Carol glances back at the dock where Daryl and Jackson are unwinding the ropes from the posts. Maybe she's pushing a little too hard for Daryl to develop a relationship with his son, but she thinks it will be good for him—for Jackson, too. Daryl thinks too little of himself. He's written himself off as a father, she knows, but he did more for her little girl in a day than Sophia's own father had ever done in his entire life. Daryl's a good man, and she wishes he would see that.

Carol turns back toward the shore. In the distance, she can see T-Dog chopping the wood they use for shore fires to boil cauldrons of water or for roasting large quantities of game. She makes her way to the picnic table on shore that Daryl often uses for butchering, but today it's covered with a blue canvas tarp and, on top of that, a walker's dead body. Hershel awaits her. Beth is with him, talking to him, and crinkling her nose at the rotting corpse. When Carol approaches, Beth asks, "Is Jackson sailing out with Daryl?"

"Yes, they're doing the water."

"Oh. I thought Jackson was working the gardens this morning." Beth looks disappointed as she heads off to join Carl and Addison, who are already at work in one of the plots.

Hershel frowns slightly. "The last thing she needs right now is her head on some boy," he murmurs. "Especially after losing Jimmy not that long ago."

"Jackson's harmless enough," Carol assures him.

"He's almost three years older than her." Hershel opens a bag of scalpels and other medical equipment, some of which they took from the blood and plasma centers. "Ready for some practice?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"Well, let's hope not. The point is to get you more ready by the time Lori gives birth."

"Fair enough." She pulls on a pair of laytex gloves. "I don't know how similar a walker is."

"More similar than a cow, I imagine."

Carol looks at the glassy, soulless eyes of the once human creature. "I'm not so sure about that."

Before Hershel can hand her the scalpel, Glenn and Maggie walk by the table. Glenn makes a face. "You sure you have the stomach for that?" he asks.

"More than I have the stomach for watching Lori and the baby risk death," Carol assures him. "Or worse."

Maggie looks suddenly uneasy. They all know that if Lori can't manage to give vaginal birth, and that baby dies inside of her, it's possible it may turn there. They have no idea what happens in that case, but the idea of a walker baby corpse thrashing around inside a woman's womb is terrifying. And given that Maggie may be pregnant herself – Daryl let Jackson's assumption slip to Carol last night – Carol's not surprised by her pale reaction. "What are you two up to?" she asks to take Maggie's mind off of it.

"We're headed to this place." Glenn holds up a brochure for a family-owned orchard and gardens advertising pick-your-own apples and pick-your-own pumpkins.

"Obviously it hasn't been maintained for months," Maggie explains, "but it's fall. There may have been some growth even without the maintenance. If so, we'll bring back as many fresh apples and pumpkins as we can. If not, at least we should be able to find fertilizers and some other garden supplies."

"Addison found the brochure in a drawer in her bedroom," Glenn adds. "It was her idea, but she didn't want to go on the run with us."

Carol glances at Addison at work in the gardens. "I think she's tired of running. They were moving from place to place for months." She looks back at Glenn and Maggie. "It's a good idea. Good luck."

They nod and head off for the pick-up truck. The mileage isn't great, but if they do score, they'll be hauling entire bushels of apples and pumpkins. Carol is already thinking about making good use of those empty mason jars under the kitchen sink for storing the excess.

Hershel hands her a scalpel. "It's been three years since I had to do an actual vivisection, but I'll talk you through it as best I can."

[*]

"Can I try driving the boat?" Jackson asks, and Daryl steps away from the wheel.

Jackson takes over and asks, "I push this forward to make it go faster right?" He pushes the handle too far forward too fast and the engine grinds.

"Slow it!"

"Sorry." Jackson eases back on the throttle. "I just…I want to learn."

Daryl realizes he barked a bit there and feels guilty. Carol clearly seems to think he and Jackson are going to develop some kind of father-son relationship, but it's far too late for that, and even if it weren't too late for that, Daryl's not exactly father material. Still, the fact that Carol seems to think he is kind of makes him want to be. He softens his tone. "Just keep 'er steady for now. Keep the wheel centered."

Jackson nods and steadies the wheel in both hands. "I haven't had a chance to try it yet. Maggie always insists on taking the wheel of our boat."

Daryl snorts. "I bet. Woman's damn bossy."

"It's sexist to call a woman bossy."

"What?"

"You never call a man bossy. You call him assertive. Or ambitious. But when a woman's being assertive or ambitious, people call her bossy…which is sexist."

"Well ain't no one ever called me 'assertive'. Just call me an asshole. And Maggie is bossy." Not like Carol, who could get him to do just about anything while demanding nothing. "Don't know how Glenn puts up with it."

"I can guess." Jackson smiles. "She's pretty hot."

When Daryl narrows his eyes at him, Jackson's smile falters and he apologizes. Daryl isn't offended at the observation so much as surprised by it. It occurred to him Jackson might notice Beth, but not that he'd notice Maggie. Then again, Maggie's probably only five years older than him. "Maggie's with Glenn."

"I know. I live with them. I'm aware. And he seems head over heels for her. He's a lucky guy. It was just an observation."

"Cut the engine. Drift now 'til we anchor."

When they anchor, they begin drawing up buckets of water and pouring it through filters over clean, large cauldrons, which will later be boiled on shore before the water is put in the tanks of the boats. It's a tedious task, and they're at it for half an hour in silence before Jackson says, "Sorry, about what I said, about Maggie. I'm not…I didn't mean anything rude by it."

Daryl had already forgotten that. Was Jackson stewing on that for thirty minutes? "Ain't nothin' wrong with noticing a pretty woman."

Jackson looks relieved as he removes the filter and goes to shake the sludge over the rail back into the lake. He returns it over the cauldron. "My mom was really strict about that kind of stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Girls. I mean, she was strict about everything, really. She always made me feel like…I don't know. Like I was walking on eggshells. Like I couldn't just be human."

Daryl wonders if that was the real source of the social anxiety Jackson talked about in the forest yesterday. "What about your dad?"

Jackson shrugs. "He wasn't around much. He worked a lot. Late into the night, early in the morning, on cases and such."

"Thought he taught you to shoot."

"Yeah. That was important enough to him to make time for. That and church. I think maybe if he'd been around more, my mom would have loosened up a little. My mom was the law and order at home. She stayed home, made sure we obeyed all the rules. And there were a lot of rules. And I obeyed them…until I didn't. And that's when I ended up in rehab. What was your mom like? Did she have a lot of rules?"

"None."

"Sounds like paradise."

"Wasn't."

"And your dad?"

"Hell's with all the chit chat?" Daryl barks. "Filter needs shaking out." He returns to the edge of the boat and lowers the large tin bucket down into the water using the pullies until it splashes below the surface, and then he yanks it back up, hand over hand. He can hear Jackson cleaning the sludge off the filter screen on the other side of the boat, and he feels bad for snapping again. Jackson was just trying to make conversation, he knows.

After twenty more minutes of working in silence, Daryl makes a contrite attempt at further conversation. "So who's your favorite philosopher?"

"It doesn't matter. I know that stuff bores people."

"Nah. Curious. Who?"

Jackson concentrates on pouring water over the filter as he answers, tersely, "Zeno of Citium."

That's all he says, and Daryl's in no position to respond, because he has no idea who the hell that is. "Greek dude," he ventures.

"Yeah. He was a Greek dude. Won't bore you with the chit chat on the details." Jackson takes one of the buckets Daryl has drawn up, dumps it over the filter, and hands it back to him to refill before emptying the other bucket.

After Daryl draws up more water, he hands the bucket to Jackson saying, "Sorry I yelled. Wasn't personal." He sighs. It's not a detail he wants to share. "My daddy beat me. Don't like to talk 'bout that asshole."

"Oh," Jackson replies. "Sorry. I didn't know."

"'Course you didn't. No one does. 'Cept…Carol. Was a long time ago. Don't matter now."

"Everything that happens to us matters. But we can move on from the effects. Man conquers the world by conquering himself. That's something Zeno said."

"Yeah? I like that."

"He was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy."

"Been told I'm stoic," Daryl mutters. Carol said it once.

"You're not. I mean, maybe you are in the popular sense of the word. But people don't really use it correctly. Philosophically, I mean. T-Dog's way more stoic than you are."

Now Daryl's curious. "T-Dog? T-Dog ain't stoic. He's…cheerful and shit."

"Stoicism is a philosophy that maximizes positive emotions and reduces negative emotions. T-Dog's good at that."

"And I ain't," Daryl says matter-of-factly.

"I didn't mean it as a criticism. It's not like I'm good at it either. In my head I'm always going around things…you know…guilt, worry…what did I do wrong…what am I going to do wrong next. Did I offend that person? Did I say the wrong thing? I've gotten better, but…" Jackson shrugs. "I'm no Stoic."

After Daryl pulls up another bucket, he asks, "So what else this Zeno guy say?"

"A friend is our alter ego."

Daryl thinks immediately of Carol – of how their personalities spar but balance one other - what's he's taught her, what she's taught him – what they've done to balance each other these past few months. "Yeah. Reckon so."

"He also said that the goal of life is living in agreement with Nature."

"Pfft. Might agree with that one if these damn ugly walkers weren't a part of nature now."

Jackson nods and then looks over the cauldrons and pots of water they're exhausting themselves filtering and filling. They have barrels on shore that collect rainwater, too, which takes less work, but that's not sufficient. "Maybe we should all only take one hot shower a week instead of two."

"That's what I been telling people! Can always bathe in the lake."

"Spot bathe in the sink, anyway." Jackson glances out at the rippling water. "I'm still not getting in that lake."

Daryl chuckles and gets back to work.