The priest was washing blood from the floor when Carl laid out the weapons in front of him. "Pick one," he said. And Owen could have – and would have – told anyone the scene wouldn't have a fairy tale ending.

He sat in a pew reading the Old Testament – the version of God he could most easily relate to now. He lifted his eyes from the Bible but didn't say a thing, didn't show a flash of interest otherwise. Who would guess he was actually paying attention?

Sydney would.

Joe would.

His mom.

The priest kept scrubbing. Carl kept standing over him, overtaken by determination.

Need this distraction, don'tcha? Speaking of which, Owen wanted a cigarette.

"You need to know how to defend yourself," Carl said. "We can teach you."

"Defend myself?" The priest rasped. He fell back and pointed to the blood. "They said they'd go."

Owen glanced at the stain. A group of the people who'd kept them, people from Terminus, had shown up here while he'd been in Atlanta with Sydney and the others. Came thinking they had a win in the bag, the way Owen heard it. They'd been wrong.

"They were liars and murderers," said Carl.

"Just like us," whispered the priest.

"We protected ourselves. They wanted us dead . . ." Carl paused. "You're lucky your church has lasted this long. You can't stay in one place anymore. Not for too long. And – and once you're out there, you're gonna find trouble you can't hide from. You need to know how to fight."

A pause. A long one.

Then the priest reached out. To the weapons. To a nice shiny machete.

"Good choice," Carl said softly. Such a drastic change, from the guy who had picked a fight with Owen an hour before –

– You picked that fight, dumbass –

"But you're not holding it right . . ." The priest drew in the machete with shaking hands, and Carl continued, gesturing, "You've gotta be able to drive it down, 'cause sometimes the skulls aren't as soft, and you need to be able to –"

The priest doubled over.

"I'm – I'm sorry." Up came a hand. It trembled. His dark skin was glossed over with sweat, his black clothes were drenched. Joe would have hated him, this priest. Owen kind of wanted to.

The priest – What the hell is his name? – managed to get to his feet. He kept the machete in his grasp, but a solid kick would have knocked it from him and put the man on his ass. "I need to lie down," he stammered, and disappeared into his office. Carl was left staring at air.

Owen closed the Bible. Rubbed his jaw. Made himself talk. "Don't waste your time, man."

Carl gave him a look that could cut a diamond. Fortunately, Owen wasn't one. The older boy shrugged and waved a hand after the priest. "He don't wanna get it, he won't. We all need somethin' to fight for. Whatever he had, it's gone."

"And what do you have?" Carl shot back. "What are you even still doing here, didn't you want to leave?"

"Carl," Michonne interjected for the first time. She was at the other end of the pew, with the baby, next to a window that made the place look grossly festive. Like Wonderland after the Queen of Hearts chopped off some heads.

"Sydney asked me to stay," Owen replied. "When we were in Atlanta."

Carl swallowed and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. Evidently, he was ignoring Michonne's warning. "So she's it? She's what you have to fight for?"

Owen lifted his eyebrows. "Are you jealous?"

"Of course not."

"He said defensively . . ." Mockery slipped into Owen's voice like a shadow into an alley.

Carl stepped over the line of weapons and stormed to the spare room across from the priest's office.

Owen shook his head, rolled his eyes and let them linger on the ceiling. "She's crazy about you, man," he called, and in his peripheral vision saw Carl stop. "Crazy over you, crazy for you . . . It's kind of disgusting, actually."

A moment, two, then movement and the solid sound of a closing door. Owen shut his eyes.

"I can tell you're trying to be nice, but you aren't very good at it."

Michonne. Owen didn't know if she was joking or not. "Never have been."

She was sitting next to him the next thing he knew. The baby was safe and sound, tucked into a little basket. God, Owen envied her, as Michonne gave him an intense stare and started in with a tone to match.

"You're different than Carl," she said. "He's not a kid . . . but he's not an adult. Neither are you. But you're more of one."

Owen didn't answer.

"He's very upset," said Michonne.

"Can't imagine what that's like."

"I know you can."

He cracked his neck.

"I can't get through to him right now," she said. "You have a long history with Sydney. He hates that. But he could use someone who knows her like that. Someone his own age to talk to."

"And I should do that because –"

"Because Sydney would want you to."

Owen tapped his hands on the back of the pew. "Everyone overestimates the sense of loyalty I have to that girl."

"No. We don't. You lost the devil-may-care card when you made that scene outside."

He stared at the floor.

"I can't make you talk to Carl," Michonne said – had her voice gotten even quieter? "I'm just . . . throwing out a suggestion." She stood. She paused. "If we get Sydney back, she's going to have a lot to adjust to. It would help if you and Carl could help her through that without being at each other's throats."

Owen gave no sign that he had heard that part.

Michonne went back to the baby. Not long after she had sat down with her, Owen heaved out a long breath accompanied by a variety of obscene murmurs and stood to go outside for a cigarette.

No, damn it, he stood to go into the stupid spare room. He just didn't let himself know that until he was at the door, because otherwise he wouldn't have gone.

. . . . .

Carl was at a window by a bookshelf, looking in between the boards hammered onto the outside, hand on his holster. He tensed when the door opened. He didn't relax when he saw who had opened it. He grimaced, actually, and turned back to the window without saying a word.

Owen closed the door with his boot and fell against a wall. He set some words up in his head and read them over twice before letting them leave his tongue. It was hard to make them go.

"You're stronger than you look. I couldn't bench-press you. Sorry I said that. I'm an ass."

A beat, and then, "Sydney warned me you were." No emotion.

Owen twitched his fingers. "When I said she was crazy about you . . ." Ah, hell. "I meant it. I've seen it. All that time she was with me and . . . my old group, she . . . she couldn't get you out of her head."

Sydney wouldn't want him to talk about this. But Sydney wanted him to help Carl.

"You, your dad, Michonne, you were all that kept her going." Owen wiped a hand over his dry mouth. The next words he said slowly and to the floor. "She's what I have to fight for because she's all I still have from back when. She was my brother's best friend, I met up with her again . . . I wanted to get her to safety. Felt like I owed him that. So that's what I've been doing, and I'll admit, she's grown on me a bit." He pulled out a grin, even though Carl still had his back to him. "But you gotta know that you shouldn't worry about me coming in to steal your girl. Even if I wanted to. She'd just kick me in the balls and run back into your arms."

Silence. A silence that lasted long enough for Owen to consider calling the deed done and leaving to go. But before he could, Carl asked, "Do you want to?"

Owen shook hair from his eyes. "No. What Mrs. Cartwright and I have is much too beautiful for me to risk."

Carl dropped his head, and Owen figured he had crossed some line; then his head nodded back up, and in a flash of sunlight, Owen saw a slight curl on his lips. Carl had smiled. Owen had made him smile.

"I shouldn't have pushed you," the younger boy said before long. "I wanted to go after her, too . . . I was angry. I still am."

"Daryl was right," Owen muttered. "She would want you where you're safest."

"She always – she always tries to protect me." Carl shifted his weight and shook his head once. "I can't get through to her that she doesn't have to. That – that I want to protect her. That I can."

The memory came on so strong Owen flinched. Sydney in his arms, both of them on the ground, both of them sticky with blood . . . hers.

You can't tell him I was going after the necklace. You can't tell him that. He'll blame himself. You can't tell him that.

"Were you there?" Carl murmured, and Owen rubbed the back of his neck.

"For which part?"

"When she got bit. When Daryl . . . All of it."

"Noah pushed her," Owen said. "She got tangled up in the walker . . . It got her fingers. It was just a freak thing."

Carl had lowered his head again. "How fast did Daryl get her fingers off?"

"Fast."

"Fast enough?"

The room went very still.

"I don't know," Owen said. "Why?"

"I have to be ready . . . In case he didn't."

Owen recognized something in Carl's tone. Something that made his hair stand on end.

"Ready to do what?"

Carl looked up and out the window again and answered, "Ready to kill Noah."