The car was suddenly, horribly silent for a few short seconds. Then, Judith started coughing and every fiber of Rick's being was focused on her. He fumbled with the seatbelt strap - trying and failing to get it open for too long before Dixon helped him unbuckle it - and stood, hastening over to where Judith sat, still safely hidden in one corner. Aside from her light coughing, she looked fine, but Rick couldn't help the fine edge of panic in his spine, so he asked, "Are you okay?"

Judith looked at him carefully for a few more seconds before she tilted her hand, proffering a quiet thumbs-up in answer to the question.

A relieved smile flitted across Rick's face as he nodded and stood, patting her on the head before turning to face the car's other inhabitants. Shane put his hand on Merle's arm - Rick assumed he was trying to tend to the burn visible on the forearm - but the motion didn't go well. Merle shook him off with a shout of, "Get the hell offa me, man!" Rick sent a warning glare at Shane, who nodded, raising his hands into the air and stepping back. The motion meant that Rick suddenly had a line of sight to the far back section of the car, and to the fallen body visible there. He hurried forward, sinking to a crouch beside Dixon, who was already tending to an unconscious Lieutenant Gregory.

"What happened to him?" Rick didn't look at the body, couldn't handle looking at the man responsible for the deaths of half of a team of highly trained marines, so he focused on getting the medical account from Dixon.

"Dunno. Concussion, maybe. Sumbitch's alive, though."

Dixon had barely gotten done speaking before Rosita was charging, shouting, "No, he's dead… Pendejo better wake up, because I'm gonna kill him!" Rick tried to stop her, but his angle was awkward and he had little leverage. Dixon had better luck, getting an arm across her dominant hand and checking her progress.

"Back off, Rosita. Now." Rick couldn't tell much, but he'd come to know the man enough to know that he was just as furious at Gregory as Rosita was; Rick had lost track of the number of times blue eyes, cold with fury, had shot over to the unconscious body, and he'd only been by the damn thing for a few minutes at most. Rosita glared at Dixon, but she nodded and stepped back, rejoining the others at the front of the car as he turned back to the body. Rick looked down as well, eyeing the wound and half listening to Dixon shout out, "Merle! Get yer ass over here with a first aid kit!"

Whatever Merle might have said in response was cut short as he passed by the bank of computers. Instead, he said, "'Ey, people…. Get over here and look at this. Deanna and Michonne… They's alive. Signs are real low, but they ain't dead."

Rosita clipped the end of Merle's sentence so quickly that Rick was surprised she hadn't interrupted. "Then we go back. We get them."

"Fuck that!" Merle shook his head vehemently, then winced and stopped; Rick made a mental note to check for a head injury when the burn on his arm was bandaged.

Rosita looked inflamed by the mere suggestion that they not go back, and her voice was loud and strident in a way that made Rick wince as she shouted, "We don't leave our people behind!"

Shane was already shaking his head. "No way. We do not go after them. We do not risk the rest of the group."

"Fer once, we agree on somethin'. I ain't goin' back in there. Ain't no way." Merle shook his head again, turning to look at Dixon, who had left Gregory and was examining the monitors. "Right, baby brother?"

Rick interrupted before that train of conversation could continue. "You can't… I'm sorry, but you can't help them." The car's passengers turned to look at him, faces a mix between angry fear (Merle), passionate determination (Rosita), shuttered calm (Dixon), and open attentiveness (Shane). "You can't. They're, uh…" He broke off, taking a different path. "Remember those cocoons we saw? That's what's gonna happen to them. That's what is happening to them, right now."

Merle started cursing under his breath, crescendoing slightly as he dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. "This ain't happenin', man. Can't be happenin'. It's, uh… it's a cryosleep dream or somethin'. It ain't happenin'." He didn't seem inclined to stop, the litany of words continuing as he tried to talk himself out of believing that he was indeed where he thought he was.

Rick moved closer, hand outstretched. "Here, we have to get that arm bandaged."

The second his hand touched the other man, Merle stopped talking, shocked from his fear by the shock of unexpected touch, and jumped away. "Stop fucking touchin' me! All o' ya!"

"Sit down, Merle. Gotta take a look." Dixon grabbed the first aid kit, shoving his brother roughly towards one of the car's seats and forcing him to sit down there. Then, he took to bandaging the arm, motions quick and efficient, wasting no time and ignoring the hiss of air passing between his brother's teeth at particularly sensitive spots. Judith hurried over, watching the process with a childlike fascination, and, while Rick might have been tempted to pull her back, it gave her something on which to focus other than their discussion of battle plans and weaponry.

Rick moved away from the group, settling down farther away to pull out a smoke. He wasn't openly watching the proceedings - didn't want to, didn't want to see wounds being bandaged or plans being made - but he snuck the occasional look behind him.

Rosita recounted their ammunition supplies to the group, and Rick could see that she was still tempted to go back after their missing men. "Alright… we've got seven canisters of CN20. Let's…" She paused, gesturing with her hands to illustrate the plan. "Let's roll them in there and nerve gas the whole damn nest."

Dixon shook his head. "Nah. Might be worth a try, but we ain't even sure it'd affect 'em."

Merle shifted, wincing again before saying, "I'm tellin' y'all… we should just bug out. Call it even. What're we even talkin' about this fer?"

Rick spoke for the first time since the conversation began, stubbing out the cigarette without turning around. "I say we nuke the site from orbit." It was only then that he turned, only then that he checked the looks on the others' faces. "We have to come for them before they come for us. It's the only way to be sure."

Merle looked completely persuaded - hell, he sounded persuaded, if his "Fuckin' A! Whew, Officer Friendly, you's cold as ice." meant anything - and he was even nodding, while his brother, still at his side, merely looked contemplative, and Rosita's face held a confused mixture of anger, resignation, and agreement.

It was Shane, in the end, who tried to reject the idea. "Wait, now, Rick, hold up. This, uh… This installation, man, it's got a pretty hefty financial importance attache-"

Rick interrupted before he could finish. "Then bill me."

Shane passed his hand through his hair, frustration evident in the gesture. "Look… To be frank… You're too damn emotional. You need to shut it down. Take all that guilt, take that fear, that being pissed off? Take it out. We can't make snap judgements, people. This is an important species we're dealing with. We can't… We can't just arbitrarily exterminate them."

Rick shook his head. "You're wrong."

Rosita had circled around behind Shane without him noticing, and he actively jumped as she said simply, "Watch us."

Merle snorted. "Maybe ya haven't been keepin' up on current events, pal, but we just got our asses kicked!" He snorted, looking back at where Dixon was putting the finishing touches on his various bandages, muttering "Dipshit" under his breath.

"Look… I'm not blind. I can see what's going on here, and I simply… I can't authorize that action."

Rick let his head bow, sinking gently as he sighed in resignation. He'd hoped that Shane of all people would support him, would understand that he wasn't making a big deal out of nothing, would get that these creatures are dangerous. Instead, Rick had support, not from his long-time partner, friend, brother, but from the marines he'd just met a day or two earlie-

Wait… support among the marines...

A thought occurred to him all at once: an epiphany that burst upon him in seconds, even if it took a little more time to fully flesh it out. He raised his head. "But, brother, I'm pretty sure that Corporal Dixon's got the authority here." Immediately, all eyes turned towards the man in question, who visibly tensed at the sudden shift in attention, returning his focus to snipping off the end of the bandage.

"Corporal Dixon is…" Shane trailed off, nodding in a way that embodied condescension.

Rick spoke again, pressing his point rather than letting Shane pick up again. "This operation is under military jurisdiction, and Dixon is next in the chain of command. Right, Corporal?"

Once again, all eyes turned to the back of the car. Dixon nodded stiffly, shifting slightly on his feet in discomfort as he answered. "Yeah." He looked over at the flatlining monitors as he continued. "Tha's right."

Shane snorted. "Yeah… Look, Rick… I told you. This is a multi-million dollar installation. You're gonna give responsibility for millions of dollars to… redneck trash like a Dixon? He can't make that kind of decision." He sighed, putting his hands out in a slightly placating gesture. "You wanna take Daryl as your wingman, be my guest, but he can't make these decisions; he's just a grunt." He seemed to realize what he'd just said, to some degree, because he tilted his head slightly towards the Dixon brothers - Merle was on his feet actively trying to get at Shane despite his injuries and was being held back by a surprisingly subdued Daryl Dixon - and muttered a half-hearted, "No offense."

Dixon met his eyes coolly, anger burning like ice in his blue eyes as they met Shane's brown. "None taken." The words were quiet and calm, and there was something terrifying about the tranquil fury in them. Had he been loud or violent like his brother, it wouldn't have been half so frightening, but the quiet sent a shiver down Rick's spine as the tension in the room thickened. It occurred to him, then, that Dixon's looking at Shane with a glare much like a hunter would watch particularly dangerous prey, violence and caution mingling together. Dixon breaks into the resultant silence as he speaks into his headset. "Maggie, ya copy?"

The radio crackled. "Standing by."

"Get ready ta go. We need evac."

Another crackle. "Roger that, Daryl. On our way. See y'all soon."

Dixon looked out across the room, discomfort having faded slightly, replaced with spiteful determination. "I say we take off. Nuke th' site from orbit." He looked over at Rick, making eye contact, directing one of his trademark nods towards him. "Th' only way ta make sure."

Rick couldn't help allowing a small smile to slip onto his face, reassured to some degree. At the very least, there's someone in charge of the mission who would actually listen to him - had actually listened to him - and who cared about the men under his command. This time, when the words "Let's do it." sounded in the car, no feeling of intense dread gripped him - or, at least, no more than usual - and no pit of worry sank in his stomach.

For once, he actually believed that things might go well.