The next morning saw her peeling off the top from a can of peaches. The sweet, fruity scent made her mouth water. She longed for a pile of French toast to dump it over, and her ached longingly at the thought.

Brittany sighed heavily, chastising herself that the cold can of peaches was sufficient—reminding herself that they were lucky to even have as much as this. There might come a time when they don't have anything and starvation will become as real a threat as the walking dead.

The others around her began to stir from their designated sleeping areas while she ate, drifting through the dawn's growing humidity in varying states of alertness. Glenn's eyes were very nearly shut as he shuffled along. He stopped at the cache of food, and after careful deliberation, selected a can of cherry pie filling. Daryl shoved in beside him and blindly reached to grab one of his own.

"Um…" Glenn looked around in search of something. He rubbed his eye groggily. "Utensils?"

Daryl peeled off the lid of his can and tossed it over his shoulder. It skidded under a car and they watched the hunter tip his cold baked beans back and slurp them down, no spoon or fork in sight. He smacked his lips and continued on his way without a backwards glance.

Glenn considered his own can with a green-tinged face. "Um…"

"Relax." Andrea was surprisingly energetic as she approached with a pair of forks held aloft. The end of a metal spoon jutted out of her can of Spaghettios, and she shook her head at Daryl's retreating form, looking vaguely amused. "We're survivors in an apocalypse; not barbarians."

Brittany sighed and accepted her fork with quiet thanks. She felt weird today. Somehow off. Sure, she was tired from the night before, but it was more than that. She felt simultaneously restless and exhausted.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, so she struck up conversation to distract herself. "So... are you guys gonna help with the search today?"

They nodded in sync and Glenn picked around his can of cherries with very little interest. It seemed she was not the only one who felt gloomy.

A light breeze rolled past, causing her curls to dance and tickle her shoulders. The camp's overall mood was tense and quiet. No one spoke loud enough for their voices to carry across the highway, and Brittany could see from her vantage point the way that Sophia and Carol stuck close to Lori—no doubt in an effort to distract her and keep her spirits up, however futile those efforts may be.

Lori paced a path back and forth in front of a car with her arms crossed and one hand pressed to her mouth, as though it formed a dam to stave off tears, or knowing her, to stop herself from shouting at the next person she saw to get a move on and go help search for her boy.

Andrea scraped her spoon loudly along the inside of her can, polishing off the rest of her food. "There's no way I'll sit around here and twiddle my thumbs while Carl is missing. That is, assuming Dale will give me my gun back. I know he took it."

Brittany and Glenn discreetly glanced at each other and braced for Andrea's impending rant—which by now, most people in camp had memorized because she treated them to it so often. The woman was relentless in her diatribe of Dale's 'overbearing, misogynistic' refusal to turn her gun over to her.

"What?" Andrea frowned and motioned between the two of them. "What was that?"

"What?" Brittany tried to play dumb, but it didn't work. Glenn winced as Andrea's temper spiked, her eyes flashing.

She pointed at Glenn, then back at Brittany, and said, "That look, you guys just exchanged a look."

An awkward silence choked the air between them. She and Glenn shifted awkwardly and Glenn cleared his throat loudly.

Andrea, fed up, rolled her eyes almost violently and focused her ire on Brittany. "Look, you got something to say? Say it to my face."

Brittany opened her mouth and tried to figure out a way to respond that wouldn't trigger an argument, setting her can down temporarily.

"Well, it's just…" Brittany stared at Glenn but by the way he refused to meet anyone's gaze made it clear he wouldn't be of any help. "I mean, you don't really need a gun to join the search..."

Andrea bristled. "I'm not going out into those woods without arming myself first. I won't do that."

Brittany ignored the urge to roll her eyes as well, her face tight. "That's fine, Andrea. I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask Dale." She bit her tongue to keep from muttering, 'again...'

Andrea watched Brittany for a beat more before crossing her arms and scoffing.

Just then, T-Dog broke away from where he'd been talking with Rick and Dale. He made his way across the road and Brittany tried not to look at Andrea as the tension between them mercifully broke.

"Everyone's gettin' ready to go." T-Dog tucked tucked a huge machete into a sheath at his side. Brittany's eyes flew to the bandage on his arm.

"Everyone is going?" She pointedly asked, eyebrows raised. Even you?

"Well, everyone but Dale," T-Dog amended. "Someone needs to stay behind in case Carl comes back alone, and Dale needs to work on repairing that hose, anyhow."

Brittany hummed noncommittally, but privately, she thought maybe T-Dog should wait for that festering wound on his arm to heal a little more before joining any amateur search parties.

Then she started thinking of canon, and mentally cataloguing all that would've happened recently. She remembered the conversation in the show between Dale and T-Dog about how the camper was fully repaired and Dale electing to not tell anyone. She thought it might be best to keep the part to herself. And frankly, she didn't have the energy to figure out a way to weave it into casual conversation. Besides, if people knew the RV was repaired they'd want to leave instead of lingering to look for Carl.

Brittany stood, sweeping the gravel and dirt off her legs as she went to join T-Dog. She gestured to his bandaged arm. "How's the battle wound this morning?"

He made a wary noise and lifted his arm for them both to see. "Ahh…" The fresh white bandage looked clean and free of blood, and the veins around his wound no longer held the black tinge that they once did. "It's on the mend. I suppose. Well anyway, I'm feeling a little less… feverish, guess you'd say."

"Feverish," Brittany repeated with an amused nod, thinking of the scenes from the show when T-Dog was trying to convince Dale to take the camper and flee the group with him. T-Dog appeared to have absolutely no interest in confessing that little incident to her now, in real life, so Brittany simply kept her half-smile and nodded at him. "Good. That's good."

"What about you?" T-Dog wondered. He dropped his arm and placed both of his hands on his hips. "You been runnin' around to kingdom come and back with Rick and the boys. Feel up to another round of it today?"

"Honestly? Just between us?"

"Of course," T-Dog quickly agreed with an easy-going smirk, his hands upturned. "We been through a lot together, you and I. Interrogatin' teenagers, burnin' walkers, buryin' the dead..."

Brittany snorted. "Blowing up the CDC..."

"Man, what a life we lead, huh?" T-Dog said, his laugh sounding only slightly hysterical, and Brittany's mouth twisted into a rueful grin.

"You've got no idea," she muttered. Then she took a deep breath and shook herself to clear her thoughts. "Okay, don't judge me, but... what we've been doing lately, breaking into all these houses to search them..."

"Don't tell me you feel bad?" T-Dog surmised, looking at her like she'd sprouted a second head.

"Not bad, just..."

T-Dog took a moment to mull her words over, a contemplative frown on his face, like he didn't agree at all with what she said. "Well it ain't really breaking in, is it? Even before all this happened, people used to sue each other all the time over disputes about abandoned property and what constitutes a property as 'abandoned' and what qualifies as 'trespassing' assuming it was abandoned in the first place, and... well, I'd say it's safe to say that these places are abandoned. Plus you should focus more on our intent, don't you think? You think we want to be breakin' into these death traps?"

Brittany shook her head and T-Dog continued.

"Hell naw. We riskin' life and limb every time we step foot in one. But we gotta find Carl! We gotta get supplies to survive. To my mind, I don't see much of a difference anymore between those houses and these woods or this highway." He held his hands out wide. "There ain't no house titles, no mortgages. None of that. Only one way you can claim a property now," he added, patting the machete on his hip, "is by force. We been launched back to the dark ages."

Brittany quietly processed all this. She felt simultaneously relieved and foolish for not realizing sooner that 'trespassing on abandoned properties' was an issue way before the walker apocalypse.

"And really, you want to think of it this way, you can: Rick's a Sheriff, right?" At Brittany's skeptical look, he shrugged. "So you already got the law on your side. But listen, I think you need to try and make peace with the idea that laws and stuff might be luxuries of days gone by. They might not ever come back. Impossible as that might seem."

Brittany frowned at her feet. "Exactly," she quietly muttered, to which T-Dog did not respond. She rolled her shoulders and sighed. "I think I'm still adjusting, mentally, to the fact that this is life now." She made a sweeping gesture, indicating everything around them. "This is it. Maybe... forever. Indefinitely."

"This is getting pretty glum for a morning chat," T-Dog grumbled, mostly to himself, but Brittany didn't stop.

"And I have to wonder, you know... if it feels weird for me, how would it feel for Carl? Has he been breaking into houses, clearing them by himself? He's so young, it seems ridiculous. But... I don't know. The farthest I ever strayed from home when I was his age was to go visit the playground at an old elementary school two blocks over. He's been... traversing woods and suburbs alone for weeks in the middle of all... this. And survived?"

"Man..." T-Dog mumbled, though he looked like he wanted to add something else. He checked around to make sure no one was within earshot and then leaned closer, lowering his voice. "I been praying all morning, you know. I haven't done that for a while now—not since everything, uh, kicked off—kinda lost my way for a while—but this morning, I prayed. Figured we could use all the help we could get."

Brittany hummed a noncommittal noise and nodded for him to continue.

"Since we're on the subject..." T-Dog hesitated as he tried to search for the right words, looking at her sidelong from the corner of his eye. "I mean, I would never say this to Lori or anyone else, but... you really think Carl is...?"

Brittany understood the inability to say the words aloud, since she felt much the same way. She had her doubts about it, especially considering what she knew of Sophia's fate in canon, but something inside her held out hope that this time would be different. That Carl was stronger. "I don't know, but I hope," Brittany finally said, and immediately felt lame for doing so.

T-Dog nudged his elbow into her side with an approving nod, but then they were interrupted by the others beckoning them to a group meeting. They were the last to arrive.

"Okay," Rick began.

Brittany noticed that Lori hovered restlessly next to him. She looked distracted and unfocused as she waited for her husband to make his speech. Brittany also took stock of the knife strapped to Lori's hip as shifted focus to Rick.

"Has everyone received a weapon?" He checked, passing his hat back and forth in his hands. Brittany looked down to the hood of the car before them, where a pack of weapons had been laid out. Knives, machetes, hatchets and blunt objects. Next to the spread laid a single handgun, which Brittany saw Andrea eyeing intently.

"Where did these come from?" Brittany asked, squinting her eyes in concentration. She felt like she'd seen it before… something about the sight of it called to her, but she couldn't remember what was significant about it.

"I found all that on a geek in that pickup," Daryl explained with a vague gesture to the pack. He picked up the small handgun and flipped it over in his hand to inspect it. "But this here gun came off a walker in a Prius," he scoffed with distaste. "Go figure."

"An arsenal," Amy noted, saying it carefully—almost like she was quoting someone—her eyes catching Brittany's meaningfully. The alarm bells in Brittany's mind rang that much louder and she held the redhead's gaze, giving an imperceptible nod.

"The pickup over by Carl's trail?" Brittany clarified, and Rick and Daryl both scrutinized her as Daryl nodded.

Daryl had returned the gun back to the hood of the car and stood now with his crossbow slung across his shoulder and one thumb hooked under the strap like it was a backpack.

Over the last few days, Brittany had noticed that Daryl seemed to have trouble staying idle. When he wasn't busy hunting or tracking, he always had something in his hands to occupy his mind—sticks that he whittled to add to his bolt collection, a rag to clean Merle's bike, a fresh squirrel or possum to skin.

Andrea, like a dog with a bone, was still intensely fixated on the gun where it lay alongside the arsenal. An entire arsenal of weapons to choose from, and she was determined to get the gun. Just when Brittany thought she could see a mental 'fuck it' pass through Andrea's head and her hand twitch like she was about to grab it, Shane intervened.

Andrea gawked as Shane took the gun like it required conscious effort on her part not to snatch the weapon for herself. Shane, no doubt aware of the heated glare burning into the side of his head from Andrea, then turned to Amy and held the gun aloft.

If Amy sensed the powerful glare from Andrea, she was very good at pretending otherwise. She reached out to accept the proffered weapon, testing its weight. "It's a little small," she commented, her eyes dancing up to meet Shane's. "Sure you don't wanna trade?"

And damn if the man's gaze didn't alight with humor and something a little more heated, his eyes lingering on the band of white skin that flashed as her shirt rode up when Amy reached back to tuck the gun away. "Nah, not today."

Brittany shifted and looked at Glenn, who appeared equally uncomfortable by the display. She twisted her mouth to the side and shrugged a shoulder, and Glenn blew out a soft breath and shook his head at the pair.

Daryl, however, carried on like nothing happened. "We think it would be a good idea to head into this small town here, right off the highway." He pointed down at an area to the south of Atlanta. They had made it much farther than Brittany realized—almost spitting distance from Florida. The name of the town he indicated was printed so small on the map, it was no more than a speck.

Lori's shoulders drew tight and she threw a heated, accusatory expression Rick's way, though she addressed Daryl as she spoke. "We? Who is we? What 'we' decided to go grocery shopping—"

"No—" Rick lifted a hand. "It's not like that, Lori."

"But we are running low on food and supplies…" Glenn muttered under his breath. Evidently it was loud enough for others to hear as well, because Carol nudged his arm and shot him the type of disapproving look only a mother could perfect. He winced and immediately backed down.

"We need to think about what Carl—" Rick started, which was so obviously the wrong thing to say to Lori, Brittany could scarcely believe it—and even though Lori's eyes flashed with the flames of her temper, Rick continued talking over her before she had the chance to really interrupt him. "Think about what he would be doing, where he would be going, how he would be sur—" his voice let out, which was the first real indication of how hard this was for him, too. Lori still looked livid but now reached out to touch Rick's arm, and he took a steadying breath as he finsiehd. "Surviving. How he'd be surviving. I don't believe he'd just continue to wander out on his own without reason."

"Okay," Amy slowly humored before anyone else had the chance to argue. "There's probably some sort of general goods store in town. We could check it out, see if he's there—or maybe if he passed through."

Daryl nodded. "So that's part one of the plan."

"Part one?" Shane frowned.

"That's our part of the plan, actually," Rick said to Shane. "You, me and Amy."

"A go team," Brittany mused. Rick, Shane and Amy—together in a group, searching for Carl.

Rick nodded. "You could call it that," he allowed.

"Amy and Shane are just about our best shooters, save for Daryl. And you. The de facto leader. You could run into another group. Towns are pretty dangerous."

"Woods can be just as dangerous," Glenn pointed out. "It's easier to get lost in them, for one."

"Towns are easier to get trapped in," Brittany countered, idly wondering why Glenn himself wasn't 'volun-told' to go to town as well, seeing how canon dubbed him the groups' designated 'go-to-town-guy' by Rick himself.

"We just gonna stand around and waste time pointin' out all the flaws in our plans, or do y'all have an actual point to make?" Daryl frowned.

Brittany shifted on her feet and looked back at Rick. "I just want to know what we're dealing with, what to expect. Are you counting on Carl being in that town? Are we just heading out to the woods to double check?"

Rick kept his guard up. "I don't have a specific spot I expect to find him," he hedged. "I want to be as thorough as possible. I want him found, today. Not tomorrow. Not in a few days. Today," he finished, enunciating the two syllables meaningfully.

"We all do, Rick," Shane agreed, and Rick gave him a single nod in response.

"Okay, fine. So you take a trip to town. What about the rest of us?" Lori impatiently prodded. "Brittany's right. She asked what we were all thinkin'—we're just supposed to wander back through the woods some more? I don't like splitting up from you, Rick. Not right now."

"The less people who go to town, the better," Glenn interjected. "Less likely to attract attention that way. Plus, it's easier to get in and out."

"And search parties across woods or broad areas need more manpower," Amy added.

Lori ignored them like they hadn't even spoken, addressing only her husband. "Look, I can't claim to have the logical high ground, here. I know that. But... I can't—" she broke off, breathless, and Rick's face twisted with pain as he reached out with the clear intention of comforting her. She reared back a step with her hand raised in warning, and everyone around them shifted uncomfortably, feeling like they were intruding on a private moment.

This time when she spoke, her voice was stronger. "I could really use your support today. I can't just split up from you, I can't just be alone in this. Not in this."

"Lori," Shane interjected, a silent 'be reasonable' in his tone. "It's a good plan. We cover more ground this way. Whichever group finds him, he'll have either you or Rick there. Otherwise, say you two stick together, and we send Daryl and the rest of them out in the woods—say they end up finding Carl. Without either one of you there. What then?"

Lori seemed to swell with rage as she finally turned to face Shane. "I don't recall asking for your opinion on this, Shane," she snarled, and everyone around felt the sting of the venom in her words. T-Dog and Andrea angled away from the pair in response and Amy drew her shoulders higher, shifting slightly closer to Shane. "I believe I was addressing my husband," saying those last to words through her teeth.

"He's just trying to explain—" Amy started, and Brittany, knowing the impending outburst was coming but powerless to stop it like she was watching a car wreck, could only press her hand across her mouth and watch as Lori finally exploded, perhaps sent over the edge by the fact that Shane's apparent new sidekick was the one who had the audacity to interject.

"Can't anyone understand where I'm coming from?!" Lori turned wildly, her face desperate as she turned her gaze from T-Dog, to Dale and then finally landed on Carol, who froze like she was prey under the gaze of a predator. "My son, my child is missing, and all I want to do is tear the world apart until I find him! But I can't do that! I can't do that because—because it's too dangerous," she continued, her bottom lip wobbling even as her eyes burned with anger."Because it's too dangerous!" She broke off then, sputtering sounds of incredulity, like she couldn't believe what she was saying and she didn't know how to fix it.

Brittany and probably everyone else understood what Lori wasn't saying. That part of her hysteria stemmed from the fact that they couldn't break up and scour every inch of the surrounding woods and towns because there were walkers everywhere and it was too dangerous for them to do so, meanwhile Carl was lost out there. Alone. Facing it all on his own.

"All right, Lori," Shane placated. "We hear you." She wheeled around to glare at him hatefully, but he held fast and stood his ground, keeping his tone compliant and accommodating. "We all hear what you're saying."

"Then don't argue with me on this," Lori pled, turning finally to Rick. "I need you today, Rick."

A moment of silence passed as everyone waited for Rick's response. And what else could he do, but nod? He didn't seem to be able to muster any words in response. He looked pallid this morning, like something was killing the words in his throat before he had a chance to vocalize them. Like he was in a perpetual state of shock. Or like he had already decided Carl was likely dead. He nodded again, almost to himself, and his eyes trailed away as Shane retook control and continued.

"All right." Shane put his hands up. "Fine, if you insist, how 'bout this? Rick?" He paused to check if the other man would offer any objections. "She comes with us to town. Everybody else goes to the woods. Me, Rick, Amy and Lori."

"Fine," Lori shortly agreed.

"Fine," Shane curtly bit back.

"Fine!" Daryl snapped. He moved forward so that he blocked Lori's view of Shane, not unlike you would do with an aggressive dog to break their line of sight. "So Olive Oil's with the Go-Team. Now let's talk about arts and crafts."

As Rick broke away from the group to chase after Lori, who was storming past Shane and Amy's retreating forms, Daryl moved to his bike which was parked close by. He pulled something from the saddlebag and then crossed the road back to them, his legs taking long, surefooted lopes.

"We got enough people here to handle doin' a grid search. I talked with the good sheriff and his deputy before we all got together, and they said the easiest way to conduct one of these searches is by usin' these." He held aloft a strip of blue cloth. "We got orange and yellow too, easy to see in the woods."

"Are we splitting into teams for flag football, or what? I thought we were searchin' for a missing girl," T-Dog quipped. Andrea and a few others made quiet noises of agreement, but everyone looked curious about what his plan was.

"We got six adults," Daryl noted, and Brittany noticed the others' eyes fleeting around to take a head count themselves as he continued. "That's three pairs. Three colors. A blue team, orange team, and... well, I think you get the picture."

"You know, I was just messin' around about that football game," T-Dog started, but Daryl interrupted him.

"We'll separate into teams. I'll go with each team to show them their area and get y'all started, then I'll head off to cover the furthest area myself, the one with the creek bed. Y'all stick to your area and your area only. Sounds simple enough, don't it?" No one immediately responded, and Brittany frowned slightly. "Well it ain't. I can tell you from personal experience how easy it is to get turned around in them woods, and it happens quick. Before you even realize you were wanderin' off."

"Okay." Andrea stepped forward and took one of the yellow strips of cloth from his hand. "So say I'm team yellow. We tie these around the trees as we go to mark our path. That way we stick to our grid alone." Daryl nodded and she continued. "And if we do wander into the wrong grid, we'll see a blue flag and realize it, and correct ourselves."

"Sounds pretty efficient to me," T-Dog said. "By breaking it into chunks like that, we can cover more ground and make sure it's covered thoroughly. Instead of all of us just marching through the woods and callin' out to him, hopin' for the best."

"It also might be a good way to lead Carl back to camp," Brittany chimed in, and the others looked contemplative at that. "I mean, if he's out there trying to find his way back... even if we don't find him today, maybe he'll spot a trail of flags later and follow it back to camp."

Andrea was energized, eager to get a move on. "When can we start?"

Daryl swung his crossbow over his shoulder by the strap. "I'll give y'all five minutes. Go grab your last minute snack-packs, spare socks, whatever you think you're gonna need. We ain't turnin' back once we start. And we ain't waitin' for you to catch up so make it five minutes. I'll be right over here."

(A/N): Thank you for all the reviews, favorites and follows! I'm glad you guys are enjoying this.

Next chapter is going to be from Amy's POV, so get ready for that.