AN: hey guys, just forgot to write last chapters song credit.

Long Trip Alone - Dierks Bentley


7 o'clock in the morning came too early for Beth's liking. She felt exhausted even though she hadn't really done anything that exerted any substantial energy in the past few days. She had gone hunting with Daryl, but she couldn't imagine tracking down a single squirrel in the woods would make her as tired as she had felt in the morning, she didn't want to get out of bed.

Daryl had noticed that everyone was up and moving, gathering their belongings and trying to get all of their stuff together to get ready to leave. He woke up to a nudge on the shoulder by Rick, who had his eyebrow raised at his position.

Daryl was laying on his back with one arm secured behind and underneath his head. His other arm was wrapped around Beth, she was nestled into his shoulder with her head on his chest and her hand losely placed over his stomach. He groaned slightly, shifting a little bit taking the arm that was behind his head and rubbing his eyes. Rick walked back over to continue getting ready to leave, as daryl slightly moved his arm up and down, reluctantly trying to wake Beth up.

"Hey, Beth, It's time to get up." He said gently, admiring her soft face as she slept. She didn't stir, she clearly wasn't waking up with just some gentle words and barely any movement. "Beth." He repeated, slowly reaching his hand out and brushing a peice of the hair that came loose from her braid back off of her face.

She slowly fluttered her eyes open, making some sort of uncoherent mumbling earning a laugh from Daryl. She finally focused her eyes on Daryl's, stretching the arm that had been placed on his stomach up over her head trying to wake herself up.

"What time is it?" She said groggily, forcing her eyes to remain open. He reached his hand out, "Well, according to my watch here, it's approximitley 7:15 AM." He said sarcastically with a sly smile, motioning to his wrist which clearly he didn't have a watch on. She rolled her eyes, lightly shoving his face with her fingers. "You're a dick." She said with a laugh, slowly standing up off the the bed.

He followed her lead, standing to his feet and gathering his crossbow off the ground as Beth grabbed her little black bag full of what little she had and gathered near the front door of the establishment.

She fought to keep her eyes open, and fought to focus on the the words and instructions coming from Rick's mouth once everyone had gathered together. She knew he was saying something about staying in formation, that they were going to take the side roads and do their best to look for cars that they could use, salvage some gas, things of that nature. But she wasn't fully awake until the baricades were removed from the doors and the light coming from the sky filled into the stoor when the doors were opened.

It wasn't fully bright out yet considering how early it was, but any natural light rather than artificial light was enough to bring Beth's senses to attention.

She walked side by side with Tara, who she remembered from when the govenor had showed up to the gates the day her father had died. She had explained everything to her and Tara had expressed how sorry she was about what had happened to her father.

Beth knew how manipulative the govenor could be, she knew that Tara had no idea what the govenor's real intentions had been. She couldn't hold that against her, especially after she learned what she had done to help Glenn find Maggie.

"So." Tara pressed, smiling at her with almost a schoolgirl look on her face. Beth smiled back but scrunched her eye brows together, not really sure what she was getting at.

"So.. What?" She replied, kicking some of the dirt up under her feet as she walked with the toe of her boot.

"What's goin' on with you and him." She said, nodding towards Daryl who was at least 5 feet ahead of her, talking to Rick and matching his strides across the dirt road. She didn't reply, even though she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. She didn't really know what was going on, but she was happy the way things were going.

"Oh, come on." She whispered to her, careful to not let Daryl overhear what she was saying to Beth. "He keeps looking back here every like 45 seconds. Like you're going to disappear into thin air." She laughed at her comment, she hadn't noticed Daryl turning around at all during the time they had been walking.

Truth be told, she hadn't been paying much attention to anything. She was too concerned with thoughts of Maggie that seemed to be plauging her mind sense she had talked to Glenn last night.

"It's nothing." She finally said, rolling her eyes and running her fingers over the braid in her hair which was still perfectly in tact. She avoided making eye contact with Tara, not wanting to really reply in the first place.

"Right, nothing." Tara replied sarcastically with a small laugh, knowing there was more to it than beth was leading on. She didn't press the matter though after that, she knew it really was none of her buisness, but she couldn't help but be curious. She remembered how keen on finding Beth Daryl had been, and clearly noticed the affection they showed one another. She also couldn't help but notice how incredibly young Beth looked compared to the man with the crossbow.

She had to have maybe just be getting out of her teenage years, and judging by daryl's facial hair and soft age lines on his face, she knew the man was easily in his thirties. But again, she knew it wasn't any of her buisness- She liked women for gods sake, if what she did was acceptable, an age gap shouldn't be a problem to anyone either as far as she was concerned.

As beth kept her eyes mostly focused on the ground, the now beaming sunlight from the sky shined on a large grey peice of metal in the ground which reflected into Beth's eye getting her attention. She noticed it was attached to a beam that had been knocked over.

"Rick!" she said, getting him to turn around as she walked off of the foundation of the road into the overgrown grass, slowly turning the sign over and wiping the dirt off of it. When she finally was able to read the lettering on the sign, Rick was kneeling next to her reading the words in his head. The sign read

"Macon County Sherrif's Department. 1/2 Mile."

Rick smiled at Beth as he stood up, watching her do the same with a triumphant grin across her face. "You're starting to impress me, Beth Greene i'll tell you what." He said, continuing to follow the road.

She felt proud of herself in that moment, being able to help and do things other than just care for the children which she had come accustomed to doing at the prison made her feel like a valued member. Everyone had moved towards the area of the sign to investigate so when Beth had stood up, she turned around to see Daryl smiling at her.

She strided over to walk next to Daryl, watching with concern as a walker had stumbled out of the woods. Michonne took action as usual, releasing her katana from it's holder strung across her shoulder, slicing the walkers head off through a clean cut to the neck. As it fell to the ground, she stored it back as everyone continued walking down the road, assuming the road led to the police station.

Beth knew the police station- if it wasn't already ransacked- would have weapons, possibly some patrol cars and maps among other things they could salvage. She spoke her thoughts to Daryl.

"Probably," He replied back to her. "Hopefully no one's gotten to it yet." saying what she had already thought in her mind.

"Yeah, hopefully." She agreed, looking to her feet on the ground as she walked. Daryl noticed the subtle change in her mood, she seemed to be preoccupied with something in her mind.

"Somethin' wrong?" He asked her, lightly tapping her arm with a swing of his own. She looked up, "What?- oh, nothin' I'm fine." She said, stuffing her hands into her back pockets.

"You're not good at hiding things." He finally said after a brief silence, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair as they continued down the road. She smiled at the comment, Maggie always said somewhat the same exact thing to her when she didn't want to bother people with her issues.

"Just been thinkin' about Maggie a lot today, I don't know. Ever sense I tried to talk to Glenn last night." She admitted. Daryl nodded in response, almost regretting pressing the matter with her because he wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"I don't really wanna talk about it. At least not now." She said reluctantly. Fair enough, he thought.

Rick stepped to the gate that had been chained shut from the inside, the sign directly to the right of the lock reading the same as the one they had found on the road without the distance from the location. It was rusted and hung on by only one latch, swinging upside down.

"Someone's gotta be here" he said quietly, grabbing the fence with his hands.

"We can break the lock?" Abraham suggested, grabbing the chain into his hand and lifting it up before dropping it back into its place, looking to rick for approval.

Rick ran a hand over his face. Unsure of how to handle the situation at hand. He wasn't sure if there we're walkers, or worse, other people. Other people usually caused nothing but problems for all of them really. Daryl squinted his eyes to the figure standing next to the building, trying to conceal themselves.

"Rick." He said, motioning in the direction of the building with a nod of his head. Ricks eyes widened at daryl before he walked in that direction, landing eyes on the figure as it pressed against the wall and tried to move out of sight, he must have realized he had been spotted.

"Hey! Show yourself!" Abraham yelled, knowing what was going on watching the actions of daryl and rick.

"Now!" He bellowed after there was no response.

The man was a little too far away to make him out, but nobody took their eyes off of him or lowered their weapons.

Slowly, the figure emerged, but still nobody could make out detail. The sun wasn't helping either, blaring straight at their faces.

"Rick?" The voice yelled the question to them. It was faint, but still audible.

"Rick, is that you?" It yelled, a little more clear this time. The voice was loud, strong, and familiar.

Daryl knew that voice, it clicked instantaneously.

"Carol!" Rick yelled after locking eyes with daryl, realizing the same thing he had. "Carol! Open the gate!" She yelled something towards the building that was incoherent before running towards the gate wildly, gun swinging back and forth as she held it with one end of the wooden handle, the other on the barrel.

She slowed sown as quickly as she could when she became close to the gate, digging into her front pocket of her green khaki pants for her key.

She flung the gate open, ushering everyone inside while still bearing the look of shock on her face. She hugged rick, then onto the others one by one.

Rick and the others had a million questions blowing through their minds, not even knowing where to start. But when movement near the building he caught his attention he broke away from the focus on carol.

Ricks heart clenched in his chest. He was yards away from what he was looking at, but he could make that sight out anytime of the day. Anyday of the week. Any week out of the year.

Tyrese stood outside the door, holding none other than baby Judith grimes to his hip.

Rick thought at first he was seeing things, his mind playing tricks on him. Almost déjà vu to the time at the prison where he could see Lori standing on the bridge, standing in a white dress outside the gate, hearing her voice loud and clear through the phone.

Carl must have noticed that rick was not paying attention to the reunion of them and carol, so when he looked to see what had gotten him to break his attention. He picked up his feet quickly, running towards tyreese.

When he had realized he wasn't imagining it, he followed after him running too fast to comprehend towards the child he was almost positive he lost.

"Judy." Beth whispered as she realized what was going on. She was so scared Judith was dead, and she had slowly started to come to terms with it. She felt as though she lost her own child- she was the one who practically raised her as her own.

"Well I'll be damned." Daryl said, looking down to beth with a smile. "You were right." He said with surprise, fixing his gaze to the reunited family in front of him.

"Yeah, I was." Beth said smiling to herself, walking on ahead to join them. He watched her walk off, taking it upon himself to then relock the gate.

"You need a haircut." Carol said from behind him, laughing a little bit. He turned slightly as he finished latching the gate, "already? The commentary already?" He joked, turning around to face her. She smiled at him. "Glad you're alright." She said sincerely.

"Yeah, you too."