As luck would have it, morning dawns with clear skies, although evidence of the storm's fury remains, with downed tree limbs scattered across the deserted farm. They do strip the farm of portable supplies, moving quickly even as Abraham smiles grimly when he approaches Shane.

"Got through this morning to Michonne. They took shelter and rode out the storm, too. Place is reasonably secure, so I told them to wait it out there since it's less public than the high school." Abraham still looks troubled, though, and Shane isn't surprised to see his gaze shift toward where Jude is shadowing Jimmy.

After the middle of the night breakdown, Jude shadowed Shane closely through breakfast, only shifting to Jimmy when Shane specifically requested Jude to help Jimmy shift things around for their new vehicle assignments. With Maggie's car damaged and Jude obviously leaning toward trusting Shane specifically, drivers and passengers are shifting around a bit.

What gives Shane hope for Jude's mental health is the fact that Jude can't help the usual fascination of small child and fluffy dog. Without cattle to guard, Maggie's Australian shepherd seems to think Jude is her next goal to herd, and so far, Jude isn't objecting to his new four-footed guardian. Beth's Julliard is lost and mournful, though, missing his girl too much to find any of the children enticing.

"Do we have time to follow up on Jude's family?" Shane asks.

"Normally, I'd say there's no way we find anyone living, and I still think that's the truth. But any clues if there are more of those monsters out there isn't something I want to pass up." Abraham takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "And what if one or both of those girls is out there, hurt and alive?"

"That was my thought. Just because the assholes said they were dead, it doesn't mean it's true."

"Gonna ask you to take the non-combatants off to meet up with Eugene and Michonne. I know it leaves you short handed, but the ladies and the older men can still shoot. No sense in y'all sitting here waiting, and we sure as hell don't want the kids going near a camp where atrocities occurred."

As much as Shane detests not being part of any group that goes to rid the world of any remaining vermin such as those men, he knows damn well his shoulder makes him a liability. He nods, surveying his people critically as he goes to relay the plan, and wonders if he'll regret what he's about to suggest to Rick… and Lori.


Michonne patrols the fenced yard, feeling a bit like one of the big cats at the zoo, trapped and somehow on display. It's an unfair feeling, she knows, because the property is just far enough on the outskirts of town that woods surround the house on three sides, and the side that faces the road has a fence half disguised by a once manicured, now-glorious-riot of prize climbing roses. She bets the lady of the house spent hours upon hours caring for the blooms.

It's still a beautiful sight, the bright colors giving a sense that not all the world has rotted away. Michonne breathes in the scent of the roses, letting them settle her restless worry. Driving herself crazy will not help her protect the children.

Knowing that doesn't help as much as it should. She can hear the echo of Abraham's words. Monsters are out there, not the flesh eating dead, but nightmares in men's flesh who prey upon children. Her hand tightens on the hilt of her katana at the thought.

They will not find anyone here easy prey. Not on her watch.


"No. Absolutely not!"

Rick's vehement objection gets everyone's attention, even though Shane took them aside after filling everyone else in on the general plan. It also causes Lori's expression to shift from wary to pissed off.

"Do you think I'm not capable of being part of the fighters?"

Her acid tone works to calm Rick down faster than anything Shane could say. Rick swallows hard, looking at Lori apologetically and patting her shoulder. Lori hadn't fought at the quarry, relying on Shane instead, but she'd been weaponless with Carl to keep safe. But unlike Andrea, who has never even fired her gun, Lori's been a cop's wife for more than a decade. She's as capable as Maggie of being part of the group going with Abraham.

"I know you can do it, but if we both go, what about Carl?"

Lori turns, swinging to face Shane with the level of intensity that she last used to level accusations of him lying about Rick's death. He can't help flinching, but what she says is nothing like he expects.

"Shane will look after him, just like he always has for us. Won't you?"

"Of course I will, Lori. You know I love Carl like he's my own. I'd die for Carl. You know that."

When Shane catches Rick's eye, his best friend is uncertain, but then his gaze lands on the stitches showing above Shane's collar.

"Yeah, brother, we both know that," Rick says softly.

Hearing brother from Rick never fails to settle the churning unease that rises when he realizes how sideways things were starting to go before that damned deer reset everything for him. Before he can say anything in response, Abraham calls out impatiently.

"We need to get on the fucking road!"

Rick claps a hand on Shane's shoulder before striding away with Lori at his side. It's strange in many ways to see the holster on her hip finally, but Shane's glad. He just prays that they either find those poor girls alive - or they find nothing at all. It'll be nightmare fodder for everyone if it is anything else.


There's not a lot of room in the medical Humvee for extra supplies, but Eugene figures why take chances. Just because they heard from Abraham this morning, and know he plans to meet up with them by nightfall at the latest, doesn't mean those plans will actually hold up. His Humvee was never set up to support six people for more than two or three days, although they can stretch that with half their number being small children and some supplies they loaded at the high school before the storm.

"I don't think these folks got a chance to evacuate," Beth assesses from where she's surveying the pantry. "Maybe they were in the hospital or traveling or something."

"Lots of food left behind?" Eugene asks from his spot keeping an eye on the woods behind the house. Michonne is patrolling, but she can always use the second set of eyes.

"Yeah. Hey, Becca? You find anything to pack stuff in?"

A muffled reply from down the hall sounds affirmative, and Eugene is glad the house was empty for whatever reason. There were no walkers to put down or opted out residents to remove, and it gives the kids space larger than the musty storm cellar or cramped Humvee. The yard is safe from walkers, but after Abraham's news this morning, neither he nor Michonne want any of the children visible outside. AJ and Andre are easily entertained in the living room anyway, enchanted by the ability to build forts of cushions and crocheted throws.

Becca emerges, dragging two wheeled canvas sided suitcases. "Should I clean out the bathroom, too? We always need extra towels and toilet paper, and these folks loved their wholesale club."

"Maybe we mix the bags up? Spread the weight out," Beth suggests and Becca scampers off after leaving the suitcases.

Setting a few cans on the counter, Beth goes to test the stove, which lights with a whoosh. "Hot lunch for us, since they still have propane in the tank. You prefer ravioli or beef stew?"

"Actually, let's save the easy fix stuff for now," Eugene says. "Take watch?"

Looking curious, Beth takes his spot near the back door, while Eugene crosses to investigate the set of clear, airtight plastic canisters on the counter. There's the usual staples - flour, sugar, coffee, and tea - but next to them are four with different types of dry pasta. The dry pasta is harder to cook while on the move, but they're supposed to be here a while.

Finding the rest of what he needs in the pantry, he gets started assembling a spinach and artichoke pasta concoction in a large saute pan. The kids will all have full stomachs today, that's for sure.

"Why are you draining the cans into the measuring cup?" Beth asks.

"The fluid in most canned vegetables can double as cooking water for pasta and other items." He doesn't have quite enough from the cans, but it cuts the amount of water in half. "And using the pan instead of a deeper pot also reduces water usage."

"Where did you learn to do that?"

Considering Beth grew up on a farm where water was plentiful and essentially free thanks to multiple wells, Eugene understands her puzzled curiosity. He hadn't thought much about where his water came from aside from the tap at that age, either, or really, even into his adulthood.

"I attended a weekend seminar on water conservation two years ago. Most of it was technology on ways to clean water, but they had one lecturer broach how casually Americans waste water, like using too much water to boil pasta - and then pouring it down the sink as waste afterward."

"Bet that comes in handy now, right?"

"Eugene can make all sorts of things to make dirty water good," Becca announces, tumbling two giant packs of toilet paper unceremoniously to the floor. "My daddy says he's a genius."

At least Becca edited Abraham's actual phrasing. Too many years as a teacher make Eugene avoid profanity as a habit, even if he gets needled a bit by his fellow travelers for his speech being too prim. Cursing around the kids just feels wrong.

He figures the same thing holds true for Beth, whose sweet and sunny nature is tempered by the tragedy of losing her mother and brother combined with the puzzle of her own immunity. Those seem to have ignited a scientific intrigue that he's more than happy to encourage. Science is worth far more to these kids than it ever was to the bored city-raised teenagers he slogged through biology and chemistry, after all.


Heading in the opposite direction of Rick, Lori, and Maggie, who are using Otis' old truck to follow in Abraham's caravan, feels entirely foreign. In a way, Shane's glad he can't drive yet, as it leaves him free to be on guard and alert in a way he couldn't as a driver, even with his police training. While Jimmy drives, Jude is curled gloomily in the backseat, cuddled closely by Maggie's dog. The merle-colored Australian shepherd eyes Shane with crystal clear blue eyes, but Shane swears she's as worried as he is.

"I don't like this," Jude mutters, catching Shane's eye as he glances behind the Cherokee. They're bringing up the rear, since Hershel knows the area best and Shane's their best shot of those who are heading to rejoin Eugene, Michonne, and the kids.

"I don't either," Shane admits. "But we promised to go look for your family, and it might not be safe. All the people who went know how to protect themselves. You remember how some of them fought, right?"

Jude nods, burying his face in Noelle's fur. His voice is muffled when he speaks. "They killed all of the bad men."

"They did. And if they find more of them? They won't let them go around hurting anyone else, either."

Jude doesn't reply to that, just flexes his thin arms around Noelle, who whines and licks the hand she can reach. Shane decides to let it be, because further discussion only leads to whether or not any of Jude's family is alive, and there's not enough hope in him to truly reassure the boy. He was a cop too long not to understand the evil men can do, and now there's no society to deter those types.

Jimmy's so damn quiet that Shane reaches out to nudge the teen's elbow. That gets him a ghost of a smile, even as Jimmy glances up at the rear view mirror.

"What happens if…" He doesn't complete the phrase, but Shane can fill in that blank easily. What if Jude's family truly is dead?

"Guess there will be three of us."

It's truly that simple for Shane. Before, he never considered parenthood all that viable for him, and being a foster father certainly wouldn't have gotten approved with his work schedule and lack of a pretty wife to sweeten the deal with social services. Then, for a brief few weeks, he thought it was going to be his responsibility to help bring Carl to adulthood, and that didn't scare him the way he once thought it would.

In some ways, telling Jimmy he'd look after him was easy. Jimmy is nearly grown as it is, needing to know he's not all alone in the world more than anything else. But Jude is younger than Carl. That's decades Shane is committing to, but he finds that he doesn't mind.

"Four if Maggie has her way."

Shane turns back to Jimmy from his latest scan of their surroundings. There hasn't been time to explore things between Maggie and himself, so Shane isn't entirely sure how Jimmy even caught on. His surprise makes Jimmy laugh.

"It's alright, you know. Now that she's not being all mama bear about Beth, Maggie's kind of cool." Jimmy glances in the rear view mirror again, where Jude's breathing has fallen into the relaxed rhythm of sleep. "Jude could probably use a mama, right?"

The old Shane would have turned tail and run at the idea of labeling a woman as 'mama' when he's only kissed her once and known her less than a month. Now, there's a part of him that thinks he might like it just fine. They just need to find somewhere safe for Eugene to set up his lab and find a cure to this virus, and then maybe he and Maggie will have the time to figure out if Shane's family is four or three.

That thought takes up residence even as they find the little hideaway Beth helped the others find, and Shane smiles at the joyful reunion of Beth and her family. No one really relaxes until the radio alerts them that mission accomplished, Abraham is leading the rest of their people back to them. They don't dally once reunited, the grim features of all of those who ventured to find Jude's old campsite making the rest understand the need for miles upon miles between them and what horrors lay behind.

Maggie joins them in the Cherokee, taking Shane's seat in the front and wedging Noelle between her feet in the floorboard. The dog's sorrowful eyes and Maggie's hunched form make Shane wish he were healed. One good working arm means that all his care goes to Jude, who didn't need to be told the searchers had confirmed the bandits' claims.

"Did you bury them?" Jude asks suddenly, raising up from where he'd been using Shane as a teddy bear to stare intently at Maggie.

Although he doesn't have the details yet due to everyone needing to just get on the road and Jude too close for Shane to risk asking questions, Shane prays that if they weren't able to bury Jude's family Maggie thinks fast enough to just lie. The last thing Jude needs is to think about his sisters or father walking the woods of Georgia as a caricature of themselves on top of everything else.

"Yeah, sweetheart, we did. Maybe one day it'll be safe to take you back there."

Jude gnaws at his bottom lip, meeting Maggie's gaze as she turns. "One day I'll be big enough to fight, too. I'm going to learn, and then I'll make sure there are no more bad men."

"We'll teach you," Maggie promises, and Shane echoes it.

The rest of the ride goes in silence, Jude caught somewhere between nap and an eerie still silence that would worry Shane more if the kid wasn't so obviously looking for human connection. They'll teach all the children if Shane has anything to say about it.


When the caravan stops at a deserted hotel for the night, Beth feels guilty that her first thought is that she can't wait to stretch her legs. If they'd left for their journey under the originally planned circumstances, it wouldn't be so terrible to have thoughts like this was a normal road trip. Her mama and Shawn wouldn't begrudge her that at all.

But the adults haven't tried to hide the details of what happened to Jude's family from her or Jimmy, and it's a reminder that Beth's family got so very lucky in their isolation that the first group they encountered was Shane's people and not those nasty excuses for human beings. Poor little Jude has no one, and if Beth feels like she'll have nightmares from just hearing about it, what must it be like to have lived through it?

"I can stand watch," she says, chipping in to the volunteers Abraham is asking for. Michonne and Eugene had been willing to allow it, but they aren't her overprotective family.

At first, she thinks Hershel will object to the idea, but for some reason, he sighs deeply and nods. "First watch would be okay."

The trust he's willing to place in her makes Beth smile despite the dourness of the day. She hugs him tightly, listening as Abraham sets up a watch trio for each shift. No direction will go unwatched tonight, and Beth being on first watch means that probably half their people will still be awake, too restless to sleep easily, but that doesn't matter. She's being trusted after weeks of being nearly smothered by too much care from her family, and the change is welcome.

When Hershel releases her, he looks so exhausted that Beth feels worry settle in her chest. Logically, she's always known her father is on the older side of things to have daughters hers and Maggie's ages, but he's her daddy. To Beth, Hershel Greene is damn near invincible. But the toll of recent months, of losing Annette and Shawn, has aged him enough that she actually understands his age for once. There's a flutter to his usually steady hands that she wants desperately to ignore and can't.

"Why don't you go sit in one of those pool chairs and let me bring you a plate, Daddy?"

He agrees so readily that instead of reassuring Beth, it makes the seed of worry dig its roots deep. Being waited on by the women of the family has never been something Hershel favored, but he takes the bowl of stew Carol and Patricia have conjured up and eats with a slow methodicalness that makes Beth shiver.

All she can do is keep an eye on Hershel now. Surely they didn't escape the farm in search of a cure to this plague for Beth to lose her father just when there's finally real hope, even if it wasn't the miracle he wanted for their family.

Hershel will be just fine. He has to be.