Daryl found Carol on the couch in the living room of the House of the Future, her back against the curved arm and her legs stretched out, a blanket to her waist. He bent down over the back of the couch to kiss her, careful to avoid the scratches on her cheeks, the pressure of his lips light and grateful on her lips. She smelled faintly of hydrogen peroxide.

"Glenn went to get the kids," she said when he pulled away.

"Good. How ya feelin'?"

"I've been better," she answered. "But my scrapes have all been cleaned, and the wound on my leg's been stitched. I'm all warm and in my comfy sweats now." She nodded down to the blanket that covered her.

Daryl rested his palms on the back of the couch. "How bad was the wound?"

"Just four little stitches," Carol answered. "Bob says I can walk regularly starting tomorrow, but I better take it easy as much as possible for the rest of today. And no running or heavy lifting for a while." She pouted. "And apparently no climbing the stairs to go down the giant slide."

"Who the hell's Bob?"

"One of the surrendered soldiers. He used to be an army medic. Where's Dixon? What happened at the farm?"

Daryl walked around the front of the couch and lifted her feet to sit down at the end of it. She winced as he lowered her feet back into his lap. "Sorry," he muttered. That must have strained the wound on her upper leg. He lay a hand gently on her ankle under the blanket and told her everything.

"I don't know whether to cry or be relieved," she said. "At least everyone's alive. And you got some animals out."

"How long's this Woodbury Army stayin'?"

"Rick agreed to let them camp out for the night because it looks like a storm is brewing. They'll stay at the Royal Banquet restaurant. It has that fireplace in the main dining room. They'll head back to Woodbury tomorrow. But Abraham, Rosita, and Tara – Tara is one of the surrendered soldiers – want to meet with us all this evening to draw up a truce between our two camps going forward."

Daryl gritted his teeth. "As if they could pay for what they did to the farm." His eyes swept tenderly over her scraped-up face. "What they did to you."

"Daryl…it's not in our best interest to make enemies of this town. They have an army that could be our ally if we're ever in a violent conflict with a gang. Lots of gasoline we can trade for as needed. They already gave us one hundred gallons. And a thousand rounds of ammunition."

Daryl turned from her and stared at the faux fireplace. "Yeah, well I think my brother was worth a hell of a lot more 'n that. And Woodbury's the reason he's dead."

"The men who killed Merle are dead. The man who ordered this attack – the Governor - is dead – Max and Rosita killed him. The Governor's entire inner circle – the ones best positioned to know what he was really up to – are all dead, except this scientist– Milton Mamet. But he wasn't on the army side and may not have known much. They're going to elect a new governor. And Abraham and Rosita…they seem all right. I don't think they knew what the Governor was up to."

He jerked his head toward her. "They oughtta of! Merle figured it out!"

"Merle was in the Governor's inner circle. Abraham and Rosita just joined the army five days ago. These men and women…they put down their weapons. And if it weren't for Abraham, I'd be dead. If it weren't for Rostia, a good part of Fun Kingdom would be exploded and in flames. They aren't bad people."

Daryl sat in silence considering all this. Abraham had shot the man who was spraying automatic fire at the tower. If he hadn't, Carol would have had more than shards of wood in her body. He slid his hand up to her knee but avoided going any further for fear of touching her wound. He squeezed her knee and then turned his eyes to hers. "Thought you were dead for a minute," he murmured, "when you didn't answer."

"My ears were ringing."

He swallowed. "Glad you ain't," he managed. "Dead. 'Cause…I love you, Miss Murphy."

Carol smiled. "I love you, too, Pookie."

[*]

When the cabin contingent arrived at Fun Kingdom, Andrea radioed Daryl from her perch on the castle tower slides, and Daryl went out to meet them at the gate. The soldiers were no longer in the parking lot but were now moving tables and chairs at the Royal Banquet to prepare to camp there. Daryl swung the gate open for the pick-up truck. Michonne drove it inside, with Andre and Lori in the cab beside her. Sophia, Carl, Mika, Luke, and a panting Daisy rode in the bed.

Sophia leaped out of the bed of the truck the moment it stopped and ran to Daryl to hug him. By now, he knew better what to do with his arms, and he hugged back with no awkwardness. She pulled away and asked, "Glenn said Mama was hurt but she's okay?"

"She's fine. She's restin'. Where's Glenn?" Daryl didn't see him in the truck.

"He and Maggie are riding back through the woods on her horse."

"Is Maggie's horse a girl?"

"Yeah, why?" Sophia asked.

"'Cause Beth has a boy one, and she got it out."

"Out of what?" Sophia asked.

Daryl sighed. He looked over Sophia's shoulder and saw that the farm contingent was now entering the parking lot, Dixon leading the way in a slow roll on his red racing bike. "Go on and see your mama. She's in the house. She'll tell you what happened."

Sophia hopped back in the bed of the pick-up, which Michonne drove on through the park toward the House of the Future. When Dixon rode in through the gates, he stopped his bike but braced himself on only one foot. "How's the ankle?" Daryl asked.

"Hurts like hell," Dixon admitted.

"Better see Bob."

"Who the hell's Bob?" Dixon asked.

Beth rode in on horseback next, and Hershel followed, bringing the truck with the animal trailer to a stop. He and Patricia got out while Beth dismounted her horse and Daryl swung shut and locked the gate.

"All those burnt corpses in the parking lot," Beth said, "you didn't lose anyone, did you?"

"Nah," Daryl replied. "They're all the Governor's soldiers. And…uh…" He glanced at Dixon. The teenager apparently hadn't told Beth the news. "Jimmy."

Beth sputtered out a sudden, gasping sob and covered her mouth. Dixon leaned his bike on its stand, hobbled off it, and put an arm around her.

"You burned him?" Beth cried to Daryl. "With the attackers? You just burned him? With them? With those monsters?"

"He was with them, Beth," Dixon said gently.

She shrugged off his arm. "What do you mean, with them?" she spat.

Dixon swallowed. "He told the Governor where I was. He brought them here. But then…the Governor turned on him and killed him."

Beth shook her head. "Jimmy didn't bring them here. He wouldn't do that. He was upset I broke up with him, he was angry, that's all, so he ran away. But he wouldn't try to get you killed. Jimmy's not a killer! He wouldn't put our farm at risk! He's worked that farm since he was thirteen. He wouldn't do that! The Governor must have tortured it out of him! He must have made him tell!"

"Okay, yeah," Dixon said gently. "Okay. That must have been what happened," he lied. It was crystal clear what Jimmy had done. "We need to get the animals settled. Before it starts to rain. Okay?"

Beth sniffled and nodded. "But then we find which of those skeletons is Jimmy? And we bury him? Properly?"

"Tomorrow," Dixon told her. "Looks like rain tonight. But we will. Tomorrow. I promise."

Hershel put an arm around Beth, and she buried her head against her father's shoulder. "Thank you for saving our lives today," he told Daryl and Dixon. "Thank you for stopping that attack on my baby girl. I would have tried if you hadn't shown up. But I would have failed, and more precious things would have been lost today than the farm."

Daryl murmured a wordless reply. He didn't know what to say. The old man had just lost a farm that had been in his family for generations, the only home – the only world, really - he'd ever known. Daryl couldn't imagine what that must be like. He'd never had anything to lose. Until now. Now he did have a home - a land, a future he'd built with his family. But Fun Kingdom, and everything in it, still stood, while the farm was in flames.

Andrea joined them now, having come down from the castle tower slides. She reported that the smoke in the distance above the farm seemed to be staying in one area rather than spreading, that the clouds were darkening on the horizon, and that the rain may have already started falling in the distance.

"Let's get these animals to shelter," Patricia said.

"How many did you save?" Andrea asked as the cattle mooed inside the trailer and the chickens clucked in their cages.

"A rooster and four hens," Patricia answered. "To add to the three hens you already have. Six piglets, two male, three female. And four heads of cattle. A yearling bull – he's ten months, so he'll be able to mate by March. Buttercup. She's an eighteen-month-old heifer, who is currently pregnant, so she can milked, at least until May, when she needs to be dried off sixty days before she calves. We also got two heifer calves, four and seven months from sexual maturity. The eldest might be pregnant and giving milk by the time we have to dry off Buttercup. Beth chose very wisely – small enough to fit the trailer, but old enough to begin producing soon."

"I'll show you to the petting zoo," Andrea said. She walked beside Beth and her horse, and Hershel and Patricia followed in the truck, while Dixon rode off on his motorbike toward the Royal Banquet to get his ankle wrapped.

Daryl hung out near the gate waiting for Maggie and Glenn, who arrived on horseback fifteen minutes later, just as it was beginning to drizzle. Maggie was devastated to learn of the loss of the farm, but grateful that her family had survived. She went off to stable her mare with Beth's stallion as the drizzle turned into a shower.

[*]

The wind howled and rain battered the windows of the House of the Future. Andre, Luke, and Mika had been put to bed, but Sophia and Carl lingered in the living room. The soldiers were already encamped in the Royal Banquet restaurant, except for Abraham, Rosita, and Tara, who now stood before the faux fireplace to propose a truce. They extended an invitation – anyone who wanted to return with them to Woodbury tomorrow could.

"All of us soldiers," Tara told them, "we feel badly about coming to your gates." She nodded sympathetically to Hershel. "We're sorry about the loss of your farm, and we welcome you all to Woodbury. You'll be safe behind our fences."

"The men who died," Hershel asked, "how will their friends and family back at Woodbury feel about us having killed them? I shot a man today. Right in the chest. Did he have a wife? Children?" He looked around the room. "And the others we killed today?"

Beth hugged herself. She still had on Dixon's racing jacket, but she'd put a Fun Kingdom sweatshirt on underneath it, and the jacket was unzipped now. "If that man who attacked me did have a wife and kids, they're lucky he's dead! I'm glad Dixon killed him after what he tried to do to me."

Dixon, who was leaning on a pair of crutches to keep his weight off his now wrapped, sprained ankle, reached out and put a hand on the small of Beth's back. She instinctively jerked away from the unannounced, intimate touch. He returned his hand slowly to the rung of his crutches, looking wounded, and Beth reached out to him apologetically. She ran a single finger over the back of his hand where it gripped the horizontal bar of his crutches. Dixon smiled weakly at her.

"The soldiers who were shot," Tara told him, "they had no family. They were mostly friends with one another."

"Restless, single men," Rosita murmured, glancing briefly at Abraham. "And the Governor gave them war as an outlet."

"The men who are dead," Tara told them, "They were the only ones willing to try to kill your people today after they witnessed what the Governor did to Jimmy. And the men who went to the farm…" She glanced at Beth. "I take it they tried worse. None of those men will be sorely missed. And you will not be unwelcome in Woodbury. I promise you."

"I can't go back to that place," Dixon insisted. "With those pit fights."

"We'll be getting rid of those," Rosita assured him.

"The Governor planned to put me and my dog in a cage with six of those uglies. And nothing but a knife. Did you know that?"

"He didn't tell us that," Tara insisted.

Rosita said, "He only told us we were extraditing you and exectuing you for murder and for attempting to set fire to Woodbury."

"Maybe you didn't know," Dixon said. "I'll take your word for it. But if I had ended up in that cage? How may of those soldiers camping in the Royal Banquet right now would have been there watching and cheering?"

"No one ever died in a pit fight in the four weeks I've been in Woodbury," Tara said. "The fighters could always tap out. And Woodbury won't be the same now. We'll elect a new governor. A sane governor. The people there – they're just ordinary people. We have a school, a clinic, gardens, and a massive pantry full of stores of food."

"Do you have a real doctor in Woodbury?" Lori asked. "No offense intended," she told Hershel.

Abraham looked over her pregnant belly. "There's a lady doctor, as a matter of fact. Dr. Stevens."

"She's a woman and a doctor," Rosita clarified. "She was a GP before the collapse, not a gynecologist."

"Well, she's got all the parts," Abraham insisted.

"Still, a trained general practitioner?" Lori looked at Rick hopefully. "And they'll have a school for Carl!"

Rick sighed. He looked out the darkened living room window. "But I planted so many gardens. They're just beginning to bud, the winter greens. We'll have winter cabbage and radishes to harvest in January. And then come the spring – there will be vegetables all over Fun Kingdom!"

"I'm sure they'll let you work in the gardens in Woodbury." Lori put a hand on her pregnant stomach. "Rick, they have a clinic. With a doctor. Electricity. Running water. Other children. Multiple houses. An entire town. An army to defend the walls. I don't see why we wouldn't go."

Rick looked hesitant, but he didn't protest.

"This is a good camp," Daryl spoke up. "Secure, with a lake and a creek and good huntin' ground nearby. Rain's gonna stop the fire on the farm. Lose some forest, yeah, but it won't come near us. Our gates and fences still stand. No damage from the battle except a torn-up carousel. This house has power and runnin' water, too. Can't just abandon it."

"I agree with Daryl," Carol said. "As appealing as Woodbury might turn out to be now that the Governor is gone…" She looked at Daryl. "We have a home here. And we know how to defend it. We defended it today. Our home." She looked at Maggie. "The farm was lost. Woodbury could be lost some day, too. Or Fun Kingdom. Either way, we can't put all our eggs in one basket."

"Well, I'm with Lori," Andrea disagreed. "As nice as Fun Kingdom is, it would be better to be a part of a town with – how many people?"

"About sixty now," Tara answered. "After the losses today. There are a dozen kids under twelve. Seven or eight teenagers. And twenty-five or so assorted adults. We have a former doctor, a nurse, a carpenter, a scientist, an engineer, a plumber, a mechanic, a farmer, a teacher - "

"- A firefighter," Abraham interrupted. "A firewoman. Sasha. She's a guard now."

Rosita gave him a perturbed look.

"Well, I'm in," Andrea said. "T?" She turned to T-Dog.

"I don't know," T-Dog replied. "I think Carol's right. About the basket and the eggs."

T-Dog and Andrea proceeded to argue over whether they should go. "We don't all have to go," T-Dog said finally. "Those who want to go can. Those who don't…stay. You and I," he pointed from Andrea to himself, "we don't both have to go."

"You mean…." Andrea shook her head. "What do you mean exactly? You want to break up?" She glanced at Patricia.

"This has nothing to do with her," T-Dog assured Andrea. "You know I was always the consolation prize. It was fun for a while. For both of us. But I don't know how much longer it's going to be fun for me. And you need to find someone who will actually make you forget Shane. Maybe you will in Woodbury. But me…I'm staying put here."

Glenn turned to Maggie. "What do you want?"

Maggie crossed her arms over her chest and regarded the Woodbury contingent. "What sort of livestock do you have in Woodbury?"

"A roster and seven hens," Tara answered. "A billy goat and four …fillies?"

"Nannys," Maggie corrected her.

"The goats are for milk," Tara said.

"Not much milk for sixty people," Maggie noted. "A cow produces as much milk as four goats."

"We also have boxes and boxes of powdered milk," Tara told her.

"Any crops or grazing fields?" Hershel asked.

"Just gardens," Tara answered. "No fields to speak of. There's some grass, in the medians, and a few trees. Enough for the goats. They eat the weeds, mostly."

"There's a whole field of grass by the train tracks here for grazing our cattle," Maggie said. "And the petting zoo barn and pig pen and chicken coop and stables for housing them. That zoo has a little windmill and water pump and a water trough. And then there's also the freshwater creek for watering the cattle. And most of all, Carol's right." She looked at Glenn. "We can't put all our eggs in one basket. Not after what happened to our family's farm. I say let's ride it out as long as we can here, and then, if things fall apart…there's always Woodbury."

"Well, if my sister's staying and Dixon's staying, then I'm staying," Beth said.

"And if my daughters are staying…" Hershel didn't bother to finish.

"I'm not leaving the Greenes," Patricia insisted. "Or the animals."

"Michonne?" Rick asked.

Lori seemed peeved that Rick had asked her if she was coming.

"Woodbury sounds like it might be a good place for Andre," Michonne replied. "But he was jolted from camp to camp for months. He feels safe and settled here now. I assume Mika and Luke are staying if Dixon is. And they're his buddies." Her eyes flitted form Rick to Lori. "And I think it would just be best, in general…for all involved, if I stayed here."

Carol thought that was Michonne's way of saying that she didn't want to prove an obstacle to Rick and Lori's marriage, which was still on uneasy footing.

"So just the four of us?" asked Andrea, looking at Rick, Carl, and Lori.

"I don't want to go!" Carl protested, "All my friends are staying here!"

"You'll find new friends in Woodbury," Lori assured him. "There's a school."

"I don't want to go to school! I don't want to leave Sophia! She's my best friend!"

"You'll still see Sophia. She'll come and visit, right?" Lori asked Carol.

"If you choose to go," Carol replied, "yes, of course we'll visit. We'll come to trade."

"We'll give you a CB radio so you can stay in touch with us," Abraham told them.

"But no mentioning either location when communicating," Rick warned. "We were able to pick up Woodbury's transmissions."

"You mean we're really going?" Carl asked gloomily.

Rick put a hand on his shoulder. "It's for the best, Carl. You'll have two little siblings come April. Or May. They need a bigger, safer place to grow up."

Carl shook his head, turned, ran up the ramp, and slammed the door of the space room. Lori went after him.

"Temperamental kid," Abraham observed.

The discussion continued, and a truce was agreed upon, with these concessions:

Lori, Rick, Carl, and Andrea would be given a townhouse to share in Woodbury - one that had previously been shared by seven of the now dead soldiers. In addition to the thousand rounds of ammunition and one hundred gallons of gas, Woodbury would leave Fun Kingdom an M16 and one of the two armored vehicles in the parking lot, after Abraham changed its popped tires. Fun Kingdom would come to trade twice per month, and Woodbury would refill the gas tank of any trade vehicle that arrived, as well as inspect it and top off all the vehicle's fluids. If Fun Kingdom was threatened, the Woodbury Army would come to its aid. If Fun Kingdom was destroyed, the survivors would be given a home in Woodbury. If Woodbury was destroyed, the survivors would be given a home in Fun Kingdom.

[*]

That night, Rosita, Abraham and Tara left to camp in the Royal Banquet with the rest of the Woodbury soldiers. T-Dog took the couch so Patricia could have his bedroom.

"You can sack out with me," Andrea told him. "One last hurrah?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," T-Dog replied.

Carol slept in Sophia and Mika's room, and Daryl took a bottom bunk in the space room, so that the Greene family could have his and Carol's bedroom, with Hershel in one bed and Beth and Maggie in the other. Tomorrow, when the Grimes family and Andrea moved out, they would all play musical bedrooms once again.

Now, however, Daryl lay awake listening to the rain pattering the skylight and the wind howling against the back window. There was also the sound of Luke's light little snore, coming from the top bunk above Glenn, and, finally, Carl…crying above him.

Daryl hated the sound of women and children crying. His mother used to cry, when he was little, sometimes for no seeming reason at all, and there was never anything he could do to stop it. He sighed, rolled out of bed, stood, and looked up at that the glow-in-the-dark constellations plastered to the ceiling. "Which one's Orion's belt?" he whispered.

Carl stopped crying, wiped his face with his hand, and sniffled. "I don't know."

"Think that's the archer." He pointed to something that may or may not be the archer. Then he pointed to some other vague glowing shape. "Think that's the fart cloud."

Carl snickered. Then he sniffled again. "I bet my new room's not going to have constellations."

"Nah," Daryl said. "Might not be so cold, though. They got better power. Won't have to keep the thermostat at 59 all winter."

"I don't know why we have to go!" Carl complained.

Daryl felt for the boy. Carl had already lost Shane. Now he was being asked to walk away from the people who had been his family for months, through thick and thin, and not only that, but to walk away from a kids' outright dream – living in an amusement park.

He was glad he and Carol had come to the same conclusion right away. He didn't know what he would have done if she'd wanted to go to Woodbury. But one thing was for sure – he wouldn't have tucked his tail between his legs without argument the way Rick seemed to be doing. Lori had that man's balls in a leather carrying case. Daryl would have defended his position and defended it hard. And if he and Carol still couldn't agree, well…he was just glad Carol hadn't put him in that position. Fun Kingdom was home. It was the only real home he'd ever had in his entire life. And maybe Carol knew that.

And maybe Daryl shouldn't be so hard on Rick. The man's wife was pregnant, after all, with twins, and Woodbury had a real doctor, a real clinic, and a school for Carl and, eventually, the babies. Rick was just trying to keep his marriage together, keep his family together, and give them a future. And he might well have a better chance of that in Woodbury, where he and Lori could start over with a more normal life and put some of their past bickering behind them – put Shane and Michonne both behind them.

Rick was just trying to do the right thing. Poor Carl, though, he wouldn't understand that. "Gonna come twice a month to trade. Bring Soph."

"Will you bring Dixon? And Luke and Mika? And Andre? And Beth?"

Beth? Daryl wondered. "Uh…Can't bring everyone every time. But sometimes, yeah, sure."

"Think there will be any cute girls there?" Carl asked. "In Woodbury?"

Daryl chuckled. "Didn't think you was thinkin' of girls yet."

"Beth's really pretty. No wonder Dixon likes her. Do you think she's pretty?"

"Don't think 'bout teenage girls. Good general rule for a grown ass man."

"Well, I'm only twelve," Carl told him. "But almost thirteen! In two months!"

"That old?" Daryl asked. Sophia was barely twelve, and she seemed more mature to him than Carl. But maybe that's always the way it was with girls. "Bring you a birthday present in February."

"I hope school isn't all day there."

"Tara said it was only three and a half hours a day."

"Ugh. My mom only had planned lessons an hour a day here! Then an hour on my own."

"Yeah, but, probably be a recess. 'N you can play kickball. Be enough kids there."

"I hope they have baseball," Carl said.

"Bet they do." Lori could be a soccer mom again. "Get some sleep, kid. Big adventure ahead of ya tomorrow." He patted Carl on the shoulder and crawled back into bed on the bottom bunk.

There was no more sniffling from above.