March 21
12:55 AM

The walker-turned baby didn't kill Lori. It couldn't, at just four pounds and only a few ounces, with no teeth and soft nails. It tried. It gummed and scratched and writhed. The C-section probably would have gone faultlessly if Hershel had not been working his way around a writhing baby walker, which was punching and moving Lori's stomach about and threatened to grab at his fingers or the scalpel the moment it was exposed.

It didn't help that Lori was writhing or screaming in horror either, or that they'd had no time to put her to sleep with pain medications. Carol yelled for Daryl to come in and help hold the woman down while Hershel cut her open. Carol remained poised, small pocket knife in hand, trembling but ready to deal with the infant walker as soon as its head was exposed.

Rick had backed in horror against the wall of the room, holding Judith tightly cradled in his arms as thought to keep her safe from her monster-twin. With all the frantic movement, the cuts ended up being too jagged, too deep, not always in the right places.

Carol tried not to look too closely when the time came to do the awful deed. She tried not see the tiny monster, covered in the white vernix caseosa and the red blood from Lori's cuts, its jaw thrashing and its tiny eyes a glassy, hollow dark brown. She drove the pocket-knife into its forehead until it stilled and then quickly rolled its dead corpse into a towel.

By then, Lori had gone into a deep state of shock from blood loss as Hershel tried to stem the flow and stitch her back together. Rick rushed again to his wife's side. Lori sighed out her last breath as Rick bent over her, begging her to live.

1:45 AM

Rick carried Lori's wrapped body down the ramp and out of the House of the Future saying, "I'll do it. I'll make sure she doesn't turn."

Carl began to follow him. Beth grabbed him by the shoulder to try to hold him back. He shook her off and began walking again.

"No, Carl!" Beth told him. "You shouldn't have to see it."

"No, I shouldn't have to!" Carl cried. "It shouldn't have happened! But it did."

When he kept walking, Michonne held Beth back. "Let him be with his father. Let him be there, if that's what he needs."

The others stayed inside the house, to give father and son this moment. Almost ten minutes passed before a gunshot finally sounded.

2:30 AM

Daryl leaned on his shovel, gathered his breath, and looked up at the star-studded sky. He felt the first light mist of rain on his face.

"We better dig faster," T-Dog said.

Next to Lori's growing grave behind the Haunted Castle, Glenn was digging a smaller one, a tiny one, just big enough for a newborn baby.

Dixon had found a wooden coffin in the Haunted Castle that would fit Lori and had dumped the fake mummy out of it. Her body now lay inside, wrapped in fresh linens.

Inside the House of the Future, Carol was numbly cleaning up with the help of Patricia. They were remaking the bed to hide the evidence of the horror that had unraveled there. Sophia was comforting Carl, Michonne was comforting Rick, and Beth and Hershel were getting the younger kids back to sleep after they'd awakened with a fright, finally, at Lori's final screams.

Outside the House of the Future, Maggie was burning the bloody sheets in a metal trash barrel. The flames rose and danced a beautiful orange and blue above the dark rim of the can, sending smoke curling into the night sky as the rain began to patter gently, ting-tinging against the metal of the trash can, until the fire was snuffed out, and only cloth and ashes remained.

3:30 AM

Carol scrubbed her hands beneath the warm flowing water of the silver faucet, but it felt like the blood wouldn't come out. It would never come out.

She jumped at the shadow in the mirror, relaxed when she saw it was Daryl, and fell back into his arms. He was wet with rain, and his hands were splattered with brown mud. "Graves are dug. We'll bury 'em at sunrise, when the rain's stopped. Should get some sleep."

"No one's getting any sleep," she told him.

"Carl's out. Cried himself to sleep on the couch. 'Chonne tucked him in there. Soph fell asleep on the bear skin rug, with the puppies. Should try to get some sleep."

"I'm not getting any sleep."

"Then I'll stay up with you."

"Come sit with me on the porch swing of the Old Timey theater when you're cleaned up," she said. "But no talking."

"No talking," he agreed.

7:15 AM

The people in the house – those who had managed to go to sleep (not Michonne, who sat up with Rick, or Daryl, who sat up with Carol, or Maggie, who sat up with Hershel) – awoke to the scent of after rain and a chorus of birds chirping.

They buried Lori and the baby in the graveyard that also housed Merle and Jimmy. The baby's name hadn't been chosen. Lori and Rick were waiting to see their son before they made the final call. But the cross read Shane Dale Grimes. Carl had chosen the name, not knowing how the choice might be twisting a dagger into Rick's gut, and Rick had not protested.

Hershel performed the funeral ceremony to a numb audience. Sophia turned herself against Daryl's side and cried into this shirt as he wrapped an arm around her.

Rick tipped the first shovel of earth on the wooden coffin of his wife before breaking down. Daryl and T-Dog finished covering the grave, while Glenn buried the corpse of the baby that was not a baby, wrapped in a blue swaddling blanket.

When the graves were covered, Sophia handed Carl flowers to lay before the cross. The thirteen-year-old boy crouched down on the muddy earth and rested them at the foot of the wooden grave marker and whispered, "Bye, Mommy. Goodbye," before he burst into tears. Rick was too numb to comfort him. So, Carl turned to Michonne, who hugged him tightly.

9:45 AM

Carol had finally cried herself to sleep. Daryl slipped out the bed where he'd been holding her atop the covers, eased from the room, and shut the door with a gentle click. He couldn't go to sleep after being up so long. He'd go to bed early this evening. Maybe.

In the living room, Beth was feeding Judith from a bottle, and Sophia was sitting beside them on the couch to peer at the little tyke.

Sophia looked up. "I can't find Carl," she told him anxiously.

"I'll find 'em, baby girl. Don't you worry. Go take a nap."

"I slept four hours, before the funeral."

"Try'n take a nap anyhow."

Daryl found Carl, at the train depot, collecting stones from around the track and hurling them at the train's caboose, leaving tiny dents in the metal. He drew back his arm, but when he saw Daryl, he stopped and let it fall to his side, his hand still clutching the rough stone. Daryl walked across the tracks to him. "People are worried 'bout you."

"My dad hasn't left her grave."

"I know. Hey, know where you can find better stones to throw. By the creek. Wanna go get some with me?"

Carl opened his hand and let the rock fall with a thud to the earth. "Okay."

Daryl led the way, Carl at his side. "You know my ma," Daryl said as he walked, "she liked her wine. She liked to smoke in bed. Virginia Slims." They passed through the depot and out the other side onto the asphalt. He swung a left. "I was playing out with the kids in the neighborhood one day. I could do that with Merle gone."

"Why with Merle gone?"

"He used to make fun of me for playing like a little kid."

"But…you were a little kid, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Daryl said. "And the neighborhood kids, they were also afraid of Merle. They'd let me hang with them, though, when he wasn't around." They strolled through the arch labeled The Kingdoms of England. "Sort of. If I could keep up. They had bikes. I didn't. My parents said bikes were a waste of money. Didn't I have two feet?"

"Is that why you like motorcycles so much now? Because you never had a bike as a kid?"

"Maybe. Anyhow, we heard sirens. Getting louder. And the other kids, they jumped on their bikes. I ran after them, you know…hoping to see something worth seeing. I ran after them, but I couldn't keep up." He swung a right, to walk down the path that would lead to the River Thames. "I ran around the corner and saw my friends looking at me. Hell, I saw everybody looking at me." He could hear the water now, gently rushing. "Fire trucks everywhere. People from the neighborhood. It was my house they were there for."

Daryl led Carl onto the overgrown grass and toward the shore of the creek as the boy looked up at him curiously.

"That was my mom in bed. Burnt down to nothing." Daryl stopped at the shore and pointed. "That's a big one."

Carl went and picked up the heavy rock.

"That was the hard part, you know," Daryl continued. "She was just gone. Erased. Nothing left of her. People said it was better that way. I don't know. Just made it seem like it wasn't real, you know?"

Carl looked down at the rock in his hand, raised and lowered his arm slightly to feel its weight. "I shot my mom."

Daryl looked at him in surprise but said nothing. He only waited for the boy to continue..

"My dad…he couldn't. He just stood there. Holding the revolver. Pointing it at her. Her eyes had been closed. She was all wrapped up except for her face. She was out. Hadn't turned yet. I took the gun from him. He didn't stop me. I ended it. It was real."

Daryl nodded.

"I'm sorry about your mom," Carl said.

"I'm sorry about yours." Daryl nodded to the rock in Carl's hand. "Say we find somethin' damn good to throw that at? Somethin' that'll smash all to shit."

"Yeah," Carl agreed.

Daryl put a hand on his shoulder and urged him away from the creek.

11:55 AM

Alden put the box truck into park and Gavin jumped down from the passenger's side. Negan, his bat resting against his black-leather-jacket-clad shoulder, strolled out from the Sanctuary to examine the tribute Gavin had brought him. Grinning, Negan said, "Nineteen hours ahead of the deadline. The first of my lieutenants! As always."

It never took long for Gavin to collect the tribute. He trusted Ezekiel to honor their agreement and bring it to him at their rendezvous point, which meant Gavin never spent time searching houses or pantries to take inventory and collect like the other lieutenants did. The deadline for bringing the haul to the Sanctuary was sunrise tomorrow, which meant most of the others would be rolling in late at night or in the wee hours of morning, Simon from Hallowbrant Outreach Recovery Center, Gary from the Hilltop, Regina from the Viskocil Public Library, and Jed from Alexandria.

Negan ordered Fat Joey to roll up the back of the truck. "Hole-ee Hell!" Negan exclaimed when the door clanged to the top of the bed. "An even better haul than the last time! You keep topping yourself, Gavin!"

"If you don't over-glean, everything grows faster." It's what he'd been trying to tell Simon and Gary and the others. No spring harvest if you seized half the winter plantings. "Twenty percent of a lot is more than fifty percent of a little."

"Well done," Negan told him. "And as a token of my gratitude for your good work …help yourself to one of my wives later this evening. Wade's been booted from your old apartment for the night. I'll have her sent by around seven. Who's your pleasure?"

"You pick." That seemed safest. Tanya was right. If he picked Frankie again, Negan might start to get suspicious that he actually liked her. Which he did. A little. Maybe more than a little. But Gavin knew that was like playing with fire.

Negan laughed. "You're afraid to say Frankie." He clapped a hand down on Gavin's shoulder and gave him a fiery look. Gavin froze, half expecting Negan to swing his bat into the side of his head. But Negan only squeezed his shoulder, gave him that wide-tooth grin, and chuckled. "Relax, Gavin. This is the largest haul of real fresh food we've had since we started. So, if it's Frankie you want," he patted Gavin's shoulder, "it's Frankie you get. You see, I'm not a jealous man by nature. I just demand absolute loyalty and honesty of my wives. But it's not cheating as long as I give my permission." He winked. "So, enjoy her tonight."

12:30 PM

Daryl walked behind the Haunted Castle to where Rick kneeled on the still lightly softened earth before Lori's cross. He stood beside the man. "Beth made a late lunch," he said. "If you ain't gonna sleep, you gotta least come in and eat. Been hours." When Rick didn't respond, Daryl said, "Come on, man. Come on in. You got to come in."

"I've got too?" Rick asked bitterly. He stood from his wife's grave and glared at Daryl. "What the hell do you know? You still have your wife. Why the fuck did you have to invite us to your wedding? If we'd been at Woodbury, if Dr. Stevens had done the C-section with Bob, with Dr. S - she'd still be alive!"

Daryl hadexpected Lori to stay in Woodbury. But he didn't say that. Rick was grief-stricken. He'd just lost his wife of fifteen years. The first (the only) woman he'd ever made love to. The mother of his children. He was broken and he was angry, and if he needed a target to lash out against, Daryl would happily be that target.

But then Rick chose another target: "If we'd had real doctors, and not some veterinarian, and not some woman who didn't know what the hell she was – "

"- Don't you dare!" Daryl growled. "You leave Carol out of this. She did what she could. She did everythin' she could. And she was the one had to kill it. She cried herself to sleep over what she had to do. So don't you dare!"

Rick staggered back from Daryl's final roar. He nodded. Daryl didn't know if it that nod was an apology or a numb motion of his head because he was still in a state of shock. Rick kept nodding as he turned, and then he staggered off toward the house.

12:55 PM

Gavin strolled through the Sanctuary's marketplace. He stopped at a table where Gina was selling some kind of meat sandwich with a slice of fresh tomato from the Kingdom on top. "How many points?"

"Four."

"That's highway robbery, but I'll take it. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

"Good, because this is horse meat. Gabe and George caught a wild one last week, but Silas couldn't manage to break it. He broke his arm instead. So, it's on the menu now."

"Wish you hadn't told me that," Gavin said as he picked up a sandwich and took a bite. "Damn good though," he murmured with his mouth full. He turned to the pretty woman who was rolling out more dough that would be used to bake bread for more sandwiches. "Sherry is it?"

"Yes," she replied without looking up.

"Your husband used to be a machinist?"

Now she looked up. "Dwight, Yes. But now he works in the yard."

That was dangerous, desperate work for men who needed points. "I heard you're falling short on points for your sister's medicine."

Sherry glowered at him. "If this is to try to convince me to join Negan's harem, so you can sometimes be rewarded with me – "

"Whoa. Whoa." Gavin held up the hand that wasn't holding the sandwich. "Hear me out. I need a machinist at my outpost. Negan expanded my budget, and I can afford one more worker. I'd pay Dwight ninety points a week."

"Ninety a week?" Gina cried. "How big a budget do you have? Jed's only paying my husband fifty a week to do construction at the battlefield outpost!"

"We all get a budget of ninety per worker per week. We decide how much to pay them, with minimum wage at forty points a week. The points we don't spend to pay the workers? We keep for ourselves for a managerial bonus." Gavin took another bite of his sandwich.

"Fucking Jed," Gina muttered.

"Donnie took the offfer, though, didn't he?" Gavin asked.

"Because he was only making forty points a week here," she said. "And it was at least better than that. Do you pay all of your workers ninety? You need a cook at that outpost?"

"I have a cook. Isabelle. She cleans, too. I pay her sixty."

"That's still twenty more than Sherry or I make here," Gina muttered. "So you keep all the extra thirty points on Isabelle?"

"Not all, no. I use the difference to pay other people. I have a supply runner I pay over budget – because he takes a lot of risks – so he gets a hundred points a week. I've got a man who pulls triple duty as truck driver, a metalworker, and patrol, so I pay him a hundred and ten. Just depends what I need done and what quality of worker I need to attract to get it done." He turned to Sherry, "Anyway, tell Dwight about the offer. He can start next week if he wants to."

"Thank you," Sherry said. "I will."

Gavin walked on through the marketplace, finishing his sandwich, and then he bought a bottle of wine to share with Frankie tonight.

4:45 PM

Daryl slid two boxes of wine in the back of Rick's pick-up truck. "In case he needs a drink," he told Andrea, who was settling their packs in the bed. They wanted to get back to Woodbury before sunset.

"He's going to need something stronger than that." Andrea glanced at Rick, who was sitting at the far end of a bench near the storehouse, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, rocking slightly. Michonne sat between him and Carl, who cradled his baby sister while he fed her a bottle of formula. Michonne put her arm around Carl and smiled down at the baby. Carl looked up and said something to her, and Michonne nodded.

"You got enough formula?" Daryl asked. "Could dig up a couple more cans from the warehouse."

"Lori took most of it back to Woodbury when we first moved. But hopefully we won't need it. Eileen's nursing her baby. We found a good breast pump, and she's been pumping to feed that Wolf's baby, too. She's produced so much, we've had to freeze some after feeding him. She can probably supply Judith, too."

"Woman must feel like a cow," Daryl muttered.

Andrea shrugged. "It's her only job, though."

"Listen…" Daryl glanced back at Rick on the bench. Michonne was showing Carl how to burp the baby. "He's a complete mess. Ain't no way he can drive."

"I know. I'll have Carl hold the baby while I drive. He's a good big brother already. And he's probably going to have to step up in the next few weeks, because he's handling this better than Rick is."

"One of you with a baby, one driving, and one completely out of it…whose gonna provide security?"

"I'll – "

Michonne had strolled over now. "I'll drive," she said. "I'll come back with them. Andrea can ride shotgun, provide security. Rick and Carl and the baby can ride in the back. If you all will watch Andre, I'll go back with them, and I'll arrange to get a ride back with the Woodbury Army in a day or two when their out this direction."

Daryl nodded. "Carl's taken to you. Might be a good idea. We all got Andre covered." He put up the tail of the truck, and it clicked in place. Judith ripped her mouth from the nipple of the now empty bottle and cried.