"Oh my God! Mommy! Daddy!" Aidan attached himself to his mother's leg and refused to let go. There was a walker less than five feet away from the family. Shane picked up his shotgun that he'd been so smart to grab from his tent and shot it in its head.

"What do we do?" Charlotte asked her ex-husband.

"Follow me, y'all," Shane said. He began leading them towards the RV. All that was running through his mind was keeping his family safe. They were all that meant anything to him at the moment. When they got close to the RV he turned and looked to Charlotte. He grabbed her arm and looked right into her green eyes. "You take them to the top of that RV and you don't come down for nothin', a'right? Keep 'em safe. I gotta help who I can."

"Shane..." Charlotte said, she knew that tone of voice. He was scared and he was about to do something highly dangerous, which he knew.

"Go."

"Aidan, Grace, c'mon," Charlotte said firmly. She sent a lingering glance at Shane as he moved on to help the rest of camp. The brown haired mother ushered her son up the ladder first, then her daughter. Before she herself could climb up, Aidan screamed bloody murder. Charlotte looked behind her and kicked the walker with all of her mite. It fell to the ground and she saw an arrow fly into its head. She looked up and saw Daryl with his bow still aimed. She pulled the arrow of the nasty rotten thing's skull and gave it back to Daryl. "Thank you." She looked at him gratefully. She was so glad to learn that he hadn't followed through with leaving.

"Get on up there," he told her, pointing to the RV. She didn't argue, her children were more important than anyone else on the ground. She had to stay up there with them. "Here," he held out a hand gun to her, seeing that she didn't have one.

"Thank you," she said again, more grateful than words could ever describe. Handing someone a gun was like giving them a life line-so long as they could shoot it. He nodded again and she climbed the ladder. With this gun, she could defend people from above. She was a good shot, and she could no put that to good use, rather than hiding up there.

Screams came from every direction, lots of them followed by gun shots. Charlotte looked out into camp and tried her best to see what all was going on. She saw a walker come close to biting one of the army guys, so aimed her gun and quickly shot said walker. If she was stuck up here, she's do what she could for the people of their camp. She looked out and again and saw Louis and Eliza all by themselves. Morales and Miranda were no where in sight, so Charlotte had to do what she had to do. They were children.

"Grace, Aidan, I'll be right back." She started to move but Aidan attached himself to her leg again.

"No," he begged. She felt awful doing it, but she pulled away from him.

"Mommy will be back…I have to save those children." Maybe she was a terrible mother for doing it, but she'd feel terrible for whatever time she lived if she didn't at least try to save Louis and Eliza. She would want Morales or Miranda to do the same for her kids. She climbed down the ladder half way before jumping the rest of the way-it was faster. She shot the walkers in her path and grabbed Louis's arm. He was younger and she knew that Eliza would follow. "C'mon," she said anyway, pulling them to the RV. "Climb up. Louis started his climb first while Charlotte stood guard.

"I told you to get up there and stay up there!" Shane shouted, coming back over, Lori and Carl in tow.

"I had to help the children!" She replied. Once Eliza started to get higher atop the RV she made Carl go next. She followed, then Lori.

Everything was fuzzy. Charlotte looked at herself in the mirror and tried to wash off the stench of dead. Her whole body felt heavy and all she wanted to do was sleep. She was so physically drained it was unreal. She rested her hands on the small sink and hung her head. In so many ways she felt like a failure. She hadn't killed enough walkers to save more lives. There were so many people dead that it hurt her.

"Char," a knock came to the door. Shane. Of course. She assumed it was only because they'd been married for so long that he had a sixth sense to when she was extremely upset. She wiped her eyes and opened the thin door. Whether she liked it or not, he was something familiar that was always something that she wanted to have. He pissed her off, so, so much at times…But he was something from her past that was important.

He walked in and closed to door back. She saw how his face was covered in dirt and had red streaks that she could only guess were blood all over him. He looked just about as tired as she did. But they couldn't sleep, no that would be too easy. They'd seen too much to not be plagued with guilt and nightmares. Silently she picked up the rag she was using, it was still damp and pressed it to his cheek before trying to wipe everything away.

"Don't," he stated, catching her hand. She looked at him questioningly. "I'll just get more on me anyway."

"It's bad for your skin…" It was a lame excuse, it really was, and she knew that. But she couldn't just come out right and tell him that she didn't really want to see the blood of the people that they'd known-or any blood for that matter, on his face. She didn't make an effort to clean his face of again, she instead looked at the rag in her hands, rather than meeting his eyes. "What did you come in here for?" she decided to ask.

"Jus' checkin' on ya. Makin' sure you're alright…"

"Is anybody really 'alright' right now? Shane, we just all saw people get murdered! I-I…What if Grace or Aidan-" He pulled her into a hug, not knowing what else to do. She cried against him, feeling so vulnerable, she felt safe with him.

"I finally got Grace an' Aidan to sleep," he said, kissing her hair.

"Good," she pulled back from him and met his eyes. "You smell really bad, by the way," she said with the smallest of smiles.

"I wasn't gonna say nothin', but so do you," he grinned.

"It comes with the apocalypse." They felt horrible for it, but they both started laughing.

"Here, I wanted to give this back to you," Charlotte held out the gun Daryl had given to her the night before to him.

"Keep it."

"I don't-"

"Jus' keep it, yer a good shot."

"I have one though…"

"An' ya can't use 'nother one now?"

"I guess you're right," she agreed. "Thank you…Again." She had been thanking him a lot lately, she realized. He nodded in response. "Why didn't you leave? You said you were going to…"

"'S a good thing I didn't," was all he said. He seemed to have a habit of not answering someone's question when they asked it.

"That wasn't what I asked you."

He shrugged. "Didn't know how things would go by myself." Charlotte picked up a hint of bitterness in his tone.

"Speaking of that…I'm really sorry about everything with Merle…I meant to tell you that yesterday."

"Ain't yer fault."

"I know but I just felt like I had to say it. It think we could all understand if you wanted to go-"

"We got more importin' things to do," Daryl moved away from her. She sighed and went back to the task that she was originally working on.

"This is a disaster," Rick said to his best friend as they walked through the woods. "I think the CDC is our best shot for some sort of hope…"

"Do you realize what that would me?" Shane asked him incredulously. "We'd be goin' right into that Goddamn city. We need to go far out into the country, where nobody is."

"They aren't gonna have a cure out there."

"An' they may not have one at the CDC neither! Look man, I don't want to bring everybody into that walker infested city."

"We won't be near any supplies out in the middle of nowhere."

"We've got guns! We've got Daryl! There's all kinds a supplies out here!" He gestured to the woods where they were doing a walk through.

"To actually be out in the middle a nowhere, we'd have to go 'lot further."

"Now you're just bein' stupid, man."

"If you were the only one your family looked to for answers, you'd understand."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Shane asked, with a look that could kill.

"Charlotte thinks for herself! You're divorced-"

"That ain't got nothin' to do with anythin'! Look, man, I keep them all safe. This whole group looked to me 'til you came back! I know what it's like to have 'em all lookin' to me! An' I at least speak to my wife, even if we ain't married now."

"The only reason me and my wife are havin' problems is 'cause of you! You're worse than a teenage boy, thinkin' with-"

"Don't even-"

"Boys," a loud voice caught both of their attention. "Do you really think that it's a good idea to be shouting in the woods and drawing attention to us?" It was Charlotte. She didn't care what they were arguing about. She just wanted it to stop.

They shared a look, a rather dirty one at that and walked their separate ways. Shane walked past Charlotte and gave her a look that she couldn't read. Rick made his way to her and stopped right in front of her.

"I'm sorry you had to-" He started but she stopped him by holding her hand up.

"Don't, Rick. I heard it from both sides. You two were nasty to each other, and I didn't like it at all. I don't know what's gotten into either of you since all of this happened. But, you've been best friends for as long as I've known either of you and this needs to stop. If this is about Lori…Then y'all need to sit down and talk. I know I sound bossy and probably pretty bitchy right now, and I realize that this is not my place, but it's the truth."

"Charlotte…" Rick covered his face with his hands and pushed his hair back. "I feel so betrayed…By both of them! I feel like I can't trust anyone anymore…Except you. You tell it like it is…I need that sometimes."

"You say that, but you don't mean it. I'm a bit overbearing and overprotective."

"No. You're fine. You're showing you care."

"So, you're only seventeen, and you were in the army?" Grace asked Josh in disbelief. The black haired boy nodded. They were sitting away from camp, on the bank of the quarry.

"How old are you?" Josh asked.

"Fourteen. I'll be fifteen in a few months." Though she felt bad doing so, she smiled. She was the quiet one in school, so she hadn't had much experience talking to cute boys.

"I was just in training…I wouldn't have actually started until after I finished school."

"Was it difficult?" He shook his head.

"I was kind of always the athletic type…I understood the order and the organization to the army. It was a good fit for me."

"Do you have any older brothers or sisters?"

"Three brothers, all older."

"Wow, my one is bad enough," she joked. At the end of the day, she loved Aidan. He was the best little brother she could ask for. When her parents got divorced, they switched houses a lot, but she always had Aidan.

"I'm sure they felt the same way about me."

"That's just how siblings are," she smiled at him. She was quickly realizing how much he made her smile, even in the short time that they'd been talking. It was nice. She had Kenzi…but she was now gone, her parents weren't happy, and the rest of the group was downright depressing at times. She was glad that maybe, just maybe she'd have someone to relate to, someone that wouldn't be so upsetting.

"I have to ask," Josh said, deciding upon a happier topic. "Is it just me, or does Rick look like Woody from Toy Story?"

Grace gasped and smiled larger than she had in quite a while. "Yes! Okay, this may sound lame, but for Halloween, me and my family all do themed costumes. This was when I was like ten, we dressed up like Toy Story characters. Rick was Woody, my dad was Buzz, mom was Jessie, Lori was Bo Peep, Aidan was an army guy, and Carl was Rex."

Josh found this funny and laughed softly. "Wow, that's awesome. What were you?"

"I was Mr. Potatohead," she said shyly.

"Mr.?" he asked with a sly grin.

"Yes I thought it would be fun, okay?"

"Grace," a voice called. They both turned around and watched at Shane approached them. "We're havin' a group meetin', c'mon."

"About what?"

"Lot's of things. You too," he told the younger man. Shane was still pretty mad from earlier, but he couldn't express it.

"I think it's best that we go to the CDC. All that agree, we'll be leaving in the morning." Rick announced.

"You see, this is where I disagree, I think we should go out into the country somewhere." Shane said before anybody could comment on Rick's idea.

"Ain't the point to stay together? Not spit up into little groups?" Daryl asked. It seemed obvious to him and he figured that the two were just being too stubborn to realize that. "Strength in numbers an' all that shit?"

"He's right," Jason agreed. "I don't care where we go, but the more people we have the stronger we are…Besides…Splitting up weapons and supplies would be hell."

"Maybe we should put it to a vote," Charlotte suggested.

AN: I want to thank everyone so much from the continued reviews. You guys are amazing. I'm hoping to get in a little bit more Daryl/Charlotte stuff soon. I think by trying not to rush things I'm taking things too slow, maybe? I don't know, what do you think? Do y'all like the pace or should I speed things up a bit? Let me know, please! That way I can plan out the next few chapters. Please review!