Two Weeks Earlier

"Sydney," Owen muttered in a tone more desperate than he would ever admit, "You have to stop."

Sydney didn't stop. Lying on a cot in the back of the fire truck, parked for the night so they could all pretend to sleep, she writhed in an unconsciousness none of them could be envious of. She writhed, Owen was certain, in her own little hell. And she cried.

"The barn . . ." she moaned, arching her back, her eyes all but sewn shut, "Don't open the – don't open the barn!"

Owen flinched and put a hand on her shoulder, as if it would be enough to keep her still. "Shh, please be quiet, Syd, please be quiet. Everyone's here."

Not everyone.

"You're safe. I swear you're safe – but you have to stop this, hey, alright? You have to stop this."

"There are walkers in there," she muttered. "There are walkers in there, and she's one of them."

Owen wiped his mouth. There were so many stories in her twisted head, so many that she hadn't told him, and this wasn't how he wanted to find any of them out. He didn't want to know who was in the barn. He didn't want to know what the walker in the swamp did. He damn sure didn't want Carl, who kept floating in and out of here depending on whether or not his dad thought he "needed rest" or not, to know why Sydney wanted so much to apologize to Rick.

No, he didn't want Sydney to tell any of those stories, make any of those confessions, not like this. Not without her eyes open and present, not without her speaking quickly and frankly, before she could change her mind, because he was pretty sure that's why she talked like that – she was so smart, he figured, that she had to take a thought or a decision and run with it before her mind could catch up to her mouth or body and convince her she should do something else. If she slowed down enough, she'd never get anything done. And what a sad world that would be.

"It's my fault," she whispered at ghosts.

Owen hooked his little finger around hers. "No, it's not."

"It's my fault he's dead . . ." She rolled all the way over, buried her face in her pillow, broke down in sobs, then started banging her arms against the cot. Owen grasped her wrists and wrestled to keep her still.

"No, no, no – Jesus, Sydney, stop it, please. Please. Jesus Christ, wake up." To his shock, she went rigid for a moment, but he took advantage of it. He put a hand over her head and whispered straight to her, "Wake up." And, after a moment: "I can't do this without ya, brat."

For a few seconds, a few beautiful seconds, she was peaceful. Right down to her face, where the lines her inner terror had etched on her skin smoothed out so she looked like a kid again.

And then she screamed, "Beth! Beth! Beth!"

Owen let go of her wrists and shot to his feet. "Damn it!" he said, and to an outsider it might have seemed like he was cursing her, but he wasn't. He was cursing the monsters in her head that demanded a fight with her, and therefore with him – but through her.

There was a rag folded on the floor right next to the cot, waiting in an almost taunting way, like, Oh, ready for me now, are you? Owen swore again and bent to get it. He pushed Sydney on her side and shoved more than brushed the hair from her face as she screamed Beth's name, screamed with everything she had.

"Syd," he tried one more time, too scared to be embarrassed by the lump in his throat, "Syd, it's gonna be alright."

"Beth! Beth, God, no!"

Her mouth was open wide enough that stuffing the bundled rag into her mouth would be easy. He moved to do it, grasping her head, edging the rag in over her teeth, feeling her tongue press back against it . . .

Just shove the rag in her mouth, Wells. You've done harder things. She would tell you to. In a heartbeat, she would tell you to.

"Please!" Sydney chose that moment to cry, and Owen dropped the rag, dropped her head, and backed away. He flew from the back room and almost ran into Daryl. "I can't," he said.

Daryl nodded once. "It's okay." And he went past Owen, to his daughter.

Owen's boots were hitting soil when Sydney's cries finally stopped. No. When they were finally muffled.

He stumbled away from the firetruck until he found a nice, stout tree to lean against. He popped a cigarette he'd stolen from Daryl into his mouth and lit it with a lighter he'd stolen from Abraham. "You're pathetic," he muttered to himself, trembling. "You're pathetic."

And then, without meaning to, maybe taking a page from Sydney's book and running with an idea before he could talk himself out of it, he looked at the sky and said, "Get her out of this. She's too important. Too many people need her."

He needed her.

"You get her out of this," he said, "You get her out of this, and I'll do what I can to believe in You again, if that's what You want. But You save her. You save her, if you really do know anything about what's good for this world, because she is one of the last good things about it – You save her." He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, then let his whole arm fall, and hell, it took everything he had – he didn't even know he had it – to not let every part of him, mind, body, and soul, fall to the ground and maybe below, maybe beyond, maybe to wherever Sydney was right now. He'd like to go there, actually. Maybe together, one on one, they could figure it all out. Maybe they could escape. At the very least, she wouldn't be alone. And neither would he.

"You save her. I'm begging You. Save her."