The next morning, everyone made their way out of their tents. Alex had exchanged her sweat pants for jeans, left her cut off on and combed through her hair with her fingers and went outside to meet the group for breakfast that Carol had been cooking. Alex thanked Carol for the breakfast and took a seat next to Daryl, she felt as if though it was going to be another good day.

Then Glenn stood up from his chair, walked around so everyone could see him clearly, "Um guys." Everyone had continued going about their business, not paying him much mind. He sighed, "So, the barn is full of walkers." Everyone's heads shot up at him. The group made their way down to the barn to check it out for themselves, Shane confirmed their fears.

"You cannot tell me you're alright with this."

"No I'm not, but we're guests here. This isn't our land."

"This is our lives!" Shane bellowed out.

"Lower your voice," Glenn keeping relatively calm.

"We can't just sweep this under the rug," Andrea took Shane's side.

Shane was pacing back and forth like a mad man, "It ain't right. Not remotely. Okay, we've either got to go in there, we've got to make things right or we've just got to go. Now we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time."

"We can't go."

"Why, Rick? Why?"

"Because my daughter is still out there."

"Okay," Shane huffed, "Car—okay, I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility."

"We're not leaving Sophia behind."

"I'm close to finding this girl. I just found her damn doll two days ago."

"You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did. You found a doll."

Daryl flung his arms towards Shane, "You don't what the hell you're talking about."

"I'm just saying what needs to be said," Rick threw his arm in between the two men arguing, "You get a good lead, it's in the first 48 hours."

"Shane, stop!"

"Let me tell you something else, man," Daryl inched towards Shane getting ready to deck him, "If she was alive out there and saw you coming all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction."

Rick forced himself between the two again when Daryl had tried to go after Shane, everyone shouting, Alex stepped in front of Daryl trying to separate the two even more.

"Back off!" Rick told Shane.

Shane looked directly at Lori, pushing her hands away from him, "Keep your hands off me."

"Now just let me talk to Hershel. Let me figure it out."

"What are you gonna figure out?!" Shane shouted at his best friend.

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land."

"Hershel sees those things in there as people—sick people—his wife, his stepson."

"You knew?"

"Yesterday I talked to Hershel," Dale.

"And you waited the night?"

"I thought we could survive one more night. We did." Dale's attention went back to Rick, "I was waiting till this morning to say something, but Glenn wanted to be the one."

"The man is crazy, Rick. If Hershel thinks those things are alive or no!"

The doors on the barn begun pushing forward, the chains rattled and the walkers growled, causing everyone to step back from the barn. Daryl had pushed Alex behind him to protect her in case the walkers might bust through at any moment. Once everyone stood quietly, the walkers stopped pushing on the doors and they made their way back to camp.

Daryl walked the same pace as Alex behind the group and whispered to her, "Don't go near the barn, you hear me?" She simply nodded at his command. He walked past her and went into the stable, Carol chased after Daryl. She sighed and found a seat near where the fire would normally be. She rubbed her temples, trying to calm herself down. When she looked up again, she saw Daryl storming out of the stable, clutching his wounded side.

She followed Daryl staying a few feet behind him to a pond on the land with a dock. He stood at the end of the dock, hands on his hips, Alex could tell he was chewing on his lip furiously. He took off his boots and put his feet in the water. She debated for a while whether or not to go to him, then her feet started to move as if under a spell. She stepped on to the deck, causing Daryl to look back at her. She slipped off her boots, socks and pulled her pant legs and set next to him, mimicking his motions in the water. They didn't make a sound except for their feet swaying in the water, only looked ahead at the lake. Alex felt a brush on her hand, seeing Daryl's hand close to hers, she placed it on his and smiled at the scene. Daryl looked at their hands, her skin was soft, warm and kind. She began rubbing her thumb on the back of his hand to comfort him. He removed his hand from under hers, only to place it once more this time their finger tangled in one other. His actions had startled her at first, but she relaxed into him. She placed her head gently on his shoulder, placing a soft kiss on his arm. They didn't move for a long time, until something had caught Daryl's eye he turned his head to find a Cherokee Rose along the bank of the pond. Alex lifted her head from his should as he carefully untangled his hand from hers and got to his feet to turn around, still clutching his side and help Alex to hers. They slipped on their boots, and walked back to camp, giving each other a silent good-bye to another as they parted ways. Daryl took Carol to the pond to show her the where the Cherokee rose had grown, apologizing for lashing out at her earlier that day. And for the time being, it was a good day.

Alex had found her way to the house to play a game of chess with Carl, Beth and Patricia when Andrea, T-Dog, Daryl and Carol had come up to the house all wondering where Rick was and why he wasn't looking for Sophia.

Daryl lashed out again, "Damn it. Isn't anybody taking this seriously? We got us a damn trail. Oh, here we go." He spotted Shane walking up to the house with the bag of guns around his shoulder and a rifle in his hand.

"What's all this?"

"You with me, man?" Shane handed Daryl the rifle, Daryl taking it. "Time to grow up. You already got yours?" looking back at Andrea.

"Yeah. Where's Dale?"

"He's on his way."

T-Dog took the gun Shane handed him, "Thought we couldn't carry."

"We can and we have to. Look, it was one thing sitting around her picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't. How about you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Shane giving another rifle to Glenn who reluctantly took it from him. "That's it. Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop?" Maggie didn't want this to happen, "You do this, you out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight."

"We have to stay, Shane," Carl stepping from the porch, Lori running in asking what was going on.

Shane cocked his weapon, "We ain't going anywhere, okay?"

Alex just eyed Daryl who chewed his lip and looked away. He didn't care if she disapproved; he was going to protect her no matter what.

"Now look, Hershel, he's just gotta understand. Okay? He—well, he's gonna have to. Now we need to find Sophia, am I right?" Shane took his handgun and walked over to Carl crouching handing over his gun, "Huh? Now I want you to take this. You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes. You know how. Go on, take the gun and do it."

Lori stepped in front of Carl, "Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."

T-Dog yelled, "Oh shit." Everyone whipped around to see Rick, Hershel and Jimmy leading two walkers from the forest. Shane sprinted towards them, everyone following.

"You kidding me? Do you see? Do you see what they're holding onto?"

"I see who I'm holding onto!" Hershel replied.

"No, man, you don't!"

"Shane, just let us do this and then we can talk," Rick struggled with the walker.

"What you want to talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gonna feel nothing for them 'cause all they do, they kill! These things right here, they're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us. If we don't—"

Rick tried to get his friend to calm down, "Shane, shut up!"

"Hey, Hershel man, let me ask you something. Could a living breathing person, could they walk away from this?" Shane pulled out his gun and shot at the walker Hershel held on. "That's three rounds in the chest. Could someone who's alive, could they just take that?! Why is it still coming?" Shane lifted his weapon and shot again twice, "That's its heart, its lungs. Why is it still coming?" He shot two more times at the walker.

"Shane, enough!" Rick begged his friend to stop this.

"Yeah, you're right, man. That is enough," Shane walked up to the walker and shot it in the head, Hershel fell to the ground with it in disbelief.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" He looked directly at Carol, Alex wrapped her arms around her as if she could cushion the blow. "Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us. Enough. Rick, it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, you gotta fight for it! I'm talking about fighting right here, right now." Shane ran to the barn door.

Daryl shot a quick, apologetic look towards Alex and then Carol then back on to the scene before them. Shane busted the doors open of the barn. Pretty much everyone begged him not to do it. The first walker made its way through and everyone lined up to take their shots, at the walkers flowing out of the barn. Rick just stood back as the group shot the walkers coming from the barn, rage filled his eyes as Shane shot the walker he was holding onto. It was a loud firework of gun shots, the shots stopped as they witnessed the last walker drop.

Everyone stood in shock, then they heard growling coming from the barn once again. Slowly they saw the small feet shuffle from the barn, it was a little girl that had been bitten on the neck. Everyone just stared at her and Carol began sobbing in Alex's arms. Then it hit her, this is Sophia. This is Carol's daughter. She was bitten.

Carol escaped from Alex's arm running forward, "Sophia? Sophia!" Daryl had caught her in his arms and they fell to the ground, Carol still sobbing, "Oh no. Sophia. Sophia." Alex walked towards them, her heart breaking a little more at each of Carol's cries, she crouched down and rubbed Carol's back trying to sooth her, but instead crying with her.

Rick walked forward towards the little girl, no one could bring themselves to take her down. But Rick took out his revolver and BANG, she fell.

Carol's sobs became even more uncontrollable and Daryl tried to lift her to her feet, she was as limp as her daughter, "Don't look. Don't look." She pushed Daryl off of her and ran towards the RV once he got her up.

Beth's cries where now audible, she went to her mother's corpse, it grabbed at her the group ran to her rescue. Andrea putting a pick axe through her dead mother's skull. Alex and Daryl just stood there as the rest of the group went up to the house. She looked at him, he scoffed and stormed off to comfort Carol.

Andrea, T-Dog and some others came back down with blankets and they started digging graves and wrapping the bodies of the loved ones, Alex helped dig the graves. Her mind bounced back between thoughts of Carol, still trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened. The little girl, Sophia, who Daryl tried his hardest to find, was right underneath their noses this whole time. She felt sick. She couldn't imagine losing a child in that way.

The graves were finished and Lori and Alex made their way to the RV to get Carol, finding Daryl sitting on the counter with her.

Lori couldn't look at Carol, "They're ready."

Carol shook her head, "Why?"

"Because that's not your little girl," Daryl starred anger in his eyes.

"That's not my little girl. That's—that's some other thing. My Sophia was alone in the woods, and all this time I thought. She didn't cry herself to sleep, she didn't go hungry she didn't try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago."

Daryl just stared intensely at the grieving woman, his face snarled and he walked out of the RV, bumping Alex on his way to the door, Lori followed Daryl out the door.

Alex moved to the table, and sat across from Carol and sighed deeply, "I know you don't want to hear this now, Carol, but I'm so sorry," she couldn't bring herself to look Carol in the eyes, "As mother's, we always carry this hope for our children, and sometimes it's ripped away from us."

Carol looked at Alex, Alex looked back up at Carol with watery eyes, "You got to meet your daughter, raise her, she was taken from you too soon but at least you got to hear her call you mommy."

Alex got up and walked out of the RV, wiping the tears off her face. Daryl was leaning on the side of the RV looking up at her with questioning eyes. She looked over at him when she realized what he had overheard she stopped in her tracks, mouth partly open.

"Alex," he begun to say in a low, apologetic tone, but she held up her hand to stop him and walked off towards Sophia's new resting place. Daryl followed her keeping his distance from the grieving woman.

Once at the grave Alex kept her distance from Daryl, she stood by Glenn and T-Dog while everyone else began to crowd around. Everyone paid their respect in silence. Alex felt a hand on her shoulder, it was Glenn. She placed her hand on top of his and gave him a weak smile when she noticed everyone else leave and she decided to stay for a while longer. When she got back to the camp she saw the tent behind her own was gone.

AN: I decided to break this up in two parts, and working on refining the second one tonight, should be updated in the next few days. Thank you all so much once again, really. I'm really excited to show you guys the next two chapters once I finish them. Also, I'm going to be doing a lot of editing to the chapters I have already posted, if you have any troubles with losing your place or anything, please message me and I'll help you figure it out! (: This chapter may be included in the changes*