Daryl shifted on the cold concrete floor of the apartment balcony, his eyes fixed on the building's rear door and the walkers that surrounded it. He'd volunteered to take the first night's watch, brushing off any arguments from Daniel to the contrary. He'd gotten at least a couple hours of sleep before dinner, which was more than he could say for the rest of them. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Truth was, he wouldn't have been able to sleep until he knew for himself the place was safe.

He wasn't alone though. Nate was posted on the balcony across from him and Dave and Sean had taken positions out front. He held onto the pistol Daniel had given him, keeping the gun's extra clip on the floor beside him. Three hours in, he'd been lucky enough that he hadn't had to use them.

The walkers had given up trying to get inside some time before. They had done some damage though and at one point he thought the sons of bitches might actually do it. The center of the door had begun to cave from the pressure, the sound of bodies banging against metal and the rattling of hinges growing louder and more persistent. He'd held his gun trained on the entrance, signaling with a turn of his hand for Nate to do the same. He'd counted the seconds, waiting for the onslaught that never came. The door had held and eventually the frenzy began to quiet.

Now the walkers circled the yard, only approaching the door with mild interest at times. Some of them were smart enough to find their way out of the back gate. He figured it was only a matter of time before they rest of them caught on. For now all he could do—or any of them could do was wait.

He grimaced as he leaned back to stretch his legs, feeling the dull pain in his side begin to sharpen. His entire body ached and sitting in that one spot only served to remind him of the fact. He ran his hand over the bandage beneath his ribs, wondering how he'd managed to end up like that. Wounded, missing his brother, and out in the middle of nowhere keeping a herd of walkers at bay. He looked down at the sea of rotting faces that ambled in the moonlight beneath him. "Guess it could be worse."

The squeak of the sliding glass doors drew his attention away from the yard and towards the living room. Sarah stepped outside wearing the same nightgown he'd seen her in the night before. She had a blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders and a worn look on her face. "Do you mind if I join you?" she asked. It was the first thing she'd said to him since dinner.

She had been curled up on the couch when he and Daniel had finally made it back to the apartment. Even in the dimly lit room it was obvious that she'd been crying. He stepped inside the kitchen to get out of the way, feeling like he was intruding on something. Daniel sat down beside her, reminding her that everything happened for a reason.

Daryl had silently questioned the logic behind Daniel's statement. No one could've convinced him that all the shit going on around him was for a reason. Maybe shit just happened sometimes. Maybe all of this was for nothing. Sarah had only nodded at the comment and then without a word had gone to bed at Daniel's urging.

Daryl looked up at her and shook his head. She seemed more at peace now. "Can't sleep?" he asked, as she sat down beside him.

"No," she said quietly. "Too many thoughts running through my mind. I was hoping a little air might clear my head." She reached inside one of her pockets and handed him a bottle. It was aspirin and he couldn't have been any more grateful to see it. "I thought you could probably use some. It's been a few hours since you last took any."

"Thanks. I could." He tossed back a couple of the pills, glad to see that she hadn't bothered to listen to his short sighted protests about not fussing over him.

Sarah pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. "How's it going out here?"

"Pretty quiet. They're finally starting to break up a bit. Hopefully, they'll all be gone by morning."

She looked out at the yard. "You know I've never seen anything like that before. So many of them at one time."

"I have once," Daryl said without thinking. "On the highway. One minute it was dead quiet. The next it was….." He froze for a moment as the memory came to the forefront of his mind. He could see himself grabbing a corpse out of one of the vehicles left on the road, pulling it on top of his body to shield himself from the herd as it passed by. He shook his head, confused by the image. It seemed real enough, but he had no idea where or when it had happened.

"What were you saying about the highway?" Sarah's voice broke through his thoughts.

"What?" he said absently.

"You were saying something about a highway."

"Oh yeah, it was overrun. Just like what happened here."

She nodded. "I guess that explains why you were so calm out there this evening. I mean it was really something—what you did. Rescuing Rachel like that. Holding off those walkers so everyone could get inside."

He shrugged. "I didn't do anything Daniel didn't."

"Maybe, but you don't even know those people. Daniel does."

He glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow. "I know you."

She smiled and shook her head. "You barely know me."

I know you took a chance dragging me out of the woods. I know you looked after me. I know you trusted me. "I know enough."

They sat there in silence for a while, Sarah staring up at the sky and him at the ground below. "You know the worst thing about all of this," she finally said. "It's the fact that we thought we were safe for once. Being on the road so long, never feeling like you could truly rest. Then we find this place with the huge fence and it's quiet. We hardly saw any walkers. I guess we all started to let our guard down…and then this happened…and then Matt."

Daryl watched her out of the corner of his eye, taking in the stoic look on her face. "No place is safe anymore. Just safer."

She rested her head back against the sliding glass doors. "I know that you're right. I just hate that it's true." She turned towards him. "Do you think there's ever going to be an end to all this? I mean where we're not running anymore. Where we eventually have some sort of a normal life again."

"Can't really say. I never thought too much about it." She looked sort of defeated by the response. "I'd like to think so," he added, more for her benefit than his own.

She got quiet again and he could feel her as much as see her watching him—reading him. "What's the one thing you miss most? I mean other than the obvious like air conditioning and hot showers."

He didn't even have to think about it. He already knew. "My dog Murph. Best hunting partner I ever had. Loyal to a fault." He smiled a genuine smile at the thought of him. No matter how shitty things got at times, he'd always had that dog to count on.

"What happened to him?"

"Don't really know. He took off the day Merle and I packed up to leave. I think he must have keyed in on some walkers out in the woods behind the house. I spent a couple of hours trying to find him, would have spent more, but Merle refused to wait any longer. I still like to think he's out there somewhere, probably chasing a coon up a tree as we speak." He looked over at her. "What about you? What do you miss?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know really. I mean I'm sure I'm luckier than most. I've got Daniel with me. I was always a reader in my spare time. I have books so I can still do that. I guess if I had to pick one thing it would be having a purpose every day...a reason to want to get up in the morning." She paused for a moment, twining her fingers in the fringe of the blanket. "I used to teach second grade and I miss the feeling of having people counting on me. You just don't get the same level of satisfaction from washing clothes and doing dishes." She frowned. "I know that must sound pretty cliché, but it's true."

"Explains a lot," he said off-handily. "I mean as far as your level of patience. I know I ain't the easiest person to get along with, but even I can't be as bad as a roomful of screaming kids."

She smiled at him. "You've had your moments, but you're not all that bad."

He grinned as he looked back down at the door, figuring that since they were getting all personal about things, now was as good a time as any to mention what was weighing on his mind. "I've been thinking about some things, about where I came from, how I ended up where I did."

"What about?"

He paused for a moment as he tried to figure out where to start. "Mainly about the fact that I might have forgotten more than just a couple of days."

She sat up straight as if to give him her full attention. "What makes you say that?"

"I know this is gonna sound nuts, but my hair is long." She looked at him curiously. "It's just that it ain't ever been like this before. Hell, my own brother would skin me alive if he knew I was walking around looking like this." He watched her, trying to gauge her reaction. At worst she looked a little confused at best genuinely concerned. "I mean it couldn't have gotten this long in a few days." He glanced back down at the door. "Then there's the weather. It started to get cool tonight and the last thing I remember was being stuck in traffic and it was hot, so hot I was damn near sticking to the seat of my truck."

"When was it that you were on the highway?"

He was certain about the day. He remembered it like the back of his hand. "It was a Sunday. I know because the day before I'd spent the whole morning setting up deer stands. It was my day off and my day off was Saturday."

She shook her head. "Not the day. I mean the date."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever that first Sunday was after the fourth of July." He was certain about that too.

"Daryl," Sarah started, the serious tone of her voice making him suddenly uneasy. "It's September."

He almost didn't believe it when she said it—didn't want to believe it. "That's fucking crazy. It can't be September already."

"It is. I know it for a fact." She got to her feet and walked back into the living room. He turned around, watching as she retrieved something from the drawer of the coffee table. When she returned, she sat down next to him. "I know it's September because of this." She laid a leather bound book in her lap and opened it. "This is my journal. I've been writing in one of these every day since I was thirteen." She flipped to one of the pages in the back. This is the entry for today," she said, running her finger beneath the date written in cursive. "It's September the 22nd."

"Jesus Christ, this is insane," he blurted out. He took the journal from her and began flipping through the pages. They were all there, entries going back to the fourth of July. He could feel a wave of nausea come over him. A few days was one thing. Two and a half months was something else all together.

Anything could have happened in that time...to him...to Merle.

He felt Sarah's hand touch his. She said something, but the words were lost on him. All he could hear was the sound of his heart pounding inside his head.