Evan sat in her tent quietly, staring at the box she turned over and over in her hands. Someone tapped on the side of her tent and she looked at the silhouette through the thin wall, sighing.

"Come in, Lori."

She stepped inside, opening her mouth to ask a question before seeing what she held. The two women looked at each other, Evan throwing up the pregnancy test, "Looks like you've got some business to handle… How do you know Lori? How do you even begin to suspect?"

"You just know," Lori murmured, reaching for the box. "You just… know."

"And you know that this is not a world to be having babies in. It's not fair or right, but it's true," the younger woman replied, her eyes narrowed. Her friend sniffled a bit but kept her composure, nodding as she straightened up. "You think I don't know that? As soon as I missed my period for the second time, I fucking knew! Once, yeah, you can explain that away: lack on nourishment, stress, environment. But twice? There's no lying to yourself then…"

The former soldier folded her hands over her stomach and closed her eyes, shaking her head. "Take your shit and go away."

Lori left after tucking the pregnancy test into her waistband, looking both ways before she disappeared. However, Evan wasn't alone long, Carter bringing Jude to their mother. "She fell down and scraped her knee; she was crying, but I gave her a Band-Aid," the young girl explained, Evan smoothing down Jude's curls. "Oh honey, I'm sorry that happened to you. Let mama kiss it." When her mother bent down to kiss the bandage, Jude jerked her leg away, "Not you mama. Daddy kisses it."

"She's been asking for him all day," Carter said almost offhandedly, moving to lay down on her bed. "But she's not talking about Danny- Jude wants Daryl."

There was nothing that Evan could say to that, or the question that she asked next, "Do you love him, Evan? Like you used to love Danny?"

Carter looked up from her book at Evan, taking in the narrowing of her eyes and the way her arms were crossed over her chest. The young girl smirked then, moving to prop her head up on her hand as she eyed her mother. "You do, don't you? You love Daryl." Evan cleared her throat and ran her fingers back through her hair, pondering that question before speaking. "Carter, listen… When it comes to things dealing with love and affecting and being with somebody like I am with Daryl, they aren't always black and white-"

"Well, you're black and white, so that's a moot point."

"God you're a smartass, kid," Evan said, shaking her head as she played with Jude. "But to answer your question, I care about him enough. He's gonna be around for a long, long time."

The two women looked at each other, the younger one closing her book to look at her. "I mean, that's a good thing. The three of us have a mom… we need a dad too. And you love Daryl, so it only makes sense," Carter murmured, Evan looking at her and sighing. "Look, no one expects you to just replace the parents who raised you. You and Kennedy lost two wonderful, loving people less than four months ago-"

"We lost them and we got you and Daryl, Evan. It balanced out."

Evan folded her hands behind her head and closed her eyes, "I guess so."

Daryl stood by the ridge as he came back to the place where he had last seen her, sighing- the memory of the geeks running after her and Kennedy was still very fresh in his mind. He remembered how Evan had told him the truth in the lies he had once believed, how quickly she had gone from unassuming sister to mama grizzly in a heartbeat.

"Sophia!"

He walked the length of the ridge as he followed the river, his careful eyes scanning the land for any signs of her. The sun was moving across the sky, slowly but surely, and he knew that he would have to start heading back soon in order to keep his promise to Evan.

She was a good woman, cautious when it came to his safety yet willing to run headfirst into a dangerous situation herself. Daryl thought about her constantly in a way that was almost reflexive, always continuous- just like breathing. In the midst of his search, he paused to catch his breath, reminiscing about all the times he had looked into her eyes. For some reason- despite how much he liked the rest of her- there was something about her eyes that just got him. "Eyes are the windows to the soul," Daryl mumbled out, the words coming to him from some long-forgotten assignment in the days before he had dropped out of high school. And he knew that it was true, that every time Evan looked at him, she bared her very soul to him.

Daryl, well… Daryl loved that about her: he loved just about everything about her.

"Get yer fucking head together, Dixon."

He spotted something in the water just a few feet ahead, stepping off the ridge's trail to get a good look at it. Sophia's little cloth doll- the one she had carried since the days in Atlanta- was sitting tattered and wet, half in the water and half on a log, the first sign he had seen from her in about two weeks. "Sophia!" Knowing that the doll was the proof he needed to get everyone back in the search and scouring every inch of the woods, he traced out what looked to be the safest path down the ridge with his eyes, sighing.

Daryl put his crossbow on his back and started down, using the trees to try and help steady him. However, his efforts were in vain- the earth was wet and loose from the previous days' rain, and it gave less than a quarter of the way down the face of the ridge. He cried out as he tumbled out of control, trying his best to protect his head and back as he smashed through the trees.

The last thing he remembered before hitting the hard rock at the bottom of the shallow water was thinking that despite his best efforts, he probably wasn't going to make it home- which was, effectively, wherever Evan was- anytime soon…

She paced as the others cleaned up after dinner, Carol walking towards her with two plates stacked in her hands. Evan paused and looked at her, shaking her head, "Go away Carol, I'm not hungry."

"Still, you should eat something. I know you're worried-"

"Worried does not come close to the way I'm feeling," Evan replied as the sky steadily darkened from red to black. The hours since the sun had started to go down had felt absolutely endless, each minute seeming to drag by as she waited. At first she had just thought Daryl was fucking with her, deliberately cutting it close to darkness just so that she would get heated and hit on him for a moment or two before practically dragging him away to work out the rest of her frustrated worrying. Then Evan's intuition had gotten the better of her, the woman recalling how adamant he had been about being back even while kidding- and he wouldn't break a promise to her.

She felt like she was smothering the more time passed, and it was hard not to keep staring at the last place he had been, Evan expecting to look up and see Daryl, crossbow in hand, coming across the field to wrap his arms around her.

"This isn't the first time he's done this," Shane said calmly, throwing peanut shells into the fire as he stretched out not too far from Evan. Rick nodded in agreement, looking up at the visibly-distressed woman, "He probably came across a kill he couldn't pass up."

Evan turned on both of them, her jaw set firmly and her arms crossed over her chest. "Look, I know that everyone around here thinks that I'm just over-fucking-reacting, but I'm not. I know Daryl and today, before he left, I made him practically swear that he would come back. I sent him off with a bad feeling and I know that I shouldn't have let him go, I shouldn't have… But he went. He should be back by now, Rick, and he's not. And Daryl would not break a promise to me," she said in a flurry of words, pausing in her incessant pacing to place her hands on her hips. Shane just laughed and shook his head, taking another swig of his beer. "Damn girl, you got it bad-" She charged towards him like a bull, the deputy getting to his feet as she challenged him. "Whoa," Rick shouted, moving to jump between them. Evan wasn't dissuaded, however, narrowing her eyes angrily, "You think that I'm acting like this because I'm just thirsting for a piece of fucking dick, Shane? No, that's my fucking partner out there- my guy! And I just know- I feel it in my heart- that something is wrong!"

"Evan, fighting the people who are here with you isn't going to help you or him any?"

"You wanna help me Rick," she shouted angrily, less than an inch away from his face. "Then get your gun, come with me and find him!"

Lori wrapped one arm around Kennedy's shoulder as they watched her mother fraying around the edges, looking at her own husband, "Running into the woods at night is a bad idea Evan. Think of your children and think of Daryl- he would not want you putting yourself in danger with your girls needing you, not even for his sake. Wait until morning, alright?"Evan let out a choking sob she had tried to keep at bay, holding onto Rick as she fell to her knees.

"He could be dead by morning… I had a dream a few nights ago that he got bit out there, and I didn't say anything. I should have said something," she said, the sheriff moving to wrap his arms around her shoulders.

In all truth, every time anyone from camp walked away, Rick worried about their safety and whether or not they would make it back. He knew exactly how Evan was feeling, but knew that she felt it more strongly than he ever had. "You are in no condition to be going out there- do you understand why I can't let you do that?" She nodded and closed her eyes, sniffling, "Yeah."

"We're gonna laugh about this in the morning when he comes striding back into camp with tonight's catch," Rick said, stroking her hair before he helped her to her feet.

She allowed herself to be taken to her tent, making up her mind that after they were all asleep, she was going out to look for him. Rick must have been thinking on her wavelength then, because all he did was sit down just outside the flap, sighing, "Looks like we're gonna be taking shifts on this one tonight…"