The roadway has narrowed to a single lane on each side. Most of the leaves still hold onto the trees in the woods that line the street, clinging to branches and waving in the November breeze like red, gold, and orange flags. The storm passed sometime in the night, and the sun shines down on the soaked black asphalt, sending occasional blinding glints of light off the puddles in potholes. Carol peers into the half open window of a car as the group walks by. A lone walker gnashes inside, so famished it has, after all these years, wasted away to almost bones. She doesn't bother with it.

A few steps behind her, Lt. Alvarado jimmies open the trunk and roots around. Carol turns back to see what he finds, and Daryl stills beside her. The navy man comes up with a blue first aid kit. He flings it open, picks out the contents worth keeping, and shoves them into the outer pocket of his pack. Meanwhile, Michonne pulls from the trunk a gallon-sized, plastic ziplock bag. "Girl's," she tells Carol. "Clean and sealed. Toddler size. You want them for Sweetheart?"

Carol catches the bag Michonne tosses to her. It's labeled Emergency Change of Clothes in fading, black permanent marker. She used to do the same thing for Sophia, right down to the gallon bag. The underwear, socks, shirt, and shorts inside look to be in decent condition, sealed away from dust and moths. "Thanks."

Daryl meanwhile has strolled back to the trunk. He pulls a slightly deflated football out of it and turns it in his hands. Then he swivels, shuffles three steps from the trunk, and shouts, "Heads up!" before tossing it toward the tail end of the hiking pack, where a surprised Henry tries to catch it, fumbles, and then plucks it up again from the ground. Henry tosses it back to Daryl, but undershoots, and Gunther runs forward from somewhere in the hiking pack to intercept it.

"Good catch," Dianne tells him as she strolls over to the car.

"I was the quarterback for my high school football team." Gunther leans back against the side of the trunk like a flirting high school boy, tosses the ball in the air, and catches it with one hand. "1987 Virginia State Champions."

"Really?" A smile barely teases the corner of Dianne's lips. "Do you still have the ring?"

"Well, I wasn't on the team in 1987," Gunther says.

Dianne snorts.

Daryl and Carol rejoin the hiking pack.

"That was after I dropped out of school to help save the family farm," Gunther says as he and Dianne fall back into the hike behind them.

"I was a cheerleader," Dianne tells him.

Upon hearing this, Carol glances at Daryl. He clearly shares her skepticism about this claim, and they try not to laugh as their eyes catch.

Gunther is no less skeptical. "Like hell you were." He turns and tosses the football back to Henry. The teenager has to run backward and jump up to catch it, but he succeeds this time, and Jerry claps.

"Believe it or not, I really was," Dianne insists.

"Is that so?" Gunther asks. "Do you still have the uniform?"

"You wish."

The murmur of their conversation fades as Carol and Daryl pull further ahead, keeping pace with Michonne and Lieutenant Alvarado toward the front of the pack, a couple yards behind Captain McBride, who is flanked by a sailor on his left and two on his right.

"Judith and RJ are going to love those pixie sticks," Michonne tells Carol. "Daryl's going to be like Santa Claus rolling into Oceanside with those. I can't believe I never used to let Andre have sweets. I guess the apocalypse loosened me up."

"Andre?" Lieutenant Alvarado asks from beside her.

Michonne purses her lips as if she didn't mean to let the name or the memory slip out. "From before," she says solemnly. "He was three."

"Oh."

"It's like another world now," Michonne says. "When I was another person. But a mother never forgets."

"No, we don't," Carol agrees quietly. For her it wasn't another world, though. It was still this one, because the man who walked the road for her daughter, who was wounded in his search for, still stands at her side. She feels his fingertips now, on the small of her back, light feathers of comfort, for just a moment, and then they're gone.

"My daughter was named Carmela," Lt. Alvarado says. "She was four."

Michonne glances at him in surprise. It's so rare that any of them talk about the before anymore. Her surprise turns to curiosity. "Were you sixteen when you had her?"

He laughs. "How old do you think I am?"

"Thirty," she says. "More or less. That's what I've been assuming."

He laughs again. "All right, well, keep assuming that if you like."

"How old are you?" Michonne asks.

"Not thirty."

"Thirty-five?"

"Not thirty-five."

"Forty?" Michonne asks.

"I'm thirty-eight, if you must know."

"There's no way you're thirty-eight. Captain McBride is thirty-seven."

"Promotion isn't based on age."

Daryl whirls suddenly in response to Henry's call of heads up! and catches the flying football with a thunk. He tosses it back in the direction from which it came and turns to walk forward again.

"Good catch. Were you the quarterback on your high school football team?" Carol asks with a smirk.

"Pffft. Nah. I was cap'n of the marchin' band, of course."

Carol laughs.

"Played the clarinet," Daryl deadpans.

Michonne lets out a low chuckle. "What I wouldn't pay to see you play the clarinet, detective."

"Detective?" Alvarado asks.

"Never mind," Michonne tells him. "It's an inside joke. And a very old one."

"You and Daryl have a lot of inside jokes," he observes.

"Well we used to run around a lot together looking for this asshole who needed killing."

"Did you find him?" Alvarado asks.

She sighs. "He found us. But let's not talk about that. It's such a beautiful day." It's true. The birds are chirping and the sun is shining in the aftermath of last night's storm. The after-scent of rain fills the air around them. "How old have you been assuming I am?"

The lieutenant shakes his head. "I'm not dumb enough to play that game."

Michonne chuckles.

"Think you'll come by on the last mailboat before winter?" Alvarado asks her with a hopeful smile. "To Jamestown?"

"Those slots are always in high demand."

"Have you considered demanding one?" he asks.

"They have to keep one open because Raul's coming to stay at the Hilltop for the winter," Michonne replies. "Then there's the pilot." She ticks the claimed slots off on her fingers. "They'll reserve a slot in case Mallory decides to come back to Oceanside instead of staying with…." She trails off and nods to Captain McBride's back. "So that leaves only three slots."

"And you're slender enough to fit in half of one," Alvarado says. "I fail to see the problem."

"Like I said, those slots are in high demand. Henry might want to come see his mother. And there are a few Jamestown sailors with Oceanside girlfriends, too, I understand."

Captain McBride turns around to face Michonne and walks backward as he talks. "I don't think Mallory will need that slot back to Oceanside. I think she'll like Jamestown and me just fine. She'll have an entire mess hall for her private kitchen on the Susan Constant. And she can have the second officer's cabin as her sitting room." He turns forward again.

"What about Witherspoon?" Ensign Lincoln asks.

"Oh, he'll move into Devon's room at the dorms soon enough," McBride answers.

"I wish I could swing that way!" Seaman Reedus exclaims. "Think of all the action!"

"With the only other two or three gay men in all of Jamestown?" Lincoln asks.

"I meant if we all swang that way."

"Well I can be flexible, pretty boy." Lincoln reaches over and slaps the seaman's ass. Reedus yelps in surprised disgust, stumble-leaps forward a few paces, and looks back at Ensign Lincoln suspiciously. Captain McBride lets out a boom of a laugh. It draws a walker from the edge of the woods, which Dianne pauses to shoot. She peels off from the pack to recover her spent arrow.

Carol notices that Daryl has dropped back to talk with Mitch and Aaron. She leaves him to his guy talk and remains by Michonne's side.

"Did you hear the junior lieutenant's moving off the Godspeed?" Ensign Morgan asks. "He was just waiting for Cassidy to turn eighteen, I guess. He's marrying her and moving in with her and her mother in that little hut."

"God, I'd hate to have to live with my mother-in-law," Seaman Reedus mutters.

"Well, you'd need a wife for that first, wouldn't you?" Lincoln asks him. "I don't think you're any danger of that."

Reedus flicks him off. "Just you watch. I'll find me a damsel in distress one of these days."

"I think all the former damsels in distress are dead by now," Lincoln says. "Or well-trained enough to kick your scrawny ass."

"I'd like to see your scrawny ass try."

"Boys," Captain McBride scolds. "Enough now."

Michonne glances at Alvarado. "It sounds like you play a lot of musical houses at Jamestown."

"Marrying and begetting," Lieutenant Alvarado tells her. "It's how we sustain civilization, isn't it?"

"Mhm," Michonne says noncommittally. "Well I've begat once already since the world ended. And so did my husband, and now she's mine, too."

"Your…husband?" Alvarado asks.

"My late husband, I meant."

"Quite the formidable ghost, Rick Grimes." Lt. Alvarado raises his voice slightly: "Captain, I'm going to veer off to refill my canteen. I'll catch up with the group later." He leaves the pack and jogs toward the woods. McBride glances in his direction and carries on.

McBride and the sailors move forward a few paces. When it's just Michonne and Carol side by side, with a lane of privacy, Carol turns to her with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" Michonne asks.

"You could be nicer to the lieutenant. He's obviously smitten with you."

"I've been honest with him. I'm not looking for a commitment. I told him that from day one. He said he was fine with that."

"He's clearly not fine with it."

Michonne sighs. She glances toward McBride's back up ahead. "These Navy boys. Who would have thought they'd be more interested in getting married than having a good time?"

Carol hears Daryl's dry laugh and glances back toward him. Aaron is showing him how he can switch out the weapons he attaches to his stump, and Mitch has apparently just said something funny. "Do you like him?" Carol asks as she turns forward again. "Lieutenant Alvarado?"

"What's not to like?" Michonne replies. "But no one will ever replace Rick. He needs to know that. It wouldn't be fair to him to pretend I can give him more than I can."

"It's been years," Carol says.

"If anything ever happened to Daryl, do you think you'd fall in love with another man again?"

Carol doubts she would even have a casual fling. But what happened between Rick and Michonne happened so fast, out of seeming nowhere, at least from Carol's distant witness point. Not that Rick didn't love Michonne. Not that he wouldn't have died for her. He did die for her. For all of them. But after Lori, after Jesse…sometimes Carol thinks it could have been any random woman from Alexandria or Oceanside or the Hilltop instead of Michonne, and Rick would have been just as loyal and sacrificial. Rick needed someone. Anyone. And while he was alive, it seemed to Carol that he overshadowed Michonne. Since his death, Michonne's emerged from that shadow. She's her own woman again - leader of Alexandria, slayer of walkers, follower of no one.

But maybe Carol's perspective is narrowed by her own relationship with Rick, Carol thinks. She and Rick never really saw eye to eye. Even though she forgave him his banishment of her, that wound never fully closed. Not fully. And even from the start, she had thought Daryl would make a better leader, if he would just step up and assert himself. But Daryl was so used to living under Merle's shadow. He wasn't comfortable in his own light, not then.

Daryl doesn't live in anyone's shadow anymore, but he's also not interested in being a mayor or a councilman or a sheriff. He's interested in roaming the forest, feeding people with wild game, fighting whatever battle needs to be fought, and then coming home from it all to watch Sweetheart laugh and feed her pet lizard, tuck his daughter into bed, and make love to his wife. It's probably the life he's always secretly wanted – the quiet life, where he has a clear and meaningful role to play – where there's a fire in the hearth, no fists being thrown beneath the roof, no dishes smashing against cabin walls – just the ordinary. The mundane. The quietly beautiful. It's a life he never thought he deserved, a life that took him a long while to settle into. But he has settled into it.

Carol looks back and smiles at Daryl as he laughs now. He ducks Aaron's mock blow and shuffles like a boxer, putting his arms up before his face.

"Would you?" Michonne repeats.

"No," Carol replies. She glances back again. The whole hiking pack is a abuzz with smiles and conversation. Cyndie's joking with Jerry while Dianne teases Gunther and Jesus is showing Henry some martial arts move. The navy men are hurling playful verbal barbs at each other while Tara laughs with an Oceanside guard. It feels like one big extended family come together for a reunion after too many years apart.

But the laughter and hum of a dozen different dialogues is shattered by the sound of Lt. Alvarado's pounding footsteps as he flies out of the woods and back onto the roadway toward them, his canteen jangling at his side. They all stop and turn. He comes to a rest before Cyndie, bends over, panting, and then stands, catches his breath, and speaks. "I saw signs of a temporary camp back there in the woods, across the creek. I didn't cross over, but…I think I may have found them. The last two of those Skins Oceanside didn't kill."

Cyndie grips her harpoon. "Show me."