"This should be it," Abraham said, wiping perspiration from his brow with his filthy hands. He tightened something under the hood with a wrench one more time before knocking on the bus' hood.

Glenn turned the ignition and the bus roared to life, eliciting claps and cheers from the excited onlookers.

"Let's get on the bus and get the hell outta here. There's bound to be a pack of undead pricks curious about why this church is on fire," Abraham ordered.

Rick nodded and motioned to the others.

"Let's go."

They piled into the bus, having already loaded the food and whatever meager belongings hadn't been destroyed in the fire onto their transport. Rick, who was sitting in the bus' front row by the door, glanced at Carl and Judith who were sitting in the seat behind him, Judith busying herself with picking at the peeling seats while Carl stared out the window. Michonne sat across from Rick in the front row behind the driver's seat, and her presence made him feel like he wasn't alone in this decision. He needed some reassurance that getting on this bus headed to Washington wasn't a major mistake, and a small reassuring nod from her made all the difference.

Behind Michonne sat Carol, across from her Daryl, and behind them Glenn and Maggie. Sasha had separated herself in the back row.

Abraham plopped into the driver's seat, and after a brief pause he leapt from the chair, startling everyone.

"Where the hell is Eugene?" he shouted.

Abraham burst from the bus in a panic.

"Eugene!" he yelled, searching the perimeter. He cocked his gun and stomped towards the church. "Eugene?"

A few seconds later, Eugene emerged from behind the back of the bus.

"What the hell were you doing?" Abraham roared. "I told you, no one goes off alone. Especially you."

Eugene seemed startled by the anger directed towards him.

"I noticed a particularly useful deposit of refuge located in the dirt, and felt that acquiring it could be critical to our ability to initiate combustion in a tight spot. Of course we'd also need a cation and anion in order to…"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Abraham cut in, obviously not in the mood for Eugene's long winded explanations.

Eugene held up a shiny metallic gum wrapper.

"For fire starting. All we need is a battery with a little juice and it's sparks city."

Abraham grunted in annoyance. "You do not go off by yourself. Period. Like you said, the cure dies with you, and we can't have you dying."

Eugene swallowed and nodded. "Roger that."

Rick stared at the pair as they made their way back onto the bus. Eugene made his way to the back and sat down in the row in front of Sasha somewhat sheepishly.

"All right. Now we can get the hell outta here," Abraham confirmed, and he pulled the bus out of the parking lot, and away from the burning church.

The further away they got from the church, the lighter the mood. Conversations broke out around the bus as people finally had time to talk and socialize.

Carl, Glenn, and Maggie began a heated game of 21 questions. Glenn had thought of an object, and Maggie and Carl's drive to guess what he was thinking via questions was so strong, that they began shouting questions at Glenn faster than he could answer.

Eugene sat looking out the window with an apprehensive look on his face. Carol and Daryl were staring out of their respective windows, and Sasha gazed dazedly at the bus seat in front of her, looking dejected and completely withdrawn.

Hours into the drive, a rattling coming from one side of the bus caught everyone's attention. Seconds later there was a pop, and the bus which was moving at quite a bit of speed, swerved wildly down the road.

"Mother dick!" Abraham yelled, gripping the wheel with both hands.

Everyone held on to their seats as the bus swerved onto the road's shoulder, nearly flipping on the uneven terrain. Everyone was thrown out of their seats before the front tire wedged itself into a ditch.

"Is everyone okay?" Rick asked, immediately standing and looking for his children first, and then Michonne.

Carl had ended up being thrown down in the seat with Judith still in his arms. Judith wailed in fear from the sudden roller coaster ride, but Carl had shielded her from harm, and he nodded at his father to let him know he was alright. Rick approached to check them both anyway, making sure they weren't unknowingly hurt.

Michonne had been thrown into the bus aisle, but she quickly stood, brushing herself off and declaring she was fine besides a superficial scratch on her arm. Rick reached out and held on to her arm as he visually inspected the scratch. He ran his finger over it, while Michonne looked on.

"Rick, its a scratch," she said, but she made no move to remove her arm from his grasp. He ran his thumb over her forearm a few times, and when he was satisfied he met her eyes, gave her a small nod and let her arm go before quickly checking in with the others.

Carl watched the exchange curiously and then smirked as Michonne blinked rapidly at Rick's back.

"You sure you're ok?" Carl asked her, with a laugh in his voice.

Michonne cleared her throat and nodded. "Yea I'm fine. Just a scratch."

She was mortified to confess that the brief contact between herself and Rick had sent tingles down her spine, and hardened her nipples. She hoped they weren't standing out through her shirt.

She had to admit to herself that the man had some kind of power over her, and it was scary because she didn't know if he felt the same way.

Glenn checked out Maggie, while Daryl checked in on Carol and Sasha. Abraham plowed past everyone and yanked Eugene to his feet.

"You okay? Does anything hurt?" he asked.

"I'm… I believe I am uninjured," Eugene replied, rubbing his arms absentmindedly. Just to be sure, Abraham pulled up Eugene's eyelids to check his pupils.

Rick, Daryl, and Glenn climbed off the bus once they saw everyone was safe, looking for the source of the accident. The reason was soon apparent when they observed the shredded rear tire.

"Can't fix that," Daryl commented.

"Maybe we can find another bus tire," Glenn said. "Maggie and I can search around for one."

Although Rick was annoyed about their current situation he was able to laugh at the fact that Glenn and Maggie most likely wanted some rare alone time while they searched for that tire. And most probably a quickie from the way they'd been giggling together in the bus. No one was injured in the crash, so he could humor them a little.

Rick checked his watch. "If you're not back in three hours we'll come looking."

Glenn nodded and re-entered the bus to gather Maggie. Soon after the couple left and disappeared into the woods, Abraham exited and met up with Rick and Daryl, looking down at the ruined tire.

"We're not even a quarter of the damn way there. What the hell could've caused that? I didn't even hit anything."

"We'll deal with it. It's just a temporary setback," Rick said, searching the woods with his eyes. "But we gotta keep a lookout to make sure someone didn't knock our tires out deliberately. Don't let your guard down."

Michonne, Carol and Sasha also exited the bus to see what the commotion was about. When Michonne approached, she caught Rick inspecting her body once again, and she wasn't sure if he was looking for injuries again or he was just looking this time, but she returned the look. She realized that at some point they'd have to talk about what these looks meant. He blinked when he realized she saw him staring, and began to quickly speak.

"Glenn and Maggie are scavenging the area for tires. We should set up camp, just in case they don't find anything."

"Well if there are no tires or working buses around then what do we do?" Carol asked.

Rick sighed and looked up at the sky. "Then we walk. At least until we come across a truck or van."

An hour later, Maggie and Glenn returned with no tires.

"Yea, there's nothing that we can use around here," Glenn stated. I found some cars, but none have tires large enough for a school bus. But we did find this!" Glenn stated, holding up a handful of AA batteries.

"We thought Eugene could use it, to try contacting Washington on the radio," Maggie explained.

"Good idea," Rick said, holding the batteries out towards Eugene who had a surprised look on his face.

"Go on Eugene, we might be out of range but who knows, we may be able to get them," Abraham encouraged.

When Eugene didn't move to take the batteries, Abraham took them himself and snatched the radio from Eugene's motionless hands.

When Abraham opened the battery pack and began putting the batteries in, Eugene suddenly moved, attempting to snatch the radio back from Abraham.

"What the hell are you doing?" Abraham shouted, maneuvering his arm so Eugene couldn't reach. "I'm just putting the batteries in!"

"No, stop. You're gonna break it. I'll do it, just pass it here."

Abraham, annoyed that Eugene was climbing on him for a radio, pushed him off of his arm.

"Stop acting like an idiot. I'll pass you the radio after the batteries are in. I know how to work a goddamn radio!"

Eugene fumbled for the radio a few more times, with Abraham successfully holding him back, when suddenly the radio fell from Abraham's fingers and smashed on the ground, shattering into five pieces.

"Holy fuck," Abraham muttered, immediately bending down to pick up the pieces.

"I told you!" Eugene yelled. "I told you to let me do it. Now look what happened. Now we have no way of contacting my superior. Now we're fucked!"

"I didn't mean to…" Abraham began.

"Well you did," Eugene shot back. "Now because of you we can't even go to Washington anymore, because I cannot contact anyone and tell them we're there!"

"Wait, this sucks but why wouldn't we go to Washington?" Glenn asked. "We could just show up at the door of whatever agency you work for, can't we?"

"N-no, we can't. They'd never let us get that close. They'd shoot us on sight if I can't explain the situation to them."

Rick reached out for the radio pieces, and Abraham passed them to him. Rick had built a radio or two with his grandfather, and he was pretty sure he could put this back together with the right tools.

"There has to be a way," Maggie said. "These are your people. You said you spoke to them before. Don't they know you're coming? Wouldn't they recognize you if we showed up?"

"They'd have soldiers patrolling the area. The soldiers don't know me, they'd be on shoot to kill protocol."

"Why didn't you tell us all of this before?" Michonne asked, crossing her arms. She smelled bullshit.

There was a silence in the group when Rick suddenly cut in.

"When was the last time you used the radio?" Rick asked, his eyes narrowing at Eugene.

"Um… it was…"

"He said he radioed in about a week ago," Abraham answered, "Right before we got caught at Terminus."

Rick held up the inside of the radio. "This is the transistor. It's completely burned out, and it has been for a while. More than a week. This radio hasn't been working for a very long time, and that drop wasn't what broke it."

There was silence as Abraham looked at Eugene and then Rick again.

"What the hell are you trying to say?" Abraham asked.

"He's lying," Rick replied, his eyes narrowing. "Aren't you?"

Eugene's shoulders slumped and his head hung on his neck.

"Yes."

There was another beat of silence before Abraham lost his mind. "What part are you lying about? Are you a scientist? Is Washington safe? Was there a point to this whole fucking trip?" he screamed.

"No. To all of it."

"What?" Abraham screamed. "Why? Why would you lie about that?"

"I'm sorry," Eugene admitted. "I needed someone to protect me. I saw you, and I know the only way you'd stick around was if you thought I was important enough to protect. So I thought up a lie and got you to help me. I didn't realize how much I'd have to keep lying to keep it going. I didn't realize others would die to keep it going. Then, when we recruited all of you," Eugene said, gesturing to the group around him. "I felt so bad. You had a kid, a baby, but I had to keep up the lie or I thought you'd kill me. I… I sabotaged the bus. Busted a hole in the tire so it'd go flat. I didn't know it'd almost flip the bus. I didn't know one of you could've gotten hurt…"

Before anyone could stop him, Abraham stood and punched Eugene in the face so hard blood immediately poured from his mouth. He kept going, punching the man again and again and again. No one interfered for the first few punches, but when Rick saw that Eugene was unconscious he reluctantly pulled Abraham off of him.

"Do you know what I went through for that son of a bitch? I've traveled across the goddamn country for him! People died because of him, trying to get him to Washington. And for what? He's not just a goddamn liar, he's a fucking murderer!"

Rick let go of Abraham, but he had nothing to say. No comforting words, because he felt exactly how Abraham did. All the hope they had of there eventually being an end to this nightmare they currently lived in was over. There was no cure. There was no end. This was their life now.

Abraham wandered into the woods as everyone else stared blankly at Eugene. He lay face down on the ground, with blood pooling from his nose and mouth. After a few seconds, Michonne bent down and checked his pulse.

"He's still alive. Come help me get him out of the sun," she ordered. Glenn, Maggie, and Daryl helped drag Eugene under the shade of the trees.

"Well, we have to make camp now," Carol stated. "It's getting dark."

She set off to do just that. As Rick stood, contemplating what their next steps were, Sasha came up behind him.

"Well, now we know for sure there's no hope," she stated, before walking off into the woods.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading my stories, and I apologize for the long breaks in between chapters. I'm going to try to make shorter chapters but update more frequently. The next chapter will be coming soon. Thanks for your support and please remember to review!