Jesus pulls the pick up to a crunching stop on the gravel parking lot. Nestled between two tall oak trees rests a rambler-style structure marked with mud-smeared white wood letters that spell – WINE TASTIN ROO. The G and M have fallen to the earth. Two large wine barrels out front serve as trash cans and ashtrays.
Three of them spill out of the truck, but Enid once again remains with Gracie on her lap. As usual, Jesus doesn't bother to draw his handgun, a fact that irritates Daryl. The man must think he walks on water. Daryl struts ahead of him, crossbow trained on the tasting room, and veers off to the side of the door so Carol – who has the damn good sense to have her gun drawn – can open the door.
Daryl leaps inside and sweeps the room. His boots crunch over broken glass. The scent of stale wine mixed with rotting flesh assaults his nostrils. He kicks a wine goblet out of his way, and it rolls until it hits the tasting bar. Two walker bodies, shot through the head, lay face down on the floor, their decayed flesh pooled and stuck like gum to the hardwood floor. The place is empty of all wine and snacks, and a stand-alone shelf lies face down in the corner, with wine corks, coasters, and other nick knacks strewn across the floor.
Carol covers her mouth and coughs as she enters.
"Any sign of them?" Jesus asks when he strolls in behind her.
Daryl nods at the floor, where a partial boot print has been carved out in the sticky walker flesh. "'S two days, maybe. Someone checked it out. Didn't find nothin' work takin'."
The horn honks twice in the parking lot. Daryl and Carol both bolt for the door and nearly collide with each other in its frame. Daryl steps back to allow her through first, which he realizes a beat too late is not actually the chivalrous thing to do in an apocalypse. So he hurries after, intent on covering her from behind. But there's nothing to shoot at. Enid sits in the passenger's seat of the truck, pointing through the windshield at the dirt road beyond the tasting room.
Daryl whirls to see Rick sprinting toward them, a revolver on his hip and a pair of binoculars bouncing against his chest. Daryl jogs toward him and falls on his neck in a grateful embrace.
"Brother," Rick mutters, and they slap each other's backs. "We saw you from the watchtower."
Daryl pulls away and eyes his shirt, which is a pink buttondown.
"I had to pick up some clothes up on the road," Rick explains.
By now, Enid has slipped out of the truck with Gracie, and Jesus has emerged from the wine tasting room. When Rick see them all, he choke-laughs with gratitude.
"'S what we picked up on the road," says Daryl. He looks over Rick's shoulder, fear settling like a thick lump of coal in his stomach. "Where're the other nine?"
"The rest are up at the Bed and Breakfast. C'mon."
[*]
The pick-up thuds in and out of a pothole in the dirt road. Carol sits sandwiched between Daryl and Rick on the folded-down tailgate while Jesus drives. No one has asked which nine are still live, because no one can bring themselves to ask, and Rick, apparently, can't bring himself to volunteer the information.
When they park and hop down, Carol walks around the front of the truck and beholds the three-story Bed and Breakfast. The inn's white paint peels lightly in a dozen places, and several of the planks are caked with mud from passing storms. A broad staircase leads up to the covered, wrap-around porch, which is lined with worn wicker rocking chairs. A porch swing creaks loudly in the autumn breeze. Between the inn and the overgrown fields that must have once contained well-trained vines, there rises a stand. Perhaps it was once used to overlook the field workers or to shoot meddlesome grape-munching deer, but now it's a watchtower. Aaron clamors down from the platform to greet them.
Enid runs and embraces him like a long lost big brother. Jesus approaches next, and there's such an awkward show of space-keeping, half hugging, and manly nodding that Carol can only guess something must have transpired between the two men while she and Daryl were on the supply run.
When everyone has gotten their greeting in, and Aaron returns to his watch duties, Rick leads them up the six creaky stairs to the heavy front door and into the foyer, where a glass chandelier hovers thirty feet above their heads and a winding staircase leads to two additional levels. The paint is in fairly good shape here inside, but the wooden stairs are coated with a thick layer of dust, except where footprints – going up and down - are carved out. Among them is at least one small pair, the size of Judith's little feet, and Carol's heart sings. But it grows heavy again as Rick leads them silently toward the library on the bottom floor. She opens and closes her hand nervously, her heart thudding in her chest.
When they enter a library, she sees the glint of the katana first, resting on the mantle of the fireplace. Michonne, who is reaching into the bookcase for a book, turns, and a bitter-sweet smile spreads across her face. She slams the book back on top of a row of books and hurries to embrace her friends.
When Carol pulls back from Michonne's arms, she sees the playpen beneath the window. Little H.G. lies sleeping on his back, his fuzzy black hair in adorable disarray and his tiny limbs clothed in a new, blue one-piece onesie. Judith sits on the floor, her back to a low couch, and her legs outstretched beneath the coffee table, where she appears to be struggling to put together a ten-piece jigsaw puzzle. She looks up and spies Daryl. "Unca D!" she shouts. "Unca D!"
The toddler stands and runs to him, her long dirty blonde curls bouncing on her back, and he lifts her up and twirls her around before swallowing her up in his embrace. Judith pulls back, puts a hand on both his cheeks and shakes his head roughly back and forth. "Unca D makes funny noise!" she demands. Daryl purses his lips together and then blows, until a blubbering raspberry sound escapes him, and she cackles.
"Missed that laugh," Daryl tells her, and squeezes her one more time before letting her down.
By now, Gracie has squirmed down from Enid's arms, crawled to the coffee table, and pulled herself up using it. She now slaps her hand palm down on the table and squeals at the sound it makes and the way it cuases the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to leap.
"I'll get the others," Michonne says and disappears through the open doorway.
They trickle in one by one. Nabila, the Kingdom's gardener who was eventually put in charge of the Hilltop's agricultural committee, enters first. She's crying for joy to see more of her friends alive, but also for sorrow, because she has lost her own two-year-old daughter, who was snatched from her by the flames that consumed the Hilltop - a terrible, double blow after already losing her husband in the war against the Saviors.
When Gracie sees her, she shouts, "Mm Mm Mmilll!" and takes three wobbly steps toward the woman before falling to her knees and crawling.
Once she moved from the Kingdom to the Hilltop, Nabila played wet nurse to Gracie, since she still had her milk in from nursing her own daughter. Gracie will drink juice, water, or formula from a bottle, but it makes little sense to fully wean a child too early in this world when a free, self-sustaining supply of milk is available. Nabila bends, picks the baby up, and goes over to the couch, where she sits down, grabs the nursing blanket that is draped over the play pen, covers herself, and begins to feed the girl.
Daryl flushes and looks away.
Ezekiel comes in next, his footsteps heavy and solemn. He lays a hand on each of Carol's shoulders and quotes Tennyson in soulful tones: "Ring out the grief that saps the mind, for those that were here, we see no more." He looks around. "But there is solace in seeing you few alive, my dear friends…" He hugs Carol first, and then the others, one by one.
Rosita follows. She doesn't look her usually cocky self, but instead a vulnerable mixture of pain and joy.
Daryl nods to her and says, "Good to see ya alive" while Carol gives her a hug.
Tara enters next, and then finally Morgan.
Henry? Carol mouths silently, because Morgan was the one to train the boy in the use of the staff and to keep a watchful eye out for him. Morgan hangs his head. "We were separated by the fire. He didn't make it out."
Carol closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she surveys the ten alive, or, rather, the nine, since Aaron is still on watch. She counts. And then she counts again. And again. Over and over, hoping against hope she's counted wrong. "Maggie?" she asks.
When Rick shakes his head, Carol mutters, "No. No." Maggie, who's been with her since before the prison – Maggie, the mother of that precious baby boy who now beings to stir to wakefulness in his playpen.
Carol stumbles back against a book case. A great, sorrowful sob rips up from some deep, dark place inside her. Daryl lunges for her like he's throwing himself in front of a bullet and draws her against his chest. She balls the fabric of his shirt into tight fists.
H.G. awakes with a wail.
Michonne gathers the crying infant up from the playpen, and Nabila boots Gracie from her breast to suckle the infant back to sleep.
Carol eases away from Daryl's embrace. "Did you see Maggie killed?" she demands.
"No," Rick says.
"So she could still be alive out there somewhere! So could Henry. So could Dwight and Sherry. Eugene. Father Gabriel. Siddiq. Jerry. So could a dozen other – "
" – Carol," Rick interrupts softly. "I saw Father Gabriel catch fire."
Rosita grimaces. "And I saw Eugene get shot." She grits her teeth. "And then I missed the bastard who shot him by a centimeter. He got away."
"We don't know what happened to the others," Rick tells her. "But a lot of people died. A lot. I don't want to hold out false hope to you."
Carol paces the length of the library. Daryl stops her on her third go, with a hand on her shoulder, his fingers digging so deep that the sensation finally forces her to look into his eyes. "Found Jesus and Gracie," he says. "Found Enid. Hell, maybe more of 'em did make it out. Fire's done passed through the Hilltop by now. Walkers oughtta be thinned out 'nuff I can get in there. I can go back t'morrow. Read the sign I couldn't 'fore. Look for tracks."
Carol nods firmly and meets his determined eyes with an equally determined resolve. "I'm coming with you. We leave at sunrise."
