Cas shouted something and pulled out her pistol, running over and standing over the young man. She'll put him down like a dog, Elliot thought from outside his body, seeing the whole thing from above.

A quiet voice brought him back into his body and stopped Cas in her tracks. "Cas, stop!" Claire demanded authoritatively despite the amount of blood she'd already lost. It was pooling slowly, just a slight sliver of a dark shadow beneath her. "It could be him, Cas."

Cas didn't lower her weapon right away, but her hand shook visibly until she dropped her arm. Daryl raised his own gun to make sure the young man didn't hurt anyone else, leaving Cas free to run to Claire. She knelt by the other girl's head and tried to make her more comfortable, but it was obviously useless. Elliot couldn't hear what she was saying, but from the look on Claire's face, it was something reassuring that neither of them believed.

"No, Cas. Look at me, I'm dying."

"You can't," Cas said, eyes watering. "I can't survive in this world if you're not in it."

"You have to," Claire insisted. "Find the cure. Go to...Washington." Elliot turned away as her speech started to slow. "Save the world. I'll be with you...the whole time."

Cas kept shaking her head as Elliot steeled himself and went to kneel by Claire' side, trying to keep his face straight as her blood started to soak through his jeans. She took his hand.

"You two have to get over...what's in the past...and look after each other. All of you." She looked around, encompassing J and Isaac in her gaze, as well as all of Rick's group. "No matter what happens...all you have is each other."

"We will," Elliot promised when Cas tried to speak but choked on the words.

"Good. One last thing," she added, "Burn my body. Spread some of the ashes...to the wind, and keep the rest...in the music library. Whenever you listen to a song...I'll be listening too."

J said quietly, "Don't worry about a thing. We'll find you a nice urn, or maybe a vase if that's all that's available."

Claire chuckled. "Thanks, J. Look after...these two, okay? And Isaac, look after her. Everyone...be safe." Her eyes started to glaze, but she looked around, taking in everyone around her one last time. "It was nice to...meet all of you."

At this point, Carl had made his way to her side, watching her die with a perverse fascination. None of them could have looked away if they wanted to. The boy whispered, "Don't be scared. It's gonna be okay."

With her last breath, Claire replied, "Ha! I'm not...afraid." And then her eyes were empty.

A high noise escaped from Cas, a noise that usually preceded sobbing, but she pressed her lips together and stood, dashing the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

Gabriel began to mutter. "We sinners beseech you, to hear us, Lord Christ, that it may please you to deliver the soul of your servant from the power of evil…"

"What did she mean, it could be me?" Claire's killer demanded. Cas slowly turned to look at him, her eyes dark with hatred. She took a step towards him, and he matched it with a small step back.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us..."

"You better hope it's you, you prick," Cas told the young man, leaning into his personal space. "You'd better pray. Because as soon as I know it's not, I WILL kill you." His eyes widened at the promise, although he tried to remain aloof.

"Get them to the trucks," Cas said to everyone else. "We've got work to do."

…

By the time night fell, they'd already made it back to the school and gotten their prisoners settled in their cells, which Glenn and Maggie had made in the locker rooms while Rosita had taken care of Judith. Cas went and hid in her room as soon as they got home, refusing to help because she ran the risk of seeing the body wrapped in a white sheet that was lying in the back of one of the trucks. They'd decided to put off burning it until the next day to reduce the likelihood that the flames and smoke would attract the dead. It would stay in the industrial refrigerator in the back of the cafeteria until then.

Cas had been sitting in her room with the lights off for hours, trying desperately not to feel, when she heard someone knock quietly on her door. She didn't respond, but they opened it anyways and stepped through. She kept her back to them

"Are you ever going to come out?" Elliot asked. She kept quiet. "We're planning a little memorial and everyone's wondering if you'd like to say something." Still, she didn't reply. He let out a dissatisfied huff. "Look, I know you're upset, but this was always a possibility, right? You really cared about her, sure - we all did - but it's not like we haven't lost people before."

Cas could feel her anger forming a burning knot in her stomach. The heat rose up her throat and poured out as words. "How dare you?" She snapped, standing and turning to face him. "How dare you speak to me that way? I died today. Don't tell me that this is the same as every time because it's not. It's not even close. Maybe you can write it off as just another casualty, but I can't."

"I didn't mean it like that," Elliot protested, but his words fell on deaf ears. She picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, pushing past him and out the door. He followed her out of the band room quietly, but when she turned left to exit the building, he grabbed her arm to stop her. "Where are you going?"

"None of your business," she snapped, wrenching her arm away. J and Isaac came wandering down the hallway from the cafeteria, hurrying when they saw the other two members of their group.

"Tell her she can't leave," Elliot demanded when they were level with him. Neither of them said anything; they just looked at Cas with pity and understanding. "It's dark, and the sounds of the trucks earlier attracted the dead," Elliot protested further. "You won't make it through the night."

"Let her go," J said quietly. Elliot made a distressed sound, but the older woman shook her head at him and he took a reluctant step back.

Cas nodded to her gratefully as Isaac headed to the camera room. A moment later there was a quiet thunk as the door unlocked. Cas pulled it open and slipped through. Elliot heard Isaac's voice say goodbye through the speaker; then the door closed and she was gone.

"What if she dies out there?" Elliot asked J without looking at her.

"If she does, we'll know it's what she wanted. She'll be able to make her own choice. If we force her to stay, she'll hate us forever."

"It's not what Claire would have wanted."

"Who gives a fuck?" J asked, blinking calmly at him. "Claire's dead. She doesn't have to exist without her closest friend in a world where there's not much else to live for. Who gives a fuck what she would have wanted? That doesn't matter any more! What matters is what Cas wants, because she's still alive. She has to make the choice for herself."

Elliot shrugged. "I guess." He turned away from the door and headed back to his room, leaving J to stare after their friend.

…

"What if she never comes back?" Isaac asked early the next morning. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Probably just go on like normal," J shrugged.

"What if she's dead?"

"What if she's not?"

"She's a strong girl," Gabriel interjected. "I'm sure she's still alive. This place might be too painful for her right now; it might have too many memories." The rest of Rick's group nodded soberly.

They were back in the cafeteria (there was nowhere else to go, really) debating whether to go on with the burning without Cas. Since they didn't know where she'd gone, if she was coming back, or whether she was even still alive, it was a complicated decision. Rick's group was mostly staying out of it, which Elliot appreciated. They'd gotten a little off topic, which was understandable considering how upset everyone was, so Elliot tried to steer them back on track.

"We have to come to an agreement at some point," he said. "With Cas gone, it's up to the three of us. Isaac, what do you think we should do?"

"I think we should wait for Cas," Isaac mumbled miserably. He wasn't taking her disappearance very well. It would have been different if he'd seen her die - at least then, he'd know the whole story. But the idea that she was out there, probably still alive, weighed on him.

"Look, you spend most of your time in the camera room, so you have a limited view of the outside world," J told him. "I've been scouting off this building every day since we got here, and I've seen and learned enough to say that now is the best time. The number of those things changes as rapidly as the weather, and we're in a dry spell right now. If we wait even a day, a herd could go by a few miles away that keeps us in for another three. We can't have her in there that long," she said, gesturing to the refrigerator in the back of the room.

"Is that all you care about? How long her body will keep? What do you think Cas will do when she comes back and we've gone through with it without her?"

They bickered back and forth for a few more minutes before Isaac finally caved. They all got up and headed outside to build the pyre on the football field, which was the only wide, clear area where they could safely build such a large fire. There were a half-dozen pine trees nearby for shade, which they cut down and used to build the pyre.

After only a couple hours, they decided they had enough fuel. They carried out Claire's body, still wrapped in a white sheet, and placed her inside the pyre. Without much ado, they lit the wood; the whole pile was ablaze within minutes.

Gabriel, who was always prepared for such things, said a few words. Then it was quiet, except for the crackling and sparking of the wood. Elliot closed his eyes and thought about Claire in her best moments, ignoring the memories that surfaced of her bad days. He wished they'd been able to help her in some way, but since she'd never talked about what she'd been going through, they hadn't known what to say.

He sighed as a warm breeze blew through, fanning the flames even further. It's too late to think about any of that now, he told himself. He listened hard to the sound of the wood and one of his closest friends burn.

His ears picked up another soft sound that steadily grew louder as he listened. "Do you hear that?" He asked aloud, feeling J shift next to him.

"Yeah, I hear it."

He opened his eyes and looked around as everyone focused on the sound of an automobile engine approaching down the main driveway. Soon their missing pickup truck came into view and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The back was full of large, bulky objects, but Elliot couldn't tell what they were from such a large distance.

They all watched as Cas climbed out of the driver's side, carrying something. She made her way out to the field; as she got closer Elliot saw it was a thin white box, which she handed to Eugene when she reached the group.

Isaac gave her a short hug, which she returned. "Sorry we started," he said, "we just didn't know what you'd be back."

"It's okay," she said, gazing at the tall flames.

"What did you do out there?" Elliot asked.

"Yeah, what's all that stuff?" J added.

She didn't answer, just turned to Eugene and said, "Open it." He complied and immediately looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.

"What's in there?" Daryl asked when no one else did. Eugene carefully turned the box around, showing them a neat row of 12 sterile syringes.

"I made a couple stops at the local hospitals," Cas told them. "I'm pretty sure I got everything we need to make the tests." She gave the pyre one last, long look before adding, "If no one minds, I think it might be good to start setting everything up now."

They all shared a glance, then nodded their assent, following her back to the truck to start unloading. Everyone left except for J, who sat in the bleachers and picked off any of the dead that came close, attracted by the light and smoke of the now-dying funeral pyre.