Happy reunions are something to be treasured. They're also something that has to happen fast, in the world we live in. So, minutes after we all find each other again, after Judith is back in Rick and Carl's arms and Tyreese is back in Sasha's, Rick himself says we have to go. My dad says yeah, but where? and Rick says somewhere far away from Terminus.

It's back to the tracks. I hope we get off them soon. But for now, it's okay. No complaints. No more. Not today.

Abraham and the army girl and Eugene, they stay with us. Nobody says anything, at least not that I can hear, about anyone going to DC. I don't know if they've changed their minds, if they're waiting for the right moment, or what. But I don't dwell on it. I dwell on Carl. On Judith. On how damn good my bow feels in my hand and my quiver feels on my back.

We stop to eat something when there's a sort-of comfortable distance between us and Terminus, maybe two hours later, and only for about twenty minutes. There are expired beef jerky strips, pecans, six cans of beans, two cans of soup, and a half-eaten family-size package of individually-wrapped peanut butter crackers. All from Joe's group's stash. We save some of it, but just a little. Tomorrow, or at least soon, I'll – Dad and I'll have to go hunting. I'll be going hunting with him again. That's kind of . . . weird.

Carl and I sit on a log under a shady tree. He feeds Judith while I break open a pack of the peanut butter crackers. I bite into one. Stale, but food. And mm. It's been a while since I've had peanut butter.

"Good?" asks Carl.

"Gourmet."

"Gimme one."

"Open up." He does, and I pop it into his mouth. It's too big, and he has to cling onto Judith and the bottle with one arm for a second to reach up and save the fourth of the cracker he can't gulp down. Crumbs fall from his mouth, and I grin as he struggles to chew.

"Are you trying to choke me?" he says when he can halfway-talk again.

"Sorry." I blink my eyes, look at the sky as I raise a cracker to my lips. "I guess I just overestimated you. I mean, I thought you could handle it –"

He swallows, licks his lips, which are curling up. "Oh, so you're trying to start a fight?"

"I would never try to start a fight with a guy holding a baby," I say, much too sweet, and that does it, that pulls his smile all the way out, and he shakes his head and readjusts Judith and the bottle.

"As soon as she's full . . ."

"What? What're you gonna do to me?" I lean in closer.

"I'll think of something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well, just keep in mind, I bite back."

"I know you do."

We kiss over Judith's head. It tastes like peanut butter. I couldn't care less.

"Hey," he says, pulling back. Which is probably a good thing. I just remembered that he and I, us, like we are now, isn't public knowledge. I know Dad knows, Rick and probably Michonne know, and Owen, too, but that's it, I'm pretty sure. I look around as Carl says, "I have something for you," and check if anyone – yep. There's Maggie and Glenn. Glenn looks away when I see them. Maggie does, too, right after she gives me a little grin and a tilt of the head, like, Well, look at you.

The blush comes across my cheeks like fire. I rub it away.

"Could you take her?" Carl asks.

I would love to, and I do. I pull Judith onto my lap, and she whimpers a bit when the bottle breaks from her mouth, but I get it back to her soon enough and she's content again. I breathe in her smell. She still has the baby smell. I want to hold her tighter than I can. I've missed her. Really, really missed her.

Carl's hand is shoved deep into his pocket, searching around. He finally draws it out, and it's not alone. A thin silver chain swings from it. He catches the chain and kind of sighs, running his thumb over the metal before presenting it to me.

On the end of the chain, built right into the necklace instead of dangling from it, is a tiny rose. My left arm snakes around Judith and that hand takes the bottle, holding it kind of awkwardly but good enough for her, and I reach out to the little flower. I brush my index finger over it, feel the rough texture of the petals.

"It was on a walker," Carl says. He clears his throat, shifts around. "I put it down and saw it. It made me think of you . . . If – if it bothers you that that's how I got it –"

"No, it doesn't bother me," I whisper, honestly. Maybe that's wrong. But Carl can't exactly go to a mall and pick me out something nice. And anyway, Maggie's wedding ring is from a walker.

Carl looks pleased. Then he goes serious. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I just . . . I just wanted something that made me think of you." He lays the necklace on my knee. His hand stays over it, the necklace, my knee. "But now I have you for that."

What am I supposed to say? I'm not good at these things, even with him. Especially with him. My blush is back, and I giggle, me, and I'm not a giggler. "It's beautiful," I finally come up with. That's what the girls always said on TV. And it's true. The necklace itself and the fact that Carl's giving it to me. My boyfriend is giving me a necklace. One he wanted to keep even when he thought I was gone forever, just to remember me by. I swallow and shake back my ponytail. "Put it on me."

He stands and comes behind me, the necklace and his fingers warm as both touch my skin. He draws the chain back, fumbles for a minute, and then his hands are gone and the rose dangles from my neck on its own. The chain's too short for me to see it, but I can reach up and feel it. That's enough. Better, actually. It stays closer to me that way. "What do you think, pretty girl?" I ask Judith, who's finished her bottle. She gazes at the rose and then sticks her hand out to play with it. She tugs it, maybe too hard, but it stays on. That's a good sign. I catch her hand, bring it down, and then twist my head up and around at Carl. "She approves."

He smiles.

"You should kiss me again."

"People'll see."

"They already saw. Or they will. Let 'em."

So he kisses me again. It's a good kiss. He's a good guy.

. . . . .

I always thought Owen stayed at the back of Joe's group because that's where I wanted to stay. And maybe he did. But now, with this group of strangers, he's hanging near the back all on his own. So, a half-hour or so before I figure afternoon will become evening, a while after we've left the train tracks for empty dirt road – thank God – I tell Carl I'm going to go talk to him.

"Want me to go with you?"

"Not now." I check him over. Tyreese has Judith right now, so it's just Carl and his gun and one of the small bags from Joe's camp. It was Harley's, I think. I can't remember if Harley had anything worth having. Maybe cards. Cards would be nice. "But you guys should talk. Get to know each other."

He's quiet, staring at the ground.

"He saved my life."

"I know."

"He was my neighbor. My old best friend's brother."

"I know, Syd. And . . . I told you before, I trust you."

"But?"

He sighs. "No but," he says after a few steps, even though he made it sound like there was definitely one coming. "I trust you. Go talk to him."

I touch his arm and turn back, walking against traffic. I pass Dad and give him a tight smile. We haven't talked much. Nothing to talk about, I guess.

That's a lie.

I reach Owen and turn on my heel, falling into step with him. "How's it goin'?"

"Fan-tastic."

I wait for him to go on, but I'm disappointed. His sarcastic remarks usually go into greater detail. "Did you get a gun?" I know he did. Rick made sure everyone got some sort of weapon.

"Yep. Billy's. Beretta M9. I'm more of a revolver man myself, but it's a pretty badass gun, I'll admit."

"Sure you can handle it?"

"You need somethin', Sydney?"

That throws me. Hurts a little, too. "Just checkin' on you, I guess. Been a hell of a day."

"Uh-huh. Thanks for that."

"Thanks for what?"

"Terminus."

I know where he's going immediately. "Owen, hey –"

"You do remember that you're the reason I was there, right? Owen, wait, don't go! Come with us to this awesome place full of cotton candy and roses –"

"Hey – shut the hell up." I stop. He doesn't. "Hey!"

Now he does. I hissed it, though, that last Hey, so it didn't catch the attention of the others. They keep moving.

This isn't the first time Owen and I have argued mid-walk like this. But he kind of went too far here.

"I didn't know what Terminus was," I say.

"No, but you knew what it could be."

"Anything could go to shit, Owen, that's life."

"I told you, though. I told you what Joe thought."

"And Joe was such a smart guy."

Something sparks in him. And I think maybe I've kind of gone too far. "Joe was a lot of things. But he wasn't stupid. We should've trusted his instincts. I should have."

Father knows best.

"And what, left us? Gone off on your own? You were giving yourself a death sentence, Owen."

"And you damn near gave me one instead."

I'm still. I want to shoot him, a little. Or at least punch him. Or cry. "I was trying to save your life. My bad." Then I walk, past him, after the others, the ones who don't blame me for almost dying.

Which Owen almost did.

Ten or fifteen steps later –

"Sydney."

I stop, run my tongue around my mouth, turn with my chin and eyebrows up. Owen's standing there with tight lips, hands gripping the undone opening of his jacket, fingers in a frenzy. He looks away, opens his mouth and leaves it like that a while before the words come. "I'm out of cigarettes. Going through nicotine withdrawal. It's a bitch."

I don't move, don't speak.

"I'm sorry," he says, slowly, dark eyes promising me it's the truth. "I'm out of line. I'm a dick. An ungrateful bastard. Et cetera, et cetera."

He had me nodding at dick. "I'm sorry, too," I murmur. Even though I'm not sure I am.

"Don't be." His fingers are a blur, but his eyes look ready to shut and stay that way. He walks up to meet me again, grinding his twitching hands together, cracking his neck, gazing out at the woods. "I know you were trying to save my ass. For whatever reason."

"I told you my reasons."

"Right. You get it." We're walking together again. "All of my issues. You're just like me."

"Don't believe I ever said that."

"No, you didn't. Smart girl. Because you don't know the half of it."

"You could always tell me."

"I could. But I won't."

"Never?"

"You're still working on the assumption that I'm staying with this group on a permanent basis."

"Why wouldn't you? Still think you want to die?"

"Brat, if I wanted to die, I'd be a man and blow out my brains."

"Well, why else would you leave?"

"I didn't say I'm going to. I'm saying don't rule it out."

I study him. His hands never stop moving. "And I said why would you?"

He doesn't answer right away. "Maybe I think some alone time would do me good."

We walk in silence for a while.

Then I say, "I don't want you to go."

We walk in silence some more.

Then he says, "You should."

I stop again. He doesn't. He keeps right on following my group, and so eventually, I follow him. But I don't catch up.

Owen seems intent on convincing me that he's a horrible person. Kind of always has. I brushed it off before, because Owen Wells, he was a bully. An asshole. Not a bad guy. Not a bad guy the way Joe was a bad guy.

But he was in juvie.

That's what Joe said. Owen admitted it. And what did he say after?

What I did to land in juvie, sweetheart? It ain't nothing compared to the things I've done since the turn.

And I told him that didn't matter. That none of it mattered. But that was before there was Judith, and everyone else, before there was so much at stake out here in the middle of the forest where there are no fences or walls or locks. Now . . . Now it might matter.

Now it might be time for me to start listening.