A/N: Warning for all the ugly, horrific things that happen when lawless men take over a camp. Uses TWD canon for off-camera rape/murder of Terminus residents.

December 11, 2010

~*~ SW ~*~

Shane shivers a little as he follows Scout up the path to the community center. Despite the temperature hovering at freezing, a good-sized group of them showed up for this morning's run and PT. But after a shower and changing into his clothes for the day, he's losing that extra warmth from exercise.

"Should put your hat on," Scout teases, smiling back at him. Her own dark hair is covered by a camo watch cap pulled snugly down over her ears. She's even wearing a balaclava around her neck, although it's pulled down into the collar of her coat to leave her face exposed.

His hat and balaclava are in his pocket, because he didn't want to put them on, just to take them back off for breakfast. They're not going off-property today, since they already did an extra run yesterday for the distribution center. Today's set as a "let's get this addition done by Christmas" day for them. The colder weather has meant no one really wants to work after dark, and with the push to get the distribution centers plus a few choice locations found nearby each cleared out, they've been past dark each day getting free of duties.

He's just glad the bulk of the fuel runs are done, although teams will spin out to the speedways and more remote air strips and airports as they can. The amount of fuel in sealed 55-gallon drums is a little breathtaking, especially since paperwork they found says some of it is good for at least two years. Eugene got drawn in with Gage and Lenore Eldridge on coming up with a larger scale production for biodiesel and even ethanol is being tossed around.

They've gone from worrying about fuel to wondering if the fuel will outlast their ability to repair vehicles. Once they start scouting new areas again, Jim's given them a list of older vehicles to keep an eye out for that will be easier to repair. Shane's just happy the mechanics seem to be of the attitude if Henry Ford could manage vehicles in his era, they can come up with something too. He's not looking forward to horses and mules being their mode of transport.

He's not the only person dashing up to the community center without hat or gloves, and there's a pretty good line to hang outerwear on the hooks along one outside wall. Scout grins and cups her warm hands over his freezing ears and steals a kiss.

He sticks with the oatmeal and a side of sausage for a hot meal. He's not sure what meat is worked into the sausage at this point. Could be anything wild game or loose livestock at this point. While all the teams make their best effort to rescue livestock, as winter sets in and animals move more, they're starting to realize a lot more critters survived than expected, so Hershel's put some on the hunting list for now. Hershel estimates the numbers will thin down quite a bit over the winter, as weaker ones used to human care die off or become prey to larger predators. Walkers will probably kill off the smaller animals if they can overwhelm them, but after an afternoon spent chasing chickens loose on a property, Shane's starting to understand the amount of loose poultry in Georgia now.

But the most impressive site was arriving at the Walmart distribution center in Monroe to find water buffalo grazing near town. They discovered why when they went exploring to find a biodiesel place supposed to be in town, and down the road... the exotic farm that released their animals before evacuating. Water buffalo and alpacas roam the area as if they own it, and Shane supposes by this point, they do.

The most entertaining part is watching the water buffalo take down a trio of walkers who thought them fair game. Shane certainly wouldn't want to challenge the feisty bastards. Hershel put a firm "no" down over the radio when asked if they should round any up. They did catch a couple alpaca to add to the pair already on the horse farm, and the hunting teams took down a water buffalo to test viability for food, because no one ever had the meat before except Scout.

They are just about done with breakfast when the new radios issued last week to everyone issue an alert... only to council members' units, asking them to report to the watch.

He's never heard Dale's voice that rattled, not even during the confrontation with Scout about Ed's fate. The fact that he's not clearing the message where most of the community can overhear is equally disturbing.

It's probably the fastest the six of them have ever crossed the distance to the little container building that houses their watch.

Dale looks as white as a ghost. Beside him, Amalia Sanchez isn't much better, and he knows the woman has nerves of steel.

"Terminus has been taken over," Dale manages. "They brought in a group recently, not sure on details, and they took over yesterday. They staged a riot last night and managed to get Alex over the fence. It took him until now to find a working radio to get through to us. He's waiting."

Merle reaches for the CB radio indicated by Dale. "Alex. Dixon here. Tell us what we need to know to come get your people."

The reply is garbled, and Shane wonders if it's injury or emotion. Probably both. "Twenty men. They killed probably a third of us the night they took over, especially men. They've got the men in the rail cars." The next sound is a definite sob. "Not sure if more died last night, or if they'll just wish they're dead."

"Where are you, Alex?" Merle's voice is probably the kindest Shane's ever heard it speaking to someone outside his family.

"Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield. Figured one of the work trucks here might have a working CB and wouldn't draw walkers to start it up."

"You safe until we get there? Enough fuel to stay warm?"

"Yeah. I figure if they were going to come after me, it would have happened long before I got here."

"Stay put. Gonna send the medical in to get you, so look for a big ass mobile medical to come wandering in. Rest of us will bypass to see what we can do to get your people free."

"Leader's got a bunch of facial tattoos. So do a few others."

"Alright. Stay safe. We'll be there inside two hours. Alert Dale here if anything changes."

Merle lays the CB mike down and turns to the others waiting. "I don't imagine this is even up for discussion." The prevailing expression of the rest of the council is of the 'no shit' variety.

Scout shifts her weight. "I'll go get the teams started. Carol, can your folks have us fully geared in half an hour?"

"Less." The grey-haired woman's expression is foreboding. "How many teams are going?"

"I'll leave two experienced teams here, but I'm taking an equal number that aren't usually in the field, plus a medical team that needs to be geared up. Forty-four. Full firearms, no air rifles, everyone in body armor."

The two women plan as they walk, with Shane and Merle listening in. He knows Merle will lead one of the teams out, but he isn't sure yet who Scout's leaving behind and isn't going to interrupt. Carol splits off at the community center, Tyreese following.

Everyone's on full alert when they return. "Terminus has been attacked. Jim, I need you to take a half dozen of your teens down to ready the big Humvees, all four of them plus two of the M35s. Pull the med unit out to go too."

The man doesn't even wait for any more instructions from Scout, tapping several of the teenagers who cycle through the garage as he heads for the door.

"Daryl, you and Quinton are staying behind with your teams. Lock it down and assume anyone approaching the fences is unfriendly. Terminus doesn't know our exact location, but they know enough to be careful. I'm leaving you Morales too, and Christopher's going with the med team. That's Cricket, Caleb, and Miriam. Denova, you're on my team today."

With the shuffle, she just left all three males with an expectant 'wife' behind. He hopes she doesn't have any such ideas about leaving him behind.

"All color teams, Hawkeye, Dasher, Rudolph, and Warden. Full firearms, no air rifles. If you don't have one on issue, get one issued before you load up. Merle and Bryce will each take a team in. If they grab you, get geared up."

"Are we going to need to bring them here?" Patricia asks.

"We don't know yet, but let's prepare for that possibility."

From the time of those words, it takes them less than an hour to be in the vehicles and on the road. He and Scout are in the lead Humvee, their teams and two of Merle's in the troop seats in the back. Other than the lack of rank on everyone's uniform, it could be a scene out of any footage he's seen on TV of troop transport. When Scout said full gear, it meant down to the helmets.

Now to see if their double numbers are enough to take down twenty assholes who took advantage of neighborly kindness.

~*~ MD ~*~

The hardest part of this waiting is knowing Scout and Tim are inside the damn compound with only each other for backup. They're the only two with any kind of recon experience, even if they do have several military or former military who've seen real combat. The only men in view, guards half drunk on duty, are down and hogtied with zip ties. He's not sure either will be getting back up after the pair inside pressed stun guns to the base of their skulls and jolted them. One man's having a seizure as Merle watches.

There aren't enough of the bandits to patrol the fence, and he's not sure the bastards are even trying. He's back here with forty invaders and they haven't begun to notice. They aren't expecting anyone to come to the rescue.

When the signal comes, Merle and Tyreese peel back the fence they already cut to let everyone inside.

Tim's above on a rail car, perched and ready. Merle prays the sniper's as good as he seems to be. No one wants friendly fire today.

Maggie follows his lead, taking a perch at the further end. Jacqui and Sasha also take position. With half his team up top, Glenn leads Jacqui's team to take up positions to alert the prisoners help is coming. They are safer in the rail cars for now.

The throat radio activates again as most of the teams spread out to take covered positions. Shane gives the all clear the teams he's leading are in place on the far side of the building and Jamie's teams are as well on their side.

Scout begins her report from the damned attic crawlspace in the main building.

"I got eyes on eleven men in various states of drunk. None with tattoos on the face. Careful at the south entrance. Got two women in the room to the left with three men. Men aren't friendlies."

"Can't get a clear sight line, but there's at least one in the RV closest to the building. I'm betting the rest are spread out in the RVs." Tim's voice has the same flat inflection as Scout's.

"Move in to cover the RVs," Merle orders, and his four teams adjust to cover any exit from the RVs.

On Shane's count, the teams at the building take down both doors with a booming efficiency that would make SWAT teams envious.

~*~ SW ~*~

Years of police training kick in and he's glad of Rick by his side. Just two teams enter from each side, leaving the third to cover the rear. There's gunfire from another room as soon as they enter, followed by a meaty thud.

Only two of the assholes get their guns raised in the main room, and only one of those fires off a shot. It hits Tanaka in the chest and knocks him down, but Carlos signals the armor held up.

He runs a mental count as Jamie clears the door between the two big rooms. Three dead, one bleeding. Bryce's team gets that one zip-tied and the other three's permanent death double checked.

Jamie nods toward the open door in his room. "She's checking on the women with Sally and Candace. Got two breathing in here."

Gunfire erupts outside, but it's erratic. The unknowns in the RVs must be trying to emerge.

Scout appears. She's favoring her side, where a very distinctive pattern of a gunshot impact ruins her uniform. But she's alive and moving so he pushes away the flashbacks of Rick being shot.

"Try the north side to get behind them," comes Merle's request. "We got at least four livelies, but it's whack a mole right now. Only got one on the ground."

And no way of knowing if they have hostages.

"Karen, you and Shepherd's teams stay here. Keep the women safe and shoot any of the prisoners who give you reason to." Scout looks to Tanaka. "You good?" The ex-cop nods, although he's moving like Scout from rib impact.

And Shane follows her into the next stage, hoping none of these bastards start trying for head shots and thanking his lucky stars so many shooters train to torso shots with pistols. It's a mental override he's taken months to overcome in target practice.

"Make that two on the ground, but that one's yowling like a cat in heat."

"Ladies inside think there's eight out here," Scout reports. "But they probably have women with them."

The thought of why the women are there makes Shane's blood boil as hotly as Scout's gone to ice.

Not enough of their people have practice shooting through glass, but that doesn't matter much for T-Dog at the first RV. One of the entrapped women is taking advantage of her captor's distraction and scrambling out the emergency window. With that open, T-Dog shoots down the hallway, hitting the man center mass in the back twice.

The woman looks frantically around, choosing to take cover with Maria and avoiding the men. At Shane's signal, Maria hurries the woman toward the already secure building. T-Dog goes through the window to ensure the man's dead. He didn't check for a pulse before slamming his knife through the man's skull. Shane's not about to say a word.

T-Dog's target makes five down out here. If the women inside are correct, there's three more. Scout signals going to the far end with her team. Shane nods and his team goes to the next RV.

There's a woman huddled in the bedroom. He taps at the window and wishes Maria wasn't the only woman on his team. But his reassurances work and she fumbles her way to freedom as Maria returns. She takes this one as well. There's no one in the RV when Rick levers inside. He locks the door for good measure and comes back out the window.

The next RV is empty of men, and this victim can't escape. She turns even as they tap, and Shane takes the shot through glass to put her to rest.

"Can we feed them to walkers, the ones just wounded?" Maria asks as she rejoins them at the next RV.

Shane thinks she has a good idea going there.

The two women inside aren't trying for the window because the bandit is pacing the hallway. One is doing her best to keep her body in front of the other. This bandit is long haired, bearded, with complex facial tattoos.

Shane wishes for a larger caliber gun as he fires. The women scream, but when his target goes down cursing, the protective one goes for the emergency release on the shattered window. She gets the other woman shoved out of the window before the wounded man manages a shot when neither Shane nor Rick can take aim.

The woman falls through the busted window, and Shane isn't sure which wound is the worst: the gunshot or the glass slicing into her skin. Maria and Rick go to work with first aid kits, while the other woman actually huddles into T-Dog's bulk.

"Get her inside and send Zach," Shane orders. He shoots the fucker in the shoulder before climbing through. A head shot is too clean, too easy. He zip-ties the man. Either he'll bleed to death, suffering as he does, and end up a hogtied walker, or he'll live to answer to Scout's less than considerate questioning methods.

Zach's working frantically, throat radio abandoned for ham radio contact with Caleb, Cricket, and Christopher. The doctor confirms he's entering the camp with more gear while the other two wait to bring the med unit.

He considers going forward with just him and Rick, but Scout's team is meeting them in the middle.

"One bolted out front. The other's dead by his own captive. Left his belt knife in her reach while he tried to shoot out the door," she reports. Tanaka and Denova are leading four women toward where they've sent the others.

Watching Zach work makes him feel helpless despite the day's rescues. They can only pray Caleb can work his magic.

"Let the prisoners out of the rail cars now. Glenn, yours and Ryan's teams come help us sweep the property."

Shane allows himself a brush of hands with Scout as they pass to join the sweep teams. Caleb reaches his patient and eases her onto a backboard with Zach's help.

Eighteen dead or immobile. Time to make sure no rats are lurking.

~*~ GR ~*~

With everything that's happened, Glenn's only ever killed walkers. When his team finds the shed and the man begging surrender, he accepts and zip ties his hands. But when they find the barely breathing woman inside the unheated shed, no one stops him.

He honestly thought he would feel more the first time he took a human life.

Then again, what he shot was less human than the walkers roaming their world.

It's his job to kill the monsters now, after all.

~*~ MD ~*~

Merle opens the gate for the med unit to roll in, but they're already breaking cover on both Terminus and Homestead. Without the helicopter, the woman Glenn found and the woman shot by the bandit leader might not make it. They need surgery and equipment they don't have here.

Welles is already in the air with the Huey turned ambulance and Felipe on board. He'll be down and back before they can get halfway there.

He only made one trip by Terminus, to install solar panels, and the grim nature of the rail yard camp didn't appeal to him then. Now, with the devastation of the bandit takeover, it has a haunted air that reminds him of Iraq and Panama.

Gareth, out of his rail car prison, gives them a headcount of sixty-eight before the bandit group came in. Forty-one survived less than 48 hours under a madman's control, and at least two of those are critical. The bandits lost six of their original number between resistance and riot.

Five of the nineteen bandits still alive are still breathing, plus the leader. All are bleeding in the cold. Those of Terminus' survivors who want to watch are gathered as Scout and Shane work in tandem to question the leader.

Mary stands resolutely next to her sons. She's bruised and battered, but refused medical care other than steri-strips to hold together a gash in her cheek. Alex's arm's in a splint, broken in two places. He'll need surgery according to Cricket. Gareth looks like a horror movie extra, with only steri-strips holding him together until the medical personnel finish with his people.

"They aren't aware of any larger groups," Scout reports in. She's cleaning her hands with a disinfectant wipe and his heart aches to recognize her comfort with questioning techniques not legal on U.S. soil. He thinks there will always be a dark unknown about her time overseas.

"Will you let them live?" Alex asks, voice hoarse.

"No."

It's not an answer she'll take any objections to, Merle knows, but none of the Terminus witnesses object. It's like Grady all over again.

Shane adds, "He'll die of blood loss soon enough, probably the gut-shot one too."

That leaves two more shot bandits, one with a head injury, and one of the two tased men. The one having seizures earlier died before the camp was retaken. Merle hopes he was aware as he suffered.

"Let them bleed then," Mary intones. She looks to the walkers at the fences drawn by gunfire, and he wonders if she's considering feeding them to the dead while still alive. He isn't sure he would want to stop her.

"You can't stay here," he says, as gently as he can manage. He can't imagine anyone who survived this being able to sleep here ever again.

"You can't take us in." Gareth looks disbelieving. "Even what's left, there's no room."

"We can manage the room and we've got the supplies. But if you need to be on your own, we can offer refuge while we find a new place for your people. Away from the cities."

There's unspoken communication between the three leaders.

"We'll accept refuge until our people are healed."

"Good. Let's get everyone loaded up. Sooner we get everyone to Homestead, the safer we'll all feel."

The sound of the helicopter draws everyone's attention and Merle starts the logistics of getting forty plus damaged and suffering people on the road.

It'll be crowded, but there's no way they can leave proven good neighbors vulnerable. It's not who they are.

~*~ CP ~*~

Carol's never been more grateful for her ongoing medical training - and hated it at the same time.

Of the forty-one survivors, twenty-one are females over sixteen, and of those, nineteen were raped at least once. She wants to be grateful none of the men were pedophiles, but who knows what would have happened if Alex hadn't gotten word to Homestead? As it is, the seven children witnessed too much of the violence and death.

Most of the rape victims refused treatment from any male medical personnel, so the hours after their arrival are a haze of exams, bloodwork, stitches, and setting broken bones for Carol, Cricket, Lilly, and Maggie. Other women are helping, but their skills are limited. Gentle Caleb took the three alert patients willing to see him, so long as a fully armed woman stood by. Michonne volunteered. Her gleaming katana seems to soothe the women she's overseeing.

The two women medflighted to Homestead are still unconscious post-surgery, patched together by Edwards and Hershel. The fact that the vet worked on the hypothermic, tortured woman without benefit of the little OR is impressive. His resemblance to Santa Claus with that pretty beard of his must help, because the woman reacted to all other males on the medical staff in terror. He's the only Homestead male in the little hospital ward, sitting at his patient's bedside. Edwards is off running labs and Carol suspects the man won't sleep tonight. Grady left its ghosts too.

The ten beds in here are full. Eight women and two men deemed needing a little more oversight. A few of them have a loved one in the chair next to the bed. Glynnis came through with blankets and pillows.

Carol goes to stop by Alex's bed. The surgery to repair his arm is a tentative success according to Edwards and Caleb, neither of which have done a bone repair before. He's asleep, too drugged up from painkillers to manage alertness even if the exhaustion of his run through the night to find a way to contact Homestead would let him stay awake. Mary's wrapped in the blankets she was given, gaze haunted as she watches over her younger son.

"I wanted to let you know before I leave that everyone else is settled in the two bunkhouse units in one of the buildings across the way. It's the one marked Pisces and they're in the two upstairs units." It's overcrowded, but Carol understands their willingness to share twin bunks versus spread out further than they have to with some of their people in the infirmary. They have RVs, but it only took one terrified look from one of the women for that plan to be firmly moved off the table. Even the container buildings give them pause, and she remembers that the men and children were locked into railcars. "If anyone needs anything to eat or drink, there's food and water bottles in the coolers Glynnis brought in."

They did similar for the two bunkhouses. She figures no one wants to wander the property just yet. Glynnis even has it planned to deliver box meals unless the Terminants want to venture into the community center for supper.

Mary nods, wincing as the movement pulls at the stitches in her face. "Gareth with them?"

"Yes. He met with Merle a while, working on some ideas for where a new settlement would go, until his wife was discharged."

"Wife works, I suppose. No ministers around to marry them now."

"We figured we decided on our own officiants here." She waves a hand towards Hershel. "He's ours. Just like the world a few hundred years ago. Witnesses and declaring yourselves is all we need here."

"That what you're doing?"

Carol's got her ring back on now, but it hung off the special chain through most of her time working. The antique ruby ring is gorgeous, but it isn't practical for half her everyday chores. Daryl brought her back a ring keeper necklace from a supply run. It's a hugely popular item for jewelry here now.

"On Christmas, we will. Low key for us, just a testament in front of the community. But the community has hosted a more traditional wedding before."

Mary pets Alex's hand, where Carol knows he wore a wedding band before Cricket splinted his arm in the med unit. She had to cut the ring off and returned it to his mother. Mary's voice is soft. "His wife didn't make it. Not sure how he'll live with that. But I think he'd like to see his brother married, before we leave this sanctuary. He's fond of Cynthia."

"Just tell Gareth to speak to Hershel. We'll take care of it."

Carol starts to leave, until Mary calls out her name softly. "Thank your people for coming for us. Gareth swore you would, but I wasn't sure Alex would make it or anyone would care until your Marine dropped out of that ceiling and started shooting those men. I just wish I reacted faster to knock the one out that shot at her before he managed it."

"You did a good job helping for no warning at all, Mary. She's grateful for it." She gives the woman her best smile. The man's first shot had been a chest shot, but if he managed to fire again, he might have hit something vulnerable. Mary hit the bastard hard enough with a candle holder she fractured his skull, even if he did live a few hours after. "We're all grateful for it."

"I don't know what we would have become if no one came."

"Maybe you should consider staying here. We can expand."

"I'll talk it over with the boys, and the others. If anyone wants to stay and we go, they'll be welcome, right?"

"With open arms."

Mary gives her a faint smile and turns back to the vigil of watching her son sleep.

~*~ LG ~*~

Lori's loading laundry into the machines with Carl's help when Daryl steps inside, back from an outside wall patrol. He's windblown and cold, but neither of them object when he plucks Abby off her perch on the folding table and wraps everyone into a hug. His team didn't go to Terminus, but they did help with the aftermath, and she saw Christopher join the patrol before it left out. The nurse looks like he took a personal journey to hell and left half his soul there.

Considering what she suspects happened at Terminus based on all the women being hustled from bus to infirmary and all the women with any sort of medical ability being drawn in, she understands the man's expression and at least some of Daryl's need to hold them all. Rick took ten minutes to let Carl go after he returned. She doesn't have any details yet, keeping her crew working in the slim windows they have to get laundry done in winter cold. The current loads will actually go in the dryers, but she isn't willing to leave the hospital soiled linens to sit even overnight.

"Everything clear outside?" she asks softly from where she and Abby are pressed between Carl and Daryl.

"Yeah. Couple of stragglers like usual." He kisses her cheek and then Abby's as he lets go, one hand lingering firmly until Asskicker responds too. The girl leans into Lori, but Carl returns to his machine and continues his work.

"Why don't you take the kids for a tracking lesson?" It'll keep Daryl's mind on important things. She hasn't forgotten the lessons of being a cop's wife, of how sometimes the need to protect rises so high after a period of stress it can't wind back down. And while she likes having Carl's help here and is glad Carol put him on the roster once a week to help as his 'cleaning chore' rotation, no one's going to be fussing about unfinished shifts today.

"A'right. Gonna take Flurry along. See if that nose of hers is worth training more." Although Bandit the Aussie seems to have adopted Lori and Abby, Carl's had his eye on one of the catahoula pups ever since Honey gave Domino away. He's got permission for one, but he and Daryl have yet to decide which one is the one yet. She kind of hopes its the not-so-little-anymore dog half-named after the McDonald's dessert. She's a goofy clown when she's not working, which means she fits in well with Bandit. They're similar in weight now, but Flurry will outweigh him by her full growth.

The kids scramble into their winter wear, grabbing happiness the way only kids can even when the adults are dealing with the dire reality around them. Daryl uses the time to get a leisurely kiss. "Got your radio?" he asks.

Used to his safety checks, she motions to where she unclipped the radio but has it on the folding table closest to where she's working. Her knife, as always, is still in the shoulder holster, but the radio gets in the way of arm movement when clipped to the front of the holster.

"Have them call us back if you need anything. Gonna go over to the horse farm."

Then Ronnie comes in with a load from the lines and Daryl ushers the children out of the small laundry facility. She sees some of the tension in Daryl's shoulders ease as he's reminded that one of her work crew is a Guardsman. Unlike Lori, Ronnie carries a firearm along with his knife. She's actually the only one of her crew that doesn't, but she's with children too often to be comfortable.

"They going off hunting?" the bearded man asks.

"Tracking lesson for the kids and the dog."

He chuckles. "Think he's willing to teach adults sometime?"

"I'm sure he would, if you wanted him to."

"I'll ask sometime then." The man accepts her help in folding the sheets in his load, but then eyes the washers. "You got a while on those. Why don't you take a break and we can babysit til they're in the dryers."

She nods, working her way into the over-sized men's coat that works around her bulk and shoving the radio in one of the front pockets. She skips her gloves, which reminds her that she has another knife slipped into the lining Daryl altered. Wondering if the women of Terminus would have been safer if they carried weapons so naturally as she's being trained to do, she runs her fingers along the handle of the knife.

Maybe it's time she reconsiders not carrying her uncle's gun.

~*~ GR ~*~

Glenn startles when his radio buzzes against his hip. He's not used to the new units, which are police models after the electronic tinkers of Homestead re-purposed a system from one of the local law enforcement offices for in-community use. Now instead of everyone hearing a walkie request or broadcast, they can be done more individually, like this morning's council summons.

He answers, still perched on a stack of old pallets where he's watching Maggie methodically destroy targets on the archery range. She's yet to bleed off the rage from the Terminus rescue, which was revived after her shift helping in the infirmary. So, he's just staying near for when the need to destroy things turns to needing comfort instead.

"I've got someone asking to see you," Hershel explains. Since the vet is the one overseeing the care of the tortured woman Glenn's team found, he knows who that has to be.

"Maggie? The girl's awake."

Because that's what she is, as reported in from Gareth's shaky census given to Merle and Tyreese. Gia Morris is only eighteen.

Maggie retrieves her arrows and takes the bow and quiver to the storage shed. She follows him back to the infirmary, but when he sees her hesitate, he gives her a chaste kiss. "I'll meet you at the community center after."

It means he's alone as he sheds his outerwear and makes his way to the hospital ward.

Gia recognizes him and despite the injuries to her face, manages a ghost of a smile. "I thought I dreamed you, but he says you're his son."

The flush of pleasure in that recognition runs through him, but banked by the anger/sorrow mix of knowing what this girl survived. "I'm real. It's good to see you awake." When they got her broken body onto that makeshift backboard, he honestly didn't think she could survive. She's a mass of bandages now, one arm and one leg in a temporary splint awaiting the swelling to subside enough to give her the lightweight cast like Honey's.

Her eyelids flutter shut and back open as she swallows, the movement obviously painful. "He's dead, right? I didn't dream that."

"I shot him myself." Three times. Glenn wanted to make sure the man didn't get a second life as a walker either. He'd wished for the bigger damage of Rick's Python too. But three close range impacts from his Glock meant there wasn't enough brain matter left for the bastard to do more than burn with the rest of his kind when Terminus was erased under flame.

"Good." She offers a hand, her left undamaged, and he takes it, unsure if she wants to shake or just have him hold it. When she grips tightly, he steps closer to lessen her reach. "There were others?"

"My team. My fiancé, Maggie; sister-in-law, Tara; and our sniper, Tim."

"Thank them for me." She fights against a yawn that would be painful and lets his hand go.

"I'll bring them all to visit, when you're feeling up to it."

She manages something like a nod before she drifts off. He looks to Hershel for reassurance.

"She's going to sleep a lot the next few days, I think. Her body's got a lot to recover from, and she's lost what was left of her family now. You visiting, bringing the others, I think that'll help."

"I will. Do you need anything?"

Hershel shakes his head, indicating the book he has and a backpack Glenn knows probably contains any comfort items the man might need for a night at a bedside. "Keep an eye on Beth for me tonight?"

Glenn understands that need. Even though Beth sleeps in probably the safest building on the property, having her that far away ought to be unnerving after helping repair the damage of the Terminus attack. "She and Maggie can have a sleepover." The recliner's comfortable enough for Glenn and having her sister to look after will help Maggie too.

Hershel thanks him and as he glances back at Gia on his way out, Glenn wishes he could have made the man's death linger like the other bandits' did.