame against the broken wall and settles back to grudgingly listen to Rick's calming voice, Daryl turns back to his sleeping pallet.

They don't need these girls—Daryl and Rick both know that; they can get by without them, just as they always have. But Daryl also knows that Rick wants more, and these girls are assets. He's waiting patiently for just the right moment to explain to Rick how really valuable they are.

Daryl closes his eyes, trying to get a couple hours of sleep. He can hear the low murmur of Faith and Rick talking in the corridor just below him, as he drifts in and out of consciousness. In his restless sleep, he sees steam and water and suds, wavy, brown hair, full, plump lips, and wet, silky skin; and he hears her say his name.

Thank you moojuicey, onelilhopeful, and Einfach_mich for talking through this with me. And to MsKathy for the red pen.