Rick made one final pass around the rooms, checking their fortifications and occasionally glancing at the footage from the corridors outside. He looked for weaknesses, for points were they were just that little bit too vulnerable… and he was a mix of gratified and anxious that he found none. On the one hand, that could mean that they were secure. On the other, it could mean they had all overlooked a very crucial fault in their plan.

Still, after three passes, Rick was reasonably assured of their safety, especially after Dixon finished affixing a final sheel of corrugated steel overtop one of the doors. Rick leaned against the wall by it, pulling out a paper copy of the blueprints and scanning it one more time. The doors they'd indicated had been sealed, the auto-sentries were outside, everyone was inside, everyone was safe, everyone was safe...

His thoughts were interrupted when Dixon, shifting slightly on his feet in a combination of discomfort and slight nervousness, walked closer. "Fer what it's worth…" He paused, then coughed once and started reaching into one of his pockets. When his hand reappeared, it held… something. "Here." He reached over, dropping the item - Rick could see now that it was a wristband of some kind - into Rick's hand with a dismissive air. He stepped backwards, his thumbnail finding its way to his teeth as he watched Rick turn the device over in his hands.

"What is it?"

He shifted on his feet again, still looking vaguely anxious despite his normal cool facade. "'S a locator. Trackin' 's only gonna work so well here, what with all the floors and the water. It'll let me find ya anywhere in the complex." He gestured with a small device on his belt and Rick could hear the beeping it let off just before he let it fall again. He shuffled back another step or two and shrugged again, thumb still near his mouth. "Just a precaution."

Rick nodded, fighting the urge to laugh lest it be taken as a rejection of the gift. He appreciated it, of course; the tracker was a good idea and could definitely be useful in the hours ahead. Still, it was a gesture at once so eminently practical, unexpectedly considerate, and completely, inherently Dixon that Rick found himself smiling in spite of himself. "Thanks."

Dixon shrugged, still worrying his thumbnail with his teeth. "Ain't like we're engaged or nothing." He moved a little closer, then, turning more business-like as he went back to the task at hand, looking down at the blueprints Rick still held. "A'ight, what's next?"

Rick returned to scanning the blueprints, looking for a sign of where to go next and coming up empty. He ran through his earlier list of required tasks for the fourth time, glad when he once again found them completed. He shrugged. "Can't think of anything else… I think we're done."

Dixon nodded, a bit absentminded as his blue eyes darted back and forth across the map. A few seconds passed before he straightened, nodding. "Yeah."

His eyes caught on something behind Rick, sending a slight thrill of fear through his system before he realized that, upon turning around, he wasn't sure what Dixon had seen. "What's up?"

Dixon nodded towards one of the room's corners, which lay draped in shadow where the lights couldn't penetrate. "Asskicker's fallin' asleep. Might wanna get her settled somewhere. Medical might work… Got beds in there. Cameras, too."

Rick turned again, finally seeing the slight lump of Judith curled up in the corner, only visible as a slightly darker shade of black. "Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks." With that, he turned and walked away.

Judith was, indeed, asleep in the corner, wrapped in a tight ball that couldn't have been comfortable. She wasn't making any sound - not even the light, whistling breaths that many produce while asleep - and was still too tense to be natural, but Rick couldn't help smiling to see that she was a little more relaxed than when she was awake.

That relaxation ended when he reached down to pick her up and she startled awake, brown eyes jerking open, wild and alert. He stepped back into the light, letting her see him and calm down before stepping close again. "Hey, Jude, you tired?" She nodded, mostly calm again. "I think I heard of some nice beds in medbay… Let's go check it out." He waited for her to nod again and, upon seeing her do so, scooped her up into his arms and started to walk.

Getting through the door was easy thanks to it being automated, and the process was smooth enough that Judith was falling asleep again by the time he found a clear bed. He gently patted her back. "Last stop." He set her down, stabilizing her until she was steady, and then turned a light on to illuminate the bed. She seemed wary of the bed, but he pulled the sheets down anyway, smiling and patting the cool sheets gently. "Come on, let's get in." She listened, slipping in quickly and settling back against the pillow. "That's good… Now, you lie here and have a nap."

Judith shook her head. "I don't want to. I have scary dreams."

Rick couldn't help sighing, hanging his head a bit. As he did so, his eyes caught on the sheriff's hat still clenched in one of her hands and he reached out for it. She gave it to him, confusion in her eyes, and looked down at it with a thin (slightly disingenuous) smile. "Well, maybe your hat will protect you from scary dreams." He made a show of looking inside, then shook his head. "Nope… no scary dreams in here." He plopped it on her head, mussing her already wild hair.

Judith looked at him oddly, then said, in a rather didactic tone, "It doesn't have bad dreams because it's just a hat."

Rick laughed genuinely for the first time in a while, nodding as he bowed his head. "Right… I'm sorry, Jude." He started fiddling with the table near the bed, blinking away a slight stinging in his eyes as he contemplated the fact that she, though younger than Carl when last Rick had last seen him, was far older in mentality. It was almost painful to see the wisdom in her young eyes, the shadows beneath them mixing with her solemn brown irises in a haunted expression.

She spoke next, breaking the silence so he didn't have to. "My mom always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are."

Rick nodded, passing his hand over his face. "Yeah, there are."

"Why do they tell little kids that?" For once, her voice held some of the innocence a child her age should have, but it was buried beneath the content of her words.

"Most of the time, it's true." He could remember the times he told Carl things like that, soothing him after a nightmare or calming him down after old horror films. He'd meant it, at the time. He hadn't been on the Atlanta yet, hadn't seen the alien - xenomorph, as Gregory would call it - yet, hadn't been on LV-426 either time. There hadn't been monsters… until there were.

He realized she was speaking, just barely catching her question. "Did one of those grow inside her?"

"I don't know, Jude. That's the truth. I don't know." He wished he did, wished he had the answers - for her, for him… it didn't really matter - or had a way of finding them. Hell, he wished lot of things… weapons, cameras, more steel to block them inside. Wishing, however, didn't do any good and could do a lot of bad, so he refocused on Judith.

"Isn't that how babies come?" She paused, then tilted her head and amended the question. "I mean, people babies? They grow inside you." The innocence from earlier returned, this time untarnished by the grim darkness of their current environment.

Rick smiled and shook his head. "No, that's very different."

He might have continued, but Judith spoke first. "Did you ever have a baby?"

He nodded. "Yeah… I had a little boy." He smiled, remembering that day in the hospital when he first held Carl, watching Lori sleep, exhausted, in the hospital bed.

"Where is he?"

The question, innocent in intentions, shattered the happy memory, and he jolted out of it quickly. His smile died slowly, and he opened his mouth to say that he died but he couldn't bring himself to say that final word so he replaced it with, "He's gone."

Any hope of preserving the happiness of the conversation disappears as her knowing brown eyes scan his, frowning. "You mean dead." A slight sense of betrayal seems to surround Judith, a sudden surge of distrust, and Rick realized why. If he couldn't protect his own kid, then why should she trust his promises - empty, for all she knew - that he'd protect her?

Rick looked down, remembering Dixon's bracelet tracker as it appeared in his periphery. His fingers shook a little as he pulled it off, but he managed it. "Here… for luck." He fastened it to her arm, ensuring that it was tight and secure around her thin wrist before reaching up and turning off the light.

He moved to leave, but Judith sat up, reaching for his arm urgently. "Don't go! Please?"

Rick smiled, but feigned exasperation. "Judith, I'm just in the next room! And you see that camera? Right up there? I can see you right through that camera. All the time, I can see that you're safe." She remained unconvinced, judging by her facial expressions, and his tone softened. "I'm not going to leave you, Jude. I mean that. That's a promise."

Her tone turned hopeful, eyes slightly wide. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart."

Too late, he remembered the second half of that phrase, but Judith already finished it. "And hope to die?" It might have been a question, but there was a sense of finality to it that didn't belong there.

Still, Rick nodded. "And hope to die." She was hugging him before he even finished his sentence, her small arms tight around him, his own similarly tight around her. He pressed a kiss to her hair, then gently laid her back down. "Now, go to sleep. And don't dream." She tapped his chest and he looked down at her hand, surprised to feel it tap his forehead instead, startling a laugh from him. "Sneak." She smiled, then shifted and plopped her head against the pillow, eyes fluttering closed.

He stood, walking to the door, looking back once along the way to see her staring at the tracker before rolling over and drifting peacefully off to sleep. He smiled another fond smile, stepped out of the door, and then sealed it behind him with the quiet hiss of hydraulics.