Holy SHIT, what is wrong with me? Get my computer fixed and I wait ANOTHER three weeks to update? Someone (Halo!) you need to slap me if I lag too far behind - seriously! This is unacceptable! And with the show coming back on in October . . . ugh! X/

Anyway, I really like this chapter - I like it a lot better than the last one and I hope you guys do to. Its also a chapter in which I take the ACTUAL AU path instead of following the TV show like I've always done before. You guys will notice it when you come to it, but I did it mainly to keep things together and contained. If events, people, etc, spread apart too much, then I'll get discombobulated and yeah . . . I like my ducks all in a neat little row :)

HaloHunter89: Navigating the JeremyxRositaxAbraham love triangle, is difficult. MUCH more difficult than the SamxMaggiexGlenn one. Both, I'm really, really changing canon with (especially Glenn and Maggie) and really making it AU in a way, but yeah. I don't know why its more difficult for me to write their love triangle opposed to the other, but it is. Another thing with Ethan is that, yeah, there are parallels that tie him to how Daryl acted in the first season, but what path I'm really going down (and which I didn't intend but I'm liking more and more) while writing him, is I'm starting to draw more parallels (and you'll see it this chapter too) between him and Will. For some reason, at this point in his life, I feel like Ethan resembles more of Daryl's father in his mindset, than Daryl, now.

Anyway! So sorry for abandoning you guys this long! Love you all, though!

- Nagiana


"So what's the plan, Daryl?"

"How so?"

"Well your with us now, but you're not comfortable. That kid of yours, ain't comfortable – that woman of yours, certainly ain't comfortable . . . I'm just wondering what your plans are now." Daryl nodded at Joe's words as they walked, side-by-side, down a pair of train tracks.

"Yeah . . ."

"So what's the plan?" Joe asked again, impatience lacing his tone, and Daryl chose that time to glance at Tessa and the kids over his shoulder. Tessa was holding Danny, Ethan, Aayla, and they were walking in complete and unutterable silence behind them. Ethan's eyes were constantly pinned on the slowly moving foliage of the forest lining their left side. Tessa walked with her head down, her eyes downcast to the moving wooden planks and gravel under their feet. Occasionally, she tilted her head slightly to murmur something to Ethan and he would respond in the same quiet murmur, but it was never anything of substance – never anything worthy of a lengthy conversation. In fact, conversation seemed something completely foreign to this new group – not at all how conversation and laughter had been an integral part of the old group.

She didn't have to look at him, for Daryl to know that she possessed heavy black bags underneath her eyes – to know that weariness and concern, were as intimate to her as laughter and joy had been to her back at the prison. Ethan didn't have to look at him, for Daryl to know there was a coldness and a hardness to his son, now, that had never been there before Wren's kidnapping.

Daryl didn't want to admit it now, how drastically Ethan had stopped resembling him, and instead, had started to resemble his grandfather, not only in the dead man's swarthy looks, but in personality and temperament, as well. The only difference, was that Ethan didn't have an all-consuming desire to drink and that the said alcohol did not exacerbate that Dixon quick-to-fire anger.

Daryl turned back to Joe. "We're jus', uh . . . lookin' for the right place, is all. Ya know . . . place where Tess can have the kid, where . . . where we can cool our heels for a while." Joe nodded, a look of dawning understanding appearing on his bearded face.

"Oh . . . we ain't good enough for ya, are we?"

Daryl swallowed hard, not about to turn his eyes onto the older man walking beside him. "Well, take it from my perspective. Some of ya haven' exactly been friendly and Tess don' exactly look upon tha' with favor. Ethan don' either. And since I have a family to look after, I kinda have to put their needs, ahead of my own."

Joe grinned and shook his head. "Well, you four haven't exactly been so friendly, yourselves." He spoke before falling silent for a moment. When he began again, his voice heightened, to where he knew Tessa and Ethan could hear him. "You know you need a group out here."

Daryl's jaw hardened. "Yeah, well, maybe we don'." He shot through gritted teeth – defiant. "Maybe we're fine on our own." Tessa could see the ghost of a smile on Ethan's face at his father's words, and couldn't help but allow one to appear on her face as well. It was good Daryl was starting to stand up to this man . . . laying down the law . . . letting him know that when it came to him and his own, he was King, not some smooth-talker they just met but felt entitled to listen to because his group and allowed them into their ranks when they didn't need to.

"No you do!" Joe replied, a look of surprising concern appearing on his face. "You know you do. What happens when that baby comes -?"

"We'll be fine." Tessa interrupted him, her voice tense. "It's not my first rodeo."

"Now, I know that – I ain't saying it is - but what if something goes wrong? That can happen – you know that. Daryl can't do fifty things at once, even though he is a veritable Super-Dad! And that baby, its gonna draw walkers when its being born, and you are too. Daryl can't deliver the baby and help your son fight back walkers, all at the same time. You need people there to help you – you need support -!"

"We had people. We had support - we had friends! We had Maggie and Michonne and Rick and everyone else! We should focus on finding them." Tessa interrupted him, yet again. Her voice had adopted a steely resolve and Daryl knew her words were intended primarily for him.

They slowed when they saw a walker stumbling along the train tracks a little ways down from their group. "People don't got to be friendly," Joe spoke, acting as if her words had never been spoken, and directing his to Daryl's in kind. "We don't have to be nice, we don't have to be brothers-in-arms." The walker was dispatched speedily by two of the group members, as Joe, Daryl and Tessa and the others, came to a stop. "We just gotta follow the rules."

There was mention of those rules again! Daryl was sick of constantly hearing about the 'rules'! Yes, at the prison, there had been laws and yes, with the group before the prison, there had been unspoken rules, but . . . somehow, it was easier to take rules from Rick and then eventually, the Council. It was easier to stomach taking rules from a man you considered your best friend and who you held no doubt in your mind that he had the best interests of everyone in his mind while deciding them. It was easier to take laws from a group of people you considered family and who you knew would take a bullet for you and your own at any given moment. These people . . . these people weren't anywhere close to that!

"You claim," Joe continued on, bringing Daryl out of his thoughts and back into reality. "You steal, you kill. I know that sounds funny, but nobody laughs when something goes missing," He spoke the words with a glanced thrown over his shoulder at Tessa and Ethan, both who replied with angry looks. "And you don't lie! 'Cause that's a slippery slope, indeed."

"What happens if ya break 'em?"

Joe gave a shrug. "We catch you, we beat you. The severity of which depends upon the offense and the general attitude of the day."

"Doesn't seem like a very judicial way of doing things." Tessa remarked, her tone icy, and Joe gave a laugh.

"I realize it might seem very barbaric, but out here, we don't have the luxury of long court proceedings. You might have wherever you guys originally came from, but out here . . . no, we don't. We would if we could, but . . ." He trailed off, and Tessa and Ethan exchanged expressionless looks as he gave a shrug. "We've found out here, that pain is a great equalizer. Guy won't do it again if he gets the snot beat out of him." He shook his head. "But that don't happen much, 'cause when men like us follow the rules just a little bit, well . . . the world becomes ours."

He stopped with a pat on Daryl's shoulder before releasing a sharp whistle that had everyone coming to a stop. They had stopped beside a large, tin corrugated building that Joe gestured towards. "This is our abode for the evening."

He made to move off, but Daryl stopped him. He turned to face him, right when Tessa adopted an uneasy look on her face and hugged Danny closer to her. Ethan held that same expressionless, slightly unsettling look on his, but nevertheless, held his little sister as close as his mother was doing to his little brother. He knew, by the look in her eyes, that Joe's words had her thinking of Dale - the beloved man whose name they had given as a middle name to their youngest son - and even of the now deceased Hershel. They had survived until the farm, hearing nothing but how badly the group needed to retain its humanity or else there would be nothing to live for when things got better - nothing to build off of. And Hershel had been the one to suggest the creation of the Council, knowing that a democratic form of government was the most stable - the most comforting - form of leadership they could establish in this uncertain world. What Joe just said - it was against everything they had believed in - against everything that Ethan had grown up knowing and believing in. And that was what made Tessa uneasy. They weren't dealing with men with their humanity intact - they weren't dealing with men with morals. They were dealing with barbaric men who lived by Darwin's 'survival of the fittest', despite what Joe said about needing a group. How did you survive in a group where even in its own ranks, it was every man for himself?

Daryl shook his head. "I ain' no wuss. Ya've already seen tha', and ya've already seen tha' my son certainly ain'. And despite what ya think, Tess ain' either. She's one of the strongest women I know." Joe nodded.

"I didn't say you weren't. But are you leaving right now?" His tone had taken on a sharper edge to it that the three of them had nod expected to see. It was a look that had Tessa tensing, as well as Ethan and Daryl, who itched to allow themselves to settle a hand on their weapons. They restrained themselves, though, knowing that an act of potential survival, could be dangerously misconstrued. "No?" He asked before giving a small, tight smile. "Then there certainly seems like there's an 'Us' . . ." He spoke before turning a triumphant look onto Tessa, one that replied with a tightened look of her own.

"You a cat person, Daryl?" Joe asked suddenly, and Daryl turned his eyes onto Joe as he took a drag of the cigarette in his fingers. "I am. Loved 'em since I was three-years-old. Vicious creatures. Anyway, I'll tell ya – and this is true! – Ain't nothing sadder than an outdoor cat thinking he's an indoor cat."

He turned and moved away then, to rejoin the rest of the group, and it was then that Tessa and Ethan moved to join Daryl. "I'd like to see Sammy rip the throat of that cat of his, out." Daryl spoke, his tone lacing on bitter, and Ethan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Sammy?" Tessa glanced at Ethan and nodded.

"Will – your grandfather's - Doberman. Meanest damn dog you'd ever meet. Loved Daryl, though. Loved me too."

"Yeah, I'd like to see him give me another cat story if tha' big sumbitch was here . . .!"


"We're gaining on them!"

Jeremy's eyes scanned the orange spray painted words scrawled across the cement wall of the train tunnel beside them. He squinted in the bright sunlight, and felt Rosita and Evan moved closer to him in order to look as well. "How do you know?" Evan asked, and Jeremy nodded, answering for him:

"It's still wet, see?" He told her, pointing to a couple of spots where the paint was still fresh, and she nodded as they all turned their eyes onto the ominous looking tunnel of pitch blackness sitting in front of them. He saw Glenn swallowed heavily, and Evan shift closer to her father ever-so-slightly in uneasiness.

"As far as I can see, there's no way around it!" Abraham shouted from behind them, and Jeremy nodded.

"Only way is forward, then."

Vaguely, they could hear the snarling of walkers from within the darkened tunnel and that seemed to make everyone else uneasier. A couple of them shifted uneasily from foot-to-foot, but with one look behind him at Abraham, Jeremy knew they were the only two who were completely calm about it. But then again, they had been in worse situations before.

"If they've been through here, then it means they could have cleared a path, right?" Rosita spoke up, and Jeremy nodded.

"Completely possible." He turned his eyes onto Glenn, already knowing the younger man's answer. "What do you wanna do?"

"It'll take a day, maybe more, to go around," He spoke, his eyes scanning the tree line shooting up from the top of the tunnel. "If Maggie went through, I'm going through. We're close –"

"Shut up a second," Abraham interrupted him, and Jeremy had to visibly retrain the 'Oh God, here we go again' expression that threatened to appear on his face. He felt Rosita tense beside him, as well. Glenn turned to face him. "You hear that? That is a long, dark tunnel full of nothing but re-animated corpses. And I don't have a full case of certainty that I can get Eugene through there alive. And in Jeremy's case, how can he be completely sure that he can get Evan through there alive?" Glenn rolled his eyes, which made Jeremy arch a brow ever-so-slightly. "My recommendation would be take the day and play it safe, but I know you're not going to do that. So this is where we gotta part ways. I'm sorry." He stepped forward, where he hefted the backpack down at his feet. Evan and Rosita both shot looks of pleading up to Jeremy, but for the first time, he didn't know what to do. He never before thought Abraham would take this course, and as he stood there, blinking stupidly for a moment, a gentle hand falling onto his chest, brought him back down into reality. He turned his face down onto the pleading eyes of Rosita, silently begging him to do something, and he swallowed hard before making his way over to them.

Abraham was busy splitting the supplies, when Jeremy finally reached them. "I have a compromise . . ."

Abraham and Glenn both turned surprised looks onto him as Jeremy swallowed hard and glanced over his shoulder at Rosita and Evan still standing there, uneasy looks on their face. He kept telling himself that he was bringing this up to keep Evan safe – to make sure she was going to make it through alive – but that would have been a partial lie. Another reason he brought up this compromise was because he didn't want to butt heads with Abraham over Rosita when it fell onto her to choose who to go with (and which they all know who'd she pick) – not just yet, anyway.

He turned back to them. "What if we split up? I'll go with Glenn and Tara through the tunnel. You take Eugene, Rosita and Evan and go around. When we're free of the tunnel, we'll wait for you – as long as we can. If we're forced to move, we'll find some way of letting you know."

"Are you sure?" Glenn asked, his voice slow, as if he was trying to comprehend what Jeremy just told them, and he nodded.

"We don't need to split up in the way that Abe just suggested. This way we'll be apart for a day or too at the most, but then we'll meet back up." He gave a shrug and a small smile towards Abraham. "It's a good plan."

"I'm going with you."

"No!" Jeremy stopped Rosita before she could fully make her way over to them, and he shook his head as he turned at the waist to face her. "You're not. You need to go with Abe and Eugene and Evan. Abe needs someone that can back him up if there's trouble. Me, Glenn and Tara – we'll be more than fine on our own."

He saw the pleading and the anger echoing in Rosita's eyes as she stood there gazing at him. Her hands were placed defiantly on the hilts of her pistols as if she was about to challenge his words for a moment. However, eventually, her lips pursed and she nodded. "Okay . . . okay, I'll do that." She told him and he shot her a small, thankful smile – one she did not return, as she turned around and returned to Evan, who she immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

They stood there, working out more of the logistics and dispensing the right amount of ammo, for a moment, before they all got to their feet. "You guys stay safe in there." Abraham told them and they nodded as Jeremy shook his friend's hand. "I'll take care of her." He told him, his voice turning gruff, and Jeremy nodded, not knowing which 'Her' he meant: Evan or Rosita.

Abraham backed away, only for Jeremy to find his arms full of a slight, blonde-headed teenager who wrapped her arms around him in one of the fiercest hugs he had ever experienced. He gave a laugh and hugged her back as Rosita moved over to hug both Glenn and Tara and to tell them to be okay. "Don't worry, baby, I'll be fine!"

"You promise?" She asked, her voice coming out muffled from being buried in his shirt, and he nodded and laughed again as he gently pushed her away. "You be safe too, okay? And I'll see you in a day or two, I promise." She nodded and gave him a smile before abdicating her place in favor of Rosita. They felt Abraham's eyes burn into them while everyone else at least had the tact to pretend to be doing other things, and he gave her a small smile.

"Be safe?" Rosita let out a bark of a laugh.

"Me? Be safe? I think I need to be telling that to you, Roth! I'm not the one going into a Death Tunnel!" She laughed before punching him in the arm, and Jeremy laughed as he held out his arms. She went into them, no questions asked, and he immediately felt her trembling.

"I'll come back to you – the both of you!" He promised her in a whisper just beside her ear, and she nodded.

"You better, Jeremy Roth! You fucking better!" She hissed and the both of them put on tight smile as they parted. They nodded and each went to their right sides.

"Something happen in there, you backtrack, understand?" Abraham told them, Jeremy in particular. "Walk around – see if you can catch up to us. If not, we'll wait for you as long as we can."

Jeremy and the other nodded as they moved to stand in front of the tunnel, each of them very much conscious of what they would do if one group never showed up.