Hello all! I sincerely apologize for the long time between updates. By way of apology, here are two new chapters and the promise that the next one will be written more quickly! Thank you for taking the time to check out this fan fiction. :)

For Beth, the day Terminus fell would forever be a blur. What she would remember most is the feeling of being hungover, as she slowly woke up in the front seat of the station wagon. She had experienced this only once before – the morning after she and Daryl burned down the still - but the pounding headache, the queasiness, the uncomfortable memory of the night before were unmistakable. Only this time it had been her own rage and adrenaline that poisoned her veins.

The memory would remain much sharper for her sister. As Beth, Daryl, Michonne, Rick and Carl made their way towards Terminus, Maggie and rest of the survivors in the boxcar paced back in forth, improvised weapons from the snaps and zippers of their clothes, and tried to come to terms with the horror of their reality.

Maggie had felt so unburdened when they had first come through the gates the day before. The place was bright, orderly, and the smell of roasting meat wafted tantalizingly out to great them. But as Mary, the smiling woman behind the long grill, passed them each a plate of food in welcome Maggie had felt the prickle of eyes upon her. It was then she had noticed the covert glances of the people in the yard around them. They were watching them sharply, waiting for the little band of survivors to eat.

Maggie was not alone in noticing it. Abraham stiffened behind her and Glen, sensing the change in his demeanor, gently lowered the fork he had been raising to his lips.

Abraham had insisted then on speaking with the leader. Maggie had already come to recognize his "no bull shit" voice – the authoritative bark born of his time in the military – and she already trusted his judgement. Mary had tried to talk them into having a bite to eat first, but Abraham was a dog with a bone. "We don't need you damn food. We gotta man here who has the cure. We gotta get the hell to DC and we need your help."After a few minutes of his insistence, and Abraham smacking a plate from Eugene's hands, Mary had pursed her lips and called on her Walkie-Talkie for a man named Alex.

The mood shifted quickly. The group of survivors was led into a small room. Maggie noticed four or five men milling around the walls, guns in hand. Her own had hand reached for the butt of her gun and the assurance that it was within quick reach.

"We hear you're headed for Washington." Alex said with a smile Maggie didn't trust.

"Damn-fucking-straight." Abraham responded, nodding towards Eugene. "My man here has the no-how to end this whole damn shit show, and we need your help getting' him there."

"That so?" Alex asked. "We don't usually give out supplies to outsiders."

"You said their was sancutary for all!" Sasha challenged him. " You've got this all set up to help people, and you won't help us get to DC and end this thing?!"

"There is sanctuary. For those who join us. You see, we need you here." Alex grinned to himself, as if at a private joke. "You are hear now, and you'll become a part of us...one way or another." The men along the walls had chuckled.

Alex had led them on a tour of Terminus, speaking with the knowledgeable pride of a tour guide as he showed them the bunkhouses, the store rooms, the shower facilities. The armed men circled the group like sheep dogs, herding them into a tighter knot as Alex explained the safety and comfort Terminus could offer.

"But it comes at a price," Alex assured them with a wry smile, halting in front of a large metal door. Cold air poured out as he swung the door open. Inside, suspended by giant hook, were unmistakably human torsos.

"There are only two choices left in this world. Eat, or be eaten. So...what will it be?"

Nausea, disbelief and anger overwhelmed Maggie. Abraham was cursing, Sasha was yelling abuses, and Glenn had tried to negotiate (" We'll just leave, no one has to get hurt!") but they were flies already caught in the web, without leverage to negotiate release. More men and women joined those who had been herding them and the group was picked clean of their weapons, jewelry, and choice pieces of clothes by the Terminus swarm.

It was hard to gauge time in the windowless boxcar, but Maggie guessed it was around noon the next day when the rapid rhythm of gunfire began. She went over to the door and tried to see through the cracks around it.

Alex was calling out now, almost in amused way, at what Maggie guessed was another group of newcomers.

"..You do what I say, the boy goes with you. Anything else, he dies and you end up in there anyway." The light coming in through the crack was blocked as a figure stood in front of the door, Maggie tilted her head, trying to make out the figure beyond the door.

"Glenn! Glenn!" She called in a whisper. He immediately joined her at the doorway. "Look, I think it's Rick."

"Now the archer." Alex directed

"Daryl?" Glenn whispered in wonder, but they couldn't make out anything past the sliver of Rick.

"Now the samurai." Michonne. Maggie thought. It has to be Michonne.

"Now Goldilocks." Hope and dread collided painfully in Maggie's chest. Could it be Beth? It has to Beth. Oh, please don't let it be Beth!

"My son!" Yelled a voice that was undeniably Rick's.

"Go, kid." Alex directed. So Carl was alive too...

And so the door was open, and the five survivors walked in single file. Maggie fell on her sister, pulling the golden head tight against her body, and rocking Beth to her. It had been too much to hope that she'd made it too; Maggie had told herself it wasn't possible as she couldn't stand the agony of hoping. But her she was, her Bethy, dried blood caked in her hair and glazed look in her eye.

The group slept in shifts that night as they each succumbed to exhaustion. Maggie watched her sister sleep, curled into a tight ball on the concrete floor.

"What happened to her?' she whispered to Rick, who leaned against the steel wall to her left.

"She got out with Daryl. We didn't meet up 'til yesterday."

"And was she...she seems so...not there?" Maggie struggled to frame her confusion. Rick inhaled deeply through his nose and tilted his head back to the wall.

"We were attacked last night. A gang. She fought hard, killed one that was on top of her." He exhaled heavily and nodded his head slightly as he recalled the night before. "It was an ugly fight."

Understanding hit Maggie with the force of a bullet. She remembered suddenly the Governor's hands on her body, the feeling of just wanting to shut down that had haunted her for days.

"Did the men...?"

"Naw. It was a close call though." Maggie felt her own heartbeat quicken in protective anger for her baby sister. She was such a small figure, curled in on her self as if in self-protection. Tension was evident in every line of the sleeping girl, as though even in sleep she was steeling herself for a fight she was ill-prepared for.

If Maggie had looked up across the boxcar she would have seen another set of eyes on her sister; eyes that were full of concern and a little self-reproach as their owner chewed nervously on his own thumb nail.