AN: Here we are, another chapter here. Not much more to go. I think there's one chapter left and I'll be wrapping this one up.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"They gonna need someone to follow," Merle said. "That's what the hell they do. That's why the hell we got 'em this far. Most of these people? Saved 'em damn near from themselves when we found 'em out there. They ain't stupid, and most of 'em got a lot to offer Woodbury, but they need a leader. If we don't give 'em one? They'll find one and it might be somebody that's even worse than the Governor."

"Anybody that wants the job of bein' some kinda damn leader of a group like this has gotta be at least a lil' bit fucked up," Daryl said. "If you weren't? You wouldn't want so much responsibility. You wouldn't want so much blood on your hands if things don't work out the way you was hopin' they would."

"Not necessarily," Michonne said. "We all took this position. Together. We all decided that we wanted to take charge of the people of Woodbury. We made a plan and we decided that they should go along with it. We worked to make that happen so that we could overthrow the government that was in place." She shook her head. "None of us did it because we wanted absolute power. We did it because we wanted to get rid of corruption and make room for someone with a vision that matched a little closer to ours."

"Do we even got a vision?" Merle asked.

He yawned, probably in spite of himself, and pressed his fingers into his eyes.

Like all of them, Merle was exhausted. They'd all been up pretty much the entire night.

When they'd hit the street, Carol had left Sophia in the apartment behind lock and key. She'd hated being separated from her daughter for even that long, but she wasn't sure what was going to happen. With almost guaranteed gunfire to come, Carol thought it was better if her daughter was well out of reach. When they'd returned to the apartment to regroup and discuss how they were approaching the town at dawn—when all the great citizens of Woodbury expected to hear from them—Carol had found Sophia still awake and had quickly tucked her daughter in to sleep with the promise that all the trouble had been dealt with.

There wasn't time, however, for all of them to sleep. They still had a number of problems to settle before the sun rose and people came to them looking for answers and guidance.

The Governor was dead. They were treating his apartment like a crime scene at the moment. They wanted it intact in case the morning should find any straggling protestors that, after a good sleep, decided they weren't certain that the man should have died. Merle and Michonne had handled that part alone.

The few remaining loyalists to the Governor were also dead.

They'd been offered the opportunity to leave. They'd been given the chance to simply go. They could take what they owned and they could walk out of the walls of the community and never come back. They could keep their lives, but they couldn't stay because they couldn't risk simply replacing one tyrant with another.

In their own ways, each of the men who strongly believed in the Governor's methods for ruling had made it clear the fate that they'd chosen.

Carol, herself, had pulled the trigger on one of them. She was almost glad that she wasn't sleeping because she could still see him every time she closed her eyes. She feared that the feeling she had over killing the man wouldn't fade any time soon, and she honestly wasn't sure if that was a curse or, more likely, a blessing.

She was still entirely human.

Once everything was dealt with, and the chaos in the streets started to die down, Daryl had addressed the people gathered there. There would be no fight against the prison at dawn as the Governor had planned. There would be negotiations—real ones—with the people of the prison group and there would be efforts made to keep Woodbury peaceful and whole. There was nothing left to see and people were sent back to their homes. They were asked to return to the town's center at dawn to discuss the future of Woodbury. Until then, they could all simply sleep soundly.

All of them that were gathered together in Merle's apartment, however, weren't sleeping. There was a little dozing going on, especially by Sadie who had declared that she was too tired to put in too much effort trying to follow the entire conversation, but nobody was abandoning the group entirely.

"I don't think we thought that far ahead," Andrea said. "I mean—not to have some grand vision for the future of Woodbury. We didn't want to go to war. I, for one, didn't want to lose this place. I didn't want to lose the safety and the comfort. I didn't want to go back out there just to die of the flu in a swamp somewhere."

"We can't exactly present that as the vision of the whole damn town," Merle said.

"Why not?" Daryl asked.

"What?" Merle questioned.

"Why not?" Daryl repeated. "What the hell kinda vision we gotta have? What kinda vision did the Governor have? And people followed him. They were happy enough with his shit that it took this trumped up war over moldy ass boxes of shit to get people to push back."

Merle shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess the only vision he ever had was keepin' this place goin'," Merle said. "Doin' whatever he had to do to provide for everyone here. That's what he said."

"It's what he did, too," Andrea said. "At least to some degree. To be fair—until this war, he wasn't putting everyone in danger too often."

"Not if you was already inside the gates," Merle said.

"Our vision is simple," Carol said. "It's the same vision that we have. Or—at least that Daryl and I have discussed. We want a future. We want somewhere secure where we can live. Really live. We want a place where Sophia can grow up safely. Who knows what comes later? We want a place where we can build a future and not have to worry constantly about what's going to happen in the next hour or so. We want—we want to work so that we have enough. So that we have everything we need. But, hopefully, that we can have everything we need without having to go to war for—as Daryl put it—boxes of—of moldy stuff."

"It ain't no perfect vision," Daryl said. "But—I don't know who the hell would say it ain't the kinda thing they could get behind."

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"So—we're inviting anyone who wants to see proof of the Walker that the Governor was keeping and the heads to tour his apartment," Andrea said. "We're inviting anyone who wants to see the Walker pens that we found in the storage areas to tour those as well. We have the testimonies of some of the Governor's council members about acts that they were asked to commit. The Governor is dead. His supporters are dead. Everyone was given the opportunity to leave Woodbury and we still extend that offer to anyone here. Woodbury is an open community. Nobody is a prisoner here. You can leave whenever you want and you can leave without consequence."

"If you want to see anything," Michonne interrupted, "or if you require proof? You'll need to let us know as soon as we wrap up here. We're getting clean-up underway and the bodies will be taken care of by burning so as to not contaminate the soil."

"Soil that we hope," Daryl offered, "is gonna be the site of our new gardens. Growin' what we need so we don't gotta worry as much about where the hell our meals is comin' from."

Carol saw Daryl take a sudden interest in his shoes for a moment when he noticed that he had everyone's attention. It was something he was going to have to get used to, but things didn't often happen overnight. Carol slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. He glanced at her and smiled. It wouldn't happen overnight, but it would happen. Carol was certain of that. And she'd be there to support him in any way that he needed.

Daryl bumped her gently with his elbow, nudging her. It was her turn to speak. Carol nodded her understanding and addressed the people that were, undeniably, now the members of their community family.

"You came here for us to tell you who the new leader of Woodbury is going to be," Carol said. "We stayed up all night discussing it and we've reached a decision. For the time being, we're all your leaders. None of us holds any more power than anyone else. Everyone you see here—everyone that was behind what happened last night—will discuss the things that we do here as a group. We hope that the panel will be able to offer something for everyone. We hope that everyone's interests will be taken into account and that—with all of us working together? We'll be able make sure that everything is as fair as possible. We want everyone to benefit from everything we do. We'd also like to invite anyone who has anything they'd like to address to join us. We want to know your concerns and we want to know—what it is that you want. This is your town."

"We have to have a leader," someone called out from the group gathered there. A rumble of agreement ran through the audience.

"We thought you might say that," Daryl said, laughing to himself. He looked at Carol like he was searching for reassurance. With the hand that wasn't holding hers, he reached for Sophia's hand. Sophia smiled up at him and he winked at her when he had her attention. "And you right. The panel keeps it all in check here in Woodbury. The panel makes sure that everything's fair. Makes sure that—they ain't nobody that gets complete control of the place. Don't leave room for anyone to decide who lives an' who dies at the drop of a hat. Don't allow for nobody to send us into a war that we ain't prepared to fight. But—people like a figurehead. Don't they? They like someone to look to, even if that person don't got all the power that they represent. For the military part of Woodbury—'cause we can't pretend that we may not ever have to fight—we got a leader in my brother." Daryl laughed to himself. "Even if I never thought I'da said them words—we believe Merle's the right man for the job. He's willin' to do what the hell's gotta be done, even if he don't like it, but he ain't gonna just jump feet first into a pond full of shit without checkin' to see how deep it is."

Carol elbowed him and Daryl laughed to himself. He was relaxing. He was already growing more comfortable with everyone's attention and Carol knew that he'd continue to grow even more comfortable as time went on. He was right for this, even if he was a little afraid that he wasn't, and he had the support of a lot of people—true support that gave him a clear boost of confidence.

"My wife is elbowin' me," Daryl said. "So I'm sorry if I offended anybody. Just meant to say—we all think Merle's gonna do best headin' up our military. And if you interested in helping to protect Woodbury? He'd be the man you oughta talk to."

"I'ma head up the military alright," Merle said. "But I ain't doin' it alone. Gonna keep workin' with the same damn people I been workin' with all along. Got a few new faces, too. We don't wanna go to war, but if war comes to Woodbury? We gonna be ready for it."

"As for your everyday figureheads? They're going to be Carol and Daryl," Andrea offered. "We discussed it and—they're going to be the ones who represent Woodbury until we can get organized enough to hold an official election."

There was a light round of applause and Carol caught Daryl looking at her. She held up her hand to try to quiet down the people who had, honestly, been waiting for that announcement alone.

"We want to know what you want," Carol said. "We want to know how you want things to run around here. We're not forcing ourselves on you as leaders. We'll set up an election, if that's what you want. We'll add more people to our panel. The only thing that we won't do is allow for the panel to be broken up. We won't allow for anyone to become some sort of—of tyrant—again. Daryl and I agreed to do this because—we wanted to find this place. When we were out there? This was the kind of place that we dreamed of. We wanted everything that Woodbury represents—family, friends, community, comfort, safety...and hope for a future. We took this role because we hope that's what you want. But we can't do it alone."

"Nobody can do anything alone," Daryl offered. "Most of us learned that shit before. Most of us got left on our own out there. We know that ain't no way to live, but goin' it alone's a quick way to die. That sure ain't what we want. So we gotta do this together. Everybody here works together or it don't work. We're gonna go and talk to the prison. See if we can't do some real negotiating. See if we can't find some peace between us and them. Something that don't require nobody to die. Got word back that they ain't gonna attack. They gonna respect our wishes and wait on us to get there. So—we're gonna get a lil' sleep, since none of us have slept for a while now, an' we're gonna talk to some of you before we send someone over there to set up a meetin' with the prison. We're gonna figure this out. Clean up the mess that's already been made. Then we gonna work on the future. Do what's good for us. Every last damn one of us."